Folio Literary Magazine: 1992 Edition

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Folio 1992

Folio 1992

Staff Editors-in-Cheif

Poetry Editor Junior Editors

Art Editor Treasurer

Clio Manuelian Emily Fricke

Jeffrey Friedman Adriana Grant Robin Shear Kristin Sassano La Allen

Editorial Board

Amy Allen Keith Ewan Christian Lee Jennifer Lekisch Britton Upham Amy Viens

Faculty Advisors

Barry Goldensohn Kathryn Davis

Special thanks to Marc Woodworth and Sue Stein for all their patience, time, and help.

All art photographed by Kevin Goggin and Kristin Sassano.

Cover drawing by Eugene Lee.

Contents Elliott Warren, Ars Poetica Candace A. Douet, Untitled Jolyan Herman, Restaurant De La Sirene Diane Cornelius, Untitled Sean Kegelman, Untitled Kirstin Tobiasson, In The Machine Laura Marshall, Walk Jenny Belin, For Victor Jeff Friedman, Thanksgiving Adriana Grant, morning Jennifer Lekisch, Hah Jardine Libaire, Motherless Therese Ariana LaGamma, How Many Moons Sean Kegelman, Macroscope Brooke Murphy, Entertaining Suicide David Stockwell, s Candace A. Douet, Beast Mark Hilgenberg, Granada R. Todd Murray, Remembering the Misfortune of Disillusion Amy Stewart, Light of Angels Sonja Stoerr, the day after november 3rd, 1990 Jolyan Herman, Nick’s Wine Pants Brooke Murphy, Fugue Robin Shear, In God’s Bar Kevin Labick, Big Sky Jerry Grandea, Drinking Water Amy Stewart, Chambered Goddess Elliott Warren., Scenes From My Garden Kirstin Tobiasson, Untitled Terry Dubow, Fine Lines Laura Marshall, My Mother’s House William C. Bull, Untitled Robin Shear, Heavy Skins Brooke Murphy, Brother

7 9 10 12 14 15 16 17 22 24 25 26 29 31 32 34 35 37 39 41 44 47 48 50 52 58 59 61 63 64 65 72 73 74

Adriana Grant, meal Laura Polin., Untitled Emily Fricke, The Carousel Brooke Murphy, GlitterSKiss! Starfish Jeff Feldman, God’s Diet Clio Manuelian, A Lovely View David Stockwell, Passages Robin Shear, At the Church of Ste. Catherine in Montreal Candace A. Douet, Untitled Jolyan Herman, Yes Amy Stewart, For Ruthie Kristin Sassano, The Sale Adriana Grant, Guitar Solo Elliott Warren, For General Colin Powell Laura Marshall, Power of Fingertips Chris Riggio, Messenger to the Gods Kira Williams, Angel Laura Polin, The Process Diane Cornelius, Untitled Jen Cavanaugh, Educational Eros

77 79 80 88 89 91 106 108 109 110 111 113 120 122 123 124 129 130 131 133

Art Bega Metzner, photographs Jen Ermler, sculpture Peter Donnelly, sculpture Derrick Dolphin, drawing Travis Lea, metal work Liz Blazer, painting Emily Keichel, etchings Bryan Smith, photograph David Mitchell, sculpture Evan Olsen, sculpture Ursina Amsler, etchings Carrie Miller, painting Lisa Newlin, photograph Joel Dewey, drawing

6, 13, 121 8 21 28 36 40 46, 112, 128 51 60 71 78, 87 90 106 132

Ars Poetica My father tells me that poems don’t mean shit.

I believe him.

He knows I use them as a weapon.

They fall from my tongue like stones. Poems don’t mean shit unless they are real.

I use my tool in bathrooms poems on the wall.

This is not a poem.

Elliot Warren

7

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Untitled I wanted a body in my bed last night.

I wanted the heat and warmth from that body I wanted the innate non-verbal conversation/communication, that a warm body could relate through silence—and its senses.

I wanted to be the best friend to that body — sharing— caring— daring.

I wanted a body in my bed last night— to look at and feel.

I wanted to have something in common with that body— the curves and heat, the need...

I wanted to lie with that body —somebody—fully clothed—I wanted to be with that body—In mind and spirit.

I wanted the closeness; I wanted a hug or two...

I wanted a non-sexual body, lying with my body last night.

I needed someone I wanted a body in my bed last night more so than any other night more so than any other want more than I had ever sought before...

I wanted no more than a friend. I wanted, not necessarily a man. I wanted— I needed — A body in my bed last night.

Candace A. Douet

9

Restaurant De La Sirene Mme. Orangenuit comes in for me “Charlotte, there is a customer waiting” Another? I think I put on more powder

I see him reflected in the mirror behind the bar at which I sit I turn, raise my skirt over my knee and pout, just a little I see by the front seam of his trousers that he is ready for me Alors, we go to the room I smell the mustache wax on the pillow from the man before This one, he has a smooth back I trace circles with my fingers so gently Oui, oohhuui, tres bien I say, but not because I want him to come just yet.

This one, he zips his brown trousers and asks if I would like to join him for dinner I had only a brioche this morning...

At La Restaurant de la Sirene He drinks a bottle of red wine and he watches me eat

10

Amused because I eat so slowly I pick morsels of bread with my fingers and eat them like a cat.

He teases that I must remember I am on business hours Mme. Orangenuit finds me grabs my arm and scolds me for I am missing my appointments.

Now I must wash myself before the next customer She tells me loudly.

She has a hair in the mole on her chin which I want to pluck out so it bleeds.

Jolyan Herman

11

Untitled You know what the moon just asked me?

It said, “And so, where’s your lover?”

What damn nerve.

Diane Cornelius

12

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Untitled Youthful legs plodding up the steps.

She glances around, without noticing.

Straining against the weight of the thin glass door she approaches her mailbox, unthinking as a mouse in a maze.

Beautifully decorated flyers and advertisements don’t sell to this experienced customer.

Returning outside, breathing in the stale air of the trees, she perches like a frozen bird on her usual seat of cold concrete. Craning her neck, she turns towards me and says, “It’s all so old.”

“You’re old,” I reply.

SeanKegebnan

14

In The Machine She sits next to me Writing party invitations to her own birthday.

Kristin Tobiasson

15

Walk Four steps behind me deep woods smelling of moss, softly this woman moves, translucent, my image, follow. Slow ghost I feel, behind, stopping to turn I see four steps back she stops, silent watching through her eyes I see something strong begging to be trusted.

Laura Marshall

16

For Victor Jenny Belin

Poets don’t have answering machines. They’ll have note­ books, clippings and clutter. They’ll have charm, wit and visions. But never answering machines.

I’m so sneaky. I’m not a pathetic girl who waits all day for her phone to ring. So I’ve sort of run away — to the library. And there’s no one else here but me. I’m on display in an encyclopedia of histories, tragedies and comedies.

I’m sipping warm and sour Perrier. I’m thinking about Victor, a poet who doesn ’ t believe in answering machines. I’m weary of him.

I’ve fallen for Victor like a ton of bricks, but my friend Beatrice has me wondering. Would Victor ever lie to me, scar me, or rip me to shreads? I suppose that he could so sadly I speculate. A sweet boy in glasses or a hurtful loathsome beast? Dear wretched, wretched poet.

I am haunted by these odd speculations. I could sweetly sip on a Shirley Temple, or Kool-Aid even. Perrier and green bubbles are more appropriate for fish tanks, and I am not a fish. I guess that I’m starting to resent sensitive, poetic men who don ’ t believe in answering machines.

Last night, Beatrice stopped by with a dozen chocolate dough­ nuts. She and Bernard are thoroughly through. Last night we talked about emotional suffering. We agreed that torment is a little drastic.

It’s a brutal, painful world.

I drink Perrier to cleanse my evil little mind. Victor drinks Perrier all day long, and that’s why he’s so broke. A true, charming poet. Poor hungry Victor. Poor thirsty Victor. So deprived, so tormented.

I’m thinking about Vincent Van Gogh. Beatrice bit off a chunk of Bernard’s ear, one time during a brawl. Beatrice and I were peacefully painting our nails, talking about perfumes. Bernard barreled into the room and started throwing things like ashtrays, salad bowls and Cuisinarts. I don’t understand the outburst. He’s got serious temper tantrum tendencies. For hours he bombarded us with various kitchen appliances. He wouldn ’t cut it out until Beatrice used teeth! Then Bernard pridefully picked up his ear, and zipped it into 17

his pocket. He left, and didn’t come back for days. Beatrice refused to clean the mess. She waited for Bernard to take care of it. And he did. Classy guy!

I met Victor about a month ago at the Chinese laundromat. He wore little boy pajamas with choo-choo trains and helicopters. I wore a silly old prom dress, since all my street clothes needed cleaning.

Victor said he had seen me before, walking down the street with groceries. He remembered that I wore red, and that I looked tired.

Was my hair in rollers and foils? Was I hunched over, clumsy, and ungraceful?

We spent hours folding our laundry and talking about legendary lovers. Humphrey and Lauren. Mick and Jerri. Frankie and Annette.

That night Victor ate a red rose and wrote about blind cupids, poison arrows and rotting fruit. We drank red wine. We told stories about scandals. Victor has committed crimes like ripping off drug stores and holding up delis. Thatwasjustforfun.hesays. He needed to grow his soul. He needed to feel the anguish of a juvenille delinquent. He needed to intensify his sensitive and introspective nature. He’s so deep, he’s so deep, he’s so deep. So I asked him how long it takes for a person to die. And he asked me if I was obsessed with dying.

We were somewhat heroic that night, and I felt like a movie star, smoking cigars, playing pool, and drinking Perriers. We listened to jazz, down at the pier. Strangers in the night exchanging glances.

Singing and dancing in the rain. It was divine, we were noticed and even admired.

Beatrice likes to have loud, publicly acknowledged argu­ ments. She wants the whole damned apartment to hear her tragic, traumatic melodramas. She wants people to listen and feel sorry for her. Pity-me, pity me, pity me. It’s so like that. Everybody’s got to know how manipulated Beatrice is getting. I bet she’s never been thrashed around like I have. She pretends to get hurt but it’s a lie.

She’ll frequently arrive at my apartment with dough-nuts.

She’ll be screaming about Bernard. She’ll say, “It’s an awfully unprideful time for me. You know... it’s never my fault and I always get the blame.” And Bernard this, Bernard that. Bernard disappeared with the Buick. Bernard won’t pay his rent. Bernard is bouncing checks. And Bernard burned down the bathroom. Bernard, Bernard, 18

Bernard. Last night Beatrice said it was thoroughly through. She better have meant it. Bernard is too much!

I like old movies in black and white, porcelain faces that never fade. Victor knows how to sneak into a theatre, without pay ing a dime.

We’d sneak in, and drink Perriers. He’d be sad when the movie had to end. “To hell with people who misunderstand you,” he’d say. “To hell with them! To hell with people!” I’d agree.

I’m so sneaky. There’s no one in the library, there’s no one who knows where I am. Some women get roses from their boyfriends.

I don’t think that I ever have. Victor eats roses with his Perrier. He wrote me a poem about a dead rose, a dead president and a ruined city.

I once took Voctor to my favorite cemetery. It’s the one in the hills right below the Hollywood sign. We had a picnic that day at the cemetery. Victor said I looked elegant among charcoal tombs. He called me a graveyard groupie, and a tombstone beauty queen. Victor said he was afraid of dying. I called him a coward, and he started to cry. So I kissed the back of his neck. I covered him with graveyard vines and dandelions. “Damn you. God damn you,” he said in a whisper. The weather turned bad so we left the cemetery. We walked away, holding hands, tumbling through the hills.

I’m thinking about movie stars. It’s back to Jimmie D., Pompadour Paul and Fran Fatale. Not to mention Dapper Dan and Squeaky Clean. Victor says that I’m a leggy movie-star bombshell, straight out of the thirties.

I used to believe that I wouldn’t live to be twenty. At my funeral people would say, “Oh, poor dear thing, what a waste.” They sure would be sorry. These daydreams so delight me. It’s not that I’m excited about my death. Anyways, I’ve survived twenty years of living. But on two occasions I have seen dead bodies. I told Victor my stories, and he was impressed.

My first encounter with a dead body is a secret. But I told Victor, he’s the only one who knows. Here’s what happened. It was late at night and I was driving on Sunset Boulevard. I stopped at ared light and a Toyota pulled up beside me. There was a dead guy in the passenger seat. He wasn’t asleep, or unconscious. He was green. His face was pressed up against the glass, and he was dead, and I am serious!

19

My next encounter occured last summer when I was a candy girl at the movies. Some rich old lady croaked on an un-popped kernel. She died instantly. All these terribly aged people gathered around the body to take a look. They all wore Hawaiian shirts with bright flowers.

Beatrice warned me about Victor and I’m not going to get hurt.

Especially by a poet who doesn’t believe in answering machines. I think about him a lot. This morning he left a letter by my doorstepThe letter was accompanied by ten dead roses. Here is what it said: “To my sneaky little friend,

I’m drowning in despair. How has it come to be? It was morning, and I awoke so delighted to see you. I poked at your shoulder and I pulled on your hair. I splashed you with warm wa­ ter, and you did not awake. I took your dead body to a straw­ berry field. You were too dead to appreciate my sorrow.

Sweeping, salty winds bring thirst and loneliness. Come over for some lemon-aid. We could be air-conditioned and lemonaided. In simplicity. I’ve run out of Perrier. It’s over, it’s thor­ oughly through. Come over for some lemon aid. Bring baby bis­ cuits. I miss you, ever so pathetically - V.”

I’m at the library to learn about loss. I want to know how people can cope with loss. I’m going to learn all about loss.

Victor, I lose you like I lose wallets and library books. I’m celebrating the loss of a pathetic, poetic liar. A big chinned manipu­ lator. You Villian. In your condition of loss will oddly frolic off, somewhere unintentionally. First I’ll lose you and then you’ll hide, and I will find you where you were all along. Because your head’s too big and your hair sticks out too much. I lose you like a wallet, the trueest way to lose. Unintentionally. Look out for sneaky wallet losers.

Beware of me and buy a God damned answering machine.

Beatrice and I are drinking coffee to sober up from bad relationships. Our waiterruns by, spilling something luke warm in my lap. Beatrice says that the German cake does nothing to excite her.

I’m thinking about loss. I’m thinking about Victor...really quite a loss.

20

Thanksgiving Thin slices of meat fold to the platter, Michael (my father) carves our arms and legs and passes them before the evening table.

Dry, the meat was dry, when a boy smothers himself (at night) from his father’s coarse blood wheezes (dry hacks for Barry’s dinner when he was nine).

He coughed for more than an hour with phlem wads drooling off his lips.

A boy heard his father cry.

It’s a terrible thing, listening to your father cry —

pillows softened those sounds and spreads goose down and cotton sheets over the fat of our natural gravy.

He passes the tray to me— forks stuck in dark meat thighs (now I compose food letters on my plate of summer squash and green beans and swallow dry words at dinner).

My grandfather coughs every Sunday on the phone for the last few months, he’s still being carved up without having been basted.

22

I’ve never seen Michael’s cheeks moisten while we eat, I cover my plate with dry meat and pass the tray.

Jeff Friedman

23

morning 1 I wake sleep wrinkled begging for water 2 you kiss me silent 3 I don’t want to be here my body lies 4 I want words you talk I hear your zipper

5 we say just enough yes not to leave 6 I will not Alice for your shrunken doors in a too small house our bodies rupture the ruled roof

Adriana Grant

24

Hah “You’re dead,” I said, holding the yellow pod between my finger and thumb, and flicking off the bud.

Jennifer Lekisch

25

Motherless Pre-dawn, the six of us cut underwear out of tissue paper and put it on in the windowless dark.

Dressed in rustling nakedness, we walk through the herb fields to the factory.

Industry ticks its grandfather clock inside us.

Sitting in the stainless steel room, we go through the medicine cabinet, thrift and spice, choosing ingredients.

The noon green light slivers our circle of skinny girls, as we mix milk, split, apricots, powder.

The mother machine heats the paste, spits out a glass bead, a baby pill.

Evening, we put the bead in the refrigerator, in its cradle.

Tomorrow, the chosen one of us will eat it.

We are tired, having worked our day, our childhood, like a turnstile, pushing through.

Tonight, we cross the night-dew fields of rosemary, lemon thyme, mint.

Dreams frost our sleep in the empty house.

Today, rain washes the laundry on the clothesline and we watch out the window, sad.

Factory time and we run through the fields, white feet soaking up the herb scents.

We arrive open the refrigerator, 26

and examine our bead.

Hope smokes in the glass.

We feed it to our sister, then dance to the wild strawberry garden, sun dial in the center.

Red berry after red berry must stain and juice the afternoon.

Night will hush with starry wind over the fields. We’ll lie in our big bed.

Sister, we’ll whisper, as the dark sky pushes again the window pane, do you feel the glass bead in you stomach?

Yes, she will answer, breathless, inside me it has sprouted rose petal wings, a eucalyptus twig body, sugar grain eyes.

We put our hands on her snow-skinned belly fluttering a butterfly beat.

A new heart, we cry.

This is how the motherless make themselves.

Jardine Libaire

27

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How Many Moons?

Therese Ariana LaGamma

It’s been unusually busy around the house. I can feel that something is just not right by the way that Master and Madam have been speaking to each other. Lately its been through loud, trem­ bling voices. They came into the kitchen last night as Abduli and I were washing the dinner plates. I knew they had something impor­ tant to tell us, otherwise they would have just yelled out for us in their usual way to bring another fork or knife or to fill up their water glasses. Master speaks very fast. I have trouble understand­ ing what he is saying. Abduli nods his head, although I can tell he isn’t understanding either. Even after these three years Master can not see that his words are like the song of a strange bird to our ears.

Madam stands beside him imitating his noises only to a much much slower and louder beat. I am able to make out several important words: “leaving...one month...Italy.” I wonder how many moons there are in one month. Time is never spoken of in these dimensions.

Then today a truck pulls up in front of the house. And the doorbell rings.

“Simon!” Madam calls from the top of the stairs.

“Yes, Madam?” “...the door!”

Does she think I have misplaced my ears? She speaks to me the way she does with her children. I want to remind her that I am a parent too. I go to open the door behind which stand five big, tall men. They inform me that they’ve come to help Master and Madam with the packing. Madam has come downstairs wearing a pretty blue shiny dress. Her eyes are big and puffy and she keeps making funny noises with her nose. She shows the men into the room where she and Master drink their coffee after dinner.

I return to the kitchen to finish chopping up vegetables for tonight’s dinner. Madam likes to have fresh vegetables for the children. Suddenly, the door flies open. It is the children getting back from a day at the beach. I examine their faces as they invade my kitchen — they are as red as the tomatoes I’ve just been slic29

ing. They proceed to pull open drawers, while spilling milk and dropping crumbs all over the freshly scrubbed floors. They forget to close the refrigerator. I want to give them all a good whipping — the way I do with my junior son when he is up to no good. Thu is the way we Nigerians teach our children how to behave. In this house when Master is angry he transforms into a lion, roaring so loudly that everything in the house is made to rattle. Then some­ one else will roar back and doors will slam all over the house.

