Caffeine Presse Fall 2014 by caffeinepresse

Caffeine Presse Fall 2014 1

ÂŠ Caffeine Presse 2014 Printed in the United States of America. Caffeine Presse retains first publication rights, which revert to the author upon publication, along with Electronic Rights. www.caffeinepresse.com caffeinepresse@gmail.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Joseph Giordano A Dog with Tricks Richard Thompson beautiful, and nothing hurt Hannah Thomassen Grandparents Circling the Essential Question Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Pain-Induced Insanity Diane D. Gillette Dangerous Curves Daniel Davis Country Fair Philip Kobylarz Dialtone Thanks for the Memories Ashes and Kisses Marian Kaplun Shapiro Grinding the Coffee Inventory of a Kitchen Drawer (In our rental cabin, Rangeley, Maine) Rt. 16, Rangeley â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Stratton, Maine Larry Blazek Birds of a Feather Cleaning the Farm Lily White Caught in the Rapture The Bank Laura Madeline Wiseman Practicing with death, with love Christina Wheeler Obedience Ken Poyner Flow, the city summer The Orb The Patriot Benjamin Drevlow Dog Novel 4

6 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 27 29 31 32 34 35

Joshua W. Jackson Man of Snow Warren Buchholz Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be Richard Lydon A Scream for Julia A.J. Huffman I Dream in Abstract Recycling Tears The Ceiling Fan Dances Dorene O’Brien Leaving In Love The Unspeakable Always Check Your Pockets Heidi McKinley When Death’s boyfriend proposed to her, she said, A Home We Don’t Know Mark Nenadov A Man from Nowhere Land C.W. Schahfer Lent’s End David Sullivan Mask Making 101 Carried 68 3am Fever My Son Draws 10 Osinisshis Monsters In Other Worlds Rick Hartwell Hitting the Wall The Proposal Dead Coyote Tiffany Tavella Wet. American Holidays Wendy C. Williford The Sanctimonious Lament of the Cake and Punch Girl 84 April Salzano I Travel Retrospect

37 42 47 52 53 54 55 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 67 69 70 72 74 76 81 82 83

87 88 5

a dog with tricks Joseph Giordano

Jessica was often mistaken for Mark’s daughter. She entered his Intensive Care room and stiffened at the sight of his ashen face. He breathed with the aid of a ventilator. The machine pop-whooshed like a metronome and gave him the look of a space traveler in cryosleep. A nurse walked in and handed her an incisor in a pill vial. “It happened when the EMT’s inserted the tube.” Tears welled up in Jessica’s eyes. The nurse said she was sorry and left. The floor creaked and Mark’s ex-wife Donna entered. She was a brunette in her fifties, with a red-lipstick mouth like jagged glass. Donna said, “His sister called. What happened?” “He collapsed in the shower.” Donna crossed her arms. “Not in bed?” Jessica frowned. The white-faced clock on the wall ticked audibly. Donna shifted on her feet. “That’s some ring. When did Mark buy it?” Jessica didn’t raise her eyes. “We were engaged before your divorce was final.” “Humph. He gave me a diamond the size of a gnat. He was in grad school, and I worked. Later I asked about something grander, but he said the ring had sentimental value for him.” She sneered. “I bought that crap, too.” Jessica slid her hand over the ring. “Don’t blame me because you couldn’t satisfy him.” “Is that your excuse for stealing a married man? It was my fault?” “You received a settlement. You signed the papers.” “You think that insignificant kiss-off was compensation for a miserable married life and betrayal? That ring proves he hid assets. That’s fraud.” “If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been some other woman. He told me. Your tongue broke bones.” “Yeah, right, another woman. How about a dozen other women? He’s stepped out on you.” “Bullshit.” “You married a dog.” “No way. He loves me.” “Love.” Donna spit out the word. “That’s what makes you so cocksure?” “I heard his phone calls to you. I know his tricks.” Donna straightened. She blinked.

Jessica glared at Donna. “Why did you come anyway?” Donna shrugged. “I had a pang.” She huffed. “It passed.” Donna turned in the doorway. “Mark’s tough. He’ll wake up.” She hesitated. “You have my sympathy.”

beautiful , and nothing hurt Richard Thompson spring, or letting go: the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart of ice breaks silently, then quick; banks torn, and alders, nests are dragged, brush tangles, swells, explodes; spring is gravity and time. and duty, promises, are winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grass the green ropes wilted into gray, for you for her, and spring has mercy for the salmon gasping in the ice.

grandparents

Hannah Thomassen He stood not quite beside her, just a little behind, she could not have seen how he tensed as she reached, not to pluck, just to lift the first ripe plum of the year in the cradle of her curled fingers and thumb. We were children, we knew nothing of trees and fruit, but we saw how he shivered as she cupped its sweet heft again and again for the way it pleasured her palm. We saw his mouth open as if wanting to fill while she lifted and lowered lifted and lowered how she shuddered a little, how her breath became heat. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know then how you can summon lover. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know they were not old.

circling the essential question Hannah Thomassen

My reading group is comparing the synoptic gospels to discover What Jesus Actually Said but I don’t get why that matters, so I spend a whole week reading Mystical Christianity, Integral Spirituality, Putting on the Mind of Christ, and When God Talks Back, where I do find a toe-hold on Something, but it’s not about Loving Jesus or Wanting to Get to Know Him Better or Stripping Away the Accretions of the Church From His Real Teaching, so I try to explain how the Centaur embodies the last level of human spiritual development grounded in normal time and space, followed by the first Subtle Level of True Non-Duality, but I’m in mud up to my neck with that, and I know despair and fear of death must wash through me forever until I understand it doesn’t matter, but I can’t find the words to say it right and that matters, so I’m sad, and lonely enough to cry, but if I could just go somewhere and write I think I could say it all. Maybe.

cognitive Behavioural therapy for pain-induced insanity Hannah Thomassen

—it’s all in the mind you have lost. wind shivers apple tree apples compost ground morning-dark stars lost love’s lifted lit face moonlight can’t see hear anyone anywhere everyone one or it’s only alone in here winds rise more morning stars hands on long arms reach reach oh to brachiate among stars every anything anywhere hurts hurts Be still. watch refuse black be wary maybe quick-bright wisdom could astonish cells the undecided cells writing downstream terrible clench-words sorrow below peace children call nothing tractioned lats coracobrachialis and fear Anxiety does not necessarily mean I am like them it may be I will get completely well in any case it is not likely my life is ruined I am not my mother or my sister the wisdom I have developed over a lifetime is likely still with me I can recover I am in fact very different from them CBT bullshit. it comes back comes back can’t eat rest breathe hard fear ice minutes days no room no person no

Enough.

look creek outside the window sweet part of me part of me not trapped no hurry not going anywhere sick sistersondaughtermother downhill goes tomorrow maybe light soon must or else pills.

Shit. I fucking rowed Mule Creek Canyon once! (when there were arms) drone fear worse fear alone fear only fear why prepare disaster why not prepare joy why invite worst temporary temporary temporary get better soon CBT me all to hell. Hurry.

dangerous curves Diane D. Gillette

She enjoys harvesting the unguarded hearts of innocent young men. She isn’t a hussy exactly. She just enjoys extending her hospitality to baby-faced menfolk who haven’t yet enjoyed the company of a woman of experience. She never detains them from their lives for more than a day or two. And she understands that the type of romance she offers them means they will always be a little bit in love with her. That every woman who slides between their sheets will be compared to her. And they always pale, she is certain. Because no one can shed a gown quite like she can. She can make any man believe that he wields a sword even if it is really more of a dagger. Without them in her life, she doesn’t really know who she is. So as she sits alone on the cold metal table in that awful, unflattering paper gown, she crosses her arms over her breasts and closes her eyes. Slowly she recites their names one by one, while she waits for the doctor to come in and frisk her. To tell her what she already knows. In the moment, their names are enough. She is not alone.

country fair Daniel Davis

Harvey’s brains almost exploded against a sign that naively declared World’s Best Lemon Shakeups and Pizza Pretzels. The thirty-thirty slug came so close that Harvey was left mostly deaf in his right ear. The shakeup stand owner took the bullet in his shoulder, effectively retiring him from the shakeup and pretzel industry. Harvey had no idea how close he came to dying. Not right away. Later, when he saw the bodies, he would consider himself lucky—if that was the right word for it—but at the time he thought he had finally snapped. He thought, Holy shit, I’ve done it, I’ve finally found a way to block her out! His eyes closed in the rapturous silence. His mind flew back to the day before he’d met her, the last day of emotional and mental quietude he could remember. This joy stayed with him even as his legs instinctively buckled, dropping him to the mud and grass and discarded plastic wraps, as more bullets rained into the crowd around him.

Dialtone

Philip Kobylarz He called Mexico and herein the mystery lies. It was his sister who first noticed it, the call to Mexico, on the phone bill, as incongruous as a profanity uttered in church, and who she herself racked her mind for a good five minutes trying to remember what it was she could have ordered: Spanish colonial furniture, a reservation for a seaside cabana, colorful artwork by an American expatriate—as God was her witness, she didn’t know, which got her thinking about her husband who was once married to a sun-worshipping sex-kitten, the kind of woman who’d show up at the airport to pick him up from a recent business meeting, wearing only high heels and a fake fur coat (a fact he would regret telling his wife for the rest of his natural life), who she knew to be living alone in a beachside resort, barely employed as a cocktail waitress, and probably still infatuated with him because he still kept pictures of her. Most things, as they say, are better left unsaid, but are worse off in the interest category. He, in turn, due to this strange telephone call to, of all places, Mexico, got to accusing her of mastercarding the two of them to certain bankruptcy, which she could do no other than take personally so much so as to procure for himself four relatively sleepless nights on a couch that was neither large enough for him nor especially made for sleeping, not to mention the innumerable awkward silences and estranged glances throughout the course of many days of dressing, showering, creating dinners, washing the car, and preparing the taxes while they both, over the course of at least two months, completely forgot the one fated afternoon that they asked her brother and his one and only, as he liked to say “favorite” brother-in-law, to stop by and feed the cat—a job, a want, or desire so forgettable, so unimportant, so boring that this singled out innocent bystander picked up the phone and for no other reason than to hear a woman’s voice speaking Spanish, dialed Mexico.

thanks for the memories Philip Kobylarz

She asked if I remembered the day from a string of immemorial days from the hazy, distant past, misty as specifically that day was in early fall or was it late winter because the leaves had fallen and were gathered, matted, in a carpeting of musk scented with a hint of almost tobacco and old newspapers and in the shallow crevices of hills, valley, gully, crick there was a thin dust of accumulated and re-frozen snow which highlighted, or under lit even more so, the damp dark boughs, limbs of trees, so cold they were black and would snap in your grip when you tried to climb their Zen artistic attempt at ladders and how the animals in the nearby zoo, what looked like a group of zebra and tapir barley moving in the chilled air became interested, excited to see life free and randomly roving beyond the world entrapped by chain link fence and following our crunching footfalls as we tried to find a trail to someplace and ended up making our own that led us either logically, or romantically, to a cemetery we had never know of complete with forged hills crowned with embittered oak trees, crypts, abandoned graveskeeper quarters, civil war dead, tombstones and monuments two of which had our last names engraved and waiting.

ashes and kisses Philip Kobylarz

There are some that do and there are some that do but don’t admit it. It’s that simple, always has been, always will be, always was. Take, purely for example, the woman at work, who, with the precision of a microsurgeon, applies, after lunch, lipstick so meticulously that it takes a whole six minutes, and, while she is fogging up her compact, she remains lost in some kind of beautiful or beautifying dream of herself in which she doesn’t realize the fact that she is humming a tune that she heard on the radio and indeed it is one of those catchy pop tunes that is inexplicitly all about sex and its circuitous pursuit that is oh so obvious in the melody because it is a tune to which you know all the words because you yourself were singing it at the very last stoplight you came to, which was such an endless red that you had the time to open a pack of smokes and without looking manipulate one out, then light with the ashtray’s wait-asecond pop-out lighter, one 100 length freshly wrapped cigarette that you so roguishly hung out of the window, and with a lazy, laid-back wrist, flicked and flicked and flicked with the nail of your thumb until there was only the smoldering carcass of a filter left, which, as the light turned green, and you continued your bleak way on an anonymous back street to a job where your co-workers might at any time call you Ralph when indeed your name is Russell, the no longer smoking filter reminded you of a party recently attended, called an informal get-together by its host and at which you met, or better, were led to know, a woman so remarkable, enchanting, elusive, and so uninterested in you that, surreptitiously, you volunteered to help clean up just so that you’d be able to collect the cigarettes she half-smoked and crushed, tattooed with the perfect halo of her lips, which, indeed, you did.

grinding the coffee Marian Kaplun Shapiro

Hawaiian/Kenyan/Guatamalan/ Sumatran/Brazilian/Columbian air filling the kitchen. Foreign suns spark across the counter. Juan Valdez smiles his happyserious smile â&#x20AC;&#x201C; so glad to grow his beans for me. I blow him a kiss. I invite him, his seĂąora, his hija, his hijo, his entire familia to join me at my table. The best of cups, the just-shined silver spoons for them. Salud! What else can I say! Mucho gracias, amigo. Even though you are a figment of the advertising world, I believe in you. Mucho gracias.

inventory of a kitchen drawer (in our rental cabin, Rangeley, Maine) Marian Kaplun Shapiro One ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

potato peeler/carrot scraper corkscrew bottle opener jar opener bottle brush (old) toothbrush whisk cheese grater nut cracker scissors

+ an assortment of spatulas, serving spoons (slotted and not), tongs, spaghetti forks, and KNIVES (bread, steak). Short. Long. Dull. Sharp. Also, butter spreaders. Grapefruit sectioners for ● ● ● ●

cleaning cutting opening serving

That’s the whole story, isn’t it. What goes before cooking, what goes after cooking. What goes before eating. What we mean by living.

