Phoenix - Winter 1984

E IN Z A G A M S T R A Y R A A E LIT

Volume 25, Number 2

Winter 1984

The photography on the cover is by Steve Younger, a senior in architecture. It is titled "Motion." The back cover photography, which is untitled, is by Liz Lotochinski, a senior in public relations.

Reed Massengill EDITOR

Avery Gaulding Patrick Michael Amy Waldrop SUPPORTING STAFF "'''''r'''''

:0.,. ....

Betty Allen Paul Wright PRODUCTION CONSULT

t Š 1984 by The University of Tennessee. All rights reby the individual contributors. Phoenix is prepared camera-ready by student staff members and is published three times each year. Works of art, non-fiction, fiction, poetry and photography are accepted at the beginning of each quarter.

Send submissions to Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine, Suite 11 Communications Building, 1345 Circle Park Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996-0314.

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June Adamson, Associate Dr. Edward Bratton, Marcia Goldenstein, Dr. Nancy Goslee, Leonard Koscianski, Dr. Bob Leggett, aJ..r,tDccr Byron McKeeby, FACULTY ,..."..---............

Lynne Nennstiel ACTING DIRECTOR

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EO 1-02 71-004-84 RA~ .~

UNIVERSITY OF TENNE g ~OXVJLLE

PHOENIX

LITERA.RY ARTS MAGAZINE

Volume 25, Number 2

Winter 1984

ART "Horse #4" by Teresa Prater Sise "Vote" by Mick Gray "Red Paper Plane Nocturne" by F. Clark Stewart "Telephone" by Vicki Bethel .

"Rump Roast" by Cynthia Perry "Octopus" by Katherine McKay Untitled by Ellaine Peck "Bad Day in Waco" by Tim Massey

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" 1984" by Carol Johnston Untitled by Thomas Stephen "Rodeo Boob Man" by Tim Massey Untitled by Danielle Mahanes "Virginia Swinging" by Virginia Derryberry

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12 12 14 16 16 17 17

22 25 28 30

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FICTION "Velma" by Ralph Monday "Miasma" by Ellen Priestly-Wright "The. Red Mountain" by Catherine Clark

2-7 14-15 30-32

NON-FICTION "The Bus Driver" by Tish Osborne "My Nose" by Cathy Wurst "Room 57" by Allison Reilly

8 11 27

PHOTOGRAPHY Untitled by Martha Carden Untitled by Patrick Benjamin Untitled by Patrick Benjamin "Corkey's Store" by Jane D. Wallace "Rastafarian" by Norman Clayton Untitled by Martha Carden Untitled by Paul Yount Untitled by Bruce Fiene

2 5 7 8 11 13

21 24

POETRY "The Road to the Highway" by Jeff Callahan "Temptation" by Robert Reed "The Champagne Hour" by Linda Parsons Burggraf "Before the Days of Divorce" by Linda R. Bell "Wingless" by Randy Miles "Accident at Powell Station" by Jeff Callahan "Burning" by Linda Parsons Burggraf Untitled by Peter Hastings "Future Shock" by Linda Parsons Burggraf "A Meaner Buck" by Randy Miles "The EmperorPresident's Choice" by Joseph Baneth Allen Untitled by Joe Lewelling "A Genetic Nightmare" by Lawrence Waters-Wolfe Untitled by Bruce Miller "The Blue Robe" by Jeff Callahan

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10 10 13 18 23

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25 26 26 29

29 29 29 33

Contents

Martha Carden

V

elma Spay comes into my life when I am sixteen, in the mid-sixties, to the backward and neglected land of Appalachia that (I know that it is, the television always says so) President Johnson has targeted as one of the first recipients of federal funds in his Great Society, a program designed to alleviate poverty in depressed areas of the country and bring about a more socially accepted quality of life and education. Strangely enough, Velma is coming on a federal grant to study the isolated and forgotten people of these high, mist-shrouded mountains. But she is not an American; she is from the Netherlands, a country that does not exist for me; she is a "ferigner" from across the waters, a strange person coming who would be different, who I could share ideas and thoughts with. Not many others in the hills interest me.

I stand outside our broken house in early May, just returned from church

2 Phoenix

with my grandparents, the rapture still on me and the Holy Word ringing in my head, looking down through the yellow dust that rises in clouds into the air, waiting for her, for this person from another land and clime. "Whut's she like?" I ask my grandmother when I first learned we are to have a boarder for the summer. "Different," she answers, pushing back her gray hair and wringing her thin, bird-like hands. "She'll be strange from us, but we hafta treat her right, fer she's folks, too. And don't you dare, Jay, be uh aggravatin' her with none uh your strange ideas and talk.

She here fer school work and ain't got time fer none uh your foolishness." I promise, but I still intend to talk with her. I'm excited. I've never met a person from another country.

Finally, after an hour of expectant watching, I see her come walking over the top of the far hill down the road. I know it's her: she has on a backpack and carries a suitcase. She walks down

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the hill and gets onto the railroad tracks that lead past our house. I watch her come on through the shimmering heathaze of the tracks; she seems almost a mirage to me, created by the whirling sun, an entity that will dance and tempt and then be gone back to the same nothing that it came from. I know that she had stopped at the store a mile down the road and asked directions to our house, and I suppose that the people found her alien and suspicious.

Mamaw and Papaw come out to greet her. Papaw is short and going bald; his eyes are brown like the earth. He wears today, just like he does everyday, blue bib overalls, faded and catching him loose about the waist. He comes on walking loose and easy, with a rolling gait, almost like the earth, his eyes looking and never missing anything. He's a quiet man, leaves me alone and never talks much. When he does have something to say a person better stop and listen, for he means what he says.

He looks hard at Velma coming toward us, spits his tobacco juice into the ground; I wonder what he's thinking, but he 路never says anything unless he's sure and wants to.

She stops in front of us. "Hellos," she says in English that ain't like ours. "I'm Velma. You are the Ellis', yes?" She takes off her pack and puts it on the ground. I stand mesmerized by her, her voice, her appearance, her strangeness.

She is as tall as me, at least five-feet eight inches, and has long auburn hair like chestnuts that hangs past her shoulders in thick wavy ropes. Her eyes are green; her skin, though not pale, is not as dark as mine. Her cheekbones are molded delicately and her face is clear and full of color. Her eyes are very unusual; they grip and hold like nothing I've ever seen. She isn't beautiful by the standards of the day, but to me she is full of life and longing.

"Yes, we are," Mamaw answers. "This here is my husband, John, and Jay there is my grandson. We raised him. I suppose you're tard, you've come a long ways. I'll show ye to your room." She smiles at me as she follows Mamaw, and I watch her disappear into the darkened recesses of the house, some unidentifiable thing stirring strangely in me. very morning she rises before everyone else, even my grandparents, which is unusual. I can hear her stirring in her room across the hall. I wonder what she is doing, what she looks like: She rarely ever eats breakfast with us but disappears into the morning dusk with her tape-recorder, notebook, and camera.

She is always gone for different odd hours. I never know when she will return; I want to be with her.

Sometimes she is gone all day, other times only a few hours - out there with the people in the mountains and the hollers. I always want to go with her the way the trees want to sleep in winter, but I know better than to ask. I only watch her go and clench my hands and never say antything.

This day she is gone early and I stand alone on a very large rectangular rock at the creek, watching the water pass by with its odd assortment of flotsam. I am often alone. Someone touches me on the shoulder and I am startled. It's Velma, smiling at me.

"I hope I didn't scare you," she says.

