Phoenix - Fall 1991

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editor

de ana duncan managing editor

cecelia prewett graphic designer

angie dobbs assistant to graphic designer

kurt zinser art editor

roger smith fiction editor

rick joines

the staff would like to express their appreciation to: jane pope and eric smith for putting up with cecelia and deana's attitudes, linda graham for putting up with eveJ}'one else's attitudes, betty allen for mechanical hassles, cindy hassi! at wutk, wuot, and lynne nennstiel for all their help and support.

art bod manors, david deitrick power serve, charles long with head hollowed out, he waits,

timothy winkler

2 3 4

classical, debby h;J8ar she kicked him on the head, ann chang untitled landscapes, scott betz the activity room gini rt'ed the news, m. atk,nson puppet show, stuart pack floating series #3, diane fox feet first, betsy perez. jeffreep. chris wagner mother with her babie~f yife; gan tea sets, siriwan rungsawang L

_.,. ... ""_. scott betz

7 9 11 14 15 16 19

20 . 21

22 23 25

26 27

29 30 31 32 33

34,,35 36

night time lapse, I. lindsey garbett all this time, linda parsons foreplay, mark nebraska mays whose face registers the apprehension,

2 5 8

kelly white 10 recollection, samuel e. bradford 14 elegy for an old farmer, fred ingersoll baxter 17 song: on a wild turkey, r.d. palmer 17 song for solomon, linda parsons 18 the early feminists, keely jane petty 21 kroger: 8:17 p.ni., stacy smith 30 sober sobriquet, a.j. dumsch 31 bands of angels, kelly white 32-33 summer falls, catherine b. emanuel 34

fiction animals, I. lindsey garbett put your fantasies to bed,

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mark nebraska mays 28

non-fiction the king of the mountain, yvonne loveday joyce carol thomas, sarah lynch campus arts calendar

6 12 36

night time lapse Metal riding metal in a disturbance same song my swing-set sang, chains against silver painted steel at the pasture gate. Dreams billow out like damp, white sheets hung up in a blue-sky wind.

bad manors

david deitrick

A door slams. It's my father-seven years dead, he's come home to finish up the bam. He worked all that hot April afternoon on the west side, the back side of the bam.

His army surplus workshirt was wet and running sweat into his baggy britches.

He held on.

Fingers splayed, his wide brown hands pushed against the wet red wall.

He leaned into the boards and breathed. Turning, fingers working, arms out before him, he told my speckled mare "Get! Get away from me."

With clean pain moving darkness in front of his wild brown eyes-he walked halfway to the gate.

Carlights smear around the wall like tropical fish in a tank.

"Dad," I said, "what are you doing here?"

Rain nicks at the window.

Wind feels around the comer of the house.

Another car passes . . . his image fades like his features.

I lie under my grandmother's heart star quilt and conjure my father.

1. lindsey garbett

povver

serve

charles long

3

with head hollowed out , he waits

timothy winkler 4

•

IS

Will the rain stop tomorrow?

When will Christmas come?

I am always waiting, all this time til the next paycheck, til I see you again at my door .

Between waking and sleeping, in this world or that, the rest waits.

I've waited for Fall to pass, I've read to my children, Spring! sang the bunny.

Spring! sang the groundhog.

T en years ago? Fifteen?

Is it ever long enough, the leaves bursting out, the robins bursting out of their eggs?

You say the world is not perfect.

You read to me like a father whose child is wet with fever.

People in the stories so strong and sad, I close my eyes. They are looking for home, they are tired of waiting.

Home for a bunny, a home of his own.

Where will a bunny find a home?

I open my eyes to your voice.

How good is the world, that it comes to my door? Is it as close as Christmas?

Have maples passed to forsythia, from this yellow to that?

Have I taken all this time?

linda parsons 5

• of the

Robby turned the metal washtub upsidedown in our tiny yard.

"Want to play King of the Mountain, Sister?" Robby wiped his nose on his toolong shirt sleeve.

"Mama '11 whip you if she sees you playing with that tub again." I looked over to the nail on the side of the stucco house where it usually hung.

"No she won't. She's fussing with Daddy."

Robby very graciously pointed. me to the tub. "Just to show you how nice I am, you can go first."

I stepped onto the slick, shiny tub-bottom liking the way it felt beneath my bare feet. It made soft, metallic hiccups as I bounced. It felt cool like the last sighs of the summer breezes that had breathed across it as it hung in the shade.

"Then bow, knave!" I said in my most nasal queen-voice.

6

But before Robby could sufficiently dethrone me, Mama appeared. The "Robby did it" stuck in my throat as I watched her gaze down the road.

"Robby! Sister! Come on!" Mama paced the little porch as she nervously drew on her Winston cigarette.

"Where are we going, Mama?"

"Just come on." Mama left a cloud of smoke as she disappeared back into the house.

