fall ’09/winter ’10 Issue 5
fear
US $8.00
A R O O M F U L L O F VO I C E S
F I C T I O N + N O N F I C T I O N + P O E T RY
mith S e ham a r G 10 4 p h t t e n S a Hu h t n Sa m a bs p66 Jaco . J . A p86 n i J Ha p4 4 e n i t R. L. S
www.slicemagazine.org
p 16
fall ’09/winter ’10
A ROOM FULL OF VOICES FICTION + NONFICTION + POETRY
Slice, Issue 5 Copyright © 2009, Slice Literary, Inc.
slice team
Slice magazine is published by Slice Literary, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Slice is published semiannually in March and September. Please visit us online at www.slicemagazine.org for information about upcoming issues, contributors, submission guidelines, and subscription rates. Donations and gifts to Slice Literary, Inc. are welcome and appreciated. If you would like to help support our magazine, please visit www.slicemagazine.org/support or email us at editors@slicemagazine.org. Make a donation of $50 or more to become a Friend of Slice, or $250 to become a Lifetime Subscriber.
celia
Slice is printed in the United States by United Graphics. ISSN 1938-6923 Cover design by Amy Sly Interior design by Amy Sly and Amanda Ice Cover illustration by Brandon Burkhall Photos on previous page by Tate Foley Illustrations at right by Amy Sly Photo on opposite page by Amy Sly
Very special thanks to the following supporters of Slice magazine: lifetime subscribers Lori Bongiorno Carmine & Rosalia Gagliano Joe & Katherine Gagliano Sal Gagliano & Linda Lagos Carl & Patricia Johnson Christian Johnson
CJ Johnson Colin Johnson Heidi Lange Charlotte Sheedy Mark & Laura Feld
recent Friends of Slice Martha Clarkson Shirley Cloyes Marcela Landres Cheryl Langfeld Ian McConnell Sergio Sarmiento
Joe Scalora Wendy Sherman Kimberly Thompson Gloria Wharton Saralyn Wilson Alexi Zentner
maria
Publishers
Online Editor
Maria Gagliano Celia Blue Johnson
Alex Fredericks
Managing Editor Tricia Callahan
Art Director Amy Sly
Designer Amanda Ice
Associate Editors Sean F. Jones Miriam Haier Shane Dixon Kavanaugh Ian F. King Kiersten Tarr
Editorial Intern Zoya Diaz
A big thank-you to the folks at Sixpoint Craft Ales—Shane Welch, Jeff Gorlechen, Ian McConnell, Craig Frymark, Otto Gabrielsen, Evan Klein, and Dan Suarez—who have remained enthusiastic advocates of each issue, in addition to sponsoring our events with their fine beer.
We wouldn’t be Slice if… Amy Sly didn’t fear fear itself. Ian King didn’t have autonomatonophobia. Tricia Callahan wasn’t frightened by mannequins.
Celia Johnson wasn’t scared of falling asleep on the subway. Maria Gagliano wasn’t afraid of discovering her apartment is haunted.
dear
Reader: When the idea for Slice was first conceived in 2005, we were a team of three ladies— two publishers and our savvy art director, Amy Sly—working away to create something bigger than ourselves. Fast forward to 2009: Slice has become that something bigger. A core team of twelve literary enthusiasts put together Issue 5 and we have an ever-growing community of contributors, readers, and volunteers. Slice has become so much more than a printed magazine. We’re a band of new writers with something to say; a silent,
Kiersten Tarr didn’t suffer from Pompeiiphobia. Miriam Haier wasn’t afraid of being confined. Amanda Ice didn’t fear inadvertently giving dinner guests Salmonella. sean jones wasn’t bad with heights.
Alex Fredericks wasn’t terrified of entropy, loss, loneliness. Also, spiders.
crowded bar listening to poetry; and a
Shane dixon Kavanaugh didn’t fear true love.
In Issue 5, we’ve collected pieces that
Zoya Diaz didn’t fear nosferatu hovering over her.
room full of bookworms debating literary trivia. Slice has leapt off the page and into conversations about the written word that extend to cities around the world. You, dear reader, are part of that dialogue.
evoke fear in multitudinous ways. We hope that they inspire you to strike up a conversation that will, in its own way, grow Slice into something greater than the magazine you hold in your hand. Cheers,
The
Editors
in this issue INTERVIEWS WITH seth grahame-smith r. l. stine a. j. jacobs ha jin samantha hunt SPOTLIGHT
A CRAZY EIGHTS CHRISTMAS 10
James C. Karantonis
INTERVIEWS
16
R. L. STINE
44
Sean F. Jones
66
HA JIN
86
SAMANTHA HUNT
104
Tom Hardej
Tricia Callahan
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH
Celia Blue Johnson & Maria Gagliano
A. J. JACOBS
Sean F. Jones
NONFICTION Blooming
Claire Dunnington
33
FICTION
A DREAM SPELLED BACKWARD
Tim Mucci
Matchmaking in Odessa
Janet Skeslien Charles
The Nuisance
Katy Darby
California
Matthew Lansburgh
Canned Goods
Seth Fishman
24 28 35 50 56
Planet Street
72
Distant Vision
90
Sonia Nayak
Sohrab Homi Fracis The Downstairs
Charity Shumway
97
Admission
114
The House on the Corner
124
Kathleen Foster
Matthew Boyd
Kinship
129
The Stranger
135
Christina Continelli Sara Lippmann
POETRY
Evangelical
78
The Hours
79
Anthony Carelli
Anthony Carelli
Mare Night
80
Madness of Angels
81
What the Heart Knows
82
Custodian
83
In Every Subway in Every Small Midwestern Town
84
Our Palm Coast
85
William Keener
Erienne Rojas
Laura LeHew
Laura LeHew
Justin Hyde
Justin Hyde
RISING VOICES Time Gone By
109
Fear Itself
110
Do You Believe Me Now?
111
An Accident with Pastries
112
Daniela Di Caro Whitney Perez
Kyanna Odom
Alexa Rivadeneira
MISCELLANIES
A CRYPTOZOOLOGY MISCELLANY
20
THE REJECT FILES
64
Ian F. King
Kiersten Tarr
slice magazine
at City University and co-runs the monthly live fiction event Liars’ League (www.liarsleague.com).
writers
Daniela Di Caro is a fifteen-year-old high school honors stu-
Matthew Boyd lives in Brooklyn and is the editor of Staccato, an
dent from Long Island, New York. She has studied piano for seven years and is an accomplished pianist. Daniela is also a very competitive soccer player for one of her
online literary magazine that specializes in microfiction
town’s travel teams. She is an avid reader of both fiction
(www.staccatofiction.com). His work can be found in
and nonfiction books. Reading through some of the sto-
The Blotter and The Duck & Herring Co.
ries in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Slice inspired her to contribute one of her poems for the Fall issue,
Tricia Callahan is a writer and editor with work appear-
thus marking her first published work.
previous issues of Slice, and the Slices of Life blog. She
Claire Dunnington is an MFA candidate in nonfiction at
lives in Brooklyn, mostly on her roof.
Columbia University, where she also teaches an under-
ing in the book Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak,
graduate essay-writing course. She lives in New York
Anthony Carelli was raised in Poynette, Wisconsin, a rural
and works at the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. Her work is forthcoming in the Indiana Review.
town that smells periodically of sauerkraut. He left, and ny published a small, limited edition book titled Cinco
Seth Fishman hails from Midland, Texas, and received
Poems Five Poemas (Epistola Press; Santiago, Chile). His
his MFA in creative writing from the University of East
poems rarely appear in magazines.
Anglia in Norwich, England. He’s currently residing in
has lived in many places since. In March of 2007 Antho-
Brooklyn, New York.
Christina Continelli not only deals in fiction but is also a poet and an essayist. She cut her writing teeth in the
Kathleen Foster holds an MFA in creative writing and an MA in
San Diego spoken word scene, performing both on her
English from Boston University, where she was awarded
own and with the group Goatsong Poetry Conspiracy.
the Florence Engel Randall Graduate Fiction Award. She
She eventually moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to
has also received a 2008 Emerging Artist Award from
get her MFA from California College of the Arts. She cur-
the St. Botolph Club Foundation. A graduate of Welles-
rently resides in Oakland, California, with her cat Ray.
ley College, she lives in Milton, Massachusetts, with her
Originally from Montana,
Janet Skeslien Charles
husband and two daughters.
ed States. Her novel Moonlight in Odessa is based on her
Sohrab Homi Fracis (www.fracis.com) is the first South
experience as a Soros Fellow in Odessa, Ukraine.
Asian author to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, for
currently divides her time between France and the Unit-
Katy Darby’s work has won various awards, been read on
his book Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America. He has been awarded fiction fellowships by the Florida Arts Council and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He
BBC Radio, and appeared in magazines and antholo-
has been a visiting writer in residence at Augsburg Col-
gies, including Stand, Mslexia, the London Magazine, the
lege and an artist in residence at Yaddo and the Seaside
Arvon anthology, and online at Pulp.net, Carvezine.com,
Institute, while writing a novel modestly titled A Man of
and Untitledbooks.com. She teaches short story writing
the World. “Distant Vision” is excerpted from it.
::::: 6 :::::
contributors
Maria Gagliano is a book editor, writer, and co-publisher
important facts, such as the fact that opossums have thirteen nipples. Jacobs is now working on a book called
of Slice. She loves anything pickled, the color orange,
The Healthiest Human Being in the World. He lives in
and obsessing over her vegetable garden. She lives in
New York with his family.
Brooklyn, New York.
Seth Grahame-Smith is the New York Times bestselling
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of the internationally be-
author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He lives in
stselling novel Waiting, which won the PEN/Faulkner
Los Angeles.
Award and the National Book Award, and War Trash, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist
Tom Hardej is a writer and editor who lives in
for the Pulitzer Prize and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize; the story collections The Bridegroom, which won
Washington, DC.
the Asian American Literary Award, Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fic-
Samantha Hunt is the author of The Seas (2004), which won
tion, and Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award; the novels The Crazed and In the Pond; and
the National Book Foundation’s award for writers under
three books of poetry. His latest novel, A Free Life, is
thirty-five, and The Invention of Everything Else (2008),
his first novel set in the United States, and he has a new
a novel about inventor Nikola Tesla. Hunt’s work has
story collection, A Good Fall, publishing in November.
appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, Mc-
He lives in the Boston area and is a professor of English
Sweeney’s, Esquire, Tin House, Seed, New York maga-
at Boston University.
zine, Harper’s Bazaar, and on the radio program, This ence Engine, based on the life of Charles Babbage. Hunt
Celia blue Johnson is a publisher, editor, and writer. She grew
teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
up running around barefoot in Melbourne, Australia, but
American Life. She has also written a play, The Differ-
now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Justin Hyde lives in Iowa where he works as a correctional officer. More of his work and his first book, Down Where
Sean F. Jones is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn,
the Hummingbird Goes to Die, can be found at www.
New York.
nyqpoets.net/poet/justinhyde.
A. J. Jacobs is the editor at large at Esquire magazine and
James C. Karantonis calls himself a one-trick pony. He has one story to tell: a story with many characters, with
author of two New York Times bestsellers, The Know-It-
many beginnings and endings. All the stories are based
All and The Year of Living Biblically. His new book, The
on something he could never forget. He wants more
Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, published
people to pay attention to those in war he calls the
this September. In addition to his books, Jacobs has
“invisible men,” the soldiers with psychiatric disorders.
written for the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly,
James received a BA in history from the University of
New York magazine, and Dental Economics magazine,
Charleston and a master’s degree from Howard Univer-
one of the top five magazines about the financial side
sity. He served in the U.S. Army from 1966–1969 as a
of tooth care. He has appeared on Oprah, The Today
Medic and Psychiatric Specialist. James is married to his
Show, Good Morning America, and Late Night with
muse, Mary Lou Hobbs.
Conan O’Brien. He is a periodic commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, where he discusses
::::: 7 :::::
slice magazine
William Keener has poems forthcoming in Margie,
Tim Mucci is a Capricorn, is Eco over Brown, Lovecraft
Water~Stone Review, Isotope, and the Main Street
over King, Marlowe over Spade. and Holmes over both
Rag, and his collection Gold Leaf on Granite was just
of them. He has scripted a story in Dark Horse Comics’s
published by the Anabiosis Press. He lives in the San
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Vol. III, and has also
Francisco Bay Area where he works as an environmental
adapted classic works of literature into graphic novel
lawyer, which may explain his occasional nightmares.
format for Sterling Publishing’s All-Action Classics (Tom Sawyer, The Odyssey, The Three Musketeers, and The
Ian F. King ’s writing can be found in such places as Hobart,
Wind in the Willows). He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he records the comics and writing podcast Write
Pindeldyboz, Take the Handle, and Nylonmag.com,
Club! and never, ever, writes in the nude.
among other publications, and he is a regular contributor to the Slices of Life blog. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Matthew Lansburgh lives in New York where he works as
Sonia Nayak just graduated from Brown University. When her teeth aren’t hurting, she likes to weigh the ways that the seas parallel the skies.
an attorney for the New York Public Library. His poetry has appeared in Gordon Lish’s now-defunct journal the Quarterly. This is his first published story.
Kyanna “Hoops” Odom is a twelve-year-old middle school student from Newark, New Jersey. Ms. Odom received
Laura LeHew is an award-winning poet. Her work appears
the nickname “Hoops” because of her love of large hoop earrings and the way she matches them to her impec-
in a myriad of national and international journals and
cable fashion sense. Recently, Kyanna won an essay-
anthologies including A cappella Zoo, Eating Her Wed-
writing competition in her school district for “Take Your
ding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems from Ragged
Daughter to Work Day” and continues entering contests
Sky Press, Her Mark ’07 & ’09, Pank, and the Syracuse
because of her passion to express herself through the
Cultural Workers’ Women Artists Datebook ’10. She re-
written word.
ceived her MFA in writing from the California College of for CALYX Journal; and was nominated for a Pushcart
Whitney Perez is sixteen years old. She is an accomplished
Prize. Laura is busy spinning up a new press: Uttered
poet and one day hopes to start a local dance school for
Chaos (www.utteredchaos.org).
young boys and girls who can’t afford to pay for classes.
the Arts, a writing residency from Soapstone; interned
Sara Lippmann holds a BA from Brown University and an
She also plans to be a pediatrician.
MFA from The New School. She has written for maga-
Alexa Rivadeneira self-published her fourth YA nov-
zines, taught English composition, and currently spends
el, Confessions from the Heart of a Teenage Girl, at
a lot of time scraping dried bits of Play-Doh off her floor.
fourteen. Her fifth manuscript, A Blessing in Disguise, is
Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Illness & Grace
complete. Alexa is a member of the Capitol City Young
(Wising Up Press), LIT, Carve, and the Beacon Street Re-
Writers program. Aside from writing, Alexa enjoys play-
view. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband,
ing varsity golf, contributing to the school newspaper,
daughter, and son.
and taking journalism and IB courses.
::::: 8 :::::
contributors
Erienne Rojas is a graduate from the City College of New
night janitor, LSAT tutor, tuxedo shop girl, farm worker, restaurant hostess, and reader for the blind. She grew up in Centerville, Utah, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
York with a BA in English, concentration in creative writing, and a minor in Jewish Studies. She received and has served as a featured poet at the annual CCNY
R. L. Stine is the author of more than one hundred novels
Spring Poetry Festival and the Polestar Poetry Series.
for children, including the bestselling Fear Street and
Her poetry has appeared in print sources such as
Goosebumps series. Stine’s autobiography, It Came from
Poetry in Performance and several online premises like
Ohio!: My Life As a Writer, was published in 1997.
the Bear River Writers’ Conference Scholarship in 2006
LiterateNubian.org. She works in book publishing.
Charity Shumway holds an MFA in creative writing from Or-
Kiersten Tarr is enjoying her late twenties in Southern California, taking a hiatus from cubicle life to learn piano and
egon State University and a BA in English from Harvard
eat roasted corn-on-the-cob at the farmer’s market on
University. She’s a graduate of the Columbia Publishing
Thursdays. When not dancing dorkily to OMD or reading
Course and is currently working toward a certificate in
Mark Twain biographies, she occasionally writes sto-
horticulture at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Her writing
ries and draws mini comics for the Slices of Life blog. If
has appeared in Glamour and Oregon Coast Magazine
things go according to plan, in a couple years she will be
and on Glamour.com, LadiesHomeJournal.com, Fitness-
living somewhere far from Los Angeles, teaching second
Magazine.com, and SocialWorkout.com. Her fiction is
graders how to do double-digit subtraction, finishing up
forthcoming in Above Ground, an anthology published by
her first (or second) children’s book, and growing beets
Harvard Square Editions, and Soon Quarterly. Previously,
and broccoli in her backyard garden.
she has held jobs as a speechwriter, lawn care expert,
artists Anna Bond pg 114
Tate Foley pg 1
www.rifledesign.com
www.tatemillerton.com
brandon Burkhall cover
Adam Fordham pg 35
bburkhall@hotmail.com
Juozas Cernius pp 10-11
www.caslon-photo.com
www.flickr.com/photos/ 23748404@N00
Matthew Genitempo pg 50 www.matthewgenitempo.com
nas Chompas pg 113
www.flickr.com/photos/jamsandwich
Kimberlee Cordova pp 97, 100 www.kimberleecordova.com
Joshua Langlais pg 28
www.flickr.com/people/funnyfish
http://arugulapress.blogspot.com
Ann Ploeger pg 124
www.annploeger.com
Elif Sanem Karakoç pg 57 www.flickr.com/photos/elifkarakoc http://elifkarakoc.deviantart.com
Amy Sly pp 24-25
www.iheartstrangers.com
www.amysly.com
Sarah McNeil pp 72-73
Julianna Swaney pg 32
http://sarahmcneil.blogspot.com
Saskia Dimitrijevic pg 90
Chelsea Parker Guidry pg 135
Tim Mucci & Andrea Sparacio pp 20-23
www.writeclubpodcast.blogspot.com
::::: 9 :::::
http://ohmycavalier.com
Maura Takeshita pg 129 mtakeshita0088@yahoo.com
A Crazy Eights Christmas James c. Karantonis In 1966, for the Vietnam conflict the United States of America enlisted and drafted into service 300,000 young men and women. In the winter of 1967, soldiers found themselves at an army hospital in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, some as medics, most as patients.
December at the hospital was a time for holidays, the remembered Christmas and the forgotten Chanukah. Separate from the main hospital, across the narrow base road, enclosed by a twelve-foot-high fence, was a ball field and a building. The building, hidden behind a tree-lined knoll, contained army secrets: the psych wards. But it would soon be Christmas, a time for the rebirth of sanity. On Ward 2A, beds lined both sides of the room, each with a blue blanket and its territory marked with a brown metal nightstand. The afternoon sun shone through opened photo Š Juozas Cernius
slice magazine
wire-screened windows that lined both sides, giving
obsessive concluded that this was a beginning and it
the room a golden tone. You may open a window but
was good.
you cannot go out a window. A holiday wreath of green
Godwin looked quickly around the ward to see if oth-
fern with red ribbon hung from the opened half of the
ers had noted the progress he was making. Those not in
Nurses Station door. Its twin hung from the opened door
the TV room were seated at tables reading and writ-
to the TV room at the back of the ward. On this Satur-
ing letters, working puzzles, chain-smoking cigarettes,
day morning, patients were watching a comedy filmed
watching the smoke rise. And, as usual, four longtime
before most of these soldiers were born. Abbott and
veterans of the ward played cards: Crazy Eights. Pa-
Costello were making a mess of things in the outside
tients loved to play Crazy Eights. They loved the name
world. Inside, Ward 2A was laughing.
of the game, and the object of the game, which is to go
An area was reserved at the rear of the ward for the
out before others do. And getting out of here is what
late-night visitor expected on Christmas Eve. A large
Mumbling Grier, Shaky Metz, Paranoid Firenza, and Scar-
cardboard cutout of Santa in his sleigh pulled by rein-
face Kelly all wanted.
deer covered the back wall. In front of Santa was a gift
Scarface Kelly, a large dark black man who resem-
to the ward from the hospital commander, a freshly cut
bled an opera singer with his wide girth, bellowed in
Christmas tree with its strong odor of pine.
baritone, “Yeeeohhh!” He slapped a card to the center
This morning, on return from breakfast, while others went about their customary rituals, a new patient took
hard enough to test the strength of the table’s construction.
the initiative and began decorating the tree. By some
The sound jolted a skinny white player, Shaky Metz,
weird karma, when he checked in two days ago he was
who, with a spasm, threw his cards into the air. “H-h-h-
assigned the bed of a recently discharged soldier, also
hey, t-t-t-take it easy,” Metz said, and moved to retrieve
an obsessive-compulsive. On his first day here, the new
the cards. Metz had the shakes; his hands shook in time
patient smoothed the sheets and straightened the pillow
with his facial tics. Today, he was a one-man band:
as compulsively as the previous one. Medics had tagged
hands, head, and under the table, one leg shook. His
him with the nickname Obsessive Godwin. Among them-
hands shook so much he practically fanned himself with
selves, the medics used nicknames as a crutch to recall
the cards. Metz had been shaking since that day he
the patients’ last names. Patients were always coming
stepped on a Vietcong booby trap. A dud, but Metz was
and going, and sometimes it seemed more came than
still shaking.
went. The pet names weren’t cute sounding like Grumpy, Bashful, and Sneezy, but they worked.
“So sorry. Soooo sorry.” Kelly’s os resounded like a foghorn. Kelly’s most telling feature wasn’t his size or
Obsessive Godwin stood on a chair, about to place
deep voice, it was the left side of his face and neck. It
the last ornament on the tree. He considered the color of
was as if a volcano had erupted at Kelly’s temple and a
the ball and, from every angle, the space where it would
trail of lava had flowed down his cheek, down his neck,
hang. It was an approximation, but given that he had no
and disappeared under his blue collar. How much farther
ruler he trusted his instincts. He jumped down from the
did it flow? How low can you go? Scarface Kelly was a
chair, moved it to the side, and stepped back to evaluate
big, gentle bear until he got one of his migraines. And
the project undertaken over two hours ago.
with the headache Kelly heard the roar of engines and
Mistake. Godwin noted an imbalance, too many
saw flashes of light.
balls in one area. He made the necessary adjustments,
The chemist in the sky miscalculated. Napalm
inspected the tree again, back and forth, as if he were
splashed from a beaker, igniting the green skyline. The
a soldier on honor guard duty. Another mistake, too
tops of trees and all the green below went gold and
many green and blue ornaments in close proximity, not
white and every shade of fiery red. The trees, bushes,
enough reds. He dispersed colors to other locations on
brush, and grass burned. Kelly ran and the fire ran with
the tree. To get the full perspective he backed several
him. Not until he was safe from the flames, not until he
steps away, then several more, he moved left, then right,
touched his face and his skin came away on his hand, did
and then, as the creator of what was before him, the
he scream.
::::: 12 :::::
a crazy eights christmas
A red ball flew and crashed against the wall. A blue one hit a table. A gold one
than the repeated, “Shoulda done somethin’, shoulda done somethin’…” Shots, shouts, high-pitched screams while red and
fell to the floor and cracked and a part
yellow sparks and embers rose like giant fireflies to the
of the shiny, round ornament went miss-
They ran from their home like startled sheep, the very
ing. The shard had entered the inside of
old and the very young. A white soldier, as if he were a
the sphere while the outside now re-
Get-a-long little doggies!” The cowboy’s face appeared
flected the psych patients themselves,
to jump along with the flames. And Private First Class
night sky from the dry roof of the Vietnamese hooch.
cowboy, swung a crude torch above the family. “Yahoo!
Grier stood motionless watching it happen.
damaged, broken, missing a necessary
“You guys mind if I watch you play cards?” Hobbs asked politely. Hobbs was a short, muscular guy with a
part they were created with.
wide neck and broad shoulders. He had a friendly smile and was forever saying “please” and “thank you” or “excuse me” to everyone, whether appropriate or not. After
It was Firenza’s turn to play a card. The paranoid
a few minutes of watching over the players’ shoulders,
patient held his cards close to his chest. His eyes darted
Polite Hobbs ventured to the back of the ward where
left and right to make certain no one was looking at
Obsessive Godwin prepared to anoint the tree with
what he held. Firenza had good cause to be suspicious.
tinsel. Hobbs and Godwin had been recent traveling
It was, after all, when he had less than thirty-five days
companions, having boarded the same bus at the same
left on his duty tour in ’Nam that he became convinced
airport from the belly of the same plane. Both men with
there were others trying to get him killed—and that was
a different sickness but the same war.
in addition to the enemy.
The obsessive opened several boxes of tinsel on
“You get down in that tunnel,” the Second Louie
a table, selected a few choice strands, and carefully
ordered.
draped them across his left palm. He selected a branch
“No one goes down in a fucking tunnel,” Corporal
and, one by one, placed the tinsel, making certain each
Firenza responded.
glittery strand hung evenly to its fullest length. Finishing
“That’s an order. You get in the tunnel and check
one small grouping of four, he moved to another branch.
it out.”
Again, he placed four strands to the center of a red or-
“I’ve got thirty-five days to go. There ain’t no fucking
nament so as to create a silver reflection.
way. You’re trying to kill me.”
Having watched for a few minutes, Hobbs asked,
“Are you refusing an—”
“Excuse me, may I help?” Hobbs waited for an answer
“You want me to step on a stick—get blown up. I’m
but none came. He asked again, “Please, may I help?”
not letting the Cong, the snakes, the fucking poison
Godwin continued to methodically place tinsel. Hobbs
food, no cherry Lieutenant, or anyone keep me from go-
shrugged and moved to the table and grabbed a large
ing home. You guys are trying to kill me.”
handful of tinsel.
Firenza didn’t go into the hole, he came to 2A; and
“I’ll help. I like to trim trees,” Hobbs said.
he finally played a heart.
Hobbs began to move about the tree, placing
It was Grier’s turn. The light-brown-skinned patient
clumps of tinsel indiscriminately. Quickly completing
mumbled something that no one at the table could
the distribution of one large handful, Hobbs hustled
decipher and played a heart on top of the previous one.
to the table for more tinsel and returned to the tree to
Mumbling Grier almost never slept; if he did, he’d wake
place more clumps.
suddenly, soaked from night sweats, and go change his
Obsessive Godwin followed after Hobbs, working
PJs. During the day Grier constantly held a conversation
frantically to remove and straighten the tinsel, trying
with himself. You couldn’t really hear what he said, other
to save a world that seemed out of control, of chaos
::::: 13 :::::
slice magazine
and madness. “Stop! Stop! You can’t do it that way!”
kudos, “Beautiful! Perfect! Perfecto!” He did everything
Godwin’s eyes rolled; he swayed, dizzy. “You can’t—
but sing, “Oh Christmas tree, my Christmas tree.”
You can’t—”
Polite Hobbs watched as Godwin bowed repeatedly.
Hobbs looked at him, confused.
Hobbs rose and stretched his wide frame to relieve the
“You have to stop. You’re not helping. You don’t
stiffness from having sat for an hour. He walked past
know what you’re doing.” Godwin didn’t wait for a re-
Godwin and stood in front of the tree. His eyes searched
sponse from Hobbs and turned to the front of the ward.
for a moment, he picked a spot, reached in with both
“Hey, Sergeant!” He shouted. “Someone tell him to stop.
hands, grabbed a firm hold of the trunk, and began to
He’s ruining the tree. It’s a disaster! Sergeant!”
shake the tree in broad sweeping motions. Left and
Polite Hobbs without the slightest protest stopped
right, left and right, ornaments flew, left and right. The
what he was doing and returned the unused tinsel to the
tinsel danced in one direction and back again, adding
table. He then took a seat close by, folded his arms, and
a silvery blur to the green tree and colored ornaments.
watched with detachment.
A red ball flew and crashed against the wall. A blue one
Back in control, the obsessive turned to Hobbs to
hit a table. A gold one fell to the floor and cracked and
make nice. “I’m sorry I got upset, it’s not personal,” God-
a part of the shiny, round ornament went missing. The
win said as he removed several clusters of tinsel. “No
shard had entered the inside of the sphere while the
offense but there really is a right way to do this...a right
outside now reflected the psych patients themselves,
way.” He continued repeating “a right way” as he hung
damaged, broken, missing a necessary part they were
tinsel in the right amount, four strands, never five, and in
created with.
the right place. Instead of whistling, he whispered as he worked, “There’s a right way, a right way, right way.”
Throughout the sudden violent storm, left and right, the tenacious tinsel on the tree stayed the course while
While the obsessive whispered his mantra, an-
ornaments deserted their post. Some ornaments, the
other patient on the ward may just as well have used
same as soldiers, were braver than others and hung on
a megaphone. “Constitution! Constitution!” When the
for dear life.
wiry Lucas was first brought to the ward, he had ranted,
“Aaaaaawwwww!” Obsessive Godwin let out a
“Don’t I have rights—I’m a citizen—We all have rights—
guttural sound and pounced on the source of the
How about the Bill of Rights, the Constitution—Why do I
storm. Hobbs clutched the tree tightly and the two
need pills? Twice a freaking day—Pills—I need a lawyer—
patients fell to the floor. They rolled over and under
That’s what I’m going to be—Use the GI Bill—Get a law
and over the tree that emitted snapping, popping,
degree—Sue the army.” Lucas went on as if he were paid
and crunching sounds.
by the minute. And today, Lawyer Lucas paced the ward
Patients close by made it to the pair before the
lecturing about rights, his rights, others’ rights, every-
ward’s medics. Surprisingly, the two combatants
one’s rights. He stopped at the card players. He pointed
separated without difficulty. Polite Hobbs rose calmly,
at each one as if they were on jury duty, and gave his
located an empty table, and took a seat. A medic pulled
final summation, “All God’s children got rights.” He spun
up a chair next to him.
around and headed in the other direction, pointing his
Patients who had come out from the TV room to
finger upward. “Constitution! Constitution! Constitu-
watch the melee went back to their movie. Others re-
tion!” The patients adapted to his freedom of speech the
turned to tables to read and respond to letters. “Please
same as house cats adjust to humans who repetitively
get well and come home soon. Dad loves you and I love
intrude on their nap time. They paid Lucas no mind.
you. Always, Mom.”
Validating that patience is a virtue, after another hour
A puzzle maker interlocked a corner piece and the
of attention to detail, Obsessive Godwin announced,
perimeter was complete. Now if only the patient could
“Finished!” He turned to the ward. “Hey everybody! Hey
put together the inside of the puzzle. At the front table,
look, it’s done.” He stepped to the side of the tree and,
the card game continued. It was back to Crazy Eights
waving his arm with a theatrical gesture, said, “Ta-da!”
where one of these veterans would go out before
Supremely proud of his accomplishment, he gave himself
the others.
::::: 14 :::::
a crazy eights christmas
The obsessive was alone again. He looked down to
nicotine stubbed out cigarettes to join the mission.
his coveralls that had been assaulted by splinters of pine
They policed the area for unbroken ornaments and
needles. He methodically removed one after another
returned them to the tree while the catatonic continued
as if oblivious of the broken branches, ornaments, and
his struggle.
disarray at his feet. Finally having cleared his coveralls
A patient from the TV room stuck his head out to
of needles, he moved to the fallen tree. Compassion-
find out why things were so quiet after things had been
ately, as if raising a fallen comrade, he lifted the tree and
so loud. He turned back to the group. “Come on guys,
placed it back in the stand. As he did so, more orna-
we’re needed out here.” A number of them hesitated be-
ments fell and broke on the floor. He flinched at each
fore responding. For these patients the TV room was a
death rattle, he shuddered, he cried.
safe place, a memory of being back home, a young boy
On Ward 2A, there was a catatonic, always
on Saturday morning, everyone else asleep, and you had
expressionless but not always motionless. In the best
your bowl of Cheerios, and you had the TV to yourself,
of times, Catatonic Kaplan would walk with or follow
and everything felt just right.
a medic or patient if given a tug or push in the right
And then the snow began to fall. Thick substan-
direction. If nature called, sometimes he’d walk alone.
tial snowflakes, the kind kids loved. They’d stick out
He would move to the latrine doing what medics called
their tongues and flakes would settle and melt in their
the slow version of the Thorazine shuffle. With his
mouths. They knew that tomorrow there’d be no school.
white, cotton, open-back slippers, he would slow slide
Tomorrow would be great sledding, a great day for
the left foot, and the right followed some time later. The
snowball fights, a great day. The snowfall quickly cov-
left foot again, and later, the right. Thorazine in high
ered the psych ward ball field.
doses would have slowed down Seabiscuit; but it didn’t stop the catatonic. Kaplan shuffled toward the tree,
“Hey, it’s-it’s sno-snowing,” said Metz. “It’s snowing, it’s really snowing.”
stopped, reached to the floor, and picked up a bright
The squad at the tree continued what they set out to
red ornament.
do, to decorate the tree and to make things right for a
The catatonic shuffled over to Obsessive Godwin
fellow soldier and for themselves. Others moved to the
and held the ball out. Godwin, wiping his eyes with a
windows where they watched, almost reverently, as their
handkerchief and carefully folding the hankie before
ball field was covered white. The white canvas was inter-
returning it to his shirt pocket, accepted the offering.
rupted by the slash mark of the high fence that served
The catatonic, almost in slow motion, picked up another
as a demarcation between the psych building and the
ornament, but this time he offered it to the tree. He
main hospital, those scarred on the outside and those
selected a bare branch and tried to attach the ball. He
in here.
struggled, his hands failed to cooperate; or was it his
Some patients wondered if they would be here in the
mind? He maneuvered the hook on the ball, and failed
spring, playing ball on this field. Would the war be over?
again, and failed again.
Would that even matter? The snow, not yet blemished,
At the front of the ward Scarface Kelly spoke quietly,
not yet corrupted, laid a white down comforter over
“Let’s go.” Mumbling Grier said, “Okay.” Metz placed his
the field. At the front of the room a medic turned on
cards down firmly and rose with the others. And Para-
the ward radio, the catatonic hung the ornament in the
noid Firenza, trusting it was the thing to do, fell in line
perfect place, and The Drifters sang,
and headed for the tree.
“I, I, I, I’m dreamin’ of a white Christmas,
Lawyer Lucas interrupted his ranting to pick up a far-flung, star-shaped ornament. He went to the tree
just like the ones I used to know.
and returned the star to a naked branch. “And that’s what I have to say about that,” he said to himself, with no compulsion to share that information aloud. The puzzle maker, the letter writers, and the book readers joined the rescue squad. Even those addicted to
May your days, may your days be merry and bright, And may all your...” JcK
::::: 15 :::::
An Interview with
Seth GrahameSmith
photo courtesy of the author
Celia Blue Johnson and Maria Gagliano If you’ve been to a bookstore recently, you might have stopped to admire a young woman on a book cover. She’s wearing a white lace dress. Her pale face is framed by delicate brown curls and her lips are…well, they’re worn away. All that’s left of her jaw is the bone, the skin around her neck is deteriorating, and there are blood stains down the side of her dress. This book is not your typical regency romance. It’s Seth Grahame-Smith’s New York Times bestselling book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a hilarious take on Jane Austen’s celebrated novel. We couldn’t wait to ask Seth about how he brought the walking dead into classic literature and what Abraham Lincoln will do when he confronts vampires in Seth’s next book. ::::: 17 :::::
slice magazine
What inspired you to become a
Can you tell us a little about your
writer? Are there any writers who
writing process for Pride and Preju-
have significantly influenced your work?
dice and Zombies? Was it as simple as going through a copy of the book and inserting zombie scenarios
I became a writer by osmosis more than
whenever you thought they’d work, or was it as all-
anything. My mother’s been a book
encompassing as writing a new book from scratch?
editor since I was little, and my stepfather had a fivethousand-volume collection of used and rare paper-
I can’t say that it was as difficult as
backs in the basement. I read constantly as a kid. I can’t
writing a three-hundred-page book from
say there was a specific moment where I decided, “Hey, I
scratch, but it was challenging in other ways. I had to
think I’ll be a writer now.” I guess it’s the same as asking
carefully read the original several times through to work
a professional athlete, “What inspired you to become a
out the logistics (if I change something in chapter 3, how
professional athlete?” I enjoyed writing, and enough
does it resonate in chapter 53; where am I going to put
people gave me praise and encouragement that I kept it
these new zombie sequences, and what will they be?).
up. As for influences, I know this isn’t as cool as saying
Once I knew where I was going, it was a matter of
Ayn Rand or James Joyce or whatever (not that they
starting on page one, line one, and going from there.
aren’t wonderful)—but I’d be lying if I didn’t say Stephen
Sometimes I’d insert a couple of lines; sometimes two or
King. Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, he’s just
three paragraphs. Sometimes I’d write three or four
about all I read, and I read him obsessively. I’m still
consecutive pages of new material.
amazed at how prolific the man is and how unnervingly Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
good he is at creating images that take up permanent
blends a pop culture phenomenon
residence in your brain. As I’ve gotten older my reading has shifted to histories and biographies, especially by
with classic fiction. Did you aim to create a specific type
writers with that same flair for imagery—Doris Kearns
of literary dialogue within the pages of your book?
Goodwin, Walter Isaacson, David McCullough, and others. I count them as influences too.
My aims were to be as invisible as possible, and to never, ever “wink” at the
What’s one of your most memorable
reader. In other words, to play it completely straight—
images from a Stephen King book?
even at its most ridiculous. I wanted the new material to
Do you think any of his titles in particular have really
seem like it’d been there since 1813, and to that end, I
influenced your work?
focused most of my energy on getting as close to the language and rhythms of Austen as I could.
The death of Gage Creed in Pet Sematary stands out. I was a kid when I first
Your next book, Abraham Lincoln:
read that book, and I remember being really affected by
Vampire Hunter, is going to be an
it. The idea that this sweet, innocent little boy (not much
entirely original work. How is Mr. Lincoln taking to the
younger than my brother or I) could just—poof—die.
vampire-hunting profession so far?
How sudden and brutal it was. In terms of being influenced by a particular title, I’d say On Writing without a
Like everything Abe puts his mind to, he
doubt. It’s the best book on the craft I’ve ever read. I try to revisit it once a year.
excels at it. Unfortunately, his war with the walking dead is taking a heavy toll on the people closest to him.
::::: 18 :::::
an interview with seth grahame-smith
How is the experience of writing this book different than Pride and
apocalyptic monster attack? Elizabeth Bennet or Abraham Lincoln?
Prejudice and Zombies? It depends on the monster. Zombies? My The biggest difference is the size of the
money’s always on Lizzy and her trusty Katana. Vampires? There’s nobody better than Abe.
job. Jane Austen did all of the heavy lifting for me on PPZ—all I had to do was weave a new subplot onto one of the most brilliantly plotted novels of
Do you have any new monsters in
all time. With ALVH, I’m starting with a blank canvas and
mind for upcoming books, or are you
inventing everything as I go (well to be fair, I guess I’m
just sticking to vampires and zombies for the time
weaving a new story onto the story of Abe’s life—but
being?
every chapter, page, and scene needs to be invented from scratch).
Right now if I think about “future projects” I start to feel short of breath. Are any of the most recent vampire
All my book energy is going into Abe and his battle with
phenomena (like Twilight and True
the walking dead.
Blood) influencing the new book in any way? What are five things on your writing If anything, they’ve inspired me to go
desk right now?
darker and gorier. Vampires have always My BlackBerry, a guitar pick, a picture of
been erotic, but these days you’ve got vampires on the cover of Tiger Beat, and tween girls fantasizing about
my son, a pencil sharpener, and an empty
being bitten. I’m focused on making them the scary bad
glass (until very recently filled with Coke Zero).
guys again. When you aren’t writing, what is your Tell us about one of the dark vam-
favorite pastime?
pires you are creating in your book. Are there any specific historic people we should watch out for?
Napping. Without going into too much detail,
What’s your scariest nightmare while
there’s one vampire in particular that
napping?
plays a central role in Abe’s life. I picture him as a kind of early 1990s Trent Reznor—a self-loathing vampire who
That I’ll wake up next to Vincent
was born before the first Englishman set foot in the New
D’Onofrio.
World. He’s kind of my take on Barnabas Collins (Dark Shadows)—a character I always loved. The book is loaded with historic figures—many who actually played a
What are you reading right now?
role in Abe’s life, and a few who I like to imagine played a role behind the scenes.
The truth? Nothing. I spend my day working on a TV show and my nights and
Who do you think would be the
weekends writing Abe. David McCullough’s Truman has
stronger contender in the event of an
been next to my bed for months. It’s covered in dust.
::::: 19 :::::
Hidden to Those who clear as day to
A Cryptozoology they were finally “discovered” around the turn of the twentieth century. There are some animals that don’t exist because we haven’t seen them yet, and there are some animals, like dragons and unicorns, that you can’t see because they don’t exist. Sitting off to the side is a third ragtag group, which has gone on record as having been seen from time to time, but by and large goes mostly unseen and disregarded. Sasquatch, Chupacabra, the Loch Ness Monster, among others. These are neither undiscovered nor certain myths. You don’t see them, because they are hiding from you. Don’t take it personally. There are some people out there who would love to see one and haven’t, and some who say they have and wish they hadn’t. In no case has anyone been able to figure out with any accuracy when and where these animals might choose to reveal themselves, or why, and it’s that unpredictability that pumps the heart of their mystery. Only three years ago, a team of scientists and explorers who traveled to an unspoiled wilderness in the Amazon
A Sense of History
found up to forty new species of plants and animals,
Native tribes of North America, specifically in British
including a bird and a tree rat. Mountain gorillas existed
Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, have a long history
merely as the stuff of legend in Western society until
of reported Sasquatch sightings, and overall they seem
::::: 20 :::::
don’t wish to see, those who do
Miscellany to accept the animal more as a fact of life than a figment
Ian F. King illustrations by Andrea Sparacio & Tim Mucci
of the imagination. It’s hard to know exactly what to at-
Mangy Mutts
tribute this belief to, but it might be that they’ve simply
An animal found and reported to be a Chupacabra in
been around for thousands of years longer than we have
July 2004 near San Antonio was later determined by
(remember the aforementioned case of the mountain
DNA assay to be a coyote with one of two possible kinds
gorilla). Its existence is so widely accounted for that it
of mange. In October of that year, two more carcasses
has over a hundred different recorded names spread
were found in the same area. Biologists in Texas deter-
throughout as many tribes, compared to the paltry
mined they were also coyotes suffering from very severe
few that the Western world has given it (Bigfoot, Yeti,
cases of mange. In August 2007, a woman named Phylis
Abominable Snowman). To name some:
Canion and her neighbor reported to have discovered three strange animal bodies outside Canion’s property.
» Sc’wen’ey’ti (Spokane Indian) = “Tall Burnt Hair”
She took photographs of them and preserved the head
» Choanito (Wenatchee Indian) = “Night People”
of one in her freezer before turning it over for DNA
» Oh Mah (Hoopa Indian) = “Boss of the Woods”
analysis. Canion reported that nearly thirty chickens on
» Kushtaka (Tlingit Indian) = “Otter Man”
her farm had been drained of their blood over a period
» Tah tah kle’ ah (Yakama/Shasta Indian) = “Owl
of years, a factor which led her to connect these dead
Woman Monster”
animals with the Chupacabra legend. A mammalogist later suggested that the animal in Canion’s pictures was
That said, even though these tribes might all agree
a gray fox suffering from an extreme case of mange.
that Sasquatch is worth naming, they can’t all agree on exactly what it is, or even in what dimension it lives in. Pacific Northwestern tribes have mostly perceived Sas-
Runners-up and Understudies
quatch to be a physical being, living in the same actual
Forever playing second fiddle to the Loch Ness Monster
world as humans and other animals. However, tribes
is Ogopogo, the Canadian lake monster, which actually
elsewhere in the country see the Sasquatch as more of
made its media debut seven years before the “Surgeon’s
a supernatural or spirit being.
Photograph,” made a famous liar out of an anonymous
::::: 21 :::::
slice magazine
London gynecologist. In 1926, seven years before Nessie
contracted a local Native American to act as their guide
was ready for her close-up, an editor of the Vancouver
into a certain remote region. That guide urged them to
Sun in British Columbia, home of Lake Okanagan where
avoid a particular area due to some native “supersti-
the sea monster was reported to dwell, wrote in all
tion.” Roosevelt decided that was rubbish and pressed
seriousness, “Too many reputable people have seen [the
the guide into taking them to the area, afterward making
monster] to ignore the seriousness of actual facts.” The
it a point of mentioning very strange noises he heard
archival records of Ogopogo’s existence date back to
at night while camping there. He didn’t recognize or
1872, and sightings have been reported regularly since
describe the noises, but did note that they were unusual
then. It may just be coincidence, but it’s also worth noth-
and that he found them upsetting. This lack of forth-
ing that Lake Okanagan and Loch Ness are both long
coming was odd for a man who so easily went into vivid
and narrow lakes that lie at roughly the same latitude in
detail about the animals he observed and hunted.
regions of similar climate.