RT. 16, RANGELEY - STRATTON, MAINE Marian Kaplun Shapiro

Three guinea hens, taking a walk! we tell Rose, waiting our table at the White Wolf Inn. Sure they weren’t turkeys? she laughs, her friendly grin joshing the city folks. Not turkeys, I say, holding my ground. I know turkeys. Must be Carl’s, then, she concedes cheerfully, reckon they got out. He’s got hens, a coupla cows, down the road apiece. Fish tonight? Pork roast? Duck? With a side of beet greens from my garden? After the strawberry shortcake/ blueberry pie/apple crisp, we pile into the car again. Getting dark now, better drive slowly . . . Watch out! What’s that? Omygod a steer! right in the middle of the road. Not much of a riddle now, we say knowingly. Carl’s sure having a really bad day! We call Rose on our cellphone – yep, probably his too. Someone didn’t close that gate, I guess. A doe stands peacefully on the periphery. Her land of mud and trees and river. No gate for her to wait behind, impatient for her chance for freedom. What a gift she has, I think. At least ‘til hunting season.

birds of a feather Larry Blazek

The girl that was introduced To you by your ex-wife Kisses you then asks for money

cleaning the farm Larry Blazek

You are conscripted into helping to clean Trash and spilled snacks that litter the floor of the house You make progress with a cheap electric broom Until it becomes clogged by Cheez-Its You go near the barn to empty it Several men are working there Someone shows you the latch to empty the broom A man with long hair and a piece of log chain as a head band Sits in a wheelchair and rolls away

caught in the rapture Lily White

I heard it on the radio. The DJ said that on May 21st, the WORLD WILL END. It was that station WJCN. That’s the only one that comes in strong around here without getting scratchy when I drive over the mountain to Schoharie County. Sometimes I wish they would play more country music like that Shania Twain or that black girl Violet likes. But, they got music and preaching, so it’s not so bad. The man said that this year, there will be an earthquake so big that the earth will “rent in twain.” Just to clarify, “rent” means, “split open” in this case, so that the graves of anyone who’s ever been buried will be exposed to the air. Imagine the stink of all them dead people from way back when. In May, they will rise up and in October, the world will explode. All of them who are good Christians will go to heaven and be with Jesus and the rest will be stuck here for five long months running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I don’t know what happens if you was cremated. It seems like I been waitin’ for this thing my whole life. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t guaranteed a place in heaven. It ain’t sure I’ll be raptured at all. I’m pretty sure Mom and aunt Betty will go because they’re always doing church stuff. They’re on the potluck committee and they raise money for the “children in need” at Christmastime. I usually make a Jel-lo salad for the potluck supper, but ever since the saw blade factory closed, things have been tight for me and Violet. When her dad run off, I stopped going to church for a while, but now I’m back. I don’t know why, but this end of the world thing just seems right to me, like it’s supposed to happen. That earthquake in Japan? It was just the beginning. Violet just laughs at me. She’s 19 now and thinks that she knows better than me. I tell her: there’s nothing wrong with being prepared, but she just rolls her eyes. I know she’s book smart, cuz she was fixin on going to college after graduation, but about matters of faith, she has none. She says that those people on the radio are cracked, but she’s been in a foul mood ever since the end of high school when she started working at the Wal-Mart. If she thought about it for two seconds, she would understand that all them people who’ve been studying the Bible can’t be wrong. That’s why I signed our Banjo up for “Eternal Earth-bound Pets.” I want to make sure he’ll be all right after it happens. If Violet and me get taken up to heaven, that dog’ll need someone to look after him. I don’t want him to starve to death between May and October. The man at the place wanted $135, which ain’t a lot when you think of the price of dog food these days. He says they planned ahead and bought in bulk— you know, cuz most of the stores will be closed due to the Rapture. Meanwhile, I’m out here trying to spread the word. I come out

to the parking lot here at the Wal-Mart with my lawn chair and umbrella. I’m passing out fliers about the gospel and trying to do my part to help save people. I saw Violet when she was on her way to work this morning in her blue uniform. She hunkered down in her seat pretending she didn’t know me but I yelled to her anyway and waved. I’m not mad at her though. I know she’ll come back around after May 21st. They all will.

the bank

Lily White “I can’t believe that fucking guy.” Ronnie as he lurched toward the cash machine. “I know, right?” said Billy. “Five fucking years in the jail because of that snitch, and now he tells me to get the fuck outta here!” Erica overheard the two men from across the bank lobby. “What’d you say?” asked Billy. “I tell you what I said.” Ronnie struggled to make out the numbers on the face of the machine. “Shit!” He punched the screen and started over. Erica sidled up to the ATM next to this Brooklyn character. The man’s face was red and mottled with veins. It was 10 o’clock in the morning and he looked drunk. “He’s got some nerve, that guy,” said his friend, egging him on. “Nerve ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.” Ronnie successfully pushed the correct keys and waited while the machine whirred to life. He burped. “S’cuse me.” Erica could hardly contain her delight. This dialogue was priceless. She wanted to remember every word for her writing class assignment. “Anyway, I tell him, ‘You fuck off, Tom. You owe me!’” “I know, right?” “Five. Mother. Fucking. Years.” Ronnie held up five fingers to illustrate. These were some serious old-school gangster types. Born and raised here. Erica moved to Brooklyn 5 years ago after getting her BA in English from Oberlin. “Anyway,” Ronnie took the wad of money, “if I see that guy anywhere near me,” his words were no longer slurred, “I’m going to take a knife and slit him from his cock up to his ears.” Erica shuddered. She wished the machine would hurry up and spit out her money. “I’m going to take my knife,” Ronnie spoke deliberately, “And I’m going to stick it in his cock.” “Stick it in,” echoed Billy. “Peel the skin back…” “Peel it back.” “And pull that mother-fucker’s skin up past his ears and cover his eyes with it.” “He deserves no better.” Erica bolted out of the bank, leaving her receipt wagging out of the ATM like a tongue.

“She gone?” asked Ronnie. “Yeah. She’s running across seventh avenue.” Billy giggled. “Fugging writers,” said Ronnie. “I know, right?” said Billy.

practicing death, with love Laura Madeline Wiseman

First—Before you fall, the pale girl says, “You’re a bitch.” You pour beer on her white-blond hair as the crowd jeers. You run, push against the bodies in the house party, and make your way out of the room, stairs, front door, exit, but a classmate stops you. The-should-be-boyfriend says, “I can see right through you.” He’s right. He can. In an hour, a white flash crosses the road. Your best friend will call out, “Shit!” or “Ikes!” or maybe “Psyches!”—your own last name. The car flips into trees heavy with rain, sleet, snow, and light. On that first day, you die. Wait, not quite. You get to do this again—the dying, the attempt to elide death as she comes for you. Second—Chance, or maybe not. Your sister awakes you. Her fingers tug at the gold bird pendant around your neck. “Mom says, get up.” You do. You rise. You shower off the dream, the nightmare of yesterday, an almost Valentine’s Day you will repeat again and again, though you don’t know this yet. So you pull on the mini shirt and the fur lined tank for today’s events (again): high school, cupid roses, the-real-boyfriend who wants your virginity tonight, a house party, a fight over what song to play on your best friend’s car stereo, an end. You think deja-vu? Third—But the alarm wakes you, again, snatches you from the party, from your bathroom hiding while a line of drunk girls rattled the handle, palmed the door, and called, “Please, I have to pee.” What did you care, drunk, abandoned by the-real-boyfriend who downs another vodka and finger waves a, “Five minutes?” This third almost Valentine’s Day, you avoid the party, but wait for it. Wait for the call. Wait for the pale girl to pull out her own gun. No matter what, it’s either you or her. Someone will die. Fourth—This is the worst and best day. You play sick to avoid school, the armful of roses, the cryptic notes of popularity, Luv ya. You putter. You movie watch. You family night out for Italian, even though you’re eighteen and to graduate in May. So, you meet the pale girl’s little sister (remember, the one who called you a bitch), you meet her parents, you see the mask of newsprint with red stitching like scars. You go to the party, for the third time. It’s always the same party, same night. Your friends say, “Naughty,” because you skipped school. So what? You follow the pale girl to the highway of rain. You grab her—why? To tell her you’re a bitch? To tell her you didn’t know about the scars? To tell her death is a repeat to relive for days and she better not? You tell her, “Don’t do it,” but she does, she always does. She launches herself into the path of your best friend’s car. Fifth—Maybe you must relive the almost Valentine’s Day like Billy Murray in Groundhog Day forever, but you learn no piano music. You don’t try to court love. You don’t see shadows. You don’t run from a man who

calls, “Watch out for that first step, it’s a doozy.” No, on this time loop, you are ejected from the best friend’s car. You french kiss your math teacher and let him grope between your thighs. You steal a credit card. But you can’t stop the house party, or the pale girl’s, “You’re a bitch,” any more than block her run into traffic. You can’t even give up your virginity tonight, dress halfway unzipped because the-real-boyfriend passes out drunk. That’s right. You’ll die a virgin at eighteen. So you fall to sleep in a room of moonlight, forest, and snow, the-should-be-boyfriend’s hand in your own. Why did you fail to notice this guy until just now? Sixth—Finally, you’ve seen the light, butterflies, colors, and faces turned toward you. You dump the-real-boyfriend, the friends, the popularity. You give away all your cupid roses but one. You ask the math teacher, “Why do you hit on high school girls?” You send a rose to the-should-beboyfriend and request him to be your hero. You kiss him. You party with him. You tuck the pale girl into a cubby, but she runs into sleet, again seeking death’s bright embrace. You chase her to the highway’s edge. You push her from between two cars to the side of the road, where death is not. You take her place on the road, a hero’s kiss on your lips, and fall into light.

obedience

Christina Wheeler Ana was trying to read Go, Dog, Go! but couldn’t quite figure out a word. “Liiiit…ulll…eeee,” she sounded out. It’s lit-tul, a voice said to her from behind. Ana glanced over her shoulder but saw no one. You don’t say the ‘e.’ Since then, he’d followed her everywhere, giving her hints, helping her figure the world out, telling her what to do. She didn’t tell anyone about him because she was afraid he might desert her if she did. One day, the voice said, I want you to go into your parents’ room and open the drawer in your father’s nightstand. “I can’t,” Ana told the voice. “I’m not allowed.” She thought he knew this. He seemed to know everything. You don’t trust me? Ana took a deep breath. “Okay.” She trudged upstairs, her heart beating fast. This didn’t feel right, whether she trusted him or not. She had to admit, though, she was a little curious, and the babysitter had fallen asleep. She wouldn’t get caught. Inside the drawer, Ana saw little foil packages and a bottle of pills. “That’s it?” she thought. Now take the bottle of pills. Ana looked around, half-expecting to see the source of the voice for the first time, even after the year or so of never seeing him. “Daddy will find out. He’s going to get mad at me.” Blame it on the babysitter, the voice said. That night, as Ana was brushing her teeth, her father stormed into the bathroom. “Did you go in my drawer?” he demanded. “No,” Ana said. She felt horrible. She never lied to her parents. “But . . . I think Stacy did.” Her father covered his face with his palm and shook his head. Then he muttered, “I can’t skip my meds.” With that, he left the room. She heard him on the phone shortly after, contacting the hospital for a replacement bottle. A new babysitter took Stacy’s place. Ana didn’t hear the voice again for a long time. Every now and then, she’d take the pill bottle out from its hiding place and stare at it, wondering where he went, wondering why he made her do that. She sunk into a depression, believing that her childhood friend had left her for good. Then, when she was fourteen, he returned. I’m sorry I left you, the voice said.

For a moment, Ana was so startled she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “Why did you leave?” You wouldn’t understand. But I’m back now: I know you need me. Relief flooded Ana, knowing that the voice understood how badly she’d missed him. After a moment, he said, You need to take some of those pills. She hesitated. “How many?” she asked. Six should do the trick. She knew now the pills were for her father’s mental illness. Thinking about how upset she’d been, she obeyed. Perhaps they could help her, too. The last thing Ana remembered before the world went dark was the voice saying gently, Goodnight.

flow, the city summer Ken Poyner

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m down by the fire hydrant that never opens Waiting for your body. You may come Or not. What I want is that sidling Walk, that hip-filled locomotion, the tip Of the shoulders that brings one breast Up and then down and then the other up And then coldly down. I want the stripes of your Cheap dress to run sideways across Your body and the strict straight Of your hair to compete with the cloth, To fall shoulder length and make its Statement against the prideful dress like two Girls fighting in an alley over a boy Too full of himself to fill either one of them. My hands would be the shy fists of all three. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m down here, by the fire hydrant. Maybe if your body joins me, I can finally Pry the cover off this summer boil, Sweat tuned hydrant, and let the water Spit sinfully over us, matting your scored dress: With your elegantly simple nipples underneath Pimped by the damp cloth and the purely Delicious fur at the grip of your Y Shouting you can come or not; the water Rolling off of my bare chest and the fur Of my stomach slicked in a line and Me not waiting at all, not even here: Just my body, and the low sounds Of a hydrant pushing angrily against its cap, Thinking that if it had help it could Explode and like shrapnel be nothing but action. I am like that. I can show you explosions. Bring your body down.

the orb

Ken Poyner

Yes, the sudden tour stop. Those fresh antiquities, the ones Just like the ones In the mysterious guidebook. An offer Of help. Our four-by-four In the bleeding sun too long, The radiator sputtering and Our entire fresh water supply Traded bottle by spurned bottle for Distance. No thought, then, Of thirst, of the walk to civilization, Or something near and nearly like it. But no, An offer of help. Whose flag is that anyway? Those antiquities are not antiquities At all, and I told everyone — You remember, everyone — That no good would come of our good. I tell you, we are in some fix, Some construction of events that all of us Are beginning to see as quite extraordinary, Quite unlikely, quite statistically Aberrant. Alright. The main narrative bellows to someone Else. Here is where I notice Our companion in short-shorts — Her unspeakably clean dark hair Fallen over one eye and Arched Biblically – has shaved Her legs recently. I am not that kind of man, But it fits, don’t you see: It all comes together. This is where I am meant to be Though I never meant to be here. This sudden tour stop. The couple on holiday. The paperweight Antiquities. Our justified thirst. The foreign flag. The substantial Woman, who turns out to be the sex-draped Coincidental skeleton that blunts my selfish suspicions. I am waiting for you to acridly

Unearth what is on the next page, To flip ahead and see how many Chapters are left to our beloved hero, Whichever one of us our hero reveals himself to be. One of you, insert action here.