"If she makes us wash our feet, then she's leaving Daddy again," Robby half-breathed, half-whispered into my ear as we headed for the house.

Once inside, Mama scrubbed our hands, \ faces, and feet from a porcelain washbasin with a faded blue washcloth. After we were washed, she handed Robby a paper bag and said, "Put your nightclothes in this poke and come on."

I followed Robby into our bedroom and put on my pajamas. He tucked the bag under his arm, and we followed Mama out the door.

I turned to look at Daddy" through the rusted screen door. He was sitting in his chair watching the television as though nothing were happening. I hoped he would hurry and get us.

I didn't usually get to walk on the paved country road in front of our house. It seemed an adventure until I realized that we were leaving Daddy.

"Where are we going?"

"Why are we walking?"

"Why isn't Daddy coming too?"

Mama's response rarely varied.

Sometimes she said, "Your daddy loves the bottle more than he loves you," but usually, "I WILL NOT LIVE THIS WAY!" We walked, watching our feet and counting our steps. When a car passed slowly, we scurried behind her like baby chicks. When the road was clear, we ranged ahead of her.

Step by step, we walked. Soon adventure wore away to tedium, and we begged to sit down.

"There's a church, Mama. Let's sit on the yard for a minute."

"Mama, my feet hurt."

"Mama, let's call Daddy."

By the time we reached the Baptist Church on the pike, we could hear Daddy's black Pontiac Ventura prowling around the curve.

He would sidle alongside us and begin his lament. One hand on the wheel and the other along the red vinyl carseat, he'd say "Come on Marne. Just get in the car. I promise I'll change. I SWEAR I'LL DO BETTER!" Mama stared straight ahead. She was looking down the road as if one more step would make the difference.

By now, Robby's hand was on the cardoor as Daddy crept along beside our proud mama. He crooned and plead, as Robby and I whined and cajoled. Mama walked.

Daddy waved the world past us, but the passing drivers slowed to get a peek at our drama.

"J ust get in the car, Marne."

Mama tossed her tired head "I WILL NOT LIVE THIS WAY!" In his most convincing voice, Daddy said "I swear I'll do better."

At some point, Mama got in the car and Robby and I climbed gratefully into the backseat. , Daddy looked at Mama anxiously. She, defeated, ,looked straight ahead at that place that I could not see.

We drove home in silence. Once there, Robby and I ran to the washtub to finish our game of King of the Mountain.

"Just to show how nice I am, you can go first," Robby said.

We played as though we had not left our yard. With our mama and daddy back in our house, we were safe. We never mentioned our walks. All was well once more. I was secure in the knowledge that I had learned two phrases that would carry me through life: "I will not live this way" and "I swear I'll do better."

debby hagar

yvonne Joveday

c I ass

•

I

ca I 7

foreplay My hand lingers on her cheek like a puff of down gingerly rolling down her neck to her chest, hoping to quicken the pistonesque motions of her vital organ.

Not a dance before the dance, but the essence of the waltz.

It should be lasting, but not overpowering, like an aftertaste. So that when we come, it's not an explosion, but a sigh.

mark nebraska mays

8

she kicked him on the head

ann chang 9

kelly white 10

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focus

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by sarah lynch

{(... for life gives us her acts and we, actors and audience, play them as best we can. " the playwright, joyce carol thomas

tina fabrique as queen mother rhythm 12

Poet, award-winning novelist, and dramatist, Joyce Carol Thomas charms her audiences with her soulful lyrics and musical prose . Her mastery of documenting the human condition through the Afro-American experience puts her in the ranks with Gwendolyn Brooks and Alice Walker . When asked about her work, Thomas responds "I want my piece to touch people everywhere ... after all, we're all the same." Truly her creations are inspiring, and we at the University of Tennessee are fortunate to enjoy her as a member of our faculty body.

Joyce Carol Thomas has taught in the English department for three years, following teaching positions at institutions. across the nation including Purdue and the University oJ California.

Her experience with literature is vast; she was once editor of the womens' magazine Ambrosia, and she has lectured on her writing all over the world in places like Nigeria and Haiti.

Thomas received a master of arts in education from Stanford, where she was given several distinguished fellowships and awards. Although she started as a poet, her fiction and plays have won her national fame. Recently, at the Clarence Brown Theater we enjoyed the month-long premier of her musical play When the Nightingale Sings. This as well as her other work draws from her experiences growing up

carla williams and lehman beneby . as allegra and anthony

in a small midwestern town.

Life in Ponca City, Oklahoma was not easy for Joyce Carol Thomas.