I put back the milk which has been left out on the counter, sweep the crumbs from the red, clay floor, and shut the refrigerate?' door. Suddenly the daughter with the long blond braids screams.

She is pointing to an open drawer. It is the drawer where I keep my tools for baking. Her mouth hangs open. I peer inside won­ dering what I will find — “KILL IT SIMON!” she screams again.

There is a cockroach sitting on top of a wooden mixing spoon. I grab it with my bare hands and quickly twist its head off.

The girl lets out a sound of disgust. She tells me I am pathetic and runs out — probably to tell Madam of my evil-doing.

From the kitchen window I watch the peaceful setting of the sun. The five big, tall men carry out boxes to the truck. They have been here all day. Madam is ill. She went to lie down up­ stairs. The girl with the braids comes back to tell me that Madam would like some lemon grass tea. I go outside to the patch of gras which grows along the side of the garage. The truck pulls out and drives away. I wave as it squeaks by. When I come back inside I look at the calendar which Madam has hung on the wall above the sink. It reads APRIL. I want to know how many moons there are in one month. My body is tired.

30

Macroscope A whisper snaked around, until it reached the last child eager to voice the secret.

No more time for the grapevine, only miles keep the eskimo and the bushman from being neighbors, spying into each other’s houses.

The circle of children is much smaller, the last child has lost the look of anticipation.

Sean Kegelman

31

Entertaining Suicide He meets me in my room, pale faced and wanting to talk or happy and in need of a dance or the wine that I keep under my bed.

He’s wooed me for years— wants me to be his bride "Sui," I tell him, “I am very young give me time to grow up.”

So he gives me gifts— sparkling candies, glittering stained glass, rhymed poetry, I always wear and love most the pearl choker he gave me the first time we met.

He comes at night when I’m down and we sway to Janice Joplin ballads, dangle our legs from my third story window, decide we both love heights, he catches my eye until I’m dizzied and waver on the ledge.

He teases me for being frail and then tempts more when he smokes and tells stories without reserve.

Intoxicated from his cloves and my burning scented candles, I lean into him.

“Sweet Sui, your mind is full of everything that I want to know,” I whisper knowing that a voice would ruin our embrace.

32

“I learned from you not to think when I dance, wine tastes better from a bottle, youth is as elusive as your visits, and that swimming alone feels more significant.”

He whispers back to me in phrases that come like a sharp stab of beauty and pain.

I am a cat, he says, saying, "Yes” and the next day “No." I am only twenty-one and don’t know while lying in his arms how to react when he promises eternal love with a sly smile, seductive eyes.

Yes, I am tempted.

Yet, I am not a fool and as fond as we are of each other, I know that we won’t marry.

I’m not his only romance and being too curious to tie myself to one lover now, I tell him, "No.” He understands and leaves his mark by kissing the insides of my wrists good night.

Sometimes, I wake aching in winter’s cold moonlight, to see smoke swirling from the wick of the candle by my bed and he’s gone.

I’m sorry if I undid his dreams, but relieved to have been asleep alone.

Brooke Murphy 33

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David Stockwell

34

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Beast Growing deep inside of me it took control of my breathing manipulating my thoughts—none were left private or independent.

I could sense that the time was near when it would control my every movement.

It had me go for nights without dreaming days in seclusion and fear.

All I wanted to do was inhale and then exhale to try and release this beast from inside of me but it clutched with its claws under my left breast and it dug with its feet an imprint on my ovaries Its neck in my chest.

I could feel its head moving in the base of my mouth I tried to repress the desires that it created within me but it was making my tongue fold ready to enunciate my lips got in the position to pout—opened against my will— closed I thought I would win.

Then the words came rushing the beast had spoken out aloud And it was through my mouth that sound broke the silence— fast and loud, although, I was not to blame.

“I LOVE YOU” it made me say.

Exhausted I sat still—terrified I wanted to cry.

The beast smiled and crumpled to a minute size.

Candace A. Douet

35

1

Grandada I did buy you that daisy from The gypsy-woman, Her torn scarf and Worn smile pleading alms.

10 pesetas...

A small price for your heart Then.

No mosque, no Greco could Sing to my sight as Your simple gaze, greener than the Gardens of Alhambra, soft As a breeze kissing my ear.

We whisk from cafe to Cathedral, leaving the sun To bake clay roofs even longer...

Your dress sways at the foot of Colon, The loose white a certain Disgrace to the Errant Knight and Shadows of the cool, seeping From the floor, Tombs of the Blessed below.

Pull me now, Glowing cotton billowing behind to Tease me on...

Cast a glance of green (Oh, so delicious!)

A taste of mahogany flesh as we Dance up and Up the ramps to the tower...

There We peer over lands Ringed by centuries of Gold and

37

Love.

Still you caress the daisy, white As the strap falling off your shoulder, Soft the curve of your breast, Others have held you, You said, but I would Have you...

A different gypsy stalks the street today, Fatter than the other...

(Don’t they understand ‘no’?)

Columbus still sleeps in his glory, but now I hear the silence.

Silent rain soothes the streets, aching From years of footsteps, and I climb...

I peer again (Resting my elbows as I remember), But clouds dull The rooftops and I Shiver Against the wind.

Where is the daisy now?

Glance down...

A 100 peseta piece, lying, Forgotten.

Caressing it with thumb and finger, I descend Again, hand it to the gypsy with A smile...

Turn and walk, Tears mixing with Rain, soaking the History.

Mark Higenberg

38

Remembering the Misfortune of Disillusion I quickly shut my eyes and shuddered, fearing the blows of rebuke more than the darkness.

The shrill screams forced my eyelids open, only to find that she had raised her wrinkled hand simply to adjust the headdress which was symbolic of her vocation.

I had questioned her more than she had been accustomedand the flush of frustration apparent in her face had, for a moment, placed us on the same level.

The fiery old nun attempted to dissolve my confusion with the exclamation that “Pain is necessary.”

But I persisted, despite the onslaught of tears, amazed at the cruelty of life and this terrible woman’s summation that “necessity” was the cause of kissing my mother’s cold blue lips for the last time— Thirty-one years ago tonight.

R. Todd Murray

39

■

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Light of Angel Amy Stewart

I wake up when he comes into the room, but I keep my eyes closed. The whirring clinic noises followed me home. I can’t talk to him.

“Gloria?”

Not now.

“Gloria, honey? Are you asleep?”

I say nothing. I can tell he knows I’m awake, but I don’t care.

Not now.

Dylan signs. “Oh, all right,” he says and turns off the light. I try to go back to sleep, but the pain killers are wearing off. Death hurts, I think, and pull the covers over my head.

Brightly colored fish swim around and around on the insides of my eyelids. There is one slimy, pinkish-grayish fish that swims down through my sinuses into my throat, into my stomach and lower.

A strong breeze blows from a cloud between my feet. Up past my claves and knees, in between my thighs. I shiver. The wind blows harder and becomes a tornado which sucks the fish outside of me and blows it far, far away. The bright fish in my eyelids swims away into the darkness. Then everything is light and Dylan is calling me.

My eyes focus first on his lips. Wet cupid lips that are moving and moving and making deep sounds, speaking to me in a cupidly language I can not understand. He looks vague and I watch the edges of his body melt into the scenery.

“Gloria,” says a puddle in a far-away world. “Gloria, are you all right?”

Drip, drip, drip, drip.

“Gloria, come on. You’re scaring me.”

A wet blur is coming closer to me.

“Mary mother of God,” it gasps. “You’re bleeding!”

“Drip, drip, drip,” sings my mouth with someone else’s voice.

The large hands lift me up and wrap a bathrobe around me. I lean my face against the chest and take a deep breath. Oh, I think slowly, it’s my tallbrighthandsome Dublin man. The man is carrying me into the white room with mirrors. The muscles are tense and the 41

heart is beating hard and fast against my cheek. The man puts me in warm water, and the hand touches my face. I like the hand.

Now the hands are flailing around, pulling boxes and things from the place behind the mirror door. The voice is saying jesusohgodchristallmighty. I look down at the water. Red, like in Jaws. I begin to sing the theme song. “Dunt, dunt. Dunt dunt.

Duntduntduntdunt!” I add a blood-curdling scream for effect. The man stumbles and runs over to me.

“Gloria!” The voice is shaking. “What’s wrong?”

I smile at the big, brown eyes.

“You screamed, Gloria, what’s the matter?” The eyes blink and watch me bleed.

The mouth makes some more sounds at me. The voice tries to be slow and steady, but it can’t. “I’m looking for pads so I can take you to the hospital. Have you got any... Gloria? Can you hear me?”

The legs are wearing tight,fadedjeans. I like the legs. Iwatch them scramble all around. The voice is talking about maryjosephandjesus again. Towels are coming towards me. The hands are rubbing me with soft towels. They put one around my body, one around my head, and one between my legs. It is lumpy and uncomfortable, but I don’t say anything. Nice hands, they put the man’s long shirt on me and pick me up like a bride. The voice is soft and gentle. The lips are trembling and they keep kissing my face. The legs walk quickly to the car.

I listen to a few of the words the doctor is reciting to the man.

The doctor doesn’t look happy to see us again. I listen to a few of the words. “Nothing to worry about,” says the doctor. “Perfectly normal,” he says. “Rids itself of unneeded lining and tissue.” What does he know about lining and tissue?

“What about her?” asks the man.

I watch the doctor’s thin lips spout clinical noices.

“Rest...emotional strain...nervous condition...maybe slight reaction to codeine... nothing serious.”

Riding down the long corridor in a chair. Things are getting clearer. The cramps aren’t as bad. I don’t feel frozen anymore. Dylan keeps leaning over and peering at me. His eyes are puffy and he needs a shave. Jesus, I wish he could see how funny he looks leaning over 42

like that. We are in front of a desk. A nurse is smiling and making eyes at him. He sort of smiles but doesn’t say anything. Good.

He sings to me all the way home. I am glad because I don’t really want to talk. I just like to hear his voice. It’s funny when he talks. It looks like he could be American, then he takes you off guard with his leprauchan accent. Everything about him takes you off guard.

Like now he’s trying to look calm, but his whole body is tense. Silly Dylly. Why don’t you write me a sonnet about this, sugar?

Two hours later, our place is completely clean. Dylan has me all set up on the sofa-bed. From what I gather, our bed is drenched.

What a waste of all that uterine lining. They ought to give it to some starving fetus in Ethiopia. I feel like an invalid. I don’t know what to say to him. These pads feel like diapers. I wonder about things.

He walks in the room and looks at me the way you look when Bambi’s mother gets shot. “Dylan, come sit with me,” I say. My voice sounds scratchy and far away. He lies down and puts his arms around me, and he’s still shaking. His bottom lip is sticking out. He’s really shaking. Poor baby. I put my hands in his hair and ask him what is wrong. Now he can’t speak. My Dylan is crying.

“Oh sweetie,” I tell him. “Don’t be so upset. It was only a fish, you know.” He whispers something about the blessed virgin and buries his face in my robe. I’ve never seen him like this. Maybe I should get him a drink I wonder, but he’s holding on to me too tight.

What can I say? I just can’t believe he’s crying when I’m the one who is hollow now.

43

the day after november 3rd, 1990 tel(someones here to talk to you)ephone bluesgreensredsyellowsb u r s t st(its too much)op only to become blinding BLACKNESS bl(rushing through veins at 100 mph)ood bl(this cant be happening)urred vision i focus on the pic(sitting in the grassy meadow looking up at the camera, You with a cigarette in your hand)ture on the wall Oh! Fields of Joy

st(and think)op this is only a !night(im sweating) !ma(my fingerstoesarmslegs are wet) !r(my eyes are wet) !e(your eyes are cold) o god(i have to believe in you now)is Cruel

cant there be such a thing as

IMMEDIATE 44

?re(of happiness) ?incarn(of the picture) ?at(of color) ?i(of Your smile) ?on(of Your Life)

but (at this moment) i only feel hope(B!LoAsCsK)lessNESS

i have died with you

Sonja Stoerr

45

V I'

^7

o

Nick’s Wine Pants Nick’s pants That ring When he walks and purrs and sings When he stalks his lady who struts With her round ass and a mole or three on her chest He bites and grins at us, the rest Ihhiii forghot yhhour nhaame He says While he checks My breasts

Nick pimps and talks With those long fluted pants Those wine drenched pants His crotch tight pants which swish swish swish With his high stepping walk His high heeled walk Descending the concrete stairs

Jolyan Herman

47

Fugue After each meal, I weigh myself with clothes, I weigh myself without I weigh and I weigh my body Falling to sleep at night I vow to be better tomorrow The girl traces stick figures in the margin of her notebook during class During class she daydreams about her shape when she finally stops eating

After class she tightens her muscles to walk out slowly so her fat doesn’t jiggle in front of them Her new plumpness causes her to tear up the closet, finding clothes that make her look less heavy in the mirror After each meal, I weigh what I’ve gained I weigh myself with shoes, I weigh myself without The girl traces stick figures in the margins of her notebook during class during class she daydreams about the shape of her body when she finally stops eating You work on your sculpture, chipping away at imperfections and abstinence is your strongest tool They insist with fake smiles that you look “fine” but you know that they’re lying She pulls at the loose flesh on her thighs, squeezing until it hurts, tells herself to be better tonight, to control her cravings.

After each meal she weighs her corpse I weigh the fat in the morning, I weigh it at night I weigh the decision to eat or to politely decline.

The girl during class lists foods to stop eating.

You sketch the sculpture in the margins of your notebook.

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She arranges the food on her plate to maintain purity She eats only clean food, that which is without fat She chisels the excess away with her knife Then runs off what little bits sneak in and abstinence is her strongest tool I weigh myself after each meal to measure my purity The girl chokes from dreams of butter sliding down her throat She draws stick figures of when she finally stops eating She watches her friends eat as she chips closer to perfection in the margins of her notebook during class she daydreams of bodily pureness When she finally stops eating She chips the sculpture closer to perfection.

Brooke Murphy

49

In God’s Bar So Jimmy Balinski comes in the other night when I’m working alone, and I says, you can’t come in here.

So he says, fuck you, about a hundred times from the door.

I got nothin’ to live for, he says, let’s go at it right now.

Look, I says, you got no problem with me. You just ain’t allowed in here.

So get this, from outta nowhere, he says, you’re right. My problem isn’t with you, it’s with God. Just like that, he walks away.

So like I’m supposed to be relieved ‘cause this guy’s got bigger fish to fry.

He goes across the street like he’s on some business, and I watch them toss him out of Grundy’s.

He’s out in the street shakin’ his fists, and that street cleaner comes by and soaks him.

Damn nut probably needed a bath anyway.

Robin Shear

50

Big Sky Kevin Labick I did it behind a leather and tackle shop that was located behind a graying farm house. From the road, it didn’t look like the kind of place I was looking for, more like the kind of place I would get shot at for turning my friend’s car around in the driveway. When I finally pulled in, I kept one eye ahead of me and the other on a window whose shade had been conveniently left three inches open.

“What can I do for you?”

His name was Harry and with his reddish-brown mustache that curled at the edges and his pointy beard, I was prepared at any moment for him to explain to me the dignity of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Instead, once I told him who I was and why I’d come, he motioned with a flick of his head for me to follow, and we walked out behind the shop.

We engaged in conversation for a while, short sentences that were more for the speaker’s benefit than the listener’s. As we spoke, I was intensely aware of the sand and dirt I was pushing around with my worn-out tennis sneakers, and the tiny flecks of manure that drifted in and outof my nostrils. I looked at his boots. They were thick and tough-looking, made out of brown leather and that black stuff hard soles are made from. As he spoke, I calculated that if it overcame down to a physical struggle between the two of us, he would win because of his boots.

We became silent, maybe because I was looking at his boots too much. He shook his head and sucked at the inside of his lip. It was obvious that he was thinking about something, probably that he wasn’t too eager to continue on the route we were on. Then the lids of his eyes relaxed a little, making them look dull and sleepy. My mother would do that sometimes, when she was sick of arguing.

“Fine,” she would say at that point. Harry didn’t say anything but he walked over to a make-shift tool shed and took off the rusty chain that hooked it shut.

I had my thumb in my back pocket, touching my wallet before the doors were completely open. I heard him say “ 1979 Sportster” like it was windy out and he was talking to himself but I don’t know if it 52

was him or me that wasn ’ t quite there. I was just concentrating on the fact that I was about to buy a motorcycle and hadn’t looked it up in Consumer Reports first. I smiled at my lack of filial piety.

Twelve hundred dollars passed from my hands into his, more than half of the money my grandmother had given me to buy a car, preferably a station wagon. It was going to be hard to explain this purchase, impossible if I began with the truth.

You see, it was all a part of a plan drawn out partly in a car driving down a highway at four o’clock in the afternoon two months back, and mostly in my head every night since. But it wasn ’ t the good kind of plan that helped you achieve a desired goal like blowing up a bridge that allowed the Japanese to move supplies to their front lines.

It was the dangerous kind, one designed to ease fears, erase the feeling of impotency and make sense of a nonsensical situation. It was the kind whose purpose may or may not lie in its execution and it was that indefiniteness that scared the hell out of me.

It started with a girl named Jesse who lived under the “Big Sky” somewhere in Arizona. I never heard of the sky described that way before but she said it like she was saying “spoon” or “midnight,” and I was more than a little embarrassed to ask her what she meant.

Like most people I’ve seen pictures of the mid-west and noticed the emphasis on its expansiveness, but it wasn’t until that space was labeled for me that it took on any real meaning. “Big Sky” made it sound outer-worldly, like something out of a science fiction text, but the tone in her voice stripped it of the exotic quality I tried to invest in it.

“Is that what it looks like,” I asked her as we drove down the highway. We were passing through the Adirondacks on our way back to Middlebury after a few days in New York. The mountains had opened up and there was flat land on both sides.

“Not really,” she said apologetically as she drove. “There’s too many trees and hills around. A Big Sky is more open. It’s almost like there’s a ceiling over us now. But out there, there’s nothing. The horizon just...it’s just beyond everything.”

I liked the way she said that. Her voice had some kind of lust and admiration for the image in her head. I wanted to see what she remembered and I looked out the window my arm was resting on (it

53

was getting hot under the sun), and tried to imagine the sky without the trees and buildings and hills clawing at it.

Four hours after I first drove behind that leather and tackle shop, I laid down in my driveway, rocking my head back and forth over the grooves in the blacktop and trying to soak up some of the warmth it had caught from the sun that day. It was nine o’clock at night and my friend Josh and I had come back a little while ago from the farm. We picked up the bike; he rode the thing while I drove behind him with the car. I had wanted to be the first one to ride it, but Josh wasn’t great with stick shifts and I wasn’t great with bikes, yet.

I turned over on my side and looked at the motorcycle parked against the garage. It was only half revealed by the outside lights, the chrome and silver-metal pieces reflected the yellow colored bulb while the duller metal and dark leather never quite made it out of the shadows. It gave it the appearance of something not quite finished as intended but complete nonetheless. It was raw and powerful like a panther or tiger ripped down to just its muscle and sinew, more like a skeleton but no skin to weigh it down.