the patriot Ken Poyner

I live across the street From the people who live across the street. I have been paying special attention As cautiously, as slyly, as I can: And I suspect they are under suspicion. I have seen a number of what look to be Unmarked cars drive slowly by, With the windows that are positioned Towards that house drawn Precipitously down two inches. I think The paperboy has been lingering At the corner of their over grown lawn With a boy-sized concealed camera. Last week, The phone company was out to fix A supposed trouble in the line and No doubt Installed software to record and trace. I would not call over there now If the house were on fire. Their children Play outside alone, knotted together Like yard ornaments. I have not seen The mail service stop there in days. I am willing to bet some family Within the block has been moved out, Hustled safely in a dark truck out of state, And their house taken over by a squad Of dedicated civil servants: all Excited at the data they can reel in From all those romantically intricate devices, Secretly installed and artfully controlled. Surely, each operator has his or her Own favorite device. I Do not want to be the subject Of such an uncontrollable examination. I keep my curtains pulled, I look out With only one lonely razor eye. I Do not want to be part Of anyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plot, a tag-along In someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classic criminality. Please, Tell me how I get out of this.

dog novel

Benjamin Drevlow Me and this guy, we’re out hunting for dog shit. Well, I’m hunting. This guy, he’s knelt down at the sphincter of his Great Dane. Like he’s in the show ring at the Westminster, demonstrating for the judge just how healthy Big Dukie’s diet is. After a minute, he turns to look up to me. I half expect him to frame it with magic hands: Ta da! But I guess that’s how you play it when you’ve got a thoroughbred dog. Everything’s a big display. You gotta make it look good and fruity, otherwise you’re just overcompensating. Me, I like to let them dry out a little under the sun. I don’t wanna scoop anything into my baggy soft enough to be a baby doodoo. Jesus, there’s enough pressure these days. I’m already the stay-at-home dogdad, while she goes and puts her degree to work. Here I am in the dog exercise area, collecting turds like it’s my job. It sort of is and it isn’t. I’m taking the summer to plumb the depths of my self-pity. My girlfriend’s dog is a spaniel: half Brittany, half Cocker. We call him a Cockney. That’s our little joke, you see; we’re writers. In school, we learned to be wittier than the rest of the world. We like to play games like Trivial Pursuit or Balderdash. We make up games like Existential Pictionary, or Scrabble for Third World Countries. There was a time I had a dog for which I’d be proud to butler doodoo around. A hundred-eighty pounds of pure-blooded German Rottweiler: Norman, Stormin’ Norman! I’d gotten him for a Christmas present a month after my brother had killed himself. I guess my parents thought it’d be a nice diversion. And he was. Much more hospitable to me than my dead brother ever had been. And dependable. Norman had died not early, not by his own hands, but many years later of old age. I was away at college and my mother put the phone up so I could say good bye. Now, here I am hunting all over for our little thirty-five-pound doggie’s landmine. Let’s be honest—hunting being a loose term. Hunting implying a clearly lacking desire on my part. It’s Truman, I have to tell people over and over. It’s a HE, I say, not a SHE. Though you’d never guess it by the way the little pouf-ball prances about the doggie exercise area after emptying his little doggie bowels. And that little wagging cotton-ball docked tail. Truman, you know, like Capote. Though my Ina insists that she is not so pretentious as to name her pouf-ball, prancing Cockney after the nonfiction novelist of quite some renown. Ugh, she says when I accuse her, how completely dreadful of a human being do you think I am? But I must say, the name fits. And he can be quite understanding as I trudge through the pages of my never-to-be-finished first novel while he patient-

ly waits to be escorted out to the exercise area for his daily step aerobics. This guy waits out the last gasp from his Great Dane’s sphincter and manages to wipe most of the foul mess from the grass, then pulls a small wet nap from his shirt pocket to wipe the excess splatter from Big Dukie’s soiled tushie. I’ll give the guy this: he’s committed to his job. But then he stands up and looks over to me. “I sure hope somebody’ll be there to do this for me one day,” he says, stuffing the soiled wet nap in the doggie bag and twirling the bag shut. What? I want to say. Wipe your ass, clean your shit off the lawn, or take you out for exercise? But I don’t. I say nothing, but when I write this incident into my great unfinished novel, I turn to this guy—this human pooper-scooper, and I tell him, No way, Buddy. Give me a diaper any day. A diaper, a gin I.V., and the worst case of Alzheimer’s there’s ever been. I don’t want to half remember any of this. Not the name of that big tittied, buxom young nurse who has to give me sponge baths. Not my family that’s abandoned me, not my friends who are alienated and long gone. Not my brother, not my dogs. Not my first love, not my last. Not Ina. And not this little dog, in my lap as I type—back paws planted firmly on my crotch, front paws resting gently on both shoulders like a prom date—licking and whining and whimpering my worries away.

man of snow

Joshua W. Jackson Ronnie was thinking about leaving his wife, but now that the Red Sox won the World Series he’s thinking he’ll stay, not for any superstitious reason but only because we all had so much fun together during the playoffs. He doesn’t tell me all this stuff outright, even though he doesn’t know that I have been in love with Becky for years and years. Instead, when he was thinking of leaving, he would say things like, “You know, Eddie, we’re not old men yet, at least I’m not,” and, “You might not think so, but believe it or not there’s places cheaper to live than Skowhegan, and a plumber can work anywhere.” Now that it’s November and they’re champions down in Boston, he’s saying things like, “How much cash do you think I need to get together for a surprise Florida vacation, Eddie?” and “Christ, Eddie, we all sure have had some good times together, haven’t we? Remember the Fourth when we rented that boat?” Of course I remember that Fourth. It was after their kid Hannah graduated college, ten or twelve years ago, five or six years before Lindsay met her long-haul trucker and then left both of us. Me and Lindsay and Ronnie and Becky rented a yacht for the long weekend and drifted around off the coast of Rockland. I think it was my idea but I don’t remember clear enough to argue the point. Me and Ronnie pretended we knew what we were doing—might have even forged some form for the Coast Guard—and we did alright, made it a little bit out to sea and made it back to the right dock when it was time to return the yacht. Mostly we drank and anchored a couple hundred yards off different parts of the shore. There were two little bunkrooms, but I believe I remember all four of us sleeping on the deck at least a couple of the nights. I remember having a laugh about the all of us being so freezing cold in the middle of the night, even under heavy sleeping bags and with winter hats in the summer. The days were plenty warm, though. One afternoon, we went skinny-dipping. Lindsay was the one who started it. We were all sitting around in swimsuits on the deck, and the yacht was anchored in the cove of this little island, nothing but a few rocks and some trees. Lindsay was wearing a one-piece and she suddenly flipped off one strap, then the other. I don’t know how many times you’ve seen your wife’s bare breasts, but I promise you it’s a different, wild thing when she unexpectedly flops them out in the bright sunshine in front of your friends. I didn’t even know what to make of it. She stood up and stepped all the way out of the suit and came over to me and pulled untied the string of my trunks and said, “What are you being so bashful about?” So I stood there naked, and I remember looking at Becky and feeling like I was burning up, then looking at Ronnie. Ronnie shrugged and took off his swimsuit, too, then Becky did, and we all jumped in the water at once. After a little swim-

ming around and splashing and playing games, me and Lindsay swam around to the side of the hull with the ladder and made love just above the surface of the ocean. When we climbed onto the yacht, I could see the naked shapes of Ronnie and Becky coming out from behind the trees on the island. But what I feel for Becky isn’t about her body or sex—not at this age, and I don’t think it ever really was, exactly. That wasn’t the first time she and I saw each other naked. When I was a freshman at UMO in the seventies, Ronnie came up to visit a lot of weekends. I was kind of friends with friends of Becky, and she and Ronnie would flirt and hang out whenever he came around. We all three got pretty good and drunk at this party this one weekend, and when we left, Ronnie took a bottle of vodka with him. Next thing I remember, the three of us are in Becky’s dorm room playing strip poker. I was pretty sauced but I have a couple of pictures I can see in my mind. I remember Ronnie laughing in his boxer shorts and me feeling so sad, so fucking sad. I remember Becky lost every stitch off her top half before she removed so much as a shoe from the bottom half. And I remember we were all naked soon enough and finally I just started to cry and got up and without any clothes on stepped into the November night with tears and snot dripping down my face. Ronnie came out and asked me what was the matter. I didn’t know what to say so I said something about how we took advantage of that poor girl. He said that wasn’t true and I should come back in and talk with her, but I just turned and walked back to my dorm, balls hanging in the open air, me crying like a four-year-old. The truth was, I felt more lonely than anyone could handle. That’s what my feelings for Becky are about. Especially now. She has a warm ember somewhere under her chest, and if I could get close enough to it, everything would be a little bit more alright. Those nights during the playoffs, she was coming down to watch the games with us at the bar. Sometimes it was almost too good to take, especially because I knew it wouldn’t last. When the Sox scored or got a big out, Becky hugged and high-fived both me and Ronnie, like she was glad we both belonged to her. Mostly, though, having her in here made everybody happy. All the regulars woke up a little bit. Al, who owns the place, gave us a free pitcher of beer during the last game. That’s something Al never does, not in the twenty-something years I’ve been coming here. With the Series over, Becky has stopped coming, like I knew she would, and this place is back to its normal, depressing self. The only thing that’s different is that Ronnie doesn’t come every night anymore, and when he does, he is still as awake as when Becky was here. That makes it a little annoying to see him. The last time he was in here, he said to me, “Do you know what you need, Eddie? You need to find yourself another lady.” I told him not likely, and he asked not likely that’s what I need or not likely I’m going to find one, and I told him both. He said, “Do you remember when things were going real well with Lindsay?” “I do,” I said, but that was an awful long time ago, even years

before she left. “Don’t you feel like that was really living?” he said. “When things were going really good?” “I suppose so,” I said, but then I decided to try a little harder to tell the truth, because I wonder how long it will be before he starts talking again about how a plumber can live anywhere. I said, “But this is really living, too. It’s all really living. I guess when things were best with Lindsay, we had fun together and we knew how to stay out of each other’s way when it wasn’t fun. When things were going good, it just meant nobody was giving me a hard time. Same as now—nobody’s giving me a hard time.” “Yeah, but Eddie,” he said. “Don’t you think love is something to live for? Don’t you think having a good partner lightens a man’s soul?” “Let’s change the subject,” I said. But the Sox season was over and there was really nothing else to talk about. He left his hand on my shoulder and we finished the pitcher we were working on and Ronnie said, “Whelp,” and he put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and left. That was four nights ago and Ronnie hasn’t been in since and that was the last time I have seen Ronnie. Now I am good and drunk and I am ready to get out of here. I am so drunk that of my own free will I turned over my keys to Jenny who is Al’s grandniece or something like that. When I stand up off my stool, she calls my name maybe to get me to wait for her to arrange me a ride home but I feel like going for a walk so I wave my hand in the air and walk right out the door. I take a pee against my pickup and the pee is steaming like wild. It is wicked cold outside. It’s the second week in November, but, I say aloud, this is like a January kind of cold. I walk away from the bar and down the road and away from the streetlights and I look up at the sky and I wonder if it will snow. It’s a super clear night and I can see the whole Milky Way when my breath isn’t fogging my glasses up, but I pray for it to snow anyway. I pray for it to snow so much that the snow will cover me up completely and freeze over and I will be the frozen man of snow on Route 201 that will be famous for years to come. But it doesn’t snow and after a while I’ve got to accept that it’s not going to. I start walking again. I’m almost to Hanover Street when a cop pulls up next me on the road. He unrolls the window and I see it’s Chris what’s-his-face’s kid. I keep moving, so he makes the prowler crawl along next to me. He asks how am I doing tonight in a way that means he thinks I’m in some kind of trouble. I tell him I’m doing just fine, just walking home. He says would I like a lift, it must be twenty degrees out there. I say no, I’m enjoying the evening, and he starts to go into a whole thing about my safety. “Christ, man,” I say, “I’m six blocks from home. Just let me be already.” He laughs and he says, “Alright, but you go straight home.” And I do go straight home, but I go straight past home, too. I go all the way to the end of my street where the path through the woods starts, and I go into the woods. In the woods I feel even colder, and I start to like it. I suck in the frozen air deep into my chest so it’s icy and hurts on my lungs and throat. I do it again and again, soaking up all the cold.

There’s snot freezing over on my upper lip. I am a weird sort of creature in the woods, walking along turning the cold into me. I step on a bit of dried leaves and break a lot of branches, but there is nothing around to run away from the noise. I am all alone. I am still sucking in the cold and crunching the leaves and breaking the branches when I realize that I can’t feel my toes or the top part of my feet. I have maybe had too much fun and soaked up too much of the cold. I begin to run to get my blood really flowing again. If you ever been drunk and gone running through the pitchblack woods in the middle of the pitch-black night then you know some of what I feel like. I run my face straight across a dozen branches, but they each only hurt for a second. I trip on something and go flying in the frozen air and land on my hands and bang a knee, and the wind gets knocked out of me. But when I breathe in again, it is all that cold that I am breathing in and it snaps me up. I don’t know if I’m on the path but I can see through the woods a glowing orange light that I know at least is the glowing orange light I’d be looking at if I were on the path. I try to run straight for it, but with my banged knee and all the tree limbs the best I can do is a kind of broken half-trot. I think of Big Papi going around the bases after a home run if Big Papi had something wrong with him, and the World Series reminds me again where it is I am running to. When I fall out of the woods like they’ve spit me out, everything is much brighter under the moon and the stars. Brightest of all though is that orange glow of streetlight halfway up the block in front of Becky and Ronnie’s house. Running on the pavement feels easy after being in the woods. My feet hurt like they’re going to crack when they slap the street and it’s probably good that I can feel them again. My knee has a funny hitch but it doesn’t feel like anything. I don’t stop running until I am standing under the orange light. Standing under the orange light, I say—not yell but just say— “Becky, oh, Becky.” Ronnie’s old plumbing van is in the driveway and Ronnie’s yard is littered with brush. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m gathering up all the brush and getting some sticks from the neighbors’ yards. There aren’t enough sticks, so I go break some off a sapling by the backyard woods. I’ve gathered it all up and I start to make it into a little pyramid against the concrete foundation at the front corner of Ronnie’s house. I don’t have a lighter on me, so I don’t think I’m going to do anything but I find myself rubbing a couple of sticks together. I can’t make any heat, though. I go to Ronnie’s van and try to light the cigarette lighter, but it won’t work with the engine cold, and Ronnie has not left the keys anywhere that I can find. What I do find is a book of matches in the mess between the seats. I am standing back over the pile of kindling. I see the lights have come on in some of the neighbors’ houses. I strike a match but my hands are shaky and numb and the match doesn’t light. I try again and see a flicker of spark. I try a third time and there is a flame. I hold it under the fingers of my left hand. Instead of feeling better they are both numb and painful at the same time. I can’t feel anything good from the heat. I try switching the match to the other hand but then the whole matchbook is

on fire. I am holding the orange, smoke-smelling burst when Ronnie says my name and says Jesus. He tackles me onto the ground and we knock over the kindling, but the matchbook gets snuffed out on the hard, cold dirt. We are wrestling and rolling to see who will pin the other. A bright light shines on us and somebody else is talking to us, but Ronnie says what in the hell am I doing. Snow man, I say, I’m an abominable snow man. He rolls on top of me and has his knees on my shoulders and I love the bastard. “Don’t,” I say, “don’t you leave Becky.” “I’m not,” he says, “I won’t.” Chris what’s-his-face’s kid the cop takes Ronnie off me. He says, “I thought I told you to go straight home. Now you’ve got to come with me.” “No,” Becky says, and she’s standing in the front yard in her grandma nightgown. “We’ll take him,” she says. “There’s no problem here.” The cop doesn’t say anything about that, only looks around in the darkness outside the bright light he has shining on us from his car. Ronnie stops dusting himself off and he says, “We’ve got him. We’ll take care of him.” He puts his arm around me and at once I start crying and melting into him. The cop says, “Alright, then,” but we are already on the way up the front porch. I am already on the way to the warmth of the spare bedroom.

