Turn the Knob Literary Journal 2014 by Turn the Knob Literary Journal

Turn the Knob Literary Journal Volume 1, Issue 1 2014

Turn the Knob: Your Door to Creative Writing adult workshop and e-journal are cosponsored by not-for-profit organizations, Indiana Writers’ Consortium (IWC) and Books, Brushes, and Bands for Education (BBB4E). IWC is dedicated to inspiring and building a community of creative writers; BBB4E develops and implements innovative educational opportunities in the literary, visual and musical arts beyond the everyday classroom. Our two organizations envision a collaboration that introduces or reintroduces creative writing in poetry and prose forms to adults interested in giving voice to themselves—thoughts, feelings, imaginings—in writing. Since developing community is invaluable to writers, it is a further aim to foster such a collective, including the provision of increasingly advanced-level workshops as participants’ needs grow. The Turn the Knob e-journal will then serve to validate and showcase these emerging voices. Indiana Writers’ Consortium and Books, Brushes and Bands for Education would like to thank Sue Eleuterio for her generous gift and guidance, which without the initial Turn the Knob workshop would not have been possible. We would like to thank Kirk Robinson, Michael Poore, Janine Harrison, Tim Murray, Gordon Stamper, Cynthia Echterling, Sarah White, and Julie DemoffLarson for giving their time and expertise to Turn the Knob. And to the numerous volunteers that helped to make the workshop a success. Also, a special thank you to Purdue University Calumet and The Towle Theater for granting us access to the theater for the event reading.

Cover Art: Photo provided by Library of Congress Archives Journal design and editing by Julie Demoff-Larson

Turn the Knob Literary Journal, Volume 1, Issue 1 Copyright ©2014 All rights revert back to individual authors upon publication. For more information about Turn the Knob please visit our website at turnknob.com or contact us at turntheknob2014@gmail.com

Table of Contents Bob Moulesong Black Rainbow Tend the Garden

6 30

Awanii Nicholson You Never Know

Kevin Bradley She’s Gone

Kayla Greenwell North American Loneliness

S.E. White What It Feels Like for a Girl Upon the Extinction of Silverfish If I’d Known You When We Were Children

19 21 22

Nora Glenn Trolling for Squares

Janine Harrison Laundry Day

Julie Demoff-Larson Junk Man Ghosts

Ebony Nicholson Debt

Bob Moulesong

Black Rainbow (Previously published by Short Fiction Break)

Doyle plotted his next move as he studied the girl through the dirty, cracked window. He watched as she rummaged through the dumpster across the littered alley. He wanted to be sure that she found the latest plant. Doyle had placed the bait every day for a week since he first discovered her foraging for food. For six days it was just a sandwich. Today he had upped the stakes and added a gift to go with the meal. Her back tensed and he knew she found the bag. He didn’t know how long she had taken her meals this way, but obviously long enough for her to differentiate between a toss and a plant. He stepped back from the library window and dipped out of sight. It would be counterproductive to watch for her reaction. The young girl was streetwise, and knew enough to figure out where the bag had come from. Either her curiosity would bring her to the library, or she would take the food and run. He would have to be patient. Patience was Doyle’s strong suit. He had worked at the East Chicago branch of the county library for 34 years, ever since his graduation from community college. Over the years, an incredible amount of maneuvering on his part had kept him in the same location. He had been politically correct enough to avoid discharge, yet incorrect enough to prevent a promotion to a new branch. They were always built in trendy subdivisions, one of the white flight areas west or south. The archaic and dilapidated building he occupied was the last of the libraries built by the WPA in the 1930’s. Doyle took on the characteristics of the building and the area—white ponytail and beard, jeans and flannel, clean yet faded. An albino in the middle of a black rainbow. His musings were interrupted by the sound of the front door. It was still ten minutes before opening, and he had yet to unlock the entrance. But when he heard the rattle, he knew she had taken the bait. When he opened the door he noticed that she moved back a few steps, wary of the stranger. She slowly made her way through the arch and into the library. Her eyes searched for a sign that they were not alone. “Please come in,” he said. He backed away and let her take in the surroundings. It was critical that the girl feel comfortable enough to come in and sit. She chose the table nearest the exit. “I carry,” she said. “Try something funny an I’ll cut you right quick.” “No problem. No funny stuff. My name is Doyle Harper. Welcome to your library.” He waved his hand in a semi-circle.