Times were tough, so she and her eight brothers and sisters helped out by picking cotton in nearby fields. Although life was busy and privacy rare, young Joyce Carol always found joy in going to school and reading every book she could find. She regularly attended the black church, which stood a half-block from her house. Here, by listening to the words and songs of ner community, she acquired her artistic "voice". A unique combination of black ad biblical infuences, Thomas feels this

dialogue. Her language animates and makes them seem as real people, not fictional ones. Such is the case with her persona, Abyssinia Jackson, from the novel Marked By Fire. The account tells the story of the heroine's tumultuous journey from chilhood to her emergence as a young woman . The book, one of a four part series, has been adapted into a musical titled Abyssinia and is currently being rehearsed for Broadway.

The storyline of When the Nightingale Sings also reflects this coming of age theme. Allegra's trials to reach for her dreams through song

derrick kollock and carla williams as crocodile and allegra.

tina fabrique and cast rehearse "there's a man in my life," a musical number from the production.

"folk language" makes her work daring and unusual. It produces rhythms similar to those found in a song or chant, as in Church Poem: Did you feel the water riding riding over your feet sucking up the white garment kissing the breath from your mouth when she moaned "I been baptized?"

According to an autobiographical account, Thomas says 'The music of the word is what I wanted to create in my writing of books." She uses this unique style also to produce character

combines a wide range of human emotion with heart-pumping lyrics and melodies. While the words to the songs were written by Thomas, she sought the help of her cousin Stephen Roberts for the musical accompaniment. She emphasizes that their relationship had little to do with her selection, as he is a foremost gospel recorder and arranger.

His dedication to the Rlay went unmatched for he performea the score every night of the performance.

The playwright enjoys watching the reactions of the audience to her drama.

"Something happens," observes the dramatist, "between the music, lyrics, actors, and audience .. .it is celebration, appreciation, and exhaustion. "

Thomas likes getting to know the actors; she learns from them as she learns from her writing, and their gestures and emotions are important to her.

The players must meet the standards set up by their descriptive names, such as: Memory, Patience, Queen Mother Rhythm, and Trembling Slim.

There is much to be learned from Joyce Carol Thomas' advice for prospective authors and poets. She urges them to use human experience in their work like family, childhood dreams, community figures, and even animals.

She suggests "You may not always write your best the first time .. .learn from it by finding little places to make changes for the better, but try not to

overwrite." It is hard to believe this timely advice comes from one who has never taken a creative writing class. Indeed, Joyce Carol Thomas gives us much to think about and enjoy.

Although she has chosen to emphasize writing as a means of description, her portrayal of the human condition is an inspiration to all artists.

photographs by eric 1. smith

13

reeo

ee 1

If I may - I wish to take you back and tell you of a night not long ago when I sat on a planter, beneath a street lamp, outside. the dormitory.

I had in my hand, engulfe heart, boo rn poetry be as Morrisey llin uicide, nuclear annihilation.

I had - across from me - a neighbour at the next-door planter, who was drowning in a book of her own: of the Romantics, and their flowers, and their laziness, and of their peace.

Carreras was singing of midnight and of memories in the radio by her feet, softly, undisturbing to her reading.

Her own private street-lamp stood erect above her soul, illuminating the beauty of this import, so silent and unalone until her head fell back and her lips, so round and voluptuous, caressed the words that "Another day is dawning," and thus her moonlit eyes closed with the book -- and I picked a daffodil by my side.

I approached this materialized, ionized, and unabridged Heaven and knelt, taking her startled by the hand as I slipped the little flower into her -hair.

"It is now incapable of dancing," I whispered, " 'cept when it dances in your head. - So, touch me and show me what your happiness is, for I, ( -who may be a fool! and- ) who can dance for you on this pavement, and endlessly in your heart, was always quite partial to Tennyson."

the activity room

gini reed samuel e. bradford

14

the

m. atkinson

news 15

16

elegyfor an old farmer His head was caved in a bit from where that mule kicked him.

He walked with a little limp, from where that commie's bullet knicked him.

He talked a little funny when his dentures catpe loose, but everyday he grabbed his hoe and fastened his straw hat under his chins and walked between his rows, inspecting them.

Once he said to me, "When I die, bury me in the compost pile, and start your sprin~ see-as over me, and when it comes tIme to plant use me to fill the holes, that way even after I'm gone I can still tend these rows."

fred ingersoll baxter

song: on

a wild turkey

I see you flapping through the mist-The most ungainly big fat game hen ever seen; You this plump fowl, carrying messages from a land far more absurd than Nevermore-You who dare to thrust your silly presence in upon the woods of this fine farmer, Mr. Floyd P. Cates (who surely will invest in you not mystery, but birdshot in the Oh, ribs): Give some sign to me, fat devil-cherub of the slimy marsh-Leave me some message before you go To the land of mist--or the sizzling pan of Mrs. Cates.

r.d. palmer 17

If you stay, the earth will stand still every orchid burst open, gold pieces will fall on our sill, and the day be one long night to spend as wild as we will.

