Fall 2011 City College of San Francisco
Copyright © 2011 – 12 — City College of San Francisco. All rights remain with the contributors. No portion of this journal may be reproduced in any form, printed or electronic without the permission of the authors. Forum Magazine, City College of San Francisco, 50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112 Cover Image: Dillon Petrillo, Peak (Photograph)
Editor’s Statement Not long ago, I was at a party when a friend asked me, “Why do you write?” Taken aback by such a frank and open-ended question and distracted by a text message, I hesitated. I took a moment to browse the clearance aisles of my brain, before purchasing a twosentence response that, had it been written, would have been in Monotype Corsiva. I told him that I do it for myself; that writing helps take me out of my body and learn about what kind of person I am by reading what I have written. While this existentially driven reply might make a good Sci-Fi channel mini-series if taken literally, I cannot say that my answer was completely truthful. Like millions of Americans, I tweet, blog, comment, like, and perform various other new verbs used to describe corresponding on the Internet. I do it because it’s instant. But I also do it to create the image of myself that I’d like my friends, my colleagues, and ultimately, my readers to see. News, whether it’s politics, technology, or a cute video of a toddler playing air guitar to ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ is not created for the sole purpose of existence, but is there to inform, entertain, and even sway a targeted audience. And with the recent
availability of online sources and Internet platforms that allow us all to have splitcyber-personalities, one can’t help but wonder what the future may hold for Forum; some feel that our long-standing literary journal may very be crippled in the near future, as the demand for economically sound and easily attainable media increases. But what Facebook, Google, and countless other leaders in this hypnotizing virtual reality we call the Internet don’t possess, is what I believe will keep Forum alive for years to come. Our feebly funded student-run magazine has a spine. Unlike temporary tweets, passing posts, and momentary media, our pages turn readers as readers turn our pages. And until the permanence of ink fades and a bookmark is only a shortcut on a web browser, I will continue to write, and can only hope that you will continue to read. Ellie MacBride Editor-in-Chief Forum Literary Magazine
Editor’s Statement i
Old Content from last semester waiting to be updated
Forum would like to thank the following individuals and groups that have made this publication possible: Ms. Bob Davis, Dean of Liberal Arts Tom Boegel, Dean of Curriculum Jessica Brown, English Department Chair The English Department of CCSF Colin Hall, Christina Vaquera, John Seckman, Sergio Valdez & Johanna Rudolph of the Graphic Communications Department Juan Gonzales & the Journalism Department Jen Sullivan Brych & John Isles Ellen Wall, Louise Nayer, Loren Bell, Seth Harwood, Benjamin Bac Sierra, Aimee Suzara, & Erin O’Briant of the English Department Sara Powell of Kaleidoscope Free Speech Zone Brainwash Café & Laundromat Café La Boheme City Lights Books And everyone else who has helped to keep Forum alive, whether by reading, buying, sharing, promoting, or contributing to our wonderful magazine.
ii Editor’s Statement
Submissions Policy Forum is always looking for poetry, short stories, non-fiction, screenplays, comics, interviews and all mediums of art from the CCSF community. Please send all submissions as attachments to: citylitjournal@gmail.com We ask that written submissions be no more that ten pages and art submissions must be JPG or TIF (vector art as high-quality PDF) formats and have minimum pixel dimensions of 1600 x 2400. All art will be printed in black and white. Cover art submissions must be no less than 2400 x 2400. All attachments are to include piece title, art medium/writing genre and first and last name to be used in publication. For example, a writing submission should be labeled in this format: Moons and Tides_Fiction_Mary Hansen.doc Submissions may also be dropped off in person at Batmale 564 at the Ocean Campus or mailed to: Jen Sullivan Brych English Department 50 Phelan Drive San Francisco, CA, 94112 We will review all submissions that meet specifications and may contact contributors regarding edits. Forum reserves sole discretion to publish those pieces that best reflect its mission.
Submissions Policy iii
Old Content from last semester waiting to be updated
Editors
iv Editors 
General Editor
Ellie MacBride
Managing Editor
Kyanne Rose
Fiction Editor
Michael Thomson
Asst. Fiction Editors
Chanelle Loftness & Truc Nguyen
Poetry Editor
Alison Ruth Barry
Asst. Poetry Editor
Sara Wigglesworth
Non-Fiction Editor
Alexandra Brooklyn Blair
Visual Arts Editor
Brian Ogden
Blog Editors
Ayo Khensu-Ra
Graphic Design
Emerge Studio Graphic Communications Department Kristina Reinholds & Rusa Vuong
Staff, Officers & Advisors Staff Fiction Readers
Kat Cabral & Monica Medina
Poetry Readers
Mario Alano, Sara Wigglesworth & Kaylo X.
Non Fiction Reader
Monica Medina
Club Officers President
Alexandra Brooklyn Blair
Secretary
Truc Nguyen
Representative
Kat Cabral
Treasurer
Monica Medina
Advisors Jen Sullivan Brych John Isles
Staff, Officers & Advisors v
Fiction 10 The Broken Record . . . . . . . . . . . . Kat Cabral 29 In for the Kill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kat Cabral 37 Lucidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kwame Opoku-Duku 55 Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer…or Whatever . . Chanelle Loftness 71 Elephants on Wall Street . . . . . . . . . . Louise Atcheson 81 Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth . . . . . . . . Monty Heying 97 For I Am Not Breaking . . . . . . . . . . . Susan Jackson 109 The Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Thomson 129 Glitter Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Erin O’Briant
vi Fiction
Non-fiction 19 Nic Alea Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . Kaylo X. 27 For an Average Girl, I’m Alright . . . . . . . Alexandra Brooklyn Blair 50 Letter to Mrs. Sedaris . . . . . . . . . . . Louise Atcheson 66 30 Minutes with Aimee Suzara . . . . . . . . Truc Nguyen 79 What I Learned from Camping with My Dad . . . Alexandra Brooklyn Blair 92 Susan Jackson Interview . . . . . . . . . . Kyanne Rose 118 Note to Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alison Ruth Barry 126 Erin O’Briant Interview . . . . . . . . . . Ayo Khensu-Ra 133 Rest in Peace, Dear Francie . . . . . . . . . Ellie MacBride
Non-fiction vii
Poetry 1 On the Way to School . . . . . . . . . . . Monty Heying 3 Marcus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gina Krawiec 5 Blue Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alison Ruth Barry 9 The Elegance of Timing . . . . . . . . . . Hope Casareno 15 All Them Nights You Couldn’t Never Sleep . . . . Cody McEwan 21 How to Make Love . . . . . . . . . . . . Nic Alea 24 Hot Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alison Ruth Barry 35 Look to the Skies . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy 44 Leda and the Swan 2011 . . . . . . . . . . Pam Benjamin /William Butler Yeats 45 Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tatiana Lyulkin 47 Crickets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zhayra Palma 63 Contemplations in Afterlife . . . . . . . . . Steffanie Wise
viii Poetry
65 I (Heart) Bag Ladies . . . . . . . . . . . . Kaile Glick 68 Saturday Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Mazzola 74 Someday My Heart Will Stop . . . . . . . . Steffanie Wise 75 High Coo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Real Lapalme 91 What Monsters Eat . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Mazzola 101 Brother of Mine . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kaylo X. 105 Hysteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zhayra Palma 114 Bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monty Heying 121 Cislunar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Mazzola 123 I Will Possess Your Art . . . . . . . . . . . Ayo Khensu-Ra
窶ケoetry窶ナx
Art xvi Untitled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alex Roger Greenburg I 2 Music of the Word . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy 4 Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dillon Petrillo 14 Foreigner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dillon Petrillo 18 Nic Alea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy 25 Tangled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samantha Cooper 26 Turn Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy 36 Turkish Smokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dillon Petrillo 43 Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paulo Sultanum 46 Bath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dillon Petrillo 49 Pile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mustafa Shaheen 54 Dog Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Ogden 62 Escape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dillon Petrillo
x Art
69 Strawberry and Old Fashioned Cupcakes . . . . Jessica Parmley 70 Temperance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rusa Vuong 78 Morning Bird . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Mazzola 80 Doppelgangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jessica Parmley 90 No Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Ogden 100 Not Enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carmen Meléndez 104 Anxious Vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carmen Meléndez 108 Washington Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justin Mazzola 116 Fireworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sarah Noland 117 $4.50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Ogden 120 On the Way to the Capitol . . . . . . . . . Katie Dalla 122 Light Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jamie Idemne 132 Lilies Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marina Kattsyna
Art xi
Untitled | Photograph | Alex Roger Greenburg I
On the Way to School by Monty Heying
We’d pass this field Where horny toads lived. You’d fling one at a girl, and It would hang by its claws From her blouse or sweater As she squealed and ran.
Janey had a crush on me. Shy, And hoping to change her mind, I hurled a thorny lizard, But she, being smarter than me Just stood there smiling, So I’d come and take it off.
On the Way to School 1
Music of the Word | Collage | Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy
2
Marcus
by Gina Krawiec
Our apartment lay in boxes in the basement of my mother’s house. A box of movies has gathered a film of dust. The whisk makes no more scrambled eggs on early Sunday mornings. Your favorite boots too atrophied for our evening walks. The record player plays no tunes except the sound of a beaten drum. The mattress will never creak to the sound of laughter. The kettle does not sing to mark the dawning of the day. Our life lay in boxes in the basement of my mother’s house.
Marcus 3
Strip | Photograph | Dillon Petrillo
4
Blue Day
by Alison Ruth Barry blue blue blue day up on this rooftop boundaried by walls of ice cream yellows, vanillas, too scared to look up into divine blue thin air.
above reeling white the crescent arc of seagull s p a c i o u s the gull’s eyes see more stone brick like stacks of soaring bone: the Bell Tower.
Blue Day 5
deco splits up and into a cascade to heaven like the silver-gilded altar skirts, cathedral wide, Holy of Holies on Geary up to heaven on the sky inside the roof plane the ruby glass and amber dappled inside its beauty on umber walls: grey biscuit earth mud taupe pease-pot the soar of concrete His Earthly Vessel up behind and open in cubes, isosceles, a space cubicle for transporting souls up to heaven. and glass blue-green glass like when I saw Tacoma set like a Maya citadel on its hills,
6窶ケoetry
bleak break Tacoma you of green glass you of reflecting the Pacific North: brown hills and a river. the grind of the Amtracks the huge wheels ground, pushing up through mountain passes; Oregon’s cartoonish hillsides all the way from Oakland’s bad hills, its oily gulch the sea green sea of the bay Bayshore, Bayview’s leaves twist and splay over great metal trenches.
Blue Day 7
and home I unspun you, journey: Seattle Tacoma Portland Oakland San Francisco too soon you know me too well first chance back downtown south of FiDi only five blocks away from your better cousin Bell Tower, you splay deco bones bleached under blue blue blue day.
8窶ケoetry 8
The Elegance of Timing by Hope Casareno
Today is the day my uterus fell out. No signs were present, no alarms sounded, only eternity pooling at my feet. It won’t take the gods long to excavate because I saved all the evidence, treasure long and deeply buried.
The Elegance of Timing 9
The Broken Record by Kat Cabral
An obnoxious loop of chimes jars Zara from her state of unconsciousness, exacerbating the pounding in her head from five too many orange juice and vodkas. Peering out from under the dark blue bed sheets, her eyes land on the light grey walls of Aaron’s studio, lined with various framed albums and modern art. She grabs the familiar white sheet-music duvet sitting at the foot of the bed over her head to drown out the alarm. “Shit. How do I turn this thing off? Damn new phone…” Aaron whispers to himself in frustration, as he wrestles with his phone under the sheets. “What time is it?” Zara asks, before covering her head with a pillow. “Sorry. Don’t know how to work this thing just yet. It’s five a.m.,” he says, as he resorts to taking out the battery from the back of the phone. “There. Don’t need to get up, really. Must have accidently set it for a.m. instead of p.m. Gotta meet up with the fam for dinner later; it’s my mom’s birthday.” “No worries, I should probably head out anyway,” Zara responds, as she reaches blindly along the floor for her clothes. “Your dress is by the couch, remember?” Aaron says, with a smirk reaching over to caress her arm lying to his right. Zara pulls away, wrapping the duvet around her bare body and begins to slide her legs over the edge of Aaron’s queen-sized bed.
10 Fiction
“Not really, no…but thanks.” “Don’t go. Just lie down for a bit. It’s not like we haven’t done this before. Plus, you’re definitely not sober enough to drive just yet. We only went to bed like three hours ago.” “I’ll take the back roads. Don’t worry.” She finds her black bra with its matching lace panties strewn on the floor by the foot of the bed and struggles to put them on within the protection of the cotton music notes. “She says ‘hi,’ by the way. My mom. She asked about you.” “Oh, well, tell Meredith I said ‘hello’ and ‘happy birthday.’” “You could come with me tonight and tell her yourself, ya know.” “Oh — Uh, what’s with the new frame?” “What new frame?” “Your Abbey Road record above your front door; it has a new frame.” “Had to replace it. The glass frame broke a couple weeks back. Made this one myself, something much stronger. Oak, actually. Luckily the record didn’t break with it; just scratched the surface a bit. No big deal.”
“Well, did you replace the nail, too? I always told you it was loose; every time the door would shut too quickly, it would shake. Only a matter of time before that thing fell.” “What are you talking about? The nail is fine, the frame was just too heavy.” “It doesn’t fit in the hole. You need a new one, or at least put one of those bracket thingies to secure it.” “It fits perfectly. Now, what do you want for breakfast? Scrambled egg whites with dry wheat toast, right?” He climbs out of bed and grabs a pair of boxers and cargo shorts from his dresser. “No, I’m not hungry,” but her gurgling stomach betrays her. “Liar. It’ll be really quick. I swear. We can just sit in the bed, and eat, and talk for a bit. Come on, it’ll be nice to catch up… I miss you.” Aaron heads over to the kitchen and breaks out a carton of eggs from the fridge, expertly cracking and separating each one into a bowl. Zara relents and makes her way back onto his bed partially-clothed and covered, then sits back against the headboard. “So, what have you been up to? What’s it like in grad school? Are you still working on your thesis or whatever?”
The Broken Record 11
“Yeah, my dissertation. Should be done soon.”
“Just a guy.”
“What’s it on? Do you get to do like stem cell studies and shit? I saw this report on CNN the other day about your school real quick. Like people are doing like Nobel Peace Prize status stuff over there. Curing cancer and like mapping our DNA or something. Is that what you’re doing?”
“Liar.”
“Something like that. Boring, really.”
Zara looks over at Aaron as he divides the skillet full of scramble between their plates, steam curling along the chunks of red and yellow peeking behind mounds of white.
Aaron grabs a fold out lap table and sets it on the bed, placing two sets of plates and silverware on top. “You’re okay with bell peppers and artichokes, right? There’s no mushrooms, I promise.” “I’m surprised you remember that.” “I told you, I remember a lot of things… By the way, dinner tonight is at Ebisu.” “You don’t really expect me to go with you tonight, do you?” “Why not? My mom would love to see you again.” “I have other plans tonight.” “Like what? You can’t say no to Japanese food.” “I have to meet someone.” “Who?”
12 Fiction
“How would you know?” “I told you, Zara. I remember things.” “What does that mean?”
“I know you. Whether you’d like to admit it or not. You have a tell. You see that circular motion you’re making on the sheet right now with your right index finger, yeah? You always do that when you’re lying. That’s your tell. You’d make a horrible poker player.” “I’m a great poker player, I’ve beat you. On several occasions.” “That’s because I let you win.” “Now who’s the liar?” “See, you know me too.” “No, I don’t. We don’t know each other. We tried the relationship thing, remember? It didn’t work out for a reason. That’s the beauty of this set-up now. We just get drunk and hook up. That’s all.”
“I don’t want to be just the hook-up guy anymore, Zara. I want a girlfriend.” “Well that’s not gonna happen with me. You knew that going into it again.” “Why can’t we? It’s not like you’re dating anyone. We get along. We’re obviously still attracted to each other.” “This is just sex. Just drunken casual sex. And you don’t know that I’m not dating anyone else. I have a date later tonight. I can’t go to dinner with you.” “Liar.” “Stop calling me that. You don’t know me. Look, I’m just going to go. I think we’re done here. Thanks for breakfast.” “We haven’t even eaten yet. No, come on. Just sit down. Okay. You don’t have a tell. I lied. You told me last night when we were drunk that you had the day free.” “You’re such a self-serving prick.”
“Really, I’m fine with juice.” “No, no, no… I like having someone to cook for again, plus the water’s already heating up… Crap. Gotta head to the market downstairs really quick. I’m out of honey. I’ll be right back. I swear.” “Don’t go through the trouble…” The door slams behind him in his rush followed by a thud from the Beatles falling onto the hardwood floor. Alone in the studio, Zara grabs the luckily still intact record now slightly dented and attempts to replace it, but the nail refuses to stay in the now worn-out hole. Giving up, she heads over to the couch, slips on her dress, and walks out the door, leaving George, Paul, Ringo, and John upon the unmade bed
An earlier version of this short story was previously published in the Spring 2011 issue of Heliotrope Magazine at San Diego State University.
“It’s one of my better qualities. In all honesty though, just stay for breakfast. What would you like to drink? Orange juice? Coffee?” “Whatever you’re having is fine.” “Oh! I know… You like green tea lattes, right? I should have some soy milk. I can make that really quick. No problem.”
The Broken Record 13
Foreigner | Photograph | Dillon Petrillo
14
All Them Nights You Couldn’t Never Sleep by Cody McEwan
What did you used to call it? That leaking street, that place where all the cars used to splish-splash outside your window all them nights when you couldn’t never sleep. You’d lie in bed and watch the rain as it dripped onto the radiator turning into a gas. You flicked uppers against the dreams that made you cry staying up all night dancing slow, and on your walls you kept pictures of all your rock and roll idols let your friends write in markers on the chipping paint
All Them Nights You Couldn’t Never Sleep 15
had red carpet and took many pictures. In the dark you took off all your clothes for hours and couldn’t never stop looking into the mirror. You had this tape deck that was old, old, old, and would play your cassettes real slow and you’d listen all night dancing with your hands at your sides peeling back your head and letting the rain come through your window and onto the bedroom floor. All them nights you couldn’t never sleep you’d drag me through the phone and though the mud and into your apartment using them Violet Eyes and it was just like being on fire under water sometimes with no pain anywhere but in my stomach
16 Poetry
and in your mind and in your stomach held there like a violent silent prayer till the sun would rise red in the sky like a great glass gumball and I’d always stay because toy medicine never did nothing for nobody I ever met anyhow. Every time the morning would come on you’d fall asleep and I’d have to go home feeling bad that you’d have to face the dream alone, and because I stopped remembering mine a long time ago. Every time I’d leave I couldn’t never quite tie my shoes and go they were black and had rubber soles and I was afraid, I was afraid I had a rubber soul too.