More Celebrity Sightings
Can I Get a Witness?
In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported
While most incidences of hidden and mysterious animals
seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest.
are only ever isolated sightings by one or two loners
In 1960, Hillary mounted an expedition to collect and
with shaky-at-best camera work, there have been cases
analyze physical evidence of the Yeti. He sent what
where numerous sightings of the same creature, or
was supposedly a Yeti scalp from the Khumjung mon-
similar creatures, have been reported in relatively brief
astery to the West for testing, whose results indicated
periods of time.
the scalp was manufactured from the skin of a serow, a
In January of 1909, thousands of people claimed to have witnessed the Jersey Devil during the week of the
goatlike Himalayan antelope. Its authenticity was widely dismissed.
sixteenth to the twenty-third. Newspapers nationwide followed the story and published eyewitness reports. In Haddonfield and Collingswood, New Jersey, posses were formed to find the devil. The creature attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights, but was chased off. By the last day of sightings, many towns were panic-stricken, with businesses and schools closed in fear. In West Virginia, near Ohio, in 1966 and 1967, the Mothman was a creature reportedly seen in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas. Most observers describe the Mothman as a winged man-size creature with large, reflective red eyes and large mothlike wings. The creature was sometimes reported as having no head, with its eyes set into its chest.
Celebrity Sightings In President Teddy Roosevelt’s book The Wilderness Hunter, Roosevelt wrote a passage which is widely speculated to document a personal Bigfoot experience. He writes about how he and a friend were on a hunting trip in Washington State, where they had
::::: 22 :::::
a cryptozoology miscellany
That’s Illegal, You Know Though no one involved in the implementation of the law had ever admitted to witnessing a Sasquatch, in Washington State, Skamania County Ordinance No. 69-01 went on record to legally acknowledge possible evidence of Sasquatch’s existence in the county, and that in light of that, “any premeditated, willful and wanton slaying of such creature shall be deemed a felony punishable by a fine not to exceed Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000) and/or imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed Five (5) years.” Yes, that’s correct, you could go to jail for five years for killing a Sasquatch in Skamania County. The law was put into action on April 1, 1969, and despite the questionable intentionality of the date, the law remained in full effect until it was partially repealed and amended twenty-five years later in 1984. In that year, by way of Ordinance 1984-2, the crime was reduced to a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in the county jail and/or a one-thousand-dollar fine. This much-more-rational law is still currently in effect, and entirely enforceable. The ordinance also created a million-acre refuge for these protected Sasquatch within the county.
Much like the “Surgeon’s Photograph,” the PattersonGimlin film is by far the most historic and recognized evidence of the existence of Sasquatch. You know the one—a couple dozen seconds of a large, hairy biped
Don’t Ruin it for Everyone Else
swinging its arms back and forth, making an eventual
While the aforementioned “Surgeon’s Photograph”
quick turn to the camera before walking off scene. In the
was the real start of last century’s wave of Loch Ness
world of hidden animal studies, this film is Exhibit A. Un-
sightings—the one “real” incident on which all the for-
like the eventual, unsurprising revelations surrrounding
geries pinned themselves—it was ultimately revealed
the Loch Ness picture, Patterson swore on his deathbed
to be just as much of a hoax as all the imitators that
that the footage of the Sasquatch in Bluff Creek, Cali-
followed sporadically for decades. That said, in 1969,
fornia, on October 20, 1967, was authentic footage of
a field researcher from the New York Aquarium spear-
an animal unknown to science. Gimlin avoided publicly
headed a mobile sonar scan operation at Loch Ness. The
discussing the matter for some thirty years after the film
trawling scan took place that October, and one sweep of
went mainstream, but has always stuck by his story as
the Loch made contact with a strong animate echo for
well. The film is still occasionally watched and debated
nearly three minutes, with later analysis concluding that
by academics and scientists on both sides of the fence.
the intensity of the returning echo was twice as great
Let’s hope that whoever has the conclusive proof we’ve
as that which would be expected from a ten-foot whale.
all been waiting for, one way or the other, keeps it to
The identity of the contact remains a mystery. Perhaps
themselves.
there’s hope in those waters yet.
::::: 23 :::::
ifk
A
Dream Spelled Backward Tim Mucci I hung up the phone with Katie’s voice still buzzing in my ear; she wanted to take some time for herself, away from me. That was fine; I’d been expecting it, really, and in the back recesses of my brain I knew it was coming. Way back there. Really. As I placed the heavy black handset down on the phone’s cradle I could hear her slow mumbling cease and wondered if she even knew I’d hung up on her. It had happened before—she often said I was “out of it,” ending conversations when I felt they were done, when I’d gotten all I wanted out of them. Nature of the job, I suppose. Journalism is all about angles. It’s all about the slant the reporter puts on the story.
Don’t let anyone fool you that a reporter only cares about the integrity of the story. That’s bullshit; they care about how that story represents them. It’s their name going under the slug. If someone hates their piece it’s that name they’re going to be gunning for, or vice versa, that name they’ll want to laud to the editor. Right, as if anyone under eighty ever writes to the editor anyway. I took a drag from my cigarette, stood, and went over to the dirty graylit window that overlooked my dirty gray-lit neighborhood and stubbed the cigarette out on the windowsill. Ah, Katie, you’re killing me, girl. We’d get back together; she was just mad at how much time I spent working. But
::::: 24 :::::
photo © amy sly
that’s the business and you don’t get into it unless it’s
apart by dogs, women beaten to within an inch of their
your first love; everything and everybody else comes
lives and scared shitless to leave the human trash that
second. I’ve never hidden that from anyone and I’m sure
did it, men so pumped up on their own ego and self-
everyone thinks I’m a shallow piece of shit. Let ’em. At the
importance that when they self-destruct, they intend to
end of the day that rush of copy, those ink-stained fingers
take the world with them. It’s ridiculous, how important
and pockets, and the frantic phone calls are mine. That’s
we all feel. We’re nothing. We’re a dot on the map, and
life. I’m recording straight into the book of life, and years
the map is not the territory. Seeing all that blood, all of
after I’m gone my stories will still be around. The good,
those bodies, all of those senseless acts really unhinges
the shit, the fluff pieces: they’ll all be there.
something inside of you. I thought about God a lot when
I’d just moved from being on the crime beat to being
I was on crime, because god knows I couldn’t sleep. I’m
the top stringer at the paper. I’d been on crime for three
half-convinced that there actually is a God, but not the
years, and I’d seen a lot of shit. Scary shit. Kids ripped
one we’ve come to know and print on T-shirts. I’d heard
::::: 25 :::::
slice magazine
something interesting once when I was covering a story
I asked her to dig me up whatever she could on the artist
about a priest who went missing downtown. Not like a Ro-
and to fax it over to the usual place, the library on the cor-
man Catholic priest; he was of some small Eastern Euro-
ner, then we both hung up. Why can’t all phone conversa-
pean orthodox religion. Anyway, when I was interviewing
tions be as direct? I shed my shirt and headed toward the
the priest’s fellow clergymen, I learned something that
shower to get ready.
gave me a lot of perspective. A sallow man dressed in ornate yellow and gold robes told me, in a thick Czecho-
When I arrived at the studio
slovakian accent, that the God that we know and worship
in NoHo I wasn’t surprised with what I found. It was a
is not the true God. It is the shadow of God, cast upon the
nondescript storefront. White silk curtains had been
material plane. It is an idiot god, creating out of a sheer
hung over the large picture window at the front so that
blustering need to create. It tries to do right, but since it
the inside was impenetrable. Even the building number
is only the shadow of the true creator, and the true crea-
had been scratched off the door; I only found the place
tor is all spirit and love and light, it can only do wrong no
by taking note of the building numbers around it. I’d
matter its intentions. He called it the Demi-Urge. I don’t
studied Doris’s poop sheet about the artist on the sub-
think they ever found that missing priest, and right after
way, though standing there in front of that blank door, I
that story was filed I quit the crime beat and moved into
couldn’t remember a damned thing. It would come back
the strings. I just needed a break; I was becoming desen-
to me. I often found that I synthesize information quickly.
sitized to humanity because all I saw was meat. Meat in
I’ll read something, hear something, and not realize the
varying states of decay.
impact it’s making on me until it’s time to use the infor-
I thought about calling Katie back.
mation; then it just pops into my head.
As I lifted the phone, the base made a short chirrup, a
I entered the storefront and stood in a narrow hall with
half ring, and I could hear a voice coming from the handset.
about a half-dozen others. Well-dressed, mostly Cauca-
It was a man’s voice. We need you to cover an art open-
sian people who smelled of perfume and cologne. Not
ing, the voice reported, Bernie is sick, we think, we can’t
harsh, a hint of flowers and astringent. I quickly took in
reach him. The voice was the Arts editor, a short, stocky
their faces, then caught a glimpse of my own in a mir-
man with a head that looked like an overripe watermelon. I
ror set just inside the doorway. We all had the same look
couldn’t remember his name. Bernie was the usual gallery
on our faces; restrained eagerness. Hands clutched and
guy, a well-dressed and effete man. I liked Bernie; we’d
rubbed, men obsessively straightened their ties, women
talk at length during the paper’s potluck holiday parties.
plucked at the hems of their dresses, but no one spoke. No
We both liked art and hated television. I always got the
one coughed or sneezed or cleared their throat. We were
sense that I was a bit of a novelty to him, a crime beat
all quiet. Waiting, watching. It was the painting we were
reporter who could discuss the finer points of French Ex-
all there to see. We were half-mad to see it, chomping at
pressionism or the Dutch Still Life movement. The voice
the bit. Shifting glances and piercing looks at one anoth-
gave me a time and an address and told me that Bernie
er; swearing inside to God that each one of us would be
left a note specifically saying that if he couldn’t make it to
the first to see it. We were packed in a slim corridor and
the opening, he wanted me to cover it. I tuned the voice
there was a silk curtain covering a doorway. A silk curtain
out after writing down the address; I didn’t have much
was all that stood between us and the painting. I remem-
time to prepare for an art opening. I did some quick cal-
bered then, about the previous four paintings, about the
culations in my head. The gallery was one of those moving
woman who cried during number three, the woman who
storefronts: one day it was bundled among the cobbles of
wouldn’t and couldn’t stop crying, the woman who is still
Gramercy, the next it was sitting in a stinking alleyway in
crying today.
the Meatpacking District. Tonight it was in NoHo. I had a
A large man wearing a tight black T-shirt, jeans, and
few hours to shower and shave. I also needed information.
an ivory white mask over his face stepped into the room
I tapped my finger on the cradle, silencing the voice if it
from behind the curtain. He pointed to a deep wicker bas-
was still going, and dialed the number of the newsroom. I
ket that sat on a black pedestal right beside the entry
asked for Doris, the researcher; when she got on the line
to the gallery proper. A woman reached into her pocket,
::::: 26 :::::
a dream spelled backward
pulled out her cell phone, and dropped it into the basket. The man let her in. Immediately everyone followed suit; cell phones, smartphones, cameras, notepads, sketchpads, pens, pencils, scraps of paper, all of it went into the basket and then we went into the main room. We were all artists and writers ourselves: journalists, novelists, painters, photographers. We were illustrators, graphic designers, poets, a ragged group of humanity starved for meaning. Trying to find ourselves in the mad, quiet intimacy of that studio. The bleach white floors, the blank ceilings, the bare white walls with no windows, and the vague scent of burning wax. We were all invited, of course we were, and we had to be. We wouldn’t be there if we weren’t. I thought about Bernie’s note specifically asking
Hands clutched and rubbed, men obsessively straightened their ties, women plucked at the hems of their dresses, but no one spoke. No one coughed or sneezed or cleared their throat. We were all quiet. Waiting, watching. It was the painting we were all there to see.
me to cover this. I thought about the photographer who saw painting two; he went home, drew a warm bath and
continued, and now they are yours, and they will live only
slit his wrists. Dark red spreading like storm clouds in avo-
for as long as you live. The cloth dropped and it was ter-
cado-scented bubble bath. I can see it in my mind. I stood
rible, it was awesome. It was horrifying and beautiful. I
next to a woman who smelled dimly of cucumbers and
have no language to describe that painting. It was vibrant
licorice and sweat. She was vibrating with nervous en-
and real and it made us feel like shadows cast by its bril-
ergy. We all were, and for a moment I forgot why we were
liance. It was the creator and we were all just demi-urge.
there. All that mattered was that moment of anticipation.
That’s all we were before it: wrong shadows. I heard a
We were no longer meat, we had a purpose. We were
slow sob from my left. A man, a poet, kept looking away;
luminous beings on the verge of transformation, of trans-
his eyes were wide and wet. A woman behind me whis-
mogrification. I remembered the information Doris had
pered a name, softly and mournfully. You could hear our
given me about painting one, people said that the entire
breathing, our heartbeats. Our bodies slowly aging and
neighborhood was filled with music, the music of angels,
dying, all in sync, all together. We were not meat; we were
of planets spinning in the void, a cosmic dance. But when
a single cosmic organism, living in the moment, basking
the gallery emptied all that stepped out were people, not
in the power of this thing. I was lost in the painting, cast
celestial beings. There were thirty-four reported missing
among the reds and the oranges, the hints of green. It
persons that night. We all had no idea what to expect,
was days, it was a lifetime. I smelled the sweet acrid odor
we all just stared ahead. We stared ahead at that white
of sulfur and felt the heat brush my cheek like a lover who
rectangular cloth, draped over our future, our sanity, our
has ceased to love. I thought of Katie. The artist stood
psyche, our love, our pain.
with his back to the painting as it burned. Heat black tar-
The artist appeared and someone gasped audibly;
nished the wall and a man stepped forward and touched
a small sound but in that space it erupted as harsh and
the flames. He didn’t cry, he didn’t scream, he was in ec-
coarse as gunfire. The artist stood next to his painting; he
stasy. Then it was done. The artist stepped away and dis-
was wearing a yellow silk cloth over his head, a mask, a
appeared to somewhere within the confines of the studio.
thing of folds and obscurity. All I could see were his eyes,
Then it was done and we, all of us, couldn’t bear to look
reclusive and brilliant. Like a spider’s eyes. This is number
at one another. Almost as if we had just seen each other
five, he told us. This is the last number. The omega. This
in the nude. And we had, after a fashion. I’d seen these
is my dream spelled backward. No cameras were allowed
people as they really were, I saw their insides and they
in. No pens, no pads, no paper of any kind. A cell phone
saw mine and we were all beautiful. We looked inside of
chirped weakly out in the hall, where we were instructed
ourselves, and made our way out into the street where
to surrender them; it was half-heard and forgotten im-
the life of the city welcomed us back for however long we
mediately afterward. These are my memories, the artist
would be remembered.
::::: 27 :::::
tm
Matchmaking in Odessa Janet Skeslien Charles photography © joshua langlais
monday // He is forty-six. She is twenty-four. His
tuesday // He is fifty-three. She is twenty-two.
hair is salt, hers pepper. He only speaks English—fast
He is divorced. She is divorced. He lives alone. She
and with a heavy nasal accent. She only speaks Russian.
lives with her parents. At the Bondarenko restaurant, we
Near the opera house (the third most beautiful in the
each have a flute of champagne—he ordered
world), at the Bondarenko restaurant—the best in all of
the most expensive bottle on the menu. I sip. He
Odessa—they sit next to each other. I sit across from her,
gulps. She pretends to drink. She is sharp and wants
tired from my long day at the law firm.
to stay sharp. They sit next to each other. I sit across
It is my first time on a date. I am supposed to interpret for the couples. But how can I do my job if they
from her. She is stunning. So stunning that even I stare.
don’t say anything? She fiddles with her fork. He looks at the ceiling and clears his throat. I stifle a yawn.
As time passes, he gets louder. The waiters look at me. I shrug. They are lucky that they can’t understand
He takes her hand and looks at me. “I love her. Tell
him. She is lucky that she can’t understand him.
her I love her.”
“The death penalty is the only answer,” he bellows.
“But you’ve only known her a day.”
I translate.
“I don’t pay you to think. I pay you to translate.”
“I agree,” she murmurs, stroking his thigh.
I tell her. He expects her to be happy when she hears the words. She is anything but. In her eyes, I see that it
“Some people don’t deserve to live.” His words are slurred.
is over.
I translate.
::::: 28 :::::
matchmaking in odessa
“You’re so smart,” she says. “Let’s go back to your
He leads with, “I was married for twenty-five years.
hotel room.”
Been divorced for three. I have two kids.”
His jaw slackens in surprise, but he rallies and throws
“He says he has two children,” I say.
his arm around her shoulders. Her smile is tight, but he
It’s her turn. “I dated this guy for four years. Thought
can’t see it. I wonder if she is planning on marrying him
he was the one. I came home from work and found him
or simply rolling him. Maybe her boyfriend is waiting for
in bed with my best friend.”
them outside. The man takes out a large roll of cash and
“She doesn’t have children,” I tell him.
throws some money at me. They leave arm in arm.
“I thought I’d be married forever, you know?” he says. “When she left, I thought I would die.”
wednesday // He is forty. She is twenty. He is a
“I thought I’d be married by now. You know, with
businessman looking for a blonde, she is a veterinarian
kids, the whole deal. Why did I waste so much time
looking for an animal lover. The previous day at the Soviet
with him?”
Unions—Ukraine’s premiere matchmaking organization— I tried to tell him that it wouldn’t be a good match. But
Friday // He is thirty-six. She is twenty-five. He is a
alcohol and jet lag and lust dulled his common sense. Or
poet and a professor at a community college. He is soft-
perhaps because I told him no, he fought to prove me
spoken and asks good questions. She’s a withdrawn Bot-
wrong and insisted this was the girl for him. Near the op-
ticelli, which makes her seem mysterious, ethereal. At
era house, at the Bondarenko restaurant—lights soft, staff
the Bondarenko restaurant—we can hear the orchestra
discreet—they sit next to each other, I sit across from her.
rehearsing in the courtyard behind the opera house—
They can’t think of a single thing to say. Neither can I.
they sit next to each other, I sit across from her.
Before the second course comes, he tells me, “It’s
He does everything right. He doesn’t press to hold her hand. He doesn’t talk about his ex. He listens. He
not working. Get me another girl.” “But you haven’t given her a chance.”
looks at her but doesn’t stare. He doesn’t complain
“We aren’t clicking.”
about grasping American career women or tell off-color
“Clicking?”
jokes. She doesn’t make eye contact. She is melancholy. I
She looks at us, trying to understand the tense ex-
know her story—no degree, parents dead, works as a
change. “I paid three thousand dollars and only have a week. I don’t want her.”
maid. Her hands are rough. She is rough. But he cares for her. He is patient enough that he thinks he can nurse her back to happiness.
I look into her doe eyes and try to figure out what to say.
“Look,” she tells me after he’s paid the check. “Tell
She doesn’t need me to interpret. She’s understood
him anything you want. I’m gonna go.”
perfectly. She throws her champagnskoye in his face and walks out. The perfect Odessan exit.
She says good-bye and leaves. He looks bewildered. I tell him to wait and run after her. “Have you thought of
He wipes his face and shirt with a linen napkin. Too bad it wasn’t red wine.
your future? He seems like a good guy. And believe me, I’ve seen plenty.
I use the restaurant’s phone to call Valentina Boris-
Why not give him a chance?”
ovna, and she sends over another girl. While we wait for her, he takes my hand and says,
“It won’t work,” she says. She shoves her hands in her pockets and goes.
“You’re a very attractive lady.”
I return to the table and break the news.
thursday // He is fifty. She is twenty-eight. They
Saturday // A darkened room in a former palace.
both have sad eyes and gentle souls. Near the opera
A music box set to play. A strobe light hanging from a
house, at the Bondarenko restaurant—food superb,
crystal chandelier sends flickers across the parquet. The
décor elegant—they sit next to each other, I sit across
Literary Museum is about to become the setting for a
from her.
garish high school prom for thirty- to sixty-five-year-old
::::: 29 :::::
slice magazine
men. On the Soviet Unions website, my boss Valentina Borisovna advertises these socials as five evenings, one
The women break the silence. “They look as nervous as I feel,” one whispers.
thousand women. Of course, she doesn’t mention that it’s the same two hundred women five times. I wonder
“Who helped them dress?” another asks, looking at the numerous flannel shirts and faded jeans.
if the men will notice. Tonight, her blonde bouffant is
“Why whisper?” a third asks. “They don’t speak
teased six inches higher than usual and she is wearing
Russian.”
her very best—a pink, simulated Chanel suit garnished
We women laugh to cover up our nervousness.
with a pink pearl necklace and pink pumps. Even I
“They’re older than I thought.”
dressed up in a black cocktail dress.
“Girls, I’m here to tell you that older lovers are
“Daria,” she says in her haughty voice, “make sure we have enough punch. Spike it with a fair amount of vodka.
better—they last longer and think each time is the last, so they’re just thrilled and grateful!”
And turn off most of the lights—we don’t want the girls
More laughter.
to see how old some of the men are!”
One of the youngest, in a miniskirt that barely covers
When the girls arrive, I feel as if we’re backstage at a Miss Universe pageant. Tummies tucked in. Bosoms
her bottom, says to her friend, “I’ll need a few drinks before I find these guys attractive.”
thrust out. Hips swaying so hard, I’m reminded of the
They flee to the bar. Larissa, a stout, older woman
back fin of a fish swishing by. There is more makeup on
says, “Let them wait a year or two and see what life with
these faces than in an entire cosmetics factory. The smell
an Odessan man is like.”
of two hundred competing perfumes is overwhelming,
Her words underline the women’s reason for being
so I open a few windows. The women practice pouts and
here. Galya, a nineteen-year-old with wide eyes and a
sultry looks. To hide their fear, they joke and laugh, size
nervous expression asks, “Does that mean romance
each other up and tear one another down.
doesn’t exist?”
“Masha, you’ll get someone right away.”
“Of course it does, sunshine. In lovey-dovey Ameri-
“With that hair and those turkey drumsticks for legs,
can romances,” Larissa replies.
Louisa will never find anyone, poor dear.” Cackle, cackle. “No smoking, girls! No smoking!” Valentina Borisovna
The men still stand near the entryway. I give them credit for this. It is proper to be reserved. They stare at
shouts. “Americans don’t smoke and they certainly don’t
the women, some of whom preen, some of whom strike
want smelly dates!”
a pose of nonchalance, some of whom dance with each
Immediately, the girls throw down their cigarettes
other. The men look at the women, then at their programs
and grind them underneath their stiletto heels, except
filled with a photo of each woman along with her vital
for one, who exclaims, “Ahhh, Americans! They don’t
information—height, weight, likes and dislikes (not unlike
know how to live!”
Playboy), perhaps hoping to narrow their list of two hun-
The Grande Dame glares; the girl puts out her ciga-
dred candidates to ten contenders to cross-examine.
rette. The floor looks like an ashtray. Valentina Borisovna
Some men look intimidated when they hear the
swings open the doors and fifty Americans enter. The
women laughing. And rightly so. They’re in a foreign city,
room goes silent. I peer at the men in the semidarkness.
outnumbered in a room of women, some of whom are
Some look confident. And rightly so. They are a rare
sociopaths who feel no remorse about using their bodies
commodity here. We look at them and see three-course
and faces to ensnare. Men who should know better, and
meal tickets with cell phones and credit cards. A direct
who are smart in so many other ways, become victims.
flight to the American Dream.
Take my former classmate Alexandra. She wears a
The men stand in huddles near the door, the women
tight, low-cut turquoise top to match her eyes. Every
sit at the tables. Nervous anticipation surrounds us. We
time she leans over, her breasts reach out to mesmer-
all want love. The men flew thousands of miles for it.
ize the eyes. She rubs herself, seemingly unconsciously,
The Odessans came to the table to place their bets on
and the men follow her fingers as they cross her neck,
an American, ready to gamble everything for a better
shoulders, her hips, her hand as effective as a hypno-
life elsewhere.
tist’s medallion. She learned enough English to ask the
::::: 30 :::::
matchmaking in odessa
right questions. Where do you live? (Initials need only
I split the difference and say, “She’s thirty.”
apply—NY or LA) What do you do? (Only three possi-
“How much money does he have in the bank?”
ble answers—dentist, lawyer, and/or oil.) She asks other
she asks.
questions using her elementary English, but doesn’t
Odessans do ask blunt questions. Perhaps it’s best
care about the answers. She smiles and strokes a man’s
not to generalize.
arm, her eyes never leaving his. Sirens, these women. I watch her go in for the kill. Bells should go off in the
“Maria said she welcomes you to Odessa. She wonders what you do for a living?”
man’s head, but Alexandra already dismantled his alarm
“Engineer,” he replies. “Does she have kids?”
system.
I nod. He walks away.
Valentina Borisovna plays romantic Western mu-
“I don’t need a millionaire,” she says, looking relieved.
sic, from “Sea of Love” to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She
“Just a nice man closer to my age. One who will respect
Lovely?”, but the dance floor remains nearly empty. A
me. And be a good father.”
barmaid in a short black skirt and a white see-through blouse runs to her. “Valentina Borisovna,” she says in a
I squeeze her hand. “Don’t worry, Maria. We’ll find you that man.”
panic, “some men ordered rosé, but we only have red
Over the next hour, we talk to James, Pat, Michael,
and white wine. What should I do?”
Kevin, and George. Too old, too immature, too vague,
“Fool! Don’t you know that red and white make pink?
too intense, too much talk about sex. Maria is hopeful,
Just mix a little together. No one will know—just be dis-
since I don’t exactly translate word for word. I start
creet. Why isn’t anyone dancing?” She puts on a techno
to despair.
CD and cranks up the volume. The men move toward the women, choosing partners using the only index available
While she dances, I interpret for Anya, then Inna, then Varvara.
to them: looks.
“Does she like candlelit dinners?”
I am assigned to Maria, a woman twice divorced
“Find out if he likes kids. (I’ve got two, but don’t tell
who takes care of her elderly parents while raising her
him just yet.)”
young daughter. They all live in a two-room apartment.
“Does she like going to plays?”
Maria makes forty dollars a month as a waitress, though
“Does he earn a good pay?”
her degree is in physical education. English and math
“Tell her I think she’s beautiful.”
teachers make extra money by giving private lessons.
“Find out if he lives independently from his parents.”
Unfortunately for Maria, there is no call for tutors in
“Does she like going to the gym?”
dodgeball. I look at Maria; her eyes tell me that she
“How old is he?”
needs to make a match. Tonight.
“Does she like to travel?” (Raucous laughter follows
An old man, his every facial capillary broken, ap-
this question; most women haven’t left the city in years.)
proaches and asks my name. I make it clear that I’m not the one available by quickly introducing him to Maria. He
“Ask him in a nice way if he drinks, I don’t want a drinker.”
takes in her big brown eyes and tight figure and barks, “How old?”
At three
am ,
Valentina Borisovna and I say good-
bye to the few lingering men and women. We lock the
Shocking. Not even a hello. No Odessan would ever
doors. All fifty Americans come away with dates, even
be so rude. I could not bring myself to show how uncul-
that rude old man, but over one hundred women go
tured this man was. “He says, ‘Delighted to meet you.
home empty-handed. As usual, the odds aren’t good for
You look like a teenager. Just how old are you anyway?’”
Odessan women.
“He said all that?” she yells over the techno music.
Sunday // Sleep.
“Remember the English you learned in school,” I reply. “Americans use contractions.” She nods knowingly and says, “Twenty-six,” lopping nine years off her age as efficiently as my grandmother trims ears off of potatoes.
::::: 31 :::::
jsc
Blooming Claire Dunnington
I. The Babies
her doctor prescribed sleeping pills and then asked if
The babies are watching me. Sprouting out of strollers
anyone in her family suffered from an anxiety disorder,
all over the Upper West Side, they peer from behind
before remembering who her daughter was. I think that my mother would be perfectly happy to
quilted blankets, kick their feet, and flap their hands as if they want to tell me something. Some of them toss
live on top of me, following me from room to room as
their heads back and peep like young chicks, their hair
she does when I’m at home, never far enough away to
soft down and no protection against the wind. I smile
be frightened at the thought of my external or internal
at them as they roll past, wonder if they can tell if I will
environment. I believe that if she thought sitting on me
make a good mother one day.
would keep me safe, she would do it. But instead of sit-
Sometimes there is only one child in a stroller built
ting on children until they are warm enough to emerge
for two, the other seat occupied by a purse, a jacket, a
from protection, they are harbored inside of bodies like
bag of groceries, and I can never help but look askance
small slippery seeds, swimming curled around them-
at the singular baby, always dominant and happy and
selves and waiting to unfold. This act of unwrapping will
well fed, and wonder what did you do to the other
take years, will occur even as parents try to enfold their
one? Perhaps the bags are only placeholders for the
children beneath them, and no one can know for sure
babies that will someday exist, infants imagined but
who they will be once they reveal the secrets of their
not conceived.
bodies and minds. Schizophrenia blooms like a double petunia, a
I weave my way around mailboxes and potted winter plants and remember a game I played once at a party
kaleidoscope of petals crowded around one cluster
in which each person envisioned a series of landscapes
of pollen like a shifting circle of personalities fighting
and objects: a desert, a box, a tree, flowers. The number
over one body. For my cousin it struggled upward and
and colors of the flowers were supposed to represent
poked through the surface at the end of high school,
the number and gender of children you would have. I
lay dormant for a season, and then returned. The doc-
remember envisioning three flowers, growing in a clus-
tors decided that no, they had been wrong; he was not
ter out of the desert sand. I have always wanted three
schizophrenic but bipolar, and then they tossed pills at
babies, four. Never only one child.
him like seeds. One of my aunts, years later, thought she was having a heart attack and fled to the emergency
II. Lineage
room only to return with the same SSRI that I take. Soon
My mother often calls when I’m out walking. She still
after that, another aunt returned from the doctor with a
isn’t sleeping; as long as I can remember, she has been
small orange bottle of white tablets.
calm throughout the day and restless at night. As a child
I found her by the TV in the family room in the mornings,
III. Coloring
in high school she awoke from nightmares about me and
The landscape here has surrendered its colors, the sky
retreated to the couch, on visits home from college she
adjusting to the concrete grays and whites of the
stayed awake until I came back each night, no siblings
buildings, the flowers shriveled back into their brown
safe in their beds to absorb any of her worries. This time
stems, the strollers the only bright pops of color that
illustration © julianna swaney
::::: 33 :::::
slice magazine
distinguish one street from the next. In several months
The florists all have their winter bulbs set out,
this winter’s babies will shed their blankets, unfurl their
sheathed behind heavy vinyl. Once when bored I
legs, learn to walk.
pressed a round white antidepressant into the soil of
My father and I did an experiment with zinnias when I
my own plant, one of the amaryllis I named after 1960s
was five. We grew pink, orange, and yellow ones, labeled
rock stars—Grace Slick, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young—
the seeds from each, planted them with popsicle stick
who I imagined needed it more than I did, and because
markers to see if they would grow up to be the same
I needed amusement more than chemicals. I avoid this
colors. I don’t remember if they did or not. I sometimes
with my birth control. The idea of something small be-
think all of this is a warning to me, that I am not to con-
ginning in my stomach is more unsettling than the idea
tinue in smaller forms of myself, that I’m not fit to breed
of a fleet of worries hatching in my head. But sometimes
without the fear of what I will pass on.
I consider what it would be like, and I think about how
Looking at my family I know that there could be
the small blue pills make me depressed, and what would
poison in the soil. Hydrangeas might go horribly wrong:
happen if my eggs returned and a baby fell out of me
this dirt is too acidic or basic, too hostile for a chance at
just like that, no more wondering, no more speculation.
a placid life, and the flowers will turn red and black like
blood and death instead of their prescribed baby blues
V. Asterisks
and pinks. Snapdragons could emerge with mouths
Though I have never wanted to be an egg donor, I know
twisted into ugly words, teeth gnashing back against
from the newspapers shedding their pages across the
their own heads.
sidewalks that I would be the “perfect” candidate. I
IV. Theories
am over five feet five inches tall, have high SAT scores, don’t smoke, have no history of heart disease or cancer.
Van Gogh may have painted his sunflowers because he
But then would come the meeting, and they would ask
was mentally ill, or he may have been mentally ill be-
whether I lie awake at night and worry, whether my fam-
cause of the burden of the things he was able to create.
ily tree is marked with asterisks, and toss me out. My cousin, my aunt, my aunt, my mother, myself. I
If Schumann had been medicated he may have never written a note, or he may have lived long beyond his
imagine a row of paper dolls descending from a point
forty-six years to compose his greatest sonatas. I might
below my navel, testing their abilities to survive, feel-
or might not have an anxious child; I might or might not
ing the damp street and retracting, the world not safe
have a child who can paint or compose or write. I may
enough for their fragile cut. I do not regret walking
never know if they are connected, or which came before
these streets, thinking these things, being my mother’s
the other. I can only guess, pull alternating petals from a
daughter, but I worry about what my own children could
daisy: it will, it will not, it will, it will not…
someday regret.
On some days I walk and I worry not about the
But I don’t want to be left pushing a stroller filled
future anxieties of my potential children but about their
only by a bag of groceries, the flimsy weight remind-
existence at all. Warm air from the subway grate rushes
ing me of the absence over every crack in the sidewalk,
up into my coat and I imagine that with it bacteria will
every bump of the curb. I don’t want to imagine myself
dance up off of the streets, gather strength in large
a rootless old woman, wandering through a neighbor-
swirls, and embed themselves in my ovaries, caus-
hood of things imagined but never held, through the
ing them to swell into hotbeds of pelvic inflammatory
empty whistling of subway grates, broken traffic lights
disease, cauterizing the flow of eventual babies. I decide
hanging on wires, frozen seeds scattered across the
that the probability for this is low, but the likelihood of
cold ground.
CD
my children having obsessions is something else entirely.
::::: 34 :::::
photo opposite © adam fordham
The
Nuisance
Katy Darby
slice magazine
She always knows when it’s about to start. A few
umbrellas scan the road and pavement, pert as meer-
days before, she’ll notice the little twinges that presage
kats. Nobody walks normally through rain; they either
the nuisance: a stitch in her side, cramps and coldness in
trudge or scurry.
her fingers; a heavy, bloated feeling as though her body
She sorts through her purchases and opens the box
is too full of blood. The warning signs are unpleasant
of gloves, bundling a pair in her jeans pocket just in case,
and leave her fractious and snappish, but at least they
along with a couple of large plasters and some cotton
give her time to shop and prepare. The nuisance needs
wool. It almost always starts overnight, so that she has
a surprising amount of preparation, especially if she’s to
to rush off and attend to herself the minute she wakes,
keep it private and carry on as normal. It’s almost a relief
but she’s been caught out in the daytime once or twice
when it comes. It leaves her drained; clean and empty.
before. Although she can feel the nuisance approaching
Safe again for a while.
inside her, clouding the horizon of her body like thunder, there is just no way to tell how near it is until the storm breaks. A silly analogy, she decides, stirring her coffee.
This morning, the blank time hangs heavy on her,
It’s really nothing as dramatic as a thunderstorm.
like wet clothes. James and Mattie are gone for the day:
She leaves money and a tip in the saucer and makes
James to work and Mattie to nursery. She wipes the
her way to the Ladies’. It’s almost lunchtime; she should
kitchen surfaces and thinks about watering the garden,
get home and start cooking the dinner. Her habit is to
but when she peers through the venetian blinds it’s rain-
prepare everything in advance and have a small portion
ing. She walks slowly upstairs to dress for her expedition
for herself for lunch. It’s boring for her to eat the same
to the shops. She chooses jeans, trainers, a white T-shirt,
meal twice a day, but it saves effort—although what she’s
and a long navy sweater. She wants to be anonymous,
saving her energy for these days, she doesn’t know.
invisible today, now that the nuisance is looming.
Washing her hands, she realizes it’s started. The tap
There are three chemists in town, all in the center,
runs pink into the basin, and thin threads of blood, like
which is a fifteen-minute walk alongside a busy arterial
dark spittle, swirl in the water vanishing down the plugh-
road. She alternates her visits in case any one of them
ole. She dries her hands on paper towels, wrapping them
starts to wonder. The narrow footpath is bordered by
like a boxer’s fists, trying to blot it as fast as it appears.
tall, tangled hedges, which shed their weight of rain
She rummages in her jeans pocket with her paper-
onto her brushing umbrella. The dull tap and patter of
bandaged left hand, searching for plasters, and finds the
raindrops on the taut nylon depresses her. She always
surgical gloves, slippery with powder. She lays them on
tells people she loves the rain, but she doesn’t really;
top of her handbag and sticks large square plasters over
what she loves is to sit inside, her chair pushed up
the bleeding backs of her hands. Then she wads cotton
against a warm radiator, and watch it fall.
wool into her palms, which are always worse, securing
Today she needs a box of surgical gloves, new verru-
it with plaster strips. She notices herself sweating in the
ca socks, more plaster and gauze, the eczema cream she
stale lemony overhead light. Somebody knocks on the
never uses, and perfume. She goes to Beynon’s, where
door with restrained urgency.
the girl behind the counter is new, and fills her basket
“Just a second!” she says, her voice high and polite,
first with the sort of staples they can always find a use
like someone in a sitcom. She pulls the thin, translucent
for; disposable razors, shower gel, toilet roll. The other
gloves on over the dressings, bins the debris of wrap-
items she tucks inconspicuously underneath the Andrex.
pings and bloodied paper towels, takes out the black
She needn’t have worried; the girl swipes everything
leather gloves she always keeps at the bottom of her
through with comatose efficiency, not looking up once.
bag and pulls them over her fattened hands. She fluffs
In the coffee shop she buys a cappuccino. She sits at
her hair in the mirror, picks up her bags, and unlocks
the tiny table in the window and watches the rain. Rain
the door, apologetic grin fixed. A blonde woman barges
changes people’s body language, even their walking
past, a small boy following, hand pressed between his
pace. The shelterless slouch into their collars; those with
legs. The door bangs behind her.
::::: 36 :::::
the nuisance
She leans against it for a moment and rummages in
spangled with late-afternoon sun. There’s an hour before
the chemist’s bag for the perfume. She spritzes herself
she has to pick up Mattie from nursery; preparing the
liberally; it’s cheap, no-brand stuff and she hates its
dinner can wait.
brassy, floral scent, but it helps mask the
Upstairs, she takes the dark towels
smell. She hopes she’ll be all right until she
from their place at the back of the airing
gets home, as it’s the first day and she’s
cupboard. In the bathroom, she removes
got the rubber gloves on underneath the leather, but her chest might start seeping
Although she can
like last time and she doesn’t want to take
feel the
any chances. She remembers she’s wearing her old white T-shirt underneath the navy
nuisance
sweater. Never mind, it can be washed or given to Humana. It’s too wet and she is in too much of a hurry to walk back; she flags down a taxi at the bottom of the hill. The grizzled driver makes a face at having to go such a short distance, and another, equally unpleasant one when her gloved, clumsy hands fumble his fare, but anything’s better than walk-
approaching inside her, clouding the horizon of her
ing. At home, she can feel safe; swab the
body like
wounds, examine the damage, dress them properly with cream and thin absorbent gauze and, most importantly, make herself a cup of tea. If she’s lucky, her feet and side won’t start bleeding until the second day. For some reason, the hands always come first. She stumbles in through the door, keys shaking in her hand. Sometimes, when the nuisance starts, she gets dizziness, too, and fleeting pinpoint headaches. This is one of those times. She heads for the kettle and peels off her outer gloves with trepidation as she waits for the water to boil. The dressings underneath the thin, white rubber are still clean, apart from two bright blotches of red at their centers. They’ll be good for another
thunder, there is just no way to tell how near it is until the storm breaks. A silly analogy, she decides, stirring her
couple of hours. She remembers with a rush of relief that James has somebody’s leav-
coffee.
ing do this evening; he won’t be home until
the dressings and plasters and flushes them down the toilet before stripping completely and stepping into the tepid bath. Hot water increases the bleeding. Slender trails of red snake from her pale hands, distorted through the angle of the water, but she soaps and scrubs as best she can. Once she’s dried herself, she stands naked in front of the long mirror to examine her whole body in the hard white light. Hands first; the wounds are still superficial but are bleeding freely, if more lightly now. They’ll only get worse; she’ll probably need some more gauze before it’s over. She slaps a couple of small plasters on them to stem the flow while she looks over the rest of her. She doesn’t want to mess up the bathroom floor. In the mirror, she watches herself narrowly as she lifts her left arm, then her right, as though for a breast exam, running her fingers along the spaces between the stretched ribs, feeling for a gap or cleft. The chest wound has appeared twice so far, each time on a different side, as though trying to work out where it ought to be. The holes in her palms have once or twice migrated to the base of her hands, almost at the junction of the wrist. Fortunately, that was back in November; she’d bought long faux-suede gloves which James had admired. She’s relieved to find no break in the skin, but she’ll wear her black thermal vest under her pajamas tonight just in case. She bends abruptly at the waist to stare
late. Plenty of time to make preparations, in
at her feet. There’s still worn pink polish
case it’s not just the hands that start tonight. She pours
on her toenails from drinks with Tom and Wendy last
her tea and sits at the kitchen window, balancing the
Saturday; she grabs cotton-wool pads and nail-varnish
mug on top of the radiator to keep it warm. The rain has
remover and rubs the ragged remainder off while she
stopped and the garden outside is dripping, striped and
minutely examines her soles.
::::: 37 :::::
slice magazine
The left foot is clear but the right is beginning to
she curls up foxlike on the sofa and tries to watch
rupture, and smudges red on the floorboards as she lifts
television, but she’s bored and restless; she switches
it to check, wobbling on one leg like a dazed flamingo.
off as soon as the news comes on. James will be home
For safety’s sake, she hops to sit on the closed lid of the
soon, and her hands are hurting properly now. Upstairs,
toilet where she bandages both feet, top and bottom,
she takes the painkillers and eczema cream from the
opens the verruca socks and drags them on, pulling her
bathroom cabinet, swallowing the pills with a gulp of
normal socks over them. No tights or open-toed shoes
tap water and setting the jar of cream on the bedside
for a few days. Both feet will probably be showing the
cabinet like a stage prop, so that James will see it when
injuries by morning; she remembers the depressing
he comes to bed. She re-perfumes herself and swaps
squelch of a sockful of blood from last time. Panty pads
her black leather gloves for the white cotton ones she
work best to line them, but it’s hard to fiddle them in.
keeps in the bedside table drawer. They look formal
She checks her watch and dresses again in doubletime; only fifteen minutes to get to nursery. No time to
and faintly ridiculous; her conjuror’s gloves, James calls them.
call a taxi, and anyway Mattie doesn’t like changes in his
She is in bed, the light out, by the time he gets back.
routine; she’ll walk, as usual. The pain in her feet won’t
He smells pleasantly of beer and peppermint as he
really start until tomorrow, if she’s lucky. The plasters
reaches for her, but she places her gloved hand over his
on her hands will have to do; she slips an extra layer
and resettles it around her waist. He registers the layers
of cotton wool under the surgical gloves and puts the
of pajamas and vest.
leather ones back on. Her fingers are already stiff and
“Cold tonight?” he murmurs. She nods and hears her
slow; she suspects that if she held her naked palms up to
hair sigh on the pillow.
the strong overhead bulb, she’d already be able to see a drop of light through them.
“I’ll keep you warm,” he says, already on the edge of dropping off, and spoons himself around her, his
At the nursery gates one of the other mothers asks her where she got her gloves.
erection subsiding. The noise of the night rain keeps her awake for a while, and she stares blankly at the street-lit
“You’ve always got such lovely accessories,” she
curtains in the dark.
says, and twinkles her rings in good-bye.
The gash in her side appears the next evening, and despite swaddling herself in gauze and tight band-
She and Mattie make fairy cakes and watch
ages, blood seeps into her blue pajamas overnight.
television all afternoon. Mattie loves her black gloves,
Fortunately she sleeps on her back and it doesn’t stain
petting and stroking the soft calfskin and trying to pull
the sheets. Once James and Mattie are gone for the day,
them off finger by finger when she’s not paying atten-
she hand washes them awkwardly, made clumsy by the
tion. He’s seen them before but is always fascinated
Marigolds over her plaster-stiff hands, using the last of
when they appear. Mummy’s magic hands, she calls
the Vanish. She takes out her black silk nightdress and
them, and pretends she can perform spells when she
lays it on her pillow, then opens her dressing gown to
has them on. The spell for the afternoon is making the
see how bad it’s got. Peeling off the bandages is always
cakes come out perfectly, which they do, and making
an unpleasant surprise.
the rain, which has started again, stop so that they
The thick, sweet flowery smell emanating from her
can play football in the garden. As the sun sinks, they
open flesh is overpowering, brash and heady like
venture out for their game and Mattie’s faith in magic
wisteria, and the hole is wider and deeper than before.
is restored.