She opened the bag and took out the sandwich, her eyes fixed on him. She finally looked at the food in her hand when it was completely unwrapped. Doyle could not tell if she approved of the contents. “Wasn’t sure if you liked ham and cheese,” he said. “Figured I’d take a chance.” She looked up at him, her eyes sharp. “Just cuz you gimme a sandwich don’t mean I owe you.” Definance, not fear. “Agreed.” “I don’t owe nobody nothing.” Doyle allowed himself a good look. She was maybe thirteen years old, thin and wiry, skin as black as coal. Her face already had that hard look that came with life on the streets. He noticed it in her eyes, the way they flashed. He was glad she had happened by now – another year and she would have been unreachable. “There’s something else in the bag,” he said. Same defiant tone. “I saw it. I ain’t blind, ya know.” Doyle allowed himself a slight grin. “Of course not, “he said. “I just wondered if you had noticed, that’s all.” She held up what was left of the sandwich. “I kinda got other things on my mind just now.” Another slight grin. This one’s a pistol. “Would you like a cup of coffee? It’s fresh and hot.” “How’d you make coffee already, you just getting here?” “Overnight timer. Cream and sugar?” He moved gingerly over to the coffee pot by the main desk. “Ok,” she said. Doyle returned with the coffee, careful to hand off the mug without touching her. She didn’t thank him. He didn’t expect it. An acknowledgement of thanks, he knew, might imply she owed him. Doyle understood how it worked – he had learned on the streets as an orphan himself. He knew that the rules hadn’t changed. They drank coffee in silence. He stood far enough back so she could feel somewhat comfortable. He waited patiently for her curiosity to kick in. For success, she had to make the first move. She looked him up and down, as though her vision would provide the answer. 7

Finally, she asked. “So why you give me something to eat when you know I ain’t gonna owe you?” Very good, he thought. She stated her lack of allegiance with her question. This one’s clever. “I felt bad for you. I saw you out there a few times this week, and I felt bad. So I gave you sandwiches. Today, a sandwich and a gift. It’s something I do when I see someone in need.” Eyebrows arched. “You done this before?” “You are the fourth young person that I have seen out there in the last six months. It helps when you share an alley with a Mexican bakery.” Finally, a slight grin. “And you give all of them something to eat?” “Yes. Well, I try.” “Give them all a gift?” “The ones who keep coming back.” “Just cuz you feel bad for them.” “That, and because I want to help them.” He felt her eyes try to gauge the meaning of his last remark. “What’cha mean, help? Help wit what?” The conversation had reached that point. Her reaction to the next few sentences would turn it one way or the other. Doyle took a deep, slow breath and began. “There are many kids in your same shoes. Stories might be a little different, but they’re all on the street or wish they were somewhere else.” He noticed the look of pain that washed over her face. The moment had come. He pressed on. “So I try to help them out of here – if that’s what they want.” Her eyes widened. He had caught her off guard. “What you mean help them out of here?” “I know some people who help unfortunate kids like you. They provide you with a new identity, a new home, and a new family. You leave – and you don’t come back.” She searched his face, looking for the catch. He remained as passive as possible. “You serious?” 8

“Very serious. For kids like you, staying where they are is a death sentence. They know it. So we get them out of here – if that’s what they want.” She pondered what he said for a few moments, all the while looking him over. “I don’t mean nothing bad against you,” she said, “but you don’t exactly look like somebody who can pull that kind of thing off.” He smiled. “No offense taken. First, it’s good I look that way. Then nobody suspects me when a kid shows up missing. Second, all I do is get you to the people who really run the show. It’s a very complicated process. It has to be in order to work. For example, there is a cop here in town that can get new papers for kids -- birth certificates, school records, everything needed to start a new life. I am just a liaison.” “A what?” “A go-between.” “Oh. Well, I don’t know about other kids, but I ain’t interested in becoming a ho for your friends.” He shook his head. “It’s nothing like that. A social worker picks you up – only Social Services know nothing about it. A real family takes you in. You get parents, sometimes brothers or sisters. You go to a family that really wants to love you and take care of you.” “Why would people do that for me? For anybody from ‘round here?” “Because not everyone is bad, or sick. Some people want to fix the things that are wrong with the world.” “Ain’t this way of fixin things justa little against the law?” He smiled. “It is so against the law. But the laws will never get you out of the hellhole you’re in. So some of us decided to circumvent the laws.” “I think you crazy.” But the tone of her voice had hope in it. Doyle had helped save several such lost souls in the last few years. He knew he had a chance. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Cynthia.”

“Well, Cynthia, it’s like I said. Only some kids want help. And we only help the ones who want it.” “How does a kid know they can trust you?” “You could go to the police with what I just told you. If nothing else, they would watch me like a hawk, waiting for me to slip up. So you see, I already trusted you. If you don’t want my help, that’s your business. I only ask that you don’t say anything about this to anyone else. I need to be here for the next kid who wants a chance to start over.” During the silence that followed, Doyle got himself a second cup of coffee. He drank it slowly and allowed Cynthia time to digest the information. Streetwise or not, it was a lot for a little girl. His thoughts drifted back to the children that he had helped escape. Nine desperate souls had received a new lease on life because of Doyle and his covert team. The tenth one hadn’t been so fortunate. The librarian grimaced when remembered Rico. The boy had wanted to think things over for a little while. He had hesitated. The cops had found his body in a dumpster two days later. He had been gagged with duct tape and covered with cigarette burns. His drug-crazed stepfather eventually confessed that Satan had ordered the boys’ execution by fire. Cynthia interrupted his thoughts and brought him back to the present. “So let’s say a kid wanted to go start over, like you said. What happens?” “I make a phone call. The social worker picks the kid up in an hour or two. All under the radar. Then their new life begins.” “Just like that?” “Well, just like that on the outside. We do a hell of a lot behind the scenes to make it happen and make it work.” Cynthia moved her foot in slow circles, deep in thought. Doyle stayed patient. “Ok,” she sighed. “I don’t know if you’re jackin’ me. This shit sounds so secret agent I don’t know you could make it up. What I do know is, I ain’t goin’ back for no more of what he gave out. I can’t.” Doyle nodded. “I’ll make the call. You can help yourself to more coffee. Or you could look at your gift.” He walked behind the main desk to the telephone. Cynthia pulled the book out of the paper bag. She flipped it over and read the front cover. The title was The Underground Railroad. She sipped her coffee and turned to the first page. 10