I look into those odd, curious eyes

E

that almost seem to turn and spin, that probe and look deeper than I can ever imagine going. "Naw," I laugh. "You didn't."

She smiles again and lightly touches my hand. "How old are you, Jay?" "Sixteen. Why?" She shrugs. "Just wondered; come and talk to me sometime and about my country I'll tell you. " "Okay," I say. "You flew across the waters, didn't you, in a jet, up there in the sky?" My hand traces an arc across the clouds.

"Yes." "It must have been somethin', up there?"

"Yes." Her eyes fasten onto me. "I must go now." She moves off down the creek limber as a branch in spring. I watch her go, again.

She begins to sit with us on the porch at night. We sit in the hickory rockers in the cool breeze watching Papaw whittle on his cedar and listening to the night creatures' song. We talk more freely.

"Where do you come from?" I ask her.

"Domburg," she says. "On the coast southwestern, the North Sea is the water."

"Do ya have mountains?"

"No, flatland it is, Jay, low country; great dikes we build to hold the ocean back. It is a beautiful land; so is this, the mountains and their trees. In the morning the fog I like. We have fog at home like that, gray clouds, too. Here I like it."

"Whut are ya doin' out here with your tape recorder an' them thangs, goin' ta school, ain't ya?"

She laughs. "You ask a lot of questions. Yes. In Germany to the University of Homburg I go. I am here to earn my higher degree in sociology. I do this field work for my thesis. " "Maybe I can help, " I say. "I know a lot of thangs about this country."

"Maybe you can; a curious boy you are for your age. " She looks at me with her eyes. They are strange, but beautiful and very bright; she has a way of looking at things that makes me think she sees right through them to the core.

"A different land, ain't hit," says Papaw suddenly. "A different people. I went across the waters when I was real young, in the war. Germany and France

hit was." He peers at Velma. "Never got ta your part; the people wudn't like us. " It is a big speech for him "Yes," she says. "How long were you there?"

"Two years. They was strong people, though."

"Did you like them?"

"Sometimes," he says, "not all the time. They couldn't be blamed though, they fit good, no cowards."

"Yes. " he goes out in the morning and still won't take me with her. I ask her why and she tells me that this type of work I can't help her with. She goes but she always comes back sometime during the day and we go for long walks. Her curiosity about the land is insatiable. I teach her things.

"This tree is a hemlock," I tell her.

"An evergreen. You have evergreens?"

"Yes," and she , runs her sensitive hands over its rough bark and touches its roots.

"This is a beech."

"It's beautiful."

"This rock is sandstone, this quartz, and that one you're holdin' is feldspar; real common."

I . show her flowers , trees, insects, other things, and all the knowledge she voraciously consumes. We lie in a field on a ridge and watch the sky. Velma makes up a game about finding animals in the clouds. We lie there calling them out for a long time. She takes my hand in hers. "Like the ones out there you aren't. Different you are; you know so many things that you didn't learn in the Kentucky hills. You know more than they do."

"Naw," I say, chewing on a piece of grass. "They know just as much or more, probably more, cause I don't know nothin'; different, that's all. I read more things."

She smiles. She has a lovely smile; it always reminds me of something that I can't remember. "Yes you are. It's good. " "Come with me, " I say, getting up. "I want to show you somethin'."

I take her halfway up the mountain behind my house to one of my favorite spots. We go deep into the tall, dark hemlocks that form a canopy and she stands for a moment looking at it. silent. "What is this?" she asks, finally.

There is something like awe in her

S

Phoenix 3

voice, almost sacred.

"Ruins. No one knows what of."

We look at the large hand-hewn blocks of stone that were once cot so well that they had fit together without mortar. Many have fallen apart now into the large depression of silted sand and stones and tree loam. Moss grows on them; tree roots probe their depths, split and cracked.

"This ain't the strangest thang," I say.

"Come over here." I show her the solid coffin-shaped stone, over five feet long and six inches thick. It leans as it has for years at an angle against a beech tree, the place where a man's head would be resting on the ground.

"How weird," she whispers, running her hands all over it. "You don't know anything about this?"

"Not any thin' that people have told me. I git a feelin' sometimes, though.

Sometimes I think I understand but then it goes away and I didn't see it after all. Maybe when I git older.... " She sits on it, her long bare legs capturing tiny slivers of light that comes through the trees. She and the rock seem almost the same thing, and I think about it for a moment and see something dimly, but it goes away. I can hear the water far off on the other side of the ridge. "Come on," I say. "We'll come back another day. I'll show ya the falls."

We pick our way down the slope. We stop and look at where the running stream has cut a deep gorge into the innards of the mountain; at one point it leaps over a cliff and falls for thirty feet loud and thunderously strong. The spray is a misty nimbus and a thing alive. It calms fifty yards downstream into a deep, still pool of ice-green water.

She sits and looks at it for awhile, breathing deeply, her hand lightly hot on my knee. ''I'm going to swim," she says. "Come you will?"

"No." She looks at me. I turn my head away; I don't trust my feelings. She goes carefully down to the pool and takes her clothes off. I am astonished, but I can't take my eyes off her slender form, knowing that I should, knowing that I'll have to go to church and pray because of the wrong things. Then she is in the water swimming strong, and as she swims she turns first into a mink that owns these waters, and then to something that is not even of this earth, beyond, from another time. She is so

4 Phoenix

beautiful it hurts in my throat, but it is wrong. I know Papaw would whip me if he knew and tell the preacher. I don't care; it is not right. I don't care; she is a spirit and" I love these woods, these mountains, these deep, still waters. elma stirs up strange feelings in me. I marvel; I know some what they really are, but I don't know all. Mamaw and Papaw wonder about us I know; probably the whole town does. I hear things in the town that I shut out of my head. I can't believe them. It is 'such a wonderful time that I don't care. She loves to laugh, but sometimes a darJ<er vision comes into her eyes. I always wonder about that. I've heard; I don't listen.

One day I ask her. She turns those odd eyes upon me. "Your people are much as mine, displaced they are as mine were displaced during the war. That is part, but the whole is that so much alike are we .. Sometimes good it is I'm not sure."

"Ya mean my and your people?"

"No," she says. "You and I. You look as I do."

She is twenty-five. I can't stand it in the mornings when she leaves and won't let me go with her. I want to be around her all the time. She is the taste of musky fall leaves and the promise of spring. I take to getting up early in the morning; I slip outside to stand behind the house and watch her leave. There is always a cold feeling; she has such a strange walk, long, leggy, but with a kind of sidewise jerky motion that demonstrates more strength than grace, for she is a strong woman. I wonder where she goes, who she sees, what questions she asks, what replies she takes down on her recorder. I don't understand it. She seems so much like me but I sense she really isn't. She is alien; she tells me that there are spirits in all things and I find this strange because I have been taught that there is only one God, and a saviour. Others are false.

"No," she says in her husky voice.

"This creek has a spirit, all the trees, the rocks, the plants. Men say other things, but true it is not."

"Do ya believe in the Christian God?" "In the Universal God I believe. In all this there is a unity. " She spreads her arms wide.

"I don't know whut that is."

"You will, " and she looks at me so

V

that I feel strange. I drop my eyes - I am troubled.

