fall 2010/winter 2011 Issue 7
villains us $8.00
a room full of voices
kathryn stockett p 16 tana french p 36 alan moore p 80 jonathan safran foer p 100 jennifer mascia p 120
www.slicemagazine.org
a room full of voices
fall 2010/winter 2011 Issue 7
villains
slice Publishers
assistant editor
Maria Gagliano
ian ruder
Celia Blue Johnson
editorial support
Editor-in-chief
Guy Anglade
Tricia Callahan
Jennifer Eck
Art Director/designer Amy Sly
Gabe Koplowitz Amelia Kreminski Jaclyn Gardner Miriam Haier
poetry editor
Ming Holden
tom haushalter
Angie Hughes Amy Johnson
Online Editor
Liz Mathews Jackie Reitzes
STAFF Elizabeth Blachman
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Sarah Bowlin
David Liatti
Amanda Bullock
Matthew Lansburgh
Diana Franco
Susan Richman
Amanda Ice
Shane Welch
Sean F. Jones
Adrian Zackheim
Ian F. King Joe Scalora
Very special thanks to the following supporters of Slice magazine: lifetime subscribers Walter & Kathy Callahan Antonio DiCaro Mark & Laura Feld Carmine & Rosalia Gagliano
Copyright © 2010, Slice Literary, Inc. Slice magazine is published by Slice Literary, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Slice is published semiannually. 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.
Karen Maine
c.a.b. Fredericks
Lori Bongiorno
Slice, Issue 7
Joe & Katherine Gagliano
Colin Johnson Heidi Lange
Sal Gagliano & Linda Lagos
Scott LeBouef
Carl & Patricia Johnson
Charlotte Sheedy
Christian Johnson CJ Johnson
A big thank-you to the folks at Sixpoint Craft Ales, who have remained enthusiastic advocates of each issue, in addition to sponsoring our events with their fine beer.
Slice is printed in the United States by United Graphics. ISSN 1938-6923 Cover design by Amy Sly Interior design by Amy Sly Cover drawing by Caitlin Hackett Photo on previous page by Nicolas Silberfaden Photos on opposite page by Amy Sly Excerpt on page 19 reprinted from The Help by Kathryn Stockett by arrangement with Amy Einhorn Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn Stockett. Excerpt on page 85 reprinted from pages 38–39 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910 by Alan Moore. Copyright © 2009 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. Excerpted by permission of Top Shelf Productions. All rights reserved.
celia maria
dear
Reader: Everyone remembers their first villain. For some of us, it was an unkind teacher or an unidentified monster in the closet. Others remember villains of the curly mustache variety, terrorizing heroes and scheming evil in the otherwise wholesome worlds of our favorite stories. Then there are the more subtle villains, woven into our days so discreetly that their damage goes unnoticed: a phobia, a dreaded job, a mother’s disapproving glance. No matter how we remember them, our villains shape who we are unlike much else. At their worst, they fuel our nightmares, our insecurities, and our doubts. At their best, they entertain us, inspire change, and spark our curiosity. This got us thinking: as publishers, we wanted to know how Slice’s community of writers meets their villains. We weren’t disappointed. These pages offer a glimpse into what happens when our villains become our muses. The result is an unexpected mix of ugly-turned-magical, whether those villains are personified as epic comic-book characters, unrequited love, sociopaths in small-town Ireland, or subtle and obvious lines that segregate a community. These stories, spun from the minds of emerging and established writers, will prompt you to look over your shoulder before turning the page and perhaps conjure the villains that lurk within the shadows of your own imagination. Enjoy!
The
publishers Celia was seen with 100 Essential American Poems in Park Slope’s Café Regular du Nord. Maria was caught reading The Lost Art of Real Cooking on the F train. See what other books we’ve spied people reading at www.coverspy.com.
in this issue
INTERVIEWS with
kathryn stockett
alan moore
jennifer mascia tana french jonathan safran foer
Spotlight Darlene
Sarah Lynn Knowles
Interviews
Kathryn Stockett
Celia Blue Johnson & Maria Gagliano Tana French
Maria Gagliano & Celia Blue Johnson
Alan Moore
10
Tim Mucci Jonathan Safran Foer
Celia Blue Johnson & Maria Gagliano
16
Jennifer Mascia
Sean F. Jones
36
80 100
120
Fiction
A Kiss Thing
Robin Gaines Choose Your Own Adventure
Dan Moreau Two Ghosts
Kristie Wang Black Babe
Sam J. Miller
22 33 46 71
Poetry
Note Pulled from an Invisible Play
Billy Merrell Marriage 1
Billy Merrell Country Couple
Michael Paul Thomas My Brother Died Last Night
Diana Marie Delgado
21 31 56 89
The Children of the Jacaranda Tree 91
Body Double #1
125
Body Double #2
133
[in the heart of pennsylvania there] 143
Sahar Delijani Illuminati
Jim Gavin Thruway
Kevin Leahy
Jared Harel Jared Harel
114 115
M. A. Vizsolyi
Nonfiction
Lessons in Death and Drowning
Jenniey Tallman Ah, Nuts, I’m in Love
Michael Hemery Bound to Be Bad
C.A.B. Fredericks Tracing the Blue Light
M. Eileen Cronin
42 57 61
Rising Voices Suspicious
Aderlyn Lopez At the Valley
Han Minh Tran Love for a Sister
64
Daysi F. Fernandez Demons
David J. Castelan Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
David Pomerico Dear Absolutionist
Ian F. King
116 139
106 109 110 112
This issue is dedicated to Leslie Pockell, a brilliant editor and anthologist, who was always an enthusiastic advocate of Slice.
James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Founda-
writers
tion for the Arts. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, BorderSenses, Indiana Review, Lumina, Ninth Letter, Perihelion, and elsewhere.
DaviD J. Castelan is a tenth-grade student at Bronx Early
Sahar Delijani was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1983. She has a
College Academy. He participates in the Room to Write
BA in comparative literature from the University of Cali-
program through Learning Leaders. He enjoys learning
fornia, Berkeley. A number of her works have been pub-
about new things.
lished in Perigee, Beginning Literary Magazine, Current Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Berkeley Poetry Review,
M. Eileen Cronin was awarded a Washington Writing Prize in
Sangam Magazine, and Pezhvak. Furthermore, she is a regular collaborator of Iran-Emrooz, an Iranian political
Short Fiction and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
and cultural journal. She lives in Torino, Italy. She is cur-
Her stories and essays have appeared or are forthcom-
rently at work on a novel.
ing in Third Coast, Bellevue Literary Review, Literary Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. Both of her
Daysi F. Fernandez is a tenth-grade student at Bronx Early
novels were finalists in the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner-
College Academy. She participates in the Room to Write
Wisdom competition, and she attended the Community
program through Learning Leaders. She enjoys writing
of Writers at Squaw Valley on scholarship. She’s a clini-
and looks forward to becoming a journalist in her future.
Review, Coe Review, and G.W. Review, as well as the
cal psychologist and an assistant editor for Narrative
C.A.B. Fredericks is the online editor at Slice magazine.
magazine.
Diana Marie Delgado was born in California and grew up in the
He writes about drugs for TheFasterTimes.com, sharks for Nerdist.com, and rock ’n’ roll for whomever will read
San Gabriel Valley. She studied poetry at the University
it. His fiction has been published in Spectrum and Stac-
of California, Riverside, and Columbia University, where
cato. As a native San Franciscan living in Brooklyn, he
she received her MFA. She has won numerous awards
makes salsa that most people find inedibly hot. He has
of support, including a McNamara Travel Grant and the
come to terms with this.
6
contributors
Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the United States,
subTerrain, the Tusculum Review, and the book Fearless
and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She
Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir.
North, Portland Review, Post Road Magazine, Redivider,
trained as a professional actress at Trinity College,
Celia Blue Johnson is a writer, book editor, and co-publisher
Dublin, and has worked in theater, film, and voice-over.
Maria Gagliano is a writer, editor, baker, and co-publisher
of Slice. Her debut book, a collection of essays about the inspiration behind great works of literature, is being
of Slice. She lives in Brooklyn, where she’s teaching
published by Penguin in the fall of 2011. Celia grew up
herself how to sew, garden, pickle, preserve, and cook
running around barefoot in Melbourne, Australia, but
like her Sicilian parents. She shares her adventures at
now wears shoes in Brooklyn, New York.
PomatoRevival.com.
Sean F. Jones is a writer who has published feature interviews
Robin Gaines ’s short stories have appeared in various liter-
with Pulitzer Prize winners, internationally bestselling
ary journals and anthologies. She is a former newspaper
authors, and MacArthur-certified geniuses, so he feels
and magazine writer and received her master’s degree
pretty bad about himself. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
in journalism from Michigan State University. She is “A Kiss Thing” is a part. She is currently working on a
Ian F. King ’s writing can be found in such places as Hobart,
novel about love, loss, jealousy, and secrets. Gaines lives
Pindeldyboz, Take the Handle, and NylonMag.com,
looking for a publisher for her novel-in-stories, of which
outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband, three
among other publications, and he is a regular contribu-
children, and a chocolate Lab named Hazel.
tor to the Slices of Life blog. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Jim Gavin lives in San Francisco.
Sarah Lynn Knowles works in book production in New York
Jared Harel’s poems have been published or are forthcom-
City. Her work has been featured in Perigee, Ducts, Two Hundred by 200, Submit Magazine, Spires, Film &
ing in such literary journals as the Fiddlehead, Quarterly
History, Venus Zine, and several self-produced zines.
West, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Notre Dame Review, New
She currently runs Brooklyn-based pop culture blog
York Quarterly, Barrow Street, and Rattle. He earned
Sarahspy.com and edits online art/literary/music journal
his MFA in poetry from Cornell University and currently
Storychord.com.
teaches creative writing and composition at Centenary
Kevin Leahy works for a design agency in Chicago.
College in Hackettstown, New Jersey.
Michael Hemery teaches English near Cleveland, Ohio; serves as the nonfiction editor of Hunger Mountain;
Aderlyn Lopez is a tenth-grade student at Bronx Early College
and earned his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine
Academy. He participates in the Room to Write program
Arts. His book, No Permanent Scars, will be published
through Learning Leaders. He enjoys writing to keep
by Silenced Press later this year. Individual essays have
himself entertained and his mind active.
appeared or are forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Los Angeles Review, Lumina, New Plains Review, Passages
7
slice
issue 7
Jennifer Mascia grew up between Miami, Southern California,
tors, pilots UFOs, climbs tall buildings, reads, and sips coffee. Some of these things are true.
and Staten Island. She is a graduate of CUNY Hunter Journalism. She lives in Manhattan and works at the New
David Pomerico is an assistant editor at Del Rey Spectra,
York Times.
where he focuses primarily on traditional fantasy and
College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of
A Brooklyn-based poet,
contemporary science fiction and fantasy. He has been
Billy Merrell is the author
at Random House for three years and has worked with
of Talking in the Dark, a poetry memoir (Scholastic,
authors Alan Campbell, David J. Williams, Greg van
2003) and the coeditor of The Full Spectrum (Random
Eekhout, C. L. Anderson, Felix Gilman, Darin Bradley,
House, 2006), which received a Lambda Literary Award.
Ari Marmell, and Chris Wooding. He is also an editor
Most recently, he is coauthor of Go Ahead, Ask Me
in the Star Wars publishing program. A graduate of
(Simon & Schuster, 2009). He currently serves as web
Binghamton University, he holds master’s degrees from
developer for Poets.org, the website of the Academy of
Washington University in St. Louis and from NYU. If
American Poets.
you’re really bored at work, you can follow him on Twitter @DelReySpectra.
Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His work has appeared in literary journals such as the Min-
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything
nesota Review, Fiction International, Washington Square,
Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, and the Rumpus. He is the co-
His work has received numerous awards and has been
editor of Horror After 9/11, a critical anthology forthcom-
translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn.
ing from the University of Texas Press in the fall of 2011.
Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson,
Visit him at SamJMiller.com, and/or drop him a line at SamJMiller79@yahoo.com.
Mississippi. After graduating from the University of
Alan Moore is one of the most acclaimed writers and in-
Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in
novators in the graphic story medium, having garnered
magazine publishing and marketing for nine years.
countless awards for such works as Watchmen, V for
She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and
Vendetta, From Hell, Miracleman, and Swamp Thing. He,
daughter. The Help is her first novel.
along with many talented illustrators, has also created
Jenniey Tallman sits down
the America’s Best Comics line, which includes The
Seven days a week,
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea, and
on a yellow chair in St. Paul, Minnesota, to write. She
Tom Strong.
has three sons, a website at JennieyTallman.com, and a piece of nonfiction published in the Summerset Review.
Dan Moreau ’s work has appeared in Redivider, Los Ange-
She wrote a novel last year and is currently at work on a book-length creative nonfiction project that focuses on
les Review, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
falling down.
Tim Michael Paul Mucci lives in Brooklyn, writes, podcasts, investigates Thomas received his MFA from Syracuse University, strange phenomena, speaks to ghosts, wrestles alliga-
where he was the founding editor of Syracuse’s literary
8
contributors
Connotation Press, 5AM, Greensboro Review, and others.
M. A. Vizsolyi was indeed raised in the woods of Pennsyl-
His book manuscript, Jacket of a Ghost, was a finalist
vania, but now lives in New York City, where he teaches
for the National Poetry Series. He teaches literature and
ice skating and ice hockey in beautiful Central Park. His
creative writing at Monmouth University and lives in
poems have recently appeared in 6x6, Margie, and Ba-
Asbury Park, New Jersey.
teau, among others.
Han Minh Tran is a tenth-grade student at Bronx Early Col-
Kristie Wang received an MFA in fiction writing from Cornell
lege Academy. She participates in the Room to Write
University and a BA in English from UCLA. Currently liv-
program through Learning Leaders. She enjoys writing
ing in San Francisco, Kristie is at work on a novel about
fictional stories to express her creativity.Â
Dutch missionaries in colonial Taiwan.
magazine, Salt Hill. His poems have appeared recently in
artists Ophelia Chong pp 43, 90
Sarah McNeil p 59
www.opheliachong.org
www.400pencils.com
Caitlin Hackett cover
anna moller p 65
www.caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com
www.annamoller.net
Erin Hanson pp 46-47
Tim Mucci p 81
www.recoveringlazyholic.com
www.writeclubpodcast.blogspot.com
ryan ketchum p 127
Tate K. Nations p 20
www.ryanketchum.com
www.tatenations.com
Terry Knouff p 132
Nicolas Silberfaden p 1
www.flickr.com/tknouff
www.nicolassilberfaden.com
Karine LĂŠger pp 10-11, 142
Amy Sly pp 22-23, 72
www.karineleger.ca
www.amysly.com
Jon MacNair p 32
www.jonmacnair.com
9
darlene sarah Lynn knowles
Roxanne, my mother-in-law for going on two
ogy of married people—but the part of the equation
years now, told me Oprah had this couples counselor
that’s not adding up for me is where these couples are
on the other day who swore the key to a happy and
finding all the time. Or energy. And the courage and
long-lasting marriage is you can’t ever go to bed angry,
motivation, too, to say anything about quitting fighting
not ever, no exceptions. If you don’t sort things out
in the first place.
before pulling that lamp cord, this lady said, all the
See, there comes this turning point in a marriage, or
unresolved irritation will float above your bed, nipping
there did in mine anyway, where every effort takes more
at your and your hubby’s brains all night. So if by chance
effort, and time starts seeming to slide around and drip
you do manage a good night’s rest (which you probably
through every crack. It’ll come on sudden, like a switch
won’t), you’ve still prevented any kind of fresh start the
was flipped. One day you’ll look at your husband and
next morning because you’ll wake up bitter with issues
think, Something is different, without knowing what.
to deal with before your eyes have even gotten used to
You’ll stare harder, squint your eyes maybe, or tilt your
the sun being out.
head to the side. “Did you get a haircut?” you will ask.
Now, I get what she was trying to say, and of course
Or, “Is that a new shirt?” And when he says no, neither,
I can’t boast any kind of credentials that’d get me on
you’ll find yourself in a strange sort of standoff, him
the Oprah show—for any topic, never mind the psychol-
watching you examine every detail, your brow furrowed,
10
darlene sarah Lynn knowles
your hands pulling pieces of fabric, sections of flesh, like
how you’ll feel with that rock-sized worry in your abdo-
time’s running low on one of those touch-screen Photo
men, knowing something is different. Pawing at your
Hunt games in bars, you know, where you compare the
husband’s chest and sides, stepping back to size him up
two naked-lady pictures and point out the five differ-
against that image tattooed on the wall of your brain,
ences between them. And the inconsistency isn’t ever
finding nothing. You know him; you know this life, the
simple or obvious, like Girl On the Left is missing a nip-
one you share. You’re supposed to, anyway. But this feel-
ple while Girl On the Right has three; it’s always some-
ing—this nagging, evidence-less feeling—it is something.
thing teeny-tiny, like the pencil on the desk her bare ass
Know that you are not wrong. Take stock of the air in the
leans back onto casts a shadow in only one instance, or
room, depleted like a helium balloon that’s sunk down
a thin crack in the floorboard extends farther past one
a little from the sky. Notice the lighting, inexplicably
of her garish red pinkie toenails.
altered—cleaner, whiter, casting sharper shadows behind
Nobody can stand losing a game of Photo Hunt, of
objects, magnifying flaws and faults. Someone’s surely
course—not when the answer should be right there,
flicked a switch and changed things. Something’s on that
staring out at you from the gleaming bright screen.
before was off. Something’s off that was once on.
And skipping over those glaring answers means you are
For us—for me—it happened when the baby came
stupid, kind of—or at least ignorant. Which is exactly
photograph by Karine Léger
along.
11
slice
issue 7
«.»
Now, I’ve got nothing against babies, and I did want one of my own at some point—just not right away. When
A couple months after our sweet gardenia
Bill and I got engaged and were in that gleeful stage
wedding at my in-laws’ backyard farm, Bill gets this idea
where there’s a lot of midnight nuzzling and whisper-
that we’ve got to get to work making a baby. Every time
ing about picket fences and all that, we agreed we’d
his steel-toed work boots thudded past the guest room,
want three children, though we couldn’t come to any
all I heard about was babies, babies, babies. He started
consensus on whether that’d break down to two boys
drawing out my name, Dar-leeene this and Dar-leeene
and one girl or two girls and one boy. We bickered like
that, which I can’t stand; I answered only so my skin
this was something we could check off in pencil on a
would quit crawling.
catalog order form. But I wanted to wait until we had more money saved, and I wanted pregnancy to happen
But that’s how it was, all the time then: “Dar-leeene, let’s make a baby,” washing up at the bathroom sink
naturally, maybe take us by surprise. I resented being
before bed, and “Come on, Darleeene, don’t you want a
hounded and made to feel like I was inflicting some evil
family?” at a shopping mall walking past a line of little
childless curse on the family, ruining not only Bill’s and
hand-holders. Of course I didn’t hear anybody pipe up
Roxanne’s lives but the lives of all the unborn babies in
about baby-making the night of our second anniversary,
the sky that I’d apparently banned from planet Earth.
when some chubby, toothless monster started wailing
I just wanted everyone to stop, to quiet, just for a little
away at our favorite Italian place, ruining everybody’s
while, so everything could fold out as it was fated to, on
appetite in there. And no talk of babies when Bill and
its own. I wanted both of them to shut their mouths, so
I had to steer our grocery cart around a curly-headed
that maybe I could think.
devil throwing a nasty tantrum in the middle of the
«.»
produce aisle, kicking and pounding whole earthquakes into tile. I turned to look at Bill in those situations, my smuggest expression ready, but he’d avoid my stare and
On Monday nights there are two events I can
act like his ears were somehow immune to the glass-
bank on happening without fail. The first is that Bill
cracking shrieks around us. Beats me whether he fakes
will arrive home exhausted and bothered after what he
ignorance or has real, true skill; but he never winced
claims was the worst, most torturous day in the whole
then and he still doesn’t now when our kid’s screaming
entire history of work—one that I, knowing nothing,
bloody murder hours before dawn and somebody has to
shouldn’t bother to try and understand; and the other is
slide out from beneath the blankets to check why.
that Roxanne will whip into my kitchen for dinner shortly
My guess is it was Roxanne, my mother-in-law, who
after, empty-handed but full of quick critiques that are
planted the idea in her son’s big dinosaur head since
camouflaged only slightly by her insincerely chirpy tone.
I never heard Bill say anything about babies until she
Tonight it was some union policy change that had
started dropping by during his workdays to lay down
Bill slouched and stammering to his can of beer at
ideas on the not-so-sly. “How’s married life, Darlene?”
the table while I zigzagged through the kitchen like a
she’d ask, her eyes squinted above the ceramic mug she
spooked hen assembling dinner before Roxanne could
gripped with both hands at my kitchen table. “When’re
proclaim it’d turned to rubber in the pot. The baby
you gonna give me a little grandbaby to play with?”
had recently trained me to deliver whichever toy she’d
“You think I could call up Sears and have them bring
tossed over the side of her high chair only to bawl
one by this afternoon?” I answered one day, and she
every time she’d inevitably throw it over again. In a
just frowned, shook her head, and placed her coffee
few minutes Roxanne was due to take pity on her son’s
mug down. Roxanne’s never found me too funny, but I
unjust tribulations; but until then, I squeezed in as much
generally don’t pay any mind. To be honest, getting that
head-patting and ego-stroking as would fit between
woman to shut her trap is a far more satisfying outcome
the spaghetti-stirring, table-setting, and toy-fetching.
than laughter anyway.
I thought I had all my balls successfully juggled when
12
darlene
sarah lynn knowles
Know that you are not wrong. Take stock of the air in the room, depleted like a helium balloon that’s sunk down a little from the sky. Notice the lighting, inexplicably altered— cleaner, whiter, casting sharper shadows behind objects, magnifying flaws and faults. Someone’s surely flicked a switch and changed things. Something’s on that before was off. Something’s off that was once on.
Bill erupted, “Goddamn it. You’re not listening to me, Darlene.” “You can’t see I’m doing ten things at once over here?” I huffed. The last sentence I’d heard had to do with why he couldn’t stand Jimmy the union head who was not the same as Jimmy C., the guy from work who’d been to the house once. I’d been peppering pauses with what felt like an appropriate number of hmms and reallys but apparently had not been convincing enough. “Don’t act like you’re listening when you’re not.” “I’m trying, but I’ve got pots boiling over and a baby screaming,” to which our doll heightened her volume as if on cue. “Telling me your story can’t wait two minutes?” “It wasn’t a story.” “What?” I said, moving to retrieve the baby’s stuffed rabbit from the floor. “I was trying to tell you something important. Your ears don’t work when the stove is on?” “Are you kidding me?” Bill shoved his weight back from the table and stomped to the fridge. “You know what? Forget it.” “Maybe if you’d help entertain this baby while I run around getting dinner together for your mother—” Glass jars clanked against bottles as the refrigerator door swung shut. “Forget it, I said. I’m going to watch the game.”
of goos and gahs numbed my head while I checked on
With that, Bill trudged off, and a few seconds later
the garlic bread and finished tossing cherry tomatoes
the TV volume rose so high its echo off the wood pan-
and grated carrots into a salad.
eling competed with the baby screaming for her bunny,
“How are you, Roxanne?” I finally said as I turned to
on the floor again.
carry the serving dishes to the center of the table.
“You’re not eating now?” I hollered to the sulking gi-
“Bigger and bigger every time!” Roxanne squealed,
ant, as if he could hear. Startled, the baby choked back a
her mouth three inches from the baby’s face. She
sob and stared at me with blank concern.
reached to pinch the tiny button nose. “Do you want a present? Do you, do you, do you? I bet you do! I bet
«.»
you do!” “Bill,” I shouted. “Dinner’s on.”
Not ten minutes later, Roxanne barreled through
“Who wants a present? Does baby want a present? I
the back door at her usual time down to the second, her
bet baby does!” she screeched at close range.
gloved hands gripping the handles of two overstuffed
“Bill,” I said, louder.
Toys“R”Us shopping bags and her eyes bulging mania-
“My word, Darlene,” Roxanne turned toward me, her
cally from underneath a floppy faux-fur hat. “Where’s
face scrunched unattractively. “Can you walk in there
my baby?” she yelped, to which I said nothing, assuming
and let him know? Your yelling is insufferable.”
she meant the one slapping palms against the high chair
I cleared my throat, wiped my hands on a dish towel,
tabletop and not the one pounding his calloused thumb
and walked in there to let him know. “Bill,” I said calmly.
against the remote control’s volume button. A barrage
“Your mother’s here, and dinner’s ready.”
13
slice
issue 7
Bill guzzled the last gulps from an inverted can, his
breath from a room full of noise to drown it deep inside
shoeless feet propped on the worn green ottoman. A
me. I exhale, and there is always more.
hole at the tip of his sock exposed a bulbous pink toe.
“Remember before?” every week I want to say.
“You coming?”
“When it was not like this?” Every week, seated there,
“I heard you.”
flashing back to the switch unflipped, to midnight nuz-
“Okay. Are you coming?”
zling and picket-fence whispering, to gardenias filling
“Who’s so pretty pretty pretty?” went the cooing
a pastel gazebo with sweet, damp scent. Every week I
in the kitchen, and finally Bill pivoted to look at me, his
think of Mondays a million years ago, sneaking Kahlua
eyebrows arched toward his creeping-back hairline. He
from the cabinet to spike coffee for our high school
lowered his jaw to speak. A second took its sweet time
football games, of hikes across the field behind the
passing. Then Bill leaned back, eyes widening, and hol-
house to watch the deer graze if we stood still and quiet
lered forth a cavernous belch that rattled against every
enough behind the fence. I remember shy smiling across
wall and back again.
candlelight at the Italian place, when it was still new and not the same old standard go-to spot for every anniver-
«.»
sary and apology. I think of when Bill grabbed my hand during that first walk to bed in our newly owned home,
Dinner went by. It just went by, the way it always
how the inside of my stomach had quivered and flipped
does—in an assembly line of puppet hands, choreo-
so that now it was facing out.
graphed to serve and dress the salad, to twirl angel
But a pleading baby’s screech inevitably pulls me
hair pasta nests between forks and spoons, to swipe
back, just as I am far enough to feel out of my flesh,
bread ends across remaining spots of sauce. Every week
always. And there I am, enveloped by clatter, a table full
the script carries on without much help from us. Every
of plates to clear, to scrape, to pile into the dishwasher.
week, it’s the same word bank of responses, of ques-
A mother-in-law to hug good-bye, politely, without
tions, of breaths and bites in between. The baby says
clenching. A baby to soap in the kitchen sink alongside
hi, and Roxanne hellos back without bothering to check
a soldierlike line of beer cans across the counter, the TV
for whom the greeting was intended. I respond cheerily
booming, buzzing in the next room. A snoring husband
to singsong accusations that the kitchen once was kept
to wake from the couch who’ll deny he was sleeping and
cleaner, that the baby’s clothing seems tight or rag-
mutter cruel nonsense on his trudge up to bed.
ged, that the plants out front could use some care. Bill
On this one Monday out of a hundred other Mondays,
unloads stories—about evil union guy Jimmy who is not
I realized I’d finished everything that needed finishing
the same as Jimmy C., or about Bill’s one and only politi-
only when shifting finally onto my half of the mattress in
cal opinion which I know is based on a single factoid he
the dark. I felt uneasy in the quiet I’d been working to-
misheard on the evening news three years ago, or about
ward all day, exhausted but unable to relax. I wondered
his revolutionary idea that’d improve everything if only a
at the ceiling if the marriage therapist Roxanne saw on
certain boss would pull his head from his ass—egged on
Oprah would be quick to spot unresolved issues bounc-
by Roxanne’s tsk-tsking to the mean, mean world that
ing like Christmas Eve sugarplums between our heads. A
won’t cut her one and only angel son a break. The baby
strip of moonlight beamed from the crack between the
ignores the chopped-up spaghetti and rubber-sealed
curtain panels onto Bill’s stomach, which rose rounder
spoon each time Roxanne hands back the bunny I keep
and then sunk with each rhythmic, heaving breath. As
requesting to please leave on the floor. Bill belches. Rox-
I rolled onto my side toward him, I saw his body brace
anne coos. I slide a knife across the loaf of bread, back
against the mattress movement. His nose twitched to
and forth and back again. I focus on the quiet scratch
one side, then let go.
of its teeth against the crust. When I breathe, a cloud of
Then, with unnecessary stealth, my pointed fingers
sound fills up my lungs and expands through my whole
slithered beneath the blankets toward Bill’s side of the
body. I look at the bread that I am slicing. I breathe one
bed. I wrapped and rested my arm around his bare bal-
14
darlene
sarah lynn knowles
loon stomach to float and fall with his uneven breaths. I
for some simple, pointless favor. “What?” I said, and
inched closer, curled my torso around his side, and tried
thought, Oh god, what if it was always like this? What
to push my knees underneath his legs without waking
if it never changed, never stopped? If she never grew,
him. His body was warm. My chest, stomach, and thighs
kept waking every single night to scream? If my life came
pressed against the heat to absorb it.
down to sleeplessness and sick, sad noise from here on
When I squeezed my arm a little tighter around his
out and always?
girth, Bill’s body responded. “Baby,” he said, his throat
“Stop crying,” I pleaded, gripping the wooden fence
stifled with sleep in that gritty midnight voice I used to
between us, but she went on filling the room with boom-
know. His eyes blinked twice, haphazardly, and slowly his
ing wails that enveloped everything, expanded and grew
heft revolved to face me. “Hi,” I said, as a calloused palm
against the walls, dented the furniture with sound. I in-
rose to flatten against the small of my back, and not just
haled deeply, lucklessly trying to drown the noise within
lips but a whole mouth began planting fat, smacking
me. Then, as the longest second took its time in passing,
kisses all over my face.
I snatched up the powder pink blanket at the end of the
Bill heaved his body closer, pulling and pressing my
crib and molded it into a ball. Noise filled up my head
chest and pelvis against his, like two opposite magnets
and clattered electric against the walls of my brain as I
meeting. His smacking mouth journeyed its way toward
pressed the dense fabric down onto the sound. I closed
my ear, and when he whispered my name, Dar-leeene,
my eyes against the declining sob of an ambulance siren
Dar-leeene, I knew which words would get whispered
rolling away down a road or a radio speaker slowing as
next. I let them. And when Bill’s wide hands pawed and
its battery ran down.
smashed their way around my breasts, I instantly felt
Soon the stifled sound would go from winding down
them swell beneath the skin with milk. In my head, a
to done. A dog-eared page lifted to reveal a new one,
voice said, “No.” But I couldn’t hear it; I wasn’t there. By
blank and white. I looked down at my feet and saw a
then my brain was somewhere else, floating far away,
stuffed bunny slumped against the crib leg. “Oh no,” I
remembering.
realized. “Oh god.” And pulled my hand away. The baby gasped as the blanket fell. Her eyes were wide and
«.»
glassy, and her thin pink lips hiccuped air. “Oh god,” I said, still staring. In my head I begged for her to cry.
Hours later, a switch had flipped. My eyes
She didn’t. I waited. Many minutes passed of stand-
opened, and I felt it. The baby who by this point should
ing there, watching, waiting till her eyelids drifted shut
have slept through nights but wouldn’t was broadcast-
and her little balloon chest got to breathing in a rhythm.
ing sharp cries through every room. I didn’t bother to
The last remaining particles of sound from before set-
glance at Bill, whose ears absorbed nothing. Instead I
tled dead like dust to the floor. I inhaled a breath and
creaked limb-by-limb from the bed and padded down
exhaled it, noiseless. I leaned down to grab the floppy
each stair toward the sound, my right hand curling
bunny by its ears and dropped it into the crib without
around the banister, my left mindlessly falling to rest
looking. I cleared my throat and turned toward the hall
across my abdomen. “Dar-leeene,” I whispered to my-
to tiptoe up the stairs.
self, and laughed. “Dar-leeeene.”
In our bedroom, the beam of moonlight had switched
As I stood alongside the crib, the screams seemed
paths, to instead illuminate a spot on the carpet I
amplified. And unlike so many other mothers who can
stepped onto and then off of, my peachy toes there
extract meaning from each particular brand of cry, I
below me and then gone again in the dark. Then, sound-
deciphered nothing from it, just pure, dark, hollow noise.
lessly, I slid between the sheets, careful not to pierce the
“Be quiet,” I said. “Come on. Is it your diaper? You’re
fresh, calm quiet that filled the air above our bed. sLk
hungry? What?” To read an interview with Sarah Lynn Knowles and learn how to enter in the next Spotlight Competition, visit www.slicemagazine.org.
Of course the pudgy, flannel-wrapped body just lay there, kept crying at me through squinted eyes, frantic
15
An Interview with
Kathryn stockett celia blue johnson & maria gagliano After you’ve finished reading the New York Times bestselling novel The Help, the characters’ voices will linger in your mind. Kathryn Stockett has a knack for capturing characters down to their tiniest nuances. You’ll chuckle at a sassy retort, scowl at a cruel insult, sigh over an unexpected apology, and tear up over a terrible revelation. Stockett is a natural storyteller, and when we called her from our Brooklyn brownstone, it felt like we could just as easily be sitting at the lunch counter at Brent’s Drug Store in her hometown—Jackson, Mississippi—eating cheeseburgers and chatting about the inspiration behind her book, the complexity of her characters, and what villains mean to her.
The theme for this issue of Slice is Villains. In your
amalgams of many people we’ve known. Even really
novel, The Help, many of the characters are subjected
good people might have one bad trait. That’s essential
to cruelty by people who could be considered villains,
to building characters because one bad trait on a good
but you do a beautiful job of showing the humanity of
person really shows up. One good trait on a really bad
each character, so nothing is really black-and-white.
person shows up as well, but you usually don’t worry
What was your process shaping these multi-sided
about that good trait quite as much.
characters?
It’s fun trying to make characters not too flat, meaning not all good or all bad. But it’s a challenge, too. With
I think the most common thing that happens
Hilly Holbrook, who is considered my villain, the best
when you are a writer and you create good
I could do for her in terms of giving her a good side is
people and bad people, readers love to ask you who a
show that she really cares for her children and that she’s
character is in real life. It’s so funny to me because I’m
a great leader.
no different than the readers. I do the same thing with all my favorite authors. I wonder, Oh my gosh, who was
There’s that moment in the book, too, when she’s
in their family that acted that way? But these are just
standing by the pool and Skeeter’s talking to her. You
16
see a certain amount of weakness when Hilly talks
realized that these lines don’t exist or was it a gradual
about her husband and the campaign. For someone
understanding?
who’s so strong on the outside, you manage to show how overwhelmed she is by everything she’s trying
I think a lot of her realizations came after her
to achieve.
son died and she began seeing the world through different eyes. Death brings us down to the
Sometimes you can see the cracks in the
essentials, and we realize we’re all mortal and we’re all
surface with Hilly. That’s why I threw in that
so fleeting. We could just as easily be gone. In that same
cold sore. You can really tell that all the stress is getting
light, we’re all made of the same things, flesh and bone.
to her.
It doesn’t matter what color your skin is—we’re all people and with very similar DNA.
Speaking of things not necessarily being black-and-
Many of Aibileen’s realizations occurred after
white, we’re reminded of when Aibileen tells Minny she
Treelore’s death and as she developed a relationship
doesn’t really believe in the lines that people draw all
with a white adult, Skeeter. And she had that realization
around them. Is there a specific event when Aibileen
herself that not all white people are bad, the way she
photograph by Kem Lee
17
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issue 7
was probably brought up to believe. That’s a realization
awful, but I’m very stubborn and thought I could turn
for Skeeter as well, that there’s no difference between
it around, so I took a month off. Our apartment was
black and white.
downtown. I started on September 10, and the next day, day two into my retreat, it was 9/11. All of our
There’s a similar parallel between Celia and Minny, too.
phone service was cut, and we had no email, no cell service, no landlines; and we didn’t have any way to
Yeah, I wanted to make sure that The Help
communicate to our family in Mississippi that we were
wasn’t completely about race and the lines
okay. I say we meaning my husband [and I]. His family
that exist between races. I wanted to illuminate all of
lives in Charlotte, though. I did the next best thing for a
those particular lines that exist: in class, in culture, in
writer. I started writing in the voice of Demetrie, which
education, in religion. In Celia’s case, whether you were
was Aibileen, and that was the first chapter of the
part of society or not.
book. And I found it very comforting, so I kept going with it. I didn’t lose anybody in 9/11, but it did change
We’d like to return to that observation you made
the way people’s brains worked for a while there.
earlier about how readers ask who your characters are modeled on. In your essay at the back of the book,
You’ve also noted that writing the book in New York,
“Too Little, Too Late,” you describe how important
away from Mississippi, helped add perspective. Is
Demetrie, your own maid, was to you growing up.
there anything that stands out among the things you
Is there a particular character in The Help you feel
were able to realize from a distance now that you’ve
closest to?
had a chance to look at Mississippi from somewhat of an outsider’s perspective?
The obvious answer is the true answer. Aibileen is the character I felt the most
My realizations came really as questions to
protective of because she reminded me in some ways of
me. For the first time in my life I was asking
Demetrie. She was very traditional. The difference,
myself, in my thirties, what Demetrie must have been
though, is that Demetrie never had that turning point
thinking all of those years. She so “complacently” looked
when she spoke out or joined forces with someone and
after our family, and I use complacently in air quotes,
took a stand against injustice. I like imagining that for
because we never really knew what was going through
her. She died when I was sixteen and who knows what
her head because we never asked her. We just assumed
she would have done later in life. She wasn’t a young
that she was as pleased and tickled with us as we were
woman when she died, but she had some time left.
with her. But I can’t believe that’s the case, as a grownup woman. In order to answer that question, I wrote in a
In that same essay, you wrote that you wished you
voice that was similar to hers to see if I could figure out
could have asked Demetrie what it was like to be black
the answers.
in Mississippi, working for a white family, and that
The other thing is that I realized how much tradi-
this book is the result of imagining what her response
tion plays into our attitudes about people and race
might be. Can you pinpoint the time when you were
and color and class. I don’t blame my mother or my
inspired to write that story?
grandmother. I’m not a blaming type of person. I know that people were just following the same set of rules
It’s not my favorite story to tell because I
that they were taught growing up, that their mothers
don’t want to be accused of latching on to
taught them, and their grandmothers taught them.
someone else’s tragedy any more than I already have,
I get that. It’s the way humans are wired. It doesn’t
but the turning point or the genesis of The Help was
make it right. I have more compassion now. I think
9/11. I was in New York and had taken a month off work
about Mississippi and how we were so backwards. It
to write. I was working on a story that was kind of
makes me immensely proud of how far we’ve come.
18
an interview with kathryn stockett
celia blue johnson & maria gagliano
“Not only is they lines, but you know good as I do where them lines be drawn.”
Aibileen shakes her head. “I used to believe in em. I don’t anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain’t.” —the help
That’s a pretty big obstacle to overcome, once you’ve
Is there a favorite place you like to go to in Mississippi
been taught generation after generation. Mississippi’s
when you visit now?
not like it was in the 1960s, and I’m really proud of the progress.
I still go back to Brent’s Drug Store. It still has a lunch counter. I get a little cheeseburger or
Do you have a favorite memory from your childhood of
something. Brent’s is still there, and it’s in the book. It’s
growing up in Mississippi?
also going to be a setting, if they get the permit and everything, in the movie.
I had a pretty good childhood. Those were the So when is the movie going to come out?
days when you ran around barefoot. You left at the crack of dawn, you came home for lunch, and you really didn’t show up again at the house, at least in the
I don’t know, but they start shooting July 19 in
summer, until dark when you had to go in. Those
Greenwood, Mississippi. They’re just into
mosquitoes would eat you alive. I liked the freedom, the
casting right now, so I don’t know who anybody is going
independence that a child had in those times in Missis-
to be yet, but hopefully that will all come out in the next
sippi. It probably wasn’t the same experience as a New
couple of weeks. There are a few announcements that
York child but has good things about it as well.
have been made, but they still have a lot of work to do.
19
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issue 7
Speaking of the future, we’d love to hear about what
We recently moved to Atlanta and we have a
your next book will be—whether it’s a sequel or some-
big house, but I haven’t quite found my nook. I
thing in a different direction.
have an office; we call it the fishbowl. It’s surrounded by windows. Everybody on the street who walks by can see
It’s different and the same. It takes place in
me in there. It’s very distracting! So I have not figured
Mississippi during the Great Depression. It is
out the answer to that yet.
the story of a family of predominantly women, because the men either abandon them, or go search for work, or
We hope you find the right place to write. We actually
die, or divorce them. So you have a household full of
just have one more question, and it’s kind of a funny
white-gloved women who suddenly find themselves in
one. Celia’s grandmother Gloria just finished reading
the position of having to earn their own livings in a time
The Help. She loved it and had one question for you,
when there really weren’t any opportunities for women,
though. It’s about the scene where Skeeter is getting
or for men. During the Great Depression places in
ready to meet Stuart for their first date, and her moth-
Mississippi were especially hard-hit, so if you had no
er is downstairs in the relaxing room. My grandmother
skills, except for being a lady, you were in trouble. This
wanted to ask: What is a relaxing room?
family of women comes up with a rather creative way to earn a living. I look forward to getting back to writing it.
Oh, I don’t know. I just made it up. I liked the idea of Skeeter’s mother giving highfalutin
One of the things we’re dying to know is what your
names to rooms and things. The truth is they’re farmers,
writing room or space is like. Do you have a special
but her mother tries to elevate their status a bit. No one
place?
liked the word den back when I was growing up because it was for wild animals.
20
photograph by Tate K. Nations
Note Pulled from an Invisible Play
(NOTE ON THE KISS: The shepherd saw us first: Huddled in the garden well, “out in the open”— Just two boys sharing our water, lost in the thirst Of our morning work. He’d seen the length of rope And leaned to look. . . . To him, we seemed calm, crouched, Resting our shadows from the wind—until My lover tipped his weight into my mouth. I took his plight and made it mine. First kill By bow and arrow; first fall, set bone. First turn
Billy Merrell
At the gin. First long kiss of our own, then bartered sex. To see us, bent by lust, the shepherd learned. He lost his trust in us; we dreamt and flexed. A boy, I knew the making of a man: He turned from us, and, made, the shepherd ran.)
21
a kiss thing Robin Gaines
photo illustration by amy sly
slice
issue 7
I hadn’t seen Big Becca Leonard in weeks. Not
Teachers think it’s cute, like puppy love, but I know the
that I thought of her all that much, but suddenly there
real Dembeck, the psycho who eats the fuzz he digs out
she was, bigger than ever, like a cartoon figure come
of his belly button, then moves his finger slowly up to
to life, banging on our screen door. “Now what do you
his nose like he’s going to pick it just to hear the shrieks
want to show me?” I say from the other side of the
from his classmates. Suspension is supposed to be an easy day off. My
screen. Big Becca likes coming to the front door and
mom made sure mine wasn’t. Punishment is a list of
grossing me out with dead animal skulls she finds or
chores she wrote down before she left for work this
flattened frogs she peels off the street. Only this time,
morning. Most of the chores, like vacuuming the carpet
she just stands there, twisting her hands together,
and peeling potatoes, are on the list because Roy is
looking lost.
coming to dinner. My younger brother Burke and I call him “Mr. Hai Karate” because he drenches himself in
Big Becca nudges her thick glasses up closer to her eyes. “I’m locked out,” she says, rocking from side to
the stuff. Before he rings the doorbell, we can smell him
side, staring at where the tiny bird’s nest pokes out from
coming up the walk. He’s Mom’s second boyfriend since
the top of the address sign nailed to the brick.
Dad died two summers ago. The first one she ditched
“Those baby birds used to chirp all the time,” I tell
when she found out he was married. Roy, on the other
her, “but not anymore. They probably got too big, or
hand, has never been married; he once studied to be a
maybe just got bored living around here and flew away.”
priest, but never made it. Mom thinks this is a big deal. She’s not even Catholic. Dad was the Catholic. He’s the
“Maybe they’re hiding,” she says. “I think they might be hiding, like ghosts.”
one who took us to church every Sunday while Mom
“Why aren’t you in school?” Every morning a white
slept in. Since his funeral mass we haven’t set foot inside a church, which is fine with me.
van filled with kids like Big Becca picks her up and takes her to a special school two towns over.
After her third date with Roy, Burke and I made Mom hold her hand up and swear on Burke’s First Communion
“It’s meat loaf day. Last time it was meat loaf day I threw up. My mom’s supposed to make me lunch.”
Bible that she wouldn’t marry him. That was months ago. “You wouldn’t like anyone I picked,” she says now,
Normally on Wednesday afternoons I’m not home either, but yesterday the principal suspended me for
“and besides, Roy could be our savior in disguise.” Mom says she can’t continue to make the house and
punching Andy Dembeck between the shoulder blades at recess. The sun was out and everyone was running
car payments and put food on the table on her income
around going crazy because it was warm enough to not
alone. The money’s running out. I wonder if Roy knows
wear a sweater or jacket. Waiting my turn at tetherball,
he’s answered Mom’s mental classified ad: Ready-
I looked over my shoulder and saw Dembeck blow me
Made Family: Two agreeable but grief-stricken kids,
a kiss. When he turned to his loser friends and laughed,
pleasant home in safe neighborhood, furniture included!