Awanii Nicholson

You Never Know You never know what life is going to bring house, car, wedding ring! You never know what life is going to bring death, destruction, a pulled hem string! You never know what life is going to bring one day you wake up with a tumor or a cyst What can you do besides pound your fist?! You never know what life is going to bring the doctor tells you it’s the Big “C” got you screaming, “Lord, why me?” You never know what life is going to bring you got a kid and you’re a kid yourself raising a baby with no help You never know what life is going to bring you can get into a car accident wake up wondering where your leg went You never know what life is going to bring love can even have you doing crazy things! jumping through hoops all for nothing You never know what life is going to bring Europe, Africa, America, Beijing hurricane comes by tearing up everything! You never know what life is going to bring holidays come around and you have no money can’t afford a gift for your child or your honey You never know what life is going to bring you come home from work and your baby is dead boyfriend sitting and scratching his head You never know what life is going to bring you’re in the bathroom doing your hair next thing you know, your child isn’t there! You never know what life will bring so just thank God for everything.

Steel Mill Corus Ijmuiden

Kevin Bradley

She’s Gone Each of us creates the world we live in. If you don’t like the world you live in, you have the power to re-create it. This is a power we have as human beings. However, problems are a part of life as well. Problems arise when someone else’s plans for creating their world come into conflict with the plans you have for creating yours. Sometimes these problems can be devastating, causing good people to react to unfortunate events in destructive ways. In order to succeed, one must overcome the disasters we all encounter to varying degrees in our lives and continue creating the world he or she desires. However, it may be necessary to alter one’s vision, to compromise due to unforeseen circumstances, or to peacefully co-exist with another. In 1976, during our country’s Bicentennial, I had a decent job making decent money in the steel mill. I lived in a decent house in a decent neighborhood with my wife, Cindy and our big friendly mutt, Goober. Life was good, or so I thought. I came home one night after working a twelve hour shift, and Cindy’s car wasn’t in the driveway and the house was dark. I figured she was probably at her sister’s again. I hoped she had made something for dinner that I could just grab out of the fridge and wash down with a cold one, have a hot shower and hit the sack. I was bushed. I parked my truck and headed into the house. When I opened the door and walked in, Goober didn’t come running to greet me and I figured he was with Cindy at her sister’s house. He loved going for rides, and their kids loved playing with him. He was a big, loveable goofball. I flicked the light switch on and my eyes went wide with anger and amazement. A chill ran down my back. Our furniture was gone. Damn! We’ve been robbed! I ran to the kitchen to dial 9-1-1. Our phone was gone. What kind of thief steals your phone? We have another phone in the garage, so I ran out there to call the police. I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1. “9-1-1, what is your emergency?” As I heard those words, I turned around and simultaneously became speechless. My wife’s snowmobile was gone. Mine was still there. I felt like the Rock of Gibraltar was in my throat. “Hello, 9-1-1, what is your emergency?” “She’s gone,” was all I could utter, my heart sinking in my chest, my mind ablaze with a million thoughts, not one of which was coherent, spinning out of control. “Who’s gone sir? Are you calling to report a kidnapping?” “She’s gone,” I mumbled, barely audible.

“Sir; A police car has been dispatched to your location.” When the police arrived, they found me sitting on the front porch weeping into an open can of Old Style, “She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone,” I continued repeating. The police began questioning me, “Are you alright sir? Who’s gone? Who is missing? How much have you had to drink?” I managed to let them in. They wanted to search the home. I explained that it no longer seemed like a home any more. She was gone. The whole experience seemed so surreal. I kept expecting it to end, to wake up…next to her…like it was all just a really bad dream. I somehow recall explaining my story to the officers. I showed them the empty space, the indentations in the carpeting, where the furniture had been. I told them about the phone and the snowmobiles. I told them about our first date, our wedding, the way she smiled, her awesome cooking, and Goober. I told them everything. I didn’t want them to leave. I craved the companionship, the human contact, the sympathetic ear. They looked at me blank faced, shaking their heads in expressive disbelief or nodding in agreement, expressing condolences the way people do at wakes and funerals. I felt as though someone had died. I felt as though that someone was me. I felt like I was beside myself watching this disaster unfold, powerless to stop it, powerless to dispel these unforeseen changes to the world I had created, like a ghost who can see people and hear their conversations, but no one can see or hear them. The police left anyway. I was alone. I was the ghost, and she was gone. I screamed aloud, “Why is the world so unfair?” I went to the bedroom to try and lie down and think. I thought I really needed to think. I wished my thoughts would conform into something tangible, something that made some kind of sense. I found a note upon our bed. She left the bed, but she was gone. It read, “Dear Troy, After a lot of soul searching and praying, I’ve made a difficult decision. I’ve moved out. I thought this was the best way to do it. There is never a good time to do something like this. You deserve to be happy, and I am so unhappy it isn’t possible for you to be happy. I love you and care about you and hope we can remain friends. Please don’t drink…it will only make things worse. Love Cindy” What the hell kind of note is this? If I wasn’t completely confused before…I certainly was now. If I live to be a thousand years old, I’ll never understand women. Women don’t even understand women. A solitary woman does not even understand herself. They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but I say, Men are from Mercury and women are from Pluto. There is a 14