She’s never seen it so bad. Fascinated, she advances
While he is napping, she calls James to find out
the tip of a gloved pinkie and pushes it into the wound.
if he’ll be home in time for dinner. He tells her he’ll
Blood flows sluggishly over the surgical latex. The
grab something at the station so Mattie and she
pain is sharp and dull all at once; a rasping buzz when
have a special treat for dinner; a shared ready-meal
she touches it, a sucking ache when she removes her
from the freezer drawer. After she’s read him to sleep,
finger. Her headache is back, too; it feels like her skull’s
::::: 38 :::::
the nuisance
in a studded vice. Ibuprofen barely damps it, and she’s moved onto Migraleve. She catches herself grimacing
“I’ve tried to dress it myself but I’m not an expert,” she says. “I thought you might have something…”
in the mirror. She tries to unscrew her face, but the
He stands up and moves around the desk to take a
lines of pain stay. And there are what look like bruises
closer look.
on her forehead. She shuffles closer to the mirror; tiptoeing, painful steps. The verruca socks squish and squeak. Around her brow, at regular intervals, are tiny bleeding cuts, neat little punctures in the skin like marks made by barbed wire. She wipes the blood away with a Kleenex, brushes her thick fringe down over her forehead, and calls the doctor.
“Dr. Mitchell is ready for you, Mrs. Denton,” says the nurse. She looks up sharply; she hadn’t really been listening on the phone when she made the appointment, concerned only to see someone as soon as possible. “Isn’t Dr. Chandra in today?” The nurse smiles patiently. “She’s on a course. Don’t worry, Dr. Mitchell’s new but he’s very nice. He doesn’t bite.” “Oh,” she says, looking at her fat leather hands clasped in her lap. “All right then.” Dr. Mitchell is very nice, and very young, or so she thinks when she knocks timidly and enters his office. He’s bent at the sink, washing his hands; dark, longish hair, a regular, handsome profile. She recognizes the brand of the latex gloves in
“First of all, how and when did you do
The serum feels heavy and cool, like liquid metal, and her arm aches as it enters her veins. The needle leaves a tiny violet bruise on her arm,
the box at the side of the basin; the same “Well, Mrs. Denton,” he says, “how can I She doesn’t know what to say. She starts unbuttoning her black silk blouse,
soaking through.” He looks into her face, hard. He has wide dark brown eyes, to match his hair. “And how? If I may ask?” She’s been dreading this. Part of the reason she’s avoided seeing anyone about it until now is that she can’t think of a convincing lie. The wound looks as though it has been made by a blade of some sort, but a wide, dull one; not a knife. Closed scissors, perhaps? She shakes her head and says helplessly, “I don’t know.” He frowns and moves closer. “You must know, Mrs. Denton.” “It wasn’t anyone else,” she says quickly, “and it wasn’t me either.” He looks puzzled. “Are you telling me it was an accident?” “Yes,” she says. He holds her gaze for a second, then looks back down at her bandaged ribs. “I’d like to have a look at the injury,” he says. She climbs onto his examination couch without being asked and lies back on the cold, green vinyl. Her eyes are tightly closed as he away the sticking plaster and cotton wool. “Sorry about the smell,” she says. A hot
blood.
help you?”
She drops her eyes. “A few days ago. It didn’t bleed much at first but now it keeps
snips off the bandages and carefully peels
but no
as she uses.
this, Mrs. Denton?”
tear escapes from her screwed-up eyelids
He smiles.
and travels down her cheek. Fortunately it’s on the side away from him. His cool fingers
gloved fingers clumsy. His eyebrows rise
dance around the open edge of the wound,
but he remains calm, professional, holding
gently prodding and probing. It hurts less
her gaze. Under her bra a rough white bandage swathes
when he touches it than when she does, she observes,
her chest. A thick pad of cotton wool, crisscrossed by
trying to stifle her humiliated urge to cry. Perhaps it’s
flesh-pink plaster, bulges beneath it, just below her left
because he’s a doctor.
breast. Blood is already showing through in spots, brash bright scarlet, like lipstick.
“Don’t worry,” he says, confusion rising in his voice, “it’s not gangrenous. There’s no infection. In fact, the
::::: 39 :::::
slice magazine
wound looks very clean. When did you say it
“Good-bye, Mrs. Denton,” says Dr. Mitchell, “I hope
happened?”
we don’t need to see each other again.”
She swallows dryly. “Two days ago.” “What penetrated the skin? Was it metal?”
When she gets home, James is watching a
“I don’t know,” she says, lying desperately. “I just
program on TV about the Turin Shroud, Mattie sprawled
fell over. In the garage. The light blew and I stumbled.
on his lap.
There’s all sorts of stuff in there.”
“How was Dr. Chandra?” he asks.
“Hmm,” he says. “Maybe garden shears or
“Not there. I had a new doctor. Mitchell or something.”
something.”
“Is that the hot one Lucy-with-the-twins keeps going
“Yes,” she says, with relief. “Maybe.”
on about?” asks James with mild interest.
“When was your last tetanus jab?” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure.” “Better have another one.” “Will I need stitches?” she asks. Perhaps if he sews it up it’ll heal in a normal way and that will fix it. But then again, who’s to say it will appear in the same place next time? “You should be OK,” he says. “It looks like it’s healing pretty fast already.” She glances down fearfully, but to her astonishment he is right. The gash is already visibly smaller than it was this morning, as though it’s withdrawing back into her body, disappearing without leaving so much as a scab or a scar. The injuries always heal themselves eventually, but she’s never known it to happen so swiftly before. Could it be his hands, his doctor’s touch? She dresses again and submits to the tetanus injection. The serum feels
“I suppose so.” She sits down and presses
She lies on his examination couch, shirtless, hands and feet naked and dripping. Blood spots the thick, rough paper sheet she rests on.
heavy and cool, like liquid metal, and her
a wrist into her aching brow. It comes away with a pinprick pattern of bloodspots. When she returns from the bathroom, the presenter is talking about whipping and crucifixion. “Turn it over,” she says shortly. James, a fan of The Da Vinci Code, protests. “It’s horrible stuff for Mattie to watch,” she says. “Morbid.” She takes the remote and changes the channel at random, to a noirish police drama. “You think this is more suitable for a three-year-old?” asks James drily. “It’s well past his bedtime anyway,” she says, and scoops Mattie brusquely into her arms to take him upstairs. She doesn’t come down again. That night, as James shifts quietly in the bed, she reaches out her arms and clutches him violently to her, shivering in her pajamas. “I love you,” she whispers, “I love you.” “What are you scared of, conjuror girl?”
arm aches as it enters her veins. The nee-
he asks, his voice soft with sleep. He squeez-
dle leaves a tiny violet bruise on her arm, but no blood.
es her cotton-gloved hands affectionately. She’s glad
He smiles.
that it’s dark, and he can’t see her wince.
As she makes to leave he offers his hand; she has no choice but to shake it. He feels the padding in her gloved palm, she sees it in his eyes. He glances down at
She doesn’t go back to the doctor for two
their joined hands; she disengages quickly and picks up
months. It’s neither difficult nor easy. But when the
her handbag.
head wounds come back, as she knew they must, they
“If this happens again,” he says sternly, “this or any-
are deeper and there are more of them. She can’t
thing like it, I would like you to come straight to me. I’m
wash her hair; she can barely walk or use her hands.
always willing to discuss…anything you’d like to share.”
James, noticing the spread of what she still tells him is
“Thank you,” she says. Her gloves slip on the door
eczema, keeps mentioning a dermatologist he knows.
handle as she tries to turn it; he steps forward and opens
Eventually she agrees to go to Dr. Mitchell again. She
it for her.
comforts herself that patient/doctor confidentiality is
::::: 40 :::::
the nuisance
like the seal of the confessional. She’s sure there must be
“Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Denton?” he says, nodding
something else he can do to help her. She’s always had
at the chair. She dons her rubber socks and gloves be-
great faith in science.
fore pulling her wraparound top on carefully and tying it
“Is there…much pain?”
at her waist. She sits in the patient’s chair opposite him.
Dr. Mitchell sounds like there’s something caught
He’s opened a large, square hardback book, the glossy,
in his throat. She lies on his examination couch, shirt-
photographic kind that sits unread on reception-room
less, hands and feet naked and dripping. Blood spots
tables the world over. Even upside-down, she can see
the thick, rough paper sheet she rests on. She shrugs
what the picture is. Even without looking at his face,
and winces; the chest wound has reappeared in a spot
she knows what he is going to say. He rotates the book
farther around her body, almost on her back this time. It
to show her the image; a double-page colour spread of
makes it harder to see and dress the cut. She wonders
pale flesh and blood, painted to look real.
how much stitches would hurt.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks gently.
“The pain’s doable,” she says. She smiles up at
“It’s not that,” she says.
the ceiling. “Nothing compared to childbirth, anyway.
“Mrs. Denton, I—”
Mostly, I take ibuprofen and try to ignore it.”
“I’m not Catholic,” she says vehemently. “I’m not
“How can you ignore it?” asks Dr. Mitchell quietly.
religious at all. This has nothing to do with that.”
She sits up carefully, twisting on her good side.
“I know how…odd it seems, but to be honest I’m not
“I have to,” she says. “What else can I do?”
sure it can be anything else.”
He strips off his surgical gloves and drops them in
“Why not?” she asks. He looks right at her, absorbing
the bin at his side.
her fierce gaze, calculating.
“Well,” he says. “There you have me.”
“I suppose you’ve done your own research on this,”
He clears his throat. “The good news is that the
he says, “and so you know what the indications are. The
wounds are spotless. They seem to self-clean; they don’t
spontaneous appearance and disappearance, the pat-
get infected or suppurate. You said they usually heal
tern and nature of the injuries…even the perfume they
rapidly of their own accord?”
give off.”
“Yes,” she says. “When they’re at their worst,
“Even if it was that,” she says, “would it make any
they—well, you’ve seen. I can push my little finger right
difference? Could you cure me?”
through my palm, or between my ribs. But after a bit
He taps his lips lightly with a finger.
they just disappear.”
“No,” he says, “I suppose not. It seems like yours
“Completely?”
is a condition which needs to be…managed, rather
“Until the next time. No marks, no scars. It’d be easier
than cured.”
if there were; that way I couldn’t keep tricking myself
“Then will you help me?” she says.
that I’m imagining the whole thing.” She stares at her perforated hands, clasped tight to minimise the trickling. “Well,” says Dr. Mitchell, “you must be losing quite a
On the first Friday in April she collapses,
bit of blood but you don’t seem to suffer any ill effects—
screaming and bleeding, while preparing lunch. Thank
except of course the pain and nuisance of the injuries
God the boys aren’t home, she thinks when she comes
themselves.”
round, her cheek pressed to the cold kitchen tile. She
“Nuisance,” she echoes. He inclines his head.
staggers to the phone and calls Dr. Mitchell, and then
“I’m sorry, poor choice of words. I’m well aware it’s
the taxi firm. She has an account now. To them, she’s the
much more than that.”
lady with the bad feet.
She looks carefully at his face at he goes to fetch
Dr. Mitchell is firm and exasperated when he sees
something from behind his desk. He looks young and
her. His mouth is grim as he washes her bleeding feet
handsome and tired. Almost as tired as she does. His
and inspects the wounds, his head bent intently so
hair needs cutting. There are swags of shadow beneath
that his long fringe tickles her toes. He disinfects,
his eyes.
dresses, and binds her hands and side; he dabs tiny
::::: 41 :::::
slice magazine
flesh-colored plasters in a line across her forehead
“I don’t want anyone to know,” she says. Her hands
and winds a bandage around her head. She protests
muffle her tears but he hears them in her voice. He sighs
but he insists.
and passes her a Kleenex.
“Wear your cap,” he says brusquely, “if you still want
“How about your husband?”
to hide this from your family.”
She shakes her head and sniffles.
“Thank you,” she says. She lies back on the couch.
“He doesn’t know.”
She feels terribly weak and peaceful, too languid to
“But the gloves…What do you say to him?”
get up. He scrubs his hands fiercely at the sink, his
She smiles at the wall.
angry back to her. He turns and contemplates her for a moment, then he goes to the wall and lifts a five-year
“I say it’s eczema. I had it as a child,” she adds, as though that somehow makes the lie true.
calendar down from it.
“You can’t go on hiding this,” he says firmly.
“Do you know what a red-letter day is?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says, “I can.”
She shrugs.
“But why, for goodness’ sake?”
“A special day?”
She knows how mad, how maddening she must
“Yes.” He’s marking something on the calendar in
seem. But not half as mad as she would if she let her
Biro, scribbling furiously in his elegant, illegible doctor’s
secret out. She turns to face him, composing herself,
hand. “But the original reason they were marked in red
scrubbing the tears fiercely from her cheeks.
was that they’re religious holidays. Saint’s days, holy
“I don’t want to be seen as a weirdo, Dr. Mitchell,”
days, and so on.”
she says. “Or a liar, or a freak. If I tell anyone about
He turns the calendar around to face her. She lifts her head a little, but it’s very heavy. She stares at the
this, or if you do, everyone will think I’m crazy, or a charlatan.”
calendar sideways on. It’s the page for last August.
He stares at her as though she’s already talking
There is a thick blue scrawl over a red-blocked square. “The first date you said this happened,” he says. He
nonsense. His eyes are wide and shining, full of something: pity, or fear, or both.
flips over two pages; a different date this time, but again
“Don’t you see,” he says, “this is a miracle?”
the blue and red coincide.
He takes the crumpled Kleenex from her clenched,
“The second time. November. Notice anything?” She
bandaged fingers and spreads it out before her eyes,
nods wearily. He flips to December; a thick blue circle
like a white-gloved conjuror. It’s stained with red
around the last few days of the month. He flips again.
where she’s been crying. Tears of blood. She raises her
“January. The first time you came to see me.”
swathed hands to her eyes and starts to laugh.
A blue loop encloses a red square. Flip.
“Let me show you something,” he says sharply.
“Our second appointment.” She is no longer paying
“Maybe this’ll make you understand.”
attention. She gazes up at the porous ceiling tiles and
He places a plastic box in her lap. Inside it are
hopes they don’t contain asbestos. She hears the slick
smaller boxes, each labeled and dated. They contain
slap of turning pages.
swabs of cotton wool, plasters, and bandages. It looks
“Today. Do you still insist this is nothing to do with
like the collection of an obsessive hoarder, or a medical-
what I showed you?”
waste fetishist.
She remembers that awful documentary James had
“What on earth is this?”
been watching after she came back from Dr. Mitchell
“These are all from your second appointment, two
the first time. Nails in the hands and feet. Thorns in the
months ago. When you showed me the full extent of
scalp. A spear jabbed into the ribs. She closes her eyes
your…injuries. I kept them just in case.”
and feels tears slide between the lids. She turns onto her
“You did what?”
other side, the wounded side. She feels his footsteps on the lino, his hand on her shoulder.
He’s flushed with determination; he pulls another box out and gives it to her.
“This is not a curse,” he says calmly. “This is a gift. A gift you should share.”
“Open it.” “What? No!”
::::: 42 :::::
the nuisance
He snatches it from her and opens the lid himself. Inside lies a loop of bandage with a spreading bloodstain.
She sends Mattie upstairs and dials the number. He answers immediately, sounding flustered.
“Two months old. The blood should have dried long ago but it looks fresh, doesn’t it?”
“It’s me,” she says. She knows how conspiratorial she sounds. She realizes that she doesn’t even know his first
She peers closer, disgusted and fascinated. It does look fresh; bright and arterial, as though it had just that
name. He knows hers, of course; but to him she’s always, respectfully, Mrs. Denton.
moment left her body. Dr. Mitchell touches a trembling
“I’m glad to hear from you,” he says.
finger to the bandage, and it comes away sticky and red.
“I got your message. Is today a red-letter day?”
“It is fresh,” he says. “And they’re all like that.” He
“Yes,” he says. “Are you coming in?”
stares at her with the yearning, straining gaze of an
She doesn’t answer.
animal, willing her to follow him.
“Have you thought any more about meeting my
“This is a miracle,” he says. “You are a miracle.”
friend? He could—”
“I have to go,” she mutters, wincing in pain as she sits
“It’s stopped,” she interrupts. There is a shocked silence. When he speaks again he sounds incredulous,
up on the couch.
and a little indignant.
“I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet,” says Dr. Mitchell rapidly. “Perhaps at our next appointment? A
“Stopped? Everything?”
friend from the church. A very clever man. He might be
She nods, swallows.
able to help you.”
“All of it. No bleeding, not even any pain. Just gone.”
She stops. “Help me?”
“Are you sure?” he asks. He sounds far away, and lost,
“Yes.”
and sad. Or perhaps it’s just an echo on the line. “I’m sure,” she says. “It’s the sort of thing you know.
“Can he stop it?” Dr. Mitchell looks away, spreads his hands. “Help
It’s gone and it won’t be back.”
you come to terms with it, I mean. Accept it. Embrace
He doesn’t answer.
it, even.”
“Thank you for all your help,” she says, “but I won’t
“I see.”
be coming in again.”
“Please think about it.”
There is a pause, then, “Thank you,” he says softly.
She nods, avoiding his eyes, and limps out.
“Thank you.” The line goes dead. Mattie’s voice floats down from the landing; he wants
A few weeks later she is feeling much better.
a story, or perhaps a toy. She puts down the phone and
Sometimes, when she wakes up in the mornings, there
sighs. She gets a Kleenex out of the box beside the
are a few blissful moments when she forgets the whole
Yellow Pages and wipes a bright smear of blood from
thing. She is getting better at conning herself that it’s all
the receiver, balling the tissue into the palm of her hand.
been a hysterical dream. Mattie comes with her on a visit
Then she goes upstairs to see what Mattie needs.
to the chemist’s for the first time in ages. Mr. Beynon greets her with pleasure. “Nice to see you back, Mrs. Denton. We’ve missed you.” She smiles past him and hurries away. When she gets home a message is blinking on the answering machine. Mattie’s nursery, probably. “Mrs. Denton,” says the voice of Dr. Mitchell, “sorry to call you at home. Just wondering whether you’ve had any recurrence of your condition? I was rather expecting to see you in the surgery today. Could you give me a call?”
::::: 43 :::::
KD
An Interview with
R. L. Stine Sean F. Jones
an interview with r. l. stine
I was sure I was doomed before it even started. Stranded in midtown’s lunch hour bluster with nowhere to go to conduct my interview, I had no choice but to duck into a curious library storefront sandwiched between stately restaurants and stern bank buildings. In the corner of the empty room sat an aging elevator shielded by a steel grate. Where could it lead? Already late for the interview and needing to escape the street-level traffic noise, I sucked in a breath and decided to try my luck at the top floor. The thin transport shuddered slowly upward atop the city, opening to an eerily quiet room where a graying man sat writing furiously in a notebook. He didn’t seem to notice me. Or didn’t want to. And that’s when I heard the beep that could have ruined me.
Out of nowhere, my always-capricious cell phone started its ominous low battery warning. I knew I should have picked up that iPhone last week. The death knell had already started, and I had an hour of interviewing to do. And then they appeared. Goosebumps. But there’s a certain magic to the work of R. L. Stine, and it buffeted the phone through a candid Slice interview with the disarming and self-deprecating children’s horror legend. Stine reveals that he achieved his life’s ambition before ever writing a horror book, explains in detail his idiosyncratic but stunningly effective approach to writing a book (in twelve days), and details a career that brought him from being a writer of miniature comics in Bazooka gum to that of Guinness World Record–setting bestsellers.
::::: 45 :::::
slice magazine
How many books have you written?
Upper West Side. All the Goosebumps books and Fear Street books are very suburban. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and they all pretty much take place there.
I’m already in trouble…I think about three What are your techniques for overcoming
hundred. It’s kind of obnoxious not to
writer’s block?
know, but I’ve lost track. I’ve killed off a lot of teenagers. How long does it take you to write a book?
I’ve never had writers’ block. I guess that’s lucky. Sometimes I feel like I’m writing uphill but I just keep going and fix it later. Kids always
About two weeks to write a Goosebumps,
ask about writer’s block and I tell them if you do enough
but I do a lot of planning beforehand. I do
planning first, it’s very hard to get [it]. They also tell me
a very complete chapter-by-chapter outline, and with
they get bogged down in the middle and don’t know
all the hard thinking done I write much faster. I write ten
how to end [their stories], and I tell them I do the ending
pages a day, so I finish in twelve days, then I have a few
first. And they’re surprised. Of course, a lot of writers hate it. Everyone hates the
days to look it all over.
outline and I hate it too, but I can’t write without one. I Do you still personally write every book with
have writer friends who say, “I don’t want to know what
your name on it?
happens next,” or “I want my characters to surprise me.” That’s much harder.
Yes, I write every book. I’m too egotistical You like to come up with titles for your books
to let anyone else do it.
first. What are your latest titles? Do you have a favorite Goosebumps book? I guess that’s backward from most authors, but for me it leads to the story. I’ll I have a number of favorite books; not
think, “Gee I haven’t done a mummy book in a long time,
usually the ones the kids like. Night of the
so I’ll sit down and try to think of a good mummy title.
Living Dummy is one; Slappy the Dummy is such a rude
I’m doing new Goosebumps books now called Goose-
character, he’s really fun to write. The Haunted Mask is
bumps Horrorland, and I thought of Who’s Your Mum-
also one of my favorites. The idea for that book came
my? So then the title leads to an idea. Right now I have a
when my son was eight or nine at Halloween. I was
great title that I love. It’s called Little Shop of Hamsters.
watching him trying on a rubber Frankenstein mask. He
It’s a good title but I cannot come up with a story. I’ve
put it on his face and couldn’t take it off; he was tugging
done five outlines for this title and my editors hate them
and tugging and I was thinking, “That’d be a great idea
all. I’m beginning to think maybe hamsters aren’t scary.
for a story.” I guess I should have helped him. How did you get started as a writer? Have you developed any writing-related nervous tics? I came to New York from Ohio and I wanted to write for magazines and my first
I never learned how to type. I started
job was writing for movie magazines; I had to make up
writing when I was nine years old at my parents’ typewriter and I’m left handed so I just used
interviews with the stars. It was a great job. This woman
the pointer finger on my left hand. And now I’ve writ-
had six different TV and movie magazines and we had
ten three hundred books on one finger. Also, I’ve never
to fill them up every month. I’d come in mornings and
based a book in New York City, even though I live on the
she’d say, “Do an interview with Diana Ross,” or “Do an
::::: 46 :::::
an interview with r. l. stine
interview with the Beatles.” And I’d just sit down at the
Whispers About Tom Jones, They’re Not True,” and
typewriter and make up an interview.
then I’d have to write one, “Those Whispers About Tom Jones, They’re True!” It was great training, because
Were they humor interviews?
you’re making it all up. When did you decide to write children’s books?
No; they were supposed to seem real. She’d make me write an article, “Those
::::: 47 :::::
slice magazine
I was working at Scholastic. They let me
listings and there’s an ad on the bottom of the page
do a humor magazine for kids, Bananas,
and it says “It’s Goosebumps Week on Channel 11.”
and I was Jovial Bob Stine. It was Mad Magazine, basi-
They were just showing scary movies. I just stared at
cally. It was my life’s ambition to have my own humor
it. There was the title.
magazine, and I did it for ten years. Then the magazine
I think we sold Scholastic three or four to start and
folded and I went home and figured I would coast for
it sat there, didn’t do anything, and after six months it
the rest of my life. I had no idea what was coming.
just took off. I don’t know, it’s a secret kids network. Kids telling kids. It’s all word of mouth. There was no
Where did you get the idea for writing kids’
advertising, no hype of any kind; I was home writing so I
horror novels?
did no appearances, no signings, no one knew me. And it just took off; it was insane, there had never been any-
I had always loved horror; my brother and
thing like it in children’s publishing up to that point. So
I went to horror movies all the time and
that was fun. I’d been writing for over twenty years and
I loved the old horror comics of my childhood—Tales
no one had noticed, and suddenly we were selling four
from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror. They were scary and
million books a month. It was amazing. I was turning out
funny at the same time. But it wasn’t my idea.
a Goosebumps and a Fear Street every month. Can you
It happened when I was home working as a freelanc-
imagine? I had no life. After writing so long, to have that
er: I was writing Mighty Mouse and Bullwinkle coloring
kind of amazing surprise success was so exhilarating it
books, Indiana Jones adventure books, G.I. Joe novels,
kept me going.
those little comics in Bazooka Bubblegum, anything. Then I had lunch with an editor at Scholastic, Jean Fei-
How do you like managing your brand
wel, and she said, “I bet you could write a horror novel
and the non-writing elements of being a
for teenagers. Go home and write a book called Blind
bestselling author?
Date.” She gave me the title and everything. I had no Luckily, my wife’s company does all that.
idea what she was talking about, but at that point you
I don’t have to think about it at all. At one
don’t say no to anything.
point we had a huge Goosebumps staff; we did a big TV
It was an immediate bestseller. I had never had a bestseller. Scholastic wanted me to do one a year, but I
show, sneakers and bed sheets, everything but food. I
said if I had found something kids really like, we should try
was getting two thousand letters a week from kids; I had
to do a series. Then my wife and I came up with the idea
five people answering the fan mail. My mailman hated
for Fear Street: a perfectly normal town where bad things
me; he would throw a canvas bag of mail at me and say,
would happen to you if you lived on Fear Street. We sold
“Give me the bag back when you’re finished.”
it to Simon & Schuster and it became a monthly horror Did you have a rivalry with Christopher Pike?
series. I don’t think [there had] ever been one before. And Goosebumps proceeded from there?
Well he had been [writing horror novels] already when I started, but I thought his My wife had a packaging company called
books were a little more mature than what I wanted to
Parachute Press, and they said, “Let’s do
do. I wanted to be a little younger and more humorous.
one for younger kids.” Fear Street then was doing great,
But I spent a day with him once. We were both speaking
so I said I didn’t want to screw [it] up. That’s the kind
at a Simon & Schuster sales conference, as I recall, and
of business man I am; I didn’t want to do Goosebumps.
spent a few hours talking about writing and what a nice
But they kept after me and finally I said, “If I can come
job it is scaring kids. We had a nice time. I don’t know
up with a good name for it we can try a few.” So one
where he is now; probably off in Hawaii somewhere
day I’m reading TV Guide and I’m looking through the
enjoying his money.
::::: 48 :::::
an interview with r. l. stine
Were you frightened easily as a child by scary
For me it’s a little different to spend four
books and scary movies?
or five months on one book. You can be slower and more careful when you write for adults, and
I was a very fearful kid and I think that’s
include a lot more characterization. But I love writing for
one reason I stayed in my room typing all
kids, [they] are the greatest audience. I get them the last
the time. I thought I was funny and was a little smart-
time in their lives that they’re ever going to be enthusi-
ass in school, always trying to make people laugh, but
astic about a writer.
I was very shy, very quiet, and afraid of a lot of things. It turned out to be lucky because now I can remember
Have you ever felt the urge to write a classic
that feeling of panic and it helps me a lot with my books.
literary novel?
Do you or did you have any belief in the su-
No. That’s my wife’s advice: “Go write a
pernatural?
timeless classic.” My son is a music producer and he had a record label interested in the group
Not really. Kids always ask if I’ve ever seen
he produces and the guy said to him, “We love your
a ghost and I say I’m still looking.
group; bring us a hit single and we’ll sign you.” That’s the same thing…I’ll get right on it.
Who is your all-time favorite children’s author?
Do you ever consider stopping writing?
When I was nine or ten, I discovered Ray Bradbury and his short stories, and he
They won’t let me! Do writers retire? Kurt
really is the one who turned me into a reader. His stories
Vonnegut was still writing every morning,
were always beautifully written and had great surprise
Updike wrote till the minute he died. I don’t think writers
endings. I had a conversation with Bradbury about his
can retire; anyway, I’m having too much fun.
work and he said it was funny that all of his stories were now read by kids. He never intended it, but it’s true. His
How do you want to be remembered as a
work has that little jump of imagination to it that appeals
writer?
to children. As someone who got millions of kids to Do you have a favorite horror story?
read, scared them, but didn’t teach them anything.
There’s a Stephen King novella called Hearts in Atlantis. It’s amazing writing. His best novel is Misery, a great horror story and maybe the best book ever written about writers and editors. How have you enjoyed writing adult horror novels such as Superstitious?
::::: 49 :::::
photo Š matthew genitempo
California
Matthew Lansburgh The day waits for Edda to make a decision. “What shall we do, mein Liebchen?” she asks Roger, who sits in his high chair wearing corduroy pants and a shirt folded once at the sleeves. “Do you want to go to the pond with Mutti and make the duckies a little bit happy?” And when he nods yes, she feels somewhat more certain about the next step. “We take them some bread crumbs,” she says, getting out heels of dark rye from under the sink.
::::: 51 :::::
slice magazine
It is only September, but already the air feels cool,
had walked across the room to get her a drink. Every-
and before Edda puts Roger into his stroller, she finds
thing about her was perfect, even her name. Edda had
a jacket for him. She’s walked these blocks by the college
studied the woman, Miss Elizabeth Brown, had watched
every day since she and Alex moved to this town in the
her smile and laugh at Alex’s jokes, had envied her teeth.
Rockies. They’d been married eight weeks when he said
Of course that was the kind of woman Alex should be
he was taking the job. They were living in California then,
with. Edda had told Alex from the beginning that she
and Edda had known for some time she was pregnant.
herself was not right for him. She told him he should be
Even in blizzards, she goes on walks with her son—
with someone with a background like his.
bundles him up and pushes him down Warburt Lane
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, “none of that matters.”
and Beatrice Avenue and other streets whose names
And for a time Edda decided, against her better judg-
sound to her rather strange. Sometimes she sees a
ment, to believe him. “I love the fact that you grew up on
familiar face, the wife of another professor or an elderly
a farm,” he told her, though the place where Edda lived
gentleman sweeping his porch, though she rarely does
during the war was not a farm.
more than wave. In school, English was always her best
“We lived in a hut near a large forest,” she had
subject, but here in America people talk quickly and
told Alex on their first outing together. “There was
sometimes—often—she still makes mistakes. Alex likes
no running water, but we had fat rabbits that we kept
to correct her; “Adverbs end in ly,” he says. This sum-
in a cage.”
mer she took lessons while he was away. “I’m going to
***
England and France to photograph manuscripts,” he told her. He said it was no place for a toddler, that she’d be more comfortable if she stayed back at home, and at
Outside, she breathes in the crisp air. When Edda was a
first she believed him.
girl, her mother would take her up to the mountains on
Four nights ago, two days before he was supposed to
this kind of day to pick berries that were blue and black
return, he called her; it was half past one in the morning,
and bright red. They would each carry a basket and her
and when Edda picked up the phone, she fumbled with
mother taught her songs from the Gewandhaus choir.
the receiver. “What’s going on over there?” he asked,
Sometimes, on mornings when Edda feels more
and she apologized as she tried to turn on the light. He
certain, she stops by the baker’s store and asks the man
announced that he was extending his trip and rushed to
with the beard if he has any bread she can feed to the
get off of the phone.
ducks. Even to him, she calls them her duckies, and he’ll
There was a bit of static on the line, and before he
smile and hand her a loaf.
hung up, Edda heard him say something that she did not
Edda zips Roger’s coat up to his chin. She ties off the
understand. The word—or was it a phrase?—had a strong
bag with the scraps she’s collected and tucks it into her
R sound, something with an R and a B or maybe a V. She
pocket; today she won’t stop at the store. She is only
did not return the receiver to the cradle right away. The
twenty-eight years old, but already she feels she has
sound of the dial tone was strangely comforting and she
made certain mistakes that cannot be undone.
wished that someone else would say something to her.
All summer long she has used her savings to pay the
She imagined the voice of a friend, someone to talk
girl down the street, a high school student, to tutor her.
to. In California she had rented a room from an eld-
“Even if it is a small thing, please correct me,” Edda said.
erly woman who liked to make large pots of soup. The
“It is very important that I make not so many gram-
woman’s name was Sylvia and sometimes Edda thought
matical errors.” She meets the girl three times a week.
about calling her on the phone. What would Edda say?
Yesterday they were practicing the past perfect tense:
Would she tell Sylvia the truth? My husband is going
On Tuesday Eloise ate baked potatoes, but last week she
to leave me. I can tell by the way he flirts in front of my
had eaten nothing but ham.
eyes. By the way he refuses to touch me. Edda had seen Alex meet a woman at a party last spring. The woman was poised and refined, and Alex
Edda wonders if perhaps she should drive to the store this afternoon to see whether they have fruit for a pie in celebration of her husband’s return. She
::::: 52 :::::
california
maneuvers the stroller onto the sidewalk and walks past
snow,” Edda says, “and tomorrow, before Daddy gets
the angular hedges and lawns.
home, we can build a snowman in the front yard. We will use a stick to make a nice nose and a rock for each
***
of his eyes.” Roger is asleep in his stroller; her words seem to
At the lake, the ducks know that Edda and Roger have
float out across the lake like snowflakes, dissolving into
brought something for them. Even before Edda has
the air.
opened the knot in the bag, they begin greeting her.
Edda’s legs feel heavy. The tips of her fingers are
Roger’s hands are too small to break the bread into
beginning to numb. She picks up her pace and pushes
pieces, so Edda helps him, handing him bite-size chunks.
the stroller back home, along the sidewalks of tree-lined
“Be a big boy and throw it as far as you can,” she says,
streets with houses where mothers peel carrots and put
and then she applauds and gives him a kiss. “Make sure
casseroles into their ovens. Edda envies these women—
the little ones get a bit too. They’re also hungry.”
women whose husbands come home after work with
“Duckies,” he says. And then he tries to say the
something to say, women whose children play in the
word hungry.
backyard while their parents sit together reading the
The waves here are nothing like the waves on the
paper. Sometimes, she sees these women at the grocery
shore of the ocean. As a girl in Germany, she spent so
store, women who stand near the bins of apples ex-
many nights imagining what it would be like to walk
changing gossip and notes, and she thinks about reach-
without shoes on the beach. She had seen photos of
ing over to touch one of them. What is it like? she wants
long strips of sand, with girls in bikinis and boys driving
to ask. Do you make love every night? Does he caress
open-air cars, and she promised herself that when she
your cheek when you cry? Perhaps Alex did not go away to meet this Elizabeth
was older she would move to a place with a beach. “In California,” she wrote to her mother on a postcard after
Brown. Perhaps he did fly to Europe to photograph
she had come to America, “it is always sunny and nice.”
manuscripts for the book he is writing. Why be so suspi-
She made a point of showing her mother how much
cious? She is silly, letting her thoughts run away from
English she’d learned.
herself. Tomorrow Alex will return and things will be fine.
In the distance, Edda sees a woman walking, at the
She will make a nice dinner to welcome him back. She
edge of the water, arm in arm with a man. The woman
will make him the lasagna and three bean salad whose
wears a tailored wool coat. Edda sees the man stop and
recipe she found in the journal that comes to their
pick up a leaf from the ground. Above him, a branch of
house. When she and Roger get home, she will make a
bright yellow leaves hangs low. Edda watches as the
list of the things she’ll need from the store, and she and
man tucks the leaf behind the woman’s left ear.
Roger will drive to the market. She will put on a nice
Soon, for a few short weeks, trees everywhere will
outfit and Roger will sit in the cart. When she’s dressed
light up the mountains with colors like pumpkins and
up no one can tell she is different.
squash. The forests will take on brilliant hues and then,
Strawberries are expensive at this time of year, but
suddenly, everything will change and the leaves will fall
she buys three baskets of the ripest, most delicious
to the ground.
strawberries there are in the store.
Edda imagines Elizabeth Brown’s scarf in the wind—
After she’s given Roger his evening bath and tucked
Alex kissing her on the lips. She imagines him touching
him under the covers, Edda goes down to the kitchen,
her hair. Her hair will have been touched by his hand.
where the pie is still warm. The air in the house smells quite sweet; she can almost taste the strawberries and the
***
pie crust, which somehow—miraculously—cooked golden brown. She imagines Alex’s face when he sees that she
Edda has pushed Roger around the lake twice now and
has made him a pie. She pictures him taking a bite. In bed, she can’t fall asleep. Across the ocean, in
feels the cold on her skin; the wind is picking up and clouds are gathering in the sky. “Perhaps tonight it will
Europe, it is almost certainly morning.
::::: 53 :::::
slice magazine
“What on earth are you doing?” she cried when she
***
saw the fabrics bunched up in his fist. “It’s all trash,” he said, his eyes looking just like a
Edda chooses something in gray—the wool suit Alex
stranger’s. “It makes you look cheap.”
bought her five months after he first approached her.
Later, after he had left for the night, Edda went out
“She needs to look dignified,” he told the attendants at
to the sidewalk to look for the bag with her clothes.
the boutique, and Edda was flattered by the attention:
She hoped that Alex might have left it near one of the
women showing her fabrics, helping her try on pantsuits
garbage bins. She searched both sides of the block and
brought out on nice hangers. Edda had never been to a
then, as she went back to her room, she told herself that
store with such thick carpets and beautiful mirrors.
it did not really matter, that there were more important
At the airport, Roger sits in his stroller in a blue
things in life to worry about. And she was right. There
sweater, his hair nicely combed to the side. Edda stands
was a child to think of. She would be a mother, and Alex
beside him, watching the people step off of the plane.
was marrying her.
Men in suits, carrying briefcases, women in high heels
***
and hats. Edda is glad that she and Roger are dressed well; Alex will see them and not be embarrassed. He will come off the plane, in his long coat, with his leather
Edda wonders whether she has made a mistake. She
satchel, and he will see his wife and his son waiting for
opens her handbag and looks again at the small piece
him. She will embrace him and ask him how his flight
of paper on which she wrote the number of Alex’s flight:
was. She will tell him that she and Roger missed him and
TWA 302 11:23. She looks up at the sign near the door-
made him a pie. She arranges the words in her head.
way where, until a few moments ago, the passengers from her husband’s plane were still disembarking. The
***
numbers she wrote down on her paper are identical to the numbers on the rectangular pieces of plastic.
In front of her, a crowd has pushed closer to the place
“Everything is fine, mein Schatz,” she tells Roger, who
where the people emerge. The collar of her outfit
sits in his stroller, sucking his thumb. “Daddy is getting
scratches her neck; her palms feel damp.
his things. He must have been late to the airport and was
“One in each shade,” Alex had told the clerks, and
forced to sit at the back of the plane.” But even as Edda
Edda’s first reaction had been delight because of the
formulates each of these sentences, she knows that the
cost involved and because she knew that all of this was
fact that the passageway is now empty and the people
meant as a gift. She could not believe this man was be-
who were waiting alongside her have all been reunited
ing so generous, though the colors of the outfits were
with their husbands and friends makes her explanation
not the colors she would have chosen. The colors were
unlikely. Alex is not at the back of the plane. Alex would
quite glum, and the fabrics weren’t nearly as soft as she
have come down the walkway quickly, carrying a bag in
had hoped; standing in front of Alex when she came out
each hand.
of the dressing room, she’d already noticed the wool
Could it be that she wrote down the wrong flight
rubbing her skin.
number? She’d been sleeping, dreaming about the rain
Alex had taken Edda shopping in his new car, and
and the smell of eucalyptus, when the phone rang. Per-
afterward, when he drove her back home, he surprised
haps, as she fumbled with the pen, as she pressed the
her by going into her closet and taking out the dresses
dry point into the piece of paper on top of the night-
she had bought, one by one—the orange dress and the
stand, she had reversed two of the numbers. 320? Was
red dress and the one she had finally purchased, after
there such a flight from New York to Denver arriving
trying it on seven Saturdays in a row, that was the same
at 11:23? Surely the airline would not have two flights
color as the pink of a small animal’s nose. Before she had
arriving at the same time. Was such a thing possible?
even taken the new clothes out of their boxes, he’d put
Edda was new to the world of airports and flights. Her
her entire wardrobe into a large plastic bag.
only trip on a plane had been with Alex himself, after
::::: 54 :::::
california
their wedding, to Chicago, where Alex’s family lived.
afternoon and Alex would not have been able to catch a
She’d been nervous to get on the aircraft, nervous and
flight from New York to Denver at such a late hour. What
excited—and, as the plane lifted off, she squeezed Alex’s
is the name of the hotel where you will stay? she could
hand. Her trip to New York eight years ago had been
have asked. Or, Will you stay overnight in New York, at a
by ocean liner, and from New York to Los Angeles she
hotel, perhaps, or with friends? Surely, he would not have
had traveled by bus for nearly five days, sitting next to
made a fuss if she had asked him this question. Such a
a woman whose mouth was also too small for her teeth.
question would have been natural in this situation.
Perhaps it was the time she’d written down in-
As Michelle turns to walk away from Edda, Edda
correctly—instead of 11:23, Alex might have said ten
wants to say something else. For a moment she wonders
twenty-three or one twenty-three, though eleven sounds
whether she should walk alongside Michelle and ask for
nothing like ten or one or any other hour, except per-
more advice. Perhaps Michelle will take pity on Edda and
haps seven. Could he have arrived at seven twenty-three
invite her along. Come home with me, she might say. You
in the morning? She pictures him waiting impatiently,
and your son can spend the night in our house.
looking at his watch. By now he would have gone ber-
Edda stays where she is. In the distance now, she
serk, screaming at the top of his lungs when he saw her
thinks that she can see Alex. She sees a man, about
arriving so late.
Alex’s height, with brown hair walking next to a woman. Could this be the same woman he met at the party? “Elizabeth was quite something,” he’d said to Edda on their way home. “Wasn’t she beautiful?” Edda remem-
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Edda says to a woman in a uniform.
bers feeling, at the time, confused by his question.
“Would you be so kind and tell me whether the flight is
Confused and almost ashamed. She was unsure what
now empty?” The woman turns out to be friendly. She
to say. Edda wonders how a woman like Michelle would
tells Edda that the passengers have all disembarked,
have reacted. Would she have stood up to Alex in this
but she offers to help Edda find out whether Alex was
situation?
booked on this flight. The woman’s name is Michelle,
Edda studies the couple and then, before she is
a nice name, the kind of name Edda would choose for
certain, she surprises herself. She turns and leads
a girl. The woman is tall—the same height as Edda—
Roger away, toward the long corridor with polished
though the woman wears high heels, and Edda’s shoes
white floors.
are flat on the bottom. Michelle has brown hair and makeup that is nicely applied. She is young—a few years younger than Edda, Edda thinks as she pushes the stroller, keeping up with the woman, with Michelle, as they
On the drive back, Edda hears nothing. She is hungry
move through the terminal, past shops with bright lights,
now and quite calm. When she opens the front door to
selling books and packaged candies and magazines with
the house, the warm air touches her face and she smells
colorful photos on the front cover. The woman peppers
the sweet scent that still lingers there.
Edda with questions: Did Edda’s husband spend the
Without removing her coat, she goes into the
night in New York before catching his flight back to Den-
kitchen, takes two plates out of the cupboard, and cuts
ver? Did he take TWA from London to New York? Could
two pieces of the pie—two large pieces: one for Roger
he have perhaps missed his plane and taken a flight that
and one for herself. “Here, mein Schatz,” she says to him.
afternoon? What was the name of the hotel where he
“We need to eat something. Eat as much as you can.” They sit at the kitchen table, eating in silence, and
had stayed on his trip?
then, when they are finished, Edda goes upstairs to her
These are the things, Edda thinks, that she herself should have asked. It would have been natural for a wife
room. She takes out the suitcases and begins packing
to ask her husband whether he would spend the night
their things.
in New York before flying back home. The plane from London to New York would have arrived in the late
::::: 55 :::::
ML
Canned Goods Seth Fishman
Stephen looked weak in tattoos.
“Stay.” He spoke on the exhale, his voice dusty.
The dragon had faded, its scales lime green, flames
“I can’t. Mom wants me home by five.”
the color of a wet tennis ball. It twisted up his arm,
“It’s four thirty.”
highlighting his tight skin, his braided veins, his prodding
“I’m walking.”
bones. There was a cat too, overly detailed; Jenna
“I’ll drive you. It’ll take five minutes.“ He patted the
thought it seemed blurred, like a picture out of focus.
bed. “Stay.”
Above the cat, to the right, on the back of his neck were
Jenna slipped on her jeans. He changed tactics, put
two freshly dug Korean characters, not a week old.
out the cigarette in a coffee can full of sand, scootched
“Love,” apparently. She doubted it, sure that Stephen
forward and took her hand. She paused long enough
had been scammed, and assumed that anyone who
to feel the wet fingers, to see the pretty mix of colors
read Korean would laugh when they saw his neck. These
in his eyes, to know that he was serious. He did not
characters, she thought, much more than the dragon or
seem disappointed that she had refused to have sex. He
the cat, made Stephen look weak.
wanted her to stay. To spoon. To lie next to him. To talk
He was smoking, hunched on the corner of his bed in
about things.
the corner of his room. Small. Barely there.
She pulled away, slung her backpack across her
Jenna stood, sweat on her thighs, squinting in the
shoulders, and leaned down to kiss him on the head,
afternoon light.
just the way her father did every morning before leaving
“I have to go.”
for work.
