November 2015 by The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society

THE RAIN, PARTY, & DISASTER SOCIETY IS A WORKSHOP-BASED ONLINE LITERARY PUBLICATION THAT STRIVES TO GIVE REPRESENTATION TO NEW IDEAS AND THOUGHTS, TO CHALLENGE THE READER, AND TO QUESTION COMMONLY ACCEPTED OPINIONS, VALUES, ETIQUETTE, AND IDEAS. WITHIN OUR PAGES, YOU MAY FIND: WORKS THAT TACKLE HOT-BUTTON ISSUES, WORKS PRESENTED IN A STYLE THAT IS OUT OF THE ORDINARY, WORKS THAT PRESENT THE READER WITH A QUESTION OR DEBATE, AND WORKS THAT BREAK MAINSTREAM RULES WITHIN THEIR GENRE. ALL OF THE PIECES YOU FIND ON THIS SITE HAVE BEEN THROUGH OUR WORKSHOP PROCESS, DURING WHICH THE RP&D EDITORIAL STAFF WORKS CLOSELY WITH CONTRIBUTORS TO HONE THEIR VOICE AND HELP THEM TO PRODUCE THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK FOR YOU, THE READER, TO EXPERIENCE. TO RESPOND DIRECTLY TO A WORK YOU SEE FEATURE IN THIS ISSUE, USE OUR CONTACT PAGE TO SENT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF. YOU MAY ALSO WRITE YOUR OWN REBUTTAL AND SUBMIT IT FOR PUBLICATION IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

Table of Contents Pg. 4 - MISTY OAKS, Alexander von Sternberg Pg. 6 - MY DOG’S A GOOD CHRISTIAN, J. H. Johns Pg. 7 - ADAM AND EVE, Erren Geraud Kelly Pg. 9 - THREE-HEADED DOG, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 11 - DEAR CYCLIST, Peter Burzynski Pg. 13 - $20 TAXI RIDE, Olivia Vande Woude Pg. 16 - PILLORY OF ONES AND ZEROES, Alexander von Sternberg Pg. 19 - COLOR GUARD, J. Wren Pg. 21 - AS LIGHT, AS MUSIC: A FOUND POEM, Lisa M. Cole Pg. 22 - NEWBURGH, 1943, Jane Rosenberg LaForge - PORCUPINES, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 23 - ELEGY FOR ROSIE, Everett Warner Pg. 24 - A QUESTION WHICH HAS RAISED ITSELF, Poorvi Ghosh Pg. 25 - CHINA SYNDROME, Doug Bradley Pg. 27 - ROOTS (THE PEDRAGAL), Jesse Rice-Evans Pg. 29 - OCTOBER RISING, Clint Brewer Pg. 30 - HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS, Terry Barr Pg. 31 - WINTER’S GOLD, Lisa M. Cole Pg. 32 - JACK BAIT, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 34 - EMBARASSMENT, Patricia Walsh Pg. 29 - EDITORIAL STAFF Pg. 31 - CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

MISTY OAKS Alexander von Sternberg She and I would listen to John Lennon’s albums while we lay in bed and tried to articulate our still-evolving world views. I was a cynic and she was a romantic. I was a philosopher and she was an economist. I was a warmongerer and she was a pacifist. I was a dom and she was a sub (though sometimes we switched it up). I was a potato and she was a pot-ah-to. For everything that made us different there were so many things that made us the same; the differences pulled us in like magnets and the similarities pried us apart like a crowbar.

We were friends from 2001 until 2008. We dated from 2008 until 2014. We forgot each others’ existence from 2016 until 2025 when we ran into each other at a party her husband was throwing in their penthouse flat in New York. I don’t even remember why I was at that party anymore. The potent mix of the gin martinis, the flirtatious banter, and the splash of nostalgia was enough to drive us into her linen closet for some fits of lascivious passion. The affair that her husband was more than aware of but didn't care so much about (he held at least two other mistresses that she knew about) lasted for another two years. Despite the openness of our trysts we typically made it a point to keep it relatively secret. Then the offer from Fox Searchlight came through and I left without a word for L.A. I didn't see her again for over 25 years. I married. Divorced. Dated. L.A. wasn’t the best place for monogamy. The films came and went and so did the paychecks. I ate luxuriously and lived even more so. Drinks with YouTube's newest celebs and reality TV’s debutantes, most of whose names I can’t even recall anymore. Dinners with aging producers and studio execs, most of whom died long ago. Cigars with fellow screenwriters and the occasional golf game with aged novelists whose heydays in the 1980s were long gone, but whose work I still greatly admired.

I wound up in Misty Oaks Retirement Community by choice, unlike most of my compatriots there. It was more fun for me than it was for most other people residing there, I’m sure. Lunch at 11 AM (I still call that brunch), games of online Risk until all hours of the night, TV time whenever I wanted, and the best goddamn coffee I’ve ever had. It was almost a month before I saw her there. Her hair was still of long black silk, but with silver and white tiger stripes throughout. Her face remained the same, short of the multitude of wrinkles peppering every corner, especially when she smiled. We saw each other in the hall and both began laughing and before long we had locked the door of her room behind us. 4

We would continue to see each other in secret (the only way we knew how) for the next year, our nightly ritual of fornication really being one of the few things I looked forward to. “Was it good for you?” I would ask. “I can't recall,” she would reply, and we would laugh.

On a number of occasions I would spend the night with her, sometimes in my room, sometimes in her room. In my sleep we were 22 again and when we woke it still felt the same way, despite the fact that we had essentially become the embodiment of Father Time. We would play chess and Scrabble together, and occasionally listen to old CDs we hadn’t heard in years, and even watch movies that we had seen dozens of times when we were younger, but it was like they were new again. We had always been full of excitement and bubbling with ecstasy when we were together, but during this time it was the happiest I can remember us ever being in the lifetime we had known each other. Then one day she forgot me. And a couple days later she remembered me. And then she forgot. And so on. I managed to remain her friend for a while but even that became impossible as her cognizance of the world around her slipped further and further into a void. She died about four months later and even though she and I had played a game of Scrabble the week before, she hadn’t fully recognized me in months.

