Westwind Spring 2015

ucla’s journal of the arts

SPRING 2015

ucla’s journal of the arts

Los Angeles is a crazy collision of intersections, and Westwind, UCLA’s student-run journal of the arts, strives to capture this spirit.

We seek to provide a platform for the weird and wonderful voices found all over the greater Los Angeles area in whatever form they arise.

For over fifty years, Westwind has been printing poetry, prose, art, music, and everything in between. Help us attempt to define the undefinable that is Los Angeles. Anything goes.

Westwind is made possible with the support of UCLA’s English Department. Print journals are currently available in the English Departmental Office.

Front Cover: “Chasing Fog Down Broxton”

by Brent Kyono Logo Design: Nicolette Olson

Faculty Advisor Reed Wilson Managing Editor Natalie Green Design Layout Dylan Karlsson and Daniel Noh Outreach Coordinator Fanny Garcia Blog Editor JoAnna Schindler PROSE Senior Editors Daniel Noh Ruben Rodriguez

POETRY Senior Editor Tina Lawson

Staff Emily Adams Nathan Bang Hannah Brezack JP Cavender Fanny Garcia Jenna Gulick Courtney Holcomb Nicki Holcomb Justin Kawakami Dylan Moss Sanjana Parashar JoAnna Schindler Celeste Seifert Fez Sukhu Melissa Villalon

Staff Dylan Karlsson Chloe Liu Nicolette Olson Connor Warnick Ashley Wypick

Editors' Notes A couple of months ago, I learned that Westwind has existed in some capacity for over 50 years. Now, most students couldn’t tell you what Westwind is.

So our mission statement was intimidating: reinvisioning UCLA’s student-run literary journal for today. Using history as a jumping off point, an almost entirely new staff dedicated the past eight months to looking at old journals, bickering about James Franco and reinventing an 80s aesthetic to produce the journal in your hands.

I dreamt about creating a UCLA literary community grounded in a relationship between student writers and the Westwind staff. I dreamt about widening our community to the greater city we live in, publishing anyone with a Los Angeles connection. I dreamt about reflecting the diverse people of these communities to showcase new people, voices, and forms.

I don’t really know if I accomplished all of the things I set out to do.

But I can’t wait for the next journal to keep trying. I’ve fallen in love with Westwind, all because of my inspiration: Reed Wilson — faculty advisor extraordinaire — the good-looking Westwind editors, and, finally, the talented writers, artists, and composers you’ll find in this journal who were willing to do a very scary thing — submit.

Here’s to love/hating making art, love/hating editing, and love/hating Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy this journal as much as I do. Or maybe you’ll love/hate it. Regardless, be a part of it with us in the future and tell us what we can do better.

Natalie Green, Managing Editor 2015

POETR Y This year has been very interesting for all the pieces we have received for the journal. It has been a time of reaching back, and taking patterns and themes into a contemporary vibe. Just as the rest of the world has been enjoying throwbacks into the decades past (80s and 90s revival in music, fashion, and ironic sensibilities), we have been attempting to emulate the same spirit. No matter what, there are certain things that will never go out of fashion or be a fad.

For instance, Robin Smith’s “1981” deals specifically with emerging fears of AIDs and the expression of sexual preference (in view of a disapproving society), but what comes through is a story about love and loss. In the end, for poetry at least, that is what it comes down to: love and loss. Many times, these two are intertwined, or in a causal relationship to each other (love to loss, loss to love), and I believe the best poem encourages questions that wonders at their collective (and individual) power on the speaker/subject of the poem and especially on the reader.

I would like to take this time to thank my staff of student editors who have worked closely with many of these poets in the editorial process. Together, we made an adventure going through the pages of past editions of Westwind to discover stylistically what we can take from the old to make anew in this edition. We selected poetry that is easy to read and understand, but still strives for complexity in verse and form. A good poem, in my opinion, should draw one back in for a reread not just for understanding but for a distinct pleasure of adventure and wonder that prose often inspires. I believe that poetry is many things at once – except boring.

I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy our selections in this online edition that my staff and I have carefully analyzed and edited to perfection. We enjoy working with upcoming and budding authors, and I encourage all reading this note to think about submitting in the future if at UCLA or in the Los Angeles area.

Tina Lawson, Senior Poetry Editor 2015

PROSE Writing fiction and submitting one’s work is tough. There’s nothing quite like spending days, weeks, or months on a piece, honing it to the best of one’s ability, only to submit it to a group of unknown editors who are ready to pore over every detail and render a verdict.

Here we are, editors who think ourselves so perceptive as to declare yay or nay on a writer’s creative offspring. How pompous must we be?

We are as nervous about the whole affair as you are. We receive countless stories. Many have a voice. Many have something worthwhile to say. And we have to pick the best of the best and hope for the best in turn. You have in your hand the culmination of that effort. Here are eight stories that made it through all our backand-forth questions, concerns, edits, and interpretations. These are stories about religion, love, friendship, growth, isolation, expression, nostalgia, and all the emotions between. Each is worth your time. We are confident you’ll agree.

Ruben Rodriguez and Daniel Noh, Senior Prose Editors 2015

Table of contents The Cleared Austin Beltrand

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Chef's First Kill T.m. Lawson

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Disneyland Would have been better T.m. Lawson

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Self Portrait Sarita Flor-Zed Schreiber

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Your Accent is Almost Gone

Tulika Varma

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Equilibrium Glenn Llorente

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Small Popcorn, Medium Coke Nick Versaci

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How to Disappear Omar ZahZah

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online Ruben Rodriguez

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'' Love @ Pornhub Hq''

Sam Bozoukov

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the way Dylan Karlsson

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James Franco & I A. Idol Walker

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year Connor Warnick

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Cranes over Los Angeles Daniel Noh

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When it comes to cities Lyndsey Silveira

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Shower-time musings on divinity

Lyndsey Silveira

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the dreamer's garden Reem Suleiman

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Growing up Terabithia Emily Adams

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Bernadette of Lourdes' Feast Day Dylan Karlsson

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On the Burning of Books Dylan Karlsson

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pareidolia Dylan Karlsson

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elysium Veronica Takeuchi

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happy homecoming Katie Myers

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path independent Brent Kyono

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The Time-Killer AJ Urquidi

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jane* Annie Yu

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Moon at Midday Amelia Ribbens

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gesture Amelia Ribbens

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trees

Lyndsay Ogawa

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grandma Tree by the roadside Sammy Rickey

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Brown Puerquitos: A Failed Love Affair Fanny Garcia

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Art Laboe and the Prison Industrial Complex: Dedicated to You Penelope Uribe-Abee

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Chi-chi Britania Jones

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flame out of focus Thomas Feng

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three goodnights and one goodbye Abigail Salcido

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how to breathe Rebecca Tang

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hair day* Rebecca Tang

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1981 Robin Smith

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A little boy is always blue Cameron Murphy

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*Winners of The Writer’s Den 2015 “What Can You Pen?” Creative Writing Contest

The Cleared austin beltrand “The Buddhist monk contracted chronic tinnitus (stage four and incurable) after the prayers in his head grew too intrusive. This ringing greatly disrupted his meditation, and the mortuary catalogs record that his peers drilled holes into his cranium in a last-ditch attempt to pluck the noise out from where it had furrowed into the superior gyrus of his temporal lobe (note index features 1 and 3). This alternative form of medicine commonly referred to as “trepanning” was unexpectedly not the cause of death. The Buddhist monk found a silence below the ringing and the screams with which it merged; under the memories of peers that peeped into his cranium; beneath what he had always perceived the silence as being. It became clear from this depth. It became clear that the ringing came from a telephone. When the monk answered this telephone, he found that no one was on the calling side.”

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chef's first kill t.m. lawson tomato martyrs

are the first to be tossed into a pit of fire, bubbling like belial’s flowers, fresh from the market, my hands are shaking as the wet dries off, the juice of innocent plums fingerprinted on my apron. the cat blinks her rough tongue expecting a meal out of my dread. what is a pussycat’s stroll when a man is dead? her appetite signals a course five or seven, she insists on being first and she plays mouse with the parts already diced. I gambled with that bitter spice called remorse and salted the knife laid in his sweetheart. The nerves are the best part, the trembling exposition of the spoon slits narrowing sampling silver boned delights: CRACK SNAP POP sauteed glob of Bob sprigged with fingerdrops of my ashen blood. my knife’s casual desperate sprint to the torso, saw off, I lick the salty splatter that rings out as the train yowls by No-o-o-o like he did, one hour ago.

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disneyland would have been better t.m. lawson I am the museum of fuzzy cat sweaters and old boyfriends’ boxers.

I am the atrium entrance of sensitive peeling skin + Allergy to moisturizer - Watch your step = out of context quotes on a cassette tape audio tour guide I did mean it when I said that Last Thanksgiving, everyone watched us fight Started to laugh at a Julia Roberts moment This is so us I am the lobby bin overstuffed with too many half-finished brochures: Anatagonista is My Other Name So What’s Wrong With Burning Man? I Know More Than I Think I Know I am the museum of lies, shaped with no end in sight, no Directory can keep track of my heights.

Many exhibitions on my exhibitionist spirit: Hate All Mothers, I Have One Memory of My Father, Houdini Act: Boyfriend Edition I’m under construction, reupholstering my common sense to go with the Persian rug.

Careful, stairs are the first to go—crumbling steps of insanity, a little piece of me stuck to your shoe, 16

embedded in your sole.

I don’t get visitors very often.

Those that come, leave after a “T.M.I.” moment in red curio cabinet.

Those that stay—heckle during the big show, boo and hisses turn me on.

If you walk down the yellow hallways to my center, against the curling insides, you’ll see for yourself— It’s my Special Exhibition: No one can come near.

The corners are sharp and misleading, and visitors have trouble reading the directions clearly: “It is dangerous to be inside of me for the self-guided tour.”

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“Self Portrait” Sarita Flor-Zed Schreiber 24” x 18” Sumi Ink October 2015 “Self Portrait” is composed of semi blind-contour drawings made using a small pocket mirror to observe one feature at a time. With this technique, this work fragments the body to convey the disparity between physical appearance and emotional character.

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your accent is almost gone tulika varma your accent is almost gone, he said. but darling, maybe i never had an accent to begin with. is it the way the Rs roll off my tongue, streams rolling over river rocks, is it the way the letter A is wrapped in my throat, not hidden behind my teeth, is it the way the cvs cashier blinks when i ask for a packet not a bag, is it my otherness, my yellow-on-black, is the crunch of my consonants too loud for you? your accent is almost gone i wonder if the californian drought is drying up this soft brown soil, making my skin hard, cracked, and i wonder, what is left now, frozen nothingness of a no-man’s land? because i still hear the R echoing off my tongue, rangoli, ramakrishna, rani, remittance, renewal, rambunctious –do you hear it too? because i live in a glass house with a puja room: stainless steel, and wooden figurines of ganesh and krishna on his little swing, and i pick flowers to give to my mother on our silver tray, and watch her as she lights the aarti, and there’s that sound, unexplained, the sound hidden in the ring of the bell in my brother’s hand, maybe that sound is the R that struggles to escape from under my tongue these days.

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maybe that sound is the one of me listening to you say, as you unwrap your chipotle burrito, sip from your 16 ounce cup of coke zero, clutch your morning 2% venti chai-tea latte, listen to your npr podcast, swallow your nyquil, your accent is almost gone, and i stare at you and hide behind bottles of chyawanprash, (because they say it gives you immunity), and my fabindia skirts and jaipuri sandals, and say, no it’s not, but darling, maybe it was never there at all. notes: 1.

rangoli: a decorative pattern you would find on the floor, before the threshold of many indian households, made of dry flour sometimes mixed with colour, or flower petals.

2.

ramakrishna: a traditional south indian name

3.

rani: queen (in hindi)

4.

puja room: prayer room

5.

aarti: part of the hindu puja, essentially a ghee or oil-soaked wick which is lit during the ritual

6.

chyawanprash: quintessential part of every indian kid’s childhood: a disgusting (yet delicious) herbal paste consumed in spoonfuls, that, if taken with a glass of warm milk every night, is said to boost your immunity

7.

fabindia: a popular indian clothing chain which everyone loves despite the fact that their clothes run colour and shrink notoriously

8.

jaipuri sandals (also called kohlapuris): a kind of footwear native to the north indian state of rajasthan

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(Scan to listen)

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Preface Inspired by John Forbes Nash Jr.’s game theory, Equilibrium is a quasi-aleatoric piece that uses birdsong-like gestures, structured within a prescribed linear game theory model. In a typical game theory, a 3x3 matrix allows chance as an element of unpredictability—while all players this matrix attempts to find its “Nash Equilibrium.” This equilibrium is essentially an event when all players obtain a win-win endgame.

In attempting to apply this to a prescribed and temporal musical setting, sixteen gestures were written in its normal order, then retrograded and inverted. This resulted in three sets of sixteen varying gestures—organized randomly in a linear timeframe for three performers. The score is written in a gesture-driven graphic notation, outlining the selected gestures’ quasi-aleatoric occurrences.

Prescribed within a linear musical organization, each boxed-gesture (from the three sets of sixteen gestures) includes specific instructions as to how to play them. Towards the end, the performers reach a sort of prescribed “musical equilibrium,” when each performer plays the same gesture in unison.

Glenn Llorente Winter, 2014

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Small Popcorn, Medium Coke nick versaci No one really experiences loneliness until he works a cash register. At least a register at the Palace, because that’s the only job I’ve ever had. I offered to work this year, but my parents told me I’d have my hands full in my first semester, and it was sort of an empty offer anyway. I’m glad now, because college is tough. But sometimes I sort of miss it, the Palace, usually when I’m walking at night and it’s all dewy and no one’s around except maybe a girl in a sweater walking the other way.

So, girls. I know every guy has a “girls story,” where he can lay out all of his past crushes and girlfriends like old pictures from an album, or list top break-ups like in High Fidelity. I won’t do that, because I don’t like clichés and my “girls story” is actually kind of boring. It’s four or five total, and four or five of them minus one were just crushes, because I get nervous about asking people out and back in middle school I had a lot of acne. I don’t understand guys that can just ask girls out, all smooth. My hands get sweaty and my heart rate spikes just thinking about it. I really had to steel myself to ask out Anna Williamson.

That happened around the middle of junior year, two or three months before I took the job. I’d gotten whispers from friends of mine and friends of Anna’s and friends of both of ours that Anna likes you and Dude, ask her out! and She’s getting impatient…

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That last one really pissed me off, by the way. If girls get so impatient, why don’t they do the asking? When I say that, people tell me it’s hard for girls to ask guys and all this other stuff, and I just think about sweaty hands and thumping hearts. Gender roles are stupid.

My plan was to ask her out as we walked home from a football game. She was staying the night with a girl from my neighborhood, and it would be just Anna and me, and the darkness would help. The problem was that the girl from my neighborhood passed up her ride to walk with us and get some “fresh air.” Like we hadn’t just sat in a frigid breeze to watch our team get destroyed by the rich white kids’ school from two towns over.

So instead I walked Anna to her car the following Monday, and just before she got in I sort of spat out, Hey can I talk to you for a sec? and she said, Okay, with a half-smile, which gave me a bit of confidence. So I said, I was sort of wondering what you thought about maybe seeing a movie with me this weekend?

I’ll never forget how she rubbed her cheek and glanced away, just for a second. Yeah. That sounds good.

Good echoed in my head for weeks. And then the feel of her hand just before she let go of mine. Until we kissed, and then it was her leaning in, like a movie, over and over again. For a long time.

I don’t want to talk about how it ended. There was another guy involved, which basically sums up the whole stupid thing. After that I started seeing little moments in my head, good and bad. Just like movies.

But movies were something I could count on. They hold every truth and emotion of anyone caught in the vortex of horrible sweet31

ness known as the human experience, so that’s why I filled out the stupid three-page application, and delivered it in person to a manager, and wore my dad’s suit to the interview.

I trained on a Wednesday night at five o’clock, with Daniel as my shift lead. I remember unwrapping the uniform like it was yesterday, separating polyester from plastic, adjusting the cheap bow tie as I absorbed the laminated Managers’ Motto: “Look nice, treat customers nice, and remember that for eight years the Palace has been the best theater in the county.”

I’ll paraphrase, Daniel said from behind me. ‘Bullshit.’

My first day on register, I discovered that hell exists, there is no god, and people are the worst. I’m not religious, but if humans did fall because someone ate an apple, then we fell far.

No, I said layered butter. They do it for me every time.

Are you new here or something? Jesus.

Yeah, just give it to me man, I don’t want no fucking upgrades. I gotta get to my show.

Well fuck you all, because I’m in college now and someday I’m going to be in business and make good money and maybe have a wife and kids. And if I had a time machine, I’d go back to that afternoon and flip you all the bird.

But I liked some customers. Especially Donald. I didn’t learn his name until that summer, when I saw his credit card. And when I was clouded over with Anna stuff.

I thought the register would be a distraction from all that, with the people and popcorn and sodas and pretzels, but it wasn’t. I learned that rushes and dead hours are the same; you zone out either 32

way. During rushes your fingers get numb from punching keys and your socks get wet from all the spilled soda and leaky drains and your head is filled with an incessant beeping: flip the popcorn. FLIP THE POPCORN. Damn it! You guys have to flip it when it’s beeping. This batch is fucked.

So during rushes you zone out and start playing movies in your head of kisses and morning hikes and other guys and late night Cold Stone…

And when it’s dead, you just stare out at the front desk and the sun cuts through the upper windows and your mind wanders.

When I had a crush on this girl Kara in eighth grade, I decided I wanted a wife and maybe three or four kids, depending on if I made it to the big leagues and lived in a high-rise in Chicago or settled for a CEO gig and a smaller house down here in San Diego. Now I’m not so sure. Not just because I haven’t picked up a baseball in four years, but also because of other things. Girls are great, don’t get me wrong, but I think I could be alone. My roommate gets depressed when I say things like that or go to movies by myself, but he’s just got Jerry Maguire syndrome: can’t be alone. I’m immune, and so was Donald.

I never saw him with anybody. I always admired that—solo moviegoers, like smart blockbusters, are practically nonexistent.

Anyway, I never asked Kara out, because I had a lot of acne that year. Like I said.

I won’t go into my whole top ten, but my all-time favorite movie 33

is Memento, and here are five reasons why: 1)

Christopher Nolan is a genius.

2)

Memento is his best film, despite all the jump-ons who just loved Inception.

3)

Brilliant plot structure.

4)

Simple locations, low budget, no CGI.

5)

The main character isn’t falling in or out of love with someone.

I don’t get offended if people dislike Memento, though. Or other movies. I learned that one the hard way.

Mallory was a cute redhead in pre-algebra. I went up to her one day and asked for a pencil; she told me to shut up, but with a smile like we had a secret pact not to trust whatever the other said. I fell in love…the point is, the spell was broken a couple of weeks later when I found out she hated National Treasure.

I was young.

So, Donald. I don’t remember when I first met him, but I’d love to go back and see what it was like, assuming I still had time left on my time machine after flipping those fuckwads the bird from my first day on register. I bet I liked him better than the others, even then. He was direct, but not like a businessman. He had a way of asking for his food that made you want to get it for him.

Small popcorn, medium Coke.

And I’d scoop only fresh, snow-white popcorn, and layer the 34

butter, and wipe off the side of the bag so his hands wouldn’t get sticky.

Thank you. Have a good one.

After the fourth or fifth time I brought Donald his order I decided he deserved recognition, and I said something on break.

Favorite customer? Sid asked that afternoon, tearing open a Hot Pocket. Goddamn packets of shit.

We were sitting in the break room’s white bleakness, wasting our halves away. Yeah. What’s wrong with having a favorite customer?

For starters you’re implying you like a customer. Another bite; something meant to resemble a meatball plopped down on the table.

So there’s that.

I did like Donald, and I wasn’t ashamed of it, either. That was the problem with Anna after a certain point, actually—I was sort of ashamed to be her boyfriend. It’s a horrible thing to say, but that’s the truth. She didn’t like any of the movies or books I liked, and even though she was smart and cool and all that, she was always texting and saying how, like, she had so much, like stuff going on this weekend. Like. I know people talk that way now, but still. Come on.