“Where should we meet?” Jesse had asked me one night. The alarm clock reflected blue-green in brown eyes, giving them an unreal appearance and making it hard to recognize her.

“Where do you want to meet?” I answered.

“I don’t know.”

“What about Memphis? I always wanted to see Memphis.” I put my head on the pillow.

“I thought you wanted to see a Big Sky.” “Oh yeah, scratch that. Why don’t I just come get you in Tucson and then we could figure out where to go then?”

“We could do that but that’s kind of boring for me. What do you think of Alaska?”

“Fine, but how are we going to get there though?’

“We’ll fly.”

“I don’t know. I kind of want to drive to you, to have the time to think about what I’m doing. A plane ride is too quick. I see this as a long, contemplative process with grass and hills and small towns and asphalt. You know? A time to discover America and all that.”

54

“I can dig it, Man,” she said smiling.

“OK. OK.” I said embarrassed.

The outside light shining on the bike went off. It was getting late and I think my housemate had installed a timer or something domestic like that, but I could still see its outline against the garage.

“If anything could drag me under the weight of that sky,” I thought looking at its evil shadow, “this thing could.”

I was getting tired.

Over the next few weeks Jesse wrote me letters about how things were going in Arizona. She always included clippings from magazines or tabloid newspapers that had to do with spiders. It was the big topic of conversation with us ever since she put a fake spiker in my bed and I blamed the guy next door, taking everything in his room and relocating it on the roof. It wasn ’ t until the end of the session that she told me it was her. Headlines like “New discovery shows that spider venom cures brain damage!” or “Health Inspectors in San Francisco are shocked to find entire uptown building overrun with killer Brazilian spiders!” would fall out of the envelope when I removed her letter. It was funny during the summer but I wasn’t getting any enjoyment from it anymore and that disturbed me. I had a feeling that even though our letters were filled with enthusiasm and promises, we were forgetting what it felt like to be together and once that happened it was over.

Two days before our fall break, I took off for Tucson. The decision was made the night before at my friend Jill’s place, after I insulted a girl that I thought was genuinely nice and had wanted to get to know. I don’t even know how it started, only that everything I said to her was cocky and sarcastic. I never listened to a word she said but used our conversation as a showcase for a newly acquired dark humor.

For a while I even thought it was she who had the problem. I was like some kind of spite-filled character who drinks a lot and gets slapped by women in a bad black-and-white movie where everybody is wearing hats. By the time I got home I felt sick and knew there was something wrong with me.

55

I left at six in the morning. There was no parade to send me off or even a cupcake with “Good Luck” carved in it with a greedy finger. It was too early for that stuff in a house where everybody went to bed at four. And it wasn’t until I wrote the note telling my housemates where I was going that I started getting nervous: “Gone to Tucson. If you’re all good, I ’ll bring you little cactii.

See you soon!

—love, Billy ‘heart breaker / odyssey maker’ Jenkins

That’s what I wanted, for this to be an odyssey that changed my perspective on life and made me a better person, wise and experienced, like Christopher Lambert at the end of Highlander, only minus the accent. But after I worked out the miles between just-northof-Boston and Tuscon, and then took in account that I had only eight days to get there and back, my idea of hanging out in small towns, talking to guys named Hank and Augustus got flattened out.

“More coffee?”

“Please,” I said to the waitress. I looked for a tag to see if her name was Alice and instead, I found a small scar on her upper chest where a mole had probably once lived. She smiled at me but I was too tired to do anything but stare at her and understand without emotion that she thought I was looking down her shirt.

It was four days since I left Massachusetts and each day I noticed the colors and designs of the diners and truck stops I was stopping at were becoming increasingly surreal in their appearance.

They went from solid primary colors to checkered, cheesy secondary colors, to Miami Vice pastels. But I think the latter was only because they were faded from age. The roads didn’t change though. They were a steady turned all black and I had to pull over before the heavy rain blue-black-grey. But this afternoon it was different. They made me wipe out.

“Looks like it’s letting up,” Max said. He was a sixty-seven year old truck driver who didn’t like to drive in the rain. His reason 56

was that it decreased stopping time by over thirty percent. Plus with an extra ten tons on your back, you never can be sure if your brakes will actually work or just delay your death by a few seconds. I agreed with a nod both times he told me.

I smiled in response to his last statement and walked over to the glass door. I pulled the pack of cigarettes from my front pocket and took one out. At the last stop was the first time I ever bought cigarettes in my life. I don’t smoke aside from a few puffs when I’m drunk at a party, but the mood of the trip made it seem appropriate. I put one in my mouth and struck a match from the book, rubber-banded to the pack, a trick I picked up from Red, the guy who sold them to me. I took a short drag and let the smoke float out all the while watching myself in the door’s reflection. I didn’t quite believe it was me I was looking at even though the figure movements in front of me moved exactly in correspondence to my own. I found myself turning my head slowly to each side keeping my eyes directly ahead, trying to find a flaw or crack in the mask. Then the motion of the cooks and waitresses moving around behind me caught my attention. They were just going about their business on a not so busy afternoon. To them I could have been anyone and I liked that.

A few hours later I was at a gas station/souvenir shop that was the only building in sight. The entire day had been rainy and overcast with heavy fog but now it was night and I couldn’t think of a time I had ever seen it more dark. For all I could tell, just outside the area of the gas station there could have been a hundred foot brick wall just waiting for me to smash into. “But then how could this place keep going without any returning business?” I assured myself.

“How much further to Tucson?” I asked the attendant.

“Sixty miles,” he said as he walked past.

I walked over to the pay phone near the soda machine whose sodas came out in bottles, and pulled out Jesse’s number from my wallet. I dialed it.

“Nice bike,” the attendant said.

I looked at him.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Thanks,” I said.

51

Drinking Water I would not drink water From the mouth of a running river.

Too much danger of sewage and salt.

Better to drink chlorine-sanitized, Charcoal-filtered water from a kitchen faucet.

Controlled, like ink flowing from a pen.

Jerry Grandea

58

Chambered Goddess I gave my Aunt Etta a figurine; an ebony goddess whose body was rich with the power of being a Woman.

Etta’s shriveled pink fingers traced the rounded black breasts, then lingered, so still, on the firm, swollen belly.

For a minute she closed her eyes, and her lower lip twitched; then those scared, polite hands hid her newly-found treasure in a bag of old rags, in the laundryroom closet quite silently hidden so no one would guess.

Amy Stewart

59

Scenes From My Garden 1. My bed lies in a corner close to the floor I wipe it clean each night before sleeping crumbs from hours before dirt pebbles from my feet Sometimes I wake early Perhaps you saw me at 5:30 this morning I was naked in my garden I had to smell the tomatoes had to feel the buds on those pepper plants 2. Yesterday I showed you my garden with a flashlight dark outside You had to squat to see the flowers on the tomato plants I asked you to touch them (the smell lingers on your hands) I asked you to touch my peppers

3. In my garden there are eight tomato plants six peppers six basils 4 beans and one cucumber

I also have flowers.

4. I thought of my garden when I read my grandmother’s letter -I love to dig in the earth- she said

61

5. Things haven’t changed much since you have gone my garden still grows I pick tomatoes off the vine eat them whole raw I slice cucumbers for salads I eat alone

It is still summer but I know my garden is going to die

Elliot Warren

62

Untitled I.

I saw a man today (through a window) He was dancing (with a woman) II.

I saw a man today And he wore a red sweater (v-neck) He was dancing In his Kitchen (with a woman) III.

It is dark in my apartment (so they will not see me) The man dances Slowly (with the woman) His arms (Her hips) His eyes

IV. I don’t have a telephone.

Kirstin Tobiasson

63

Fine Lines Lucy kitty denies my gestures.

My luxurious strokes and trickling kisses fall upon an animal who longs to flee.

Her strong drumstick of a leg pushes me away while her front hands tear mutely at my face— such are the vices of an indoor cat.

But she has no claim against my quick paws: for my thumb is my king and license to conquer.

It slides into her armpit and pins her to the carpet while I smother her velvet torso with my wild, vindictive smile and raise my face with a piece of sheer white fur between my teeth.

Terry Dubow

64

My Mother’s House Laura Marshall

Shelley and Dave sit together in the back seat while I drive.

They are spiritual companions, soul-mates, best friends, financial partners. Shelley once told me that she felt pain and joy vicariously through Dave, that when he sneezed her nose tingled. Sometimes she speaks to him as if she is answering a question, even when he hasn’t asked one. Metoo, she’ll say, a response to silence. And Dave, by the evidence of his small, close-lipped smile, seems to understand. Dave and I were friends first, though. When he asked me for more I said no.

Dave sits with his knees pressing the back of my seat. “Wren!”

He yells above the noise of the old VW engine. His voice is clear and sharp, even when he speaks softly. “Hey, where are we? Is this near Norwich?” We’re not close to the Vermont border yet, but I half nod, not answering his first question, since I’m not sure where we are exactly. While I drive I finger the fabric of my mother’s skirt, mine now, off-white, patterened with delicate red vines and flowers. The cotton is soft and fragile from age, and I know it looks silly with my heavy wool sweater and clumsy mud boots. There is a small brown stain on the side of the skirt and I wonder if it’s from the coffee my mother always drank. This is the skirt Mom was wearing in the photograph of her sitting on the couch, reading me The Secret Garden..In the photo I lean against her white blouse and stare into the book as if it had pictures. Her name was Robin, her mother’s name was Raven; my great-grandmother decided to name all the girls in her family after birds. My mother told me stories about my great­ grandmother, whom she still called Nanny, sitting outside the house and calling birds that would perch on her bare forearm to eat seeds.

Nanny’s drawings of birds were all lost in the fire, though. This skirt was saved because my mother left it in the car for some reason.

When Dave and I were closer I told him I’d bring him back to the place where my house burned twenty-two years ago. I told him he’d get a feeling from the place that would make him understand what he called my “melancholia.” He always said, Wrenny, tell me where this melancholia is from and T ll make it go away. Of course 65

he could never do that, but I wanted to share this place with him anyway. We were best friends until last year, when Shelley filled that role for him, among others. It was Shelley who wouldn’t let himcome alone today, as Dave and I had always planned. She says that she needs to experience important things with Dave. I don’t know why she couldn’t experience this excursion vicariously from Philadelphia, but maybe he can only feel her sneezes within hearing distance. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the two of them standing outside when I arrived to pick up Dave. I think Shelley has fallen asleep in the back seat, with her head on Dave’s lap, her African hope bead necklace resting on his knees. She told me that this necklace strengthened her connection to the goddess.

I ask Dave what he thinks of this part of New England.

“Rocky,” he pauses, “rocky and gray, at least in March. I wish we could see the mountains.” He has to sit forward in his seat for me to hear him. “You can sort of see them,” I say quietly, in case Shelley is sleeping. The mountains look like misty blue-gray clouds in the distance, indefinite mountains, as if they might be drifting, or sinking and rising, and no one would know. “I mean so we could really see them, you know, be able to name them.” Dave is trying not to wake Shelley, too, but she isn’t asleep. “Can you name them?” she asks me.

“No.” I was only five when my father took my sister and me to live with his mother in Richmond. How could a five year old know the names of mountains? I catch a glimpse of Shelley in the rearview mirror as she sits up. Her dark brown hair is mussed on one side and its layers look shaggy from being pressed against Dave’s legs. She’s still pretty, though; her eyes are so startlingly light yellow-brown that everyone remembers her by them. Her features are angular, more chiseled even than Dave’s, but not too harsh. She looks untame. We pass an exit for Hanover, and I tell them, “About ten more minutes, that’s all!” My voice sounds strained. Shelley stretches and mumbles something about being stiff that I can’t really hear, and Dave agrees with her.

My wool tights itch my seat. I wonder if the Wilsons will be home. They rebuilt on the site where my house used to be — I met them when I was sixteen and drove there alone, six hours, on the first day I got my driver’s license. My father grounded me for taking the 66

car without asking, but I expected that. When I went back three years ago with my older sister, named Raven after my grandmother, Mrs. Wilson remembered me, and invited us in for hot cider. She told us that she and Timothy, Mr. Wilson, loved the little neighborhood and wanted to spend the rest of their retirement there. She said that she prayed for my mother sometimes. I think she worried that my mother’s spirit was watching the house, waiting for an excuse to bum it down. “It’s a lovely yard,” she kept saying nervously. “Your mother tended the garden so nicely. Her bulbs still come up every spring.” I didn’t tell her that it was my father who had planted the hyacinths and daffodils. My mother had painted the house yellow, though, and painted one wall in my room red because that was my favorite color. I’m glad that her flowers didn’t rise every spring, that the Wilson’s white house doesn’t glow yellow as the bulbs start to sprout.

I can hear Dave shifting around behind me, his knees pressing unevenly on my back. “What a pretty town,” he says. “Dave, look at that house — Wren, can you slow down a little so Dave can see that house? Look at it, it’s like the one I wanted to redecorate in Philly, if I’d had the money.” Shelley pointed excitedly at an old, natural wood farmhouse with a stone chimney and a dark green front door. “Yeah, it does look a lot like that one. I know you would’ve done a great job with it,” Dave says, staring out the window. He sounds uncomfort­ able. Maybe I pressured him into this, maybe he would rather be at home washing the little MG convertible that he and Shelley bought together. I drive deliberately down small streets to the neighborhood on Yardley Street where I lived until I was five.

No one speaks as I park the car, and suddenly I miss the noise of the VW engine. Dave and Shelley are holding hands, watching me, waiting to see if I’ll cry. When I was sixteen I cried all the way from the Vermont border to the Wilson’s house, and by the time Mrs. Wilson saw me, I was choking so much that she couldn’t understand me at first. With Raven it was different; we were silent for hours in the car and then had to drink hot mulled cider. I bit into a clove by accident and chewed it slowly to remind myself to be more mature than when I was sixteen.

67

The Wilsons don’t seem to be home today. Their spotless white house stares blankly at me, maroon shutters and a brass doorknocker blare out of a flat, white background. Splotches of dirty snow are scattered across the yard. “If you want to be alone, we ’ 11 understand,” Dave whispers in my ear as we stand in the yard. I shake my head. He smells like the vinyl inside my car and also of his own smell, one which reminds me of hazelnut coffee and deodorant. Shelley pulls Dave aside for a moment, and then announces, “Wren, Dave and I thought it might be a good idea to get a bite to eat. Is there a nearby place he could just run out to to buy sandwiches or something?”

There’s a deli about a mile away, and Dave heads off with sandwich orders. “Now don’t tell me - no mayo and an extra pickle, right Wren?” he calls as he climbs into my car. “Still right!” I answer. “Oh, you can have my pickle, Wren! That way Dave won’t have to pay extra. I don’t really like pickles, anyway,” Shelley yells towards Dave.

She kicks at an icy pile of snow with the pointed toe of a brown suede boot. I refrain from telling her that this will ruin the suede, since she doesn’t seem to care. “I went to Vermont once with my family, when I was little,” Shelley says absently. “We went skiing at a place near Burlington. My brother fell and sprained his ankle, so we had to leave a day early,” she concludes with a nervous laugh. “He was always getting hurt,” she adds. I don’t say anything, wiggling my toes to keep warm. It’s too early here for the bulbs to come up. In Philadelphia, in March, the crocuses have already started. “God, Wren,” Shelley sighs, “it must be so rough to come back here after all this time. Dave told me that you’d only been here a couple times since it happened — I guess you two wanted to come here for a while, huh?”

“Yes,” I say, still staring at the house. It looks bigger, more solid than I remember, like it’s been standing here for a long time. The rhododendron bushes that Mrs. Wilson planted on either side of the front door have doubled in size since Raven and I visited, and they’ve put a brick walkway in. I feel stupid for not noticing that sooner.

“Would you call this Colonial style?” asks Shelley. “Yes, sort of,” I answer.

I walk around the house while Shelley waits in the yard for Dave. The backyard is tiny and looks wilted from the thawing winter.

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There is an almost empty birdfeeder hanging from a fir tree branch, bobbing precariously up and down from the weight of a squirrel perched above it. The squirrel looks at me as I straighten out my skirt, which has bunched up and stuck to my wool tights. Mom used to stand out here and call birds to perch on her hand, but they never got quite tame enough to fly that close. Shhh, IVrenwa, she’d whisper, ZfyoM’ re very quiet a bird might come. Then she’d make a low clucking sound from the back of her throat, the same noise she’d use to comfort me when I was upset. Raven remembers that once when I was about three I threw up scrambled eggs all over the kitchen floor and my mother made that low sound to me as she cleaned up the mess. Raven was seven then; she remembers more than I can.

“You missed the sparrow hawk,” Shelley tells me when I return to the front lawn. “Last month at ritual I had a really amazing experience with hawks. I’ve been fooling around with Tarot cards for a long time now, but I never really got the energy like Carol did.

Anyway, whenever I do Tarot this hawk card always surfaces, and it’s practically impossible that it happens by chance. In the middle of the ritual I saw a hawk flying right over my head and I realized that my primary connection to the spirits is through hawks. It was so neat. I think this sparrow hawk was a sign, you know, maybe your mother coming back to tell you it’s OK, by communicationg through me.” I stare at Shelley. This is the most she’s said all day, and she’s very excited. I don’t tell her that I think my mother may have already come back as a squirrel.

I see my mother in everything here, except the house; I feel the yard being suffocated by the cold and snow, just as she was suffocated by smoke. Dave and Shelley sit huddled together, chewing their sandwiches. Dave brought two pickles for me and no pickle for Shelley, who makes a point of eating half of his. “I really admire you, Wren,” she says frankly, “for making this kind of spiritual journey. I mean it, this really takes guts. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you. Have you read Claiming Love on a Tipping Axis?” I shake my head, “Why?” “Well, I think it touches on a lot of the grief issues that you must be going through, and also has a lot of great meditation exercises. It really helped me sort through things when my father died.” Dave rubs her back as she speaks. He must be attracted to 69

women who live with this kind of pain. What a great guy, a parent who’ll sleep with you too. “I’ll definitely look it up when we get home,” I tell her. “And I didn’t know about your father, I’m sorry.”

“That’s OK, it was a long time ago. I was only fifteen,” Shelley says brightly.

The earth is cold under my seatbone, uncomfortable, but it feels solid. I watch Shelley and Dave munching away, oblivious to any aspect of me other than that I was very young when my mother died. Maybe that’s all I’ve shown them, but I don’t think I would appeal to Dave if my mother was still alive. We leave because it’s starting to get dark and cold, and Shelley says she needs to getup early tomorrow. I brush the crumbs from my sandwich off my skirt as I walk towards the car. I concentrate on the sour sweetness, that taste of pickle juice in my mouth, as I pull out of the driveway, eight hours from home.

As soon as we leave Norwich, the image of the Wilsons’ house is replaced in my mind by the house my mother painted yellow.