I would stay lon~ and long, the house were I belong, ut I cannot shut the day out, listen how it calls me now.

hOu

If you stay, the rivers dare not keep their heads. Turning, rending, neverending, be a flood through and through us, be our pillow, be our bed.

I would stay lon~ and long, you the house were I belong, but the river makes our living, listen how it calls me now.

If you stay, the crane will hear us, leave her nestlings, hover near us just above the mango trees, brooding in her bright blue wings.

We will wake there, feed on morning, just below the mango trees, always in my arms you'll stay there, long and long, the sweet blue wings.

I would stay where I belong,

hOu the words that make my song, ut the river brings our living, I must go, it calls me now.

linda parsons

18

floating series #3

diane fox 19

feet

first

r ep and chris wagne by betsy perez, jeff re

20

the early feminists Circe and Delhia conspired vexed with evil deeds between the two feminists out for manly blood the oalls of those whose strength had brought them fame came woman's wrath who made them but a game stupid was this dominant gender 'tis true the destination of their brains is low and ever-hansing erect and ever-wanIng blinded by a woman's will. keely jane petty

mother with her babies

yifei gan 21

tea sets

'Tea is a unique beverage, in that it is comprised of a variety of herbs which produce a 'Variety of flavor . Different herbal blends can influence the emotional state of the partaker . These characteristics serve as my inspiration in the creation of my ceramic tea pot sets.

Like tea, my tea pot sets were designed to produce different emotions in the partaker . Each set depicted reflect the characteristic of a different 路c ountry.

Graphic styles and masks reflect the flavor of each nation.

Masks on one tea pot and cup represent the individual of the country. The graphic styles of the packaging compliment the faces by expressing the individual feeling ."

siriwan rungsawang

22

scott betz

untitled 23

I

•

I

It

was early, and Mona was having breakfast on the back porch watching the sky come clear. She drank her coffee with cream and vanilla. She munched cinnamon toast and thought about. how she could get back to Eureka Springs. She was bored to death and stuck in the middle of nowhere: homesick, and already pregnant. She hadn't told her husband yet. But she'd known since she started eating raw hamburger meat. There was no other reason for it she could think of.

Mona had been married for two months, and was living in a desert, on the old home place where Angel had grown up.

24

Their place was six miles north of old Mexico. North of the Rio Grande. He'd been raised near McAllen in a miserable little town called Pharr. His daddy worked as a picker. His mamma was dead by the time he was three. Killed when a boiler exploded at the sugar cane factory where she worked. Angel said she'd had a piece of metal go in between her ribs, right under her left breast. She'd sat down on the concrete floor, told the foreman she needed a little kiss, and died as he knelt down beside her.

And Angel was working in the ocean. On an oil rig in the Gulf.

Been gone for six weeks and a day. Mona got up from the table and carried her dishes inside. She rinsed them off and put them on

the drainer. There wasn't anything to do except sweep or dust. The house didn't have an air-conditioner, so the windows were wide open and the dust came in on a wind that never stopped. At least it hadn't stopped since she'd moved down there.

She was opening a box of books, sitting on the green linoleum floor in her kitchen, when she 'heard someone drive up in the yard. She stood up and quickly buttoned the front of her dress.

"Hola, Lalo" she called out the door to Angel's uncle, a skinny brown man who walked with a limp. He threw up his arm and waved. Smiling, he crabbed his way slowly up the steps. He held

onto the railing and watched¡ Mona, his head nodding up and down as he climbed toward her.

"You're getting pretty fat," he said to her. He took his hat off and held it in his hands behind him. He looked her up and down.

"I most certainly am not." She looked down at herself and bit her lower lip. "I haven't gained a pound."

"Dona Marianita Manzano needs for you to come . . . I can drive you to her house, but I cannot come and get you until next Sunday," he said. "I can drive you now . . . ."

"What does she need?" Mona asked, wondering which aunt or godmother or grandmother he meant.

"She did not say.f' "Oh, shit;" Mona said, and sighed. She turned away. "God damn it, Angel ... " whispering to herself, she gathered a few things together, got her toothbrush, lipstick, and a jar of muscadine jelly out of the cabinet. A gift for the woman whoever she was.

Just over the border into Mexico, the fields of sugarcane had been burned before the harvest.

The wind coming across the blackened fields picked up ash, turned dark and Mona could see the way it moved, blowing grey across the highway. It smelled sweet, and ruined.

They drove through Renosa, a little scab town, half broken

The wind coming across . the blackened fields picked up ash, turned dark and Mona

could see the way it moved, blowing grey across the highway.

It smelled sweet, and ruined.

down and slow in the heat of the day. There were no tourists in sight. A worn out carnival was set up just out of town, the rides all still in the noontime heat. A half-dozen Shetland ponies were tethered in dry weeds along the edge of the road. They were thin, used up looking creatures.

Lalo honked his horn as they went past them. A tiny black one threw up its head, and for a moment, with its neck 'bowed and its nostrils flared red, it looked like a toy racehorse.