huge divide. None of this even makes any sense. She loves me? She cares about me? She’s gone? How can you love and leave? The next day was Saturday, my day off, thank God because I woke up late for work if it wasn’t. I went downstairs and the furniture was still gone. She was still gone. Goober was gone too. I was completely alone in the world. I went out to the garage and brought the phone in. I wanted to hear it if she called. I hoped she’d call. I even expected it. I was surely in denial, but did not realize it. People in denial never do. I ate a bowl of Cheerios staring out the front window, watching cars go past, hoping one would be Cindy’s pulling into the driveway, coming home to say she realized she made a huge mistake. It never happened. As I gazed out the window, my thoughts began wandering, wondering, pondering...I thought about life and its meaning, feeling as though the meaning of my own had been shattered into thousands of shards of glass. I saw life as a series of short snippets strung together fabricating something that we, as individuals, find meaningful. We cling to these memories, factitious fabrications of our own creation, as a barnacle clings to a barge however they are really only temporary placeholders placating our minds during our short time upon this planet. I got into my truck and began driving. I had no destination. I don’t know if I realized that I had no destination. I was stopped at a red light, waiting to make a right turn, watching the traffic go past. The light turned green. The cars next to me all started moving. The person in the car behind me honked its horn. Why are people always in such a rush to go someplace? If they realized what I was going through, they would cut me some slack. I lifted my right foot off of the brake pedal and depressed the accelerator, turning my steering wheel slowly to the right. I bounced up and down, as did my truck. I realized that I had failed to straighten out my steering wheel after making the turn and was now sitting in someone’s lawn. I just sat there weeping. A man came running out of the house. I could hear him yelling, “Hey…get off my lawn. What’s the matter with you?” I rolled down my window and looked at him with tears streaming down my face. He said, “Hey buddy…are you alright? Do you need me to call help for you?” I said, “Sorry. She’s gone. Sorry.” I put the truck in reverse and left the man’s lawn as he looked at me incredulously. My head was throbbing. My mind was mush. My brain said, “I need to calm down. I need a drink.” I managed to drive to the local liquor store and buy some beer…and whisky. I went home, planning to drink until my head stopped throbbing. I hoped my mind would then feel a more pleasant type of mush—at least for a while until the alcohol wore off. Once I began drinking, I recall wanting to calm the pain within so much—so much that I drank too much, too fast. I awakened on a cold floor feeling ill. My body shivered. My left arm hung unnaturally on something cold and hard. I opened my eyes, first the left, then the right. I saw my arm suspended 15

by a steel toilet. I thought, ‘That’s odd. We don’t have a steel toilet.’ I felt the need to heave. I could taste vomit in my mouth and nasal passages and realized that I had been doing that all night. I fought the urge, but eventually had to give in. I hurled whatever noxious bile I had left in me. I hurled with much more force than actual vomit was produced. When the dry heaving finally ceased, I turned around to survey my surroundings. I saw that I was surrounded by steel bars. I thought of the irony of a steel worker being surrounded by steel bars. I saw a sink and mirror. I found my footing and went to them to wash up and see how I looked. I wondered what I had done. I hoped I had not hurt anyone. I wondered what jail I was in. I looked like shit. I felt like shit. I smelled like I looked and felt. I had popped blood vessels in both eyes from the force of my vomiting, making me look like some sort of demon. My hair was a wreck and I had a chipped tooth. What was wrong with me? This was definitely not the life I had envisioned. I was in jail…and she was gone. She was still gone.