Anyway, during the time of pain and frustration that clouded my memory, back before all traces of Anna Williamson were purged from my heart, I was never quite able to remember how ashamed I’d been.

I’ve never been very good at anything with girls. It took me about a billion years to finally go for the kiss with Anna. But maybe it’s just social stuff in general. Talking, for instance. I couldn’t even build up the courage to say anything to Donald besides the usual 35

employee stuff, except for this one time. I remember he was seeing something I’d been interested in, an action movie without any CGI in the trailer. I noticed his ticket and asked him about the movie.

Looks good, he said.

Yeah. I nodded. Well I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you. Have a good one.

The night when I saw Donald by the water park, the circus was setting up in an empty field by my house as I drove to work, probably around five or six. It’s one of those operations that moves from city to city putting on shows each weekend. They’d materialize about every month, although I can’t be sure because it was such a strange thing to see. By the time the familiar blue awnings and muddy pick-ups reappeared, it seemed like they’d just been there last weekend.

That was a Friday night. I remember the half-erected tents, the two men in torn jeans and straw hats bent over as they raked the ground, pushing mud this way and that until it was close to flat.

I don’t know why, but that field always looked like it had just been rained on. Or maybe it was just me.

The other thing about that night was how dead it was. I’d never been so idle on a Friday, much less during the summer season. We’d built it—plenty of blockbusters and horror flicks, even an animated for the younger crowd—but they hadn’t come.

Except Donald. He sauntered in around seven or eight, examined a couple of movie posters, and stepped up to my register exactly ten minutes before his show. That was something I’d come to notice about Donald—he was punctual. Always at the register ten minutes 36

before, and you could judge how early he was by how many posters he looked at in the lobby on his way over. There were some other things about Donald, too: 1) He always wore slacks and a collared t-shirt, though once I saw him in a black blazer.

2) He always arrived from the right side of the theater and walked out to the left.

3) He always took off his glasses and wiped them with his shirt while I was swiping his card.

4) When he was in line, he stared straight ahead. Not up at the monitors (they played previews), or around the lobby, or even down at his feet. Straight ahead.

5) His order was always the same.

I was pretty happy to see him that night, because I’d been lost in my thoughts for a good hour or so. Daniel was still on his break, but I’d seen our shift manager, Gerardo, striding though the lobby a few times, so the tops of the soda machines were clean.

I said hello as Donald walked up. He smiled and nodded, which, for him, was like jumping over the counter and wrapping me up in a big hug.

Small popcorn, medium Coke, please.

A smile. I’m the guy who can get it for you.

That night I scooped the whitest, freshest popcorn and layered the butter many times over. I swiped his card and he wiped his glasses.

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All set. I eased the popcorn across the counter. Enjoy the show.

Thank you. Have a good one, Alec.

My name! He didn’t even look at my nametag, either. At least I don’t think he did. I’m eighty percent sure he didn’t look at my nametag, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it was great.

At ten Daniel and I started cleaning the poppers, which is a process too horrifying and arduous to describe in writing. Basically it involves a lot of brushing, spraying, scrubbing, spraying, brushing, wiping, and spraying, all with shitty brown paper towels that spread the cheap lemon-smelling cleaner around more than they absorb it.

Daniel took one popper and I took the other.

Fast night, I said after some silent scrubbing. Pretty empty.

Daniel glanced at me through the butter-smeared side window of his popper. No distractions that way.

Daniel was always saying he loved it busy until it got busy, and then he would complain about customers and say he loved it dead. I think that’s sort of how we all felt, though.

I swear, Daniel said when we’d shut off the poppers and rolled them back into place, this is the last time I close concessions.

I smirked.

I’m serious, he said.

You’re leaving?

Damn straight.

When?

I don’t know. Soon. I’ve been here too fucking long.

How long again?

Long enough to be a shift lead twice. Like two buns with a juicy 38

demotion in between.

Gerardo came by at eleven to shut down the registers. Daniel and I were already filling the paint-speckled Home Depot buckets with hose water.

As we dragged the buckets out front, I said to Daniel, Every night for eight years.

Daniel rolled his eyes.

It doesn’t bother you at all? I asked. That this place has never taken a day off?

Nope.

Or that we do the same thing every morning and every night?

Nope.

Okay.

We went to opposite ends of concessions and started splashing water across the grimy tile. When Daniel had emptied his bucket, he sloshed some blue cleaner on top and we grabbed a couple of brooms.

Okay, so why doesn’t it bother you?

Daniel stopped scrubbing and stood up. Why does it have to?

I fucking hate it, but this place works a certain way and always has.

That’s what you sign up for when you take an interview for a minimum wage shit job.

I kept scrubbing, but Daniel hopped up and sat on the counter, swinging his broom back and forth.

Should I fill up the buckets? I said once I was done.

Yeah. Just one should do it.

The lights were already out when we bumped through the swinging door and left concessions. Only Gerardo remained in the 39

lobby, sitting at one of the tables with his legs kicked up, face aglow in the dim light from his phone. He waved.

It only took me a few seconds to gather my things in the break room. Daniel sighed as he clocked out in front of me, black hood obscuring his buzz cut. Night.

See ya.

I stepped out into warm air, the kind that you only get during summer nights. The parking lot was empty except for three or four cars and a few puddles. The sprinklers always turned on around eleven. My car, parked under a light in the second row, sat in the biggest puddle. I decided to go for a walk.

I love to walk. It’s a great stress reliever. That’s one of the ways I got over Anna. I remember after one awful day at work I stopped by a park on the way home and walked a couple of miles to unwind. Really cleared my head.

Anyway, I headed across the street to this pathway that winds through a sculpture garden and empties out next to the water park.

No one was out, and I was able to sink into my thoughts as I passed shadows of animals and kites and naked figures. I don’t understand sculptures, but maybe that’s just me. I knew this girl, Alexis, who really liked the sculpture garden. She was another high school crush. This one day we went to see some action movie with a group of friends, and afterward we walked through there on our way to get lunch. My friend Tommy was making fun of this sculpture that just looked like a blob, and Alexis put a hand on his shoulder and said, Could you make that?

Tommy said something like, Sure, if I had the tools, and Alexis 40

rolled her eyes.

What do you think? she asked me, smiling. Isn’t it good?

I remember nodding. Yeah. It’s interesting. I was still young.

Stray headlights cut through my daze, and I paused on the edge of the curb, across from the water park. It’s a cool place, and really popular during the summer, especially for kids. But at night it was sort of eerie—all of the slides cast long shadows, and the pool covers bobbed up and down like huge boats on a dark sea. I wouldn’t have walked in there for a hundred bucks.

There were two cars in the side lot, illuminated by dull orange street lamps. One was a beat-up white Volvo with a “For Sale” sign taped inside the back window. The other was a Nissan, either blue or black. It took me a second before I saw the shadow: a figure dressed in dark clothes, sitting on the Nissan’s hood, facing away from me. No movement. Probably a man, judging by his wide shoulders and stout frame. It’s funny—standing there on the curb, I remember guessing, almost knowing, in a way, what he was up to. Only daydreamers share that tilted head and static, slumped posture.

I checked my watch: time to go. Starting back toward the theater, I cut across the street to get a better look at whoever was sitting there, taking care not to give myself away. When I finally had an angle, his face caught the lamp’s glare and I halted mid-stride. There was no mistaking him; I recognized those glasses, that nose. He wore a blazer, but otherwise was no different than he’d been earlier that night when I’d gotten him his small popcorn and medium Coke. Only now he stared straight ahead into the dead water park in the late hours of the night.

41

So, like I said before, college is tough. There’s a lot of work, a lot of distractions.

In high school people always told me to “have a plan.” When you wake up after high school graduation, they’d say, you need a plan.

The real world is waiting. And I feel like I have a pretty good plan.

Business. Enough money, maybe a wife and kids someday. I don’t know. I’ve definitely moved on from things—high school, the Palace, Anna. It depresses me when people can’t move on, when they’re stuck in one time and place. But anyway, what I really want to say is that sometimes, when I’m out in the late dew, walking with the moonlight, clearing my head, sometimes a girl will pass me, or the breeze will pick up a little and I’ll get goose bumps, and it’ll be like I’m on register again, settling in for a long shift.

And I miss that.

42

how to disappear omar zahzah

you will know when the time is right the little pin in your left pocket: take it now and prick . . . every drop sprouts a forest. others will come cut trees build cabins bothered only on winter nights by the same, sad whistling windows gently shaken as though the wind were trying not to forget—

43

Online Ruben Rodriguez Leslie Ann Bee sits as dusk bedews her window, picking her nose while eating pickles from a pickle jar. She sits like this most every night, sometimes with a book, sometimes with homework on the side, sometimes pondering the essence of her day which often appears as a series of rigidly structured events: enter class, take notes, exit class, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Tonight she’s sitting with a plan to do something different.

Tonight is a mix of new ingredients and spice. Tonight is her chance to liven things up. However, Leslie doesn’t quite know the meaning of “liven things up.”

Her life is of the cautiously moderate variety, with a childhood imposed upon by a father whose views debased the importance of self and expression, and a mother whose stunted sense of importance lay tempered like moistened clay fitting an enforced shape—a shape defined by Leslie’s father. To “liven things up” is to break a pattern 20 years in the process. She has no friends.

For Leslie this is the moment to begin such a break. She’s in college now, away from the trap of a father too domineering and a mother too compliant. Leslie sits as the aphotic end of dusk filters through her dorm window, contemplating change. She grabs another pickle—the taste is refreshing. An idea has been resting in her mind for weeks. Leslie is going to try online dating.

44

After a brief search she finds Lovefinder.com, a free dating site, and begins her profile, placing notes of herself into words for a profile page, while her fingers capture each pickle, her nose itching and the sound of typing bouncing off the boxlike walls of her room. She posts pictures of herself, each one a branch of her personality; she displays herself as exuberant and varied. The profile is eventually completed.

She picks her nose in private, nervous celebration.

Within the hour messages arrive in stacks of 3s, 8s, 15s, 20s... the messages flood in like a broken levee filling a river of free-time with a sea of desperation. Men express quips and funny anecdotes, hoping to capture her attention. She expresses flirtatious asides, hoping to appear open and refreshing.

The pattern continues until she receives a straightforward, seemingly honest message from a man who lives somewhat far, who displays decent levels of attractiveness and a well-written profile page. In the message he asks her about her life, her worries, the what and the why of her day-to-day—a branch into ideas and interests outside of the scant details listed on her profile; the message is clear, to the point, and finishes with an invitation to meet. The chair creaks slightly as she lifts her finger to her nose, slowly, wondering about who this fella is that he would place such effort in a message to a woman whose distance is a callous detail—she desperately wants a pickle but she’s all out—she picks her nose instead, while wondering whether to respond.

---

45

Elsewhere, in the time between a nose pick and a lifted pickle, sits a man staring at text on a screen. He flops a Twizzler into his mouth, bites, and begins to chew, all the while continuing his gander of profiles on a dating site.

This man, Brandon Wallace, pounds his palms against the desk in rhythm to the music pulsing around him while humming melodies as if constituting a backing track. He is slave to the music. The pounds serve as breaks between clicks as he unconsciously selects each profile under rhythmic taps, click, he selects another, click, and another in beat with every cymbal break; he can’t help but embrace the music erupting from the speakers, while he sits alone chewing Twizzlers, humming through bites and pounding the desk in between clicks.

The sound of taps against a desk is the sound of a man trying to drown out loneliness. Every chord progression is the trigger and each view of a profile is the gun firing into the back of Brandon’s lonely identity, adding grief to misery as he strives intently to find a woman to love, a woman who will respond to his introduction, a woman who doesn’t mind his ever-expanding idiosyncrasies.

Brandon is the kind of lonely which makes you wear pajamas all day. He’s been doing this for months.

His despairing isolation is interrupted by the sudden entrance of his roommate—“What are you doing?”

“What?!” Brandon lowers the sound of his speakers, “Don’t barge in!”

“Your music’s too loud. What are you doing? Are those Twizzlers?”

“Yes,” Brandon ruffles the bag of candy as he closes the tear in 46

its wrapper and briskly places it in his desk before turning to face his intruder, “Forget about it. What do you want?”

His roommate eyeballs the glowing presence of Brandon’s monitor. As Brandon sits, his presence framed by the bloom of the screen, his roommate can’t help but notice the bated sound still emanating from his speakers. “You look like shit. Want to go with me and Lucas? It’s his cousin’s birthday,” he stares at the screen further, “Are you on a dating site?”

“Yeah. Why?” “Just asking. Let’s go, you’ll find plenty of—” “I’m fine.”

“How many dates have you been on?”

“Four. Well… five.”

“Alright, five, and...?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re wasting your time. How many messages have you sent?”

“A ton. I’ve tried being flirtatious. I’ve tried being poetic. I’ve shared music and shared funny stories and I’ve complimented them—“ “You sound desperate.”

“I’m not desperate. I just take it seriously.”

“How is anyone supposed to be comfortable with you if you’re so serious?”

“Okay. I’m not going out tonight. Have fun.”

“Fine. But quit being depressed all the time. It bums me out.”

“Okay,” the music surges through the room in subtle progression as Brandon raises the volume, “Bye.” 47

As introductions go this is not the ideal Brandon to witness.

The pajamas, the Twizzlers, the lubricated motion of his day-to-day activities as he slips through profile after profile, sending message after message like a nomadic hopeless romantic whose ballad is solitary, dramatic, utterly unattractive, and therefore self-fulfilling— this is not the kind of Brandon worth showcasing yet it’s the Brandon available. He’s a canyon filled with raindrops yet to evaporate, a ‘woe is me’ caricature of a man, one jaded human being living life by not truly living it, wallowing in a mess of his own conception.

He knows it. Under better circumstances Brandon might have been a daringly smooth, i’s dotted, t’s crossed master of relations with an inviting smile. The kind of man who inspires interest. But as broken hearts are inclined to do, Brandon doesn’t feel witty or sharply tongue-tipped, he doesn’t feel creative or interesting. He just feels alone.

He stops staring at profiles for the night, slips under the covers, and falls asleep.

--Leslie Ann Bee sits as dusk bedews her window, the same as before, yet exhausted.

She went on a date with the man whose message seemed genuine, yet found herself meeting a man focused on trivialities, who caressed his self-worth through jabs at others and cruel dismissals.

She brought up books, he averted. She spoke and tried to share herself but received only banalities in return. She ignored the distinct 48

lack of significance in his attempted deliberations. She decorated their evening with humor and presence. He adorned the in-between with footsie and clutches, palm to palm, while they ate dinner or sat through a film. As he overburdened her with absurdity she tried, so hard, to just connect with the bastard. Their evening was an expulsion of every tired cliché, every you’ve-seen-it-in-a-film moment, or rather, their evening was an attempt at each cliché but overall a complete failure even in that regard. At the end of the night he invited her over. The son-of-a-bitch wanted to fuck her. After all that she knew, had she gone through with it, that she would’ve been fucked in more than just a physical sense.

If only the disappointment was relegated to that first date with that one guy rather than all of them.

Anxiety overcame more than a few men. She maintained the tiniest of expectations yet so many of her dates had nerves like they were walking on sacred ground; they failed to ignore the palpable stain of anticipation and poured out their expectations unnaturally. She wanted to be treated as a person but found herself on a pedestal. They treated her as too beautiful, too fair, an impenetrable bastion of excellence and sheepishly demeaned themselves as a result.

For all she knew they did this to everyone. She just wanted to be human. Why must they be so nervous when her plan was never to judge but to experience?

The ones who weren’t anxious were simply strange. Their every breath contained the soulless rhetoric of one whose life was an echo of others, their displays of wit merely empty tricks—constant rocketfuel build-up without a worthwhile payoff. She once had a man grab 49

her hand from across the table in the midst of conversation and say “I love you” without a hint of irony or self-awareness. She tried to laugh but he wouldn’t stop staring into her eyes. There was even a man—an attractive one, she regrettably admits to herself—who stopped in front of a motel while driving her back to her dorm, and when she refused to go in, he yelled, “How can you say ‘No’ to me?!” She took a cab home that night.

Her dating life was a parade of shallow admirers as repulsively uncharming as a fecal stench. The fact that she couldn’t find someone who wanted to know her beyond her aesthetic was both exhausting and demeaning.

--Leslie sits in her frustration, lapsed in shades of sadness and discontentment, unaware that at that same moment and at not a great distance away sits an equally defeated, tenderly diminished narrative partner, a man whose dating experience follows the same cadence as her own.

Brandon sits in his weak bitterness, brushing through memories of messages sent without reply, rhythmic offerings of interest which failed to resonate except with a select few. His memories are of wandering through a landscape of online dating and being cut by the sharp ridges of cynicism, leaving him stuck in a purgatory of dissatisfaction.

50

And so now they both sit in their chairs, reluctant to bother searching further. And there is she: too nervous, shattered, disengaged, hurting, tired. And there is he: too lacking, jaded, vacuous, unworthy, passionless. A connection, broken.

51

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52

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53

54

JAMES FRANCO & I A. Idol Walker I My friend Timmy pointed a gun at my face and said, “It’s all your fault. I’m blacklisted.”

Sweat poured down Timmy’s face. His eyes were wide with hate despite the gleam coming off his father’s chrome-plated revolver. When one’s life is on the line human thought multiplies in speed and clarity and images from the past year flew through my mind’s eye: demonic billboards, lederhosen, morphic ice cream, and now this chrome revolver. I had to unravel it all. How did I end up in this position? I suppose it all happened six months ago, the day I met James Franco.

It was my final year at UCLA and I had decided to apply for James Franco’s screenwriting workshop. It was less a desire to rub elbows with a celebrity and more a last minute whim to try my hand at a writing workshop. When it came down to actually writing a submission piece I was surprised to have spent the entire day crumpling up drafts. My final product was a 1-page comedic monologue about how I had never seen Pineapple Express.

The next day I received an email inviting me to an interview for one of the ten positions in the class. At UCLA interviews were unheard of and they scared away half of the applicants. I showed up late, not because I was scared but because the location was given away 55

at the last moment to avoid paparazzi. When I arrived there were only a couple dozen students lining the hallway, nervously chatting about the interviews to come.

“Man, I really hope this interview doesn’t fuck me in the ass,” said the Hispanic fellow next to me. He was tall and chubby, sporting his first college beard.

“Yeah, uh-huh.” I wanted to keep the conversation to a minimum. I wasn’t sure how good my submission piece was so I had to keep a clear head for the interview. There would be all the time in the world to make friends in the winners’ circle.

“I mean think about it, getting into this class could make your writing career. But fucking it up? It would haunt you for the rest of your days man. I mean, this is James Franco we’re talking about here.”

“Totally.” I couldn’t stop staring at his beard. He dressed like a child: sneakers, shorts, and a green t-shirt with a Mario mushroom on it. A beard on his face made absolutely no sense.

“I mean he’s more than just an actor, he’s a goddamned celebrity. He’s the champion of the literary world in Hollywood.

Writing and directing Faulkner stories? Writing and directing a movie about Bukowski’s childhood? And now he’s teaching here?

The man’s a genius. James. Franco.” He licked his lips like they were covered in chocolate.

“Mhm.” I was trying my best to ignore him but he was that crazy guy that sits next to you on the bus.

“Look man, if you don’t wanna talk you can just say so.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

He finally shut up and I got a chance to stare at the floor. I tried 56

to clear my head but in my periphery I saw a dress shirt in his hands, being wrung like the neck of some long-dead chicken.

“So anyway,” he said, “I had this wet dream last night, guess who was in it?”

I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the floor but ended up laughing. “Was it James. Franco?” I licked my lips too.

“You like that one? Jesus, finally got a laugh out of you.”

“I couldn’t tell you were acting there, you got me going for a minute.”

“I was just reading the minds of half the kids here. We’re all going nuts.” He stopped the wringing motions and put his arms through the sleeves of his dead chicken.

“What’s your name?” I shook his hand with a firm grasp, practicing for the moment I would shake hands with Franco.

“My name’s Timmy.”