I ran up behind him, slugging him as hard as I could,
Contribute paycheck and all this could be yours! Big Becca stares at me through the screen, as if
knocking his glasses onto the asphalt and cracking one of the lenses.
she’s listening to my thoughts. But I don’t think Down
Dembeck couldn’t believe I did it, and neither could
syndrome people can do that, even though she’s not
I. First, he looked like he was going to cry. Then, after he
the weird kind like those ones you see on field trips
got a hold of himself, he got this dumb look on his face
at the zoo, drooling on themselves and making weird
like his dog just bit him in the leg.
sounds trying to imitate the animals. Big Becca’s smart
It wasn’t just that one blow-kiss thing that caused
in a secret way. The neighbors blame her for missing
me to snap. Dembeck has been harassing me the whole
tools, lost toys, and picked flowers. Most of it’s true. She
school year. He leaves hard candies sprinkled with
takes stuff from people’s yards, but she always brings
pepper on my doorstep and follows me around at recess
it back. I think it says a lot that somebody returns what
trying to give me handfuls of dandelion bouquets.
she borrows.
24
a kiss thing robin gaines
One night last spring, Big Becca picked every last
her belly as though she knew even then that the baby
purple lilac off the Nagles’ driveway hedge. The next
inside needed her special attention. My mother has one
morning, all the people for blocks around found lilacs in
arm balanced at the top of the ball that is me, the other
their mailboxes.
behind her back. Big Becca and I were born twelve years
I leave Big Becca on the front porch while I dial her
ago, one month apart.
home number from the kitchen phone. No answer. When
I decide Big Becca needs my help. Mrs. Leonard is
I get back to the door, she’s already wobbling across the
probably not home, so I cross Vermont Street, where
grass toward home.
nothing ever changes except the color of the front doors
“I can make you a cheese sandwich, or peanut
or the rare new car parked in a driveway. Our yard—a
butter,” I holler after her. “We’ve got Kool-Aid, too.”
triangle shape that sits on a bend in the street—is the largest on our block. It takes twenty-four cartwheels to
With her thick creased legs and big rounded shoulders, Big Becca looks like a gigantic toddler
get from one end to the other. Before Roy convinced
crossing the street.
my mom the grass was getting trampled by too many kids, everyone used to congregate on our lawn at dusk
The screen door clicks shut behind me as I follow her and then stop at the edge of the lawn. I’ve been
to play pickle and touch football, to practice flips and
avoiding the Leonard house ever since the day I
round-offs. Now our lawn is lush, green, and unused, unlike the
saw Big Becca’s mother kissing my dad. I had been sleeping, but their laughter had woken me up. They
Leonards’ yard, where only the strongest weeds survive
were standing underneath my bedroom window in a
amidst the scrawny shrubs and baked dirt. Mr. Leonard
shadowy part of the backyard. The moon was lying on
has never been obsessive about his lawn and shrubs
its side like a fingernail cuticle, its light hanging over
like most of the other dads, but these days the yard is
the yard. From my window I looked down on them,
looking worse than ever. Even at our house, without a
expecting to see Mom come out of the shadows to join
dad around, the grass seems to get cut. Sometimes Roy
in on the joke. But it was just Dad and Mrs. Leonard,
does it, sometimes me or Mom, most times Burke. I follow Big Becca around to the backyard and
their soft voices and the crickets’ racket. Dad reached up to touch Mrs. Leonard’s face, just like he touched
then down the five concrete steps to the back door.
Mom, lightly, under the ears, like he was going to
It’s locked. It’s the same back door as ours except the
whisper something. Instead, he kissed her, on the lips,
Leonards’ is brown and ours is white. I knock lightly, trying to think what I will say to Mrs.
his head tilting sideways. I stared and blinked, then blinked some more, trying to make out my mother’s
Leonard if she answers. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamt
shimmery platinum hair, but it was Mrs. Leonard,
the whole kiss thing. Lately, my dreams seem more real
the whites of her black eyes giving her away as she
than normal everyday life. In the most frequent of these
stopped kissing my dad long enough to look up over
I see a small plane sputtering above me on its way to the
his shoulder to the second floor window where I
Mt. Morris Airport. Something’s wrong. The wings dip
stood watching.
right then left, and the pilot looks down at me through
It must have been a poison kiss because Dad died
the small window, his eyes wide with panic, saying
the next month.
something to me. Not HELP, but something important: a secret, I think, or maybe a message. Then the plane
«.»
disappears beyond the houses, and a fireball erupts from the field across the street. It’s as if the pilot knew
Maybe Mom has always shared Dad with Mrs.
he was going to die and wanted to tell me something
Leonard since Mr. Leonard is never around. There’s a
important. Something I needed to know. I’d even ride my
photo of the three of them, Dad’s arms around both
bike to the field in the morning to the spot where in my
women, their bellies big as pumpkins. Mrs. Leonard is
dream the plane went down, expecting to see scorched
looking down at her round stomach, and her hands hug
grass or twisted plane parts scattered around like
25
slice
issue 7
crumpled aluminum foil where it crashed. But there’d be
“Somebody’s home,” I say.
nothing. There was always nothing.
I run around to the front door and hold my finger
Mrs. Leonard doesn’t answer the door. Big Becca and
down on the doorbell, jiggling the handle just to make
I peek through the window into the laundry room. Piles
sure it’s really locked, then run back around to the yard.
of clothes litter the floor.
Dad and Mrs. Leonard could have kissed here, too.
“I’m hungry,” Big Becca whines.
Right under Big Becca’s bedroom window, with the
I remember the cheese sandwich and Fritos I left
moon bright silver in the black sky, and Big Becca in the
behind on the kitchen counter at home. “Maybe your
middle of her dreams above them.
mom’s at the Heflers’,” I say, though I don’t believe
There was nothing different in the way Dad acted
it. Mrs. Leonard doesn’t visit like other moms in the
after the kiss that made me believe he might love Big
neighborhood, gossiping over cups of coffee and club
Becca’s mother more than he loved us. He still ate ice
sandwiches. Mrs. Leonard doesn’t even look like the
cream right out of the carton, watered the rose bushes
other moms, with their matching shorts and headbands.
in the morning, and kissed Mom’s neck while she washed
She wears her blue black hair teased up in the front and
the dishes. For days, I spied on his every move, looking
flat in the back, like half her skull is missing.
for clues that he was planning on ditching us for the
Bees loop around the bushes that run along the back
Leonards. That had happened to my aunt. Uncle Lou
of the house. A small plane buzzes over our heads and
left her and my three cousins to go live with a lady he
then over the tree line past our neighborhood of streets
worked with.
named after states: Vermont, our street; Oklahoma
As it turns out, Dad did leave us, but it wasn’t with
Court, around the corner; and California up past the
Mrs. Leonard. His sudden death from a heart attack
stop sign. Near Joy Road, where you can hear cars drag
made me push the kiss thing to the back of my brain,
racing late at night, are all the Southern states.
thinking for sure it had to be another crazy dream.
Mom says some of our neighbors—the gossipy older
Besides, Mom had moved on in the two summers since
ones who comment on Roy’s comings and goings and
his death. That’s how she said it, Moving on, like a train
the married guy before that—have never left Michigan
running late with other stops to make. The framed
and “get a jolt” from having so many states represented
photos of Dad, once three deep on her bedroom
within walking distance. I don’t believe it, because she
nightstand, are gone. I took two of the photographs
says it smart-alecky, with her lower jaw tipped up and
from the box she stashed behind the furnace and
held tight. Most of Mom’s comments are about other
put them on my dresser. One shows Dad the way I
people, never about us.
remember him: in his cardigan sweater, smiling his
Burke sleeps on the hallway floor outside Mom’s
crooked smile with the chipped front tooth, the lines
bedroom door because she won’t let him sleep with her.
around his eyes deep and crinkly like used wax paper.
“He’s the man of the house, now,” she tells me, as a
The other photograph is of Dad and Burke walking
way of explaining Burke’s crying himself to sleep every
hand in hand with their backs to the camera. It was
night.
probably taken after one of Burke’s baseball practices
“Yes, but didn’t Dad, the first man of the house, sleep
because he carries a baseball mitt in his free hand. I
next to you?” I ask.
told Burke he could take it to his room, but he said
No comment. That dark look, the silence, is all we
he didn’t want it, even though sometimes I catch him
get when Mom doesn’t feel like explaining. I hate that
staring at their two figures side by side.
about her.
Big Becca fiddles with something in the dark mouth
Big Becca pounds on the door. I am about to give
of the garage. She has maneuvered the ladder off the
up and take her back home with me when I hear voices
garage wall and drags it over to the back of the house.
from an upstairs window, like a TV has been left on and
I help her stand the ladder, splattered with dry globs
the wind is carrying the voices through the upstairs
of paint, up against the brick ledge under an upstairs
screen and out into the spring air.
window.
26
a kiss thing robin gaines
Poor girls—that’s us, Big Becca and me. Lumped together forever like the slow kids in gym class. Poor, fatherless girls. The marks are so identifiable I am convinced everyone on my street and in my school can see through my skin to the tiny black holes of pain and sadness that grow like mold inside. It will take leaving Vermont Street to shed all the unhappiness that comes with being us.
“You’re going up that, right?” I say. “You’re not expecting me to climb that thing?” “Papa goes up it all the time.” Big Becca twists her hands together. I think about smacking them so she’ll stop, but it won’t do any good. On Devil’s Night, Gary Cipriani threw a bunch of eggs at her from his garage roof, a couple breaking on her arm and one on her back, and Big Becca didn’t flinch. “Then you do it,” I tell her. “You go up the ladder.” “Papa won’t let me. He’s the one that always climbs up there.” “Maybe we should wait until he comes home.” “He’s not coming home.” “What do you mean?” “He lives somewhere else.” “Where else could he live?” Big Becca shrugs her round shoulders and pushes her heavy glasses back up on her nose. She untangles her hands and then runs a forearm under her nose to catch the tears and snot. “I’m hungry,” she says, looking up at the window that is her mom and dad’s bedroom. “I know, you already told me.” But I can’t help noticing how pale she is, how used up she seems, like a
shaky. I think about the two kids, high on LSD, who died
dimming flashlight. I try to remember the last time I saw Mr. Leonard. I
jumping off the roof of the high school during a football
see the U-shaped hairline on the back of his balding head
game last fall. Every chance he gets, Roy lectures Burke
when he pulls out of the driveway in the mornings as I
and me about the dangers of drugs. He’s the principal
walk to school. But that was eons ago. His face is a blur.
at the high school and says he can tell from fifty feet away if someone’s stoned. He even looks at me funny
Somewhere down the street a lawnmower coughs
sometimes.
to life.
Wind shakes the leaves of the trees that grow along
“Do you know where he lives now?”
the side of the yard. White gauzy curtains swell out into
Big Becca covers her mouth and giggles. “Someplace
Mrs. Leonard’s bedroom. Through the hazy screen I see
not with me.”
someone on the bed. I remember stumbling down the
Poor girls—that’s us, Big Becca and me. Lumped together forever like the slow kids in gym class. Poor,
dark hallway to my parents’ bedroom, wishing for the
fatherless girls. The marks are so identifiable I am
shape to move under the sheets so I could tell her about
convinced everyone on my street and in my school can
Dad kissing Mrs. Leonard and ask her what she was
see through my skin to the tiny black holes of pain and
going to do about it.
sadness that grow like mold inside. It will take leaving
The ladder teeters. “Come back here and hold the ladder.” I shout
Vermont Street to shed all the unhappiness that comes
the whisper down to Big Becca, who is off chasing a
with being us.
butterfly near the garage.
I look at the ladder. At the window. “God bless it,”
The voices we heard are coming from a radio in
I say, inching my way up each wobbly step. Near the
the bedroom.
window I am only a few feet from the roof, and I feel
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issue 7
“Mrs. Leonard?” I can see her black hair fanned out
“Help me in!”
against a pillow. She doesn’t move. I thought Dad was
I leap around the bed over to the window. “Shush.
napping when I found him on the living room sofa in his
Get down. Go around to the front door, and I’ll let
suit and tie, car keys in his fist. He was having a heart
you in.”
attack. Dying and I didn’t even know it, death looking so
Mrs. Leonard slumps over to her side, then props
much like sleeping.
herself up on an elbow.
With a tug up, the screen pops out into the room
“Rebecca?” Her words fumble in her sleepy mouth.
and cartwheels onto the hardwood floor. Braced inside
“What the hell’s going on?”
the window ledge, I stick one foot through the window,
“I’m hungry,” Big Becca shouts, poking her head
then the other, and push off, landing on Mrs. Leonard’s
through the window. “Hungry, hungry, hungry . . . ”
bedroom floor with a thud. She sighs, moves her hand
My body wants to run, run as far away from this
up off the pillow to her side, then falls back asleep. I let
bedroom, this neighborhood, from Mt. Morris—to a
out the breath I was holding and notice the dust specks
place where no one knows me, where I can make up a
circling around the room. The air smells sticky sweet and
different life for myself. I’d take Big Becca with me and
sour at the same time, like sweaty clothes. Big Becca
hope that she could keep up.
yells up to the window.
But right now all I want is the truth, and it’s right
“Claudia!”
there in the bed.
I snap my eyes shut: Please let me wake up in my own
I turn around to face Mrs. Leonard. She clutches at
bedroom, or anywhere but here. But when I open my
her housecoat, moves a hand through her hair.
eyes, I am staring at Mrs. Leonard’s brown nipple poking
“I saw you. Remember?” I say, my voice sounding
out of her unsnapped housecoat.
like it’s coming from someone else in the room with us,
“Claudia!” I hear again and picture Big Becca’s hands
someone older, someone brave. “You and my dad?”
snaking around each other like dancing serpents.
Mrs. Leonard pats a hand around the nightstand,
I try pulling the sheet up from the end of the bed
fumbling for a pack of cigarettes and lighter. I’m not sure
to cover Mrs. Leonard, but it’s molded into hard little
she’s listening.
mounds at the end of the bed. A song trails off and
“You kissed him in the backyard. I saw you.” I smile,
the news comes on the radio as I press my hand on her
glad to be getting rid of the secret I had carried around
shoulder. Reaching around I turn the radio off and my
like a cloud of shame, not really knowing what I had
elbow knocks a bottle off the nightstand into a tangled
done wrong except dreaming or witnessing something I
heap of clothes on the floor. Clear liquid runs down the
shouldn’t have.
clothes and under the bed. I grab the bottle and set it
She lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, and blows the
back on the nightstand, and recognize the label as the
smoke at me in a tight, long stream.
same kind of vodka that Dad used to drink in a glass
“I told Mr. Leonard what you did,” I sing out, the rush
with olives rolling around at the bottom. It made his
of excitement in telling this lie filling me with a warm
breath smell like medicine.
liquid happiness that races to my fingertips, to the ends
Mrs. Leonard’s chest looks still. Not going up and
of my toes. “That’s probably why he left you.”
down like it’s supposed to. A fly sits on her earlobe,
Through the smoky haze surrounding her face I see
rubbing its feet together. When I lean my ear down to
her eyes close, erasing me from the room. When they
her mouth, Mrs. Leonard sighs deeply and turns her
open, I’m still there and Mrs. Leonard looks deflated, the
face toward me. I jump backward, my heart pounding
air sucked out of her.
like I’ve just run fifty laps ’round the school gym. One
«.»
of her eyes peels open. Then the other. They narrow to slits as she looks at me, trying to focus. What did my father see in this face to want to kiss it?
The Leonards’ kitchen is a mess. I find the peanut
Big Becca pokes a hand through the open window.
butter in a cupboard taken over by ants, and the bread
28
a kiss thing robin gaines
has mold on it, but Big Becca happily eats the two sand-
questions. No blank looks. No reaching for a cigarette
wiches I make for her.
like Mrs. Leonard did.
“We’ll always be friends, won’t we?” I say, watching
Too often Mom gets her ideas from watching old
her chew and waiting for her to say something about the
movies where everyone has a butler and the women’s
afternoon, about her mother or father, about anything.
shoes match their purses. That’s still a big deal to her.
The kitchen is quiet except for the rush of water through
And Jackie O. and her big sunglasses; Mom copies that,
the pipes from the bathroom upstairs where Mrs.
too. I guess her husband kissing the neighbor is just part
Leonard is taking a shower.
of life’s drama.
Big Becca, her eyes like magnified boulder marbles
A few days ago she bought the black velvet bull
behind her glasses, doesn’t answer, but stares at
and matador picture and a bearskin rug. The bear’s
someone or something else beyond me. When I turn
head has real-looking yellowed teeth, but they’re
around to see what it is, Big Becca giggles.
fake, just like the bear. Made in Japan, reads the tag
“What?” I laugh.
under the right paw. Mom’s redecorated the house,
“Too late.” She chews. “It’s gone.”
ripping wallpaper off the walls and pulling up the carpets. Gone are my grandmother’s antiques and
«.»
the green chairs. Everything is now black, white, and red. It’s hard on the eyes, but brown nose Roy, with
I’m lying on the bear rug in front of the TV
his perfectly parted greased back hair, rubs his hand
watching The Twilight Zone and checking my hair for
along the newly reupholstered couch and says, “You’ve
split ends, tired of thinking, wishing it would snow in
got great taste, Fiona.”
July. Mom hasn’t said anything about the Leonards
Burke, who’s watching all of this from the top step
leaving. For the last month, since the day I climbed the
near the railing, pretends like he’s sticking his finger
Leonards’ ladder, every time Mom went into the kitchen
down his throat. He’s never said more than twenty
she’d stare out the screen door at the Leonards’ dark
words a day since he was a baby. Since Dad’s death, he
house. Now she only glances at it as she goes into the
gave up being friendly to anyone, too. All the tears that
kitchen for more lemonade.
poured out of him after that day dried him up on the
That’s when Roy gets off the couch and moves
inside, causing his curly hair to grow in straight and his
the floor fan away from me and points the cool air
freckles to disappear.
in his direction. He thinks I don’t have a brain or
Burke slumps into his bedroom and shuts the
feelings; I could be anything, a head of cabbage that
door. Inside, he’s built an elaborate maze of rooms
has rolled to a stop in the middle of the rug in front
constructed from old sheets and blankets strung up
of him. Maybe since he’s a principal, he’s used to
from the corners with clothesline. In one of these secret
treating all kids as people you hear about but never
rooms he’s able to sleep through the night.
really understand, like Tibetan monks or African
After a few minutes, I can hear the ball game on his
albinos—interesting species without an impact on his
radio.
existence.
Roy gets off the couch to turn the channel—again,
“Doesn’t the bear look nice with the matador?” Mom
without asking me if I was finished watching The Twilight
says to Roy as she plops down next to him on the couch.
Zone, even though I haven’t been following the story.
Mom’s admiring the living room and all the changes,
“It’s time,” he says.
part of her moving on plan. I’m supposed to be moving
Walter Cronkite adjusts his glasses, then rambles on
on, too. After I finally got enough courage to tell Mom
in a monotone about gravity and space suits, about the
about the kiss thing, she told me to stop believing my
surface of the moon and lunar landings. Roy starts to
dreams were real.
imitate Cronkite’s voice, but Mom shushes him.
“You’re a kid,” she said. “Think about kid things.”
“I want to hear this,” she says.
“I’m trying,” I told her. That was the end of it. No
“Yeah, me too,” I chime in, happy to irritate him.
29
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issue 7
The spaghetti I ate for dinner balls itself like wet cardboard in my stomach. I lie down on the cool grass and squint up at the hazy moon, trying to see a speck of something that might be the Eagle. It looks like a gluey thumbprint in the sky, now stuck with invaders.
with Roy. Like new furniture, Burke and I need to fit in somewhere in this new life of hers. The spaghetti I ate for dinner balls itself like wet cardboard in my stomach. I lie down on the cool grass and squint up at the hazy moon, trying to see a speck of something that might be the Eagle. It looks like a gluey thumbprint in the sky, now stuck with invaders. With the sounds of crickets singing and bugs zapping in the streetlights, I think of Big Becca and Mrs. Leonard and wonder where they are. That day their front door was propped wide open with the Hoover, I knew they had left Vermont Street for good. No one really paid much attention until days later when the house was full of flies, mosquitoes, and a neighbor’s missing cat. People up and down the street started to phone one another wondering what could have happened to the Leonards. No one could remember seeing a truck
There’s a sizzle on the screen and some grayish
in the driveway and movers carrying furniture out of
black images appear. I hold my breath as Neil
the house, but it happened. The only thing left was
Armstrong in his white puffy space suit backs out of
the Hoover.
the Eagle and climbs dreamlike down the spaceship
The Leonards are like celebrities with everyone
steps. The landscape around him is empty of
talking about the last time they spoke to one of them.
everything familiar, like trees, houses, or even the
Before, they were nobodies, just strangers behind their
moon’s own beams to light up its surface. I never
lopsided curtains and pulled shades.
expected the moon to be such a lonely looking place.
They’ve moved on, I think, if not to the life they were
From earth it looks full of brightly lit cities. Instead it is
meant to live, then at least to a life where they can
dark and coated with years and years of dust.
pretend to be normal and happy. Where no one knows
“Good Lord, Claudia, this is history being made,”
you took things from people’s yards, had to climb up a
Mom says.
ladder to wake up your drunk mother to make you lunch,
Armstrong hops off the last step like a kid on the
or once had a dad but now he’s gone.
monkey bars at the park. I’m waiting for the moon’s
I stare up at the moon. It seems friendly and watchful
surface to rear up like a huge tidal wave and carry Neil
from Earth, but it’s cold and dark up there, like a house
Armstrong under.
vacant for too long.
“Is there water on the moon?” I turn to ask my mom,
I will not call Roy “Dad.” I promise my dad this as I
and see Roy put his arm around Mom’s shoulders. She’s
squint to try to see the astronauts moving around.
smiling at him. They kiss. They’re sitting on the recently
I’d like to imagine Big Becca is looking at the moon
reupholstered couch that my dad died on.
now, too, maybe thinking of Vermont Street, of me, of
I push myself off the rug, giving the bear a quick kick
dead frogs and all the things left behind, of someone
in the head before heading toward the kitchen to go
leaving footprints on the moon so someone up there
outside where the air is still heavy with heat. To hell with
next time will see they aren’t alone.
lunar landings, history, and people in general. Earlier,
I wonder about this for a minute. Then I decide to
Roy said he wanted to talk to Burke and me about
put a flower in everyone’s mailbox tomorrow morning.
something, but Mom said it wasn’t the right time. This
Everyone will believe Big Becca’s ghost was left behind,
is about Mom moving on again. When she moves on,
that it’s hiding but still watching all of us. She’d like
we all do, whether we like it or not. Moving on to a life
knowing one person cared. rg
30
Marriage 1
Doors that hang on one hot hinge, and yet they keep from slamming. Doors that open in more than two directions, and are made of you. Men say what they say to their wives because they love them. They say wait, but they’re wrong, they mean now. They mean you’ve
billy merrell
waited until now.
Compasses are big because they were made to be read. I knew just east of you. I knew west of you too but didn’t listen. You were young once. You were open to watching the same movies
over
and were the same when I opened my eyes. Doors that are answers, doors set inside their own sliding. But what is life if it isn’t someone who’s agreed to your shared
escape?
We were young together once. We were given what we were worth
finally
and won’t let go.
31
Choose Your Own Adventure Dan Moreau You arrive at dusk in a remote village at the foot
ness—is made, do you (a) snoop around the hotel, (b)
of the Carpathian Mountains. The cab driver drops you
explore the town and get to know its inhabitants, or (c)
off at the Werewolf Inn. Do you (a) tip him, (b) compli-
call it a night and crawl into bed to get an early start to
ment him on his fine selection of disco music, or (c) jot
your morning? Your curiosity gets the better of you. You
down his name and license plate number? The driver
go downstairs and examine the portraits in the dining
thanks you for the tip. Be careful, he says. The village is
room. They depict frowning men of a noble and dis-
plagued by a two-thousand-year-old curse. How quaint,
tinguished air. Even though you are alone, you cannot
you think. A curse. That would sound great on a travel
shake the impression that you are being watched. Under
brochure. The cab pulls away, leaving you to contem-
every portrait are names and dates. The last portrait
plate the village’s muddy lanes, sagging rooftops, and
in the series is covered up by a white sheet, the bronze
dreary populace. It is in serious need of a face-lift. Or, at
plaque beneath it bare. When you unveil it, you are
the very least, a vitamin B12 shot.
standing face-to-face with your own image.
You carry your suitcase inside and ring the bell at
“We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Harker.” You turn
the front desk. The specter of a woman, her skin thin as
around. Standing in the doorway is the old woman, the
vellum, materializes before you. Her feet seem to hover
chambermaid, and a man with a heavy bludgeon. Your
above the floor. “What can I do for you?” she moans.
journey ends here, brave hero. But no fool are you, because you chose (b). The
“I’m checking in.” “Do you have,” she shudders, “a reservation?”
moon is full. It’s a pleasant if chilly night for a stroll.
“I do. The name’s Harker. Jonathan.”
In the distance a wolf howls. On a promontory over-
She runs her finger down the column of names in her
looking the village, shrouded in a misty haze, stands a fifteenth-century castle with crenellated towers. It is the
reservation book. “I don’t have any record of a Harker.”
same castle from your dreams. It is the castle you have
“But I made the reservation two weeks ago. Are you
been searching for all your life. It is the castle that has
sure I’m not on there?”
brought you to this village. The lanes of the town are
“Ah, here you are. There is no smoking in the room. Breakfast is served from eight to ten in the dining room.
deserted. Through a lit window you see a family of four,
And I will need a credit card for the deposit.”
their heads bowed in prayer around the dinner table. A single wooden cross hangs from the door.
“Do you take Visa?”
You stop by a tavern in search of warmth and re-
She nods. “Yes, anything but American Express.”
freshment. The patrons fall silent when you enter. After
You follow her upstairs to your room, past the dining room with its bloodred carpet, portrait gallery, and
stamping your feet on the threshold, you call to the
crackling fireplace. She opens the door. You gasp.
bartender for a pint of his best ale. He shrugs, pulls on the tap, filling a smeared stein with a thick head of foam.
“I am so sorry,” she says, blocking your view of the unmade bed. “We don’t get many guests. I will send up
You thank the bartender, who nods with perfunctory in-
a chambermaid immediately to make the bed.”
difference. The ale is bitter and rich. You take a moment
You sigh. “Thank you.”
to inspect your surroundings. Wreaths of garlic hang
Once you are settled in and the bed—thank good-
from the ceiling. Mounted deer heads stare out from the
Illustration by Jon MacNair
33
slice
issue 7
The journey takes you up the mountain through
four walls with glazed expressions of astonishment. A
a forest so dense the light can barely penetrate the
banked fireplace blazes in the corner.
canopy of interlocked branches. The dog whimpers at
“Does anyone know who lives in the castle?” you ask. One man spits out his beer into his stein. Another does
the slightest sound. Last year, the boy says, a party of
the sign of the cross. No one says anything. The bar-
hunters came up here, never to return. At midday the boy stops in his tracks. “This is as far
tender glowers at you across the bar.
as I go.”
“Stranger,” he says, “I think you better leave.”
You thank him for his help, send him off with a tip,
“Wait!” One of the tired old men sitting by the fireplace rises, his face twisted and distorted by the leaping
and tell him to get a new dog. The wooded path looms
flames behind him. “I’ll tell you who lives there,” he says,
ahead—solitary, forlorn, and ominous. The light, diffuse
stepping toward you. “The prince of darkness, Nosfer-
and oblique, filters through the treetops. Every sound is
atu, Count Dracula himself.”
magnified and terrifying. You wish you hadn’t maligned the boy’s dog. You’d gladly trade your watch for its
“Don’t listen to him,” the bartender says. “He’s had
company right now.
too much to drink.”
The afternoon light is fading behind the mountains
The man grabs hold of your wrist. “Leave this place at once,” he beseeches you, refusing to let go. “Before
when you reach the castle perched atop a rocky hill. The
it’s too late.”
temperature is dropping steadily. You are not prepared to spend a night without shelter in the open air. You
You hold the man’s gaze, consider it for a moment, then break into laughter. “Count Dracula! You foolish old
knock on the tall castle door. The knocker hangs in the
man. Dracula’s a myth, a bedtime story told by supersti-
mouth of a gargoyle. No one answers. It’s too late to return to the village. You must seek
tious villagers to scare little children. Now let go of me.”
shelter for the night. Do you (a) investigate the castle
You straighten your jacket. The man shrinks back to the fireplace. You down your ale, wipe your mouth
grounds, (b) wait by the door in the hopes that someone
on your gloved hand, and, with the moon disappearing
will let you in, or (c) run back into the forest? The castle grounds run wild and untended, nature
behind the castle, return to the inn.
free to take whatever course it chooses. A garden path
If you chose (c) you are wise beyond your years. After a good night’s rest you have a leisurely continental
leads you off the property to a decrepit cemetery with
breakfast. The flaky croissants are particularly good, the
crumbling walls, overgrown weeds, and crooked tomb-
coffee rich, black, and strong, not that poor excuse for
stones. A gaunt man in his fifties is digging a grave by
coffee they serve in motels. At the front desk you inquire
the feeble glow of a kerosene lamp. “Excuse me?”
if there are any guided tours of the castle. Upon men-
The man momentarily interrupts his digging, looks up
tion of the word “castle” the woman at the desk knocks over a bottle of ink. As you help her sop up the mess,
at you with baleful, cold eyes. He starts yelling. “You’re
she says, “There’s nothing to see up there. Just some old
not supposed to be here. Does the count know you’re
ruins.”
here?” Do you (a) bluff him or (b) come clean?
All the same, you say you’d like a guide to take you
“Yes, he does,” you say confidently.
there.
“I warned him that guests shouldn’t be roaming the
“As you wish.”
grounds after dark.”
Your guide, a twelve-year-old boy, and his arthritic dog, meet you outside the inn. “He will take you half-
“I felt like going for a stroll.”
way,” the woman says.
“Come with me,” he says. You follow him to a stand-alone shack, the lamp
“No horses?” you inquire.
swinging from the back of the shovel hoisted over his
“We’ve lost too many of them in those woods. Some-
shoulder. As he hangs the lamp on a peg inside, rats
thing spooks them and they run off. You will go on foot.”
34
choose your own adventure
dan moreau
and roaches scurry to the far corners of the dirt floor.
sheets freshly laundered. Inside the armoire you find a
“Please sit down,” he says.
change of clothes that fits you perfectly. At dinner, seated across from you at a long oak table,
As you sit, you inspect your modest surroundings: a one-room shack with wide chinks in the sideboards
the count quizzes you on the latest fashions and trends
so that the wind howls through the shelter. You notice
in London. You tell him, half apologizing, that you do not
a cot and a stove: human existence reduced to its
keep up-to-date on such matters, not being a man about
barest needs.
town but rather a shy and retiring fellow who prefers the company of books.
The man pours two drinks from a clear bottle.
“Then I must show you my library.”
“Drink up,” he says. You’re so thirsty you’d drink cur-
No sooner have you touched your dinner—a kind of
dled milk. The man watches you down the drink in a single shot. As you wipe your lips, the man, who hasn’t
game bird drenched in herbs and sauce—than the Count
touched his glass yet, smiles. You feel a shooting pain
escorts you to his library. The walls are lined from floor
in your stomach.
to ceiling with books. A stoked fireplace, two inviting
“You poisoned me,” you say.
leather armchairs, a globe of the world, a rolltop desk,
The man starts laughing, a high, maniacal laugh. It is
and a bar carrying an assortment of liqueurs, wines, and
the most bloodcurdling sound you’ve ever heard. As you
fine spirits are just some of the amenities that lend an air
lunge at him, you fall from your chair and writhe on the
of coziness to the room.
floor. The man stares down at you, the lamp above his
The count apologizes that he must leave you, he
head casting awful shadows on his face. His diabolical
says, to attend to other affairs. Do you (a) curl up with a
laughter is the last thing you hear.
book and a brandy in front of the fireplace, (b) explore the castle, or (c) go back up to your room?
But let’s say you had the foresight and good judg-
Brandy it is. As you search for a title you notice a
ment to tell the gravedigger the truth, that you needed
book sticking out from the shelf. As you pull on it, a
shelter for the night. “Follow me,” he says.
hidden door in the wall opens, revealing a darkened
He takes you back along the path to the castle. Inside, he ushers you into a vast drawing room with heavy
staircase. Do you (a) put the book back and forget what
curtains hung over the windows and a series of portraits.
you just saw or (b) follow the staircase to wherever it
Seated at the front of the room in a thronelike chair is an
may lead? The staircase leads to an underground crypt beneath
ageless man dressed in black from head to toe. His skin is the palest white, translucent almost, and contrasts
the castle. There you find an open casket devoid of its
sharply with his crow black hair.
occupant. As you stand before it you feel a presence behind you.
Bowing before him, the gravedigger says, “Count, I
“I see you have found my resting place.”
found this stranger wandering the grounds. He says he
When you turn around you are face-to-face with the
is in need of shelter for the night.” “Vhat is your name?” he asks.
count. In his arms is a young maiden, her skin pale as
“Jonathan Harker. At your service.”
milk, her hair a golden fleece, her eyes shut. A bite mark
“Ah, you are English.”
punctuates her neck. Gently, as if putting a child to bed,
You nod.
the count lays her inside the coffin. Do you (a) do battle with this wretched, unholy crea-
“You must tell me about England over dinner,” he says. “Now show this man to his room,” he instructs the
ture of the night, (b) flee up the stairs, or (c) say you got
gravedigger.
lost while looking for the bathroom? The count grins. You feel yourself shrink before his
“Yes, master.”
powerful gaze. As he fans his cape like a magnificent
“He likes you,” the gravedigger says as he takes you up to your room. The room, overlooking the courtyard,
peacock and uncoils his fangs, you think of all the things
seems as if it has just been made up for you, the bed
you might have done differently. dm
35
An Interview with
tana french maria gagliano & celia blue johnson Some may call Tana French’s books literary fiction. Others will call them detective fiction, or even mysteries. They’re a little of everything, in fact, and that’s just what French prefers. From the moment her first bestselling novel In the Woods hit bookshelves, French and her writing have helped reshape the literary landscape. She’s one of the few authors whose work gracefully transcends genres, so her books are embraced by fanboys and literary enthusiasts alike. We caught up with French on the phone while she was at home in Ireland, just a few weeks before her third novel, Faithful Place, was published. We chatted about her training as a writer (it began with acting), her work space (she used to write with Xbox zombies attacking in the background), and her take on sociopathic villains (she writes them so she can understand them). Her fascination with unintentional evil made for an especially chilling talk: It’s at the root of all of her novels, and it’s one of her favorite qualities in a villain. Let’s just say we’ll never see To Kill a Mockingbird in the same light again.
36
You began your career as an
to come back to. I just never
actress. At what point did
had an idea for a book until In
you turn your focus to writ-
the Woods.
ing? Have you found that
There are a lot of people
your acting background has
who will put in the work and
informed your writing in any
find an idea, but I just didn’t
way?
have one, and the energy was going toward acting. But the Yes, hugely. In a lot
idea for In the Woods caught
of ways, the acting
me. It was something I
background was my training
wanted to find out what hap-
as a writer. It sounds strange
pened with, so I figured there
and possibly counterintuitive,
might be a chance that other
but it’s very much the same
people would be interested
skill underneath, especially if
in it, too.
you write in the first person, One line that really stood
which is what I do—probably because of the acting background. It’s all about being in
out to us in In the Woods is when you say that Rob
character. In acting, I was trained to get into one
Ryan never really left the woods. What does the set-
character’s head, see the whole story and the imaginary
ting symbolize to Rob? Are there any other characters
world through that character’s eyes, and filter everything
who are somehow stuck in the woods, too?
through their needs and biases and what they want to Interesting! I hadn’t thought about that. For
see and feel. As an actor, you hope to draw the audience
me, the woods were always that wild place, on
into that imaginative world and make the character somebody three-dimensional, so they come away feeling
the edge between everyday reality and the things you
like this is a person they know.
know and believe are there but can’t quite put your finger on. When you’re a kid, apart from your everyday
It’s very much the same skill in writing—again, if you write first person—to draw readers into this person’s
reality, you’re always sure you’re going to step through
world, make them feel that this person’s objectives and
that wardrobe into Narnia, or that somewhere in the dark
beliefs and needs are crucially important, and make
outside your bedroom window are things that just aren’t
them feel emotionally involved with this character. That
there during the day. You always believe in that parallel
was very much my training for writing.
world and the borderlines are just a little bit blurred, so you can see past them but you can’t quite get to that
While you were acting, did you know you wanted to
other reality.
write at some point?
For me, that’s what the woods were. They’re the wild side of reality. It’s somewhere that’s very beautiful, very
I used to want to write when I was a kid. I have
enchanting, very alluring, but also frightening, and there’s
some very bad short stories under the bed
a wide variation in people’s responses to that wildness
somewhere. It went out the window when I started
within that world. You get people who want to engage
acting, but it was always something I thought I’d love
with it, but you also get people—especially people who
Photograph by Kyran O’Brien
37
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issue 7
have been damaged as badly as Rob has—who find it much more terrifying and have a harder time engaging with it. When they reach that point when they’re about to take that leap over the borderline, they run as far and as fast as they can because they’re just too badly damaged to take it. That’s what got me thinking of it as that wild side. And in that way, I think all the characters at some level are dealing with that or engaging with that. Nowadays we’re given the impression that everything is very literal. Literal reality is the only one we pay attention to, but the harder you try to repress the wild side, the more it’s a presence and the more it’s charged up and ready to leap out at you when you least expect it. That was the other thing I thought about a lot with In the Woods. The more you tried to raise the ground in all those wild sections and build over them, the more that wildness surges up in other places. Ireland plays such a central role in your books, and in many ways, it’s a character with its own personality and voice. How has using Ireland as a setting influenced your novels? Do you think they would work as well if they’d been set, say, in the United States, or has Ireland’s spirit and energy been crucial to your work? One part of it is very pragmatic: I haven’t lived anywhere else long enough to do it justice, to
same linear tradition in Ireland in a way that it isn’t in
pick up on all the subtleties and nuances that make a
some countries. And Ireland is still a very new country.
place real. The stuff like which accent is connected to
It’s just under a hundred years old as a nation. That
what. How the rhythms of a language fall. What the
means we’re still struggling with our identity and how
connotations are of every place. But there’s also the fact
to deal with a colonial past and the renewal into the
that I’m really into stirring up stuff. I’m fascinated by
present. That’s at the forefront of the national con-
how past and present shape each other and how we
sciousness. Because of that it matches up with the stuff
have this tendency to believe—over here, anyway—that
I think about a lot regarding the past and the present
they’re somehow mutually exclusive. That if you want to
and the future. It’s a good match for an Irish setting.
make the most of the present and the future you have to Speaking of settings, what is your writing space like?
be willing to completely dismiss the past. I don’t believe that. I believe they work in tandem much more. They’re
In the early days, when I was writing In the
much more symbiotic, and if you destroy one you will
Woods and The Likeness, I was living in a
destroy the other two—the present and the future. The fact that Ireland has much more of a re-
granny flat—that is, a tiny house stuck onto the side of
corded past than, for example, the U.S., also plays
another house. It was great, but now we have an actual
a big part in it. Obviously every place has an equal
grown-up house and I have a room in it which is not as
amount of history, but it’s recorded and it’s within the
neat as it should be, just because I have a baby who
38
an interview with tana french
maria gagliano & celia blue johnson
turns it into a mess every time she runs through it. She’s
their minds don’t work the same way as yours or mine.
at the age where they can just walk through a room and
The concept of right and wrong, which is so built into
leave a litter of chaos in their wake. She’s cute, but she’s
our bones—for most of us—is a completely alien concept
chaotic! So I have a small room of my own, which is a big
that they learn to parrot because it’s advantageous to
deal. It’s funny because when we were living in the little
them to learn how to say the words. It never means
tiny granny flat I had no problem writing with my
anything to them; they never internalize it. When you’re
then-boyfriend (now my husband) playing the Xbox and
writing somebody like that, instead of right and wrong
happily shooting zombies four feet away. I could get
they have only “what I want” and “what I don’t want.”
loads of writing done just like that.
Anything they don’t want they feel they have every right to destroy.
The theme for this issue is Villains. Are there any vil-
We learn the concept of empathy so early in life. It’s
lains from your work that particularly stand out?
so crucial to every interaction every day, to the point where you get in line at a shop because you understand
I’ve only written one character who could
that the other people in this line are also human beings
actually be described as a villain, or as evil. I’m
and they’re as important as you and they want to get
interested in writing and reading about the destruction
somewhere, too, so you don’t just barge into the middle
that real evil can cause. What constitutes evil and how it
of the queue; you take your turn. Psychopaths just don’t
can twist good into its own end, how it can corrupt
have that. People aren’t real to them; they’re like char-
truth. I’m also interested in the fact that a lot of the time
acters in a video game. Nobody is real but themselves
evil things are done by people who are not in and of
and what they want. It’s hard to try to see the world and the other charac-
themselves evil. In The Likeness, for example, the killer isn’t somebody who ever wanted to kill or destroy, and
ters through those eyes. All the things that make us hu-
the same with Faithful Place. These aren’t people who
man just don’t apply to this character. They’re not reality.
set out to be villains. That’s what I’m interested in: how
It’s a bunch of gibberish she’s had to memorize in order
personality and circumstances can clash, how you can
to make her way through the world. It’s a strange and not
hit a perfect storm. We’ve all got weak spots, which
very pleasant experience writing about people like this. Just about everybody has known a few of them. Not
when they’re hit, our worst sides come out. I often write about what happens when you hit that perfect storm—
psychopaths in the Hannibal Lecter sense of “and then
the absolutely wrong set of circumstances combined
he ate her organs,” but psychopaths in the everyday
with the wrong past and the wrong timing smack
sense are much more common than they’re generally
somebody on their weak streak and that creates real evil
presented in Hollywood. We’ve all known them, and yet
where there was none. It’s almost like some kind of
they remain so alien. There’s never any way to really
chemical reaction where none of the initial compounds
understand someone who thinks like that. One of the reasons I write crime is that I’m trying to
or elements were destructive, but together they create
understand things I cannot wrap my head around. How
something corrosive.
one person can deliberately go out to destroy another. That’s true—it’s difficult to pinpoint a true villain in
I don’t get it—it does not compute. How somebody
The Likeness, unlike Rosalind in In the Woods. Every
can inflict pain voluntarily. One of the reasons I write
character seems to have both dark and light sides. Did
is to try to find a way to understand this kind of thing.
you find that the story evolved differently based on
That’s one reason I ended up writing a psychopath as
the different types of villains in these novels?
a villain—as an attempt to understand how the hell this works. What is this? What goes on in there? I still don’t
Yes, there’s a big difference. It’s difficult to
think I have any kind of understanding of that, but you
write someone who is a sociopath because
have to try. If you just say, “Well, it’s evil, it’s nonhuman,
39
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issue 7
the detective fiction genre, even though they’re de-
it’s something else,” then you’re dehumanizing and losing your empathy just as much as a psychopath is. It’s
tective stories at heart. Have you heard from readers
important to try to understand the incomprehensible
who are new to detective fiction who have read your
even though it’s pretty disturbing to write about.
books? You must have introduced so many people to the genre.
The eclectic mix of villains in Faithful Place is fascinating, and they bring so much energy to the book. From
I do occasionally hear from people and that’s
Frank Mackey’s rambunctious siblings to the seedy
actually one of my favorite emails. I’m not a
characters on his old street, they all affect Mackey in
big believer in thick borderlines between the genres. I
different, subtle ways. Who would you say is Mackey’s
see no reason why you can’t have the strong, tightly knit
most troubling villain?
structure usually associated with genre and the writing and characterization and depth of theme usually
To a large extent he’d probably say his father.
associated with literary fiction. The borderlines have
But by the end of the book, he probably
been imaginary for quite a while now. There are a lot of
doesn’t see most of them as actual villains. The other
writers on both sides who break that line, and I’ve never
possibility is that the street itself would constitute the
been able to see why you should only have one or the
villain that he can’t shake off—the one that keeps
other. I figure, go for all of it. You may not make it, but
affecting the patterns of behavior that got set genera-
hey, go for it all.
tions ago. His father is, like the rest of them, partly a
I’ve gotten emails from readers who have said, “Well,
product of his own choices and partly a product of
I don’t read crime but somebody said, ‘No, you have
generations’ worth of things going wrong. To that
to read this one because it’s different.’” I love that—it’s
extent, the place itself is the character that Frank feels
just wonderful because the more of us out there who
he’s never going to escape.
refuse to stick with the borderlines, the more interesting stuff can happen. There are more and more people out
Does Faithful Place remind you of a street from your
there who are thinking, “Well, I want to take elements
childhood?
of three different genres here.” Why not? If you take Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, it’s social history and it’s
No, it wasn’t inspired by a specific street. My
family saga and it’s a great police procedural and it’s a
husband is from the area that Frank’s from in
coming-of-age story. Why shouldn’t it be all of those? It
Dublin, so he’s familar with its atmosphere and the very
does all of them brilliantly.
strong community with all the pros and cons that it
I love when somebody says that what I did is help-
involves—because being part of a strong community can
ing, even a little bit, to erode those borderlines. I’d love
suck as well, with the level of overintimacy and nosiness,
to be a part of that.
but at the same time, the strength and support are What are your favorite literary villains of all time?
wonderful things. He comes from a world that has that very tightly knit feel to it. So he read it to make sure I wasn’t screwing up and saying anything stupid. But
One of my favorites for pure evil—this is going
Faithful Place doesn’t resemble any specific street that I
to sound quite strange—is in Josephine Tey’s
belonged in at all. I tend to like writing about places,
The Franchise Affair. There are no spoilers here because
atmospheres, and characters who are very far from me.
it’s very obvious and very early on. The villain is a young
I’m not that interested in stuff I already know.
girl. There’s no murder here. The worst crime in the whole book is either perjury or wasting police time. You
That’s similar to what you were saying earlier when
know from very early on who the villain is, but it’s
you talked about writing crime. Your books transcend
absolutely chilling to watch this person in action. You
40
an interview with tana french
maria gagliano & celia blue johnson
could probably describe this villain as a psychopath as
Even on a subconscious level, it can happen. And then
well. Yet to see the damage that Betty Kane can wreak
you’re stuck with it. It’s going to happen anyway. I was
on everything and everyone around her is terrifying
just getting stuck into The Likeness and I was all pleased
because it’s not on a grand scale. It’s not as if she shot
with myself for my great premise with the victim who
twenty-four people in cold blood. It’s all psychological
looked like the detective, and then I picked up Tess
and emotional damage, and it’s all mainly on the people
Gerritsen’s Body Double in a shop and thought, “Wait a
who were closest to her, but not just on them. It’s
minute—somebody’s already done it!” It turns out she
everybody who comes into contact with her in any way.
did a very different thing with the basic premise. But if
She’s got this aura of destruction that she brings with
you find anything in common between your book and
her because she’s got absolutely no conscience and no
another mystery, you’re going to freak out. I avoid reading mysteries with some exceptions, but
sense of empathy, and because it’s on such a small scale. What she does is not hugely dramatic—it’s much more
I read them when I’m not writing. During Faithful Place,
subtle than that. She’s one of the more chilling fictional
I barely got the chance to read anything because I was
villains I can think of.
going so fast trying to get the book delivered before I got the baby delivered. I just got it in—she managed
Another one is—and maybe this is another weird choice—Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird. Kind of on
to wait until ten days after I’d handed the book in. Very
a very different point of the scale. He is a hugely nasty
considerate baby. I tend to read a fair amount of plays, only because
piece of work, and yet, he didn’t set out to cause this kind of damage. He doesn’t set out to kill anyone. Both
of the acting thing. I’ve got a tendency to reread a lot.