I go to church and hear the preacher thunder out of the pulpit about Jesus and the Rapture and believing, and about bewaring people who bear false witness - they are evil, but she isn't evil, and I know that I shouldn't be with her - still, she is delicious Sunday icecream. My voice rises up with the others in a hymn to God and I sing sure for awhile and am pure. Then I am not pure because I think of her, here in the Lord's house. It bothers me; in church the people all bow their heads and believe and pray and talk about being Christian perfect, and I can feel the power of the Lord gathered beneath the roof and know that it is true, it is just like the rocks. I go away, feel fresh, pure, and the people smile at me and go away, but I know they do things that ain't Christian, things that go against their prayers that ain't true, but God don't lie to me, does He? "It is what is wrong with all of them," she tells me. "They cannot cast it off, so it entraps them; they suffer. They bring it on themselves. Will you?"

"I don't know. " Her eyes flash. "Throw it off my people never could, either. I did, that is why I left."

We sit in a strip-pit fingering fossils turned up by the great earth machines.

She holds one and caresses it so that I wonder if she is feeling the life of a hundred million years ago. "Jay, I am leaving in two weeks," she says.

Where has the summer gone? My insides twist up but I don't show it; men don't show things. "Take me with you."

She touches my hair. "I can't. I wish I could."

"Do ya have a man over there?"

She looks away. "No, no man - over there."

I crumble a fossil in my hand, finding some strange sort of power in erasing an earth-record of another time. It's almost like erasing a part of myself.

"Why don't ya stay? Ya know I want ya to. It'll be hard when ya leave."

"I know, but teach you something I will, and maybe it won't be so hard."

She takes my face in her hands and kisses me, her tongue barely parting my lips and probing; my heart is a drum and I hold her very tight and am not a man - somewhere in between - and cry so she can't hear while she strokes

Pa trick Benjamin

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Phoenix 5

my hair and rocks me in the evening. apaw 20mes to me when I am in bed and cuffs me in the head so that I come out of the covers confused and fightin', and says to me, "Listen now, I know ya been runnin' aroun' with that ferign woman, and maybe ya don hit, but that's all right, me and your Mamaw been talking and say ta ya now ta stay away from 'er, she hain't no good fer ya, she leavin' soon, and ya jest stay away now, ya hear?"

I sit up in bed. "I don't know."

"Listen now, the whole town is talkin' and I don't want 'em talkin' about you.

Do whut I say."

"Why," I say. "I don't give a damn."

He cuffs me in the head again with that great big hand hardened by the years so it is rock. "I never should have let ya start runnin' with 'er. Your Mamaw tole me not to. Do whut I say. I never say much ta ya, Jay, I always leave ya alone. You a level-headed boy, but I tellin' ya now I'll whup ya. I hain't never done hit much, but I'll whup ya good."

"She's a good woman," I say. "Ya ain't got no cause fer none of this."

"I tole ya," he says, angry. "Ya too young to know, or else I would say.

Don't hurt your Mamaw now, she gettin' too old."

"I ain't promisin' ya nothin'!"

He cuffs me again so that my head stings and I wonder at this gentle man turned vicious. I look at him hard. "I ain't goin' ta hurt Mamaw. I got no reason. She been too good ta me."

"Ya hurt her without knowin', boy, but not too much. She git over hit. I jest doin' hit fer ye cause I know whut hit is ta be a hot youngun." He turns and goes out and I sit there watching him leave, walking, like a man who owns the woods. elma and me go up into the hemlocks where the weird stones are, in the evening when the sun is a bloody eye and the woods are dark and moody, like the eye of a blackbird. I look at her where the September sun is making shadowed bars across her face; she sits on the coffin-rock silent and harder than I have ever seen her, stares away into the owl wandered woods with her eyes that are never still but always quick and moving.

To her I say, "Papaw says not ta be around ya no more."

P

V

6 Phoenix

"Do you want that?"

I fumble with a piece of wood. "No." I look at her. "Why does he say that? I don't see no reason. Me and you always got along good. Is they somethin'?"

She looks away again into the woods.

"I don't think so. Some others might."

"Whut do ya do when ya go away in the mornin', I mean besides fill up that notebook? Ya never let me go, though I ask ya."

She looks down at her hands moving quick and strange. "Is it really that important?"

"Yeah," I say. "It is."

She gets up and walks away. She stands with her back to me for a long time while the woods get darker. She turns around finally. "I learn, Jay," she says, facing away again. "I learn and I hope that I teach. But sometimes I wonder if I do." She turns quick around and catches her eyes with mine. "Do you understand that?"

"Maybe," I say.

She comes to me suddenly and puts her hands on my shoulders digging in so that I feel her power. It's like washing in water and I'm afraid because the water's so strong. "In my country," she says "common it is for an older woman to a young boy show how to treat a woman." She covers my mouth and moves her hands all over me, and I am scared and not sure; she smiles and takes off her blouse and skirt so that she stands there in the almost dark with nothing but panties and her tanned body that I never thought tan, and says to me, ''I'll show you." She tugs at my clothes until they are gone and I feel like a rock, and then she slides out of her bottoms and stands in front of me like a wood-spirit she told me of, and pulls me down into the needled forest floor, my mouth to her breast suckling manlike, and she pushes my head down to her belly, says to me, "lick it, down there," and I don't know because my face is there but the smell is strange; my blood roars and I am consumed but I don't know because of the hairs in my nose, and she says strong, "there!" with her hands pushing me down, a guide, and my red tongue is a snail; she makes it quick. She says, "there, Jay, between the lips like a man; take the woman taste. That's man what makes you."

The smell is suddenly changed, the taste honeydew; I consume voraciously a church rapture, not knowing, not

knowing, but yes knowing, and afraid and not afraid. All the while she moves with animal noises and tells me, "forever I'm yours, Jay," and pulls me to the top where I breathe, become lost, rebirth in the dark. apaw comes to me when I am sitting in the field with my shotgun watching for rabbits that eat the potato plants.

"I tole ya," he says.

I look up from the long field where there are no rabbits. "I know."

He raises up the big corn stalk that is at his side, with the roots hanging down sharp and hard. "Put down your gun," he says. I do and stand up with the sun hot across my face in the late evening and he puts it hard across my back like thunder and I gasp from the heat of it and he puts it across again with a slow grunt; I go down to one knee and am almost gone, but come up again because of it. He rains it across again and again, -grunting each time, and I set my eyes hard because of it and feel the thick moistness on my back through my shirt, and think that it goes down into the ground for the potatoes; it's there again and again until my eyes are white and the day is gone, and I don't feel it anymore, it's just another lump of clay, and finally it stops and I don't know why, it could have gone on forever it is so pure.

He grunts for a final time. "Yer a tough one," he says. "Even with the smell on ya," throws the stalk to the ground, looks at me, spits, turns and goes back toward the house.

I sit for a minute, the sun washing over me in the rocky field that can't grow nothing, then I go slow through the cut in the trees to the creek and sit down in it with the water around my neck like when the preacher baptized me, the pain almost nonexistant because of my mind, and wash for awhile on the muddy bottom. I get up then, and go limping back toward the house, staggering a little, get my bicycle and pedal toward the racetrack, wanting to be by myself because I know she's leaving today, and I don't want to see her. The track is in a field below the schoolhouse that Johnson built, a field of sharp sagegrass that will cut you, alrea,dy yellowing now, the course trampled and ridden through it, three hundred yards in diameter, the grass almost higher than my head; there are a

P

bunch of boys there; they look at me, their eyes wide. I ignore them and start around the track, pedaling slowly, feeling the muscles move in my torn back. I am almost around when I hear voices coming from the next turn. I stop to listen. "She's a whore," I hear someone say. "They all whores across the waters.

Done hit with anybody in the holler, almost, anybody that wanted hit."