“My name’s Aiden.” When I was sure his fingers were purple I let go of his hand, “I like your sense of humor, it’s quite crass.”

“Yeah man. Comedy has to make people uncomfortable to make a difference, to make them vulnerable to new ideas,” he said as he buttoned-up his dead chicken. “If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable it’s just fluff.”

All of a sudden the students stopped talking, raising their heads like frightened deer. They stood frozen as a tall, hooded figure approached swiftly and silently, flanked by two aides. One aide unlocked the conference room as the other held the door open. The hooded figure ducked inside, without a word.

57

II I had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen my fair share of celebrities. I even had the pleasure of talking to Donna from That 70’s Show at a bar with antler chandeliers. I thought I was immune to being star-struck, but never in my life had I touched a celebrity. In the moment when I shook hands with James Franco I could almost understand why people wasted hours of their lives watching reality television. When he swallowed my hand within his own I saw his chiseled bicep twitch and felt electricity run throughout my body. It was a damning experience.

“Hello Aiden, it’s nice to meet you,” he dazzled me with his smile, framed perfectly in unkempt facial hair.

“This interview is just to learn a little bit about you.”

“Well that hardly seems fair. How’re you Mr. Franco?” I caught him off guard and sat there concealing my laughter. It was the first step in standing out.

“Um well,” he glanced at his aide and shifted in his chair, trying to think of an honest answer. “I’ve gotten the inexplicable urge to take helicopter lessons.” I could see that he felt guilty in the way that privileged people felt in regards to their privileges. But he rallied and prodded himself, rewriting the guilt. He was telling himself that he worked hard for what he had and was giving back to the community, donating his time to be a teacher. “But that’s neither here nor there, you’re an English major right?”

“Yes sir, I love to read fiction. Seemed like the best way to spend my time in college.“ 58

“That’s great!” Franco’s superstar smile was back. “What are you planning to do after college?”

“Quite simply I plan to write. To put in the hours day by day and make something great.” It was like a toothpaste commercial, his smile became so brilliant that I wanted to take out sunglasses to bear his luminance.

“Would you ever consider teaching?” Franco asked.

“No.” I had grown to despise this question simply because it had been asked so many times before. People believed I had chosen a dead-end major and that teaching was all I was capable of. Because I had been asked this question so many times before I had an automated response. It rolled out of my mouth and plopped onto the desk, “I think academia is necrophilia.”

In the distance I could hear a record needle screech. All of a sudden he looked tired, like he had dropped acid the night before and spent the entire morning crashing back to reality. James Franco was still smiling but I could see a thin crack forming in his actor’s veneer.

I had succeeded at standing out.

“What?” he asked me, “Why’s that?” I noticed his teeth weren’t white at all, but were rancid and yellow, stained by the coffee and cigarettes of his ambitions.

“Well, because I feel academia is akin to jacking-off a corpse,” I said. “It turns into a scholarly circle-jerk where everyone is showing off how much they can quote a dead guy because it’s easier than forming actual ideas.”

Franco sat there squinting and nodding. He said, “Huh.”

59

III I got my rejection email the next day in the middle of my daily commute. At the stoplight I wrote back: “Was it my submission piece or because I called academia necrophilia?”

Horns blasted at me to resume my crawl along the Sunset Strip.

Everywhere billboards smiled down at me. There was Kate Upton selling sex for Lucky Jeans and there was Matthew McConaughey selling violence for HBO. I was so well practiced at ignoring these products that the billboard in front of Chateau Marmont caught me completely off-guard. In a tuxedo, shrouded in mist, smiling his smile in perfectly unkempt facial hair, was James Franco. I don’t know what he was selling there on the Sunset Strip but I would have bought anything to make him look away from me.

“Fuck,” I said out loud. “I’m going to see this every day.”

On my daily commute his visage served to deepen my feelings of inadequacy and reminded me that I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t famous, and that I didn’t get into his class because my writing was bad. I limped along until one day I stopped by the Humanities office and heard a familiar voice say, “I heard you got fucked in the ass.” It was Timmy.

“Yeah I guess my submission piece wasn’t that good.”

Something inside of me came loose. I fell to my knees and slumped onto the cool linoleum floor.

“Dude are you okay?” Timmy asked.

I was laughing hysterically but I managed to ask him, “It’s because I called academia necrophilia, isn’t it?”

60

“Yeah man, all of us in the workshop are wondering why the hell you would say that.”

It was a response born of all the depressed looks I had seen on the faces of my high school teachers. It was a response born of my own fears for the future. “It was something I said to get attention. I’m glad that’s the reason I didn’t get in.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t get in because I was myself, because I made him uncomfortable. Fuck that guy, I’m not a terrible writer after all.” I was looking up at Timmy from the floor, looking at his hairy gut under his Mario mushroom shirt. I felt more relieved than ever.

“Nah man. You didn’t get in because you were a ballsy fuck. He didn’t think you were a team player. Also just between you and me—“ Timmy paused to look around, “I think you offended him personally.”

“How so?”

“Fuck man, I shouldn’t even be talking to you, let alone telling you details from the workshop. You’re James Franco blacklisted.”

“James Franco blacklisted?” I asked.

“It’s just a saying between all of us in the workshop if you fuck up. One kid already got blacklisted for cracking a Spiderman joke.”

“So anyway, how did I offend him?”

“When you called academia necrophilia he thought you were calling him a necrophiliac. The guy’s trying to get a doctorate in English for Christ’s sake.”

For a second I could consider James Franco the human being and felt sorry for him. “I guess I should have read his Wikipedia page.”

61

An unlikely friendship grew between Timmy and myself where we enjoyed many cynical conversations. He wasn’t 21 at the time, so instead of going to bars I would drive him into the hills at night to look down on the stars from Mulholland. One night he looked towards campus and asked me, “Man why do you think people at UCLA are so lame? How would you describe them?”

“They’re like paper.”

“Full of potential?” Timmy asked, gesturing at the golden lights that spanned for miles in every direction.

“No, they’re paper-smooth, a people without texture.”

“You mean I could rub my cock up against them all day and not even get off?”

“They got into UCLA by working hard and doing what they were told and UCLA is training them to do that all the better.” I turned on the dome light in the car and washed out the golden city.

“You could probably rub your cock up against them all day and they wouldn’t even notice.”

On our drives Timmy would lavish me with the details of the James Franco workshops. We would be rounding a tight curve along a cliff and he would spout, “Today we got to use Seth Rogan in our sketches! Niggah says he wants to smoke chronic with me,” or, “Today James said he couldn’t believe the shit that came out of my mouth and I had a mental breakdown and cried.”

We began to realize that our friendship was poisoned by Franco. We would end each of our drives promising never to mention James Franco again, but we always failed.

We would see a coyote digging through the trash and Timmy 62

would say, “Miles Marx got his screenplay picked up by Focus Features!” Or we would drive past a dead skunk and I would hear “Jon Nickleby Murcio got signed to Sub Pop Records!” Whenever Timmy told me about the success stories he would always remind me about the interview: “Academia is necrophilia? You had the best piece! All you had to do was sit there and smile!”

It pissed me off how much we talked about James Franco because in doing so, we were indirectly dreaming about lives we would never have. Our talking about Franco wasn’t doing us any good, but I knew it was benefitting Franco himself. Out the car window I would watch our words fly across the Hollywood Hills for miles, joining with the prayers and tweets of others. I could see the stream of words gathering above his house, funneling into his chimney. The words seeped into his skin at night, becoming his energy and feeding him wherever he slept. We were bleeding at the altar of Celebrity where the specter of Franco was only one of many soul-sucking deities. I didn’t like it, but I was the mom eying the tabloids in the supermarket checkout stand. I always came back for more.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” Timmy texted me, “take me to one of your favorite bars.” It was May and Timmy was finally 21. I realized that graduation was quickly approaching and I was greeted by the crushing pressure: if I couldn’t accomplish something in the warm gooey womb of college then I would never make it as a writer in the outside world. I would be chewed up and spit out, another cog in the machine. Or worse: I would become a teacher.

The closest thing I had to an accomplishment was a single great 63

short story, but unfortunately no literary magazine would publish it. I remembered all the success stories from the James Franco workshop and thought to myself, if only I had James Franco connections. Then I smiled, remembering that I did.

IV “Dude, why are you driving down the Sunset Strip?” Timmy whined. “Traffic here always sucks.”

“I must have been on autopilot, I usually have to take Sunset on my commute.” It was Timmy’s birthday and I was driving him to a bar called The Red Lion.

“You mean you have to look up at James Franco’s smirking face everyday?”

He pointed to the billboard in front of Chateau Marmont where James Franco looked down at me. I shrugged.

“That must drive you fucking nuts.”

Franco’s eyes glowed red like hot coals and steam came pouring out of his flapping robotic mouth. Up and down the strip echoed deep and foreboding laughter. I looked at Timmy and shrugged again.

“You know, Franco wrote a short story about that billboard and had it printed in VICE magazine,” Timmy said. “It’s called A Perfect Day for Dickfish.”

“Yeah James Franco is all over VICE, he’s their goddamned literary mascot,” I grunted. “His story was about that billboard?”

“Well no, it’s mostly about the time he didn’t fuck Lindsay 64

Lohan, but the billboard was a huge symbol.” Timmy stroked his beard thoughtfully, “You know that billboard kind of reminds me of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg from—“ I slammed on the brakes and shouted at him, “Don’t you dare make that correlation!”

Timmy looked at me with wide eyes and said, “You gotta chill niggah, you okay? You’re not going crazy or sumptin’ are ya?”

Franco had ruined enough things and I didn’t need to add any more classic American literature to the heap. “I’ll never enjoy Gatsby again.”

The Red Lion Tavern was a German bar where buxom waitresses in lederhosen served steins of beer. I ordered us two beers with my thumb and forefinger like in Inglorious Bastards. I ordered in German, explaining to Timmy that I had learned to do so in Berlin, when in reality I memorized the phrases from Google Translate that morning. I explained it was Timmy’s 21st birthday and they brought him a glass boot full of beer. When he was two boots deep I popped the question.

“So Timmy m’boy, I was hoping you could do me a favor.”

“Sure man, anything,” Timmy slurred.

“Well, I’ve recently completed a short story. It’s the best I’ve ever written.” I stood up and began rubbing his shoulders, “I’ve gone through at least ten drafts on the sucker.”

“That’s great. Sounds like you should submit it to a magazine,” I kneaded his back fat and he moaned.

“Well that’s the thing, I’ve submitted my story to dozens of magazines and only received rejection letters. It would appear that my 65

work is too”—I put my lips to his ear and sighed low and steamy— “edgy, for traditional publications.”

“Edgy? Sounds like you should send it to VICE.” “I’m glad we’re on the same page!” I ran my thumbnail gently down his neck. “But you see there’s a problem in that too. I’ve sent it to VICE without so much as a ‘No thank you.’ It appears that they don’t even look at unsolicited work.”

“Dude that sucks.”

“That’s where you come in. Here, have a copy.” I threw a packet on the table and grinned, wide and sharp.

He glanced at the packet, “’By Harris T. Wood?’ Who the hell is that?”

“My pen name.”

“Why do you need a pen name?”

I ran my fingers through his hair and spoke firmly, “I need a pen name because I want you to pass this story along to VICE.” “And how am I going to do that?”

“Via their literary mascot, James Franco.”

Timmy was instantly sober. He paused with his mouth open, waiting for me to tell him that it was all a gag. I kept my face straight and he knew I wasn’t joking. “Nope. No way. You know I would love to help you but you’re James Franco blacklisted. If I tried to pass this thing along I would get blacklisted too.”

“When are you seeing Franco next?”

“Tonight. He invited me backstage to see him in Of Mice and Men for my birthday. But that doesn’t matter, I’m not passing this on.”

“I’ll tell you what, you read this story when you go home right 66

now. If it doesn’t blow your mind, don’t pass it on.”

Timmy went home sauced and read over my premeditated notes on steins of beer and back massages. He texted me, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

Waiting to hear back from Timmy at Of Mice and Men was the longest night of my life. I sat in my room and listened to the clock ticking, not daring to open my laptop or turn on my television. The delusions had gotten bad. I was seeing James Franco everywhere in advertisements and cameos. I was even seeing James Franco where there was no James Franco: in burnt toast and pornos. It was all I could take when I opened my freezer for a tub Cherry Garcia ice cream only to find that it morphed into Ben & Jerry’s James Mango.

Timmy texted me around midnight, “He wants to read it tomorrow. If he likes the story he’ll pass it on.”

V I was reading A Perfect Day for Bananafish in my mother’s hillside backyard. The gardener had done a good job keeping the lawn alive and it was one of those rare days in Los Angeles where the air was clear and I could see the buildings of Mid-Wilshire, to the loading-cranes of San Pedro, and even make out Catalina Island.

It seemed as though I was only getting positive signs when Timmy called me.

“Where are you? I’m at your front door,” he said.

“Oh I didn’t hear you, I’m in the backyard reading—“ the line went dead.

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Timmy marched into my backyard and up to my lawn chair with the revolver in his hand. He pointed the gun at my face and said, “It’s all your fault. I’m blacklisted.”

Sweat poured down Timmy’s face. His eyes were wide with hate despite the gleam coming off his father’s chrome-plated revolver.

“Did he find out I wrote the story?” I asked.

“Yes. And now I’m blacklisted too.”

“So he’s not passing the story along?”

“Don’t you understand? I’m going to shoot you in the face!” His beard was sopping wet and his hands were trembling.

“If James Franco isn’t passing the story onto VICE, I mean sure, go ahead, shoot me.” I was pretty sure that life from there on out would be a continual slump into ever-graying circumstances. Why not see what was next?

Timmy cocked the gun and I wondered if I should pray to God. I tried to imagine Christ on the cross but all I could think about was James Franco’s face when I told him academia was necrophilia.

Then all of a sudden I heard a loud mechanical humming approaching from the sky. For a second Timmy forgot his rage and I forgot to reach for the gun, as we both peered up into the bright sky, confused. The humming came closer and closer, kicking up the winds, until at last a helicopter landed on my lawn. It was piloted by the bane of my existence, James Franco.

“Timmy! Put the gun down!” James Franco cried. He jumped out of the helicopter, his locks flying in the artificial wind. He squinted at Timmy with his commanding gaze and Timmy dropped the gun.

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Tears welled in Timmy’s eyes. “Can you ever forgive me Professor Franco!”

“Yes Timmy I forgive you.” Timmy ran up and hugged James Franco, their beards intermingling. “Shush, it’s all over now,” James Franco crooned. “I’m going to take care of you.” He ran his thumbnail gently down the back of Timmy’s neck.

“Wait a minute,” I asked. “How did you know Timmy was going to shoot me?”

“I took some high-powered mescaline and had a vision of this transpiring.”

James Franco lifted Timmy with his bulging muscles, carried him into the helicopter, and buckled his seatbelt for him.

“What about me?” I asked.

“You? You’re James Franco blacklisted,” said James Franco.

“You’re going to be ignored by every literary magazine, studio, and publishing company on the face of the Earth. You fucked Timmy in the ass.”

Timmy curled into a ball in the passenger seat, sobbing. James Franco kissed him on the forehead and looked back at me one last time, moving his lips, cursing me.

The blades of the helicopter spun ever-faster as they lifted off the ground. The helicopter went directly up, higher and higher, shrinking in the distance, until it was nothing but a twinkling star.

James Franco and Timmy ascended into heaven without me.

END

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year connor warnick cry was life in a black bandana “sweetheart, you’re just the best” no ties—obsidian suit and a manila dress finessing, pouring fucks into the kisses the days were better before i (blindly) sought and found the sun no night misused in that grimy summer i flew to space on a fungus with frank i learned you can love knitting and still be shit at it did i eye my eye or a dyed glory hole when i died i spread my sails and got jiggy on the mediterranean back on earth, the next months were spent in ecs with x bliss tastes better than dolor every evening we would dance back tobac then take a quick catnap while the city still stayed woke her rippled nipples ripped my clean dimples shirts off with all this passion on the table we didn’t need anything or anybody it was the best of times it was the best of times it was our age that never mattered it was the epoch of our climaxed bond it was the season of our bottomless tears followed by the fall of separation the winter of termination we had everything before us i have nothing before me but “i’m gon be alright” and i can’t dwell on it 70

cloudless sky i do not trust you this city originally brought me shitty moods and yummy foods my heart had bled out and i felt the stigma of a cigarette often uplift me into the underworld people don’t understand the ebb and flow of a broken mind’s conviction self-destruction is often where logic keenly guides you you can’t just lick your fingers and turn the page on that i escaped alone into my nascent belfry and found joy in painting through mousepad and camera re-lying in rehab it’s a progression sometimes my life feels so flooded with love from others that i want to cry other times i float injuriously through clouds of self-inflicted solitude i soak up my dry whirlpools with tissues stained by charcoal and feed myself dust with tainted latex gloves and all the time i am simply distracting my attention away from x yet, out of fears of waste, i persist i am still alive somehow this year

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Cranes Over Los Angeles Daniel Noh Los Angeles is a city under constant reconstruction. From the 405 to the Downtown skyline to the Hollywood star reinventing themselves, there is always something or someone changing. Cranes all over the city stand testament to this. The fact that, for a brief moment, the crane is taller than the building it is constructing reminds me that the process of building and rebuilding ourselves is in many ways larger than the end product.

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when it comes to cities Lyndsey Silveira when it comes to cities, I am promiscuous.

I am curious, but I have not yet found a nice one I’d like to settle down with

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shower-time musings on divinity Lyndsey Silveira Posing in the shower, like Venus, not for anyone in particular, no artist to paint me, newborn, with my old skin cells scrubbed off, in a cupped palm of a shell.

I just wish I could feel sexy soon.

It’s the season of sweatpants and zits.

Finals have hit, and I wish that my skin was more like alabaster, like stone, so my human parts wouldn’t show.

Aphrodite never had these problems.

Hormones and chemicals never tried to change her skin. She just sprang into existence already-lovely, and all ready for love.

For the rest of us, there are beauty routines.

The water disappears down the drain into the ocean, the little bits of me flushed out into the waters whence she came.

I am clean, and the closest to godliness I’ll ever be.

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the dreamer's garden Reem Suleiman In a fleeting moment his face became pomegranate seeds breaking from the peel the endearing transparency of vulnerable flesh reveals the same secrets guarded behind sealed eyes If only breath would carry more than words so that the heart could travel and catch the thoughts trampled on the brutal path to his tongue Til then I search for an algorithm to dismantle time so that we can create our own and paint its living room blue then hover over the iron balcony to watch the clockwork below If only the fruits inside me were made visible ripened, reaching for the harvesting hand to nourish the uncharted wounds that have mapped my passage into an abyss of judgment

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Gr owing Up Terabithia Emily Adams I remember the sky coated in grey, dark hanging grey, that sunk the moon and stars and I remember the dotted streets, the little people in little cars. It was four in the morning. We sat on the hillside above town, looking out over the shrunken cityscape. I’d muddied my boots.

The only light leaked from vacant streetlamps below.

My hands reddened from the pressure of my body, stilled and numb, as I sat on this bubbling inside my stomach.

He kept silent, but the good kind of silent if you could call it that.

His face was soft and the point where his chin met his neck fell in a swoop, his profile outlined by moonlight. I wanted to kiss it.

But we were only sitting.

“I’m surprised you came up with me tonight. You’re not out often,” he said without looking up, “—well at all, really.”

I moved my hands to my chest and rested my fingers against its warmth, then the breeze kissed my fingers and swept down my neckline. I had to slide them between my sweater and skin.

“I go out if I want to go out,” I knitted my fingers together as I waited for him to respond, “—I just don’t really have to be out.”

He smiled and his head fell to the right. I counted cars. Then he took a scoot closer.

“I don’t really like to go out either,” he extended his feet outwards as he spoke, “if I could, I’d be up here all the time.”

“On the bank?”

He was quiet again and I watched his shoulders climb to his neck.

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“Yeah, the bank—or even the treehouse off Arlington and Greensborough. It’s down the creek a ways.”

“You know every little hideout, don’t you?” I asked as I knotted my fingers together tighter.

“I guess I do, yeah—it’s the only thing to do around here. I’ll take you sometime.”