Bob and Mayella Ewell don’t set out to kill anyone.
During The Likeness, I read The Time Traveler’s Wife. I
Mayella in particular had no desire to harm anyone. Yet
can remember we were on holiday and I burst into tears
the combination of their weak spots and the world in
on a lovely beach. When I’m starting a book I don’t read anything that
which they live and this network—this mesh of different
has a really strong voice. I wouldn’t read Cornelia Read,
factors—combined to turn them into killers, essentially.
for example, because her narrator is so strong—very
The way those factors are portrayed, the way they’re disentangled little by little, you can see how Mayella
vivid and great to read, but I’m not going to read that
in particular isn’t in any way an evil person, and her
stuff when I’m just starting off and trying to get a hang
father is a nasty, nasty piece of work. He’s just horrible
of a new narrative. Otherwise, that’s all I’ll hear in my
in multiple ways, but he’s not what we’d consider the
head for days. You need to read the good stuff when
essence of pure distilled evil. Yet the act that they com-
you’re writing a book. It’s like running a marathon—you
mit becomes this nexus for so many forms of evil. That
need the nourishment. But at the same time you find
makes them high up on the fascinating fictional villains
yourself avoiding the really good stuff at certain points
list, but then again I kind of worship To Kill a Mocking-
of the writing process.
bird. It’s just so many kinds of genius that I don’t know Are you working on anything new right now?
where to start. Who were you reading while writing Faithful Place, or
Yes, I’m working on the next one. Scorcher
your two previous novels? Did you find that your read-
Kennedy from Faithful Place is the narrator
ing influenced your own work?
this time, which wasn’t necessarily the original plan, but that’s who the story matched up with. I’m very into there
I tend not to read detective fiction or myster-
being a strong link between the characters’ priorities
ies when I’m writing just because you don’t
and beliefs and the case that they come face-to-face
want to get influenced too much. You don’t want to start
with. The idea I had just obviously belonged to Scorch-
thinking, “Oh, that’s a great idea. I think I’ll do that.”
er’s life, so that’s who I’m writing about.
41
Lessons in Death and Drowning Jenniey Tallman
I am absentmindedly dipping my fingers into a
floating his head back in the cool lake. Oscar, the four-
pot of soft butter and caressing the sides of four small
year-old, is fishing off the boat with a hopeful string tied
ramekins with its slippery warmth in preparation for
to a stick. My husband is getting in the water with the
chocolate cake batter, when a housefly buzzes onto my
six-year-old. They wear life jackets but William is terri-
hand and sticks there: a fat, wet fly, disgustingly vibrat-
fied when he hits the water: flailing, screaming, crying. I
ing against my skin. That evening I kill all the flies in the
can do nothing; my hands are full with the baby. The six-
house, old and slow and fat, while William, my six-year-
year-old is drowning his father slowly, pushing his head
old son, admonishes me. Just because they are small
under to keep himself up. Oscar is furiously yelling that
doesn’t mean you should kill them. I’m small, will you
they will scare his fish. My husband is coughing, gasp-
kill me? Just because you think they are gross doesn’t
ing for air. Help? he says lamely through gargled water.
mean they don’t have a right to live. Finally his eyes fill
He throws our son off him, away from him, yells at him:
with tears. Mama, if you kill one more fly it will be the
William! Calm down! Relax your body! Let the life jacket
end of your life. Okay. Okay, I soothe. I kill the rest after
do its work.
he is asleep.
When William is finally pulled from the lake, he is not okay. He is breathing, he is fine, he is alert; but some-
Is it me or is it him and how can I be sure? His
thing in him has been broken. For months he dreams
eyes lock with mine, and it is in that moment that I
of drowning, recounting the memories to me at dawn:
know—I know—I will be next. He eats three women
there are slippery hands under the water; there are ugly
while he stares into my eyes. Tears them apart with
things that only want to eat you; something grabbed my
his teeth. Do I feel sorry for the women? Hardly;
foot under the water, Mama—look, my toe is bleeding,
they were old and nearly lifeless. He sucks their
see? William will never willingly enter the water again.
eyeballs out, rips their lips off, chews the skin from their gaunt faces. An interesting way to go—being
I barricade the door shut and run down the halls
eaten alive by a madman.
and through all the metal doors to escape the madman. But I feel him right there, right on me. There
I am hanging off the edge of the boat with the baby.
are other women to eat, but the man is chasing me.
Finn is joyous, straddling my stomach—splashing and
He is right behind me and there is no doubt that he
42
will get me. I run outside and down a steep embank-
I have lost my footing on the rocks under the quick
ment to get away, a foolish move as it could trip me
water, and have been swept away to a beaver dam,
up and leave me hurt and crumpled. A stream at the
where I am caught, helplessly waiting for the mad-
bottom, a stream that I wade quickly into, a quick
man to spot me. He comes to the edge of the water
and rough stream. He does not enter the water. Is it
and peers out into the river. I consider ducking,
possible he cannot swim? Could I be that lucky?
holding my breath. He stares at me and his lips stretch into a grin that makes me want to bash my
Outside searching, frantically searching, combing the
own head against the rocks. The madman does not
property. Where are they? I have been writing so long
enter the water; he begins to climb the trees lining
that I have lost track of where the children have gone;
the shore. He is climbing out over the river; he is
I am an awful mother. I do not deserve children. Some-
right above me, twenty feet up in the air. He isn’t
one has come and taken them; they have drowned in
going to jump, is he? No, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.
the river; they are hidden in the long grass paralyzed by
He spreads his arms wide and jumps. His body is
snakebites; they have taken themselves for a walk in the
parachuting as he falls down to me, splashing next
forest. I am yelling for them—yelling their names, whis-
to me in the water. He is a bat, a flying squirrel, a
pering their names, begging their names.
vampire. He is my worst nightmare.
collage by ophelia chong
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issue 7
Movement; out of the corner of my eye I sense move-
The situation is threatening to become out of control
ment. There, oh there, of course: there they are. In the
and the baby’s head is still under the water. Finally, my
doghouse over by the woodpile. I go to where they are
hand catches the life jacket cord and I pull him out. My
and hear their little voices singing away at me: Here,
two older sons are not old enough to comprehend the
under here, Mama, we are here, in our little house, in our
situation so they stand on the shore laughing mania-
tiny little house. Our apartment house. We have some
cally and screaming silliness: He sure did go fetch! That
friends in here, Mama, see, they are bugs, we have some
is one slippery baby! He’s a wet potato! William shakes
friend bugs, see? This little friend was not being good
his head and teases, Enjoy the swim, scut-spray? I
Mama, so we put him in here, Mama, see?
ignore them as I hold his small, cold body to mine as
I flip my head upside down to peer into the house
it shakes with the shock of the cold pond. I am silent
and smile warmly at them both. Smile at my pilfered
as I walk him back up to the picnic table. After I have
bag, which now contains a misbehaving little bug and
removed all of his wet clothing and wrapped him in a
enough stale french fries to sustain it through its pun-
towel, I look at my boys and joke back: Well, that sure
ishment. Smile at their dirty faces and hands—at their
did wake him up.
little breathing bodies made large in the shallow space
On the path to the Falls, I walk. I walk—carefree and
beneath the abandoned doghouse.
happy—while the children run ahead. I am not looking at
I take my sons to the pond and Finn wakes from his
the ground. A snake slithers out from just under where
nap and chases a little dog named Diggory into the
my foot was about to rest. It slithers fast. It slithers with
pond where he has run to fetch a tennis ball. He yells
a noise. A noise of hiss. A hiss of noise. I am terrified. I
the name of our own dog as he chases this other dog
am outdone. It rears up and stares at me, paralyzes me
into the water. Oscar had brought me a life jacket for
with fear.
the baby as soon as he woke up—telling me to put it on him—and I humored him. Now Finn runs full speed
The madman is the water that threatens to hold
into the pond and is quickly in over his head. I grab at
us under. He is the silence that echoes through
his body floating away from me, made buoyant and
the valley as I call for my children. He is the snake
unwieldy by the oversize life jacket. He is slippery as he
that watches me as I walk. How long should you
flails in the water and I cannot get a hand on him. His
feign disregard for a creature intent on squeezing
head is under the water and I know—I know—this is how
you to death? I walk and walk and walk, but still
babies drown. I soak the arm of my shirt and the ends of
he follows.
my hair as I grab for him. How to explain his slipperiness,
He follows me through the woods and into a
his rushing-away-from-me-ness?
small house. The children’s toys are in the house. I try to trap him in a bag, but he chews his way out.
I am wet and shivering in the water as the madman
I try to trick him down the stairs, but he will not be
stands over me. He is less frightening up close and I
had. I try to reason with him, but he would rather
cannot stop myself from imagining what it will feel
wrap himself around my neck than listen. Finally I
like to have his teeth buried in my flesh. He is actu-
resort to crushing his head with the colorful wooden
ally not bad-looking and I am glad to be alone. I am
blocks. By the last of the blocks I am exhausted and
better off this way, with no witnesses and no one to
my hands are sticky with slime and blood. He is los-
answer to. He is ripping the skin from my lips and I
ing consciousness and his face has turned into the
speak to him; urge him to relax and be gentle. Have
face of a child. He is asking me why—why this and
you not ever just been gentle? I say and press my
why that—just like my sons.
hands into his hips. He tries kissing but is soon tear-
Why didn’t you trap me in a plastic box? Why
ing at me again. I do not want to be eaten alive. I do
didn’t you run and hide? Why don’t you let me live
not want to die. I will take things slowly and figure
now that I can no longer hurt you? Just because I
out how to live through this.
am scary does not mean I do not have a right to
44
lessons in death and drowning
Jenniey Tallman
exist. Finally, his eyes fill with tears: Please let me
back to life. That is true. They do. Water-snake-bug,
live; I do not want to die. I cannot leave a thing
children don’t die.
intent on squeezing us to death here in this house with my children’s toys, so I strike the final blow.
We are sinking together, William and I, and I can feel him crying and terrified as I grab at his body,
The snake on the path is small and shy. He rears up and
but he is so big and I did not know he would be so
sniffs the air before slithering back into the brush. I try
heavy. He should not be so heavy—why is he so
to walk but move very slowly, watching. Watching the
heavy? I am trying to push him to the surface, but it
path in front of me, watching the woods beside me,
is hopeless: we are sinking. I cannot let go of my son
turning to glance behind me. I am very slow this way.
under the water to go to the surface to get a breath,
I am slow like the children being called to bed. Called
cannot kick without breath, cannot breathe without
in to dinner. They, who when they run are so fast their
him. I force myself to kick, kick, push, but it is so
legs and feet appear to merely skim the surface of the
hard and I give up too quickly. I look into his eyes as
grass. They who run so fast and fall so hard. William
our lives slip away from us.
riding his bike—two wheels, one boy—heading straight for a soccer ball in the grass. He thinks he can ride right
Through half-closed eyes I see the madman coming
over it. Silly boy. William—no! I yell as he hits the ball and
toward me. He is holding out his hand and grinning. I
is thrown through the air. You dummy, says his father, as
open my eyes but he is still there, watching me, waiting.
soon as it is clear that he is fine. Are you okay? I ask. I
I stare at him, terrified, until he is replaced by a crack of
think so. So fast, so hard. I wait for broken digits, bones,
starlight escaping in through the curtain. When I was a
limbs. Fear drowning, snakebites, concussions.
kid, we used to believe that if you died in a dream, you would really die. So, we always made sure to wake up
That night I dream of drowning. William hangs onto
before the snake bit us, before the madman ripped us
the end of the garden hose as he and Oscar play
apart, before the water took us. I get out of bed and go
tug-of-war. Their father is yelling at them to stop
to the boys’ bedroom and check to see that they are all
playing so close to the hole. You are going to fall
breathing. When your children die in a dream, they die
in! he warns. Will stumbles on the edge and begins
for real a little. I place my hands on William’s chest and
to fall and I hear from my husband the annoyed
wait for the rise and fall, lower my cheek to his nose and
grumble: I hope you’re dead. He grabs for the hose
feel for warmth. I lift his leg and feel its weight and won-
and as he catches it—the tug and jerk—William,
der whether I could swim him to the surface or not.
uncomprehending, lets go of the hose, thinking the
In the playroom I teach the children what to do
tug meant: Let go! He begins falling down and down
should they ever fall into a deep pit of water. We prac-
into the pit of deep stagnant water. No! I yell, Hold
tice a dry dog paddle, practice kicking our feet and pad-
on. I watch as he kicks his feet in the water but his
dling our arms, tilting our heads back and sucking that
head is going under so I jump in after him.
clean, beautiful oxygen from just above the surface of the water. I pile sheets and pillows up around their bod-
What does it feel like to die? William asks me and I say,
ies, particularly the body of the six-year-old, and instruct
I don’t know, how do you think it feels? I think it feels
him to imagine it is water. I tell him exactly what it would
like being all alone and sad. Why? I think it will be really
feel like to be so tired and heavy and how you can let
not fun, to die. Why? Because, it is like being sad for the
your head float if you tilt it back. Like when I pour clean
rest of your life, I think. It would feel like being in jail.
water on your hair to rinse the shampoo from it. I feel
Oscar interrupts: Today, my friends died. Your friends
better afterward, knowing that I have prepared them
died? I ask. Yes, he says, pulling three lifeless beetles
for the unlikely occasion of drowning in a pit of water.
from his pocket, but I’m not sad. Yeah, William laughs,
If I could, I would teach them to fly; teach them to stop
but when your friends die, they just, they just come
time; teach them to live. jt
45
two ghosts kristie wang
When my mother and I moved to Panama in 1975,
a hunger that would remain, gnawing at their bones like
my father entrusted our care to his friend Liu. In China,
some coiled, living thing.
they had served in the Nationalist army together, and
The boat finally ran aground, and my father and Liu
as young men they had fought against the northern
wandered starved and swollen-tongued over the beach
warlords, then the Japanese, then the Communists.
into a grove of banana trees. There they gorged on the
“The whole country went insane,” my father would tell
still-green fruit until they were wracked with chills and
me. “Lucky for you and your mother, I had the sense to
vomiting. Afterward, they climbed to the top of a rocky
get out.” Landlords were dragged into the streets and
hill to survey the land. Lush forest stretched far to the
beheaded. Schoolchildren beat their teachers to death.
north and south, while mountains of sheer-faced granite
When my father and Liu found themselves on the
rose like a fortress wall to the east.
losing side of the war, they fled on one of the last ferries
Liu and my father had carried nothing, save for a few
to the island of Taiwan. The ferry was nothing more than
tattered identification papers, but they had not come all
a commandeered fishing boat, so laden with passengers
this way to merely live like vagabonds. The Generalis-
that it nearly sank as it left the harbor. A storm spun the
simo had stated that all Nationalist soldiers had rights
boat off course into Japanese waters, and for five days
to land on the island, the spoils of war. They returned to
the crush of human wills reduced all feeling to the body
the banana grove and tried to convince the farmer that
and its suffering. They slept head to foot on the boat’s
they had arrived to commandeer his property for the
deck, drank fetid water, and ate nothing. Hunger had
state, by edict of the new command of Taiwan. Having
lashed them on during their youth and the wars, and af-
never heard of the Generalissimo, the farmer refused
ter this they would never truly be satisfied again. It was
to surrender his land, until a few days later when Liu
47
photograph by erin hanson
slice
issue 7
found his cache of machetes. They chased the farmer
seemed to hunch with the weight of the fog. In the
off, slaughtered one of his pigs, and planned how they
evening, prostitutes old and young haggled below and
would next make their fortunes.
sent a steady haze of cigarette smoke drifting into our apartment. The beds that came with the apartment
They had endured all this together like brothers, and
were infested with fleas, and for the first months, we
so my father assured us that we were in safe hands.
slept atop the dining room table with our backs aching
«.»
against the wood. My mother believed that Liu was trying to humiliate
My father had planned for us to move to the
us. She had come from a family that had grown wealthy
United States as a family, but that spring Saigon had
as camphor exporters under the Japanese colonials,
fallen. Refugees topped the quotas, and while my
and as “collaborators” they had lost everything when
father had been able to obtain a working visa, we had
the Chinese Nationalists took over. She insisted that Liu
not. He had heard, however, of a short cut. My mother
enjoyed seeing us live like this—“Like pigs,” she said.
and I could establish residency in Panama, and with
“Nothing endures like the spite of a peasant.”
this sleight of hand we would have a chance. While my
My mother never complained outright to my father.
mother and I waited for our visas, Liu, who had settled
Every week at a scheduled time, we rode the bus to Liu’s
in Panama City the year before, would look after us.
to telephone him. In their conversations, she tried to adopt the no-nonsense practicality of a pioneer woman,
My mother did not agree to this plan, but a single word of protest—ingratitude, my father called it—could
the model of feminine patience and endurance. Care-
invoke his irritation, and this irritation could quickly
fully, she probed as to how business was, where he was
become fury. He would begin by pulling my mother’s
living, and when he might visit or send more money.
hair loose from her updo, casually, as a schoolyard bully
My father had risked all we had on this expedition to
might. If she tried to push his hands away, he would use
America, and it was not uncommon for men to have
his fingers like a vise, giving her three coin-size bruises.
second families abroad. Mistresses and philandering
Then, depending on whether or not he had been drink-
she had tolerated, but how easy it would be now for my
ing, he would also use his fists. Over the years he had
father to step into a new life and toss us away like an old
become adept at punishing her in places that would
pair of shoes. At the base of my mother’s fears was the fact that
remain unseen—her stomach, her thighs, the tender
she had not yet borne my father a son. And that her first
undersides of her arms.
child, my sister, was in an institution. When things were
After we moved to Panama, my mother remained wary. “He could let us rot here,” she said bitterly. “You
more stable, my father promised, we would also send for
must be good so that he will come back for us. We
her. She, we had left behind.
mustn’t act ungracious. We must show Liu respect.”
«.»
Liu would watch us closely and report everything. Back in Taiwan, he had once told my father about having seen my mother chatting with a policeman, an old
Back in Taiwan, we did not speak publicly about
schoolmate. For shaming him, my father had beaten
my sister. She was confined to a room at the top floor
her viciously. So when Liu showed us to our new home,
of our house. To the rest of the world, there was only
a dingy flat in the center of Panama City’s red-light
me, a regrettably small child who was even more
district, my mother only pressed her lips together and
regrettably not born a boy. My sister’s room had a slop-
nodded.
ing ceiling and a small, circular window that opened
Our view was the soot-covered wall of the adjacent
like a ship’s porthole. It was usually kept shut, because
apartment complex. Through the crack of the separat-
sometimes she would groan or cry out, her voice
ing alley was downtown Panama City, a patchwork of
surprisingly strong inside a body that seemed light as
signs, power lines, and the ashen tops of buildings that
a husk of paper. Since birth, she had not been able to
48
two ghosts
kristie wang
speak words or sit up by herself, and my parents kept
That winter, Liu began dropping by our apart‑
our family shame hidden.
ment unannounced. He would do so once, sometimes
I thought my sister would have liked to be carried
twice, each week, always bringing with him some gift.
into the garden, to sit in one of the cane chairs and see
First it was a fresh cod wrapped in newspaper, which my
the flowers blooming on the vines, and our pet tortoise
mother promptly threw out after he left. But it became
whose shell looked like a soldier’s helmet. But it was
difficult to waste what we needed purely on principle.
forbidden, lest a neighbor should see. Once, I heard my
Liu brought a bolt of patterned cloth, then a sewing ma-
father say to my mother that he was being punished for
chine, then a little radio for my room. He insisted it was
what he had done during the wars. That his future sons
no trouble—these were small material things that were
would inherit his shame, if it were known. And no family
easy to acquire.
would ever take me as a bride. So my sister remained
My mother believed my father was putting him up to
upstairs, our secret, her bed swathed in mosquito net-
this, that it was a form of surveillance. It also gave Liu
ting like a ghostly bower.
the opportunity to play the philanthropist and the sat-
Ah Mei, the Atayal girl who lived with us as our maid,
isfaction of watching us accept handouts. “Hog-eyed,”
would sometimes frighten me with stories. “She is like a
she called him in private, for the way his eyes seemed
zombie,” she said, holding the oil lamp to my sister’s un-
to be constantly appraising how one thing or another
blinking eyes. They were wide, soft eyes that seemed to
might be useful to him.
drift along an ecliptic of passing images only she could
When he left, I watched her eyes trace our meager
see. She has my mother’s sloping forehead, the same
possessions. The look on her face was not so much
elevated nose bridge, a contribution from the drop of
discontent as that of mounting panic. Each day, there
Dutch that entered our bloodline during the colonial pe-
was only the apartment, the painted concrete floors,
riod. I, on the other hand, have my father’s face, smooth
and the walls that flaked and bloomed bloated patterns
and flat as a river stone.
like tea stains in the humidity. In the cramped rooms,
Ah Mei lowered her voice to a whisper. “The spirit
each lit by a single naked bulb, everything took on a flat
never took root in this body. It is out there, lost. This is
and jaundiced appearance. At night, the whores fought
why your mother dreams.” Ghosts could take on many
below the buzzing streetlamp orbited by insects careen-
forms, she explained, including dreams. She said she
ing and colliding like drunks. My mother saw nothing for
knew all about ghosts, as her people were headhunt-
her here, and she began to remain asleep later and later
ers and believed that each skull housed the spirit of its
into the day, preferring the company of her dreams. Our
owner. Before he was executed by the Japanese, her
home became as silent as a tomb. I thought about Ah
grandfather’s great pride had been his large collection
Mei and her wandering spirits. Here, we were the ghosts,
of skulls, which he kept arranged in rows, each trophy
a lost pair floating in limbo. Marooned.
with its long pigtail still remaining. Then she laughed at
«.»
my expression and went outside to play soccer with the children who lived on our cul-de-sac. My mother said to ignore Ah Mei’s nonsense—that
In the spring, I began my first year of high school.
she was a sly, lazy girl, only telling me stories to avoid
My favorite class was, oddly, religion. It was not so much
her work. But she couldn’t explain the nightmares that
prayer that absorbed me as the pictures in my reader,
shook her every night. Often, she dreamed that she
the desert landscapes plumed with palm and acacia
clutched an infant to her breast as she stood at the edge
trees, entire cities burned under a thousand falling stars.
of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff was a group of stran-
Saints, their eyes raised in ecstasy—their bodies shot
gers beckoning her to jump.
through by arrows, or stabbed, or flayed, or beheaded. Nevertheless, they were beyond this earth.
«.»
And I discovered that I had a talent for language. Learning Spanish was like discovering a new skin—my
49
slice
issue 7
One afternoon, I came home from school and
With each piece that was sold off, my father said that he felt a little lighter. He was only somewhat regretful when he had to release his collection of finches. When he opened the cage door, they did not burst into the sky in a feverish rush for freedom. Instead, they remained huddled inside the nesting baskets, softly murmuring, and disappeared slowly over several days like air leaking from a balloon.
the hallway was flooded. I found my mother sitting in the bathtub, spout running, the drain plugged up with rags and water covering the floor, overflowing in splashes. “Why do you have to make everything as miserable as possible?” I shouted over the rush of water. I turned off the tap. She didn’t look up. She sat clutching her bent knees, and I could see the sharp wedge of her shoulder blades, the painful knobs of her vertebrae ticking off the length of her back. “Well, are you getting out?” I said. “I had another dream,” she said, still not moving. Her eyes were closed. “I thought I was awake. I looked over at the foot of the bed, and your sister was standing there, watching me.” I pulled the knot of rags from the drain and let the water vortex away. “This is no way to live,” I said. I had begun to feel a vague sense of repulsion for my mother, the way she nursed and cultivated her despair. My father used to say that unhappiness was a form of weakness. She nodded like a scolded child and reached for the crumpled clothes piled on the sink. I made no move to help her. I only thought about her refusal to learn Span-
hard, enamel self. Separate from my mother. Rather than
ish, the way she read the same magazines from Taiwan
relying on Liu, I went to the Mercado Central for our
over and over. How she could not stop grasping at our
groceries, registered for school, and bought a uniform.
past and what we had lost.
I deciphered the bus schedule, bought coffee and con-
«.»
densed milk from the corner pulpería, paid the electric bill downtown. Walking down the street, I learned how to stare forward, my face blank as paper, when men
When my father had first begun talking about
hissed from cars or whispered their hellos. I stopped
leaving Taiwan, my mother said little, hoping it was
letting my mother cut my hair into a pageboy, instead
a whim that would pass. Back in Taipei, we had been
letting it grow long to my shoulders. My skin tanned,
considered wealthy. But my father, ever the pioneer,
and I welcomed the sun on my bare arms and legs, even
harbored a restless hunger in his blood that would not
though my mother scowled and said, “You’ll never find a
be quelled. He retired from his government post early
husband at this rate, dark as you are.”
and invested in a succession of ventures—a comic-book
I only laughed. Trapped in the past, her words
store, a fleet of lunch carts, even a koi fish business—but
reached me distant and feeble, like an echo from the
each failed to bring the stunning success he dreamed of.
bottom of a well.
He began to remind us not to get too comfortable, that the country was under constant threat of attack from
«.»
the Communist mainland. My father grumbled about the lousy economy, about how the whole country was going down the drain, how he was only fifty and couldn’t
50
two ghosts
kristie wang
stand that everyone regarded him as a mule put out to
Had she gone insane? my father demanded. Was she
pasture.
determined to shame him for the rest of his life? Their
My mother knew better than to try to stop the
shouting continued until my mother swept the dishes
inevitable. Our neighbors came and bought the sofa,
to the floor. Then my father pushed her out of her chair,
the refrigerator, and the rubber inner tube we had
and she stumbled onto her knees. Grabbing a fistful of
used on our last vacation. My mother called them
her hair, he pressed her face into the floorboards until
rats, scuttling away with our possessions. The an-
she cried out, her legs scissoring. With the other hand,
tiques from her dowry—the lacquered cabinet inlaid
he removed his belt in one practiced motion.
with mother of pearl, the mahogany wardrobe, the
I ran upstairs to my sister’s room, my heart pound-
porcelain tureen—were sold at auction. With each
ing so hard that my hands and feet felt numb. I parted
piece that was sold off, my father said that he felt a
the mosquito netting, and my sister was there, awake
little lighter. He was only somewhat regretful when
but serene, her arms tucked close, the wrists curled like
he had to release his collection of finches. When he
fledgling wings. I climbed into the bed and listened to
opened the cage door, they did not burst into the sky
the sound of the belt cracking, my mother’s screams. As
in a feverish rush for freedom. Instead, they remained
a child I had tried to pretend that my sister and I were
huddled inside the nesting baskets, softly murmuring,
two thrushes hiding in a nest, secreted away from the
and disappeared slowly over several days like air leak-
entire world. I noticed that her nightgown had twisted
ing from a balloon.
up to her chest, and I worked to smooth it down over
A week before we were to leave the country, my
the slender waist, the thin legs like hocks bowed slightly
father announced that it would be too difficult to bring
inward. Her wide eyes swam upward as though there
my sister with us, as she sometimes had convulsions and
were something above the headboard she wished to
who knows what a trip in an airplane would do. Better to
see. I thought she might have smiled a little. Or was it
get settled first, then send for her. For now, they would
a grimace? There were times when the smooth parts of
put her in the institution, where someone could watch
her face would suddenly yank and quiver, and she would
her all the time. Other families couldn’t even afford the
crane her neck in a spasm of laughter so deep that no
institution.
sound came out except for a high hiss of breath. We
My mother kept repeating, “She is my child. She is
never quite knew what she could be laughing at. Now,
my child.” She knew about such places. She had been
she only blinked solemnly and sighed.
a nurse during the war and had seen where they put
I stayed beside her until I heard the front door slam.
the shell-shocked soldiers. Places with dim, flickering
My father had left for the bar and would not come back
corridors, rows of soiled beds, voices full of anguish and
until morning. Then I could hear my mother’s ragged
weeping. My sister needed to be spoon-fed. Someone
breathing. She began righting the chairs and sweeping
had to shift her several times a day or a bedsore would
the shards of porcelain into the dustbin.
form, small at first, but it could quickly eat its way to
After that, my mother slept in the bed with her first-
the bone. My mother crumpled over into sobbing and
born every night until it was time to leave her.
begged.
«.»
My father’s face hardened. It was the same face he had worn once when a fired employee came to our house bearing gifts and pleading to retain his post. My
One Saturday afternoon, Liu appeared at our
father always said he could never abide by hysterics.
door. He was holding a paper bag with a Chinese news-
Especially in a woman. “The arrangements have already
paper tucked under one arm. He was apologetic. “My
been made. Don’t be a fool. It’s the only way.”
brother asks me to look after his family, and I hardly see
“I won’t abandon her,” my mother said, slamming her
you,” he said. “I was afraid I’d find you two starving to
palm onto the dining table. Her jade bangles cracked
death.” My father had been traveling for the past two
and broke.
weeks—to trade shows, he said—and so we had not been
51
slice
issue 7
to Liu’s to telephone him.
“I’d like to call him as soon as possible,” my mother
“No, of course not. We feel very cared for,” my
said. “You must understand—it’s not just the money. It is
mother dutifully replied, opening the screen door to let
my elder daughter. I haven’t heard any news in months,
him inside.
and Bao won’t tell me where they are keeping her.”
“A present,” he said, handing me the bag. Inside were
Liu nodded. “Perhaps Meimei would like to go do
two ripe mangos and a square of tofu shivering in the
her homework, instead of listening to all this talk of
bottom half of a milk carton. Then he pinched my arm.
adult business.”
“You’ll be growing taller soon, Meimei.” Little sister. He
From my room I could hear them talking for a long
was one of the few people outside of our family who
time. All of my mother’s fears, which had for months
knew about my mother’s first child. Despite his brutish
been expanding with possibility after possibility,
appearance, he was shrewd.
poured out of her into Liu’s willing ear. I listened as she
My mother asked him to sit with us and have tea.
confessed to Liu that she secretly believed my sis-
“Thank your Uncle Liu for the kind but very unnecessary
ter’s condition was my father’s fault in the first place.
gifts,” my mother said.
This was why he could not bear the sight of her. He
Liu waved his hand in dismissal and eased himself
had been carousing in Hong Kong instead of by my
into a chair. He had grown much heavier since he left
mother’s side when she had given birth and nearly
Taiwan. Well-muscled during his youth, he had worked
died of infection. The neighbors who had cared for my
as one of the Generalissimo’s “braves”—strongarms that
mother had been superstitious fools. When they dis-
carried out government orders when force became nec-
covered that the baby was flushed with fever, they did
essary. Now, his waist, neck, and arms were even thicker,
not send for a doctor. Instead, they went to the temple
the skin mottled with patches of psoriasis.
where the priest instructed them to feed the infant
I sliced the mangos into a dish and placed them next
ashes from the offering incense in order to drive out
to the tea tray. I hoped that he would decline to stay, but
the malevolent spirits. My mother wasn’t certain about
we sat sipping our tea while Liu spoke at length about
what had happened, but she would read years later
my father. “I really don’t know why Bao has America on
in an article that an infection could travel up a baby’s
the brain. I have everything I need here. I live like a king.
spine until fever damaged the brain. And now once
But I eat too many plantains and fried pork,” he sighed,
again my father had abandoned her child to a bunch of
patting his stomach. “You two look like you eat like cats.”
half-witted peasants.
He laughed and put a forkful of mango in his mouth.
When I came out to say good-bye to Liu, I noticed
My mother frowned. “Have you heard any news
that my mother had been crying. He smiled and said not
from him?”
to worry. He would check in on us again in a few days.
“He’s been busy. I don’t know if importing furniture is
«.»
for him. Half of the people I know living in America are doing that. There’s so much competition. But he’s an adventurous one. Always after the newest thing, isn’t he?”
Liu had agreed to help my mother. Through his
He smiled. “Have some more mango, Meimei.”
connections in Taiwan, which he kept vague, he was
My mother was worried—my father was late with the
able to discover the whereabouts of the facility. On
money he usually wired to us each month, and the sums
the phone, the nurse put my mother on hold for a long
were growing smaller. She did not usually encourage
time before returning to say that she could not find
Liu in his attempts to make conversation, but now she
any record of her. After my mother insisted, there was
pressed him for more information. Did he know anything
another long wait until finally the nurse retrieved the
for certain about the business? Was it doing poorly?
line and brusquely said that yes, of course her daugh-
Liu looked embarrassed. “Forgive me, I’ve said too
ter was there and just the same as usual. However, they
much,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Such a shame, isn’t
had placed her on a feeding tube, as they could not
it? A family divided.”
spend time coaxing an invalid to eat. Then there had
52
two ghosts
kristie wang
“A present,” he said, handing me the bag. Inside were two ripe mangos and a square of tofu shivering in the bottom half of a milk carton. Then he pinched my arm. “You’ll be growing taller soon, Meimei.” Little sister. He was one of the few people outside of our family who knew about my mother’s first child.
been some commotion in the background, the sound of laughter. The nurse began to say something to another person in the room and hung up mid-sentence, before my mother could reply. My mother was distraught, and I was afraid of what she might do. I remembered how once as a child I had watched her in secret as she stood at the edge of the canal behind our house. She held a heavy stone in her arms and stood for a long time, but in the end she set the stone down and returned inside. I placed my feet into her footprints in the grass where she had stood. Leeches nosed the shallow bank, and the center of the canal was deep and dark, the surface green with whorls of algae like skeins of hair. For months afterward, I slept in the bed with her and held on to her sleeve, afraid that she might evaporate at any moment. But Liu calmed her and asked her to meet him the following day so that they could make the arrangements in order to have my sister sent to us. He would lend us the money, but with our visas pending, we could not go back ourselves to Taiwan to retrieve her. We would need
His wife stood to greet us, tottering on tiny slippered
to secure the help of people we trusted, and they would
feet no larger than a child’s might have been.
have to orchestrate this carefully in order to keep our
“Mr. and Mrs. Chiang run the cultural center,” Liu said.
plans secret from my father.
Mr. Chiang laughed. “Just a bunch of old Chinese playing chess and gambling.”
The next day, we caught the bus to the restaurant,
Mrs. Chiang beckoned me to sit next to her at the
a familiar sight now with its red doorposts, the chipped faces of gilded Chinese characters tacked to the lintel.
kitchen table. It was protected by a thick plastic sheet.
The brass bell on the door clinked, and inside, red and
She placed a trembling hand on my shoulder. Her spec-
gold lanterns swung from the ceiling beams. A solitary
tacles were so thick it was as if her eyes were under
goldfish hovered in a mossy tank.
water. There was the smell of mothballs and camphor. I unpacked my books and writing tablet. While Mrs.
Hearing our arrival, Liu emerged from behind a curtain strung with wooden beads, which screened the
Chiang poured tea, my mother excused herself and
staircase leading to his apartment above. My mother
stepped down the hall to speak in private with Liu. The
seemed revived. Her hair was combed and pinned up
air conditioner hummed. I noticed that Mr. Chiang kept
neatly. She wore a fashionable shirtdress with a red
a queue draped like frayed rope over one shoulder,
striped kerchief tied at her throat.
something I had only seen in old photographs and pictures. Next to my feet, a cluster of oranges moldered at
Upstairs, Liu had visitors. Ensconced in a wicker armchair facing the television, Mr. Chiang inclined his head
the base of a small red altar framed by sticks of incense
as we entered. He puffed on a long-stemmed pipe, and
slowly consuming themselves. Mrs. Chiang’s lily slip-
a sparse white goatee spilled past his collar. Visibly from
pers swung above the linoleum floor. I looked up, and
the old country, Mr. Chiang had labored on the canal and
she smiled at me and patted my cheek with a hand that
the Atlantic railroad, which sped coffee and fruit up the
was both papery and soft. I could not help but shudder
Central American isthmus to the United States. He was
at the thought that we would become like the Chiangs,
one of the few workers who did not go back to China or
trapped in time without even realizing. Embalmed
try his fortunes elsewhere once the tracks had been laid.
here, forever.
53
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issue 7
Mrs. Chiang’s lily slippers swung above the linoleum floor. I looked up, and she smiled at me and patted my cheek with a hand that was both papery and soft. I could not help but shudder at the thought that we would become like the Chiangs, trapped in time without even realizing. Embalmed here, forever.
I scooted my chair back. “I’m going to use the bathroom,” I announced. Mrs. Chiang only smiled. She seemed to be quite deaf. The corridor was dark and cool. I stepped down the dim passage where voices murmured indistinctly. Without much thought, I peered through the gap of a half-closed door. My mother was there standing. Her powdered face was drawn as if in concentration. Liu was behind her, speaking softly. Then I noticed that his hand was inside the front of her unbuttoned dress. Liu laughed softly. “You pant like a bitch in heat,” he said. I stepped backward, retracing my footsteps as if I could reverse time and what I had seen. I was back in the kitchen, and then I could only run. I sprinted down the sidewalk without caring what direction I was headed. I ran until my stomach heaved and I squatted to retch in an empty lot overgrown with creepers. A cluster of purple orchids floated above me like open mouths gasping in the heat. I thought about Liu and my mother, together. In my mind, his hand became something clawlike, reptil-
Inside, I found my mother sitting in the front room
ian. A beastly paw, bloated and full of meat.
waiting for me. She seemed to have been watching the
A brilliant sun sank into the horizon, a molten crucible turning the clouds into islands of burning cinders.
door. This I expected, and I began to play my part. I
I had missed the last bus, so I decided to walk home.
began to tell her that I wanted no role in her deception.
Laborers, their hands and faces coated with ash, waited
I would no longer serve as her alibi while she carried on
in long snaking lines for the regional buses. Women bent
behind my father’s back. I told her I was ashamed of her.
double plodded down the sidewalk with totes packed to
In a quiet, steady voice she asked me to sit and be si-
the brim and strapped to their backs. I could hardly look
lent. She explained that she had news. Liu had a propos-
at anyone. Each human face rose up from the gloom like
al that would benefit us all. He no longer wished to be a
a gaping mask. The heat and humidity did not lift with
bachelor, and although I was not yet sixteen, he wanted
the coming of evening, and I imagined Liu’s foul breath
to marry me. She gripped my hand as I tried to stand
at my mother’s throat.
and continued in the same measured voice. She had tried to keep me out of it, but Liu wanted a young wife
After an hour, I turned the corner onto our block. In the dusk I saw that the whores had begun working,
who would bear him sons. There was no knowing when
gazing at passing men in steady invitation and pursing
or if my father would return for us. That was the reality.
their lacquered lips. Upstairs, would I scream and rage
There was my sister to think of. Liu had connections and
on behalf of my father? Or would I weep for our broken
had promised to send for her right away if I agreed. He
family? For my sister, who was the ruse disguising their
wanted to speak to me in a few days at the restaurant
tawdry affair? My mother was having an affair with Liu.
and had also sent me a gift, one that he promised would
It suddenly struck me as ridiculous. Even my own anger
be the first of many. My mother picked up the pink upholstered box that
seemed theatrical. I only felt a vague sense of somehow having been wronged. As I ascended the stairs, my mind
sat on the coffee table and opened it. Tucked inside
seemed to be filled with the same obliterating buzz that
the cushion was a thick gold bangle. She held it to the
emanated from the streetlamp.
light, plucked open its hinge, and fastened it around my
54
two ghosts
kristie wang
wrist. Its surface was etched with whorls of clouds and
spear points enclosed front gardens alive with plumeria
phoenixes, and it was heavy, a manacle of undoubtedly
trees and crane flowers. I moved down the cracked
real gold. I could have laughed; it was as meaningless
sidewalk, pausing often and wondering who might live
and absurd to me as a carnival prize. Down on the street
here. Perhaps old colonial aristocrats. Perhaps Ameri-
below, an argument had begun between one of the
cans from the embassy. My mother had expected to live
prostitutes and a potential customer. “You might as well
in just such a neighborhood. She had not expected to
put me outside with them,” I said. I unclasped the bangle
marry a man like my father. A bully. A tyrant. Cruel in
and left it on the table. I got up to sit in one of the plas-
his disgust for unhappiness and weakness because it
tic chairs at the open window. I couldn’t look at her.
reminded him of his own. I thought about how one’s life
I heard my mother say, “It’s the only way. Think of
could take a sudden wrong turn, and it would have to
your sister.” She sighed. “He’s not as old as you think.
continue on with the consequences. Dying of grief was
Marriage is seldom like the movies. You don’t have to
surely a myth.
give your whole heart to him.”
The afternoon storm arrived without warning. I
Then I listened to her steps to the bedroom, the shut
ducked inside a small stone chapel, my shoulders
of the door. The hard afternoon rain had flooded the
streaked with wet. Through the narrow windows above,
alleyway. The moon above, whiter than bone, seemed
dust-filled sunlight cast through the cool dimness.
adrift, its reflection bobbing and rippling in the water
From a radio somewhere trickled the tinny recorded
like a drowned woman’s dress. I sat at the window for
sound of a congregation reciting the rosary. I had
a long time.
learned this from school. Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores . . . The pews were
«.»
empty, and I stepped along the side aisles squinting at the tapestries that lined the walls. The embroidery had
The day I was to meet Liu, I decided to walk to
almost completely faded, save for an outline of a figure
the next bus stop. My mother had wanted me to wear
here, or the pleats of a robe there, then glinting shards
Liu’s gift, so I had tossed the bangle, still in its box, into
of halo. Mounted on the wall of one alcove and piled
my shoulder bag and it knocked against my leg with
onto a table were ex-votos—pairs of silver hands and
each step. Mealy clouds hung low in the overcast sky,
eyes, hearts and limbs, crutches, a motorcycle helmet.
the air thick and warm. I took my time, pausing to buy
I retrieved Liu’s gift from my bag and set it down next
a coffee sweetened with condensed milk from a street
to a stack of letters and drawings. There would be
cart. It tasted the same as always, surprisingly. At the
another way.
next bus stop, I kept walking. I half pretended that I was
I wandered past the statues of the saints with their
shopping, peering contemplatively into the windows of
crumbling noses and other parts, their hands raised in
shops, exercising my taste, taking in the displays, and
benediction, rivulets of solid wax weeping at the feet of
reading every sign. Everything was on sale. Ten balboas
the Virgin. Then I stopped before a painting of a female
for an iron. Ninety-nine centésimos for a set of aluminum
saint, swooning backward from the blinding light of an
hair clips. At another vendor’s cart, I bought pipa and
angel about to crown her with a wreath of thorns. The
waited while the man hacked off the green coconut husk
woman brandished a spray of lilies, something that I
with his machete and sliced off the top so that I could
did not understand. I was struck by the paleness of her
drink the juice through a straw. A mutt trotted by, an
hands, the long fingers poised like those of a dancer. Her
absurd mix of German shepherd and basset hound, its
eyes had fluttered back, and there I saw the very same
belly swaying with two rows of heavy nipples.
eyes of my sister. My vision blurred with tears as I looked
I walked farther, turning deliberately onto streets
up to follow where her upward gaze must land. I stood
I usually never took. I found myself in a residential
there for a long time, trying to imagine what she might
neighborhood I didn’t recognize. The houses were large,
see beyond the vaulted ceilings of the chapel, black with
newly painted in bright pastels. Iron fences capped with
candle soot. kw
55
Country Couple
All arrive bedside and there’s no one to blame. A barren hillside hardens. Change is their circuitous route, muted argument between states, fields exposed by spring’s drought. She committed another tarot sequence,
Michael Paul Thomas
their small ritual for a country that doesn’t punish delusions. Soybean crops turn bankrupt yellow. He said in one letter, I’ll take my small patch divided by men as all the voices dim, abbreviated. Her unearthed horizon forgives the letters burned. Fate once understood him. It was his story, told over rooftops, lakeside, at last shaken and reversed, alone beside a cold, graying coast.