"I know," another voice says. "Hot thang. Goes in the morning with hit there. Peg Leg Jim had her, too."

Laughter. "He an ole man, tole the boys at the store about hit. Wonder if he used his stump?" More laughter. Peg Leg Jim is my grandfather's uncle, old man, 81 years, lost his leg in the mines. I can't stand it no more. I go around the turn hard on my bicycle and plow into them; both of them I know, both of them I've runned the woods with.

"Liars," I shout. "All lies, ain't true!"

The water is fast and quick on my face.

Then my fists are flying, striking out everywhere and I hear them shouting, "Jay, Jay, ya crazy you! Don't ya know about that woman!" I say nothing; I come on blind striking in animated fury and then my face is laying in the sagegrass, sticking me with its sharp points, and my head is pounded and there is blood again, moist, sticky; I can't breathe through my nose and my ribs hurt and at last it all stops and they are gone and I lay there shuddering as I breathe. I turn over on my back; the sun is almost gone. There are crows black against the sky way way off over the white sycamores. It takes me awhile to get up; the front wheel of my bicycle is bent, useless, can't ride it. I throw it down and start off limping toward the weathered, sagging house.

I get there before she is gone. She has her backpack and her suitcase; she

Patrick Benjamin stands tall on the porch looking out cold at the bunch of men squatting on their haunches in the yard. I know most of them. "Whut are ya boys doin' here," I say. They smile in a way I don't like.

"Why, come ta see Miss Velma off.

Know she leavin', want ta say goodbye, don't we boys?" They -nod their heads and laugh and I see Papaw in the dark doorway like a shadow and I know that he brought them here. He shouldn't of done that. "We shore will miss 'er."

More laughter that's like insects in my head, buzzing, till the blood rushes and becomes a drum. I look at Velma and her courage is fine and hard, focused as the sun on the men in the yard; she is more regal than the trees. I hurt to look at her with the men there. She comes off the porch up to me and touches my torn face. "You are hurt, Jay. Come in the house and clean you up I will."

"Naw," I say, slapping her hand away.

"I ain't hurt that bad." I see Papaw; he's watching me and it's like he is me.

She looks at me strange and I feel the eyes of the men on my back and I think about getting Papaw's shotgun and finishing all of them, but what the hell, let them watch; he brought them here for it.

"Bitch," I say viciously. "Ain't hit time you was leavin'? Go back to yer own country, whore; they's studs there, too!" I hear the men break into laughter; the sound is a waterfall roar, my head becomes so full of it. My eyes have a mist that I see her through dimly.

She looks at me hurt, with woods-eyes that I taught her, and I feel something for a minute, but the mist makes me hard again and I come on to her and slap her full in the face, the sound a rifle shot in the still air; she recoils back from it and says, "I never thought you

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would, I never thought you would be like the rest." I come again and hit her hard with my closed fist so that she goes down in the ocher dust and then I kick her, shouting, "whore, whore, whore!" all the time hating that I'm doing it while the men look on with their bleak faces; I would have pounded her even more so blind I am 'by the hot fury, but Papaw comes over to me and grabs my arm. "That's enough, boy," he says.

"Ya done worked hit out. Leave 'er be, she got her own shame to deal with."

She gets up and dusts herself off, looks at me and the men with no shame in her purpled face. I am trembling. I shake so hard I can barely stand. She picks up her things and comes to me and smiles and brushes -the hair out of my eyes the way she has done so many times. "I never thought it from you, Jay," she says. "But all right it is, I know why. Someday you will, too." She looks over at the men who are shamed, not her; they shuffle slowly away, heads bent, hands in pockets; she watches them go, a victory queen, just the same as the first day she come. "I still feel it, Jay," she says and heads out of the yard, gets onto the railroad tracks, walks away. I sit on the porch steps watching her go, Papaw sitting beside me, his hand on my knee, until she disappears way down the tracks into the dusk.

Something funny is all in my throat, but I don't know what it is.

"Hit's all right, boy," Papaw says.

"Hit's all right." I lean weak over onto his shoulder, my head dim and hurting, but it is the thing in my throat that is the worst. I look back 'down the tracks all gone in the dark, the tracks calling to me long and hard, and all I can think of is still waters. I don't go to church no more.

Phoenix 7

The Bus Driver

by Tish Osborne His name is Claude Hux and, with most of his time, he drives. He drives bus routes in Hamblen County in a big, snub-nosed Thomas, taking the children to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. He drives the basketball and softball teams to their games and, during football season, the band to play at halftime.

During the summer, Claude drives a horse van carrying six stomping horses to shows all over East Tennessee, cursing their flea-bitten hides all the way. For eight summers in a row, I rode in the cab alongside him, just because I talk so much and because the horses' owners were afraid he would fall asleep. For his trouble, he got a picnic lunch, a lounge chair in the shade, and $10.

He made his first pile of money driving in an old, rusty Chevrolet from North Carolina to Jefferson County. He carried moonshine in a tank under the Chevy's back seat, and he was 14 years old.

He told me about the 'shine runs to calm me when the van's headlights went out coming back from a horse show in Carter. I begged him to stop. I was close to tears and it was tar black outside. It made me afraid that the six horses behind might somehow end up in my lap. But Claude said he had driven those same roads without lights many a time, when the law had been trying to track him down. That was over 50 years ago and he gave it up to drive a truck for Pet Milk.

None of this is a full-time profession for Claude.

He and his wife Helen have a small farm where he raises a few acres of tobacco. He takes his big haybailer to his neighbors' fields for pay. He also raises calves from birth to weaning, and he sells them, despite the sorrowful look he says the old cows give him all spring. He says he can pass by a field and pick out one of his young from the herd.

8 Phoenix

But in back of and around and beyond all these things he does, Claude is primarily a keeper of children - not just their bodies to and fro in the bus he drives, but their minds as well. Many late afternoons I've passed him and seen a single child perched just behind his drivers' seat, leaning forward to talk in his ear, alone in front of rows of vacant, green, pillow-backed benches and empty windows.

Often that child got on in the first run and was still talking at dusk.

You can talk to Claude about anything. When you haven't seen him in awhile, he'll come up on you and squeeze you too hard and say, "Y oungun, where you been off to?" But he'll always know. He always seems to know just where you've been and how hard it was to get there.

Claude knows what's going on with the community of children as a gossipy woman would know of the grown-ups. He says he can tell what girls are pregnant before their mothers know by watching them board his bus and walk down the aisle. And what he doesn't see in his big rear-view mirror, he sees in the eyes and hears in tearful confessions, in tales of dreams and disappointments. Claude knows better than anybody which daddies are drunks and which moms send their children to school without breakfast. He knows who cries himself to sleep at night. You can surprise Claude but never shock him, and so many bend his ear long and often.

Claude is in his seventies now, his hair steel gray and short, his back sore from many hours at the wheel. And still he drives -:- and keeps. He is the keeper of that . part of children's minds that most parents can't find the time to share. He touches children the way the sun touches his calves in the field, warming them and wanting them and there.

The Road to the Highway The shock absorbers are useless screeching across the pocked and sullen pavement. Late September and I'm driving my sister to the doctor, vermillion bursting ant-like from the stuffed gray clouds.

Beside the fence the chestnut mare and her foal steam in chill air.

I drive faster, racing the wire and withered oak to the end of the lane. Both deep in separate silence, we sit with our thoughts pressed against the windows like warm breath - a supple vanity.

I hear my sister scream as the calf runs into the street. I swerve and try to miss but there's nowhere to go. I stop and back up.