“hell ain’t a bad place to be" Warren Buchholz

We went to a party the night before the semester ended. It was a birthday party for one of Taylor’s friends: the stocky lesbian. I don’t remember her name. I can picture her clearly and what she looks like and those bangs she wore like Zooey Deschanel, but I can’t remember her name. Hence why I just refer to her as the stocky lesbian. I had become acquainted with the stocky lesbian when I went to PRIDE various times when Sadie and I were still fucking. She was on the board of directors and had asked me to go. Reluctantly, I went and was bored to tears each and every time. It wasn’t until I had fallen for Eric and spent that time in the apartment with him that I grew to know the stocky lesbian through her many visits. She wasn’t a big fan of me because I didn’t speak much, and I didn’t seem to hold the characteristics of a typical homosexual, even though I’m not a homosexual. Only half. I wasn’t technically invited to the party, but I did bring booze. I thought that would help my cause. There were some beers left in Taylor’s fridge, so I stuffed them down my pants so Taylor wouldn’t see, and we left. He stuck a handle of vodka down his pants. We did this so we weren’t caught walking through campus with open bottles of liquor in our possession. It was, instead, upon our persons, hidden. It’s not as if the campus police really gave two shits anyway. The one thing about gay parties is that they always play shitty music. Loud, shitty music. Like Lady Gaga and the other kinds of shitty music. The bop your head and body to the beat and forget about how shallow and unfulfilling the lyrics are kind of music. We were greeted at the door by the stocky lesbian herself. She was bopping out to whatever song was playing. “Hey! Glad to see you!” She gave Taylor a big hug. Then she looked at me, and cracked some sort of grimace. “Glad you could make it.” She told me as she wrapped her arms around me. I hugged back. It lasted a mere few seconds with an ending pat on the shoulder. “Come on in.” She waved and went back inside. We followed. Taylor ended up being pulled off into an abyss of people by some of his girl-friends. There was gossip to be told. He wanted to hear it. He left me, so I headed toward the kitchen where I pulled the beers out of my pants and placed them on the counter. The counter was trashed with empty bottles of various spirits and used solo cups. There was also half a tray left of multi-coloured jell-o shots. I had three. Then I poured myself a hearty amount of rum followed by a bit of generic cola. As soon as I turned around to exit the kitchen, he came in. Eric. I hadn’t seen him in months. It was awkward the last time I saw him. We had bumped into each other in the student center after I had gotten off

the elevator. I wanted to keep walking, but he stopped first. We hugged awkwardly, and I had asked him what he was up to. He said he was doing something for his work. I nodded. He left. That was three months ago. Now he was in the kitchen of my friend’s friend at a gay birthday party. He was drunk by the time we got there. “Hey, bitch. Where’s my hug? I know you saw me when you first came in.” I didn’t. “You know, I was just making rounds.” He looked down at the half-empty try of jell-o shots. “By drinking everything?” I laughed. “Where’s my hug?” I nodded and went in for a hug. He followed suit, and we ended up hugging for a good ten seconds or so. After we let go, he smiled and grabbed a jell-o shot before heading back into the living room. I hung around in the kitchen—my nerves had just been shot. It’s like I had fallen out of his orbit a long while ago, and I had just re-entered. “It’s nothing. He doesn’t want you. Don’t fucking think about it.” I reassured myself and went to go find Taylor. ## Everyone ended up in a circle to play Ring of Fire. It was a disjointed game since no one could hear each other. The music was still blaring. People were yelling. I was sitting on the floor when Eric came over and sat next to me. He began playing with my hair. My brows furrowed. “Hey.” He glowed. “I like what you’ve done with it.” “What? My hair?” “Yeah, I like what you’ve done with your hair.” “Grew it?” I asked back. “Yeah. It’s all fluffy.” He kept running his fingers through it. “I hope you don’t mind.” I nodded. I did mind, but I didn’t want him to stop. “No, it’s fine.” I did want him to stop. I didn’t want him to stop. I hadn’t had human connection in a while. I hadn’t felt his hands in eight months. “Never have I ever had sex with someone the first night I met them.” Some girl belted out. I put a finger down. “We didn’t know each other before the night we had sex, did we?” Eric asked me. Could he have asked that any louder? “Uh, not really. I don’t think.” We didn’t truly know each other before that. I do remember the first time I had ever seen Eric. It wasn’t through Taylor either. It was through Sadie. We had gone to Perkins with Eric and his then-boyfriend after Sadie and I came back from a play we had seen. Eric sat across from me in the booth. His eyes were the first thing I had noticed. It was always the eyes. Especially his eyes. I fought with myself and thoughts of my new-founded eye candy throughout the entire evening. I could not be caught staring at him. It wouldn’t have boded well for either party. So I stared at my food for most of the evening while Sadie kept

trying to be affectionate with me. Meanwhile, I was falling for the boy I had just met and his winsome eyes. He was busy flirting loudly with his boyfriend, inhabiting this childlike playful attitude as he did it. He talked about things like anime. He liked anime. Obviously. He was wearing some anime character on his t-shirt. Of course, I knew nothing about anime, but I played along, listening to every melodious word he uttered. Every time he spoke, I had a reason to look at him. I scoffed silently when he stopped speaking and allowed his boyfriend to pontificate about the same subject. After we ate, we went back to the apartment. Eric and his boyfriend went to their room. Sadie and I went to her room to annoyingly have sex. I had to forget about his eyes. About him. I was going to have sex. And I did. ## We played the game for a while. Eric kept playing with my hair. I let him be affectionate with me. It’s nothing. He’s just drunk. He doesn’t want you. It’s over. He’s just drunk. Taylor came up to me. “Hey, can we talk for a moment?” I nodded and got up. “I’ll be right back.” We went into the kitchen. “Everything all right?” Taylor asked. I nodded. “Yeah. Why?” He pointed toward Eric who was still drinking. “It looks like you and you know are getting pretty cozy.” “We’ve just been talking. And he’s drunk. And he’s in a relationship. I wouldn’t do anything with someone who’s in a relationship. I didn’t do anything with Anna, and look how that turned out.” “I’m just saying. After last time. Don’t get hurt again.” I sneered. “I’m not going to do anything. Stop.” “Okay. Well, I was thinking of going back to my place to smoke. Wanna come?” “I guess.” “I already asked Eric. He says he’s down.” “Oh, you asked him?” “Yeah. He’s wanted to smoke with me for a while now.” “Okay. That’s fine.” “You sure?” “I just crash on your couch. You can do whatever you want. It’s your apartment.” “Okay.” The three of us went back to the apartment where we all hung out on Taylor’s bed. Eric and I half-cuddled on the bed in a drunkenly high haze. He was falling asleep, and Taylor kept jolting him awake to hand him the bowl. Finally, having enough, Taylor left to go to the kitchen to get food. Eric was half awake, cuddling me. We were still fucked up from the alcohol. And now from the weed. He was softly kissing my neck and my cheek. I was holding off. I didn’t want to go there. I told myself that I

wasn’t going to go there. I couldn’t. But there he was in my arms. I could smell him. I remembered that cologne he always wore. It was the first time in such a long while that I smelt that smell. “I’ve missed you.” He said. He was silent for a continued while. “I’ve missed this.” I nodded. I was reluctant. I didn’t want to say anything else. “Really. I have. You’re like a rock to me. I’ve missed you.” I sighed, and I finally caved. “I’ve missed you too. So much.” “I feel safe with you.” He stopped again. A minute passed. “I hope you don’t mind.” “No. I don’t.” I kept looking at the blank wall while he kissed my neck. “I still have dreams about you sometimes.” He chuckled. “I do too.” I wanted to ask him why he left. Why he never said anything to me back. My assumptions were all I had. As he continued to kiss my face, I kept wondering if I wanted to be that guy. That guy who interferes with other people’s partners. I didn’t want to meddle, but the more he touched me, the more emotional I felt. This had been the happiest I had been in a long time. I looked at him finally. I had been holding off. I didn’t want to fall back into his orbit, but I did, and I glanced into his eyes. His fucking eyes. Those eyes I’ve missed. Fuck. I caved, and I kissed back. Our lips finally connected softly. His soft wet lips pressed against mine, and he quietly moaned. We built up and continued until he was finally on top of me. His clothed body was against mine. I still didn’t want to go there. I couldn’t even though I wanted it as much as he. But as the passion flowed through us, and as the stress and emotion released itself from our bodies, as we kissed and embraced like we had the very first time we had slept together, we thought that the moment would never end. And it did. We became disrupted by the sound of a clattering pan coming from the kitchen. We stopped. “We should go check on him.” Eric said. He got up. “I’ll be back.” He left, and he soon came back and lied back down on the bed. He was silent. I tried to kiss him once more. He accepted it, reluctantly. The narcotics were wearing off. “I should go soon.” He looked at me. I looked at him. “Okay.” “But I’m so fucking horny.” He said. “I don’t think we should—” “No.” He uttered. “But I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t do this.” He unzipped his pants and grabbed his cock. I gazed into his eyes, kissing him every so often, as he jerked off. He came a couple of minutes later. I got to see his O-face again. It was magical. He cleaned himself up and fixed his clothes. This was it. He was leaving again. I knew I wasn’t going to see him for a long while. He went for the door, and I stopped him. We were at that moment. He had his hand on the doorknob, but I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want him

to leave again. I embraced him once more. Our lips coming together again. My entire body, my entire soul—everything—surged through me and into him. All the anger and resentment and happiness and sadness I had for the boy went through me. I wanted him to know through my lips that he meant more to me than anything. That he fucked me up, and it took me forever to get over it. Instead of words, all I had was kissing. I took his hand. He took mine. And for one more instance, twelve seconds that seemed like an eternity, we had reached nirvana. I saw a sign in a shop the other day with a quote from Sheldon Lewis. “Don’t think. Don’t wonder. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t obsess. Just breathe.” Bliss. And then it ended. His phone screeched, and he pulled away. His best friend, the stocky lesbian, was texting him to come back to her apartment. It was three in the morning. She was worried. I finally let him go. He read the text. “I gotta go.” “Yeah. I know.” He caressed my hair once more before leaving. I heard the front door squeal and then shut. He was gone. I wandered into the hallway and hit the wall, sliding down it into a half-fetal position. I wanted to go after him and tell him to stay. But I couldn’t. I broke down instead. I bawled. I wasn’t going to see him again for a while. And I didn’t. He never called or texted or wrote like I had wished. He was still in a relationship. Why would he? He only ever seemed to want me while he was inebriated. It’s periods of radio silence followed by a text or a Snapchat to me when he’s drunk. Even to this day. That night, I was where I had been eight months ago—alone. I felt, and still feel, silly for how emotional I was. I felt psychotic. I felt unhealthy. But I felt happy. Sometimes I feel like I’m Jay Gatsby or Walter Younger or Willy Loman. I crave a dream that feels so close to my fingertips, yet all I can do is stare at it from a distance—there’s a longing to be had here, a desire that has brewed in me for quite a long while; a yearning for a life I have constantly in my dreams that drives me mad. I sleep as much as I can and hope to never wake up. But I do. Every day. And each day I go out into this concrete wasteland, as I rot under the warm Florida sun, I’m reminded by the little things—a touch that lasts on my fingertips, a scent that lingers on my clothes—of my impotence to that dream desired and a hopefulness that slowly fades. I still think about him. I still wonder. I still hope that I’ll meet him again one of these days, and we’ll have another night of euphoria together. And then he’ll leave me, and the cycle will begin all over again, and I’ll be on the floor in Taylor’s dingy apartment questioning why I do the things I do. Everything I do is on repeat, and I can’t undo the cycle and escape. It’s as if I’m stuck in my own personal hell. As far as I can see, despite the emotional turmoil of bipolarity in my brain, hell ain’t a bad place to be. But it probably is. I’m just an idiot. 46

a scream for julia Richard Lydon

I was up at night, in the same places with the same people, and I knew it should be over, but I didn’t want it to end. I was miserable, I was hot. Summer wouldn’t end. Even when sitting very still, I could feel my body getting hotter. Little drops of sweat dripped out of my hair and down my neck. Nothing had happened to signify an end. What, I wondered, could possibly do that? Nothing had been said. It had been going on like this for a while. We knew we couldn’t continue, but we didn’t know how to stop. Julia had a key to let herself in at night. I listened to her tiptoe and undress, and when she got into bed with me, I greeted her noiselessly. Now, at the end, we hardly spoke to each other. There was little to say. We had said everything we could say about the passion between us. In the beginning Julia had whispered, “Forever,” into my ear. “I’m yours forever.” I knew that she meant it as much as she could — but that someday her heart would banish me without ceremony. Forever! She said it so much that it softened my hard heart, and I started to believe, even if I knew better, that maybe it could last forever. Her mother had forbidden it. Our love was wrong. I was too old for Julia. My hair was graying. I was missing a tooth, although it was hidden in the back. “The man is too old for me,” Julia’s mother once screamed in front of me, though that was hardly true. We met at a picnic. No, the museum. No, the beach. I met her on the street. She caught my eye. I never go up girls on the street. But this one I did. She knew me before I knew her. She admired me at a picnic playing volleyball. I was embarrassed later to tell her I didn’t remember her. We laughed about that. Then she went to a museum because she heard I was going to be there. I thought I remembered her there, but maybe I just said that because it would be too much not to notice her two times. And I always find women at a museum very sexy. But then we met at the beach quite randomly. I mean I went there with some friends, and she was there too with her group of friends. It was strange, because I never go to the beach, and I tried to figure out how we could end up on the same beach, but I couldn’t fathom it. We walked along water, at first with a bunch of people, but after a while, it was just me and her. And she asked me so many questions, about my travels, and my time as an athlete, and what kind of dogs I loved (she had just got an Australian Shepherd), everything I said sounded good, and I wasn’t lying, I was just being me. I held her hand. It was innocent—the sun setting though the purply pink and golden clouds. We didn’t even kiss. We didn’t need to. She looked up at me, with her oversized, wet, dripping eyes, putting on her best face, but still a child in my hands. Then she passed me on the street. I figured that couldn’t be