56
Ah, Nuts, I’m in Love Michael Hemery
What a tragic day in the history of young
classroom didn’t contain the typical, solitary high school
romance when you can’t win a girl’s favor by calling
desks, but instead had long rows of interconnected
attention to her equine stride. After all, Rachael Black,
tables. My vantage point next to Rachael allowed me to
the brown-haired, pouty-lipped girl who sat next to me
notice the small birthmark on her shoulder that was only
in seventh-grade English class, did sound rather horse-
visible when she’d reach down for her purse to retrieve
like that day, approaching our classroom nearly twenty
items such as the blue green case for her dark-rimmed
minutes late, her black, high-heeled shoes clipping
glasses. I surmised she was self-conscious of how she
loudly down the empty, tiled hallway. The class giggled
looked in glasses because she’d only resort to wearing
as the footsteps grew louder and louder, clip-clop, clip-
the spectacles after squinting incessantly at the board,
clop, then stopped abruptly and settled, clipclipclipclip,
her nose scrunching up in a series of adorable ripples
in the doorway. We turned in unison to see who’d been
while her cheekbones rose to reveal shallow dimples.
making such a racket for the past thirty seconds down
She favored blouses made of rougher fabrics—not silk or
the hall. Rachael offered a yellow pass from the guid-
even polyester. Her shoulder would scratch and scrape
ance office to Mrs. Adams, our portly English teacher
the abrasive cloth when she wrote in-class essays, the
with stringy gray hair who was attempting to introduce
back and forth driving me wild with passion. I didn’t
the importance of Huck Finn to our thirteen-year-old
give a shit about the theme of Flowers for Algernon, but
lives, then trotted her way to the seat next to me in the
could only concentrate on the rhythm of her shoulder as
back of the class.
her pen traveled the length of the paper.
I’d been madly pining away for Rachael’s attention
Our imagined relationship was strictly physical.
for the entire school year. When Mrs. Adams assigned
Although her responses to Mrs. Adams’s questions
Rachael the seat inches from mine the first week of
were consistently insightful and she seemed to possess
school, I began to memorize her gestures and features
a likeable personality (based solely on conversations
so I could be with her, even when we were apart. I had
that I’d overheard her having with students who weren’t
a prime spot to study Rachael’s body because the
terrified to open their mouths), I knew more about the
57
ah, nuts, i’m in love
michael hemery
slight dip in the back of her neck than her feelings, fears,
stay upright after the collision, but my gangly body hit
or desires. Despite this minor setback, I knew we had
the floor. I was devastated. I snapped my head around
a future together as she dragged me out of boyhood
to see my friends laughing hysterically, running back to
adolescence. I spent most of my time trying to be “cool”
the “safe” side of the gym. I held my ear with one hand,
with the guys—searching the local stores’ inventories
hoisted myself back up with the other, and chased after
for Air Jordan shoes to gain approval. But now I was
them, assuming Rachael wasn’t standing before me with
smitten with a female, yet entirely unsure how to win her
a welcoming smile upon her face.
attention. I’d sometimes intentionally bump my pencil
As the year progressed I became more infatuated
off the desk, waiting for her to casually look to the floor,
with Rachael—the way she held her pens, positioning
reaching down to retrieve it for me. I’d become lost in
the utensil between her pointer and middle fingers,
the neckline of her shirt, counting the goose bumps that
leaving her thumb entirely out of the equation; how
formed on her chest from the morning chill of the room.
she’d answer Mrs. Adams’s questions in a low, smoky
One time when she placed the pencil back on the desk I
voice, like an old-time jazz singer; and how she’d cross
muttered, “Thanks for the pencil getting.” After stum-
and uncross her legs, unknowingly resting the heel of
bling over my words, I could feel my ear beginning to
her shoe against my shin. In the last month of school, I’d
warm up in embarrassment. This peculiar oddity began
grown more bold, not by actually speaking to Rachael,
in sixth grade—whenever I grew nervous, my left ear
but by “accidentally” brushing my leg against hers when
would burn with heat, glowing a peculiarly disturbing
I reached down to get paper or books from my bag on
incandescent red. I never understood why it was only my
the floor. Surprisingly she never cried out in repulsion
left ear, while my right had been spared, but I’d quickly
or retracted her leg away from mine. Instead, day after
cover it to hide my humiliation. That year, I often heard
day, she let my calf and tube sock press against her
Mrs. Adams’s lectures in mono, spending much time
smooth leg.
covering the ear facing Rachael.
On the day when Rachael entered the room late, I
During the seventh-grade winter dance my buddies
couldn’t help but notice the way her short skirt teased
told me to ask Rachael to slow dance, even though she
her thighs as she walked toward me in the back of the
appeared to be quite content standing on the other side
room. The room itself was cramped with poorly posi-
of the gym with her friends.
tioned desks, so in order for Rachael to squeeze into
“But she probably doesn’t want to dance with me.
her seat, I had to stand up in the aisle, push in my chair,
I’m just the creepy guy who sits next to her in English
and allow her to pass. As she wiggled her way past me,
class,” I said.
I whispered loud enough for the students sitting around
Marty Drake, my best friend at the time, said, “I tell
me to hear, “Nice of you to show up for class every
you what, just walk over there near her and if she looks
once in a while, Mr. Ed.” I surprised myself, unsure of
up to make eye contact with you and smiles, you’ll know
where this repressed vocalization had even come from. I
that she wants to dance. If she ignores you, don’t say
grabbed my ear in anticipation of its inevitable flaring. I’d
anything and just come back over here.”
spent the past nine months in near silence, not wanting
Couples swayed back and forth under the darkened
to embarrass myself in front of the girl that I surely was
lights of the cafeteria when I finally agreed to test his
going to be with someday, but of course my unconscious
theory, walking toward her. Rachael was talking with her
longings found it necessary to manifest themselves in
blond friend, back turned slightly toward me. Her friend
the form of equestrian comparisons.
whispered something into her ear before she slowly
Craig, the curly-haired boy who sat in front of me and
began to twist her head in my direction. My ear began
earlier that year taught me the words to “There once
to warm as I slowed my stride to read the expression on
was a man from Nantucket,” turned and said, “Actually,
her face. Just as our eyes almost met, I was suddenly
it was nicer here without you and your loud-ass horse
pushed in the back by the force of many adolescent
hooves.” I laughed a breathy, forced chuckle, returning
boys, my body crashing into Rachael. She managed to
my attention back to Rachael.
Illustration for slice by Sarah McNeil
59
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issue 7
Rachael slammed her books onto her desk and
Mrs. Adams now stood over me and crouched to
asked, “What the hell are you two trying to say?”
feel my forehead with the back of her meaty hand. “No
Mrs. Adams continued to write words like “Tom,”
fever,” she said. “Just take all the time you need down
“racism,” and “equality” on the chalkboard, ignoring the
there; no hurries.” She returned to the front of the room,
rowdy spat brewing in the back of the room.
continuing to write on the board.
“You know,” I said, “clip-clop, clip-clop.”
The pain actually subsided more quickly than I’d
And then I neighed.
expected, but as some sort of prepubescent protest, I
I realize now that thirteen-year-old boys often lack
remained sprawled out next to my desk like a middle-
the maturity and finesse to declare their interest in the
school tragedy. For the next half hour I remained on the
opposite sex and resort instead to tactics such as “pull-
floor, resting my head against a chair rung. Remarkably
ing the girl’s hair on the playground.” The reaction is
the class either forgot about my body in the back of
beyond our control and determined by something more
the room or simply chose to ignore it. From this lowly
primordial, probably in our pants. But girls are suppos-
perspective, I could see the stunning lines of Rachael’s
edly the more observant gender, so you’d think Rachael
legs and the red imprints of her thighs right above her
would have picked up on my subtle flirtation in the form
knees when she crossed and uncrossed her legs. In fact,
of public humiliation.
the initial bout of pain was worth my new perspective of
God, she had great lips. I focused on them as Rachael
her legs. She opened her notebook and began studi-
squared up to me and cried, “Fuck you.” In the next few
ously copying the lecture notes, ignoring my occasional
seconds I lost track of those lips, most likely because I
coughs and murmurs from the floor. When Mrs. Adams
lost consciousness. Rachael clenched her first, socking
handed out worksheets that correlated with the previ-
me in the nuts with the force of, well, a bucking bronco.
ous night’s reading, someone flung a paper at me, but I
I immediately blacked out. Seconds later I awoke on the
simply let it settle into the grit and dirt scattered about
floor in the back of the room near my desk, writhing in
the tile.
pain and curled up in the fetal position. I was sure both of
While the remainder of the class diligently followed
my testicles had been permanently shoved into my stom-
Mrs. Adams’s instructions, I wondered how this recent
ach. I clung to the cold metal leg of my desk, searching
turn of events would impact my relationship with
for some sort of relief from the throbbing in my groin.
Rachael. Had I completely ruined my chances of slow
The boys in the class collectively groaned, while some-
dancing with her at the next dance? Would she ever
one clapped on the opposite side of the classroom.
speak to me again? Again. I realized that we’d in fact
Rachael picked a crumb of lint off her white blouse,
spoken, albeit not in the way I’d fantasized for the
smiled, and tucked her hands behind her knees to hold
previous nine months (none of those scenarios ever
her skirt back as she slipped into her seat. I couldn’t see
involved me getting socked, close-fisted, in the nuts).
Mrs. Adams, but heard the chalk stop scraping across
But we did speak. There was always the chance that
the chalkboard. From the front of the room she asked
she could run late again, so maybe I could find some
loudly enough so I could hear from the floor, “Is every-
other clever way of commenting on her tardiness to
thing all right back there?”
continue the heated conversation that we’d started
I coughed out, “Hit . . . in . . . nuts,” which was re-
that day. I smiled, returning my gaze to the back of
ceived with nervous laughter from Craig, who refused
Rachael’s calves.
to look me in the eye. The remainder of the class stared,
When the bell finally rang, Rachael gathered her
horrified as my body continued to twist and contort
books into her arms, pressed her knees together as
itself on the floor. I’d accidentally nipped “my boys” a
she stood, and gingerly stepped over my body to
few times in gym class during dodgeball and along the
exit the room. The heel of her shoe landed inches
crotch-level rail in the cafeteria lunch line that we rested
from my ear and continued to echo across the room,
our trays on, but I’d never felt pain this intense in my
down the crowded hallway, and into the white noise
young life.
of my youth. mh
60
N
The Pugnacious
ever trust authors, for they know how stories work.
There’s not usually much belle in bel-
Like a car wreck for the soul, bad behavior holds
licosity, and indeed, the beatified brawlers are almost
a profound, instinctive, sometimes hypnotic fascination.
entirely men whose skill with the harmless word was
We readers often catch ourselves remembering the an-
matched by their predilection for sticks and stones. The
tagonists in certain narratives—shameless, cruel, de-
fist-happy Norman Mailer is an example of this breed;
structive as they may be—as vividly as the heroes with
one could also find Ben Johnson and Lord Byron dueling
whom our sympathies supposedly lie. So it’s hardly any
away in the dustier reaches of the feisty files. But no one
surprise that, given reign over the narratives of their own
so completely and readily embodied clobbering people
lives—a practice almost as old as writing; after all, who did
as literary art as did Ernest Hemingway.
Dante put through hell if not himself?— writers tempted common
might to
be
reject
virtuous
stereotypes.
What
if they could shrug off the image of the noble study-bound scholar,
the
meek
wordsmith dwarfed by her or his typewriter, obscured by smudged ink? What
Whether
Bound to be Bad the villain in the author
if they could instead let loose their disinhibitions, feeding
Hem-
ingway was as violent, unsentimental, and judgmental as his
myths
imply,
he was more than willing to reinforce those myths in his own autobiographical writing. He was noted for unhesitatingly criticizing his peers and occasionally adding injury to insult. Indeed, docu-
C.A.B. fredericks
their egos with their
mentations of the intersection between the written word and
ids and happily seating themselves at the bad kids’ lunch
the hitting writer blossomed as a sort of cottage industry.
table?
It could simply be that the stories of the man are almost as
And worst of all, we readers often love the tales of
engaging as the stories by the man; it could also be that
authorial misdeeds as much as we love the writers’ works.
these tall tales assuage the fear that the man of letters
The following is a broad cross section of ways in which
is weak, instead creating a reactionary Renaissance man
authors might let their bad flag fly. It is far from exhaus-
who provides an antidote to gender-role anxiety.
tive; as chroniclers of the human spirit, writers will find as many ways to misbehave as there are things this world
The Salacious
frowns upon.
ate the wimpy male writer, so they also create the dowdy,
As eager as the stereotypers are to cre-
sexless female. After all, overt feminine sexuality is still
Acting Up
seen as villainous by many in Western society. Yet dis-
Take some smart people, give them affirmation and some
cretion is often the enemy of compelling narrative, and
money, add just the tiniest chip on their shoulders, and
women—who are involved in very nearly half of all sexual
you just might see them turn up the aggression—be it
activity—have long written openly on subjects they could
physical, sexual, or even criminal. For some readers, what
not speak about aloud. The Tale of Genji, often credited as
a writer wrote can be hard to separate from whom they
being the first novel, included relatively frank erotic pas-
smote, whom they poked, and/or what they smoked.
sages imagined by noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu; more recently, Gertrude Stein, Zelda Fitzgerald, Anaïs Nin, and
61
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issue 7
others presaged feminism with open explorations of de-
ouac, Allen Ginsberg, and cohorts—and after them, Ken
sire from a woman’s perspective, and if Dorothy Parker
Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and similar cohorts—all
didn’t start a revolution, she certainly didn’t give a damn
but deified the emaciated and intoxicated lives of their
about her bad reputation.
friends, which included thug manqué Gregory Corso. Yet
The sixties, informed by the publication of Anaïs Nin’s
even the idiosyncratic Corso, who turned poet only after
diaries and their frank, autobiographical sexuality, and
an adolescence in and out of prison, had a role model in
furthered by the popularization of feminism, saw former-
the Pope of Dope, William S. Burroughs. Hot on the publi-
ly scandalous material become bestsellers. Literary and
cation of his sensationalist Junky, (a frank confessional of
pop culture acknowledged that women were having and
drug use, cat abuse, and other deviance, first published
enjoying sex, and figures from the prosaic Helen Gurley
as a penny dreadful), Burroughs fled for Mexico to avoid
Brown to the poetic Anne Sexton were part of this move-
drug charges. Instead, he ran into worse trouble while
ment that turned sexual openness into industry gold. Yet
trying to shoot a glass off the head of his lover—and the
the stigma never quite resolved, and even today, female
mother of his child—Joan Vollmer.
authors who are open about their sex lives or even “too
Though he largely avoided prison, Vollmer’s death
sexy” in their promotional photographs are accused of
continued to stalk him. Driven by her memory, he would
calling on succubi when the muses fail them.
create the innovative, druggy, dreamlike Naked Lunch.
Few were as polarizing upon publication as the ac-
The unapologetic (well, infrequently apologetic) em-
rophobe Erica Jong. Fear of Flying, with its concept of
brace of the darker parts of human nature provided some
the connotation- and consequence-free “zipless fuck,”
readers the vicarious thrill of criminality, all the more con-
garnered the predictable contempt of the chauvinists
vincing because Burroughs hadn’t imagined this washout
and outrage by the conservatives. (Indeed, Henry Mill-
life—he had lived it.
er—whose treatises on the disposition of his own genitals continue to make every countercultural post-adolescent
Speaking Up
feel chronically undersexed—declared Fear of Flying to
Not all authorial villainy derives from deeds; some of it
be the woman’s Tropic of Cancer.) Its unapologetic de-
is simply based on the uncontrollable urge to speak. The
scription of a female sexuality that was neither coy nor
same urge that drives writers to create elegant works of
romantic, not to mention unrestrained by the bonds of
literature can lead them to hold forth on matters and in
matrimony, shocked and offended many—including some
manners less graceful.
feminists, who found the protagonist too stereotypically girly. And much of her audience proved more than ready
Crank Case For some people, and some writers, the pro-
to project that image onto Jong herself, marking her a
cess of aging allows one to let fly with new opinions, or
perfect sexual villain—alluring in her threat, threatening
opinions previously held back. Be it from fear of mortality
in her allure.
or the acceptance thereof, from concerns of irrelevance or an overheated belief in the opposite, there’s always the
The Outer-Spacious
potential for a well-aged author to turn crotchety.
Allure and hedonism isn’t just limit-
ed to games played by two (or more); writerly misbehav-
Perhaps the most telling example is Ezra Pound’s anti-
ior can take a solitary dance with the pipe, the straw, and
Semitism. Although a casual antipathy toward Jews was
the needle. Although nineteenth-century poets Charles
common through much of the twentieth century, Pound
Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud were early proponents of
openly expounded in radio and print on theories that
the idea that composing while dissolute, high, and prob-
Jews were running the world economy. Following World
ably syphilitic was the pinnacle of creative endeavor, it
War II, an institutionalized Pound recruited the like-mind-
took the tyranny of normalcy to make American crime
ed to write exposés on modern banking—and thus, since
into American art.
they ostensibly controlled banking, modern Jews—and its responsibility for all conflict.
As the suburban 1950s closed in, writers were more
But if to the modern American rampant Jew-bashing
than happy to wander far from “legitimacy.” Jack Ker-
62
bound to be bad
c.a.b. fredericks
seems crotchety, the tale of Pound’s hatred has an ironic,
the names or the protecting of the innocent. The writer is
almost happy ending. Five years before his death, while
the story and vice versa.
dining in Venice with Allen Ginsberg and companions, Pound admitted, “The worst mistake I made was that
The Fiction of Nonfiction
stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.” It’s easy to
to be the way things worked, and that assumption fueled
imagine that, to the dedicated bigot, this statement might
many a book deal. But hardship tales proved lucrative
have come across as the ultimate crankery.
enough to encourage those who could deadpan their
At least, that was assumed
way through narratives consisting, in truth, of fiction.
Shake a Cane
Perhaps less insanely, Tom Wolfe’s own
Most notably, drug-addicted male-prostitute memoirist
identity evolved steadily with age. First he chronicled
J. T. LeRoy—“author” of Sarah and The Heart Is Deceit-
the idealism of the hippie generation, then composed a
ful Above All Things—turned out to be a creation of one
paean to the individualistic heroism of astronauts; as he
Laura Albert; she was eventually successfully sued for
launched himself into the world of fiction, he spent some
fraud, and LeRoy has dropped off the cultural map. More
time chronicling his own contempt for the heroes of mod-
recently, white suburbanite Margaret Seltzer sold the
ern literature, such as John Updike, John Irving, and Nor-
fictionalized memoir Love and Consequences under the
man Mailer, which eventually degenerated into a festival of
guise of Margaret B. Jones, a gang-affiliated, half-white,
mutual trash-talking. Not content with criticizing his peers,
half–Native American orphan; Seltzer went so far as to
in 2004 Wolfe came out with I Am Charlotte Simmons.
conduct interviews in an African American patois before
Adopting the perspective of a college-aged woman,
her sister narked her out.
Wolfe details disillusionment, cynicism, and sexual politics in higher education. The sheer amorality of the nar-
Putting the ’Tude in Verisimilitude
rative is on one level a conservatively tinged criticism of
Frey who really shattered the idea that the memoir was a
the destructive hypocrisy within elite universities—and on
more honest form of writing. Significant parts of his tale
another level, an exasperated cry of “Kids these days!”
of addiction and redemption, A Million Little Pieces, were
But it was James
exposed by the Smoking Gun as fabricated. The outrage
“Oh, Christ” But the grumpy old writer need not be male
was deafening, and Frey was called onto national TV to
to shake a cane. It’s hard not to read a certain joie de
vindicate himself. He confessed to the fictionalization
crotchet into the words of The Golden Notebook author
even while sporting the tattoo “FTBSITTTD”—for “Fuck
Doris Lessing. Lessing reportedly answered news of her
the Bullshit, It’s Time to Throw Down.”
Nobel Prize with the phrase “Oh, Christ.” Subsequently, in
The irony with Frey is that the fictionality in the narra-
2008 she told Time that “Sweden doesn’t have anything
tive didn’t serve to exalt him. Instead, it made Frey seem
else. There’s not a great literary tradition, so they make
more callous—it furthered his aura of villainy. When he
the most of the Nobel.” Ungrateful, certainly, but there’s
was a villain, he was lauded. It was when he was exposed
something to be admired in her sentiment: that, in some
as less villainous that he became loathed, that he be-
ways, the greatest honor is to be free to be dishonorable.
came . . . a villain? But wouldn’t that make him, in turn, beloved again?
Making Shit Up
Sure enough, with 2008’s Bright Shiny Morning, Frey
While some authors may want to hold their accomplish-
cheekily stated, “Nothing in this book should be consid-
ments at a remove, some of their accomplishments are
ered accurate or reliable,” while receiving plaudits from
ones from which they can’t be removed. The past twenty
the New York Times. He was the liar with a twinkle in his
years have seen a widespread rejection of the separation
eye, the con man who gets away, the highwayman who
of author from work, a major symptom of which is the rise
leaves the ladies sighing in their petticoats. He was for-
of the literary memoir. From Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreak-
given but unredeemed, villainous eternally and irresist-
ing Work of Staggering Genius to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat,
ibly, just like in the stories. cabF
Pray, Love, many readers have rejected the changing of
63
Tracing the Blue Light M. Eileen Cronin
I’m almost four years old when I’m awakened by
wall and find Kathy asleep in her bed, blond hair awash
the light of an alien moon. I suck my thumb, charmed by
in silver moonlight.
the waxy ball spilling silver white light through the win-
I totter backward and drop onto the mattress. Why
dow. But this is not my window, and this is not my crib. I
am I here? Where’s Mommy?
grab the bars to pull myself up.
I peer through the bars. Kathy’s not yet three but she
Where am I?
has a real bed, and I’m still in a crib. The assignment of
I hold my breath and search for clues. Below is a
beds—who gets a real bed and who doesn’t—puzzles me.
driveway. My parents’ Volkswagens are not in it, though
As for this crib, I don’t remember rolling off my
there is a pearl blue station wagon with tail fins like cat-
parents’ bed when I was six months old and breaking my
eye glasses. Above that an angry tree shakes its fists at
femur bone. I don’t realize that, as bones go, a femur is
the moon, and I draw back. My bedroom is square and
significant. Especially mine. It’s the only bone I have in
yellow and brand-new. This one is atticlike: a gray blue
my right leg. But there is something bigger than a bed
wall curls over my head and folds into a flat ceiling; on
troubling me. I’m wondering if it has to do with legs.
the other side is an open door, small, with a glass knob.
Kathy has two whole legs and a bunch of toes, while
Quickly I grab my ratty Gaga Bobo, stuff one corner
one of my legs ends right above the knee and the other
under my nose, shove my thumb in my mouth. In this
just below the knee. I’m also missing a finger on my left
aqua blanket, with its frayed polyester edges, I smell my
hand, but it must be the legs: only people with legs are
home: warm laundry, fried bacon, coffee, and cigarettes.
allowed to sleep in a real bed.
I’m lulled by it.
And more questions: When will I get legs? What
Then I see the black-and-white portrait of a baby boy
if they don’t grow in? Why am I the only one missing
crowned by a golden Hula-hoop. It’s Kathy’s baby Jesus.
them? These mysteries mount like a tidal wave over
I’m in my cousin’s room. I whip my head to the opposite
my head.
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photograph by anna moller
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issue 7
I forget for a minute how to breathe. I grab the bars
pandemonium except for Kathy. She’s still asleep.
and rattle them. I have to get out of here. I need my
My uncle calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Every-
mom. Then it dawns on me: worse than not having a bed,
thing okay, Mart?”
or not having legs, is not having a family. So where is
“I got it, Jim,” she says. “Everyone back to bed. Just
mine?
a bad dream.”
I hurl myself against the bars of the crib. I thrash
A few kids groan, and the house goes black again.
around until I find my voice. It’s a wrathful screech, bold
But I’m thinking: Bad Dream? No, it’s not! This is very
and steady. Facing the open door, my body pressed at
real. How dare they go on vacation without me?
the foot of the crib, arms outstretched through bars, I
We’re in a Tudor home on a street lined with buckeye
see Aunt Marty sprinting up the narrow staircase. Take
trees just minutes from downtown Cincinnati while my
me home!
seven brothers and sisters are trekking to the far north,
Aunt Marty scoops me up. I’m comforted by the
to Michigan! Our dad owns a Volkswagen dealership.
smell of cigarettes and coffee, reminding me of Mom.
This week he brought home a sleek new Volkswagen
My body goes limp. “Oh, oh, oh,” she whispers, her voice
camper with a kitchenette, polished wooden cabinets,
soothing in that it matches Mom’s, and then agitating
and fold-out beds. My brother Stevie and I built forts
because it is not Mom’s voice. Her arms are sturdier than
in that camper all week. Dad always brings home cars
Mom’s, and she sings a real song. She sings with convic-
for us to try out. I had no idea they were planning a
tion, as if she owns this song: Good night, my someone,
getaway. Now I’m imprisoned in Kathy’s old crib,
good night, my love. Aunt Marty is the star of the St. Viv-
while my family has joined a caravan of Catholics
ian’s Variety Show. In a clown suit, she sings show tunes
on vacation.
on a pair of roller skates while playing a violin. She’s a
The stress of all this news exhausts me. I fall asleep.
bulky Carol Burnett in a dark, German body. I love Aunt
Over the next week, I bask in the attention of my
Marty’s singing, but I want Mom’s meager voice and
aunt and Kathy. At home I vie for Mom’s attention. I have
her loony songs: Molly Mouse is a hat check girl! Whew
to compete with seven siblings, and one is a baby. I wrap
whew! Whew whew!
myself around Mom’s ankles in the kitchen, locking onto
Despite my longing, Aunt Marty manages to calm me
her as I try to bend her to my will. Here at Aunt Marty’s,
down. My sobs diminish. I gasp for air.
Kathy is the baby and her mother dotes on us. We don’t
Before she had children, Aunt Marty was a psychiat-
even have to trap her.
ric nurse at the state mental hospital. These days, she’s
We play make-believe songs on their out-of-tune
every child’s mother and every adult’s best friend. I stop
piano in their dungeonesque basement with its wash-
heaving and look into her eyes for an explanation. She
ing machine from the forties. In the living room, Aunt
tells me this: No one has been forgotten; it’s just a vaca-
Marty lulls us with her violin. She invites us into her
tion. One week of bye-bye, and they’ll be home again.
cramped kitchen with its breakfast nook and canisters
A vacation.
everywhere. She mashes pork fat and oatmeal to make
A vacation?
goetta, putting her finger to her lips as she adds secret
This is a soothing thought. Even I know that a vaca-
spices and sculpts it into a loaf that she fries up in crisp
tion is a good thing. It’s like Christmas.
patties. It’s delicious, even better with tons of ketchup.
My calm recedes as I make the connection: This vaca-
Later, she does laundry and hangs the wet clothes on
tion is a good thing . . . that my family has chosen to do
the line in the backyard while we hide in the sheets. I
without me. There are eight kids in our family, and I’m the
crawl around on my knees; Kathy chases me on hers.
one they left behind. The anxiety barrels back, crowning
She never leaves my side. We play like sisters but better
right over my head, ready to break. I scream loud enough
because we are not.
for my family to hear me, wherever they’ve gone.
Twenty-some years later, Aunt Marty will remind me
Lights flick on all over the house. Teenagers yell,
of that day under the canopy of drying sheets when I
“Shut up!” Aunt Marty has six kids, and all are in on the
picked up one of Kathy’s shoes, a Keds sneaker, and
66
tracing the blue light
m. eileen cronin
A week after they abandon me, my family
We younger kids witness each of Pat’s milestones and those of our oldest sister, Meg: birthdays, first communions, confirmations, and graduations. Our parents stopped filming them at about the third kid. There are no films from the parties of my peers. Being the middle children, we don’t have movies; in general, we don’t have parties. We’re the audience.
returns. There is disappointment in losing my aunt and cousin, but just as quickly I’m caught up in the frenzy of reunion. If Aunt Marty is everyone’s mother and best friend, her sister Joy, our mother, is everyone’s muse. She’s part circus trainer, part I Love Lucy, and part fashion plate. Our house on the hill—a bull’s-eye in the farmland that is shifting into suburb around us—is the house where the neighborhood kids gather to play. My sisters open a beauty parlor in their bedroom; they curl my hair with bobby pins and call it a “perm.” My brothers form their own basketball team. I vow to become less of a nuisance. Maybe next time they’ll take me along. And I keep to that promise. Until Christmas. On Christmas we go to a party at another family’s house, the McSomethings. We know so many McSomething families who have at least a half-dozen kids and girls my age named Bridget. To these McSomethings’ home, I wear a party dress. I’m always in dresses because I have nothing to put into pants. In a little over a year I will get legs—wooden ones in 1965. Pants will be too much trouble then because you have to wrestle each shoe off of each foot, stuff
tried to put it on my own leg. Of course it didn’t fit. My
each leg into a pant leg, and then cram each unyielding
left leg has little more than a knee and a stretch of bone
wooden foot back into a saddle shoe before lacing it up.
like a broken wing. No foot.
It’s easier just to pull a dress over my head. Not until I’m
I will have no memory of this, but it won’t surprise
seven will I decide that dresses are for sissies and insist
me to hear that it happened at Aunt Marty’s house or
on a pair of pedal pushers. Red ones. Until then, every-
that I forgot all about it afterward. In my home, there
one will call me “Pink and Frilly,” and I’ll flaunt my Polly
would not have been space and time for questions like
Flinders as I please. This Christmas, I’m in the pinkest, frilliest party dress
“Where’s my foot?” In my home, we staged plays for the Jesuits who came by for a scotch on Sundays; we held
that Polly Flinders has to offer. I wipe the foam from a
flying contests with costumes and one-foot kisses. In our
red soda off its smocking as my brother Stevie pops
family room, the halftime show on Super Bowl Sunday
open his third orange one. It spills onto the tired lino-
might have included a turban-headed toddler in a loin-
leum floor of the McSomething basement. Stevie is five years old and the boss of me. He
cloth launched from his sister’s knees into a flip-twist, cheered on by a mob of bleary-eyed priests. In my home
answers only to Pork B., who is the boss of every-
there was no Aunt Marty to tamp down the divots cre-
one. Stevie is not a bulky, in-your-face boy. He’s got
ated by whiners without feet.
skinny legs and bloated ribs fanning from his torso like an accordion strapped to his chest. Along with
Had I grown up in Aunt Marty’s home, I might have been a gentler person, someone shielded by a velvet
his eyes like chocolate almonds, he has the creami-
cape. Instead I became a warrior.
est skin in the world. We call it snatty skin, though his eyes are what make him so beautiful. Our parents
«.»
both have almond eyes, almost Asian features;
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issue 7
they’re from German and Irish ancestry, but Stevie
cardigan. We’re in one corner, the Christmas tree op-
got the most exaggerated version of their Asian
posite us, and about fourteen kids planted in between:
looks. With his jet black hair and Asian eyes, he looks
boys with buzz cuts and girls with perms.
more like a boy peddling fish from a roadside stand
Mom leans into the archway while resting Joe on her
in Hong Kong than one wielding a baseball glove on
hip. Her hair is a black lacquered crown. She’s in a red,
a grassy field in Ohio.
crepe-wool dress, double-breasted with gold buttons.
Stevie is always playing sports, and every neighbor-
Mr. McSomething fiddles with the projector until he
hood boy with any athletic potential is drawn into his
calls, “Lights!” Someone pulls the plug on the Christmas
network. Our backyard has a baseball diamond and
tree.
a “Pickle” path worn into the lawn because of Stevie.
The first movie is my oldest brother’s sixth birthday
Our father seeds the lawn every spring, and a gang of
party. Pat, who is about thirteen and carries his head
boys tear it up by June. We had a basketball court built
as if pulled by his chin, has another buzz cut, only his
because of Stevie. His friends toss balls through our win-
is matted with Greasy Kid Stuff. He’s known to us as
dows, pilfer golf clubs from our garage, and drip sweat-
“Special Boy.” In the movie, we see a long table of kids
ing Popsicles on the garage floor so that it is stained not
in party hats. The girl next to Pat leans in to peck his
by exhaust fumes but by purple, orange, and lime green
cheek. Mom howls with laughter. She’s convinced that
Popsicle juice.
every girl in Cincinnati has her eyes on Patrick.
Even though I’m a girl, Stevie never leaves me out of
We younger kids witness each of Pat’s milestones
the game. He insists that his friends include me. Mooch
and those of our oldest sister, Meg: birthdays, first com-
M. rolls his eyes and balks. He says, “I’ll quit.” (He will
munions, confirmations, and graduations. Our parents
one day choose from several college basketball offers.)
stopped filming them at about the third kid. There are
“Okay, walk,” says Stevie, his crooked teeth settled
no films from the parties of my peers. Being the mid-
into defiance, and Pork stands by him, forcing Mooch to
dle children, we don’t have movies; in general, we don’t
give in.
have parties. We’re the audience.
These are Stevie’s best friends, and unlike some of
Onscreen, the room grows dark and a glowing cake
the boys in the neighborhood, they do not call Stevie
floats over that long table toward Pat. I imagine myself in
“Chink.” Stevie doesn’t fight when he’s insulted; he just
the illumination of that candlelight. I can feel the heat of
stores it all up for the next game.
melting wax at my nose. I’m blowing into the McSome‑
Now, in the McSomethings’ basement, Stevie says,
things’ darkened family room when onscreen Pat blows
“Dare ya to drink more pop than me, Lear.” (My nick-
out the candles and the scene vanishes.
name is Lear Dear, though no one knows what it means
The screen brightens; I open my eyes to find waves
exactly.) Stevie downs about eight orange pops after his
of sparkling water.
dare, and I drink six red sodas. My stomach swells into a
“Michigan,” someone says. This is the vacation I didn’t
gassy knot. I hear soda swishing in my gut when I move.
go on . . . The McSomethings were there, too? The warm
Bridget McSomething tries to compete but gives up af-
candlelight is now a chill that creeps up my spine. I lean
ter about three Cokes and lets out a gigantic belch. Our
back on Dad’s belly and suck my thumb. I press my other
youngest brother, Joe, is two years old. He’s a bulldozer,
elbow into his gut, shoving away all memory of that des-
all muscle and grit, black eyes and a smirk: the black-
perate moment in the crib at Aunt Marty’s house.
eyed monster. He drinks three Barq’s root beers and
“Hey there,” he whispers. “Not so hard.”
throws up on the linoleum.
My throat tightens. I choke on my thumb. The screen
Later, after a dinner of turkey and dressing, cran-
is flush with sunny skies on a gleaming lake. Meg is
berry sauce, and pies, we cram into the family room for
waterskiing in a two-piece bathing suit, her long brown
home movies.
hair lifted from a proud neck. She bats blue eyes at the
I climb onto Dad’s lap in a reclining chair, his belly
camera; they’re like diamond studs over a silver platter
as round and hard as a gibbous moon tucked into a red
of lake.
68
tracing the blue light
m. eileen cronin
The camera shifts toward the beach and zeroes in on
Everyone here shares a huge secret that I’m not in
the faces of the children. One by one I hear the kids from
on, and with that revelation, I begin to screech.
the floor of this room shriek, “That’s me!”
I’m still screaming five—long and painful to all—min-
My eyes well up with tears.
utes later. Only now, Dad is rushing me to the car, Mr.
The inside jokes begin. Then Joe appears in a black
McSomething running behind us with our coats, apolo-
bathing suit with white polka dots, and someone shrieks,
gizing profusely: “We didn’t know she felt this way.”
“Black-eyed monster!” So this is where that nickname
Outside, Dad sets me down in the passenger seat of
began? Someone tells the story about how Joe traveled
our Microbus, and then there’s only the tinny echo of the
from cottage to cottage entertaining and terrorizing
slammed car door. Here, in my cocoon, I’m holding on to
everyone, and it seems that Mr. B., the father of at least
Mr. McSomething’s apology—they left me and he knows
ten towheaded blonds, is the one who named Joe “the
it—amid the chaos of a scattering crowd. I imagine I’m
black-eyed monster.” But Joe is not yet two! Why is he
protected from the mob of angry siblings now cutting
there when I’m not? Mom rocks Joe and points to his
across the lawn toward me.
projected image. Jo-Jo from Cocomo, she sings. On-
Within seconds, they tear open the door and my si-
screen, he shoves his jaw out, juts his hips, and sneers at
lence is perforated. My sorrow flickers to panic, but then
the camera.
I have about ten seconds of a peculiar ecstasy; it’s like
She coos at him; he tweaks her nose.
floating on a cloud of glee. Even as I feel that first thump
Dad laughs out loud, his belly quaking underneath
to the back of my head, I think in my four-year-old mind:
me.
Victory! Got ’em back. 3-2-1. Then: Am I so awful that
“He looks like a miniature Anthony Quinn!” says Mr.
they should have abandoned me?
McSomething. Dad’s laughter escalates and the ripples
I look up at the McSomething house, at Mrs. McSome‑
tip me from his lap. Because Dad is otherwise somber
thing rubbing her Bridget’s shoulders in the front door,
with us kids, I know he’s in love with Joe’s quasi-tough
Mr. McSomething crossing the damp lawn, still apologiz-
act. I’m glowering at Dad as I clamber back to my place
ing. It has just finished raining. Water splashes from their
on his jiggling belly, but he’s laughing too hard to notice
slate roof to the driveway and floods the gutters down
my anger.
here on the street, while my family finishes squeezing
I turn back to the screen and find that Stevie is now
into two Volkswagens.
the star. To my horror, he’s romping with Becky B. on a
Behind us, in the dark fog, I see Mom hand off the
white beach. A scrim of sand dusts their tan skin.
black-eyed monster to Meg, and Mom’s left with only the
Not Stevie! Except for the mornings when he goes
car keys in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She
to kindergarten, Stevie and I are inseparable. Now he’s
will be driving home because Meg doesn’t drive yet, but
under the towel with Becky. The camera zooms in on the
first Mom draws deeply on that cigarette, her fingers
rollicking bundle. I don’t believe it. I know all about the
shaking on the exhale. “Dick!” she calls up to my dad.
sports and the boys, but the last thing I ever thought I’d
“I’m a nervous wreck.”
have to share Stevie with was another girl. The camera
She says this a lot.
slips under that towel, and every belief I hold about
And Dad says, “Joy, I can only drive one car at a
Stevie is dashed.
time.” His tone falls just short of his automatic response
This Becky with her white-blond hair, her tan, and her
to all her Nervous Wreck claims, which is basically:
two legs has won the hearts of everyone in the McSome-
“Yeah, so?”
thing living room. There she is, sandy-faced, wrinkling
Then Mom snuffs out her cigarette with the toe of
her nose, a few teeth missing: adorable. So when she
her high heel, extinguishing it with sangfroid and casting
and Stevie kiss onscreen, everyone howls with laughter.
doubt on that Nervous Wreck claim.
There in the archway I see the silhouette of Mom with
In her youth, Mom was known as “the prettiest girl
Joe in her arms. Joe tugs on a gold button at her breast.
in Cincinnati,” a would-be artiste who specialized in pen
She rubs her nose against his.
and ink drawings, favoring models like the fashion ads
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issue 7
It could be they’re angry about the front seat, or the aborted party, or about something I don’t understand, but their fury swirls into a giant disk of frustration that seems to be perpetually leveled at my neck like a Frisbee. Usually I see it coming and start howling, escalating everyone’s frustration. This time I clamp my hands over my ears.
in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Now a suburban housewife, Mom wears her camel-hair coat like a movie star dons a mink. She’s angular, from her stiff collar and pointed chin down to her lean calves, locked onto feet that seem rooted in the concrete. No one can believe that she’s had eight children. She has olive skin, high cheekbones, brown velvet eyes and black eyebrows that mean business. She swipes a hand over her hair and then climbs in to take the wheel of her gold square-back wagon. Inside, she adjusts the rearview so she can remove a smudge of lipstick from the cleft above her lip. She’s delighted to be set free, since, as she proudly admits, she hates: home movies, holidays, and vacations. Above all, she hates Michigan. She dreads the rented cottages. “Fleas in the beds!” she shrieks when she’s reminded of it, doubling over as if a flea has just attacked her underwear. She ignites the engine and then, as if by accident, she drills the accelerator of her golden square-back, thrilled to put another Christmas behind her. Along her drive through suburban streets lined with naked buckeyes and oaks, Mom may ponder how this might look to the McSomethings: A screaming kid call-
a tight end in an endless fourth quarter, score tied. Over-
ing the shots! But as she glides onto the highway, she’s
time! Overtime! Always overtime! He starts the engine, and I look back at the McSome-
probably already dreaming of her bed.
things’ house. Through the family room window I see
Meanwhile, Dad climbs into the driver’s seat of the Microbus. I shift toward the passenger door because
the blue light of the running projector, a backdrop to the
he wears his muffled rage like a gorilla in a restraining
silhouettes of young McSomethings at the window pane.
jacket, heaving to break free; and yet, being only four,
I forget about Dad’s fury and my siblings’ frustration. I focus instead on that blue light in the McSomething
my next thought is this: At least I get the front seat. Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters in the backseat form
family room. I keep wondering how that movie turned
an a cappella choir chanting an enraged, “Eileen!”
out, but I don’t really want to know. It had a happy ending, I’m sure of it, although now it most certainly
Along with one weak note from Stevie, who says,
does not.
“Lear?”
Mr. McSomething steps closer to wave good-bye,
It could be they’re angry about the front seat, or the aborted party, or about something I don’t understand,
and in doing so he blocks that blue light temporarily. He
but their fury swirls into a giant disk of frustration that
shrugs and kicks at the lawn. I want him to quit blocking
seems to be perpetually leveled at my neck like a Fris-
the light. Then, as we pull away, he turns back to meet
bee. Usually I see it coming and start howling, escalating
his wife and their Bridget at the front door. The blue light comes back.
everyone’s frustration. This time I clamp my hands over
My dad’s hands grip tight on the wheel, his jaw set;
my ears.
he’s putting distance between himself and this memory,
“Hush!” says Dad, and the car goes silent. He hasn’t started in on me yet, so I’m wondering if he feels guilty
he’s not looking back. But I am. My gaze is as steady as
about not taking me on that vacation. He looks too
my scream had been, my eyes fixed on that blue light
wound up to speak. His body is poised at the wheel like
that grows dimmer with distance. mec
70
Black Babe Sam J. Miller
In the weeklong wake that had overtaken New
Lounge it was always quarter past one in the morning. “Sure,” the bartender said. “Whenever she’s got a lit-
York City, Treenie Becket should have been just one more mourner—one more sad soul whose hero had died.
tle bit of money. Which is hardly ever.”
In every bar on Broadway, bums and businessmen
“When would we be likely to find her here?” “Any time some guy’s looking to spend some money.
swallowed hard liquor like it was lemonade, desperate to get drunk enough to sob like children for the poor
Treenie’s funny about money. She’s always trying to get
dead Babe. We had depended on him to triumph over
her hands on some. Some people are weird like that—
adversity for us. Fat and ugly and alcoholic, born of dirt
they think you can’t live in this world without money.
poor immigrant parents and raised in an abusive Catho-
Can I get you two spooks a drink?”
lic boys’ home, Babe Ruth was loved by everyone who
The goons asked a couple more stupid questions,
got a raw deal and rose above it. Or hoped, someday, to
poorly delivered. You could tell they were profession-
do so. Even sissies like me got a little lump in our throats
als—they had the suits and the back-pocket bulge and
when he passed third base and chugged like a freight
the ten-yard stare—but they were totally out of their
train for home. We all wept for Babe.
element. Even tough guys get like that when they come across 110th Street. Surround them with black people
And yet—Treenie Becket’s mourning seemed to matter more. It mattered enough for two white goons to
and they forget everything they learned in gangster
come to the Lenox Lounge, asking questions. Two tough
school. They didn’t see me, down at the end of the bar,
guineas with sweaty necks, scared shitless, so out of
white as foam and all ears. “You hear that?” D. asked me, before the door had
place they didn’t bother to order drinks before showing a picture to the bartender.
shut behind them. “They were looking for your girl.”
“You know this lady?” one of them said.
“I heard. What do you peg them for?”
The bartender looked at it. “Sure. She loves this
D. shrugged. “Could be working for anyone with a
place. Loves it almost as much as she loves any other
lot of money and a dirty job to do. So what’d your girl
place where they serve alcohol.” He grinned. A small,
Treenie do, to get these cowboys on her tail? I never
skinny man with a big fat smile. D.’s rag made slow
figured her for a big league player.”
circles on the bar’s ancient wood.
“Who the hell knows,” I said, and lit up a cigarette. “I
“She come in here a lot?” One guy turned around
better go see her. See what’s up.” “She’s lucky she’s got you,” D. said finally, arms
and made a quick scan of the place. Outside the Lenox
crossed over his chest.
Lounge it was one p.m., a bright, hot day, but inside the
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sam j. miller
“Yessir, that’s me. The toughest sissy bodyguard on
“Me, I can’t complain,” she said.
the East Coast. See you tonight, D.”
“If you could, what you would complain about?”
“Yessir. Let me know what’s up.”
“My hip, the heat, and the rent,” she said, and
“Will do.” I paused before opening the door. At least
laughed. “But I can’t do a damn thing about any of
the Lounge had the coolness of a basement. Outside it
them.”
would be sweltering.
“I’m due to hit a number,” I said. “When that hap-
Treenie Becket: aging whore, black woman in a white
pens, I’ll buy you an air conditioner.”
man’s world, can’t even cook. And yet—I wasn’t surprised
“Shoo,” she said, and waved me away like a beloved
to see her at the center of a scary, complicated conspira-
fly. “Last winter you were saying you’d buy me a mink
cy. We always expect the ones we love to be secretly ca-
coat, soon as you hit a number.”
pable of changing the course of history. At the orphanage
“And so I shall,” I said. “I haven’t hit the numbers yet.