Maybe she wore cut off jeans and a halter top, perched barefoot on a flimsy metal ladder. That’s how I see her, painting the house in long, confident strokes. Layers of yellow cover the house like a shawl, Raven and I are painted inside the lemon-colored thickness. My mother tried to strengthen the house like it was an eggshell, with coat after coat of light yellow paint that frayed and turned to charcoal less than ayear later. I’m glad her body wasn’t identifiable—the structure of the house caving in on her cracks in my mind, a sound like logs snapping in a fireplace. Shelley and Dave sleep in the back of the car on the way home, my car stretching further and further from the yellow house on Yardley Street.

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Untitled Singing softly in my ears as day blends to night, my lady.

She tells me of her love and summer’s lazy days, as I, nestled in her arms, head on her lap, cheek by her soft warm breast, slowly, from her, drift.

William C. Bull

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Heavy Skins Watching his ball ricochet Off the walls of the concrete gym, The boy’s smile breaks from its cage Like an escaped lunatic.

I catch the forbidden ball, Hold it, smooth and cool, in my palm.

Authority snatches his power, Weighs on his small bones.

The boy closes like a flower.

In desperation, screaming against defeat, Sprawled on spilled juice and dirt.

He still has to say please to get it back.

“I don’t even believe in God!” he says, Expecting a reaction.

I lean in close, Admire the scar between his eyes.

Inconsolable child.

I am amazed that I can carry him.

Robin Shear

13

Brother Rough whisker smoothed away my fingerprints as the sweet smell of leather woke me from my post surgical dreams.

“Hey sleeping beauty,” my brother whispered and dropped my hand from the warmth of his face.

His eyes attached to mine, but being nerve dead on the inside from painkillers, I couldn’t hold a focus.

He didn’t bother with the regulation syrup questions.

Instead lapsed into a story he was writing about a boy who believed that all places on TV were real, “Including Gilligan’s Island,” he cackled and snorted.

Sounds of his laughter moved like fingers of warm colorful light from his chest at the edge of the bed to mine.

His laughter, like a thousand laughing sprites?

Blurred eyes started to dance again, unsure of who should initiate the steps.

“He burns with a passion like the fiercest of vodkas,” described a critic of his recently, who hadn’t the slightest idea of who my brother was.

He smiled again and patted my knee which was bandaged up, wearing the same circus face that we both used to wear walking on our hands through Central Park.

No matter what mood I caught him in, smiling I always knew he was thinking about shooting a lion or something.

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I’m the only one who consistently knew these things though.

Everyone else though his snake mean streak was just from too much Jack Daniels.

My brother was not born to be polite and unoffending.

The birthday girl with her hands rubbing her eyes, filled with tears, the popped balloon in her lap and Dressy Bessy doll unzipped at her feet resulted in us being sent home for punishment.

Drowsy eyes tried to focus on his talk at the edge of my bed about how clear-headed he was “now that he and the rest of his actor friends just say no.”

When he was drying out I could only call, not visit...

“Telephone,” he would say by way of answering machine.

Amused with himself, he’d put on his best Jack Nicholson voice to spit back the hospital mantras: “I have to appear in my face, even on days that I don’t want to be there, like a movie, because it features me.”

Listening, I wanted to write his little sister into the script, only I don’t know what someone in that role would believably do.

Lying in the hospital, not sure if he was visiting me or the other way around, my eyes progressively had a softer vision and eventually lead me down through an interior darkness

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where eyes are of no use at all.

Feeling my forehead kissed I open one eye to see my brother wink back with an eye the same shade of blue as mine.

“I’ll call you on Sunday so that you can confess your sins.”

I rested my head back into my pillow as he quietly shut my door.

'Shakespeare

Brooke Murphy

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meal I carry you in my mouth to an empty room lay you on the bed and begin to eat I have no utensils use my fingers the sheet is my bib you are silent as dinner

Adriana Grant

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Hr I'

><-

Untitled Every time it’s the same thing.

You make an excuse like “I got another book of poetry. It’s upstairs.”

I’m in your bedroom again.

You start kissing me hard.

Shut my eyes.

Grope for the buttons on my blouse and manage to tear one off.

I slide down next to you, and close me eyes even tighter.

You whisper “You are very beautiful.”

Swallow deeply and let you place the last piece of clothing on the heap.

Coil my legs around youLock your body tightly within me.

And after, when your snoring fills the empty space and your arm lies over mea gritty brick pushing me down to the rusty, metallic bed frame, I wonder who I hate moreYou, for calling me beautiful or me, for letting you.

Laura Polin

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The Carousel Emily R. Fricke Old man Morgan, as everyone called him, though never quite knowing if Morgan was his first name or last, had watched the carousel turn for thirty years. He was as much a part of it as its elephants, swans, giraffes, and horses. Indeed, in thirty years, Morgan had come to know all of the animals quite intimately, and had given each one a name and personality. Sarah the swan was a favorite with the ladies, but due to her lily-white neck and deep alluring eyes, she caused the other animals, save her two protecting studs, great distress.

Ginger the giraffe, a most distinguished creature, tended to intimidate riders with her long neck, bold spots and narrow back, although Morgan gave her special attention to compensate for her lack of riders.

The horses were all greatly respected, and the children raced to the ones they felt would soar the highest. But Morgan, while appreciating the horses’ stamina, found their dedication to altitide annoying, and tried to persuade riders to choose some of the less pretentious yet equally brilliant animals, like the ostrich or bear.

In those years he learned not only about the carosel, but also about the townspeople, especially the children. Mrs. Griff had been the schoolteacher for about as long as Morgan had worked the carousel, and she often brought her classes down to the park for animal study, because the town did not have its own zoo. Such outings, however, repeatedly ended up in chaos because the children would race to their favorite animal without listening to Mrs. Griff’s zoological wisdom. Morgan often warned the children not to ride a certain animal, such as the bucking bear, because it had been acting skittish lately and might throw them off. Of course the children would laugh, immediately racing towards Buck, and Mrs. Griff would slip Morgan a look as if she knew what he was up to. Morgan never minded, though, because he met most of the children in town this way, and he also enjoyed watching the lovely Mrs. Griff smile and wave as all the children bobbed by.

Occasionally Morgan could convince Mrs. Griff to take a ride and, when she accepted, she would go straight for the revolving cup and gently sit down while spreading out her skirt. Morgan liked how 80

she did this, and thought it only right that she choose something ladylike. He preferred for women to either sit on less intimidating animals such as the swan, or, even better, to rest in that largecup which turned instead of rising and falling like the more masculine animals.

The cup suited the women better: here they could safely enjoy a moving ride while achieving a 360 degree view, without the bother of fixing their skirts. Morgan enjoyed watching ladies, especially Mrs. Griff, spin in the cup as the carousel moved gently around. Sometimes he would feel that the carousel was moving too quickly, and he would adjust the machine to a slower pace, but afterwards the ladies would ask, “Now, Morgan, why on earth did you slow it down? We were having so much fun whipping around.” This always left Morgan at a loss for words, but he’d carefully reply that he didn’t want to disturb their hair, or something of that nature.

The carousel was encased in a large glass house, which fascinated the children, and was nick-named “The Glass Castle.”

Morgan spent his days wiping this fantastical world with a cloth, rather than a feather duster, which would lift the dust only to let it settle once again. He polished the twisting brass poles which allowed each animal to rise and fall with the music; he cleaned the brass rotating devices which carried the poles up and down. It was while cleaning these that one day he felt a small tug on his pant leg. Morgan expected to see a familiar face, but when he looked, there was an unfamiliar tiny, gray-eyed, red-haired girl looking quizzically up at him.

“Excuse me mister,” she began in a fairy-like voice, “is this heaven?”

“No, but it’s the closest thing on earth you can get to it.” And with that he lifted her on to one of the stand-still animals so as not to scare her.

“Then if you’re not God, who are you?” the little stranger asked.

“I’m Morgan.”

“Well, Mister Morgan—” “No, it’s just plain Morgan.”

“Well then, Morgan, what is this?”

Morgan, after discovering her name to be Lizzy, proceeded to explain what a carousel was, and who would come to ride on it. She 81

sat amazed while the merry-go-round turned, and the soft magical music played. She thought little angels or fairies were singing to her, until Morgan showed her the huge music box with miniature figures chiming the bells. Morgan was happy and told her to come back often— and she did. The carousel was her heaven and she escaped to it whenever she felt sad. Fortunately she also visited when she was happy, and Morgan always imagined her little form gliding around the carousel, with her red hair waving like wings behind her.

Many children, including Lizzy, visited the carousel after school, but by far the busiest days fell on Saturdays and Sundays when there were family picnics and baseball games. Morgan prided himself in knowing most of the childrens’ names and even their parents. The carousel catered to all ages, from the youngest baby to the oldest grandmother, and everyone generally behaved themselves well, ex­ cept for the few teenage ruffians. Occasionally some boys would come by at night and try to throw rocks at the glass, but Morgan was quick to scare them off by turning on the lights and music as if the place were haunted. Most of the boys would quickly scatter, save Brett, their ring-leader.

Brett was like the cat who keeps scavenging the garbage cans even after having shoes thrown at it. Morgan began to expect him, and even though he acted like a beast at night, the next day he would pretend nothing had happened. This was his style and Morgan called him a “sly dog,” because with one tilt of his face and gentle smile, he would win any girl’s heart and please any parent. Morgan never liked the boy because he teased the girls, even Lizzy, as well as any boy who didn’t meet his high standards. Morgan was angry at this, but even more angry when Brett would hop off his horse and sneak around the carousel floor, trying to peak up girls’ skirts — yet another reason for them to sit in the cup. Brett was the kind of boy who would stand in the stirrups, trying to reach a greater height and see down the fronts of the girls’ dresses. Morgan more than once had to stop the ride and order Brett off, but when asked by the other children why, Morgan would blush and say Brett was acting ungentlemanly. Then Morgan would feel badly because when the children left they wouldn ’ t look at him and say, “See you tomorrow, Morgan.”

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If it hadn’t been for Lizzy, who always left last, he would feel sad for days. But no matter what the other children would say or do she always smiled with her gray eyes and told him, “Don’t you listen to them, Morgan. They’re just being silly.”

But then there was the day when Lizzy, in mid-sentence, let her voice drop and her eyes wander off into the distance. Morgan followed her gaze and discovered her distraction to be the ungentlemanly Brett. She ended her sentence with “Don’t worry, they’re ....just being wonderful.”

“What?” asked Morgan.

“Oh, I mean they’re just being silly,” Lizzy said, and then quickly added, “Can’t chat today. Gotta go,” and left Morgan dumbfounded.

During the next few weeks a remarkable change developed in Lizzy. She began venturing away from the bolted down animals which she had normally ridden, and began riding the wild horses which moved up and down. Instead of wearing her hair loose, she began pulling it back in a half ponytail, and tying it with a blue ribbon.

She said it made her eyes stand out more. Morgan noted that she carried herself differently: she no longer trotted around in a loose fashion, but in an upright, chest-out manner. When she asked Morgan if she needed a bra he blushed and said “no,” but then noticed strap lines the next day.

Brett, too, changed his manner when addressing Lizzy. He became more arrogant, warning Lizzy that Kelly was eyeing her, and that she’d better be careful or else Kelly would make a move on her.

He then offered his protection.

Morgan tried to accept this change, but couldn’t help feeling miserable when he saw Brett and Lizzy holding hands one gray day.

The sun had begun to fade behind the deep clouds as a summer storm came to chase away the summer heat, and there was Lizzy under Brett’s spell. The glass house grew dark and the lights lost some of their sparkle; Lizzy and Brett had started walking towards the carousel when a bolt of lightning flashed, bringing an instant downpour of heavy rain. The carousel looked blurry as the water covered the

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house; now the lights moved like water on a spider’s web against the glass. The two were drenched when they reached the carousel, and Morgan noticed Brett eyeing Lizzy’s small breasts, which were much more visible now that her wet blouse clung to her skin. Morgan wanted to refuse them a ride; how could he bring himself to look at his red-head without thinking that this snake had corrupted her?

“Oh come on, Morgan. Just one quick ride. No one else is around,” pleased Lizzy.

“Come on, old man. What’s one lousy ride? Don’t you want to please the lady?”

Lizzy’s gray eyes and wet lashes begged at Morgan. He couldn’t say no. He started the carousel up.

Lizzy placed herself on a bold-looking horse and faced front, not side-saddle as Morgan had taught her, so her skirt moved a few inches up her wet thighs. Brett sat proudly next to her on the lion.

They giggled as the carousel began to turn around, and the music mingled with the rain splashing on the glass house. Somehow, as Morgan listened and watched the couple go round and up, the music didn’t sound like angels anymore; but were strained siren voices trying to escape the confines of the glass. Morgan looked sadly on as their hands reached toward each other; Brett’s hand moved up Lizzy’s gentle arm and reached behind her neck. He moved towards her and then they kissed.

Morgan turned his face away, feeling weakened by the sight, and looked out into the rain. His blurry figure reflected in the glass, as well as the two lovers. He watched their wet faces kiss. He pressed his face against the window, feeling the cold against his cheek, appearing quite unnatural to anyone walking by.

The coldness awakened Morgan’s senses and he abruptly stopped the carousel, jerking the young lovers apart.

“Morgan! What happened?” asked Lizzy, annoyed.

“Oh, oh, something’s broken,” replied Morgan.

“The carousel is never broken,” said Lizzy.

“Well something’s wrong now, so you two better be on your way.”

As they left, Morgan heard Brett snicker, “Lizzy, he’s a strange old man. Always thought so. Doesn’t want his little lady taken away.”

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“Brett, be nice,” Lizzy said looking back at Morgan, blurred behind the rain-drenched glass house.

The two raced off into the storm, leaving Morgan muddled as to what had happened, and why he had stopped the carousel. Morgan didn’t know who to feel more sorry for: himself, Lizzy, or even Brett.

He knew something terrible had happened, but he couldn’t grasp anything tangible which would explain his new confusion. He began cleaning the swirling brass poles, only this time left the music playing to drown out the sound of the rain.

After the incident, people began to notice an emptiness in Morgan’s eyes which hadn’t been there before. It was as if age had caught up with him, and little children were wary of him for the first time. No longer did he make jokes about which animals were feeling what on any given day; he didn’t seem to have the energy to reprimand those riders who stood up on their stirrups; he told Mrs. Griff to ride whatever animal she liked, and he wouldn’t say a word; he let the glass and brass go dusty; he avoided Lizzy when she came to visit but stared Brett down whenever he came by. In a few days Morgan had grown old. How old, the townspeople didn’t know, but old enough forthem to worry, they thought.

The summer storms had passed and the autumn winds had begun bringing in the leaves, as Morgan tried to clean the “Glass Castle.” Everything seemed hopeless to him now, though. Before he wouldn’t hesitate to wash the panes or sweep the leaves off the floor, but now he couldn’t see the point. If he cleaned one day, it would all be dirty the next. The only part he liked to clean was the music box; the chimes seemed to keep him going because they blocked out the sounds of the branches squeaking around the glass. Morgan felt haunted by the untuned orchestra scratching its branches against his house like the sirens. He also kept the lights on longer, because those same trees created strange images of sea creatures which followed him around.

On such a day, he heard footsteps, and when he came around to side of the carousel he saw Brett, but no Lizzy; it was another girl.

She laughed loudly at Brett’s jokes and flipped her hair from side to side in what Morgan thought to be a very unlady-like manner. Her movements were unnatural and rough, and Morgan couldn’t see how

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Brett could be attracted to such a girl. As she walked heavily around the carousel trying to find a big animal, settling for Buck the bear, Morgan noticed that she lacked all of Lizzy’s gentle characteristics.

“Come on Morgan, give us a good spin, will ya?” demanded Brett.

Morgan started the carousel up and wondered what had happened to Lizzy. He watched as the two rode around together, each focused on the other. The new girl removed both of her hands from the spiral pole and rode the bear with her arms spread open so her shirt was taut against her chest. Brett leaned towards her and they joined hands, just as he had done with Lizzy a few months earlier, only this time Morgan didn’t feel any contempt. He let them go round and even sped the carousel up on request. The two rode up and down in opposition while keeping their fingers linked. Morgan played the music louder, but he could still hear the girl’s hard laugh and the scratching branches.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t notice Lizzy either, as she stood outside the carousel, looking at the two riders; her face was pressed against the glass and Morgan watched it lose color. She slowly moved away from the glass leaving a heated impression like angels wings in the snow, and when Morgan looked back at the riders, they were kissing.

Morgan let the carousel go round and round, faster and faster; he felt a new relief, as if something stolen had been returned. He walked to the window where Lizzy’s impression slowly disappeared, and he watched her float through the leaves; her red hair blending with the colors of autumn.

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Glitter$Kiss!Starfish She’s catting the way that he likes it.

At the bar she cats to men she’s never met.

They’re dazzled by her circus mind and jungle gardenia scent.

Watching from the stage he bangs away — his blue-eyed dizzy dish dream spice and kicks, spice and kicks, orders Kahlua and cream.

She silver prom shoes to the stage and dragon dances for him, smiles to Miles, and gets off on his funky jazz cinnamon.

For the moment all that matters is just being beautiful.

He plays his way on some crazy crazy horse, while she moves a Venus twist, starfish, cherries and milk, broken dish.

Then cosmic Shakespeare clock stop the music, tick-tock, he spotlights her and jazzes out, “Hey baby, who gave you permission to get off on my banana cream pie?’’*********** Wooooh, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy...

Brooke Murphy

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God’s Diet Cain ate Abel for dinner that night He cooked vegetables in foil beside his brother’s spit (slowly flavor sealing).

“God loves meat fresh meat.

We’re going to feast.”

Running a basting brush along the small of his back,

Cain carved off an arm, served up a plate.

God tore the flesh from the palm, the meaty part next to the thumb— chewing and picking between knuckles.

He wiped the blood from His lips, picking slivers and fat that stuck between his teeth.

Cain split his brother’s chest and sat down with his guest to a plate of ribs.

Jeff Feldman

89

A Lovely View Clio Manuelian

Colten's sheets tangled around him, the weight of his skull crushed the pillow, and a thick blue wormy vein bored across his brow. Directly above his face men dragged cardboard boxes along the ceiling, and dropped crates into the center of the room. They moved rapidly and stepped hard with their heels; except for the woman. The tic-tac of a woman’s unbalanced shoes was distinct among the thuds that men’s rubber soles made. She walk, in a straight line, heel to toe, the way women in the movies walked so their hips swayed more. The men followed her from room to room, dropping boxes behind her. The ceiling rumbled occaionally as if a train was passing overhead, as if in an earthquake. He thought of Irene.

When he’d met Irene on the downtown express train, she had watched him, aware that he was watching her. At Forty-second Street new passengers forced her to move towards him. His stare hadn’t changed with their proximity, and she was pushed closer. “That was the smartest move you’ve made all day,” he said when she allowed him to place his hand over hers on the pole beside them. “Yeah? And who made you Einstein?” The name had stuck throughout the whole month they dated, even though he thought that people with substitute names had substitute personalities. He had smiled loosely and let his body sway like hers, as the train rocked and jounced passed the local stations. Catching the rhythm of the ride like a young surfer, he slid his foot so his knee touched her thigh. She moved her eyes to the floor.

“Shh, baby,” he told her.