My fingers slid apart.

“Oh, I’d like that.” I had said it softly, hoping he’d really meant it.

Then I looked up. A plane and its red blinking wings flashed in the fog, sending crimson ripples down to our place on the ground. He waited ‘til the clouds ate it up before he spoke again.

“I bet you’re not even high.”

He rustled his lighter, flipping the cap on and off, “I bet you were never even high.”

“Why would I—I don’t know…what it feels like or anything.”

He clicked the lighter twice. The flame ignited against blackness, illuminating the skin of his thumb.

“Well I don’t even know what I’d say it’s like…you know, if I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be like.”

He brushed his hands against his jeans.

“It’s different for different people.”

His glasses dropped down the bridge of his nose. I could see his eyes for the first time that night. I’d always thought his face was kinder without the frames, pale and sweet.

“Well,” I kicked my feet together, “I guess it makes me wanna do this forever.”

Sunrise was only an hour or so away and I didn’t want it to come so I said what I thought I felt. My legs moved in sloppy circles, dangling off the ledge. They churned like the gears of a clock. He chuckled and 78

hit his heels against the soil to his heartbeat. Another breeze drifted out of the valley and pooled over my skin. He took notice of the bumps forming along my arms as my legs continued to turn.

“Oh…oh my bad, I shoulda done this, uh—here,” he slid out of the windbreaker and held it up.

His lips were full and fresh and he didn’t know it and that made me want to tell him. I stopped my legs mid movement to slip into his silver sleeves.

“Thanks.”

Then I watched him shiver for a beat. He let his head drop forward and he shifted his legs toward his body, where his knees met his chest.

“Have you ever—“ he stopped, resting his face in his arms.

I bent forward. “Have I ever what?”

He kept his eyes from mine and whispered, “…Do you believe in things?”

I was quiet.

“Like, do you ever think about, I don’t know—stuff that can’t really happen like…like it could?”

My head grew heavy as he spoke, as it considered what it was he was asking.

“I believe in some things, I think.”

I stared straight at my knees.

“Well, I don’t mean like believing in yourself, or believing in— well I don’t know. I mean, I believe in that kinda stuff but I’m talking believing in things people don’t believe in. You know, powers— psychics…the afterlife.”

I began to swirl my legs again. Concentrating on each circle was easy.

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“People believe in the afterlife.”

He nodded, “Yeah, okay, well the other stuff then.”

I tilted my head toward him and hoped he’d tilt his toward mine.

“If you’re asking if I believe in potions and magic and stuff, I’d say no but still,” I thumbed the dirt, “I guess I think there’s a lot that we can’t explain. I think I believe in things out there that we don’t have answers to yet. Like, believing that they exist or something.”

He looked out into the valley, over the backyards of houses we’d never been inside. He kept his gaze ahead and then in a large spectacle, turned towards me with his entire body—his entire body was facing me when he looked me dead in the eyes and asked, “How ‘bout flying?”

I remember my lips turning up. I hadn’t known how to answer him.

“Have you ever thought about flying?”

I began to giggle—sequences of respired giggles that ballooned in my chest because he couldn’t have asked it but he did—he had. “…flying? Me or you flying? Or anyone for that matter?”

I made him look away from me.

“Sometimes I just think about it.”

He shut his eyes, leading mine to look out over the bank, over the slumbering hillside. I was quiet and tried to keep myself from asking.

But I asked anyway because I was always the one doing the asking.

“You think you can fly?”

His eyes opened in response, gazing down into the yard before us as we listened to the dropping rain. He gestured with a finger to his lips for silence. Then he lifted a hand in the direction of the closest yard. Bursts of puffs swelled, gentle and small, widening in the frosted air from a man and his pipe. He rocked himself in a lawn chair. I could

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only make out the hook of a nose against a porch light.

“Oh.” The man hadn’t heard us.

I moved my hands from my sides to the dirt. I hit his left with my right but pulled away. He noticed and I wondered if maybe he would have liked me to keep it there.

The rain began to fall faster, making crinkling spritz as it hit my jacket—his jacket.

“I found this…um, place a while back. It’s up a bit more. Almost the other side of the hill.”

Now I wonder if it was the rain that made him tell me, but at the time I believed he’d intended to show me from the start.

“You found what?”

He stumbled to his feet and flicked the lighter’s lid once more. But the flame didn’t appear because he’d worn the old thing out. He was always in need of a new one.

“Here, I’ll show you. It’s just, well just a bit upwards.”

“We’ll get soaked.”

His arms were outstretched and he looked cold. But he didn’t seem to mind.

“If we’re already wet, what’s the harm in getting wetter?”

A wide smile grew from his grin—one that pressed his cheeks up to his ears. I lost my thought and smiled back.

“Fair enough.”

He started up the slope, leading me up and over the lookout point. He strung me along through the trees, into an amphitheater of sorts. It was beneath the treetops with a creek that split it down the middle. The ground was steep on both sides of the water.

“Here it is,” he said as he held his arms out, “Terabithia.”

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I couldn’t make out his face in the dark.

“Like the book?”

“Never really thought about that. But yeah, that’s its name.”

“It doesn’t look like a magical kingdom.”

“Give it a bit,” he said while he stepped forward, “I promise it’s all right here.”

He stopped about ten yards in front of me and stood, fascinated with the single pine towering before us.

“In the tree?” I asked.

It was a bold tree, wide and shrunken with peeling bark and nesting birds but I’d seen nothing more than naked branches.

He walked to the place where the pine’s roots sprouted, twisting and knotting into and out of the ground. Then he rubbed his hand over the trunk’s face. I liked the way his t-shirt pulled across his chest as he moved his arms. It made me want to rest my head on his stomach again, to count the threads hanging from the buttons as he breathed.

“Everything you need is right here.”

I remembered I was standing in the cold and that he was there, in front of me, at the foot of the tree. He eyed the branches from below like a child with his neck craned to the sky’s ceiling.

“What is it?” I asked with pursed lips.

“Just wait.”

Then he bounded into the air, so high that I thought I’d lost him, and returned with rope and a board. When he stepped back, he released the slack and his finding hung, suspended by the branches. I watched as it swayed to a stop.

It was a swing.

He fingered the fraying rope before sitting down on the slat.

“I come here a lot.”

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He lifted his left foot off the ground.

“You come alone?”

He chuckled, turning his remaining foot in circles in the dirt.

“Sometimes.”

The other foot rose and he took off into the night. The pine bent with his weight, cowering as he flew forward and straightening as he leveled.

“Do you know who put it here?”

“No one knows.”

The course tether creaked, burdened by his body. I watched him rise up. The rope relaxed midair, only to tighten on his descent as he cleared the creek—a human pendulum.

“Do you ever worry it’ll break?” I asked.

“Oh, come on,” he said as it sent him out again, water droplets falling from his place in the air, “swinging’s no fun when you think about that.”

I wish I hadn’t asked. He was smirking. I remember seeing it even though he was a fair distance away. I could hear the water moving behind the sound of his smiling cheeks. The water rippled and rushed down a ways from the swing and the pine and his smiles occurred closer and closer together.

“Well if you don’t know how long it’s been here, I thought maybe it was a reasonable thing to ask.”

He let his legs dangle, in hopes of slowing his pace.

“A swing’s a swing.”

I was silent.

Eventually, he came to a stop and stepped off, leaving the board swaying behind him. Then he sat at my side. We sat together for a long

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time. We were always sitting together.

It was night but as we sat under the trees, the darkness lifted.

There were glistening bits aglow, bleeding through holes in the foliage.

It was the creek and the golden ring around his eyes that I remember.

They were the brightest, inspired by the fainting starlight. A stream fell on the swing, drifting to and fro beside us. I could see every crack of its wooden seat.

“Look, the best part is when you get far enough up into the air that the rope stops. It’s super quick and if you don’t expect it you’ll miss it, but you stop—really you do. And then you drop back towards the ground. But for that second, it’s like—well it’s like—“ “Flying?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

I rustled his jacket which smelled like his car’s interior—pine and cigarettes.

The swing had stilled.

“Well I wanna try,” I said as I stood.

“Then give it a shot.”

“I will, thank you.”

His lips bit back a grin and I moved up the bank toward the swing. When I reached it, I took the rope in my hands and tugged ever so softly in suspicion. It looked whitened and weathered.

“Are you sure this thing is safe?”

“Just sit down already,” he teased.

“Okay! Okay!”

I tugged again just to be sure. Sure of what, I didn’t know. Then I sat on the wooden board that creaked when I shifted with my back to the water. He and I still faced each other. I noticed that he’d moved his hands inside his corduroy pockets.

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I moved my body back and forth, controlled and still connected to the ground.

“I’m afraid we haven’t got all night,” he said.

“I’m afraid night ended long ago.”

He laughed.

“Well if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna need a push.”

“No one pushes birds,” he said with an eyebrow arch.

I tapped the dirt with the toe of my shoe, waiting.

“Oh come on, push me!”

It took him a while to stand but when he did he walked close and set both hands on my shoulders. We kept our faces to ourselves but I knew he wanted to lean in. But he didn’t. He blinked his long, dark lashes and kept to himself.

“Well?”

I turned my head to see where he stood behind me. The muscles in my neck resisted and I couldn’t hold the position for long. His hands softened and slid to the sides of my arms as I stared back at him.

“Well what?”

His chin tilted forward, setting his lips inches from mine. I watched as his eyes dropped to my mouth.

“You said it yourself, we ain’t got all night.”

He moved his hands again, back to my shoulders. I turned forward.

“I’ll count to three, okay?”

I nodded.

“One—two—three!”

He pulled back, released and I sailed. The wind hit my face and I leaned into the rhythm as the pace picked up. I had always been scared of heights so I kept my forehead against the rope. One leg hung off the 85

board’s side and I worried I would slip, so I held on tighter. There was a jolt in my stomach as I rose, it hit my lungs and gyrated up to my head, like when hustling over a dip in the road.

My heart grew ten times its normal size and my palms dampened from gripping.

“How long do I have to go for?”

He looked on from below and laughed.

“You don’t have to go at all.”

The swing arched and my legs floated upwards. I felt frozen but it felt good. For that second I could see out over the trees.

“This is what you’re talking about!” I yelled.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I didn’t look down to see where he’d said it from, “Now just let yourself swing, for God sakes you gotta open your eyes the entire time! That’s half the fun.”

“I prefer them shut,” I managed to respond as I catapulted down to the ground, faster than I had the times before. The blackness behind my lids was nauseating but I grew sicker thinking about the distance between my body and the ground.

“Come on, you’re missing everything.”

“No,” I pleaded, “no, no it’s okay, I’m good this way.”

“Once, try it once.”

After he spoke, the rope made this terrible pulling noise; it began at the top and radiated to the bottom.

“Come on, try just one eye! Just one. You gotta see everything!”

I listened and opened one eye to watch him watch me. I remember he looked so far away, so small. Then I forced myself to open both eyes as I descended. That time I saw his face—the corner of his mouth, which widened as soon as the rope gave.

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My body hit the ground seconds later, his face imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.

I couldn’t feel the back of my legs or the palms of my hands and my chest burned. It spread from my heart to my feet, dropping to my toes when I attempted to curl them. But I still had feeling in my fingertips. They dug into the dirt and little rocks stuck into my skin.

My eyelids fattened, yearning to shut. The sun was rising. I saw broken, golden light through the web of branches above. We’d stayed out all night I remember telling myself.

I’d been out with him all night.

Heat fled from my face and my rose painted cheeks sunk with the passing of time. I tried to fight my body’s insistence, I wanted to see him above me, two heads looking down at one. But my lungs ached and I could taste the blood on my lips.

Then black rings formed in the centers of my eyes.

I couldn’t hear him but I knew he’d come.

Because I’d flown and I’d fallen. I’d fallen and he was there and he was coming. He was coming. He had to be. And I’d be okay because Terabithia was just a book. Because I knew who he was and who I was and what we’d done and where I’d been. I remembered all of it.

I remembered the sky coated in grey, dark hanging grey, that sunk the moon and stars and I remembered the dotted streets, the little people in little cars. It had been four in the morning and I’d muddied my boots.

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bernadette of lourde's feast day dylan karlsson This Wednesday, a day that happens to be ashen happens to be my birthday, remembers the woman whose body never forgets.

I’ve never been to the grotto in Lourdes but I imagine it to remain in stasis, like the moment before a child blows out all the candles, before the priest’s dirty finger smears across the forehead, waiting for an end to the ritual.

But it doesn’t come for Bernadette.

Her lips ellume no flame nor does her skin flake off dust to dust.

She, only 14, made a promise and was promised not to be happy in this life, but only the next.

Her birthday couldn’t live up to her deathday.

But why should she blush on her bed of flowers anyway?

They light vigils for her virgin soul and let the flame die out itself.

No need for her wishes No need for her presents No need for happy birthday to you, Bernadette and many more.

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on the burning of books dylan karlsson This has all been said before, no doubt.

Each word has gone considered By the best. Who, though I ask, has depleted their thoughts On the page and not shrunk In fear of pure mitosis?

Sometimes, I thank Ignorance for burning Alexandria, For syndicating this burden with ash.

Ash I can take in at once, bits of Soot conform to my identity As I am made from it, and so I return.

But words— Fall through my fingers, Always forgetting of itself, decaying In crucial time and thought, as if Suspended in constant half-life.

We age, not decay And so I will never be empty, But before this jar is wrought with ash, I can only express in more words: I will never be full.

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pareidolia d ylan karlsson Is this the natural flow of love?

Like the fatted calf ’s sacrificial spill, Like the Nile run red with Moses’ spell?

Arid as blackened bile and scorched with ire; Swelling with nausea, you tilt your head Til the pearls are plucked from the Sphinx’s vestige.

Gnoissienne fills the heart like this bowl becomes red, The ivory face flushes down the shroud of Turin; His eyes distort, they see no resemblance in me.

This blood which drips was never wine Coursing through mortal coils, down the drain, Finally the bowl is clean again.

My lips, streaked with the stuff, I am a baboon.

I only see in shapes now.

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Elysium Veronica Takeuchi Walking beside Orpheus was a pallid gentleman—a long, emaciated man, who spoke little but had the voice of a cavernous tomb. Orpheus had met him only a few hours ago. They were traveling through what seemed to him to be a sort of park. The trail they were following had become difficult to see, but it did not slow his strange partner, who seemed to have knowledge of the path, whether through experience or an innate sense of direction, Orpheus did not know.

“I apologize if I’m slowing you down, Friend,” Orpheus said. He was doing his best to keep up with the older man but his feet found every rock and root they passed. “I’m unaccustomed to exercise of this manner.” Though he had height, Orpheus was not naturally athletic, a problem exacerbated by insufficient exercise and long hours sitting at his desk at the university where he worked.

The old man gave a deep grunt in acknowledgement of the statement.

“My wife would make such a fuss that I did not join her on her walks,” he shifted his wedding ring with his thumb. “I should have.”

They continued walking until they reached a fork in the trail.

The second path was lightly tread, layered in grass, and bordered with poppies. This was an unusual sight considering that with the closeness of the trees, the flowers would have little sunlight. Their 91

misplacement struck Orpheus’s curiosity.

“What is the destination of this peculiarly bedecked path?” he asked.

The pale gentleman did not answer right away. Finally, he said, “You can go. But we’ll part here.” The skin on his face was taut and barely veiled the bone structure beneath.

“Why? Is there danger?”

“I don’t go that way.”

Orpheus rested his pointer finger and his thumb over his closed eyelids, a habit of his when he had a decision to make. To lose his only guide through this uncanny park he knew would be dangerous, but the lure of the poppies and the compulsion of his curiosity was greater than his sense of self-preservation.

He let the man know his decision, “I will take the flowered path. Will I see you again?”

“Maybe. If you want to meet again, don’t eat the food.”

The old man turned away from him and continued on his way down the other trail without a glance backward. Orpheus watched the old man’s back get smaller and smaller then turned to face the scarlet dotted road.

He found the trail pleasing. It carried a scent of freshly turned dirt and mown grass that intermingled with the breath of the poppies.

He bent over the flowers and examined their inexplicable health, but finding no answers, he continued down the trail for new clues. In the distance, points of light hung in the air. They were small and white like stars. They bordered the path and appeared to have a specific destination in mind. He followed them.

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At the end of the trail was a clearing in which stood a house of two stories and a gable roof. Its placement was odd and singular.

Orpheus approached the doorstep, and with fingers on his eyes, debated whether to knock. Despite his better judgment, he did.

The door opened. A woman with curled, red hair falling to her waistline stood before him. For a moment hope, joy, and fear swelled inside him, as he believed that this unfamiliar woman was his wife, but every feature that was unique to her reminded him of his loss. His wife’s silver blue eyes and petite nose were no longer to be found in physical form.

“Good evening, Madam. I am greatly sorry to disturb you so late an hour, but I am in need of shelter.”

Orpheus wasn’t being deceitful, but he thought the truth that he was only knocking on her door out of curiosity might make him seem rude. A smile slowly crept across her face.

“Please do. Travelers visit rarely so. Seeing another come this way pleases me. ” She stepped aside to let him in. It was warm inside, even though the fireplace he saw looked unused. The interior was dustless and immaculate. They made their introductions. Her name was Proserpine.

She walked into the next room, and through the open door he saw a young man sitting at a table. They both came into the living room. The young man, her husband, matched him in height but his frame showed he exercised. He had features that would attract any woman, and to Orpheus he offered a cold but welcoming hand.

Proserpine’s smile was more genuine in her husband’s presence, 93

and while they talked, he would hold her hand in his. His eyes never wandered from her when she spoke, and every so often he would caress her. Orpheus unconsciously rotated the gold bands on his finger. The memory of the pleasure of touching his own wife struck him as he watched the couple.

He fidgeted. “Your property has a calm beauty to it. If I hadn’t experienced it, I would not believe it was real.”

“Wondrous, yes? Fantasy revises to reality quickly through powers of sense,” Proserpine replied.

He nodded his assent but sought a means to get away from the troubling scene, “I do not mean to be forward, but would you mind if I rested a bit?”

Proserpine was gracious and led him upstairs to where the bedrooms were located. He noted the size of the second floor was surprisingly larger than the floor below. They passed two closed rooms on either side of them while on their way to his sleeping quarters. His room was comfortably large, and the window had a grand view of the forest. The mass of trees was pitted at varying intervals with other clearings similar to the one in which this house stood.

She bid him good night, and he fell into bed. He lay there feeling raw. The openly affectionate love of Proserpine and her husband exposed the deeper cutting emotions and buried memories of his wife. Their relationship was a taunting reflection of a past once treasured and now boundlessly longed for. The frustration at the bias of existence boiled in him, and he wept for the vacancy that was once his fulfillment and the whole of his peace.

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Unable to bear his thoughts, Orpheus got up. He walked back down the hall toward the stairway hoping to find company despite the late hour. But he stopped midway. A door was missing. He tapped on the spot where the door had been, but it rang solid. He turned and opened the remaining door. It was a room identical to his. He wiped his face with his palm feeling uneasy then turned around and threw open every door on the second floor. It was bedroom after bedroom of the same exact mold down to the folds of the sheets and the fall of the shadows.

As he rushed downstairs, he attempted to rub the tingle of fear out of his skin. The living room was unlit and abandoned. The darkness thickened with his dread. He sprinted through it toward the kitchen, his nerves taut with the expectation of a touch or blow from some unseen specter.

The kitchen was half illuminated from the moon outside. He tossed open the cupboards praying for the relief that would come with the signs of normal life. But there was nothing inside.

The door to the kitchen opened. Orpheus jumped. Proserpine’s husband eyed him from the doorway.

“Can I help you with something?” His footfalls gave no sound as he flowed into the kitchen.

“There’s no food.” Orpheus slowly turned to face him, his body tense with fear. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, and I find that odd. I also find it odd that the house is warm, yet the fireplace is unused, the second floor is larger than the first, and there are rooms that disappear!” Proserpine’s husband 95

shimmered unnaturally in the low light. “And the poppies. Why are there poppies?”