Treenie and I believed we were the daughter and son of
She around today, Effie?”
separate murdered kings. We’d gauge the relative length
“Nope. Two men came looking for her, but I bet that’s
of our index finger and middle finger, or our big toe and
why you’re here.”
the one beside it, or we’d pull on the flap of skin at the
I took off my hat; held it in both hands. “White guys?
bottom of our ears, prizing the secret signs of royalty that
Dressed like gangsters?”
would one day place us on our rightful thrones.
“That’s the ones. What’s up?”
Every vendor on 125th Street was selling cheap things
“That’s what I’m wondering. They came by the
with Babe Ruth’s face. Mugs and postcards and framed
Lounge just now, looking for her.”
photos. Black armbands and bootleg Yankees shirts with
Effie whistled. An old woman, tall and muscular,
the number three. A plump, wet woman waved a Chinese
almost mannish, impeccably graceful as if in compensa-
silk fan back and forth in front of her face. The Babe, it
tion. Not Treenie’s real aunt, but she’d been living down
said. 1895-1948. The police officers, who in Harlem have
the hall from Treenie for nearly thirty years, ever since
the harried, hunted look of soldiers patrolling hostile
Treenie aged out of the orphanage. The only person
colonies, were more at ease than I’d ever seen them.
other than me, as far as I could tell, who loved Treenie
Harlem’s grief humanized its inhabitants.
unconditionally: when she was sloppy drunk and when
“August is the worst,” a man said to his domino
she borrowed money she would never pay back and
mates outside a big tenement at the corner of 133rd
when she stood you up because she scored a trick all
Street. “The worst month to die. It’s so hot.”
of a sudden. “Walk me to the corner,” Effie said. “I need
Four blocks up, a storefront preacher lectured two
some cigarettes.”
little boys who had been boasting about the Babe like
I kissed her hand at the corner and headed east. If
he was their dad, like his achievements somehow re-
she wasn’t at home or the bar, and it was too early to be
flected positively on themselves.
tricking, Treenie was probably visiting her friend Simone
“What you care about that white man’s game?”
at the Lincoln Projects. That’s where I headed, whistling,
he asked them, sweating inside his three-piece suit.
sounding foolish and scared, even to myself.
“They’ll take your money, sure, but they won’t look
Our orphanage was built between a cemetery and
you in the eye or shake your hand.” One boy made a
a sugar factory. Late at night, older boys dragged the
dismissive hand gesture, but the other just stared at
younger ones out of bed and forced them to walk from
the floor, intensely. Ashamed of how much he loved the
one end of the cemetery to the other. When my turn
lily-white sport.
came I whistled all the way, just like the older boys
“Roger,” said her aunt, sitting on the stoop, when she
taught us, to show the vengeful spirits I wasn’t afraid.
saw me coming. “The only white man who doesn’t bring
Halfway through, however, I got a funny hollow feeling
trouble when he comes.”
just above my stomach, just below my ribcage, like fear,
“How are you, Effie?” I asked, and gave a good full-
but worse, like hopelessness, like the opposite of faith,
body hug.
photo illustration by amy sly
like I was missing something important that everybody
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else had. Ever since then, that funny hollow feeling has
beads. It made her look like a queen. Pulled her bulk
come back in the oddest of places. Waiting on line at
together into one plump, sturdy figure.
the welfare office or the soup kitchen, or allowing some
“Where’s Simone?”
stranger to handcuff me to a bed or radiator or toilet, or
“Working.”
watching the third hour on the street corner come and
“Good.”
go. Whistling doesn’t help, any more than it did in the
Like most of Treenie’s friends, Simone hated me hard.
cemetery. That hollow fear-plus-hopelessness had me
Not so much because I was queer—who doesn’t love a
by the balls, had me sweating way harder than the heat,
jolly sissy?—but because of the intimacy between me
thinking of Treenie in danger, Treenie dead, Treenie gone
and Treenie. Some people said we were lovers; more said
out of my life like the moon fallen from the sky.
I was her pimp. We let both stories last, because people
I was three blocks away when I heard the explosion,
understand lust and money. The truth was so banal we
but I knew it was Treenie’s building. What else could
kept it to ourselves—that we had bonded like brother and
it be? This was 1948, after all, and the drug wars were
sister in the orphanage. That she had protected me from
years away. An explosion was too unusual in Harlem to
the boys when we were little, and when we were older
be unconnected to the white men hunting her down.
I protected her from the girls, and then the boys, and
Maybe a better man would have doubled back to
since then we’d served each other as crying shoulders
rescue babies and puppies and obese old dolls from the
and lending institutions and instruments of vengeance.
flames. This faggot ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t
“What the heck’s going on, Treenie?” I said, once the
stop until I got to the Lincoln Projects, where an elevator
door was shut and coffee was percolating.
was waiting chariot-style to spirit me up.
“They’re after me,” she said.
My heart howled in my chest. When the elevator
“But for what?”
doors opened, endorphins gave the tenth-floor hallway a
“For him,” she said. “For Babe Ruth.”
golden sheen like heaven must have. Future generations
“What about him, specifically?”
would see “The Projects” become a byword for filth and
In drunken moments, Treenie had been known to
violence and poverty and crime. Back then, though, be-
crow about her contact with the Babe. The nights they
fore they went from sugar to shit, they were as close to
spent, the insights into him that only she possessed.
luxury as The Man would let black people come. Objects
Maybe it was true. Everyone knew the man loved black
of intense envy for hundreds of thousands of tene-
women, and was seen several times a week in Harlem in
ment residents, who sat on their own sagging roofs and
search of hookers. But when she was sober you could
stoops and watched the sturdy structures go up.
never get Treenie to say one word about him, which
“I just called your apartment,” Treenie said, when she
meant either the whole thing was made up or the mem-
opened the door.
ory was too sacred to trot out into the daylight.
“I was at the Lenox Lounge, waiting for a busi-
“Babe Ruth was black,” she said.
nessman type. Then these two goons came in, and I
“Was he now.” I went to the window. “Have you seen
scrapped all my plans.”
this?” I pointed to the cylinder of smoke where she spent
In Harlem I was a novelty. My skin fetched me a
the last thirty years of her life. “Did you hear it? That’s
slightly higher price than it would down in Times Square,
your building.”
where I’d be competing with hundreds of hungrier,
“I saw,” she said. “That should show you how serious
thinner, younger white boys with smiles like knives and
they are. How far they’ll go. Babe Ruth was still black.”
knives in their pockets.
“So they say,” I said.
We hugged. She wore a flimsy cornflower blue
Legends surround legends: if people care about you
housedress, with yellow trim at the neck and hem,
at all, they tell stories about you. Sometimes they’re
the sort of thing that sells for a couple bucks on 125th
true, and sometimes they’re a tiny bit true, but most of
Street. A beautiful shawl draped her shoulders: black,
the time the only truth is how they reveal what you mean
Spanish, exquisitely stitched, fringed with lovely glass
to the person telling the story.
74
black babe
sam j. miller
Legends surround legends: if people care about you at all, they tell stories about you. Sometimes they’re true, and sometimes they’re a tiny bit true, but most of the time the only truth is how they reveal what you mean to the person telling the story.
“Treenie, come on, it’s me here. Don’t get all weird on me. Tell me what’s happening. Some mobster types show your picture in the Lenox Lounge, then they blow up your building, and all you can talk about is Babe Ruth being black? I mean, we all loved the guy, but seems like you’re in some really serious shit right now.” Treenie handed me a cup of coffee. “These are not separate issues. Babe Ruth was black, and I’ve got the proof, and that’s why they’re after me. Move over.” I made room for her on the windowsill. “How do they know you have it?” I asked. She was dead sober, and dead serious. Even if I thought she was lying, I wouldn’t have questioned her claim. “Because I told people,” she said. “It’s a terrible thing, trying to keep a dead man’s secret. And this isn’t the sort of secret you keep. You have to tell people. You have to.” Ten stories up, the wind still smelled like hot tar. “So
As evidence goes, this piece was hardly authorita-
who is it, exactly, who’s after you?” “The Yankees.”
tive. Anybody who’d logged more than six hours of law
“The whole team?”
school could have gotten it dismissed in court. And yet
“Not the team, so much. The guys who run it.”
as soon as I saw it I was certain. Anyone else would have
“The owner? The manager?”
felt the same. It convinced, on a level that had nothing to
“Child please, how should I know? Somebody, that’s
do with logic. The photo showed a tall, fat black woman sitting
all. Christ, they must hate my insides. Can you imagine?
on a porch somewhere: maybe down South, maybe
What something like this would do?” “Can I see this proof?” I asked.
Boston’s South Side. She was light skinned, and looked
“Sure,” she said. “But I want you to take a look at
fairer in that faded photograph, but only the most die-hard denier could claim her for white. Equally clear,
this first.”
although not provable, was the fact that she was the
She handed me yesterday’s New York Post and stepped out of the room. On the cover, a long line
mother of the younger woman standing behind her and
snaked outside Yankee Stadium, where the Babe’s body
holding her hand. “See?” she said, and held up the picture from the
lay in state. “The Bronx Bombers said good-bye to their
newspaper.
best boy today,” the article started. After that I put the
The black woman’s daughter was Babe Ruth’s mother.
paper down. Bad writing was just too much to take, on
“Jesus, Treenie,” I said. My throat had never felt so
top of everything else. Rough as a shovel of rocky soil
dry. I was holding on to a diagram showing precisely
clattering on the Babe’s coffin lid. “You see this picture, right?” she asked, flipping
how to wire together an atomic bomb. A whole series
through to page three. The Babe as a baby, squatting
of bombs, with enough combined energy to blow the
on his momma’s lap. Everyone very stiff and phony, like
whole country down. “Soooo,” I said, one minute later, or ten. “What are
people are in old photos. His mom was thin and hungry,
you going to do with it?”
her smile sincere but exhausted.
“I’m going to put it in all the papers,” she said. “Inside
“Adorable,” I said. “Now. Here’s the proof.”
of a week absolutely every American will know Babe
She handed me an old photograph in a brown card-
Ruth was black. They’ll know it.” “Mmhm,” I said.
board frame, with rounded edges.
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“Think about it, Roger. Think about all those fucking
more often than not, serving only to give off an odor of
racist baseball fans out there. Won’t they just about shit
spoiled milk every time I opened it. Which I did often,
their pants when they find out they’ve been worshiping
as if something to eat or drink would have waltzed on in
a black man all these years? Won’t they?”
when I wasn’t looking.
“I guess they will,” I said. “But how do you propose to
Ten stories down, black kids in private school uniforms
get it in the papers? I mean, the papers are every bit as
walked silently through the landscaped courtyard. Even
racist as the people who read them. Right?”
the trees behaved themselves. There was no room for
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got a plan.”
me and Treenie in this carefully plotted paradise. We
“What’s your plan?”
leafed through glitzy magazines from the coffee table,
“You’ll see.” And she looked off to the left, dramati-
admired all the beautiful things we’d never have because
cally and decisively. In a movie, the phone or doorbell
of the choices we’d made. The lies we refused to tell.
would ring immediately, moving the plot along so our
Someone knocked on Simone’s door.
hero and his audience wouldn’t waste a single breath
“You expecting someone?” I asked.
wondering where this is all going.
“Yes,” she said, standing up.
In reality, an hour passed. We drank coffee and
“Who is it? How do you know it’s not the bad guys?”
made small talk, and I kept trying, and failing, to weasel
“You’ll see soon enough.”
her plan out of her. Cigarettes were smoked. She used
“You’re a fucking pain in my ass, sweetie, darling.”
the Post as a fan, waving it back and forth in front of
Without even looking through the keyhole, Treenie
her damp face. I felt like screaming, jumping out the
opened it. I had my hand in my pocket and my switch‑
window, throwing her out the window. At times, lots of
blade in my hand. If those goons came through the door
times, Treenie made me want to murder her.
I might get killed, but I’d take out at least one eye in the
But that’s who she was. Arrogant and haughty and
process.
fiercely loyal and just plain fierce. She was what she
“Hey,” she said to somebody. “Come on in. Roger,
was, and God help you if you didn’t like it. Whenever
this is Mr. Cartbrenner. He’s a reporter for the New York
she got to feeling self-conscious, she’d roll up her
Post. But don’t hold that against him.”
sleeve and jiggle her arm fat at you and say something
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, and stuck out his hand.
along the lines of “I never lived the good life, but I
I saw his face, and knew him. I’d seen him at the
damn sure rode my life as hard as I could.” Treenie
Piers, or in the park at midnight. Him and hundreds of
never pretended she was anything else, and in the
him. “Charmed, I’m sure,” I said. “I know you.”
end that was the glue that held us together. That was
“Yeah,” he said, terrified, rubbing his chin like he was
our bond—the orphanage was just biographical data.
thinking. “Yeah, I know you too. Funny.”
Neither one of us had any kind of illusions about the
“Can’t quite place you,” I said. “Where do you think
world we lived in, or what it thought of us. We never
we’ve seen each other before?”
made compromises for the sake of getting jobs or the
“Not sure. But that’s how it is in my line of work.
approval of the people who, literally or figuratively,
Always pounding the pavement. Running from the
spat on us.
Bronx to Brooklyn and back again, all before the
“Where does Simone keep her liquor?” I asked.
morning rush.”
“Vodka in the freezer,” she said.
I liked the sight of his suddenly sweaty brow. His
“You want some?”
panic. Cartbrenner was the closet queer who begged
“No, child, thank you.”
you to fuck him, but would kill you if he thought you
Simone’s refrigerator smelled like fresh basil and
might tell someone. “I think I know,” I said. “We met at
cold meat. On my way to the orange juice I wandered
the Piers. Right?”
through her fruit keeper and meat drawer, wide-eyed
“Sure,” he said, and smiled for Treenie. “We’re both
as a tourist. Seeing the sights, exploring how the other
big boating fans.”
half stocks its refrigerators. I had an old icebox, empty
“I’ll bet,” she said. “Come on in and sit down.”
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black babe
sam j. miller
Cartbrenner looked a mess. To judge by the eyes
four in the afternoon and he’s dead to the world. And he
you’d say he was in his thirties, but the rest of him
just starts screaming and crying, having some kind of
looked to be tapping at the far end of the forties. Pudgy
awful dream, and I can’t wake him up for the life of me.
pouches on the face and neck and hands, made worse
When he finally does wake up, he’s still crying, just blub-
by the fact that his clothes were too big for him. “Tell me
bering like an absolute baby, and I held him and shushed
what you’ve got,” he said at last.
him and petted him until he calmed down.
“I’ve got the proof Babe Ruth was black.”
After that, he started coming by all the time. I guess
“The proof.”
he formed some kind of trust with me. He kept having
“Yes. In black and white. You did know he was black,
these dreams—I know some other girls he went with,
didn’t you?”
and they said the same thing. And let me tell you, the
“Well, you said so on the phone,” he said. “And it
Babe was a big man once you got him out of his clothes.
seems to me I remember hearing something to that ef-
He broke one girl’s nose—she tried to wake him up and
fect. I just chalked it up to vicious Red Sox lies.”
he knocked her back against the dresser.
Seeing him there, all awkward and ugly, made me
So I’m trying to get him to talk about it, see what’s
nervous. Did strangers see me like that? Would I look
the problem, because, you know, when you’re having
like that in five years? I consulted my reflection in the
dreams like that it’s because something’s not right,
surface of my drink, but the results were inconclusive.
something’s going on inside your head that you have to
I blurted: “Treenie, how did you find this gentleman? If
deal with. And so he starts talking about his childhood,
you don’t mind my interrupting.”
and about how hard it was, and about his mother, and
“I called all the papers,” she said. “Went through
how much he loved her, and how much he hated her
the paper, made a couple dozen calls, to the Post and
for giving him up. How even though he had millions of
the Times and the News and the Sun. Talked to every
dollars he still woke up every morning and for the first
reporter who ever wrote anything about Babe Ruth, or
five, ten seconds he was still a poor fucking kid at some
baseball, or stuff like that. They either laughed at me,
shitty Baltimore orphanage.”
or hung up on me, or called me an ugly name I won’t
Maybe it was my vodka, but Cartbrenner’s hands
repeat. Only Cartbrenner here said he’d be interested in
looked blurry. He was writing a mile a minute and flip-
talking to me.”
ping back and forth in the pages of his notebook, and it
“What can I say?” he said. “It’s been a rough couple
made me a little seasick.
of weeks for going on five years now. I’ve been bouncing
“And this goes on for a year or so,” Treenie said,
around the back pages, writing up bullshit about politi-
“and he tells me more and more, but it comes out
cians attending press conferences. I need something big.”
too easy, like he’s circling the real problem without
“So he took a chance on me,” Treenie said.
ever getting close to it. And then one night he comes
“Fascinating,” I said, and went to freshen my drink
over, and he’s dead serious, dead sober, no flirting,
while Treenie produced the pictures.
no money, not wanting to mess around with me first
“Tell me how you got this picture,” he said. I felt my
or anything. And he takes me into the bedroom
face flush from protective rage. Whatever Treenie and
and he takes out the picture and he spills it. Every-
Babe had, it now belonged to her alone.
thing.”
“I used to see a lot of him,” she said, straighten-
“What, exactly?” Cartbrenner asked, looking up,
ing out her neck, dowager-empress-style. “Everybody
looking weary, but smug too.
knows he liked black girls, and I was one of his regulars.”
“How his mom knew he could pass for white, on ac-
Cartbrenner looked up at her with a shaky sort
count of his dad being Irish and her being mixed, and
of smile.
that’s why she gave him up. Because her mother raised
“One time he’s passed out at my place. It’s during
her, and she saw how hard her mom’s life was, and how
the season so he was always like the walking dead, what
hard her own life was—since she was raised by a black
with practicing and playing and traveling all the time. It’s
woman, society treated her like she was black too. And
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issue 7
she wanted him to be kept far away from everything that
Cartbrenner complied.
could mark him as black.”
“What’s up?” I asked.
Wetness pooled in the edges of Treenie’s eyes. I
“What do you think of him?”
was jealous, so jealous the vodka turned to stone in my
“Think? What’s to think? He’s a closeted cocksucker
stomach. Jealous and happy for her.
who thinks he’s better than me because he doesn’t
Cartbrenner said, “So Babe Ruth was black, and he
speak with a lisp. Thinks he’s better than you because he
knew it, and he kept it a secret from the whole entire
has a job that makes him wear a tie.”
world, all his life. And nobody knows it but you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I think, too.”
“That’s what killed him,” she said.
“But you want the word to get out, so what choice do
Cartbrenner mopped his forehead again. “Actually,
you have? You said yourself no one else would touch it.”
cancer killed him.”
She stared out the window at the sagging spire of
“Think I don’t know that?” she said. “Think cancer
smoke. The freight train tracks and the glittery edge of
comes out of outer space? Cancer comes from some-
the East River. “This world would be a pretty nice place
thing inside you, eating you up. Something that would
if it wasn’t for all the asshole piece-of-shit motherfuck-
turn your whole life upside down if people knew about
ers.”
it.”
“There’s not a whole hell of a lot we can do about “So . . . according to you, secrets give you cancer?”
that.”
Relief tinted Cartbrenner’s face—he could finally feel
“No. But I’m not going to give him the picture.”
superior.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I’m saying your secrets are what kill you, one way
“’Cause he doesn’t deserve it. Fuck him. Fuck all of
or another. Maybe they give you cancer and maybe they
them. This is some Pulitzer Prize shit right here.”
make you go out to the Piers on dark, lonely nights and
“Whatever you want, baby. You’re the boss. But it
mess with men who might murder you. And I’m not say-
needs to get printed before it can get a Pulitzer, and me
ing nobody knew. Lots of people knew. One time they
myself, I’m a little skeptical of the chances of that ever
were going on the road and Ty Cobb wouldn’t share a
happening.”
room with him. Said, ‘I’ve never shared a room with a
“You’re fucking skeptical about everything. Which
nigger before, and I’m not about to start now.’ So people
is good. I just can’t get the hang of it, myself. Call him
knew. Just no one had the proof.”
back in.”
“And this picture is the proof. You’ll let me take it?”
I opened the door to the hall. Someone was cooking
“Are you going to write the story?” she asked.
something wonderful. A little girl was laughing. “The
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said. “My editors might not
doctor will see you now.”
print it.”
“Go home,” Treenie told him. “I’m going to mail you
“So sell it somewhere else. You know this is news.
the picture. Just wait for it. You won’t write the story
You know this is the kind of shit that can blow the whole
until you get the picture, right?”
thing wide open.”
“How could I? What would the story be—‘black pros-
Treenie watched him sweat. She looked from him to
titute says Babe Ruth a black’? Can you imagine that in
me, inspecting my own face in Simone’s gilded mir-
the Post?”
ror. Rubbing my chin and straightening my spine and
“Yeah, uh-huh. So just wait for it. Leave your address
wondering, like I did a million times a day, what I looked
with Roger.”
like. She stared till I looked in her direction, our eyes
Cartbrenner looked confused. Relieved to be leaving,
meeting in the mirror, our smiles the same. Finally she
but vaguely aware he was getting shafted. Panic flushed
said, “Cartbrenner, would you do me a favor?” with a
out his cynicism and he saw, for the first time, what the
face sweet as frosting. “Would you go stand out in the
story could mean. “Okay . . . so . . . when will you be mail-
hallway for a little while? Me and my associate have got
ing that?”
to confer.”
“Leave your address with Roger.”
78
black babe
sam j. miller
You never saw a man write more carefully. “Okay,” he
“They’ve been looking, I know that. All over New
said. “Thanks. I’ll call you in a day or two. Just, you know,
York, and more than a few cities beyond that. That’s
to check in.”
what people tell me. I been laying pretty low.”
“Sure,” she said. “You have my number.”
“I miss you, Treenie. I miss you a lot. I don’t think I
Three weeks later Treenie called me, her voice coke-
ever really thought about what it would be like, being
bright against the dreary burbling of what I first thought
apart from you. Stupid as it sounds.”
was the Lenox Lounge. Two a.m., said my clock, but it
“Aww, honey, I’ll be seeing you soon. I got some real
could have stopped hours ago. Her voice was warm and
interest from a couple different papers, and one book
wide, and I could almost smell scotch and rose perfume.
company, and just as soon as I sell this shit and make my
“I’ve been trying to call you,” I said, after a few gushy
mountain of money, I’ll be back. We’ll retire and buy a
moments.
brownstone on Marcus Garvey Park, and we’ll each have
“Yeah. Well. Phone got blown up.”
a whole floor.”
“Where are you, Treenie?” I asked. The rhythm of the
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds cute.” I think I success-
place didn’t match the Lounge. She could have been
fully disguised a sob as something else. A cough or a
calling from the Bronx or Brooklyn, Baltimore or Beijing.
gasp or a yawn.
“Shoot,” she said. “I don’t even know. I’m between
“I got to go, honey. I’ll be calling you as regular as
places right now. I keep calling you. Why are you never
I can.”
home?”
“Sure. Bye, Treenie.”
“Nobody’s buying what I’m selling,” I said. “I’ve been
“Bye.”
trying to drum up new business in new neighborhoods.
Maybe it wasn’t the last time we’d ever speak, but
It’s weird. I used to have Harlem in the palm of my hand.
right then and there, in my dark room, alone with the
All those middle-class black faggots used to love to
clanking of cold pipes, it sure felt like it. So I’d like to
have a go at a white boy. I don’t know if it’s me or my
think that Treenie spent a second after she hung up,
skin color that’s passé.”
just like I did, with her hand on the phone and her eyes
“Life is hard,” she said.
shut. The idea of a soul mate always felt a little desper-
“I thought of you the other day. I was down in
ate to me. How delusional, to think that someday you’d
that arcade on 42nd Street, and I heard some boys
meet that one special person, your perfect match, whom
talking.”
you’d fall in love with; who would save you from despair
“What you been doing in that arcade?”
and loneliness; hold your hand as you grew old; hug
“I was minding my business, which you ought to try
you through your grief; give your life meaning. But I had
sometime,” I said. “Anyway—I heard these two white
found my soul mate when I was a little kid, and she was
boys. Talking about Babe Ruth.”
so fundamental to who I was that I had never thought
“Mmm.”
about how lucky we were. I picked up the phone again
“One kid says, ‘Hey, did you hear that Babe Ruth was
and listened to the dial tone: the hum of a tin can held
black?’ and the other one says, ‘Yeah, I heard that,’ and
close to my ear, connected by twine to another tin can
the first says, ‘Wouldn’t that be weird?’ and the other
in Treenie’s hand. Maybe we were afraid, and maybe we
one just nods his head.”
were alone, but we knew the value of what we had, even if no one else wanted it. sjm
“Crazy,” Treenie said. “Yeah, right? Anyway. Thought you’d like to know it.” In reality, the second kid had slugged the first and called him a lying piece of shit. “Thanks, Roger. How you been, anyway? How you really been?” “Crazy worried about you, Treenie. Any Yankees goons come to kill you yet?”
79
An Interview with
Alan moore tim mucci Alan Moore casts a long shadow. Encompassed within that shadow is almost the entirety of modern comics. He was one of the first mainstream writers to develop comic stories with an eye toward the literary. He deconstructed the simple four-color world that had gone before and filled it with nuance, beauty, anguish, and shadow. He has created some of the most critically acclaimed works to come out of the comics medium—including the Hugo and Eisner Award–winning Watchmen and the Eisner Award–winning From Hell. But Moore has been steadily moving away from mainstream entertainment; his days of penning stories about Swamp Thing and Superman are long over. He has written a novel, Voice of the Fire, with another on the way. He performs one-off spoken word with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, is in the process of fusing the world of literature with the world of comics in his ongoing series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and is a practicing magician whose chosen deity is an ancient Greco-Roman snake god that goes by the name of Glycon.
80
Thank you for talking with me today.
the younger people I was talking to, but with a certain degree of interest, and they were thinking maybe they
Well, I’ve got a cup of tea steaming beside
could bring out a news magazine for the area that would
me—I’m ready to rock when you are.
be circulated in the schools. I said that I’d contribute to it and help in any way that I could, and we brought out a
Slice magazine is a literary journal that’s devoted to
very nice little magazine called OVR2U. We were very
promoting new dialogue by publishing well-known
pleased with it, and it went down very well with the kids
authors and artists alongside up-and-coming voices
of the neighborhood.
in the arts. You’ve recently tossed your hat into the
We were pulling together the second issue and I
magazine publishing arena after twenty-odd years in
was talking with Lucy, the woman who was running the
the comic book-industry, correct?
project, and we agreed that in order to help, it would be better if we could actually talk about the real problems
Getting closer to thirty years now, but yes,
that are affecting the neighborhood. I was putting
you’re absolutely right. I was overtaken by
together an article with a few facts about the neighbor-
an impulse around about September last year to actually
hood. I submitted this article, and perhaps unsurpris-
try to reestablish the underground magazines that had
ingly, since the magazine and the support organization
been so much an influence and a consolation to me in
were both partly council funded, we were told that we
my adolescence and in my formative years. It was a
couldn’t publish this because it was critical of the town
decision made partly because of circumstances. I’d been
authorities.
working with a group of young ex-offenders, a kind of
I was talking to Lucy and I said, “Well, look, I’ve got a
hip hop posse down in the terribly deprived neighbor-
little bit of extra money thanks to the increased sales on
hood that I actually was born in.
the Watchmen book in the wake of the regrettable film, so why don’t we publish an independent, underground
And that’s in Northampton?
magazine?” I picked up the name Dodgem Logic from an aborted fanzine that I’d tried to get off the ground
That’s in
in 1975, and we decided
Northamp-
that we were going to
ton. It’s a neighborhood
pretty much ignore most
called the Boroughs, or
of the conventional wis-
more recently they’ve
dom about bringing out a
referred to it as Spring
magazine.
Boroughs. It’s the oldest
We’ve tried to take a
part of Northampton,
chaotic approach to the
and I believe is in the top
design, in the same way
2 percentile of depriva-
that the original under-
tion for the entire
ground magazines of the
country. Now I’d been
1960s and very early ’70s
talking idly, as I normally
did. We’ve put little free
do, about how much
gifts in every issue. It’s
better things were in the
going very well. We’re try-
1960s—the Arts Lab,
ing to get this to run more
underground magazines,
smoothly, but that’s one of
poetry magazines,
the problems about hav-
fanzines—which was met
ing taken a fairly anarchic
partly with blank stares
approach to the magazine
of incomprehension by
from its inceptions. I mean,
Illustration of Alan Moore by Tim Mucci
81
slice
issue 7
much as I’ve got a great deal of fondness for anarchy, one
Well, this might be just purely down to my
of the things it doesn’t do is make the trains run on time.
own personal bigotries and prejudices. I
We’re starting to have proofreading, we’ve remem-
don’t have an Internet connection, nor do I particularly
bered to put an indicia in, and we’re getting all these
want one. When it came to doing Dodgem Logic . . . yes,
little refinements that you would have thought I would
I understand that at the moment print media are looking
have known better than to omit in the first place. I think
like an endangered species. I feel that there is an
the main thing is we’re putting some stuff back into that
immediacy to actually holding something in your hand
area and trying to encourage other people to do things
and that as we become a more virtual society, as most of
for deprived areas in their town, because every town’s
our information is delivered to us on a screen, I think that
got one. We’re very proud of what we’re doing, what-
the artifact is something that comes at a premium.
ever the future holds. The chances for it continuing are The permanence of it . . .
looking pretty good at the moment, and the neighborhood is a brighter place because of it.
Yes. I still could go online to the Oz magaYou define Dodgem Logic as an underground
zine archive where I could look at almost
magazine. I’ve always thought of underground as
every page of every issue. But on the other hand, I’ve
being synonymous with independent, but it seems
got three or four issues of Oz, and there is something
like there’s also a countercultural connotation
about the experience of holding this artifact that was
in there as well.
produced in a certain period and seeing how it was produced originally. These are all things that you don’t
In the first issue I did a sort of lengthy
really get on a screen. It’s an actual piece of history that
article about the actual history of the
you can hold in your hands. Perhaps that attitude does
underground press. With the invention of the printing
mark me as sort of intractably part of a pre-cyber
press, you’ve got leaflets and pamphlets whereby
generation. You can keep a magazine, you can pass it
anybody could express themselves. I think that the term
on. You can give your children or grandchildren a
underground paper actually derives from the resistance
glimpse of something from the period that you were
fighters in France, or elsewhere in occupied Europe
active in. It’s not a reproduction. It’s not a simulation on
during the Second World War, who would publish
a screen. There are things beyond the visual that are
newspapers that were contrary to the occupying Nazi
important. That was the reason why we decided to make
regime, and they were genuinely underground papers.
Dodgem Logic a print publication, not that I ever really
In the ’60s and ’70s you started to get this connec-
wanted to do anything else. I didn’t even consider doing
tion with the counterculture that existed at the time.
anything else.
And you’re right, that is mostly where my idea of underground publishing originates from. But at the same
Each issue of Slice is loosely organized around a cen-
time, I recognize that there really isn’t a counterculture,
tral theme. The theme for this current issue is Villains.
if there ever really was. There are a lot of really interestVillains. I can handle villains.
ing disparate voices, but looking back upon the 1960s it seems to me that underground publishing was a glue that held the different elements of what we called the
The reason you popped into my head for this issue
counterculture together.
is that people who may not be up to speed on some Your “Going Underground” piece, in the first issue of
of the less-than-fair treatment you’ve been made to
Dodgem Logic, really shows the power that print has
endure might perceive you as this crabby hermit who
had in shaping our society. Why is print so much more
surfaces once in a while to yell about the movie indus-
capable of solidifying these ideas?
try. There’s always been the intimation that somehow
82
an interview with alan moore
tim mucci
it’s you who’s being petty by not playing ball with the
sometime. Kevin is a spitting ball of fury that is quite the
big movie studios and the comic studios. How do you
equal of my own, and he’s getting on fine with Top Shelf.
respond to something like that?
That’s the mark of a decent publisher—if Kevin O’Neill doesn’t hate them and isn’t planning some terrible
I’m pretty much past the point where I even
revenge, then they’re probably okay.
feel that I need to respond. I mean, I simply do not care about the mainstream entertainment
Who in your works do you consider your ultimate
industry. It doesn’t really seem to be the kind of place
villain?
where I am comfortable working, or where I feel that my work is best represented. This is pretty much up to me,
Well, probably in terms of my favorite
and I’ve never demanded that of my collaborators. For
character of a villainous nature, I would say
example, with Lost Girls my position was that, no, I
that it would be William Gull. William Gull in From Hell.
didn’t want my name upon any film that was made of
That is probably one of the most complex portraits of a
any of my work, and I didn’t want any money from it. I
supposedly evil character that I think I’ve ever attempt-
would give that to my collaborator. I was completely
ed. I was probably quite unbearable while I was writing
genuine about that. I didn’t want to compel anybody
some of those later chapters, because you do tend to
else to do what I was doing, and I would have the
take on the coloration of what you’re writing about. I do
greatest respect for their position.
enjoy writing villains—not because I’m particularly
Melinda did get offered a chance to do an ani-
villainous myself, but purely because I find that they
mated version of Lost Girls, and Melinda comes from a
often have a more interesting and complex makeup than
background and culture where having a movie made
heroes, who are very often incredibly simplistic and
of your work is pretty much the peak experience, the
unrealistic. With a good villain it’s always been my
apex that everybody is longing for. Melinda thought
policy, in writing an unsympathetic character, to try to
about it for three or four days, and she got quite
sympathize with them.
anguished about it. I think she only told me when she
I think ever since I was writing V for Vendetta, it oc-
had decided that a film of Lost Girls would probably be
curred to me that there’s nobody in the history of the
horrible, and it would be a betrayal of the effort and
world who has ever thought of themselves as a villain. I
the energy that we’d put into the book. It was noth-
mean, most super-villains, they give themselves names
ing that I would have ever expected, and I obviously
like Doctor Evil or something like that. I doubt that
wouldn’t have thought any less of Melinda if she’d
anybody has ever thought, Yes I’m evil and I enjoy it.
decided to take the opposite route.
Most people—I’m sure even Hitler—were heroes in their
The reason that I have explained my position, per-
own minds. In fact, looked at in that light, the concept
haps in a cranky way, is because people have asked me.
of a hero does become quite a dangerous one. When
These are things that I really don’t want to be associ-
you remember that Hitler was the hero of the German
ated with. So I’m getting on with the projects that I am
people [for a time], they elected him as their chancellor
interested in; they’re coming out from a publisher that I
because he was trying to embody a kind of heroic Ger-
do respect.
man myth. He was playing to all of those tendencies in his audience. The concept of heroes can be one that is
Your U.S. publisher is Top Shelf?
questionable and dangerous.
That’s right. Top Shelf conducts business in
V in V for Vendetta could easily be both a hero
a completely gentlemanly fashion. They’ve
and villain.
been straightforward and honest in all of their dealings with us. If people think that I’m cranky and cantanker-
Well, that was why we called the very first
ous, they really should get introduced to Kevin O’Neill
chapter “The Villain,” because I wanted to
83
slice
issue 7
introduce that ambiguity right from the start. I didn’t want
had wanted to do something a bit more ambitious.
anybody to assume automatically that he was the hero.
Initially, we simply wanted to tell a superhero story in
This was why I questioned the fact that he killed people.
some way that was a bit more serious, and that had
Because it seemed to me the assumption was that if
perhaps darker overtones to it—a story that actually tried
somebody kills somebody in a comic-book story and
to tackle the idea of what superheroes might be like if
they’re the hero, it’s okay. So I brought in all of the stuff
they actually existed in something that more closely
where you’ve got Evey who wouldn’t kill anybody and is
approximated the real world. This was something that I’d
appalled by the fact that V has killed. I wanted to question
already been doing with Marvelman. It was around that
those automatic assumptions that we tend to make in
point that DC offered us the Charlton characters. With
narratives about how the guy in the white hat, or in this
Marvelman I’d had a universe where there is pretty much
case the black hat, is somehow morally excused from all
one superpowered character, or at least all of the
of the considerations that the rest of us must abide by.
superpowered characters are all connected to one event.
During V for Vendetta, even though I am repulsed by
So it’s not asking the readers to swallow lots and lots and
fascism, I really tried to make the various people who
lots of miraculous events in the way that a normal
were part of the fascist government into believable hu-
comic’s continuity does.
man beings with their different reasons for doing what
It struck us that there might be an opportunity to
they did—where there were elements of sympathy in the
apply that principle of treating comic-book superheroes
portrayal of them. I think otherwise you’d have been left
more realistically to a whole line of characters, and that
with simplistic cartoons that would not have been cred-
was pretty much the inception of the idea. Then, around
ible characters, and that’s not going to serve your nar-
issue three, we started to realize that some of the nar-
rative. I think that in our approach to villains, we have to
rative techniques that we were using were at least as
stop seeing things in those terms.
interesting, or to my mind more interesting, than the actual superhero story we were telling. At that point
Because, as a reader, or a viewer, you’re not learning
we began to really develop our idea of Watchmen and
anything about yourself.
what it was or what it could be, and I think that we were pushing that idea further and further with each issue.
Your prejudice is concerned. So the writer is
By the end of the series I think that we’d taken comics—
not really doing their job, or at least not if
and I’m only speaking for myself—my abilities, and I’m
they’ve got any pretensions to being an artist. I think
sure Dave’s abilities as well, to a completely new level.
that it’s the job of art to upset people, or at least to force them to reappraise the preconceptions that they
Watchmen kind of created what we now call the
may have been guided by.
graphic novel, which has become a catchall for any collected or larger work of comics.
You wrote an essay, “Alan Moore’s Writing for Comics,” and one of the first pieces of advice that you
I was and still am in opposition to the term
give to aspiring writers is to focus on a good central
graphic novel. I think I would have preferred
idea. What was the idea behind Watchmen, and what
it if they could just be called “big expensive comics.” It
inspired you and Dave Gibbons to create such an intri-
would have been more honest and straightforward. I
cate graphic novel?
mean, you could probably find something earlier that is at least a forerunner to what we today call the graphic
Well, I think that originally the impetus was
novel, but yeah, probably Watchmen would have been
to do a good superhero story in an interest-
the first graphic novel as we mean the term today.
ing way. Initially the impetus was for me and Dave Gibbons to work together, which was something that
What’s been your favorite project to work on out of all
we’d done briefly at 2000 A.D. over here in England. We
of your comics? Which are you most proud of?
84
an interview with alan moore
tim mucci
—the league of extraordinary gentlemen century: 1910
Well, that’s difficult to say. I would have to
Hey—let’s do a kind of Justice League of Victorian
say that it would certainly be one of the
fiction. Once I started working on it with Kevin, who
ones that I own. At least in terms of which is dearest to
was such a vital ingredient to the development of
my heart. I’m very proud of all of my work. Watchmen, V
the League, we began to realize that this was an
for Vendetta—they were good in their own ways. Things
opportunity to do something that’s more ambitious and
like even the aborted Big Numbers I’m proud of. I’m
to try and write a metafiction that would include the
immensely proud of Voice of the Fire, the novel I did. I’m
whole of the fictional world. Where potentially anything
hugely proud of From Hell and Lost Girls. I mean those
which has ever existed within fiction is crossed over with
are two of my lengthier, more complex, and more
everything else somewhere in the world of The League
sophisticated works aided by Eddie and Melinda,
of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
respectively. It’s such an exciting premise, because you have every-
I’m really proud of League of Extraordinary
thing at your disposal.
Gentlemen—of how it’s developed. Its initial idea was,
85
slice
issue 7
That’s exactly it. It’s pretty much the
was captured and kept under house arrest for a cou-
ultimate fictional continuity, and all other
ple of years until he was beheaded. It was where Mary
continuities are subsumed somewhere within it. We’re
Queen of Scots was beheaded. Not in that particular
having an immense amount of fun. Starting with the—I
neighborhood, but in Northamptonshire. It was where
think misunderstood—Black Dossier, we really started
a couple of the Crusades originated from. King John’s
to take off. We’d already given our fictional world a
Castle was at the end of the street that I grew up on.
map with the almanac in Volume II, where we more or
Well, it wasn’t there anymore; it had been pulled down
less linked up all of the fictional realms. All of the
by Charles the Second on the restoration of the mon-
places and countries that are mentioned in fiction
archy because he rather blamed us for getting his dad
going back to ancient legend. We’d put them inside a
decapitated. People hold grudges.
coherent geography, or semi-coherent geography, so
I wanted to talk about my family’s history and the
that we knew that Mr. Kurtz the ivory trader’s hut was
various people who I knew of from around that very
somewhere in the territory of Babar and family. Things
strange and peculiar area. There was a language around
like that.
the Boroughs—there were words that you didn’t hear
But with the Black Dossier we were able to give a
anywhere else. My own paternal grandmother was what
timeline to the fictional world as well, largely through
was called a deathmonger. If anybody was going to
the extensive memoirs of Orlando. So it’s becoming a
have a baby back then, they wouldn’t be able to afford
much more three- or even four-dimensional proposi-
a professional midwife, so they’d turn to the death-
tion, and I think that as Century progresses, people are
monger, who would come ’round and deliver the baby.
going to enjoy seeing what the fictional world looks like
Likewise, if anybody died, professional funeral services
as we get a bit closer to present day, a bit closer to our
couldn’t be afforded by anybody down there, so the
home territory.
deathmonger would be sent for to lay out the corpse and to take care of the body.
You’re also working on a second novel, Jerusalem. Can
Odd little concepts, strange little words, but I
you talk about that a little bit?
wanted to sort of get that into the novel as well— because it’s a vanishing landscape, and I feel that if I
This was a book that I’d commenced a few
don’t talk about it, then it will not be recorded. It is a
years ago when I had finally been liberated
fabulous landscape, on top of all this stuff which is root-
of any connection with the comic companies. I decided
ed in reality. I wanted to talk about the other aspects,
that it was going to be thirty-five chapters long, for
the less tangible aspects of any landscape—a dimen-
some reason that I cannot now remember. It had
sion of fantasy that exists in connection with anywhere.
occurred to me, after I’d got through the first third of
There’s not just the reality of what a thing is—it’s the
the book, that I was probably looking at something like
dreams that we have about it that are important, too.
three-quarters of a million words for the completed
So there is a whole level of Jerusalem that reads
book. Which is quite long. Probably too long to actually
like a delirious and savage children’s story that is all
bind into one volume as I’d hoped.
involved with ghosts, angels, a demon or two, and many
What I wanted to do with Jerusalem was to come up
more unclassifiable things. I want to describe Jerusa-
with a novel which would encapsulate everything that
lem—on the spine, where you have to put the genre—I
the area that I grew up in meant to me, and that would
want Jerusalem to be classed as science fiction, just
talk about an area in a very complex and complete
because it will annoy people, but the whole basis of
manner. I wanted to be able to talk about the histori-
Jerusalem proceeds from some thought that I’d been
cal context of that neighborhood, because it was quite
having about the fourth dimension.
a fascinating one. Many of the most violent actions in
I had been considering the fact that, if I understand
English history came to their conclusions in this half a
it correctly, then according to Einstein, according to
square mile of ground. It was where Charles the First
most modern physicists, we exist in a space-time that
86
an interview with alan moore
tim mucci
has at least four dimensions. What we perceive as the
understood the “persistent illusion of transience.” That
passage of time is in fact the physical curvature of
struck me as a beautiful quote, so that is a large part of
the universe’s fourth dimension. Time is not actually
what Jerusalem is about. It is about considering this de-
passing; it is only our consciousness moving through a
prived, tiny, and ostensibly unimportant neighborhood
fourth-dimensional solid along the time axis that gives
from a fourth-dimensional perspective in which nobody
the illusion of passing time. I just think about the impli-
ever dies, and everything that happens is somehow
cation of that; it seems to me that one of the biggest
there forever.
implications was that people could not possibly die. When do you think it will publish?
That if your consciousness is moving through this dimensional mass, that mass is unchanging and it is eternal. So, proceeding from this, I started to think about
I’m still guessing in a couple of years, but
the possibilities of a life that we repeated eternally. That
I’ve been saying that for a couple of years. It
when our consciousness gets to one end of the fourth-
will be done when it’s done. You hear about those books
dimensional time axis of our life, it really has nowhere to
that you can’t put down; I think this will be one of those
go but back to the beginning. This struck me as quite an
that you can’t pick up. It will certainly be the longest
interesting idea for all sorts of reasons, which it’s taking
work that I’ve ever attempted.
me the whole of Jerusalem to completely unpack. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with
I was heartened about halfway through writing
me today.
Jerusalem by something said by Albert Einstein a few months before Einstein himself died, and it was when he was consoling the widow of a fellow physicist. He
My pleasure. I’ve enjoyed it.
said to her something to the effect that for a physicist like himself, death wasn’t really a big issue because he
A Quick Reference guide Concerning the World of Alan Moore To hear the unabridged audio version of this interview, stay tuned to Tim’s podcast, Write Club, at www.writeclubpodcast.blogspot.com.
Magician On his fortieth
the facial features of a man and
hero genre. Written by Moore,
birthday, Moore proclaimed that
long blond hair. Glycon was also a
penciled by Dave Gibbons, and
he was going to become a full-time
puppet and most probably a hoax.
ceremonial magician. His comic
published by DC Comics from 1986–87. Watchmen won the
series Promethea details much of
Arts Lab The Northampton
his magical philosophy, and he’s
Arts Lab, an experimental art
the field of science fiction and
working with many other comic
organization popular in England
fantasy in 1988 and is one of
writers and illustrators to create
during the 1960s.
only two graphic novels to have
an accessible work on magic. It will be a pop-up book.