All Them Nights You Couldn’t Never Sleep 17
Nic Alea | Conte and pencil on paper | Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy
18
Nic Alea Interview by Kaylo X.
I met with Nic Alea, a San Francisco based poet and host of the New Mission poetry open mic, at Viracocha. She had just come from a reading at Muddy Waters Cafe during the Lit Crawl with many regular poets from 16th and Mission corner poetry. The event was good — no mic, no stage — quite like 16th and Mission. It was packed! It was also videotaped and footage is available on LitSeen. The poets were immersed in the audience, a crowded roomful, and there were no introductions. Charlie Getter, the organizer for 16th and Mission, simply pointed to the next poet and from their place in the room the person performed. Nic Alea read a poem called “How to Make Love,” which is attached at the end of the following interview. Q: Why write? What inspires and motivates you? A: I used to say I wrote because I had to, but it’s not something that’s forced... I’ve always loved to. Keeps me sane. It’s talking to myself and getting really great advice back. Even if I go a day without writing I start to feel really weird. If I don’t write for a couple days it’s all building up and I have to let it out or I’ll explode.
Nic Alea Interview 19
Q: When did you start writing? When did you say “I’m a poet.”
Q: I know you host New Mission poetry open mic the second and fourth Thursdays at Viracoha. What else do you do in your writing life?
A: I remember my mom gave me a Lion King notebook, 1994, when I started journaling. I started truly realizing in my 12th grade animation class in high school. When I took this animation class I was in love with this boy and didn’t know how to talk about it to anyone.
A: I have been going to 16th and Mission, where I first got my start in San Francisco. I’m exploring slam. I’ve slammed at the Berkeley Slam at the Starry Plough. Just learning about the slam sub-culture of the poetry community.
Q: Who are your favorite writers? Who are you reading now?
Q: What is your writing process like? When do you write? Revision process?
A: [Points to left] Sam Sax’s chapbook “The Ventriloquist’s Octopus Arm.” It switches depending on where I’m at. Sharon Oldes. More spoken slam stuff. Andrea Gibson, Buddy Wakefield. Heidi Smith’s collected works. I read mostly fiction to get inspired to write poetry. “The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolaño.
A: I usually write around midnight after brainstorming during the day. I enjoy writing with other people, whereas before it was a lonely art. I do research for some poems. I’ll think of a line and save it in a file of one-liners to come back to and pull from. Freestyling while riding my bike home. I’m down to revise. I learned that editing is good, especially by somebody else, like Sam Sax.
Q: What’s next for your writing career? Hopes, aspirations? A: I just finished my chapbook “This Crumpled Bell Tower” due to be released November first. I want to go to Wyoming for a writing residency. My long term goal is to tour the Pacific Northwest, east coast universities, Portland, wherever I can make cool connections, wherever I can drag Sam.
20 Non-fiction
Q: What do you, Nic Alea, want to be remembered for? A: Hopefully not committing suicide. Hopefully my “P.S. Crater Face was here” bathroom tags. Q: Do you believe in ghosts? A: Yes. I totally do. I am afraid of them.
How to Make Love by Nic Alea
kaitlyn used to beat me up in gym class i always figured it was because her fist needed to touch something other than the motherless heart ache that sucked at the pores of her skin, she left me bruises the size of rodeo horses and smiled at me with yellow teeth heavy with the hurt of two tone brick, always tried to tell me how her relationship with scissors justified snipping away at inherited veins, spent nights listening to her count off the ways she wanted to shatter things, and if that is how to make love then make love out of the thing you were born to create rather than out of static fist fights with no glory.
  How to Make Love  21
on sasha’s 21st birthday we sat on the wet slope of the park, this is where i gave her a compass to wear around her neck, before then i’d watch her stumble over which part of her heart to follow, limping like a broken down foghorn forfeiting its howl that used to echo across the ocean, now to cigarettes and bathrooms tagged with curses, girl’s dressed in nothing but eyelashes and liquor, a lost heart and two empty palms, she shows me the compass two years later, still hanging by her throat, with its rusted magnets stagnant in rotation never actually telling her which way is up but somehow still kept her feet on the ground, she calls the compass her cross, tells me, let me show you my cross and if that is how to make love then make love out of the thing
22 Poetry
that gives you a reason to uproot and find a course so beautiful you could never be swallowed no matter how many ghosts sprout out of the woodwork. on the night i fell full chest beat forward i stood by jen’s side feeling electricity flooding out her skin it left me to sway like a drunk kid catholic, gave her a book called she and spit typewriter ink off my own tongue, she, dressed like a boy grown out of light, taught me how to love like the grand canyon opening it’s twisted clay shoreline to the ache of the sky, we romanced like a tent full of midnight whispers and mason jars full of fire, a fourth of july kiss that ruptured into remnants of land slides explosion, and if that is how to make love then make love out of the roots that tie your body to another,
make love out of the wood blocks carved by fire torch and feel the engraving with your hands, and i called you here because i wanted to tell you how i used to sit on the sand carpet in my closet and write on the crown molding about how i didn’t know how to make love, somehow knowing that words inked onto white wood always have the way of working themselves out and if this is how you make love, then make love out of the stories that were once broken and became whole again make love out of crying when you finally saw the view, make love out of realizing you want to wake up not as a crumbled bell tower, but as a symphony with a violin string smile.
How to Make Love 23
Hot Skins
by Alison Ruth Barry Hot skins, slow baked together, basted in the early morning heat of your bed. The butter taste of your mouth the savory smell of us, the moistness and salt lidded by your covers, sealed in the marinade of sex and limbs, hot skin on skin, your palm coarse on the velvet of my flank, on the meat of my backside, your fingers sticky. Adhesive with sweat I slide against you, my breasts and thighs, mouth pressing to eat your tongue like a hot meal, we’ll stew till we rise to a boil and are rendered. Until the tough muscle grows tender and falls from the bone.
24 Poetry
Tangled | Photograph | Samantha Cooper
25
Turn Back | Ink on paper | Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy
26
For an Average Girl, I’m Alright by Alexandra Brooklyn Blair
I file away complacently at my nails as my boyfriend flicks through some random blog. The sound of the sandpaper eating away at the deadened skin often lulls me into a sort of cosmetic hypnosis as he scrolls. Pictures flicker past, barely registering in the periphery of my eye. Girls and girls and tattooed boys with beards showing off their swagger and soul and more girls and maybe a piece of artwork here or there amidst the girls. He CTRL+S a few and puts the girls to sleep, deep between the sheets of digital manila. He scrolls and laughs — some manly joke I won’t appreciate for its ignorance or insensitivity or something so I don’t even “hmm?” at him but file away as the flicks flicker by and once again it’s a spacious, yawning din of huge-tits-girl and flat-tummy-girl and girl-with-the-fat-ass-whose-thighs-still-don’t-touch. My emery board doesn’t falter and neither does my face as I adjust on the bed. My thunder thighs release my ankles from the position in which they have been deprived so much blood, they prickle with sleep as I seamlessly transition onto my own generous backside, my tummy rolling over itself sensuously, suggesting, perhaps, a luscious proportionate vitality rather than some unhealthy tendency. My arms jiggle back to work once more, paring away at my digits, the dust of it all billowing out onto the black vneck that covers my ample chest. Poorly.
For an Average Girl, I’m Alright 27
I look up for the first time, at another hearty snort from my beloved’s lips, to a precocious looking lady whose hipbones support the children’s underwear she’s hooked her thumbs into. The taut tummy, tan with no shadows, serves as a gorgeous plateau for her training-bra tits, bare and alert. Flat, thin hair cascades about her softly made-up pouty face. Some piece of irony has been carefully littered about all the perfection. “Fuck.” I inhale sharply, noticing that I’ve filed too deep, the raw, ruddy skin beneath what was once my thumbnail protests the biting air with pulsating ferocity. He turns with a budding sense of urgency and inquires at the irritation. “It’s nothing.” I blow on the affected and he blows me a kiss before turning back to his work. It will grow back, I resign, and flick the skin with the pad of my thumb. I coat them thickly with enamel:tt black for its generally forgiving nature, not to signify any sort of internal unrest, and blow them dry. I yawn genuinely and stretch my body upward and down onto the sheets. He looks at the time, looks at me lovingly, and clicks out of his crusade. He puts on something soft and melodic and slinks down from the chair to my side, careful not leave imprints on the pigments. “Hello gorgeous,” he proffers. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
28 Non-fiction
In for the Kill
A Short Film Script by Kat Cabral FADE IN. EXT. PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO SHORELINE – SUNSET Waves crashing along the shore, sun beaming upon the multitude of TOURISTS bathing and tanning at the beach… CAMERA SCANS the beach lined with both luxurious and dilapidated hotels… CAMERA DESCENDS onto an older, missionstyle adobe hotel that has a bar on the lower level. INT. HOTEL LOBBY – EARLY EVENING A rundown, minimalistic area with torn, decrepit wallpaper that houses the main elevators and a hallway leading to the side entrance and the bar… The elevator opens. A well-dressed, handsome American businessman, looking fresh out of a meeting, exits and walks down the hallway in the direction of the bar. INT. HOTEL LOBBY HALLWAY – EARLY EVENING He stops at a dingy mirror surrounded by papers in order to fix his appearance. He loosens his tie, runs his fingers through his hair, and rolls up his shirt sleeves, transforming his clean business appearance into one that is more laid back.
In for the Kill 29
He glances around at the multitude of flyers and ads with leisure, many of which warn male tourists of the Acapulco Assassin, but then focuses on the lone flyer regarding a missing blonde woman. After inspecting the empty hallway, he detaches the paper and disposes of it in a nearby trash can as he heads towards the bar. INT. HOTEL BAR – EARLY EVENING A nondescript beachside bar inside of the hotel boasting multi-colored bottles along the time-dampened décor. Cradled in the corner, a small stage with a young acoustic performer working for tips from the minimal amount of tourists passing through. The bartender is behind the bar wiping off a couple of freshly rinsed glasses. An attractive brunette Latina woman with long, wavy hair sits at the bar nursing her margarita. She looks around at her fellow patrons, quickly finishes her margarita, and motions to the Bartender for another. BARTENDER Careful, senorita. These drinks can be dangerous. The Brunette waves him off, unconcerned, then notices the businessman at the other end of the bar and looks his way. The Businessman — turns away, then looks back, drawn in by her gaze. The Brunette — smiles and grabs her fresh margarita to toast to him from across the room.
30 Fiction
The Businessman — nods back at her with a smirk on his lips. He then finishes his drink in one gulp, stands up, and strides over to the other side of the bar. He holds out his hand to introduce himself. INT. HOTEL HALLWAY – NIGHT (FLASHBACK) The same Businessman extends his hand out towards the missing blonde pictured on the flyer as she waits in the elevator. The Blonde grabs his hand playfully as they hurry towards his hotel room. He stops her and nuzzles her ear. She giggles and they continue hurriedly towards his room. INT. HOTEL BAR – EVENING (PRESENT DAY) The Businessman and the Brunette quickly slam empty shot glasses upsidedown onto the bar with one hand as they animatedly bite into the lime wedges in their other hands. The Businessman starts to set up for the final tequila shot, routinely salting his wrist. He reaches for a lime. SERIES OF SHOTS – TEQUILA BODY SHOTS A. The Brunette grabs the wedge from his hand, smiles wickedly and squeezes the lime juice onto one side of her neck. B. The Businessman stares at her, puzzled, yet intrigued. C. The Brunette devilishly sprinkles a line of salt onto the side of her neck. D. The Businessman attacks her neck, licking up the salt.
In for the Kill 31
E. The Brunette holds out his shot glass to him. F. The Businessman grabs the shot glass. G. The Brunette downs her own shot of tequila. H. The Businessman swallows his shot in one gulp and smiles wickedly. I.
The Brunette smiles back then slowly licks her lips.
J.
The Businessman wipes the side of her mouth.
K. They kiss. INT. HOTEL ROOM – NIGHT (FLASHBACK) Kissing the Blonde, the Businessman hurriedly carries her inside the hotel room. The door SLAMS shut behind him as he uses his foot to close it, thrusting the Blonde aggressively against the wall. He pulls her hair roughly. She GIGGLES. The look on his face changes from desire to disdain as he grabs her neck to choke her. The look on her face changes from playful desire to worry and panic as he refuses to let go. INT. HOTEL BAR – EVENING (PRESENT DAY) The Businessman WHISPERS into the Brunette’s ear. A mischievous look spreads across both their faces. She nods her approval and he helps her off her
32 Fiction
bar stool, wrapping a possessive arm around her waist as she reaches for her clutch purse. They casually exit towards the lobby. INT. HOTEL HALLWAY – NIGHT The Businessman extends his hand as he stands outside the elevator doors eying the Brunette. BUSINESSMAN Are you sure? Going home with a stranger can be dangerous. The Brunette, leaning against the back wall of the elevator, smirks as if accepting a challenge. INT. HOTEL ROOM – NIGHT (FLASHBACK) The Blonde is slumped lifelessly against the wall with bruises and strangulation marks along her neck. The Businessman looms over her body, his face void of emotion. INT. HOTEL THE HALLWAY – NIGHT (PRESENT DAY) The Businessman, amused, strolls playfully down the hallway with the Brunette towards his hotel room. She kisses him passionately as she pulls him hastily towards the room. He takes out his key to enter the room. She grabs the key from him in a rush, opens the door, and pulls him inside. The hotel door SLAMS shut. POP TO BLACK.
In for the Kill 33
FADE IN. INT. HOTEL HALLWAY – LATER THAT NIGHT The door opens. The Brunette, looking a little frazzled, peeks out into the hallway to confirm that it is clear. She opens the door wider revealing the dead body of the Businessman lying lifeless against the wall. The Brunette straightens her wardrobe a little and places a spent syringe into her clutch then casually exits the room, closing the door behind her. She walks towards the elevators and presses the down button, then leans against the wall. INT. HOTEL LOBBY – SAME NIGHT The elevator opens. The Brunette exits heading nonchalantly towards the side entrance through the hallway. INT. HOTEL LOBBY HALLWAY – SAME NIGHT The Brunette stops at the same dingy mirror surrounded by flyers much like the Businessman had earlier. She reapplies her lipstick, fixes her hair, and straightens her dress once more. She glances around at the posters on the wall, then looks around to see who may be watching. Confirming the coast is clear, she proceeds to pull down all the flyers concerning the “Acapulco Assassin” before making her swift escape. FADE TO BLACK.
34 Fiction
Look to the Skies by Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy
Belly up floating Ain’t got a chance it’s all in the knowing. All going belly up Can’t stand the swell, floating floating and going Hell, It’s all in the knowing The way water is flowing Wind is blowing way things stop growing. We’re headed for the top belly up cash crop sure to drop Sure to be stopped when it gets too hot Gang injunctions
on the block No fly zone in Libya but our drones gonna rock Send more bones floating or burning or packed into trucks. Feel the blood on our backs Our tax dirty tracks Don’t trust what he says Says he’s bringing them back. That’s just a tactic — act with no facts. Wake up body bags! Breath life and strike back.
Look to the Skies 35
Turkish Smokes| Photograph | Dillon Petrillo
36
Lucidity
by Kwame Opoku-Duku
Manny was completely lucid. He’d begun to understand a lot about tonight over the long drive home, a lot about himself. The truth was he’d learned so much about himself over the course of the evening that he couldn’t help but find himself seized by shame, and yet this shame appeared to be at the genesis of his lucidity. There were so many things he needed to tell Sandra. He looked down at the speedometer. He was driving too fast, but there were barely any cars on the road at just before seven on a Monday morning. And, after all, he was completely lucid. In his lucidity, he knew that hell was slowly closing in on him. The physical effects had not yet begun, but he had done a lot of cocaine over the last two nights; he knew he was due for a nasty crash. He had two choices: keep driving and hope that he made it to his stash of Valium before the crash or try to delay hell with more cocaine. And while his lucidity had not quite given way to the romantic thoughts he’d had from time to time — of letting go of that wheel, of sailing into the next world with his arms spread wide, with vine leaves in his hair — he feared in a less sunny craving that his central nervous system had really taken a beating during the last few moments. While he weighed out each option in his mind, a bead of sweat slowly started to form on his brow, and a nervous itch covered his body; friendly reminders that he had already made up his mind, that he was going to pull over, cut
Lucidity 37
the engine, remove the baggie from his sock and prepare himself one last bump with his driver’s license. He asked himself absentmindedly whether his decision making process was just another illusion he’d created for himself: the great internal struggle, the great fight against what he was. As he thought about what else he had been fighting in himself, his mind drifted to the sequence of events that had led him to this point. He decided that for better or worse, he was living his destiny. He would be home soon. There was a serious talk waiting for him there, and he hoped his great revelation would hold up, that it wasn’t just some drug induced fancy, that the things he thought and felt were real and meant something and weren’t some miserable joke. Manny’s grip around the wheel tightened as the smoothness of the town’s main road gave way to the beat up road of the forgotten country. There was something very sinister about the morning air, so sweet and refreshing, and yet in these very particles existed a very real hell that had broken down his initial walls of defense. He pondered the air for a moment, which is to say he stopped pondering the things that were taking place inside his mind and potentially in Sandra’s.