I didn’t go to her funeral; I didn’t see any reason to and I doubted her children or grandchildren would know or even want to know who I was. I left Misty Oaks and returned to L.A. There wasn’t much to go back to, but I didn’t mind. I never really did have anything there to begin with, but since I only have a short time left myself, I may as well get a good tan in the meantime. Once when I was out having a cigar on my deck overlooking the Pacific I saw this young girl of about 20 down on the beach. She was wearing a John Lennon t-shirt (which was funny to me since even I wasn't alive when Lennon died) over her two-piece. She had long black hair that fluttered in the salty wind and an air of confidence that could only be rivaled by the smile that she gave me when she saw me standing there, squinting in the sunlight.

MY DOG’S A GOOD CHRISTIAN J. H. Johns My dog’s a good Christian;

it was early in the AM  and  she was whining  for no apparent reason; so, I yelled at her and she ran off to sulk in her house; I stopped by, told her I was sorry, and left it at that; then, twenty minutes later, she came out to find me with her tail a waggin’she forgave meshe’s a good Christian dog…

ADAM AND EVE Erren Geraud Kelly the world wasn’t always a ghetto it was paradise every time I looked at you  your body proved god  existed  low riders roamed the streets  instead of troops and tanks  and jasmine, reefer, and incense  filled the air instead of napalm and  pollution from factories  kids watched cartoons  and played with lego blocks their smiles alone held bright futures I kissed your lips and they tasted like sangria

eden was so cool even  white people looked good with  afros/cornrolls/big ass wigs the world moved to a cinematic  soul beat  and bliss happened  when women wore platform  heels

peace wasn’t just a symbol  on a Mercedes I read the news today, oh boy  and it told me nothing but  good things

you were always the apple of my eyes like martin said, we must live together  as brothers  7

or perish together as fools

I looked outside my window  and saw the rainbow dawn  maybe peace wasn’t a dream

THREE-HEADED DOG Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Day One Dear God, let everything broken be unbroken. Main Street becomes a highway as it leaves town, both east and west, but we don’t think of grounds privileges as an escape risk. Stripped of dignity, mercy denied, yet only a tiny shard of patients have the nerve to survive. Tiffany: The roadway is not asphalt but the bodies of Doberman Pinschers. Sometimes they come back to life. Still, an urge to swim in her father’s pool, her breasts desperate for her children, or needing violence against her pale skin, a voice whispers: run run run. Day Two Everything is gone, but they demand I get out of bed and brush my snaggle teeth. Can't you hold me, Hank? Close, as if I were beautiful? After years of hospital work, I am ubermensch with x-ray eyes. Under ugliness, I see beauty, under dysfunction, capability. I see Tiffany before illness’s smears. She kneels in sunshine, in rich earth, like Mary Magdelene. Day Three Soggy collard greens. The other diners scrutinize me— When you go pee I panic and throw our food on the floor. Tiffany is not here. Toilet graffito: Eternity—too long to be wrong. At Highcastle Pharmacy, I stand in front of the lipstick display and read the names of colors. You buy me a tube. I shake from medication and you guide my hand, I gaze at her new-colored lips. What if all the barriers —including her illness— suddenly collapsed? Day Four At the grunge band crash-pad: Dax: prison tattoos, ragged hair, pinwheel eyes. Couchbound, he stares at the ceiling, his electric guitar on his chest, its neck between his legs. “Wazzup, man…? Tiffany? Yeah, she’s here. Shaggin’ our new drummer.” My heart soars, then falls to the pit of my stomach. I am ready to vomit with elation. Dax leads me into a room with a bare, cum-soiled mattress, crushed PBRs on the floor. “Probly went to score. You gonna bust her?” “She’s a chronic schizophrenic, an escapee.” “Dig, you gotta let people tune their own karma. You can’t just lean in like a shade-tree mechanic, spray ‘em with WD-40, and re-torque their mind with your kryptonite wrenches” “So terror and confusion are Tiffany’s fate, and we should let her die under a freeway?” “I’ve got to head for the McJob, man” Drowsy, I lie on the couch, cover myself with his Fender. I’m a three-headed dog, Cerberus, at the gates of Hell. I awake in deep dark,

sneeze four times, feel dizzy. There’s meth in the couch cushions. I stand, grip the guitar—an ax—and head for the cum room. No grunge punk is gonna interfere with my treatment plan.

DEAR CYCLIST Peter Burzynski Dear cyclist, I’m writing this letter in response to yours. It is half past seven  and I wanted to let you know

that you can’t feed me  alphabet soup and expect  me to shit poetry. I’m telling  you this now because I got drunk last night matching you beer-for-beer. Then from taking shots after you left. Mourning the newborn silence I’m assuming I’m not an impresario, but it’s nice to think I could be. Let’s eat some cells. The plows danced all night being oblivious of the petty thefts, usury, and morning prodding that cattle face before the bastard sun wakes them properly. I’m thinking I want some flowers, but I can’t find fruit or fresh salmon, so some things will have to wait. Did you know that Spam won us the war? Hitler hated Spam. I wonder if God has a good dentist? I hope so, cyclist. Some American slaves took their master’s surnames and began to own them. Native Americans or rather Indigenous peoples didn’t have to free their slaves. Q tips can be dangerous, cyclist. Watch your ears. Thank you for maintaining karma, I was getting quite hungry. I wish eating

mushrooms could make us super, but they won’t. I want movie star hair, cyclist. Also a gender that would flatter my curves. Picasso should have had a red period, so that we could have better jokes. A few elephants walk on their knees after birth. They get infections. I’ve already smoked three cigarettes writing this letter. I’m not very good. I’m getting worried about the all the candy wrappers I’ve thrown away in my life. I’ve killed so many turtles. Monkey beats dinosaur and dinosaur beats rock. What the heck beats monkey? Children are gross. I’ve never been West of Iowa City. Do dogs like fish? I bet Brancussi masturbated a lot. My arguments never have any basis to them. I want a sword, possibly something green to impress the ladies. I haven’t eaten cake in four years, cyclist. It loses its charm.