He sucked too long on the cigarette, trying to impress her. And, in some ways, Jenna was impressed. If
Her father stood in the hallway, coat still on, sifting
she (or he) were someone else, she might be in love.
through the mail. He glanced up and gave a quick smile.
::::: 56 :::::
photo Š elif sanem karakoÇ
slice magazine
“Did you speak to Mr. Jenkins today?” she asked.
wrapped her arms around Jenna, giving a tight squeeze
He slowed his sifting, but maybe just to take a closer
with her elbows.
look at one of the envelopes.
Suddenly her dad was there too, growling like a bear,
“He still isn’t back, hun.” His voice sounded normal,
pulling them both together and Jenna was squished
no longer so quick to dole out sympathy. “You know
backpack and all between her giggling parents. She
that. His car isn’t out front. You’d be the first aside from
ducked, escaped the trap, leaving the two arm in arm
Trish he’d tell if they’d found Cameron.”
with big grins that asked her to smile along. But she
Two weeks. Long enough to hitchhike across the
couldn’t. She knew they were trying, but she didn’t want
country. To fly to Tanzania. To be dead and rotting in
to smile just for their comfort. They should not have
a ditch somewhere. Jenna wondered why her father
smiled for hers.
didn’t put down the mail and take her in his arms. Of
And so she rolled her eyes—her father hated that; he
course, she had stopped letting him do that years ago,
pulled away from Clara and sat at the head of the table
but during the past weeks she had discovered that her
and asked her if she’d finished her homework. “No,” Jenna lied.
mother’s embrace was not enough. She wanted him, his
They exchanged glances, as if they had talked about
tight enveloping arms, his chin on the top of her head. Jenna found herself lingering next to his armchair after
this very topic last night before going to bed. Her father
saying goodnight, or standing near his car keys in the
sighed.
morning. But her father remembered her Sylvia Plath
“Go get it done, will you?”
phase, had been trained ruthlessly to restrict himself to
“It might take a few hours.”
hand clenches and head pats.
“Dinner is in thirty,” Clara said. “But I’ll be memorizing. I’ll be on a roll.”
She moved past him into the kitchen, him raising the mail over her head like a drawbridge. The table had been
Her father, typically, might have made a food joke
set; her household chores reduced indefinitely by Clara,
at this point, but not after the impromptu hugfest had
her father’s wife, whom Jenna referred to as “mom” for
just failed. “We’ll bring you your food, Okay?”
more than one reason. Clara stood over the sink washing her hands, about
She nodded, but hung around a bit, long enough that
to handle a couple of squeaky chicken breasts laid out
they both stared, almost impatient to get back to their
on a carving deck. She saw Jenna and her face flickered
chicken and mail. But she was their daughter. And her
from sympathy and concern to a carefree smile. The
boyfriend, neighbor, her Cameron, had gone missing.
water off, her hands up for surgery, she came over and
So they just stared at her until she went away, up the stairs and to the left, second door on the right to the
She wanted him, his tight enveloping arms, his chin on the top of her head. Jenna found herself lingering next to his armchair after saying goodnight, or standing near his car keys in the morning. But her father remembered her Sylvia Plath phase, had been trained ruthlessly to restrict himself to hand clenches and head pats.
bedroom where fourteen days ago she had almost lost her virginity. She had been sitting on the sill, waiting for him. Through her window she could see the bathroom light switch off, then his bedroom. A foot, then arm, then Cameron up on his windowsill. White T-shirt, flannel pants. She lifted her empty asparagus can and spoke into it, along the string that dangled loose between the houses, and to his peach can. “Took you long enough.” “You aren’t that far away. I can see you smiling. You aren’t angry.” “You can’t see my face from there.” Jenna believed this. For the past eight years, as they moved from
::::: 58 :::::
canned goods
neighbors to friends to best friends to actual lovers she
It had been her job to get the condom, if only
could never see more than his eyes and, on occasion,
because she knew where her father kept them. Trojan,
open-mouthed laughs. Their entire relationship could be
ribbed, in a red and white package. She helped him put
based on shadowed misunderstandings.
it on, fascinated by the air bubble she squeezed out with
“Maybe I’ll come check your face for myself,” he said.
her fingers. He stood then, legs spread wide, arms in the
She really did smile that time, and cast a glance
air, penis bouncing light up and down. A victory smile, a
to the hallway light underneath her door. Her parents
move entirely Cameron, and she laughed, reached up to
weren’t asleep, wouldn’t be for an hour or so.
pull him down.
“You’ll be up in an hour?”
Her father knocked and opened the door at the
His legs flipped over the edge of the window and
same time. Something she yelled at him for constantly.
dangled. “Nope, I’m coming over now.”
Jenna remembered the way her body exploded in that
“But they’re still up.”
moment, as if all the adrenaline she’d ever had released
He probably couldn’t hear her. The can only clearly
at his entrance.
worked if pressed straight over the ear. A quasi-mystical,
He stood there for a moment, the hall light capturing
mind- and lip-reading sort of thing. He lowered himself
Cameron’s absurd stance, his penis quickly softening,
down, fingers holding his entire weight as he narrowed
the condom dangling from the end. He looked once
the distance from his feet to the yard, and Jenna held
at her, saw her naked, his eyes roaming her body. She
her breath as he jumped, always afraid he’d break his
didn’t feel violated, like he was abusing her, but she
leg or worse. She imagined that Cameron landed fine, in
did, for the first time, think of her father as a man,
a ball, and then crept toward the fence separating their
independent of her life. Just a man seeing a girl naked.
lawns. Up and over, bare feet, then down on her grass
She blushed, moved to cover herself, and he closed
and to her window where he looked up and she looked
the door. He became the shadow of his footsteps on
down and he could definitely see her smile.
the floor.
They used to meet in one another’s yards until he
“Cameron.” His voice, strained. “Please go home now.”
went and bought some rope. She kept it under her bed, coiled and fixed securely to the mattress frame.
And he did. He pulled on his clothes, tripping over himself. Mortified. And jumped out the window. He
He climbed, leaving dewy footprints on the siding,
didn’t even look at her.
and then up, huffing, into her room. They paused,
She watched him jump over the fence and heard
smiling, and then kissed. Jenna, at that moment—at all
the sound of the Jenkinses’ back door open and close,
of those moments, every time he made it into her room
but his light never came on, and though she kept the
after what seemed a very real/metaphorical obstacle
asparagus can to her ear for the rest of the night, long
course—felt as if her life was complete; a feeling that
after her father had finished yelling at her, she didn’t
she knew, on the one hand, was entirely naive but on the
hear a sound from him again.
other, was entirely true. Her walls were lined with enough books to know that women had broken more rules than
Even now, she’d hold the can close. Jenna couldn’t
she had for what they (and she) considered true love.
believe that such a small incident, regardless of how
She managed to keep quiet, usually. Their games of
embarrassing, would make him run away from home,
experimentation began years ago and had culminated,
family, and her. He was just being punished by his
about three weeks prior, in his tongue and her fingers
overzealous parents, she was sure. Sent away to a
nudging out her first orgasm. She had moaned then,
church retreat—the Jenkinses actually went to those
loud enough to surprise both of them; Cameron
things—and would be back tomorrow or the next day
dropped to the side of her bed, panting, waiting for
or maybe even a week after that. She didn’t believe her
her father’s footsteps. And even when no one came
father when he had told her that Cameron was gone
Cameron couldn’t focus and he finally slipped out the
gone, missing, lost, or a runaway.
window; content, he had said, to masturbate three times the following day.
A phone rang, and she spasmed, grabbing the can and mashing it to her head.
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slice magazine
“Cameron?”
His mouth slanted into an embarrassed grin.
It rang again, and Jenna sighed, feeling stupid. She
“Want to come home with me?”
put the can down and picked up her cell phone. Not
“How’d you know I was here? Did you follow me?
Cameron, but Stephen. She let him go to voice mail.
That’s sick.”
Clara took her shopping that Saturday at the outlet
despite his smallness, he seemed to take up the entire
mall on Route 1. All of the girls from Jenna’s grade were
space, pushing her into the corner. His hands went to her
there, walking in clusters, arms linked at the elbows,
shoulders, squeezed.
He came all the way into the dressing room now, and
wearing their boyfriends’ wifebeaters. Clara waved to
“No no no,” he shook his head. “Maggie called me.
each pack, mock-grabbed Jenna’s arm, and mouthed,
Said she saw you with your mom. Asked if you were
“She’s mine today!” And while this parental overcontrol
okay.” Jenna did not like that she and Stephen were so
would normally throw Jenna into a fit, for this one day
easily associated nowadays. Nowadays being just two
she was grateful. The girls approached her for news
weeks after Cameron’s disappearance. “So I figured I’d
earlier in the week, and finding her silent, left her alone.
stop by. Since I haven’t heard from you.”
But she imagined them whispering, all of them, watching
He tossed his head in such a way as to give Jenna
her sit through class, composed, not mourning. They
an opportunity to explain, but she didn’t. Instead,
would be.
ridiculously, she imagined Cameron, how he’d never
No invite from anyone to the mall today; she
sneak into a dressing room with her. Everything in private.
wondered how long it’d take for such casual pleasantries
Under wraps. Bedrooms only. She thought of him naked,
to begin again.
doing his dance. How they might have, one day, gotten
Clara, it seemed, was more adept at being her mother
to this point, grown as a couple, experimental, her pulling
than Jenna had initially supposed. She had always
him behind the curtain and then, with nothing else dirty
had trouble conquering the stigma of a stepmother.
to do, giving him a blow job. The thought sounded nice.
Jenna liked her well enough, but nothing more. Yet
Stephen touched her cheek. And she was about to
here, in the lair of teenage angst, Clara guided her from
flinch away when Clara tossed a pair of jeans over the
store to store, knowing instinctively where to take her
curtain to the floor.
stepdaughter. Jenna might have cringed or blushed
“How about those?” Clara had yet to come in with her
had she known that Clara had rifled through her closet
to the dressing rooms. Another barrier to break down.
and laundry basket, checking tags for brand names. But
Stephen smiled, lifted his shoulders, and lowered his
these dubious acts of preparation began to pay off, and
neck, like a turtle hiding. He motioned for her to answer.
soon Jenna’s wrists were turning red at carrying heavy bags filled with clothing for the upcoming winter.
She picked up the jeans. “Perfect. Thanks. I’ll be out in a second.” Then, thinking straight, said, “Oooh, can
She even laughed.
you see if they have any red tank tops here, like I have at
Alone in the dressing room of H&M, twisting to
home? I want to see how they’d look with these.”
catch angles in the mirror, she called out to Clara. “I think I need a child’s extra large.” “Jenna?” The voice was not Clara’s. A tentative sigh of a sound. “Stephen?” “Hey, I’ve been thinking. I have a question. Do you want—? Wait a second…” Stephen poked his head around the curtain. She covered herself involuntarily and wished the jeans fit. “What are you doing, Stephen? I could have been naked.”
“Sure sure. Coming right up.” Stephen resumed his normal short height. “So? Can I take you home with me?” “I’m not going to be done for a while.” “I can wait. Meet me in the food court.” She wanted to feel annoyed or grossed out or something. But instead she found herself thinking of going home and doing nothing all night and felt a sense of relief at this boy’s aggressiveness. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about how late I’m going to be. I have no idea. Clara’s a beast about shopping.” She pushed him out of the room.
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canned goods
“I’ll be at the Golden Panda.”
pulled up to the house, his window already rolling down,
And he left Jenna there, half-naked, thinking of
his head bent out at an angle.
orange chicken.
“Anyone home?” Jenna shook her head and walked toward the car.
She didn’t start sleeping with Stephen for another week.
Stephen bent over the seats and popped her door open
He had seemed content with everything but sex, and
for her. She climbed in, chin to chest.
Jenna, for her part, found the act of making him come
“You okay?”
satisfying. His breathing always quickened, and he’d
She couldn’t tell exactly what he was asking, or if
begin to whisper “oh god” or “yes” or sometimes “Jenna,
he realized who lived next door. Jenna wasn’t entirely
fuck, I’m going to come” and then he’d squeeze her neck
sure if Stephen really knew that she and Cameron had
or shoulders or sometimes her hair perfectly in time
been together. He had always kept to himself, eating
with the three or four spurts that she’d block with the
off-campus for lunch and going straight home after
tip of her tongue. She believed, in those moments, that
school. Sitting behind her in pre-cal. Poking her with his
spitting instead of the swallow allowed her a modicum
mechanical pencil.
of control. She used her panties like a chastity belt, and
She knew he liked her; he had asked her out in the
though his hand made desperate forays, she always
eighth grade. A message left on the family’s answering
fought him off. He could not, despite the gentle prod-
machine. Her father had laughed, and it might have been
ding, convince her to go farther.
that laugh that moved her to say “maybe” the next day
When they did fuck, it just sort of happened.
in school. Then never spoke of it again.
Spontaneous. She wasn’t sure she could honestly believe
Stephen waited for her to nod before putting the car
that, but if Cameron had sat in his window that day, he’d
in gear and taking her to get pink bubblegum ice cream
have seen them kiss, Stephen’s skinny arms pulling off
at Baskin-Robbins.
her shirt, Jenna’s fingers undoing his belt. He’d have seen Stephen naked, Jenna almost so. And then he’d have
Two more days passed. Stephen drove her home from
seen Stephen bypass her underwear, pulling them aside,
school. He treated it as a right, claimed with a natural
and he’d not see her struggle or say no or do anything
male assertiveness that made Jenna uncomfortably
but grab him and aim and then grimace.
passive. They rode beyond Hoover Avenue, took a left
Stephen came almost immediately, it being his first
on Lincoln, skirted the Flintwood cemetery.
time too.
“We have to stop at CVS.” “Okay.”
They used a condom from then on, but four days later
Jenna did not like that he did not argue, that he
Jenna missed her period. Not to say that she was like
was so accepting of going out of his way, that he did
clockwork, but from the instant Stephen had grunted—
not question why she remembered the chore so late
coming way before she thought he would, way before
on the ride home. He turned left at the next stop sign,
she had time to whisper “pull out first” in his ear—she
left again, back the way they came. He rolled down the
knew she was pregnant. Or at least dreaded the idea
window and stuck his elbow out. He whistled.
enough to get her sick in a way she’d never been before. A deep ache in her gut and a restlessness in her hands.
“We need to get condoms,” she said. “You need to buy them again.”
She waited for her period like farmers for rain and, for
He glanced at her. Looked down at her crotch.
the first time in her life, she actually sat on the toilet and
Smiled.
tried to physically squeeze the blood out. As if that were
“Okay.”
possible. As if she weren’t pregnant.
She paused. The sun sifted through the tree leaves onto her face.
After school the next day Jenna knocked on the
“And a pregnancy test.”
Jenkinses’ door. A welcome mat at her feet thanked her
His head moved quicker now, his eyes to her
and told her to come again. No one answered. Stephen
stomach, not her crotch. He frowned.
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“You sure?”
she wanted Cameron, in theory, to be like the Stephen
“No. That’s why I need the test.”
in fact. She wanted Cameron to whisper into his empty
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
peach can that a baby would be ridiculous, but then
His hands were on the wheel now. Ten and two. Now twelve and three.
spout out potential names. Like Zoe or Dylan. Or at least say that it would be cute. Or at least be something
“There was nothing to tell. There is nothing to tell. I don’t know. I’m telling you now.”
he had thought about somewhere, in some impossible place in his mind for the future.
“The one time?” He swallowed, then actually said
Jenna cried in the apocalypse aisle, bent into a ball,
wow. Jenna thought that somewhere in the surprise was
and Stephen was almost right in thinking that the tears
a touch of pride. That his sperm had been so virile. So
were sorta for joy.
plentiful. He didn’t say anything else, though, not for the rest of the drive. And Jenna couldn’t help thinking of what
A half hour later, even before she got the chance to read the directions on the box, Jenna’s period began. She tried it anyway, peeing onto the stick. And when
the expression on Cameron’s face would be when he found out that she was pregnant. When he saw the
she knew she was just herself and not Jenna plus one
father. Cameron knew Stephen from school the way
she felt a strange angst, like she had betrayed the boy
Jenna knew the fat girl in the back of her homeroom
on the other side of the door. She stepped from the bathroom, ten minutes later.
class. Almost felt the same. He once, in Jenna’s hearing, called Stephen a pube.
Stephen sat on the edge of her bed, face in his hands.
He looked up. His face being too many things at once.
They parked, wandered the aisles, found the brand.
“I’m a father?” he asked.
Stephen offered to carry the box, even offered to steal
“Yes,” Jenna lied.
it so no one could possibly know. And then, as if get-
His arms around her did not feel weak at all.
ting carried away, he turned around and looked Jenna in the eyes and smiled. His front teeth were stained.
She convinced Stephen not to break the news to their
A zit had formed in the dimple between his nose and
parents. Give it time, she said. You don’t want to jinx
upper lip.
these things. He didn’t understand and she whispered—
“This is okay, you know?”
her forehead crinkling just the right amount—something
She did not know.
about miscarriage.
“We’ll be okay.” He went on, his hands open and
Stephen brought her a small package wrapped up
empty and squeezing the air. “I’ll quit school and work
with a bow. He snuck into first period, while Mr. Walker
with my dad. With no rent to pay I’ll be able to save up a
wrote on the board, and handed it to her. He was on his
lot. And your family will help. Lots of people raise kids in
knees, but she didn’t notice that until in retrospect. Until
high school.”
she saw the ring.
They were in the canned food aisle. The place where lunatics go to stock for the apocalypse.
Jenna put it on her right hand, ignoring his confusion, and stared at the blackboard until he skulked out of the
Jenna had no doubt that Cameron would have paid
room.
for an abortion.
After school she found him sitting on the hood of his
Stephen really loved her. And Jenna felt the knot in
car. She kissed him, hard, with a ferocity that surprised
her stomach slipping, unraveling, lubricated by a surge
her. He had prepared a face for her, full of anger and
of adrenaline. At this little kid in front of her. Who would
ready to fight, but she wiped it clean. Fresh as a baby’s.
buy all the canned corn in the store, build a bunker,
“Can you drop me off at the mall for an hour or two?”
protect their child.
“Why?” he asked, his hands fishbowling her stomach.
Cameron had said, one of those nights, that a kid
“Please?” She could not explain to him, yet. She would
would fuck up your life. Your life being her life. Only
move the ring to her left hand as soon as she bought him
barely referencing his life. And she agreed, in theory. But
something, maybe even a ring of his own, to match.
::::: 62 :::::
canned goods
And it was there, in the mall, two stores down from
grabbing her own box from her backpack. She put it at
Claire’s Boutique, that she passed the tattoo parlor.
the foot of her bed, then lay down, chin on her hands, her
The one that Stephen always talked about. Where he
nose an inch from the box. She practiced smiling. She
got “painted.”
almost moved to a new position, sitting up, cross-legged,
She went in, stepping lightly on the black and white tiles, hoping to not arouse whoever was in the back.
the box in her outstretched hands but then changed her mind. She licked her teeth, making sure they were clean.
There were drawings on the wall, hundreds of them.
Stephen came out of bathroom. He didn’t see the
Celtic whorls. Russian dolls. Hearts bleeding or bursting
box. But Jenna saw the wad of toilet paper in his hand,
or smoking cigarettes.
the bloody tampon wrapped within. She saw his eyes,
Jenna found a book on the countertop above the
sure that he now felt exactly as she had the moment
nose rings; thick, filled with Korean characters and their
Cameron disappeared.
meanings. She found “Love” pretty quickly. Stephen’s
“I had a miscarriage,” Jenna lied.
tattoos were not these.
“No you didn’t,” Stephen said, his voice stronger than
“Can I help you find anything?”
she’d ever known. He held out his other hand, revealing
The woman’s skin was dark, a perpetual tan, and her
the pregnancy test, the one she had failed. “I don’t
left arm was covered in twined flowers. Her eyes were
understand,” he said. “What are you doing?”
dilated, almost to the rim, disguising a cat’s green.
Jenna sat up, then stood up, then came closer, but
“I don’t know. Do you have any other characters
he just opened his hands and dropped the bloody
for ‘love’? Like,” here Jenna paused, searching the
refuse and piss-covered stick. She looked around for
possibilities. “Is this in Chinese? Do you have a book with
the box, his ring, hurried, frantic, trying to give it to him
just Korean characters?”
before he left, but she must have kicked it on the floor
“That’s Korean, hun. They’re all real. You got the
or something, because it was gone, and so was he, out
wrong thing on you somewhere?”
of the door and down the stairs and past her father who
She shook her head. “My friend, you might know him.
was just now getting home.
Stephen Gilkerson? He said he got his tattoos here.”
She watched Stephen’s car pull away from the curb.
The woman’s eyes flickered recognition. “A dragon on
He signaled at the stop sign.
his arm. A cat. And two characters that he said means
“Hello?”
‘love.’”
Jenna thought it was her father, outside her door,
“Yeah. Stephen comes here a lot. But he lied to you, if he said those meant ‘love.’ Probably ’cause he was
and she wasn’t about to let him in. But the voice spoke again, from closer than before. Tinny.
embarrassed.” The woman stepped forward and flipped through the pages. She pointed out a character that
Her body seized, she flipped onto her bed and grabbed the can off the night table.
looked like one of Stephen’s. “This familiar?”
“Cameron?”
“I think so. I can’t be sure. But it seems right. What
“Jenna?”
does it mean?”
Her voice began to crack, and she felt the snot come
The woman shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just a sound.”
sliding. “Where were you? Why’d you leave like that?
She went on a few more pages. “And this one.”
Where are you? Are you okay?”
Jenna nodded.
There was no answer.
“Your name Jenna?”
“Cameron?” Her voice raw. A scream.
Jenna nodded again, confused at how she had
Her father was knocking on the door now. And
known.
across the way Cameron’s window opened and she
“That’s what his characters mean, hun. I suppose
could see Mr. Jenkins leaning out, peering over with the
that’s close enough to love for him.”
empty can of peaches in his hand.
Jenna let Stephen drive her home. She took him upstairs, and then waited for him to slip into the bathroom before moving the ring on her finger to her left hand and
::::: 63 :::::
SF
the reject files Annals of the Literarily Dissed and Dismissed kiersten Tarr
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Niels Bohr was probably thinking about physics when he made that statement, but the writers listed on the following pages could have eked some literary milieu satisfaction out of it. The fact is, everyone makes mistakes, including, and sometimes especially, the bigwigs of the publishing industry who decide what makes for good reading and what doesn’t. Any writer who has tried to get published has had to weather the rejection of these experts; and while not all writers will make it past the passed-up hurdle, it’s encouraging to know that some of the most renown wordsmiths of the English language—and some of their most celebrated works— were initially rejected by publishers (some of them repeatedly), proving that sometimes even the experts have no idea what they’re doing. Or maybe we should just apply another adage— “There’s no accounting for taste.”
And the Prize Goes to…
claiming, “I refused a book of yours,
and personally oversaw all aspects
Most Notable Rejections
and for this I stand without competi-
of the book’s production, from the
tor as the prize ass of the nineteenth
cover design, to the paper used, to
century.”
the selection of an illustrator. The
Mark Twain » When a young, eccentric, and scruffy-looking
book was an overnight smash hit,
Samuel Clemens sashayed into the
Charles Dickens » Even though
office of publisher George Carle-
he was already the successful author
crushing debt in which he had been
ton to promote his first book of
of Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby,
floundering. Though technically
sketches (which would include a
and The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens
not a rejection, it was very possibly
piece about a notorious jumping
had to bankroll the cost of pub-
a poor—and profitless—choice by
frog), he was already on his way
lishing A Christmas Carol himself
Chapman & Hall.
to becoming an established news-
in order to convince his publisher
paper correspondent and lecturer,
Chapman & Hall to put it out at
but Carleton was not impressed. He
all. They did not share the writer’s
Try, Try Again
berated the “disreputable” looking
confidence that the story was sure
Trials of the Oft-Rejected Work
young Clemens for wasting his time,
to be a huge popular success; and
and dismissed him with a pompous
the terms of the book’s publication—
Night » Elie Wiesel’s powerfully
wave of the hand. He regretted it.
also written by Dickens—allotted
haunting memoir was declined by
More than twenty years later, upon
the full cost of its production to
more than fifteen publishers in the
meeting the then very famous Mark
the author, and awarded him all of
United States before being picked
Twain for the second time, he had
its profits (only a fixed commis-
up by Hill & Wang in 1959. It had
the decency to admit his mistake,
sion went to Chapman & Hall). He
already been published in Yid-
shaking the author’s hand and pro-
set the price low (only 5 shillings),
dish (in Brazil) and in French, but
::::: 64 :::::
and helped pull Dickens out of the
the reject files
negligible sales. Despite the popu-
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone » Living on wel-
larity of The Diary of Anne Frank
fare as a single mother of a young
publishers and agents, on the
in 1952, American publishers were
infant may not be the ideal condition
grounds that the topic of rabbits
reluctant to try to market material
for launching a multimillion-dollar
was too babyish for older children,
as dark and visceral as Wiesel’s to a
literary career, and Joanne Rowl-
and the style of the book’s prose too
public that was uninterested in the
ing certainly wasn’t expecting the
adult for younger children. When
Holocaust as a literary topic. Several
wild success that the Harry Pot-
Rex Collings Ltd., a small firm with
publishers even questioned Night’s
ter series eventually earned. Even
little money, decided to take it on,
being a work of literature at all. Per
bagging a prestigious agent didn’t
they couldn’t afford to pay Adams
an editor at Scribner’s: “We have
keep her from having Philosopher’s
any advance on the book. No mat-
certain misgivings as to the size
Stone rejected by twelve publishing
ter. The first edition sold out with
of the American market for what
houses in a row (for being “too long
lightening speed, and there was im-
remains…a document.” Apparently,
for children”), before the relatively
mediate public demand for a second
the market was more receptive than
small Bloomsbury finally accepted it,
printing. The book has never been
they thought. By 2006, that “docu-
and even that almost didn’t happen.
out of print since 1972, and has sold
ment” had sold 6 million copies in
The credit goes to the young daugh-
50 million copies worldwide.
the United States, and has been
ter of Bloomsbury’s founder and
translated into thirty languages.
chairman Nigel Newton, to whom
Dubliners » It took James Joyce
he showed the first chapter. It was
eight years to get his short story col-
her dogged insistence on seeing the
lection published. After the seventh
twenty-six publishers passed
next chapter that finally convinced
or eighth rejection (in a reported
on Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved
Newton that maybe there was some-
rejection run of twenty-two straight
children’s (or adult’s) classic before
thing to this Potter fellow after all.
“nays”), when his brother Stanislaus
her agent returned the manuscript
Bloomsbury is now the fifth largest
tried to console his disappointment,
to her. The reasoning? According
publisher in the UK.
he remarked sarcastically, “Do you
with little popular recognition and
A Wrinkle in Time » At least
to L’Engle, the subject matter was
escaping an oppressive social order was initially rejected by thirteen
really think that all Europe is waiting
“too different,” and “too difficult for
On the Road » The exact num-
children,” and, “was it a children’s
ber of publishers who rejected the
election in the Royal Exchange Ward
or an adult’s book, anyhow?” She
120-foot scroll of single-spaced
in Dublin?” Well, perhaps they were,
also suspected that the presence
typewritten prose that eventually
and the success of Dubliners laid the
of a strong female protagonist in a
became On the Road isn’t certain,
groundwork for Joyce’s establish-
work of science fiction was ahead of
but it took Kerouac nine years of
ment as the foremost literary figure
its time (this was the early 1960s).
swallowing one rejection after an-
of the Emerald Isle. (He even has his
Then, after putting the returned
other before he convinced Viking to
own holiday.)
manuscript away, L’Engle met a
put his book on shelves. Apparently,
friend of John Farrar’s at a tea party
it was considered unpublishable by
Best One-Liners
she threw for her mother, and a
those who nixed it, probably due
“I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just
meeting between the publisher and
to the low tolerance of early 1950s
don’t know how to use the English
author was arranged. Farrar, Straus
America for obscenity. The original
language.” —Editor of the San
& Giroux didn’t have a children’s line
packaging might have had some-
Francisco Examiner
at that time, but they published her
thing to do with it, though.
book anyway, and A Wrinkle in Time
to hear the story of the municipal
“You’d have a decent book if you
(which won the prestigious Newbery
Watership Down » Richard
Medal) has been in continuous print
Adams’s epic novel and dystopian
—Editor’s response to F. Scott
ever since.
parable about a group of rabbits
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
::::: 65 :::::
got rid of that Gatsby character.”
An Interview with
A. J. Jacobs
Tom Hardej
A. J. Jacobs may hold the distinction of being the only writer to grace these pages who is read by an American Idol. Now, it would be unfair to speculate on the reading habits of, say, Jordin Sparks, or Taylor Hicks, but Jacobs definitely has a fan in David Cook, who recently mentioned The Year of Living Biblically as his current reading material. In a cab downtown in New York City, Jacobs thought carefully what to write as the inscription of The KnowIt-All, which he was passing along to Cook to round out his collection, and decided on: “From one word nerd to another.” (That’s how Cook referred to himself while on the show.) But before all that, A. J. Jacobs and I met on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to discuss his writing new and old (including his newest book, The Guinea Pig Diaries), chastity belts for men, Sheela na Gigs, and posing nude for Mary-Louise Parker.
AN INTERVIEW WITH A. J. JACOBS
photo by julie jacobs
As you know, Slice is a magazine for writ-
Entertainment Weekly, where I covered B-list stars. And
ers starting out. Can you start off by talking
about nine years ago, I moved to Esquire.
about how you got started writing? How did you decide to go into books from there?
I graduated college with no marketable skills, as many of us do. I was a philosophy major and they weren’t hiring a lot of philosophers
I had always wanted to be a book writer.
at Fortune 500 companies, so I ended up trying to be a
I wrote this humor piece for a small San
freelance writer, because the only thing I could sort of
Francisco–based humor magazine and it was a back
do was half put a sentence together. I started to free-
page little chart of the similarities between Jesus and
lance write for anyone who would take me. So I wrote
Elvis. It was called The Two Kings. It was based on
for magazines—places like Glamour and other women’s
something Elvis himself had said, that he might be
magazines for some reason. My name was A. J. so they
the Second Coming. So I just did some investigative
didn’t know I was a man. And I wrote for publications
reporting and I found the goofy parallels between them.
like Dental Economics, which is a fine publication for
You know, Jesus walked on water; Elvis surfed. So it was
dentists who are interested in investing, one of, perhaps
basically that joke over and over again. I was deluded
the best of, all the investment dentistry magazines.
enough to think I could make a humor book out of it,
But honestly I was not earning enough as a free-
so I sent it to a bunch of agents. One happened to be
lancer. It was really hard because I didn’t have a lot of
an Elvis fan, and he sold it to another editor who was an
contacts, and it’s just hard. It’s hard being a freelancer.
Elvis fan. And I got that little book. I did a few of those sort of novelty books. But I had
So, I moved to the Bay Area and started working for a tiny newspaper in California called the Antioch Daily
always wanted to write a real, narrative nonfiction book,
Ledger. I was a general assignment reporter, so I wrote
but I never had the right idea. And then, finally, I came
on everything from like PTA meetings to sewage taxes—
up with the idea to read the encyclopedia from A to
that was a big issue for some reason. Low-hanging
Z. And the guy who had edited my first book was now
pants at the mall, that was a big breaking scandal at the
working at Simon & Schuster. I called him up and said,
time, so you know how long ago that was. And then I
what do you think of this crazy idea? And he said, let’s
got a job as a fact-checker at the New York Observer.
do it.
I was only there for about a year, and then I moved to
::::: 67 :::::
slice magazine
What brought you the idea for the next book?
And your next book, The Guinea Pig Diaries [in stores as this issue comes to print] is a collection of your already published work?
Both of my ideas are partly from my family. The [idea for The Know-It-All] came
It’s half things that have appeared in Es-
because my father had started to read the encyclopedia when he was a kid, but he only made it to the Bs. Boo-
quire, and half new experiments or little immersion projects. Whatever you want to call them.
merang, I think, is where he stopped. He had enough. I know you also have a book signed up
Because he had a life. He had kids and a real job. So, I
after that. Are you in the middle of that
decided to take up where he left off, you know, to try to finish what he started, and remove that black spot from
project now?
our family history. The [idea for The Year of Living Biblically] came from
Not in the middle—this is Day 3. The idea
a couple of places. I grew up with no religion at all, and
is to be the healthiest person alive, so
this was my way to dive into religion. And also, just that
I’ve remade my diet, and I haven’t exercised in ten years,
I had written a book on the encyclopedia, and what is
so I’m going to do that. I’m going to go to Okinawa be-
the only book that can trump the encyclopedia? And I
cause they have the highest life expectancy of any place
thought, the Bible. I wanted to find a way to tackle the
in the world. So I figured, they know something. It’s
Bible. And I thought, why not try to live it?
hard. I’m hungry all the time because I can’t snack. The only thing we have in our apartment is all crap for the
::::: 68 :::::
AN INTERVIEW WITH A. J. JACOBS
kids. I used to eat the kids’ Trix-flavored yogurt, but now
Oh yeah. I’m sore. It’s a nightmare. I
I can’t do that. I’m hungry all the time. I have to figure
didn’t quite realize. I had forgotten what
out how to stock up on healthy food.
it felt like. Now I have a trainer, whose quote yesterday was, about my abs: “They’re in there somewhere.” So
Now, every issue of Slice has a theme, and the
that’s nice. They’re hiding. They’re really well hidden
one for this one is Fear. I wanted to interview
right now. So maybe they’ll emerge. It’s funny. I’ve never
you for this particular issue because I think you could
been to a gym, really, until this week.
read fear into your motivation for writing your books. Wanting to be the smartest person is about the fear
Your new book, The Guinea Pig Diaries, I
that you might be becoming dumber as times goes on.
think, that has the most direct link to fear,
Do you think that’s true? What do you think about fear
as you’re putting yourself in these experiments. Was
as a motivating factor?
there anything that was scary of the things you wrote about?
I like your analysis. I think you’re right. [The Know-It-All] was motivated by the
Definitely. One of the scariest was this
fact that it seemed that I was losing one IQ point every
experiment I did for Esquire, trying to
year after graduating college. So I was really afraid I was
practice radical honesty. That was terrifying. The idea
becoming dumber, and I wanted to take a radical step,
was to remove the filter between your brain and your
a radical countermeasure. This was the most radical I
mouth and say whatever’s on your mind. That was abso-
could think of. [The Year of Living Biblically] was also
lutely terrifying, because people shouldn’t do that. It’s
motivated by fear in a sense because I had never experi-
totally socially unacceptable. In some cases it was very
enced religion at all growing up in the home. As I say in
liberating. But other times it was just terrifying, tell-
the book, I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is
ing people the unvarnished truth, telling my wife I was
Italian. I felt I had no religious upbringing and no knowl-
bored by her stories, telling my mother-in-law I hated
edge about religion or my heritage or anyone else’s.
the gift that she gave me. That is scary.
I was afraid I was missing out on something. This was
There’s another one where I try not to multitask for
my way of trying to figure out what I could take from
a month, which, I guess is scary, because you feel like
religion—how religion could be relevant to our lives. Or
there’s not enough time in the day. It was incredibly
maybe, it was completely irrelevant. So that was fear.
hard, but I’m glad I did it, because multitasking really is
And the new book, about being healthy, is motivated
evil. There are all these studies that it makes us dumber,
by fear. I turned forty recently, and I had pneumonia
and lowers our IQ by ten points. Our lack of focus is
while my family and I were on vacation in the Domini-
changing the way we think.
can Republic. I spent a few days in the hospital in the
There were two that were really fear-based. One was
Dominican Republic, which is an interesting experi-
based on an experience I had at Esquire, like five years
ence. I got woken up by roosters. You don’t get that
ago. We asked Mary-Louise Parker to pose nude, and
at American hospitals. There were all sorts of fluids of
she said she would, but only if the editor of the piece
different colors that I don’t know what they were. So
also posed nude. I happened to be the editor of the
I could probably learn Spanish. That’s the other thing.
piece, so my boss, David Granger, was like, all right, take
I’m afraid of being in a foreign hospital. So that was one
off your pants. So I had to pose nude for a photograph
of the motivations. I’m not as healthy as I used to be,
that was then printed in Esquire. It was humiliating on
because I never exercise, and my cholesterol was kind
many levels. It was humiliating that he kept telling me to
of scarily high.
suck in my gut, and it was humiliating because he had all of these young, attractive assistants who completely
Is the exercise going okay so far? Are you
ignored my naked form. So that was a sad moment,
really sore?
when I realized I hold absolutely no allure.
::::: 69 :::::
slice magazine
Was Mary-Louise Parker on hand?
eat in the afterlife. It’s very considerate. So there’s constantly things spurring other things in my mind. And, you know, the other project that changed my
No, she skipped it. She came in right
life is one that’s included in The Guinea Pig Diaries—
after me. It was an interesting lesson as
trying to live as rationally as possible. It was all about
to where I am on the media chain because I got like a
how irrational we are, and how our brains are prepro-
six-pack of Coke, and as I was leaving they were setting
grammed to be completely irrational. We have all of
up her catering, which was couscous and chicken and
these cognitive biases. Everything has these biases. Like,
champagne. It was clear where I stood.
eating is filled with irrational things. We have a bias to
Another one that was scary was early on in my
finish everything that’s on our plate because in cave-
career, when I was working at Entertainment Weekly. I
man times, that probably made sense. You probably
looked a lot like a minor movie star named Noah Taylor,
never knew when your next meal was coming. But now,
who was in a movie called Shine. We had the same
it makes no sense. The same thing with hundreds of
haircut and these thick, dark glasses like Orville Reden-
others. Reading the news appeals to all these cognitive
bacher. We found out he wasn’t going to the Academy
flaws in our brain. Did you read about the salmonella?
Awards, so my editors asked me to go as him, under-
Eight people die of salmonella poisoning and everyone
cover as a movie star, and see what life is like as a movie
changes their lifestyle radically. Whereas, every day two
star. That was terrifying because I felt like I was going to
thousand people die of heart disease, so that’s a huge
be busted at any minute, but I totally passed. It totally
flaw. I still think of that project every day.
worked. I signed autographs. I did interviews. I got all sorts of fans. I never actually said I was Noah Taylor,
Who are writers that inspire you? Who are
but people just assumed it. I was terrified going in, but
some of your favorites?
all these people, like Chris Farley, told me how brilliant I was in the movie. That was on a big public stage. So it
I love Bill Bryson. One of my favorite
could have been a disaster.
books is A Walk in the Woods. I just love the way he combines this personal adventure with the
How much of your projects stay with you
history of the woods, and that’s helped me, and inspired
when you finish?
me, because I try to combine personal adventure with, you know, stories about religion, or stories about hang-
It depends on the project. The biblical
ing out with the Amish, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, and sto-
one actually had a huge impact on my
ries from the Bible. So trying to weave it all together. He
life. I still try to practice the Sabbath. I still say prayers of
does a brilliant job of weaving it together—the personal
thanksgiving, even though I’m an agnostic. I also try not
and the historical.
to gossip, which is a huge thing. I’ve been realizing how
I read a lot of nonfiction. I got very into these books
life changing that really is. I fail every day. It changes the
on decision making, by guys like Cass Sunstein, who
way you think. If you stop saying negative things about
wrote one called Nudge and there was one called
people, you start to be a lot more positive. It’s a lovely
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. I love those. I enjoy
notion. So I have tried that.
Malcolm Gladwell. And, I don’t read the encyclopedia
The encyclopedia book changed me somewhat. I
anymore, but I do like to read reference books. There’s
think I forgot 98 percent of what I read. But 2 percent is
something to me almost calming about it because I feel
still a lot of information that’s rattling around up there. I
like I still have these huge gaps in my knowledge, so I’m
sometimes wish that it would go away. It’s like a sick-
trying to fill in the gaps.
ness. Whatever I see, it sparks an interest in my mind.
I, actually, I do some Wiki-tunneling. I just found out
Like, I see a cat, and I think about how the Egyptians
about that verb. It’s when you start out reading one
made mummies of the cats, but they also made mum-
Wikipedia entry, and then you click on a link within that
mies of the mice so the cats would have something to
entry, and it leads you to a new entry, and you keep
::::: 70 :::::
AN INTERVIEW WITH A. J. JACOBS
going for like an hour. I ended up at a crazy one: Sheela
they kind of come to expect that you’re in the middle
na Gigs. They’re these statues, these carvings on Irish
of some project and they have to just go with it?
churches, that were to ward off evil, and they’re statues of women, of female figures, with really huge, exag-
My wife has gotten a little bit used to
gerated vaginas that they’re pulling out. I found that
it. But she still thinks it’s crazy. That’s
through religion. It was crazy. I’m just startled always
actually the final experiment in the new book. I decided
about how much fascinating information there is out
I needed to pay her back for the pain I put her through,
there that I don’t know.
so I agreed to do whatever she said for a month, be her
The other thing is that I read a tremendous amount
slave. You know, to be the most whipped husband in the
for my projects. So for the Bible book, I read like one
world. And that was scary, certainly, because she started
hundred books about religion. And now I’m reading all
to abuse her power, and tell me to do humiliating things.
these books about health and physiology. I just picked
At one point I found a chastity belt for men. I tried that
up one by Susie Orbach, who wrote a book about our
on and wore it for a couple of days, because that way she
obsession with bodies.
had control over every part of my body. That would be the ultimate. I can give you the link, if you want to try it.
We talked about one of your favorite writers, but I also wanted to ask you about one
I think I’m okay. But thanks. Your wife and the other people in your life become characters
of your least favorite writers, Joe Queenan. When he wrote a bad review of your book [in the New York
in the book. How does that work? Do you feel obliga-
Times in October 2004], you did what a lot of writers
tions to them? Do people tell you not to write about
maybe want to do; you fought back [with a rebuttal,
things?
also in the New York Times in February 2005]. Can you talk a little about why you did that?
Oh, yeah. It’s very tricky. My wife gets veto power. She reads the manuscript
I think the key is to respond with humor.
before it becomes a book. In the first book, she did nix
Otherwise you just look bitter. I tried to
a couple of passages. I read her the second book, and
make it funny, but true. Everything I said was true. If you
by that point she was probably used to it. I get so many
can respond in a clever way, I see no reason not to. I’m
e-mails from readers saying that my wife is a hero for
not a confrontational guy, so I normally wouldn’t get into
putting up with it. So now she’s fine with it. She erased
a literary feud. I’m not like Norman Mailer, where he’s
nothing from the Bible book. Another tricky one was my brother-in-law, who is the
constantly starting feuds with everyone and trashing them. And biblically, I try not to trash-talk anyone. I fail,
nemesis in The Know-It-All, because he comes off as a bit
of course, but still my personality is not very aggressive
of an arrogant jerk, which he can be. I was very nervous,
and confrontational, but if someone takes a real abomi-
so I sent him the book beforehand to let him know. And
nate shot at you, why not try to respond in a clever way.
he said, “I come off like a prick, but at least you spelled
I was happy that it appeared as a full-page rebuttal.
my name right.” I did something very smart, but it was inadvertent. When I introduced him, I set him up as infuri-
Did you hear back from him after that?
atingly brilliant, but also good-looking. He had everything going for him. I said he was moderately good-looking and wasn’t balding yet, so that seemed to be all he fo-
No. That was the end of our feud, which
cused on. So, then after that I could say how much of a
I’m fine with. I’m fine with ending the
jerk he was and he was fine with it. So that is my lesson
feud. I don’t need it in my life.
to writers of nonfiction. If you’re going to say something mean about someone, first appeal to their vanity and say
I wanted to also ask you about the reaction
something about how good-looking they are, and then
of your family and friends to your writing. Do
you can say whatever you want, and they will ignore it.