Rorschach Frog Canti128

Kayla Greenwell

North American Loneliness (Previously published by Blotterature Literary Magazine)

Tiny green frogs lived in the creek that marked the edge of your yard. I covered each of your fingertips with a living-green sponge, laughing. You thought it was stupid and scolded me for being childish, but I was trying desperately to escape your sadness. The trailer went to shit. You let your life sink into the smoked-stained walls of a twenty year old rental like a fucked up cave drawing. It was hard to watch, but she was the second wife to leave you for the grave, and you were angry. You, even in your emptiness, slowly began to realize that you cannot stand toe to toe with the man on the white horse and plead your case, because he is not a judge. What can you do but accept his absurdity in the trip between crushed beer cans and unmade bed sheets? You came undone, with your tired soul reflected across dusty couch covers and dirty glass bowls. Your body, torn open and hollowed out in grief, lay in the corner behind your 1992 CR-TV and yellow rose couch. I was dealing with an imposter. That evening I collected dime-sized frogs instead of throwing out decade old bean cans and boxing up tax returns from 1974. I painted the cabinets green for you. We had to sell your trailer because lungs with black spots don’t come cheap. Living with us made us more comfortable for your welfare. You didn’t care. Your neighbor was pissed that I mowed the lawn at 9 that morning. I had to watch the sweat bead down his red face as he screamed and pulled at his ugly jean overalls. I ignored him while walking in straight lines, and feeling the hum of the motor rattle through my joints. I did the chores while you nailed yourself in a two-bedroom coffin. They wouldn’t let me put that in the real-estate ad. The frogs are dead and there is no one to mourn them but me. I spend nights in the kitchen, drinking water and burning in the florescent lights. You cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel and I cannot see a tunnel. Your fingertips touch every natural waterbed from here to the end of the world, so I keep my eyes forward and I stay far inland.

S.E.White

What It Feels Like For A Girl He started stalking me after my twelfth birthday. Just after my body developed curves and cars started honking at me when I walked down the street. He lurked in every shadow, hid around every corner, crouched poised to strike behind every shower curtain. He follows me. I can hear the scuff of his shoes on sidewalks. He waits until my bedroom light goes out. Is he outside my window? In my closet? Behind those bushes? He holds his breath, listens for me to fall asleep, so that he can pounce on me at my most vulnerable. I close my eyes but surrendering to sleep is slow. I've heard the stories. A friend woke up in the middle of the night and found a man on top of her, intent to rape and murder her. Another woman, the wife of a friend, was raped and strangled by a maintenance man. He had the keys. He let himself in. He stole her last gasp of life. The movies air 24/7 on cable, in theaters, in the imaginations of middle class women awake after midnight. Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Kiss the Girls, The Last House on the Left, Halloween, Captivity--Hollywood loves a good mix of sex and murder. In fact, there's even a genre called torture porn. Society celebrates the notoriety of grisly serial killers--Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia murderer, The Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, The Green River Killer, and the list goes on. The headlines romanticize these deeds with sexy names. Who were the victims? That's incidental to the fascinating story of a psychopath--a man who stops living by the confines of society's mores, a man who takes what he wants when he wants. He is glorified, my stalker. When I step onto an elevator, I wonder if that's him in the business suit, or hoodie, or polo. He's white, black, brown, yellow, orange, purple, pink--it does not matter. His violence can be found in the shadows, a leer. When I go out after dark, I know that he is somewhere in the rustle of the trees, in the face of a stranger who might soon make me famous. Victim #4. There's more than one way to get your fifteen minutes of fame in America. That's what I've been taught and shown since I was a little girl too frightened to sleep. The darkness makes you prey. And pray. The weaker sex, the one too innocent, too naive, too ditzy to understand how dangerous the bumps in the night can be. This why we all sleep with ball bats, mace, weapons even more potent. We learn self-defense and kick boxing. We prepare ourselves. 19

It's time our screams stop being entertainment. It's time that girls stop having to fear the faceless threat. When can we stop being afraid of the dark?

S.E.White

Upon the Extinction of Silverfish ...and the last tree used for paper crackles and thuds to the ground to become the last handwritten letter ever mailed in the last envelop ever made to be delivered by the last mailman to the last mailbox still in existence. The last mailman will put the letter in his beaten leather bag, specially press his uniform, and open the rusty mailbox dented and weathered from disuse. The elderly woman to whom the last letter is mailed will receive the last paper cut as her quaking fingers rip through the pasted flap, a smear of blood staining the stamp. She will not recognize the handwriting, unable to read the florid arcs of cursive. A last love letter will sit on her kitchen table to become stained with coffee rings and smudges of tomato sauce--the last words from her first love to eventually blur and wash over the edge of the page. And the last silverfish will eat the last bit of paper from the last book on the last shelf in the last library. He has no appetite for nooks or kindles or other pieces of hallow plastic. Synthetic fibers from clothes give him bellyaches. He climbs to the highest shelf in the darkened building that has long since been boarded and condemned. With a last sigh, he jumps. His silvery body a quick flash in the moonlight, no longer to stain pieces of paper or wiggle across the words of poets or long forgotten authors who wrote romantic tales about lonely souls seeking the wrenching death of love.