a coincidence. When you really stop and think about it, there are only a couple of streets in a city where people actually go, so it made since we would meet. I stopped her, and this time I didn’t hold back. I let her know what I wanted. At some point in the night, I pushed her up against the brick wall of a building and kissed her hard and pressed into her. Her back was up against the brick, and I could feel every part of her. The next morning she talked about the picnic and the volleyball game and then and only then, holding her in my arms, did I see her body, reacting just a little slowly to the ball, which made her digs dramatic—her pink shorts lunging, her arms outstretched, and I taking her up, her arms still outstretched, her legs dangling. There’s no fat on me, at least not that you could pinch. She must have watched me while I play and not the other younger guys we were playing with, who were all younger than me. They were carrying on, hollering after every point they won. I just went about my business, quietly smacking down volleys, landing steadily on two feet every time. At first I thought it would be nothing – a girl’s whim, a fantasy I was only too glad to fulfill. But it kept on. She fell for me. I started to show her my world, a world of fancy beers and eating out every night and knowing someone everywhere we went. It may not sound like much, but it’s not a bad world. She was very young and happily naïve, and without being very beautiful, she was beautiful enough to captivate me completely — and my heart, which had resigned itself to memories and their fantasies alone, was re-ignited by Julia’s heat. I was divorced. Defeated. I have two children. The boy was sixteen at the time. The girl, a year younger, had more-or-less already stopped talking to me. My ex-wife Marcia, a divorce lawyer of all things, had stopped caring about my bad behavior long before we separated. Marcia stressed the girl when she mentioned the girlfriend. What did she want me to do: lie about it, cover it up? Though this was a worse transgression than usual, she did little to dissuade me. She never had any control over me. She called me irresponsible, strong-willed. “Just keep the girl away from our children, please Doug,” she requested with calm command. “Please.” I said I would. In my twenties, I was a semi-pro basketball player and a surfer. Now in my forties, I was a beach bum with no access to a beach. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t do anything to send the wrong message to children.” “I’m not worried about it,” she said, “because they don’t look up to you.” For Julia, it was different: she thought it just precious that I had children, and would buy things for them, trinkets and talismans that more often than not I would never show to them. I’d been spending the end of summer with my friends, staying out late to avoid Julia, even spending the night on his friends’ couches, but I was old now, and my back hurt from sleeping on cushions. I went to bars or to coffeehouses, but it didn’t help: my friends couldn’t do that much for me. Most of them didn’t even have girlfriends, and those girls that could be got just weren’t the same. None of them ever had anything

like a Julia. None knew what it was like to share a bed heated by the warmth of a twenty-two-year-old Julia — her skin was soft to touch, softer to my eyes than to my hard hands. I thought about her body constantly. She walked naked around my room and used to lean up against the wall and touch it with both hands. She never meant to drive me crazy. My collection of friends mumbled nonsense to me when I discussed my problems, or they said generic supportive things or tried to make jokes or said they were sorry, though even in apology there was an envious tension and sense of separation between what I was losing and what they would never obtain. I love my friends. I see the good in all of them. Not to brag, but I draw people to me. I like to go out, and I can get pretty funny after a few drinks. When I boast of my athleticism, I can see the smiles and how impressed everyone is by me. The night wouldn’t cool down. My face was red, my shirt collar wet. I sat outside with a group of men that had nowhere to go. They were sipping beer at a table, muttering, and leaning back listening. I did most of the talking. I was glad when my friend Blake walked into the bar. Finally someone who could talk back. “Everyone knows Blake, right?” said Mel. The group smiled, nodded unenthusiastically. “We were just talking about love.” “We were?” said one of the men. “Love?” said Blake, “I love having sex.” “There you go,” I said, slapping him on the back. “How are you?” asked Blake. “Did you hear? She can’t see me anymore.” And I had to explain the whole thing to him, though everyone there had heard it a couple times already. I told him how her mother forbade her from seeing me. That her mother was making her choose between me and her family. The mother threatened to cut her off from everyone in her family. I was making Julia choose them. “You’re an intelligent man. You’re a sensitive man,” I said to Blake. “Thank you,” said Blake. “Most people take the time to get to know someone. One is supposed to reserve judgment. This mother never gave me a chance.” “You’re the dirty old man who wants her daughter.” “Exactly.” “But isn’t that kind of true?” I must have smiled because everyone laughed, but actually the comment annoyed me. None of them understand how much I loved being around her. I didn’t like the insinuation that it was something less than what I had experienced. “Do you know what it’s like for a man my age to sleep with a girl like that every night? Every single goddamn night for almost a year now. I’m young again.” “Every night, really?” said one of the men. “I do know what it’s like,” said Blake. I told them how I couldn’t fall asleep since I stopped seeing her and how I loved her. How I loved the heat of her twenty-two-year-old

body. Blake asked about the mother—she sounded rich to him, upper-middle class, the ex-wife of some rich man. To him, it sounded like someone trying to keep up respectability, who felt the dignity of the family was at stake, and was mindful of her daughter’s reputation ruined. But I said that she was one house payment away from trailer trash. The mother should be glad for me but because she’s trashy, she’s narrow-minded and couldn’t see beyond stereotypes, couldn’t see her daughter for who was, someone totally different from everybody else in that family. Blake said the mother was a real monster and that maybe Julia won’t be drawn to them. Maybe she would choose me. Everyone at the table agreed with what he said. “No, I have decided for her. It’s over. I’m letting her go.” “It’s over?” “It’s what best.” “Have you seen her?” “Yeah, I saw her two nights ago,” I said. My voice sounded whiny. “I can’t stop her from coming over. It’s like she’s watching my place. It’s impossible to say no to her. My body is withering without her. I can feel my flesh fading. It’s over, I just can’t end it. I’ll never have this again.” “She’s twenty-two?” confirmed Blake. “She’s amazing,” I said. “And since that night, when she came over uninvited, I haven’t been able to go home. I’ve been sleeping on couches. These guys know all about that.” The other men, who had been listening gloomily, acknowledged what I said. They were glad to be able to contribute something to the conversation. “Speaking of,” said one of them, “do you need to crash at my place tonight?” “I don’t know,” I said, looking at my beer. “What are you going to do now?” said Blake. “I don’t know.” I sipped my beer. I turned to the guy sitting next to me. “What about you, Rob? Are you in love? Do you have anyone?” Rob took a suck on his beer. He wore pants that were too small. He was pudgy. His pants were pudgy. His hair was spiked, showing his scalp. He had just turned thirty. Rob didn’t know it, but no one had ever loved him. Just by looking at him, I could tell what Rob was going to say, and there was a part of me that wanted him to lie. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I’m capable anymore.” “When was the last time?” “Oh, I don’t know. Let me think.” I turned back to Blake. “I loved her. It has to end.” “I’m sorry,” said Blake. “Yeah, we’re sorry,” said the others. Rob was still thinking. He watched me stand up and say goodnight to everyone. He had really wanted to say something to me. I left the downtown and drove towards my apartment in the suburbs. My place was run-down. Marcia wouldn’t let the kids stay over. I was surprised that Julia never complained about where I lived, but she actually liked it a little run-down and rough.

I stopped on the way to his apartment at Roscoe’s Tavern. None of my downtown friends had ever been to Rosoce’s. I hadn’t been there since I met Julia; I would never take her there. I went inside and ordered a gin. I talked to some people and left without finishing my drink with a girl who was new to the bar since I’d been there last. Like Julia she was young, but she looked worn and used. She was overdone and dreary. Her make-up smiled at me in the car. She tapped her foot while they drove to my place. I parked in my usual space. I let her in. The light on my answering machine was blinking frantically. I took my time taking off my clothes. I drew out the moment. I was gentle with her. I waited until I thought I heard the front door open. There wasn’t a scene. I counted on there not being one. Julia was too lovely for a scene. I didn’t stop. I didn’t hush, nor did I go louder. I never even saw her, only assumed I was being seen, only felt her on my exposed back. I let out a scream towards the end: a scream because I wanted to scream, because all that pain was pleasurable, a scream for Julia. It was my last. The woman wanted to spend the night, and I let her, just this one time. There never was a goodbye between us. That would have been impossible. Julia stayed away from the coffeehouses and the bars we used to go to. I stayed away from every place she could conceivably go, even those places where we hadn’t been together, but that I thought she might like to go now that we were apart. I imagined her world getting bigger. She would move on. I continued to follow her in my mind, until even in there, even the Julia in my mind had forgotten me. From time to time, the unpleasant specter of the mother entered my consciousness. I shook my head and even cursed the mother’s name aloud over a beer to friends gathered around me, but I knew that she had nothing to do with it.

i dream in the abstract A.J. Huffman

Images of reality distort themselves, attempt to be interpreted as interesting. My life as a stained glass saga plays out before me. Spliced into occasional sequences, I see I have become nonsensical monster of mayhem. I tear my own skin, attempt to rearrange the pieces. The story, sadly, remains the same, continues to devolve before we both, gratefully, dissolve into darkness.

recycling tears A.J. Huffman

Wishing they were only water, not tangible icons of painful past moments of memory. I slide them into imaginary jars, carry them to cosmic gardens, dump them over seeds of hope, all the while praying somewhere, something beautiful will learn to grow.

the ceiling fan dances A.J. Huffman

Blindly it twirls, twists, becomes timetunnel of warped perception. My mind, too tired to decipher the warnings of its reflective shadows, dives in, follows the sound of nothing. It believes it is flying through space, a vacuum expelling a collective exhaust of dust that sparkles like skin that used to believe it belonged with the stars.

leaving

Dorene O'Brien He left me because gravity is unkind. That’s not what he said, but that’s what happened. Gravity deforms body parts, angles them downward, forces them into absurd shapes. It is every woman’s enemy. His twenty-six year old floozy will find out when the ability to hold up a strapless dress eludes her. I’m not bitter. Marvin was a good husband and a good lover, although it is unfortunate he chose to share the latter gift with other women. It is more unfortunate that I found out about his generosity so late in life and feel destined to be alone. I am not a whiner; I am a realist. At fifty-six, I can scarcely imagine dating with impediments like thinning hair and a furrow of wrinkles on my face. But, as I said, I’m not bitter. Marvin said he would give me anything—money, a car, jewelry—if I would leave. In other words, he wants the house. “You don’t want the house, Olivia,” he said. “It holds bad memories.” Marvin was talking about the death of our two children here, not the fact that last month I found him handcuffed to the maple post of our king-size bed, his girlfriend straddling him wearing little more than a cowboy hat. “Oh, Marvin,” I said, and left. What was I supposed to do? I’ve never been the dramatic kind. I went to Denny’s for coffee. I thought about asking Marvin for a divorce, but by the third cup I’d changed my mind. I thought it was ironic that my suitcases were already packed and in the car, how I was better prepared to discover my husband’s adultery than most women. Not because I’d expected to find my husband in bed with another woman, mind you, but because I had arrived home early from a trip to visit my sister in Philadelphia. I missed my house. I missed my husband. I chalked Marvin’s behavior up to a midlife crisis and decided I would accept his apology. But the apology never came. Marvin is an architect. He and his former partner designed and built this house, but I made it a home. I polished floors and planted crocuses while he racked up frequent flyer miles. I painted the better part of the Milky Way on the ceiling of Sandy’s room; I nursed Jesse on the bed in which my husband now conducts rodeos. This house is a status symbol to Marvin, an illustration of his technical skills. To me, this house is a friend. My hand absently caresses each scratch in the spiral banister when I go up to bed, and I am charmed by the same window my husband curses when it refuses to open. I’ve kept long hours with the silken ivory lines of the wallpaper, with the jagged crack in the ceiling that had challenged Marvin and won. He had tried to plaster, paint and stucco the crack into oblivion, but it had prevailed.

Marvin built the fireplace on a separate foundation and, when the house settled, there was a parting of the ways. The crack meanders from the top of the fireplace toward a bay window that overlooks the yard, snaking its way past the chandelier and ending in a door jamb. I told the children it was the Mississippi River, and we embraced the cleft that made Marvin a hopeless man. “Where’s the boat?” I would ask. “There, sailing around the chandelier,” said Sandy, tracing a line in the air. “But I see a raft.” “And Huckleberry Finn’s on it, Mama,” said Jesse. “Where’s he going?” “Why, to freedom,” I said. *** Sandy was home from college for Jesse’s high school graduation when it happened. The kids had stayed in to watch movies while Marvin and I went to dinner at his partner’s house. This was, of course, long before Ira embezzled ninety thousand dollars. I was eager to leave, to get home to the children, but Marvin was busy talking about his turbo-charged Saab, his racquetball score, his new floor plan. It was late when we pulled into the garage and smelled gas, and by midnight I understood that both of my children were dead. I held them until the paramedics unwrapped my arms, pulled me from the house, told me that a rusted furnace valve had poured death into my children’s lungs. I’ve never told Marvin that I regularly sniff Sandy’s half-empty shampoo bottle or that I often put my hand inside Jesse’s baseball glove and imagine I feel his there. I haven’t told him that for years I dusted and cleaned around what I thought were the kids’ fingerprints, that even today I can envision them etched on glass, oak. I can’t tell him that I see my children floating to freedom on a raft in the meandering ceiling crack.