He generally didn’t call women baby, but it seemed appropri­ ate with Irene. That name stuck too. They traveled through tunnels gaining speed, and the lights flicked off, making her glowing silhouette seem suddenly pornographic. She jolted forwards with the train, but he caught her, pinning their hips together, and continued to smile. He liked the tension between them. But like any other woman, when she started that commitment talk, the constriction in his dreams traveled to his heart and he needed to be free.

Now, between the delicate-looking index and forefingers of his right hand, a Marlboro cigarette burned a long cylinder of ash that 91

fell onto his chest. He sucked deeply on the filter, leaving a wet ring around it. It wasn’t yet sunset. His mirror reflected the window and the sky beyond, almost indigo shinning off the surrounding buildings.

Each edifice towered up to form sharp glass cliffs; so eloquently illuminated, they sparkeled like knives.

“Windows for giants,” he heard Linda’s voice from some­ where behind his brain. She was a quiet woman, small and buxom, so grateful for his hospitality. It couldn’t have been more than three weeks since she cried, begging for reasons, but he remembered her now with an open expression. He felt strangely guilty and thought that maybe he should call her, but to explain the bathroom scene with Irene would be too much and in the end he knew he didn’t want her to come back. He’d been direct with her from the beginning, but to tell her now about his restlessness and his disbelief in such simple things as tranquil married life, only struck him as the final trick; where enslavement and humiliation awaited.

“Linda, I’m in love with you, and I want the chance to show you what it’s like to be loved by a man like me,” he’d told her. And because they’d been throwing down pitchers of Nightbird’s special sangria, and because he’d taken her to an opening at the MET, and perhaps because he was a reasonably handsome man who seemed earnest and knew, as wolves know, exactly what he wanted from her - she could see it in his eyes - she was flattered enough that when he said, “Why don’t we go uptown?” she said, “Yes.” Her nylons were still balled-up in his leather jacket pocket.

Mentally, he bloomed a thousand trinkets and images of women like Linda, like Irene, but they gave him the sensation of a large heavy­ winged blackbird in his head. He didn’t spend his days talking about them, only moments at night, in his bed when a thought about a woman came like a hole of sadness in his heart, but nothing a drink, another woman, a good day on Wall Street couldn’t fix.

He exhaled from his nostrils, and watched his reflection as the smoke streamed out like a pair of tusks. The magnificent sky passed through the mirror, but suddenly its images were illuminated like oil­ scum on the surface of a river. The scraping and shuffling above his head scrambled his thoughts. He couldn’t lay still. Pushing his heavy body off the bed, he decided on a walk, maybe something to eat and slipped his feet into tan sandals.

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The mover’s truck was almost empty when Colten returned with fresh pasta from the Gourmet’s Goblet. A woman with her back to him moved her hands, pointing to the truck and then upwards at the building. Otherwise she stood very still, he thought as he continued moving towards them. Her hair was knottedjust above her neck, and he was close enough now to see a few stray hairs that had fallen loose and swept back and forth over her shoulders. Stacks of boxes stood between her and the movers and both men watched the sidewalk as she spoke. Her lower back swayed out into a sharp curve, and she shifted her weight from one hip to the other.

The last of the day’s sunlight streamed through her cotton dress as she walked, and long shadows of her legs fell on the pavement, almost at his feet. As if his eyes had special powers in this daylight, he thought he could see the lace petal of her underclothes in the pavement. He turned to catch himself smiling in the reflection of a store window: shaded by a green awning unfurled above stands of fruits and flowers. He raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement to himself and thought even his unkempt hair made him more attractive.

Turning back to his building, he watched the edge of her dress flap behind the glass doors, catching a blast of air-conditioning, and then she disappeared.

“Submission.” His foot hit the edge of the book and he felt for a moment, that he would fall onto it, as if the sidewalk had abruptly tilted and “Submission” had been shot out of a cannon towards him.

Colten turned, with his eyes scanning the sidewalk, and again spied the cover of a black and white composition notebook. “Submission,” itread on the top line, and then in smaller lettering: Almaya Sanchez.

He looked up from the ground, anxious in his moment of voyeurism (the same sensation as looking through his mother’s drawers, dis­ covering her diaphragm, not knowing what it was, but aware that he shouldn’t have found it).

The street was empty except for a teenaged boy who knelt on adistant corner to fix the cuff of his jeans. Above his head a great blue neon fish leapt, with its jaws opened wide, in a storefront window.

Beyond that, clouds a shade between slate and lilac, smoked over the shinny roofs across town. He bent down to the book, placed his hand on the concrete beside it and looked again to see if he was alone. His eyes moved past the glass doors and the woman in the cotton dress

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stood with the movers, all three watching the lights above the elevator as she struggled with her box of books. Surely she would realize that she had dropped something, that she was missing such a book, and would come back out to find it. He looked towards the truck that was now empty and thought that perhpas he should leave it there. She slid stray hairs behind her ear with one hand. Colten thought his stare was so powerful that any second she would have to turn to meet it, but instead the elevator opened and the two men followed her into it. He remained squatting beside the camouflaged covered book. Then in one motion, he untucked his shirt and slipped the book into his jeans.

With his back to the building, he shifted it to his side so it lay concealed beneath his arm. Running the back of his hand across his mouth, Colten returned to the lobby.

Carrying him away from time, the flight of the elevator allowed him to mentally flip through the pages of “Submission.”

Lying in front of him naked would be the words that were meant for no one else besides Almaya; her secrets in his hands. He leaned his shoulder into the wall, so the book’s corners pressed into his ribs. It absorbed the heat from his body and he felt that if the ride was any longer, the book might bend with his side, the ink would run into his skin, and Almaya Sanchez would be lost.

Colten hesitated as he pushed the door open and walked quietly into the now dark apartment, as if he still might be caught. A muffled drumming of a Latin beat seeped in from upstairs. The overhead fan in the living room was still on and it cut the air in time with the music. He entered further, though he almost felt like an intruder. The room was lit only by an artificial glow from the streets below and buildings that clashed wildly with the deep azure in the sky.

Making his way through the hall, he tried to pace himself, but the edges of the book’s cardboard cover pushed out from under his shirt like four prongs. Colten shifted it around to his stomach and surveyed the room. A horn bellowed out from upstairs. He closed his eyes and traced the book’s edge through his shirt. This is Almaya Sanchez whose dumming smacks against my ceiling like invisible hands on tight Congo skins, he thought. He needed to sit down, to devote his full attention to a woman who wrote about her submission, there could be no distractions. The bathroom was the only safe place, it always was

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when he needed to be alone. His ear strained for Almaya’s footsteps but could only pick up the continual dragging of boxes and big band solos. Though they moved in separate rooms, one on top of the other, he felt their motions were somehow connected.

The phone rang, but he was already in the bathroom, unzip­ ping his jeans, taking out the book. He turned on the shower so he could not hear the voice on the machine. Steam quickly filled the room and through the clear curtain it looked like a shimmering waterfall. Mist slithered under his clothes and transported him deeper than sleep, deeper than dreams, than comas, until he stepped off the platform where Almaya Sanchez waited to take him to the next destination. Sitting on the toilet seat, he leaned over the book on his lap. The window above his head, though small, allowed the drums into the tiled room, and they repossessed his mind. Drops of sweat fell onto the black and white maze that covered “Submission,” enlarging, disforming its shape, and he opened the book.

Some words were barely legible, but each letter delicately swirled around itself like the spirals he used to see behind his eyelids when he drank too much. The water crashed beside him in the tub and he reread each word until his thoughts were no longer congruent.

They streamed around him like a rush-hour crowd. It was the riddle of Almaya that consumed him; the woman that walked hard on the balls of her feet, listening to Latin music after sunset on the thirty­ seventh floor. The unconquerable woman: never had the challenge been so real. She didn’t press hard on the paper and Colten thought that she must not tense her fingers when she wrote. Like light pattering on congos that she’d play for the rain. There was no key that to and reveal the soul of Almaya to him. He refused to allow his longing for her turn to grief. The toilet flushed upstairs and the water shook through the pipes behind him. She turned on the sink and turned itoffjust as soon, running her fingers through, he thought. Steam still poured from behind the shower curtain and the waves of heat made him feel like he was shrinking. He reached in and turned on the cold water, wetting his sleeve.

Pattering on drumskins continued to beat but the window pane held them back now. The loss of the woman he had journeyed to find left him more humgry than when he began. He needed a cigarette.

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Bitting his thumb nail instead, Colten turned the page.

Within two hours, he had read and reread all of “Submission”.

With the book close to his side, the way he had carried it when he’d brought it home. He went to the bedroom to get his cigarettes and then to the kitchen to make a drink. His mind was drained by this beautiful night of glorry, beyond death, beyond pain, beyond all stillness.

Colten sat in a gray leather chair with his back to the evening sky and closed his eyes. Only a piano rumbled above him through the ceiling.

She was relentless. He could feel, more than hear it, especially in the bass notes. Sometimes a chord would strike that made the thin glass vibrate against the livingroom table.

He saw her again, with the seven o’clock light beaming through her dress. She had looked very thin carrying boxes, delicate, incapable of such force. He knew everything about her, and the more he’d read the more precious that image of her had become. It was like a secret bond between them, he thought. Colten was her friend, her confidant, but secretly knew himself to be her predator. He was separate from the world she was shunning. Whatever her reasons for action, whatever her other secrets, he was on her side and she would understand that.

He was comfortable imagining her movements as she danced freely before him in her new empty apartment on the thirty-seventh floor. How she’d look in the middle of the room, improvising turns, dips, slight kicks maybe around a basic mambo step, in the same way that musicians improvised in steamy basement clubs. How she might press four fingertips against her chest, and while swaying make a sizzling sound as if she was on fire, with the windows open to cool herself off.

Her music played for long hours into the night and he could feel it in his teeth and bones as the deep notes rumbled the ceiling and walls like distant thunder. But she was closer. He wanted to finish the bottle and dance with her, but his head began to bob with sleep and he convinced himself that she would put them to bed together with the ballad that now cruised across the room. He wondered, as he lay down on the coutch with all of his clothes on, if his thoughts could tavel up as easily as her music could travel down.

Colten moved into sleep and his mind brought him to places 96

too real to have been dreams. He saw her somewhere beyond broken glass with her back to him; afraid to look at her ass, afraid to touch her, afraid that if he didn’t he would be lost. Slowly he began to realize that from the start he was not the one who had done the summoning.

He woke at an unknown hour with a strand of spit pulling his mouth back down to the pillow. Still a little drunk, a little numb from the darkness and the silence of the room that had grown since he slept.

There was panic even in his fingertips that searched for the pack of cigarettes on the table beside him. With the shades opened, the wall of windows now seemed like a wall of sky - too dark for early morning to penetrate. Nicotine recoated his throat like cough syrup, and it felt good. Silently peering out of his highrise room that was scaled to encompass the entire horizon of the city, he heard random notes that echoed in his head. He envied Almaya who slithered through the kingdom of sleep, missing the nameless sky before him, and pitied himself for watching it alone. Colten could not sleep again and walked through the livingroom with his arms crossed over his chest and his cigarette close to his face for warmth. “Submission” lay on the floor and he hoped nothing had changed in it since he’d dropped it there hours before.

Flipping through the first pages of confused scribble, all of it now seeming like a separate incongruent part of Almaya, he began the first few pages of Dominick. He was the Italian artist she’d passed in a phone booth, who described Almay to his friend on the other line as “beautiful” with thick waves of black hair and puckered lips. She let him spend the day with her shopping for shoes. Skimming the rest of the book until the last ten pages where Almay stood before him: honest, complex, yet vulnerable in a way that no other woman ever had. He took long deep drags of his cigarette and then left it in the ashtray to burn itself out. The sun, still cooling off from the day before, returned to the sky and Colten began to read again.

...he kisses me with a bottle of wine under his arm and I think he wants me drunk again tonight because of the way he touches my breast. I let him, but it still makes mejump when he grabs me like that and doesn’t work his way there. Sherina tells me that I should say "Touch me like this," and then show him, she brings me magazine

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articles called "Coming to Great Sex." He thinks wine makes me more relaxed, "less inhibited" are his exact words, and says that he canfeel it under his hands. I squench my eyes closed because it never feels like a shower, the way Sherina’s hands do when shefixes my hair for special nights.

This was not the information that had woken him from sleep and he prodded further into the pages. He passed over an entire history: Almaya’s life through her own eyes. Reading only the words in the middle of each line, he moved his mouth as if he could recite it all from memory.

..J tell him it’s too hot to touch, but I don’t think he stops because I ask him to, I think it’s because he hears himselfbegging and doesn’t like that.

"You can’t live in the slow track anymore,” hesays. "America isn’t like that. It’s aboutflashing lights, half-naked dancing girls, and fast car chases." I’m sitting close but he still shouts when he refills his glass. "If you stop moving because of the heat, you can’t let the heat stop you, they’ll catch you out there. They’ll eat you alive," he jokes, opening his jaws and comes straight at me.

Almaya played the sax in a club on MacDougal street. Sherina and her boyfriend Steven sat close to the stage. They came in ever)' Thursday. Colten watched her fingers - every depressed note - and even saw Sherina: head tilted back, eyes closed, swaying with the deep sounds from Almaya that moved through the smoke. Sherina showed up one night without Steven and somehow waves of secrets jumped out and splashed between them. Sherina wrote her name on a napkin. “Do you know where that is?” Almaya nodded, though she didn’t know Manhattan beyond Fourteenth Street. Sherina needed some financial help and Almaya needed more freedom than her brother’s house allowed. “The couch is fine for me,” Almaya had said, and it was. She moved in one month later. That was, according to the dates in the book, over a year ago. They made fruit drinks in the blender late night when Almaya would return home from a gig.

Sherina liked Coco-nanas and Almaya drank something with mango,

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papaya and passion fruit mix. Sherina saved the pulp from all the fmits and put it into a porcelain bowl for Almaya’s thumbs. (They calloused from holding the horn and the soft pulp soothed them.)

"Your thumbs are rough," he tells me, after rubbing them over his lips. And I want to pull my hand away, but I wouldn't have an answer if he asked why.

As if Almaya was dissected within herself, thinking and feeling for two, maybe three distinct women. If she was as psycho­ logically confused as “Submission” suggested, each fantasy that had rushed through him must die unfulfilled. But if she was as complex as the maze she had led him through in his dreams, then she was indeed his fantasy fleshed into life. Her challenge offered reward greater than any female conquest he had ever known. "..J’m not like this with every man, just lately," I try to tell Sherina, but she smiles at me and says not to worry; it takes time to train a man so he’ll know what you like. I think she says that because she’s Jewish and her mother told her things about sex that my mother doesn't even know now.

Colten believed that she was only one woman. One woman enveloped in such mystery that even she was foreign to herself. He liked that idea and lit a cigarette in celebration of his newly discovered clue. It was not he, Colten decided, remembering his dream, that was lost, but Almaya. If there was such a thing as “finding one’s self,” then he would be her guide through that expedition.

...hers is a different kind of needy. Dominick needs my attention in the mid-night hours when I want to sleep. But she only needs me to nod when she says "you know?" and I do know. Then I say something and she laughs. She laughs big and her eyes squint up with lines so they' re just slits. She laughs when I don’t think that anything isfunny. She told me I could put the Sorolla poster in my room ifI told her why I loved it. Two womenframed, on a dock somewhere in Spain.

They’re a little younger than us, in blues and pastel yellows, they fix their dresses, and wind and spray off the oceanfly through their hair.

"It’s you and me," I say. She laughed then too.

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...Dom told me he liked it when I smiled like that. I had to look at him. Not that my eyes were closed, but I had to stop staring at that poster to lookathim. MeandSherina eith cotton summer dresses, wet at the bottom and clinging to our legs. Warmthfrom the sun, I thought (maybe really Doni's heat?) With my eyes on the poster it was easy to imagine that Dorn’s hand didn’t belong to him. Sherina’s soft fingers moved over my neck and rounded with my shoulders. I watch her laughing with wind in her mouth and 1 turn my head to kiss her.

She felt like guava pulp around my lips: sticky and warm. Then Dom told me he liked it when I smiled like that. I said I felt sick from the wine. I feel needy tonight, the way that Dom does, but not for Dom.

Colten’s cigrette burned deep into the wet filter, so that he could feel the steam’s heat on his tongue. He pressed it out with his eyes still on the book as if his continued stare would produce more words. But the story of Almaya ended there. Colten watched the candy orange and fleshy pinks spread into the early morning sky and felt that this dawn was more unforgettable than any he’d ever seen.

With his fingers still holding the pages, he watched the sky fill with light and leaned back, thinking that he deserved such magnificence.

By ten a.m. his cigarettes were finished and the overhead fan reminded him that there was a world below him spinning through the day and he felt he should do something. He showered with energy though there was no need to be downtown for at least another two hours. If the boys on the trading floor needed supervision for a particular transaction, they’d beep him; but he was sure he’d have time enough for coffee and a paper somewhere leisurely.

He tucked the book under a leather cushion of the couch, like a precious jewel that held the secrets of submission, and tried to whistle his immitation of a mambo rhythm. As he locked the door, he reminded himself to stop at the bells in the lobby. Thrity seven F would stand stiffly beside Sanchez, A., and to Colten that would be the final reaffirmation of her existence. He admired his hands spinning the ring of keys around his middle finger; how the cuffs of his shirt ended perfectly before his thumb, and how its olive tone enhanced his tan. He rang for the elevator. Looking at his thumb more closely he thought about Almaya’s hands: calloused at the tips. Guava, he 100

thought, and pressed his thumb against his tongue unconsciously. The elevator doors opened. “Hello,” he said, and smiled at the older man and youngish woman who stood on separate sides of the elevator.

Colten shoved his hand into his front pocket as if he wanted it buried.

He stod between them with his back against the wall. The numbers lit up slowly; he coun ted two and one half seconds between each floor.

The woman beside him kept her nails finely manicured and their tips were whiter than porcelain or bone. He followed her hand, smooth and well creamed, up to her ear where she tucked a stray piece of hair behind it. Sensing his stare, she turned to him and smiled, and he noticed how she twisted her ponytail into a knot that hung gently above her neck.

Suddenly, there were not enough floors to grab her by the wrists, by the waist, by the face, to kiss her, to stare deeply into her eyes (he still did not know their color), to tell her every feeling she’d evoked in him in the past fifteen hours. Suddenly, only inches away from him: Almaya. He wanted to say, I know who you are, I know everything, I love you desperately my sweet, sweet Almaya Sanchez.

“So, I see you’re moving in.”

She looked downwards, searching herself for this evidence.

“Yeah,” she hesitated. “I am.” She turned back to the numbers.

“I keep my eye our for suspicious types lurking around the elevator.” She didn’t laugh. A frantic fear that he might never see the colorofthose eyes raged through him. If he failed now he was sure that he’d be lost eternally. This was no Linda or Irene, this was a woman who pounded syncopating rhythms into dark hours, this was a woman who was needy and Colten was sure he could fulfill her beyond... but he needed to be cautious. “No, really, you’d be surprised. That’s when some of the most suspicious types get really wild.”