Lalo turned down a dirt road, the car rocking as it bounced out of holes and over stones and cactus. Mona grabbed at the side of the door, looking out amazed at the desert wilderness she was in.

She'd never imagined the way a dry gulch would look in the late afternoon with long shadows and the heat of the day hanging over them.

As they drove up into the yard, six frenzied dachshunds came out from under the porch and ran around car, barking and wagging their tails. Lalo honked his horn, twice, then got out and went around and opened Mona's door.

"They know me," he told her.

"Watch," he said, and held up his hand. Immediately, a circle of dogs rose up on their hind legs and p.anced around Lalo's legs.

They thrust their long noses up and under Mona's skirt. She shooed them back. She stepped on their feet by accident.

"Hola," Dona Marianita came around the side of the house with her hands covered in blood. She looked about sixty, small and thin. She wore a heavy cotton skirt and a white shirt that used to belong to her husband. "Put your things inside, and come around here," she called to Mona, from behind the gate, and disappeared. A goat bleated from behind the house.

"What's going on?" Mona asked Lalo.

He shrugged his thin shoulders. "Go and find out," he told her and chuckled.

"Everything happens around here."

Mona vaguely remembered seeing her at the wedding. She had met close to two hundred

habitats

relatives of Angel's over a crazy weekend. But she remembered the woman's hair. It was long and black and she wore it in an intricate braid, fixed with silver star pins.

Lalo carried her overnight bag into the house, then turned to Mona. "I'll see you on Sunday," he said, pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his oversized trousers. "Be a good girl, and do what Dona Marianita tells you."

Mona followed him out onto the porch. The dachshunds ran around her in circles. "Bye," she called. "Be careful."

She looked down at the pack of dogs and sighed. Walking around the side of the house, she began to sweat. She felt her armpits grow damp and could sud-

debby hagar

25

the snake

keeJy jane petty

denly smell herself. She stopped and wiped her face with the hem of her skirt. The dachshunds were running around her legs.

They mobbed her at the gate.

She growled back at them as she hastily slipped through, ripping the edge of her thin cotton dress on the head of a nail.

IIHeip me to hold her," Dona Marianita called when she saw her coming around the house .IIShe will not give up the placenta." The birth sac spilled from the animal, trailing behind it a couple of feet. It was covered with dirt and small sticks. IIHer baby's dead," she said, and pointed to where it lay, a small black and white creature stained 26

with blood. Large, green flies buzzed all around it. Mona put her hand over her stomach. She turned her face away and coughed.

IICome on," Marianita coaxed her. IIThis is 路 serious business.

She'll die if I can't do something quick."

Mona held the nanny goat's head, rubbing her hands .over its muzzle, scratching it between its long ears. Its horns were rough, twisting back and spiraling. It stuck its head out and bleated.

Dona Marianita went inside her house, and brought out a basin of steaming water. She set it down on the bottom step, and plunged her hands in, keeping the~ there as long as she could stand it. ''I'm going to reach my hand up inside her , so keep her as still as you can," she said and brought her hands up, scalded red and shriveled.

Mona watched her. Holding onto the nanny goat, she braced the animal against the porch with her hip and held tight to its halter. As Dona Marianita pushed her hand inside, the goat plunged forward, ripping down Mona's shin with its split hoof.

She held on, feeling the blood run down her leg. The animal bawled out, bucking and lunging away.

III don't think I can do it," Marianita said, bringing her hand back out. Dark blood ran

from her路 fingers. The goat's mouth hung open, its tongue sticking out like a dead thing's.

The woman rinsed her arms off. Mona held onto the red leather halter and Marianita took hold of the birth sac. She pulled as hard as she could, trying to work the placenta loose.

They worked with the animal until the sky began to go dark and it was down on its knees.

The goat had its yellow eyes closed, breathing in harsh, rasping breaths. It foamed from the corners of its mouth. ''I'm going to have to shoot it," she told Mona. They stood looking at the nanny goat, Marianita shaking her head. She went into the house and came out with a Winchester rifle slung over her arm, a box of shells in her hand. Sitting down on the red wooden steps, she loaded it like you'd imagine her braiding her hair. She didn't think twice about it.

Mona untied the goat. They made it get back up and walk across the yard over in the pasture where the pump house was. Mona stood off to the side and Dona Marianita raised her gun up, aimed, and shot the goat once in the side of its head.

Mona buried the goats by' the edge of the pea patch with a broken shovel and a pick axe. It was dark and turning cool by the time she got them covered.

Marianita called it IIputting her

to sleep" as if the goat would wake up the next morning. The rest of the goats had settled in for the night. There were three little kids, and one of them was speckled as a bird's egg. The little dead one had been as near perfect a thing as Mona had ever seen -- its ears as soft as the moss that covered the rock wall in her mamma's flower bed. There hadn't been any kind of thing buried in her yard back home.