$20 TAXI RIDE Olivia Vande Woude Wears a Nike hat  Scar on his left wrist 3 centimeters long. Inserts the key  on a chain with a yellow pig dangling  among other  carefully serrated pieces of gold. We are a lot of people in this country, Ethiopia I am from the Northern port. Likes the quiet of Alexandria  says it’s good for old people. Told him I do too.

That’s good, that’s a great feature. Yellow wool lined teeth

Sweater vest Camel colored shirt, striped Coffee and cigarette breath Receipts lie  endless  on the floor.

Clock says 5:15  forever. My wife works at a school for grown people, student loans.

Has lived here  7 years  13

his mustache informs  and eyebrows fell. “Morning Fresh”  pink car  freshener sways.  Unfolds glasses  with a plastic rim  to gently rest on dark ears.

Sits on a throne of 2 pillows  worn, sun faded  one of taupe  other of cheetah  still comfortable. Car cuts in front of us on Whitehurst Ave.

Complicated, no? He chuckles.

City traffic bad, I go around you see I know the streets more or less,

Parking problem? I inquire. You’re right, it can happen that way. Smiles. Pass homeless under bridges  Easter Egg baskets  roll on their sides  in the bit of wind  Winter exhaust.

One time I got lost with a passenger You miss exit, I’m telling you, I’m telling you, 14

you’re lost.

Didn’t charge her the whole cost on the meter when I went the wrong way.

It’s better like that You have to be human, yeah. Bad destination otherwise. I live my life like that, it’s fine

Thank you God. One man, he decepts me, gave me $20, made me give him $10 later,

I say, Honest, straight is better. Don’t worry about others, they must change themselves.

I agree. Thank you, thank you.

Folds and puts down glasses  Pats finger on the crinkled spine of the map  Reassurance of our arrival. That’s good, That’s good,

Whispers quickly. Shall I stop here?

PILLORY OF ONES AND ZEROES Alexander von Sternberg She is thrown into the spare room like a rag doll, her arms and legs slapping against the floor like wet towels. “Stand up.” The source of the voice is unknown, but it's mechanical, icy. She doesn't want to rise from her spot on the floor. Maybe this will all end if she resists. Like Gandhi. Nonviolence. But even she knows that she can't fight her punishment, not at this point. She's been here for days now, but the People haven't forgotten her infraction and they won't forget until she repents. She must face them now, or risk inciting their wrath further. She stands, trying to hide the quivering in her limbs, a loose hospital gown her only means of covering herself from whoever will be watching. Instantly auto-restraints leap from the walls, encircling her wrists and ankles, yanking them apart and holding her in place. A large screen lowers from a now-open slot in the ceiling, glowing to life, showing her the audience she will have today. They have no faces of course, or even real names. Avatars, handles, of course. But no identity. Her full name is in bold face at the top of her Hater Profile. There are pictures of her two cats. Her husband. The small house they share on the North Side. She's already seen this many times before, but seeing it again is like a dagger to her gut.

A light suddenly shoots from the ceiling, bathing her in a white hot glow, blinding her. It's time.

“Speak your crime,” the voice says. Taking a shuddering breath, she licks her lips, trying to ignore the pain in her shoulders and hips. “I am being punished for spreading hate.” Her voice sounds tiny, useless.

“Continue.” “For spreading hate and...” She trails off and realizes that her lip is quivering. She can't stop it. A squeak works its way between her pursed lips and she feels her eyes begin to sting. She can't do this anymore. “Please...” is all she manages to get out.

There is a chorus of boos coming from the audience of the faceless, nameless avatars arrayed before her. There's a clanking sound above her and she feels a hot shower of liquid dump all over her, drenching her hospital gown. It reeks of stale urine. There's a 16

swelling of noise from the audience of avatars watching her from the giant screen. It begins with cheers, but then returns to boos, profanities, threats to her and her family. “Speak your crime,” the voice says again.

The booing, swearing cacophony rises and she feels herself shaking in helpless fear. “I...” Her mouth continues to move, but her voice has ceased working. She watches the Up Votes continue to rise across the screen for her next punishment. Her silence only makes them climb faster. Her voice continues to fail her and a sharp jolt of pain course its way through her body as she is hit repeatedly with 10 milliamps of electricity through her restraints, causing her to cry out. The cheers rise again.

“Speak your crime.” “I spread hate!” she manages to scream, her body heaving with spasms.

“Continue.” The Up Votes for the next punishment begin to climb. Panic rises in her throat, but she actually retches all over the floor in front of her.

“I spread hate,” she says again. “I spread hate with the words I tweet, the articles I share, and the blogs I post.” There's a long pause and the Up Votes seem to slow, despite the continued boos and insults.

“Continue,” the voice says. “I trivialize social progress,” she says, to keep her eyes averted from the avatars staring holes into her. She risks a glance at the climbing Up Votes for her next punishment. They're at 76%.

“I trivialize social progress with a tactless attempt at humor,” she says, reciting the lines given to her at her first interrogation. She knows them by heart. “Continue.”

“Satire is a regressive myth. There is only progress. I must speak truth to power. I was wrong and I have earned my shame. I lay myself at the mercy of the People.”