S.E.White

If I'd Known You When We Were Children ...we would meet by the brick wall in front of my house on sweaty summer nights, hop on our Schwinns, and ride around the block looking for dead things to poke with sticks, stray cats to pet and name, evidence of a life only found in our untamed imaginations. We wouldn’t speak much. We wouldn’t have to. Our mutual escape into a world of monsters, swords, and adventure would say more than any of the words in our childish vocabularies. We would find connection in our play. After our mothers would call our names, we would go inside our houses and eat supper, only to return as soon as the last dish was dried. We would help each other climb trees. I would give you a boost, so that you could wrap your legs around the trunk of the sturdy young Maple in front of my house. You could reach the lowest branches then and shinny your way up to thicker branches where we would perch and pretend we were birds or super heroes or angels. Or, maybe we would meet on my front porch and play with our Barbies, all the while giggling about breasts, kissing, and whatever else our older brothers and sisters had taught us. We would peek beneath Ken’s swim trunks at his rounded plastic mound and shift our eyes back to forth to make sure no adults were watching. We would share conspiratorial secrets about our impossible crushes on movie stars and musicians. Barbie and Ken would always somehow end up naked together on the ledge of my porch. More giggles. I would always pick you for my Capture-the-Flag team, even if you never found the flag or ran the fastest. If you were captured and sent to the other team’s “jail,” then I would risk getting caught in order to engineer your escape and probably end up sitting next to you in “jail” where we would talk about the giant black ants scurrying across the sidewalk or the neighbors across the street in the rental house with the Husky named Pete. We would call each other “best friends.” We would tell each other the things we wouldn’t tell anyone else, and then, we would race through the sprinkler with shrieks and laughter. I would help you rake your yard and you would help me rake mine, doing each other's chores side by side, feeling the bite of blisters together. If I’d known you when we were children, our love would be the simplest kind. Our play would be easy. We would be capable of spending an entire afternoon melting things with a magnifying glass or standing in awe of a picked scab or playing kickball until the ball would get stuck on a garage roof. We would discover constellations at night, point out the Big and Little Dippers and Mars and Venus, lie in the wet grass and contemplate the craters of the moon. I wish I’d known you when we were children. 22

Nora Glenn

Trolling for Squares DON’T COME IN OUR ROOM trolling for squares. LEAVE MY SALMON ALONE as they desperately swim upstream. DON’T COME IN OUR ROOM eyes downcast, dragging your feet trail of tears, walk of death trolling for squares. GET OUT!

Hanging White Sheets Dahliyani Briedis

Janine Harrison

Laundry Day (Previously published in a&u)

“You need to have it checked out right away.” Marcus turned away from Robert. “I know.” “How could you not notice that?” Robert sat up enough to take a sip of water from the bottle on the nightstand and flopped again onto his back. Marcus flung his feet over the right side of their tall bed and hopped down. Wearing only red boxer briefs, he began furiously sorting both his and Robert’s dirty laundry. Robert watched as he separated the darks from the whites. He could remember when Marcus’ every arm muscle surged as he performed even the slightest chore. Nowadays, it was harder for Robert to see the man he once lusted over. Marcus was a stack of chicken bones. Marcus had served in the Navy for over a decade, which was a big joke with the Boys Town crowd. Although masculine, the minute he leapt into his first story, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” became unnecessary, voice as effeminate as Liberace’s. Yet, he was never bullied. Robert thought that fellow enlisted men simply must’ve liked Marcus too much to harass him. The notion still made him smile. “I thought you were gonna throw this out?” Marcus held a raggedy tee that read, “U.S. Navy.” “No. You suggested that I dispose of it.” It was the shirt that Marcus had given to Robert the morning after their first date, so he didn’t have to step on campus wearing the previous day’s clothes. “It has holes.” “So?” Marcus threw the gray shirt in the light pile and continued to sort. My Navy stint was a lifetime ago. They hadn’t much in common. Marcus was black and Robert white. Marcus had a high school diploma, while Robert held a Doctorate in English medieval language and literature. Whereas Marcus could never pass in the straight community and avoided interaction, Robert could and did, colleagues and friends a mixed crowd. At parties, Marcus held court, audience in great guffaws— Robert watched, admiring his life partner, knowing that although he could be quite 25