In the spreading stain I see the tiny limbs frozen and contracted, absurd tissue livid in morning's pale light. Climbing from the truck my sister crys and looks away, cradling her mother's belly in delicately veined hands.

Jeff Callahan

Teresa Prater Sise

Oils tick

IIorse

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4.

Phoenix 9

,

The Champagne Hour It is an bour wben silence 'irisits tbe bouse .

Lawrence Welk strikes up his thirty pieces to the memories of a good two generations goneby.

It's Cole Porter, the same number she won First on doing the Lindy ; at the VA benefit dance in '43.

The natural blondes on television swirl in a mass of sequins and orange chiffon.

Harley likes the bubble machine as much as he likes the hour of quiet.

A way from his wife around the chair's left side , he opens his eighth Falstaff since dinner.

She never counts on Saturday night and he can slip a few empties behind the chair.

Sometimes he talks the better days alone to his granddaughter.

He talks the P elican Line, creased table napkins Crab Louie on Spode grasshopper pie and movement so effortless it felt you arrived in Bristol all the way from New Orleans in the space of a dog's pant.

She only knows that cabooses are brick red and follow piggyback cars on the tail end.

She backs off, not listening as she often does when he smells that way, like rotten apples and losing count.

What she loves most about this house is the bathtub, the china-cast porcelain which crouches up on clawed feet like a female Congo cat.

And in the suds plastic cups and funnels bobbing, her toes rise shrunken, flushed and budlike from the waterline.

She calls to be dried.

Myron Floren has finished on the accordian.

Her grandmother leaves the set before the old women waltz together, making fools of themselves on camera.

Past the bathroom door, her arms clink with the scraped music of four, maybe five bottles.

Linda Parsons Burp;graf

10 Phoenix

my

nose by cathy

wurst

"The fearless one," my mother used to call me.

"It's going to get you into big trouble one day."

She tried to warn me, but I would never listen. I always had to climb the highest tree, slide head first into third base, jump from steep ledges, and ride my bike through glass. I had the charm of an eight-yearold, or so I thought. Nothing seemed to touch me, no matter how dangerous.

Then I met Twink. Twink the dog. Twink the German Shepherd. Twink the monster.

Twink belonged to Julia, who was a friend of my mother. He was trained to attack anyone who approached Julia in a threatening manner. All she had to say was, "Get going," and Twink would be at your throat. This dog was lethal, and dangerous, and of course t had to make friends with him.

I approached Twink with my usual bravado, somewhat diminished when I realized how huge the dog really was. Both my older sisters were too afraid to come near the animal, but still I wanted to hang around to see if I would get eaten. As I started to falter, they taunted me from the safety of the garage.

I looked around to see if any adult was going to stop me from petting the dog. Drats, nobody was around.

I couldn't back down now, it was a pride thing.

Norman Clayton

Rastafarian

Swallowing my fear, I ran up to the dog, startling it. For a split second we looked at each other eye to eye, and then the dog snarled and bit me right on the nose.

Blood gushed from my nose, and I screamed in terror monr than pain. Suddenly, my mother and Julia and the entire fleet of kids from the neighborhood appeared. I was rushed to the hospital, holding a bloody cloth to my nose the entire time.

I had to have plastic surgery on my nose after it healed. I endured it bravely, with the help of plenty of toys, candy, and books. However, once I got out of the hospital, I was the laughingstock of the neighborhood. As the stitches were very delicate, I had to protect my nose at all times, e~pecially when I went outside.

So there I stood, in the middle of March, playing outside with my football helmet on, cursing that damn dog Twink.

Phoenix 11

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Mlck Gray

011 on Canvas

F. Clark Stcwart

12 Phoenix

1'1ixcd 1'1cdia

Vote

Rcd Papcr Planc Nocturnc

Before the Days of Divorce He thought himself a failure.

She had convinced him.

You could see it in his face.

By other people's standards, perhaps he was.

Long after he sold his chestnut mare the barometer in his knee was still predicting weather.

(She never did believe him.)

How his eyes sparkled when one of us kids came in .

He'd greet the boys by butting heads.

I was the only girl.

We'd go for a billy-goat greeting only when his wife wasn't watching.

(She was one of the other people.)

This hardy outdoorsmanloved sassafras tea almost as much as pepper on ice cream.

(I always thought that was just to annoy her.)

I remember how he'd always buy me a Brownie cola when we went riding in his rundown pickup.

(She drove a brand new Buick.)

Martha Carden

For eighty winters he bowed against the world (and her every whim), but for two last years he fanned the fire, fought her flaming words, as if he knew the end was near .

And when it finally came ... he was glad.

Linda R. Bell

Untitled

Phoenix 13

M ASMA

by Ellen Priestly-Wright

,'J

ust dreadfu( - it's just dreadful, not seeing you for so long.

Spring is an eternity, isn't it? I thought we could sit out by the pool; would that be all right with you, dear?

"Good. Honestly, you just can't know how good it is seeing you again. It seems like ages, just ages - and you and Phyllis out here after school each day - a mirage. Here, have a seat. Isn't this sun splendid?

"Well, you know I'm the first one to want a tan, but did you see what it did to the poor roses - shriveled them right up, like dead chameleons - redthroated and all. Dear Cyrus keeps watering them though. You remember, they were an anniversary gift from our little Phyllis and her husband. Cy can't stand to think they won't come back the roses that is.

"No, Phyllis and Rory say they can't make it this year. I'm sure they'll find a way, though. They just have to come down before the summer's out. Why, I just don't know what it'd be like without their visit - we always have such a good time, you know.

"Oh, yes, they just love the mountains. And especially the snow, it seems.

Goodness, just talking about mountains makes it feel like-an oven, out here. I know exactly what we need; how about a fresh , cold drink? Won't you join me?

"Great. I can think of nothing better.

Lemonade, fresh, pink lemonade - we used to drink it at family reunions by the gallons bottomless oaken buckets fil1ed to the brim, and slices of fresh lemons floating allover the top like sun-yellow pinwheels. And I think we may even have a few lemons in the refrigerator. I'll get Cyrus to fix us all some. He wants to see you, too - he's such a dear husband.

"Cyrus - Cy - Doesn't some pink lemonade sound good? How about fixing us all some? Cyrus?

"He must be on the porch or at the side of the house, working in the rose bed, no doubt. He'II come around in a minute, I'm sure.

"Those roses .... Reminds me of my room at Auburn. There were always roses in the room at Auburn, especially during Homecoming. Have I ever told you about our Homecomings? Wel1, just . guess who the freshman, and then the sophomore representative was?

"Right you are - none other than Mrs. Ita Holloway. Of course, it was Miss Ita Huntington then. Oh, the room just swam with roses, lakes of yeIIow and pink bouquets, and always a dozen red ones from Cy - two dozen when I was a sophomore, with a crinoline lining that year; it blossomed out at the waist just like a rose itself. And that night Cyrus proposed to me. Beside an intoxicating thicket of wild roses and honeysuckle ....

"Oh, I'm sure all this chatter must seem so silly to you, but you're a dear to listen. We married right after he graduated that spring and then moved down here. It must be hard to even picture Cyrus ever behaving in such away.

There never was a man so dedicated, although I had quite a number of admirers at one time. Why, even now, if I were to take on some monstrous responsibility - for instance, planning the Junior League Christmas Bazaar - and then fel1 flat on my face,

Cy would believe it was because I wanted a closer look at the ground.

Yes, he would - now where is that rascal anyway? And most of all, that lemonade?