Her voice seems to echo in the tiny room. The boos and insults from the avatars have died down somewhat, but there is the occasional rape or death threat shouted by a troll. She looks up and sees the Up Votes hovering at approximately 96%. She squeezes her eyes closed, preparing to endure whatever the People next have in store for her.

The spotlight shuts off with a heavy clank and she falls to the floor into the puddle of stale urine left from her first punishment, her restraints slowly retreating to their place hidden in the wall. She doesn't rise right away, but she starts to think she can hear a faint trickle of claps, percolating like her morning coffee. She raises her eyes to the screen looming in front of her and sees the avatars arrayed before her, their hands slowly coming together and apart and gradually picking up speed into all out applause. Some of them are nodding, crying, holding up signs proclaiming how proud of her they are. She hears another clank behind her and she sees light cast across the floor in front of her. “You are free to go, citizen,” the voice says.

She gives panicked glances around the room. Is this a trick? How can she be sure? She stands slowly, waiting for the inevitable restraints to seize her again, waiting for the torrent of insults and threats that have become so familiar. But all she hears is applause.

COLOR GUARD J. Wren The intersection was jammed. I waited through cycles of yellow, red, and tormenting, inaccessible green, the glare of the traffic lights smeared on the windshield by a continuous drizzle. My old wipers squealed and stuttered with every swipe, I kept turning  them on and off, over and over. I checked the rear view mirror and, thank God, the baby was asleep.  I inched forward. A man in a olive green jacket walked among the waiting cars, a piece of cardboard clasped to his chest, scrawled  “vet”, God Bless”, “HELP”. As he approached, I reached for my purse, but stopped myself. Wasn't it dangerous for him on this  wet road full of distracted drivers? Did I want to encourage him? I looked down, and turned on the radio.  I was ten years old, hovering around the kitchen table, eavesdropping on my mom and the neighbor as they chat over  coffee. The neighbor’s metal POW-MIA bracelet dangled as she tapped the ash from her cigarette. She laughed, loud and hoarse,  but then, glancing at me, lowered her voice to a whisper. After the neighbor left I asked Mom about the bracelet. She told  me that the neighbor’s son dropped out of college and was sent to war in Vietnam. The bracelets were meant to be worn, and  never taken off, until a soldier either came home or was known to be dead. I worried that one of my brothers might become  missing in action, injured, a prisoner, but Mom reassured me. That war was over. My little brothers were safe.  Someone honked and I snapped out of my daydream and inched forward again. The man had moved to a patch of trampled grass  and weeds in the median. I remembered that just yesterday I saw someone my mother’s age, still wearing one of those POW-  MIA bracelets. All I remembered of the neighbor’s son was a high school photo on the piano, an old bike offered at a garage sale.  There were no remains, no dog-tags, no uniform, and no last letter home. No closure, but also no grief, I supposed. Or at least  not the “here I am at my child's funeral, and there he is in that box going into the ground” kind of grief.  A gap opened up in the snarl of vehicles and I was able to squeeze through, scraping my tire on the curb. The northbound  lanes were open and I blew through the next two intersections on green lights. I thought I might just make it to daycare and then  to work at some kind of reasonable hour.

The next light turned red, and I barely stopped in time to avoid  another homeless man in the road. He reached out and steadied himself with my side view mirror, then caught sight of the baby in  his car seat. The skin around the man’s eyes crinkled. Glancing in the mirror, I saw the baby beaming a smile back at him. There  wasn't time to dig out my wallet, but I rolled down the window, opened my lunch bag, and offered it up to him. He pulled back at  first, shaking his head, but then selected a single red cherry, and I pulled away as the light turned green.

AS LIGHT, AS MUSIC: A FOUND POEM Lisa M. Cole An ardent God sighs inside of death. Myriad mothers  are shocked small

inside a bed,  inside his fist,

shocked inside  a deep power,

a home  not given.

As light, as music,  as a girl inside

a television screen,  she is telling you: This is a deep root.  Watch this day’s rapid fire.

NEWBURGH, 1943 Jane Rosenberg LaForge In the meanest little city in America, the bloom and gloss was off stem and stone, the grazing space at an intersection  of two highways, where the river was a  vinegary mix of metals and oxygen.   My mother loved roses, but did not care  for jewels; only the luster of objects formed  under water from the first material, because,  she insisted, it was the outcome for us all.  On the day held in abeyance, the patriarch-in-place  gave up his cigars and cursed the hours until  he could exchange with smoke again;  her mother’s heart wilted further, down to  the creek bed the fever carved out, a prophecy  in microcosm. Her brother, the scientist, testing  faith in cause and effect, ferrying bodies through  shimmering halls. Being the youngest, she knew  no one was watching, so she collected glass and lagan,  derelict and bottle tops, what might be plucked, then  polished for the next generation of pearls.

PORCUPINES  Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Global warming has stopped ice bridges from forming, isolating the animals who live on this island, as if fenced in barbed wire. Inbreeding has made them as twisted and angry as the people who live in my township (far off in another part of the state), in which the wind turbines, erected close to our homes, have destroyed our health, the enjoyment of our property, and the value of the property itself. Greed shows itself in infinite forms, as does grief. Porcupines hurl themselves from trees at the greedy humans, making themselves suicide bombers, though each hopes he’ll survive to bomb again. They have plenty of quills, and know how to hide as skillfully as French resistance fighters during WWII.  s long as climate change continues, they will remain at war. If some call them terrorists, so be it. 22

ELEGY FOR ROSIE Everett Warner I am eating the months we spent on this porch as a scone and thinking of frogs hopping through southern gardens. I dip the months in a worn out mug, where a rainforest stirs. If memories swam easy as tadpoles in tepid pools.  Ten thousand years of dirt to turn this water brown, and I only make coffee  for the smell. I unfold a thousand stories that unfold like a thousand wings.  I cannot imagine every story. But I imagine neither can they. It's enough  to walk the tracks of your own story, to hop on each lily pad to the other edge  of the forest. There is grace on the other edge. But there is grace, too, on this.  Grace in the grounds, in the stains, grace beneath the soot on the sides of churches.  Grace where your feet step in the ghosts of a million other feet. Grace, even, in the belly  of this frog. I may not kiss him, and he may not stay. But I will pass on his story.  I remember us watching the world drive by, always letting our coffee go  cold. You'd put your wet nose on my knee and everywhere we looked  looked green. Everything that wasn't was.