38 Fiction
As he watched the thick summer mist settle upon the morning, he realized he had already begun to lose faith in himself. If he were lucky, she would be sleeping when he got home. Manny had done some things tonight that he regretted. He’d embarrassed Sandra horribly and shamed her as a woman in a way that a simple apology could not remedy. He didn’t know if he’d even be able to look at her. Daylight had officially graced the East Coast. Manny sighed. He could tell by the heat of the morning sun that today was the kind of day that was going to be a little too hot. That was the thing about New England. As soon as your bones began to thaw from the long, cold winter, the languid haze of summer would settle in unnoticed. And what could you do? It’s not like you can control the weather. And with no one around to hear his idle complaint, Manny sighed again because, well, what else was one to do? Sandra was also completely lucid. Her lucidity, however, was more of an effect of radiation stemming from the initial explosion of Manny’s, or perhaps, to sound more romantic, the lucidity of Manny. And while the lucidity of Sandra was born from the same breath of life, the secondhand nature of its origin left her with a profound numbness that while unpleasant, at least helped
quell the sea of rage within her. Even at home by herself she was still drenched in humiliation. She didn’t have the words, or even the desire to express herself properly, or perhaps there was nothing to be expressed in a situation like this. What she did find herself with, however, was a strange, uncontrollable desire to pace around the apartment they shared. She started in the bedroom and moved into the bathroom where she opened the shower curtain. She read the label of her shampoo and body wash. From the bathroom, she moved into the office, and from there she moved downstairs to the living room and the kitchen. After she had carefully inspected every square inch of their domain, she walked back upstairs to the bedroom where she made what she would describe to Manny as an ultimate decision, the kind from which she could never turn back. As she opened his underwear drawer and found his bottle of Valium, she felt the warmth of the sun poking through the blinds. She knew Manny would be home soon. There was nowhere else he could go. They were trapped out here in the country, and he didn’t have the money for a hotel. Calm had washed over her, even before she took two of the pills. It would be easy for her to fall asleep now. As a matter of fact, for the first time in a long time, she felt like she didn’t have a single care in the world. What a strange morning!
It would only be a matter of time, of course, before her tranquility was set off balance once again. As the old saying goes, nothing last forever. Life eventually attacks. But for the moment, with the aid of a few faithful Nina Simone tunes, she danced off into the clouds where there existed only beautiful things. And while she was conscious of her dream state, she wished she could stay there forever. She wished for this very deeply. The last bump backfired on Manny. That grand lucidity he had been working so tirelessly to preserve had dissipated into nothing but a stale memory just a few short moments after he got back on the road. Hell was in his bones now, jangling like loose change in a pocket. His yearning for death had almost reached an erotic level, but the thought of his bed and the thought of his Valium kept him going. We never see new lows coming, Manny thought. We can only know when we’ve hit them. Manny had just felt his. But in the end, he could only keep driving. Sitting around and complaining about it wasn’t going to get him home any faster. There was a great irony in Manny’s eagerness to return home, as their domicile had become the source of many latent tensions between them. The objective truth of the matter was that Manny and
Lucidity 39
Sandra had both gone into their living arrangement with the purest of intentions, even though they both knew instinctively that it would be the source of their undoing. Somewhere inside the both of them lay a tiny but sharp panic, hers stemming from a realization that she no longer received any pleasure from the gypsy-bohemian waitress lifestyle they had shared together. She had a Master’s degree for crying out loud. She felt that perhaps she had lost a bit of herself over the last two years with Manny, that she had become a creation of witty quips and meticulously crafted looks of boredom, of references to obscure music, film and literature; a scenester, fighting so hard for the same individuality as everyone else, the same uniqueness, that her own sense of conformity had eluded her. But how was one to escape such a paradox? She tried first to reject individuality altogether as illusory and attempted to discontinue its pursuit, which was much easier said than done. After all, she had grown up in a generation that had promised her that everyone was special and unique and had some individual quality that made them that way. And while she covered her tattoos more and spent far less on jean and shoe purchases, she still found
40 Fiction
it was utterly impossible to completely stop this admittedly empty practice of individualism, and in turn she felt even emptier, even more pitiful, but in the end it wasn’t as if she was going to run off and join the army. So when the Dudley-Charlton school system offered her a full-time social worker position, and the rent was so cheap, and it would be an opportunity to save money and be closer to her family, and of course they could still travel in the summer, what was the harm in trying it for a year? If either of the two felt any harm brewing, they chose not to express it. Once one doubt was expressed, there was no doubt they would all have to be, and everything is not always the easiest subject to broach. And as the nature of truth has been rather elusive to humanity during our brief rule on this earth, we have managed time and time again to divine what the nature of truth is not. For example, Sandra and Manny, without ever having taken the time to sit down and explicitly examine the nature of truth, both knew there existed no such thing as partial truth, that if it existed, it existed as a whole entity, unflinching, naked and smiling, that one should not even think of it if one were not ready to gaze upon its full likeness. The judgmental observer might ask why two fully sentient adults would enter into an arrangement such as this, without even the slightest peep of dissent; it could be expressed in this way: If Manny had told
her about his reservations, he would have had to tell her he pretty much disliked her entire family, that being around her mother reminded him that one day she would grow fat and crotchety, that he feared the two of them would simply fade away into obscurity in their country existence, and along with his dreams: that vague notion of glory he saw off in the distance and the meaning he had tried so hard to instill in his life. And on the other side of the coin, if Sandra had told Manny that she had long ago grown tired of his jokes, of his sense of humor even, that she felt a slight resentment toward him, that his pipe dreams were the source of most of her worries about the future, that hell, to her, he was still just a boy, one could see how expressing one doubt could lead to a tidal wave of truth that neither was prepared to face in earnest. So instead of facing the truth, they chose to continue the dance, and like good partners should, they danced until they lost themselves completely in the motions. Manny beamed about the abundance of natural light pouring into the spare room that Sandra insisted he take as his office. Who knew, maybe he could get started on the novel he had been outlining, or piecing together that underground magazine he’d spent many a drunken hour pitching to strangers in pubs. And while Manny did feel he
held many radical beliefs that directly challenged normal conventions, it had become clear to both him and Sandra that he was not a writer, he was a talker, a barroom revolutionary, the worst kind of hack. Still the dance continued. At the congratulatory barbecue that Sandra’s family begrudgingly held for them, Manny couldn’t control his delight at living right around the corner. Under the influence of a few too many domestic light beers, Sandra’s father jokingly ribbed Manny about the unexpected visits he could expect, to keep it in the back of his mind while he was fornicating with his only daughter. Everyone laughed with such forceful resonance one might have mistaken him for a popular comedian. Oh, how they danced! If one were to be so bold as to place a label on these months they spent dancing, it would not be a stretch to assert it was a happy time, even though both knew it could only be temporary. If one were to continue in the line of assertions, it could be concluded that in this happiness they were truly unique because it was completely separate from the truth, that even the slightest graze from it could send it crashing from the sky. And so they battened down the hatches and protected it like hell.
Lucidity 41
They watched movies and went out to dinners. They had friends bring over savory bottles of Willamette Valley pinot noir, and they even managed to have sex almost every night. They worked so hard and their happiness had blossomed so much, they had begun to make the mistake of feeling victorious, superior even to the truth. They became vulnerable. It happened at an after party. A line of coke? They hadn’t done it in years. It would be fun. As the hours passed, they both began to loosen up. When the sun came up, they both called out of work with the Colombian flu. Things had gone on like that for two nights. By the time he realized he was in no man’s land, it was too late. He no longer had any control over himself. That set the stage, Manny remembered. He had just pulled into his parking spot. “Time to face the music,” he said aloud, letting out another great sigh. Today he was going to be set free. He turned the ignition off, pulled the key out and clutched the set in his hand as he opened the car door. There was a strange calm washing over him as he stepped out into the morning sun and closed the door behind him. He walked the twenty or so feet to his front door with a certain religious awe. This was the first holy moment of his life.
42 Fiction
When he unlocked and opened the front door, he was rejuvenated by a wave of cold air blowing from the air conditioner — a housewarming gift from her family. He took off his shoes and placed them in the closet by the entrance, pulled his socks off and carried them up the twelve stairs to the second floor, walked past his office where he spent most of his time smoking weed and listening to music, went into the bathroom where he threw his socks into the hamper, and then he washed his face and brushed his teeth. Finally he made it to their bedroom door. He slowly opened it and saw Sandra sitting upright on their bed, covering herself proudly. With a quiet grace she affected a smile to put him at ease while he searched for his Valium. After he had popped three pills into his mouth and swallowed, she motioned for him to sit down next to her. He obliged. His mouth was so dry that the last pill stuck to the back of his throat. He choked it back, trying not to frown. It was the least he could do. Sandra placed her hand over his and took a deep breath. The birds were chirping loudly outside their window. It would have been nice to sit in silence and listen to them but unfortunately this morning it would have to wait.
Jazz | Oil on paper | Paulo Sultanum
43
Leda and the Swan 2011 by William Butler Yeats/Pam Benjamin
Leda questioned post rape kit, in hospital gown. “His great wings trapped me, inescapable. There was no caress, caught hard in his bill. Terrified, my fingers froze, pushed nowhere. My struggle meaningless, I acquiesced.” The Police officer shrugs, sips coffee, “You didn’t fight the bird? You asked for it?” “Who can be indifferent to gods above? It wasn’t a man, but god changed form to swan. Who are we mortals to attack their whims? Women have no knowledge of their motives.” The doctor returned with two small blue pills, pressed them to Leda’s tongue and closed the door.
44 Poetry
Africa
by Tatiana Lyulkin Africa,
Africa,
Empress of the Nile,
My silken desert princess,
My godfather’s gentle mistress,
My beloved ancestor,
His lifelong dream of peace and justice
My forever family,
Made flesh.
My secret knowledge,
Rhythm and beauty,
Your blood that’s in my veins
Fire and light,
Takes me back to my ancestral memories
Modern poetry and ancient drumbeat,
Of brass heads and beaded crowns of Benin,
Tales told by the fire on a summer night
The Rulers of the Sky.
Africa,
Africa,
Queen Mother,
My griot and sorceress,
I stand in awe of your great power
A guiding beacon of hope
To transform people, places and things,
Up in the summer sky,
You sing to the tired and weary,
Shining down on me,
Comfort the broken hearted,
Bringing me home.
Fill the cynical with newfound desire and hope.
Africa 45
Bath | Photograph | Dillon Petrillo
46
Crickets
by Zhayra Palma
In my childhood crickets fell out of the sky by the hundreds, collected in the grooves of the dirt path. We thought they were roaches, New York City exiles. The crickets brought with them an unfamiliar breeze smooth and clean, and seasoned the sky with stars so salty you could taste them on your tongue. If you dared count them, they would easily defeat you, infinitely. Soon the heavy rains would come and fill empty oil tanks with water we used for cleansing. But we, accustomed to the smell of hot rubber and garbage, didn’t care for being sterile.
Crickets 47
In the winter the grass was still wet, the earth rich and snow-capped skyscraper mountains that swallowed you into a womb, revealed themselves. December was a good month for rebirth. The thick of wood burning filled every shelter, the scent of holiday. We burned politicians & celebrities as custom, their paper machﾃｩ faces crafted with resolve. We knew this attitude. The Ecuador sun blossomed entire jungles alive year after year and rains would not quit even with the obstruction of stars and crickets. It was a long and refreshing bath we finally took from those rusty oil barrels.
48窶ケoetry
Pile |Charcoal on paper | Mustafa Shaheen
49
Letter to Mrs. Sedaris by Louise Atcheson
Dear Mrs. Sedaris: I’m pretty sure you’re dead. I don’t think you survived that bout of lung cancer, but I hope you get this letter by some means of divine communication. I think where ever you are — astral or otherwise — you must be very proud of your son, David. His books are a big hit, and his stories have been published in The New Yorker. But maybe you already know about his great writing success and his radio program, too. I’m not implying that you aren’t proud of all your kids. I mean, like Amy had the lead on the comedy channel TV show, Strangers With Candy, and she just wrote a book. I don’t know anything about the other four, but I just wanted to tell you that reading your son’s book Naked, really made me chuckle. I think David must have inherited your inventive, black, acerbic and wicked sense of humor. Now don’t get me wrong Mrs. Sedaris. I mean that as a compliment, not a criticism. I think you’re one zany lady, and your running commentaries in David’s stories are very clever and amusing. In fact, I think you’re one of the most entertaining characters to show up in a book in a long time. As for your mothering...well, I’ll get to that later.
50 Non-fiction
I particularly liked how you described Ya Ya, your Greek mother-in law, in Get Your Ya Yas Out. That woman was really strange and annoying; a handful to have around the house. How insulting it must have been to have had her constantly referring to you as “the girl,”never using your name or acknowledging you as her son’s wife. I was glad you laid down the house rules when she was washing her stockings in the toilet bowl. Do you remember when you said, “That might play back on Mt. Olympus... But in my house we don’t wash our stockings in the toilet”? I thought that was a hilarious remark. Later in the story David lets the reader know that you generously offered to sell your body or take a job picking tobacco to raise enough to put your mother-in-law in a nursing home. Thank God you inherited money from your aunt so you could finally get her out of the house. Some people might criticize you for being unkind to Ya Ya, but you were caring enough to tend to her diabetic needs, and no one else in the family was willing to do that. Your kids seemed to think she was a nut job and didn’t like her either. Maybe they tolerated her a little better than you, most likely because for them she was a human coin machine. I know some readers might also think you were terribly mean to David when he was a boy. You must surely recall his fantasy that he was really a rich child taken by mistake from a wealthy family. But just in case you forgot, what you told him in “Chipped Beef” about his hope that his real family would eventually find him, was “It ain’t gonna happen... believe me if I was going to steal a baby, I would have taken one that didn’t bust my ass every time I left my coat lying on the sofa. I don’t know how it happened, but you’re mine. If that’s a big disappointment for you, just imagine how I must feel.” I do believe that was a little harsh, but not much different from all the other nasty things you said to David, but I’m sure underneath it all you really loved him.
Letter to Mrs. Sedaris 51
Your son sure did have quite an imagination when he was a boy, and he still does. Given that he turned out to be such a success, I don’t think the rotten way you treated him stunted his creativity or caused any serious emotional harm. I also know you had a difficult life, what with taking care of Ya Ya and raising six kids. That probably wasn’t easy. I don’t mean to be rude Mrs. Sedaris, but I did get the impression that you were always sort of angry and had a drinking problem. I suppose that’s how you coped with everything that made you unhappy. When you were pregnant with your sixth child I’m glad David was very sympathetic and offered to help you out more...and for only twenty dollars! That was so kind of him. But about your drinking problem. When David’s teacher made a home visit to discuss his out of control tics, you invited her to have a drink. It seems the two of you had more than one drink and got pretty tipsy. You never did discuss his problem with the teacher. Maybe that had nothing to do with how drunk you were. Perhaps it was just difficult to have a conversation about how to help him because you were so overwhelmed with worry about his problems. You always seemed to have a drink in your hand, Mrs. Sedaris, or a glass to your lips, and you did sort of panic when there was no booze around. But don’t worry, David didn’t ever call you an alcoholic in print, and I would never hold your drinking problem against you. It seems like your husband was no slouch when it came to drinking, either, and he was almost as clever as you in the searing remarks department. I mean it seemed to me that some of what he had to say to you and the kids was like spot burning bare flesh with the flame of a small blow torch.
52 Non-fiction
Well, I could go on and on telling you how much I enjoyed the many outrageous things you said and did when David was groping his way through childhood, but there really are too many examples to mention. Before I end I have a confession to make. Even though your son doesn’t know it, I was cross pollinated by him, and it was very stimulating. Don’t take this the wrong way. I know he’s gay, and this is not about sex or anything like that. What I mean to say is that when I read Naked I got cross pollinated, mentally, and just like a plant something new and fresh in me began to bloom. Being such a creative speaker yourself, I think you would agree that it’s important to have more than one way to say what you want to say. So maybe another way to describe what happened when I read Naked is — in my mind a door to a closet with the word “Fun” written on it opened, and I went in and found the inspiration to write about the things in life that make me laugh. But back to you, Mrs. Sedaris. I want to tell you that your unrelenting willingness to tell your own lopsided truths straight out — no holds barred — is admirable. You were just you — naked — and in your delightfully malicious way you said what most people might just think but never put into words. I really do like you, and I sincerely forgive your bad behavior — probably because you were so witty, peculiar and sad. Sincerely, A fan P.S. I hope David was writing about the real you, and he didn’t make it all up.
Letter to Mrs. Sedaris 53
Dog Days | Ink on paper | Brian Ogden
54
Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer… or Whatever by Chanelle Loftness
There is no one word that can successfully describe my town. Myersville is everything you think of when you think “Generic. Small. Ass. Town.” But honestly, to say that Myersville is boring is a complete and utter understatement. In fact, I would have to say that I am the cherry filling in this otherwise unglazed and unjellified donut. Yes, I am that awesome. But seriously though, the people here were pretty screwed up even before they really were screwed up. Anyways, I suppose I should get to the meat of issue, the juicy details per se. First of all, let me just tell you what I now do. Not for a living, since I make no money, but I do it because, hell — I have to. I, Agnes P. Walker, age 20, no degrees, am a Zombie Slayer, or Zombie Hunter, or whatever. I mean, I kill zombies. On a daily basis, and believe me, I’m no Buffy. This isn’t an “in every generation a Slayer is born.” This was essentially “Congratulations, you’re the last one standing.” Which, in some ways is kind of bullshit, but in other ways is totally sweet. I’m guessing you’re like, “Get to the point Agnes! What the heck happened?” Well, one of those screwed up townsfolk did a really stupid thing. Insert mock shock and surprise here.
Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer… or Whatever 55
It all started with Michael McManus, age 30, one time all-star high school football player whose current occupation could only be described as town rat. Well he, out of boredom I suppose, decided it was good idea to plant an apple tree over the grave of Ms. Lily Evoleen, buried legend of Myersville. And believe me when you’re a legend in a small town, it’s very rare that it’s because you did something good. See, Ms. Evoleen was a witch, and not a white one, when it comes to the craft that is. Apparently, she had all sorts of power. And at one point, the serious point, she made the people of Myersville kill their families, neighbors, wayward travelers, etc. And not in the pleasant I have an axe and I’m going to kill you way, but in the my my I do have a craving for brains and body parts tonight way. Seriously, this town was Jeffrey Dahmer times twenty! Freaking, gross! So eventually, the remaining “living” people of the town figured out what was going on and who was behind it. Long story short, they found Ms. Evoleen, hung and buried her. Yes, buried, not burned, but buried. Stupid, I know. I’ve watched enough supernatural shows and movies to the point where I know the 101 of getting rid of evil. And that is not it. Of course, Ms. Evoleen and her band of merry cannibalists took over the place back in the “what do you mean I always have to wear a dress that goes
56 Fiction
past my ankles” days. Maybe if they had YouTube the townsfolk would have gotten it right, and I wouldn’t be dealing with what I’m dealing with now. I got this information about Ms. Evoleen second, third, or fourth hand from my long deceased Nana who had a real skill for telling over the top stories. Now that I think about it, I may have been a bit too young for those stories. Then again, it turns out Nana may not have been telling fictional stories after all. Anyway, blah blah blah, crazy witchy buried dead woman, meet inherently stupid uneducated jock that is long past his glory days. I, to this day, am not sure why Michael did what he did; it’s hard to understand stupid. But Michael planted this apple tree above Ms. Evoleen’s grave and boom! Within months there was a giant apple tree standing there. Yep, like a full on Adam and Eve apple tree, without the snake, religion, or God. Unbelievable, right? No, what’s unbelievable is that people actually ate those freaking apples. I kid you not. I’m guessing you can figure out what happened to those people — they turned into zombies. It was like a reverse Snow White. I mean, yeah, they died, but they didn’t just lie there. And nope, there were no dwarves looking after them while they lay in glass coffins. No, these assholes got up, but they were still dead. Dead
with a craving for — you guessed it. Humans! Thank you Michael McManus! *** I know you’re probably all like, “Sure you slay zombies, Agnes. Bet you do it every day, right-right. But, that’s not how zombie making works. I’ve watched all the movies, TV shows, and read all the comic books, and no, that’s not how it works.” Well, fuck you. I’m living through this. And let me tell you, about half the things you’ve read and watched are completely wrong. I get the general disbelief, believe you me, I was right there with you when one of the local geekery, Jayson, came in to my place of employment, Purple Rain, the best and only music store in town. The place sorta went under when my boss got all zombified. Anywho, Jayson ran in, which was weird, because kid does not run. Something about running ruining his swagger, I don’t know. So he runs in, all out of breath and excessively over gesturing, spouting off about a poisonous apple tree, people choking, people dying, and then popping up again with a taste for people. Our conversation possibly went down kinda like this: Jayson: Holy shit, Agnes! There are apple eating zombies in the grave yard. Me: Laughing.
Jayson: Seriously, Agnes! Me: Still laughing. Sooo, zombies have a thing for dietary fiber now? Jayson: Noooooo! They ate the Evoleen tree apples, then poof ZOMBIES! Me: Still kinda laughing. Ahh. Jayson: Agnes. Me: Not laughing. Jaaay? Jayson: Michael and his friends. They died. And now they’re…zombies… Me: Really not laughing. Jay, the pills you took earlier today, what color were they? Jayson: I haven’t taken any pills! You know how I like to spend time at the grave yard, right? Me: Concerned. Unfortunately. Jayson: Hey, now. That’s not weird, doing so has given me the advantage of knowing some pretty intimate details of some of the locals…some who have no respect for the dead, I might add. Plus, it’s kind of like a science project, observational data and whatnot.
Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer… or Whatever 57
Me: Really concerned. Jay. Point? Jayson: Right, girrrrl, they choked to death. Michael, Alex, Jaden, and Pauline, they’re all dead. I checked their pulses. They were so totally dead. Me: Extremely concerned… Jayson: Then, POW, Michael, woke up or something. Then he bit me, like really bit me, like he wanted to eat me and not in a good way! Do you understand what I am saying to you? Agnes! They all got up! Me: Confirmed 51-50. Yes, that you are turning into a zombie, because you took a pill that made you cray cray. Dude, seriously, you should go home, drink some water, and sleep it off? Kay? After some persistent shooing and aggressive arm and hand gestures, Jayson left without the intervention of the “men in white.” Ah, needless to say, the next time I saw Jayson, he hadn’t slept it off. *** Okay, ready to get to the blood and gore part? I figured. I usually fast forward to the action too. So here it goes. Like a day and a half after my conversation with Jayson, I killed my first Zombie. Picture it. I’m at Purple Rain, not really working, because that’s how I
58 Fiction
do. I’m standing behind the checkout counter checking Facebook on one screen and Perez Hilton on another, when who should walk in but Michael McManus and none too gracefully. And when I say none too gracefully, I mean he literally walked through the glass in the door. At first, I didn’t know it was Michael, and I was like two seconds from going all ninja on whoever it was breaking through the door. All I got out before I truly took in all of his grossness was, “Yo, Michael, what the fuuuu.” That was it. Dude looked messed up. Have you ever seen someone with one eye dangling from their eye socket, the optical nerve and blood vessels just hanging out, having lost almost all purpose for existence? Let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty. Another thing that wasn’t pretty were the patches of skin that seemed to be falling off of his face, arms, and through the holes in his pant legs. His skin, a pale cream color, had green veins tracing their way throughout his body. It totally reminded me of blue cheese. I knew I didn’t like that stuff for a reason. It was all I could do to keep my reaction to simply dry heaving. “Hey, Michael, looks like it’s been a rough night. You know at a certain point you just can’t party like you did in your teens, dude,” I said, with a shaky laugh,
lifting the counter leaf and stepping around from behind the counter with a chair. “Why don’t you sit down, while I go call an ambulance and a team of surgeons and dermatologists, ’kay?” Walking towards him with the chair, the stench was near unbearable, a combination of rancid milk and rotten broccoli. I pulled the chair in front of me and gently pushed it towards him so I wouldn’t have to get any closer. “Here ya go bud.” That’s when he lunged, actually it was more of an attempt to move forward quickly. Lucky for me, his feet got in his way and he tripped. His body sprawled on the 1950s-esque cream linoleum floor in front of me, pushing the chair to the side. What was unlucky for me was that he was still close enough that he was able to grab my ankle; it was like being stuck in a bear trap, without the sharp pincher thingies. He was pretty strong, even while dead. I tried to pull my ankle back, but instead ended up falling backwards onto my ass. I fought to pull myself out of his reach as he dragged me towards him like my ankle was a pulley. That’s when he attempted to take a chunk out of my ankle with his teeth! Thankfully, my jeans and Docs were in the way. Otherwise I wouldn’t be relaying this little story to you. In a panic, I kicked Michael in the face with my heavily protected right foot, breaking his nose and I’m sure
sending shards of bone up into his brain. I can only assume this, judging from the pug-like expression that was left on his face. It had little effect; that’s when I remembered Jayson’s psychotic break. Then there it was in my head, in loud neon writing, a blazing marquee, welcoming me to You’re Screwed Theater, tonight’s presentation, “Zombie!” And, okay, at this point I totally freaked, intensifying my boot-meet-face attack tactic. When he finally and unwillingly released my foot, I bolted upright and cursed the fact that the hellhole that was Purple Rain didn’t have an emergency exit. This was a freaking emergency. With Michael between me and the door, I was at a momentary loss. Just below a 1980s subway-sized album poster for Megadeth’s Killing is My Business, and Business is Good, was the store’s one and only fire extinguisher. I grabbed it, fiddling with the thingamajiggy on the top of it until it finally let loose a thick spray of white crap. Here’s the thing: when danger is between you and your way to safety, the worst thing to do is add to your peril by spraying a slippery substance between you and your ultimate escape. The moment Michael slid and fell, I bolted and even made it a whole step before I fell, sliding right into him. I used some of the momentum of the slide to
Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer… or Whatever 59
kick myself off Michael, sending my body towards the checkout counter. It was kinda like bumper cars, if bumper cars was all life and death like.
Of course, my touchdown dance came a little too soon. I jumped away as Michael started twitching and trying to get up.
Crawling under the counter’s leaf, which had fallen back down in our little scuffle, I searched for a weapon, any weapon. You’d think being in a small town there would be a gun or something, but I’d always been against them, and brilliantly talked my boss out of buying one. I could hear Michael shuffling to get up. Logically, I began pushing the contents of the counter off of it and onto him. First the computer, then cash machine, anything heavy, just to give me a bit of time.
“Ugh, why won’t you die, McFreaky?” I yelled in frustration, realizing I’d left my “weapon” on the other side of the counter, which was now blocked by freak boy. But what wasn’t blocked was the exit. I made haste out the front door, simply stepping through the middle of the door where glass had once occupied. I knew I couldn’t just leave him there to go out and biterape some other poor unsuspecting Myersville citizen.
That’s when I saw it. My boss’s prized possession: a signed imitation Platinum Record of Mariah Carey’s, The Emancipation of Mimi stuck quite undaintily in a wooden base with a pretty metal plaque. I grabbed it, holding it from the base, pointing the sharp edge of the record out as my weapon. When Michael stood up I struck, swinging the record so that the top met his neck. I let my momentum make a nice clean cut, squealing while Michael let out a noise that would have put Mariah’s highest note to shame. I watched as his body crumbled, landing haphazardly on the store’s now fallen cash machine. I opened the counter leaf, stood next to his body and gave it a fierce kick. “Ha, looks like you’ve been emancipated, bitch.”
60 Fiction
My mind was racing as I headed to my car. I had nothing sharp and convenient in my car, like a nice shiny ax, because seriously, how many people drive around with an ax in their car? Opening my trunk, my options were limited, bungee chords, tire iron, busted tire, a couple bottles of water, rainbow tutu from last Halloween, and a gallon of gasoline. Of course, I went for my only options, the rainbow tutu and the gasoline. Hey, I watched that MacGyver show on Netflix. I grabbed the pack of American Spirits I had in my back pocket and removed my lighter from inside before stuffing the tutu into the open hole of the gasoline container. I waited for Michael to make his way through the front door of Purple Rain. I stood
only a few feet from the door since I throw like a girl. It took him several minutes to stumble out; I think the fact that he could no longer hold his head up straight was a bit of a hindrance for him. Anyway, the moment he came through the door, I lit the tutu and yelled at him. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I think it was something along the lines of, “Hey zombie boy. Here, taste the rainbow.” With that, I launched the burning rainbow tutu, complete with its gasoline-flavored center right at Michael. He still caught it like an ex-jock; that’s to say, he caught it perfectly, even if the momentum of it took him to the ground. I bolted, turning around only once I was near my car. Zombie Michael was engulfed in a pretty sea of orange and blue waves. I sat on the hood of my black 1969 Mustang, feet resting on the silver bumper, and pulled out a ciggy. It was a front row seat, and honestly, watching was my insurance to make sure dude didn’t get back up. He didn’t. *** So far I’ve taken out a majority of the Myersville zombies. Unfortunately, some of the more ambitious ones have made it out of town, so zombification has been spreading faster than freakin’ wildfire through the states. I do what I can do, kick zombie ass on the regular, especially since it was my town that started all this, but I’m just one girl with a 1969 Mustang, and they are many.
So, out of love, I thought I’d drop some knowledge on you, since you’ll need it: 1) Yes, as cinematic history suggests, you WILL become a zombie if one bites you. So don’t get bit. 2) You CANNOT become a Zombie from a) ingesting their blood or b) their blood coming in contact with an open wound. It’s all about the biting since their teeth secrete this weird gelatin-esque stuff. That’s what gets ya. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. That’s just how it works. 3) If you shoot one in the head, but miss the spine it will NOT die. 4) DO use fire, it works great (as noted above), but is unfortunately hard to wield. 5) If you like a challenge, DO attempt to remove a zombie’s heart, that equals instant poof (or splat, but should be left to those who are clinically insane. 6) If all else fails, DO head for the hills and hide, this a plausible option, but may not work well for you unless you’ve been keeping up on your hunting and gathering skills. Happy Hunting…and You’re Welcome.
Agnes P. Walker: Zombie Slayer… or Whatever 61
Escape | Photograph | Dillon Petrillo
62
Contemplation in Afterlife by Steffanie Wise
A momentary wave arises from the ocean, an illusion is this: that a wave is an ocean in itself; how distant when I was able to stand, I still remember land, sitting scrubbing my skin with sand, but it doesn’t remember me. I sunk into the sea, breathing water eagerly, I was only sinking. They’d said “we’re thinking of going down do you want to go down? Come down come down” and I asked “for how long, will I cry” “For too long and you’ll die,” so I agree And I dive into the sea, breathing water eagerly, I follow into hollow and ask immediately why did I agree… I remember land, you see, and now I understand the sea.
Contemplation in Afterlife 63
Is this the essence of everything, is this An eternal ocean of bliss Within which forms are born and die And why, is there the false appearance of being real? But I forgot what I saw the second I saw it do you remember you saw it also we’re all so purpose(ful)ly blind. my (y)ears are under the ocean and the news is setting sail I’m looking pale these days are news in themselves. I was buried under the ocean when the sea, it swallowed me (a wave) before I now swallow the sea you see, I’ll swallow purposely in order to be free.
64 Poetry
I (Heart) Bag Ladies by Kaile Glick
Remember Grace Kelly’s patent leather valise (Rear Window!) it carried everything she needed to survive? I myself require a backpack, which may make me higher maintenance than Princess Grace. But being my own man & never having Jimmy Stewart offer me a cigarette (not once!) I require a backpack. Having been a student, I roll my own anyways & buy in bulk to cut costs. Having been a student I carry a layer of shredded bits with me always: the remains of library due
date slips, bus transfers, empty folders of rolling papers & half a sandwich I remembered to make & take with me but not to eat. Remember Marry Poppins furnishing a whole room from the contents of her carpet bag? One day I’d like to reach into my backpack & pull out a velveteen chaise lounge with Grace Kelly perched purse in hand. We will trade glamorous survival tips as I pick the detritus of my academic career out of her well coiffed hair.
I (Heart) Bag Ladies 65
30 Minutes with Aimee Suzara by Truc Nguyen
As I scoured the internet to prepare for my interview with Aimee Suzara, a local Filipino-American artist, I stumbled upon an impressive detail about how she wrote her first story called “The Ghost Monkey and I,” in the first grade. It involved her befriending a monkey who dies and continues to be her friend as a ghost, which sounded like a metaphysical dream sequence from a Murakami novel I’d be more than delighted to read. At a young age, this accomplished poet, activist and educator began discovering her writing voice and when I asked her about her first story she said, “I guess it’s what influenced educating for me. Everybody has their own story. It’s a continuum. I’ve been given the gift to write poems and to write stories. I feel that I can share that with others.” Lucky for us, she recognized her writing voice in the first grade and continues today, cultivating that in others through several mediums and institutions, including our very own CCSF. When Suzara teaches, she encourages her students “to become grounded in their bodies and senses before even putting pen to paper.” Being a naturally shy person, my first inclination was to say oh no, what does this mean? Does it mean if I take her class, she’ll make me dance outside of the privacy of my own apartment? Why Aimee Suzara, why? She explained to me, “In our everyday lives, we become disembodied by all the visual elements and mental work. We become heads walking around without bodies. To tap into your writing voice, it
66 66 Non-fiction
comes from your entire self.” To open up her creative writing class or workshop, she employs some dance warm ups or yoga-like techniques to encourage the blood to flow, to loosen the students and free up the creative channels. She said, “It’s the mental state that stops us,” and I thought, if swinging my arms around or stretching out could improve my writing or obtain more clarity, I’m willing to put my shy tendencies in the back seat. Currently, Suzara is working on a performance piece, A History of the Body, which had its first installment in November 2010. In this piece, Suzara explores how the female Filipino body suffered and still suffers from the effects of colonization. In the interview she brought up how “there are all these creams that Filipino women use to whiten their faces. My skin is dark and sometimes family members or others will say something like, why are you so dark? Are you always out in the sun?” It was not surprising for me to hear this but admittedly, I haven’t thought about theses sociological matters in a long time. Living in a part of the world as colorful as the San Francisco Bay Area, it can be easy to momentarily forget about the intricacies of race, culture and color. Suzara reminds us that the affects of colonization and history may be subtle, but strong; affecting the mental and physical body. This multi-disciplinary work engages the entire
self by engaging all the senses, utilizing the written word, dance, visual arts and theatre. Yes, sounds like Aimee Suzara does it all in the art world, which made me curious about how she does it. Continually having to trick myself into writing, I asked Suzara if she ever feels doubt about her work and what she does to combat that feeling. She reminded me that “doubt is part of being an artist.” It’s easy to get discouraged with writing because as she put it, “It’s difficult…because it feels like you’re never finished. There’s no immediate gratification or praise. The satisfaction is in doing it.” She said she also keeps herself inspired “by being around other authors and communities.” We ended on my favorite question to ask people, what would you eat for your last meal? She said, “Definitely something with coconut milk, maybe some kale and all the fruits I could fit.” Spending thirty minutes talking with Aimee Suzara made me hungry for some coconut milk curry but more importantly, taught me I should access my whole self from head to toe, enjoy creating for the pure act of doing so and perhaps stop being such a recluse. It’s a tall order, but I’ll work on it.
30 Minutes with Aimee Suzara 67
Saturday Mail by Justin Mazzola
Like all Saturday mail, an envelope arrives Unexpected, a forgotten treat, an ice cream cone Just as spring becomes summer. The traffic grows Quiet when I see your name, your handwriting Almost forgotten with October’s leaves, frost Returning as the ground hardens Again. You manage to say nothing In two pages, telling me about everyone But yourself. You remain The same, lovely in your mystery, The first autumn storm that harvests the trees, scattering Leaves before winter. You mention moving back To California, or perhaps Connecticut. You never could Make up your mind. You close by saying If we were meant to — And have some sort of — Followed by your name Just as I remember it, just as I remember Early sunsets peering through trees, sweaters Bridging the seasons that always seem Colder than letters bearing your name.