::::: 71 :::::
Planet Street Sonia Nayak
illustration for slice Š sarah mcneil
That was the spring when I became entranced by beards, and drowning. I was twenty-nine at the time, still living on Planet Street, where it was fabled Edgar Allan Poe was sold the first few bits of laudanum. Though death was his ultimate goal, he only succeeded in getting violently ill. That was what my spring was like on Planet Street—it was the spring where I only washed my face with hotel soap, leaving it taut and shiny, where I scrubbed my fingernails until they shone, painted my toenails with ecru-colored wall paint, and slept in a feather bed that smelled of freshly slaughtered geese.
slice magazine
And when I met Booker James. He had shown up on
rettes in the refrigerator, which only had a couple eggs
the evening of the party. The party took place at the
and a sandwich that my mother had brought me, seven
loft, which I could still afford at the time. It was complete
months before, when she was looking at the apartment
with gardenette, stone gnomes guarding the entrance,
with me. In the back corner was a yellow rose in a jam
miniature weeping willow in the bay window, glaring
jar, a little bit of slushy water sitting at the bottom, a fly
wooden floors with black, oiled scratch marks near the
caught dead in the thorny part. It was cemented there
living room glass doors, with angels spray painted in
and impossible to take out.
gold, on the northernmost panes. Everything was white
The eve of the party was warm, and the bricks
as milk, and completely foreign, like staring, really star-
smelled sun-heated. I had swept all of the butts down
ing, at a blank canvas for the first time, without paints.
the street with an even-stemmed broom that looked a
Moving there, with only a suitcase and a cardboard box
bit like a plait of a blonde child. The smoke sat in the air
full of pillows, made me remember wrapping my text-
like cross-legged spirits. The rose bushes still bloomed
books in brown paper bags so as not to mar them when
in miraculously pink prisms, even though the soil was
I was ten. My mother helped me tape the side of the bag
parched and pained. The caterers had arrived. They
to the American History tome.
marched in like penguins, as I leaned against the gate,
No one helped me move in to the new place—I
dressed in a short, curly black dress; sinking neckline; a
wanted to be alone. I was supporting myself, that’s how
single strap down the back; a pin of a tiny plastic dove
I could afford the apartment, which was $1,700 a month,
pinning the entire dress together. They started lighting
and I afforded this by selling cocaine cut with Lactaid
the candles, sweeping the tile floor—or was it wood—
pills, buying alcohol for minors at a nearby camp, and
and spraying the place with aerosol cans. I asked the
taking home day-old cheese and other expired foods
bartender, complete with lip ring and ladybug bowtie,
from the grocery down the block, which used to be an
for a dirty martini, which I then changed to a mimosa,
old pet store. I could still see the tin sign of “Providence
and then to just a Seagram’s and seltzer; it was one of
Canary House” that had been painted over with cheap
those days where no beverage matched.
whitewash, “Eastside Marketplace” painted with uneven
I waited. It was only five o’clock, one of the new
stencils on top, looking like a child’s easel. This, in turn,
days when the sun hadn’t yet set. I could see the light
inspired me, somehow, to draw a semi-famous painting
through my translucent nails, which I bit off and blew
called Daisy and the Cigarette, where I drew the differ-
into the bushes, with the old habit of waiting to be
ent stages of the smoking of one cigarette, and what the
scolded. Then, I heard the noise of partygoers echoing
different lengths of the cigarettes emoted for the person
down my alley, and suddenly had to use the bathroom.
smoking it. Somehow, this won me a prize of $5,000 in
The nausea I felt often was so beautiful but soon I’d be
the city competition of artists, a trip to meet the mayor
kneeling on the tile floor. The floor used to be in an old
(Buddy Cianci, a mob-connected, smiling mountain
bakery, and still smelled like yeast at times, especially
ogre who had burned his cuckolder’s eyes out with cigar
when I had my nose to the grit. I’d fall asleep there
tips and smashed his testicles with a hammer), a stay at
sometimes, and would dream of dough. I bit off a last
an old money mansion in the beach-graveyard town of
sliver of nail, and ran to the bathroom before the clop-
Newport, and a small party, catered by a small Italian
ping heels reached the garden gate. I felt better by just
deli up on Federal Hill, with unlimited wine and beer and
being inside there. The shower leaked a fine mist. It was
a magician.
cooler. The toilet had a wooden seat and handle, and
At the time, I felt like I deserved these things, and
could have been the color of a groomed racehorse. The
I needed them—I was as beautiful as a hyena, and I
water in the bowl was enthusiastically full—the water
couldn’t feel guilt. One could see my spine, protruding
was a deep copper, almost opaque, because of the silt
from the back like the first few crocuses of May—and my
collection at the bottom of Planet Street. I washed my
ribs shined like xylophones under my canvas T-shirts. I
hand with brown water and the rose soap, which lay on
only ever wore black and white. Sometimes with a flow-
the edge of the sink without a dish. It floated around
er pinned in my hair. Always with twenty packs of ciga-
blissfully homeless.
::::: 74 :::::
PLANET STREET
She wore a pearl headband, he his bright fedora. They walked near, not touching, but leaning, as if on a pendulum. They were talking, but not strolling. I wondered if they had seen me—the waves started crashing as if a big boat had just passed by, and I got scared of the ocean again.
At the nominee’s ball, between cocktails and dinner, and since Newport was a famous beach town in the summer, I had taken a twenty-minute stroll down to the beach. After getting there, trudging around on the sand, I put my hands in my pockets to warm them. I found an apple; after one bite, the sand was fiercely blown into the wound, and the grains made it inedible. I heard murmurs, and looked up quickly. Booker was walking about fifty yards away from me, with one of the female judges. She wore a pearl headband, he his bright fedora. They walked near, not touching, but leaning, as if on a pendulum. They were talking, but not strolling. I wondered if they had seen me—the waves started crashing as if a big boat had just passed by, and I got scared of the ocean again. I left before they would meet my footprints, throwing the apple away in a garbage can
Then, as I unlocked the door and reached for my
that was overflowing with McDonald’s paper napkins,
matches, a burst of hellos, excitement, flashbulbs, drinks
but I did overhear “sand in my beard,” and then vicious
poured, someone already spilled on the wood, light
laughter from both. I placed the apple on top of the flut-
coats piled on the windowsill, people. People entering a
tering mound, like an angel so delicately on a pine, and
room, people spreading out like gas particles then com-
briskly walked back to the reception, an uphill climb the
ing together like magnets. I got handshakes, clammy
entire way. I encountered a stray cat. I saw a ripped flag
cheeks offered to me, five-dollar bottles of wine. Alice
tumbling down the street in the wind. I found a marble.
with her tight yellow dress and her friend the photogra-
That same night, before my slow, sleepy bus ride
pher laughed and said, “pinch-pinch, pinch-pinch, I can’t
back to Providence using Rhode Island Public Transpor-
believe you won, hello!” Then took a photo of my bare
tation, I saw Booker one more time. He was also at the
feet on the tile, as I accidentally inhaled a nail. I used
bus depot, putting the female judge into a car service,
my coughing to get out to the garden, and also when
called Eagle Taxi. He closed the door, warmed up his
I recognized Booker, who had probably been standing
own arms and waved—then I heard him mutter, “late
outside the garden gate for a half hour, smoking nerv-
bloomer,” or something like that. Realizing he could see
ously, touching his bright fedora obsessively as the sun
his own breath, he rushed to get back inside the depot
set beneath his legs. His shoes were so clean they hurt.
doors, when he saw me, gave a strange, cock-headed
Providence did not get shoes dirty.
smile, and retreated. Then my bus pulled up. I saw him
I had first met Booker through the very same com-
through the stained windows, the same smile on his
petition that was throwing this party, in November. Even
face. He sent an index card with a stamp of a pigeon on
before he placed third, the committee had a nominee’s
it when he heard I had won first place.
ball, held at one of those Newport mansions, which
•
presented the works on the fifteen-foot mansion walls.
•
•
Booker’s painting was of a mother Dalmatian, so spot-
Tonight Booker was still outside the gate as the house
ted that she appeared black, and her five nursing pups,
ballooned with guests. More congratulations, more
in front of a partially washed school chalkboard. The
kisses. The clipped haircuts of men and the feathered
pups had not a dot on them; they were albino, with blue
bands of women piled through the door like line-goers
eyes and angelic faces. I overheard him saying that his
at Disneyland. They were half-drunk on the new spring
inspiration was reading a fact on the back of a cereal
air, gasping with laughter, clad in pale silk and lace. I
box: that Dalmatians are born white and then grow into
still perched, leaning against the stone gnomes, smiling
their spots.
lightly, motioning for the bartender to get me another
::::: 75 :::::
slice magazine
gin and seltzer. “I love your painting!” said a girl with stick legs. “Thank you,” I said. “She’s great,” said someone else. “Get her autograph now before she gets too famous.” I thought I heard a loud phone ring, and then another. More people talking, talking louder and faster. The room inflated like a water balloon under a tap; the noise was heavy; the cigarette tasted like oboe. The people trampled the wooden floors, dust growing—no one took off their shoes, but I didn’t expect them to.
We touched foreheads for a second. I could smell his white beard, his hair on my chin. My arms were sweating and then the breeze took away all the heat.
Finally, Booker entered the garden. A bolt of laughter from inside the house scared him like a squirrel—I ex-
around some girls with fake strands of pearls reach-
pected him to run. I leaned back to see what was going
ing down to their knees. Then he disappeared behind a
on. I saw a tall black hat and a bowtie.
desert of dresses and ties. “You’re gorgeous,” I said to
“It’s just the magician,” I said.
one of the girls. His voice was still tolling. She smiled,
“He’s here?” Booker said, as if that was what he’d
surprised. And forcefully kissed both of my cheeks. I
been waiting for.
asked her to get me a gin and seltzer. She happily com-
“Hello, Booker,” I smiled.
plied, looking around to see if anyone else had seen that
“Hello, Daisy.”
compliment.
“You need a drink,” I said.
Booker reappeared, looking hazy and happy. He
“No, thanks,” he said, “I don’t drink on such lovely
came back outside and lit a cigarette, then noticed me,
nights.” He was facing me, but about five feet away, and
as if I had just gotten there.
not looking at me. Then a breeze came and blew his hat
“Hello, Daisy.” I was silent. “Did I just see you?” I nodded. “Do you want a smoke?” Alice and her photogra-
into my face. “Sorry—that popped off my head.”
pher friend came outside with my orchid. “We’re using these as props!” She yelled. They
“Like a cricket,” I said. I had to wipe a tear from my cheek; it had danced into my eye.
started taking pictures next to the gnomes, posing with
“Do you have a bathroom?” He asked. He looked for something in his pockets.
the flowers. With a tough shake the orchid fell to the ground. At that same moment everyone seemed to rush out and breathe in the smell of the newly perfumed
“Shouldn’t you have gotten first place?” It popped out, but I knew it was going to, and I let it. He gave me
night like a chorus. The garden was full of fifty people,
the same cock-headed smile, and then realized I had
and the magician decided to come out as well. He and
seen him put that female judge into Eagle Taxi.
the bartender looked like buddies. He leaned his head down and started talking.
“Oh,” he said, shaking his head. Luckily, he took it as a joke. “Yes, yes, that was Lydia.” He scratched his
“Do you want a smoke? Did I just ask you that?”
beard, as if feeling the sand from that day. I tasted mold
Booker’s beard suddenly looked sad, and I noticed it
in my mouth.
was bright white. His hands were pruned. I couldn’t im-
“So, do you have a bathroom?”
agine them having the strength to paint a dog.
“Yes.” I pointed my hand down the hallway. He
Then, Alice wanted to get people together to take a
thanked me, walked a couple paces, then turned around.
group photo. “Smile like you mean it, smile like you just fucked
“You know…” He stopped himself. I raised my eyebrows. He took another breath.
someone!” The girls assumed sexy, the boys ghoulishly grinned. Booker, unsteady, grabbed my hand.
“I think you would sound hollow if I tapped you on
“We have to be in this picture,” he said.
the ribs.”
“What? Wh—”
It wasn’t said angrily, it was just said as fact. I
“We have to be in this picture!” he shouted. Some of
stopped for about a minute, and watched him quickstep
the posers turned around, and bulbs ticked and flashed.
::::: 76 :::::
PLANET STREET
I crossed arms, and he tried to grab my arm with a
to retreat to my room and go to sleep. I could just feel
wet hand.
the cool pillow on my face, and I got very tired.
“What were you saying about my ribs?” I asked.
“Yes, yeah. I’m not sure where he is.”
“We have to be in this picture,” he said, his mouth an
“No, no,” she laughed, and exchanged glances with
inch from my nose, his eyes scared, “or it will be like we
the photographer, then put the rabbit on the folding
were never here.” I snatched my hand back and he ran to
chair, coming over to the open window. She spoke to me
get in the middle. The bulb flashed his back.
through a pane, eyes squinting into a smile. “I think he’s
“When I’m looking!” he yelled at the photographer,
doing heroin in the bathroom.”
and everyone laughed. He pretended to be steaming
“So?” I said.
mad. Alice was loving it and she jumped on his back
“So…” she said. “So, nothing.” She loped away.
as he chicken-danced and hopped into the front of
I turned around and leaned my arms on the table. I
the crowd.
wanted desperately to wash my face. It just needed to
“One with Daisy,” someone halfheartedly yelled.
be washed then, with the floating rose soap.
“Yeah…” someone else said.
I went and banged on the door.
At this moment, I remembered how my grandmother
“Hello? Hello?” I heard a moaning.
used to slowly plod to the television to watch Olympic
“Hello? I need to wash my face. Hello?” I took my
ice-skating until late in the evening, costumes flutter-
shoes off and aligned them with the door. I took my hair
ing with the dancer’s own speed. I would listen from my
out of its bun, and removed the dress I had on, left with
bedroom door, when I was supposed to be asleep, the
just a slip. I opened the door, and saw Booker in the
nightlight winking.
bathtub, his shoes making mud streaks on the white tile,
The crowd dispersed; the film had run out. The magi-
hat in lap. I said, “Booker. Hey.”
cian was done talking politics with the bartender and
“Hello, Daisy. Didn’t I just see you?” I nodded.
was ready to perform. He lit some things on fire, and the
“Do you want to know why my beard is white?” He
fire grew big. Everyone’s faces shined in delight like kids
scratched it again. I kneeled down on the tile. I could
around a campfire. Another explosion, and there were
smell the yeast.
real live rabbits all over the garden.
“Did you know some prisoners’ hair goes white the
“Real rabbits!” someone screamed, and the garden
morning before their execution?” he said.
upturned once again. I did wonder how he did that, as
I looked at his white beard, the rest of his hair a dark
all the guests ran to pet some. The party carried on. I
maroon. A burst of laughter outside the window. The tile
went inside. I wondered where Booker was. I stared at
was warm under my knees; the boiler room was directly
my own painting; the wonders of smoking. I wondered if
underneath the bathroom. It got quiet—I heard the
that was what he meant by empty. Or did he say hollow?
garden gate opening and closing a couple times, with a
Hollow ribs, or hollow being? Or jack-o’-lantern?
metal shriek. Then the wind came in through the window
I stared at Alice through the windowsill, gin in hand.
and it felt good on our faces—suddenly it smelled like
She knew she was gorgeous. She was full of wine, and
rain-on-brick. We touched foreheads for a second. I
proud, and skinny. Her face was a mask, her cheeks
could smell his white beard, his hair on my chin. My arms
smiled without her eyes. Her hair rested on her shoulder
were sweating and then the breeze took away all the
like ermine. Her toes were painted as perfect as win-
heat. A few people were left, yelling in the rain, and the
dowpanes. She reached over to scribble something on
rain cooling the brick and the flowers.
someone’s arm. She uncomfortably picked up a rabbit
Then there was water like a burst fire hydrant
and bounced it on her lap as if it were a baby. Then she
from the window. Booker was smiling but my ribs felt
saw me.
empty—all I could think was, those poor rabbits must
“Daisy,” she laughed.
be drowning in the rain. And then I thought, maybe
“Alice,” I said.
that’s best.
“You know Booker?” I thought she was going to lay claim to him. I was going to let her, and then I was going
::::: 77 :::::
SN
slice maga zine
EVANGELICAL Anthony Carelli Six months open. A smile
Yes, I told the man
six months long. One half-year
who happened through our door
of Welcome to the Pie Shop.
on Thursday night—a union man
So busy we’ve extended hours
according to his foam-front hat,
and bumped prices (a shepherd’s
a Yanks fan according to his jacket
is going for five twenty-five).
—We exist, sir. I’m working here.
We added a salad with three
I raised my arms to cue the menu.
kinds of lettuce and recruited
I traced along the custom lights.
extra staff. Two Sundays ago
Then, as if it proved I’m not a ghost,
we got blurbed in the Times,
I showed the wall of windows,
and a neighborhood gazette
I pointed to the benches on the sidewalk
has followed suit. Incidentally,
outside, as they knelt, ignoring our attention,
I appear in the second article:
staring up the towers of clouds.
“a kind-eyed guy named Tony.” Then, later on, the reviewer,
But I live here, he told me,
whose name I can’t remember,
and was angry, strangely so.
enthuses, “stroke your senses
I grew up on Seventeenth,
at 211 Prospect Park West”
His hands winged up to align
—that’s our address. Great.
the stripes that pinned his collar. I’ve never seen you, he said,
But despite the evidence of space,
and I walk by this corner
and of time, and of experience,
every morning, every night,
there are those of our neighbors who will enter the Shop, still unconvinced the Shop exists. You’d think a host of empty walls were being swung between us, obstructing providence, rendering our glass façade opaque.
::::: 78 :::::
poetry
THE HOURS Anthony Carelli Tony, Hit the lights, He says. Hit the windows.
Should we sweep the floor, too?
I know my boss is nervous, but what can I do?
The floor will be unburdened of crumbs.
It’s his big day: extended hours at the Pie Shop, our inaugural opening at dawn, closing at ten.
Should we stack the bags of coffee in the shape
This is when the money starts to roll, I’m told.
of a pyramid? The bags will be stacked by me.
The first dawn of my twenty-ninth year, and still
Should I want something more? The upswing of
I’m staggered by the godliness of sunlight,
each dark task always stalls and turns me back
how its bands assuage my skin from wrist to elbow
arcing down with momentum to the heavens:
as I spiral clouds of Windex on the glass.
the row of elms flaming on the street side.
The old light comes down Sixteenth Street from
Tony, the pies. I glance at my grandfather’s watch.
my left to my right and smashes like an oak
Quarter to seven. 15 minutes, and the first
felled on the steeple of Farrell’s Bar and Grill.
of the commuters, a silver-haired girl, the first, I pray, of thousands, appears in the door.
No one’s there to hear the shook glass ring; no one but the Mexican who busses from Harlem to mop the holy tack from the boot print floor. I wonder, doesn’t he, despite himself, love this terrible work, glinting a path of tile to carry an unknown patron from the stoop to his stool, from there to the men’s room, from the men’s room to midnight, every night? Let there be no doubt: sunrise is salvation on certain streets of Brooklyn, if only you can manage to ignore it. Keep a hand on a rag or a broom or a wheel. Whad’ ya say, Tony —Oh, my boss—should we do the pie display? This means quickly I should rid the glass of fingers.
::::: 79 :::::
slice maga zine
Mare Night William Keener My old mare grew fangs last night, champed her bit and swallowed it. Suddenly unbridled, she bolted through the pasture fence, flashed iron spikes from all four hooves as if the gods of war had shod that horse to make her spark and quake my house from basement to the attic where I panicked at the shatter sound of flagstones, her black tail cracking like a whip on buckskin flanks, her red-eyed ivory-razored head gone wild, so if you didn’t hear the back door splinter in or feel the pounding up the spiral stairs, it’s because she’s not your mare. She’s mine.
::::: 80 :::::
poetry
Madness of Angels Erienne Rojas A ball of fist
Lost in translation verbs
opens to the
because my origin is exile—
whiteness of
err to enunciate but English
pupil, only to
is my first language. Backwards
reveal the blackness that separates us.
syntax gawks a forward Latina— Spanish on my face will always
A Nordic heel
be bile in my brain studied under
pushes the weight
the microscope of your chin
of my spaded tail
when you snoot
back, so I can see the red
for a word in accent
pour out of my insolence.
not found in Naturalized dictionary;
Their halos shine above
not you but other
to remind me, mother tongues
spells
are labors of the wasp and I think in Spanish.
ply to the lesser language for every sentence in white-out.
A European name draws bigoted eyes down into the gutter with the reading of my last. Arian’s prefix to überclassism changes my name to exclude. A suffix to modify the root-word of unclear to minority.
::::: 81 :::::
slice maga zine
What the Heart Knows Laura LeHew Alzheimer’s blossoms the way a branch grows towards the light unbending her mileage vertical slopes unaccountable distractions wind-prints crossing the moon a knock on the door which she later recants dimmed but not lost all nightmares given flesh she did not fit in well with her life
::::: 82 :::::
poetry
Custodian
okay I’ll put them on
after you take a shower
I did already—see I’m naked
Laura LeHew
no you didn’t—here’s your favorite soap now hop on in
Patience: “the life-long martyrdom.” ~Longfellow
the shower?
can I have some tea?
you changed out of your pajamas
yep
sure I’ll go make it while you take a shower
I was cold so I got dressed
put on the clean clothes on the bed
okay I’m done, can I have some coffee?
and slept in your clothes, including your shoes
I was cold
why didn’t you pull up the comforter or put on another blanket?
you wanted tea
I didn’t, I want coffee with caramel
you put on the clothes in the bin
oh they’re too nice, I might get them dirty
they’re dirty
go change into the clean clothes
on the bed
I see, well next time, use the comforter, that’s what it’s for
I’ll remember, I promise
okay, man you’re crabby
it’s time for a shower
I had one already
—I’m cold
no, it’s time for a shower
take off your jewelry
okay I took off my shirt and put on my sweater
put on a sweater
I’m ready
I am hot
take off your clothes
why did you do that, you’ll just get hot?
all of them?
okay I took off my sweater and put on my shirt
yes
take off your sweater
and my shoes?
I’m cold
yes
honey
what about my socks?
okay I took off my shirt and put on my sweater
yes
put your sweater on OVER your shirt
I’ll be naked
can I have a cigarette?
yes, you’re taking a shower
yes
but you’ll see me
that grey cat is at the door again—
yes, I’ve seen you naked a million times
Dorian
really?
can I let him in?
well what will I put on?
well darn it can I go have a smoke?
these clean clothes on the bed
yes
but I don’t like them
you won’t lock the door?
you picked them out this morning
yes
no I didn’t
when I come in can I have some tea?
you did
nope
but they’re ugly
you’ll wait right here?
still that’s what you are wearing today
::::: 83 :::::
yep
slice maga zine
in every Subway in every small midwestern town
Justin Hyde
there is a middle aged woman face of clay, butcher’s forearms, a single dry leaf dangling in the wind behind her eyes. you don’t make small-talk about the weather. you don’t say anything about the onions you didn’t ask for. you just get your change and leave ashamed to have intruded on her sarcophagus.
::::: 84 :::::
poetry
our palm coast Justin Hyde when i was eleven mellida sanderson cupped my hand into hers led me to the far edge of the trailer park to the base of a mulberry tree with large knots that made footholds up to a flat sturdy branch she called palm coast because five years ago before her dad left he took her and her mom down to florida on a greyhound oceans she said with no end and never winter dad has a house right on the beach and he’s working on a room just for me i’m sure he’ll let you come to he’ll teach you to catch fish from the ocean what we don’t eat you can sell to make us money we put our faces together and touched the tips of our tongues pinky swear she said holding out her left hand dad says pinky swear means more than promise.
::::: 85 :::::
An Interview with
ha jin
Tricia callahan
photo Š jerry bauer
AN INTERVIEW WITH ha jin
As violence erupted in Tiananmen Square, knowing he couldn’t return, Chinese-born Jin Xuefei made a decision. The plan was to survive here in America. To survive, he would teach, but to teach he would have to publish—in a still-foreign country, in a still-foreign language. It was a career he wouldn’t have pursued had he returned to China. Yet within a mere ten years, under the pen name Ha Jin, he was garnering highest honors for his writing, including the coveted National Book Award (Waiting, 1999). And by the time I met him at Boston University, where he now teaches creative writing, his span of critically acclaimed work had won him a place among America’s most celebrated writers—and the greatest worries he’d faced had been translated into his greatest successes.
This past fall you were a Mary Ellen von der
Five years ago, I was invited to attend a
Heyden Fiction Fellow at the American Acad-
conference in Flushing, New York. I stayed in
emy of Berlin. How did you spend your time there?
Flushing for two days and was moved by the struggle and vitality of the new immigrants there. Afterward, I
I worked hard, especially on weekends. But I
decided to set a collection of short stories in that place,
also traveled some to Southern Europe and
which I have visited numerous times.
to Denmark. Four months in Berlin was a bit too long for It wasn’t until 2007 that you published your
me because I was separated from my family the entire
first novel set entirely in the United States: A
semester.
Free Life. What sparked your decision to depart from Were you working on anything in particular?
the contemporary Chinese experience and move toward the U.S. immigrant experience in your fiction?
Yes, I finished a collection of short stories—A
Writing cannot be separated from the writer’s
Good Fall.
personal existence. I am an immigrant, so it’s natural for me to move away from China literarily. But
What was the inspiration for the stories?
this doesn’t mean I won’t write about China again. I want to try new things every time.
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As we were crossing Thirty-seventh Avenue, I said, “Can’t you do something less dangerous for a living?” “You find me a job and I’ll take it.” —”The House Behind A Weeping Cherry”
courtesy of Pantheon
How do you see the fears that afflict the
Only Waiting was published by a provincial
characters in your earlier stories differing
press. The others are banned.
from those that you’re creating now? More and more I’m reading about dissident writers being detained in China. Did you ever
Roughly speaking, in most of my stories set in China, fear mainly comes from the outside,
worry about the Chinese government’s reaction to your work?
in the form of social pressure and norms, whereas in my American stories, fear is more or less related to the characters’ mental lives, which in a way is also a kind of
A lot of people are fearful. For me, because
psychological response to the external world. But this
I’m a U.S. citizen now, I am privileged.
new fear is more associated with one’s inner struggle
Also, I write in English, so I’m not a serious concern
with one’s sense of the self.
to them. Chinese officials see me as an American writer: “He writes in English; he writes only for a
Much of your earlier fiction highlights the
Western audience.” They frame it in that way. My
Chinese government’s oppressive and abusive
books aren’t available in China so I can’t reach the
behavior. How are your books received in China?
Chinese audience.
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an interview with ha jin
You are an author of poetry, short stories,
On the other hand, it depends how good the writer
novels, and essays. Are you drawn to one form
is. If the writer’s work is really good, then they’ll pay attention. Then they’ll realize that the work might last.
over the others?
Then the people in power might fear them. I feel more at home with short stories, partly This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, an event
because I teach all the time. Still, when I am able, I should write some novels. The novel is a much
that influenced your personal as well as your profes-
more demanding and complicated form.
sional life. How have you changed as a writer since then? And how do you think China has changed?
Are there any specific writers you read when you write?
That tragedy changed me, and from that Sure. Influences are always a source of
point on, I have been writing in English. As I
strength. When writing, I will read works by
continue working in this language, I have begun feeling a kind of estrangement—China seems far away. But
some great authors, as if trying to borrow energy from
it is also part of my existence, and I am involved, in my
them—Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol. It de-
own way. As for China, economically it has developed
pends on the work. I read Dostoyevsky when I wrote The
a lot, but politically it has not changed much. Recently
Crazed because it was a psychological novel. When I’m
the author of Charter 08 was jailed because he voiced
writing short stories, I read a lot of Chekhov. There’s so
some basic democratic demands. We still don’t know Liu
much to pull from him. I use him in workshops, too.
Xiaobo’s whereabouts. In short, China is still a totalitarSpeaking of, you’ll be teaching your creative
ian country.
writing course this afternoon. Do you recall In the first essay of your recent nonfiction
the fear you felt as a young writer? And how you man-
debut, The Writer as Migrant, you address the
aged to transcend it?
question of whether writing can change anything. Your answer is that literature is ineffective at social change.
By and by I realized that certainty is not human condition. Fear is part of the creative
Right. I see the writer’s purpose as not to try
process. If we are absolutely certain about a book, it
to bring about change, but to make sense of
might not be one worth being written.
the world, to make sense of life. An understanding of personal existence. The writer has a voice, and maybe
Any question you’ve never been asked in an
there are some who will be willing to listen. That’s the
interview that you wish you had been?
only thing that we can achieve. What is the best part of American life? I would What role does autobiography play in your
say that you can live honestly.
work? It only serves to provide some convincing details for my characters.
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Sohrab Homi Fracis
For the first thirteen years of his life, growing up
recognizability of objects was not a given, always to
in India, Viraf Adajania was able to see without glasses.
be relied on, that the specs he saw on many adults
There were no frames, whether square, rectangular, or
and a few boys in Campion School could someday
circular, to define what he saw of the world then, just a
descend onto his own nose—such an idea did not,
wide-open vista and constant, automatic clarity. That
except once, occur to him; he simply didn’t question
the sharpness of edges, the vividness of colors, the
the way things were.
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distant vision
The sole exception had occurred on a family trip
central compound overlooking the hills, and into a large
from Bombay to Mahabaleshwar, up in the hills, when he
common dining hall, which served a diplomatic balance
was seven. It was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights: lit-
of Parsi, North Indian, South Indian, and continental
erally billions of tiny oil lamps were set flickering around
dishes. After dinner, on weekends, people stayed at their
the nation, and everyone, including his father, was on
tables for boisterous sessions of Housie. Viraf loved the
holiday. They’d loaded up the steel blue Ambassador,
creative numbering system employed by the announcer:
which had more room than the Fiat, and hit the Poona
“Knock on the door, number 4…Two fat ladies, 88…Lucky
Highway early, armed with thermos flasks and meals in
for some, number 13…1 and 6, sweet 16…All by itself,
stainless-steel tiffins packed by their cook, Louise.
number 1…”
As usual, Viraf and his sister Soona were fine as long
Soona and he held the blunt pencil stubs breathlessly
as the road was straight, chorusing songs like “Home
over their numbered tickets, sometimes watching two
on the Range” and “Sapnon Ki Rani” until they started
or three at a time, ready to stab out a number, ecstatic
to climb the Western Ghats and the road wound around
when they could shriek “Top Line” or “Sandwich” or
the hillsides in jalebi spirals or hairpin bends without a
“Pyramid” and dash up to the announcing table, amid
running parapet or guardrail to keep them from going
groans and scattered applause, to confirm their num-
over. Then things began to happen inside his head:
bers and pocket the cash prize. Great was their shame
body fluids sloshed around an area he wouldn’t hear of
when they drew the dreaded “False alarm,” greeted
until he reached the States—his inner ear; small muscles
with jubilation by those just a number or two short. But
between his eyes tightened on their own; and before
on some rare night, if either of the two was fortunate
he knew it, he was carsick and fighting to keep Louise’s
enough to shout “Housie!” there was no sleep for any-
prawn curry down.
one for hours after they retired to their room. On Diwali night, there was no Housie. Everybody
Soona had similar problems to a lesser degree, and eventually the Amby was pulled over against the hillside
piled out of the dining hall onto the front corridor and
so they could pour their guts out onto the slope. Viraf
open grounds for complimentary fireworks. The adults
hated the brothlike consistency and distorted taste of
stood around and let the kids have all the fun. Fuljhadis
the food coming up, but the more he tried to straighten
were waved in circles of light, chakras went spinning and
up the more his head swam and the more he threw up,
fizzing across the compound, fatakras burst or rapid-
until a merciful feeling of emptiness left him staggering
fired deafeningly, and rockets whistled into the night
but clearheaded.
sky to flare over the hotel. Soona stuck to the sparklers.
Their father took the turns slower and smoother after that, which was just as well, considering the number
Viraf found himself in a group of boys lighting rockets and bombs.
of times an oncoming car or teetering lorry suddenly
The largest and loudest were the atom bombs, rivaled
rounded the same bend on the single lane, exactly as it
in their spherical size only by the anaars, named for the
had done when their grandfather died. It was a fright-
pomegranates they resembled. When an anaar was lit
ening sight now, their mother said, to see a convoy of
on the ground, it erupted in a thick, sizzling fountain of
trucks grinding along in a cloud of dust. Even more so
sparks that surged fifteen feet high before subsiding.
for their grandmother, Mamaiji, who refused to come
Viraf, marveling at the heft of these giant firecrack-
along on trips anymore. By the time the kids reached the
ers, put a match to the fuse of an anaar and backed
point where they had to do it all over, they’d left Poona
away, only to wait in vain for the spectacular fulmina-
far behind and were wetting the red mud that signaled
tion. Clearly, the fuse had sputtered out. Returning to
the approach to Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar.
it, he relit the fuse and crouched for a moment to make sure that this time it caught.
They stayed at Dina Hotel, which Aspi and Behroz
In that instant, the anaar unloosed its fiery stream
always picked because it was owned by Parsis like
into his face even as he began to pull up from it. The
themselves and had a homey feel. At mealtimes, people
hot jet was in his eyes before he could clap his hands
strolled out of rooms in two flanking buildings, across a
over them and stumble backward. Jumbled sensations
photo © Saskia Dimitrijevic
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of burning and of shouts and quick hands at his back
tor’s grunts were different from the ones to which Viraf
all flooded through him. He lifted his hands to see—and
was accustomed. Soona had either been struck dumb—
couldn’t. The world had gone black.
too improbable a coincidence—or left in the car. His
Among the voices, he heard his father’s getting loud-
own tentative relief was muted by the unreality of a fu-
er, the words indecipherable, and he started to scream
ture visibility, given the all-too-present darkness. How
in that direction. “I can’t see! I can’t see!”
could the doctor know for sure? “I will give you these
Then his father’s arm was around him, and the famil-
drops to put in every hour for the first day tomorrow
iar voice took command, as always. “Come on, we’re go-
and every two hours after that. When are you returning
ing to a doctor. Who is a good doctor in Mahabaleshwar?
to Bombay?”
Somebody tell us.”
His father’s voice: “We were booked for two more
The unevenness of the ground—the acrid smell—the
days, but we can stay longer.”
voices of his mother and sister—hands guiding him into the car seat—the engine roaring to life—its rising pitch
“No need. Put the drops for a week, then have his eyes checked again in Bombay.”
and the feel of motion as it pressed him back into the plasticky Rexene seat—the hum of wheels punctuated by
As it turned out, the darkness lifted from Viraf’s
terse declarations: a host of such usually de-emphasized
left eye the next morning when he awoke, reassuring his
sensations now formed his entire perception of the
father enough that they stuck to the original schedule.
strange new world around him. They seemed threatening,
But the right eye stayed sightless through their two re-
in the utter absence of colors and shapes and dimensions
maining days in Mahabaleshwar. With one-sided vision,
and accompanied by the burning in his useless eyes. The
Viraf blundered into more objects and people around
world they only partially described felt like a nightmare.
Dina Hotel than he had on the night he was blind. The
The Spirit of Light had been extinguished inside his head,
world of dark sensations was replaced by a world that
and Darkness had fallen.
was partly lit and partly obscured.
The doctor’s office could have been as large as the
And his depth perception, as his father put it, was
hotel’s dining hall, for all Viraf could tell, or the chair in
so bad that when they drove around to Echo Point
which he was examined the only piece of furniture. The
and Shivaji’s hilltop lair, Pratapgad Fort, he could have
doctor himself was a disembodied male voice, quietly
sworn the Amby was about to hit trees that were safely
articulate and to the point. The fingers that lifted Viraf’s
to the side of the winding road. The massive stone
eyelids and clicked instruments around his eyes could
walls of the seventeenth-century fort seemed still to
have belonged to the doctor or to an assistant, and
conceal hordes of Maratha warriors ready to spring
at times Viraf thought he detected a second voice in
out at him—even the great chieftain himself, tiger claws
conversation with his parents. But he wasn’t sure. Once
and all.
or twice, when clicks sounded around his right eye, he
At Table Top in Panchgani, an enormous plateau
thought he registered a lighter shade of black. But he
thousands of feet above sea level, Viraf’s mother for-
may have imagined it. All of this was overshadowed by
bade him to trek down to Hell’s Kitchen with them. And,
his unquestionable blindness.
now that his mishap was clearly a temporary and blood-
In the end, the reassuring voice pronounced judg-
less tragedy, Soona crossed her eyes and waved to him
ment in simple terms: Viraf’s eyes were in shock. The
with a parting “Ey, kaanya, don’t get lost.” Even with one
physical damage they’d suffered wasn’t serious, but as a
eye, he could see that their father enjoyed her use of
turtle retreats into its shell in the presence of danger, his
Gujarati—her resistance to it had diminished ever since
eyes had shut down for a while.
she’d switched from Presentation Convent in Kodaikanal
“Oh, thank God.” It was his mother speaking, the
to J. B. Petit in Bombay.
hands that clutched at his shoulder presumably hers.
The next morning, smack on time for the long drive
“But it’s only temporary, no, doctor?”
home, Viraf’s right eye sprang to life and all was well.
“Yes,” said the voice, echoed by sounds of relief from his mum and a grunt from his dad—assuming the doc-
Once more, the world stretched clear and vibrant and many miles deep. Then it turned murky and gray and
::::: 92 :::::
distant vision
constricted again, but that was only because they were
for her to walk there, so Mehru Aunty and Katy Aunty
back in concrete Bombay.
had to visit her instead. And the Cricket Club of India was too far to go on foot, so she stopped accompany-
Not until Dr. Dastoor cleared Viraf’s eyes, a full
ing the family there. The net result was that she rarely
week after their return from Mahabaleshwar, did Aspi
stepped out of the Seth Building flat anymore. Her way
Adajania deliver his inevitable lecture on common sense.
of keeping tabs on the world was to stand for hours on
And as usual it seemed unfair that the parental words of
any of their fifth-floor balconies, looking down upon the
wisdom on Viraf’s latest blunder were provided after the
sprawl of concrete and humanity that stretched to the
fact, considering it was his first time lighting firecrack-
horizon on three sides and to the Arabian Sea on the
ers. By virtue of this indispensable attribute, common
fourth. In actuality, the bay almost encircled the penin-
sense, that it seemed he alone did not possess, all chil-
sula, but their vantage point in Seth Building was close
dren except himself automatically knew not to go back
to Marine Drive, with Queen’s Road and Marine Lines
to dud firecrackers, knew right away that dry ice could
Station in between.
burn, knew that to drink from railway-station taps when
Queen’s Road had been renamed Maharshi Karve
thirsty or to play in the monsoon rain or to eat food from
Road after Independence, but people still knew it mostly
hawkers was to court a multitude of illnesses, knew a
by the old British name. At that stage of his life, Viraf
hundred other things that he would only discover one by
had not yet picked up on the uneasy silence maintained
one after he’d already done them and had to hear, too
by his elders upon the subject of British times. Even his-
late every time, about his lack of common sense.
tory classes were still ahead of him, and for all he knew
Those were the times he found Mamaiji good com-
India had always governed itself. Independence Day was
pany. As irritable as she was, all four-foot-something of
just a nice name for a holiday every August 15, celebrat-
her, his mother’s spry mother was always willing to say
ed with colorful parades under the flapping Tricolor.
that accidents would happen—she knew that only too well. When the long half of the long and short of it, as
When Mamaiji was finished giving dua repeat‑
Behroz Adajania used to call her parents, was reduced
edly for their safe return from the needless, hazardous
to nothing by an oncoming lorry on the Bombay-Poona
journey to Mahabaleshwar, she was sent into a tizzy all
run, a permanently embittered Mamaiji had cursed all
over again by Soona’s tactless account of Viraf’s mis-
machines and predicted that mankind would eventually
adventure. How could Aspi have allowed her little boy
destroy itself with its own inventions.
to play with such dangerous fatakras on his own, when
Behroz, grief-stricken herself, reminded Mamaiji of
every Diwali so many people around the country got
how much she and Papa had loved to fiddle with the
burned by the silly things? It was no use Behroz trying to
latest gadgets the family bought, such as their gramo-
take partial blame—she was always above reproach and
phone, but the old lady was all the more convinced that
that only made Aspi’s mood worse. As far as Mamaiji
that had been their downfall. Had her Rustomji been
was concerned, he should never have driven the fam-
content to live modestly like his forefathers, had he
ily so far out of Bombay in the first place. People were
just walked to nearby places like the Parsi Gymkhana
supposed to learn from other’s mistakes, but apparently
instead of wanting to drive everywhere and gallivant
Rustomji had died in vain.
all over the country after he retired, he would still be
Standing on the veranda next to Mamaiji, the only
with them. And she would still have her life partner
grown-up other than the liftman’s wife who didn’t tower
instead of having to be after the gunga every morning
over him, Viraf gazed out over South Bombay and felt
to change the white chumpa garland around the large,
an enormous thrill at his regained perspective. Once he
black-and-white photo in the hall. In it, he was
positioned his head to look between the balustrade’s
still young, his nose the family aquiline that had come
curlicues, he could see all the way down Queen’s Road
down through Behroz to Viraf.
to where it crossed the Churchgate junction and flow-
Mamaiji had sworn never to enter a car again. But her sisters’ family flats were spaced too far around Bombay
ered into the Oval maidan. Standing sentinel above the playfield, brooding over even its swaying palms, was the
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Rajabhai Clock Tower. So sharp was Viraf’s vision once
The children’s tastes, at first, ran more to comics
more, he could read the black hands on the clockface
such as Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost and Little Lotta and
beneath its pyramidal top.
Donald Duck and Goofy, or even fairy-tale collections
Mamaiji, on the other hand, couldn’t, but that didn’t
that had full page drawings of the Seven Swans or the
seem to concern her. Even the slim ladies’ watch on her
Little Mermaid or Rapunzel. They read the illustrated
hand clutching his was seldom consulted. Her focus
Panchatantra and Aesop’s Fables side by side. They rent-
did not extend to the Oval, nor to the Crawford Market
ed pile after pile of comics from the horaji on Lamington
area off to their left or the sea waves on the right. It was
Road and went through half the pile by dinnertime. But
riveted upon three parallel streams of man-made traf-
book series such as the Five Find-Outers or the horsey
fic that flowed up and down Queen’s Road and Marine
annals of Flicka and Thunderhead had already begun to
Drive and the railway lines in between. Her hand often
train them in conjuring their own pictures, luring them
tightened around his as the Fiats and Ambassadors
into more detailed imaginary worlds. Viraf was given to reading late into the night with the
and Heralds and the rare Jeep or Standard Companion grumbled through, five stories below, swerving around
dim light on in his room, despite vague warnings from
one another, honking at pedestrians.
his mother that this was bad for his eyes—he didn’t even know what that really meant. Or he’d lie on his stomach
“Government should have a law,” she said, “make
and look down from the bed at a book on the floor. It
everybody walk again.”
was a testament to the short memory of a child that
Secretly, Viraf felt that that would be inconvenient for everyone except Mamaiji and the beggars, who had
within days of his encounter with blindness he was back
to walk anyway. But he couldn’t say so. After a while his
at it, reading Billy Bunter and Biggles with not a thought
hand felt numb inside hers, and his feet began to hurt
of his eyes. His mother habitually forbade the most
from standing in one place. Mamaiji was tall enough to
harmless activities on the grounds of rather unlikely
support her weight with an arm on the railing, but he
and distant consequences: he shouldn’t make faces, it
wasn’t. And the scene that never ceased to enthrall her
seemed, because he would end up looking like that—an
was already beginning to lose its appeal in comparison
obvious ploy to keep him from embarrassing her in front
to the charms of more distant worlds that he could now
of company. So he read more than ever, unconcerned about his
visit again. “I’m going inside to read, Mamaiji,” he said.
eyes. Although Aspi Adajania grumbled about how his
“Go, baba,” she said, releasing him with a little push
children were such bookworms instead of being sports-
and leaning both arms heavily on the railing. “Go read.
men like he’d been in school, he agreed with Behroz
All those books of yours…In the end they will take you
that the kids were safer at home than playing in Bom-
also away from us.”
bay’s streets, where kidnappings were so common—by
He didn’t know what she meant by that, and left her to her vigil.
beggars who broke the arms of children so they could elicit more sympathy, or by hijdas who would castrate a boy to make him one of them. And so Aspi had his
Television, even black-and-white on early
workers build more and more bookshelves for Viraf and
Doordarshan, or distant vision, was yet to arrive in
Soona. Even Mamaiji had to admit that, though read-
India. But his mother, long ago, had introduced Viraf
ing of far-away places made you dissatisfied with the
and Soona to the pictures painted by words. Once
blessings of home, books were not the worst of man’s
Behroz Adajania was through deciding the day’s menu
inventions. In time, Biggles and Bunter gave way to Poirot and
with the cook, taking hisaab upon Louise’s return from the bazar, making sure the daily servants didn’t goof off,
Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan and Scaramouche and
and being driven around town by Satput Singh to do
Psmith and Jeeves and Captain Blood. The Persian
the family shopping, it was time for her to settle down
Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, gave Viraf the violent
to Rebecca or Drummond or Peyton Place or Mandingo,
birth pains of an empire and the reverse Oedipal legend
pending Aspi’s return from work.
of Sohrab and Rustom, pitting father against son in epic
::::: 94 :::::
distant vision
battle on the bank of the Oxus. Soona read the epics
young to know what all was going on, but basically they
too, drawn to the crossroads of adventure and romance
were the big boss. So long as our forefathers slogged
in the Indian Ramayan, through which Ram pursued the
for them, England was fat and prosperous while India
demon Ravan to rescue Sita.
had famine. Famine, I tell you.” Viraf was quiet, assimilating the idea of his mother
It was a lot of reading.
and father and Mr. Pande as second-class.