A QUESTION WHICH HAS RAISED ITSELF Poorvi Ghosh Why should I write to you? My words don’t etch a story in your bones They don’t strike or claw you bloody  Bruise the hollow of your neck  Why then, when you wouldn’t draw them from my lips  And let them seep into the pores of your skin?  I have a million jumbled up thoughts  Like white dwarfs  Charring my tissues  Why should I let them out when they can spread the malignance?  I am deathbound, a crumbly doll  Half torn stitches into polka dotted fabric  I know  Who I am, then, to you  My words don’t make you pine for me  In the winter long minutes of the night  In the windloved strewn leaves of November  They don’t madden you with anger  Build in you a hostile desire to hurt me  or chase you to break my tawny limbs  And call it love, still  Why should I write to you?  My words dismantle when they touch you  hy then, should I write to you?

CHINA SYNDROME Doug Bradley “Meet me in the kitchen before dessert is served,” she whispered in Harry’s ear as she began clearing the plates. He looked down at the dinner plate, her words still caressing his ear, realizing he was seeing it for the first time. It looked like expensive china, the bluish pattern displaying a castle resting high on a hill above a village and a bridge, a large tree in the foreground sort of meandering in the direction of his mashed potatoes. “What does china say about people?” he wondered. But then he remembered her sultry whisper, how her voice aroused his entire body. Harry and Molly did this dance every few weeks, always in the company of her sister and brother-in-law and various invited guests. They liked entertaining, Bob and Alice, and Bob especially liked having him here because they were both recent Vietnam vets. The two men shared an unspoken resentment, and it comforted them even though they never talked about Vietnam or their time there. In 1970s America, Bob had Alice and their little boy and her rich and resourceful family. Harry had nothing, not even any parents. An older brother who’d fled to Canada. A sociology degree that didn’t matter. A mild addiction thanks to Uncle Sam. Lots and lots of debt. And now he sometimes had Molly, Bob’s wife’s younger sister. Molly wasn’t just young. She was childlike, yet in an attractive, grown-up way. Everything for her was new and amazing and fun. Molly used the word awesome more than anyone he’d ever met, and she meant it. Life for Molly was pretty awesome. She looked awesome too. Blonde and big boned with an impish grin. Her long hair was parted down the middle. No lipstick, no eyeliner, no nothing. Just her sparkling white skin. And that magnetic smile. Bob was saying something about Nixon to one of the other guests and glanced Harry’s way for support. This, of course, would delay his rendezvous in the kitchen with Molly, so he needed to keep it short. “He’s a murdering motherfucker,” Harry obliged, politely enough. Alice turned white and Bob winced, even though he knew Bob didn’t mind. Only Alice and the other guests would. “What Harry meant to say,” Bob jumped in. 25

Harry excused himself and made his way to the kitchen. Molly’s broad back was to him, her buttocks nicely outlined by Oshkosh overalls, not overly sexy or sensual but in a natural, purposeful way. Alice hated that Molly always wore overalls to dinner, but Molly didn’t care. She was a junior at an elite New England college and she was going to Spain for her spring semester and, well, life for Molly was awesome. Molly stacked the delicate dinner plates next to the sink -- Alice never put her fine china in the dishwasher – and the hot water from the faucet engulfed her head in a wet, hot vapor. Harry nuzzled his beard into her neck and moved his body into hers. “I thought you’d never come,” she sighed, gently wiping the excess lamb chop, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots from the plate as if she were cleaning a baby’s bottom. Harry moved his pelvis in closer, kissing her long slender neck. “What does china say about people?” he murmured into her left ear.

ROOTS (THE PEDRAGAL) Jesse Rice-Evans after Frida Kahlo I am vined to my apartment, the floor is dirt  but my sandals can stand the  swell of hot earth each long  June day. Through the grim window, everything curls purple and green, cabbages wilting on my mother’s cutting board floor Starch folds over my belly and I hide my hand beneath a leaf; can you blame me? My bones shift and the earth cracks open, mouths gaping at the promise of water. GHOSTS AND BUTTER Amanda Chiado Instead of the chaos and lies of the living she wants to be the immaculate ghost of voices, sensing the vibration of your body  through space, breeze and plume of memory.  She has a lock for a mouth and fields for hands.  Desires: trailing waves of grief through time

She hovers among the people, helium balloon  absorbing their emotions, dream soaked.  Reaching the dead who go wherever,  roots. Here the whisper of feet at night  like butter melting, silky. She goes nowhere.  Somewhere is so hard to find, too much

commitment. Her mother spoke to her in piano,  27

grit, refusal, disregard, pure invisibility.  The process of reappearing hurts.  She opens her mouth, but it has forgotten  the texture of words, instead she frees  every desperate wanting wing  from the hungry heart she calls her bird.

OCTOBER RISING Clint Brewer This time is the time for ashen faces looking back from mercury mirrors  caught in stifled screams,  framing the undeceived,  catching the apocalyptic riot  of moving shadows.