Proserpine’s husband turned and faced the kitchen door staring at it and leaving the questions lingering in the darkened air. He seemed ashen, although as he thought it, Orpheus found that the description was inadequate. It wasn’t a paleness that extruded from him. It was his corporeal form that seemed to lack consistency like a reflection in the water.

Proserpine entered. She turned from Orpheus to her husband and back.

“It doesn’t bode well to look around,” she warned. Orpheus stepped further away from the strange couple. She leaned her cheek on her husband’s shoulder using her hands as a cushion and watched her guest in expectation of his response.

“What is this place?”

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“How could I?” “How did you find your way?”

“I came with an older and very pale gentleman. He led me here.”

“Certainly ‘twas not his plan for you. Prior that. How came you to meet him?”

“Well, when I….”

There was a block in his memory. He tried to get around it.

He couldn’t maneuver it to get to the answer he was looking for, so he searched for an even earlier time: his bride, bright with white carnations and lace. Later, her face plumped, peacefully smiling, her hands leaning on her growing belly. Until the fire died from her 96

cheeks, as she lay in bed covered in the sweat of unrewarded effort, and gasping her final breaths, flame touched hair awry, head fallen.

His muscles froze as his mind used every nerve signal to play and replay her final moments: the rise and fall of her chest ceasing, her eyes distancing, her face relaxing as the pain left her. He ground his teeth trapping the sadness in his mouth and letting it spread down his throat and chest like a bitter elixir.

Every corner of their house he saw her and felt the heavy permeating absence she left. The pristine nursery had mocked and whispered to him the broken promises, not even a crop of curly hair on a child’s head to help him keep a piece of her. The house was emptier from the loss of the future that had been planned to fill it.

He left it, not physically, but permanently with potassium cyanide pilfered from the university lab. Then he was in the strange park following an even stranger gentleman. He swayed under the barrage of memories. His head pounded, and his eyes narrowed.

“Ah, recollection sparks in your eyes,” she said.

“I could no longer be in the place where she no longer was.”

“And you have chosen the place where you can meet her again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here is the forest, Oblivion, that flowers between life and death.

Heaven erect as desire will compel, or if not, hellfire raise. Anything suitable to your taste.”

His mind bloomed with all the possibilities. He could resurrect her and lay claim once again to the things denied to them in life. All the things he’d lost. He could retrieve them all. Friends. Family. His child. His wife. The excitement expanded in his chest, his mourning 97

pushed to the edges of his awareness. His lips tingled and his finger tips warmed at the memory of the brushing lightness of her lips, the softness of her skin.

But the ecstasy gained from hope was tempered by doubt. “At what price?”

“Half the price you have already paid. To be eternally caught in between two worlds, that is the second half. ” “What is the other world?”

“Of that, I cannot speak. But here contentment is promised.”

Proserpine was entwined in her husband’s arms, and as she leant into him, he put his lips to her hair. Orpheus noted that the solidity of her husband’s form was firmer when she was in close proximity to him. He now knew that it was because his whole existence was contingent on her will.

“Can happiness be real when its foundations are shadows?”

Orpheus asked.

“What does it matter the source? One’s emotions are never false even if born through misconception. Value is present in that which brings paradise. And that is what can be yours.”

She went to the cupboards and procured a plate of fruits. She set it upon the table in front of Orpheus.

“There is a place for you here if you wish to take it. You only need to partake in this communion.”

She, with fiery hair so much like his wife’s, stood in surety above the promising fare waiting in expectation for his response. She had set before him everything he had dreamt about in those maddening days of regret and loss following the death of his wife. He touched his 98

fingers to his closed eyes in contemplation of the decision before him.

Orpheus reached out his hand to the plate and picked up an apple. In the red of its skin he saw his wife and with her image came the warm peace of affection, but the corner of his eye caught Proserpine’s husband.

“It would not be her,” Orpheus turned and met Proserpine’s eyes. “She’s already gone before me. If I were to accept, I would only be in stasis, constantly looking to the past. Only attempting to rebuild what was stolen from me.” He let the fruit hang by its stem in his fingers. “The sinews of my existence would be forever swollen by my grief manifested. I cannot partake in this insanity.”

He lay the apple down.

“Foolish man,” she replied.

She waved an arm and the food vanished. The void, where the fruit of temptation had been, attempted to fill itself. The air moved and exponentially grew fiercer. It rushed around Orpheus pushing him toward the emptiness and made it impossible for him to breathe.

He leaned back in resistance to the pull. The light dimmed then blackened, as if it too had been sucked in toward the vortex. The dark was blindingly complete. He felt the sensation of movement, falling or rising he couldn’t tell. The vertigo left him unbalanced. He fought to remain, what he believed to be, upright.

She waved an arm and the food vanished. The void, where the fruit of temptation had been, attempted to fill itself. The air moved and exponentially grew fiercer. It rushed around Orpheus pushing him toward the emptiness and made it impossible for him to breathe.

He leaned back in resistance to the pull. The light dimmed then 99

blackened, as if it too had been sucked in toward the vortex. The dark was blindingly complete. He felt the sensation of movement, falling or rising he couldn’t tell. The vertigo left him unbalanced. He fought to remain, what he believed to be, upright.

His senses took time to resettle after Proserpine’s ungentle farewell. When they did, the feeling of emptiness that had become so familiar to him announced itself. He wept as he said goodbye to his wife once more, but there was no trace of regret.

Orpheus then proceeded back down the poppy laden path. The old gentleman came up just as he arrived.

“Smart man,” the elderly traveler complimented.

“I had my reasons for not accepting. Why did you wish to warn me?”

The old man contemplated the two massive, gnarled trees that guarded the trail head, which Orpheus now saw bore a resemblance to the eyeless sockets of a skull. “Humans get tangled in the ropes of their old lives. But Death is coming out of the womb once more.

There’s still more growing to do.”

Orpheus nodded his understanding. This time he matched his friend’s pace as they trekked the path toward a new evolution.

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Happy Homecoming k atie M yers She looked at the boy in front of her but she did not see the boy she knew and loved and tried to protect. No, she saw a broken boy unravelling at the inconsistencies in his words. She saw three boys because that was what he wanted her to see, needed her to see so that he could know that it wasn’t all in his head because there was too much there already and there was no more room. She saw three boys; one left behind in the house of screaming, drunk kids, one in front of her with a voice devoid of anything, anything at all, and a third boy wrapping his arms around her waist, burying his face in the crook of her neck, words breaking, and taking her face in his hands as though to kiss her.

He smelled like beer. He spoke like he wasn’t there. Switching between himself, telling her one minute how he hated himself and was so sorry and the next, laughing at her words and claiming he didn’t need any of it, not the booze, not the drugs, not the girls who woke up in his bed. He liked them, he didn’t need them. That’s masculine, not needing them. That’s cool, unattached, that’s safe.

An hour ago, where had he been? Beer pong. Perfect; one cup, two cups, three cups. Miss. Vicious words spilled out happy, unvicious. Beer went down easy, next cup—perfect.

So volatile.

She didn’t know what to do except let him hug her, let him lean on her, let him talk himself out about the other guys living in his head 101

and the gods he didn’t believe in and the people he didn’t need to prove himself to. Dad, mom, friends, girls; he just wanted them to be proud of him. He just wanted them to like him. Wait no he didn’t, not anymore.

Are you proud of me? His breath was warm on her neck. His arms were warm around her. Too warm for a November night. I miss you so much. You’re so far away.

He was in outer space and she was standing in a cul-de-sac, thinking the same thing.

How did this happen? He had loved himself only months ago. He had always had a Narcissus smile, lazy laugh, full body hugs that lifted her off her feet and spun her around so that she was the one who had to hold on tightly, not the other way around.

And he had promised, promised her over and over not to do it, not to take it, snort it, smoke it because he knew how it cut her heart in half, but then again he had never been good at keeping his promises.

And selfish.

Stupid selfish boy who couldn’t give a shit about how his actions affected others, or even himself. It was all about fun, about being easygoing, about hazy memories and too loud voices and watching girls leave his room in the morning. That’s the other guy, he claimed, it keeps him happy. Him, like the parts of him were beasts to be chained and entertained, put down if needed and fed when roaring. Anger pouring out and threatening to drown him, drown his beasts and demons and monsters until he couldn’t play with them anymore. She could see it but she couldn’t do anything about it except say, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” even though it was everything but okay.

It was bullet holes in her brain and broken fingers and the way 102

your chest constricts when you feel so much pain that you’re gasping for air and failing to find it. It was falling and drowning and bursting into flames all at once but she told him “It’s okay.”

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Path Independent Brent Kyono There are many ways to go about it, but in the end, everyone does work.

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the time-killer aj urquidi When I retire in the coming apocalypse I’ll take to knitting feather capes to escape the decay– marked onslaught of executed years.

Stranglings will be the moth in my broth as I pour the final dregs down society’s pothole. The trees of parks will be jake with my burying beneath them; they’ll plead 4 AM Andromeda to keep a light lit for the time-killer buffing office floors to the tune of millionaires snoring.

A defabled bugbear, a feeble selfimprovement sweats through the park tonight. For once it isn’t me. I’m busy backseating a taxi with a memory, two wisdom teeth lighter by the time I shuffle home.

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Jane Annie Yu Scattered excerpts from the journal of one Robin I. Peterson.

Heavy signs of wear, in contrast to near-pristine conditions of Peterson’s older journals. Restoration in progress. Property of Belland County Library.

[Entry 19] Our office exploded today. Exploded into colors. It isn’t a rare occurrence; each time it happens, I am treated to a symphony of agitation. Rapid-fire muttering. Flustered shuffling of papers.

Angry phone calls. Sometimes there are a few words of grudging admiration, but they’re lost among strings of invectives and exasperated exhales that spread through the workplace like a haze of nuclear fallout. As far as reactions go, my boss likes to bury his forehead into his palm. Parker favors pacing grooves into the floor and making offended noises. Angela says, “Again?” in a rising scale, a crescendo of indignation. And so on. There’s a lot of annoyance. A lot of muttering about hooligans and vandals.

This time, it was a Tuesday. I didn’t say anything, just sipped at my tea and punched numbers into the computer. Maybe later, I’ll go and have another look. For all that it’s vandalism, it certainly is quite pretty. *Winner of The Writer’s Den 2015 “What Can You Pen?” Creative Writing Contest 106

[Entry 129] I came back from work today to find the apartment transformed into Ground Zero. A great big mess it was, books everywhere, papers overlapping like fish scales, clothes hanging from lamps in ropy vines.

A brief scan of the floor revealed no tripwires or other slyly placed traps—call me paranoid, but when one lived with Jane, one never really knew—and with that done I felt marginally safe enough to pick my way through the carnage.

Jane was lounging on the couch, nose buried in a book, face set in a stony expression of single-minded study. I was not fooled for an instant. Mostly because her book was upside-down. Calmly, I asked her why the flat looked like a product of the combined efforts of Godzilla, vikings, and a tornado.

“Oh,” she said, eyes flicking up over the bottom of the book.

“That was you, not me.”

“Not one of your most elegant lies,” I noted. “Come on, Jane.

What possessed you to ransack the place?”

She huffed. “That is precisely the wrong question. Unless of course you want me to spin you a yarn? In which case I’ll have you know a group of flamenco dancers broke in and made off with the stereo, and I had to track them down and bribe them with the leftover cake to get it back, though it was all just a conspiracy in the end, the actual culprits being the stragglers of an old Cuban crime syndicate, they set the place on fire—put it out, by the way, you’re welcome for that—though, really, you ought to think about putting the extinguisher in a more accessible location, I nearly tore up the place just to figure out where, lost a toe to a carving knife but managed to 107

stitch it back up before…”

She continued her rapid-fire monologue, and I let the run-on sentences flow around my ears, eddying into something that was steady and soothing in a stupid sort of way. I waged a valiant war against the twitches of muscle along my mouth that commanded me to smile. Jane had that kind of effect.

“Budge over,” I finally said, interrupting, and flopped down on the couch next to her. I waved a vague finger in her general direction.

“I don’t care how many zombie terrorists you had to duel. You’re cleaning it all up.”

She didn’t, in the end. Such was Jane.

[Entry 40] I do not know what I thought our mysterious graffiti artist would look like. My expectations were few and unimaginative, mostly comprising of a generic image of some hooded figure, tall and shapeless, like a burglar.

My imagination was wrong on all accounts. She is not tall.

On the contrary, she’s short, built like a square. She also does not resemble a criminal in the slightest, though there’s a stubborn line to her shoulders and a certain cleverness about her eyes that makes me a bit wary of her.

And rightly so. She swept me off my feet the first time we met— not in the manner of some breathless Harlequin romance, but in a literal, ouch-the-concrete-is-hard sort of way. I said I wouldn’t report her. She sent me a doubtful look, but I meant it; her art fascinates me.

It would be many weeks before she trusted me with a name.

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Jane Everett. Jarringly normal. Quiet and conservative in a way that doesn’t fit her at all, like a square peg in a round hole. I’m not even sure if the name is real (there’s a slant to her smile makes me a bit wary) but it will do for now.

[Entry 153] Jane has taken to stealing my food. Trevor from down the hallway frowns through his impressive mustache and tells me I have a rat problem, but I know better. Ever since Jane moved in, odd things have been happening. One day, there’d be dye in my shampoo, and then the day after that, the salt and sugar labels would flip, leaving me with some extremely odd-tasting dinners. Jane plays pranks, and rearranges all my books, and builds forts out of DVD keep cases. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a ridiculous roommate. She’s a child inside the body of an adult.

One thing she doesn’t do, however—she doesn’t paint the apartment, not like she does with the office. She says it’s because I don’t have the imagination, though I hardly see why that would matter. I’m not the one painting, after all.

Trevor doesn’t give up. He sent me a packet of rat traps the other day. I thanked him and threw them away.

[Entry 52] We sat tucked in a corner of a little café, out in the patio. Our chairs were the spindly black ones with intricate crisscross designs that make me think of spiderwebs. The patio yawned open to the sky, a vague shade of almost-blue. The wind swept our words into 109

a muddle that blended neatly into the background chatter of other patrons.

Jane was hunched over her coffee, her eyes narrowed and serious as she sketched pictures in the creamy surface with a coffee stirrer. I have no idea how she did that. I have trouble staying between the lines of a children’s coloring book. She creates masterpieces in her coffee.

We talked. Jane has an odd way with words, in that she can talk a lot and in the end not really say anything. The most substantial I could pry from her was when I thought to ask her why. Why us, when she could have sweeping bridges and brooding alleyways and miles of walls? When she has the whole city as a canvas, why lavish her attention upon an ugly office building with no personality?

“Exactly,” she said. “Because it has no personality, see?” She smiled at me, a crooked little flick of her mouth. “Besides, you guys are the most uptight bunch I’ve ever seen. It’s more fun that way.”

“But we’re more inclined to erase it all,” I pointed out.

She flicked her stirrer in dismissal, launching a glob of cream that hit my nose. Primly, I reached for a napkin and wiped it off.

“Even better,” Jane said, unconcerned. “Nothing lasts forever.” And then, after a pause, she downed her coffee. The masterpiece vanished, swallowed. Digested.

It seems an awfully fleeting way to live. I nodded at her words, but I’m not sure I’ll ever understand them.

[Entry 59] I stared at the façade of the office. It was full of strange blends 110

of animals, both fantastic and mundane. Bumblebees twisting into dragons. Unicorns melting into cats. Words, sharp, bold, angular.

Words in other languages, in French and Korean and Arabic. Shades and hues that clashed, brilliant, sickening, sprayed and dripped and dotted away like color perception tests at the optometrist’s. My eyes throbbed. It was distilled chaos.

Something was different this time. Jane lingered. She hovered by the water cooler, a clipboard pressed to her chest, and pretended to be an intern. I nearly choked when I saw her familiar squarish frame.

The rest of the day I spent trying not to giggle at her exaggerated acting. She was perfectly ridiculous.

Down the aisle, Parker was pacing and grumbling again. Words like ugly and freakish drifted past my ears. Nothing new, but it irked me somehow. Perhaps it was because Jane was there. I don’t know.

Whatever the case, I found myself clearing my throat and saying, loudly, that I rather liked it. That it was a downright dazzling work of art. And then I marched up to the window, leaned outside, and pointedly snapped a photo with my phone.

I turned to find Jane staring at me, an odd expression on her face.

“You really think so?” she asked me later, quiet and vulnerable in a way I’d never seen from her.

“Of course,” I said, bemused.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but now it occurs to me—that was the first time my appreciation for her work leaked out from the back drawers of my mind for all to see.

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[Entry 166] I hang up pictures all around. Photos of art, photos I’d snapped together in quiet admiration. Jane may not mind being the footprints in the sand that melt away with the touch of the sea, but it rankles at me more than I’d admit. The photographs are my way of evening the score, of preserving some semblance of immortality. I hang pictures, and the walls of my apartment bloom to life with art that doesn’t exist anymore.

Today I hastily cleaned my apartment (Jane wouldn’t, the sloth) and, in a gesture of sociable neighborliness, invited Trevor over for tea. He sat by the coffee table and looked at the photos upon the walls, neurotically arranged into perfect brick formation. His expression became pinched, frown lines deepening. He lowered his voice into a gruff baritone and said I needed to move on.

I couldn’t. I’m too protective. The pictures stay.

“They’re just photos,” Jane said, and I glanced at her. Trevor didn’t.

“They’re important,” I said, hiding behind my teacup.

“Not that important,” said Jane, or maybe it was Trevor. My memory is a little confused. I don’t remember what I said next.

Something angry, perhaps. Trevor gave me a long look in response, drenched in a silence that seemed too swollen for comfort.

“You never were the same, after,” he said finally, before thanking me for the tea and hobbling away.

“Why don’t you care?” I asked Jane once Trevor had left. Her indifference confused me. I genuinely did not understand. “Do you not like them? Should I take them down?”

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“You’re still asking the wrong questions,” she said, sighing. I gave up and went to clear away the china.

Trevor’s nosy. The pictures stay.

[Entry 64] Well, it happened. Jane pilfered my journals. I managed to get them back—obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this—but not before she’d had a good glimpse. She got that look in her eye, the glint of interest that pooled thick and shining like mercury around everyone’s ankles, the fumes sending her on bouts of inspired madness while leaving everyone below to suffocate. It’s the look she gets when she’s sizing up a building like an adversary, cataloguing and alphabetizing all its faults and qualities into the swiveling shelves of her mind.

She giggled over a particularly melodramatic passage—don’t judge me, please, everyone was a teenager at some point—and told me that she adored my hideously flagrant purples (whatever that was supposed to mean in her mad artist’s language) and that I had a lot more imagination than I give myself credit for.

“That,” I said, around a peeved sigh, “is not imagination, it’s histrionics. Now if you please, I’d like them back so I can go on being my boring old self, thank-you-very-much.”

Jane sat up, a sudden frown pushing its way to center stage.

“You’re not boring, Robin. Who told you that?”

I gave her a blank stare, not expecting the sudden shift in tone.

No one, I thought. No one told me, I just am.

And because apparently Jane could read minds, she scowled and 113

snapped the pages shut. “No no no no,” she said. “Shut up. You have a marvelous vision. Keep seeing things. Don’t lose that.”

I wanted to say no, she was the one with the vision, she was the one who scraped her soul out on the streets into shapes and colors that pulsed through the city like a heartbeat. I wanted to say all of that, but something caught in my throat so I simply nodded.

[Entry 168] We had a blackout this evening. There was no warning flicker, no sputter of dying light. Only instant darkness, like someone had taken a single scything swipe through the constellation of wires that span our power grid. It unnerved me in a deeply intimate way that I am hesitant to analyze.

Jane helped me ferret out the candles, setting them up in staggered rows of semicircles. With nothing much else to do, we played board games by candlelight. During Scrabble, Jane kept insisting that bizarre amalgamations of letters like CRWTH and WAQF and BRRR were valid words. In Monopoly, I utterly destroyed her. Jane arranged her funny money into complicated patterns while she complained how unfair it was, I had a gross advantage with my evil accountant skills, and shouldn’t there ought to be a rematch with a proper handicap? I just laughed and laughed at her sullen pout, at her funny money collages that seemed so colorful even in the dim light, at how everything just pops out nowadays in great swirling hues like a filter had been lifted from sepia to chromatic, how it wasn’t like that before, before all this when when 114

When the lights came back on, I woke up to find myself surrounded by choirs of burnt-wick candles. Two board game boxes sat in front of me, glossy and unopened.