At Campion now, there was history class, which
From the desk on his right, Robin Phillips, one of
really meant Indian history, which really meant a long
the three Anglo-Indians, spoke up. “Sir, Mr. Sethna says
succession of foreign conquerors and rulers. Mr. Pande,
after the British left, the whole country has gone down
who, despite his unwarriorlike waistline, cultivated a
the hill.”
dashing Shivaji beard and mustachios, smacked his lips
That was word for word what Mamaiji often said. His
gloomily over names such as that of his Maratha hero’s
father and mother never responded, at least not in front
nemesis, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, or Alexander
of their children, so who knew whether they agreed or
the Great or Timur the Lame or Nadir Shah, who some-
disagreed? But Mr. Sethna, the Parsi science teacher,
how didn’t even register with Viraf as Iranian despite
frequently halted dictation or writing on the board in
the Parsi-sounding name. Persians, Arabs, Mongols,
order to issue a diatribe against what he termed those
Greeks—they were all lumped under the general catego-
bloody ghatis and what they were doing to the state of
ry of invaders from the north.
Maharashtra.
The central theme was this: India once was a land of
Mr. Pande’s face tightened at Robin’s remark, and
untold riches, so Nadir Shah and the rest were tempted
he stood up. “Let us not talk about what other teach-
to come pillage its cities of such treasures as the fabled
ers say, in my class. Adi Sethna may think he is good at
peacock throne. Understated in their textbook’s treat-
history, but he should just teach his science. How is your
ment of India’s early days was the irony that the North
arithmetic, Phillips?”
Indians themselves had arrived as invaders and stead-
Robin’s gray eyes widened. “Okay, sir.”
ily driven the original Indians farther and farther south,
“Calculate for the class how many years India has
some all the way down into Ceylon. The demon Ravan in
been independent.” Robin looked glad of the chance to bend his head,
reality was probably a dark-skinned Southern king—fat chance Sita would go for him over Ram. Mr. Pande, too,
black-haired like the others, over his copybook and
had little to say about that.
scribble some numbers. “Twenty-four years, sir.” “Mr. Irani is teaching you well. Some other teachers, I
But he and the text had plenty to say about the most
don’t know. Your parents had their silver anniversary?”
recent invaders from the farthest away: the British.
“My parents? No, sir.”
“Up till hardly ten, fifteen years before you boys were born, for nearly two centuries before our freedom fight-
Mr. Pande spread his hands. “Still one more year
ers led us to independence, India was under the British
for India’s silver anniversary. Only four elections so far.
rule. You think now about that.”
Wait at least till the diamond jubilee, Phillips; then if Mr.
The class was silent. From his third-row desk, Viraf
Sethna and I are living we will see, down the hill or up
could see the usual inscrutable or distracted or openly
the hill. You all will definitely be able to see.” He shoved
bored faces. Ten, fifteen years before they were born
his wooden chair under the desk. “But what life we had
was ten, fifteen years before they were born. And yet,
during one hundred and ninety years of British raj, you
as the pause wore on, it struck him that not only Mamaiji
take this down.” He turned to the wall-wide blackboard and began to
but even his mum and dad would have been under the
scribble at a furious pace, starting high and keeping the
British—why did they never talk about it?
letters small.
“Sir, what was it like?” he asked.
Viraf, a bit entertained by the classroom drama,
Mr. Pande smiled and leaned on the teacher’s desk toward him. “We were all second-class citizens, my
opened his single-lined copybook to a clean page and
young bawaji. In our own motherland. Even I was too
readied his blue ballpoint. Looking up at the board, he
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was amazed to see that the emotional Mr. Pande,
Someone slyly asked whether Gandhi’s nonviolent
virtually tattooing the surface with his chalk, had
resistance was better or Shivaji’s guerilla warfare against
produced some unusually illegible writing. Even the
the Mughals. And Mr. Pande was off on a series of com-
headings looked fuzzy, while the lines between them
parisons. But Viraf, staring straight through the sidewall,
were unreadable.
barely heard him.
Glancing around with a tentative smile, Viraf was again surprised to see that everyone else was busy
That was his last week without glasses. From an
copying, looking up and down as if nothing was wrong.
initial prescription of just 0.5 diopters, his lenses grew
The pages in his neighbors’ copybooks were filling up al-
thicker and thicker despite his constant, obedient use of
most as fast as the board. He peered up at it once more
them. By the time Soona, reading just as much as Viraf,
in utter puzzlement—the letters were definitely faint and
had to be tested a year after him, he was still doggedly
fuzzy. Then it came to him, and something plummeted
wearing his first tortoise-shell frame and already up to
within his stomach.
1.5. She, worried about her looks, refused to wear her smaller, woman’s frame from Baliwalla & Homi, except
Straining to read and oppressed by a growing dizziness, he began to jot down only the headings:
when in lectures at KC or in movie theaters. To his
British East India Company…The Black Hole of Calcutta…
amazement and envy, her lack of reliance on the pair
Battle of Plassey…The Great Famine of Bengal…The
continued year after year and even increased to where
Great Indian Mutiny…Savage Suppression…“The White
she hardly ever needed to pull them out of her purse.
Man’s Burden”…Sir Michael O’Dwyer…Gandhi Arrested…
She never wore them around her boyfriends.
Non-Violent Protest…General Dyer…Jallianwallah Bagh
But Viraf’s need for glasses only grew. By the time he went to grad school in America on the heels of the
Massacre…2000 Civilians Shot... At that point, his head hurting, his eyes as dry as
hostage crisis in Iran—to cries of “Go home, you fuckin’
sandpaper, Viraf stopped and leaned over to Robin’s
Iranian!”—they’d almost doubled, at 2.75. There was no
desk in order to read more—at that distance it was
going home…Mamaiji’s prediction had come true. For
legible. It seemed that General Dyer had marched fifty
the years he wore contacts, his prescription leveled off
soldiers into the only entrance of a closed park in Am-
at 3.25. Then his inner eyelids erupted with the scarily
ritsar, blocking off exit for ten thousand unarmed men,
named Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis, and he returned to
women, and children gathered there to protest against
wearing glasses. Their power increased to 3.75 by the
British rule. Without warning, Dyer had ordered his men
time he summoned up the nerve to have LASIK surgery,
to open fire on the trapped, unsuspecting crowd, cutting
plummeted to a miraculous 0, or 20/20, for a while
down thousands of them over the next ten unrelenting,
when the world was sharp-edged and right again, then
nightmarish minutes, murdering four hundred peaceful
regressed past 1.0. He was left with chronic dry eye and
protestors in cold blood as they screamed and milled
had to use lubricant drops every two or three hours.
around in terror.
Two follow-ups later, his right eye was still shortsighted,
Mr. Pande stopped writing and turned to face the
but his left had gone the other way, turning farsighted
class again. In ominous silence, he stood there, a portly
instead. For the brief periods he wore an eye patch after
Shivaji, as boy after boy finally put down his pen and
surgery, his poor depth perception reminded him of the
lifted a face in some variety of shock.
anaar that had once shot its fountain of light into his
“Phillips, my young friend,” Mr. Pande said at last,
eyes, blinding him.
very quiet. “You tell me now: it was better for Indians
He juggled pinhole glasses, dark glasses, reading
when we were under the British?”
glasses, and distance glasses to ease the strain, then
“No, sir, I never said—” the hapless boy protested.
consulted a hotshot Indian expert in post-LASIK com-
“Yes, yes, don’t worry. When young people hear
plications. Ah, the expert said ruefully after hearing his
something from old people, naturally they think this
tale; the American surgeon must have based his assess-
must be correct. When they hear it from a teacher, even
ments on many years of experience with the Caucasian
more. It’s not your fault.”
eye. But the Asian eye is different.
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shf
The
Downstairs photo illustration for slice © kimberlee cordova
Charity Shumway The room. Twelve by twenty. White walls with a touch
berry-festooned garlands, but those were hard to
of blue green. A single large window in the front. Stairs
track down in Utah on a budget. Brooke prevailed one
running from the door straight up to the two bedrooms
year, so there were lights and no tinsel. The next year
above. The Gardners never call the room the living room
Jonathan, the third child, and Anna, the fourth, would
or the family room. They only ever call it the downstairs.
have none of it. “You’re always trying to force every-
“The downstairs always gets so messy,” Laura will sigh
one to do things your way,” Anna yelled. Bedroom and
to her children. They rarely respond. She hardly expects
bathroom doors slammed. The night after Jonathan and
them to.
Anna wrapped the railing with alternating green and red
The stair rail. Painted wood, the same blue green
tinsel, an especially offensive move to Brooke, Brooke
tint as the walls. Every December the Gardners wrap
stayed awake, and after she was sure everyone else was
tinsel around it. For a few years epic battles took place
asleep, she slipped down the stairs and unwrapped the
over the tinsel. Brooke, a teenager at the time and the
tinsel, then put up lights.
second-oldest of the five Gardner children, insisted on
“You’re a jerk, you know that,” Jonathan said the
putting white lights, not tinsel, on the banister. What
next morning, his face suddenly in the mirror beside
she really wanted was to drape the banister in leafy,
Brooke’s as she came up from rinsing the toothpaste
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from her mouth. It socked all the triumph out of her.
grow trees from the seeds and pits of grocery store
When she got home from school that afternoon she
fruit. Laura took him to the store, and all of the younger
switched the lights back to tinsel. Mark, the oldest,
kids helped eat the fruit and then sat around, fingers
smirked. Tyson, the youngest, sat on the stairs beside
sticky from the juice, watching him pot the seeds: plum,
Brooke while she worked.
orange, grapefruit, lemon, apple, nectarine, cherry. The
The plants. In front of the living room window. Nine of them. The Gardner children and even Laura herself
lemon and the apple survived, and after nine years their green stalks have finally turned woody.
have lately taken to calling the collection the jungle. The
Mark’s other projects from those days included en-
leaves and branches of the largest plant, the elephant
listing his siblings to sell caramel apple suckers for him
plant, press up against the ceiling. Its pot is the largest
at school (profits split sixty him, forty them), collecting
houseplant pot Home Depot sells. Almost thirty years
pop cans from local golf courses for their redemption
ago, Laura complimented Arlene, her mother-in-law to
values, and selling his and Laura’s plasma weekly.
be, on the plant, its big elephant-ear leaves, pink on one side, green with white spots on the other. When Arlene
There was a big hand-painted sign atop the plasma center, a dreary box of a building right by the freeway
gave her a clipping at the wedding, Laura thought it the
exit they took to get to Costco. $$$ for Plasma Donors,
best of signs.
it read. “You’re not really a donor if they pay you, now
Just after Laura filed to divorce Len she was walking
are you,” Mark said the first time he noticed the sign.
into the post office as Arlene was walking out. “Hello,”
Laura loved the way her children paid attention to the
Laura said. Arlene’s face turned ashy and hard. She
world, but she also bristled at the hint of Len in the way
walked past Laura, silently. They have not spoken in the
their attention was almost always critical.
almost two decades since, though Laura knows Arlene
That very night Mark sat on the floor of his bed-
has said plenty about her. Sometimes when Laura wa-
room, the rest of the kids gathered around, and flipped
ters the elephant plant she thinks of Arlene and thinks,
through the phonebook to “Plasma.” Laura always
I have forgiven her for everything. She feels pious then,
wanted to be helpful, and it turned out Mark would
watering the plant, a gesture of goodwill.
need a guardian to sign off. Once she was at the plasma
Four of the plants in the collection were Mother’s
center with him, she figured she might as well get him
Day presents from when Laura’s children were young.
an extra twenty dollars, and he was happy to accept
For four years in a row, all the children at church were
her offer. For weeks they enjoyed their time alone in the
allowed to pick out one plant for their mothers. Mark,
car together, driving to the plasma center. Despite the
Brooke, and Jonathan all rushed to the foyer after sacra-
upsides, the visits ended when Mark heard a crackle as
ment meeting to decide on the plant. By the third year,
a technician pushed a needle through the scar tissue
Anna was old enough to rush to the foyer with them.
around a regular’s veins. Laura had heard the same
Tyson was born in the middle of the plant streak and
crackles weeks earlier but hadn’t said a word.
had never been old enough to help. Each year Laura oohed and aahed about the plant’s beauty while Len drove them home, and then she planted and tended to
During the summers after that Mark worked at
them. When Laura divorced Len, she moved hours away.
a rental car company, checking cars in and out all day
The new ward gave out single long-stem roses instead
long, and then as a valet, parking cars for restaurant pa-
of plants. Laura hadn’t known what a relief that would
trons until late into the night. Laura wished then that she
be. Each Mother’s Day plant started out small—the kind
could sell enough plasma, take in enough ironing, work
of plant that comes twenty or thirty to a palette at the
enough catering jobs, something, to keep him home
garden store—but Laura had potted and repotted them
for some of those hours, but even though she missed
again and again. They now range in height from three to
him she felt justified by his drive. He was ambitious and
five feet.
hardworking, despite the divorce.
Two of the plants date back to projects Mark un-
For years when Mark looked at the plants he felt
dertook in high school. He wanted to see if he could
pangs remembering all his old projects and what he
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the downstairs
When Anna sees this spot on the couch now she thinks of the way she used to be and wonders at it. She remembers the feeling she often had in those years. It rose up like another body within hers, a sudden expansion of her blood and muscles that made her feel as if she would burst, that made her want to scream like a broken steam pipe.
The elephant plant had even flowered, bunches of rubbery peach blooms so thick they bent its branches. Months later, when her parents bought a little condominium a few miles from their apartment for her and the kids to move into, the plants weathered the move better than any of the family members, all of whom broke out in rashes from either the cleaner Laura used to disinfect the condo’s old carpet or the old carpet itself. The plants, though, had been healthy since the day they’d taken their current place in front of the window fourteen years ago. The bookshelf. In the northeast corner of the room, against the east wall. Mahogany. It formerly rested against the wall in Laura’s grandfather’s home office in
had hoped for himself. He had wanted to be rich, but he
Ely, Nevada, and had come to the family through Laura’s
had missed the easy paths—the right college, a good
great-great-grandfather, who made it in his furniture
finance job, business school. But that was before he met
shop in Logan, Utah, just after he’d pushed his handcart
and married Alice. Now those thoughts seem to him like
across the plains. When her grandfather died, Laura’s fa-
someone else’s. There once was a boy who wanted to be
ther claimed the bookshelf and gave it to Laura and Len,
an entrepreneur. Mark wants now to be a husband, and
who were, at the time, setting up their first home.
he and Alice do fine. He really likes managing the rental
On the bottom shelf is a set of 1988 World Book
car office, in fact. That’s enough, he says to himself, and
encyclopedias. Royal blue. By the time the Gardners
believes it except in rare, tired moments when images—
moved to the condo, the encyclopedias were already
marble staircases, the hulls of boats—come to him, as if
out of date, but Laura has never considered getting rid
from another life.
of them. They are what belong on the bottom shelf. Each of the children has turned to the encyclopedias
The other two plants were once in Len’s office. Just before the divorce Laura stopped by Len’s office to
for vital information—state birds and mottos, the food
drop off a file he’d forgotten and called for. She hadn’t
chain, countries’ major exports. When he was eleven, just
been to his office in over a year, and when she saw the
after the family bought the encyclopedias from the door-
dying plants she said, “Len, what have you done to these
to-door salesman, Mark took the P volume and looked up
poor babies,” trying to cover the bite of her feelings
“Prostate.” The encyclopedia redirected him to “Human
with joking melodrama. “I should probably water them,
Reproductive Systems,” in the H volume. That same year,
shouldn’t I,” he said, and she was sure she heard the
at age nine, Brooke took the P volume to look up “Pe-
same bite in his voice. Even though she had Tyson and
riod.” When she found nothing, she took the M volume
Anna in tow—Tyson years away from school, Anna in
and looked for “Menstrual.” In the condo, after the move,
kindergarten only half days—she carried one plant out
Jonathan looked up “Glands.” Anna looked up “Breasts.”
to the car and then came back for the next so that she
Tyson looked up “Sex,” and then later, after hearing his
could nurse them at home.
mother on the phone with a bill collector, “Credit.” After that, he, like his siblings, told the telltale callers that
Laura prides herself on her ability to keep plants alive. During her divorce she went from 112 pounds to
Laura wasn’t home. Each time they made their secret
94 pounds and was hospitalized during her children’s
searches, the Gardner children felt a fierce vapor of guilt,
Christmas vacation with Len. But the plants thrived in
like a poisonous gas that affected all their nerves, mak-
the sunshine and greenhouselike heat of the back room
ing them morose for hours afterward. They sat on the
of their short-term rental, and when she returned from
floor with their backs to the bookcase. They opened the
the hospital they were greener and bigger than they’d
books only two-thirds of the way, instead of resting them
been when she collapsed. She could see their happiness.
on their laps, fully open, as usual.
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photo illustration for slice © kimberlee cordova
On the middle shelf, just above the encyclopedias,
had stopped arriving by the time Tyson could read, and
is a collection of slim, eight-by-ten Value Tales, bright-
he used the books only to make race car tracks. Their
colored letters on their bindings: Commitment, the Story
uniformity was pleasing to the eye, and their smooth
of Jacques Cousteau; Fairness, the Story of Nellie Bly...
covers made for especially good ramps. When Tyson
Len and Laura bought these volumes and the encyclo-
made his ramps all the kids joined in, even Mark and
pedias from the same door-to-door salesman in the days
Brooke, who were teenagers by then.
when spending more than they could afford to seemed
The bookcase’s top shelf is filled with the family’s
to show faith in their future, a future that would provide
collection of Disney cartoons. Laura continues to buy
for their finances, for their feelings, for everything. A
the new release each year, even though no one watches
critical mass of twenty books arrived all at once. Long
them anymore. She watches them herself sometimes
after the divorce, single volumes and their invoices con-
while ironing, almost able to imagine her children are
tinued arriving in Laura’s mailbox.
still young.
At first, Mark and Brooke read all the books, which
The television. In the center of the living area’s east
featured bright cartoon renderings of heroes or hero-
wall. A thirty-two-inch Panasonic. It floats three feet
ines and a fun magical friend, a talking notebook or a
from the floor on a rectangular metal platform, held up
talking beaker. Jonathan read a few of them. When Anna
with arcing metal legs. Each leg is doubled, like a blown-
learned to read, she read a few as well. New volumes
up version of a DNA double helix, little pairs of horizontal
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the downstairs
metal bars designed to hold videos where the protein
1984 Toyota Minivan finally died, Laura took all of her
lattices would be. It was, in fact, because Tyson said the
children, except Mark, who was living in Boston, down to
stand reminded him of DNA when he and Laura were
Salt Lake to the used car extravaganza in the parking lot
shopping that she took her long-dormant credit card
of the E Center.
from her wallet to purchase it. Tyson winced a little to
“Test-drive a car and earn a chance to win a televi-
see the credit card, but his mother was excited about up-
sion,” the Jensen Motors tent advertised in foot-tall red
dating the living room, and he was glad to see her happy.
lettering. Laura test-drove a used 1998 Mazda MPV. Its
The twenty slots per leg are filled with videos Laura
creamy tan leather seats and its sparkling forest green
very much enjoys but which her children consider to be
exterior made her feel as if she was living the life she
of dubious quality, The League of Extraordinary Gentle-
always thought she’d live after marrying Len, and the
men, Hocus Pocus, Return to Me. Beneath the platform
pleasure the minivan gave her gurgled like a lovely foun-
on which the television rests is another lesser platform
tain in a summer garden.
holding a silver combination DVD/VCR. Laura was proud
While Tyson, Anna, Jonathan, and Brooke roamed
to connect the DVD/VCR all by herself Christmas morn-
the parking lot, leaning on Mustangs and sitting in
ing three years ago. On a final platform, at ground level,
Jeeps, posing for one another’s benefit, she sat on a
is a haphazard pile of the family’s most seldom viewed
folding metal chair in the smothering, plastic-reeking air
videos, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ernest Scared Stupid,
of the Jensen Motors tent. Mustached Dirk himself sat
Christmas 1990.
across from her, sweating out the details of her applica-
On top of the television is a rectangular, pale blue
tion for credit. “With your credit history it just can’t be
doily, crocheted by a woman Jonathan knew when he
done,” he finally told her, “but maybe we could work
was on his mission in the Philippines three years ago. A
out a deal with this 1996 Dodge Caravan.” It was blue
widow with four children, she joined the church three
and Laura hated blue cars. Len’s now-wife drove a blue
weeks after Jonathan arrived. She lived in a house with
car—Laura had seen it out the window on the rare oc-
a tin roof that, when it rained, sounded to Jonathan like
casions she’d come instead of Len to pick up the kids
banging garbage cans, only the loudest yells audible
for weekends. What was more, Laura hated Caravans.
above its din. Every time Jonathan spoke his broken
They were effeminate in the worst way, nothing tough
Tagalog the woman laughed, a sweet rapid giggle. And
or capable about them. Their whole aesthetic reminded
even after he was fluent, Jonathan sometimes purpose-
her of sniveling, weak-chinned women. But she gave into
fully and humorously misspoke to make her laugh. For
the feeling that a car she hated was just deserts for her
Jonathan, making people laugh gave him a little of the
terrible finances. At least it ran. She should be grateful.
same warming he’d get on his mission every time he told
She drove home that night in the Caravan.
an investigator how much the gospel meant to him.
Overnight the thought of the Caravan curdled inside
Just before Jonathan’s two years were up, he gave
her. Sure, she’d left college to get married, didn’t have
the woman a hundred dollars for a suitcase full of knit-
any marketable skills, and relied on money from her
ted doilies, tablecloths, and pillow shams. The exchange
brother and father, but she deserved better than that
filled him with that same sweet burning. It had come
lousy Caravan. She woke up determined to take it back.
again when he’d opened the suitcase back in the down-
The parking lot sale was done, so her errand took her
stairs at home and listened to his mother croon over
to the Jensen Motors dealership on State Street. Sitting
the pieces. When he yearns for that feeling now he has
under buzzing lights in Dirk Jensen’s office, she breathed
an almost frantic desire to be with people. When he is
through her mouth until she acclimated to the wet-sock
with them he jokes, he sings, he gives light pushes and
smell of the little room. At breakfast her children had
throws his arms around shoulders. The feeling almost
warned her she’d have to keep the car, had laughed at
always comes.
her even. Only Brooke had followed her to the door and
The Gardners won the television itself in a drawing
wished her luck. But they were right. There was no re-
five years ago. Or at least that’s what Dirk Jensen of
turning the van. Dirk went on and on about what a great
Jensen Motors said when he called. When the family’s
car it was, what a great deal she had actually gotten, how
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he understood her situation but wished she would see the
to any and all mentions of divorce lawyers on television.
bright side. She could see how pathetic she was to him,
She also knew that a part of her mind, she was ashamed
and while it angered her, she couldn’t stop herself from
to discover, thought that this debt wouldn’t be hers to
seeing herself his way. Laura cried during her drive home,
deal with and that she’d probably get to take the couch
past the state capitol building, and up and out of Salt
with her when she went, so now was the time.
Lake, whizzing by oil refineries, gravel pits, and patches of fields along the freeway before hitting her exit.
She bought thick white ribbon at the craft store and wrapped the couch with it, tying a big bow in front.
Dirk called the next day during dinner to tell Laura
She bought an oversized card. Inside she wrote, “Len,
she’d won the television. All her feelings of foolish-
Happy Father’s Day! Love us all.” Other years she had
ness and failure returned at the sound of his voice. She
written desperate things in cards—“Len, You’re the best
was glad to finally hang up, and when she rejoined the
husband and father a woman could ever imagine.” “Len,
kids, all sitting around the table eating Tater Tots, peas,
Words cannot say how much I love you.” If she had still
and cod fillets, she shook a little as she said, “I hope he
been trying to convince either herself or him, she would
doesn’t think this makes up for it.”
still have written those things. But she didn’t. It was, in
The couch. On the west wall, just beneath the diago-
fact, in writing the card that she realized she had given
nal climb of the stair rail. Blue and white vertical stripes,
up. It was when she could not even bring herself to sign,
square arms, square back. A hide-a-bed. The thin pullout
“Love, Laura.”
mattress is covered by sheets and a quilt Laura has had
The fabric along the edges of both couch arms is
since her wedding day. Her mother gave her the green
worn, foam padding beginning to show through. The
cotton sheets, which were uncomfortably stiff at first
fabric on the seats is worn, particularly on the far left,
but which, after more than twenty-five years of washing,
the most popular spot to sit because it puts a drink on
are now as soft as anyone could hope for. Her college
the end table within reach. The blue of the stripes is
roommates gave her the quilt. It is an artificial candy ap-
lighter in each of the worn spots. On the left arm and
ple green with red ties and big white squares on which
the outside left edge of the couch is the slight yellow
are painted and stitched images and words, like a red
tinge of a stain, well scrubbed and treated. It runs down
outline of a heart with “L + L forever” stitched inside
the entire side of the couch, showing, upon very close
it or a blue painted toothbrush with a swirl of green
inspection, the flowing of the liquid, anciently spilled.
toothpaste on top of its bristles and the words “Laura Brightsmile.”
A Saturday night ten years ago. Anna, eleven, told Jonathan, thirteen, that he had to move—she had called
Laura has always been an obsessive toothbrusher.
the prized seat on the couch when they were com-
After meals or snacks she always goes immediately to
ing in from the car. Jonathan said, “There’s no calling.”
the bathroom to brush. When she and her children brush
Anna yelled to Laura in the kitchen. Laura yelled back
their teeth at the same time they often tell her to calm
to Jonathan. He didn’t move. Anna then sat on top of
down, the words coming out thick through the tooth-
Jonathan, but he took the remote and casually flipped
paste foam in their mouths. Anna is the only one who
channels, pretending comfort. She began to dig her
has ever reached to grab Laura’s hand and stop her vig-
elbows into him, and he finally pushed her off onto
orous brushing movements. When Anna’s hand sprang
the floor. Her face grew red. She stood facing him, the
toward her face, Laura winced, afraid Anna would knock
vein in her forehead pulsing. He looked past her at the
the toothbrush from her mouth.
television. She walked around to the side of the couch,
The couch itself is from RC Willey. The Saturday
not knowing what she would do, considering punch-
before Father’s Day sixteen years ago Laura surprised
ing the side of his head. When he lifted his mug of hot
Len with it. She knew he wouldn’t be happy—it wasn’t on
cocoa from the end table to take a nonchalant sip, Anna
sale and they hardly had the money for it. But she had
lunged, knocking the cocoa from his hand, onto the
already imagined, once or twice, moving her things into
couch, onto the side of his face and his shirt. Cocoa ran
the den and sleeping on a cot there instead of in their
down the side of the couch as he jumped up bellowing.
bed. She knew that she had been paying close attention
He grabbed Anna’s hair. Anna grabbed his neck.
::::: 102 :::::
the downstairs
When Laura arrived from the kitchen to see them
He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a bowl of
tearing at each other, she could not control her response.
cereal, then comes back to the couch, looking at his
She ripped them from each other, pale with anger. Anna
warped reflection in the television screen as he eats.
screamed again and again, “He made me do it, he made
Tyson doesn’t remember the other houses his siblings
me do it!” Then Laura yelled the words no one has ever
tell stories about—their father hitting a tennis ball over
again mentioned—“The police wouldn’t give a fuck what
the steep roof all the way from the backyard to the front
he did if you killed him!” It was, it remains, the only time
yard for them to catch, their climbing up the laundry
any of her children have ever heard her swear. Anna
chute, their seeing scorpions in the garage.
slumped to the floor crying. Jonathan retreated to the
He has only one memory of his parents being mar-
bathroom, washing his face and hair and leaving his
ried, and he is not sure it is real. He was so young it
wet shirt in the hamper before going to his bedroom
seems unlikely. In the memory he is sitting in the middle
to change into a dry one. Laura walked quietly to the
seat of the old Toyota van. His mother is in the pas-
kitchen, her sails of anger slack and her body limp from
senger seat. The window is open. He cannot remember
the explosion of the words. She got rags and cleaner
the feel of the wind, but he remembers it blowing his
and went to work on the couch.
mother’s long dark hair. The driver—it must have been
When Anna sees this spot on the couch now she
his father—says something funny, and she laughs. Then
thinks of the way she used to be and wonders at it. She
she turns from the front seat to face him, and she smiles.
remembers the feeling she often had in those years. It
He tries to think of where they were going or what his
rose up like another body within hers, a sudden expan-
father might have said. But he can never really imagine
sion of her blood and muscles that made her feel as if she
his parents together. He can take the memory no further.
would burst, that made her want to scream like a broken
This room, though, he remembers.
steam pipe. She would grit her teeth then and do things,
He is graduating from high school in May. He will
shove her siblings, yell at her mother. She broke things,
leave like everyone else. But he doesn’t want that. What
even her own things, her little desk chair kicked and
he wants is for everyone else to come back. He finishes
cracked. But in high school it left, just like that. She be-
his cereal and lies down on the couch. His eyes fall on
came friends with a pack of girls, and they talked about
the Christmas 1990 video. He has not seen it in years.
boys and made up silly names for teachers, and spoke in
He decides to put it in, the volume low. It is from the
chirping voices that Anna copied until one day she was
first year in this house. Laura borrowed her brother’s
not copying anymore, the voice was her voice. Her old
video camera and handed it to Mark to operate. For
self is so far from her that when she sees the spot and the
a few minutes Tyson sees them again sitting on the
cracks she feels no shame or remorse, only awe.
floor in their pajamas, tearing through wrapping paper.
The lamp. East of the door. West of the plants. A
His own three-year-old face looks out at him with
freestanding floor lamp. Plain gold with a cream-colored
round eyes. Then Mark puts the camera on the arm of
shade. No knob. A touch lamp. Laura purchased the lamp
the couch, “like a tripod!” he says in the video. Tyson
twelve years ago, during the same credit-destroying
knows that after that the video shows only the backs of
spell in which she bought new carpet for the condo and
people’s heads, their torsos, and the occasional faces
painted all the walls white with a hint of blue green.
they intentionally make into the camera. But all of their
It is night now. November. Tyson comes down the
voices are there.
stairs in his pajamas. He has been trying to sleep, but
Still listening, he closes his eyes and thinks through
cannot. His hair is rumpled from his pillow. At the bot-
every part of his body, willing it to sleep. His toes, his
tom of the stairs he touches the base of the lamp with
ankles, his calves. As a cloud of sleep finally begins set-
his toe, and it turns on. The house is quiet. It has been
tling in Tyson’s mind, Jonathan’s child-voice says, “Open
just him and Laura for the last three years, since Anna
this one, it’s from everyone,” and a moment later Laura’s
left for school, and Laura has been asleep for hours now.
voice says, “This is the most beautiful key chain I have
Tyson knows he should be asleep too. School starts at
ever seen.”
seven thirty, and it is already past one.
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cs
An Interview with
samantha hunt
sean f. jones
Girls convinced they are mermaids, scientists skipping through time and speaking to the dead: Samantha Hunt’s fiction is like a waking dream, but don’t call it magical realism. Her latest protagonist, The Invention of Everything Else’s self-proclaimed inventor/poet Nikola Tesla, is historic proof of Hunt’s conviction that “magic“ is a dirty word in a world too elementally wondrous for make-believe. Hunt fills in the details of researching her critically acclaimed follow-up to 2004’s award-winning The Seas with a flourish that would do her subject proud. Zombies cross the path of a flashlight beam piercing through an abandoned bank vault, Moonies stalk the halls of a legendary hotel, and machines drone throughout a whimsical undergraduate home. Hunt’s eye for finding the magic in real life is no practiced artistic conceit—it’s a way of life.
Slice conferred with Hunt about her historical research, the lessons of Tesla, and her writing career.
AN INTERVIEW WITH samantha hunt
What are the unique pressures and rewards of
that I had to leave out because I thought nobody would
writing a novel based on a significant body of
believe anything so weird.
historical research? What specifically did you leave out? I probably will not write a historical book again. There is a lot of pressure to get it right and I’m not necessarily interested in that.
He knew [intuitively] when his mother was
I was especially worried [writing about] Tesla. He
dying. He left Paris, where he was giving a
had already had so many false things said about him…I
lecture, and flew to her bedside [and] arrived five hours
didn’t want to add any more to that pile, so I tried to be
before she died.
very careful, but I knew that no matter what, I would
Another thing I left out, [that] at first I had in,
hear from angry scientists, and I did. Because he is
but then I thought, “This reads like the worst sort of
relatively unknown, when people find him they make
writing”: when he got to America he got off the boat
him their own...and become very defensive when other
and an Italian guy was on the street with a piece of
people write about him.
broken machinery and he couldn’t get the thing to
But there’s also a fear that too much historical infor-
start; Tesla fixed it for him in an hour and the guy gave
mation is going to kill any good writing…For a while it
him twenty dollars. When Tesla arrived he only had
was really hard to not just write a straight biography of
four pennies in his pocket—twenty dollars in 1884 is a
Tesla since the facts of his life were already so strange.
lot of money! That’s what Tesla recorded, though. It
There were lots of interesting true things from his life
might be that he was lying.
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slice magazine
Did he create a bit of a false legend around
I think I tried to but writers aren’t necessarily
himself?
smart people; they’re just observant people! I got daunted by how many people out there think about
I think so. He wrote his autobiography when
time travel a lot and would certainly find many incon-
he was quite old and he was already getting
sistencies in my time travel, but I got to the point where
a little bit unhinged from reality…It’s still really interest-
I was like, “All right. The time machine doesn’t necessarily
ing. That autobiography is pretty far-out.
have to work anyway.”
I read Mark Twain had a hand in it.
Did you enjoy researching that Hotel New York?
Yes, they were really good friends. Tesla says
That was my absolute favorite part of doing
that he read Twain when he was a boy and meeting him brought him back from the edge of cholera.
the research. That hotel is so strange and so wonderful. It’s still owned by the Moonies. It’s owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon; he bought it as a place
There’s a scene between Twain and Tesla in
to house all the Moonies at first and so for years it was
which Twain describes a nightmare wherein
closed to the public and it was just Moonies living there.
Tesla says, “There is no dream.” Tesla has a much dif-
And then they realized, “Hey, we could make some
ferent read on the dream than Twain, and I thought
money off of this place.”
that debate was the defining tension of the book.
It still employs Moonies. My friend who took me through it, the chief engineer, is a Moonie. He didn’t tell
Twain reads that line as “There are no
me for a really long time, but he finally confessed to me.
dreams, so there’s no hope for us,” but the
My first Moonie.
way that Tesla interprets it is that waking life is dream-
There’s still a lot of the hotel that hasn’t changed
like, so we don’t need dreams. Throughout the book
since 1930 and is closed to the public; so befriending
I tried to keep hitting that same note that he was really
this fellow Joe was one of the best things to happen to
against the idea of magic. People would always think,
the research. He would take me to all these closed-off
“Oh wow, what you’re doing is so fantastic,” but he
parts of the hotel and it really felt like 1930—there’s
wanted us to believe that wonders do exist, and that we
no electricity, so you bring a flashlight. I remember
shouldn’t dismiss them as “magic.” And so that moment
going through once and I was seven months pregnant;
when he says there are no dreams he’s saying that real-
we came to an old, gorgeous bank vault, and went up
ity is magical.
to the second floor where the bank used to be. It was completely abandoned and all the murals from the ’30s
How did you approach handling time travel?
were there. But it happened that they were shooting
It’s a subject in which logistical difficulties
I Am Legend there, so we also saw all these zombies
abound…Did you worry about getting it right? Did
and Will Smith.
you come up with your own theory of the rules of time travel?
And then I got to see [Tesla’s] room and that was wonderful too.
Samantha Hunt shared her favorite scary stories with Slice: “There’s a Kelly Link story, ‘Lull,’ that has a great definition of horror. There’s a cheerleader and the devil in a closet and the cheerleader asks, ‘What’s the scariest thing?’ and he says, ‘There’s three things. I’ll tell you two, but I’m not going to tell you the third one.’ That’s exactly what great scary story writers like Link and Murakami do.”
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an interview with samantha hunt
“Your lips pursed, telling me to hush. All the world's sounds seemed sucked into the purse of your lips, and the dream fell silent, a vacuum. I had no idea what was behind the door, but a cold sweat broke out on my brow just the same. You stared at the door, and when I realized that you were also scared, terror set upon me like a locomotive's approach, gaining in strength and intensity with each passing moment.” —“the nightmare”
Did they preserve it?
Defense or the government, we certainly have moved far away from any idea of [a scientist] being an artist. Tesla has been featured in several
No, it’s just open as a hotel room. There’s no
popular works lately, such as The Prestige
sign or anything that it’s Tesla’s room. The vice president of Serbia wants to make it a shrine to
[Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film]. What do artists see
Tesla, and plenty of Serbians and Croatians go and stay
in Tesla today?
in the room. I thought I was just going to hate [that There is a sharp distinction in the book between Edison’s corporate style of invention and Tesla’s free-spirited approach to the craft. Do you consider Tesla more of an artist than other inventors?
movie], but I went and thought it was great. Of course there were points where I kept on leaning over and saying to my friends, “That did not really happen.” [Nolan and I] might be taking advantage of the American public not knowing anything about him. But
Yes, in fact Tesla called himself an
there’s more than that. Tesla speaks to a lot of artists.
“inventor/poet” and he wrote poetry and
There are two films that I’ve been a part of since be-
translated poetry and didn’t really see a separation be-
coming interested in Tesla; one of them is by a Croatian
tween science and the arts.
filmmaker and another one is [by] a German filmmaker,
Now it seems we have this spectrum where they’re
and they’re both making films about how artists are
at the opposite ends, which is so weird to me. They
affected by Tesla. I don’t think you would find people
ought to be back together again—the creative mind
making films about how artists are affected by Edison
works in both fields—but with the way science has been
or Marconi.
corporatized or controlled by the Department of
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slice magazine
Considering Tesla’s fate in the book, is he an
What started you on the path to being an
inspiration or a cautionary tale to you or art-
artist?
ists in general? I wrote when I was young, all the time, and Well, the most important lesson of Tesla is if you’re a capitalist, you’ll be remembered and if you’re not…there goes your legacy.
then I remember when I got out of college I was like, “Okay, I want to be a writer.” I would get up every morning at five or six because I had a day job and
Personally, it’s interesting to consider. He died alone
I would write for an hour or two. I was crazy about it—I’d
and penniless. I don’t mind dying penniless, necessarily,
get up Christmas morning at four o’clock—it felt like this
but I don’t want to die alone.
great secret I had from the world. My first story didn’t come out until I was twenty-six or
And you do draw a distinction in the book;
so—I had a story published in the Iowa Review—then Mc-
Tesla says that inventors can never fall in love
Sweeney’s started up and I had some stories published
but artists can.
with them, and once that happened, things started moving a little bit faster. A lot of the people I met through
Yes, he actually had said that [in real life];
McSweeney’s gave me a lot of good advice and help.
that writers and artists could marry but in-
Everything happened accidentally. I didn’t really know what I was doing, except writing.
ventors could not. Was there a theory behind that?
What got you interested in writing about scientific themes?
Probably the theory was [artists] need a lady
I studied geology in undergrad and then
to be in the kitchen cooking dinner for them;
didn’t end up majoring in it. It was a real
some good old sexism like that. But he thought that an
moment—“Should I major in geology or should I major in
inventor should somehow exist outside of society and
English.” I didn’t want to decide, but of course you have
shouldn’t partake in things like marriage. I do associate
to [because of] the way college is set up.
[that] somewhat with being an artist or a writer; we do
I miss studying science, and the whole time I was in
have to exist a little bit out of society in order to observe
college I lived with this older couple: a biochemist and
it properly, but I don’t know if that means you can’t get
an engineer. The house was always filled with science
married.
and I was very much affected by it. I still study them and read about science [but] luckily I’m allowed to misinterpret it.
» Recommended « Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen
Your book could be categorized as being a part of the recently popular movement toward magical realism. Why do you think it is a popular genre today? For me the interest isn’t so much any sort of idea of escaping reality—it’s always been
Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
similar to the way Tesla thought: reality itself is magical to me. So in that way, I don’t think magical realism is what I’m doing. I’m showing that the real world is due all the wonder it deserves.
::::: 108 :::::
rising voices
Time Gone By Daniela Di Caro
Time. It moves quickly, swiftly, never taking a second to stop. Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock go the Hands that just never want to halt. People have begun to follow Time’s example, always in a rush, never stopping to acknowledge the beauty nature has brought for us. One day it will begin to be too much, you will shout “STOP!” but it will never stop, not even to listen. For something that can’t even be seen, it sure is scary. Time is our greatest enemy. We fear the days gone by, the time gone by, week by week, month by month, year by year. Most of us do not realize the quickness of time in our young ages, but then as we mature in thought and see the young ones that we once were grow in our places, wow, you think to yourself time flies by. You never know what will happen tomorrow or the day after because timing is everything, which is why it is feared. A second too early or a second too late, could make all the difference. Although time will never stop for us, there are still many things to make the most of it. Cherish your loved ones, do not allow time aided by separation to take them away from you. Be thankful for the moments that you’ve shared and the ones to come. But, most of all, just enjoy the life you have.
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slice maga zine
Fear Itself Whitney Perez
I shriek as I wake from a horror nightmare
With very subtle movement
2:32 a.m. was the time to be exact.
I lift my knee, one leg at a time.
I flipped the covers back and tip toed to the
The floor squeaks Creak!
restroom As I approach
My heart stops
A glare in the near distance
And with it
Catches my attention.
So does the sound
Seeming to resemble
A moment or two later
An eye maybe,
I continued my slow movement
Wait, no, not AN eye
Toward the mysterious object
But two
I discreetly raise my hand
Two glaring eyes,
I raise it to the wall
Staring and watching.
My middle and pointer fingers
Waiting for my next move.
Run across something.
Just then as I
Hoping to find the light switch
Never took my eyes
I stroke all of my fingers across it
Off the distant round objects
Reassuring myself as to what it may be
I
I flicked up switch.
Hear a noise
Only to find a mirroring object
A recognizable sound
Reflecting my own figure.
Though unsettling.
Whitney I. Perez
My mind closes in on nothing else But the familiar sound‌ Boom! Boom Boom! Boom! Boom Boom! I clasp my hands together The sweat has increased in my slippery palms. My steps are almost still
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rising voices
Do You Believe Me Now? Kyanna Odom
“It’s too rough for your sports car, Adin,” she giggled,
1998 was the year Adin graduated his senior year of high school, on June 20th. He was excited for his prom,
“and besides, I like the cold night air. It makes me feel…I
knowing that he was going with Ally, the hottest girl in
don’t know, it just makes me feel good.” After that night, Adin couldn’t stop thinking of Sarah
the school. Every boy in the school loved Ally, but two days before the prom, she called Adin and told him that
and how beautiful she was with her dark hair and light
she was sick and couldn’t make it.
blue eyes. The next day came and he told himself he
June 20th arrived and Adin still did not have a date.
must see her again. He went back to the cemetery, hiked up the moun-
He didn’t know what to do and he was so depressed. Every time he is sad and has a problem he will visit his
tains to where she said she lived when he came upon
grandmother at the cemetery and talk to her tomb-
a small house. He nervously gave a knock at the door
stone. He got there and sat down and began talking.
when unexpectedly an old man with a shotgun appeared
All of a sudden, he noticed a beautiful girl wearing a
before him. “What do you want?” asked the old man with a
black dress. She was skinny with curly black hair down to her shoulders and light blue eyes. He approached her
frightening, raspy voice. Adin asked for Sarah. The old man called out for
wondering if she was okay and finally got the courage
Sarah in a harsh tone and laughed under his breath, ask-
to ask out loud. “I’m fine,” she said and walked away.
ing him to come in behind him. Adin walked in the door
“Hey, would you like to go to my senior prom with
behind the old man and noticed three small photos of
me tonight? I know it might be a long shot but I figured I
girls—there was Sarah. He requested to speak with Sarah
should jump while I had the chance,” Adin inquired.
again and the old man replied, “Would if I could, son, but
“My name is Sarah,” she replied, “and I would love to
Sarah is dead. Long gone.” Adin was in shock. He continued to explain how that
go to your prom with you.”
could not possibly be true since the night before Sarah
They met up at the school and everyone had their eyes on Adin and his unknown guest, Sarah. They were
accompanied him to his senior prom. “But I gave her my
dancing and getting to know each other more and more
jacket! She was cold! How could she have been dead?”
as the night went on. It was getting late, the prom had
Adin shouted in disbelief. “Oh yeah? Prove it,” the old man countered.
ended and they were sitting on the swings outside of the
Adin realized that there was nothing he could do
school as a chill rushed down Adin’s spine.
to prove that Sarah was really alive. All he had was his
“Cold out,” he stated, matter-of-factly, and offered her his jacket. Adin gave Sarah his black rented tuxedo
memory. “Let me take a walk with you back down the
jacket to wear and escorted her to the car to take Sarah
mountain. I need to stop at her tombstone to say hello
home. He asked where she lived, since they met up at
anyways,” the old man stated. They walked down the
the school earlier, and she requested that he just drop
mountain in silence. When they reached the cemetery and approached
her back off at the cemetery. “It’s close to my house,” she said with a dainty smile.
Sarah’s grave, the old man whispered, “Well, I’ll be
Adin looked at her like she was crazy and then she
damned,” as he picked up Adin’s tuxedo jacket off the
continued to tell him that she lived up in the mountains
top of the gravestone.
above the cemetery.