68 Poetry
Strawberry and Old Fashioned Cupcakes| Pastels | Jessica Parmley
69
Temperance | Digital Media | Rusa Vuong
70
Elephants on Wall Street by Louise Atcheson
New York, 1971 Having lived in New York for many years, Simone began taking day trips around Manhattan to say farewell to her favorite places before moving to California. The financial district was first on her list. She’d always loved the narrow streets and the grandness of the buildings holding the history of the city’s by-gone eras in the stone and glass of classical architecture, all best seen on Sunday when the area was deserted. As she walked up the stairs out of the cool subway station into the warmth and bright light of an early summer morning, what she encountered was so amazing that it put her brain on tilt, a troupe of elephants — connected to each other with sturdy ropes tied to their upper bodies — promenading right down the middle of Wall Street. As the majestic beasts walked slowly, carefully lifting and placing the pads of their feet on the asphalt, the chains loosely binding their legs clanged against the pavement. Glancing around, she saw official City of New York signs posted on the gray metal poles of the street lights, notifying the public that the area was closed to vehicular traffic on that day from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Incredible, she thought. Delighted with having accidentally come upon such an unusual event,
Elephants on Wall Street 71
she felt as if the parade was like a good bye present from the city and she followed along, as happy as a child at the circus.
city that’s empty on Sundays. Taking elephants for a walk on city streets seems to be an odd thing to do, but why not?
The animals, accompanied by vigilant attendants dressed in tan overall-type uniforms, were carrying leather bound goads with hooks at their tips. As they walked along, several of the men positioned near the elephant’s ears, spoke to them in low tones. Unable to hear what was being said, Simone imagined it was some combination of warnings and reassurances like: Everything’s ok. Move it along. You’re doing fine. Don’t make any trouble.
“Hey, Hey,” she called out to the sweeper. “Are you from the Ringling Brothers Circus at Madison Garden uptown?”
There was one lone camel in the group. The dromedary, with dark lashes framing its soulful eyes, walked parallel to the elephants. Led by an attendant holding a thick rope, the animal sauntered along with an air of lassitude. Its jaw moved from side to side chewing something and then another something from its rear end plopped with a splat on the street. An attendant, wheeling a broom and barrel cart further down the line, quickly appeared and swept the plop into a large pan with a long handle. Simone noticed a Ringling Brothers monogram on the attendant’s shirt pockets. That’s it, she thought, the circus is in town, and the elephants are down to Wall Street to take a walk, to get exercise in a part of the
72 Fiction
A man of few words, said, “Yup,” and hurried away. Simone looked at the people around her — all men — scurrying along, carrying black leather brief cases and wearing their signature stockbroker or bankers suits, as if it was a weekday and they were rushing to get to work on time. Not one of them even turned to glance at the elephants. Simone found their lack of curiosity just as astonishing as the sight of the animals sauntering down Wall Street. The supreme indifference of New Yorkers, she thought. As she walked along on the roped off sidewalk parallel to the parade, she marveled at the way slivers of light came from in-between the tall buildings and slid on and off the wrinkly textures of the elephants’ hides. Their short tails swishing back and forth, their ringed, sinuous trunks — furling and unfurling — and their ears, shaped like huge tropical leaves, swaying and twitching, were a kind of elephant ballet. She imagined telling her friends what she’d come across,
and although she hadn’t seen any cameramen, she wondered if the parade would be on the news. She wished she’d brought a camera. Simone thought she might hear trumpeting sounds, but the elephants were silent. After following along for about ten more minutes, it seemed that the animals were more than silent. They were lethargic. No, not lethargic, she decided. They look weary, depressed. As she began to pay attention to their small eyes, framed with wiry lashes, her delight quickly began to dissolve into somberness. She asked herself if it was possible for eyes to look both sad and dead, or was it she who felt sad because the elephant’s eyes looked so lifeless? As she walked and watched she could feel the elephant’s histories, the years of captivity and coercion that they’d endured, and the destruction of their life force. The hooked goads that the attendants were carrying weren’t just for keeping them in line. They were wicked instruments of torture that tore into flesh, used to make the animals submit to learning stupid tricks that were considered entertaining. Simone’s mind flooded with images of elephants jammed into shipping crates for ocean transport and elephants crowded into trucks for long periods of time when the circus was on tour traveling from state to
state. Watching them made her chest ache and her head hurt. She was watching a slave parade. At the end of the line, a baby elephant following closely to its mother who often turned her head every few steps to check on the little one, moved with a listless gait, its eyes telling the same sad story as the eyes of the adults. Simone felt as if she were going to burst. Behind her sunglasses, tears streamed down her cheeks. The words “soul theft” beat in her mind like a pulse. Surprised by the intensity of her response she had to get away. She quickly headed back to the subway station. She felt guilty for allowing herself to be so delighted with the parade. She felt as if she’d taken part in their oppression. She’d inadvertently colluded with their captors as well the adults who go to the circus without considering the price elephants and other performing animals pay for providing their children with entertainment. Lamenting the plight of all wild creatures in captivity for the first time in her life, Simone went down the stairs and into the subway station, wiping her eyes with a tissue, feeling she’d unknowingly participated in the ongoing circus of human folly.
Elephants on Wall Street 73
Someday My Heart Will Stop by Steffanie Wise
as you stared into my eye corners i sharpened my peripherals. my silent syllables slipped before they could ossify, and all that was solid melted into air you were: a phenomenon at first sight a potential to my touch i instinctively first observed the right side of your face; in the way social atoms acquaint themselves, i found only similar cells and molecular compliments.
74窶ケoetry
as a contemplative adolescent i rode the bus across the bay, thinking: someday my heart will stop loving someday my heart will stop hating someday my heart will stop and all the loving and all the hating and all the feelings i have for you will be one dark blanket covering me in the same warmth.
High Coo
by Real Lapalme
his mother at work babe with bottle in playpen lifetime of thirst
stuffed vinyl chrome chairs formica kitchen table bottles clean ashtray
heavy snow then rain flash freeze to black ice, sun thaw salt bright on blacktop
not a wannabee this white man with love for mom’s native eyes, her high cheeks
High Coo 75
76 Poetry
two sisters on sidewalk one black haired the other white merciful twilight
dropped shoe a loud slap sharp in-breath suitor startled from dream of church bells
cloud stampede above ocean waves in collision sharp patterns of sparks
forgotten flowers in field source of seed filled fruit no fruits from cut blooms
speedy branches of silk spiderweb silent flight across the white orb
alcohol tissues at the limit of vision sharp blade tip in flesh
under apple trees footprints in rain of petals the bride’s laugh a song
smell of hot asphalt by the taco truck hungry for your long gone touch
dented pickup truck at the flea market blue veins on two trembling hands above saws, drills, tools laid out
bottom of the hill papers, bottles, empty six packs city’s wind blown trash
golden sand, green waves the other shore a gray haze under lifting fog
High Coo  77
Morning Bird | Photograph | Justin Mazzola
78
What I Learned from Camping with my Dad by Alexandra Brooklyn Blair
The serenity of such a piece of glorious nature is striking. The abundance of such pure, unaltered beauty gives the gift of beauty in return. When in the presence of such magnitudes of allure, one loses the grip they once may have had on their own self worth; stiff, bitter ugliness is chipped away and one is left to bask, gorgeous by association, in the magnificence of such a reality. Standing on this rock, my own bitter facade is melted away by the unashamed intensity of the rich golden sun, blown back by the gently prodding digits of the aqua winds, tickled out of its seriousness by the feathery fragrance of pungent mosses and crabgrass. There is no enhancing this beauty. There is no ‘up’ from here. I suppose this can be paralleled only by the fabled entrancing enticements of Eden herself. It is said, often, that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, yet, here, in observance of such untainted, unchanged purity, surrounded by magnificence, beauty undoubtedly lies within the beholder. It fills one up like a balloon of radiance and escapes, glowing, pouring out through the very pores of the skin and the entirety of the moment is unified in this solitary beam of tremulous light.
What I Learned from Camping with my Dad 79
Doppelgangers | Pastels | Jessica Parmley
80
B irthday Cake and Baby Teeth by Monty Heying
July 1963 THE DOORS of the bus knuckle inward as it rumbles to a stop at the curb in front of the children’s home. Matt steps up, drops in two dimes and takes a transfer as the bus spews a burst of air and pulls into the Sunday afternoon traffic. He takes out a slip of paper and sits directly behind the driver, studying the address, then leans forward. “Excuse me, can you tell me if there’s a bus that goes down McCart?” “You can transfer to number six at Hemphill, downtown,” the driver says over his shoulder. “Six will get you all the way out to Seminary Drive on McCart.” “Thanks.” Matt slouches against the cushion, glad for some relief from the July heat. As the pecan orchard glides past the window, he reflects on the mystery of why, after all this time, his mother had called. “Tell Matt he’s got a phone call!” Mrs. Crow yelled toward the back of the dormitory. He took the call on the hallway phone. His mother’s giddy highpitched voice greeted him.
Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth 81
“Hello, Mr. High School Graduate! You’re going to be eighteen next Monday. I want to make you a birthday cake!” It had been two years since he last saw her and this was the first time she ever called on the dormitory phone. “Hi. Uh… Sure,” He responded, trying to imagine her face. He didn’t even have a picture of her. What did she look like after all this time? And his half-sisters, Janet and Lisa? Janet would be almost eight. She was in diapers the year he entered the Home. Lisa, he’s never seen. How old would she be? Five? “What kind would you like?” his mother had said. “Chocolate used to be your favorite.” He didn’t know what to say. “Chocolate’s fine.…It’s great.” “Or I could bake you a pie. Banana cream or chocolate? It’s your birthday; you get to choose whichever one you want!” “…Cake. Chocolate, sure. That’s good.” It made him dizzy trying to think about this. Why was she doing this? After hanging up, he stands by the phone, wondering if he should have told her about the scholarship.
82 Fiction
Entranced by the hypnotic rocking of the bus, Matt’s mind wanders to another time and another chocolate cake, one she’d made when he was how old? Six? His mouth waters as he remembers the anticipation as he came in from playing outdoors at Aunt Carrie’s aroma filled house — that rush of hot air as the oven door opened exposing four steaming round pans — Mildred arranging the thick brown disks, one after another, nailing them down with toothpicks, mortaring them, layer upon layer, with her home-made chocolate icing. MILDRED SLIDES OPEN the closet door and stands in bra and panties, looking over her limited options. She knows that the only thing that fits is another print house dress, yet she moves the hangers back and forth, remembering when she could wear those other things in the back. Her pulse quickens. He’s really coming; supposed to be here around two-thirty. Spunky must be big now. All grown up. She sighs and gums her lips. What will he be like? How much will he look like his father? “Mommy! Janet hit me!” Lisa calls from the living room, where cartoons are on television. “She bit me!” Mildred tosses the thin dress onto the bed, then stoops to fish for shoes among the dirty clothes and clutter at the bottom of her closet. Slippers are all that
fit her swollen feet. She chooses the gold ones with elastic around the tops. “Mommy!” Lisa yells. “I did NOT hit her!” Janet lisps. She’ll grow out of it, Mildred thinks as she steps into the dress, pulls it up and buttons before the cracked full-length mirror. She winces at the thick waistline obscuring her now invisible hips. How many miscarriages have there been? “Fist abortions,” Troy calls ’em. He always laughs when he says it. What could be funny about that? She shudders, sits at the dresser and begins brushing her hair. Lisa comes in and stands next to her with a battered naked doll clamped upside-down and unblinking under her arm. From the mirror, the five-year-old smiles back at her mother with decayed teeth. She is thin, with a delicate turned-up nose. Mildred thinks she looks just like her half-sister, Anne, when she was that age. Where is Anne, anyway? Mildred turns and begins absently brushing Lisa’s fine brown hair. In the next room, Mickey Mouse is rescuing Minnie. THE BUS CRUISES past places Matt and Anne had frequented when they lived with Mildred before coming to the orphanage — the Mexican Inn, the 312 Club, a yellow brick house at Bomar Street. In those days, home had been a relative concept, like being
afloat, drifting between the motels, bars and clubs along East Lancaster Avenue — a week or two here, four weeks there. Without supervision, the vagabond pair had taken full advantage of their freedom to explore. The bus passes a grassy field where they’d used an abandoned refrigerator as a hideout and had pushed a giant wooden cable spool upright and sent it rolling downhill. Next comes the Park Plaza Motel, with the drive-in theater behind it where they’d climbed inside the silver screen and used the steel framework as monkey bars. Oblivious to danger, they’d been drawn to anything curious or exciting, and they have the scars to show for it. A cloud of diesel fumes catches up to the bus at the Beach Street traffic signal. As the engine idles, Matt reflects on the last time he saw his mother. Great-aunt Carrie usually came alone for visitation, so he was shocked when Mildred showed up in a blue ’58 Chevy with Aunty riding shotgun. He pictures Mildred behind the wheel, giving him a driving lesson on a nearby gravel road. She’d seemed happy, almost carefree. It was one of the best times he’d ever spent with her. Troy wasn’t there. Maybe that was the reason. The light changes, and the bus lunges into the heat. Matt opens his window all the way and unbuttons his shirt. He’s proud of the new Madras shirt and Levis he bought with his earnings from driving a delivery truck
Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth 83
for Book Nook. He’s proud of the scholarship and that he’ll be starting college next month. He wonders what Mildred will think about that and about him. He remembers the first time Mildred came for visitation. It was a warm spring day in March, 1955, a week after his arrival at the Home. The curbside doors of Troy’s ’52 Buick were swung open for ventilation. Matt and Anne sat in the back with Aunty, who kept fanning her large presence with a church pamphlet. Mildred and Troy were in front. Troy leaned over the front seat holding out their marriage license, reading from it, aloud. The next time they came was eight months later. Janet was in his mother’s arms, feeding from a bottle. “It’ll just be a couple more weeks, and we’ll come get you,” she said. The next month, Aunty came alone, delivering the message with a somber face. “They’ve gone to live in Colorado. Troy said he didn’t want to raise someone else’s kids. The ornery cuss is running from child support. He’s got five other kids from another marriage.” Matt remembers the sting and confusion of those words. She said a couple of weeks. She said! The weeks piled up into months, then years. Time kept swallowing his mother and spitting her back out.
84 Fiction
During the eight-plus years he’d lived at the Home, Mildred had come to visit maybe four times. Not even a Christmas card, and now she wants to make me a birthday cake? What’s the point? Matt shakes his head. Still, somewhere inside he knows he has to see her, because she had called him. After changing buses, the trip south on McCart is brief. Matt covers the remaining three blocks from the bus stop on foot, unconsciously avoiding cracks in the sidewalk. He stops in front of the house with the correct street numbers, a white wood-framed corner house next to a railroad crossing. It’s quiet except for the cicadas taking turns drumming the air. The front yard is weeds and hard-packed earth. Tall shoots of Johnson grass nod gently behind a scraggly rose bush. He hesitates. It’s only a few steps to the porch, but his feet seem rooted in the sidewalk. He knows he’s supposed to want to see his mother, but he doesn’t want to and thinks something is wrong with him for feeling this way. He wonders what he should call her. He mouths the words — mommy, mom and mother — but they are like feathers on his tongue. The screen door opens slightly, and a small arm and matching leg wrap around the black door frame, followed by a child’s face. Matt starts forward, and the little girl’s limbs fold away like a spider disappearing into a hole.
Cake aroma greets him at the door. He knocks. He can see his mother’s dim silhouette through the screen, backlit by the kitchen window.
“Hi.” Matt smiles and waves at the girls, then he turns toward the mother he hasn’t seen for most of the last nine years.
“Is that you, Spunky?” Pots and pans rattle, and she comes. Matt hasn’t been called by his childhood nickname in years. It makes him feel small. His mouth is dry. He clears his throat.
Mildred’s shoulder-length wavy brown hair is fluffed and combed back on the sides, fixed in place with plastic barrettes. She wears thick makeup and red lipstick, her chipped nails a matching color. A yellow apron with tired-looking ruffles covers her dress. Her face looks puffy compared to how he remembers her; still, she’s prettier than most of the mothers of his friends at school.
“Um…Hi!” “Hi-i-i!” she says, pushing the door open wide. “You found us!” She looks up at him, smiling. “Come in! Your cake’s almost ready!” “Hi. It was easy. The buses were on time.” She steps aside. “Look how tall you are. Your father was six feet. You’ll be six feet too.” She pats his shoulder as he steps over the threshold. Embarrassed, he walks into the front room, blinking to adjust to the dimness. “Come over here and let’s look at you” she says, motioning toward the kitchen. “Janet! Lisa! Come see your big brother!” Janet stands in a doorway, beaming a shy smile and pulling at her stringy shoulder-length hair. Lisa, the spider girl, peeks over the top of a chrome-legged kitchen table. The girls are barefoot. Their everyday dresses are worn and dingy.
“Janet, Lisa. Don’t be shy. He won’t bite you,” Mildred says, glancing back and forth between the girls and Matt. “Come sit. The cake is almost ready.” She moves toward the kitchen table. As Matt pulls out a chair, Lisa giggles and climbs a stool near the sink. She perches there, gumming her lips to repress a smile that eventually blossoms to reveal her cavities and two stubby new front teeth. It feels like her eyes have been following him since he came through the door. Janet marches up and sits at the table, repeatedly drawing a strand of hair through her mouth. She cocks her head, looking directly at Matt. “It’s okay. They’re just baby teeth,” Mildred says, noticing Matt’s reaction. “I have just a few finishing touches here.” Using the stove as a work surface,
Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth 85
she scoops chocolate icing from a bowl with a long rectangular knife and applies it with mechanical care to the cake. “Janet, would you pour some milk for you and Lisa?”
croons “Volare!” from a radio on the kitchen counter: Just like birds of a feather, a rainbow together we’ll find. The excitement has worn off, and a cloud of weariness comes over him.
The plump almost eight-year-old jumps up and goes to the refrigerator.
Mildred sets the perfect cake on the kitchen table and begins applying the candles. “I made it from scratch. I always make my cakes from scratch.”