A woman in her late sixties got on at the twenty third floor with a rodent-like dog in her arms and Colten bounced his head at her and lifted his eyebrows as if to say “See?” Almaya smiled into the collar of her shirt. The old woman looked disapprovingly atbothof them and then examined Almaya in her faded jean shorts and an oversized man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“So you’re sort of a security guard, huh?” Almaya whispered with thecornerof her mouth smiling. Black. They were black eyes like 101

pools of night. Colten was delighted.

“Exactly.” He was confident now. “Don’t you feel more secure already?”

“Well-” they laughed out loud together. The old woman turned to pierce a look at Colten, but he winked back at her, uneffected.

“It’s a lovely view from the thirty seventh floor, isn’t it?”

“Do they give you files on all new arrivals?” She looked surprised. “Or do you do all your spying via elevator camera?”

“Neither actually,” he wasn’t used to such strenous tennis matches. “Hive in thirty six F—right below you. I heard your music last night,” he added.

The doors slid open to the lobby where brown marble swirled up the walls like large viens. He stood back and let the woman with the dog, the old man and Almaya walk out before him as he held the door.

“I apologize if I kept you up.”

“No, not at all. I’m a big Latin and Jazz lover also,” he sounded awkward. “Which way are you walking?”

“Up this way, I think. Isn’t there a hardware store up this way?”

“A good seven or eight blocks. I’ll give you a walk over there.”

“That’s o.k. I have some other errands I need to take care of first.” She was more assertive, more self-assured than he’d imagined her, but he liked that.

“O.k.” He stood only feet away from where “Submission” had fallen the day before. “If you can’t find what you’re looking for you’re welcomed to come down to my place, I have a few good maps with all of Manhattan’s finest hardware stores highlighted.”

She laughed again. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that some­ time.” She extended her hand. “I’m Almaya Sanchez.”

“A delight, Almaya.” He took her thin hand and held it in his own; feeling her soft skin, her energy, her life soaring through his palm. “Colten Sinnder. Welcome to the building.”

“Thanks,” she said and turned with her body, though her eyes stayed with him. Black, like the ocean that wet your dress, in the storm that made your thoughts slip to Sherina, stay with me. “I’ll keep those

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maps in mind.”

“I’m free tomorrow night.”

She turned back to him, examining his chest, his neck, his face.

Her slender finger found its way to her crimson lip, and she smiled with only half her mouth. “You know where I live,” she said and continued down the block.

She played Miles Davis love ballads at sunset and he felt the elevator would never come. He walked up the flight. It was slightly awkward without wine but he didn’t want to associate himself with Dorn and so, decided against it. He brought a bottle of Perrier, a lemon and two wine glasses instead.

“Welcome to the upper East side,” he said.

“I’ve finally arrived, huh?”

“Yes, finally.”

She wore a light, flowered skirt that ended before her knees and a peach blouse with the top button undone. The apartment was bare.

“I’m still waiting for the rest of my stuff. It’s at a friend’s place.” She spread her amis as if presenting the apartment.

Stacks of books rose up by the window with the late afternoon’s sun still to powerful to cast shadows on them. Seventeen, mayber more, composition notebooks stood illuminated and glowing shamelessly in the livingroom. She was more open than he thought she would be, but he liked that also. Colten leaned his shoulder against the window pane and searched for the saxophone or it’s case. When he didn’t find it, he almost asked “Where?” but caught himself. “It really is a lovely view.” She nodded and he let his eyes wander to the back of her calves.

“So,” she drew his eyes back to her face. “What do you do besides spy on suspicious women in the elevator?”

“That’s a full time occupation right there.” She laughed and showed him her pink gums and small teeth. “No, I’m a bond trader - on Wall Street.”

“Ohhh, just what the world doesn’t need: another hustler or another poet.” She walked over to him and clinked their glasses as a toast.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” He looked for an ashtray.

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“Not at all. Do you mind if I go the bathroom?” She looked at him. Black, heavy eyelashes fluttering in the sunlight like butterfly wings lilting on a rose.

“Not at all,” he answered.

Her reflection on the window had swept through the glass almost ghostlike and then appropriately vanished. He glanced down at the books. He was sweating. The warmth of the sun on his cheek made his face flush and his finger traced over a maze of black and white that ran across the front of a composition notebook. This one had no title. Something crashed in the bathroom and his hand jerked away from the book as if it suddenly became too hot.

“Shit,” she said.

“Is everything o.k.?” he shouted. He could hear her gathering small trinkets off the floor.

“Yeah, fine. I’ll just be a second.” But whatever had fallen sounded too big to be fixed in a second and he knew she’d be longer.

He opened the top book, just titled the cover enough to peer down at the first page. He touched the paper with his middle finger and slowly moved the cover with his forefinger, slidding along its edge, the way he moved up a woman’s thigh. ...the numbers light up andflashaboveour heads and I know he's looking at my bare legs. I don t mind. I hold the hem of my skirt pretending to cover them, but really, I think I’m showing more. He watches my hands and the elevator ride is too long. “I’m new in the neighborhood,” I tell him. "Just moved in."

"I know," he says. "You’re right on top of me." He makes me nervous the way he smiles and stands so close. "Maybe you should come down; one floor can really make a difference.” He clicks the metal emergency button, so the elevator stops abruptly, and slides his hand along the wall and then around my waist. All the lights are still on and he lifts my skirt over my knees, hiks it high, bunches it above my stomach so my thighs beam under theflorecent glow. He licks the mole on my breast with the tip of his tongue. I want to say something, but he covers my mouth with his hand, so I turn my face and look at the numbers, each one lit up, shinning above our heads.

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Passages

A I D IS N T E ON I TAKING LIZARDS N LINGERS 0 I T C K I R PEOPLE C I K N K WITHOUT A E SENDS R E N A U 0 I TOWARDS REASON S L H I GRADUAL 0 T VENOM I HUNTED P E 0 0 R V P UNAWARE SECRETES E R SICKENS R WE Y

David Stockwell

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At the Church of Ste. Catherine in Montreal Outside People climb mortar steps, Each one a sun-baked rosary.

Some kneel on the concrete, Scattered like pigeons; Breasts heaving, clucking amens.

Robin Shear

108

Untitled White girl!

How I’ve envied you.

Your pedestal on which you stand firm.

Your men and my own to claim your love.

Soft silky hair they love to smell and run their fingers through and through.

White girl!

What can I do to be just like you?

Go to the city to have the black hairdresser do me, like you: Weave my hair, making it straight and long.

And bleach my skin to be lighter and whiter than I am naturally.

White girl!

Pretty, white girl, with colorful eyes, always winning the beauty contest prizes.

Why does it seem as if you have the best slice?

Never rejected, degraded or denied.

White girl, I wish my skin was my own.

Candace A. Douet

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Yes Yes, I will sit with you, Alsace At Van Gogh’s Outdoor Cafe Whose terrace ripens Like a tangerine

Two chairs and a table Straddle the gutter which Cuts through the cobbled Rue If my heel should catch on a loose stone, Would you please tighten your hand around my elbow?

Jolyan Herman

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For Ruthie Fifteen years iced her slanted blue eyes so reflections of the world merely skate and slip across them, unable to penetrate the frozen surface.

A terrified child huddled in the corner.

She had no guardian angel so Grace sent her the Freeze.

Sometimes when we are alone together she melts.

Her shrieks ravage my image of childhood.

“Jesus forgives everybody!”

She howls: “Everybody but Daddy.

Oh, Sweet Jesus, My Daddy is going to Hell!”

Amy Stewart

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Ji

The Sale Kristin Sassano

“Guess work, that’s the name of the game in shopping. You either pick something you know she’ll like, which she’ll probably end up hating, because you have no idea what she’ll like, because you only know what you’ll like, right?” The salesman stopped talking; having captured my attention with his quick monologue, he was able to take a breath. I had no doubt that he was in control; I nodded. He was as sure as sheetrock, and about as thick in the head. But he knew his stuff; he had pinpointed my problem almost immediately. Although it didn’t take much gray matter to realize that a guy snooping around the housewares department with a toaster under his arm, picking up everything from shortbread pans to apple corers, was completely lost.

The salesman was small and, as he’d bounded into my periphery, I had taken him for a little kid. He was just an abnormally small man. He had on an oversized department-store frock hanging almost to his knees; it was the color of pea soup and it even had threads of orange woven in like floating carrot pieces. His name tag— ERNIE—in all caps, was made of plastic that attempted to match the frock, but because of the subtractive quality of green on green, ended up looking gray, the color of a toilet-paper tube.

He wasn ’ t wearing a hat, though I fully expected him to; it was thatkind of uniform, that kind of department store. The layout catered to the privacy of the shopper, rather than to the shopper’s orientation; the shelves stretched almost to the ceiling, with about a foot of space at the top for, I guess, air circulation. I assumed it was a fire code.

I always blame quirky architecture on fire codes. For instance, when my bank downtown was erected, the original plan had to be modified. Because they had designed the building with offices set up in pods, as opposed to the standard gradeschool, hallway arrangement, eachcentral office had three doors stemming off it. The person in that office couldn’t get his or her work done because the people in stem offices A, B, and C were constantly up and down for coffee and then to the bathrooms. Doors slamming, voices clucking and paper rustling, that’s what my days are like; I’m a control-pod employee.

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I followed Ernie the salesman out of housewares, through the toy and hardware sections, and into jewelry. He walked like a man, but his hips defied the manly clomping of his feet, swinging back and forth under the tent-like smock. “Here’s where you’ll find something she’ll like. They all go for jewelry, all that glitters. Anything that sparkles so that their friends and co-workers will notice it. I mean, some of them like lingerie, but who are they going to show it to? You, right? That’sit, you’ll see it. But you already saw it when you picked it out.”

This man talked in paragraphs; I was amazed at how quickly the words spun out of his mouth, and more amazing was how easily I was swayed by him. I nodded again. “Yes,” I added. He smiled, looking me straight in the eye, like I had been taught to do in speech class. In fact, I knew all the strategies he was using on me, but somehow my brain wasn’t registering quickly enough to object. Not that I necessarily wanted to object, I just had to make sure he didn’t bulldoze right over me when it came to the bill. I wasn’t going topart with my money without thinking it over.

“So you want to see something in the cabinet?”

I moved closer to the lit case and raised my finger to the glass, ready to point. But I guess what he meant was would I like to see something specific, because he had already piled four boxes on his arm, the way a shoe salesman who can’t find the correct chestnut­ colored shoe lugs every other similar style in oatmeal, bark, and maroon out of the storeroom. He opened the boxes onto a swatch of synthetic velvet so the sparkling would be intensified, and stood back, allowing me to look their contents over.

There were a pair of turquoise-studded earrings that matched a necklace that was too long for even my grandmother, who often re­ entered the ‘20’s in her choice of jewelry; a bracelet with an amber­ orange stone that matched the carrot threads in Ernie’s shirt; a gold necklace linked in a pattern that looked like little hearts strung together; and a diamond-looking stone on an engagement-looking gold ring.

“This ring is for the serious relationship,” Ernie explained, “the gold necklace has little heart links, for the romantic, the earrings are for the flashy party-girl, and I just like the bracelet. What’s the occasion?”

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Good question, Ernie, I thought to myself. “Very good question.” I really didn’t have a reason for wanting to buy Monica anything. It was our fourth-year anniversary, but we had decided we would celebrate with dinner at Chez Nez, as usual. I guess I didn’t want this to be just any other year: not one more practical, economically sound anniversary, that’s what I had told myself. “I just wanted to get her something special, you know, for putting up with my dishes in the sink and my bathtowel on the floor.”

“So you live together, huh. Well, what’s the next logical step?

You’ve lived together for...” He motioned with his arm.

“Two years, three months.”

“Well then. I guess I was right, as I see from your glance at the diamond ring, here, you know what step is next.” He held up the ring.

“Why don’t you just do it? Surprise her, surprise the skirt off her. You know you’ve thought of it before. You know it’s getting to be time, don’t you?”

“Well, we don’t feel we’re financially ready and I think we left it that we would both decide when the time is right.”

“Women always say that, they always make you believe that you have to ask their permission before you take the big step, that’s a load of lines. They want to be surprised. Every woman dreams of being surprised, of geting asked by boyfriend on bended knee, the whole Hollywood scene. And of course the time isn’t right, it never will be, but financially you are ready, you live together, right?’

“Yes.” “Well, how different are the finances going to get? I mean, buying groceries as man and wife versus boyfriend and girlfriend, what’s the difference, right?”

“Right.” He was right and this definitely scared me. Why hadn’t I looked at it this way before, I loved Monica. We both wanted to live with each other forever, we were already practically married.

“OK. So let’s see your diamonds.”

Ernie winked at me; it was the same kind of wink I remember my brother giving me when we opened the Christmas presents we had already seen, the ones we had found in the trunk of Dad’s car two weeks earlier. It was a knowing wink, both friendly and secretive at the same time. He then walked into the backroom and, after rummag115

ing around for a few minutes, came back to the counter with a steel briefcase. The case locked on both sides of the handle, two locks; to open them Ernie needed to locate two different keys on his extensive keyring, which he swung around his thumb several times before clipping it back on his belt loop. There must have been over sixty keys, and he made sure that I heard each of them fall against his thigh before he stopped strumming them and opened the case.

“Well, here you go. Some of the finest diamond rings I think you’ll ever see, in this country at least.” The inside of the box was covered in plush purple fabric. The rings were separated by little dividers. There were probably only twenty-four of them, but they were beautiful, and they sparkled. When Ernie wheeled an apparatus that looked like a dentist light over to shine it on them, shards of light flew out of the box and speckled the walls. The diamonds themselves looked like they housed tiny needles or knives, they certainly weren’t clear glass like I had always thought.

“All that glitters, that’s what I said. Now, your girlfriend would fall for these like a brick in a fish pond.” He laughed at himself.

“Let’s see your pinky finger. The pinky of an average-sized man will usually fit the ring finger of an average-sized woman exactly. If it doesn’t, it’s almost always on the small side, so she won’t think you thought she was a cow, when you guessed her size.” I reached for one of the rings, but Ernie flattened my hand against the glass of the counter. “Please, I’ll get the ring for you. Just give me it’s coordi­ nates.” Ernie pointed to the sides of the case. Along one side and the back of the case were two sticker-strips, one with numbers and one with letters, like some kind of a board game. If I wanted to see the ring in row G and column 4,1 was to tell Ernie I wanted G-4 and he would pick it up and slip it on my finger.

“You will understand,” he explained, “if I can’t let you reach into the briefcase; it’s just a formality.”

I nodded and surveyed the rings. “OK, A-3 first, then B-5.”

A-3 was too flashy, and B-5 turned out to be egg-shaped; Monica was definitely not an egg-shaped type. I knew she liked the traditional, but last year at the company party when her friend Mary announced her engagement, Monica made me well aware of how gaudy she thought Mary’s heart-shaped diamond was. She even went so far as to tell

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Mary she thought the diamond was too large; they just started talking again last month. So B-5 was out of the question. “How about G-l?”

Ernie smiled. It was obvious I had stumbled on one of his favorites, I liked it too. The ring was white-gold, with the band stretched until it was as thin as a dime sideways. It cradled a diamond that looked like a tiny chip of ice, and around it were sapphire points that tinted the diamond cold blue. The ring was so delicate I thought it might melt off my finger, leaving only a puddle of thick blue water.

It was perfect, a balance of tradition, without being too traditional, and eccentricity, without being too eccentric.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Looks like it was picked from the center of a glacier. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it came from the North Pole. But, then again, it’s both hot and cold at the same time, kind of like apiece of sunlight under water.” Ernie couldn’t take his eyes off of it. “Good old G-l.”

“Yeah.”

A scratchy voice over the intercom speakers took us both by surprise. “Ernie Krestor, report to S.R.O., Ernie Krestor.” I had forgotten that I was in a store, and that there were other people there, besides Ernie and me.

“That’s me, I’ve got to hit the sales rep. office. I’ll have to close this case up, but be back in a dog’s shake.” Ernie fumbled with the key ring again, locked the box and tossed it in the back room. “I’ll find you, if you want to wander around.”

I stood at the counter for a moment, massaging where he had pulled the ring off my finger and thinking about how right the ring was for Monica, how beautiful it would look on her slender ring finger. I imagined her showing it off at work and marvelling at what wonderful taste I had. I wandered back to housewares, back to the toaster I had been eyeing before I bumped into Ernie. It was an oven kind of toaster, because Monica had been complaining about our slot toaster lately.

“It toasts one side of the bread lightly, while it burns the other.”

She would appreciate a new toaster and it would be a surprise, seeing as she thought I was just taking her to ChezNez. Monica would definitely prefer a less expensive gift. She wouldn’t even know I had seen the ring, so it would appear that I had been overly thoughtful, anyway. I picked up the box to carry it back to the jewelry section. I’d 117

just tell Ernie I’d decided on the toaster and get out of there; I’d just tell him.

But Ernie was already at the counter when I showed up. He had the case opened and G-l in his hand. “Do you want me to wrap this up for you?” He meant the ring.

“No, I think I’ll take this.” I meant the toaster. I was controlling him now. “This will surprise her just as much, she’s not even expecting any gift at all.”

“That will surprise her as much? Listen, do you ever go fishing?”

What kind of a question was that? “Yes, I fish.”

“Ever had a big fish tug and tug on your line? The kind you reel in, winding around and around and, each time the line slips, you imagine a silvery trout the size of your rowboat bucking and yanking the hook?”

“Well, not that big, but yeah, I guess I know what you mean.”

What was he setting up? What was he getting at? I thought about walking away with the toaster, but I was interested. Besides, he looked like he knew I wanted to walk away, so he just kept talking.

“So you’re leaning back, you’ve got your buddy holding your ankles so you don’t dive in for a swim.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I was getting impatient.

“You pull your line out of the water and there’s nothing but an old, waterlogged blanket dangling from your hook.”

I saw what he was getting at, it was clear now; I understood.

“So, you drop your line back in the water and keep fishing, at least you didn’t lose your hook,” I said, proud that I was giving him what I thought was a truthful answer, content that it went against what he wanted from me.

“Your fishing line bent over and kissed itself, and you got nothing but a piece of junk. You think you’re going to keep fishing, you’re about as tired as a rug your grandma spent all morning beating the dirt out of, and you say you’re going to keep fishing?”

He was right, but... “Yeah, I bet I would.” I thought he might catch me lying, but then I realized that he didn’t know anything about me, not even my name, and I was consoled by that thought.

“Well, I bet Monica wouldn’t keep at it. I bet she’d never go

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fishing again. Especially not with you, if she knew you had bought her a toaster instead of a diamond ring.”

“Yes, but she doesn’t know, and she wants a toaster; she’s been complaining about our old one for almost a year.” I looked him straight in the eyes, though he seemed to waver in the wash of the bright fluorescent lights. I concentrated harder. He would see that I was being completely honest. He wouldn’tquestion my finality at this moment, and most of all he wouldn’t waste anymore of his creative selling on me.

“But you know. Just get her a ring, not necessarily this ring, but get her a ring. You can ’ t wait forever to make up your mind,” Ernie stated, simply.