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slice maga zine
An Accident with Pastries Alexa Rivadeneira
It was Mother’s Day and the bright blue sky showed
Always being the paranoid driver, that’s what you do. I put
no sign of any impending storms yet to come. The sun
my left blinker on to signal that I was about to make a left
shone brightly and bathed my light yellow Volkswagen
turn. I looked left and then right, and did it again. I waited
Beetle Convertible in warm rays. The black top of the
until there were no cars on the road because I was afraid of
convertible was already down and Katy Perry’s “Waking
cutting anyone off. And when it looked clear that there was
up in Vegas” was playing from the radio. It was a beauti-
no one in sight, I made the left turn.
ful day and there was no foreshadowing that it would be
And then it happened…I am not sure at what moment the motorcyclist came sliding into the side of my car. All
anything less than what nature had in store.
I remember was making the turn out and being in the
We were having company over for an early dinner and my mom asked me to stop at the bakery in the town
middle of the road and in a split second I saw lime green
next to us. The bakery was buzzing with customers and
flying toward me. I heard the man on the bike scream
the sweet smell of pastries circulated the shop. Left and
as he lost control and felt the motorcycle and his body
right people asked for baked goods to bring to their
fall into the driver’s side door of my car. And then I saw
parents, their friends, or home to their family. It was one
his limp body motionless and could not stomach the
of the first good days in a while. The rain took the best
fact that I was the cause of this accident right before my
of our sleepy town for quite some time but now it looked
eyes—a newly licensed, teenage driver.
like it was over. The war at hand was the skies battling
I was in the middle of the road and cars were sound-
between partly cloudy or just cloudy and people hav-
ing their horns. People were shouting and I knew that
ing to wear long pants and sweatshirts, but now it all
I needed to get to the side of the road so I completed
seemed like it was going to come to an end. It was Moth-
the turn that I never finished making. As I did this men
er’s Day and it was supposed to be a good day.
and women shouted at me to stop, and shouted at each
I went up to the counter and asked for an assortment
other, “Don’t let her get away.” I was being treated as if I
of twenty-four pastries. I watched as the young girl who
was some kind of convict, when really I was just trying to
worked there carefully picked them up and placed them
make it to the side of the road, to safety.
in foil and then back into the box. As I went to the counter
Two men who were my witnesses came to the side of
to pay, an older man in a thick Italian accent looked me up
my car, one of them being the kind man from the bakery.
and down from head to toe. “You need to eat a bunch of
They both saw it happen and said that the man on the
these pastries to put some meat on those bones of yours,”
bike was going extremely fast and one of them said they
he said with a warm smile and a laugh. The lady who rung
saw him popping a wheelie. As I was in hysterics, they
up the pastries for me smiled as well. They both radiated
tried to calm me down. The man from the bakery told
such friendly feelings to add to the warm day outside.
me it was not my fault and the other one was gruff but he told me it would be okay. I called my parents and
The lyrics, “Shut up and put your money where your mouth is,” hummed lightly in the background. I turned it
although I wasn’t calm, within thirty minutes they were
down so I could concentrate on getting out of the parking
there with me, as were friends trying to calm me down
lot and making it back home with the twenty-four pastries
and assess what really happened. Beforehand I got my
sitting next to me in the passenger seat. I can’t tell you how
best friend on the phone but I could barely take a breath
it happened because I double-checked and triple-checked.
and explain the situation. “I got into an accident...a man
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illustration © Nas Chompas
on a motorcycle...he’s on the floor...I don’t know if he’s
good enough and afraid of another accident happening.
okay...” was all I could spit out.
Whenever motorcycles drive by me my heart races and I
I had to be questioned by detectives and ended up
hold my breath until they have passed me.
being there for over three hours. The man had to be
The day started with beautiful rays of sunshine but
taken by helicopter and the fear of not knowing whose
as the events unfolded, the clouds came back. Standing
fault it was and if he was going to survive ate at me.
at the scene of the accident, a deep shade of gray took
The man was okay and it was confirmed that he was an
over the sky. At this point though, I knew the worst was
unlicensed motorcyclist, driving over 70 miles per hour.
over but still the fear that was inside of me matched the
It still haunted me for a long time and getting back into
now gloomy day.
the car took some time. As I drove I was afraid I was not
::::: 113 :::::
Admission Kathleen Foster
admission
“Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?” asked
were plucked into a pencil-thin line. Her features and
Mrs. Hughes. She put her hand lightly on Chelsea’s back,
limbs—nose, chin, forearms, wrists—were so petite that
just above her leather belt, and steered her through the
she looked like a child herself. “All right, then,” Mrs. Hughes said. “That’s not a prob-
reception area toward the office. “Do you have hot chocolate?” Chelsea asked.
lem. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Amelia? Feel
“Oh, dear. We don’t. I’m so sorry.”
free to boast, now, Chelsea. Many people feel awkward
“I’m okay, then.”
talking about how wonderful their child is but this is
Mrs. Hughes directed the young woman into the
your opportunity to toot your own horn, so to speak.” “Okay.” Chelsea cleared her throat. “Well, I mean, she
small room with a flourish of her hand. A broad window with a generous ledge ran the length of the outside wall.
reads articles in the newspaper, which is unusual for a
The shelf held a clear bowl containing the multicolored
five-year-old.” “I would say so,” Mrs. Hughes said.
sea glass she had collected over many years, two spider plants with generations of offspring cascading over the
“I had to ask my boyfriend to stop bringing the
rim of the plastic pot, and a photograph in a broad silver
Herald over because she kept asking me what differ-
frame, depicting two adults with a child between them,
ent words mean, and sometimes I didn’t want to tell her
standing in front of the Prado. The carpet was new, but
about al-Qaeda and all that.” “Of course not.”
she had layered her own antique Persian over the stiff
“Have you ever heard of a child reading like that at
beige pile. Tidy stacks of folders, papers, and photocopied sheets, some with their edges curling, covered the
five?” Chelsea’s fingers worked the bottom of a strand
desk and nearly every other available surface.
of hair. She inspected it as she talked, as though looking for split ends.
She motioned toward the triangular grouping of
“Well, there are a few children who begin kindergar-
spindle-backed chairs in the center of the office. Chelsea sat down, crossed her legs and then uncrossed them.
ten with some reading skills, but that level of ability is
Mrs. Hughes took a seat as well and opened a manila
unusual.” “I had to talk to the preschool because they kept ask-
folder on her lap. Her eyes moved rapidly from side to side, scanning the papers within. She retrieved a pen
ing her to read to the other kids. My point was, once in a
from the nearby desk. “I’m going to take a few notes as
while is okay, but it shouldn’t be every day.”
we talk,” she said. “I hope you won’t mind. It will help me
“No.”
remember our conversation later.”
“It’s not like she’s on the payroll.” Chelsea smiled. “How is she with other children?” Mrs. Hughes made
“Okay,” Chelsea said. “I don’t mean to bring up a difficult subject, but we
notes on the paper in her folder. Many years ago she
typically ask both parents to be present at the interview.
had made a chart to assist her with parent interviews.
We hope to get to know the family as a whole. Was
The first block was labeled “Parents’ Attitude toward
Amelia’s father unable to attend?”
Child.” In that block she wrote: “Mother suggests that child reads at an adult level.” Over time she had devel-
“It’s not really a difficult subject—for me anyway,” Chelsea said. “He’s never been a part of her life. In fact,
oped the ability to fill out sections of the chart while
I’m not even sure he knows she was born. What I mean
tilting the folder in such a way that the most eagle-
is, I didn’t really know him all that well myself, so, it’s not
eyed parent—David and Patricia Malone came to mind,
like I would talk to him about her education. He really
judge and doctor, respectively—could not see what
doesn’t have anything to do with it.” She tucked a strand
she wrote. In this case, though, there was no reason for
of hair behind her ear. It hung below her shoulders,
concern. Chelsea was looking out the window, which
brown and glossy, as straight as though it had been
framed a gently sloping lawn and beyond, a fenced-in
ironed on a board. The brows above her wide blue eyes
playground. A thin layer of snow covered the grass.
illustration © anna bond
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slice magazine
Tracks of footprints crisscrossed one another and came
just so much here, woodworking, even. And I just know
together in a muddy patch in front of the gate. Children
the kids would be better for her than the kids in our
were laughing and pushing one another on the colorful
neighborhood.”
climbing structures, which had been purchased with the interest on the Parents’ Annual Fund.
“We have a great group of families here.” In the section of her chart labeled “Parents’ Knowledge of
“Isn’t it a nice playground?” prompted Mrs. Hughes. “Does Amelia enjoy playing with other children?”
Dighton’s Resources and Programs” she wrote: “Minimal. Mother demonstrates no specific understanding of
Chelsea transferred her gaze to Mrs. Hughes’s face.
school’s curriculum. Cannot articulate what, specifically,
“A lot of smart kids have trouble relating to other kids, I
makes school good fit.” Looking up, she adjusted her
know, but Amelia has a lot of friends. There are tons of
glasses and said, “Chelsea, do you have any other ques-
kids in our neighborhood, and she’s always out playing
tions I could answer for you today?”
in the street.”
Chelsea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I
“Your application says you live in the city.”
have one other question,” she said.
“That’s right. We live in South Boston. It’s not
“Of course.”
too far.”
“I understand there’s some financial aid available? I’m
“Oh, no. We have a lot of families from the city. In
not sure—I don’t think I could handle the tuition.”
fact, we have a very organized system of carpools to
As she listened, Mrs. Hughes, with an almost im-
help everyone get in and out.”
perceptible motion of her hand, made a check mark in
“Does anyone ever take the train?” Chelsea tugged at the knot in her silk scarf.
a tiny box at the bottom of her chart. “We do have a limited amount of aid available,” she said, “and there’s a
“You certainly could, but it would be a long ride in the morning—train, trolley, and bus.”
brochure included in the folder I’m going to give you on your way out.”
“I know,” said Chelsea. “We did it today. I don’t drive, actually.”
“Thanks.” Mrs. Hughes stood up. She had read, years ago, in
“I can hardly blame you. Boston is a difficult place to drive in. And parking is even worse.”
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, that this was an effective way to indicate the end of a discussion. She
“Well, it’s more that I have a clinical phobia about
was still surprised by how well it worked. Chelsea stood
riding in cars. It’s called amaxophobia. Fear of riding in automobiles.”
immediately and looked around for her coat. “It’s in the rack by the entranceway, isn’t it?” Mrs.
“Oh, my goodness. How difficult for you. Of course,
Hughes smiled gently. She handed Chelsea a folder
the train would be fine. Or we would figure something
with the school’s crest embossed on the front. “Take
out. Anyhow, why don’t you tell me a little bit about why
this home and look it over. The remaining forms are
you think Dighton would be a good fit for Amelia?”
due by January fifteenth, so you’ve got about a week
During the pause that followed, Chelsea twisted a
and a half.”
thick silver ring around her index finger. She slid it over her knuckle and back down again. The joint was raw
Chelsea clutched the folder with both hands as they walked out of the office.
and red, as though she repeated this motion often. She
“If you think of any questions,” Mrs. Hughes said, “or
leaned toward Mrs. Hughes. “I hardly know what to do
if there’s something you’d like me to know about Amelia
with her, if you want to know the truth,” she said. “I look
that you’ve forgotten to mention, don’t hesitate to call
around this place and it’s just beautiful. Amelia would
or drop me a note.”
love the art room. She draws all the time.” Mrs. Hughes nodded slowly, her face a wellpracticed mixture of interest and sympathy. “It’s a wonderful program.” “I can’t believe the papers on the walls of the kindergarten room,” Chelsea continued. “There’s
“Great,” Chelsea said. “Let’s go find Amelia. Oh, here she is now.” They walked through the sun-filled reception area where a series of brightly painted clay sculptures lined the table behind the sofa. A child ran toward them down the hall, followed by a heavyset woman with a long
::::: 116 :::::
admission
braid. The child wore striped tights and a denim jumper.
“Have you heard of amaxophobia?” Catherine
Her brown hair was thick and curly. It had been pulled
asked her husband, Alan, over supper. They ate side
into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, but frizzy pieces
by side at the long granite counter in the middle of the
had escaped and stuck out on every side.
kitchen, which had a cathedral ceiling and two skylights.
“Chelsea , this is Susan Talbot, our school psychologist.”
They had put the kitchen and family room addition on fifteen years ago. Catherine had worked with the archi-
“Hello,” Chelsea said.
tect for weeks, discussing the height and slope of the
“How did she do, Susan?” Mrs. Hughes asked.
ceiling, its relationship to the exterior walls, and the best
“Just fine. She was a pleasure.” Susan smiled and
possible placement of the French doors that opened
looked down at the child, who grinned and shuffled
onto the deck.
her feet.
“What’s that?” asked Alan, lifting his eyes from his
“Can we go to McDonald’s?” Amelia said.
plate. Unlike Catherine, who was tall, slender, and quick-
A faint color sprang up over Chelsea’s cheekbones.
motioned, Alan was a broad-shouldered, thick-necked
“That’s not very healthy, kiddo.”
man who ate with slow, deliberate intent and did not like
“You promised,” the child said, her dark eyes wide
to be distracted from his meal.
and her expression serious.
“It’s the fear of riding in cars. I met a woman today
“What a nice treat that would be,” said Mrs. Hughes. She pulled Chelsea’s coat and gloves off the rack and
who is unable to ride in a car. She and her daughter have to take public transportation.”
handed them to her. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the door, she could see a thin,
“She can ride on a train but not in a car?” Alan poured a small amount of cabernet into his glass.
fair-haired couple in matching navy blue peacoats
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” asked
coming up the brick path. A small boy in a red hat and
Catherine. “I think she can ride the bus, too.”
a brown leather jacket ran ahead of them and had
“Where did you encounter this person?”
almost reached the door. As she shook Chelsea’s hand,
“She’s applying her daughter. I interviewed her to-
Mrs. Hughes struggled to remember their names—the
day.” Catherine salted her steak absentmindedly. “She
Stantons, maybe? She thought she would look over their
was my first appointment, followed by the Stantons
application once more before showing them in.
from Weston, whose son takes piano, karate, tennis, and meets with a literacy coach twice a week. He’s four and
Catherine Hughes lived in a brick-front
a half.”
Tudor-style house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the
“Sounds like it was quite a day.”
rural town of Stow, forty minutes away from the
“Typical.” Catherine took a bite of her steak and wrin-
Dighton School. As she pulled off the main road and
kled her long nose.
onto a small lane bordered by split-rail fences and
“You always had Sydney involved in a lot of activi-
snowy fields on each side, she saw the shapes of lean
ties,” said Alan.
horses huddled close together for warmth. They stood
“What?”
on fragile legs, stomping and snorting, next to a barn that looked gray in the dusk. She was conscious of the
“When she was little, you took her to lessons, riding, et cetera.”
warmth of the car, the coils in the floor of the heavy
“That was it. Riding. She loved it. I didn’t push her.”
sedan that heated the leather seats. For a moment,
“And Girl Scouts.”
the image of a mother and child waiting for the trolley in the open-air station passed through her mind. She
“Well, Girl Scouts hardly counts as shoving a child onto the fast track.”
pushed the image aside and turned onto Hemlock
“I suppose not,” said Alan.
Lane, where, on a wooded lot at the very end of the
Outside the French doors, the dusk had settled into
road, warm light spilled from her windows and pooled
true darkness. The bare branches of the oaks and ma-
on the snow-covered lawn.
ples creaked and shifted in the wind, and the stand of pine trees at the far edge of the lawn rustled.
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slice magazine
After they had finished eating, Alan put on his cor-
she’s a little grown-up. I really rely on her. My mother
duroy jacket and took Benny, the chocolate lab, for a
does too. My mother’s a bit of a shut-in, and I’m in
walk around the yard. Catherine collected the plates
the habit of leaving Amelia with her a lot. It gives
and brought them over to the counter. She scraped the
my mom some company and it’s someone to watch
uneaten pieces of food into the sink and loaded the
Amelia when I’m out and about. My upstairs neighbors
dishwasher. She poured herself a second glass of wine.
watch Amelia a lot too. Their names are Anne and
When Alan returned, with the cold air clinging to him,
Bob MacDonald, if you need some sort of personal
he gave the dog a biscuit and said, “I want to talk to you
reference for our family. I don’t know what I’d do
about something.”
without them. I like to take yoga in the evenings, and
She turned with the glass still at her lips.
my boyfriend Tom and I like to go out together when
“I think it’s time to sell the house.” He scratched
we can. Although I’m raising Amelia on my own, I’ve really taken that saying about how “it takes a village”
Benny between the ears. “Sell the house? You can’t be serious.”
to heart. I mean, you have to get out there and rely on
“We don’t need to heat three empty bedrooms.”
other people to help. Anyways, Amelia is very flexible
“Where would we live?”
and used to spending time with other people. She’s a
“What about something in the city? A condo‑
very serious kid too, and surprises me with the things
minium, something near restaurants, the theater.
she says. She seems to remember the different apart-
You’d love that.”
ments we’ve lived in and the people who lived with us
“I would not. It’s an apartment, with neighbors living
even though she’s so young. I certainly don’t remem-
all around you. Also, where would Sydney stay if she
ber anything before the age of five. Of course, there
comes back to visit with the baby?”
wasn’t really much worth remembering! Maybe that
“Catherine.” Alan watched her face carefully, his blue
had something to do with it. That’s part of why I want so much more for Amelia. I really thought your school
eyes squinting with concern. “Eventually, she’s going to come to visit.” Catherine
had such a positive vibe. Thanks a lot for meeting with me the other day.
ran the water in the sink. “I don’t think we can just put our lives on hold, wait-
Sincerely,
ing for that to happen.” “Unlike you, I’m not willing to give the whole thing up
Chelsea Flaherty
for lost. I’m not going to just forget her.” “I’m not suggesting that we forget her. I’m just trying to be practical. We could get a two-bedroom condo-
Catherine folded the pink paper along the crease
minium, in case she has a change of heart.”
and slid it back into the matching envelope. She tossed
“Could we talk about this in March, after the acceptance letters go out and I’m not so busy?”
it into the metal wastebasket next to her desk and then thought better of it. She reminded her staff frequently
“All right,” Alan said, “in March.”
that all correspondence with a family, no matter how foolish, desperate, or self-important, should be placed in the file. Telephone calls should be noted in the log.
Dear Mrs. Hughes,
She retrieved the envelope, pulled open her F drawer and found the Flaherty file between Fessenden and
You said that I should write if I thought of anything
Foley. As Catherine slipped the envelope into the front
else I wanted to say. I don’t usually do well in inter-
of the hanging folder, she noticed a loose-leaf sheet
views, and even though this was an interview about
filled with Susan Talbot’s tight, angular printing. Cather-
Amelia, I kind of felt like I was in the hot seat! Well,
ine pulled the file out of the drawer and spread it on top
now that I’m home, I thought of a few things I wish I
of the other folders. Susan had attached the sheet to
said in your office. Amelia’s a really great kid. She’s
her standard printout.
the best. She puts up with so much. It’s almost like
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admission
where two rows of shops faced one another across the Addendum to Cognitive Profile for Amelia Flaherty
main commercial thoroughfare. A foot of snow lay on
1.04.06
the flat roofs of the stores and clung even to the shingles on the steeple of the Congregational church.
As indicated in the attached profile, Amelia shows
From the curved glass case she chose apple and
a high level of cognitive ability. She completed the
raspberry turnovers, twisted cinnamon sticks, and
puzzles and matching exercises with ease. Her figure
blueberry muffins. The teenage girl behind the counter
drawing is advanced; she produced a fully articu-
packaged the items in a white box and fastened it with
lated figure with neck, ears, and fingers. I do see this
twine pulled from an overhead dispenser. A bell above
level of ability in, perhaps, 5 percent of the children I
the door tinkled as Catherine left the shop. Her galoshes
screen. However, I feel compelled to move beyond the
splashed in ankle-deep puddles of watery slush as she
standard metrics and note for the record that this child
stepped onto the sidewalk.
possesses an extraordinary level of intelligence. You
She had never before noticed the store next to
might recall the poster on my wall depicting several
O’Neil’s; however, the display in the front window sud-
verses of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. At one point dur-
denly caught her eye: a series of ivory-colored dresses
ing our session I noticed that she was looking over my
dotted with purple lilacs hanging in order from small to
shoulder. I asked her what she was looking at.
smallest. She went into the shop and wandered through
“Your poster,” she replied, “why does it say ‘Your children are not your children’?”
the even racks, looking at tiny pairs of seersucker overalls, miniature red bowties, delicate pink dresses with
“Do you like my poster?” I asked.
ruffled sleeves, pairs of patent-leather Mary Janes and
“What does it mean?”
black-and-white saddle shoes. She examined polka-dot
“It means that a child can grow up to be anyone
keepsake boxes, plush ducks and rabbits, and a basket
she wants to be,” I said.
filled with knit caps fashioned to look like the top of a
“I like that,” she said.
strawberry.
Of course, I was interested to see if she was truly
“May I help you?”
reading the words or had simply recognized the
Catherine looked up to see a red-haired, freckled
poster from somewhere else. To my surprise, she was
young woman behind the counter. She was pregnant
able to read fluently each of the books I pulled from
and wore a pale green shirt with a satin ribbon encircling
the library shelves, even the Magic Treehouse series,
her rib cage just above her protruding belly.
targeted toward ages 9-12. In my opinion, this child’s
“No, just browsing, thank you.”
intellectual ability and maturity (she has a certain
“Shopping for someone special?” The young woman
gravitas) would be a true asset to our school. The child
came around the side of the counter and adjusted a
seems happy, healthy, and well-adjusted.—ST
display of pearl bracelets beside the register. Catherine’s heartbeat quickened. “Yes, actually,” she said, “for my daughter.”
Catherine read the report through quickly, her eyes
“Your daughter?” “Well, for my grandchild, I mean. My daughter’s
leaping from line to line. When she reached the end, she went back to the beginning and read the report again
child.” “Isn’t that sweet. Boy or girl?”
slowly. She put the papers back in order, reassembled the folder, and went to the staff room to make herself a
Catherine hesitated, forcing her face to relax, reminding herself that that this woman did not know her.
cup of tea.
“A girl.” Several weeks later, Catherine stopped at
“How old?”
O’Neil’s Bakery on the way to work to pick up pastries
“Sixteen months—no, eighteen. Eighteen months.”
for her staff, who were stretched thin reviewing applica-
“It does go quickly, doesn’t it?”
tions. The bakery was located near the center of town,
“Yes, it does.”
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slice magazine
“She must be adorable.”
MISES HYOOS MY MOM IS RITIG A LETER AND IM RITIG
“I haven’t seen much of her, actually. My daughter
1 TOO. I LIK YUR SCOOL. I LIK IT BETER THEN HEER. IM BRAV. UPSTARS BOB HAS A LAWD VOYS. I LIK YR
lives in Ireland.”
PLAYGRD WHEN I CUM THERE IL DO BLOKS AGAN. YR
“So far away? Well, we’d be happy to send some-
FREND AMELIA
thing.” “I think I’ll just buy one of these hats for now.” Catherine put her bakery box on the counter and pulled one
Catherine took Susan Talbot to lunch one
of the strawberry caps out of the basket. “Just this.”
afternoon at the end of February. Susan had been sur-
“Do you think that will fit her? You said eighteen
prised by the invitation; Catherine saw the confusion
months.”
in her plump face when the woman looked up from
“I think so. Yes. I’m sure it will fit.”
her cluttered table. After Susan put on her galoshes and wrapped a heavy shawl around her shoulders, the Dear Mrs. Hughes,
women walked together to Catherine’s car, talking about the drizzle, the recent staff meeting, and the
I’ve thought of a few more things about Amelia. I want
middle-school boy who had written a series of hate-
to be sure you have all the information you need when
filled notes to himself and attempted to blame them
you’re making your decision. You must be looking at so
on another child.
many kids. She really has a lot of energy. She bombs
Susan suggested a sandwich shop not far from
around our apartment during the day, making circles
school. Catherine had never been to this particular deli.
around the kitchen. She has such a strong imagination.
In fact, she had never paid any attention to it at all. It
She pretends she’s walking a dog or flying a kite, drag-
was pressed between a nail salon and a real estate of-
ging stuff around. My boyfriend, Benjamin, installed
fice, and although the interior received very little natural
a little swing in her room—screwed it right into the
light, the mural on the wall above their table depicted
ceiling. She loves it and can already pump on her own.
a pleasant country scene that, with some imagination,
It’s a good thing she has it. It’s getting harder for me
reminded Catherine of Umbria.
to take her out to play in the park at the end of the
“This is such a nice idea, Catherine. I’m not sure why
block. I have both myrmecophobia, which is the fear
we’ve never done this before.” The women faced one
of ants, and traumatophobia (fear of injury), and they
another across a small, square table covered with a
have been getting worse in recent weeks. Sometimes
plaid oilcloth. An empty Perrier bottle held three listless
Anne and Bob, upstairs, take her, but they are going to
gerbera daisies.
Florida for a month and I’m afraid she’ll be inside much
“I’ve often thought of it,” Catherine said, “but I’m
of the time. Thank God, she has preschool three days a
usually so busy. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking
week. I don’t want her watching too much TV. I figure
that it’s important to look up from my desk once in a
most of the kids at your school don’t watch a lot of
while.” She decided on a tuna fish sandwich and put
TV. It’s supposed to be unhealthy. I don’t have a lot of
down her menu.
other options, though. So I do the best I can. Anyhow,
“Especially at this time of year,” Susan said, “when all
the point of this letter is only to stress what an athletic
the applications are coming in. It’s easy to feel over-
child Amelia is. Let me know if you need any other
whelmed. Are the numbers up?”
information.
“They’re way up, which surprised me, given the business with the head of school this fall. Once that made
Sincerely, Chelsea Flaherty
the papers, I thought we’d be slow.” “But there’s no change?” Susan sipped her Diet Pepsi. “Well, we’re up, as I said. This might be our biggest year since 1998 or 1999. I can’t recall when you started at Dighton. 2002?”
::::: 120 :::::
admission
“That’s right. I was at Brearley, in New York, before
“What?”
that.”
“It’s probably nothing, but it crossed my mind that
“That’s a wonderful school.”
the mother was a little, I don’t know, off.”
“The parents in New York are a different species
“You mean, emotionally? That’s a shame, with such
altogether.”
an extraordinary child.”
“They aren’t always easy here, either.”
“Oh, who can say, in a brief visit? She was nervous.
“Oh, God, I’m sure they aren’t. Do you have any real horror stories?”
In any event, is your son happy at Yale? He’s a sophomore?”
Catherine stirred her tea. “All the stories you might
“A junior, actually. He loves it. Wants to be a doctor.
expect. Parents who offer to make big donations if we’ll
The years are flying by. But you know how that is. How’s
accept their child; parents who insist their child reads
Sydney?”
Shakespeare; parents who name-drop, you can imag-
“Fine.”
ine.” She paused. “Sometimes they write several follow-
“Do you hear from her often?”
up letters.”
“Oh, yes, at least once a week. She’s doing well, noth-
“What a nuisance. But doesn’t the school want
ing new.”
wealthy families?”
“That’s nice.”
“We want the ones who know better than to mention
“Yes.”
their income in the interview.” “Do you object to a parent telling you that their child Dear Mrs. Hughes,
is bright?” “Susan, the only person I listen to on the subject of a child’s intelligence is you. I look at your report and noth-
I’ve probably given you more information than you
ing else.”
really wanted at this point. I just have to mention one other thing about Amelia that maybe you weren’t
Susan smiled, and her heavy face was suddenly
aware of when we visited the school. She is a very,
younger and brighter. “I’m flattered.” The waitress brought their sandwiches to the table.
very ill child. She is covered with germs from head
Catherine struggled to open the small bag of Lay’s po-
to toe. It’s a difficult situation, as you can imagine.
tato chips that came with her lunch. “Speaking of your
I try to keep the house clean, and I try to keep her
profiles,” she said.
indoors, which I had been doing anyway on account of
“Yes?” The chip bag opened with a pop.
my various conditions, but it’s not easy. I really think
“I realize we don’t typically discuss this sort of thing
your school would be good for her. I’m afraid Amelia’s
until the full committee meeting, but as we’re talking—”
condition is actually my fault. I haven’t really done the
Susan raised one eyebrow.
best job. That’s why I want a good education for her. I
“I was struck by your note about Amelia Flaherty.”
want her to have all the things I never had myself. My
Catherine chewed her sandwich slowly and looked down
boyfriend, Jeremy, says that all the parents you meet
at her hands.
want that for their children. He’s really trying to help
“God in heaven, that child was something else.”
us. He’s been great over the past few days. I hope he
“Really?” Catherine looked up.
can provide Amelia with a stable male influence. Any-
“I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of do-
ways, I look forward to hearing from you.
ing this. Almost eerie. Were her parents unbearable on Regards,
the subject of their prodigy?”
Chelsea Flaherty
“It’s just the mother and, oddly enough, no. Not really.” Susan blew on the chowder in her spoon. “You’re kidding.” “To tell you the truth, I’m a little—”
Catherine didn’t see the package right away. She came up the steps from the garage and hung her
::::: 121 :::::
slice magazine
Dear Chelsea,
coat in the hall closet, next to Alan’s golf bag and the snowboard Sydney had used for a season. The house
I don’t normally correspond with families personally
smelled of garlic and the warm, sweet scent of wood burning in the fireplace. When she reached the kitchen,
before the Admissions Committee makes decisions,
she saw Alan poking at something in a large frying pan.
but I decided to make an exception in this case. I must
He wore white shorts and a navy blue T-shirt, and he still
say, I was alarmed by your most recent letter. I can
had his sweatband across his forehead. He glanced up
tell that you are a very caring and devoted mother;
and smiled. “I got back from squash later than I expect-
however, from what you write it sounds as though you
ed, so I’m just starting the stir-fry.”
are really struggling with some difficult issues. I urge
“It smells good. Did we get any mail?”
you to consider talking to a counselor or social worker
Alan stirred the meat with a spatula. After a long
to get some support and assistance. I really enjoyed meeting you and Amelia, and I’m sorry to think of how
pause he said, “It’s beside the newspaper.” She put down her keys on the Boston Globe and surveyed the stack of catalogs and envelopes. They were
much you must both be suffering. I don’t want you to think that you’re the only
perched on a box wrapped in brown paper. She flipped
mother who struggles. I have faced some difficult is-
through the pile quickly—Frontgate, L.L.Bean, Plow &
sues with my own daughter. I didn’t always agree with
Hearth, Herrington—and set it aside. Once the label on
the choices she made and, perhaps, I was too strict,
the small carton was visible, she recognized her own
too opinionated. When she needed me most, I wasn’t
handwriting. Her careful letters, penned in black magic
there. As a result, she will no longer speak to me. She’s
marker, had been crossed out line by line. In compact
shut me out entirely. I’ve never even seen my grand-
script Sydney had written “Return to Sender.” Cather-
daughter. What I mean to say, I suppose, is that I hope
ine ran her hands over the letters as though they were
you are able to look after Amelia and give her what she
braille.
needs. That’s much more important than any school
“I almost threw it away,” Alan said, “so you wouldn’t
admission, or anything else, for that matter. Finally, I should let you know that because of my
have to see it.” “It’s better that you didn’t.”
level of concern about some of the things you men-
“At least you know the address was correct.”
tioned in your letter, I feel obligated to notify the
She took a box of crackers from the cabinet. “Let’s
State Office for Children. In fact, I’m required by law to do so, as an educator. I really do want to be sure
have some of the port wine cheese before dinner.” He turned off the gas under the stir-fry pan. “Cather-
you are connected with resources that can help you. Be assured, this situation will not affect our considera-
ine.” He touched her arm and she sank into his chest. “I did what I thought was right,” she said. “I tried to
tion of Amelia’s candidacy for admission to Dighton.
look out for her. I shouldn’t have said anything against
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do
him but I wanted her to know what I thought. I just
for you.
wanted her to go slowly before making such a big decision.” She breathed in the faint reek of perspiration on
Best Wishes,
his T-shirt.
Catherine Hughes
“What did you send her?” “A little hat for the baby.” “She’ll come around.”
“Catherine, could you give us a summary of
“God, what’s the use. Let’s just sell the house and
where we stand on kindergarten?” Peter Fisher, Dean of
move into the city.” “She’ll come around.”
Admissions, sat at the end of an oval table in the conference room. Afternoon light shone through the high windows and hit the varnished surface at a slant. Catherine flipped through a short stack of papers and removed a paper clip. “Of the twenty-four seats,
::::: 122 :::::
admission
fourteen are filled by siblings of students currently en-
Catherine checked the address she had
rolled. We have four applicants with alumni parents; two
written on an index card and pulled the car over in front
of those are significant donors. That has to be taken into
of a brown two-family. There was a hydrant next to the
account.”
curb, but she turned off the engine anyway. The shades
“So, six spots, realistically,” Peter said.
on the first floor apartment were pulled all the way
“That’s right.” Catherine nodded. “We’ve prepared
down. As she stood on the front porch, Catherine could see the name Flaherty written on a piece of silver duct
the short list.” Peter took the paper in his stubby fingers. “Jessica
tape stuck to the rusty letter box. She rang the doorbell
Winehouse, Karl Dempsey, Preston Hunnewell, Clarence
several times, listening after each ring for footsteps
Jean-Baptiste, Amelia Flaherty, Samantha Jennings.
or voices, but she heard nothing. Finally, she rang the
Three and three. Is the elementary group unanimously in
other doorbell. After a few seconds, heavy footfalls
favor of these candidates?”
sounded on the stairs inside. Catherine heard the sound
“I have a question.” Susan Talbot looked at Catherine.
of a chain rattling in its catch. A man in worn dungarees
“Wasn’t there some concern about Amelia Flaherty’s
opened the door. He was bald. He looked at her through
mother?”
narrow blue eyes and didn’t say anything.
Catherine was startled. She hadn’t expected Susan to
“Hello,” Catherine said. The man hitched up his pants.
bring up their conversation.
“I’m looking for Chelsea and Amelia Flaherty. Do you
“Is there?” Peter loosened his tie. “No.” Catherine felt her forehead grow warm. “I can’t
know when they might be home?” “Home?” he asked. “They’re gone. Moved out a
recall anything.” “I also wonder,” Susan said, “what happened to the letters.” Her watery blue eyes blinked behind her thick
month ago.” “Oh, no. Did they leave a forwarding address?” “Did they leave a forwarding address,” the man re-
glasses.
peated softly. “No, they did not.”
“Letters?” Peter asked. “When I looked in the Flaherty file last week, there
“That’s such a shame,” Catherine said. She felt light-
were several small pink envelopes inside. Yesterday, they
headed. “I’m from the Dighton School. We sent an ac-
were no longer there.”
ceptance letter for Amelia, but we haven’t heard a reply.” The man’s expression softened. “Imagine that,”
“I wasn’t aware of any letters,” Catherine said. Susan blinked rapidly. She pressed her lips together. “Have any members of the committee had any contact with the Flaherty family that isn’t documented in
he said. “She’s a very bright child.” “That’s what my wife was always saying to me. My name’s Bob MacDonald.”
the file?” Peter asked. There was silence around the table. Peter cleared his
“Catherine Hughes.” They shook hands. “Tough situation,” Bob said. “Great kid, but the
throat. “Catherine?” “Absolutely not.”
mother was crazy. Looney Tunes. She tells my wife a
“Well,” Peter said, “putting that matter aside for a
couple of weeks ago that someone’s going to report her
moment, we will have to turn the Flaherty situation over
Catherine’s legs felt numb. “And you’ve no idea
to Financial Aid anyway. The forms indicate that the mother has very few resources. We’d be making a big
where they’ve gone?” “Nope. Packed up a U-Haul and drove away.”
commitment.” He ran a hand through his white hair. “She’s worth it,” Catherine said. “Susan’s report indi-
“And no way at all to reach them?” “No way that I know. Maybe she’ll be in touch
cates that the child is truly gifted.” “That’s certainly true,” Susan said, “but I only saw the child.” She frowned slightly and took a sip of coffee.
to Social Services, take her kid away.”
with you.” “Believe me,” Catherine said, “nothing would make me happier.”
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KF
photo © ann ploeger
THE HOUSE ON THE CORNER Matthew Boyd
They say he sprinkled flour on the stairs one night, just to make sure, walking up to their room backward and bent over, pouring the flour out until each stair was covered. Lena was already in bed when he came in, the covers pulled up over her head and her feet sticking out. He had the urge to sneak up and grab them to scare her, but instead he let the bedroom door creak and groan as he closed it, and he stepped in loudly, making sure she knew it was him. “You asleep yet?” he asked. The bundle on the bed didn’t even move. “You got to be joking,” she said, her voice coming out muffled and soft. He sat down and put his hand over what he thought was her back and just held it there for a minute. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said, breathing out and moving his hand back and forth. “Oh sure.” “Don’t say it like that,” he said. “Come on.” He heard her sigh and the whole bundle shifted under the comforter until he couldn’t reach her from where he was sitting.
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the house on the corner
“Okay,” he said. He pushed himself up from the bed and stared down at her, hands on his hips. Then he
He yelled back. “Must be the storm tonight. Phone lines are probably down all over town.”
nodded and said it again: “Okay.”
“It ain’t the storm,” she said. “You know it.”
He went to the bathroom and flipped on the light and looked at himself in the mirror. He thought he looked
“It’s the wind,” he said. “I’ll get some candles ’case we lose power tonight.”
good tonight. A little tired under the eyes maybe. He’d
She let out a big scream and threw something across
have to trim his beard tomorrow morning. He washed
the room. He poked his head back into the room and
his face and brushed his teeth and peed and when he
said, “Honey, you don’t have to be so dramatic.”
looked back into the mirror, the bundle on the bed be-
She was lying sideways on the bed, her head dan-
hind him hadn’t moved, but he knew she wasn’t asleep.
gling down over the side, and she was crying. He started
He turned off the light and walked back across the bedroom and opened the door.
to tell her everything was fine, but she gave him a look that made him shut up. He backed out and walked to
“Where are you going?” There was a rustling from the bed, and when he looked over his shoulder, she was sitting up and wiping her blond hair away from her face. Her eyes darted from him to the open door.
the end of the hallway. He unlocked the attic door and climbed up the steep stairs. When he was all the way up, he pulled the cord for the lights and walked hunched over so as not to brush
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
his head on the insulating foam above. He walked be-
“But where are you going?” she asked.
tween stacks of cardboard boxes piled two and three
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I just need to
high until he came to one marked “kitchen misc” in
check on something.”
Lena’s thin, lowercase scrawl. He cut through the tape
She leaned forward and put her head down on
with his house keys, pulled the thing open, and reached
her knees.
in, pushing past incomplete decks of cards, coasters
“I told you, babe,” he said, “everything’s gonna be
that looked like baseballs, pots and pans and silverware
fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
and whatever else they hadn’t gotten around to unpack-
“You already said all that,” she said, not even look‑ ing up.
ing yet. That had been Lena’s job, the unpacking, but the house was still bare and dusty, just walls and a floor,
“It’s true.”
he’d say, not a real house yet. Hadn’t been a real house
“Why won’t you just take me?” She sat up and stared
since they moved in almost a month ago.
straight at him.
The candles were at the bottom of the box, some
He threw his hands up. “Jesus,” he said. “We’ve been over this already.”
cracked from the move, some burnt so far down that he didn’t know why they had been packed in the first place.
“At least let me call her, and she can come
He picked up a couple, turned them over in his hand, and
pick me up.”
decided they’d do. Before he went back downstairs, he
“You’re not going to your sister’s house,” he said.
stood in the doorway for a moment, feeling cold air seep-
“She’ll come over and get me if I just call her.”
ing down through the insulation, listening to the wind blow-
“You’re not going to call her.”
ing and heaving itself against the roof. He shivered, rubbed
“I might.” She reached for the phone on the bedside
his eyes. One more thing to do, he thought, thinking about
table next to her.
the cold air. Add it to the to-do list. Almost a month, he
“Fine,” he said, “go ahead and call.”
thought. Not a real house and almost a month gone by.
“Fine.”
Lena hadn’t moved since he’d left.
He walked out to the balcony and looked down at the
“Got some candles,” he said, holding them up as he
stairs frosted white with flour. He realized he had left a
walked into their bedroom. He picked up the matches on
light on in the kitchen downstairs, but he didn’t want to
the bedside table next to her cigarettes and lit both of
have to pour the flour again, so he decided to leave it
them. “Just in case.”
on. Behind him, he heard her yelling.
She didn’t say anything. He watched the glow from
“There ain’t no dial tone,” she said. “I can’t get service.”
the candles flicker on the walls and the ceiling. “Makes it
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kind of romantic,” he said. “What do you think?”
the door, the lock clicking behind her, saying, “Don’t tell
“Just let me be, Henry,” she said in a quiet voice,
me it’s the house, David, when you know it ain’t.”
head hanging off the side of the bed.
He put his ear to the door and heard their little
“I’m your husband,” he said, squeezing the back of her legs. “It’s my job not to let you be.”
battery-powered radio click on. Lena spun the tuning wheel for a moment before settling on the local soft
She started crying, and he knelt down next to her,
rock station where Dolly Parton was singing about wild
running his hands through her hair. “I was just playing,”
flowers not caring where they grow. She turned the vol-
he said. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
ume up as loud as it could go, which was loud.
She shook her head and said, “Blow ’em out and let me be.”
He knocked twice and then put his lips right up against the door.
“Okay,” he said, and he did. He blew out both candles with the same breath and stood up, drifting around
“Honey,” he said. “This won’t help the situation. You can’t just sleep in the tub forever.”
the room for a while before settling on a place by the
She didn’t answer.
window where he could lean against the wall and see
“Hell,” he said, “that music’s louder than any noise
outside.
downstairs.”
The road that ran parallel to their house was empty
Again, nothing. He nodded to himself, thinking if this
and the falling snow cast brief shadows under the
is the way it’s going to be, then this is the way it’s going
streetlights before coming to rest on the cracked
to be.
concrete and melting. Henry knew it wouldn’t be like
He sat down on the bed, waited. The music in the
that for much longer, that it would all start sticking soon,
bathroom faded out, and he could hear Lena sniffling,
piling up on itself, and then he’d really have some work
and then there was the DJ’s voice, loud and pushy and
to do, thinking about how the cracks in the basement
quickly gone, and then there were the commercials.
window would need patching and picturing himself
He heard more creaking downstairs, this time on the
outside every morning, shoveling their driveway.
other side of the kitchen, followed by the faint chim-
The snow looked blue in the dark.
ing of the Catholic church down the road, announcing
There was a sound downstairs, wooden boards
ten o’clock. Downstairs, the creaking moved from the
creaking, nothing really, Henry thought, but he spun
kitchen to the living room, or what Lena and he had
around nonetheless, and Lena had popped her head
marked off as the living room at least, really just an
upright and was looking straight at him, her eyes wide.
empty space lined with boxes. A month gone by and
“See,” was all she said, her mouth hanging open after
not even a proper living room, he thought, looking at
saying it, her cheeks beginning to shake and not from
the bathroom door, wondering if he could pick the lock
the cold.
on it or kick it down like they do in the movies. The mu-
“It’s nothing, Lena” he replied. “Like I explained
sic was back on, something he didn’t know and didn’t
before: it’s a new house and it’s got to settle. Sometimes that settling’s loud enough to hear, but that don’t mean it’s nothing else besides just the settling.”
care to know. It sounded like someone was opening the boxes down in the living room. He could hear the tearing of
The floorboards downstairs groaned again. The
cardboard, the duct tape screeching, something crash-
sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen, directly
ing on the living room floor, a plate maybe, he wouldn’t
below them, the same place it had started every night
know until morning when he’d clean it up before
for the past month. Lena sat up, then stood, pulling the
Lena was awake.
comforter around her.
Then the stairs began to creak. One by one and get-
“What are you doing?” he asked.
ting louder every second. He got up and made sure their
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can’t just sit hear and
bedroom door was locked, and it was; there was no way
listen to it anymore.”
he’d forget to lock it, no way that Lena’d let him forget.
“Lena, I told you—” But she wouldn’t hear it again, looking back as she stepped into the bathroom and shut
There was no denying the noises sounded an awful lot like footsteps. He had been ready to fight whatever
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the house on the corner
it was the first night he’d heard it, the first night they
He shrugged, looked back at their bedroom door,
moved in, bursting through the door at the sound of
found a drop of white paint that had hardened and dried
the creaking stairs, Lena’s hair straightener raised over
and had the sudden urge to chip it off with his finger-
his head, ready to strike at whatever it was, although
nails, smooth it down, maybe repaint the entire door if
nothing had been there, of course. He walked through
need be. Add it to the to-do list, he thought, and then
the entire house like that, the straightener’s power cord
said, “Since last night, I guess.”
dragging along the wooden floor behind him. When
“Last night?”