Most certainly with the sheepish rays  and green whispered promise of summer fading,  October is rising. No simple holiday, time or season can tell of its permanently full moons and its casual marriage to the dead, or the bladed frivolity that autumn brings. One cannot deny the burning, cannot deny the shadow of the razor when autumn comes, calling to us from beyond the rim crooning love songs to us of boiling blood and murder moons, warm winds every night before storms that never come, death gourds showing false idol stares, and smoke from burning leaves mingling with early darkness.

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS Terry Barr The sign on the interstate pointed to Athens, home of The University of Georgia. We passed by, not even stopping at Starbucks as we normally do. Ready to be home; ready to see my wife, my daughters, and my American Dingo, Max. “This might be the wrong thing to say,” my mother acknowledged, “but do you wonder whatever happened to Deanna?” I find that whenever someone begins a sentence with “This might be the wrong thing to say,” or “Don’t take this the wrong way,” my world goes on pause. I hear that sucking sound the garbage disposal makes when you’ve dumped in the liquefied remains of something you no longer want. As real time begins again without my willing release of the pause button, I hear myself say, “No. I have no idea. Why would I? That was over 33 years ago.” “A few years back [and I’m thinking, how many? 5, 10, 25?], a friend of yours from Athens called me, looking for your address. We talked a few minutes and he said that Deanna had loved you so much.” I thought I had put an end to this shit when, after the fifth or sixth time my mother lamented to my face her sorrow that I had broken up with Deanna, I looked directly at her and said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about. We would have ended in divorce. She was sweet, but too neurotic. Now I don’t want to hear any more about it. Ever.” That was a year after Deanna and I had broken up; a year before I married my current wife, a woman I’ve been with for 31 years. A woman with whom I’ve raised two happy, well-adjusted daughters. A woman who is even more gorgeous now than when we married. A woman who is an accomplished, self-employed psychotherapist and who makes twice what I do even though I have a more advanced degree. But I suppose what really matters is that Deanna looked like Princess Diana, the closest thing to royalty that my mother was likely to get. “She’s just crazy,” my own therapist says about my mother. “She’s trying to keep you under her control. To keep you undifferentiated. She has no idea what she’s doing. It’s just her way.” It’s a difficult task, telling your mother to shut up, to keep her damn opinions to herself. To keep out of your life. To quit crossing the boundaries that lead into emotional incest, as she did by informing me of the men who made passes at her before my father died. We made it to my home that day, where my mother visited for the next week, wreaking havoc in every path she crossed, but not of course in any physical way. Just in the ways of possessive love. I know I took charge of my life when I married without her knowledge or approval all those years ago. Yet her voice keeps finding my vulnerable place, on the standard interstate roads I travel; in stories I never wanted to hear, and in memories I’ll never forget. 30

WINTER’S GOLD Lisa M. Cole The violence of the shine will not tell your body how to be your body.

The hurtful blue of summer’s push:  the hands of the red moon   will render you small by your  dirty knees; your terrible throat

& then the orchids will tell me  that winter’s gold  will turn to the only cure.

JACK BAIT Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois 1.  I wake at 5 a.m. to drive a neighbor to cataract surgery. I drop her off and go searching for a McDonald’s with Wi-Fi, but find none between the clinic and the Front Range, only a Wi-Fi-bereft Jack-in-the Box. Standing at the counter, I peruse a poster, a man with a Jack head and an athlete’s muscular torso. I didn’t get this body by eating chocolate milk shakes, the caption reads. Sometimes I got vanilla. I take a table, drink bitter coffee, and remember Bob W. from high school in the San Fernando Valley, a tall skinny guy with long, lank hair and a comical face. I remember his night-time raids, stealing Jack-in-the-Box heads from the drive-throughs. Some businessman would be really pissed in the morning, but that was the point. There was a connection between the Jack heads and the U.S. military (Bob lectured us as we smoked dope in his bedroom) and the atrocities it was committing in Viet Nam. It took me a few months before I really got it, and then I became an activist in our small cadre of Jack-head thieves. I finally got caught (though Bob never did) and spent some time in Juvenile Detention, what we called Juvey, to my parents’ everlasting shame. An orthodontist’s son was not supposed to be incarcerated with Mexicans and poor white trash. A Vassar grad’s son was not supposed to be stealing anything, let alone those preposterous heads. She didn’t know that we had a Mexican connection who was paying us well, and taking them south of the border, where they were used as sacred figures, objects of prayer. Chickens and goats were sacrificed to them. 2.  The goldenrod and ragweed of my new, Midwestern home made my head swell. Wasps stung me in the face when I entered the barn. Holding my spray can of poison, I couldn’t find their nest. Maybe it was high up in the eaves, or hidden somewhere in the hay mow. But the expansive fields of corn and soybeans were a kind of meditation. Sand Hill Cranes fed on the beans missed in the harvest. The deer and I established détente. I unilaterally laid down my arms—I would not shoot them. Then the industrial turbines were built, over our protests. By then I was a member of the community, sort of, though my cousins kept their distance. When I was walking on the road and they drove by in their pick-ups, they wore sneers. The turbine blades sliced the air. That is a metaphorical statement, but why did I start finding streaks of blood on the floor of my front porch? I had recently scraped it and painted it glossy grey, and the blood was vivid against it. Then the streaks became small pools, scattered across the porch floor like grisly polka dots. I developed a hypothesis that animals had been fighting there, but I hadn’t heard snarls or scuffles, and the patterns of blood evidence didn’t fit. 32

Eventually it became too much, and I took to the road. The Front Range rose before me like a mirage, as if I were a Spanish pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. But I had no faith, so I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a pilgrim. I could be merely homeless, like so many others, like the refugees of the Dust Bowl.

EMBARASSMENT Patricia Walsh I panicked, and brought the house down. Another useless fable, to a song I chose. Wall-to-wall failure, a voice in the wilderness  falls on plugged ears, a convenient lie  tucked in under cover of darkness  a lullaby soothes the truth of redemption.