"Cyrus? Cyrus, the lemonade "Oh, who can tell. Now, let's see your last semester, how'd it go for you?

"WeII, just super. And yes, PhyIlis and Rory are doing grandly. Rory will graduate after the summer and PhyIlis is dead set on graduate school. She wants to go for her M.B.A., but I know she'd be so much happier working for my brother, Edward. You remember how much she enjoyed working in his office when we spent the summers with them - typing and such. And then she'd have so much more time for Rory and traveling, especially without those ghastly college bills. Of course, we'd pay for it all, only they won't even hear of it.

"Rory? WeB, he's hoping to get on with his brother's architectural firm in Philadelphia, although I don't think he realizes just how far away from Florida that is. Why, our little Phyllis would hardly be able to see us more than once a year, if that. I imagine they'll come to their senses. They are mad about those Carolina mountains, but I know Phyl1is must miss the beach. Remember those marvelous beach weeks we used to take when you two were in high school?

"What fun that all was - lying in the sun all day till our skin was so burnt, dabbling at a little tennis, and all that delicious fish the boys would catch and grill "No, we haven't been back since Phyllis married; I really do miss those summers, though. When Phyllis and Rory come down this year, we must spend a week or so down there. We'II load up the car like we used to with a picnic ham, tuna salad, a watermelon or two and other goodies and - oh, it'll be better than in the movies. You'll be here until late August, won't you?

"Well, it's all set then. Cyrus can take off from work and - Cyrus. Where is that Cyrus? He's such a tease; he must be trying to make us think he didn't even hear me.

"Cyrus - Cy! Come on now, we're thirst " I just can't imagine what's taking him so long.

"No, you stay right there. Why, he's always such a dear; I just can't imagine what's keeping him. He's always so wiIIing to do sweet little things - he really is. He's a lot like your aunt was, in that way. She never married, did she, your Aunt Rosemary?

"Yes, that's what I thought. I knew she loved her work IT and she traveled so many places, didn't she? Poor thing, I guess she never had time to realize just how much she did miss out on. I mean no offense, of course. Cyrus certainly loved to talk with her when she came to visit your family. He always says she was such a knowledgeable woman, with such a sense of humor, and always a lady. Oh; where is he? I just can't wait any longer.

"Cyrus! Cyrus Holloway - come out here with that lemonade. I feel like a prospector on the desert, it's so hot out here. Come on, Cy - Cy - I won't stand for this any longer "No, stay right there. It's sweet of you to offer, but there's no sense in us going in when he's already so near the house.

"Cy - Cyrus - " Cyrus Holloway, bent over in a dry thicket of rose bushes, continued to work. He had never been able to tell thorns from blossoms. Around the corner of the house, out of Cyrus's line of vision and train of thought, sat Mrs. Holloway with her visitor.

Ita looked up; she closed her eyes.

Her voice trembled. "All I want is a glass of lemonade - that's all, just one glass of sweet, pink lemonade - " she said, and burst into tears.

Phoenix 15

portfolio

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Cynthia Perry

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Pastel

Rump Roast

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Katherine McKay

16 Phoenix

Lithograph ' Octopus

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Ellaine Peck

Cray-pas

Untitled

Tim Massey

Intaglio

Bad Day in Waco

Phoenix 17

Wingless I remember when we parted you said it felt like Angels were crying.

No, we neyer had it easy, wanting something so badly that we almost oyercame those obstacles, your age and my ambition, which were all too imminent.

Doubtless, somewhere in the realm of remembered dreams we will always be together, but I was tired of dreaming in this world, and too busy to pull you out of that one.

We knew those Angels my loye, they were us.

Randy Miles

18 Phoenix

Rhea McLean

Intaglio

Untitled

Phoenix 19

Carol JOhnston

20 Phoenix

1984

Paul roulJt

Unt1tled

Phoenix 21

Thomas Stephen 22 Phoenix

Pen and Ink

lTntitled

Accident at Powell Station Exactly how it happened no one really knows.

The engineer said he saw nothing, only heard the dull thud, and saw the body spiral headless from the tracks.

There was talk of drink (some said the old man, some said the engineer) but it was mostly gossip.

This one thing was clear: Mr. Lyons, who had wayed the yellow school buses through the crossing for as long as any of us could remember, had been struck and killed by the 3:30 bound for Lexington.

10th grade: girl-shy and horny in equal measures, I pinched myself awake through algebra each day to be alert for Mr. Jones' class (F01111egut! Heller!) and the discussions I loyed.

We walked from sweaty classrooms that day in to a stillness of flew-mown grass, a calm so persuasiye we sensed immediately something wrong, and so ran down Emory to where the crowd had already gathered, faces blinking in the blinking Sheriffs light.

Speechless, I stood on the ties with Jeff Story and Danny Hensley, looking at the pieces of what had been the old man's head, daubed junk glistening in the afternoon sun.

I remember thinking so this is ll'hat we thiI1k with.

Two men came from the county coroner's office and loaded the body in a yan.

One of them put on rubber gloyes and stooped along the tracks putting the pieces in a dark plastic bag.

From embarrassment more than anything we turned away.

Not quite men we stood with our hands at our sides, eyes tracing the gleaming rails from the front of Groner's store to where they ended, abruptly, at our feet.

Jeff Callahan Phoenix 23

Burning Do you still ]m"e me, he asks and pulls out, bloodied as if from razors.

She collects the towel thickness against its soaked middle .

Already he is outside hosing down the dry, stunted grass.

Going to the sink she runs cold water oyer the oblong stain.

Don't you know it's the best time to preren t babies, he will say as he unfolds a strong bath towel from the closet shelf.

If only she could rest with one ear to the coming night and one to the cicadas, the coiled ache might leave her body like a knotting rope pulled slowly through peepholes.

On the moist pad of lawn he waves to a boy slinging his basketball onto the pavement, hard like gravel. .No mothers call him in.

Linda Parsons Bur{4-graf

Bruce Feine

24 Phoenix

Untitled

Untitled Atop Daddy's shoulders Milling through the crowds Fingers pointing - "Look Daddy" Eyes wide and sparkling see everything: The half-licked fireball curbside And the floppy-shoed man with a funny painted face.

Now he's happy just Bouncing the big helium balloon off Daddy's soft head.

Daddy tied it to his finger so it wouldn't go away.

Suddenly he sees the cotton candy line As long as his choo-choo track at home.

Hips twist - "Daddy, go there!"

And Daddy does.

Peter Hastings

Phoenix 25

Future Shock Wet bathing suit hangs from one strap on the doorknob .

Wild limbed across the bed skin cool as marble, breasts gone to either side like loose buttons in a jar.

Two daughters venture to my arms, folded as neat points of stars under the pillow.

The older looks pretending not to see.

Her eyes dart here then away like small flies.

The younger pulls the sheet over me and insists I put on a shirt.

Don't you know, I tell them someday this will be you?

Since when are you afraid of mirrors ?

Linda Parsons Burggraf

A Meaner Buck The moon is full, I need no other light to find the spot in these woods that bears your signature in earth, the spot where I will wait to kill you, where I will claim your flesh for my table and your skin for the back of my easy-chair.

With muscles locked in anticipation, so silent still like a stump, you will never see me when I strike .

And you will only hear a loud crack, the echo of death tha t will ring in your ears after you feel the sting of blue steel.

Randy Miles

26 Phoenix

Room 57

by Allison Reilly It isn't any different from all the other rooms in the Humanities Building. Built and painted in the bland, flesh-tone style of early sixties university architecture, the classrooms have worn evenly. Time has given them the personality that the architects forgot.