Lena yelled down at him to come back to bed, he had
He sniffed, looking at that white drop.
been standing on their front porch in his boxers and
“Approximately.”
undershirt, screaming at whoever’d listen to stay away
“Jesus, Henry. You knew it was unplugged this whole
from his house or he’d make them choke on their fucking teeth, the dirty sons of bitches.
time and didn’t even tell me?” He sniffed again, feeling the beginning of a cold
There was a low moan right next to the bedroom
settling in. The creaking was right above them now;
door, and it startled him even though he knew by then to
whatever it was was in the attic and stomping across
expect it. He knew what came next, too: the door knob
their ceiling. He looked back at his wife. She was stand-
jangling and twisting back and forth, getting caught on
ing behind the open bathroom door, holding the phone
the lock each time. As quietly as he could, Henry got
out with one hand. His eyes must have given him up
down on his hands and knees and tried to peer through
because as soon as she saw them, she said, “You didn’t,
the crack beneath the door, but he couldn’t see anything.
did you?” Then she opened her mouth wide and took a
Something scraped behind him, and he jerked his
big breath and nodded, saying, “Okay, you did. I know
head around to see Lena leaning out from the bathroom, her hands gripping the door like it was going to save her from drowning. Her eyes were red and puffy.
it. You did.” He tried to smile at her, tried to say something like, “It’s just the house settling,” but she was already on her
“Is it…” but she couldn’t finish.
way out of the bathroom, walking sideways to their bed,
He shook his head, realized how ridiculous he looked
keeping an eye on him, ready to run if she had to or fight
even denying it, but he did anyway, saying, “It’s normal.
if she wasn’t fast enough. He watched her bend down,
Just the house settling is all.”
still facing him, and search blindly for the phone jack,
The sounds were moving down the hallway now; one after the other, the floorboards squeaked as if under a hu-
patting the wall with her free hand. He sat up and said, “Honey, let me help you,” but she
man weight. The noise stopped for a moment at the end
cut him off and screamed, “Stay right there, Henry. Don’t
of the hall, and they could hear the steady groan of the
you dare move a muscle.”
attic door’s hinges and the crack-like gunfire as it shut, as if a strong burst of wind had suddenly blown it closed.
“Okay,” he said, leaning up against the door. “You’ve almost got it. Move your hand back down and to the
Lena said, “I’m calling 911.”
right. A little more. Yeah, there you go.”
He didn’t protest. She ran over and grabbed the
She plugged the phone in and dialed without looking
bedside phone and ran back to the bathroom, her safe
at the numbers. She said, “I’m calling my sister,” and he
haven for the time being, and the phone cord trailed
nodded, and then she spoke into the phone, saying, “Hi,
behind her without any resistance, the plastic clicking
Burt? It’s Lena. Is Emma there?”
on the floor as she ran. She stopped, looked down at the slack cord.
The footsteps overhead got louder, and he and Lena both looked up toward the ceiling. Some dust fell and
It took her a minute to figure it out.
caught in the lights. Henry sneezed and Lena jerked her
“It ain’t plugged in?” she said.
head back to watch him. She had to bite her lip to keep
“Nope,” he replied, still on his hands and knees next
from crying again.
to the door. The footsteps had begun the slow climb up into the attic. “How long has it been unplugged like this?”
“Emma?” she said into the phone, her voice delicate and uneven. “It’s Lena. No, I’m fine. Yes, I’m sure. Can you tell Burt to pick me up? I can’t explain right now,
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it’s just that I need to see you as soon as possible. Okay.
asleep because she hadn’t moved for a good ten min-
Thanks. Tell him to hurry. Bye.”
utes and he couldn’t see if her eyes were open or closed.
She hung up and pulled the comforter off the bed, wrapping it around her shoulders and shivering.
He even caught himself dozing a couple of times, thinking about the cold air seeping in through the attic and
“You cold?” he asked.
the walls that needed painting down in the kitchen and
“Henry?” she said.
the basement that needed refinishing and all the boxes
“Yes?” He leaned forward, extending his hands
and cartons that needed to be unpacked. One month al-
toward her.
ready, he thought, his eyes falling shut. One month gone
“Keep your mouth shut and maybe I won’t call the
and it feels like we’re worse off than before, like we’re
police.”
homeless again.
He slumped back against the door. “You ain’t
When he heard the sound of tires scraping on the
serious.”
driveway, he sat up with a jump and saw Lena quietly
“Sure am,” she said, nodding up and down. “I’ll send Burt along tomorrow to pick up some of my stuff.”
trying to squeeze past him, the bedroom door open just enough for her to slip through.
“Well I won’t let him take it. I’ll have him arrested for trespassing.”
“Lena,” he said and grabbed at her ankle. “Don’t do this.”
“Just keep your mouth shut.”
She looked down at him and kicked his hand away.
“I won’t let him in here. He’ll have to knock me out to get past.”
He grabbed at her again, dug his fingernails into her leg. Outside, the car honked twice.
“Just shut up.”
“Let me go,” she said and kicked at his face, knocking
“I won’t.”
him backward, and then she was out the door and run-
“I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
ning down the stairs.
“Too bad,” he said, “you’re going to. I tell you what:
He stood up and ran out after her, watching from
Burt’s going to have to put me in the hospital before he
the upstairs balcony as she opened the front door and
can come into my house and take my wife away.”
slammed it shut behind her. The sound of it echoed
“He ain’t taking me. I’m leaving.”
through their empty house. He swore under his breath,
“Not if I can help it.”
suddenly feeling small and not a little bit nervous to be
“You can’t.”
standing there all by himself in the dark. He listened to
“I’ll be damned if I’m just going to let you go
the car back down the driveway and pull out onto the
like this.”
street. Through the front windows, he could see its tail-
She put her head down in her hands.
lights glowing red as it drove away. He let the silence
He said, “I’ll be goddamned. No way a wife of mine’s
creep in around him, didn’t say a word, didn’t move,
going to leave me on account of some creaky stairs.”
held his breath. The creaking in the attic had stopped;
She rubbed her forehead, her eyes open and staring at the pale yellow flowers on the comforter.
he didn’t remember when. Whatever was up there was gone now. He let his breath out and then held it again,
“Our house is just settling in. These are totally normal
glancing down. He could just make out two dark sets
sounds. Haven’t you ever lived in a new house before? It
of footprints stamped into the flour on the stairs. He rec-
just takes time to settle in.”
ognized the outline of Lena’s slippers right away, birth-
She didn’t say anything. The comforter bunched up
day presents from two years ago. Her light steps had
around her shoulders, and he could tell from the way it
barely made an impression in the flour. The other set he
was moving that she was shaking underneath.
couldn’t place at all, and he didn’t even try. He held his
The footsteps continued above them in the attic,
breath until he couldn’t hold it anymore. Then he let it
walking in circles without even a moment’s rest. They
out slowly. Then he held it again. They say he stood like
both tried not to listen, tried to distract themselves by
that for a long time.
looking at the walls, the bedposts, the clothes strewn on the floor. At one point, Henry thought Lena had fallen
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MB
Kinship Christina Continelli
grimaces in her pink fuzzy bathrobe and tries to hand
Dad brings the bones home around eleven o’clock.
him a cup of coffee, but he’s got his back to her and
I know this because I’m peeking through the blinds instead of sleeping. He is
shakes the rain off his cowboy
never out late. He gave up
hat and raincoat. His uniform
night calls when he got
is brownish and rumpled
promoted to sergeant.
with a quick flash of a badge
He lumbers through the
under the porch light above
patio gate all slick muddied
the back door. He sets the
boots and yellow rain stuff,
bucket down on the stoop of
hunched over and carrying
the back door, and spots me
a big plastic bucket. The
from across the kitchen. He
rain’s coming down hard on
stops, like he wants to yell at
the metal patio roof, Dad
me or something. I prepare
is all mumbles and Mom
to make a beeline back to my
all sputters. The lights are
room, but his eyes get soft for
still spinning on top of his
a second. “Gracie. Honey, come
car, so I know he won’t be staying long. I creep to
here. I want to show you
the living room, blanket
something.” I rush across the linoleum
wrapped, warm and sleepy. The house settles under my
to the door, but my mom
feet, creaking and whining.
blocks the way with her body.
The racket scares me when
“Gracie! Get back to bed. You
I come home from school
got school…” Dad interrupts. “Wanda.
and have to wait for Mom
It’s okay.”
or Dad to get home. Our nearest neighbor is a mile
I come closer to the back door. Dad hauls up the bucket
away. If an ax murderer came to hack me to pieces
illustration © Maura takeshita
and tilts it towards me. The rim is muddy and gross, like
no one would be around to help. For some reason Dad won’t come in the house. He
he’s been digging worms for fishing. I can feel the rain
stands on the stoop talking to Mom while she
even though I’m not standing in it, so I pull tight on the
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blanket. Dad takes a step toward to me. I peer into the dirty bucket and see the two black hollows looking up at me. It’s a skull. I’ve never seen one, except on TV, and I don’t really feel anything. There’s a couple more bones, maybe a leg, maybe an arm; I can’t tell. There’s a pink scrap of something wrapped around one of the long bones, a rainbow-printed something, I can’t tell. Dad puts his hand on the top of my head. “Hon, this was a girl around your age. She died, we think somebody hurt her, and they found her out in Santa Margarita Wash.” I’m still looking deep into that filthy thing when Mom
I come closer to the back door. Dad hauls up the bucket and tilts it towards me. The rim is muddy and gross, like he’s been digging worms for fishing. I can feel the rain even though I’m not standing in it, so I pull tight on the blanket.
takes my arm and leads me back to bed. brother Elijah collects roadkill sometimes and sticks
When the alarm clock screeches through its
them in tubs of bleach to make the skin fall off so he can
teeth I get up and put another “X” on the calendar. I’ll be
make stuff out of the bones.
twelve in two weeks. It’s winter, almost Christmas. Mom
When I get to the bus stop, Julia’s there with Elijah.
makes fudge and cookies to give out to her coworkers at
She’s got on really cool hot-pink fishnet socks with
the office, and the house smells like a bakery for weeks
matching nail polish. She says you can get them at the
on end. Dad’s out working. He says he has to round up
swap meet for $1, and I’m jealous because my mom
crooks from Las Colinas to clear brush out in the Wash
won’t take me to the swap meet because she says it’s for
to look for the rest of the bones. There’s snow at the
poor people. Julia’s got a really cool skater bang haircut
top of Laguna Seca that I can see clear from our house
that she sticks up with Aqua Net, just like Nick Rhodes in
at the foot of the valley. Outside, the vegetable patch is
Duran Duran, and I am even more jealous.
gummy and brown, the peach tree across the yard is all sticks, and the bottom of our driveway is flooded out. It’s “the sacred lake,” and it’ll go up to just above your
“I heard your dad found that girl out in the Wash.” Julia’s chipping hot-pink from her nails. “Yeah. Just the bones though.” I’m unwrapping a granola bar, and Julia glares at me.
ankles if you wade out to the middle. The rest of the valley is all orange groves till you hit sage brush up in
“You shouldn’t eat those. They’ll make you fat.”
the foothills. The road leading to the highway is flooded
“But I haven’t eaten any breakfast.” “You shouldn’t eat breakfast. Breakfast will make you
too, big holes and puddles I have to jump around like some obstacle course when I walk to the school bus
fat. No one will want you if you’re fat.” Julia yawns and
in the morning. It’s always quiet on the way there till
puts on more lip gloss. A tumble weed blows into the
you get down to the highway. The groves are lined up
ditch across the highway; in the distance the yellow top
perfectly on either side of me, like city streets, like in
of the bus shimmers. “You got to see the bones. That’s
Escondido when Mom, Dad, and I go to town for grocer-
pretty cool.”
ies. When you look down them, the rows narrow and get
“Yeah. Dad brought them into the house because he
darker as they make their way up into the hills. When
had to get some paperwork from his office before going
it’s summer the road is full of blue-bellies; I hate lizards.
down to the morgue in Mesa Verde.”
My friend Julia told me about how when she was living
“Damn. That’s a long way.” “Yeah. He didn’t come home till I got up this morning.
back in Mexico there would be lizards that crawled in your nose, your ears, and up inside you while you slept. I told her she was full of it, but I still got creeped out.
Then he had to head out again.” “So…” Julia pipes up. “What’s it like to see a dead
There’s always dead lizards, dead possums, dead squir-
body?” The bus pulls alongside us, and we line up with
rels, sometimes dead dogs out on the highway. Once we
Elijah to get on.
saw a dead coyote. The trucks don’t stop when animals are trying to cross the roads. It’s disgusting. Julia’s little
“Nothing. They were just bones. Just a bucket of old dirty bones.”
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kinship
The bones were named Leona Ortiz. That’s what
seat. She’s been seeing way too much of me lately. Too
the TV says. She had long black hair, like Julia had in
much of my dad coming down to the office in his cop car
sixth grade, two years ago. She liked Hobie Cat T-shirts.
and uniform, taking me away like I’m going to Alcatraz.
They said someone kidnapped her, a “predator.” But she
Derringer’s a nice man, sorta round all over, including his
was fat; no one wants to have sex with a fat girl. People
glasses. He smiles a lot. Dad says he used to be a shrink.
want to have sex with Julia and Sheila E.—girls like that.
Julia says Derringer’s a pervert. He’s always sweaty, and
Girls who get to shave their legs, wear makeup, and who
he always puts his hands on the shoulders of the girls.
get to wear bras, and maybe even color their hair. My
Last time I was in Derringer’s I was sour as shit. The
stomach is clenched up like a big fist, and I wish I had
night before, Mom had found my diary. She was clean-
eaten breakfast, or at least not thrown out the granola
ing my room (under the floorboards in the back of the
bar; but no pain no gain.
closet?). She found all this stuff about me wanting to
Mrs. Ritter is reading our English comp essays. She
kill myself, so she took away my Depeche Mode records,
used to be bone thin, but now she’s pregnant, totally
and kept me up until two o’clock in the morning till I told
disgusting. She gets to my essay, and glares at me while
her what was wrong with me. I didn’t know what to tell
reading it aloud to the class:
her, so I just sat there and cried. The next day Dad sent me up to Derringer’s. All he did was prance around the
“I wholeheartedly believe that due to the drastic
room, putting his sweaty hands on my shoulders, asking
environmental and social decay caused by over-
me if I liked my parents. Well, yeah. What kind of stupid
population that it is morally wrong to bear children,
question is that! He asked me if I had any boyfriends. The
and people who do should be criminalized, and
pervert. He asked me if I ever thought of hurting myself,
made to take tests to prove their fitness…”
or hurting other people. I only told him that I wanted to punch Pete de la Cruz’s lights out for being such a prick all the time. He laughed, but I was serious. His
I receive a C for my efforts. When I first got my period I was at Girl Scout camp last summer, I was bleed-
face jiggling beneath two sharp and merciless hammers.
ing like a murder victim, and my summer was ruined.
Splitting skin. Smashing teeth. Popping eyeballs. Tearing
Julia was lying in the cot next to mine just staring at me.
skin. I’m making him cry. In front of everyone. Derringer
“You’re a woman now; you’re gonna have babies.” She
tells me not to fight back. That Pete just does it to hide
said it like it was the law. I remember being really pissed
his pain. Bull crap! Pete does it because he’s mean; he’s
at her for saying that. “But I don’t want to have babies.”
rotten and bad. Some people just are. Dad always says
“That’s too bad; you’re gonna. ’Cause that’s what women
that some people just come out bad.
do.” Julia rolled over and skipped out of the tent like it
Julia’s waiting for me under the arbor in the
was nothing, but I felt sick the rest of the day. Pete de la Cruz shoots a spit wad at me. “You’re a
lunch area. “So…Derringer try and put his hands on
psycho. A total Nazi pig. Just like your dad.”
your boobs?”
“FUCK YOU.” It just comes out of my mouth. I know
“I don’t have boobs.” I tug my sweatshirt and
I’m screwed. Mrs. Ritter confirms this by grabbing me
under-camisole out over my bulk. It’s embarrassing. I’ve
by the collar and dragging me out the door. Pete and
got big arms and flabby boy boobs, and Mom won’t let
his jackass friends are laughing at me. “Hey Piglet, your
me wear a bra. I have to cover up, but the girls always
daddy shot anyone lately?”
say shit anyway.
“You’re the fucking piglet—” I try to finish scream-
“You should cover your boobs. I can totally see right
ing, but Mrs. Ritter closes the door in my face after she
through your shirt.” Claudia sits pretty with her lips done
hands me the slip to the principal’s office.
up purple chewing one of those mango-chili lollipops.
She’s got a Prince shirt on, neatly cuffed pants, and
Dr. Derringer’s office always feels air condi‑
those really cool Chinese strappy shoes with the roses.
tioned even in the dead of winter. Mrs. Cortez, the
Claudia always wears a pink satin roller skater jacket
secretary, smiles warily at me and tells me to have a
with the words “Sophisticated Ladies” stitched on the
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back. That’s her sister’s car club; she’s in high school
“Black is beautiful, brown is hip, white is nothing but
over in Greenbrook thirty miles away. We’ll be going
a piece of shit…”
there after this year, over an hour on the bus, yuck.
I told her I wasn’t white, but she kept bugging
I say nothing and pull my shirt down again. Pull the
me about it: “Pinché Pocho.” So I turned around and
knees up, and pull the sweatshirt over them. I wish I was
slapped her, but when she grabbed me by the hair and
bones like Leona. I wish I was in a car club, or had strappy
kicked me in the crotch, I knew it was over. Derringer
Chinese shoes; you can get them at Kmart, but Mom won’t
wasn’t there yet, so they sent me up to Mr. Otis, who
go to Kmart either. If all those places are for low-class
ran off a year later with the hippie music teacher and a
people like she says, how come they always have such
bunch of money.
cool stuff? How come I always look so crappy? My big-ass fuzzy hair Mom tried to perm last year, sweatshirts from my grandparents’ ski trips. John Taylor from Duran Duran will never want to hang out with me, much less have sex
Pete comes up to the table. He’s got Denny and Ramon with him. “Hey, Piglet.” “Shut up.” I’m turning red and wishing Julia would help me, but she’s got her nose in that stupid magazine.
with me. Julia and I will go up to her aunt’s house in
“You shut up.”
Hollywood, and he’ll be hanging out on Melrose Avenue,
“Make me.”
and he’ll kiss Julia’s hand and turn to me slowly with a
“How ‘bout I put my dick in your mouth and make
big smile and ask her who the fat chick is. Julia’s looking
you.” He stands way too close. All I can do is stare at the
through Star Hits; they have a full centerfold of a band
ground and be mad, feel like I’m drowning.
called Sigue Sigue Sputnik. “Hey, Gracie. Here’s your
“Get away from me.”
boyfriend.”
“Fucking lesbian.” He starts at me like he’s going to
“Ew. Shut up.” I’m really hungry, but I don’t want to eat in front of everybody. I can have a soda now, and
hit me, and like a big pussy I flinch a little, big mistake. He won’t quit if I show I’m afraid.
nobody will say anything. When I get home no one will
“You don’t even know what a lesbian is, you moron.”
be there; so I can make a sandwich and watch cartoons,
I finally gather the courage to look at him, and they’re all
but that’s not for hours.
just smiling at me.
There’s only six of us girls, in an eighth grade class
“Yeah, but I bet you do.” I lose it, stand up and push
of twenty-four kids. It’s been that way for years. La
him as hard as I can to get him away from me. Ramon
Paloma is serious sticks, total butt-fuck Egypt. Occa-
throws a kickball at my head; it stings like a mother-
sionally we’ll get a new kid for a few months, then the
fucker and knocks me to the ground. Pete reaches over
parents get a better opportunity, or the kid ends up
and grabs my crotch. “Slut.” He shouts it in my ear and
unhappy here and they move on. Everyone except us:
it stings worse than getting hit. Everybody’s laughing
Julia, tall and perfect; Claudia, small and cool; Esper-
now. I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry. I lift my
anza, a tough chick with huge hair and arms full of black
head up and bite his cheek as hard as I can, hard till I
rubber bracelets; Tammy Macgee, the only white girl;
taste blood like dirty pennies all through my mouth. He
Lupe, who doesn’t speak any English; and me. Everyone
screams and lets go of me enough so I can roll away.
knows everything about everyone, and everything about
“Psycho bitch, you gonna go tell your dad? He gonna
nothing. The school is mostly Mexican kids, with some
come and shoot me too?”
kids from the reservation, and maybe two or three white
I grab a handful of gravel and throw it in his face just
kids in each class. I get off easier than Tammy because I
as Mrs. Mercedes, the lunch monitor, comes around the
tell everybody my mom’s Mexican, but it’s only half-true;
corner to see what’s going on. She collars me, and drags
she hasn’t spoken Spanish since she was a kid in Texas.
me back to Derringer’s office. He gives me a week off,
Tammy’s a big girl, taller than most of the kids, and
suspension, and that’s okay by me. Fuck this school, fuck
can whoop a whole hell of a lot of ass. So no one really
everything. Derringer calls my dad up at the substation,
messes with her. Unlike me, I’m a big cream puff, and
and here comes the cop truck, like they’re going to take
everybody knows it. The first day of fourth grade was
me away in chains.
the first fight I was ever in. Julia came up to me singing:
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kinship
Poor Dad looks tired, sunk into his cowboy hat,
and lunch, for the cops and old farmers. Genie calls me
and my eyes are burning from crying. “C’mon, Gracie.
Sugar. She’s old, with pointed glasses and a beehive like
Wanna go get a soda? Let’s go down to Genie’s and get
Florence Jean Castleberry on Alice. I get a grape soda
you a soda, okay? I got to stop and get some stuff to the
with grilled cheese and fries, as always. Dad and the other
guys working the scene first. When we get there you got
two guys get coffee. They’re talking about Leona.
to stay in the truck, okay?” We get in Dad’s truck; he’s
“She’d been up in there for months; the boys at the
got the dog in the car so it makes it even more uncom-
lab don’t have jack shit—except a positive victim ID from
fortable, Brutus, our big, ugly-ass German shepherd,
the blood work and clothes.” Ed sugars his coffee and
slobbering all over, and making me smell like dog breath.
passes the container to Phil.
He heads down Highway 84 past the last houses out of the valley and into the Wash.
Dad taps his cup impatiently with his spoon like he does when he’s spinning something in his head. “Any
Santa Margarita Wash is where a river would be if
leads on the truck?”
there wasn’t a drought on. It’s a long, low stretch of
Phil cocks his sheriff’s cap to the back of his head
rocks and brush that goes all the way from Riverside
and chimes in, “A late model Ford, possibly ’78. Stopped
Indian Reservation in the hills down to where the Cap-
for gas up in Rincon, man and a woman in the car with a
istrano River would be, meeting with that to flow out to
kid who matches the description, but that’s all we have
the ocean, probably around Encinitas, but I’m not sure.
to go on. Also matches the make the father saw in the
The Wash is off the highway by about a half mile, a mess
neighborhood around the time she disappeared.”
of ditches and rattlesnakes. The local farmers grow avo-
Outside it’s starting to rain again. Wide splatting
cados and oranges on the hills surrounding it that make
drops that carry the threat of thunder. Brutus sits at the
it look even more flat. No one lives out there; it’s even
window of the car wagging his tongue and looking
more sticks than where I live. Julia lives up the highway
pent up. For the first time since we got him I feel sorry
a little on the property where her dad works the groves.
for him.
All the kids say it’s a body dumping ground for all the
murders committed in San Diego County. Out here in
Mom’s serving dinner: chicken and Tater Tots,
the winter everything looks brown and purple, set off
salad on the side. Dad’s buried in his plate, but looks up
by the white rocks in the riverbed. There’s a few darkish
for a moment to drop the bomb. “Gracie got suspended
oak stumps that either dried out from lack of water, or
for fighting today.”
burned in the brush fires we get every summer. Whole mountainsides get black and sour for miles on end.
Mom drops her fork, and stares clean through me. “What the hell is the matter with you, Gracie! Are you
Dad pulls the truck off the highway and bumps his
taking drugs!”
way down a service road deep into the middle of the
“No, Mom…I—”
Wash. There’s two other cop trucks waiting there at
“Ugh. I don’t even want to look at you now. Clean up
the edge of a field that’s been separated off with police tape. Dad goes up to one of them and hands one of the men standing around some paperwork. These two guys
and go to your room.” “It wasn’t my fault. I have to defend myself—” “It never is your fault. Gracie. Be a lady for Chris-
are Ed and Phil, friends of my Dad, long-term guys who
sake!” I piss off into the kitchen and toss my plate into
came on the force around the time he did. They talk to
the sink. “Gracie! You break that plate, I’ll break your
each other for a moment and get in their cars to follow
head!”
my Dad to Genie’s.
Genie’s is a small restaurant on the other side of the
The house is so still right now. Dad’s sitting in
valley. Dad says it used to be a service stop back in the
his office. Mom’s in the other room watching Johnny
’40s and ’50s for people on their way to summer cabins
Carson. I can’t sleep and figure Dad could use some
up in Laguna Vista or Gilette. Only the restaurant is left
company. I creep through the kitchen, stopping to sneak
now, no gas pumps, and the motel in back is all crumbling
a piece of fudge out of the Christmas tray; I grab an ex-
down and used for storage. It’s only open for breakfast
tra one for Dad for good measure, in case he decides he
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doesn’t want company. There’s a crack of light, and I can
laughs a little. “Then the guy tired to contact the guy’s
hear that Marty Robbins record he always listens to:
widow for bail money after we caught him.”
Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. I always call it
“So he died?” I lean in to touch the bottom of the
Twenty Songs about Killing People because that’s all
picture, and Dad smacks my hand with a rolled up newspaper.
he ever sings about, that and horses.
“Don’t touch the pictures, Gracie.” He doesn’t I think about the thing I done
sound mad. I jump back, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
I know it wasn’t right… They’ll bury Flo tomorrow
“Yes, he’s dead now. Massive internal hemorrhaging, excessive damage to the right lung and aorta.” Dad
But they’re hangin’ me tonight…
points at the man’s swollen chest and side with the tip of
I open the door a crack, and he’s just sitting
pencil to demonstrate. “He bled to death.”
there staring at a wall of bones, broken windows, taped-
In the far right, bottom corner of the bulletin board
off houses, and tables of stolen goods. Polaroids of
is a picture of Leona with her long messy hair and her
tables stacked with white and green bricks, drug stuff.
huge, staring brown eyes. She’s got a half smile. Her
The wall in front of and to the side of his desk is all
mom didn’t make her comb her hair on picture day. Mine
bulletin board, cork stuck with pins, filled with pictures
would’ve had a fit if I’d done that, would’ve dragged
from his work. Cases upon cases: some he’s helped
me kicking and screaming back down to the school to
solve, some he’s working on, and others that just bother
have it red one or found another photographer to do it.
him. His desk is a mess, covered in papers, yellow of-
I don’t smile at all because of the braces. It hurts; and I
fice folders, staplers, pictures of me and Mom in shiny
just look bad.
wood and gold frames, the Marine service medal on the
“They find the guy yet?”
wall—I think it’s for sharpshooting—and black-and-white
“What guy?”
pictures of when he went to Vietnam crumpled in little
“The guy who killed her?” I point to Leona. I don’t want to say her name.
metal frames. I don’t even recognize him in those. He looks taller, has no moustache, and he doesn’t have his
“How do you know it was a guy? Bad people come
big belly yet. He doesn’t see me. He just sits staring at
in all shapes and sizes, Gracie. Ladies kill people too.”
the wall with a mug of coffee sitting on his lap.
Dad sighs, and takes down the picture of Leona, twirls
“Want some fudge, Dad?” I come through the door,
it around for a moment and sticks it into a yellow folder with a bunch of other stuff like newspaper clippings,
still on tiptoe like there was glass all over the floor. He starts up like he’s never seen me before. “Oh,
forms, and other photos. “Michael Willer on Channel 8 News thinks it was a
hey Hon.” He finds a clear spot in the desk clutter to put his mug down, and puts out his arms to me. I place
guy.” I pick up a pile of papers, and start to put
the piece of fudge in his hand. He smiles and bops me
them into neat stacks. “Michael Willer’s an ASS—” Dad takes the paper
on the head. He looks at the piece of chocolate for a moment and places it on a form next to his coffee mug.
stacks away from me and rubs his eyes. “Look Gracie,
“Aren’t you sleepy? You’re not supposed to be burning
they’ll be time enough for you to play cop later. Hell, you
the midnight oil till you get into college.”
can even be one when you get older.”
“Can’t sleep. What’s this one from?” I point to a pic-
“Nah, everybody hates cops.” I collect some of the
ture of a man in side profile in what looks like a hospital
empty cups off the desk to take into the kitchen. He’s
room. He’s got a scar that goes down his side like a
going to kick me out soon, and I want to be a smart-ass
shark bite, fresh stitched and swollen.
to him for it.
“Knife fight, Sweetie. A guy got drunk at the guy in
Dad does a weary eye roll and half smile. “Only bad
the picture’s house and popped him over some woman
people hate cops. Now, get to bed.” The door closes be-
they were both seeing, turned out to be the guy’s wife.”
hind me with an arm full of empty cups, and Marty Rob-
Dad stretches back, puts his feet on the desk, and
bins in the background, still singing about horses.
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CC
The Stranger Sara Lippmann
She never would have entered if it weren’t for her husband. This was not her kind of place, and as her husband creaked open the door, paint flaking eagerly from the panels, desperate to be free, she wondered how anyone could lay claim to it, a weather-beaten mess, windows streaked in sludge, bricks scraped bare from salt deposits. Had she been alone, she would have tilted her body toward the curb as she passed the awning without a tarp, a ghastly skeleton of cast-iron poles, an unconscious habit she performed in the presence of homeless people and large dogs. Maybe she would have crossed to the other side of the street. Had she been alone, that is, entirely alone, most likely she would have been so bent on saving her heels from the cracked sidewalk lest she fall on this sort of a block she never would have lifted her chin to take notice.
photos Š chelsea parker guidry
slice magazine
He held the door. It was a typical gesture. The
The place smelled of cardamom and for the first time all day it was quiet.
truth was, had she been alone she never would have found herself here. But she was with her husband and it was a Saturday and they were having a walk without the stroller, her arm looped through his, her gait steady
In the back stood a deli case, an outdated cash
as he steered them both, talking it out once more, as if
register slumped on the counter beside it. The shop-
they ever did anything else, making the whole afternoon
keeper sat behind it all with a terrible posture, as if the
seem romantic despite matters, especially when the
tip of his long nose were a stirrer for his coffee. She
day carried them to this dismal industrial strip on the
approached, her hands balled up in pockets, wool col-
fringe of their neighborhood, overrun with flag-strewn
lar grazing her neck; she appraised the sticky trays of
delis, Laundromats, and signs hawking new and used
baklava and pastries curled like birds’ nests, the hunks
parts. They’d been walking for some time, the backdrop
of cheese awash in a cloudy pool; she stared at a single,
permeating her mood in a way she deemed fitting, but
raw, whole, flaccid, gray fish.
whenever a new bar or café leaped out from the mass of shuttered storefronts, she foolishly hoped for a bright
“Can I help you?” the shopkeeper asked. She shook her head. Help. In the last months, help, it
little coffee and a rest. There was time. Jack, nestled
was all she heard, only it was too late, there was nothing,
between the foam cushions of his crib support, would
nobody, so beyond the realm of help were they that the
still be asleep.
question now, in this crazy space, felt comic. She almost smiled. “Please,” he said, indicating a cocktail table wedged
Instead he brought her here. The dank entry was too narrow to accommodate them both, so he released his grip and she followed. Inside the small shop, she
into the corner. She protested, but when her husband cut in, “You must be tired,” she did not argue.
had the feeling of being in a different country, not one
Nervously she slid into her chair and upset the flimsy
she would have visited (of which there were only a few)
table, quickly covering her lack of grace by thumbing
but that somehow still seemed familiar in its foreign-
a folded newspaper abandoned there; the headlines,
ness, a collage of images juxtaposed from magazines
plainly in English, might as well have been in another
and movie sets depicting the exotic. It was like an entire
language. Since Jack’s birth she had lost all track of the
marketplace had been squeezed into the cramped
outside world. Her husband joked, after the third time
quarters. The pressed tin ceiling, puckered from water
she forgot his shirts at the dry cleaners, that he would
damage, hung so low her husband could not straighten
leave reminders in Jack’s diaper. And that was before
his shoulders. The dark shelves, self-installed, sagged
Jack got sick, that was when Jack was just fine, beam-
in the middle, weighed down by piles of dusty miscel-
ing and gurgling and drooling up a storm like every
lany. Her husband removed his glasses and loosened
other baby, the short-lived bliss before the tests and
the sash of his trench coat and dug in. She did not know
doctors’ visits. She watched her husband fill up the
where to look. There were books, sure, stacked high in
room and put his hands on everything, as was his way,
an array of languages, spines leather bound and stapled.
cracking a fistful of pistachios, hovering over backgam-
Throw pillows embroidered with dime-size mirrors and
mon sets, breathing his morning bacon on Roman glass
ceramic dishware, trinkets galore, from water pipes to
and pendants of the evil eye. It was his confidence, an
candelabras, wooden masks, caravans of camels, there
unwavering faith that the universe would always rule
were herbal teas and aromatherapy sticks, bootlegged
in his favor, which first attracted her. His presence had
CDs, comic books, barrels of dried fruit, bags of nuts, a
been a poultice to her system of nerves. Until Jack. Now
lone caftan collecting the seasons. Leather sandals hung
he joined her, firmly planting his elbows on the table and
from cords like cured meat. It was unimaginable how
reaching across it for her wrists. He demanded her gaze
much fit in here.
so she gave it. “Trust me,” he said and he squeezed.
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the stranger
The shopkeeper settled his coffee on a dish. His
houses, their expressions a grotesque mix of pity and
stool scraped the floor as he stood. She turned. Despite
fear, as if genes could be contagious. Her mind she
the size of the store, it seemed to take him forever. As
never could quiet, much less at night, try as she did, it
he approached, she observed his beige trousers shiny
was exhausting, she was just so tired, tired didn’t begin
with wear, the thin, almost transparent fibers of his shirt
to cut it, but sitting here now she was tired enough of
betraying the white ribbing of his undergarment, sleeves
the talk, it was incessant, to tune momentarily to the
rolled despite the temperature; discoloration crunched
shopkeeper’s banal maneuverings behind the counter.
beneath the armpits. The man was tall (or at least ap-
There was the hiss of his coffee press, the delicate
peared so, given the ceiling) and lean and now he was
plinking of cups on saucers, the pop and the slide of
standing before them removing flecks of tobacco from
the display case, a gasping for air. Her husband was
his tongue. There was a mustache on his lip. She was
going on about family and tests and prevention and
aware of his belt by her ear. He braced his forearm along
the passing of time, life’s great eraser, to make way
the back of her husband’s chair.
for a future that included healthy children, unafflicted children, a future that would render Jack a mere blip in an otherwise perfectly wonderful life, one worth
“Finally, my friend,” the shopkeeper said. The
envying, I assure you. It’d be a couple years, tops, he
men shook hands like they knew each other. Had her
was certain. Don’t get me wrong, babe, we can visit
husband treated his root canal?
him as much as we like, but the doctors say his needs,
“My wife,” her husband said, making the introduction.
over time, will simply become too much to manage.
The shopkeeper said it was a pleasure.
There’s nothing cruel about it, honey. (There was a
“What can I get you?”
thinness in his voice as he said it.) It is not a matter of
“Nothing,” she said.
failure. There’s only so much we can do. She watched
“There must be something.”
the shopkeeper wipe his hands on a tea towel and fold
“Two coffees,” her husband said.
it neatly. Back home Jack would be rousing.
“I will bring a special bite,” the shopkeeper nodded,
“Even if you were Super Mom,” he was saying.
patting her husband’s shoulder.
While they waited, her husband continued but it was more of the same; of course, he knew best.
Her breasts filled and there it was: the smell of fish. Acute and potent, the stench came about suddenly, from where, a gas burner in the back, perhaps, a toaster
“There is quality of life to think of,” he was saying,
on broil, it could have all been fashioned on a hot plate,
meaning theirs, not Jack’s, what life would he have,
that didn’t matter, but make no mistake, it was every-
absent of quality, regardless of setting, once deafness
where and it was awful and it was unrelenting and it was
and blindness set in, his body growing more listless by
this, she knew quite possibly, this rancid intrusion might
the day, his mind slowly, cruelly, irrevocably turning to
make her sick. She picked up her pathetic paper napkin
mash, until; no, not her baby’s but hers, her husband
and gagged.
longed for her return, it was a reasonable request,
“Excuse me,” she said.
she was his wife and he was a practical man, after all,
There was no escaping it.
rooted in rationalism, a man who needed to fix things and thus was his solution for fixing the unfixable. She should think about it, he was saying, (he was practi-
The coffees arrived first. She picked up the small
cally pleading), as if thoughts weren’t what consumed
glass with haste, startling the table once more and
her, haunted her through every innocent stroll to the
bringing the shopkeeper to his knees. As he anchored
drug store. Even when she avoided the playground
the legs with a matchbook, she studied the thick,
there was the omnipresent mommy brigade clog-
greasy swirls of his hair, salted with a few white flakes,
ging the sidewalk, clustering their eco-mugs in coffee
the counter-clockwise cowlick, dark tufts peeking out
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beneath his shirt collar. The pressure streamed into her chest. She resisted the urge to pet him.
“I really think it’s time,” she said, twisting a bulb around the regurgitated contents in her napkin. The
“Better?” he asked, climbing to his feet and she
shopkeeper dragged a chair across the wood floor.
nodded, grateful for her coffee, its spicy aroma, eager
Goose bumps emerged on her flesh.
for it to annihilate the fish. She was drinking too fast
The man sat.
and soon arrived at the black, mossy bottom, which she
“Soon,” her husband said and she knew he was
welcomed greedily, believing it to be chocolate. When
right. Her sitter could lift her baby from the crib; her
the sandy grounds filled her mouth, she gasped, swal-
sitter could change a diaper and slather the cream and
lowing even more before depositing the remains into
dress him anew; her sitter could cradle her child and
her napkin.
rock away tears, his body languid as the stuffed animals
“Careful of the sediment,” the shopkeeper said.
propped on his shelf, as if one day Jack might actually touch them. Her sitter could even administer a bottle if needed; she had stockpiled her supply precisely for
“We should go,” she whispered to her husband,
days like this. Everyone deserved a breather. She didn’t
clutching elbows, bracing herself against her body’s
need to be there, she knew, and yet she couldn’t help it,
signals, her child’s hunger. The bile rose in her throat;
she couldn’t even shower without phantom cries haunt-
the owner made a trip for utensils, a couple dingy forks,
ing her from the nursery, as if her presence soon would
watermarked knives, stirring teaspoons. He returned
make any difference. Her husband was right: it was important to acknowl-
once more with the sad platter of fish, all filmy-eyed
edge one’s limits.
and gelatinous and she knew it was an impossibility. Her throat clicked and her jaw was next but mercifully
She watched the two men. Her husband was do-
her husband drew the plate to him and broke the skin
ing the talking, as was the norm, day in and day out,
and asked the owner loudly for harissa.
she pitied his patients strapped helplessly to their dental chairs, mouths agape, straws breathing a futile
She looked at her him and remembered how his
wheeze into drooling mouths as her husband drilled
knowledge amazed her.
and irrigated and droned on and on, victims to a
The shopkeeper brought a reddish condiment in a sugar bowl encrusted around the rim. It was just another
double punishment; there were inquiries of homeland
hot sauce, this harissa, which made sense; her husband
and business, as if it weren’t all blatantly self-evident,
collected the slender bottles like little dolls and seemed
wretched store on a wretched street, only this man, this
always on the lookout for more, for a tastier, newer Ta-
singular man who smelled of a zoo managed to defy
basco. The hotter the better, he said. She figured by now
his surroundings; despite his dress, there was dignity to
they had effectively wiped out his taste buds, singed
his carry, agelessness to his skin, his presence at their
them to bits, allowing him to eat anything, stomach eve-
table silently granting her a momentary break so she
rything with a smile, and charm the pants off lousy cooks
took it, her mind curling away like the flesh of a fruit
everywhere (hence, he was a big hit with her mother).
roll-up from its corporal wax paper. Her favorite snack as a child, one that she always anticipated in her brown paper bag, alongside her mushy tuna and bag of chips,
In a silent exchange her husband ate for the two
smiley-faced lunches she would never need to pack.
of them. He rescued her that way. Plopped a generous
She began to contemplate the age of that fish. How
dollop of sauce on his plate and dug in, tearing at the
long had it sat there shivering in the case, awaiting an
chewy, ashen flesh, dragging each forkful through the
opportunity? Business was business, and finally, here
fiery sauce until it was smothered; washed it all down
they were: two feckless rubes. She didn’t fault the man.
with coffee, his eyes watering and the color stamping up
It was his job. She picked up a pin bone that had slid off
his neck but otherwise remaining unruffled, he polished
her husband’s plate, measured its springiness between
off his coffee and hollered out for another, motioning
her thumb and forefinger. Soon Jack would be robbed
broadly for the shopkeeper to join them at the table.
of all muscle tone.
::::: 138 :::::
the stranger
He was only working, maybe, but the shopkeeper
in her jaw, were next to fall, followed by her shoulders,
remained attentive. Chiming in on cue, he propelled the
drawbridge down, she was no longer armed, defense-
mostly one-sided chatter along, pleasing her husband.
less, her body melted away, what a warm welcome, she
She found herself drawn to the graceful lilt of the man’s
ran together, she was limitless, a haze crept in, there was
tongue, the fluidity of his gestures. Long, tan fingers.
smoke in the air and the hose came around so she took
Was he married? Did he have a family? What would he
it, his veins were like roots, the hair below his knuckles
do if the same fate befell him? Surely, he would accept
itsy-bitsy spiders, she hummed, she inhaled, she made
it; he would begin to prepare, his wife beside him, as
fish lips, her lids fluttered down and she let go.
if a child’s brisk, inevitable demise were something for which one could ever prepare. Had he the means, would he ever consider a facility, out of sight, out of mind, a
Her laugh is garish and foreign, as if it doesn’t
special place, call it like it is, an institution, designed
belong to her. When she opens her eyes the men are
to manage this kind of, this horrid, unspeakable, of all
staring into her open, wet mouth.
things, what were the chances, this Jewish disease?
Plates were cleared and replaced with spotted
It is time. Her husband insists on paying despite the shopkeeper’s protests; the man claims indebtedness
glasses filled with mint. The verdant leaves swayed in
for some unnamed generosity bestowed on him (more
her hot glass like seaweed. The mint calmed her stom-
than a routine cleaning?) but he is unable to persuade.
ach, and soon any threat of the fish disappeared. The
During their interchange, she fingers a case of oxidized
drink was good and the hookah that followed even
jewelry with coat in hand, dangling earrings, embedded
better. When the shopkeeper presented them with the
stones, necklaces strung from old coins, she touches
ornate water pipe, she hesitated, glancing uneasily at
their cool grimy surface, sticky from exposure, from the
her husband, who sat entranced by the owner’s meticu-
passing of time, wondering how vibrant they must have
lous process of cleaning the instrument, unwrapping the
looked before they tarnished, what a statement they
coal-sized tobacco and placing it into the ceramic bowl,
could have made with the right dress and shoes. She
uncoiling the long, serpentine hose. How many lips had
wishes for an entire feast of them, fastened like chain
touched that mouthpiece? Her husband went first, then
mail, row after row and clasped to her neck.
the shopkeeper. She watched them and waited. It was all the reassurance she needed. “May I try?” she asked and the shopkeeper steadied
She can hear her husband over the ring of the
the leather rope for her. The water gargled in its pear-
cash register. She joins him, waiting patiently by his side
shaped base as she drew the smoke to her lips, cough-
as the shopkeeper cracks open a roll and sprinkles quar-
ing inexpertly before learning to hold everything in for
ters into the drawer. Her husband is making promises for
as long as she could until she had no choice but
next-time but when a cigar box catches his eye, luring him
to exhale.
three feet to the left, she steps in, her palm open, so that
“That a girl,” her husband said.
it is she who receives the change and then it is she who
“Do you like?” the shopkeeper asked.
takes the shopkeeper’s hand and draws it into her shirt. He holds himself there, cupped and warm against
She nodded and then she let go, with each trail of smoke, sinking and nodding and letting go. Yes, she
her. His eyebrows do not waver. Then, with the slightest
thought, relinquishing her grip on time, which had
reach he has her, nipple between his finger and thumb,
always been inextricably tied to Jack’s schedule, what
rolling her like a cigarette until a circle of milk blooms
remained of it, breathing the sweet tobacco, the ap-
on her blouse and she takes a step back to examine it as
ple scent reminding her of her baby’s breath, a blend
one would a surface wound before buttoning her coat
of apricots and cream cheese that remained constant
and following her husband out of the store the moment
regardless of what he ingested. Her muscles, set firmly
he says ready.
::::: 139 :::::
SL
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