“Do you want milk or iced tea?” Mildred looks at Matt. “I made some fresh.” “Milk,” he says, without hesitating. “No…tea.” The girls look at each other and giggle. He looks around, feeling like he’s on display. There’s a faint odor of dirty clothes, cigarettes, beer and whiskey. The kitchen sink is full of unwashed dishes. The counter is cluttered with cooking utensils and an overflowing ashtray. Through the kitchen window comes the distant sound of a train’s horn. From where he sits, Matt has a view of the living room past the stove and over the arm of a badly worn leather easy chair. Curtains partially drawn over broken Venetian blinds darken the room. On the coffee table, another bulging ashtray is partially covered by a newspaper. Ashes and butts have spilled onto the floor. Weathered magazines and comic books are carelessly stacked and strewn. Dirty clothes are piled on a vinyl-covered couch. Dean Martin
86 Fiction
Matt smiles as he remembers when he and Anne lived at their great-aunt Carrie’s. “I remember Aunty used to say, ‘No box cakes at my house.’” “Lisa, get down from there,” Mildred says, and Lisa climbs down from the stool to sit in front of the glass of milk. “Eighteen candles,” Mildred says, smiling toward Matt. He watches as she and the two girls finish distributing them evenly across the glistening chocolate, each candle in its individual decorative sugary white base. Half those years were in the Home, Matt thinks. Most of the rest were at Aunty’s. Why am I here? The girls giggle and exchange looks again as Mildred lights the candles. “Okay, let’s all sing ‘Happy Birthday.’” As they sing, Matt flashes to the orphanage dining room with seventy voices singing “The Birthday Song.” It seems like every week someone is having a birthday there. Next week the song will be for him and Roy Ingstrom.
“Make a wish! Make a wish!” the girls yell and clap when the song is finished. Matt hesitates, then closes his eyes. For a moment there’s a surge of longing, but he lets it go. He inhales, purses his lips, then blows. He keeps blowing after the flames are out, pushing air until his lungs are empty. The three children watch as Mildred slices a large piece of cake and hands the dish to Matt. She cuts smaller pieces for the two girls and herself. Matt and the girls exchange glances over grinning mouthfuls of cake. Their glasses are printed with colorful ocean scenes of shells, fish and seaweed. The girls giggle at their milk moustaches. Matt takes his time, cutting small bites, chewing slowly, making it last. It’s the same perfect taste that he remembers. Better than anything. Mildred pulls a cigarette from a pack of Kools and lights up. “Oh, crap!” she chuckles through a mouthful. “I forgot the tea!” She goes to the counter for the pitcher and begins to fill the glasses. The pitcher slips. Tea spills. “Goddammit! Shit!” she says, stamping a foot. “Janet, go get the mop. Quick!” “Shit!” Janet says. She jumps up and rushes out, then returns with a damp mop reeking of mildew. Mildred puts a full glass of tea down hard on the table in front of Matt and cleans up the spill, then leans the mop against the wall at the end of the counter. Janet returns to her seat. The girls exchange looks and
wrinkle their noses at the smell. The locomotive’s air horn sounds again, louder this time. Mildred returns to her seat, and continues eating. “How’s Troy?” Matt says, studying her face. Her smile disappears. “He’s at work,” she says, puffing the cigarette. “He manages two Fina stations over on Hemphill. He’s hardly ever home — works days and most nights.” Mildred lifts her head, gazing blankly out the kitchen window revealing a bruise on her neck, partially covered by makeup. Matt doesn’t notice the bruise. He doesn’t like being here, but he doesn’t want to be rude and leave too soon. He struggles for things to say, but there’s too much. His mind floods with fragments of their history: Mildred being attacked by a chow and Uncle Ray threatening to cut off the dog’s head with a butcher knife; Mildred pinching him so he’ll cry himself to sleep; Mildred’s voice: “You kids are NOT going to ruin my young life. I’m going to live high, love hard, and die young!”; the strangling, overwhelming terror as the glowing red coil of a cigarette lighter comes at him in the dark. Unconscious of doing so, he rubs the scar. And invisible over his head hangs the question he can’t ask. Why hadn’t she come? “It’s hot.” Matt wipes his forehead with a napkin and gulps tea. “You put mint in the tea. It’s been a long
Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth 87
time since I had mint.” He gulps more tea and rattles the ice cubes. Mildred refills his glass. “It grows right outside the back door,” she says. “Is it sweet enough?” She nudges the sugar bowl closer. Matt remembers the patch of mint in Aunty’s garden. He knocks a spoon off the table. Reaching down for it, he notices a large bruise on Mildred’s calf next to the long scar from the chow attack. He frowns, wondering about the bruise. “Aunty used to send me out to pick mint when she made tea,” he says, returning upright. Lisa gets down from her chair. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she says, and trots through a doorway, tripping on a rug. “Godammit!” she whispers. Janet smothers a giggle with her hand. Mildred doesn’t notice. She takes a long drag from the cigarette, and her gaze follows the plume of smoke out the kitchen window. The train horn sounds. “Janet, how old are you now?” he says, looking at her. “I’m eight in December. I like your shirt.” He notices how much Janet resembles Troy. He thinks Lisa favors his mother. He wonders about genes — how much of his mother is in him? How much of me is my father? Will I have kids one day and leave like they did?
88 Fiction
“What grade will you be in when school starts?” “Fourth grade,” Janet says, tonguing a decayed tooth. “I like your shirt.” Matt glances down at the buttons. “Thanks. It came from India. What’s your favorite subject?” “I hate school,” she says. “School’s yucky!” Mildred smiles, still gazing dreamily out the window. “I went to your school,” she says, glancing at Matt. “Poly High, Class of ’38. I was in the first graduating class in your new building.” She chuckles. “It was brand new then. I was in dance club, the Rockettes.” She sits up, shakes her hair and exhales another plume. Surprised, Matt pictures his mother sitting behind him in Mrs. Graves’ English class. He imagines her in the auditorium during pep rally and in the lunch room, flirting with football players. By the time he finishes the cake, Matt is squirming in his chair. He needs to pee, but he wants out of there. “Thanks for the cake. It was really super,” he says, rising. “I need to go. I have to be back by five.” He’s not due back at the Home until six, when the orphanage bus leaves for church. Mildred comes out of her reverie and looks at Matt. “What are you going to do now that you’re out of school?”
Matt gets up. “I got a scholarship to Arlington State. I’m leaving in a couple of weeks.” He glances at her, and then stares down at his feet. “Oh! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you! Girls, Spu…, Matty’s going to college!” The girls exchange puzzled looks. “Yeah, I didn’t even know about it until the last day of school. Some sort of benevolent fund.” He moves toward the door. Mildred gets up, turning to join him as Matt takes slow, deliberate steps, wondering what to say. The girls remain in their chairs. At the door, Mildred puts a hand on his arm, looking up at him, smiling. “Come see me before you leave. Will you come say goodbye?” “Yeah, sure.” He glances at her face as he moves past. “See you guys later.” He turns to wave, smiling at the girls. Mildred catches the screen door as he steps through. Halfway to the street, he turns and waves again. Mildred and the girls are there, waving.
catch the wind. A southbound freight train rumbles behind the white house. A blast from the horn drops a half-tone as the engine goes by. He sighs, glad to be heading back to the sanity of Mrs. Crow and the dormitory. He thought it would feel good to tell her about winning the scholarship. He thought he wanted her to be proud of him, that it would be a big deal. But he feels empty, as if it were nothing. Why don’t I feel better about this? He turns away from the window and studies the empty seats on the sunny side. He hopes she doesn’t call again. As the bus accelerates and the wind blows his hair, a good feeling sweeps through him. He feels lighter. He sits up straight and looks ahead. Minnows. We’re like a bunch of minnows swimming around, growing up to be fish. Well, I don’t want to be a fish. I’m going to walk on land. I’m going to climb mountains. He pictures Janet and Lisa. Baby teeth. She said that same thing about mine. I’m lucky. Really lucky.
THE CITY BUS GROANS away from the curb, listing to the right from the weight of passengers avoiding the sun-baked hot seats on the left-hand side. Matt knows it will be an uncomfortable ride with a full bladder, but he had to get away from there. He slouches into a seat on the cool side and turns his face in the window to
Birthday Cake and Baby Teeth 89
No Face | Ink on paper | Brian Ogden
90
What Monsters Eat by Justin Mazzola
Demons like their food Chopped, chilled, and served With sorrow. Monsters prefer meals Delivered hot, freshly picked From fear. Most giants enjoy Large helpings of hopes Unmet, disappointment in a dish. I see them more often lately, hiding Behind trash cans and trees, smiling When she ends kisses early or pulls Her hand from mine. The table is set Somewhere, waiting for the meal We’ve almost finished preparing.
  What Monsters Eat  91
Susan Jackson Interview by Kyanne Rose
Susan Jackson doesn’t, on first impression, seem like she would have grown up in the South. She’s a tall, thin woman and her white hair is cut short; she dresses mostly in somber blacks and greys, like a true city girl. Any telltale Southern accent is mostly removed from her speech. But that may be the point: her plays, produced mostly with her Southern Railroad Theatre Company, are dedicated to showing all the nuances of Southern life and people. She means to dispel the myth of a homogeneous Southern personality with her writing. Jackson sat for an interview to elaborate on this. Kyanne Rose: How did you find your way into playwriting? Susan Jackson: I wrote a couple things a long time ago that I just wrote and just kept, but not really thinking much of them. And then, about 2008, I took a short-story about my mother, turned it into a monologue, gave it to the Marin Fringe, and found someone to direct it and it got an award. So all of a sudden I went: huh. I had taught playwriting, not really sure what I was doing, but hadn’t had any interest in it then. It wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do. But once that monologue came into existence we went to the SF Fringe, so I added my grandmother and Marion Peallin — and that’s kind of how it happened. It didn’t happen because I told myself ‘I want to be a playwright.’ Or: ‘I am a playwright.’ Or: ‘I have things to say.’ It happened because, like most things in my life, it just did.
92 Non-fiction
And now I think mostly in plays. I have probably 25 or 30 short plays and three full-length. It really happened by accident. I never woke up and decided to be a playwright. KR: What are some of the differences you’ve found between writing prose and playwriting? SJ: You have a certain narrative in poetry and prose that you don’t really have in a play — that is, the narrative is in the dialogue, it’s spoken through the characters. I think there’s a more succinctness to writing prose and poetry and not in plays. Plays are conversations. KR: What about plays made you choose that medium to express your characters? SJ: I’m better at writing conversations than I am at story. The story line comes afterwards — oh there’s the story! — and conversation leads you into that, but I don’t have to worry about going from A to B to C to D. I just let the characters take over. In plays your characters will take you there. KR: Your plays focus on Southern life: what about the South did you want to bring to the Bay Area? SJ: I actually never really intended that to happen, I just wrote characters. My first play is about my
mother, who’s not actually Southern, but I chose to write [about] the Southern people during the time of her decline. The second play I wrote was about my grandmother, who was also not Southern; but all of a sudden it was as if this background I had took hold and Marion Peallin, who is a combination of several people I know, spoke to me. And then I wrote this absolutely, totally, silly piece just as an homage to someone I knew who had a truck stolen — and she said this is hysterical, we oughtta do this. So all of a sudden that whole world of what we call ‘nice white trash’ came about. And while I was writing it and while I was watching other people’s work, it occurred to me that people have a misconception of the South — and I understand that. There are some people who aren’t nice people; there are people who are racist and homophobic in the South. But you can really find that anywhere. I just felt like, being from the South and being raised liberal, I could somehow present it in a way that was not patronizing to Southern people, or insulting. That being from the South I have that authenticity, that I could do that. Southern people get such a bad rap: I know this because when I tell people I’m from North Carolina they usually look appalled. People really just think we’re all idiots out there, and don’t
Susan Jackson Interview 93
see the full complexity of the culture. So it ended up as an homage. I began writing about the South as an homage. I suppose there was also a certain selfrighteousness. Like yes I eat hush puppies and there’s nothing wrong with that, I also eat glutenfree, organic whatever. KR: How do you think people have reacted to these characters — these different representations of Southern folk? SJ: The people I have spoken to have loved them, with the exception of one person, who felt like we were doing Southern stereotypes. And what she doesn’t understand is that these people are not Southern stereotypes. I call my characters the Crazies, because they’re outlandish. Peaches Masterson, who never lies but has been known to steal; Crazy Lacy and Salacious Peter Mann — and they all have good hearts. Salacious is a liar and a cheat, but you find out more about him and he comes to the aid of Marion Peallin, who’s this high society matron; their intentions are good. Even Marion Peallin, who says the most inappropriate things: her intentions are good. These people are so...they’re not racist, they’re not homophobic, they eat more than hush puppies, they like Kombucha. People love them, they recognize the goodness in them.
94 Non-fiction
KR: Where do you get these characters? How do they come to you? SJ: They possess me. Peaches Masterson and Nandy possessed me and they have not let up. I have a tape recorder with me, in my car, and when I feel it coming on — don’t worry about me, I’m driving fine — I have to let them speak. They do possess me. KR: When you find this character’s voice, or it finds you, how do you develop that? How does a possessor become a character to become a part of your plays? SJ: I usually do what I call ‘non-editing,’ which is where I write everything down. And then I let it sit. I look at it the next day and add more, sometimes take out stuff. Usually there are a finite number of pages people [judging for competitions] are looking for — short plays are ten pages — and that can usually come about fairly rapidly. I try to write everyday. Even if it’s just revisions. I try to make sure I connect with the words everyday. I go see a lot of plays, because that helps. A lot. I’m a member of the [Dramatists] Guild and I was a member of Playground and those two require at some point you bring in your work. It’s a discipline.
Some of the plays I’ve written I don’t know where they’re going to go, so they’re in that pile. Some plays are finished, but I know they need revisions. It’s always a work in progress. When I send something out I always think ‘I should have done that instead.’ Eventually you do have to let them go. But I revisit them a lot. I let them sit a month or two and revisit them and ask myself if it’s as good as I thought it was. And sometimes they’re... poop. I like to keep the poop to remind myself I can write poorly and to remind myself never to go back to that ridiculous story again; to just keep writing better. KR: You direct some of your plays for your Southern Railroad Theatre Company. What is the biggest difference between directing your characters on paper and directing them on stage? SJ: The actors bring in a lot of stuff. They bring in a lot of stuff that never would have occurred to me. Sometimes they’ll ask me: Is this what you intended? And I usually don’t know. I don’t write in a lot of stage direction. Actors bring in the live sequence. I try not to direct myself. I try to direct as little as possible because I want other directors to come in and bring out their viewpoints. Having live actors, you can really see what’s supposed to
be happening. And it’s good because you can see where the logic doesn’t work, you can see how the action/reactions are set up. It’s just great. And most playwrights like to have actors at some point read their work out loud because you get so much more from that. KR: How did you start your Southern Railroad Theatre Company? SJ: When you go to the SF Fringe you have to have some sort of theatre company. Everything we do has a Southern flavor to it and every play I write has a train in it, or a reference to a train, so we got the name Southern Railroad. Our plays, you have to just jump on for the ride. The other reason for the name is a little morose: my father was killed by a train when he was 76 and it really had an impact on me. I’m not sad about it now, but it was just so sudden and awful. He lived in a small Southern town and, well, everybody reacted. My father was the minister. People brought food, we had a huge service for him with 400 people in attendance. Something about that — that kind of dramatic moment in your life — is always going to be there with you. In way, again, it was homage to that. I wasn’t trying to take
Susan Jackson Interview 95
advantage of it. It was an homage to the sudden and tragic death of my father, which ultimately led to the decline of my mother, which ultimately led to the play that won the award. That’s kind of the Southern way of life. Tragedy brings everybody together. People come over to your house with food, they take your dog for a walk, — it really brings out the strength in people. KR: It’s the essence of real Southern hospitality. SJ: It’s totally genuine. Some of the people who were caregivers for my mother had lives you could just not imagine. Their children have died, their husbands have died. These are really strong people; I’m sure it’s true about every part of the country, don’t misunderstand me, but in the South everyone knows each other in these small towns. And the outcome from my experience in these small towns is usually positive. People come together. They help. There are a lot of negative people in the South of course, but there are so many good people. And I know so many people who have come around. Bigots, racists, homophobes — they’ve come
96 Non-fiction
around, they’ve read books and kept up with things; stuff has happened in their family. Their hearts are good and their hearts are open. And that’s what my theatre company hopes to show. We want to take on these big issues and show how the good people of the South try to answer them.
For I Am Not Breaking by Susan Jackson
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA—THE PRESENT. Marion Peallin is writing a letter and holding some photos. She is dressed in a robe and gown and drinking a martini. MARION reading some of the letter Dear Franklin. I know the lawyers say we aren’t supposed to communicate; Gerald’ll be furious. But I was going through some old photos, and found our honeymoon train ride to — And here’s the picture of you, when you were in elementary school. I was looking for a picture of us on our first date. Remember Polaroid cameras? Annie gave me a list of questions to ask you on our first date. She says that if you “pass” then I should see you again. You passed. But I guess you know that. But you never knew that Annie was instrumental in getting us together. Still my best friend after all these years….
For I Am Not Breaking 97
“What do you like to eat most?” You say, “anything ripe from a garden or farm.” You were organic before the word was coined! I was so thrilled that a potential judicial candidate would ask me, Marion Nobody, out for a date. And like to eat things from a garden. Because I can do that — gardening. Then I ask, “What embarrasses you the most?” Whoops. Wrong question. Silence. Something I could never get used to. Finally, over dessert, you tell me, “When I was in kindergarten my French teacher never taught us how to spell. We’re five years old, what did we care about spelling? In my first year of junior high, I see a girl I like, and I send her a note. I ask her if she wants to come to my house for a party.” You tell me you sign it with “merci”, but since you don’t know how it’s spelled, you write, “m-e-r-c-y”. She shows it to all her friends and they laugh at you for your ignorance. You vow that will never happen to you again. I think I fell in love with you right then. You wanted to impress that young girl and your... suddenly very angry Franklin. I kept your house. For 25 years. Let me keep it now. I fixed the meals, I made sure things were clean—I gardened. Please. Of course there are the other things, and Gerald tells me I need to keep my ass covered, but the most important thing is to stay here… Ass Covered! I tell him to say “behind”, not “ass” He thinks I’m a bit of a prude. He doesn’t know what I always say when I’m late: “I’m running a little behind”. she pats her butt and she laughs You never thought that was funny. Anyway, Franklin. You have a new life. You have a….baby boy. You have a place to be. Our girls are all grown up. Going their separate ways. All I have is Precious.