the conversationalist, his sense of humor elicited only slight chuckles, mostly from other intellects. Robert had not put underwear back on. He raised his limp dick and scrotum and spread the scrotum with his fingers to examine it. How had he missed that? Had he? He sighed. The cancerous tumor in his stomach was growing again, medicine no longer working. A physician hadn’t confirmed, and he hadn’t told Marcus his suspicions, but he knew. Just knew. How much longer will I be able to teach? The couple lived in a brownstone near the university where Robert served as an associate professor. Marcus had already been reduced to part-time work at a local Y. How ironic, Robert thought. He recalled the years when his partner had bounded through the door, words and body language competing for space. “The Hummingbirds finally won ‘Capture the Flag’! You should’a seen Chineka Thompson’s face! She must’ve high-fived her whole team twice!” He laughed himself into an arm chair. Sometimes, though, someone broke a limb or a parent had died. Those nights, Marcus spoke slower. But even then, Robert knew that Camp Ridgewood was Marcus’ passion. Marcus, who would leave the gay community if shaking a straight suit upside down meant keeping the place open another summer. On the morning of his 45th birthday, the doctor told Robert that his disease had become active. Marcus’ own bad news soon followed, and the two grieved, with much hard liquor and no Christmases. Then, one day, after Marcus examined Robert’s lymph nodes for swelling, he said, “It could be worse. It could be leprosy. At least nothing’s gonna fall off.” The men laughed the way the desperate sometimes do. They held one another, still convulsing, and tumbled off the couch—speechless, looking up at the high stucco ceiling for a long time, their hands found one another. That began what they referred to as their month-long “rash” of gruesome AIDS jokes. Then, they resumed living. Marcus stain-treated his YMCA t-shirt and stuck it in with the darks. His brows furrowed; when he saw his upper arm, it was as slender as his forearm, and when Marcus looked down, his ribcage was a visible staircase descending toward a drop off. Even sitting, his stomach didn’t protrude. A doctor recently prescribed marijuana. Marcus held up one of Robert’s dress shirts, one of those in-between colors that could be sorted into either pile. “Hey. What’cha working on at the U?” “Nothing of interest.” Robert continued, knowing he shouldn’t. “In fact, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to work.” His voice quivered part way through.

Marcus tossed the garment in with the whites. He nodded without looking up, opened his mouth and closed it again. What could he say? He didn’t need an explanation. Nor did he want to comfort Robert. Down to the last clothing item, a black robe that they shared, he pitched it in with the darks, stood, and picked up the basket. As he began walking across the apartment, toward the detergent on a kitchen pantry shelf, he couldn’t take his eyes off the robe. Picking up pace, he veered toward a bank of bedroom windows and, jerking one up, then the screen, flung the laundry out their third floor window and watched the pieces flail their arms and legs as they plummeted through large flakes toward frozen days’ old snow.

The Road to Nowhere Julie Demoff-Larson 28

Julie Demoff-Larson

Junk Man Ghosts (Previously published in EpiphanyMag)

One hundred seventy acres. Some filled with last year’s dried corn stalks, leftovers from the farmer’s land lease. Others, tree stump fields – sold to pay the tax man. Lily pads tangle the entrance to the lake and the pier’s warped, broken planks sit below the surface of the water. Inside the chicken coup, a junkman’s hoarded finds are thrown about. The barn at the rear of the property shouts like the red rooster’s crow. The barn’s color has not faded as the house has, tired from relentless whipping winds. Tired of being alone. Inside the house, dust covered antiques remain the same as when Uncle Hank took possession. The farm table in the dining room is surrounded by empty chairs that once hosted four generations of family affairs. The smell of the damp dirt-floor cellar sticks to the plaster walls. There, under the house, shelves are lined with thirty-year old jars of pickled beets, dissolving into fragments of fermented earth meats. Upstairs, spiders congregate behind the sweating toilet, and field dirt lines the baseboards marking a ring for each year. On the second floor, rooms are filled with beds, mattresses with sink-holed middles covered in floral coverlets. Behind the closet door, ghosts of war hide in steamer trunks, the smell of mothballs choke like the shit smelling smog hovering over the big city. Ten years gone, Uncle Hank has been. Ten years of brief visitations from his brother’s kin because there was no wife or children of his own. Farmers by inheritance, not knowing how to pass the knowledge of working the earth with backs and hands on to their own. It was a happy escape for me that year after Hank's heart stopped. Bon-fire moon dances and friends fourwheeling through fields of prairie weeds. Hobby-farm dreams turned to surprise bee infestations inside the mailbox and six hour lawn mowings. Daunting labor overrides the weightless air that clears the city parasites that have settled in my lungs. Midnight calls from the county police department; the door kicked in again, television gone. Ain’t no life for the metro conscious. In the side yard, leaning on the rusted hand plow, a for-sale sign can be seen by the big lake vacationers speeding back into town. Some slow their micro-luxury sportsters to imagine tearing and pulling wide open of the crevices in the land. Land that could not be cultivated by me or mine. They are men who profit by forcing desire for whored houses surrounding a crystalline lake, drowning the growth of the manna. Will I forsake the native farmer, schooled by tradition, and sale to the prospector?

Bob Moulesong

Tend the Garden (Previously published by Short Fiction Break)