Glycon An ancient Greco-Roman deity that looked like a snake with
Watchmen Critically acclaimed
Hugo Award for excellence in
ever won.
comic series that was one of the
Oz magazine A satirical humor
first works to feature a darker,
magazine published in Sydney,
more realistic look at the super‑
Australia, from 1963–69, and then
87
slice
issue 7
an underground magazine pub-
Evey Evey Hammond, the other
the perspectives of many different
lished in London from 1967–73. In
main character in Moore’s V for
characters.
both incarnations, the magazine
Vendetta.
was subject to obscenity trials,
Eddie Eddie Campbell, Scottish
during which the editors were
Dave Gibbons British comic
cartoonist, illustrator, and writer
eventually acquitted.
illustrator and writer, co-creator of
who was also the co-creator, illus-
Watchmen.
trator, and publisher of From Hell.
Lost Girls A graphic novel written by Moore and illustrated
2000 A.D. British weekly comics
by Melinda Gebbie. Lost Girls is
anthology, specializing mainly in
controversial for its use of well-
science-fiction stories.
known female children’s book characters (Alice from Alice’s
Marvelman Called Miracleman
Creator of the acclaimed Alec and Bacchus series.
Black Dossier Stand-alone graphic novel with background material concerning The League of
Adventures in Wonderland, Dor-
in the United States for trademark
Extraordinary Gentlemen world.
othy from The Wonderful Wizard
reasons. Created in 1954 by Mick
Third and last book to be published
of Oz, and Wendy from Peter Pan)
Anglo and “rebooted” in 1982 by
by the DC Comics imprint Ameri-
in sexually explicit situations.
Alan Moore and later Neil Gaiman.
ca’s Best Comics.
Moore has gone on record describ-
The Marvelman series is noted for
ing the work as pornography.
its stark deconstruction of the
Mr. Kurtz The central character
superhero genre and the long legal
in Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of
battle that’s kept the character and
Darkness.
Melinda Melinda Gebbie, American underground cartoonist and
any subsequent reprints in limbo
writer, illustrator of Lost Girls, and
until recently, when Marvel Comics
Babar Babar the Elephant, a
wife of Alan Moore.
bought the rights to the character.
French children’s book character.
Kevin O’Neill British comic il-
Charlton An American comic-
Orlando The title character of
lustrator, co-creator of The League
book publisher that went out of
Virginia Woolf’s influential novel
of Extraordinary Gentlemen with
business in 1985. DC Comics ac-
Orlando: A Biography. Orlando
Moore, and creator of the ac-
quired many of Charlton’s super‑
was an Elizabethan youth who
claimed series Nemesis the Warlock
hero characters aiming to use them
decided not to die and was known
and Marshal Law.
in Moore’s planned Watchmen
to shift genders. In The League of
series. DC eventually decided to
Extraordinary Gentlemen world,
William Gull In nineteenth-
integrate the Charlton characters
Orlando is a wandering, gender-
century history, one of Queen
into its regular comics continuity,
shifting immortal who has been in
Victoria’s Physicians-in-Ordinary;
prompting Moore to create ana-
at least three incarnations of the
in fiction, the main character in
logues of the characters he planned
League. An accomplished fighter,
Moore’s Jack the Ripper graphic
to use.
Orlando wields the legendary
novel, From Hell.
V A masked vigilante/terrorist
Big Numbers An aborted comic
sword Excalibur.
series planned by Moore and il-
Century Volume III of The
taking revenge against a fascist
lustrator Bill Sienkiewicz. Only two
League of Extraordinary Gentle-
state. One of the main characters
issues were ever published. The
men, which plans to cover the his-
in Moore’s V for Vendetta, created
theme of the work is the effect a
tory of the League’s fictional world
with illustrator David Lloyd.
U.S.–backed shopping center has
from 1910 to 2008.
on a small English town, told from
88
My Brother Died Last Night
The dream took place at my grandmother’s house, and both my mom and dad were in it. For some reason, I couldn’t speak and I was forced to communicate by changing my face into dozens of complicated shapes. In one room, projected on the walls, were all the films that my brother had made when he was alive. When I asked my mom what happened, she showed me a Polaroid of my brother in prison, and said, “They poisoned him.” “ Dad,” I cried with my face, running out of the room and into the hallway. He emerged, a few minutes later, covered in an old blanket like a ghost.
Diana marie Delgado “ What happened,” I asked, “I thought you were going to protect him?” “ I did,” he replied, “but the neighborhood found him expendable.”
89
The Children of the Jacaranda Tree Sahar Delijani
Two days before she died, Aba ate a pomegranate
giving her a sleepy look. At her hands, white and dry,
with Forugh. Forugh cleaned it. Aba watched, sitting on
folded on top of her blanket. Their only luxury, a quiet,
a wide armchair wrapped hermetically in a floral slipcov-
gold wedding ring.
er. Her knees protruded from underneath the pistachio
Forugh had not seen her grandmother for over
green blanket like two bony lumps.
twelve years. And she watched her with admiration,
There was a fresco on the wall behind her. White
with love, with a mixed feeling of joy and curiosity.
swans swimming down a blue river. Surrounded by
She was amazed by how little Aba had changed. The
green trees and a clear sky with white, bushy clouds.
years had not taken their toll on her skin, on the
The television was on. A satellite channel run by
palpitating youth in her eyes, on the composedness
Iranian expats in America was broadcasting a Persian
of her movements.
music video.
The pomegranate seeds burst under the pressure of
You’re the air I breathe.
Forugh’s fingers. The juice splashed on her blouse. Her
The singer’s young voice seeped into the room.
gaze caught Aba’s hand swiftly snatching the blanket
You’re the spring and I’m a basket of flowers.
away from the damage. Forugh laughed.
“I like Mansour.” Aba turned the volume up. “He’s po-
“I hope I have your genes, Aba.” She tried to clean
lite, not like the rest of them jumping around the stage
the red spots on her blouse with the back of her unblem-
and screaming. He obviously comes from a good family.”
ished hand.
Translucent arils. Like rubies. Forugh’s hands danced
“Why?” Aba asked with the smile of a woman who
clumsily around them. Her fingers soaked in the sticky,
knew exactly why her granddaughter would want her
scarlet juice. She looked up from where she was sit-
genes. A woman who knew she was still beautiful.
ting on the red flowers of the handwoven carpet, and
“Your skin has fewer wrinkles than mine, and I’m only
glanced happily at Aba. At her smooth skin. The long sil-
thirty-two.”
ver hair fastened into a labyrinthine loop at the back of
“You don’t need my genes. You’re beautiful like a
her head. The fold of pink skin falling over her eyes and
collage for slice by ophelia chong
flower, like those flowers on the jacaranda tree.”
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«.»
be here. He does not like funerals. He is only here because of the two women with their gray hair and smell
Twilight scatters across the horizon and trickles
of the past.
down onto the narrow horizontal patio. From a nearby
The two women who raised him as if they were his
mosque, the sound of azan shatters into the blue water
real grandmothers, passing him from one’s warm em-
of the porcelain fountain. Spreading like moisture under-
brace to the other’s, telling him love stories of Persian
neath Forugh’s skin.
princesses and their poor beautiful lovers. The two
She stands underneath the jacaranda tree, looking
women for whom he shed bitter tears, when his mother
up at the purple pink panicles bending low as if to
was released from Khomeini’s prison and wanted to take
place a kiss on her forehead. She clasps her hands
him home with her. Now one of these women is dead. Dante cannot cry.
together and draws her shoulders in. She hangs her head, and tears drop on her silk yellow shirt. Leaving
He is furious with the glorious sun in the white blue sky.
salty stains.
He does not understand why tragedies always happen on beautiful sunny days.
She crumbles. Next to the fountain where golden fishes flutter restlessly before sleep. Half of her body on
He rings once more.
mud, half on the pebble stones that reach the edge of
Soon from the other side of the blue door comes the sound of high-heel shoes rapidly striking the pebble
the orchards. She weeps.
stones. Dante cocks his ears. These cannot be Khaleh
She feels a hand on her shoulder and lifts her red-
Zinat’s footsteps. Not the high-heels. Not the rapidity.
rimmed eyes.
The approach of the battering, alien echo un‑
“Your Aba loved this jacaranda tree,” Khaleh Zinat
nerves him.
says as she stretches her hand out to the leaves, caress-
A woman opens the door. A heart-shaped face.
ing them.
Audaciously long eyelashes frame brown eyes. Curly
“I should’ve come earlier. I came when it was too
black hair cascades over her shoulders. She tosses
late.”
the hair back with a small hand and smiles. She is
“You were with her during her last days. I’m sure she
wearing a black dress that falls slightly below her
died happy. That’s all that matters.”
caramel-colored knees.
The last image Forugh has of Aba is of her cold
There is something about the light of her smile, the
body laid out on her bed, covered underneath a white sheet. Aba’s heart had stopped beating at dawn. Forugh
cut of her dress, the uninhibited flow of her hair that
removed the sheet to look at her. Aba was clinging to
makes her look foreign. Forugh! He thinks.
her chest as if she wanted to extract her heart and hurl it
Dante is suddenly tongue-tied. He stammers as he
through the window. The back of her other hand had lain motionless on her forehead. Her mouth twisted in pain.
introduces himself while quickly picking up the trays
Her fixed gaze terrorized. Incredulous. As if she could
from the ground. Forugh seems not to have caught his
not believe death could be so easily at hand.
name. She looks distracted. Her eyes disturbingly sensual with sorrow.
Forugh did not see happiness in Aba’s face. Nor
She takes one of the trays from him and leads him to
peace. She saw only pain. The pain of clutching at the heart when it suddenly ceases beating. The pain of hav-
the house. She does not introduce herself. She walks through the patio like a proprietor. Confi-
ing to face death before sunrise. Alone.
dent, at ease. It makes him nervous. The way she walks.
«.»
He feels as though she is going to dispossess him of something. Of what, he cannot tell.
Dante places the two trays of dates and halva
The heels of her shoes tap on the ground. Like heartbeats.
on the ground and rings the bell. He does not want to
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the children of the jacaranda tree
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«.»
complain to her mother about the boy who does not let her play with him.
Forugh did not listen to Dante as he introduced
Khaleh Zinat is lying down on the ground, her head
himself. He seemed young, nervous, impatient to
on a big white cushion. Her pressed eyelids hidden
present himself that she immediately lost interest. She
underneath a layer of cucumber skin. Forugh knows she
took him as some sort of a housekeeper. Here to give
has been crying all morning. “The guy is here.” She is out of breath. She has been
them a hand for the afternoon ceremony.
running too quickly up the stairs. The artery in her throat
But now, apprehensive, she watches him move about
hops up and down. She feels ashamed of herself.
the house, tall and wiry, with the liberty and certainty of
Khaleh Zinat removes the green skins from her
someone who knows every nook and cranny. His intimacy with the house is not that of a housekeeper. But like a
eyes. She is a short, scrawny woman, with long,
man coming back to his childhood home. It unsettles her.
black eyes and a thin, severe mouth. “Is Dante here already?” Without lifting her
Without consulting her, he goes down to the basement and carries the silver samovar, the golden-rimmed
head, she fumbles for a small plate, where a thin
glass cups, the fragrant tea from the northern Gilan
cucumber lies vulnerably naked. She picks up
province, the trays, and the sugar cubes up to the kitch-
fresh skins and replaces the old ones on her eyes.
en. He moves swiftly in and out of the kitchen, in and out
“He’s Fereshteh’s son. Remember Fereshteh?” Forugh has a flash of a little boy running
of the guest room, in and out of the basement.
around the patio, kicking a ball. The boy with gray
In short, he moves about the house as if it was his childhood home. As if it was he who had listened to the
eyes and fleshy cheeks. That was when Forugh
two women’s love stories about Persian princesses and
and her mother came to visit from Italy. The boy must
their poor beautiful lovers at night. As if it was he who
have been around eight years old. At the time, Forugh
had been raised among the women’s breathing and
was grappling with puberty. She was not interested in
memories.
children. “How come his name is Dante?”
Dante climbs up the stairs, carrying a table. The lean
“For the same reason your name is Forugh. His father
muscles of his arms and chest protrude under its weight. A long white neck. Soft black hair bounces up and down
was a big fan of the Italian poet. Just like your mother
on his forehead as he climbs one step after another.
loved Forugh and her poetry and named you after her.” “And they let the parents name him Dante?”
Forugh does not know what to do with herself. She
They. Laden with all the aftermath of a revolution. All
would like to help. To seem in control. To ask him again who he is. Obviously he is not a housekeeper. But she is
those who decide what is right and what is wrong: the
embarrassed to admit that she did not listen the first time.
clerics, Revolutionary Guards, ayatollahs, Imams of the Friday Prayer, Sisters of Morality, Basij militia. Those who
She follows him around the house, fiddling around
can decide on a name.
with things she knows very little about. Things she has
“Of course not. The name on his birth certificate is
not seen in years. Things he seems to know well. His apparent belonging to the house intimidates her, enrages
Hossein.” The breeze lifts the curtains. Lets them drop.
her. She feels useless. Extra. Covetous. She runs to
“Tell him I’ll be down soon. He should just get the stuff
give him a hand with the table. He declines politely. He
for the tea. He knows where it is.” “He’s already taken everything.”
smiles. She finds his smile patronizing.
Khaleh Zinat lifts her cucumber-folded head
He is treating me like a guest, Forugh thinks.
and smiles.
She tries to compose the angry speed of her heels
There is a sense of intimacy in that smile. Forugh
thudding down the carpeted stairs as she runs up to Khaleh Zinat’s room. She does not know why she is
wonders if Aba ever smiled like that at the thought of
going up there. She feels like a child who is going to
Dante. A prickly sensation pierces the back of her neck.
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She closes the door petulantly but makes sure it does
as alien and awe-striking to him as anything that Forugh
not slam.
herself presented in her protruding lips, heart-shaped face, and brown eyes.
«.»
Now standing before her, he realizes that this part of his life, the part connected like an umbilical cord to this
They stand in front of each other. Woman and
house and the women inside it, has been lived under the
man. Man and woman. First orphaned. Later mothered.
hovering shadow of the images, words, and memories of
The children of revolution, they were once called. The
this woman.
burning generation. The burnt generation. The children
The woman with the dark moon eyes.
of prison. Weighed down by memories of blood and
And now she does not even spare him a glance. Squinting her eyes, she checks the two corners of the
death and loss. And mass graves. And lonely mothers.
tablecloth and pulls one of the sides slightly down.
Memories that were not their own.
Dante smiles at her precision. He would like to tell
They hold the corners of the white table cloth, wave and flap it in the air. The cloth fluffs up, then flattens like
her about the letters, about the drawings. She sees the
the sandy end of a wave.
smile. She does not smile back. Her gaze is as cold as crushed ice.
They begin setting the table. Glass cups clink on
“Let’s arrange the fruit here,” she says, or rather
the saucers as she arranges them on the silver tray. He hoists the samovar up from the ground and
orders. With long elegant strides, she struts out of
places it on the table. She fills the sugar container
the room. Dante does not say anything. He does not under-
with sugar cubes. Silence holds sway.
stand her hostility. His eyes trail behind her. Pierced by
Dante looks out the window at the flowers basking in
an emotion at once so unsettling and benumbing that it could only be called grief.
the warmth of the late morning sun. His gaze falls on her
He wishes Aba were alive. He wishes he could be
delicate hands straightening out the wrinkles, brushing back and forth against the cloth in short, jerky move-
somewhere else. On top of the Darband mountains,
ments as if she wanted to wipe out an invisible stain. She
looking over the city. Far away. Unreachable. He wishes
has a European way of gesturing her hands.
Forugh would smile at him. She cannot return after so many years and demand to claim the present, to make it
For years, he read her letters aloud for the two women. Letters that did not go beyond giving news, and yet,
her own. Life is not an unpracticed handwriting, always
were full of sadness. Letters written in an uncluttered,
on pause. And as he hurries after her, he thinks, Who am I to
cautious handwriting. As if she was treading on alien
decide what is whose to claim?
ground. A handwriting that did not change shape, did
Sprinting out of the room, Dante wishes he could find
not mature, neither improved nor deteriorated through-
a foothold in the welter of emotions that he feels for the
out the years. Like an engraving on a temple wall.
beautiful, proud, imperious woman who has just disap-
A handwriting standing witness to the halt of time
peared down the corridor.
in that hidden corner of the mind where memories lingered.
«.»
At times, snuggled in the heart of a letter, there was a drawing. Of a river and its swimming swans. Like the fresco in the yellow room. Yet different. It was like a
Khaleh Zinat hobbles down the corridor, drag‑
drawing of what Forugh remembered of the fresco.
ging her arthritic knee. She turns on her right side to
Other times, there were photos. Of Forugh prom-
climb down the steps into the kitchen, trudges past the
enading through life in still images. Birthdays, gradua-
wall Aba always wanted to knock down and never did,
tions, New Year’s. Dante came to know Forugh through
and stops at the tiny window looking out to the jaca-
the frozen illusion of her smiling face in a surrounding
randa tree’s flowing panicles.
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the children of the jacaranda tree
sahar delijani
Forugh and Dante work together. When one washes, the other dries. When one cleans, the other polishes. When one takes out the china plates from the cabinet, the other places them on the table. When one takes out the silver cutlery, the other brings a damp towel to furbish them.
She sees them working, their backs turned against each other. Forugh is washing the baby cucumbers in the sink. Dante is tipping a bag of golden grapes down into a basin of water. Here they are. Her children. The children she never had. Here they are. Under the same glow of light. The children who were once orphaned and they were hers and they were Aba’s. Then the mothers came and took them away. They were mothered and everything fell apart. They were mothered and solitude crept in. They were mothered and the echo of their laughter disappeared through the blue door. What is life, she thinks, except a long lullaby of separation? “Elahi bemiram khasteh shodid.” I hope I die before I see you tired. They turn and smile, and their eyes are sad. “Khoda
When one’s hand runs over the table, the other
nakone!”
watches.
God forbid!
When one breathes, the other listens.
Khaleh Zinat opens the fridge and takes out a crystal pitcher. “Come and have some cherry sherbet.”
«.»
To rid your bodies of fatigue. Forugh takes the pitcher and pours the ruby-colored liquid into three glasses. He comes forward. Water
The guests have arrived. The neighboring
dripping from his fingers. She hands him a glass. Their
women, who have over the years sought shelter in
eyes lock.
this house, when they had nowhere else to go.
The sound of sparrows’ chirrups carols through
Young women who fled husbands.
the window.
Girls who fled home.
Their eyes unlock.
Women who did not know where to leave their
Khaleh Zinat pulls up a chair and slides the tray of
children.
dates in front of her. She hums a sad song she learned as a
Women with staring, smiling eyes that are dripping
child as she opens the date with her thumbs, extracts the
with tears.
pit, and inserts a piece of walnut inside the sweet stom-
They take off their black hejabs, revealing gray hair,
ach. She closes the date back up and lays it on the tray.
supple curves, and worn hands. They sit on red velvet
With Khaleh Zinat’s presence, there comes a gradual
cushions on the ground. Encircling Khaleh Zinat. Their
sense of peace. Like that of a mosque once everyone
wails reverberate through the house.
has left after the prayers.
Dante serves plates of halva and dates. Forugh goes
Forugh and Dante work together. When one washes,
into the yellow room for the tea.
the other dries. When one cleans, the other polishes.
But there, disaster awaits. She finds the electric
When one takes out the china plates from the cabinet,
samovar huffing and puffing, blowing out forceful
the other places them on the table. When one takes
clouds of steam. She scurries across the room and lifts
out the silver cutlery, the other brings a damp towel to
the steel lid. A violent onslaught of steam clamps its
furbish them.
teeth into her wrist. She jerks her hand back, throwing
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the lid with a loud bang on the table. The soft skin has
her hand dances around her face. “I will never forget this
turned a painful pink. She blows over it. It stings.
kindness.”
All the water in the samovar has evaporated. Leaving
Forugh gapes at her, bewildered. “Dante lived here?”
nothing but angry, blustering rushes of steam.
Fereshteh nods as she blows her nose. “Didn’t you
In the kitchen, she turns the tap on and holds her burn-
know?”
ing wrist under the rush of cold water. Tears threaten.
“Oh, yes, of course. I had completely forgotten about
She picks up a plastic pitcher and watches the water
it,” she lies.
stream down into it as the tide of anxiety rises up the
“Watch out!” Fereshteh exclaims, wringing her hands
column of her body. It takes two full pitchers to fill the
at the samovar. The boiling water is spilling out of the
samovar again.
cup and into the tray.
Back in the yellow room, she rearranges the cups on
Forugh quickly turns the tap off.
the silver tray. The pink scald on her wrist has turned
«.»
scarlet. Her hands are trembling. She thinks of Aba’s silent laughter and the way her shoulders bobbed up and down. She thinks of
Dante walks toward the stained-glass door. He
her mother. Lying on a hospital bed at this moment.
has already served the dates and halva twice while eve-
Waiting for the pain to subside. Waiting for her
ryone waited for the tea. At last, his mother sent him to
daughter, who is not there. Blowing over her skin,
give Forugh a hand.
Forugh is overcome with the feeling of an infinite
Dante walks reluctantly. He cannot help but feel there is something about his presence that irritates her. He
grief and loneliness.
wishes to be left in peace. To leave her in peace. He wants
The door opens and Fereshteh, Dante’s mother, comes in. Her eyes wet with tears. She gives Forugh a
nothing do with her convoluted urge for belonging. Forugh is busy drying the cups on a towel. He closes
dismal smile. She is someone who can never stop smiling, not even when death beckons.
the door and stands in front of it.
Forugh’s eyes flit around Fereshteh’s face, jumping
“Do you need help with that?” He keeps his voice
from one corner to the other. In the wet eyelashes glued
even, distant.
to each other, the rumpled eyebrows, the soft mouth,
She looks up at him. For a fleeting instant, her eyes
the strong jaw, the gentle eyes, Forugh finds herself
soften. She looks vulnerable, brittle to the touch. He
looking for Dante’s reflection. She does not understand
feels the urge to embrace her tiny body, hold her fragile
herself. She cannot help herself. She looks at the mother
hands, hide her from the world.
and searches for the image of the son.
He almost starts to make a move. To stretch a hand
And as Dante’s image takes shape in her mind’s eye,
out. But Forugh averts her gaze, donning back her
when she least expects it, she feels the hesitant ripples
aloof, impenetrable mask. It happens so quickly that
of desire in the most inner corners of her body.
Dante is not sure if it was not merely a hopeless trick of
The samovar soon begins blowing out white steam
his imagination.
once again. She slides one of the cups underneath the
He finds himself once again hardening against her.
samovar’s pipe and turns the tap on.
He is tired of the cold glare. As if she wanted to elimi-
“This is like Dante’s second home.” Fereshteh waves
nate him. To freeze him on the ground and crush him
a hand in the room. A hand that covers everything: the
with the sharp end of her heels. He is tired of commiser-
glass-stained door, the porcelain-framed mirror, the
ating with her loss while she flippantly dismisses his. He
fresco, the samovar, the rug underneath their feet. “He
is tired of being refused. As if it were his fault that she
lived here until he was four. I was in prison. I had no one
was gone and she was not here.
to leave him with. Aba and Khaleh Zinat took him in as if
“I can manage. Thank you,” she says.
he were their own grandchild. Just like you.” Tears rise in
“It’s just that everyone’s been waiting for the tea for
Fereshteh’s eyes. Her voice quavers. The pink Kleenex in
a long time. They’re starting to get fidgety. I served the
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the children of the jacaranda tree
sahar delijani
dates and halva twice.” Dante knows his words will hurt
above the staircase spits out hazy yellow light. The air in
her. He feels the far echo of shame. But he presses on.
the basement is cool, sour, and moist.
“In Iran, we usually take the tea out as soon we serve the
All the barrels and containers have been arranged
sweets.” If he sounds patronizing, he does not care. She
neatly either against the gray wall or on top of the two
is a big woman. She can take it.
shelves carved inside it.
Forugh presses her lips. He can see he is upsetting
Since her return, Forugh has not been down here.
her. Her anger frightens him. Her lower lip is pushed
And yet, this used to be her sanctum. Where she
lightly forward. Its smooth, fleshy curve disturbs him. He
came to think, or to play, or to hide whenever there
tries not to look at her mouth, or the velvet of the enor-
was a stranger in the house: a neighbor, a friend, the
mous eyes flashing back at him. He leans his back against
electrician. She saunters across the long narrow basement. Inhal-
the wall and folds his arms across his racing heart.
ing deeply.
Forugh opens her mouth. It seems that she is going
The vinegary smell of her childhood.
to say something. But she closes it again and lapses into
She walks past the bottles and glass barrels and
a tense, hostile silence.
plastic containers.
That is when Fereshteh peeks her head through
Past sacks of rice.
the door.
Past pink plastic bags of potatoes and onions.
“Forugh jaan, we’re still waiting for the tea. Is it going
Past jars of jam.
to take long? Shall I come and do it?”
Past unused pots and pans piled where the light
Forugh continues staring at the tray, without moving
cannot reach and everything is soaked in darkness.
a muscle, without uttering a single word. A trembling
And as she walks, the old peaceful, protected feeling
chin. Her chest heaves rapidly up and down. Like a vol-
gradually comes to reclaim her.
cano on the verge of explosion. Her delicate hand edges
She sits down on a tile-covered shelf and wraps her
toward the cup of tea she has just filled. Dante and his mother watch her clamp her fingers around the cup and
arms around her knees. The wall feels cool against
pick it up. Silence falls. Forugh does not look at any of
the back of her shoulders. She sits there in the dark.
them. She lifts her arm and smashes the cup against the
A lonely woman looking back at the gray white wall of
fresco, splintering it into pieces.
her childhood. She remembers the day when she saw her mother for
The red tea drops splash across the blue lake. The
the first time. Her mother had come from prison empty-
swans look as if they were bleeding. Her eyes wild. Her mouth twisted like she was
handed. All she had was the news of her husband’s
gasping for air. Forugh makes a sound, a yelp, a wail,
execution. “They killed your son,” she said to Aba.
a strangled sob. It is hard to tell. She runs out of the
There was a lot of cursing and weeping. And dread. Forugh fled to the basement. Where she wept alone. For
room.
the fear of seeing her mother’s pasty complexion. The
Dante rushes after her.
void in her eyes. The alien crackling sound in her voice.
«.»
Like a fire dying out. She wept for a father she had not known.
Glass barrels of black garlic pickles basting in
Forugh did not want to leave this house. She clutched at the skirts of Aba and Khaleh Zinat. She
balsamic vinegar. Cauliflowers, white and glossy in salty water.
howled. She bellowed. She kicked. She was afraid of
Long-necked brown bottles of vinegar.
the woman they called “your mother.” A gaunt, forlorn
Olives marinated in crushed walnut and pomegran-
woman whose liquid eyes blazed with reproach, with unspeakable agony.
ate juice.
Her mother pinched Forugh on her thigh. Her face
The smell of vinegar stings her nostrils as she de-
distorted with pain and rage and despair. “Come to my
scends the stairs to the basement. A small, naked bulb
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arms,” she demanded. She begged. Forugh wailed some
There are two perfectly curved lines next to her
more. Her mother pinched her again. Her own tears rac-
mouth that deepen as she smiles. Lines that stay long
ing with Forugh’s.
after she stops smiling. The velvet of her eyes shines
That night, her mother left without her. Forugh spent
even more brilliantly in the transparent darkness. He
her last night in the room with the porcelain chandelier,
sees the well-shaped shoulders. The long, perfect
snuggled within the protective heat of Aba’s and Khale
neck. The softness of her stomach underneath the
Zinat’s bodies.
black dress. Forugh sees what he sees. She averts her gaze. Her
The next morning, she was silent in the unknown, strange embrace of her mother as they passed the purple
eyes dance. There is a tremble inside him. He knows what it
pink jacaranda flowers and left through the blue door. Forugh turned to look at her two beloved women one last
means even if he has not felt it many times. There is
time. They lifted their arms slowly and waved at her.
heat. And pain. And foreboding. He feels the palms of his hands sweat.
She picks up one of the small jam jars and opens it.
“And what made you hide here?” she asks.
Orange blossoms coated in saffron-colored sugar. She
“My mother had been released from prison and had
dips her fingers in it. The jam is sticky and soft.
come to take me home with her.”
She misses the heat of her mother’s hands.
Forugh gazes at him with fervor in her eyes.
The door on top of the staircase squeaks gently
“Didn’t you want to go with your mother?” The voice
open. Forugh lifts her head and listens. One step after another disappears beyond the flat echo of uncertain
issuing from her throat is nothing but an entangled
footfalls. She thinks of getting up. But she does not.
murmur. Dante smiles sadly. “I didn’t know her. She was a
She puts the jam back on the shelf, leans back against
stranger to me.”
the wall, and closes her eyes. She breathes deeply. Feels the cool air on her skin. Feels the goose bumps
“And your father? Where was he?”
on her legs.
“He was released about a year after.” Forugh holds his eyes with her inflamed, penetrating
And there, surrounded by all her memories of love and fear, Forugh finds herself hoping, from the depth of
gaze. “It is a strange feeling, when they tell you someone
the tender layer of her heart, for it to be Dante’s footfalls
is your mother and all you feel is fear because you see a
approaching.
mere stranger. Only later you realize she is all that you have.”
Her heart gallops in her chest.
The basement breathes around them, over them,
«.»
through them. Its breathing seals up the distance between them.
Dante finds her huddled against the wall in the
“I’ve heard your mother is at the hospital.” His tongue
translucent darkness. The cool air is swollen with mois-
feels dry and flat in his mouth. “I’m really sorry.” “It all coincided. I had to choose between one’s
ture. He runs a hand over the dust sitting on the vinegar
deathbed and the other’s hospital bed.” A sorrowful
bottles and the jam jars. Forugh looks at him. Silence in the basement swoops down and tightens
smile quavers on her mouth. “But my mother will be
around them. But it is now a different kind of silence.
okay. She’ll be released soon. She was happy that I was
Fresh. Weightless. Smelling of vinegar and expectation
here and got to see Aba before it was too late.”
and longing. Present.
“It must have been very hard for you.” He feels contrite for the way he spoke to her earlier.
“I remember hiding here once.” He points at where
Forugh gets up and walks toward him.
the pots and pans are. “There used to be a tall wardrobe there. I hid inside it.”
“Let me show you something.” She grabs his sweaty hand. Her hand is small and delicate in his grasp. Fragile
Forugh smiles. “Just once? I used to hide in it all
like a piece of glass.
the time.”
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the children of the jacaranda tree
sahar delijani
Daylight is petering out when Khaleh Zinat goes
Next to the biggest barrel of pickled garlic, she squats down on her knees, never letting go of his hand,
out to the patio. She turns on the tap and drags the hose
and sticks her arm behind the barrel. Her hand gropes
toward the jacaranda tree. She watches the tree drink.
through darkness and dust. Finally, she pulls something
The house is immersed in silence.
out. It is a small, flat box with a transparent lid. Var-
Fereshteh was the last guest to leave. She told Kha-
nished in a thick, grimy layer of dirt. She straightens her
leh Zinat of what had happened in the yellow room. Of
back and lets go of his hand to open the lid.
the glass splinters and the bleeding swans. Of the wild
Inside, there is a tiny dragonfly pinned to a yellowed
look in Forugh’s eyes. Of Dante’s rush after her.
piece of paper.
After that, none of them made any further comments
“I had to hide it here because Khaleh Zinat would’ve
about the continuing disappearance of the children.
never let me keep it. You know how she is with insects.
Those who demonstrated curiosity were silenced by
She would’ve thought it was a cockroach or something.”
Khaleh Zinat. “Forugh has gone to bed with a headache,”
Dante laughs. He laughs because he knows how Kha-
she said, “Dante had to leave for an appointment.”
leh Zinat is with insects. He laughs because of Forugh’s
She did not know why she was lying, or why she did
intimate voice. He laughs because Forugh smiles at him.
not look for them. She suddenly felt the need to protect
He touches the back of the dragonfly with the tip
them from the outside world. As if they were a secret
of his finger. It feels dry. Like a piece of wood. Forugh
yearning. She left them to care for each other’s wounds.
closes the lid back. Dante takes it from her hand and
She watches a flight of swallows soar up through the
hides it behind the pickle barrel.
orange and yellow sky.
“I miss Aba,” Forugh whispers. Tears lurk underneath
Returning to the house, she takes off her slippers.
her long eyelashes. She lays her thin length against his
She sits on one of the red velvet cushions arranged by
body.
the wall and waits for the children. For her children.
“I miss her too.” Dante digs his head into the heavi-
Aba’s children. The children of the jacaranda tree.
ness of her hair.
Soon two shadows appear at the doorway. They
Forugh puts her face on his hard chest. His heart
smile timidly. As if they were willingly going to face their
hammers wildly underneath her ear. She wraps her arms
punishment.
around him, trying to calm the beating of his heart. A lit-
They have finally found a playmate, Khaleh Zinat
tle. Lean muscles under the curve of her arms.
thinks. The two lonely children.
She lifts herself on tiptoes and reaches for the fever-
Forugh and Dante come forward. Sated. Fresh.
ish desire of his quivering mouth. Dante kisses her back.
Flushed cheeks. They sit down. Khaleh Zinat is strad-
First slowly. Then urgently. Pulling her thin body into his
dled between their bodies that smell of the mysterious
embrace.
ripples of love and pain. Of breaking and blossoming. Of
She unbuttons his shirt. He shivers at the touch of
tears and laughter.
her fingers. He reaches his hand out. Cautiously. As if he
That smell of the past and the future.
was picking a single flower from the pink purple clusters
Of the longing of the soul hurled toward the skies.
outside. She kisses him again.
“The swallows have begun migrating,” she says.
The basement breathes around them.
The two bodies stretch out like a sweet memory.
They stand. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat. En-
They put their heads on Khaleh Zinat’s lap. One on each
tangled. Like the branches of the jacaranda tree.
side. She reaches her hands out to the youth of their
The moisture seeps through the urgent motions of
hair, caressing. They give in to her touch like thirsty trees
their bodies.
to water. Her voice issues slowly from her throat and
The basement murmurs songs of childhood into
expands into the room.
their ears.
Telling them the love story of Persian princesses and their poor beautiful lovers.
«.»
Dusk falls on the branches of the jacaranda tree. SD
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An Interview with
jonathan safran foer celia blue johnson & maria gagliano Brooklyn-based author Jonathan Safran Foer has written two bestselling novels, but he recently shifted to nonfiction with his latest book, Eating Animals. The prospect of fatherhood compelled Safran Foer to venture beyond his kitchen table to find out where meat comes from and what it means to him. The result was a fascinating study of food, from Safran Foer’s family traditions to the dark realm of factory farms. We caught up with Safran Foer to chat about his revelations about food, life in Brooklyn, and how villains have played a role in his work.
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We already know from personal experience that you’re
And he’s not?
a bit of a prankster. Do you have any favorite tricks that you’ve pulled?
No, that’s not really the kind of thing my dad would do.
That’s a good question. I don’t want to . . . [As an aside, this question was inspired by a prank that Jonathan played on Geoff Shandler, his editor, with our Incriminate?
help when we first connected. We won’t give away the details, but it was quite funny.] Or make the next prank any more difficult. Most of them would be on my little brother.
Geoff lends himself to it, because he’s so
I actually called him just this morning and told him my dad is starting a blog.
Photograph by Gianluca Gentilini
straightlaced and serious, and it’s fun to mess around with him.
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If you asked me today if I know I want to write, I’m not sure if I could answer. Writing is a strange thing. To me, it’s often talked about as an end, when more often than not it’s a vehicle. I like what it is that writing does. I didn’t grow up dreaming of being a writer.
Well, it definitely offered us entertainment on an otherwise dull afternoon. On another note, we at Slice are actually your neighbors. We’re in Park Slope, too. So how do you like Brooklyn? We’re sure you’ve heard about Park Slope being named the number one neighborhood to live in. Yeah, the methodology behind that article [in New York magazine] was to take into account a whole number of different factors and weigh them against each other. And they came up with Park Slope. If you want to look at it that way, you’ll definitely end up with Park Slope. The question is, is that the way people live? Is that the methodology of happiness? I don’t know. I used to live in Jackson Heights, for three years or so, and that would never ever win such a contest, and yet it was a totally great place. Because you can’t just measure the vibe of a place. The question
If you asked me today if I know I want
is, is it a sum of its parts? If you add up the parts . . . but
to write, I’m not sure if I could answer.
life isn’t the sum of parts. Still, Park Slope is a great
Writing is a strange thing. To me, it’s often talked
place to live, especially with kids. It’s a place that’s very
about as an end, when more often than not it’s a
easy to like. But I’m not sure how easy it is to love.
vehicle. I like what it is that writing does. I didn’t grow up dreaming of being a writer. I didn’t even grow up
Is there anything you’d change about Park Slope?
reading like crazy. At a certain point, I became aware of what writing could do. And it excited me. That’s still
A lot. It would have a lot more restaurants.
really how I feel. It’s a very flexible form, more than
Seventh Avenue is rather boring.
any form I’ve encountered. I like that. The more I write, the more I see how flexible it is. But it’s not to say that
It is boring. Everything shuts down so early.
I’m in love with the form. An analogy I sometimes use is if you love going to
I wish Seventh Avenue were more like
foreign countries and trying foreign foods and learn-
Fifth Avenue and Fifth Avenue were more
ing foreign languages and so on, it would be hard
like the East Village. Speaking as someone who has
to answer the question “When did you start loving
contributed two children to Park Slope, I suppose it
airplanes? Do you think you’ll always love airplanes?”
would be nice if there were fewer children. But I like it.
Sort of, I guess. But if they invented teleportation or
I’m not moving.
something, I would do that.
We wanted to talk a little bit about your writing. Going
Are there any specific things that you feel writing
back to the beginning, have you always wanted to be a
has brought you that you wouldn’t have been able
writer? Was there a specific moment that swayed you
to experience if you hadn’t been writing?
in that direction? It allows for a kind of expression that I wasn’t capable of before.
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an interview with jonathan safran foer
celia blue johnson & maria gagliano
It’s interesting that you describe it as being so flex-
desire to work on different kinds of projects. I don’t feel
ible, too, because a lot of people would be terrified of
like fiction is suddenly irrelevant or more relevant. But it
working with such a fluid medium.
certainly changed the kind of time at my disposal. Writing used to be something that happened in incre-
I don’t know why they would be. It’s a way
ments, sort of always. And now it’s something that
of not committing to any one thing. Or
happens in very finite, framed periods of time.
being able to do many different things at once. Something that really struck us while reading Eating We’re intrigued by the fact that after writing two
Animals is your careful consideration of the semantics
znovels you moved to nonfiction. Was the writing
behind the debate about how we eat. In that act of
process similar or different when shifting forms?
writing, did you ever find yourself surprised by a term or a meaning?
It’s totally different. And for me was much more difficult.
Constantly. I was confused, even as much as surprised, because the lan-
Nonfiction was more difficult?
guage is so manipulative and so bizarre. Just getting into the subject and learning the things that were
They’re difficult in different ways. The
necessary to tell the story required almost learning a
thing I value most about writing fiction is
language.
freedom; you just make it your way, the way that you want it to be. If something interests you, you can pursue
You almost wrote a language, too, which is one of the
it. You don’t ask if something is useful. In fact, art is
things that set the book apart from similar titles.
almost the opposite of usefulness. But with nonfiction I was very much constrained by
I didn’t do it to be interesting or different
the truth, especially with Eating Animals. And also I was
or anything like that. I guess I say this
constrained by having something to say. So one way of
about my fiction as well: I write things in as brief and
looking at it is that it’s very liberating and nice that I got
straightforward a way as possible. It’s just that subject
to actually look at my computer and know what I was
matter requires you to digress or to invent words or to
working on each morning. On the other hand, it created
be somewhat experimental. For me it’s never in the
a kind of claustrophobia. I missed the freedom.
interest of experimenting in its own right.
We’ve heard you state that fatherhood spurred you to
There’s a parallel in your novels because they’re both
write Eating Animals. Can you talk about how being a
about a young protagonist and a quest to discover
father has impacted your life? Do you find that it has
something about an older family member. In Eating
made an impression on your work overall?
Animals, your grandmother plays an important role, but your son is also a major influence. In a way, it’s a reverse
That’s an odd question—“How has it
process of the quest in your novels. Have you thought
impacted your life?” It’s kind of like asking
about that as you’re working on the nonfiction?
someone who has just been beheaded, “How has being beheaded impacted your life?” It’s so dramatic. Every-
It does continually amaze me how often
thing is different. Logistically everything is different.
my grandmother comes up in stuff, and
Something that was sort of unexpected is that mentally I
family more generally. This is one of the strange things
don’t feel like everything is different. I don’t have a
about writing. You end up being put in contact with the
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parts of your imaginative life or emotional life that you just couldn’t really be aware of otherwise. I doubt there’s a subject where those things wouldn’t come up. In Eating Animals, personal experiences end up acting like punctuation marks throughout the book, such as when your son was sick in the hospital. Are there any experiences involving food that stand out since you wrote the book? The strange thing is that I talk about the subject now constantly, and I never did before. I wasn’t somebody who was always thinking and talking about food. But now people ask me about it all the time, which is sort of odd. Has it continued to be an obsession? I don’t know if it was ever an obsession, exactly, for me. It’s a really important thing on many different levels, but lots of things are very important. I don’t think this is the most important thing in the world. It’s interesting in that it’s so important and nobody really writes about it or talks about it or thinks
I think of my nonfiction book as being very much about villains. The novels are much more about emotional aftermath, the prices that are paid—not necessarily for the events themselves so much as for the difficulty in talking about them, the problems of expression. Who are the villains in my first two books? They are silence, really, whereas in this book, it’s factory farms.
about it. Or at least not in a way that corresponds to how central it is to our lives and to the problems of the world. In any case, it has taken up a disproportionate space in my life, which has been odd.
so much as for the difficulty in talking about them, the problems of expression. Who are the villains in my first
For each issue of Slice we have a topic, and this time
two books? They are silence, really, whereas in this
it’s Villains. We’d love to hear your take on villains
book, it’s factory farms.
in your own work. Major tragedies loom in the background of both your novels [Everything Is Illuminated
Could you elaborate on the factory farms as villains
and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close], and these
that are present in our lives?
events almost act like villains themselves. Can you talk a little about how history can impact people in ways
It’s an industry that’s set up that know-
that an individual never could?
ingly and deliberately poisons the environment and unnecessarily. It works very much against
I don’t actually think of my novels as
these values that Americans broadly share. Smithfield,
being about villains. I think of my nonfic-
for example, had seven thousand violations of the Clean
tion book as being very much about villains. The novels
Water Act in one year. You can say, if they’d had ten
are much more about emotional aftermath, the prices
that would be bad. If they’d had one hundred, we’d say
that are paid—not necessarily for the events themselves,
someone needs to watch them more closely. But seven
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celia blue johnson & maria gagliano
thousand is like a business model. It’s on purpose. Or it
Do you have a favorite anecdote from people who have
certainly seems like it is. We could confront that reality,
come to you with their stories?
but there’s this veil of secrecy. The companies go to very great lengths to make sure that people don’t find
I don’t know if you saw Ellen, but I was on
out about these things. People are spending all of this
it twice actually, and the second time she
money and ingesting all of these products that come
had people who had changed in response to the book. It
from this process that they would hate if they knew
was neat for me because I met some people that in all
about it.
likelihood I wouldn’t have met in my more usual travels for the book. That meant an awful lot to me.
Have you had any interesting or positive responses for change after the book was published?
So what’s next? Any clues, hints?
Yeah, lots. The most straightforward or
A novel. I’m working hard on a novel. I
impressive one is just people, individuals. I’ve had a lot of really nice responses that even
think it’ll pretty much be novels from here on out.
exceeded what I expected.
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rising voices
Suspicious Aderlyn Lopez The name’s Ryan and I’m no different than you, probably. I get average grades, see everyday things, and meet everyday people. It’s all right I guess, it’s not like anything weird ever happens at my school anyway . . . well, that is, until this weird dean showed up . . .