Room 57 sits empty this afternoon, relieved of the shuffling feet and rasping chairs that groove its floors. The walls stare at one anoth,..er, each keeping a silent tally of smudges and scuffmarks. Under the blackboard ledge, the tan dnderblocks are patterned with a series of verticle stripes like black crayon.

The doorway is a mural of fingerprints that reach toward the light switch and grope along the walls at desk height.

There's one window in Room 57. Flimsy verticle blinds hang there unevenly; one lies at the bottom of its gap, curled on the bottom ledge like a streamer from last night's party. Tomorrow, when the room is again filled with nodding students and a droning professor, the window will be opened, and the blinds will flap stupidly in the Indian summer breeze.

The desks are many and crowded, sitting placidly askew because a row's too tight. Their tops are ridged with the heiroglyphics of bored listeners from last year or ten years ago, who have pushed their identities into the hard formica with a pen: KAPPA IS BEST, ERA NOW. Every second light in Room 57 is turned off to conserve energy. One flickers, nervously winking from its ceiling bed down at the desks, which answer, necks craned and flat faces upturned: DG&CM, SCHOOL SUX. Outside Room 57, the students will wait, backed against the wall. Overstuffed notebooks and textbooks on the floor, the students will flick their ashes on the scarred linoleum, finally crushing their cigarettes into black dots tnat the janitor's mop won't erase.

And Room 57 will wait, in mute embarrassment.

Phoenix 27

Danielle Mahanes

28 Phoenix

Spray Paint

Untitled

The EmperorPresident's Choice The Emperor-President sat down in his comfortable rosewood chair, to watch the circus games begin.

The condemned step through the Gates of Life-the Amphibious Floats, onto the clean, white sands of the arena.

Slow motion time dances as swords-rifles dull with blood pair off till death.

Finally, the last remaining slaye-soldier rises unsteadily to face the Emperor-,President, as the crowds shout for his life.

Lazily, the Emperor-President drinks fro111 his cup of aged red wine, and turns his left hand thumbs down, as the slaye-soldier falls face down to the rising cloud of heat, ashes and dust.

A Genetic Nightmare Walking down a Rundown city street Someone attacks me With a knife He disappears.

Joseph Baneth Allen

Light in a window.

Cross the street.

Motion.

Indistinct.

Red door.

White room.

Spiral stairs.

Sense qf decay.

EleYator.

Faces.

Pressed Against glass.

Untitled

Reading my palm A naked gypsy says I Haye no lifeline I Pay her and leaye She disappears.

And so we did war, against hostile stars, or ice currents out of the sea.

These things wc thought to scare, with noisemakers, torches, whirled about our heads, and masks of wood and feathers.

But now, in the east, on the grassland, elephants, a full hundred, kneel in the dust, and scatter the bones of their dead.

We must slay our cattle, burn our crops and go West, as far as the mountains, And wait ...

Joe Lewelling-

Untitled Riyers flow redly through cayerns and subways, Down the sleek and burning city street.

In cities were you born and in cities you shall die.

Buried in concrete.

Bruce Miller

Phoenix 29

The Red Mountain

by Ca therine Clark

Virginia Derryberry

ara walked slowly down the steps of the front porch, taking care not to drop the heavy basket of wet laundry she was carrying. She was a naturally pretty woman with waist-length brown hair that she kept tied back in a braid and a fresh, clear complexion, tanned from hours of work in the corn fields. The farm work, house chores, and caring for four children had worn her features and made her appear older than her twenty-three years. Sara plodded across the small yard to the clothesline and set the laundry basket on the ground in front of her.

S

She was alone on the mountain today, except for her five-year-old son.

Her husband, Russ, was working in the coal mine, and her three other children were in school. Sara secured a damp shirt to the line with clothespins. As she mechanically hung up the clothes to dry, she looked out over the valley she had known all her life. She could see the horses below in the pastures and the corn waving in the fields as the summer breeze passed gently by. The sun shone brightly through the trees, scattering shadows here and there over the yard.

Sara turned toward the house as she shook out a pair of Russ's overalls. Russ had built the house into the side of the mountain about nine years ago. There were not more than twenty yards of flat land on each side of the house and only ten yards in front of it. Sara smiled to think of

30 Phoenix

how scared she used to be that the babies would fall off the edge of the mountain into the field three Hundred feet below. She remembered how she and Russ had labored to clear the rough path from the valley and up the steep mountain so that horses or an occasional car could get to the house.

She thought how that seemed like such a long, long time ago.

Their home was a two-story white clapboard with a front porch going the length of the house. Russ had built four bedrooms in anticipation of at least six children, but after the fourth child, Josh, was born, Sara was told she could not have any more children. Sara felt her stomach sink at this thought. She wrung her hands in her red bib-apron. She still felt guilty about not being able to give Russ more children, especially since Josh was not well.

Sara stopped hanging the laundry and just stood quietly, looking far away. She and Russ had made such wonderful plans before they married.

They were going to leave the mountain and live in town. They were both tired of the same life; cut off, it seemed, from the real world of passion and excitement. Life was so slow and unchanging on the mountain.

When Sara was a young girl, she had pictured Russ as a fairy-tale . prince who would sweep her up and carry her far away from her captivity in the mountain prison. She smiled.

They had had such beautiful dreams.

But Russ could not find work in town.

He went back to work in the coal mine where his father had toiled all of his life. Sara and Russ just were not strong enough to escape from the mountain.

Sara awoke from her thoughts, gathered the extra clothespins, and put them into the basket. She shielded her eyes as she looked up at the sun. The laundry should dry quickly, she thought, because the sun is so hot and the breezes are warm.

Suddenly, Sara heard Josh's loud crying from inside the house. She ran quickly up the porch steps and into her bedroom. Josh was lying in the floor, red-faced and screaming. He had fallen out of the bed again and was frightened by being awakened so harshly. Sara knelt down on the floor and took him gently in her arms.

"It's all right, " she whispered.

"Mama's here."

She smoothed his tousled hair and rocked him slowly, holding him close to her breast.

Josh quieted and sucked his thumb.

Sara looked down at his tear-stained face and thought of how he resembled a small angel. Tears came to her eyes as she thought of how he would later suffer. She began to hum softly to comfort him.

All at once, Josh began to writhe on Sara's lap and to thrash about wildly.

He was very strong for his age, and Sara could not hold him. He hit her with his fists and bit her arm. Sara jerked back in pain, and Josh slid off her lap and ran out of the room.

Sara covered the bite with her hand to stop the bleeding. She sat silently there on the floor for a few seconds.

She looked helpless, and her face reflected her despair. Josh had acted violently before, but today his fit seemed to hurt Sara more .

She reached toward the bed for support and rose to her feet. She hurried into the next room calling for Josh.

She did not see him anywhere. She ran toward the front door and stopped in the doorway. Josh was sitting quietlyon the porch in his pajama shirt and underwear, watching a caterpillar crawl near him. Sara sighed deeply and some of the tension left her. She felt her arm throbbing and saw that the bite was still bleeding. She walked down the porch steps and across the yard to the clothesline, all the while keeping her eyes on Josh. She took a damp cloth off of the line, wiped the blood from the bite, and then tied the cloth tightly around her arm.

Sara watched Josh playing on the porch and tried to wipe the memory of his fit from her mind. She knew he had not consciously lashed out against her. He was fighting the monster within him that was slowly destroying his life.

Sara hesitantly climbed the porch steps and went into the house. She swiftly walked to the kitchen for a bowl and then returned to the porch.