Practising hermits have the inside track  on what is good, a walking magnificence  cut off or break it, a feat of technology  protestors pack the streets, wanting  sundry improvements every day of life.  A tenacious supposition to make life worth living.

Just in case I run to you slipshod,  Castellated in my own comfortable shell  Will you accept me? I am caked in mud  en route to the wedding feast. Am I forgiven  for not dispensing with luxuries so fine?  Or standing naked before you, divested of externals.

A single drum punctuates the street protest.  I am obliged to look, drugged by sorrow  make a better life for ourselves, so it is said.  Foundations of glory, a thousand things  on the wish-list, improvements abound  on the one thing worth striving for.

A stranglehold on the senses, panic-buying,  rush to the bottom for dear life.  Watch the world go by, in all its forms  for good or ill, a squeeze of existence,  Falling in love with the next common denominator.  That splits our ways, an atom divided.

Editorial Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jordan Rizzieri is the 90's-loving, extremely tall founder of The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society. After a having brief love affair with Western New York, Jordan now resides on Long Island, NY. She holds a degree from SUNY Fredonia in Theatre Arts (aka lying before an audience) with a minor in English (aka lying on paper). Jordan briefly experimented with playwriting (The Reunion Cycle - 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival) and her mother's primary caregiver for over two years. She has been running a caregiver's blog on her experiences since 2011, as well as publishing essays on the topic. Now, Jordan spends her daylight hours arguing with her boyfriend's cats and at night takes on the identity of Pyro & Ballyhoo's sassiest critic, The Lady J. When she's not watching pro-wrestling or trying to decide what to order at the local bagel shop, she is listening to Prince and writing letters to her pen pals. Feel free to contact her with questions about the Attitude Era, comic book plot lines involving Harley Quinn, The Twilight Zone and the proper spelling of braciola. NON-FICTION EDITOR Jennifer Lombardo, Buffalo, NY resident, works full time at a hotel in order to support her travel habit. She graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in English in the hope of becoming an editor. When she isn't making room reservations for people, she reads, cross-stitches and goes adventuring with her friends. She is especially passionate about AmeriCorps, Doctor Who and the great outdoors. Ask her any question about grammar, but don't count on her to do math correctly. POETRY EDITOR Bee "Internet Coquette" Walsh is a New York-native living in Bedford–Stuyvesant. She graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2010 with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.S. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Reciting her two majors and two minors all in one breath was a joke she told at parties. The English Department played a cruel trick on her and pioneered a Creative Writing track her final year, but she charmed her way into the Publishing course and became Poetry Editor for the school’s literary magazine, The Trident. Bee has spent the past three years trying different cities on for size and staring into the faces of people in each of them who ask her about her "career goals." An Executive Assistant in high-fashion by day, you can find her most nights working with the V-Day team to stop sexual violence against women and young girls, eating vegan sushi in the West Village or causing mischief on roofs. Run into her on the subway, and she'll be nose deep in a book. She holds deep feelings about politics, poise, and permutations. Eagerly awaiting winter weather and warm jackets, she’d love to talk to you about fourth-wave feminism, the tattoo of the vagina on her finger, or the Oxford comma. FICTION EDITOR Adam Robinson is an aspiring writer and barista languidly skulking the wetland void of Western Michigan. Following acceptance in 2012 to Grand Rapids' Kendall College of art and design in pursuit of an education in graphic art, his love for language and literature was made priority. Now, an English major on sporadically perpetual hiatus, you can most often find him pulling shots of espresso, keying long paragraphs in the dark, secluded corner of a local café, or taking lengthy walks through the dense Michigan woods conveniently placed in his own backyard. Monotoned, fond of the semicolon and existentialist literature; listen closely and you can sometimes hear him beseech advice from the ghost of Dostoevsky (who tends not to reply).

ASSISTANT POETRY EDITOR Wilson Josephson splits his time between the backwoods of New Hampshire and Northfield, Minnesota, where he attends Carleton College. Wilson spends the majority of his waking hours swimming back and forth over a line of black tiles, so he spends any dry hours he can scrounge up flexing his creative muscles. His prose and his poetry have appeared in Carleton’s literary magazine, he regularly performs in the student dance company, and he even directed a play once. Wilson is also the laziest of all the founding members of Literary Starbucks, and he still writes jokes about obscure literary figures when he has a little free time. His newest passion is making people laugh, usually by making himself the punchline, occasionally via the clever deployment of a slippery banana peel. SOCIAL MEDIA MISTRESS Kaity Davie is an overly enthusiastic gal taking on the world of the ever-evolving music industry, talking music by day and lurking venues, NYC parks, and pubic libraries by night. Currently, she makes magic happen across a number of social networks for a number of bands, brands, and writers. After having several poems published in The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, she began managing their social accounts in early 2015. Kaity keeps her sanity by writing rambling lines of prose and celebrating the seasonal flavors of Polar Seltzer.