98 Non-fiction
Oh God, here’s a picture of Bessie. Oh, how the girls loved that dog. I still remember we put Bessie down. You called it that: “putting her down” as if that would make it easier. I know you wanted to protect the girls when you took Bessie to the vet even though I begged you to let them say goodbye. They came home, expecting to see her, but the house was empty. You tell them Bessie’s in a better place; that she’d fallen asleep and never woke up. And the next day, we bury her ashes. She’s here, in the backyard. Along with the doll baby that Becca buried when it finally was just in tatters, and that bird Ginny tried to save. And Annie’s love letters from that boy who broke her heart at the tender age of ten. Misty’s braces. Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, Evelyn’s “dead cake”. The one she made for girl scouts that was so hard, it couldn’t be cut. It was shaped like a...like a….what? Oh God, Franklin, I can’t remember the shape of that stupid cake! she cries she writes the rest I’m not going to beg you to let me keep the house. I’m just asking for a little merci. Spelled with a “y”. Merci, Franklin, Merci. Lostarts to write “love”, changes her mind — Marion. She folds up the letter, adds the photo of their honeymoon trip, and takes the last sip of the martini and licks the envelope. BLACKOUT
For I Am Not Breaking 99
Not Enough| Linocut | Carmen MelĂŠndez
100
Brother of Mine by Kaylo X.
When I called you for the first time in sixteen months you were doing over eighty on a fifty-five leaving work on your lunch break. You only had a moment to talk I couldn’t tell you what I needed to say you needed to hear, but I could tell could hear it in your voice, brother Cradled visions of yourself strapped into the bomber jet set for air strike with stranger men’s stone faces surroundingyour soldier brothers Brother of mine, nocturnal omens come scraping and knocking at the back door of your skull like wolf ready to blow brick house down
Brother of Mine 101
You’ve been to the desert before they called it basic, they called it your building blocks, they called it The beginning A permeating light glows around you as you glance at your hands on the wheel you’ve seen the end Deployed Eight letter words comes crashing through my phone like a Pakistani building being crushed by a drone Love, Brother When? Four months (too soon) How long? Six months (stop loss) Where? The desert (kill and be killed) The desert The desert storm comes storming Like waves of assault rifles washed up shore Military uniforms, helmets, letters from long distance lost but never forgotten lovers washed up shore, but no bodies
102 Poetry
no bodies not a single body washed up shore Vanished like smoke up a chimney and we are the fire burning sending you up up to sky Ready to die cause your whole life’s a lie under contract restricted denied But brother of mine, you give the best hugs like you’re squeezing goodbye for the very last time Don’t let go hold tight and don’t go stay home and hold tight
Brother of Mine 103
Anxious Vacuum | Etching | Carmen MelĂŠndez
104
Hysteria
by Zhayra Palma
Like earthquakes, my fearlessness is reflected in my outbursts as well as my moments of silence. A warrior, sipping tea. Though not in the cups of serenity but in the kettles upon kettles of boiling, scorching, overwhelming fear, obsessive thoughts, phobias and nonsense. My image of love is never fully tender, never will be. Parts of my childhood cannot be erased, not entirely. Though some keepsakes are so sharp and profane they have been banished from memory. Better she will be crushed in silence. My inconvenience was his comfort. But, life went on and suddenly, a scared little girl possessed me. Life goes on on to school on to work on to destructive relationships that someday taught me how to fully destroy someone else’s heart.
Hysteria 105
I have fingerprints all over my body, invisible evidence. Some of my own choosing. I have marked myself, scarred myself for the thrill, desecrated the space between myself and acceptance, traded my small breasts for a quiet place to sleep, endured the branding, drunk and forgetting, tainted all of my lips with the smell of money. Reckless and beautiful, each time I embraced ugly with a broken heart a swollen labia and a terrible conviction. I have truly marked myself, but I have also known the quiet sting of being marked. Women like me are not meant to go on and yet each evening I do. Rather than quietly vanish I relieve madness, in a dream. Awake. Sometimes Out loud, and on your time. We build cathedrals of virgin icons and blindfolded madonnas, we worship them equally so long as we can blame them once they begin to crumble.
106窶ケoetry
So I pray: Silent woman, full of grace pray for our sinners now in this defining hour as we ignore tears cried aloud as we ignore women we see as public nuisance, on a street corner with a raging stomach and an empty cup. And a past, a past too thick for us to slow down, and let in. Unfettered we pick up the pace & turn up our iPods. Soothing music will drown out noise, violence and hysteria. Spare change may cure it. But taking blame, a non-option. Better she will be crushed in silence. Her inconvenience is our comfort. Peace lives next door to you in a house with decaying boards, boasting shambles and true compassion. We lock our doors, chain our hearts & hope it will transform into something more becoming more belonging
more like you. A book of poetry. A fire place. A clean street to walk down & healthy good-natured women. Crisis bound and a she, I am also a we & we are held down by our own skin, ripples of sins we have been solely blamed for. My sacred places have been designated disgraced. My vulva heavy with penance & unwanted justifications, bodies like mine are meant to be silenced, some of us don’t even have memories, but this body remembers, and it will confess, act up and retaliate until I get it right or end up dead. But it refuses to be quiet. I am not terrified, though I have been terrorized. Shaken I am awakened each time I refuse to turn a blind eye. The fine hairs on the small of my back sometimes repelling and attracting the same madness. Sometimes, my body embodies hysteria, like earthquakes confronting your comfort.
 Hysteria 107
Washington Sky | Photograph | Justin Mazzola
108
The Train
by Michael Thomson
My old man and I got into it again after he found the whiskey under my bed. It was nothing new. My run-ins with him had begun about three years ago, when he caught me smoking with Holly, the girl who lived next door. He made me smoke the rest of pack in front of him, one cigarette after another, until I threw up. It was supposed to teach me to hate smoking, but all I learned was not to smoke eighteen cigarettes in a row. Then there was the time he caught me with one of his Playboys. He whipped me with that old brown leather belt of his — the one I’d made for him at Father Hitchen’s summer camp. I tried jumping to get out of the way, but even after ten beers, he still managed to catch me on my thirteen-year-old legs, and I had to wear shorts for a week after that because it stung when my pants rubbed up against my knees. But this time, this time he got really angry. This time when he went for his belt, I showed him my fists. That old bastard really knew how to throw a punch. Though he only hit me once, he made sure it was a good one. “You know damn well it’s a sin to steal!” he growled, as his beer-filled fist landed flush, fattening my lip. When I came to, he was gone. I got up off the ground, went straight to my room and closed the door. In the morning, I heard him grumbling about how disappointed he was in me, that I hadn’t taken the summer job he’d set up for me down at his factory. I just lay there, still angry, pressing on my lip. I wanted to make sure it stayed good and swollen for my
The Train 109
mother to see. She hadn’t bothered to say anything about it, like it didn’t even happen. I spent the next day hanging out and smoking with Holly in the field behind our houses. We were still friends after the cigarette incident. She had rosy cheeks and supple knees, and I’d been trying to get with her all summer. We just lay in the grass talking for hours, mostly about what it’d be like to one day be on our own. Problem was, she had great parents. And although she was always there to listen to me, I knew she really didn’t understand how much I wanted to just get up and leave town. Later in the evening, we heard the old man’s rusty old pickup pull into the driveway. “You’d better go,” she told me. “You’re right, I better.” I leaned in to kiss her, and she gave me her cheek. I couldn’t blame her; I’d been at my lip all day. I went in through the side door of the house,knowing he had to walk by me on his way to the kitchen. When we approached each other in the hall, he didn’t even look at my lip. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, almost daring me to do something.
110 Fiction
On the other side of the house, I heard his after work ritual: straight to the fridge, a beer-crack, straight to the chair, the familiar remote-click, then the television crackling as the evening news came on. In the kitchen, the dinner table was being set. When the first commercial break came on, he got up and went back to the fridge for another beer. When he did, I went upstairs and locked my door. I scribbled a note, grabbed my phone, my wallet and a couple candy bars for dinner, then I climbed out my window and down the tree. I was certain that by the time they read my note, I would be clear across Santa Fe. After a couple hitchhikes and an hour of walking, I made it out to the highway. Then I saw it: the train. It was long and clackety, a grain and cattle train. I didn’t know where it was heading, but I knew for sure I wanted on it. The train was going slow enough for me to run alongside and throw myself onto it. And since it was my first time ever to jump a train, I hopped onto the first rail-car I saw. Once I managed to pull myself onto the train, I walked around the inside of the car and kicked some hay into pile to lie on. Then the train picked up speed. I passed the time away by counting cows that passed by outside the door. I got up to about eighty-nine before the clicking of the wheels on the
track made me drowsy. Just as I was about to nod off, my phone rang. I looked at the display. It read, MOM. Instead of answering it, I turned my phone off and went back to listening to the rhythmic clicking of the wheels until I feel asleep. On the second day, we climbed through what I figured were the Rockies. The train slowed to a crawl and at one point I got off. I walked toward the rear of the train and jumped into the next open door I saw. Pleased, I’d found a relatively cleaner car, one with a little less odor, I unwrapped my second candy bar and ate half of it, bit by melted bit, saving the other half for later. After I put it back in my pocket, I turned my phone on and listened to the messages from my mother. In all there were five. She was pleading for me to call, to come home. I heard the worry in her voice and I almost wanted to call just to let her know I was okay, but she handed the phone to my old man so that I could hear him pitch a half-baked request for me to come home too, so that we could “figure it out.” Then he handed the phone back to my mother. Then before she hung up, I heard him in the background, “Ah, leave ’em be. He’ll learn the hard way!” His voice angered my fists into a tight clench, and then with a “Fuck You!” I threw my phone as far as I could out into the Rocky Mountain wilderness. I never heard it land, just the click-clacking of the tracks beneath me. I stood there
at the door for a long while, regretting having thrown it. I sat down on the floor again,and stared at the hills going by, recalling all the fights I’d had with him. The regret of throwing my phone soon passed. Then, out of boredom I unzipped my pants and tried to imagine what Holly’s bare breasts looked like. After I finished, I just lay there listening to the train until it got dark. We weren’t near any towns, so it got dark as pitch, fast, and every once in a while, we passed a red light. I figured they were for marking distance along the track, but they always came as a surprise — sudden flashes of red filling the car. They always made me jump. I must have fallen asleep somewhere between the twelfth and thirteenth red light. When I woke on the third day, I learned just how far the train had taken me from Santa Fe. The last sign I saw read, Hell Creek, Montana. My empty stomach tightened even more. I removed what was left of the second candy bar from my pocket and finished it with one swallow. It wasn’t enough though. I was still hungry. When the train slowed to a crawl again, I hopped off. For all I knew the train wasn’t going to slow again for a long time, and I had just eaten the last of my candy bar. I was also very thirsty.
The Train 111
The suddenness of the ground stung my ankles. It felt great; I felt alive. I was doing what I’d often dreamed of, going out in the wilderness, a man, big and free, completely under my own power. I looked around. It was an incredibly flat plain in every direction. It appeared to go on forever. I’d never seen so much sky in comparison to land. But with the sun directly overhead, and the sky so blue and unadulterated by clouds, how big I felt quickly faded. It occurred to me then, that I hadn’t seen or spoken a word to anyone in three days. I brushed the thoughts of home from my mind and set off on foot. Far off in the distance I noticed a white pick-up truck speeding across the horizon, kicking up a long trail of dust as it went. It was moving along at a fast clip, and from my estimation, it appeared to be about a mile, maybe two away, across hard packed soil and scattered brush and rocks. I set out toward it, keeping my eyes on the trail of dust, but with each step the dust thinned lighter and lighter, and before long, the truck was gone and the dust had all but settled back on the road. After a good while of walking, I turned back to look for the train tracks, thinking it would give me an idea of how far I’d walked, or if I was even walking in the right direction, but I didn’t see anything
112 Fiction
resembling tracks. All I saw was wide-open land. When I looked back to where the road should be, it too had disappeared, blended back into the landscape. I spun around several times, alternating looks in front of and behind me, and lost track of which direction I had first been heading. I checked the sun. It was still directly overhead. I decided on a direction and walked toward where I believed the dirt road was. I walked for another five minutes and then I heard it: a distinct rattling directly below me. I’d never heard one before, but being out in the open range, I knew in an instant that I was stepping over a rattlesnake. I leapt away from the rattling sound and began to run, but before I was able to get clear of it, the snake had already sunken its fangs in me. When the poor animal tried to release its bite, it was unable to. Its fangs had gotten caught in the fabric of my trousers. Too afraid to stop, I kept running, and all the while the snake was hissing and swinging around my legs, trying to trip me. Then I did something I’d never dream I could. I reached down and grabbed the snake by its tail, and with one adrenaline-fueled tug, I ripped it free of my jeans and let out a howl as I slung it into the air, as far away as I could. The snake, continued to hiss and rattle as it flew. The damned creature was just as afraid as I was. Then I heard it land with a thud and go quiet. I looked down at the bite and saw four puncture wounds. There was blood, a lot of it. I knew I was in trouble. I recalled
being told by someone on a camping trip once, that a good thing to do was to try to suck the venom out, but I couldn’t reach the side of my thigh with my mouth. Then I realized it was my old man who had told me. Remain calm, I thought. What would the old man do? Running to the road was all I could think of, but where was it? I decided the most important thing to do was to tourniquet my leg, so I sat myself on the ground, fastened my belt around my thigh as high up as I could, and that was when I felt it, a light-headedness coming over me. I fastened the belt a notch tighter, but it didn’t help. This can’t be happening, I thought.
way to my heart. I began seeing flashes of orange and white, and my ears started to ring. I heard the echoes of hawks in the air as the heat of the sun bore its weight down on me. After a few more paces, I collapsed on the ground. I lay there, looking up, I felt myself sandwiched between heaven and hell, between the heat of the ground and the pulsing sun above me. While the venom coursed a fiery trail through my veins, I stared back at the sun watching me, and off in the distance I heard a train’s whistle cry.
Soon, I didn’t even feel the bite anymore. My leg had become heavy, numb from the venom. When it started to spasm, I stood up, thinking I could just walk it off, or make it stop. I prayed that I would come across the road, where someone would see me and pick me up. I needed to get to a hospital, or somewhere that had some anti-venom. It was my only hope. I vowed that if I lived, I’d go straight home, quit the smoking and start walking more of the line my old man wanted me to, maybe even take that job he’d offered me at the factory. I just wanted my life back. I walked for another seven minutes or so, until my breathing labored. I knew the venom had made its
The Train 113
Bloom
by Monty Heying
Below the Wilma Street overpass, The wide black ribbon narrows away, Curving through morning haze toward a rose-tinted sky, Disappearing in a milky sea of almond flowers. In the orchards, geometric rows Of gnarly brown trunks and scaffold limbs Are canopied by clouds of blushing blooms, Gently perfuming the air. And in the cool and muted stillness Rays of sunlight filter through, Casting bright quivering splotches On the carpet of winter grass.
114窶ケoetry
Petals freed by the wind Descend, speckling the ground Collecting in snowy patches, Calico the orchard floor. Humming residents of stacked white hives Sanctify the grand botanic rite Dragging yellowed, pollen-heavy legs From bloom to bloom Until at dusk in blind fatigue They crash against their honeyed walls And stagger in on wobbly legs Like revelers from a spree. The shattering winds of March will come, And the chorus limbs will fade from cream to green Liberated petals will churn and boil In a terminal descrescendo But deep within the hardy walking trees Embryonic cells Are already auditioning For roles in next year’s Bloom
Bloom 115
Fireworks | Photograph | Sarah Noland
116
$4.50 | Collage | Brian Ogden
117
Note to Self
by Alison Ruth Barry
Note to Self: Even This Bus Journey Is Good. Listen Alison, we are all only here for a little while. You might as well enjoy it all. Even the small moments. The mundane repetitive stuff. One day, when death is near and you are succumbing and you know you won’t see the next dawn, then you might appreciate this bus ride. You might wish you could be right back here, thirty-eight years old again, air in your lungs, breathing easy, body only a little sore, only a little aged. Who knows where the mind will travel when death is near? You might even remember this very journey. The way the lights look glossy, now reflected on the bus windows, the whole scene filtered by the sunglasses you’ve started wearing on the bus at night to soften the glare from the strip lights. When you look out of the window with them on, although the street looks extra-dark, the streetlights have a deep amber lustre, every neon sign pops and the paint job on every car looks clean and pearlescent. Yes, you might even remember sitting here near the back of the 49 Van Ness-Mission, the cold breeze from an open window two seats in front of you mixing quite pleasantly with the wafting heat from the vents in the driver’s cab. You’ve got no worries really. You fill your lungs with bus air and it’s ok. This bus isn’t even too filthy, your lungs feel fine, your bra isn’t even too tight tonight because you definitely lost a couple of pounds last week. The bus stops
118 Non-fiction
and two people get on and the man sitting in front of you gets off and that’s good because now you have an unobstructed view of the front window of the bus, and you can see the cherry-red tail lights of traffic across all four lanes of Van Ness stopped at Sacramento. Sacramento, that’s good, because now you are about to head into your favorite section of Van Ness where it becomes quieter and more tree-heavy: that lovely slope down towards Broadway. Broadway with its gorgeous carved church on the intersection and soon after, Union, where a Chevron station once glowed on the corner when you used to come to this city as a tourist, years before you lived here. And that Chevron station looked so beautiful one night, as you walked through still discovering this neighborhood, that you actually photographed it. And you still have that photograph, of a big rig that was pulled up on the forecourt, its cab luminous under the strip lights, and people were gassing up their cars, it was a warm evening and the whole scene shone. And you were so moved by the beauty of the mundane you thought I love America and I love San Francisco and I will live here one day. You were 26 years old. And here you are all these years later passing the now empty Chevron lot on the bus, really living here and knowing now that this is in fact the eastern edge of Cow Hollow and you have a home, an apartment, not
far from here in the neighborhood just beyond. And it will be waiting for you tonight, warm, because it always holds the heat of the day. And when you open the door and close it in the dark — just before you reach for the light switch which is oddly positioned behind the door — you’ll wonder for a moment as you always do whether anyone has broken in while you were out, but they never have and everything is always as you had left it. And in that moment you will also smell the smell of the banana bread you baked earlier in the small honey-colored kitchen, and maybe you’ll have a slice with a cup of tea before bed. And it’s these simple things that make up a day, that make up a life. These simple things that you will think of, I bet you, when you are dying one day in a bed somewhere. You’ll lie there with a body that doesn’t feel good anymore most probably in some kind of pain, maybe struggling for breath, and you’ll wish you could return again to any one of these ordinary days: wish you could come home again to your apartment, carry your clothes to the launderette, go out for coffee, or sit on the 49 Van Ness-Mission again heading north, home, at night, feeling quite ok and filling your lungs with bus air, wearing sunglasses that soften the strip lights and have the pleasing side effect of making the neon sign in the window of the donut shop on the corner of Pacific pop.