«.» “ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE AUDITORIUM!” As the PA went off, everyone made their way there. Soon, as we sat, corny Principal Barnett picked up the mic, going, “As you all know, your last dean left to join the army; he will be missed as he—nah, I’m just kidding, he just went on to another school.” You’d think Principal Barnett would’ve given up by now. “In all seriousness though, allow me to present you with our new dean, MISTERRRRRR JOHNSON!” A tall, creepy figure emerged from the side of the stage. He was bald, but looked at us with a seriousness that made you not notice it. Barnett handed him the mic. “Good morning students. I am Mr. Johnson, your new dean. It is my honor to be here and I await a great time with all of you. Let it be known that as your dean, I will be expecting from you no less than the last dean did. As a matter of fact he’s already given me a list of those who have detention this week, and you can be sure I’ll be there to get better acquainted. Let’s have a good morning and a progressfilled day.” When we got upstairs the bell had rung, third period was about to start. I was on my way to class with Matthew, talking about the new dean. We split our paths and I headed for my door, but no sooner did I start in that direction when Nichole came rushing at me. “Hold on!” Nichole was this girl I used to date. It was cool at first but she kept getting me in trouble. She always wanted to sneak into places she wasn’t supposed to be in
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just for the sake of doing it. Well, I wanted no part of it this time. “Oh no, not this time. I was grounded for like a month last time I listened to you.” “Come on, wussy, it’ll be quick. Besides, Ms. Walton’s your substitute today and she won’t even notice you’re gone. Just hear me out,” she pleaded. “Fine, but it better be fast,” I said. She wanted to sneak into the dean’s room. “He seems like the kinda guy who has something to hide.” The office had two entrances, one with a locked door, and the other with a sign covered in warnings. The teachers refused to tell anyone where it led to, but it was pretty obvious. We slowly walked the halls, keeping a wide ear for footsteps. Nichole handed me a pass and went in the room as I stayed just outside. The idea was that if anyone came by, I’d look like I was going to the bathroom, I’d knock the door giving her the signal to hide, and walk on by. I stayed outside waiting for her till she creaked the door open. “I think you should see this,” she whispered. And there was something there all right. “What is all this?” I said quietly. The room was full of old maps of the state, not to mention what seemed like blood samples and needles. The laptop in the corner was one of the few normal things. Now, my aunt has a map collection herself, but it isn’t something you’d normally bring to work, and not the other stuff either. We looked all around that place just to see what else was there, but unwelcome footsteps interrupted us. “HIDE!” Nichole squealed. We jumped behind some boxes as the front door opened. The sound of slow, odd breathing accompanied the creepy dean. He walked in our direction and stood in front of the boxes. I was sure we were caught . . . but he just grabbed some papers on the top box and walked out. It was a while before we dared sneak out, and once we did the bell rang. On to fourth period. “Well, we’re not doing that again. I mean for god sakes, I’m just happy I didn’t touch anything,” I said. Then Nichole said, “Well actually, I did—” “Whatever. That’s not the point. Let’s just back off from now on.” Nichole rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
«.» A fight broke out that day; these two kids Kyle and Brandon started swinging in the middle of the hallway. It was pretty exciting while Nichole and I were watching it. There wasn’t a teacher in sight. Brandon was beating the living hell out of Kyle, who already had a black eye. Suddenly I heard steps and out the side of my eyes I saw Dean Johnson zoom past me. He stopped Brandon in half a second, ramming him right against the lockers, then gave the coldest look to Kyle. After the “calling pops and detention” routine, Johnson took Brandon to his office . . . where he
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stayed almost the whole day. No one really knew what happened when he came out. He didn’t say a word. The kid with the biggest mouth in the school just walked home without talking to anyone. Nichole didn’t come to school on Monday, which wasn’t uncommon for her. I went straight ahead to my class. When I walked in the door, I could see Mr. Johnson sitting in his office, in the exact same spot he stayed almost all day. I mean, I’m not one to tell a person how he should do his job, but why stay in there the whole day? That didn’t really bother me though. What did was that Nichole didn’t come to school that whole week, and she wouldn’t even pick up her phone. Most people passed it off as some sudden family emergency, but you’d think she’d at least tell people about it. Johnson continued to stay locked in his office and didn’t talk much. I, for one, was getting suspicious. I talked to Matthew about it and told him about what I’d seen in Johnson’s office. “Hmm, you know this could have something to do with you two sneaking in there,” he pointed out. “But how could she disappear for something she wasn’t even caught doing?” I asked. “Anything she did that you didn’t?” “Apparently she touched something, but that’s no big deal right?” “If you really think Mr. Johnson is behind this then I think you’d have to consider him checking for fingerprints.” “Do you think Johnson didn’t want her to go around talking about what she saw?” I asked. “That seems to be the case,” Matthew answered. I thought about it for a bit. “You don’t think he . . . ” He said, “Your guess is as good as mine, but seeing as he has something to hide, did you notice anything else in that room?” I thought back to the time. It seemed like a distant memory now, but I did remember one more thing. “There was this laptop.” Matthew and I started talking about this like we were gonna rob a bank. We’d bring gloves the next day and sneak in Johnson’s office. We had to see what was in that laptop’s memory. We had some trouble sneaking in, since this was more of Nichole’s thing and not ours. When we finally got in the room we were very, very careful. We didn’t want to touch anything for fear of an alarm. Without a word between us, Matthew grabbed the laptop and turned the power on. It took a while to warm up and I began walking around the room as I waited, until I was interrupted by those same footsteps. I screamed, “HIDE!” But Matthew was frozen to his chair, simply staring in awe at the screen. The sound of the door being unlocked soon infiltrated the room and I ran to Matthew to see if I could knock some sense into him. When I finally got close enough and glanced at the screen . . . I could only stare. The door opened.
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at the valley
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Han Minh Tran It was three a.m. and in front of me stood a black-stained, chained door. I heard the yells of human voices screaming in excruciating pain. I tensed cold and stiff. I couldn’t remember how I got here and I couldn’t move an inch. I was like a statue, a statue that could easily be broken, a hopeless statue that could not defend itself or defend those around it. Suddenly the terrible voices stopped and the doorknob started turning. I hid myself immediately under the shadows of the garbage. As the door opened, a creature like no other appeared before me in pitch-black foreign clothing. Its face stood unknown, covered. Its nails were crystal-sharp, a rusty, greasy yellow. Its skin was bloody red and deeply burned. It was about ten feet tall, holding a nicely sharpened axe. It looked as if it came straight from hell, the devil to be exact. Its body language was furious and outstandingly discomforting. Its presence next to me did not give me a good feeling at all. In fact, it made me feel like I had just trespassed a keep out/do not enter danger zone sign. The creature stood in complete silence for twenty minutes. It stood ridiculously straight and tall without any sudden movements. It seemed like it was waiting for someone or something to happen. After a while, it almost looked like it had been staring straight at me the whole time. I asked myself, Is it waiting for me? That would be impossible. After all it doesn’t know I’m here, right? I have been kept hidden. It hasn’t seen me, I haven’t moved one bit and I didn’t speak or mumble. I wasn’t too sure of myself. More than an hour passed and it still hadn’t moved yet. My body wasn’t in good condition; I needed food and rest. My legs were getting sore and my eyes were getting drowsy. I knew I had to maintain my cover—who knows what would happen to me if I were caught by that monster? I sure didn’t want to find out. Another half an hour passed by, it was now five o’clock, early in the morning. My body couldn’t take it anymore. I dropped in the middle of the valley floor. I looked up as fast as I could toward the door. Magically, the monster had vanished. My heart was beating ten times faster than usual. I hesitated to look back. And when I finally had the courage to look . . . I woke up in a hospital. I couldn’t remember what had happened after I looked back. Many doctors asked, “What happened?” And I told them this exact story I tell you, but none of them believed me. They had a theory that I had bumped my head and gone crazy. They’ve put me in this place where crazy-minded people are supposed to go. The last thing I said to them was, “I don’t belong here!”
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Love for a Sister Daysi F. Fernandez As I walked into the room I immediately was frantic, horrified, and disgusted. The room was a dark purple with candles all over and a framed photo of a little girl smiling. In a way, that little girl’s smile was creepy. It wasn’t a smile of happiness, like when a girl gets her first Barbie; it was a smile to bring goose bumps all over your body. I looked back at my boyfriend, who was holding my hand. My palms started sweating bullets. I took a good, deep breath in and then walked farther into the creepy room. I’ve heard rumors that this was my old house when I was two years old. We moved because of my big sister, Liz. She was murdered in her room while she was sleeping: suffocated, sliced across the throat three times, then chopped into little pieces. I wondered how my mother didn’t hear them walk into her room. She told me she went to go check up on her after all the damage was done. Till now her spirit has lived in that dark purple room. While walking into the room, I wondered how all the candles came on. As soon as I said so out loud, all the candles turned off at the same time. I freaked out and ran to the door, but the door shut by itself. I looked around and saw my boyfriend begin to cry. I grabbed his hand and tried to open the window to leave through the fire escape, but it was no use. As I took my hands back from the window my hands felt wet. They were covered with blood. I wanted to scream my lungs out but something stopped me. I had the weirdest feeling—comfort, love—the last feeling I thought I would have in this room. I felt this breeze, then saw a black shadow run toward then through me, then heard horrific screams. I started looking around, searching for that black shadow. As I turned around, I saw that there was a huge mirror in the closet. I looked at it real close and I saw this little girl standing behind me. I looked back and saw nothing. I turned back to the mirror and she smiled at me and waved hello. Somehow a smile came out of me, too. Right there I got hypnotized. Somehow I started walking toward the closet, keeping my gaze on the little girl in the mirror. I walked into the closet and there was a knife on the floor. I picked it up and put it close to my neck as my boyfriend tackled me.
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He said, “What the hell are you doing, you crazy!” “NO, I have to, I have to leave. I WANT to be with my sister!” I replied. “You’re crazy. Hell no, you’re staying with me, now HELP me find a way out. I want to leave!” he said. “I’m sorry, I love you but I have to leave. I want to be with my sister. I’ve never been with her. I want to be with her now,” I said, crying. “She wants to take your life away! What is going to happen to your mom and dad and little brother? WHAT ABOUT ME? We love you, Genesis, please don’t leave us. Trust me, your time will come for you to be with your sister again, but don’t leave us now,” he said with watery eyes. The black shadow appeared again and started running around us, screaming really loudly. I covered my ears to try to ignore the annoying scream but it was no use. It broke into my eardrums. I couldn’t take any more and began competing with my own screams. I screamed at the top of my lungs and started crying hysterically. The annoying scream slowly went away then just stopped. My boyfriend came closer to me and hugged me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said and wiped the tears out of my face. I slowly calmed down. Then the black shadow appeared again, started running around me again but now faster than ever. The black shadow stopped and I saw this beautiful girl all dressed up looking like she was ready for church. She was in a pretty pink lace dress with white shiny shoes. She had long pretty blonde hair, beautiful pale skin, and bright blue eyes. I thought to myself, “Wow, this is my sister.” Once again, I started crying. The little girl wiped the tears away. She asked, “Why are you crying?” “You’re my sister, you’re beautiful, you weren’t supposed to be murdered and stuck here in your spirit,” I said, crying. “It’s okay,” she said and then ran away. The lights turned on and blood was everywhere. There was bloody red writing that screamed, LEAVE NOW! I ran to the door, trying to open it, and finally it opened. I ran out with my boyfriend, holding his hand the whole way home.
«.» Two days later, on the news . . . “Genesis Fernandez was discovered murdered in her own room, sliced three times across her throat, then chopped into little pieces. Rest in peace, Genesis.”
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Demons David J. Castelan School reached its end. Classes ended, it was six p.m., and outside the gray front doors the sun was setting, fading, leaving the sky. Last month was when Devin’s friend got lost and was nowhere to be found. Devin was depressed about it. As Devin walked away from the crowded school, he saw both his friends, Bob and Ethan. “I knew it. You guys aren’t dead!” Devin said. “Devin, you coming to play Guitar Hero?” said Ethan. Devin said, “Hold up, I think I know where you guys were.” “Don’t even think about going there. It’s too risky. You’ll get caught,” said Ethan. “I just want to see where you guys went,” Devin said, laughing. “We barely knew the place,” Bob exclaimed angrily. “I’m going. I’m not listening to you, Bob,” said Devin. Both Ethan and Bob disappeared after a blink of his brown eyes. “That’s weird. I’m seeing things . . . and wait, now I know where they last were!” Devin said. He walked fast to a bus stop to take a bus he rarely took. The bus came and he got on and sat in the back blue seats of the bus. Leaning his head against the wide window, he saw signs pass by, six yellow signs that read: dead end. After reading that, Devin felt a bit worried. He reached the last stop and exited through the back door. It was already dark outside, especially for a fall night. Time went by too quickly, the clouds were up high and barely noticeable. He walked on the wet sidewalk, which was covered in sticky leaves. Nothing was in sight except for an abandoned building only one story high. He walked over to the door with a mat that read welcome. “I wonder what this place is,” Devin said. As soon as Devin opened the door, a small breeze swifted across his face. The smell was bad, mixed with cement and paint. He stepped out and the breeze gently removed the dark hair off his eyes. The inside was empty but large. All the walls, ceilings, and floors were gray. Words were carved into a wall across the room, where the one lightbulb was. Devin rushed to the other side and saw the words watch your every step. Devin looked down and saw sets of footprints—including
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his—which were all made by Converse shoes. The floor was very dusty. Devin said in confusion, “Are those really my footpri—” Something caught his eye, a wooden door on the floor. So Devin brushed away the dust and forgot about the footprints. He crouched down, pulled at the rusty handle with lots of strength, and used the wooden ladder. He walked down the only hall, which had some white lightbulbs lit up as though they were scorching torches. The walls revealed paintings, the main color being red. Lots of stick figures of people bowing down or giving into something much bigger, some stick figure that was on top of a mountain. The way it was drawn was in a way that resembled Devin somehow. Then some writing beside the painting stood out, which read don’t fall, rise above. The more Devin walked, the faster his heartbeat rose. “Maybe I should go . . . ” Devin said in a whisper. But he could not stop from moving forward when he saw what was at the end of the hall. Curiosity consumed him, but he was also afraid. At the end was what appeared to be a tripod with binoculars on top, the only thing he focused on. He slowly approached and looked through the binoculars. He blinked and was in terrible pain. “Ahhhhh!!” said Devin, bleeding. “AH! MY EYES!” Devin screamed wide-eyed while breathing heavily. Devin’s eyes were tearing blood. He’d been exposed to something, a mechanism or machine of some sort. He fell to the floor—he was shaking, trembling, and unable to make sense of anything. Devin thought hard, back to the warnings and everything that may have connected and led him to this setup. “WHO did this TO ME?” Devin said, until he saw what was behind him. It was a sign that read: i, bob, killed ethan, your friend. Under that sign were Ethan and Bob’s dead bodies. “So it was Bob who created this sick place! And brought me here!” said Devin, astonished. Devin slowly stood up and walked toward the ladder while breathing heavily. Then he reached the top and started limping. He was full of exhaustion. Devin reached the door, put his hand in his pocket, and called 911 on his cell phone. He opened the door with his other hand and burst into tears. Then he was happy, happy that Ethan wasn’t the bad guy. And then he saw the sunrise, a bright new day.
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Body Double Lesson #1 how to survive a torture prison camp
Confess everything: how you passed out in the prom parking lot, tuxedo stained and stinking of beer. Renounce all ties to your mind and body. Break your finger to show them you’re whole. Fuck decorum. Swear and stutter. Sign anything if what you sign with is sharp. Ration your slop. Compliment the chef. Befriend futility for it will not desert you. Befriend maggots and the ghost in your ear. If grilled further, give them your platoon. Your pets and children. Come clean about that time at the food court
Jared Harel
when you got caught staring at Lexie Parker’s breasts. Admit to how it feels being slapped out of love. Then years later, after rescue or release, when penning your memoir or running for office, say you were scared but that God spared you. Tell not a soul what it takes to be free.
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Body Double Lesson #2 learning to flinch
Imagine a spider the size of a toaster. A high fastball. A wild pitch. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss is a fist so consider what’s missed without a reaction, what goes unsaid with tongue in cheek. There is something to say for those who startle easily, who jump
Jared Harel at the sight of a bloody syringe. Check their pulse after chasing them with a chainsaw. Their hearts as you tell them it isn’t benign. The hell with skydiving. Tickle a gorilla. Learn to forget life’s precious lessons, the jolt and BOO! you knew was coming.
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The Musical David Pomerico
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I don’t know why, but fictional villains make
pain and anger of joker or joke-ee often determines who
me laugh.
thinks it’s funny. Think of your favorite comedian: how
That’s not exactly true. I’m not sure why. I do have
often do you find yourself laughing, not because the
some educated guesses, though, informed conjectures,
punch line is clever, but because it’s offensive? Success-
and perhaps even some professional insights.
ful comedians often realize that their best weapon is to
You see, in my line of work—editing science fiction
make you uncomfortable. This could mean browbeating
and fantasy—I feel I’m in a rather unique position to be
an audience member, or upsetting social taboos, or sim-
somewhat of an expert on villains, as I deal with more
ply denigrating themselves—it doesn’t really matter. The
villains, bad guys, and Dark Lords than most people
end result, though, is that, while you’re cringing, gasping
outside of politics could comprehend. And with that
ohmygod, or covering your mouth, you’re also laughing.
experience, one thing I’ve realized is this:
You’re shocked—and you love it. Simplified, we get this:
Villains that we create are funny.
Pain = Humor
Some are intentionally funny, and some just come
So who’s in a better position to know pain and anger
across as ludicrous despite their best efforts. Some even
than a villain? Often their entire motivation for doing
have the ability to create fear and humor—there’s noth-
something in the first place is based on past slights and
ing that says a villain is simply one-dimensional. But, in
injuries. They’re in pain. They create pain. Comedy.
the end, the villains we encounter in our books, in the
Obviously my formula is oversimplified. And just as
movies, or on television are funny. Which tells us a lot
obviously, a villain creating pain isn’t necessarily comedy
about ourselves: how we react and adapt to fear, how
(they can’t all be Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger
we culturally escape our own enemies through imagining
Rabbit dropping safes on people’s heads). And maybe it’s
them as ridiculous, and how we define our heroes. Maybe
not humorous to us—at first. But think of an awkward or
villains are funny because we need them to be funny.
tense situation, either from your own life or from a movie
Now, what do I mean by “villain”? In my mind, villains
you’ve seen. Consider why shows like The Office or mov-
are the Bad Guys that stalk through our fiction and allow
ies like Meet the Parents work: because the writers and
us, in turn, to have a reason to root for the Good Guys.
directors play up the tension to the point where it’s almost
They are monsters, they are psychopaths, they are vio-
unbearable—you laugh either because it hurts too much
lent, and they don’t have our best interests at heart.
or because one of the characters finally cracks a joke.
But if they are monsters, how is it so easy for me to
Villains, then, are the ultimate tension relievers.
point out humorous Bad Guys? The singing ridiculous-
They’re the ones bursting into the room after the sound
ness of Dr. Horrible from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s
goes silent. They’re the ones who interrupt the impor-
Sing-Along Blog. The amalgam of James Bond bad guys
tant, intimate conversation between the hero and his
that became Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies. The
girl. Conversely, the hero, by being on the screen for so
understated and wry voice of Doctor Impossible (seeing
long, creates a comfort level that villains can rarely hope
a theme?) from Austin Grossman’s novel Soon I Will Be
to achieve with an audience. No, villains are the ones
Invincible. The dark insanity of Heath Ledger’s Joker in
who get us out of our element, which either makes us
The Dark Knight. The childish immaturity of Syndrome
laugh initially, or makes us laugh at ourselves afterward
from The Incredibles and Royal Pain from Sky High (yes,
for having been scared at the time.
I’ve seen Sky High). Heck, even characters like Dr. Kelso
And yet, it’s not like we’re strangers to the villains,
on Scrubs and Portia de Rossi’s Veronica Palmer on the
either. If we’re going to spend any significant time with
underrated (and short-lived) television show Better Off
a character, we’re going to need to connect with that
Ted are excellent examples of the comically immoral
character (and it’s amazing writing insights like this that
(amoral?).
make me such a good editor). If a villain is humanized—
I think the preponderance of humorous villains can
such as when Neil Patrick Harris is Billy, Dr. Horrible’s al-
be partially explained by the fact that some of the best
ter ego—we see ourselves in him, and therefore start to
comedy comes from pain and anger—whether it’s the
like him. Billy is in love with a girl. Billy does laundry. Billy
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is socially awkward. Billy is like us (or me, at least—don’t
there’s a reason that comic books are comic books,
want to project my own social awkwardness on you, fair
and movies are movies—they are approached differ-
reader). Now, in this case we’re supposed to like him,
ently by their respective readers/viewers. So a villain in
which is why his nemesis, the supposedly charismatic
a comic book—in this case a crazy man in a green mask
and handsome hero Captain Hammer, comes across as
and a purple tunic and cap, flying around throwing
such a tool. But liking Billy also makes his villainy all the
bombs made out of pumpkins—is exciting and interest-
more heinous. We say to ourselves, “Oh, he wouldn’t
ing to us. Of course that’s what the Green Goblin looks
ever go through with his plans to kill Captain Hammer,”
like. We buy it because we have no illusions about
but then—SPOILER ALERT!—he does, and we’re out of
comic books being “real.” But if an actor takes that
our element—we’re uncomfortable. Attacking Captain
very same villain and portrays him behaving “just like
Hammer relieves the tension that has been growing be-
us” in an earnest way—trying to convince us that this
tween the characters on the screen. It also relieves the
could be a “real” person (as opposed to what he is, a
tension that’s been building between Dr. Horrible and us,
cartoon)—it’s hard to buy.
the viewer, as we come to grips with the fact that Billy
Warning: It’s about to get very Psych 101 here.
really can be this, ahem, horrible person. And if good
In our world, in the “real world,” there are truisms
and evil are social constructs designed to keep civiliza-
regarding heroes and villains: For one, our villains are
tion from descending into chaos (which I think it’s safe
murderers and rapists. They are they criminals we hear
to say they are), then wouldn’t good be “comfortable,”
talked about on the 11 o’clock news. Our villains are also
and evil “uncomfortable”? We’re comfortable with Dr.
terrorists, willing to crash planes into buildings or strap
Horrible until the moment he acts horrible. And yet we
bombs on themselves and walk into pizza parlors. Our
laugh in either case.
villains, then, do all the things we tell ourselves as a
Dr. Horrible, though, is supposed to be funny through-
society are unacceptable behaviors—and often do them
out. It is through the character of Dr. Horrible/Billy that
without remorse. Our heroes, on the other hand, are the
we form our opinions about the world we’re seeing on
men and women who run into those burning buildings,
the screen. From a storytelling standpoint, he’s the pro-
even when everyone else is running out. They dedicate
tagonist, and we are, in a way, rooting for him.
themselves to making sure that the social contract is still
But what about the villains who aren’t intentionally funny? One of the most common occurrences of this
valid, often through extreme sacrifice and extraordinary measures.
is when comics are translated to the screen. Let’s look
Conversely, in comic books or fantasy novels or
at an easy one: the Green Goblin in 2002’s Spider-Man.
action movies, the heroes are beyond extraordinary—
How egregious was this character? Could you do any-
they’re super. They don’t do things that other people
thing but laugh at Willem Dafoe’s performance? What
won’t, they can do things that other people can’t. As
was with that costume? It was preposterous. The scenes
opposed to those fictional worlds, our world is one in
when he’s talking to himself? Ridiculous. Everything
which we think we know what evil is—we’ve seen it on
about him—this supposed bad guy—is laughable. The
TV. So for a character—for a villain—to truly scare us,
director tried to make this villain “real,” and that’s where
he’s got to be scarier than Osama bin Laden. That’s a tall
the humor crept in.
order. The fact that I can’t think of a fictional villain that
Because as the Green Goblin, he’s so completely unreal. To be fair, the Green Goblin was an over-the-top character in the comic books. So is translation from
scares me more than a terrorist makes it comical to think I’m supposed to be frightened of a guy wearing green armor who looks like a futuristic jester and calls himself the Green Goblin.
the pulpy pages of Marvel to the silver screen enough
(It is, on the other hand, one of the reasons why the
to render a villain practically impotent in terms of be-
antihero—Batman as the Dark Knight, for example—is
ing seen as a threat to us? I think so. Without getting
so compelling in fiction right now: we know [or think
into a whole “the medium is the message” diatribe,
we know] who real heroes are. Just like Frank Miller’s
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depiction of Batman as a troubled vigilante, our heroes
standard trope that—even if the victory isn’t necessarily
have flaws—they’re just human like us—and yet they are
complete—we know (again, if only deep down) that the
willing to do things none of us is willing to do.)
threat of the villain is not real. And so all his posturing
I think this is what makes me laugh at the idea of
becomes silly in hindsight—as the credits roll, we know
the villain who is not trying to be funny. We tend to scoff
the threat has been removed . . . at least until the sequel.
at the absurd because we have all seen actual humans
«.»
commit actual, unspeakable acts. So when we are presented with a character we know is fictional—even if
But maybe this is only me . . .
we don’t find the villain consciously ridiculous—we are still going to balk at the idea that we’re supposed to be
I doubt it, though. Because the villain is a character,
scared of him. Part of what makes even the Joker from
and as such, there is always something human about him
The Dark Knight so palatable for us is that—as psychotic
(which in turn sets up the juxtaposition between the vil-
as he is—there’s always the feeling that he’s a bit too
lain and the hero, since the hero is superhuman). That’s
over-the-top. That he is, in the end, a sick, demented
where I think our minds have trouble getting past the
clown—yet still a clown. And while Bruce Wayne is a
absurdity of a guy in a costume actually posing a threat.
playful character, when he dons the Batman costume
Are we really supposed to not laugh at the Ol’ Timey
he’s deadly serious—a hero we can believe will prevent
Bad Guy as he twirls his mustache and ties the damsel to
this clown from succeeding.
the train tracks? More importantly, are we able to sepa-
Emperor Palpatine in the Return of the Jedi is anoth-
rate a modern villain from that archetype, it being such
er such character, perhaps even more so. He’s diabolical
an ingrained image?
and evil and very powerful—and yet he doesn’t frighten
Yet, even if villains are ridiculous to us, it’s not ridicu-
us. In fact, he’s kind of creepy, but in a harmless way.
lous that we still seek them out. Every society through-
When he’s talking to Luke Skywalker, trying to convince
out history has developed stories, legends, and myths
him to give in to the hate and join the dark side, I can’t
that help people cope with what they experience in
help thinking: Am I supposed to be scared by this dude?
their lives, and our current society is no different (hence
Yet we still respect the idea of him as a villain, even
“every society”). Those stories all require a symbol that
as we find it hard to respect him as a threat. I think part
we can project our fear onto. But while the villain is
of the reason is related to who the Emperor really is: Mr.
that symbol, he is also the focal point that we then use
Burns, the rich and tyrannical nuclear plant owner from
to try to convince ourselves that our fear is the object
The Simpsons, but with access to the dark side of the
of ridicule—that we can defeat the demons in our lives.
Force. He’s not meant to be a comical figure, but that’s
I’m not sure where this oft-quoted cliché comes from,
how he’s perceived. Ultimately, though, it’s more likely
but the idea of the hero standing majestically before an
we’re respecting the story itself (because Star Wars is
impossible situation and stating with bravado, “I laugh
awesome), and not that we’re actually frightened about
in the face of danger!” is very much what we expect
what the Emperor can do; the Emperor is necessary to
from those who confront the villain (and who we, then,
make what our heroes—Luke, Han, and Leia—do feel
secretly wish to be). When the story ends, and we’re
important.
walking away satisfied, what matters is that we enjoyed
This ties back to my idea of what we perceive a hero
the villainy—enjoyed the fact that there is a villain at
to be, both in fiction and the real world. One reason a
all—because it was that which our hero overcame and,
guy like Osama bin Laden frightens us so much is not
ultimately, conquered.
only that he carries out his threats but that our heroes
We want our villains to be funny and ridiculous so
haven’t figured out a way to stop him. We hope they will,
our heroes can be the opposite—so that their triumph
but, unfortunately, we can’t be sure. In fiction, though,
over evil doesn’t make us feel silly for rooting for a guy
we’re almost always certain that, in the end, the hero
in spandex. Because, unlike villainy, the hero game is
wins. He triumphs—that’s why he’s the hero. It’s such a
serious business. dP
119
An Interview with
jennifer mascia sean f. jones Jennifer Mascia is a child of murder. The victim of the murder in question was a mob informant known as Joe Fish. The assailant was John Mascia, Jennifer’s father. Mascia drove Fish to Brooklyn’s Owl’s Head Park and as soon as the pair stepped out of the car Mascia shot him five times. It was not Mascia’s first murder, nor his last. The murder led Mascia to Fishkill Correctional Facility, where he met a do-gooder from Manhattan Beach named Eleanor; she was interviewing prisoners for a planned book on prison reform. Eleanor’s interest in prison life soon became an interest in John. After his release, Eleanor traded in her life of service for one with the charming ex-con, often on the lamb—from the FBI, from creditors, and from a past with a piling body count. Jennifer was their only child. Jennifer learned nothing of her father’s crimes during her childhood. She thought that using fake names, shuffling through Social Security numbers, and bouncing from Gucci shopping sprees to scrounging a life out of food stamps was simply the shape of her own typically dysfunctional childhood. After all, her parents loved her madly, attended her school plays, and goofed around on weekday nights in front of the TV. But soon the lies piled too high, and after a few deathbed confessions Jennifer became obsessed with finding out the truth about her father’s villainy. Soon she gained insight into how her parents’ tumultuous backgrounds led them to lives of crime, and came to terms with the toll her own dysfunctional past had taken on her—it turned her into a journalist. Jennifer excavated her family secrets in her frank debut book, Never Tell Our Business to Strangers.
120
Have you learned any
is kind of preserved. And
thing new about your
this guy I’m finding stuff
parents since the book
out about is a new John
was published?
Mascia. And never the twain shall meet. But my mother loved
No, but people
him knowing what he did,
came forward who were related to me
along with everyone in the
and we had a kind of family
family. He was the black
reunion on Facebook. I saw
sheep and the favorite son.
photographs of my
What I’ve learned is that
great-grandmother in Italy.
people tend to overlook a
But in terms of any
lot because charisma goes
salacious things—people
a long way. I don’t entirely
coming forward saying,
agree with the forensic
“Your father killed my blah
psychologist [who diag-
blah blah . . . ”—nobody’s
nosed him as a sociopath]. My father, I think, did feel
done that. That’s the one thing people were kind of worried about: “Will people
remorse, love, and compassion. Because he had those
be coming after you?” But no.
qualities, he wasn’t a complete sociopath. There were aspects of him that were redeeming.
How did your extended family react to you writing the It seems your father was able to compartmentalize his
book?
life between loving his family and unleashing his rage Everyone was supportive. My father had
on his victims. It is similar to your ability to compart-
kids from his previous marriage who are
mentalize your feelings for him. Do you think that
older than me, and they have kids of their own who
talent is genetic?
are my age. They were supportive and agreed to be interviewed. The only people who were upset were my
I think I get my ability to compartmentalize
father’s family who didn’t get along with my mother.
from my mother. She blinded herself to a lot
My mother’s viewpoints about my father’s family are
about my dad, but she knew what he was capable of.
in the book and they took offense to that. But that
Like my mother, I’ve always been attracted to the bad
was the only thing.
boy—I have a taste for the darkness in people. She got that from her father who was a horrible alcoholic who
Now that you know about his past, do you think of
treated her like shit; she’d finally met a dark guy who
your father and mother as villains?
didn’t treat her like shit. I couldn’t love my father if I thought about the fact
My father was a good dad. Then, when he
that he killed people twenty-four hours a day. I love him
died, I found out [about his murders]. So
in spite of it. I remember the tender times.
that dad who I thought was my dad—a carpet cleaner—
photograph by Erwin Wilson
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Do you find it easier to forgive villainy because of your relationship with your father? Do I read about people who killed other people and have a soft spot for them? No. It’s funny, I used to question my mother about this very thing after he died. “Mom, Dad killed people,” I would say, and she would say, “But he was your father!” Like that excused everything. My dad was the exception. I don’t look at the BTK killer [Dennis Radar, a massmurdering strangler who was a pillar of his community] and say, “But he had a family, and everything with them was great! He had another side! He should be sympathized with!” I don’t think that way at all. It really is a personal exception. I’m sure Sammy the Bull’s son and Victoria Gotti feel the same way. So do you think, then, that he should have been arrested for the murders he got away with? That would have been really horrible for me growing up, without a dad. But, wow, in a way that’s what should of happened. They should have found out about the unsolved murders and arrested him. The journalist in me, the law-and-order part of me, says, “Yes, of course; that’s what he deserves.” But you just look at that style, and see him crack a joke or goof around with my mom and you think, “That’s a good guy. He should be with his family.” In a way he was really
toward either of your parents, even in descriptions of
lucky. He got another chance at family when he didn’t
scenes where you are crying. They are always some-
deserve it.
how muted. Was that intentional?
Was writing the book therapeutic? Is your past behind
My parents insulated me; I was spun by them
you now?
constantly. Going against them in questioning was like stepping outside of a marriage. It made me It was my therapy, but if someone else
feel like I was betraying them. So my instinct was to deal
comes forward it would at least rate a
with it internally, not tell anybody, and not doubt them.
magazine article. The investigation never stops—when
It was only after I moved out—and started reading
something has been withheld from you your whole life,
my father’s criminal record online—that I began to have
you want to know everything about it. That, subliminally,
feelings that weren’t sanctioned by my mother. And
is why I chose journalism school. I’m a heat-seeking
then I was constantly asking questions about murders:
missile for information when I want it.
“Mom, how could you be with someone like that? If someone hadn’t been killed, he wouldn’t have been in
I was struck while reading that at no point in the book
prison, you wouldn’t have met him, I wouldn’t have been
do you feel a moment of visceral, emotional anger
born.” She would always discourage me from feeling
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an interview with jennifer mascia
sean f. jones
that way. It was my mother’s spin that kept me really
He didn’t want to believe that I saw that side of him.
tightly wound concerning my parents.
So it would have been very difficult. I don’t know what he would have said. Probably, “Go ask your mother.”
Was there ever a moment after your parents passed when all that wound-up anger came out?
And what would your mother have said?
When I read the Daily News article that he
“Oh Jenny, why do you want to know this
shot the guy five times and stomped on his
stuff?”
body, a part of me said, “Wow. This is serious. This is
In the end, my only really trustworthy source would
murder. This is rage. If my mother was alive, there’s no
be the newspaper clippings and the court transcripts.
way she’d be able to defend this.” That’s when I started What’s worse in your mind: your parents being com-
to see my dad as a killer.
plicit in these crimes, or deceiving you?
Also, when my mother, in the emergency room, told me that my dad killed “four or five” other people, I was outraged. I couldn’t believe it because her staying with
Well, what were you supposed to tell a kid?
him had endorsed his behavior. That was a moment of
There’s no way they could have just sat me
outrage. I walked out on her in the ER. I came back, but
down at five and told me all about this. But my mother
I was really angry.
staying with him and covering this up and not telling anyone—it sickens me inside. That, to me, is the most
I like her sense of dramatic timing.
abhorrent thing. The fact that she knew. She covered it up. And she betrayed who she was. She was this
Typical Eleanor.
do-gooder from Manhattan Beach who taught kids in an East New York high school. She went back on who she was to be with this man. That, to me, is the most
What if you could sit down and interview your dad?
villainous thing: to compromise yourself for someone
What would you ask?
who does bad things.
I’ve thought about that a million times. I
Do you think your background, unique as it is, gives
actually have a chapter that I cut that was a
you an advantage as a reporter?
list of the questions I would ask him. The first one was: How many people did you really kill? Then: How many
In a way. My parents’ lifestyle bankrupted us
affairs did you have? What were you thinking when you
regularly. We were on food stamps for a
slept with my mother’s sister? Where are the bodies
while. And I just reported on the neediest cases for the
buried if there are any more? Tell me about all the
Metro section [in the New York Times] last weekend, and
circumstances of the people you killed.
a lot of those people were on food stamps. If I hadn’t had that experience of not being able to afford anything,
Do you think he would ever be honest with you if he
even it was only for a year, I understand a little better
were still alive and you discovered all this?
what they’re experiencing, especially how fast it is. Financial insolvency is like quicksand. Also, a lot of the
He would feel really cornered, really sheep-
people I’ve interviewed have been in prison, and they
ish, and really reluctant, because in my eyes
were there because they have a past that they are trying
he was still innocent, for a long time. And he got used to
to overcome. So in that respect I’m more empathetic.
that. He used to tell my mother, “I like to think she forgot about the time I was arrested.” And of course it was one
So building on that, and your discussion with the psy-
of my first memories.
chologist included in the book: you do see how one’s
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past can influence his or her present villainy. But is a
My original book draft had a lot of additional
difficult past enough to forgive evil? Or is there some-
personal elements, like the darker sides of
thing else to evil aside from a rough upbringing?
my personal relationships—but I cut them. It was mostly for space, but also, some things should be sacred. Someone like Emily Gould—I respect what she’s
There is a missing link. My dad was not
been through and I respect the fact that she threw spit-
abused by his parents. I don’t know what happened there. The only thing I can think of is a story
balls when she worked at Gawker, but she knew how to
my mom told me about how he was bullied at school,
take the heat when it came to her own life. She turned it
and then one day he came to class with a baseball bat,
around and said, “I’m just going to be as honest about
and that was the end of it. That’s the missing link.
my own life as I was when I was criticizing others.” But there is a line to be drawn, and I’m glad I kept most of
What happened that turned him into a person who answered things with violence? I think maybe he resent-
the relationship stuff out. When you share too much
ed how his father acquiesced to his mother, who was
you end up like Kim Kardashian. You run the risk of not
very strong-willed and stubborn. I think he looked down
being able to live unless it is in public.
on his father for that, and I think that he overcompensated. But there has to be some other level. There has
Did you enjoy the exercise of writing the book? Will
to be. Genetic predisposition? It’s probably a perfect
you do long-form journalism again?
storm of elements that I can’t really appreciate because Yes, I want to write long-form magazine
he’s not here.
articles. That’s what I want to do. Immersing You have a difficult background that could be used
yourself in a topic, spending time with it, spending time
to explain things from your own life. I recall the
with the characters. I love it.
therapist scene in which you finally describe all the circumstances of your childhood and your therapist
Will you be drawn to these sorts of characters: people
immediately says, “I think you should see me every
who are hiding something, living double lives?
week.” I’m definitely attracted to people with a Yes. Well, I finally broke some bad patterns. I’m finally [in a relationship] with someone
dichotomy, people who aren’t so neatly pinned down. I’m always drawn to the darkness. Like the
now who is in therapy himself. He had anger issues but
neediest cases [reporting that I did]. My friends were
broke through them in a healthy way. But that’s one of
like, “You’re going to get so depressed,” but I found it
the reasons I wrote the book. I was in an unhappy
uplifting. I like that people aren’t summed up so neatly.
relationship with an alcoholic; it was one in a series of
In media, people like the real cut-and-dry story, but it’s
many dark, dishonest people I was seeing. I’m attracted
never like that.
to people who are hiding something. Part of writing the book was breaking the pattern. I knew I was copying my
It is a form of journalism that is under threat.
parents’ relationship over and over again. I think I broke the pattern, but time will tell.
I know. That’s why I’m so grateful to have a
In a way, the book was me showing myself and the
day job. The most respected writers I know
world, “I can’t do this anymore. And someone, please,
are out of work right now. And they are struggling and
read this and try to stop me the next time. “
it is unbelievable how talented they are. It is very hard to see.
Did you draw a line between your frank, confessional style of writing and so-called Emily Gould–style oversharing?
124
Illuminati Jim Gavin
Uncle Ray called me from the ninth hole at
I popped the screen out of my bathroom window and
Canyon Crest.
jumped down onto a Dumpster. Minty was down in the alley, taking a shortcut back
“Listen, Sean,” he said. “I want to do you a favor. Me and Fig, we’ve been talking. We’ve got a story for you.”
from the beach. With his board under his arm, he walked barefoot on the jagged asphalt, expertly sidestepping
It was ten o’clock on Friday morning. I got out of
broken glass.
bed and looked out the window. The sky was still gray. I usually tried to sleep late enough for the morning fog to
“It’s a toilet out there today,” he said, looking up at
burn off along the coast. Sometimes this meant sleeping
me. His wetsuit was peeled halfway down. I could see a
past noon, but I was willing to do it. I hadn’t talked to
rash spreading across his chest.
Ray in over a year.
“I’m having steak for lunch.” “Nice!” he said, raising his fist in solidarity. He kept
“Your mom says the studio is giving you the runa-
walking, and for a while I stood there on the Dumpster,
round,” he said. “You two are talking?”
watching him until he disappeared around the corner.
“I called her yesterday to wish her happy birthday.”
There were two empty cans of Tecate in my pas-
“Her birthday was six months ago.”
senger seat. I slid open the sunroof of my Integra and
“Come meet me and Fig for lunch.”
tossed them in the general direction of the Dumpster.
“Out there?”
Then I started my car. Then I kind of spaced out and
“We’re getting steaks at the Mission.”
forgot that I had started it, and started it again. That’s
“You’re buying lunch?”
the worst sound in the world. A dead, bottomless shriek,
“Sean,” he said. “Get cleaned up. We’re going tell you
like a knife in a blender. For the first time in months I
this story. You can put it in a movie.”
felt awake.
“You’re buying lunch?”
«.»
“Yeah, me and Fig.” Eventually I found some long pants and got ready for the drive out to Riverside. When I stepped onto
I was still driving around on a spare tire. The
the second floor landing, I spotted Mr. Nishihara, the
Triple A guy who had assisted me said that as long
landlord, down below in the courtyard, trying to fix the
as I drove under thirty-five miles per hour, the spare
pump on the fountain. The stone cherubs were parched.
wouldn’t give out. Not for a while, anyway. A month had
I waited for him to take a break, but he just kept at it, so
passed and so far it had held up. There was no traffic
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and the freeway felt quiet and peaceful, like an empty
but to ask Ray for help. It was an ugly pattern and I hated
church. Instead of saying a prayer, I rolled down the
being in the middle of it. Ray once took me aside and
windows and listened to the wind. A few people honked
said, “It’s not your mom’s fault. Some people understand
at me to drive faster. When they passed, some of them
money, and some people don’t.”
noticed my spare, and they waved at me, trying to
I suppose everybody has an uncle who’s a total dick.
apologize. I waved back, as if to say, “No problem!”
When I was a kid, Ray liked to roll up twenty dollar bills
Somewhere east of Yorba Linda the tire disintegrat-
into tight little balls and bounce them off my head. He
ed. Triple A got there fast, like they always do, and the
always let me keep the money. At the time I thought it
guy replaced my spare with a spare spare that he had
was hilarious, and I still do. Personally, I never had any
on his truck. It didn’t cost me anything. He told me the
problem with Ray. It was easy for my mom to portray
same thing, about not driving over thirty-five, and then I
him as the bad guy, but as I got older I got tired of her
watched him merge into the bright and hazy afternoon.
putting on the poor mouth. Ray did care about her
When I got to Riverside, I parked on a side street and
and he tried to help in the only way that made sense
walked toward the Mission Inn, one of the most beauti-
to him. I respected him for making his own way in the
ful buildings in Southern California. A bizarre collection
world. He came from nothing. I knew he had come from
of domes and minarets, it was once the jewel of the old
nothing, because at every opportunity, Ray would say,
citrus empire, a perennial retreat for politicians, oil ty-
“I came from nothing.” Plus, he could tell a story and
coons, and matinee idols. It was now a dusty clubhouse
make people laugh. Not many people in the world can
for the mercantile elite, men like Uncle Ray, who had
do that. Even when he and my mom were fighting, he
made a killing in the commercial irrigation business. He
could make her laugh, especially when they got drunk.
and Fig ate there a few times a week.
Once he made her laugh so hard she fell backward over
A black iron gate led to the atrium, where birds
the couch, Jack Tripper style, a scene he would often
chirped and fountains bubbled. Passing through another
reenact whenever there was a couch available, and she
gate, into the hotel proper, I found myself in the same
would start laughing all over again. When I finished
dim and mazy corridors I once ran through as a kid. Ray
college he called once a year to offer me a job in the
and his wife Holly had moved to Riverside in the late
irrigation business. For a while, after I sold the script, he
seventies. According to Ray, that’s where the action was,
called more often, asking when it was going into pro-
“irrigation-wise.” I loved going out there as a kid, climb-
duction. He got a genuine kick out of having a nephew
ing the giant rocks that littered his sprawling property,
in show business. To better track my movements around
and then going for dinner at the Mission.
town, he got a subscription to Variety.
When I was in high school, we stopped coming to
And now I could still smell his cologne, permanently
Riverside. Later I found out that Ray had loaned my mom
embedded here, like the mosaic tiles, and I followed the
some money, a lot of money—a great deal of money,
scent all the way to the bar.
actually—and he never let her forget this imperishable act of Christian charity. It wasn’t the first time she had gone
“Hey muscles,” he said, emerging from a crowd of middle-aged men wearing pastel golf shirts.
to him for help. Over the years my mom had come to the
In my mind, Uncle Ray would always tower over me,
bitter conclusion that the only reason Ray loaned her
the pink, splotchy Irish face looking down, giving me the
money was that he knew she would never pay him back.
business. But in reality I had him by six inches. I could
Instead of breaking her thumbs, like a loan shark, Ray did
see every capillary in his nose. He put a shot of Jameson
something far worse: he made her feel guilty and small for
in front of me and said, “Health.”
being such a financial wreck. Now and then, tired of pay-
“The jacaranda is blooming,” I said.
ing tribute to his generosity, she would tell him to go to
“You will shit yourself when you hear this story.”
hell and they wouldn’t talk for a couple years. But then my
“I hope so. It was a long drive.”
mom would screw something up, drinking her way out of
“How are you?”
a job and falling back into debt, and she’d have no choice
“Hungry,” I said.
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painting by ryan ketchum
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issue 7
“Your mom said she’s done with her nursing thing.”
“Wait till you hear this story,” Jerry said. “It literally
“Just her LVN,” I said.
gave me the chills.”
“Does that mean salary?”
“When can I see your movie?” Gus asked.
“Not yet.”
“Never,” I said. “It’s not getting made.”
“Christ,” he said, shaking his head.
Jerry, sucking meat from a chicken wing, said, “How
“She’s working at St. Joseph’s,” I said.
come they won’t make it.”
“That’s a relief,” he said. “It took her long enough.”
I shrugged, affecting a look of martyrdom.
“She’s working weird hours but she likes it.”
“But if it’s good, I don’t get why they won’t make it.
“How’s her new apartment?”
It’s good, right?”