Josh was now holding the caterpillar

and letting it crawl up his arm. Sara took the pail of green beans from the far corner of the porch and then sat on the front steps a few feet from Josh. She began snapping the beans, one by one, and dropping them into the bowl. Her hands trembled. She took a deep breath.

Josh giggled as the caterpillar crawled down his bare leg. Sara glanced up at him and smiled and then looked back down at her work. The caterpillar fell off of the boy's leg and continued crawling along the porch. Josh stood up and crossed the porch. He bent down and picked up a small rock and then returned to his caterpillar.

He crouched down and watched its slow movements for a short time.

Then Josb raised his arm and began pounding the caterpillar with the rock.

He giggled as the creature writhed and toe green fluid oozed from its body.

Sara raised her head when she heard the rock strike the porch and stared in disgust and disbelief at her son. She jumped up and reached for Josh, "No, Josh, no! " she exclaimed as she took the rock from his hand.

He looked up at his mother in confusion . Sara threw the rock out into the yard and sat down next to Josh.

"You can play with the caterpillars, but you mustn't kill them or hit them with rocks," she said, bending close to his face.

Sara knew that Josh did not understand her. He did not even know what he was doing. He was not intentionally being cruel. Sara knew that her words were meaningless to the child. No matter how patiently she and Russ tried to teach him, the boy's face registered nothing but confusion.

They could not communicate with him. Only a few physical cues, such as an embrace or a restraining grip, meant anything to Josh.

He stood up and walked to a corner of the porch. He stood motionless with his hands and face pressed against the house.

Sara hid her face in her hands.

"My God, look ~t him," she said to herself.

Phoenix 31

She remembered when the doctor told her about Josh's illness. She was lying in the hospital bed, exhausted and sore from the delivery. Something had gone wrong, but she did not know what. She was just happy that her son was born alive despite the complications. Then she recalled the doctor coming into the room to talk with her and Russ. His face was dark, and his eyes were filled with pity. He began hesitantly but gathered strength.

"There were some serious complica tions during the delivery. Oxygen to the baby's brain was cut off because the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck. Your son has suffered brain damage; however, the extent of the retardation cannot at this time be determined. I'm very sorry."

Sara's face turned pale. He can only move and stare and cry out, she thought. She thought how he must be tortured every waking moment. In his eyes she had often seen a light that she knew was his very soul struggling to be set free. Sara often heard this imprisoned soul cry out when Josh moaned in his sleep. How could she help to free that soul?

Enough. Sarah put the bowl of beans aside and rose from the porch steps. She must try to concentrate on her work. She must concentrate on her work. .. her work. Her eyes moved rapidly, searching for some object to occupy her mind. The chicken feed.

She picked up the bag at the side of the porch and began scattering feed over the side yard for the hens.

The sun is so hot, she thought as she felt the sweat rolling down the sides of her face.

Her eyes drifted to Josh, who still held his face against the house.

The children are afraid of him, she thought in anguish. They make fun of him and call him a monster.

She remembered how embarrassed her other children were when their friends came to the house and saw Josh. They never knew what he was going to do next. Sometimes he would scream and try to hit his brothers and sisters. Other times he would run and hide. Sara unconsciously loosened her grip on the feed bag and let it fall to the ground. The sun was hot. .. so hot.

32 Phoenix

Mary, her six-year-old daughter, woke up screaming one night. Sara rushed to her bedside.

"Mommy! Mommy! Josh is trying to kill me! Josh wants to kill me! " Sara was staring wide-eyed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Her face was flushed. She looked up at the sun. It was so bright and hot. She looked away at Josh. She could not see him clearly. There were spots in the way. Then she looked down at her feet and tried to focus. She saw a small red ball in the grass by her feet and bent down and picked it up.

"Josh, look what I've got," she called as she straightened up.

Josh did not respond. Sara walked up onto the porch and held the red ball up between Josh's face and the house. He took a step backward and stared at the ball.

"Come play," said Sara. She slowly walked down the porch steps as Josh followed.

Sara sat down in the grass. She began tossing the ball from one hand to the other as Josh stood watching intently.

"The neighbors and people in town think you're a freak," Sara whispered.

She recalled what Mrs. Tillman, the grocer's wife, had said to her.

"It's too bad the child will always be an idiot. But take comfort, Sara. You have three other children."

Josh smiled as Sara taunted him with the red ball. He tried to snatch it from her, but she kept pulling it out of his reach. Sara wiped her hand across her mouth and down her neck.

The sweat had soaked the hair around her face. The sun was so hot.

"Dear God, how could you allow such torment?" wondered Sara aloud as she watched Josh's beaming expression. "Wouldn't it have been better if the child had died in the womb than to let him live a life of endless torture?"

She placed the ball on the ground and waited for her son to bend down and pick it up. Before he could touch the ball, Sara rolled it just out of his reach.

"Will you ever give this child some peace," she cried with her eyes raised She rolled the ball again, nearer to the yard's edge. Josh tottered along after it.

The sun beat down on Sara's uplifted face. She sat up on her knees and suddenly shouted angrily.

"Why my child? Why me? He is innocent! Are my sins so great that I must be punished through my child?

Well then let me sin again! " Sara took the red ball away from Josh, who had picked it up and begun to chew on it. Her face was streaming sweat, and her eyes stared wildly. She rolled the red ball to the very edge of the yard.

"Go on. Get the ball, Josh. It will be much better for you, " she said in a quiet voice.

Josh shuffled toward the ball.

"That's a good boy," coaxed Sara.

"I won't let anyone make fun of you anymore. The sun is so hot - isn't it?"

Josh bent down and reached for the ball. Sara's face gleamed mysteriously.

She rose and walked up slowly behind Josh, who was several feet from her.

"Goodbye, Josh. Mommy loves you," she said in a childlike voice through her tears, and she drew up her arms as if to strike out.

Suddenly, Josh turned around and held the ball out to his mother. He took a couple of steps back and stumbled as the dirt beneath his feet gave way.

Horror spread over Sara's face.

"No-o-o!" she screamed, and she lunged for Josh with outstretched arms as the mountain echoed her cry.

"How'd it happen?"

"Fell off the cliff."

"Ain't it horrible. An accident?"

"No. Suicide's what they're callin' it."

"Anyone see it happen?"

"Yep. The idiot boy. They found him jest playin' with a ball at the yard's edge."

The Red Mountain was awarded the

1983 Undergraduate Creative Writing Award in the short story division by the UT English Department, and also was a winner of The Knoxville League of American Pen Women's annual fiction award. Catherine Clark is a junior in English from Nashville.

The Blue Robe 1.

In another time we might not have happened many seasons have brought me to you.

The sheets are still beneath your warm body world of whispers.

Afternoons on the porch spent shelling peas the silence between us.

Your eyes solemn and sad as disciples light of your coming.

2.

Thighs still red from the bathroom sink you come to me.

Night full with rain water washed the walls of our house streamers cut the sky.

3.

Full moon of your face above me breath on my eyelids.

When you touch me I feel the blood speak in your fingertips.

Shadows climb the garden wall time spent watching you .

That first night we took off our clothes snow touched the window.

4.

Your tight belly smooth stone where I lay my head.

You by the window in morning light wind and sky in your blue robe.

Dancing in the hallway I close my eyes the mirror cannot find us.

Watching you dress slowly a song caught in my throat.

When I think of your body I think of nothing else the round world keeps turning history repeats itself.

This long groping in the dark toward you.

J eEf Callahan