Her ghostly voice beckoned him. Luke stared out the window and scowled. The pale sunlight had just peaked over the horizon, the first rays stretched across the lawn like a golden web. The light had not quite reached the garden. There was still time for another cup of coffee. Gnarled hands poured the steaming brew into the oversized cup. Watery eyes scanned the counter for the cream and spoon. Finally satisfied with the mixture, Luke went back to the window and stared out at the obscure plot. Actually, it was hard to determine that it was a garden. Leaves, twigs, and assorted mulching were scattered across the browned, dismal patch. Tufts of visible green were sparse. But experience had taught him that once a small amount of color showed through, large clumps of new growth waited underneath the winter blanket - waited for him to perform his annual chore. Luke cursed softly: “One of these days I’ll just till over the whole damn thing.” He really hated this springtime ritual, he told himself. Every year since Anna had passed, the chore of cleaning out the God-forsaken garden had belonged to him. Luke hated it almost as much as she had loved the stupid patch of weeds. Sunlight now reached the field. Golden fingers laced across the meek frost that stubbornly hung on. If he were going to get the job done while the sun warmed him, he would have to start now. He sighed, cursed again, and headed out. Despite the light frost on the ground, the air was warm and clear. Luke breathed deep. Winter air has tautness to it, he thought, and he could tell its time had come to an end. The spring air was rich and earthy and hung heavy over the yard. He took the rake and began to scrape off the leaves and mulch. Luke knew he had to be gentle, and made every effort not to uproot anything. As he worked, he remembered the first time he had performed the spring clearing. Anna had still been alive but too weak to tend it on her own. “You have to be very careful,” she had instructed. “The roots are fragile in the spring. The ground has frozen and thawed, frozen and thawed. It is uneven, unsteady. If you’re not gentle, you’ll tear the roots out.” 30

Luke thought how much his current life reminded him of those uneven and unsteady patches of earth. How so much of his roots had been torn out when she passed. He uncovered the first sprigs of the garden’s blossom. Crocus, tulips, hyacinths, and jonquils, hidden in the underbrush he cleared, now rose up to greet the warmth of the new sun. Luke caught the scents as they wafted up. The old man realized that he especially looked for the hyacinths. They had been Anna’s favorite, the deep purples a stark contrast to the red, pink, and yellow that dominated the first bloom. “If you like them so much, why don’t you just plant more of them?” Luke had asked her one spring. “Pull everything else out and fill the damn thing with ‘em.” Anna had given him that look, like a patient mother teaching a petulant child. “If all I had were the hyacinths, they would not be so beautiful,” she told him gently. “It is how they stand out among the others that make them so special.” Anna had been a hyacinth, Luke thought while he found more and more of the purple starts. He bent down and breathed deep, the sweet pungent scent filling his nostrils. Sweat poured down his back, and his breath came deeper and faster. He was almost half way done. He mused how the work was like pulling off an icy brown blanket of frosty sleep and finding jewels underneath. An hour ago, the patch had looked dismal and forlorn. Now, forty or more bulbs peaked through the rich black earth, their various shades of green painting the landscape. It had been close to the end when Anna asked him for a promise. “Anything,” Luke said, staring hard so as not to cry. “Just name it.” “Tend the garden.” He had been surprised by the request. It was the dead of winter when she asked -- cold, bitter, and windy. Why she would be thinking of the garden at that time mystified him. “Because,” Anna explained, giving him the look he would later yearn for. “That’s what helps me make it through the dark winter. I dream of bright flowers, warm breezes, the birds and butterflies that come. It’s looking forward, instead of looking back.” As the seasons came and went, Luke understood what she had meant. He would be alone, staring out at the ice-covered barren yard. His thoughts would be full of the ritual waiting for him. He would curse the day he promised, but his memories… Luke stopped and leaned on the rake. His breath came in deep rasps. He looked across the garden, ever surprised and pleased, in spite of himself. Bulbs and perennials dotted the lush earth. 31

The crocuses were ready to bloom, he noted. The hyacinths had spread. The yarrow was already peaking through. He had taught himself how to differentiate between the plants by their leaves and color, so that he could know and appreciate what he cursed at. Although he never admitted it aloud, Luke understood why Anna had insisted on the promise. It was how they still communicated. He knew everyone would think him crazy if he ever said it. But he could feel Anna out here. The tone of her voice, the way she wiped her hands on her apron, the way she scolded him when he pushed his teasing a little too far. All of it was out here calling to him in that ghostly voice, every spring. “Yep,” he murmured, “one of these days I’ll just till over the whole damn thing.”

Someone to watch over me Gerry Dincher

Ebony Nicholson

DEBT They don't tell you while youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re growing up that you will have bills to pay rent, cable, lights, gas, water They become your future stalkers they become like your late night crawlers Dreams of them all coming harder how they start slowly taking away your fun Debt They don't tell you in your childhood how much you must work for your bills See you must get a degree just to make sure your rent is paid monthly that car note isn't free Honey, please Clock in 60 hours a week just so your food don't come from McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or KFC Debt Mr. Nipsco man please slow down these lights is killing me the weather is too cold for me so please lower the price on your gas heat I can't be freezing in my one bedroom apartment Mr. Nipsco man I just paid rent and here you come with this long price bill please spare change save me from this 185.00 bill it's only me Why he makes me pay? dare me to cut off lights I sit in the dark at night just to save me the fright Debt 34

My new credit card just came in my max is 510 so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m ready to spend but I just thought everything comes with bills in the end Yesterday I paid Comcast 160 I cried on my trip home I don't even watch on demand one day I will stop you Comcast from charging me Laughing to myself they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop harassing me Debt Mama said water was free she lied to me I cut my water on low they charged me extra for a dishwasher I don't need I took a shower for an hour I didn't know they charge by the hour someone listen these bills gone kill me I'm on the run from my new friend her name is Debt

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