They took turns bathing in the deep, claw foot tub. Marianita had some bath salts that smelled like the bath houses in Hot Springs. They were both too tired to eat, so they drank strong tea and sat in the elegant little room where Dona Marianita read in he evenings. Mona sat among the dogs on the "floor. She rocked herself slowly back and forth and watched as Dona Marianita had them do their tricks . Jump.

Lie down. Dance.

III remember when I was first married and Jose brought me to this place . . . . The end of the world, as I remember it. I hated it." Marianita sat on the floor with her shining wet hair hanging down below her waist. Her big brown eyes caught the light from the graceful floor lamp.

The dogs leaped and ran in circles. They growled and snapped at each other. They danced across the old, faded rug, and ran back and forth between them.

l.1indsey garbett

from here to where

richard gere

27

PlJt :l

o

>

Barry nudged Linda into the elevator.

"Don't shove, Barry," she said laughing. She turned around and got too close to his face; the liquor had taken away her sense of personal space. "You're in such a hurry to get under here, aren't you babe." She grabbed his hand and ran it along the back of her thigh .

Barry looked over Linda's shoulder and through her thick chestnut hair at the couple already in the elevator. The woman smiled a bit and the man looked impatient.

"Get in the elevator Linda. There are people waiting."

She turned to look at them. Her lids were heavy, so her expression was one of seduction more than of the disdain she really felt. She really couldn't help looking that way, though.

It was part of her job - second nature.

Linda finally pulled both long, black silk clad legs through the doorway. She draped her right arm over Barry's slack shoulders for support, but she only made him hunch over. He slid his arm around her lean waist to hold her up.

The woman, gray hairs pushing through her thick forest of black ones, looked at the two with her wrinkled lips pursed tight. She pitied the both of them.

"Looks like you two had a great time tonight," she said.

"We were celebrating. What floor?"

"Nineteen," she said.

Barry touched fourteen. "Linda here signed a big contract with a cosmetic company. She'll be doing the magazine ads."

'Tm gonna be rich .. . la, la, la, la, la, la la, laaa!" Linda sang and giggled. Her eyes were shut and her head was pressed into Barry's double breasted suit coat.

"Well that's just wonderfuL" The woman took it for granted that Linda was a model. "Didn't I see you in a show at Tacchini's last month?"

28

"Oh, probably."

"Are you two kids married?"

"No," Barry said.

"Which one of you lives in the building?"

"I do," he said.

"I'm Irma Feinstein and this is my husband Richard."

"Barry Kirby." Barry extended his hand to Mr. Feinstein, who grunted and shook. "This is Linda Lempers."

"Richard's not too talkative when it's past his bedtime."

Linda opened her eyes for a brief second and saw Mr. Feinstein's face. She giggled. The elevator slowed and everyone watched the red numbers change to fourteen.. The doors slid open and Barry moved toward the door. Linda grabbed on to the back of his jacket and stumbled after him.

"Well, we're off to bed. Good night," he said.

After the elevator shut, Linda began immediately to express her opinion about the couple on their way up to the nineteenth floor.

"Who the hell were they? Mr. and Mrs. Wall Street? Did you see her hair? Ugh! Awful. And that dress. She may have been to Tacchini's but she does not shop there. She's one of those kind of women - comes up to me after a show saying, 'Oh, I had a body like that once.' Shit, sh-she never had nothing like mine, honey. All the while, her husband standin' there wishin' he could lift up my skirt. They always look at me like I don't deserve to be here because I'm iust a model. Well.

at least I didn't have to sleep my way here. I hate those people.

Don't you?"

Barry didn't answer, he just wiggled his head.

He wanted to be those people.

Linda bent over a little to look into Barry's eyes. He slid his Polo tortoise shell framed glasses up his nose by pushing on the bridge.

"I want to fuck you until you can't walk," she said.

His head jerked backwards. She grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. Then she walked to the bedroom, leaving Barry standing still.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Linda, who is Lonnie Markham?"

"Oh my god! she said, accentuating each word. She threw up her arms and walked into the bedroom. Barry followed her.

"Who is he?"

"That's what you've been pissed about tonight."

"Someone said you were 'somewhere with him.'"

"He's just someone who wanted to meet me. Forget about it, get your clothes off."

"I don't want to forget about it. When was the last time you or any other model in this town just went off and talked to someone who just wanted to meet you . What do you think I am, an idiot?"

"Sometimes."

"You're a real goddamned comedienne, Linda. He's a lawyer with the Ritts Agency, isn't he? Isn't he!"

"If you 'knew already, why'd you fucking ask me?"

He made up an answer. "I wanted to hear you say it yourself."

Slinging her $750 earrings onto the dresser table, she whirled around and pushed past Barry. "That's ridiculous ." She walked down the hall to the kitchen in her doe-like stride.