Contributors  Alexander von Sternberg is a writer and editor. His writing has appeared on Points In Case, Revolver, and Buzzfeed and he is diligently at work on two screenplays and a novel. Born and raised in the Midwest, dividing time between Minneapolis and Chicago, Alexander now lives in Los Angeles, California with his actress/photographer girlfriend and their two cats. J. H. Johns “grew up and came of age” while living in East Tennessee and Middle Georgia. Specifically, the two places “responsible” for the writer that he has become are Knoxville, Tennessee and Milledgeville, Georgia. Since then, he has moved on to Chicago- for a brief stint- and New York City- for a significantly longer stay. Currently, he is “holed up” in a small town where when he is not writing, he tends to his “nature preserve” and his “back forty.” His goal is to surround his house with all sorts of vegetation so as to obscure it from the gaze of the “locals.” He is assisted in this task by his coonhound buddy and companion, Roma. Most recently, J. H. Johns has been appeared in The Potomac(2), Foam:e (Australia), Literary Juice, The Lost Coast Review, Syndic Literary Journal- Publisher’s Favorites, and Fishfood Magazine. Erren Geraud Kelly would write poetry even if it didn’t make him rich or famous. Kelly has been known to write poems to girls give them to them and walk away. Erren loves to spend hours in coffeehouses reading and listening to jazz. Money is not his god. Kelly lives in L.A. Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over nine hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad.He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver. Peter Burzynski is a third-year PhD student in and Graduate Assistant Coordinator of Creative Writing-Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.F.A. in Poetry from The New School University, and a M.A. in Polish Literature from Columbia University. Burzynski has worked as a chef in New York City and Milwaukee. He is also an Assistant Editor for the cream city review. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming from The Best American Poetry Blog, Thin Air, Prick of the Spindle, Working Stiff, Thrush Poetry Review, Your Impossible Voice, RHINO, and Forklift Ohio, amongst others. Olivia Vande Woude is a senior from Charlottesville, Virginia. She has been writing stories for most of her life, and has recently focused her attention on writing poetry. She has attended the New England Young Writers Conference, the UVA Young Writers 38

Workshop, and was selected to read her work at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Her work has been featured in Literary Orphans, Stepping Stones Magazine, Poetry Space U.K, and Canvas literary magazine. Olivia is an intern at Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center, where she is co-editor of the Crossroads Anthology. .J. Wren lives in Maryland and works as a scientist. Lisa M. Cole is the author of Dreams of the Living and Heart Full of Tinders, both released by ELJ Publications. Lisa has also written a variety of chapbooks, most recently, The Love Machine from Yellow Flag Press, and Living in a Lonely House from Dancing Girl Press. You can find a full list of her publications at her website: lisamcole.blogspot.com. Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of "An Unsuitable Princess: A True Fantasy/A Fantastical Memoir" (Jaded Ibis Press 2014); one full-length collection of poetry, "With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Men" (The Aldrich Press 2012); and three chapbooks of poetry. More information is available at jane-rosenberg-laforge.com. Everett Warner is a graduate of Berry College. He lives in Lilburn, Georgia, and likes wolves. His work can be found in Rust + Moth, Unbroken, and One Sentence Poems. He can be found on twitter: @danielwolfer. Poorvi Ghosh is a postgraduate student from Calcutta, India; mostly traveling the country, taking hundreds of pictures and writing as much and as often as possible. Doug Bradley is a Vietnam veteran from Madison, Wisconsin who has written extensively about his Vietnam, and post-Vietnam, experiences. He worked for more than 30 years as a communications professional with the University of Wisconsin. Following his graduation from college in 1969, Doug was drafted into the U. S. Army in March 1970 and served as an information specialist (journalist) at the Army Hometown News Center in Kansas City, Missouri, and U. S. Army Republic of Vietnam Â Â (USARV) headquarters near Saigon. Following discharge and graduate school, Doug relocated to Madison in 1974 where he helped establish Vets House, a storefront, community-based service center for Vietnam era veterans. In addition to writing a blog for the PBS website Next Avenue, Doug is a member of the Deadly Writers Patrol writing group, the author of DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle (Warriors Publishing Group, 2012), and co-author with Dr. Craig Werner, UW-Madison Professor of Afro-American Studies, of the recently released We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015). Jesse Rice-Evans is a queer Southern poet currently based in New York. The nonfiction editor of Identity Theory, her work has appeared most recently in the Queer Girls

Raised in the South Anthology from Freeverse Press. When she isn’t working or reading, she’s listening to Drake and advocating for active verbs. Amanda Chiado’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart, and Best of the Net. She has twice attended Squaw Valley on scholarship in fiction and poetry. She is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and California College of the Arts where she was the poetry editor for Eleven Eleven. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Witness, Cimarron Review, Fence, and It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip Hop, among others. She works for the San Benito County Arts Council, is an active California Poet in the Schools, and edits for Jersey Devil Press and Weave. She lives with her husband and two children in rural Hollister, California where she sings, dances and collects horror-movie memorabilia. Visit her at www.amandachiado.com Clint Brewer is a writer and communications professional living in a 108-year-old farmhouse in Gladeville, Tennessee with his wife, three children and two dogs. As a journalist he covered politics and government for 15 years, including two executions and one presidential race. In his spare time he can be found at his children’s soccer games or sipping whiskey on his deck. Mr. Brewer holds a journalism degree from the University of Tennessee, whose football team continues to cause him pain and suffering. A native of Knoxville, Mr. Brewer retains the contrary nature of folks who live in the Appalachian foothills. His poetry has previously been published in the Dead Mule, a Southern literary journal. Terry Barr's essays have appeared most recently in Red Savina Review, Belle Reve Literary Journal, The Bitter Southerner, and Coldfront Magazine. His essay collection, Don't Date Baptists and Other Warnings From My Alabama Mother, will be published in 2016 by Red Dirt Press. He lives in Greenville, SC, with his family. Lisa M. Cole is the author of Dreams of the Living and Heart Full of Tinders, both released by ELJ Publications. Lisa has also written a variety of chapbooks, most recently, The Love Machine from Yellow Flag Press, and Living in a Lonely House from Dancing Girl Press. You can find a full list of her publications at her website: lisamcole.blogspot.com. Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland, and was educated in University College Cork, graduating with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. She has one previously published collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010, and has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Fractured Nuance; Revival Magazine; Ink Sweat and Tears; Narrator International, and The Evening Echo, a local Cork newspaper with a wide circulation. In addition, she published a novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014.