Note to Self 119
On the Way to the Capitol | Photograph | Katie Dalla
120
Cislunar
by Justin Mazzola Somewhere in the sky, you sit in a window seat reading People. You could never sleep on planes. Perhaps you’re writing in your journal, filling pages with his name. I don’t know if you are happy in your new life back in Boston, in his arms, in the bed we shared for years before our love eclipsed, stranding me in winter. Crimson shadows darken the light like blood pooling in a wound. Millions watch from back yards, everyone staring at the moon, awaiting the eclipse, the winter, the answers they think they need. Through the uncertainty, satellites trace the sky, steadily orbiting the planet in silence. The flashing lights of airplanes mimic the decorated neighborhood, red and green bulbs blinking till dawn.
Cislunar 121
Light Play | Photograph | James Idemne
122
I Will Possess Your Art by Ayo Khensu-Ra
We stand under Pia’s apartment, the black windows empty eyes on an alley crowded with dumpsters and refuse, dirty water I don’t want to think about. Alex leaps, misses, jumps again, legs bent in midair, pushing off. I tell him this is stupid (again) as the fire escape wails with the impact. I wince but the alley stays quiet, lights stay off. Alex starts climbing, shoes scraping rung after rung. I wonder again how he talked me into this, into literally holding the bag. I pull on the black nylon strap, look up again as he lifts the window,
I Will Possess Your Art 123
slips into the apartment. He pops out a few moments later, deposits a painting on the balcony, surface vague in the dim light, a beige map of the world with Himalayas of black paint. He ducks back in, puts down one or two more. I almost shout up to him, forget for a second where we are. I told Alex this wasn’t the best way to handle a breakup. He asked me if I really had anything better to do if I really wanted to spend the night at home. He said it would be fun. I wanted to throw something at him. But he can be persistent. Alex told me how much he loved Pia’s paintings, how he liked to sit and watch them stacked against the wall of her bedroom while she slept.
124 Poetry
How she promised to give him one or two but somehow never did. Theft wasn’t something I expected him to resort to. He comes out again, whispers, gestures down to me. I feel the warm fog, the churning flush of nerves, the twinge of anxious excitement I roll my eyes, let out a breath wishing I were the kind of person who drank and start climbing, fingernails shining black against the cliché coffee color of my hands. A siren sounds out in the city and as I briefly consider worst case scenarios and look up at clouds grabbing the sky, city spires, slowly blinking navigation aids, feel the bag tugging at my arm. I look down again so Alex wouldn’t see the smile tugging at my lips.
I Will Possess Your Art 125
Erin O’Briant Interview by Ayo Khensu-Ra
Originally from Georgia, Erin Quinn O’Briant has a MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and a BA in Religion from Emory University. Her first novel Glitter Girl was published in 2010 and she is currently writing her second. She teaches English at City College of San Francisco. Ayo Khensu-Ra interviewed her via email. Ayo Khensu-Ra: How did you come to write fiction? Erin O’Briant: I felt a calling to write when I was in college and I apprenticed myself to an LGBT magazine in Atlanta. I found that I was good at it and I enjoyed it, and that’s a great combination. For about ten years I worked in journalism, both in Atlanta and here in San Francisco, but eventually I felt that I needed more of a challenge as a writer. I also wrote a lot of short, real-life sketches for open mics, and I ran a couple of them at various times, so that gave me a clue that I liked storytelling and wanted to do more of it.
126 Non-fiction
AK: What was the inspiration for Glitter Girl any particular moment, thought, image? EO’B: Glitter Girl is fictional, but Gloria’s setting amid the cosmetics counter at Macy’s was a real-life experience for me. That was one of the open mic pieces I’d been working on when I started grad school, and it was my favorite, so when my professor told me I had to write a novel I decided to start there. AK: Glitter Girl is also available in free audiobook form, why? EO’B: My original motivation was to gain more of an audience so an agent would pick it up, sell it to Harper Collins, and make me rich. My fellow faculty member here, Seth Harwood, showed me how to serialize my novel into a podcast, and that podcast is now available for free download on Podiobooks.com and iTunes. It’s gotten Glitter Girl some fans, and those fans encouraged me as I explored self-publishing and eventually founded my small press, Lit Books. AK: Do you have a particular routine for writing? A certain time of day? Method? EO’B: I retreat to an undisclosed location. :) Actually, I have had various schedules. Morning is a great,
clear time for me. I write every morning for about half an hour, but not fiction. It’s mostly just a brain dump. To work on my novel (the second one), I take an overnight trip nearby, no phone or TV, and just write until my hand is ready to fall off. AK: Who are your favorite authors? Do you think they have influenced you as a writer? EO’B: I have so many favorites, but since I’m teaching African American Fiction right now, some of my favorites are James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker. I also love David Sedaris and Margaret Atwood. I think everything you read, from bus signs to high literature, influences you as a writer. If even a little of those people’s work has rubbed off on me, I count myself lucky. I hope so! AK: Shifting gears a bit, what brought you into teaching? EO’B: Mainly, I needed a job when I was in grad school. I discovered that a partial MFA qualified me to do some tutoring here at CCSF, and I very quickly found out that I loved it. It was a wonderful surprise! The MFA is a teaching degree, but I had no idea I would really love it, and I do.
Erin O’Briant Interview 127
AK: What do you enjoy most about teaching? EO’B: It’s wonderful to see people grow, to know you had a part in it. In general, I really like my students — they are an amazing, smart, caring, creative group of people and it’s fun to see them, to teach them, to applaud their successes. And I have great colleagues here at City, too. AK: When did you first start teaching at CCSF? EO’B: I first worked here as a tutor starting in 2005, and then I started teaching in English in 2007. AK: You’ve also written a nonfiction book, Be a Great Tutor, what led you to that project? EO’B: A friend of mine, Chris Balme, started that. He runs a nonprofit called Spark; it’s a mentorship program for kids that helps them get engaged in school. Chris worked as a tutor when he was just getting Spark off the ground, and he thought the market was ripe for a general book about tutoring. He approached me, and we decided to write it together. Eventually, though, Chris’s organization went national and he didn’t have the time to devote to publishing the book. He sold me the rights for $1, and I published it through Lit Books last summer. AK: Finally, are you working on anything new? EO’B: Yes indeedy! I’d say I’m about halfway through a draft of my second novel. I really love it. It’s about the people in a town called Friendly, Georgia.
128 Non-fiction
Glitter Girl: A Novel by Erin Quinn O’Briant
“Are the fishnets too trashy?” Gloria asked Max while they waited for the buzzer that evening. Her feet still hurt from the hours she’d spent that day selling glitter, but she wore heels anyway. She hadn’t been to a party since the Gildenson debacle, and she was feeling insecure. The door buzzed and Gloria opened it. She and Max tromped together up the four flights of stairs. “This is the Mission, honey. The fishnets are a postmodern commentary on 1950s representations of female sexuality. The earrings are trashy. Who told you to buy yellow gold?” Gloria slid the gold hoops, which had seemed fashionably retro earlier, into her patent leather purse and adjusted her black mini skirt as they rounded the final stairway landing. She tried not to resent Max’s fashion advice. He was harsh, but he was way more critical of everyone else, including himself. Besides, he was usually right, and he loved her. A native New Yorker, he told the unvarnished truth at every opportunity. On the landing in front of the door, Gloria stopped. “I don’t know, Max,” she whispered. “Maybe I shouldn’t go in. I’ll be the butt of a million jokes.” “Glo, come on. You’re a hero.” “How could that possibly be true? I’m the Monica Lewinsky of publishing.” “You’ve got bigger balls than anyone in that flat. They wish they could do what you did. And, hey, you almost got away with it.”
Glitter Girl: A Novel 129
She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me I have balls. My namesake would be appalled.” “Gloria Steinem understands metaphor.” “Okay, true.” She took a deep breath. “My balls and I are going in.” Gloria opened the unlocked apartment door, but she and Max were stopped by the smiling local literati packed into the long, narrow hallway. Almost imperceptibly, partygoers rearranged themselves to make room for Gloria and Max — whether out of courtesy or disdain, Gloria couldn’t tell. Matilda’s apartment had the scruffy charm and awkward layout of most San Francisco flats: all the rooms opened off one long, narrow corridor. Fourteen-foot ceilings made the place feel drafty despite the crowd. Gloria didn’t see anyone she knew well enough to greet. “Hi, good-looking.” A youngish, bearded poet smiled mischievously at Max. Gloria vaguely remembered that he had won an award recently — one that hadn’t been rescinded. Gloria smiled at the poet, who ignored her. Max flashed his flirtiest smile and ran a hand through his curly black hair. “Hi yourself.” He lowered his head almost modestly, a move Gloria had seen many times. Figuring the poet would be spellbound by Max’s thick-lashed brown eyes for at least ten minutes— the length of time it usually took Max to grow restless — she kept walking. I hope I see someone who will talk to me soon.
130 Fiction
She found the kitchen at the end of the hall. Gloria scoped out the alcohol table, concave under halfempty bottles of Jim Beam and Absolut Citron, and poured herself a plastic cup of lukewarm chardonnay. She preferred to drink red wine, but not at parties — it stained her teeth. She downed half of her cup and poured a little more for fortification. She’d need it if her former Politic boss happened to show up. Where is Matilda? Gloria scanned the kitchen for someone she knew. Three gorgeous, messy-haired brunettes giggled in a corner, all of them in tiny vintage-looking tops that showed their flat tummies. Gloria tried not to stare enviously. No matter what she weighed, and it wasn’t all that much, Gloria always had a belly. She knew it was wrong for her to care — she was a feminist, after all. But, truthfully, it bothered her. She noticed it was bothering her more, lately, now that she spent her days with those skinny, methaddicted make-up girls. She tightened her stomach muscles and sucked in her gut. The kitchen itself, she noticed, was also faux vintage. Matilda had painted it an aqua reminiscent of the fifties and stenciled red cherries along the crown molding. The potholders and towels were printed with cherries, too. Cute. A man dressed in a silver cat suit leaned against the pantry door, thrusting his pelvis forward so that his package was on full display. She always saw him at these gatherings, dressed the same way. He was talking to a fellow with an unusually strong jaw line and a conceited air.
“My editor just called today,” announced a braying voice that Gloria recognized immediately. “He says he loves my new book.” Matilda was addressing a member of her entourage as she entered the room, large breasts first, with a trail of admirers behind her. They look so young, Gloria thought. Wide-eyed and clearskinned. Probably Matilda’s students.
“I’m taking some time to write,” Gloria told her. “I’m really tapping into my creativity.” Well, she was writing when she wasn’t at Macy’s — just last week she’d sent a piece to The New Yorker under a pen name. Gloria wasn’t about to tell Matilda she hawked makeup for the French equivalent of Maybelline. It was just too embarrassing.
“Hi, Matilda. Great party.”
“What are you doing for money? It must have been awful having to give that prize money back!” Gloria wasn’t sure exactly what her title was — professor, probably — but Matilda always loved to talk about her position in the English Literature department at Burns University. She had published lit crit and fiction; she had a Ph.D. While Gloria’s star had been rising, she’d never envied Matilda, but now she did. A few decent books published under her own name, a coterie of adoring students — Not a bad life.
“Gloria! You made it! You look fabulous.” “Thanks, you too.” It was true. Matilda had cut her hair into a bob and wore a cloche hat over it, like a thirties starlet. She’d also painted her lips into a heart shape. Matilda moved in for a hug, which Gloria participated in a little reluctantly. “Did you hear? I’ve got a contract for my third book. I’m so thrilled.” “That’s wonderful. With Foley? When is it coming out?” Gloria kept her tone light but she was getting resentful. She’d signed her first book contract with an impressive publisher just a few months ago; of course, they’d wriggled right out of it. I’ll be lucky if I ever see my name in print again.
“It was nice having the money, but I didn’t really need it.” There’s always food stamps. Now for the outright lie: “My family has helped out.” “Oooh.” Matilda was wide-eyed. That’s how the trust fund rumor got started.
“It’ll be the middle of next year, I don’t know how I’ll stand to wait that long! So what are you doing these days?” Matilda usually knew all the gossip and had undoubtedly heard every sordid detail of her disgraceful exit from Politic. Gloria sipped her wine and decided to lie anyway.
Glitter Girl: A Novel 131
Lilies Abstract | Acrylic | Marina Kattsyna
132
Rest in Peace, Dear Francie by Ellie MacBride
She didn’t even put up a struggle as I ripped off her clothes. Her white jumper, once covered in a geometric pattern of pinks and greens, was now caked in mud and trailing behind as I dragged her by her hair, past the cankered wicker bench and farther into the garden. I picked up the thorniest rose I could find, tore off the head, and wrapped the stem across her plump pout and over her ears, piercing her ivory glow. “You think you’re better than me?! So you have nice clothes and eyelashes longer than summer — that doesn’t mean shit!” I spit, sending a glob of saliva across her perfect coral cheekbone. I wanted her to suffer. For years, I had been teased for the way I looked; I had the most popular boy’s haircut of 1996, but apparently looking like Matthew Lawerence wasn’t as cool when you were a girl. My boobs were as big as my areolas and since my mom wouldn’t let me shave my legs until I got my first boyfriend, I started to believe my name really was Wolverine. Earlier that day, I had taken the utility lighter I found in the cupboard — next to the half-full box of candles from my
Rest in Peace, Dear Francie 133
birthday — and practiced turning it on the way my mom had showed me. “Slide up with your thumb and push with your pointer,” she said, before handing it off to me so I could light my own cake. I slid up with my thumb and pressed with my pointer three times before I brought the flame near Francie’s perfectly placed golden mane. Her seraphic expression melted as her ember eyes flickered with the reflection of the approaching blaze. While holding her down with my left hand, I reached into the oversized back pocket of my grass-stained jeans with my right, and pulled out a pair of shiny silver tweezers my older sister used to shape her eyebrows into two little sandy pyramids. The blue rubber grips helped keep the pincers in my hand as I plucked each of her lengthy eyelashes out, one by one. Francie and I had been best friends since the day I lost my first front tooth. She was the only one who didn’t laugh at me at recess when I bit into my Red Delicious apple and got stuck. I tried to hide my face as I wiggled the apple off but it was too late; the impenetrable fruit had won the battle and I had won a new crevice to poke my tongue through. This day, however, I decided Francie and I weren’t friends anymore. We were having lunch together in the greenest patch of grass under the climbing
134 Non-fiction
tree when something hard hit me in the back of my head. I felt a stream of blood dribble down my neck, past my t-shirt collar, and descend all the way until it reached my belt. I gently closed my eyes and accepted the fact that I was dying. I went to fall back into Francie’s delicate arms, but she wasn’t there to catch me. Instead, I landed on a fizzing can of Dr. Pepper — the same Dr. Pepper that I thought had killed me. Whoever had thrown the soda was gone, so I pulled open the tab the rest of the way and drank the remainder of what I had thought was my blood, as Francie just sat there with the same stoic semblance she had the day the apple stole my tooth. Now naked and hairless, Francie was less beautiful than me. My back was soaked in sweat and soda as her defectless porcelain legs resisted my attempt to bend her knees behind her back. I yanked my laces out of my sapphire-striped Adidas and secured her arms and legs together, tying the same knot my little brother had showed me they used in his Cub Scouts troupe. I left her next to the Amaryllis as I went to get a shovel. The tool shed was closed with a wraparound chain and padlock, but I had practiced using a hairpin to open doors, once even breaking into my nextdoor neighbor’s house. I never stole anything — just liked the feeling of opportunity. It took me all of ten seconds to pick the lock, beating my record of fifteen.
The heavy chain fell to the dirt as I slid open the creaky door, allowing the midday sun to creep in and bounce its blistering beams off a rusted hand saw. I rehearsed what I could do with each item in my head before I remembered the Amaryllis and grabbed the pointed green shovel. Once I broke the sun-hardened crust, the rest of the hole was like digging sand. Francie and I used to love playing in the sandbox. Sometimes, we would pretend we were royalty and I’d spend all day building her a castle, only to destroy it once it was finished and say, “No castle is worthy of you, my Queen!”
sneeze; her sea-blue eyes grew so wide I thought I might sink if I got any closer. She looked once at the empty grave, once at Francie, and then right back at me before she spoke. Her tone was hard to pinpoint but her words were very clear: “Laura, you really need to stop burying your Barbies!”
But this was no castle; it was a prison — an inescapable dark grave where there weren’t any jesters to make you laugh, feasts to make you full, or friends to make you merry. I looked over to where Francie lay — her cheeks still as rosy as the Amaryllis — and apologized for what I was about to do. The voice from behind caught me off guard. Shrill yet stern, I knew it all too well; it was my mother and she was coming our way. Panicked and terrified as to what might happen once she found out what I had been up to, I froze. I couldn’t tell if it was shock, disgust, or anger that made her lip curl and nose twitch as if about to
Rest in Peace, Dear Francie 135