I told Marvin I would leave if he paid for an apartment. “Is that all you want?” “What more can you give me?” He stared at the parquet tiled floor in the foyer. “I sometimes think you died with Sandy and Jesse, Olivia,” he said. “Don’t talk about them.” “I needed someone to keep me alive, to make me want to live.” “I see.” “I love Stacey, Livvy,” he said. “It’s not a passing thing.” “I don’t want you back,” I said. “I just need the deposit.” I packed boxes while the movers loaded the furniture we agreed I would take: the Tudor chairs, the Windsor dining set, the sofa and loveseat, the antique lamps. I walked through the house touching drapes, fingering bookshelves, saying goodbye. I knew I wouldn’t be back. “Is that it, Mrs. Nance?” one of the mover asked, his eyes surveying the room. “Yes,” I said, and left. I imagined them calling me back, saying, “Wait, Mrs. Nance! You forgot your fingerprints! How can you leave

without your ceiling crack?â&#x20AC;? This apartment is my home now and I am learning it: I touch the breach in the bedroom window through which the wind creeps, I stroke the linen drapes. I trace a line in the dust on the mantel and press my nose into the cedar chest. I push my feet into the thick cream carpet and, as my fingers float over grey textured paint, I search the ceiling for a new Mississippi.

in love

Dorene O'Brien Jon and Isabel were in love. They fantasized while gazing into computer screens at work, imagined the forthcoming weekends as larger than life tableaux across which their love was painted in pictorial detail: crab bisque by weak light at Sparle’s, humid kisses on the taxi’s cracked vinyl seat. They even imagined what they’d feel if they broke up—long, restless nights, the pain in their hearts so sharp they almost cried out in their reveries—then the debut of a new love in the other’s life, someone they would simultaneously hate and admire. There was much time and effort devoted to these daydreams: would his new woman wear Prada? Would she pick up the check, independent and aggressive, traits she sensed he admired but that she lacked? He wondered if her new guy would have a full head of hair. Would he gladly take her to the opera, not complain about the thin plot, the cavernous hall through which the booming voices echoed like the demons of death themselves? But, they were in love, so their pounding hearts were softened by visions: him refusing his new woman’s predatory overtures in the bed under which her blue leather Pradas, size 10, sat propped at odd, unflattering angles; her noting the suspicious weave of her new boyfriend’s salt and pepper hair, the dotted incision all along the hairline. On weekends they sat, staring into the pale sky or the coffee cup, envisioning the wretched fate of the new lover, the interloper, the one they had always known was waiting in the wings.

the unspeakable Dorene O'Brien

She walked into the room. She wasn’t having any of it. “I’m not having any of it,” she said. “Get your stuff.” “You’re crazy,” he said. “That’s right, I’m crazy. Now get the hell out.” “Sure,” he said, “I’ll get out. I’ll get out of this crazy house and away from a crazy woman.” But he didn’t move. He sat on the sofa staring at the blank television screen as if seeking direction from it. “I’ll go,” he said, “you better believe that.” He took a long pull from his beer bottle and continued to stare at the screen, as if hypnotized. “Move it,” she said, kicking the ottoman out from under his feet. “Be nice,” he said. “Go to hell.” “Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve been in hell for the past six years.” “Well, then, here’s your chance to rise.” He never looked at her; instead he gazed at himself in the TV screen. He saw something both familiar and unsettling, something odd in the way his reflected image seemed skewed yet real, a parody of his former self, someone even he didn’t like. “I’m going upstairs,” she said. “I’m counting to ten. Then I’m doing the unspeakable.” She mounted the stairs on the counts of one and two and entered the bedroom on the count of three. He heard drawers slamming, something being dragged across the wood floor, the whine of the window creaking open. The clubs hit the ground first—that he saw through the front window. He couldn’t make them out at first, the sticks raining from above. But when he heard the Ping! of his five iron as it struck the metal railing below, he knew. He watched his reflection smile. He knew the clothes were next. He imagined them sailing across the front yard, pants hanging from the pear tree, shirt arms flapping in a downward breeze, underwear streaming from the eaves. His belts would hit the concrete with a thunk, his shaving kit smack the asphalt. “Ten,” she shouted from above. Then she did the unspeakable.

always check your pockets Dorene O'Brien

The day I lost a dear turtle to the spin cycle of my mother’s new Maytag, I learned a valuable lesson. I remembered, or half-remembered, that Herman was in the pocket of my jacket when I tossed it onto the bedroom floor. This was the same week my mother, at the behest of her analyst, had announced that she was no longer our maid, that dirty dishes and soiled clothes would not begin that long pilgrimage from our rooms to cleanliness unless we initiated it. Nevertheless, in a fit of either memory loss or resignation, my mother collected the evidence of my disregard into a wicker laundry basket, thus beginning the first leg of Herman’s journey into the hereafter. I’m sure, being the good swimmer that he was, Herman made it through the wash and rinse cycles all right, but what turtle has the skills to negotiate a centrifuge? After Herman ruined an entire load of whites, I started emptying my pockets with the efficiency of a repeat offender at the police station. I placed the contents on a plastic tray I lifted from the Golden Corral the day my mother killed Herman and then took me out to dinner. I could tell she felt bad as she offered up a litany of prospective replacements—an iguana, a ferret, a cockatiel—and I realized with sudden, silent shame that not one them could fit into my pocket.

when death’s boyfriend proposed to her she said, Heidi McKinley

“If love is a desert my heart is a snake belly up in the sun, eyes eaten, scales flaking like wrappers under my pale feet. I lean in heavy against my rake to scrape and lift, lift and scrape. You’d be surprised how clean a corpse can be, after sun and beak, white worm and bleach, no blood, pearl bones graceful enough to hang in my home, among hoofed book-ends, and spined photo-frames, next to tortoise shell bowls and skull paperweights. No intestine twist or split heart on display. My answer is no. Your love is a ruined thing, to collect and scour smooth as a soul. I’d prefer you quit your tarnished strain of blood through vein, the stomach knot, and mess of pain.”

a home we don't know Heidi McKinley

I. I am afraid of what I can see but cannot touch. II. The wind keens, stirs leaves, builds clouds. People gather to watch the sky hoping that the dark is only evening. We’re here for the same reason, to find some quiet place, to wait, to die. Once the first drop falls we’re leaving but until then we ignore the signs. III. The lamps are lit. We’re moving towards a home we don’t know. Lifted by nothing and it’s nothing all the way down. Disappearing when you look, but it’s only time it can’t keep still. IV. Something blinks in our brains. It looks through our eyes and finds that our eyes are not enough, and the heart is only a pump.

a man from nowhere land Mark Nenadov

In your tired face, I see long stories. Stories forged in canyons and deep creases geologically marking out a life— one I haven’t lived. In your feet I feel the slivers of the planks you’ve walked year by year. There you carry your cross off to thorny places I couldn’t even fathom. In your voice I hear the echoes of a hollow place gone to seed of thorns and thistles and your words reveal our pain.

lent's end

C.W. Schahfer

Look. Jew, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, what the fuck ever. Any man who can fast for forty days has got a pair as far as I’m concerned. Jim told me that a salad would last him until dinnertime, and you know something, I believed him. It wasn’t the healthiest of habits, especially not back when he needed his strength, but I admired him for it. I, meanwhile, was pretty happy to munch away on my burger and my fries, happy to slurp down that soda until the pounds piled on. Jim wasn’t in the same boat I was. If not for Jim, I wouldn’t have known that Lent’s the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter, or that it was meant to commemorate the forty days Jesus spent in the desert. I might not even have known that Jesus spent forty days in the desert. Shows how much I know. After we finished up in the dining room, I wheeled Jim over to the living room and turned the baseball game on, the whole time thinking of what a shame it was. I could tell by looking that Jim wasn’t the sort of guy who was meant to spend any sort of time in a wheelchair. After two weeks of disuse, his legs were shriveling up, two worms left out in the sun for too long, but his torso was built like a barrel, and the muscles still bulged out of his arms. He’d still lift every morning, although his back kept him from doing more than ten pounds at a time, and his face would get all squashed and sweaty even from that. Each time I saw him lift, I saw his arms shake as he pumped iron that must’ve felt like paper to him at one point. As he went through this routine, grunting and sweating the whole time, sweat glistening off his dark skin, I gave him a little pat on the back. You wouldn’t see me lifting weights from a wheelchair. The living room we sat in was large. It had a bay window on its south side, with a couch backing up against it. Across the room from the couch sat a piano infested by a fine layer of dust. The hardwood floor, which was plagued by coffee stains, housed a rug with alternating red, blue, and green stripes. Above the television sat a photo of a sand dune with a ridge down the middle, half of it in shadow. Tough shrubs and a thirsty tree grew out of the ground, each of them scraggly and worn. Rob came by today, his brown eyes swelling and tinged red, a three-day beard spreading on his chin while flecks of moustache grew under his crooked nose, with apologies. I was ready to let the guy in, but Jim had me turn him away. He was reading his Bible, and didn’t want to be disturbed. Two weeks before, Jim and Beth were on the freeway, coming back from a concert, when a car making an entrance rammed them off the road. The driver hadn’t slowed down enough to account for oncoming traffic, and so both Jim and Beth were pushed into the Jersey wall, them already going seventy miles an hour, by a car also going seventy.

Beth had her seatbelt on, but it didn’t make much of a difference: she was still catapulted out of the car, and since Jim couldn’t slow down in time, he pushed her up against it. The paramedics told Jim she died on impact. He wasn’t sent as far, on account of the angle of collision, but was still pushed through the windshield and still mangled his back bouncing off the hood. The driver stumbled out of his car, drunk as it turned out, and dialed for an ambulance. Then he stood in front of the wreck and cried. “The doctor tells me you’re not eating enough,” I said to Jim the next day. “It’s Lent,” replied Jim. “I’ll eat more when it’s done.” I could hear his stomach protest, saw his hand reach towards today’s batch of fast food, this time Taco Bell. I would’ve shared my nachos, but he stopped himself. “He wants you to eat more now. Build up a little strength. Get some nutrients in. At least some protein.” “Can’t have meat.” He looked at my belly, almost jealous, although that sort of swell was nothing to be proud of. A tall guy like me can afford a few extra pounds, but not as many as I’d managed to put on with my diet. “I don’t know, beans or something.” Jim nodded. “Beans sound good. Maybe I could have beans. Go get some, and some potatoes, and maybe – on second thought, just beans.” Our conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. Rob was back, grimacing. “Tell him I need to talk.” “All right.” I called to Jim. “It’s Rob. He wants to have a few words with you.” “I’m busy,” said Jim. “You heard the man,” I told Rob. “Oh, come on,” said Rob. “Come on, Jim. I’m sorry. Look, I, I went down to station house today, told them what I’d done, turned myself in. They’ll probably try me for manslaughter.” “Good,” said Jim. “Leave me alone now.” Rob shuffled out, and I shut the door. Jim called me over. “Hey Ryan,” he said. “I have a question.” “I’m all ears,” I said. “Was it my fault?” “Why would it be your fault?” “I could’ve hit the brakes. I didn’t. I just sat there and killed her.” He had a Bible in his lap, which he pounded on as he cried. I ran over and patted him on the shoulder. Another three days went by. On the second day, Rob paid another visit, but was turned away. It was all I could do not to let the poor guy in, but I knew there was no way Jim would comply. As for Jim, he spent a lot of those three days staring at what remained of that blue Camry. The front was mangled, with one headlight reduced to cracked glass and exposed bulbs hanging off of wires. Two massive holes where the windshield used to be. The rear wasn’t much better: the lid of the trunk had

been slammed against the rear windshield by the impact and was now being held on by a bungee cord, and the rear bumper had been torn off, revealing the skeleton of the car. He didn’t have the money to fix it, and something told me he wouldn’t have done a thing about it even if he had. The third day was Jim’s last with the weights. I watched him hoist them above his head, groaning, sweat leaking from his pores and washing all over him, covering him in a film. He took another deep breath, heaved again, and lifted, arms trembling, body twisting. I knew at one point this wouldn’t have been any trouble for him, but now his back was showing hints of spasms. I was tempted to stop him, to tell him to keep his health in mind. Much to my amazement, he set the weights down himself. “Water,” he said. I rushed to get him some. I came back to him panting. “I can’t do it anymore,” he said. “No shame in it,” I replied. A week went by like this. He’d watch baseball, he’d eat a little food, he’d turn Rob away from his door. One thing he wouldn’t do anymore was lift weights. At the end of this week, he gave me the sort of look that could cut right through me, and he asked, “Why am I starving myself like this?” “Because it’s Lent.” “Maybe so, but what I wouldn’t do for a burger right now.” I reached into my McDonald’s bag and handed him that. “Thanks, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat your food,” he said. “There’s a burger in the freezer. Why don’t you throw one on the barbecue? When it’s done, put some lettuce and tomato on it.” I did as requested. He devoured that burger. Poor thing didn’t stand a chance. Rob came by later that day. I was ready for Jim to turn him away, but Jim invited him in. “Sit down on the couch,” said Jim. “What’s up?” “Well, I’m sorry,” said Rob. “I wanted you to know that. My trial starts tomorrow, and I have every intention of pleading guilty.” “Not like it’ll bring Beth back, but it’s good of you,” said Jim. He turned to me. “Hey Ryan, how about cooking us up a few hot dogs?”

mask making 101 David Sullivan

I lay down a smear of Vaseline over closed eyes. Jules’ nostrils wrinkle at the smell. To have my son this still is an intimacy rarely allowed now. I drape plaster-soaked newsprint over his features, mapping known mountains. He disappears under headlines and blurred car crashes. Feels like wet noodles, he says, then I seal his mouth and only nostrils allow him to breathe. Strip after strip builds him up, a hardened mirror. Quietness discomforts me. I want him to still need what I have to give. When he pulls it off his double lies in his hands. He stares into it, then turns it over. Does this really look like me? I smile: “Just like you.” Your turn, he grins back. I lie down so his fingers can feather my face into this sham sleep. Beneath these black and white strips I’m disappearing.

carried

David Sullivan A man tender-walks a dog with its haunches snugged into a support. Leash trails from his hand. Leather straps wrap its body, some well-loved luggage he couldn’t part with. He lets each back paw touch ground though the hips are shot. He wears ear buds, says soothing words—to a lover?— no, sweet talks the dog, this big, bear-like man with his goatee and bald head he rubs as they walk. He lets her snuffle the grass by the light pole, hoists her back leg upwards so she can pee while he discreetly looks away at traffic’s slurry. * My dad carried me when the rattler bit my heel, repeating calmly: Gonna be ok. What I wouldn’t give to be with him as he is, not want him other than he is. Not want myself other than I am. 68