Barry followed after her, gesturing with both hands. "Why didn't you tell me you wanted somone else to represent you?"

When he got to the kitchen, she was sipping water. He wasn't too angry to notice she even looked beautiful doing that, despite the fact her lips were fixed in a snarl.

"Because I knew you would make a big deal about it."

"Oh, am I to understand it's not a big deal?"

"Whatever. " "What were you going to do, just let me find out in the Sunday Times? The least you could have done was tell me you weren't satisfied with my work. " "I'm not exactly dissatisfied ... I'm just ... I'm just growing you know? My career is going places now."

"You used me!"

"So, I guess you didn't get anything out of our relationship."

"Whatever happened to, 'Ugh, I hate agencies. They're like meat factories'?"

"Now that I'm a big deal, they've been after me. You knew they would."

"Yeah, but you ... " "I would have told you, Barry, when I had settled on someone." She wobbled back towards the bedroom.

"Linda, if you loved me, you'd have told me sooner."

"Barry, it's no big deal. Come on. My offer is still good."

She continued down the hall.

Barry watched her brace herself on the wall as she walked down the hallway. He ran his hands through his short shorn ' hair. His career was going down the hallway and making a left into the bedroom. His other job, as a lawyer in a big firm , had taken a slow turn downward . Linda was going to change that.

She used to be just one out of about a million (it seems) girls in this town trying to get on the cover of two fashion magazines.

She had been to several agencies and they all said no. It seemed oriental-like eyes, full lips and white skin were not in. But Barry saw something else in the girl. She was bold and skeptical, but she agreed to let this rather unimportant lawyer who knew a couple of people take over her career. She knew he wanted more than just her career in his hands, but he seemed to be a decent man in an indecent city. He wasn't any less conniving than anyone else. That counted for something. Besides the word "lawyer" sounded good to her extremely worried mother.

And before she knew it, she had "arrived".

Barry looked around the corner before entering his bedroom. Linda was passed out with her head on the nights-

tand. Barry went about rolling her body bt,o the position he saw her sleep in most often. He pulled off her shoes and hose and cradled them in his arms. She appeared her age at times like this . It made him think about the first time he brought her home; how many times he sat at his desk flipping through her portfolio . He wanted so much to make her a star, and now that his wish had come true, his own light was fading .

Barry Kirby was on the verge of being let go from the firm.

He knew it. He was hoping he might be able to start a new career now that Linda was a big name . He could start his own agency, maybe . "The man who discovered Linda Lempers," he would be. Girls would flock to his door asking him to work that same kind of magic. But now, she's going to put all that away . Everyone will say that she wasn't satisfied with the way he handled her career. All his new hopes smashed because she wanted to rope her success in the face of those who spurned her previously.

Actually, feelings of almost making it had followed Barry like a hungry hound. He was getting tired of the yapping at his heels too. He almost made the football team in high school, almost made the debate team, and almost made law review . He almost got a job with one of the biggest firms on Wall Street, or so he thought.

Barry moved to his window to look at the city that never sleeps. There were enough shouts, engine noises and sirens to support that cliche. He looked down at the hard ground. He looked toward Central Park. It reminded him of another "almost"; his almost wife Susan . She thought he was almost human sometimes. Barry was young and had pockets newly filled with money . When she packed, he admitted to being a jerk and promised to change. She almost believed him .

Some days he thought about how happy he was with her.

He wished he hadn't felt the need to exploit himself like he did.

He felt like he had to prove he wasn't going to be just like his dad. But lately he had been wishing that the kind of relationship he had with Susan he could have with Linda.

His dad was really going to be pleased to find out his son had lost his job and meal ticket in the same month. He wouldn't be too surprised, though. He had come to expect mediocrity from his son. He never said so, but Barry knew it. He could tell by that "what now" tone in his voice when Barry called to talk .

Barry used to dream that he was Wally Cleaver. Wally was a good kid , Whenever Wally screwed up, he got a firm but caring lecture and was grounded for a weekend. But good old Ward never lost faith in his boy. Barry wished for any relationship like that.

Barry leaned out the window a bit and turned his head so that he could see the top of his building. The penthouse was only a few floors up, five to be exact. The thing that was going to get him there was sleeping away the night's revelry. Barry used to wake her after a night like this by saying, "Get up!

You're sleeping my life away! " He leaned further out the window . Five flights up to the penthouse, fourteen flights down to the pavement, he thought.