The truth I didn’t expect. The truth was too much to handle, I could deal with more of his lies, but to level with me, to tell me exactly what he thought I should do, changed everything. I couldn’t make a decision when Ernie was just pushing the sale, but when he told the truth, told me what he really believed, my mind cleared. I would buy Monica the toaster. I would also buy her that ring, the G1, and ask her to marry me. I would surprise the skirt off her. Why hadn’t I asked her before? Was I scared that she might turn me down?

No, I always knew she wouldn’t.

I could even see her saying yes, I could feel the word washing over me in waves of happiness. At Chez Nez, with the violins swooning music into our ears and an expensive half-empty bottle of wine on the table, I would fall on my knees and place the ring in Monica’s smooth hand. She would pull me to her and repeat her answer into my chest. She would be crying, like women in the movies: sobbing and wetting my shirt with her tears. I could see it all, our embrace, a patch of candlelight turning her into a glowing angel.

Shadows from the spinning candle flame chasing each other around the walls, and painting pictures of Monica in a wedding gown, our children playing with our dog. Then Monica would tell me I was the most thoughtful and clever man she had ever met. And I would agree, because it was my idea, after all. Wasn’t it? But every so often, in a blurred shadow or in my green water glass, I would see the face of Ernie, laughing.

One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t ever tell Monica about Ernie, and I hoped someday I would forget about him myself.

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guitar solo his guitar has hips and gets to sit in front like a wife he plays her delicately she wants to make that sound

he puts her in her case resting in his room’s corner she waits shut in plush dark until he comes to unlatch her

Adriana Grant

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i

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SB

For General Colin Powell I learned my lesson well, early, because I saw my father take a bath.

He made me keep my room clean.

I kept my eyes closed and my wide mouth open when he told me how it was going to be with the girls. (sometimes I keep my mouth closed) I laughed at the jokes because I understood them.

I learned to play their games so I can expect surprises.

My goals are quite clear.

I want to head them off and then kill them.

Elliot Warren

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Power of Fingerprints This night I left like a clay ball rolled tight, no air pockets.

Sometimes I jump at your palm begging you to leave fingerprints where my skin is, This night I left feeling your fingerprints etched inside, as clay is folded on itself you have the power to turn skin around, collapsing a pot on the wheel power I can’t think I’d give on purpose.

Laura Marshall

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Messenger To the Gods Chris Riggio Ricky received a bike for his eighth birthday. He would ride around the block of tenement buildings all day long, cruising before the trail of kids running after him. He and his friends would build ramps against the sides of hydrants and launch themselves up into the air. Ricky would dart from across the street and propel himself into the angle of the ramp; he wasn’t afraid of crashing onto the sidewalk.

As Ricky grew, he kept riding — even in the winter when fewer people were around to bark at him. In high school he became part of a gang who rode dirt bikes. They would snatch purses and generally intimidate people. Ricky didn’t care about that part; he enjoyed swerving around pedestrians on the sidewalks — barely scraping them, and dodging cars in a sudden charge across a busy street. He let his friends so the robbing and stealing, while he would cruise at the end of the pack, practicing wheelies and no-hand turns.

He loved trying to balance while moving as slowly as possible, shifting his weight from side to side to avoid falling over.

When Ricky graduated from high school, he decided to apply for a job at a courier service in midtown, following the advice of his guidance counselor. {Sowhat do you like to do, Ricardo?) Wearing his best Sunday clothes, Ricky walked into a busy office on the lower west side and asked for a job. He was given a ten day trial in which he would be evaluated on the basis of how many deliveries he made, and how many miles he covered. They gave him a beat-up ten speed with no back brakes and a seat that couldn’t be adjusted. Ricky was too excited to care, and he jumped on the bike before he was even out the door.

The next morning Ricky arrived at work and was given a roll of quarters, a beeper, and a satchel which he immediately wrapped around his thin frame. He nodded his head as he listened to his orders. {Be courteous, call in immediately, lunch onyour time.) Then he was on the streets, once again dodging cars and beating lights. He did impressive work over a two-week period, and he was hired full time.

He was given better routes, and often he found himself working between major corporations.

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Ricky was noticeable; he would sometimes ride wheelies along open stretches, his high-pitched whistle drawing attention. He was always making noise as he rode; often drivers would turn around in alarm at the sound of his Spanglish falsetto snapping into their ears.

He would hitch rides on the sides of buses for a couple blocks, and he knew to stay toward the middle lanes, where pedestrians and car doors weren’t part of the course. He tried not to stop during runs, and most of the time he didn’t have to. Only on the major intersections, 42nd and 57th, did he not risk trying to make it through a red light.

Ricky began to earn some good money for the hard work he was doing. He knew he was one of the best, and he developed a good rapport with the secretaries he regularly encountered. (You re thefastest one out there, Ricky.) The packages he carried were of extreme importance; these were forms that couldn’t wait two days, and couldn’t be faxed. He was being trusted with papers sent from one CEO to another. He felt like a messenger to the gods.

One Friday evening when Ricky called to check out for the week, he was asked if he could make one more run before heading in.

It had been a hellish week for Ricky; he’d encountered snow and slush for the first time on the job. He wasn’t able to slash as much as he was used to — and thus his carries were fewer than in past weeks. His dispatcher stressed that this was an important run, from Citicorp on 44th to the IBM building on 56th.

Ricky biked across town to Park Avenue when it began to sleet. He pedaled against the hard rain, keeping his head dipped and staring into the glare of the road. A flood of taxis swerved around him and he strained to see. He finally came to a halt in front of the building, which was dark and empty. He dragged his bike behind him as he approached the front desk. An elevator door opened and a tall whitehaired man in a dark overcoat came rushing out. He looked at Ricky.

“Are you the carrier?” the man asked in a rushed breath.

Ricky nodded his head.

“This is of the utmost importance! My associate needs to get this before he leaves for the weekend. So can you hurry, please.” He stabbed at Ricky with the package.

“No problem.” And with that Ricky turned with his bike and lunged out into the street. As he darted ahead of cars and squeezed

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between buses, his mind raced: this package could contain contracts for a major deal—perhaps insider secrets. It began to sleet harder and Ricky felt the pellets cut into the skin on his face. There was no way he was going to stop. He could barely see the lights above him. The vehicles slurred by in a rush of colors.

Ricky splashed through a puddle at the edge of 56th Street and hopped onto the curb, where he whistled aside a group of pedestrians.

He slid between their hunched umbrellas and skidded to a halt before the IBM building. He jumped off his bike and dragged it with him to the security desk where he was interrupted by the guard.

“Thirtieth floor, he’s expecting you.”

Ricky stopped and gathered his thoughts. He nodded and walked toward the elevator, leaving his bike leaning against the desk.

The elevator launched upward, floor numbers flashed on and off. The doors rushed open onto the thirtieth floor, where a short balding man stepped in. He looked up at Ricky, who held the package against his breast.

“I think that’s for me,” he said reaching for the package and taking it. “That was pretty quick, kid. I spoke to my man over at Citi just five minutes ago.” He pushed “one” on the dash. Ricky inched back and stood up straight.

“You know how valuable you kids are to us? You make it seem like we all work in one big office building. Five minutes, and bam! It doesn’t matter ifit’s a document or a football pool. We know you’ll get it here.” He held out a five-dollar bill which Ricky gathered into his pocket. The elevator reached the first floor and the man exited briskly. Ricky walked up to his bike, which was dripping slush onto the marble floor of the lobby. He watched as the man pushed through the glass doors and buttoned his overcoat. His chauffeur jogged up from a black Mercedes and held an umbrella over his head. Ricky thought about running out after him to ask — was this one a football pool or something serious? But he decided not to.

Ricky rode up Madison Avenue; the rain sprinkled. He darted across 56th and raced toward 57th, whistling and hollering at the cars ahead of him. He clearly saw the traffic lights ahead, as the vehicles revved on either side of 57 th Street. The light went yellow, he pumped harder— then red. There was no way to stop, he dipped his head down 126

and ignored the slowing cars at his sides. His jacket, filled with a violent stream of air, inflated about him. He closed his eyes and felt the mist brush against his face. The doors of traffic crashed upon the intersections and Ricky sailed ahead as if his wheels weren’t even touching the ground.

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Angel She is a human creature unlike any other.

A woman of 40 years with deep Spanish spirit, dramatic behavior, a weathered face.

Passively doing life, sometimes she glides, sometimes fumbles; usually she avoids.

Her worldly role is so small, though her presence grand.

Something is missing.

Wisps of cigarette smoke rise over her head in the dusty blare of sunlight; She sits still while her eyes squint at something... it remains a mystery.

The sunlight hurts her as she is a night creature hiding from view not ready never ready to take on the business of the day much less the broad scope of the world.

She stays inside....the house, the car, the store, where she hungrily stares at the new wooden brushes, blank canvas, and endless colors of paint, waiting to be used.

Only they can carry her away to her Heaven.

But she chooses to avoid...

It is all too scary.

Evening falls, night falls. Night means sitting, waiting for sleep.

Sleep is easy.

Kira Williams 129

The Process Every Monday, he buys me trinketsPlastic wind-ups and colored pencils I smile carefully, begin from the edges of my lips and pull the curtains back, revealing perfect rows of teeth.

“These’ll take the edge off the week,” he says.

He usually calls once on vacation “How are you? What have you...”

“Fine.”

Then the conversation becomes a blur of jokes that fizzle out.

He ends it with, “I miss you.” and I return it, “Miss you, too.

Can’t wait to see you.”

When we are in bed, he asks, “Do you want to?” bends over me, kisses my forehead.

So we do.

After, he lets me rest my head on his shoulder blade for two minutes, then his arms hurt, he says.

My neck is strained, anyway.

These are the repeated processesforced smile, craned neck, and strained words.

We’ve done so well, reduced this way.

Laura Polin

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Untitled You know what the moon just asked me?

It said, “And so, where’s your lover?”

What damn nerve.

Diane Cornelius

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M

Educational Eros Jen Cavanaugh Silas Campbell gave his coffee cup a cursory rinse under the cold water before returning it to its home on the staff-room shelf. The brown smears which trailed down its exterior stood out against the chipped white porcelain. He shuffled back to his armchair and began to stuff papers into a leather satchel. The other teachers were making their way out of the room, exchanging polite conversation about the Christmas holidays. Silas dawdled in the room hoping to avoid those among them who might feel obligated to show an interest in him. He hated the first day of the new term. He dreaded the twenty-five new boys who were waiting in the classroom to ridicule and humiliate him.

He hated their accusatory innocence and their judicial obedience.

They would know about him already. St. Agnes’ was a small school, only five-hundred students, and the boys had an uncanny talent for picking up information. Even on the first day he could hear them calling him “Silly” Silas and “Creepy” Campbell behind his back. Silas took a long, slow breath and entered the room. The boys rose, obediently, “Good Morning, Sir,” they chanted, although he could already hear a snicker from the back of the class. “Good Morning, boys, or should I say Salve Discipuli.” Silas began to giggle at his own wit, then fell silent as he became aware of the blank faces in front of him. The looks on the boys’ faces told him that they had judged him already, and that he had been found lacking. “I suppose you know my name,” he stammered, writing it on the blackboard in blatant contradition to his last statement. He could hear the rustle and whispers which rose while his back was turned, and subsided as he turned back away from the blackboard. He hated the boys, but what reinforced his hatred was that at the same time he loved them. Not individually, but as a whole, the mass of adolescent flesh which greeted him every morning. The light down which was beginning to sprout on their flawless skin. They were his ideal and his punishment.

His whole life had been spent trying to get closer to those boys, trying toplay apart in their lives. Instead he found himself, at the age of fifty, surrounded by boys who despised him, in a job with little satisfaction and even less pay.

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Giving them an exercise to keep them busy, Silas allowed himself the luxury of looking over his new students. They were the usual mix of tall and short, fat and thin, beautiful strong healthy boys with their lives ahead of them. In the front was one on whose face was an endearing innocence, and toward the back was one with a mischievious smile. He examined each one individually: their skin, their hair, the way they held their bodies under their black wool uniforms. Silas was just about to look away when a boy in the third row looked up and caught his eye. Ordinarily he would have glared, or reprimanded the boy for staring, but he was trapped by the nakedness of the boy’s glance. His face was beautiful in the way that only a young boy’s can be. It had the softness of childhood, but no feminine conceit. His skin was unblemished by the acne which so often spoiled adolescent faces, and an unkempt tangle of dark hair fell in splendor over his flawless forehead. His eyes were clear, somewhere between grey and green, but Silas barely noticed them because he was so transfixed by the boy’s enticing lips.

Silas was nervous and uncomfortable for the rest of the class.

The temperature in the room seemed to have risen considerably and the dull grey polyester of his suit began to chaff against the skin at the back of his neck. When the bell finally rang, signaling the end of class, he felt more than his usual relief. He collected the boys’ books, carefully noting which one belonged to the boy in the third row. On its cover, above a crude cartoon sketch, were the words “Alexander Willoughby, Latin and Classical Studies, Lower IV G.” Dismissing the class, Silas put the book on the top of the pile and headed toward the staff-room for his tea break.

As he dipped his stale biscuit into his tea Silas stared out of the leaded windows at the miserable vista before him. A light drizzle was falling on the gravel of the driveway and beyond the great cast iron gates of the school. Silas could see people scurrying hurriedly throughout the streets of Hammersmith.

******************** The sun shines on the tanned bodies of the young men as they wrestle in the Athenian courtyard. I sit by, hungrily watching the

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sweat trickle down their naked bodies, running over the muscles and pooling in the hollows between them. In the center is Alexandras who smiles sweetly at me occasionally. Alexandras of Macedon, conqueror of Greece, Asia Minor, India and my heart. As the sun sets over the city the boys get ready to leave. Alexandras walks with me through the city and the evening cool. In my house we sit in the Andronitis where slaves bring us bowls of undiluted wine and we toast Dionysus.

Alexandras wears vine leaves in his hair, my Bacchan boy, and pushes plump olives through his perfect lips. I reach over to touch him, feeling the soft gauzy film of my tunic slide down my arm. ******^c5jc^c5i<5ic}ic^<^e*

Silas was startled by the sudden arrival of Miss Kendall. He nodded at her, in an attempt to veil his utter contempt. Miss Kendall was young and pretty and wore a floral print dress which fell gracefully over her slender body. She was friendly and lively and all the other teachers called her Phoebe. Silas refused to use her first name, wielding the formality as his last weapon against the enemy. He knew the boys liked her, which made him hate her more. He would notice them staring at her breasts in Assembly, and he had once found a note passed by one of the boys which went into intricate adolescent details of the author’s erotic intentions. Silas was convinced that she invited these responses from the students. Who knew what she did in those French classes? Silas got up and organized his books for the next class.

*************** Four o’clock finally arrived and Silas was one of the first people out of the gates. He walked quickly to the bus stop, hoping to catch the three-past and avoid having to travel home with the boys. He saw the bus pull up to the stop as he turned the comer, and had to run the last ten yards to catch it, his wheezing lungs protesting against the effort. Hauling himself and his satchel full of books onto the bus, he paid the driver and found himself a seat. Eventually he arrived at his building. He walked down the corridor and up the stairs to his door.

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Downstairs he could hear the creak of Mrs. Herberg’s door as she opened it a crack and peered out to see what he was doing. Dismissing the thought of her, he turned the key in the lock and went in.

Even after Silas turned on the overhead bulb which hung like the sword of Damacles over his hallway, the interior was dark and dingy. Papers and leaflets lay strewn across the threadbare brown patterned carpet. A cat unfurled from its position in front of the radiator and began to meow plaintively. “Hello, Tiberius,” Silas said stepping in between the papers. The familiar odor of mildew and fried food greeted Silas’ nostrils as he headed into the kitchen to make himself something to eat. He no longer ate “regular meals,” there was no one to eat with and the structure of breakfast, lunch and dinner had long since crumbled to a far more open eat-when-you’re-hungry regime. Some days he would just sit, too lazy to go to the trouble of preparing food, and others he would do nothing but, as if the food itself would keep him company if he only ate enough of it.

Silas opened the fridge and pulled out a packet of pork chops.

Congealed blood dripped slowly from the plastic wrap, and Silas began to offer up his prayer to the gods. Muttering under his breath he speared the half-defrosted chops on a fork and dropped them into the same pan in which he had cooked his eggs that morning.

I pray to Zeus and the Gods of Olympos as I slaughter these oxen and skin them, cutting away the meat from the thighs and wrapping them in fat, making a double fold, and laying shreds of flesh upon them.

Silas prodded the chops in the pan. I pour on these offerings the Phoenician wine from our ships. Silas doused the pork with A-1 sauce as an after-thought. The chops began to shrivel and turn brown in the pan. As I roast the entrails and burn the thigh pieces! taste the vitals. The sauce bubbled angrily on the hot surface and the room began to fill with the odor of roasting meat. Tiberius snaked furtively between Silas’ legs. Silas cut into the chop and tasted a piece to see if it was ready. Judging them to be done, he turned off the gas, slid the chops onto his plate, and began to cut them methodically into little pieces. For Zeus, my Lord, I cut the remainder into pieces and spit them before feasting in thine honor. Silas ate his chops alone and in silence.

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When his meal was finished Silas scraped the remains of his chops into Tiberius’ bowl, put his plate in the sink with a squirt of detergent and headed into the living room. The living room was his special room. Everything else about his flat was quite ordinary and commonplace, but the living room was all his own, his atrium. No one had ever been there except for Silas himself, and he took pride in this.

Even when the neighbors came around spying, he had always man­ aged to steer them into the kitchen.

The perimeter of the room was flanked by Ionic columns.

Silas had first seen them at a garden center which he passed on the way to school, and he had known he had to have them as soon as he saw them, even going so far as paying the center to deliver them to his flat.

The delivery man had looked skeptically at the overgrown path of weeds in front of the house, but Silas had convinced them of his plans to recreate a Grecian colonnade between the pavement and the front door. The obvious concrete surfaces did little to detract from the impact these columns made in the cramped room. In the center of the room was a tripod which smoked with acrid incense, and pinned to the walls were pictures. Some were photographs of museum pieces and some were posters from the museum. Silas’ favorites were the wrestling pictures. He had some modern pictures of wrestlers, too, but they weren’t the same, the men weren’t naked and they had hard, ugly, distorted faces. The Greek boys had wrestled to improve their minds as well as their bodies. There had been no brutality in their fights.

Silas sat down on a couch which he had salvaged from the local used furniture shop. It was really one of those sofas one expects to see in a psychiatrists’ office, but Silas thought it seemed somehow archaic, like the ones on which the vase figures reclined. He lay on this every night while he corrected the boys’ homework or read in Greek. Tnniahr h<.p..iiprl m.t H copy of Plato’s Symposium. Whenthe evening light began to fail he lit an oil lamp, admiring its dancing flicker over the page.

*************** Let me be your Erastes, I ask him as he bends to pick up the discus from the dewy lawn. I have wisdom, and can teach you many 137

things. We will attend meetings, and you will make speeches. We will praise Dionysus and Eros together, offering them many sacrifices.