3am fever

David Sullivan

—after the movie, The Cuckoo Three times three he breathes. I’m gambling with blind gods: “Please make my son well.” I pick up the drum he was playing before sleep, lightly tap its head as if its rhythm was a thread that connected me to his cycling breath, connected me to all who carried amulets and chanted down gods to comfort themselves. I believe magic and prayers can stave off our deaths for a little while. I believe he hears my breath, warm against his ear, and that this drum head, thin as the skin pulsing at his temple, calls him back from the land where there is no sound—calls him back to me—to this song.

my son draws 10 osinisshis monsters David Sullivan He’s separated each of his creations by thick lines as if they needed containment. Bars bend to accommodate the Notohe’s tail. And if I met the Cossa? The Armed, two-headed Zatato? They’re fully detailed in Jules’ rendering, as if the Long-Tailed Foota was a frequenter of his dreams. The Smile is nothing but its name—teeth veer above splayed lips. The Light Lach carries twin beacons on its large head, and the Spiked Lonat is a bed of nails while Canit’s a single dot. If only my dreams could be taken up with Latons, feet extending in every direction with a different style of shoe adorning each one, but it’s the Mattah

I can’t be rid of, with its one eye glimpsed behind

a row of spiked teeth. When did he ransack my nightmares, bring this one back from that inside dark?

in other worlds David Sullivan

The miniature house of white clapboards wears one door. Windowless, it caps the spring’s stone-stacked walls. Fairy tale hut at the edge of the woods. Today I accompany Dad, who strips down to his trunks, hands me the flashlight and dives down into the narrow fortress of chilled, crystalline water. I mimic his moves with the beam, trace out shadows he points towards. Weird light throws his lean body on the walls as he descends— distends and distorts his form as he grows small in the impossible depth. Frightened frogs leg off, snails knob the rocks. Three times he dives, hands feeling for where water seeps in with a bend of wire. He reams at blockage until spring’s current strengthens. Air bubbles balloon up and burst on the surface. He’s from another 72

world. I hold my breath to hold him. How can he stay

down so long? Angled legs launch him up to burst his image. He reaches for the towel I hold.

hitting the wall Rick Hartwell

I guess I never really thought about it until I heard my wife use the term nervous breakdown. Reflecting over a year-and-a-half, time’s backup mirror, I have to agree and acknowledge that I was indeed headed for a nervous breakdown. It was not the pressure or the accumulation of demands on me. Instead, it was the audience I could no longer handle or deal with. I had already let my mouth get ahead of my good sense several times. I was on the verge of lashing out at the most minor of infractions. The situation had started to control me, rather than the other way round. I hit a wall going from sixty-four to sixty-five. By the time I finally saw the wall I could name it. The wall was purpose. I struck its massive bulk on September 28th, about two weeks into the second grading cycle of my seventeenth year of teaching emerging adolescents – those between eleven and fourteen years of age, – the hormonally-challenged as I call them. Actually I had taught more than seventeen years, at least four or five more years in private high schools, private schools for the emotionally disturbed, and even in the Army. On some days it would have been difficult to describe the differences among them all. I have even been a university lecturer for summer and extension writing classes. The wall I hit, purpose, had not appeared in front of me unexpectedly. I had seen it looming ever larger over the previous two or three years. But even so, I did not brake in time. Perhaps I had slowed up a bit, lifted my foot from the accelerator of my work ethos. But I had not applied the brakes. That was definitely my failure, my character flaw. What of the wall itself? What was the purpose into which I drove nearing sixty-five? Was it social commitment? Was it merely an easy application of my degrees? Or was it perhaps a method of control over something other than my out-of-control personal life? The wall, of course, was and is depression. Depression, drugs and death, what a Trifecta! The drugs seem so debilitating, at least to others. Without them I think I would lose what sanity remains and not be able to steer the rest of my life safely. And in driving, I end up returning to a place of higher learning. * * * There is a hypnotic hum of tires behind the wall. The builders said the wall was to be fourteen feet high; seems higher to me every day. Now, in winter, it’s covered with the dead snakes of ivy vine clamoring to the top.

In spring and summer some even make it there. It is a great perch for the pigeons and most of them face the yard, into the wind, with their backs to the highway. They crap on the other side; rather friendly of them I think. The wall was erected by the state, replacing a six-footer put up by the original tract builder. It was supposed to be a sound buffer between the evermore populous 60 freeway and us suburban residents. It’s not! In fact, it seems to amplify the traffic sounds: hum of tires, laboring truck engines, manic motorcyclists, horns, brake squeals, and the far-too-common clash of metal cymbals as motorcycles, cars and trucks collide. Then the hum slows down, even to the point of hearing the talk and profanity among those delayed. Soon the sound of sirens gains ever closer and the disembodied voice of a loudspeaker can be heard telling motorists to turn this way or that in order to make way for rescue responders. When it is windy, the wall acts to shelter the highway. In doing so it funnels the wind along all the collective backyards of these one-story tract homes, never hindered by trees or slat-wood fences. In fact, what seems to happen is that the wind encounters a squeeze point and a Venturi-effect occurs. The wind gains speed and siphons from one yard to the next causing havoc and harm as it goes. We used to have three large pines growing along the wall. We now have only two; one lost to the funneled wind, uprooted entirely. We used to have straight fences marking our yard from the neighbors on either side. Both fences now are sinuous as a snake with broken and missing slats and bracing boards angled against the fences to keep them from blowing down. And like a snake, both are shedding scabrous paint chips and wood fibers. All things change over time and perhaps the ivy and the pigeon shit will eventually wear the wall away. One can hope. * * * So I visit the local university, a place of metaphorical if not literal ivy-covered halls and walls. And in this place of higher learning, the big issue then becomes one of being lost in the familiar, as when you once arrive at your destination and no one is there; only empty buildings. Only occasionally can you find your way home, but it always comes as a shock and not always in time. Sitting here on a stone bench, abusing my hemorrhoids, I’m again confronted by the future: Asian skateboarders, Crusaders for Christ, advocates for the Queer Alliance, and a piece-rate worker soliciting my signature as a registered voter on not one but three attempts to qualify items for an upcoming ballot – “That’s okay, if you don’t like that one, you can sign this next one” – piece-work payment for each signature. God, I love a university campus! I pick and choose, accept and reject, eavesdrop and ignore, and all the while receive a continuing education, by ambience and

social osmosis, if not by direct reflection and periodic assessment. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free! Â My time passes, ebbs and flows in memory, noted by very few. I clutch my chest as the tower clock chimes.

the proposal

Rick Hartwell There were three of them sitting at the green-flecked Formica table when I walked into the room. One I knew. I knew her two and sometimes three times a day. I knew her in the biblical sense as often as I could. She was a newly minted seventeen and I thought I was stamped pretty old and wise at eighteen, going on nineteen. We’d known each other for about a month and a half. The other two at the table were really old, perhaps in their forties. The lines of their faces, drawn deeper by the smoke in the kitchen air, and the pistol stuffed in the belt-holster on the left hip of the one nearest the door, all created an ancient surreality. It was like a scene from a cheap western and like a cheap western hero, I swaggered into the kitchen portion of the one-room apartment leaving the hall door open to the other closed doors on the floor. Through the open window behind them, I could see the front door of the hotel cathouse across the side street from the liquor store. The door stood closed. It was still early evening. I drew myself up and demanded, “Who the hell are you?” The one I knew started to stand and began to speak, “Honey, these . . .” before she was cut off with a restraining hand on her thin arm from the one without the gun. She slid back down onto the cushion of the cheap aluminum chair. It gave out a swoosh as the air escaped. “Sit down boy. We need to talk.” This was from the one with the gun and said to the wall across the table from him. He didn’t turn to face me. The other one, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, got up and left his chair scooted out from the table. He settled himself on the foot of the bed next to the table, denting the brown throw cover and exposing the yellow pillowcase at the other end. “I asked, ‘Who are you?’” I repeated, addressing both, but staring only at her. I added quickly, just to sort of ease into character, “Don’t call me boy!” “I told you to sit down. We’ve got a lot to talk about.” This time he turned and looked at me. It would be a great image to portray him with a pencil thin mustache, with a scar over his left eye, with deep creases on the browned face of a maverick cowpoke. It would be a great but false image. The mustache was there, but it was scraggly. If there were

any scars, they were probably caused by razor burn. His face was putty-white; that of an office worker. It hadn’t registered yet, but it was the other one I should have been focused on. “These are my uncles, Clarence and Dave, David,” came from a much lighter voice; her offering of oil on troubled waters. I was still floating on top of these words and trying to reconcile the image of the office worker with the gun when a third voice spoke up, “Sit down, son. Shut up and listen to her,” said very clearly and carefully. Whether it was the roughened voice or being addressed as ‘son’ or the ebbing of the original rush of adrenaline, whatever the excuse, I sat. I had seen something in his weathered face, that of an outdoor worker, that made me accept his suggestions as directions and his directions as orders. He sounded as if he was used to bossing a roughneck crew. For two hours I sat. For two hours I smoked their cigarettes and they drank my beer. For two hours I listened to her and to them. I listened to her tell her uncles how much we were in love and how she wasn’t going back to her parents’ house and how I had this really great job working on a hog ranch for a guy named Roy something and how we were going to live there, above the liquor store, until we saved up enough money to . . . to . . . and then she would occasionally falter and the one with the gun, Clarence, would take over. When it was his turn, he told her, and me too I suppose, how we were too young and how her mother had cried and called them, the uncles, and how much it cost to live together and how she, their niece, would never finish high school and how he had made a dumb mistake like this too. I learned he was a cop, not there but in Los Gatos, and I learned that he had a lot of cop friends here who could make it hard for me and who could take care of me if he called them. He also told us, me mostly, about what would happen if she got knocked up? At this point the non-talker, Dave, rose uncomfortably off the bed. “Whadda ya gonna do about it? That’s all I wanna know.” It wasn’t really the beers that caused the slurring, I would learn this much later, it was the fact he was topped-off with conversation, fed up, and he was just trying to cut through the crap. That’s what made his syllables trip over themselves.

I’d been pulled in a few times in Gilroy and I thought I knew a good-copbad-cop routine when it was being run on me. They had had their two hours and I thought it was time I took a couple of minutes for myself. I started to protest that I’d done nothing wrong, that their niece had followed after me and that I hadn’t lured her away from her parents. It was

quickly apparent that they didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. Dave asked again, “What are you going to do?” this time enunciating each syllable distinctly. When it was obvious that I wouldn’t or couldn’t answer, he told me what I was going to do. “You’re gonna get out a here, out a this town, and out a her life, or I’m gonna beat the shit outta ya!” He was back to slurring and that provided a certain conviction that emphasized his look. Being young and full of what my grandmother called piss and vinegar, I stood up and declared that I wasn’t afraid of them. I didn’t figure I was the kind to give in, cut and run. “You can’t run me out of town. We’re getting married!” Now if I thought this was going to catch them at a disadvantage, I was sorely mistaken. The love-light in her eyes when I said this was wonderful. The gleam of success in theirs, particularly Dave’s, was downright scary. “All right, boy. When?” This was from Clarence; I could tell because we were back to ‘boy.’ From Dave, we were back to ‘son.’ “Tell ya whatcher gonna do, son. Yer both gonna go back and get her parents to agree to her gettin married. Then we’re gonna pack ya off on a bus to Vegas an ya ain’t comin back til yer legal. That’s whatcher gonna do!” It was probably the longest speech of his life and he seemed out of breath afterwards. As if to emphasize the finality of all this, Dave stood up. Clarence wasn’t far behind, but she beat him anyway. The kitchen-bedroom was getting smaller and smaller. I heard myself saying, “That’s what I was gonna suggest.” Pretty weak face-saving, I know, but I had to say something. On their way out the door, Clarence took my hand and shook it. “Congratulations,” and then he gave his niece a hug and, bending down, a quick kiss on the forehead Dave didn’t bother with the bullshit of shaking hands. He just held his niece’s face for a moment, one of his massive and calloused hands cupped on each of her cheeks, and said to us both while looking at her, “We’ll see ya in bout ten minutes. Right?” He knew he didn’t need an answer. I could drag the rest out, but it gets darker and dumber with each retelling. Her father got a notarized letter saying she had his permission to marry me. Dave and Clarence sprung for a bus ticket to Boise; seems Idaho was the nearest state where I didn’t also need permission and there was no waiting period. They were both damned and determined the

marriage was going to be perfectly legal. There was to be no lying and no coercion. It was a twenty-four hour bus trip, one way, and we got married in a hospital chapel the same day we arrived and turned around and started back on the bus by early the same evening. I guess you could call it a whirlwind courtship and a tornado wedding. I shoveled pig shit for Roy something for a few more weeks, driving back and forth each day in the ‘52 Studebaker Dave had given us when we got back from Boise. I worked for Roy until I got something better in San Jose. The marriage lasted ten years. By that time Clarence had been kicked out of his house, but not off the force, for beating his wife. Dave had long since taken off back to Georgia to some waitress he’d met on a turnaround. The last time I drove through Morgan Hill I noticed that the liquor store was still there and, presumably, so were the apartments upstairs. Maybe it wasn’t the same name. I couldn’t recall. I wished luck to anyone in those. I don’t know if the whorehouse is still across the side street. I didn’t stop.

dead coyote

Rick Hartwell I saw a dead coyote on the way to work today, an accident of traffic, and in the street he lay. With head grotesquely twisted, he had so much to say, a wildness in modern life and how to tame the fray. But now an object symbol for all of us to see; no surrender to traffic, it’s better to be free.

wet.