Almost made it to the top. It's not that far down . The hard part is stopping, after all. Painful. Solid and severe.

mark nebraska mays

kroger: 8:17 p.m. kris rehring

Jet's go faster, daddy!

the woman with red hair still holding the shape of spoolie-rollers piles her wares on the rubber belt behind me in the 15-items-or-Iess aisle: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cereal, Cookie Crisp, Twinkies, and a can of Faultless Spray Starch. her blue-eyed son sits under her cart eye level to the grab-me-as-you-go-out candy rack. he holds up a Heath bar'mommy, can i-' 'no, troy!' his mother cuts, 'that's pure unadulterated sugar.' troy drops the Heath bar, -cootiesand mutters 'i didn't know, mom i just didn't know,' , in the voice of the suddenly wise. i'm forced to stop at the 'oh' in thirty five oh six on mom's blue check. i turn to the 5-items-or-Iess cash only aisle where the black Domino's Pizza guy is leaning on six quarts of Castrol. the red lights bleep the tickets sputter totals troy keeps muttering 'i didn't know' and the Domino's man's white teeth wink at me in agreement.

stacy smith

30

sober sobriquet

jeff reep

In the vernacular I would call you IJmos t wonderful dear" but that could be taken as an insult to your dearness so I will attempt to restrain myself. I might try my best at the exotic and refer to you in the context of St. Croix coconut oil tans, the alluring sallow of the thigh of Venus or perhaps an Anais Nin mirage, but I won't. There's already too many errant wordsmiths in conspiracy to warp the endearment processes with their excess. Do you want your Christian name whispered hotly in your ear? But Mom and Dad called you by the same and we really don't want to awaken any latent Freudian mishmash (even if we've been told the id is long dead). Oh dear (no slip: not you but interjection), it's so long past the niggling hour than any loving label given now will be of no consequence in the morning. Let's be two dumb warm bodies in the night and allow our noise to fill in where language fails.

a.j. dumsch

morbicide (watch box) 31

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by Kelly White

summer falls A dirt road divides the town.

Dried wood storefronts splinter while sun-bleached signs echo products long gone.

Outside the hardware store, old men sit in broken chairs, jurors without a trial.

And passers-by keep passing, paying no mind to a soon forgotten place.

Children here dig big holes, either for buried treasure or tunneled escape.

They smell of fresh soil and young sweat, earthbound scions with ragged fingernails.

The women bloom early and fade fast.

In their eyes are tired dreams.

They live in their mother's yards, connected by wire clothesline to the women they swore to leave.

And the young men crave war, a noble cause to leave the families gotten too soon, but their country won't oblige.

So they chop wood and tote water to bone-dry fields While at the hardware store new chairs appear.

catherine b. emanuel

anne noel rarick

campus arts calendar spring semester literary competitions

ewing gallery of art and architecture november 21 - december 13 annual visiting artists exhibition

the english department creative writing contest is open to graduates and undergraduates. fiction, non-fiction and poetry will be accepted. for more information contact m. kallet at 974-5401.

1992 january 16 - february 9 ultra-media

the women's coordinating council is sponsoring a theme-oriented creative writing contest. it is open to both graduates and undergraduates, and accepts both poetry and fiction. contact mark constantine at 974-5455.

february 16 - march 6 dream-makers: public school artwork from national exhibit march 4 - 22 cu rrent / cu rrents

the woodruff contest is sponsored by the liberal arts department and open to undergraduates only. poetry and fiction is accepted. contact theresa gilbert at 974-4481.

april 5 - 16 45th annual student competition

20th annual southern graphics council meeting

april 9 - 24 mfa thesis exhibition

march 19-21, 1992 university of tennessee and the knoxville museum of art

april 27 - may 4 mfa thesis exhibition

the meeting will address the relationship between prints and society. the conference will examine issues dealing with the contemporary print through sessions, panel discussions, demonstrations and exhibitions. events planned include: a retrospective exhibition of prints by native tennessean red grooms at the knoxville museum of art. an exhibition on interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary printma~ing at the ewing gallery. panel sessions on prints and popular culture, collection practices of major museums, political content in prints, critical theory, the role of juried print competitions and new strategies to teaching printmaking. the accompanying exhibit "current/currents" runs march 4-22 at the ewing gallery on campus.

the student arts league

is an official university of tennessee organization that provides cultural and educational exposure to the students and surrounding campus community. the sal also gives opportunities for student artists to exhibit their work in a gallery. the gallery 1010, managed by members of sal, is an exhibit space on the fifth floor of the candy factory. for information on joining the sal contact andrea mills, 544-1745.

36

soup kitchen

candance parton

keely jane petty is a senior. chris wagner is a senior in graphic design. betsy perez is a senior in graphic design. kris rehring is a second year graduate student in computer graphics. yifei gan is a phd student. siriwan rungsawang is a graduate student. linda parsons is a graduate. catherine emmanuel is a phd student in english. a. j. dum sc h is working on an rna in english. stacy smith is a freshman in english and a whittle scholar. samuel e. bradford is a sophomore in english literature. mark nebraska mays is a 2nd year law student.

I.lindsey garbett is a 6th year senior in religious studies. yvonne loveday is a sophomore in journalism.

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