[Entry 68] People sometimes tell me they don’t know how I can stand Jane.

Flighty, mercurial Jane, who has a propensity for lying that borders on pathological. What they don’t understand is they’ve got it backwards.

Somewhere along the way, Jane became my friend, and I became hers.

I’m not good with friends. I don’t know how Jane puts up with me.

“How do you put up with me?” I asked, looking at her past the monitor of my computer. Jane blinked at me.

“Stupid,” she said. “You’re fine.” And then she stole my pack of gum.

[Entry 231] The office hasn’t exploded for a while now. No impromptu murals, no eclectic rash of graffiti bloomed over the face of the walls like a fever of some tropical disease. I wonder at the reason behind the pauses. Jane never waited quite so long before.

“Lacking inspiration?” I half-teased. Jane was there again at the office, in another one of her ridiculous paper-thin disguises. I’ve not a clue how on earth she hadn’t been caught yet.

“Wrong question,” Jane said airily, adjusting fake spectacles that ate up half her face. I smiled and peered out the window again. Still blank. Over in her cubicle, Angela was giving me an odd look, which I steadily ignored. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, because Angela cornered 115

me in the lunchroom later. A few renegade hairs had escaped her dark rigid bun, and she was chewing her lip something fierce. She asked me if I was okay.

“Fine,” I replied, blinking in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Angela’s brow creased into worried lines.

“And here I thought I was the liar,” Jane said, all ludicrous glasses and lopsided smile. Angela ignored her and I frowned. I don’t think Angela ever liked Jane all that much, but the way Angela stared through my friend like she wasn’t worth acknowledging seemed to me terribly cold.

“If you need a few days off, I’m sure we can g—“ “I’m fine,” I cut in, letting Angela’s bewildering concern slide off my back, water on oil.

“She’ll figure it out eventually,” Jane said, though it wasn’t entirely clear to me what she was talking about.

Which is fine, really. Jane is Jane is Jane, like impressionistic paintings, like quantum mechanics—not something to be fully comprehended.

[Entry 84] Jane called me her best friend today. I think I walked through the entire day in a daze. My boss lectured me for stapling napkins to important documents and knocking over his army of fake plants lining the halls. They fell over like dominoes and nearly broke a window. Angela somehow managed to record a video of the whole thing. Parker thinks I’m drunk.

I’ve never had a best friend before.

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[Entry 109] There was an accident today. Something about a car crash.

People keep looking at me and whispering, and it’s putting me on edge. I think I’ll go over to visit Jane later in the afternoon. Perhaps she’ll have some idea. She’s street-slick with quicksilver eyes and fingers. She knows things.

[Entry 236] Forgive me for the subpar handwriting. I’m still a bit…

We went to the park. A stroll, generic, relaxing. The kind of walk that brings out the silent unspoken things, that reaches deep down into your lungs to draw out bits of soot you never realized you’d been coughing on.

“Is Jane Everett your real name?” I asked, and Jane gave me a vaguely amused smile, like she couldn’t believe it’d taken me so long to ask it. Even so, she didn’t really answer, just murmured something about names and roses before staring up at the sky to paint frescoes with her eyes. Quick, darting strokes. Still the wrong question, then.

There’s a little pond down the path where I like to toss bits of bread at the ducks. I did so, and they swarmed toward my offerings like homing missiles. I broke off a piece and handed it to Jane to throw, but they ignored hers. At this observation I teased her— Enemy of Ducks, I called her—and we both crumpled in laughter, though hers was edged with something hesitant and a little hollow.

Uncharacteristic. Strange. It occurred to me that a lot of people tended to ignore Jane these days, which didn’t make sense. I always saw Jane as the type to command attention, much in the same way 117

that metals conduct electricity. She’s bold, brilliant, vivid. There are monochromatic people and there are colorful people and then there is Jane.

We made our way back to the apartment. Passersby drifted around us on the path, like a slow river against a boulder. A few of them I sent a wave and a smile, and watched them smile back, watched how their eyes slipped past Jane like a skipping stone over water. I watched, and for the first time in a long while, I saw.

People still flowed around us as we stood statue-still in the middle of the sidewalk, and though this time their gazes held somewhat more annoyance, they were still the same. Skip, they went, over Jane. Blank-faced, square-shouldered Jane, who watched me as I watched them.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened again.

“Are you real?”

“Ah,” she said quietly, smiling a little. “Now there’s a question to ask.”

People wondered at me, later, why I had fallen to my knees in the middle of the sidewalk. Why I huddled there for hours, alone. I very pointedly refused to answer.

[Entry 110] Majority of this entry is crossed out. Below are the parts that have been recoverable.

Oh my God. The accident, they were talking about Jane. I do not believe it. I can’t [—illegible scribbling—] wish for impossible things. That I’d done something, anything, different. It haunts me. I 118

can’t sleep, can’t [—water damage—] out of my head, abolutely [sic] terrible, and [—more illegible scribbling—] est friend. Oh God, my best friend is d— [The last line is the only one that isn’t crossed out.]

All just a bad dream, of course. I’m being silly. What was I thinking?

[Entry 130] For all that Jane drives me mad, somehow I can’t imagine life before her. It’s like she’s always been there, spilling bits of herself all over the streets. Her colors, her personality, her moods. On the other end of the spectrum, I can’t imagine life after Jane, either. It’s useless, really. Before, after—I’ve never had much of an imagination.

[Entry 255] My friend is I [Entry 256] My best friend is No I don’t think she would what am I supposed to how [Entry 257] My best friend is dead.

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[Entry 258] I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to write. Why do I even have this thing?

[Entry 260] I finally accepted Trevor’s rat traps. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed before; the signs were rather obvious. He asked me if I was moving on, and then looked a bit lighter when I said yes. Though his eyes bugged out a little when I said I wanted to burn all my pictures in a giant bonfire. He put up an immediate protest. Said I was being reckless and silly and that bonfires were dangerous. But he’s British, and I’m pretty sure those people burn an effigy of the same man every year as a holiday, so I really don’t think he’s in much of a position to judge.

We compromised by burning them in a fireplace. Not that I have a fireplace, but Trevor knows a friend who does. We all clustered around the hearth, and they watched as I carefully removed the pictures from their frames and tossed them into the blaze. I felt no remorse as they twisted into black crusts. The pictures aren’t right, I can see that now. They aren’t meant to be preserved and protected in pretty glass cages. They aren’t meant to be immortal. Jane wouldn’t have wanted that.

Fire reminds me of Jane. Always changing, jumping, unpredictable. The fire took my proffered photos and sculpted them into curled black roses, crinkled and glowing and beautiful. It felt like I was returning them to her. It felt like the ease of a burden.

And, deep inside, something clicked into place.

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[Entry 275] Our office exploded today.

It was the first explosion in a long, long while, and I didn’t fully realize until then how much I’d missed it, missed the colors and patterns plastered all along the walls like ivy. The art didn’t bother anyone this time, mostly because I was the only one who could actually see it.

Around four o’clock, I blinked out the window and the patterns vanished as if wiped clean by a cosmic hand. Then, slowly, like a pencil sketch, a different image built itself up in my head. Building up and tearing down. Creation and destruction. Life and death. There’s a sort of freedom to it, of being able to let go and start anew, and it was a freedom so fierce and profound that it moved me to literal tears.

Angela and Parker spent a few awkward minutes as a dual human conveyor belt of tissues until I was able to contain myself again.

While thanking them I pictured Angela’s hair licked green at the ends like grass shoots curling up to the sky, and Parker’s crow’s feet sharpening and growing into literal ones while dark bird feathers sprouted from his eyebrows in a parody of a masquerade mask. And then crying turned to laughter and I laughed and laughed and now I’m quite certain that my coworkers must think me mad.

It’s nothing like the insanity Jane could have conjured, but it’s enough for me.

[Entry 276] I can see.

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moon at midday Amelia Ribbens “She is like the moon at midday,” he said.

“Both confusing and intriguing, an unexpected wind that fills the sails of fascination and is gone.”

The moon is always a woman, is she not?

Only she would be bold enough to test the sun, entering his throne room, smiling coyly from behind a fan of sky.

Even as you wonder, she begins to fade.

Satisfied that she has caught your attention, she leaves you stranded, an astronomer at midday.

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gesture amelia ribbens The tree reaches up like a hand questioning; frozen in a moment of perpetual expression.

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“Trees” Lyndsay Ogawa Medium-charcoal Nature has been a significant inspiration in my work. I’m continually exploring the beauty, peace, and resilience that nature reflects. “Trees” specifically reflects the observations I made while watching the trees, thinking about the life they give and the energy they create.

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grandma tree b y the roadside Samm y rickY Leaves adorn the days, sensible to the season, coloring them as honeydew, warm tortillas, chilis de ĂĄrbol, and earthy beans.

Her branches twisted towards a parked Sedan, wise to avoid the shadows cast by bricks.

Her face is wrinkled, strong, hardened by rain, sun, wind, rain, sun.

Her roots roamed rich soils, shrewd, discerning nutrients from gravel, water, clay, decomposing mass.

GuĂ­ame en los caminos de vidas ricas; ProtĂŠgeme bajo la sombra de tus almas.

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Brown Puerquitos: A Failed Love Affair Fanny Garcia

Part I – Savior I must have been seven or eight years old when my mother had an affair with the pastor of the church. He was also the town baker and lived in a small room above his panaderia in Tuxla Gutierrez. I remember his hands were always white with flour. His clothing smelled of vainilla y canela. My mother walked in asking for pan dulce and walked out with the baker’s heart. She had never been religious but that night she burned all her Julio Iglesias albums and swore she would never listen to “that devil music” again if only God made guapo from the panaderia stick around for a while. Senovia, my mother, met Ramiro on a Tuesday, gave up Catholicism on Wednesday, and by Sunday, she was being baptized at one of his tent revivals. She was not going to let this one out of her grasp. He was endorsed by the Holy Ghost!

Before Senovia accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, she was very disco. Shiny lycra pants hugged her petite frame and the platform shoes she favored made her look almost 5’4”.

She had the most beautiful mane of curly hair that she styled in a very Amanda Miguel kind of way. The song “El Me Mintio”, made Amanda Miguel a star and became my mother’s anthem for all her failed love affairs. It was played on radio stations every 20 minutes 126

followed by indignant female listeners who called the radio station to vent their frustrations about all the lies men told to seduce women. Senovia’s problem was never a shortage of attractive men fawning over her. Her problem was that she could not keep them. Senovia believed with her entire soul that every man who promised to marry her, to build a life and a family, and to adopt her little daughter, would actually make true on that promise.

After two or three months of trying to fulfill the promise, the men walked out. We both thought Ramiro was different. He owned a business. He loved Jesus. He loved Senovia. He loved me. We did not see an end to our fairy tale with him. We only believed.

I liked Ramiro. Well actually, I liked his pan dulce. I didn’t even tell him which one was my favorite. He took one look at my chubby brown face and knew what I liked. He handed me a perfectly made puerquito wrapped in a cloth towel. The piglet shaped bread was still warm. He said he had made it especially for me. Mom and I looked at each other knowing we had caught a good one. None of her boyfriends had ever won me over so quickly. I did not know it then but Ramiro was the closest thing I would ever have to a father.

“Soy de El De Efe,” he said to me, “I came to Tuxtla Gutierrez because my wife was crazy, loquísima. She is Catolica.”

“What is Catolica?” I asked while my chubby hands slowly turned the cookie looking for the best bite.

“Catolicos, like my wife, are hypocrites!” he said, pounding the dough with his fist, startling me into biting the puerquito’s hind legs.

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His spit filled with anger and resentment. I was too young to know what he meant but my mother liked the fervor with which he said it. Four years after arriving he founded a small nondenominational church because he hated Catholic hypocrites like his wife. La Iglesia Sinai held services in the bakery on Wednesday and Sunday nights. I am not sure if it was the Holy Ghost that moved everyone or the smell of baked goods.

Ramiro came into our lives at a time when my mother was determined to turn her life around. She was living a life that she was ashamed of. She was twenty-something, unmarried, unloved—a single mom, working nights at a nightclub as a fichera.

She was paid to entertain the men who came in to the club for a drink. The more she entertained, the more money the club made.

My mother entertained a lot. She was one of the favorites. She wanted a family for me but I suspect it was for her too.

“I don’t remember my mother’s face,” she often said to me, “she left before I could see myself in her.

Why she left has evolved into chisme. Some say Senovia’s mother left because she wanted an education and her husband wouldn’t let her have one. Others say she left with a man.

Senovia never bothered to learn the truth. She moved in with her grandmother—the cruelest of cruel women. Or, Mamita Santos, as she was called by the children that she raised who were also abandoned by their mothers. My mom and aunts are forced to remember their childhood when they count the scars on their backs and legs from the beatings they received as kids. Where were the men, the fathers? My mother met her father only once.

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He made her uncomfortable by insinuating he’d pay for her college education if she let him kiss her. She never saw him again and she never did go to college.

Perhaps this is what made Ramiro so appealing to her.

Married men, in general, had the most appeal. Before Ramiro there had been four, no, maybe five, married men that she had affairs with. She would not like it if she knew I was telling you this. She does not know that I know. For her, married men were foolproof. They made a commitment already and so all she needed was that commitment transferred onto her. My own father had been married when she met him. She carried on a love affair with him for almost a year before she met his wife. The statuesque brunette with red lipstick rushed into his office one day. My mother quickly gathered the blue dress that lay in a heap at her feet, pushed it past her mane of wild curls, squeezed it past her breasts, let it fall on her hips, and walked away. A few weeks later, she was pregnant and alone. I never met my father or his statuesque wife.

Ramiro taught me how to make my beloved puerquitos. I learned about the molasses and hint of spice that flavored them and I poured the dough over the pig shaped cookie cutter until I was sure they would come out fat and moist. My mother joined us from time to time but her puerquitos came out skinny and flavorless. Her specialty was making the designs on the conchas.

She used a knife to cut lines through the chocolate, vanilla, and pink frosting on top of the shell-shaped breads. She developed a knack for it. She started to get creative with her designs and soon 129

she could draw Frida Kahlo’s face or La Rosa card from the Loteria game. They were edible papel picado designs and the customers loved them.

When she was not making the fast selling papel picado conchas, my mother was busy moving us into Ramiro’s small apartment above the bakery. We lived across the street in a small room she rented for the two of us. Whenever she came home from seeing him, she was always missing an article of clothing or a shoe.

She did not notice until I pointed it out. Eventually more than half her wardrobe was at Ramiro’s. Whenever she needed something, she would walk across the street and change into the dress or skirt she had conveniently forgotten at Ramiro’s apartment. When Ramiro finally asked her to move in, we only had to move the bed.

Everything else was already there.

Part II – Possessions The single most important occurrence that made Ramiro decide to have a tent revival was the incident with Marta. She was a local woman that everyone called La Trastornada. She had owned a beauty salon that she operated from the living room of her home until she went a little crazy. Without regard to their choice of haircut requests, Marta started shaving everyone’s heads.

The men did not mind it so much but the women ran out of her salon crying and headed to the local wig shop. Soon after she lost her business and her home and began roaming the streets yelling “Si no tienes pelo, no tienes pecado!” She walked into the bakery/ 130

church during a Wednesday night service. Ramiro had been in true form that night. He was inspired by a verse he read in The Book of Revelations. Ramiro always preached from Revelations.

He believed that all the other stories in the Bible were not as important as getting ready for the end of times. He was doing his part to ensure every soul made it into Heaven. He preached that the only thing people needed to know about Christianity was that every one of us was a sinner. We would all die in the pits of Hell unless we turned to God and asked for forgiveness for the evil in our hearts. He was loud and thunderous that night and little drops of spit landed on the parishioners sitting in the front row with every word he spoke.

Marta, La Trastornada, walked in right off the street and slowly made her way up to the altar where Ramiro was busy being moved by the Holy Spirit. Man, woman, and child fainted as she passed them. You see, Marta had been homeless for a few months now. She absolutely refused to take a shower even though many offered her access to one. The parishioners who attended services that night have still not recovered from the stench of her presence.

Ramiro quickly deduced that Marta was possessed by the devil. He ordered the entire congregation to start praying. He took a step back and called upon the power of the Lord to give him strength. He raised his hands in the air and they came crashing down on Marta’s forehead.

“Fuera demonios en el nombre de Dios!” screamed Ramiro.

Marta thrashed.

“Fuera demonios!” Ramiro screamed again and Marta 131

crumpled to the floor in a heap.

The congregation leaned forward simultaneously and tried to get a glimpse of the endemoniada but Ramiro said, “Sigan orando hermanos! El diablo todavia esta aqui! Sigan orando!” The church continued to pray and some even started speaking in tongues.

This is when the second thing that made Ramiro want to have a tent revival happened—I started laughing. Uncontrollably.

Big, loud guffaws that made my eyes tear up and made me want to pee. I could not help it. I do not know if I was nervous, scared, or uncomfortable but I do remember that listening to everyone speaking in tongues was the most incredibly hilarious and ridiculous thing I had ever heard.

“How could everyone forget their español?” I thought to myself.

I kept laughing because whatever language they were speaking sounded so made up. It was as if they had taken a word in Spanish and jumbled it up to make gibberish. A word like “sanala” was said like “sanalasanalasanalasanala” and “cuidala” sounded like “cuidalacuidalacuidalacuidalacuidala.” It sounded so silly and it just made me laugh to see them so serious when they spoke in tongues. Even Marta thought so. She started laughing with me. Nobody liked that.

My mother was crying. I looked towards Ramiro and he touched my forehead with his hand and prayed. I was now the one possessed. I tried to explain that I was fine but they insisted on laying hands on me. At the end of the service, Ramiro announced that a tent revival would take place to ensure that all demons had 132

been cast out from both Marta and me.

Part III – Exodus The tent revival took place on a huge plot of land owned by one of los aleluyas. It was a rainy December. I positioned myself on a makeshift chair made of discarded wood and watched the tent go up. The water falling from the edge of the white tarp looked like the lace veils the women wore during church services. The Bible pages wet and dripping ink revealed that they were bought on the cheap at a mercado in the nearby town. The mud stuck to your feet like clay and the water rushed through the mismatched chairs, benches, tree trunks, and truck tires that served as pews. The downpour’s symbolism was not lost on anybody. The Lord created this tremendous storm to carry away any sins you may have walked in with. Los aleluyas walked around with an appreciative look, never complaining about what a tremendous nuisance all the rain and mud was. They tried to look dignified in wet clothes.

The altar consisted of several wooden tables and a piece of carpet someone had donated to cover the dirt beneath. A blue tarp hung overhead and attempted to protect the worship instruments: a drum set without skins, a guitar with three strings, and a bullhorn instead of a microphone. Ramiro did not want to be electrocuted while delivering his Jesus-inspired sermon.

The tent revival’s purpose was to cast out any remaining demons from me, and anyone else holding on to them. Ever since 133

my laughing fit, people had been looking at me strangely. As if they could not quite believe the exorcism had worked. I gave them every reason to think I was still possessed. I stuck my tongue out at anyone who tried to approach me and laughed uncontrollably from time to time for good measure.

Ramiro and I were not on speaking terms ever since the demon thing happened. I stopped eating his puerquitos and stopped visiting him at the bakery. I barely spoke to my mother.

The only physical contact we had was when she brushed my hair.

“Why hasn’t Ramiro married us yet?” I asked.

In response, she yanked my hair harder and made my ponytail tighter, which gave me a headache and worsened my mood.

The first night of the tent revival was also the last. Before Ramiro’s sermon, los aleluyas sang and worshiped and yelled, “Bendito sea el señor!” while I sulked in a corner. My mother was embarrassed. Ramiro cut the worship short and launched into his sermon. He preached from Revelations. Again.