My slaves will bathe you and annoint your skin with olive oil, and I will bring you gifts. Alexandras looks at me and his soft cheeks glow with the radiance of the setting sun. I reach for the soft flesh of his chin, but he shrinks away from me, and I know that this is why I love him. He is so innocent, so completely mine.

The next week passed slowly for Silas. The darkness of time was lit only by the beacons which flared when he saw Alexander.

Silas began to watch rugby games so he could see the boy, filthy with mud, scramblingon theplayingfieldfortheball. He no longer noticed the other boys, and sailed oblivious through his daily routines. He lived only for the nights when he could retreat to his atrium with a bottle of wine and dream of Alexander. Finally his behavior came to the attention of the headmaster, and he found himself stuck in the position with which he had so often cursed his students, standing, meekly, with eyes on the ground, in front of Mr. Rutledge’s desk.

“I was wondering if there’s anything wrong, Silas,” Claude Rutledge asked in his headmasterly voice.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a little unwell, Sir,” Silas replied, falling easily into the tone of his persecuted school days.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” said Claude, “we can’t afford to lose you so early in the school year. What you need is a wife. Never could understand how a man stays unmarried. For all the trouble, they’re worth it in the end, you know. Why, I think I should go stark raving mad if I came home to an empty house every night.”

Silas murmured something about his work. He really couldn’t bother with a wife, after all, he was working on a book: TheDeclining Morality of The Roman Republic, and he barely noticed that he was alone. Claude Rutledge shrugged his shoulders and said that he hoped Silas would feel better soon. Silas was dismissed and allowed to return to his tea-break.

That afternoon the boys were especially unbearable. He was trying to teach them the importance of Fate in the Iliad, but they were 138

unruly and refused to be taught. To make matters worse, Alexander was home sick with a cold. Silas tried to improve his spirits by staring at the innocent-looking boy in the front, Oliver, but he could hear a perpetual whisper from the back of the class. Finally he looked up at the right moment and caught his culprit, a cruel-looking boy called Marcus. Marcus evidently had something of great interest on his lap with which he had captured the attention of all the boys in the last row.

Silas dropped his chalk mid-sentence and marched to the back of the class where he caught Marcus and his cohorts engrossed in a video game. Marcus, who had been so absorbed that he did not notice the teacher’s approach, realized it too late and tried to slip the game into his desk. At the same time Silas saw what he was doing, lifted the lid of the oak desk and slammed it fiercely, crushing the electronic parts of the toy. Marcus glared at him, “That cost fifty quid, you know, I’m going to tell Mr. Rutledge.”

“I’m sure Mr. Rutledge will agree with me that you ought never to have brought it into class to begin with.”

Silas turned from the boy, who glowered after him. The rest of the class was silent. None of the boys answered his questions and the room was hushed except for Silas’ monotonous drone. When the bell rang the boys jumped up from their seats, relieved. Silas made his usual desultory journey through the corridors to the staff-room, against the stream of boys rushing to their next classes.

We are sitting at the Theatre. There are people all around us an the stone seats. The play is a tragedy, and is sure to win the prize.

Alexandras is watching the actors whose faces are hidden by masks.

Thewoman s mask looks like Phoebe. I amwatching Alexandras. His shoulders are beginning to turn redfrom the sun, and he is wearing the garland I gave him. His cheeks areflushed because we have been drinking wine. He is so innocent, my Eromenos, and it is his innocence which drives my passion. My desire to corrupt him is as great as my lavefor the boy. The air isfull of thick dust. On the stage the woman in the Phoebe mask is being wheeled through the central doors on a olatform. Her dress is tied in a noose around her neck and its white 139

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fabric is stained red. The crowdjeers, and Alexandras cheers loudest of all, then he turns and looks at me for approval, and I nod at him, smiling.

That evening Silas decided to telephone Alexander. It would be easy to use the boy’s illness as an excuse to speak with him away from the other boys. He spent an hour in his atrium, with his eyes closed, breathing deeply and relaxing before he had the courage to dial the boy’s number. He made the call from his kitchen, holding the boy’s exercise book in his trembling hands while he listened to the ring at the other end. Finally a woman answered the phone, evidently Alexander’s mother. She was quite upset to hear from one of her son ’ s teachers, but Silas soon reassured her that Alexander wasn’t in trouble. He said that he just wanted to give the boy the homework, since there was a test on Monday, and he ought not get behind. After much persuasion Mrs. Willoughby put Alexander on the phone.

“Hello, Sir,” said Alexander in a tone which suggested that he was still not convinced that he had not done something wrong.

“Hello, my boy,” said Silas, “I just wanted to make sure you had the homework questions; I wouldn’t want you to fail the test on Monday.”

“Oh, Okay,” said Alexander, hesitantly. “Actually, Oliver brought me my books already, so I wouldn’t get behind.”

“How kind of him,” said Silas, suddenly feeling very foolish.

He had never tried to make conversation with a boy before, and found himself completely at a loss for something to say. Eventually he stammered a brief “I hope you feel better soon” and hung up the receiver. Silas cursed himself for having such high expectations. He would have to reach the boy some other way. He stood up from the chair and walked to the living room, tripping over Tiberius who lay sleeping in the doorway. He took off his suit and tie, relishing the freedom of stripping away those twentieth-century bonds. He un­ buttoned his shirt and took down the modified sheet which hung on the back of the door. Draping this carefully over his body he shuffled over to the couch and lay down to think.

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*************** Slaves and merchants push past us as we walk through the marketplace. It is early morning and the sunlight is fresh and untainted. As we walk I recite the Iliad to Alexandras, and he listens attentively despite the vendors who snatch at the hem of his tunic. I buy him a ripe pomegranate and watch the sticky red juice stain his lips and dribble down his chin. I am his teacher, he learns everything from me. There is nothing in his world which I have not shown him.

He is an empty vessel for me to fill. ***************

The next morning Silas decided what he had to do. Since he needed to spend more time with the boy he must establish a pretext to do so. He would begin to fail Alexander in his class, then suggest private tutoring. He would, of course, offer his services as tutor, and this would allow him to be alone with the boy for at least an hour every week. Silas’ plan was easy to execute. For all his beauty, Alexander was a less than brilliant student, and it was simple to correct his mistakes more diligently than the other boys’. For three weeks Silas failed Alexander on his tests and gave him D’s and F’s on his homework. Finally Mrs. Willoughby called the school to find out what she could do about her son’s poor academic performance. Silas had thoughtfully already mentioned to Mr. Rutledge that one of his students was having problems, and a meeting was set up between the three of them to discuss the situation. Silas dressed carefully for the meeting. He wore a clean shirt, even though it was only Wednesday, and brushed his scanty wisps of hair to cover his bald patch. When he arrived Mrs. Willoughby was already sitting in the room with Mr. Rutledge.

“Good Afternoon, Madam,” Silas said, with a somewhat awkward and poorly executed bow, “I trust that Mr. Rutledge has informed you of our concern over Alexander’s recent lapse.”

“I really don ’ t know what’s come over him,” Mrs. Willoughby said, “I know he’s not particularly gifted at languages, but he’s never done this poorly before.”

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Silas found himself staring at her harried face. It was so like Alexander’s, but all the beauty had been replaced by a worn and worried look. Her hair was tied back, but little wisps kept escaping, which she brushed nervously away from her forehead. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and were more grey than Alexander’s, and instead of those full, enticing lips, her own mouth was drawn and her lips chapped.

The breeze sifts through the columns of the garden and plays passively with Alexandras’ hair. It has copper highlights which shine in the evening light as he sits by the fountain, running his fingers through the cool water. The dappled light from the water reflects in his eyes, and they light up with indescribable beauty. His skin is so smooth that he looks as if he were made of marble, and I decide that tomorrow I will commission Praxiteles to make me a statue of him.

Then even when his skin withers and his hair falls out he will be preserved. My Kritios boy, sculpted from stone to protect me from the ugliness of the world when your beauty is gone.

Silas suddenly became uncomfortably aware of the gazes of the headmaster and the boy’s mother. He cleared his throat and asked Mrs. Willoughby, “Is there anything wrong at home which might be affecting Alexander’s work?” secretly congratulating himself for shifting the blame onto her. Mrs. Willoughby assured him that nothing at all was amiss at home, and Silas managed to nod, while giving Mr. Rutledge a look which suggested that he was not entirely satisfied with the truth of this statement.

Finally Silas decided that the time was right to make his suggestion.

“You know,” he said, speaking as if this were the first time the idea had occurred to him, “Alexander is a bright boy, he probably just needs a bit of extra attention to bring him up to the standard of the other boys. He probably got behind while he was sick, and Latin is rather

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hard to pick up if you miss anything. Why don’t I give him a couple of tutoring sessions until he catches up to the other boys? I won’t even charge you for them, after all, he probably won’t need more than one or two before his performance improves.”

Silas wished he had a photograph of the look on Mrs. Willoughby’s face. She was so relieved that for a moment he was worried that she might do something embarrassing, such as hugging him. She thanked him profusely, and Mr. Rutledge said that it seemed like a fine idea to him, and that as long as Alexander improved in the next few weeks there was no reason for any other action. He had been thinking of cutting Alexander from the rugby team, but as long as he could manage both his academics and his sports there was no reason to punish him.

“Quite right,” said Silas, “after all the Greeks always did say a healthy mind in a healthy body." The other two began to laugh, and Silas joined them, briefly, before starting to cough, choking on his own laughter. Mrs. Willoughby left and Claude Rutledge turned to him, “Are you sure you’re all right, Silas?” he said. “I can’t have you getting sick on me. Why don’t we get Mrs. Downer to tutor the boy instead, you have enough on your plate already.” Silas stopped coughing immediately and assured Claude that it was no trouble at all to help the boy. He shook hands with the headmaster, and left the room, smiling secretly at his own ingenuity.

The next few weeks were blissful for Silas. Every Thursday Alexander would meet him after school, and they would sit, alone in the classroom, working on Latin exercises together. Silas usually gave him work to do then sat back and watched as the boy struggled with the problems. Once Alexander was working he could gaze at the object of his desire, and was seldom interrupted. The boy was shy and quiet, but Silas imagined that he was beginning to like him. He did not touch Alexander, but the desire to do so was getting stronger every day, and Silas felt as if he would burst if he didn’t allow himself some kind of physical contact. He had tried brushing past him, and “accidentally” touching his arm while he reached for a pencil, but he wanted Alexander to desire him. He tried subtle suggestions on the boy, even gave him the story of Ganymede to translate, but the boy was painfully oblivious to his advances.

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After a month Alexander’s Latin had improved to the point that Silas could no longer justify tutoring him. Mr. Rutledge had been monitoring the boy’s progress and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to persuade him that the boy needed more help. In desperation Silas had pleaded for one more session, implying that the boy could benefit from a better understanding of the nominative case. Claude Rudledge consented. It was Wednesday morning when Silas walked into the classroom. The usual snickers could be heard from the back row, and Silas cursed Marcus and his disorderly following. Silas gave the boys a passage to translate and began to stare at Alexander, watching his eager young head buried in his book. When the boys had finished he called Alexander up to the blackboard to write out his translation. The whispers from the back of the class grew louder.

Silas was sure it was Marcus, insulting him no doubt, but he never quite managed to actually catch the boy’s lips moving. He sent Alexander back to his seat and began to correct the translation, which, thanks to all their work, was actually quite good. At the end of class Silas collected up the books, and as he was doing so noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the floor under Marcus’ desk. He dismissed the boys, and walked back to fetch it. He picked it up and read “Creepy Campbell is an old pervert who likes little boys.”

Silas gaped at the note, stunned. He knew that the boys made up stories about him, but they had never been so close to the mark before. He tore the note into tiny pieces and rushed out of the room.

Once in the staff-room he began to take hold of himself. The boys’ slanders were not generally accepted by the teachers, in fact most of the teachers had had a fictitious story circulated about them at one time or another. What he worried about was Alexander hearing these stories, or someone else taking the story seriously. After all, he didn’t have any friends among the teachers, there was no one to back him up, or laugh at the accusation, or comment on the vivid imaginations of young boys. Miss Kendall entered the room and Silas tried for the first time to be pleasant and amiable to her. The result was stilted and unfriendly, and she looked more insulted than pleased. Silas began to worry about what the others thought of him, and a new fear came over him.

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We are sitting in the council and Claudius stands up and points at me. He is trying my case in front of the assembly. He claims I am a corruptor of young boys, and he calls you a whore. You are still wearing the garland I gave you and suddenly I want to tear it out of your tangled hair and hide it. My gift has become crude and ugly in their eyes. They begin to shout at me, screaming for death or exile. I look over and in the stand next to mine is Socrates. I look to him, he must know that I am not a corruptor, I am an educator. My love is entirely pure. He turns to face me with what I think is sympathy, then his smile turns into a scowl and he spits. ***************

Silas wandered frantically through the school trying to find Alexander to tell him that the boys’ lies weren’t true. He searched everywhere but the boy was gone. Finally he pleaded sick to Mr. Rutledge and went home early. At home he could not even find solace in his atrium. Suddenly the smell of the incense became nauseating and the artificiality of the columns became so glaringly evident that he could not imagine how he had ever found them appealing. Silas fell to his knees and pleaded to the gods to restore his sanity. He begged Apollo forgiveness for the way in which he had favored Dionysus and vowed never to look at Alexander again. Still the image of the boy kept reappearing in his mind. Alexandros, naked in the gymnasium, Alexander, head bowed, in the classroom, Alexander with the face of his mother in old age, Alexandros beaten and degraded by a horde of Athenian citizens. ***************

We are in Hades. Souls cling to us on all sides, souls whose memories should be cleansed by the forgetful waters of Lethe, but who still remember us. They cling to our robes as we wander through them. A gap appears in the crowd and we move towards it only to be confronted by Cerberus the three-headed dog, guard of the under­ world. On his three heads are the faces of Claudius, Phoebe and

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Marcus. The Phoebe head growls at us. I drag you with me and we run at the dog. Everything is a mass of fur and flesh, and someone thrusts a rugby ball into my hands. I feel wetness on my face, and as I open my eyes I see a red stream falling on my face. At first I think it is blood, that I am dying, but I open my lips and it is wine. I turn and see you, wine drenching your hair and cloak. I open my mouth and begin to gulp the wine down, until I am so full that nothing matters, and when I open my eyes we are lying in a vineyard under a canopy of vines.

When Silas opened his eyes he found not a canopy of vines, but the cold ceiling of his living room. His lips tasted like salt from the tears of the night before, but he felt better. He would ignore the boys and concentrate on himself. He was sure that Alexander liked him, and ultimately he did not care what the others thought of him, anyway. If any of the boys’ accusations became public he would deny them. After all, it was the word of a thirteen-year-old against his own.

Silas changed his crumpled clothes. Today was his last meeting with Alexander and he meant to make an impression on the boy which would lead to further meetings. Maybe he could persuade the boy to see him as a surrogate father, and come to him when he had problems. He had todo something to continue their relationship. Silas was unusually jovial in the staff-room, although the other teachers seemed to regard this as more of an annoyance than anything else. In Alexander’s class he ignored the snickers from the back row and treated the boys to a slide show of Greek vases. At the end of class he allowed Marcus to collect the homework for him, in a gesture which he saw as reconciliation. He was staring so intently at Alexander in anticipation of their evening meeting, that he did not notice Marcus slip a note into Alexander’s book.

Silas decided to correct the homework as soon as he got back to the staff-room, since he was meeting Alexander later. He made himself a cup of tea and sat down to twenty-five abysmally dully Latin exercises. He had been working for twenty minutes when he got to Alexander’s book. As he opened it a folded note fell onto his lap.

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Expecting it to be the shy boy’s method of informing him that he had to cancel the lesson, Silas felt his heart sink, but on opening the note he found an entirely different message. “Dear Mr. Campbell,” the note read, “I have been in love with you since our first meeting. Please meet me in the gym after school, we must talk. A.” Silas choked on his mouthful of tea. He could not believe that the boy had found it so easy to confess his love. He wanted to jump from his seat and scream out of the window at the miserable people below, “He loves me!” He wanted to find the boy and kiss him, he wanted to tell them all that nothing mattered because Alexander loved him, too. Instead he stuffed the note deep into his pocket and proceeded to pretend to correct the remainder of the books.

The rest of the day was agonizing. He passed Alexander once in the hallway and the boy gave him his usual shy smile. Silas could not believe that the boy could control himself so well. He gave his classes tedious exercises so he could sit and dream about his coming encounter with Eros. He knew the boy must be divinely favored to be able to write such things, and to know that his feelings were recipro­ cated. At four o’clock Silas dashed to the gymnasium, straightening his tie on the way. When he got there the huge room was empty. All around the walls were pieces of athletic equipment, boxes, and springboards, and a huge pile of crash mats. A series of ropes hung down in the middle of the room, and at the far end were some cones, evidently set up as a goal. Silas waited impatiently. 4:01, the boy would probably be late, young boys were notoriously tardy. Silas wondered what he would say to the boy. Whether everything would be natural and easy, as it was in his dream, or whether the boy would be shy. He sat down on the floor in the middle of the room in an effort to keep still.

4:07 the boy was still nowhere to be seen. Silas removed his tie and jacket so as not to appear too intimidating. At 4:09 Silas heard a noise from the door. “Alexander,” he called, hoping to see the boy’s innocent face in the doorway. Suddenly he heard a shriek of laughter and boys began appearing all around him. They crawled out from behind the crash mats and under the boxes. They rushed around him where he crouched on the floor. “Creepy Campbell’s a pervert, Creepy Campbell’s a pervert,” they cried in unison. Their screeching

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pre-pubescent voices rose to an intolerable pitch as they pointed and charged, screwing up their horrible faces at him. Theiryoung features twisted and became hideous Furies as they charged incessantly on and on. Silas shrank away from the boys, unable to stop the tears of humiliation from splashing down his cheeks. Wiping his eyes he looked up and saw Alexander, his sweet Alexandras, laughing and chanting with the rest of them.

Suddenly the boys were silent, and through the watery veil of his tears Silas could see Claude Rutledge standing in the doorway.

The boys began to shrink back and Claude approached him, cautiously.

Helping Silas to his feet, the headmaster pushed the two of them through the crowd. Silas leaned on the man’s shoulder, confused and dizzy. The world around him seemed to be growing dimmer and dimmer, and even the cold damp air of the street outside seemed distant. He felt himself being dragged by several men in orange vests, and as he stared at the school getting smaller and smaller out of the tiny window at the back of the ambulance, Silas’ head began to swim.

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The furies swirl around me, trying to carry me away, but I am Dionysus’ child and they cannot harm me. He brings a cloud which circles my head, and I am reborn, a God. I am carried in a chariot drawn by dragons. Their fiery wings beat on and on and red light surrounds us. We travel up and up towards Olympos, the air rushes past me and I look back at the earth below. In the distance I see the furies dancing wildly around me, I hear their screeching whine, but I am protected here in my dragon-drawn chariot. I am a servant of Dionysus. ajc 3jc ?jc 3rc afc afc ajc afc sic sjc afc 3jc afc ajc ajc

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