“It’s great,” I said. “There’s a pool.”
“It’s genius,” I said.
“Her old place was a dump,” he said. “I was always
“It’s all who you know,” said Gus.
worried she’d get mugged.”
“Get in good with the schnozolas,” Jerry advised.
As we discussed these things, Ray casually practiced
“Otherwise you’re fucked.”
his back swing with an imaginary driver. It was his sig-
“Once you write this thing,” said Ray, “we can start
nature move. When I had finished talking, he looked out
talking to people.”
on the imaginary fairway where he had hit his imaginary
“We?”
ball and said, “Shot three under today.”
“It’s our idea. Me and Fig.”
“I trust Aunt Holly is well.”
“Quid pro quo,” I said. “I’m going to etch that on your
“What?” He squinted at me for a moment, confused.
fucking tombstone.”
Then he realized I was referring to his wife of thirty
As the hostess summoned us to the dining hall, Ray
years. “Yeah. She’s great. Drink this.”
laughed and said, “There’s no Easter Bunny, baby.”
Two more shots appeared.
«.»
“Look at Fig!” Ray suddenly announced, drumming the bar. He pointed across the room. “He’s posing for
Two years ago, when I was twenty-six, all my
holy cards!” Fig, to the seeming delight of several young waitress-
vague ideas and tenuous connections came together. I
es, was balancing an empty pint glass on his forehead.
sold a screenplay to a production company that had a
He was a short, wiry man with a sunburned face. For the
first look deal with a major studio. At the time I worked
last half century, his hair had been slicked into a pompa-
for a company that did closed captioning for televi-
dour. The waitresses smiled relentlessly. My mom used
sion. I could type ninety words per minute, and I made
to work at a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, near
$24,000 a year, before taxes. The work was easy and I
the convention center, and after a long night collecting
had time to pursue my career. A friend gave one of my
tips from boozy conventioneers, she would come home
scripts to his manager, who liked it, or thought he could
with that same miserable smile.
sell it, at least, and one thing led to another. After the
“When do we eat?” I asked.
script sold, I was acutely aware that something absurd
“I want to introduce you to some people,” said Ray.
had just happened to me and I felt obliged to mock
He put his arm around my shoulder and guided me to-
myself and the shadowy figures who had lowered the
ward the magic circle of men. One by one, I shook hands
drawbridge on my behalf, letting me into the castle. The
with the Illuminati.
day I signed the papers I told the head of development
Gus Lavelle, a general contractor who built houses in the high desert, said, “I’ve heard all about you.”
an anecdote about Flaubert. I told him that as Flaubert was nearing the end of Madame Bovary, he wrote in a
“They call Gus ‘The Inland Emperor,’” Ray said.
letter to a friend that he could actually hear the rhythm
“Fuck off!” said Gus, in good cheer.
of the final chapters, the fall of every phrase, though he
Then I met Jerry Tolliver, who owned a shipping
didn’t yet have the words. I explained that I had experi-
company.
enced something similar as I approached the third act
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illuminati jim gavin
of my multiethnic buddy cop adventure comedy, Hyde
would be starting over at a temp agency, trying to raise
& Sikh.
my scores on the Excel test. I tried very hard to remind
I planned this in advance, thinking it would be funny,
myself that I was a fool, that the definition of a fool is
and convey some sense of proportion to the proceed-
anyone who thinks they are not a fool, but my weekends
ings. But then the head of development, bright, sincere,
grew brighter and more expansive and I felt increasingly
handsome, looked at me with sudden admiration and
worthy of the exalted visions I had of my future, which,
asked which translation I preferred.
for reasons I still don’t understand, always involved sit-
“Of Madame Bovary?” I said, slowly, trying to buy
ting next to one of those “zero horizon” pools that seem
some time.
to blend into the ocean. At parties I took great pleasure
I said I wasn’t sure, which was nonsense, because
in not telling people about my good fortune. Instead, I
I had only read one version. I never paid attention to
would just stand there, listening generously to the hopes
things like that. I had ripped the anecdote from the
and dreams of people who were still knocking on the
intro to the Penguin edition. I loved the book—that poor
castle door. I pretended to be like them, while secretly
village boy getting his Achilles tendon sliced!—but it
basking in the light of my own humility. I was easily the
wasn’t like I was doing any scholarly research. I looked
most humble man in Los Angeles.
at the young man sitting behind his glass desk. Who was
«.»
this gorgeously literate sociopath? “It’s a tricky business, translation,” he said, dreamily, and walked me to the door. I thanked him for the oppor-
We sat below a bank of arched windows. The
tunity he had given me.
dark velvet curtains were drawn and the cast iron
“We want this to be our Rush Hour,” he said, and it was like a benediction from on high. After taxes, and after my manager and lawyer got
chandelier above us gave off a dim, amber glow. In this prosperous gloom, Ray listened with impatience to the wine steward.
their piece, I took home $67,000, a figure that somehow was both less than I imagined and more than I ever
“Just bring us a bottle of Dago Red,” he said, slapping shut the leather-bound menu.
dreamed possible. I took my mom out to El Torito and
Fig buttered every piece of bread in the basket.
told her the good news. I told her I had money, lots of
His mouth was stuffed. He had a scar on his chin and a
money, a great deal of money, and she cried. This was
big gold ring on his right pinky. Fig served with Ray in
the happiest moment of my life. I paid off my student
Korea. Once their superiors found out they were both
loans, my credit cards, and a good chunk of my mom’s
scratch golfers—Ray had actually led El Camino Com-
credit cards. I still had about thirty grand, free and
munity College to a California state title—they spent
clear, and according to my calculations, this would last
most of their tours getting flown to Japan to play golf
forever. I moved to the Westside, to Venice, and quit
with generals. I had known Fig all my life. He’d show up
my job. Over the course of the next six months, I took
with Ray at my birthdays and Little League games, but
meetings with a few production companies—“What
after so many years I still wasn’t sure of his full name and
worlds do you want to explore?”—and I spent the re-
I had no idea what role he played in this world beyond
mainder of my afternoons kicking around the beach like
that of Ray’s eternal golf buddy.
a bona fide asshole. Then nothing happened. The production company
“Look at this beauty eat,” said Ray, amused. “His thyroid is out of control.”
lost their deal, the actor who was attached to play Hyde lost interest, and so forth. Nothing always happens. The
Fig gave him the finger and kept chewing. The waiter poured our wine.
literature of Hollywood is depressingly consistent on this point. During my brief period of decadence, I tried
“So listen to this. Last week me and Fig went to Santa Anita.”
to remind myself that the fun probably wouldn’t last, that all good fortune is prelude to disaster, and soon I
Another waiter brought our appetizers. I sipped my wine and settled in.
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“There’s a nice restaurant up on the terrace. I know everybody there. It’s nice, we get a table by the window, watch the races, hit the buffet.” “Nice,” I said. “Fig likes a trifecta. So we talk to some of our guys and start going through the book. There’s no doubt on the first horse, everyone’s agreed on that. Pretty much the same for the second, but maybe a little iffier. Fig calls up his guy and gets a little more out of him, so we feel okay. But the third horse, we have no fucking clue. A day at the races, tons of fun. Fig’s hungry, if you can believe it, so he goes up to the buffet and I’m sitting there going through the book. I’m sitting there and Fig comes back with a roast beef sandwich. He’s upset. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask him. ‘Look at this,’ he says. ‘Look what they did to the fucking thing.’ He opens up his sandwich. It’s just swimming in mayonnaise.” Fig, piling steak tartare on his buttered bread, shook his head in disgust at the memory. Ray continued. “This is a problem, the mayonnaise. There’s no reason to just slap it on like that. ‘What I would like,’ Fig says, ‘is just a cup of mayo on the side. So I can put it on myself.’ Which is totally rational. Who wants that much mayonnaise? Why should some guy
Fig, to the seeming delight of several young waitresses, was balancing an empty pint glass on his forehead. He was a short, wiry man with a sunburned face. For the last half century, his hair had been slicked into a pompadour. The waitresses smiled relentlessly. My mom used to work at a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, near the convention center, and after a long night collecting tips from boozy conventioneers, she would come home with that same miserable smile.
making a sandwich get to decide how much mayonnaise you get? It’s tyrannical if you think about it.” Ray paused to let me think about it.
took home twenty grand! Well, give or take. Can you
“I tell Fig, ‘You should’ve just asked for a side of
believe that?” There was silence. Ray, as always, had taken over the
mayo.’ ‘I know,’ he says, ‘but the guy was already making it.’ I grabbed the maître d’ and I told him the situation.
room. At other tables men were grinning and hang-
‘Listen. Bring us another sandwich, but have your guy
ing on his every drunken word. Alcohol, for Ray, was
put the mayo on the side. I mean for the love of all that’s
a kind of charm, allowing him to barge through doors
holy and merciful, bring us a side of fucking mayo!’”
and announce his place in the world. The man’s great-
Fig looked at Ray. Their faces were turning bright red. “So here it comes. Roast beef, open-faced, and a big cup of mayo. Victory is ours.”
est professional skill was bonhomie, and over the years he had diligently boozed and golfed his way to the top. This path to glory belonged exclusively to men. My mom could drink any man under the table, but her
“Well done,” I said.
talent was considered grim and unsightly; instead of
“But here’s the thing,” Ray said.
opening doors, alcohol isolated her, and no matter how
“I figured there was a thing.”
hard she tried she was never able to drink her way into
“I go back to the book. I go back to pick the third
the magic circle.
horse for the trifecta. I look down the page. And there
“It’s a good story,” I said, finally. “But . . . ”
he is, right there at the bottom: Side of Mayo!”
“What do you mean, ‘but’?” “I wouldn’t really know what to do with it. At this
Ray poured his wine to the top of the glass. He took a sip and then pounded his fist on the table. “We both
point it’s just an anecdote.”
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illuminati jim gavin
Ray squinted at me. “What the hell are you talking
their hands on their hips. In another age such confident
about?”
figures would’ve been immortalized in stone.
“I mean, character-wise there’s definitely something.”
As the valet brought around Ray’s convertible Jag,
Ray and Fig both looked confused.
Fig pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a long pull.
“That wasn’t the story,” said Ray.
Then he put his hand on my shoulder.
“It wasn’t?”
“You’ve always been like a son to me,” he said.
“Fuck no!” Now they were laughing. “Who’d want to
I laughed in his face. “Son? What the fuck are you
see a movie about me and Fig?”
talking about?”
“Okay,” I said, “what’s your story?”
Fig dropped his eyes in embarrassment. “I don’t
Ray nodded gravely at Fig, who finished chewing and
know, Sean. I’m just really proud of you.”
carefully wiped his mouth with the linen napkin.
He climbed into the backseat of the Jag and lay
“There’s this alien,” he said, and looked nervously
down, with his feet up on the side. Ray yawned, plunked
at Ray.
a twenty off the valet’s chest, and got in the car.
“Go on, tell him.”
“We’ll talk!” he shouted over the revving engine.
“There’s this alien. And what he does is come here, to
«.»
Earth, to hunt humans.” Fig, sweaty and exhausted, sat back in his chair.
I had a parking ticket when I got back to my car.
“The way humans hunt deer,” Ray explained. “You
It was almost four o’clock. I got lost going to the freeway
know, for sport.”
and ended up following the train tracks west for a few
In front of me there was a plate full of shrimp wrapped in bacon. I ate several of these and then said,
miles. I came to a beat-down section of Riverside where
“That’s Predator.”
every block had the same rhythm. Auto body shop, tat-
“What?”
too parlor, bail bonds, checks cashing. The sidewalks
“Predator, with Schwarzenegger. You’re describing
were empty but for one guy, a twitchy, shirtless maniac wearing camouflage pants. He had a garden hose coiled
Predator.” Fig was devastated. He dropped his head and began
over his shoulder and he kept turning around, quickly,
to massage the loose cartilage in his nose. I gathered
again and again, like he expected to catch someone fol-
that one of them had recently watched Predator on
lowing him.
cable in a drunken haze, totally forgetting about it until
On the way back to Los Angeles, I got stuck in traffic
this morning, when the dim memory surfaced as an idea
on the 91, which gave me time to sober up. I inched my
of his own. Ray wasn’t giving up.
way to Anaheim and pulled off the freeway.
“It doesn’t have to be an alien,” he said, gamely. “It
The front door of her new apartment was surrounded
could just be some crazy guy already here on Earth who
by empty clay pots. She brought the pots with her every
hunts humans for sport.”
time she moved, saying she was going to fill them with
“That’s The Most Dangerous Game,” I said.
dahlias and marigolds, but she never did. I knocked but
“Well, Christ, it’s all the same cha-cha,” said Ray. “We
she wasn’t home. Then I called, but her cell phone went
can come up with something else.” My steak was unbearably delicious. We stayed in the
right to voice mail. She was a nurse now, finally, and probably had an evening shift. The stucco around her
dining hall for a couple hours, getting drunk, throw-
front door was cracked and peeling. I looked over the
ing out story ideas, and discussing the possibilities of
rusty landing rail. Down below the pool was half-empty
studio financing. Ray, who had been installing sprinkler
and a dull shade of green. It seemed that no matter what
systems for the last thirty years, seemed to know way
she did, she would always end up back here, back in
more about the process than I did. On our way out we
these shabby places. I sat down, knowing it would be a
filed into the men’s room. My uncle and his buddy Fig
long time before she got home. O mother, save me from the wisdom of men. JG
belonged to that vanishing breed of men who piss with
131
Thruway Kevin Leahy
Southwest of Rochester, Frank pulled into a
through the diesel fumes. It should have been enough to
Sunoco off the New York State Thruway. He could not
puncture his dark mood, but all it did was remind him he
remember why he’d agreed to take Claire’s bedroom
should have been home raking leaves or weeding. If he
set to Cleveland, but lately he’d been talked into a lot of
let himself enjoy any part of this trip, he risked losing the
things he didn’t want. Like last month, when he’d leased
righteous anger that sustained him. After two months with no contact from Claire, last
this pickup. He’d told the salesman he was looking for a sedan, but the young man at the Ford dealership was
Thursday Frank received a call on his landline from a
earnest and sympathetic (having recently been sepa-
Richard in Cleveland claiming to be her friend. He’d been
rated himself, he said), and after the salesman spent an
trimming plastic nubs from the gunwales of his new USS
hour guiding Frank through the lot to the showroom
Indiana model in his basement, and was so engrossed
to the management offices, leaving his side only to get
that he barely noticed the intrusion until his answering
him a break on price, Frank felt he had no choice but to
machine beeped.
take the truck. For days afterward he drove around with
“Put her on the phone,” Frank said.
a little ball of lead riding in his chest, but it was only a thirty-six-month lease, so what was the big deal.
“She’s at work,” said the flat voice on the other end of the line. “She wanted me to talk for her.” At that, Frank held the receiver away from his face
He pulled up to the pump, behind a huge silver truck mounted on oversize tires. He put the gas nozzle into
and took a deep breath. The X-Acto knife in his other
the tank, locked the trigger on, and saw the tarpaulin
hand had a suggestive heft to it.
had come undone at both rear corners of his truck bed.
“Tell her to call me herself.”
At least nothing had fallen out: four fluted bedposts,
“Look, all she wants is her grandmother’s bedroom
the cherry brown chest and attendant brassware, all
set.”
accounted for. Frank took the tarp in both hands and
“So tell her to come get it.”
straightened it with a snap, felt soothed by the slow way
There was a sigh and a long silence on the other end.
it draped across the frame, the headboard, the burled
Despite himself, Frank felt a twinge of sympathy for
panels stacked atop one another. He tied down the
Richard.
corners and lobbed a bag of bolts and washers into the
“We’ll give you two hundred dollars to bring it here.”
center, flattening its air pillow with a satisfying thunk. A
“Four hundred,” said Frank, surprised at his own
quarter mile back was a Christmas tree farm, and even
boldness. He immediately thought he should’ve said five
at a distance the crisp smell of pine and Douglas fir cut
hundred, since gas would cost at least seventy-five, but
photograph by Terry Knouff
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he’d been out of work for two weeks—long enough to
the floor, punching the horn, plowing past car after car in
chip the edge of confidence he once had. He could have
the passing lane. The bedroom set now seemed an intol-
sworn he heard whispering on the line, but it might’ve
erable burden, but it gave a shape and weight to his an-
been the radio or the TV wherever Richard was. “Three
ger. Its stupid bulk contained everything wrong with his
twenty-five,” Richard said. “We’ll send a check.”
life—the tollbooth, his wife, this truck, the trouble at work.
Until the check arrived, with Richard’s name typed in
With a flash of clarity he knew he had to pull off the road
the corner, Frank wondered for the briefest of moments
before he lost it. Just ahead lay a sprawling travel plaza
whether he might be able to leverage the trip into a
with a Sunoco and a food court, and with great effort he
reconciliation, or at least a pity lay. He scrutinized the
eased off the accelerator and signaled to the exit.
flourishes in Richard’s signature, tried to conjure an image of Claire’s new man, but couldn’t summon one. He
Inside the gas station he gathered a two-liter
and Claire had drifted so far apart in the last five years
of soda and a small bag of peanuts, and took a bear
of their marriage that he had no idea what his wife’s
claw from a Plexiglas cabinet. He wanted a coffee, but
type might be. He wanted to feel furious, wanted to feel
thought better of it when he saw the pot’s spout rimmed
a melodramatic urge to tear up the check or burn the
with sludge. To the side of the checkout line a burly man
furniture in the backyard fire pit, but the truth was that
wearing a bandana and steel-toed boots leaned his ham
he drove to the bank in his hated new truck and cashed
of an arm on the countertop, speaking at a volume that
it right away. The truth was that he’d been grateful.
the cashier could hear through his inch of bulletproof glass. The old man ahead of Frank in line padded up to
Still, today hadn’t begun horribly. He’d managed to shower and drag a razor across his face, and there was
the counter, took a slip of paper from his pocket, and
a grim satisfaction in hauling the last vestige of Claire
began to recite numbers in a dry croak, adding that he
out of the house. Utica to Cleveland was six hours, tops,
wanted four Scratch-N-Win tickets, too. Frank shifted
and that morning he’d made it to Rochester in two. In the
the soda bottle in his arms and allowed his mind to drift.
passenger seat was an envelope on which he’d written
His real problem, he thought, was the union. Eighteen
the New York and Pennsylvania radio stations from Syra-
years seniority, and what good was it? Everyone knew
cuse to Erie that carried the Bills. When WNSS started to
the harassment charge was bull. He knew it, his boss
pop and buzz west of Newark, Frank consulted the en-
Michael knew it, and Barbara sure as hell knew it. They’d
velope, tuned to WCMF, and felt his jaw unclench as the
been friends for years, and everyone there talked rough
baritones of John Murphy and Mark Kelso came through.
in mixed company. So when she asked him when’s the
At the most recent toll, he’d passed his ticket to the
last time he’d gone out with someone, all he’d said was
lady in the booth, who grimaced and folded her cell
that he hadn’t dated in a year. Next thing he knew he
phone as Frank coasted to a halt. She waited with a tight
was in Michael’s office being told that Barbara grieved
hyphen of a mouth as he paged through the roll of cash
to HR about Frank propositioning her, telling her he
from Richard and Claire’s check. “Seventeen dollars,”
hadn’t been laid in a year.
Frank said to himself, as he handed her the money. “I know that’s seventeen dollars,” snapped the at-
It seemed pretty straightforward to Frank; it’s deafening on the shop floor, and words get chewed up
tendant, all but ripping it from his hand. Frank stared at
in the noise. It was a misunderstanding, and ordinar-
her, taking in her dirty blonde hair and bullfrog dou-
ily it wouldn’t have gone further than a reprimand for
ble chin. She glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. She
a first offense. But Barbara insisted she’d been intimi-
moved slowly, holding Frank’s gaze as she planted four
dated, said she’d been harassed. His union rep said the
coins in his palm, her fingernails sharp even through her
union’s hands were tied. Barbara wouldn’t take his
latex glove. He drew his smarting hand back through the
calls, wouldn’t respond to emails. So Frank had been
window and drove off, wondering what the hell had just
suspended without pay pending the outcome, with a
happened.
mortgage and car payment due, and who knows how he
Before long he found himself mashing the pedal to
was going to afford a lawyer.
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kevin leahy
The weightlifter with the bandana and work
a teenager. Frank’s grandfather, a former tool-and-die
boots told the clerk that his little sister was back from
man as thick and heavy as a bull, had suffered a stroke
Afghanistan, and did the clerk know of any job open-
that left him mute and paralyzed. When they arrived at
ings? The old man pulled a fistful of change from the
his grandfather’s room, they found a tiny-boned nurse
pocket of his cardigan and smeared it around on the
hugging him from behind, struggling to lift him out of
counter, and began feeding it dime by dime into the dish
bed. At fourteen, Frank had spent the car trip sulk-
beneath the cashier’s bulletproof window.
ing quietly over losing a full Saturday with his friends,
A divorce lawyer—the process server had caught
indignant at the injustice of his conscription. What he
him coming out of the grocery store three days ago. He
remembered feeling, though, as the nurse directed
had to hand it to Claire, she timed it masterfully. Waited
Frank and his father in shifting the old man from bed
until he’d cashed the check before hitting him with that.
to wheelchair, was a sublime tenderness. It clung to
Which meant the server had been spying on Frank, tail-
both of them like an enchantment the whole silent drive
ing him for God knows how long, learning his habits, his
home, until they stopped at a steakhouse in the middle
routine. Which consisted mainly of long walks with his
of nowhere. They ate ravenously, to prove there was no
spaniel, reading sci-fi novels in his now-frameless bed,
frailty in either of them.
and painting naval miniatures in the basement until the
He started the truck and let it idle. On the radio, the
glue and paint fumes made the room pulse and throb
Bills had intercepted the ball. He tore open the peanuts
like the headache that was building behind his eyes
and poured half the sleeve into his mouth, then the rest,
right then—
and washed them down with a swig from the two-liter.
The slightest itch on his wrist made him look down to
The idea of eating the bear claw made his fillings ache.
see that his sleeve was stuck to his forearm. The pas-
He left the pastry on the seat and put the truck into
try, which he held pinched between the halves of a wax
drive. There was a sharp noise from the back—his rear
paper sheet, had dripped icing onto the heel of his hand.
view was blocked by the tarp—and for one awful second
How long had he stood there? The clock was covered by
he thought he’d scraped the silver truck. With relief he
a poster showing the date before which a customer had
saw he’d cleared it by a foot. From the way his truck
to be born to buy cigarettes. It was all infuriating. A thou-
handled, it just seemed like the furniture had shifted,
sand tiny indignities had somehow conspired to ruin him.
and as he merged onto the thruway the weighty clank-
The old man clawed more change from his pocket
ing of brass against wood assured him that nothing had
but lost his grip, raining coins over his orthopedic shoes.
fallen out.
Frank let out a short laugh. A school of quarters rolled
In the middle lane he set the cruise control at sixty.
between his legs and chattered against the Hostess
Traffic was light, and the sky was the color of brushed
Cakes display as the old man slowly crumpled to his
steel. Once, when Frank was still in his apprenticeship,
knees. As the man with a bandana and steel-toed boots
his parents and teenage sister had come over for a pasta
knelt to help the old man gather his change, he fixed
dinner. He was twenty, and it was his first apartment.
Frank with a look not unlike the one from the tollbooth
While walking through the cramped hallway that led
cashier. Some faint internal alarm of Frank’s began to
to the kitchenette, his sister Adeline bumped Frank’s
sound at that. He stepped around them, put a ten-dollar
1:1,250-scale model of the SS Jeremiah O’Brien from
bill on the counter and shook his head, keep the god-
its lofty perch on his bookshelf. The aft deck gun had
damn difference, as he started for the door.
snapped off clean against the floor, but the conning tower broke into dozens of styrene splinters that Frank
Inside his truck, he leaned back against the
kept finding in the thin Berber carpet for weeks after-
headrest with his keys in his hand and listened as the
ward. Adeline was mortified, but Frank had to laugh. She
sound of the interstate lapped at him in waves. He had
couldn’t have known the hastily built Liberty-class cargo
a clear and sudden recollection of driving through
ships, of which the O’Brien was one, were the most
upstate New York with his father to a nursing home as
fracture-prone ships of World War II. Besides, by then
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he’d been building models for over a decade, and he
of those lonely pensioners who lets himself get swindled
was adept enough at kit-bashing to repair the damage.
just to have the company.
It wouldn’t be easy, or fast, but that was part of what he
And now that he was thinking about all of this, what
liked about it.
was it exactly he’d said to Barbara last month? He had
That resilience—at some point it had abandoned
a creeping sense of dread that he’d willfully misremem-
him. The Bills scored a touchdown, and Frank wondered
bered something. She was no shrinking violet, and it
bitterly why he hadn’t paid closer attention to the game
wasn’t unusual for her to join in the volleys of innuendo
after going through the trouble to write down all the
and four-letter words that the men tossed back and
stations. He’d wasted the pre-game by rehearsing a
forth. It was true that he hadn’t slept with anyone since
speech for Claire in his head, something calculated and
the weekend Claire left, when he’d shaved off his beard,
cruel that would wound her in all the soft places only he
misted himself with stale cologne, and descended into
knew about. He couldn’t remember when he’d begun to
the underworld of Utica’s bar scene. He’d brought home
script imaginary arguments between them, but at the
a softly round, big-eyed woman in her late forties, a
end of a shift he’d come home so worked up that the
pediatrician he’d been shyly chatting up all night, whose
slightest provocation sent him into a door-slamming
unfamiliar landscape provoked a timid, confused, half
rage. And when she finally walked out on him he’d felt a
erection. Despite her murmurs that it was nothing to
perverse satisfaction, having known it would happen all
be upset about, that they could just talk awhile and see
along. Nothing surprised him. The world and everything
what happened, Frank had been so embarrassed he
in it existed only to disappoint him. At some point he’d
demanded she leave.
begun banking resentment, and it had become the only
The sight of a massive grille in his side mirror jolted
currency he had.
Frank out of his reverie. With the furniture blocking
It happened so gradually that he hadn’t been able
his rear view, he was blind except for the view in his
to see it. What made it even more damning was that
passenger-side mirror, which he now realized was too
Frank prided himself on being a details man. He could’ve
poorly aimed to give him much help. He looked over
been a foreman, but he’d been comfortable in his role
his right shoulder, but except for a tiny patch of gray
on the shop floor, minding the jigs and fixtures, know-
sky, he could see nothing over the bulky blue tarp. The
ing the tics of the machines he worked with. The big
grille surged closer, and Frank felt a bolt of panic as
picture stuff—payroll and budgets and planning—wasn’t
he accelerated. A part of him wanted to tap the brakes
for him. He’d been happy to let Claire direct their home
and give the tailgater a scare, but with his luck he’d
landscaping project a few years back, letting her lay out
probably wind up getting rear-ended, so he pushed the
the garden and the fire pit and the compost pile as he
speedometer to 70 mph and the grille receded. The
scoured the tomato plants and radishes for blemishes,
tarp began to snap in the wind, and a rattling sound
signs of infestation. He preferred the smaller scale, was
started up from the back. Frank’s first thought was
comfortable looking at life in miniature, fitting the pieces
that the tarp had come undone at the corner again,
together according to the instructions. Now he glimpsed
and one of the metal rings through which he’d looped
his life in its sloppy, horrifying entirety.
the rope was knocking against the side. He hoped that
He was between Batavia and Bushville when his side
wasn’t the case. There was a row of orange construc-
mirror revealed a silver truck weaving through traffic like
tion cones coming into view and no exit for the next
a shark in the deep.
twelve miles, and, left unchecked, the ring was bound
He should’ve helped the old man pick up his coins.
to scratch the paint.
He should have laughed off the tollbooth lady’s mood.
He pulled alongside a compact whose rear window
In truth, she had given him all the respect he deserved.
displayed a decal of a cartoon character urinating on a
He should’ve bought a four-door. If he hadn’t bought a
rival car company’s logo. As he passed the car, one of
truck, he’d be at home right now. He would have to be
the four young men inside rolled down his window and
careful, Frank decided, or he was bound to turn into one
waved. He was staring at the back of the truck. Frank
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kevin leahy
He preferred the smaller scale, was comfortable looking at life in miniature, fitting the pieces together according to the instructions. Now he glimpsed his life in its sloppy, horrifying entirety.
the heat radiating from the asphalt. Beyond the orange cones, the highway’s dividing barrier was fenced with slats that cut his view of oncoming traffic into frames, like a flipbook animation. Two cars flashed their brights once, twice. Too late Frank saw what they were warning him about, and as he whipped past the State Police cruiser its arsenal of colors strobed to life. Frank took his foot off the gas at the first yelp of the siren. The orange cones thinned out to one every thirty yards or so, and when his speed dropped to fifty he pulled over, the cruiser coming to a halt ten yards behind. The cruiser’s siren died, but its lights fired alternating bursts at such speed that Frank knew he’d be sick if he didn’t look away.
glanced over and saw the man pull his arm back inside
He turned off the radio, then the truck, and lis-
and gesture to his friends. While stealing glances at
tened to the engine click and hiss as it cooled. No one
the road, the car’s driver jabbed toward the back of the
emerged from the cruiser. Cars passed close enough
truck. One of the men laughed, shook his head. Frank
to make his pickup sway in their wake. Stupid, to be
felt his stomach drop. So the tarp must’ve come undone.
going so fast. Especially in a new truck, before he’d had
He entered the construction zone, hemmed in on the left
a month to break it in. Frank didn’t think about how
by orange cones and signs with big blinking arrows, and
much the ticket might cost, or the probably hundreds
the compact slowed and tucked behind him. He an-
of dollars of damage he’d caused back at the Sunoco,
gled the passenger mirror to get a look at his rear right
or wonder that he hadn’t scratched the silver truck with
corner, and saw the disembodied nozzle of a gas pump
the pump handle. He didn’t think about how he’d been
rattling in his tank.
afraid to die just moments before, crushed against the
At that, Frank felt the blood drain from his face. A
cement wall with the pulverized remains of Claire’s bed-
silver truck on oversize tires loomed into view from his
room set littering I-90. He wasn’t thinking much of any-
blind spot, and without even looking, Frank knew the
thing at all. He just sat and felt the weight of everything
driver was the bandana’d weightlifter from the gas sta-
he’d done, everything he’d become, without judging or
tion, coming to kill him for gouging a scar in the side of
raging against it.
his truck.
The officer got out of his car and moved toward the
The truck pulled alongside, and Frank looked up at
truck. Ever since a questionable speeding ticket some
the driver. It was him. He braced for the moment when
years back, Frank had nursed a reflexive hatred of cops.
the bandana’d driver wrenched the wheel, already imag-
On another day he might’ve been tempted to give at-
ining the scream of tortured metal. He couldn’t help but
titude. By now, though, his nerves were so fried that all
notice that the paint was the same gunmetal shade as
the fight had gone out of him. A feeling of cautiousness
the hundred model warships he’d painted. It took him a
prickled across his chest, so he lowered his window,
moment longer to see that the truck was unblemished.
propped one elbow on the door and kept his right hand
And the driver, it seemed, had not even noticed him. The
on the wheel, where the trooper could see it. No need to
bandana’d man checked his shoulder and dropped into
risk getting shot, on top of everything else.
the farthest-right lane, and peeled away in a long arc up the exit ramp. Frank turned back to the road, unsure what to make
The state trooper wore the brim of his hat pulled low, and had small, pitiless eyes. “License and registration,” he said, peering into the truck.
of his reprieve. His heart kicked away like a petulant child. The sun was high, and the horizon shimmered with
“Yes, sir,” Frank said, and reached across the seat to retrieve his insurance card from the glove box. To his
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dismay the bear claw lay facedown on his floor mat, and
The officer reappeared and handed Frank his license
the soda bottle sported a layer of roiling foam.
and insurance card. “Well, you’ve been clear since the
The trooper glanced at Frank’s documents. “You
moving violation back in ’02.” From his belt he pulled a
know why I pulled you over?”
book of tickets and began writing.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m giving you a citation,” he said, “for going sev-
“I’ve got you clocked at twenty-five over.”
enty in a fifty-five.” He tore the ticket off and handed it
“I don’t doubt it. I apologize for the, uh—” Frank fum-
to Frank.
bled for the word, any word. “The infraction.”
Frank looked at the ticket, then at the speed limit
The trooper’s look softened into something like
sign ahead. It said: 45 mph. He looked at the ticket
amusement. His boots clicked on the asphalt as he took
again. The fine was for $180.
a step toward the rear of the truck. “Mind if I look in the
“Technically, I could nail you for double that, since
back?”
you’re in a Work Zone.”
Frank shook his head no, not wanting to babble.
“Thank you,” Frank said, confused.
“Speak up, sir. I need you to verbally consent.”
“So let’s just say this happened a mile ahead of here,
“I do not mind.”
shall we.”
The trooper circled to the rear of the truck, lifted the
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Frank said.
tarpaulin, and came back to Frank’s window. His mouth
“I’ll be keeping the handle.”
was bunched to one side, and in his hands was the gas
Frank nodded. “Of course.” Then, hesitantly, “What
pump nozzle. “This is not exactly your day, is it, sir?”
about the damage?”
Frank put his hands on the wheel and bowed his
The trooper shook his head. “I phoned the station.
head. “No, officer.”
Those things are all breakaway now, there’s no spillage.
The trooper snorted. To Frank, it sounded uncom-
Nothing to worry about. They just snap back on.”
fortably similar to his own response when the old man
“Oh,” Frank said, a bit disappointed.
dropped his coins. “Stay here,” the trooper said. “I’ll be
The trooper tapped the paper in Frank’s hand. “Make
back in a few minutes.”
sure you pay this within thirty days. And drive safe.”
Frank watched the officer in his mirror, the cruiser
The trooper walked back to his car. Frank sat in his
lights throwing violet needles. He turned the key until the
truck with the engine off, rubbed his aching jaw. He hadn’t
radio came to life. A quarter turn more and the engine
realized the tension he’d been hoarding in his neck, his
would come up, too. He thought of all the other ways to-
shoulders. The state trooper’s siren gave a valedictory
day might’ve turned out. If he actually had scratched the
whoop as he pulled away. Frank started his engine and let
silver truck, maybe the driver would’ve run him off the
it idle. The weight in the truck bed had shifted toward the
road. He could’ve died. Maybe the silver truck would’ve
front, but it now felt as insubstantial as a dream.
just wrecked his, and he’d get a fat settlement from Ban-
He angled into traffic and set the cruise control at
dana Man’s insurance. It was possible his truck might’ve
the speed limit. For an hour he drifted through a haze.
been so mangled that they wouldn’t be able to match it
The Bills won their game, or didn’t. He snapped out of it
with the one that pulled away from the Sunoco pump,
just south of Angola, and cut over to Route 5 to avoid a
causing God knows how many dollars worth of damage.
multi-car pileup. By then he’d made up his mind about
Maybe the Sunoco didn’t even have a camera. Or if they
a few things. The liquid sliver on the horizon broadened
did, it was aimed at a different pump than the one he’d
into Lake Erie, and grew until the north side of Route 5
used. Maybe he’d have lost control of the truck and hurt
was nothing but rolling waves. With the tarp flapping in
someone else, or wound up in a wheelchair. He pictured
back, Frank was surrounded on most sides by a great
Claire’s sorrowful, guilty face at seeing him crippled, all
expanse of peaceful blue. The sight of it eased the burn-
for a few slabs of wood.
ing shame in his lungs, but he held on to the coals of
But none of that mattered. The cop had caught him speeding. He had the nozzle.
that feeling, kept his eyes away from the water. A man could be lulled to drowning. KL
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Dear
absolutionist
To Err is Human, To Forgive is My Job ian f. king, your friend
A friend with a listening ear can serve many purposes. Sometimes you just need someone to be there while you unload, sometimes you need to hear sound advice. Other times, however, we need something a little more divine: forgiveness. But what if it’s for something you did a long time ago, or something no one knows you did, for example, and there’s no one there to tell you that you’re not the villain you think you are? Well, that’s where I come in. We all play the bad guy at some point, but trust me, you could have done something much worse . . .
1
Dear
abbie
When I was in the second
want to squeeze it.” Ultimately, what you did was
grade, I squeezed out one of
nowhere near as bad as say, Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro,
the eyeballs of our class
the famous Las Vegas mobster. In one of his most
hamster, Nibbles. It wasn’t entirely my fault—I had been
notorious acts, Spilotro became a “made man” in 1963,
given the task of orally administering his medicinal
after squeezing a man’s head in an industrial vise to get
drops, and the only way to force him to open his mouth
a confession. Legend has it that, like Nibbles, the man
was to pinch the back of his neck, which I came to really
also had an eye pop out. This was only the beginning of
enjoy. So much so that I began to squeeze more fre-
the horrible acts that Spilotro would go on to commit,
quently and excessively than necessary, until his eye
including being a part of the famous burglary ring in Las
popped out.
Vegas, the Hole in the Wall Gang, and being suspected
The vet squeezed it back in and sewed the lid shut,
of up to twenty-two murders. Maybe if you had killed
and after that he looked like a Frankenstein hamster.
twenty-two hamsters we’d have to take a serious look at
Alarmingly, I was never punished for torturing the tiny
the hand of your moral compass, but this time, I’m
and defenseless creature. Can I be forgiven for this ani-
pleased to say, you’re forgiven.
mal cruelty?
—MIAMI VICE GRIP
DEAR MIAMI VICE GRIP
2
While there are kinder ways of
Dear
abbie
When I was about eight years old, I lied to my friends at school that I had “real”
handling the most vulnerable of Earth’s creatures,
nunchucks. My friends were very impressed with my
there’s a reason why something can be so cute you “just
nunchuck story, but instead of just being impressed
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and starting to refer to me as the guy with real nun-
some reason this meant other kids used to corner him
chucks, they wanted to know more about them and
and make bear noises in his face, growling and rumbling.
wanted to see them and wanted to use them. So now
I did it once. Twenty years later, I still wonder what was
I had to lie to cover up why I couldn’t produce these
going through his head while we did it, and what was
nunchucks, and the lies kept getting more and more
going through ours.
elaborate and complicated.
—GRISLY ADAMS
Then, one day, my friends were over at my house and demanded to see them. I lied that just yesterday
DEAR grisly adams
I had been ’chucking so hard that the nunchucks flew out of my hands and into the woods. But instead of just
Well, first, let’s have a look at New York Penal
leaving it at that, my persistent friends suggested that
Law Section 190.25, regarding Criminal Impersonation in
we search the woods for them. We spent about an hour
the Second Degree. It states that “a person is guilty of
crawling through bushes until one of my friends got real-
criminal impersonation in the second degree when he: 1.
ly scraped up on some thorns and was bleeding all over
Impersonates another and does an act in such assumed
the place. So now my lie had caused actual pain and
character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or
anguish, in addition to disappointment. I still feel really
defraud another . . . ” While we can establish that you
bad about this.
were indeed impersonating a bear, you say yourself that you’re not sure why, so we can’t truly establish motive to
—NUNCHUCK-LESS NORRIS
DEAR NORRIS
injure or defraud. Either way, the crime is only a Class A misdemeanor, so don’t sweat it. That said, you would be
Yours is a variation on the
wise to heed the story we all know by now about
classic “boy who cried wolf”
Timothy Treadwell, aka “Grizzly Man,” and what happens
story. Fortunately for you, it’s a classic tale for a reason:
to people who go too far in their attempts to imperson-
many of us do similar things as children, and it’s a
ate bears. Now that you’ve been forgiven, don’t become
lesson we all must learn. At least your deceit was on a
a snack.
very small scale. When Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer put on the Georgia Bigfoot hoax in 2008, the story was followed by a few thousand newspapers around the world, including every newspaper in the English-speaking world. One might have easily expected this kind of perpetuation of shameless lies from Dyer, a used-car
4
Dear
abbie
I’ve stopped taking my job seriously, and I don’t know if I ever will again. I’ve thought
salesman, but Whitton, a sheriff’s deputy, should have
about discussing this with colleagues, but I’m worried
known better. More to the point, no one should ever lie
about what they will think, and even more worried
about the possibility of a giant mythical ape-man, ever.
about what they will say I have to do. Day in, day out
I mean, one of those things could do some real dam-
I’m just going through the motions, repeating the same
age. So you lied about a little ninja toy? No big deal,
words with no conviction or meaning. I’m constantly
consider yourself forgiven.
being asked for feedback, for advice, for a sympathetic ear, but all this does is make me retreat further into my
3
own head.
Dear
abbie
Sometimes I even forget someone is talking to me—I There was a kid at my pre-
drift off until I’m brought back by them inquiring if I’m
school who had a respiratory
still there. I say “of course I am,” but the truth is I’m
problem, and as a result he
only really thinking about how much I hate them for
breathed through plastic tubes that went into his mouth
interrupting my daydreams. Maybe my mind wouldn’t
at either corner. They were connected to a small oxygen
wander so much if I didn’t have to sit in the dark all day.
tank. He couldn’t speak because of his handicap, and for
I’m sure if I asked you what I should do you’d tell me to
140
dear absolutionist
ian f. king
quit or some such, but the truth is as uncommitted as I
culprit didn’t leave a note or anything. Despite that
am I have no desire to leave—in truth, job security was a
experience, however, I decided to not deal with the
big reason I entered this line of work. I guess all I really
situation. There were no witnesses, so I jumped back in
want is to have someone else tell me it will be all right,
my car and took off. I felt a slight thrill as I sped away,
and that no matter how much I don’t do as I should, I am
but soon the guilt began to creep in . . . I still feel
forgiven.
terrible about it to this day.
Yours in need,
Regretfully,
THE WORKFORCE OF AMERICA
THE MIRROR MURDERER
DEAR WOA
DEAR mm
All of us go through the motions in our lives from time to time. Have
I’m going to need more information in order to assess whether you can
you thought about trying to recapture your joie de vivre
be forgiven. You left out the most important part: what
through an outside activity, like joining a bocce ball
movie were you going to see? If you were rushing to see,
league, or a fight club? It’s something you should think
say, WALL-E, your sense of urgency is understandable,
about. That said, there’s no inherent sin in daydreaming,
as the best part of the movie is that opening dialogue-
as long as it doesn’t lead to any catastrophic work-relat-
free part. However, if even just one rearview mirror had
ed disasters. There have been a number of these
to be sacrificed in order for you to attend a Brendan
throughout history, like the Boston Molasses Disaster of
Fraser career retrospective, well, then, I’m not sure even
1919, where a large molasses storage tank burst at the
I can help you there. Please write back, your eternal soul
Purity Distilling Company, and a wave of molasses
is at stake here.
rushed through the streets, killing twenty-one people and injuring 150 more in the North End neighborhood of
6
Boston. The cause of the accident is not fully known, but shoddy molasses tank construction (i.e.: a job done in a hurry by distracted and uncaring individuals) was at least partly to blame. This isn’t to say that your current
Dear
abbie
The only thing I’ve ever shop‑ lifted is . . . Christmas cards!
—C. K. in Paris
apathy toward your job is going to result in dozens of innocent women and children being buried alive by a
DEAR c. k.
massive wave of syrup . . . but we can’t know the future.
There’s a special place in hell for people like you. Surely you’ve
5
guessed by now what that special place is filled with?
Dear
abbie
That’s right, the tears of children. Children who wanted One day a few years ago, I
to find the perfect Christmas card for their beloved old
was driving a bit too fast
grandma and grandpa, to light up their lives on the
down a narrow, car-lined
most joyous holiday of the year. Grandma and Grandpa
street, desperately searching for parking so I could
don’t get around much anymore, due to the usual
make the start of a movie, when I heard a horrible
ailments that come with old age, so they don’t see their
crunching sound just outside my car. I didn’t feel an
grandkids as much as they would like to. Getting that
impact, but naturally I stopped to investigate. When I
card every December in the mail is something they
got out I realized that I had clipped the mirror of one of
know they can count on to feel closer to their beloved
the cars parked along the side of the street. My car was
family in their twilight years. Except that card never
only scratched, but the white Honda I hit did not fare
came, because you stole it. I hope you can live with
too well; pieces of its mirror were scattered across the
yourself, as there are some things even I can’t forgive.
street. I’ve been on the receiving end of this very situation, and I remembered how mad I was that the
141
[in the heart of pennsylvania there]
in the heart of pennsylvania there is no evening world bears prey upon the sparks from sleeping flags & the deer have learned to bite their nails resting beside a blood-stained engine in the forest when you enter the room in your evening dress the heart of pennsylvania turns away from the bullet so it pierces the ribs & sends it running through the woods shoeless & brilliant we will scarcely lift its head when we find it in the river
M. A. Vizsolyi
without realizing its weight & you will look at me & i at you
photograph by Karine Léger
143
201 1 Iss
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us $8. 00
a room
full of
voice s
kath ry n st oc keptt16 ta na fr enpch 36
A
al an e mo or p 80 jo nath an er fo sa fr an p 100 r je nn ifeia ma sc
Take a chance and drink the bubbling potion left mysteriously on your doorstep.
p 120
B
Follow the stranger with the dark overcoat, who has been watching you read from page one.
You’ve reached the end of the magazine. Will you: D
Check out our website www.slicemagazine.org for exclusive online pieces about villains.
Choices a, b, and c will lead you to certain doom. But if you picked d, you’ll have a chance to: Find out what a group of librarians really fear, in a survey we conducted about villains.
• Discover more about our Spotlight
feature author, Sarah Lynn Knowles.
C
Build a raft to cross the river infested with ferocious crocodiles.
• Become utterly terrified as you read more Rising Voices stories by New York–based tenth graders.
• Take a look at exclusive online
material from our interviews with renowned authors.