“The Lord has given me the power to cast out demons!” he said. Then he said a bunch of Hallelujahs and Amens and GloryBe-to-Gods. Ramiro then ran to me, grabbed my hand, and placed me at the altar. Front and center.

Ramiro preached, “I’m going to place my hand on her forehead. Hallelujah! God is going to work through me and as soon as my hand touches her forehead…hallelujah, hallelujah… the Holy Spirit is going to fill her soul and she will drop to the floor!

Hallelujah!” but nothing happened.

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I didn’t drop to the floor. I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit. I did not hear the gates of Heaven opening. Instead, what I heard was a loud commotion coming from somewhere inside the tent. I opened my eyes and saw shock on Ramiro’s face.

A woman was rushing through the middle of los aleluyahs and headed straight for Ramiro. The woman was his wife. She yelled things like sin vergüenza and canaya and hit him over the head with her purse. Ramiro protected himself with his Bible while the woman continued to pummel him good. I now understood why Ramiro called Catholics hypocrites. His wife was wearing a black dress and heels. Every inch a proper woman. The words that came out of her mouth, however, were not proper at all. She called my mother a puta, despreciada, idiota, estupida, una roba maridos. I looked at my mother and saw tears in her eyes.

She was losing Ramiro. She grabbed my hand and rushed past los aleluyahs who had instantly traded in their worship for chisme.

It took my mother four hours to remove all traces of us from Ramiro’s apartment above the bakery. Unlike our moving in, which had been slow and unintentional, our moving out was fast and definitive. He would have asked her forgiveness but his wife stood guard at the door of the apartment to make sure my mother didn’t take anything with her that wasn’t hers, including him.

Los aleluyahs had deserted him. La Iglesia Sinai was finished. He was now just a panadero and no longer the pastor of an evangelical church. His wife had already hung a sign on the door of the apartment that read, “Este hogar es Catolico”.

I walked up to Ramiro and told him I was not possessed by 135

demons and that I was mad at him for thinking I was. He handed me a puerquito, touched my chin, and told me he was going to miss me. I took the puerquito and said nothing. At least I had my mother back.

Three days later, my mother and I boarded a bus bound for Tijuana and then further to California. My mother took Ramiro’s Bible from his apartment and never spoke about him again.

Puerquitos are no longer my favorite pan dulce. Many men came and went after Ramiro but every time another relationship ended, my mother would pull out his Bible. She read from The Book of Revelations, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near,” and wondered when her time for familial happiness would finally arrive.

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art laboe and the prison industrial complex: dedicated to you penelope uribe-abee Art Laboe and the Prison Industrial Complex: Dedicated to You is a project that documents the relationships between forms of communication and resilience during confinement.

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Art Laboe is a longtime radio DJ who has broadcasted "oldies but goodies" for over half a century from Southern California. Laboe's radio show spans across Southern California and the Western part of the U.S. His show has given voice to Chicano and oldies culture, but more interestingly and importantly, his show is a tool between incarcerated loved ones and the outside world. His dedication segments allow prisoners and loved ones to listen in to various shout-outs from their families or friends. By exposing the forms of communication taken on in prisons, I hope to celebrate the livelihood and creativity of the human spirit, while exposing the evils and ineffectiveness of the Prison Industrial Complex. The project is also an exercise in documenting oral histories.

Penelope Uribe-Abbe: What is your relationship to Art Laboe’s Show?

Gabriel Lopez: Well, you know, I’m 38 years old, and I grew up in El Sereno and East L.A., so I grew up to oldies, like I could recall some of my first memories of my uncles and mom listening to 45’s, and me and my brother and my cousins—we used to make fun of them. We used to laugh at that music because we were kids, and not having no idea what they were singing about, what they were going through—it’s beautiful music. But as I became a teenager, I got into a gang when I was 14 and oldies and gangbanging kinda go hand-in-hand—as far as Mexicans and Latin gangs. So I started getting familiar with Art Laboe, I can’t remember—I think it was in 139

high school when I listened more to Art Laboe. Especially in prison, cause I’ve been to prison almost half my life, so everyone on the yard will talk about ‘oh tonight’s the Art Laboe show, tonight’s the Art Laboe show’ and everyone’s listening, listening to see if they’re going to get a dedication. And you know, the thing about Art Laboe is you run out of songs to play, sometimes some people will say they play the same songs every week, but to me it’s not about the songs it’s more about getting real emotional ‘cause some people don’t have no communication. Some people will be locked up in prison, in the hole, and they can’t even make a phone call, they can’t get letters but they can have a radio. So they might hear their wife, their sister, their kids, their mothers. They get a song to them, and that might just be the little boost of energy they needed to get through the day, to get through the week, to get through the year probably, cause sometimes people are in the hole for years—and that’s the only time they are gonna hear their family’s voice. So to me, being from East L.A., Art Laboe is a part of life. To me, he’s Chick Hearn to the Lakers.

PUA: Or like Vin Scully?

GL: Yeah just like that. You know it’s funny cause like three or four years ago ‘cause like I’ve never really been to concerts or gone to clubs or nothing, because only 17 months ago I decided to change my life, I got a job. I go to college, I work, I mean I changed my life drastically, but before then I got 24 parole violations and three prison terms, so before this my average stay out would be two months, and I’d be in El Sereno running around with my homeboys, so I’ve been in prison 140

almost all my life. But three or four years ago I went to the Art Laboe Valentines Day Concert, and that was my first time ever seeing him, and we were like 10 rows back, and I remember when he walked on stage I was like: ‘that’s Art Laboe? He’s a little, tiny guy’ I pictured him as a big guy, ‘cause he’s an icon—that day I tripped out. I’d never seen him before.

PUA: When you were in prison did you get any dedications? Or did you just listen in communally?

GL: No, not me, I just liked to hear it. When I was living the life I lived—I’ve been out for 17 months, and I’m never going back—but before that, the longest I’ve been out since I was 14 was three months and a week—so I never had a girl that would stick by me ‘cause they knew I would go back to prison anyway, so I never had a dedication or nothing. But it just motivated me to hear the dedications and the people. Every once in a while, you’d hear El Sereno, and lot of the time it’d be people I know, people on the yard, or people I grew up with when I heard the names, you know?

PUA: What are some of your favorite oldies?

GL: My favorite all time groups are like The Moments, um, the Delfonics, like The Temprees, umm, The Stylistics, those are some of my favorite ones. Those are the ones I can picture like in high school, like ironing my clothes, for hours creasing my clothes and um just listening to oldies, and like those are ones I can really—like, Mary 141

Wells—it’s the ones that really put the heart into it. Like you know when they wrote those songs, the way they sang them—they were really, really, really going through something, something that you know at the time—I could relate to and what not. I just love those groups, and I love all oldies and I’m starting to explore and expand you know, out of all music—except for heavy metal. But except for heavy metal, or anything all crazy, like reggae and stuff I’m not into.

But like, you know, I’m into like uhm—you know what I listen to a lot? Kinda embarrassing, but um Katy Perry and stuff.

PUA: Yeah, haha, pop music?

GL: Yeah like I rock Katy Perry on my headphones, listen to all her songs all the time, like on the train like—I’m probably bumping my head, right? I see people like Cholos, getting on the train and they tell me what’s up, you know—all Cholos have mutual respect—they don’t know what I’m bumping. They probably think I’m listening to oldies but I’m listening to Katy Perry—you know what I mean?

PUA: Haha.

GL: But um, basically I love oldies. I grew up on them, and almost like every song is gonna remind me of someone.

PUA: Like every song has a story.

GL: Yeah, like every song, like every street like in my neighborhood, 142

every song I can see certain streets, certain friends that died maybe.

My mom passed away seven years ago, especially the ones about my mom cause my mom, she worked at the county general hospital for 37 years, so was raised in El Sereno, you know she’s Chicana so she would listen to Art Laboe all the time, too, you know? And I used to make her CDs. My brother still has all the 45’s they had.

PUA: So it’s multi-generational. Do you ever remember listening to oldies for the first time? Or was it something that just happened?

GL: I could remember some of my earliest memories in life, I remember like I used to play 45’s at my grandpa’s house, cause when my uncles were gang members from my gang, um so they used to have their friends over all the time, and I grew up on… you ever heard of Locke Street?

PUA: Yeah GL: That’s where I grew up so, like um, like the whole street was my homeboys, so I saw my uncles, all the cars—bumping oldies, so, but I remember I think like everyone starts off with like, “Confessing a Feeling,” “Always and Forever,” “Baby I’m for Real.” Those are the three basic ones. If you wanna be a Cholo those are the songs you have to listen to first. Those are the first ones you remember. You know what, as a matter of fact, I just had a flashback, have you heard of Shirley and Lee?

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PUA: Yeah, yeah.

GL: The song called Lee Goofed, it goes “Remember Darling” and the voices are real funny, not funny, but just but those are some of the first ones I remember. Me and my brother used to laugh like man ‘what are they listening to?’ We used to laugh at them, ‘what are you listening to’ and my mom, my mom, uncles would say like you’ll see watch, you’re gonna listen to this. Those are the first ones. Those are the basic ones. The introduction to being a Cholo.

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“Chi-Chi” Britania Jones

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Three Goodnights and One Goodb ye Abigail Salcido The first goodnight was in August when Abuelita died. The bright paint on the outside of the house was chipping, the walls seeming to expand in the sweltering heat as if breathing. The neighbor boy, Thomas, had skinned his knee but was too tough to tell his mom, even as the skin seemed to glow red in the slanted afternoon light. We were nine, he insisted, and we had to learn to be tough. At least that was what his big brother had told him. His brother was thirteen and already in junior high. He had a girlfriend and everything, as Thomas had told me as we sat together under the lemon tree. His face had scrunched up and he dug a twig into the rich earth. Girls were weird.

The sun was long gone by the time I was called home. We had been playing archeologist, unearthing treasures in the compressed earth of the alleyway behind our houses; an old can opener, a small travel-sized bottle of Crown Royal which gleamed promisingly in the fading light, and a Canadian penny which he had let me gleefully pocket. We were on the cusp of a big discovery, like King Tut’s tomb or Stonehenge. But then we heard my name, echoing across the yard.

Ana! ¡Ana, mi hija! Ana! I dragged myself slowly up the steps to where my mama stood on the porch. She almost never shouted out for me in Spanish. I must’ve been in trouble. I shoved my hand in my pocket, small fingers feeling for the penny as she wrapped an arm 152

around my shoulders. Thomas stood at the fence, as if afraid to cross back into our yard without her permission. My parents liked him well enough, but whether his parents liked us was a different question that I never dared ask. Mama waved hello to him before kneeling, tucking a strand of dark hair behind my ear.

“Your abuelita is gone.” She whispered almost, words fluttering from her lips like birds with broken wings. “I just got the call, mijita.”

She had been waiting by the phone all day, cigarette perched between nervous fingers. Every once in a while she noticed that she’d burned through one and fumbled in her apron pocket for the next. Daddy didn’t like her smoking but with Abuelita so sick, he turned a blind eye. I’d played in the sun all day, pretending the pounding of my heart was a product of archeological discovery. I suppose we’d all been waiting.

I nodded mutely, fingers gripping tighter around the penny.

It bit my skin, pinching with cold metal edges. Abuelita hadn’t had a clear-headed conversation with me in a long time. She just kept telling me that the war would be over soon and my great uncle would come home. Mama said she was stuck. But between my mama’s redrimmed gaze and Thomas’ wide eyes, now I was stuck. And for some reason, all I could think to do was ask what was for dinner. Mama stared at me for a long time before answering in a cracked voice, like wax paper. I waved to Thomas and he let the gate snap shut in front of him.

“Good night,” They were my words but it didn’t sound like my voice.

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The second goodnight happened through the ache of metalbound teeth. I hated my braces practically more than anything. I was thirteen and picture day had felt like an impending catastrophe. Still wearing my hair in braids seemed bad enough, but adding the face full of metal was heartbreaking. In the hall, Jessica Grant liked to take hold of the plaits of hair from behind, whipping them like the reins of a horse. At lunch Angel Castillo made fun of my cold hot dogs and avocado slices. I could only eat so much with my sore mouth, and it was all we could really afford anyway. The avocados had come from my tío’s tree. They didn’t cost a penny! My mama loved a bargain.

We were spending enough money on me as it was. Who knew if I would need glasses soon? I would if I took after my daddy. At least that’s what she said on the phone to my tía back in Arizona. I was lucky to have a daddy with a steady career. A daddy with benefits, like health insurance. A white daddy, as some of the others in our family would never let us forget. They whispered it in Spanish, as if he hadn’t picked up any of the language over the years. They did the same thing when the older ones grabbed my face in brown wrinkled hands and searched for features of La Raza in my mixed complexion. I always pretended I didn’t know what they were doing. It was easier.

I defiantly unbraided my hair in front of my bedroom mirror, playing my music as loudly as I dared. Daddy was cooking dinner as Mama watched her program in the living room. They were taking turns cooking and tonight it was his. It was a new thing they were trying out, at the suggestion of one of Daddy’s co-workers. Things 154

had changed since Abuelita passed and Mama didn’t always wake up feeling clear-headed. But the marriage wasn’t on the rocks. Oh no, never. I looked my reflection up and down, trying to hold my lips just so to hide the braces beneath. I had to get better at this if I wanted picture day to be a success. My hair puffed out in rivulets, a muddy river. A rat’s nest. But I puckered my lips anyway and imagined myself on the cover of Teen Vogue. Cover girls lived in places like Paris and New York City. And they didn’t eat uncooked Oscar Meyer wieners at their glamorous luncheons. The volume on the television rose, my music no longer sufficient. So I crouched through my open window and into the cool evening.

Thomas was playing a video game when I tapped on his window. He motioned for me to come in without looking away from the screen. Some man in combat gear stomped across a desolate cityscape, gun in hand. Rain pelted digitized asphalt and Thomas stared, transfixed. His fingers danced across the controller, dodging enemy fire, and I couldn’t help but think of my abuelita. She’d been living in a war until her dying day. My great uncle never escaped, and neither did she. And here we were, playing with it. My fist instinctively curled around the Canadian penny in my jacket pocket.

I took a seat on the carpet and watched him, neither of us saying much before a tap came at his bedroom door.

“Shit!” He cursed quietly, pausing the game. “My mom doesn’t know we’re—” He seemed to think better of it, “You have to go. I have company. I lost track of the time.”

“Thomas, honey!” His mother called, “Jessica’s here!”

“Jessica?” My voice was dangerously loud, an opposition.

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“I invited her over for movies,” Thomas shrugged, but he motioned for me to quiet down.

“Well, I’m sure she’d be cool with me—” “Ana,” “What?” A raised eyebrow. A tilt of the head. A look of a mule about to kick. He read the signs across my face.

“Thomas? Are you in there?” His mother’s voice filtered in like a broken suburban record.

“I’ll be right out, Mom!” He called, tossing his controller aside.

His gaze slid to where I sat. He inclined his head toward the window, the universal signal for get out of my damn house. Jessica would be taking my place soon. Jessica didn’t have train tracks strapped to her teeth and her honey-colored hair always lay neatly over her shoulders.

Jessica came in through the front door.

“Right,” I stood stiffly, the blood rushing to my head. Grey specks blurred my vision, glittering like motes of dust and obscuring Thomas’ impatient face. I could smell my dad’s overdone chicken through his open window, and I knew it would be shut soon.

“Dinner’s almost ready anyway,” a shrug was my only defense against looking truthful. Looking needy, disappointed, or some other word I didn’t want him spitting at me in his head. He was quickly combing his hair in the mirror when I crawled back out the window.

“Goodnight,” I said it like it mattered, but he wasn’t even listening. ...

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The third goodnight was slurred through swollen lips. Lips that had been pressed to my mama’s cheek in the morning and a red plastic cup at night. My parents were sleeping in the same room again, things patched up just in time for me to move away to college.

I got a need-based scholarship, which my parents bragged about but I didn’t. Who bragged about being poor? If I told anyone at all, I left the reason blank and hoped they’d assume it was for some kind of academic achievement that didn’t exist. Chicanas didn’t make it to big universities like that very often. I knew what people were thinking: Damn Affirmative Action keeping my kid out of the top-tier schools because some girl with a Latino surname applied. I didn’t much care about that, but I knew one thing for sure: Affirmative Action could score you a letter of acceptance, but not a boyfriend. I didn’t yet know that almost all of that was erroneous, but high school only taught you so much.

Kyla Kalnas threw a big party the Friday after high school graduation. Her mother was a divorcee and was spending the weekend with her boyfriend in Palm Springs. Kyla had a fake ID and cash from a guilty parent—she was basically living the dream life, according to the other girls. I’d hitched a ride with Amber Garcia, who was going to community college in the fall and didn’t talk about it much. She was a nice girl with wide-set eyes and more doodles in the margins of her notebooks than actual notes. The rumble of her car was deep, the rusted body lurching and creaking as we went. Calling shotgun was something I’d become quite good at as I’d come to prefer isolation. A place where you didn’t have to worry about your skin rubbing against someone else’s or if you’d forgotten deodorant. But 157

even the security of withdrawal staled.

Amber picked up two other passengers: Breanna Kostelecky and Thomas. Thomas and I seemed to be a packaged deal that way, though he only hung out with me between girlfriends those days.

Breanna was Kyla’s best friend and she never let anyone forget that.

She was going to spend the night and just needed a ride there. Kyla would’ve done it if she weren’t so busy getting everything ready, Breanna was quick to explain.

The liquor was low-grade, plastic bottles swishing on a wooden coffee table. Magazines and a coffee table book about the fashions of Audrey Hepburn were shoved beneath, sitting forgotten on a cushion of plush carpet. Nobody seemed to know what to do. We’d finally gotten the freedom that teenagers seemed to acquire so easily in the movies. We could run wild. We could dance too close to each other and smash the porcelain dishes in the kitchen. But nobody seemed to get it. I wasn’t prepared for this. I talked to a boy whose face I don’t remember. He sat too close to me on the couch as everyone drank to loosen up. He must’ve filled my cup four times.

People were becoming more comfortable, wiggling from their self-conscious skins. Their faces glowed in the dim light, sweating and nameless. Only one face had features that made sense to me, and he was dancing with another girl. The penny in my pocket seemed to find my hand as if by magic and I rubbed it viciously as the faceless boy fought for my attention. I imagined the coin’s design ebbing away under my thumb, Thomas’ face joining the sea of anonymity. I went on to my fifth drink.

The funny thing I found about being drunk was that I didn’t 158

realize how drunk I was until I tried to stand up. I stumbled to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I’d cut my hair short in a fit of rebelliousness, but my parents had actually liked it. They said it suited me. They defeated the purpose. I wanted it long again. I’m not sure when I found myself kissing a faceless someone, but it was soon after that. He pressed himself too close to me in the hall and I shoved him away, all snarled teeth and pointed elbows. I thought of my abuelita and the war in which she lived. My war was probably just as fabricated.

Thomas’ features came into focus as I stepped around the faceless someone. His lips formed an o-shape and his cheeks flared red. The shock on his face made me laugh, something terrible and animal from my gut.

“You have to go. I have company.” I spat the words in his face as I gestured to the boy, but my heart surged with adoration. Te adoro, te adoro, te adoro. I was a very bad liar, and he knew that.

I don’t remember much about the ride back except that Amber was stone-cold sober and very irritated. She’d just gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, who was a sophomore in college already. She ignored the way Thomas’ hand brushed tentatively against my knee in the backseat, and so did I. She was down the street and out of sight when he pulled me against him on the sidewalk, our mouths finding each other clumsily. It wasn’t how I’d always pictured it. I felt wanted, but not adored. He was competitive and this was the first time someone had categorized me as a prize. So naturally, he had to win. But I was willing to play a game with him for old times’ sake. A game of make-believe. So we ducked behind the fence and crawled in 159

through his bedroom window. He left the lights off.

I whispered to him in the dark, breath hitching. I loved him. I loved him. I loved hi— “Ana.” His voice was sleepy, fingers ghosting along the notches of my spine. I rolled over and he kissed me, fingers lacing through my hair.

Suddenly, words rose up through my throat like bile as we broke away, “Te odio, hijo de puta.” It was a sigh of contentment, but the words didn’t match. It seemed to shock him as much as it shocked me. He knew what I’d said. I’d taught him too much when we were kids.