Tiffany Tavella I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what keeps these vexed, red-eyed men easing those big hairy toes into my waters. Only a few were brave enough to plunge, nose unpinched while others waded in tepid basins to the waist. Ah, but no bather speaks well on my name. It is perhaps being soaked, baptized, made to see the face of god in my bending estuaries and though they thrive filthy and sick in me, they felt no cleaner.

american holidays Tiffany Tavella

Amber waves of telecommunication in frosted glasses unobserved: the commercial multiverse where Bob Dylan is peddling cars, shooting pool in a bankrupt city talkin’ American cool talkin’ heavy hitting change while thumbing holes into pockets talkin’ assembly line reconstruction of a union divided by those willing to buy their revolution and those who’ll die loyal only to dissent.

he Sanctimonious Lament of the Cake and Punch Girl Wendy C. Williford

It’s just a favor, you remind yourself while gripping the cold stainless steel knife. Always a bridesmaid but never a bride. A terrible lament, but whoever first uttered it never had to be a cake and punch girl. “Slice the cake, pour the punch, not too big a slice, there has to be enough for everyone; if you run out of ginger ale or pineapple juice, there’s more in the kitchen.” “Have Aunt Gladdy get it, though. Don’t leave the table.” “And be a dear, remember to smile and look happy.” You’re on the verge of slapping the next aunt who gives that look of pity with raised eyebrow and asks when it will be your turn. “I’m only twenty-seven!” you want to shout, and “I’m not that old!” Are you? It’s the fear of trial and subsequent jail sentence that prevents you from stealing a peanut from the cheap crystal bowl and stuffing it between the middle layer of the whiter than white wedding cake. What exactly happens when someone has an allergic reaction to peanuts? For as long as you can remember, Aunt Hattie has carried an EpiPen in her purse. You wonder if Aunt Hattie remembered it when she changed purses to match her shoes, the ones she wore at Great-Uncle Frank’s funeral, but cleaned up to look like new. “Slice the outer edges first, make a circle, then work on the next inner circle.” “Don’t let your fingers smudge the icing when removing the top tier.” “It’s saved for their first anniversary.” “You’re not licking your fingers, are you?” “Oh God, where are the new champagne flutes?” What sick sense of obligation possessed you to volunteer for this? You’re the youngest of twelve female cousins, the last of the unmarried tribe, the last to think about babies, the last one on their minds when looking for bridesmaids. Of course being youngest had some advantages – you were always the first in mind for flower girl when the oldest three got married. That, however, was twenty years ago, that was second grade. This is Janet’s second wedding and second weddings mean budget. Sure, she could afford the caterers, but skimped on cake and punch server. You are the natural choice. “You did so well at Katie and Blair’s weddings.” But that was high school. “I can never remember: is it two ginger ales to each pineapple juice or the other way around?” “Go ask Aunt Jean, Aunt Lynn is too stressed to think.” “No, no, no, no, no, no, smaller slices. Think small cube, about yay big.” You eye the bridesmaids, sitting pretty in a row, perfectly manicured hands and new gold tennis bracelets on their wrists (the obligatory 84

bride’s gift), matching their beautiful new strapless burgundy gowns. Janet has good taste this time. You look down at the shamrock green dress, the multi layered taffeta skirt, tight around the chest, borrowed from one of Daphne’s bridesmaids (circa 1993), and notice a greasy smudge of butter-cream icing on your hip. You take a napkin and wipe it away, then move the clasp of the man-made pearl necklace to the back of your neck. Maybe you can use the pearls in your Halloween costume in the fall. “Are you making sure everyone’s using the little spoon for the peanut bowl?” “Don’t let them use their fingers. You know I love this family, but who knows where their hands have been.” “I really thought the champagne would last longer than this.” Janet even sprung for the bridesmaids to have their hair done. You had to make do with hot rollers and Bold Hold. You didn’t even know they made it anymore. You look suspiciously over to the groom’s table with Doug’s two tiered chocolate cake, lovingly sliced by his pretty, fresh-faced cousin, lovely braid down her back, bangs prettily drooping over her eyes in the latest teen fashion, not forced into some used monstrosity of style, comfortable in her stylish JC Penny dress with beadwork down to her knees. Damnit, is that a gold tennis bracelet? “Charlotte’s twins are on their third piece. Don’t let the children talk you into seconds.” “Do you seriously want to know how much this cake costs?” “I swear, if Burt makes one more remark about Janet wearing white I’ll smack him.” Your foot patters, cold steel in hand. You can’t decide if it’s the champagne you snuck into your crystal cup or the handful of butter mints you stuffed into your mouth that’s flushing your cheeks. The band is covering a Bryan Adams song. A few of the cousins are dancing, the others are at their tables enjoying their fish or chicken. The five-yearold flower girl lies on the floor next to Janet trying to wiggle out of her white tights. She’s on the verge of a fit. You clinch your fists, willing it to happen. The six-year-old ring bearer’s in the corner, picking his nose and rubbing it on his rented cummerbund. Uncle Ray takes the last open bottle of champagne, swears he’ll refill the newlyweds’ glasses. Any moment now Jason will stand up, push the coat hem of his tux over his hip, hold up his glass and give his speech, no doubt including an anecdote about Doug, spring break, and a stripper. If he’s a clever storyteller, he’ll throw in a twist about a transvestite. Everyone will laugh, Jason will clear his throat, “no, seriously…”, and the story will turn sentimental. Yawn. Slice the cake. Pour the punch. Smile. Act happy. “You’ve lost your shoes.” You look up. Alex, Doug’s oldest nephew, stares at you, nervous smile, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He then eyes your bare toes and the green pumps you slid under the table. “Does it matter?” you snort, Bold Hold bangs falling against your eyebrow. “Are you allowed to dance?” You put the last piece of cake on the plate, lick your finger, place

the cold steel down and slip your shoes on. Smile. Be happy.

i travel

April Salzano across tarmac of sky, grey of road. Intermittent yellow dashes skip past, marking nothing. I fly to you in spirit, a horse without wings, a soul without responsibilities to keep me from touching the skin on the back of your hand. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pretend comfort can be found in the presence of someone living, surrogate for one whose breath is measured. We are both orphans, opposite halves of a set. Lost children who match in mirrors, separated by circumstance, joined by grief.

retrospect

April Salzano Our words hung in the air like ellipses as we sat on the front porch of the house you no longer own, exchanging lines from our favorite poems. Maybe your now-ex husband was inside, the bags under his eyes packed and ready to go, the eye-pits mere slits in his bread-dough face. Home is so far away, I said. I had already traveled forward to a vision of myself crouched behind the steering wheel pushing through the marijuana haze to drive the six miles to my apartment, struggling to stay above thirty five miles per hour, eyes searching rearview mirror to dashboard and back for the inevitable silent blue lights of the Augusta P.D. Home. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to take me forever to get there. Maybe our worlds had not yet been reduced to the size of infantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bodies, commas curled against our skin, suckling milk from our scabbed nipples while we lay wishing we were anywhere else, yet so present it hurt, the prickly let-down allowing bare breasts to cry milky white tears. Maybe we did not yet know the gentle insistence of the breastpump, had not yet sat desperately perched on a toilet lid, tangled in rubber tubing, listening to the mechanical rhythm like a chant, waiting waiting for bottles to fill, to make enough food to sustain them tomorrow.

Maybe none of this had happened yet while we talked of the blue, uncertain stumbling buzz of a fly, of windows failing, of human voices waking us till we drown. Maybe I had not yet begun my drive homeward when you told me to be kinder to myself, when I reached for you like a baby, like instinct as the hard shell of a Southern cockroach moved across my sandaled toes. Maybe we had not yet laughed at that image

of ourselves because we had not yet each become someone else entirely.

biographies Larry Blazek has recently been published by PUFF PUFF, MIX-

ITINI MATRIX, MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, and RED-HEADED STEPCHILD. He has been publishing the magazine-format colloge OPOSSUMHOLLERTAROT since 1982. Larry Blazek lives on a small farm, rides cycles, plays guitar, and, of course, writes.

Warren Buchholz has recently been published in magazines

such as Zygote in My Coffee, The Legendary, Straight Forward Poetry, and Heyday Magazine. He recently finished getting his BFA in communicative performance studies at University of South Florida; freelances graphic design work, performs improv and does marketing and branding for an improv company, Post Dinner Conversation; and also runs a comedy troupe, The Skitsaphrenics, for which he writes and acts. In his spare time, he masturbates.

Daniel Davis, a native of rural Illinois, is the Nonfiction Editor

for The Prompt Literary Magazine. His own work has appeared in various online and print journals. You can find him at www.dumpsterchickenmusic.blogspot.com, or on Facebook and Twitter.

Benjamin Drevlow is the winner of the 2006 Many Voices

Project and the author of a collection of short stories, Bend with the Knees and Other Love Advice from My Father (New Rivers Press, 2008). His fiction has also appeared in Passages North, Split Lip, and is forthcoming in Rock Bottom Journal, Profane, and Hot House Magazine. He is a fiction reader at BULL: Men’s Fiction, teaches writing at Georgia Southern University, and lives both in Georgia and online at <www.thedrevlow-olsonshow.com>.

Diane D. Gillette teaches some really awesome middle school

students about writing, and they teach her about life. She has a couple masters degrees, two demanding cats, and lives with the love of her life in Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in many literary journals including Hobart, flashquake, and Press 1, among others. When she doesn’t have too much

homework to grade, she blogs about writing at www.digillette. com. You can find more of her published work there.

Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Jane,

lived in Greece, Brazil, Belgium, and Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their little Shih Tzu, Sophia. Joe’s stories appear in more than thirty-five magazines including Bartleby Snopes, Newfound Journal, and The Summerset Review.

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hor-

monally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.

A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one

joint chapbook through various small presses. Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook Contest. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www. kindofahurricanepress.com

Joshua W. Jackson studied fiction at the University of South-

ern California. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in Connu, Danse Macabre, MicroHorror, Electric Literature’s The Outlet, PopMatters, High Country News, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles, where he’s working on a novel.

Philip Kobylarz is an itinerant teacher of the language arts

and writer of fiction, poetry, book reviews, and essays. He has worked as a journalist and film critic for newspapers in Memphis, Tennessee. His work appears in such publications as Paris Review, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry series. His first 91

book, Zen-inspired poems concerning life in the south of France, is entitled rues. He lives ever so temporarily in the east bay of San Francisco.

Richard Lydon is a teacher, math coordinator, and writer living in Atlanta. Because he is a father to two delightful children, he writes during the cracks of time in his life. He is the author of a novel, Invention. His poetry is enjoyed by his close friends and family.

Heidi McKinley is a reporter in the school of journalism at The

University of Iowa, as well as a student of brain science. Her work appears randomly on the internet and in Iowa City’s Little Village Magazine.

Mark Nenadov is a poet from Essex, Ontario, Canada. He lives

with his lovely wife and their two young daughters. Mark’s poems have appeared in publications in the United States, Canada, Pakistan, India, Australia, England, and Ireland. He also has a poem in the Whisky Sour City anthology recently published by Black Moss Press. See http://www.marknenadov.com for more details.

Dorene O'Brien is a Detroit writer whose work has earned

the Red Rock Review’s Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Award, the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award and the international Bridport Prize. She was also awarded a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and her stories have been published in special Kindle editions. O’Brien’s fiction and poetry have appeared in the Connecticut Review, The Best of Carve Magazine, Short Story Review, Passages North, Baltimore Review, The Republic of Letters, The Montréal Review, Detroit Noir, and others. Her short story collection, Voices of the Lost and Found, won the National Best Book Award in short fiction. Visit her web site at http://www.doreneobrien.com/

Ken Poyner often serves as unlikely eye-candy at his wife’s pow-

erlifting meets. His latest collection of brief fictions, Constant Animals, can be located through links on his website, www.kpoyner. com, at www.amazon.com, and at impressionable bookstores. He has had recent work in Analog, Asimov’s, Poet Lore, Cream City

Review, and splattered about the web (just ask any search engine). Nominated for two Pushcart awards, April Salzano has been published in over one hundred online and print journals and teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She is working on several collections of poetry and a memoir about her autistic son. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press (www.kindofahurricanepress.com).

C.W. Schahfer was born in Lansing, Michigan, but moved to

Washington, D.C. for several years, where he started writing. He returned to Michigan and graduated from Wayne State University, and is now going into a creative writing MFA program at Roosevelt University.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional

book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007), and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish (Finishing Line, 2007) and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). A resident of Lexington, she spends three weeks each summer in a tiny cabin in Rangeley, Maine, where she edits old poems and writes new ones. She was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2014. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.

David Allen Sullivan’s first book, Strong-Armed Angels, was

published by Hummingbird Press, and three of its poems were read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a multi-voiced manuscript about the war in Iraq, was published by Tebot Bach. A book of translation from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not Breakfasted Yet was published in 2013, and Black Ice, about his father’s dementia and death, is forthcoming. He teaches at Cabrillo College, where he edits the Porter Gulch Review with his students, and lives in Santa Cruz with his love, the historian Cherie Barkey, and their two children, Jules and Mina Barivan. He was awarded a Fulbright and is teaching in China 2013-2014 (yesdasullivan.tumblr.com). His poems and books can be found at http://davidallensullivan.weebly. com/index.html. 93

Tiffany Tavella will trade a humble turn of phrase for a cup of coffee and a bent ear. She lives in Philadelphia.

Hannah Thomassen is a modern day poustinik who lives and

writes in the foothills of the Oregon Cascades where she cohabits with a husband, a dog, and two donkeys. (Everyone except the dog is vegan.) Her work has appeared in Big Bridge, Presence, Windfall, Verseweavers, Voice Catcher, and two anthologies from Wising Up Press. As a non-traditional emerging poet, she has nothing to lose, especially time.

Richard Thompson is a clinical psychologist who grew up in rural Canada and lives in Texas. His poems have appeared in Relief, Empirical Magazine, and Skive Magazine.

Christina Wheeler is an undergraduate student and writing tutor at The Richard Stockton College of NJ, studying literature with a concentration in creative writing. After graduation, she plans on earning a PhD in the field and becoming a professor at a four-year college or university. If she were to describe herself in one word, it would be “idealist.”

Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of Some Fatal Effects

of Curiosity and Disobedience (Lavender Ink, 2014), Queen of the Platform (Anaphora Literary Press, 2013), Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012), and the collaborative book Intimates and Fools (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2014) with artist Sally Deskins, as well as two letterpress books, and eight chapbooks, including Spindrift (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). She is the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). Wiseman has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has received an Academy of American Poets Award, the Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship, and her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, Margie, and Feminist Studies. www.lauramadelinewiseman.com

Lily White is a saxophone player and writer living in Brooklyn,

New York. She has published work in Brevity, The Bennington Review and most recently, in the New York Times. She divides her time between playing, writing and trying to find parking. 94

Wendy C. Williford is a native Texan who began writing sto-

ries as early as the 5th grade. By the time she was 17, she had written her first unpublished novel, a broad collection of poems, and was awarded poet laureate of her graduating class. She received a BA in History with a minor in Creative Writing from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2007. Since then, she published dozens of short stories and poems and has written a screenplay. Currently, she is working on a novel set during the Scottish War for Independence. She blogs about her experiences as an author and writer at http://WendyCWilliford.com.