He jerked back, as if startled from some gauzy, distant dream. “This was a mistake.”

“Good night, Thomas.” And suddenly I was crying in his bed, untangling my bare feet from his sheets without another word. I left that damned penny on his windowsill. Safe behind the barrier of the wooden fence that surrounded my yard, I took the blunt steel edge of the shovel to the lemon tree’s trunk.

“What a fucking stereotype!” I hissed, banging at it too loudly to be safe.

The gashes in the trunk wept. I didn’t dare uproot it. ...

The goodbye happened with nobody around to hear. It left my lips quietly, like an old friend from a party where they aren’t quite welcomed anymore. Like a prayer that would never be answered, 160

unresolved. It rooted itself like the lemon tree, a complicated network of connections delving into my chest. I never told him that I loved him. Probably because I didn’t. The car trunk closed with a satisfying bang, and I did not turn around to look at his house. I hadn’t told him that I loved him, because what I really said was more along the lines of, “I hate you, motherfucker.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.

“Goodbye.” It was lost in the buzz of the engine as I pulled away from the curb.

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how to breathe rebecca tang inhale a cloud that perspires on a droplet fantasy. hold on to your husky desire as you catch vapor ringlets with your throat softly, kisses fluttering down your vocal cords whispering secrets as you take in the smoke and mirror mystery.

~

sigh a deep heaven on summer skin cool on your shoulders. draw in that perfect “O� and listen with lips that eclipse arid echoes of the sun-freckled wind. setting white-hot fires inside your lungs blazing a kindred ardor.

feel the dust bowl curl out of your mouth as you shout profusions by the molecule. crush and grasp the fluttering sentences air-born in suspension, leaving ash-etchings on your mouth tempted for another taste of evening songs smoky on your tongue.

~

keep alive these exhalations.

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hair day rebecca tang when clumps fall from desperate palms just out of moment’s touch fingers grasping for locks on the floor curling cells

breathing

it’s going to be okay is no longer soothing when lungs become a time-stamp for each second of air hitting the bedroom full-fledged

flight

kicking down a chest full of drugs mid-afternoons dripping in sleep when that last lump of pride is swallowed whole like a pill

taking off

end ings more endings until the cold-cut truth is nothing more but lesions on breasts *Winner of The Writer’s Den 2015 “What Can You Pen?” Creative Writing Contest 164

when the outline of the bed no longer comforts a self-stranger on sheets arms as needles tied down to the wire anchored

remedy

bloodlines through tubes when waiting grows more and more each giving day sit ting wish for final visits to the clinic doctors saying everything’s all right it’s getting better.

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1981 robin smith It was closing time.

The last of the clothes were left folded in clean, neat stacks for the next morning, all laid out beneath the photo of his daughter riding a chestnut Morgan. His ex-wife glittered in the background.

He locked the doors to the laundromat and joined his partner outside.

He couldn’t help but think back to the stretch of field of his hometown the train becoming a beautiful rattle with the moon, and this here, right now, all the city lights aflicker with some kind of magic.

Here we are two dying men and with you I’m home, he thought.

His partner had his hands in his pockets, and his eyes glanced from the concrete and back up, there was a serene kind of strength caught up in them.

He wished then, that he believed in time travel, he wished he could go back before 1981, before Regan became president, before they rediscovered the Titanic, before AIDS had a name.

Back before he left his ex-wife, 166

it was just the sunlight his partner sitting on the edge of the bed, playing guitar a lyric caught in the air like a sparrow in the rafters.

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A little boy is always blue Cameron Murphy

ACT I The little boy was born.

A big baby, 12 lbs.

It was wintertime and the wind so whipped as to be somehow almost sensed, inside, within the metro area hospital in which the little boy was born’s sterile and spacious and white-tiled halls.

He made small squeaky sounds.

He figured out what people are.

He turned two, at which age it would begin—innocuously enough, the whole family surmised. A little one’s curious hobby.

A precocious tyke’s age-apt interest. Like how some kids are just drawn to dinosaurs, just cause.

This was how Mom, Dad, and his big sister Sarah had regarded the little boy’s peculiar pastime; they’d considered it an odd and cute but probably fleeting phase; one at which they’d probably all of them look back one day and just sort of shake their heads. Share a good laugh, together. They’d basically thought nothing of it.

Which, to wit: the little boy started freezing things. Just like that.

Who knew why.

His first word: map.

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So it was in this family of four’s youngest’s fourth winter alive wherein they’d all started to sort of catch on, as to what perhaps might be going on here. To this very odd hobby he’d developed so suddenly. Solidifying in ice whatever he could get his mitts on, evidently.

Which custom moreover customarily consisted of the little boy situating assortments of various “small objects”—the first incident of which’d involved a rotted, wrinkled strawberry, rather grotesquely leftover from its dinner—into a nice glass cup. Filled about to its brim with tepid, clear tap water.

And it’d just sort of nest there, frozen. The item in the ice would. For an indefinite amount of time. In his family’s big red freezer.

The little boy turned five.

Any sort of impetus or causation for the thing was wholly indiscernible to the family. But, all three of them were in collective agreement that it was all verily pretty darn adorable, somehow.

He was especially enchanted by Batman.

Yes, a bit bizarre, too, perhaps. Sure.

But with little doubt in their shared opinion they’d decided it was all very cute nonetheless indeed. In that way one’s kid can just sometimes be, to one.

So they just let him be.

His sixth b-day bash was Batman-themed.

And it became a weekly thing, his freezing things. Big sis Sarah started to intuitively brace herself, when in transit towards the fridge, as to what the heck she’d happen upon in there this time.

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He played late into evenings with neighborhood kids.

He did his red toy race car. A shiny scarlet tack. Mom’s lush ruddy lipstick, sans lid.

He started reading unprompted. And swam, for his school.

The little boy then froze a single plucked-off petal from his visiting Aunt Viv’s Welcome Back from the Peace Corps potted cranberry-red peonies—for which this time he’d (finally, really) received a stern but due talking to. Which parental reproach betrayed a pretty pressing and understandable underlying urge to just get at some sense of the bottom of it.

His aunt’s name was Vivian but everyone just called her Viv, for short.

However, at the end of the day, as it were, never a thought of punitive measures were ever even like hypothetically entertained.

Theirs was just not that style of parenting. All anyone ever wanted, really, was just to grasp just who exactly the little boy truly was, was all. What was going on. Inside his supple, biscuit-beige-skinned body.

His teachers circled Satisfactory on behavioral reviews.

He’d open up when ready.

And so at this juncture in the little boy’s early life they (i.e., Mom and Dad, mostly; Sarah having more than enough adolescent shit of her own on her plate right now; God knew where Viv was)’d concluded that the whole thing was just a small one’s one thing that made them special. Idiosyncratic. Colorful, even.

But still, the little boy’s always loving family would pretty much remain in the dark and bemused and befuddled as to why, 170

exactly.

He regularly played Catch with a side of the house.

ACT II So then it went on like this for several years.

The little boy ventured into pubescent times. He sported flat bills backwards.

He felt funny sometimes, southward.

Then, shortly after the puberty’s advent, something odd occurred, to the little boy: what had been heretofore a healthy head of congenitally maize-blonde hair up top had now abruptly taken on something of a light reddish tint. Utterly out of nowhere. It was gradual but striking and never brought up conversationally, ever.

And accordingly or no, at this point the little boy ceased to freeze just whatever.

His voice was smaller when he spoke. His eyes rolled often.

He spent an inordinate amount of time in the basement’s bathroom.

Surely something was going on, inward, in the little boy.

But alas, though, his was a most unforthcoming and detached and distant adolescence, like most everyone’s, such that his loving family had to be totally tactful and always assiduously mindful as to both what the little boy did and ostensibly definitely did not want to discuss, like at dinner.

He was away for weekends at a time, sometimes.

Mom and Dad (and now even to some extent Sarah, herself 171

now finally at the finish line of her own life’s very trying such stage) could only just abstractly imagine notions of the probable crushingly negative tolls a totally precipitous and conspicuously apparent anomaly such as the changing of one’s hair’s hue—from a comely corn-blonde to redhead, no less—might perhaps have on a little teen boy’s inner psychic state. Whose inner psychic state’s plate is already way replete with copious helpings of hormonally-induced angst, of course.

He started digging French New Wave.

The little boy at this point was almost unbearably morose and acerbic and unpleasant just to even be around; he was probably hurting a whole lot, though; they really did feel for him, and tried so hard to understand.

Interestingly it was soon discovered that he was now freezing single strands. Of the changed red hair. In the chilled ice water.

He’d hole up in their local library. Went to prom stag. And was accepted into the college into which he’d really wanted and hoped and even (though he’d never admit it) yearned to be accepted.

Theirs was a top pre-med program.

He met a girl, and was seriously considering Pre-med.

And these frozen-solid blocks of separated, sole threads of hair seemed as if to signify . . . something, one would sort of have to suppose. Especially if one were to consider the all-too-coincidental timing thereof, no? What with him about to leave home for the first time and all.

He fractured his femur playing touch football with friends.

To a great degree of parental woe, this hoity-toity school into 172

which he went and got himself accepted was all the way over on the opposite coast. And not their first choice. Dad’s alma mater was their first choice. That would’ve been nice. Also it wasn’t exactly “budget-friendly.” And was he really sure he wouldn’t get just a little too homesick?

He was sure, he averred.

Not like they were upset at him or anything. Not at all, not ever. He would be given final call, of course—his future, his call, of course.

It was just, you know, that they’d miss him. An awful lot, was the thing.

But OK, both parents conceded. Alright.

It was what the little boy seemed to want, so it was alright.

And so it was Mom acquiescently shrugging her shoulders at Dad so as to signal a sort of gesture of well-what-are-ya-gonna-do that tacitly and sadly affirmed to them both that it was high time to finally resign to accepting the grueling-to-swallow but elementally true fact that this, right here, is what being a parent unfortunately and ineluctably and more or less definitionally entails. Like when you sign up for the gig. Back in that bedroom.

So they started following the university’s soccer team’s season.

And Googled famous alumni. And shopped around for stuff for the dorm.

And remarkably, there were what looked like spark-imbued looks, in both of the little boy’s blue eyes, as he set up his first semester’s schedule. Dad alongside, advising.

While still the top rung of freezer was allotted totally to the 173

clear cups of locks. Still frosted still in ice-solid states.

The university fielded a sorry excuse for a soccer team.

But then, right before he left for that first fall semester, there was a new and notable development, seemingly, regarding the little boy’s strange hobby.

It ended, it seemed.

He’d up and cleared the whole upper shelf. Of all that he’d put in. As if to wipe his inner slate: Clean, pure. Perhaps putting pen to paper of a whole new chapter, inside.

Though again, zero words on why.

Post high school’s summer came to its close, whereupon the little boy was now ending his childhood in earnest, at the airport.

There were warm, ursine, see-you-later hugs all around. There was “something” in Dad’s eyes. And Sarah made a little comment like Try not to screw up too bad, bro.

But you could tell she’d really miss him.

He got in safe to the university’s small town. He abided Welcome Week.

And every single follicle on the little boy’s body went a bright, brilliant, almost bloodred; even those on his two big toes.

Campus life was just his speed.

ACT III They were all three of them there waiting for the little boy—Mom Dad and Sarah—there at his hometown’s airport’s baggage claim. Freshman year’d gone off hitch-less. He’d returned 174

triumphantly—The College Boy, the little boy.

They helped him claim his baggage.

Mom just had to say something about how long his hair had gotten; and it was, still, no less that unaccountably lurid reddish shade; maybe now more so than before, even; which none of this was still not ever voiced at all, as was the well-known MO by now.

His tattered thrift-shop getup smelled of either marijuana or cigarette smoke, a little.

A summer job as a delivery driver for a regional sub shop chain of speedily-delivered-subs was grudgingly procured.

Sluggishly performed. And coolly quit, after only about a month or two.

He came home late.

He left lights on.

And so that curious phenomenon of sorts of the little boy’s—a little boy who had had, it surely bears stressing, a real surfeit of time during his boyhood during which he was boundlessly free all over his bony little hands, during which free time, if you recall, he’d freeze those sundry trinkets and toys and then his very own hair eventually thereby amassing those translucently clear cups into a sort of unsettlingly odd and murky menagerie way back when he was just a little boy—was: over, it seemed.

Summer ceased.

And then, subsequently, a couple quick years later so too did the little boy’s undergraduate studies. End, that is. Over the course of which he’d ended up majoring in Bio-Chem. With an emphasis on this hot new emerging subfield therein. Cryo-Bio. 175

Plus too at some point in the little boy’s four undergrad years there was a pretty big pregnancy scare. With some crazy bitch. For whom he hadn’t exactly borne any profound feelings or nothing.

She’d wanted to keep it.

She did not keep it.

Sarah married a man who shook hands hard; Dad’s non sequiturs signaled ever towards Alzheimer’s; and Mom sought a vocation in volunteerism, with ole Viv. And the little boy graduated after an extra semester with his hard-earned hardware—a timber-framed, burgundy-brown Bachelor’s degree that got his last name’s tricky spelling right— reposed square on his robbed lap.

He was ready for all that the Real World might hurl his way.

Someone he kind of knew of at school died, overdosing.

He buzzed his head bald.

And somehow or another he ended up securing this sweet post-grad study spot, in a nationally-renowned cryobiology lab, of which was the enviable stuff of what those in his field’s wet dreams are basically libidinally made.

Cum laude, the little boy.

ACT IV Dad died. Viv too. Mom moved, westward, somewhere, possibly to the Phoenix area and Sarah called on salient occasions—last the little boy’d gleaned she’d divorced and decamped with the kid to some sleepy 176

coastal town’s placid, watercolored life. Which definitely sounded nice.

The little boy lost all his hair.

And was a regular at local joints.

And never did find the one to whom he might “come home.”

Though Olivia (an admissions counselor at the school; a six foot sad woman) came seriously, achingly close, he told himself.

A nasty little war was waged with prescription drug abuse for a while there.

And over the ever-toiled course of his career’s long years—every single one of which the little boy’d been tirelessly if not maddeningly driven and devoted to myriad weighty academic pursuits all of and about which he really had cared so very, very deeply—he’d accrued a pretty staggering quantity of top-quality, peer-praised articles/studies in his field.

He didn’t much mind the bald look at all, actually.

He sort of just had to stomach his students.

Of particular esteem in the lot of high research was: an argument firmly for concertedly increased (but vigilant, mind you) efforts towards realizing realistically realizable monumental developments in the still rather nascent disciplines of cryogenics and -biology whereby the intensive and conscientious and “all in” efforts of which might someday—some glorious, sun-soaked day—reduce the toxicity of the at issue and all important cryoprotectants with which (i.e., with the effectively detoxified cryoprotectants) cryobiologists might one day conceivably be able to make water in effect so substantially vitrify as to allow for banking of organs. For transplantations.

He put down a down-payment for a new place.

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His big course thicket of pubic hair was all still there, though. Still a shade of light rust-red.

Which he’d only rarely regard. Like only when showering.

He rarely showered.

And moreover, w/r/t the little boy’s Work’s real aim or thesis or mission: he’d earnestly opined in spare academic prose that the toxicity that inevitably (for now, at least, in his (at that time) present opinion) occurs in the vitrification (i.e., freezing) of human organs (the benefits of which are endless and sort of self-evident, the little boy submitted) will one day be: reversible—but, though, only with a great deal of further research and corollary development of Future Molecular Repair Technology.

His rhetorical devices and own personal story really hit home.

For the vast congregation of convention hall colleagues. At the annual conference, in Tampa, FL. FMRT for short.

The little boy looked lost in pictures. His gaze lingered on the nubile for too long. And the feelings he found inside himself in these his old, cold, still years were more or less impossible to ever just even say.

In his own head, alone.

ACT V It was in a late-winter’s wee AM hour wherein the little boy could’ve sworn he’d just heard someone. At his condo’s fiberglassed front door.

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He was in the bathroom. In the basement.

He developed a penchant for biopics.

Applying pleasure to himself when the rap outside was heard.

He eschewed all dental hygiene.

It was Sarah, perhaps.

The toilet seat’s piercing cold porcelain struck sharp on his hot sweaty skin.

A surprise visit.

He made small squeaky sounds.

Or Mom, out there.

But the porn froze before he came.

They’d talk.

The glazed glassy-eyed expressions of the film’s players on the buffering screen were such that the little boy kind of mentally came back to; his body back-turned on the pot; nice mac laptop atop the white toilet tank. And he, there. Longing.

Just like a little boy.

There was no one outside.

So he slapped at the keyboard’s black plastic buttons.

Just the hard whip of wind.

As if he could set right the still clip.

With the weight of a life’s worth of winters. Spent always indoors.

The screen stayed frozen.

He never really figured out what people really are.

He rose up.

And went blue.

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EPILOGUE His posture ever canted. Old interests somewhat waned.

He got sick.

He scored tenure.

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contributor's notes Emily Adams is a first-year English student, a fashion blogger, and comedy enthusiast. She indulges in cooking, laughing, and writing (in no particular order) and aspires to write for Saturday Night Live. Emily enjoys reading creative non-fiction and similar unconventional formats, while she chips away at her own comedic bits and prose. She attributes her attraction to comedy writing to her favorites, Woody Allen and Mel Brooks.

Sam Bozoukov likes playing Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 with his roommate when he’s not browsing the internet in search of cat pictures.

Sam finds inspiration and joy in the smaller things of life, such as bouncy balls and LED lights. He normally writes for The Daily Bruin but his dream is to one day write stories that examine the human condition through excessive Biblical allusions.

Thomas Feng is an award-winning student composer and third-year music composition student at UCLA. Sarita Flor-Zed Schreiber is a first-year art student. She enjoys reading magical realism, exploring, and consuming massive amounts of sugar.

Fanny García is a non-traditional, commuter and transfer student of English. Fanny was born in Honduras, and raised in Mexico and Los Angeles. She is the Founding Editor of pLAywriting in the city, an arts journal based in Los Angeles. She has written several plays including “Portrait of Ten Women,” which chronicles the lives of Latina women living with HIV/AIDS. Her play, “The Rosalila” received a workshop production directed by Luis Alfaro in 2010. She’s currently working on a collection of short stories. You can follow her on Twitter: @GirlWryter.

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Britania Jones was born in Granada Hills, California and has been a resident of the San Fernando Valley ever since. Britania’s work is primarily done in graphite and acrylic mediums and is highly influenced by subject matters associated with video games and popular culture. She intends on transferring to UCLA in the fall of 2016 for her BFA in painting. Britani has held a solo exhibition at Los Angeles Mission College and has had art featured at Galeria Gitana in San Fernando, California. She has also exhibited in numerous art shows around the Los Angeles area and will be selling prints of her latest works at Anime Expo 2015.

Dylan Karlsson is a first-year English student at UCLA. He mostly writes poetry, creative non-fiction, and unfinished short stories. His digital art can be found hidden on his google drive.

Brent Kyono is a second-year mechanical engineering student. Aside from pursuing photography, he likes to spend his free time riding bikes, climbing rooftops and taking long walks on the beach.

T.m. Lawson is a UCLA undergraduate who enjoys going into used bookstores and libraries, grabbing random books, and reading them in 24-hour diners. Her favorite forms of creativity are doodling, poetry, and flash fiction. She currently lives in Los Angeles, studying creative writing. For more of her work: tmlawson.com.

Glenn Llorente is a composer, influenced by Eastern and Western aesthetics. He studied composition at CSUF with Pamela Madsen (M.M., 2011), and at UCLA with Ian Krouse, Roger Bourland, David Lefkowitz, and Richard Danielpour (Ph.D., 2016). He is recipient of numerous awards: the Cota-Robles Fellowship (2012183

16), the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship (2015), University Fellowships (2013-15), the Graduate Dean’s Scholarship (2012-14), University Grants, (2009-2011), and the Mannason Scholarship for Composition (2009-10). Glenn is winner of the CSUF New Music Festival Orchestra Competition (Solace for orchestra, 2011), and has been commissioned by the Orange County Collegiate Orchestra (Marie, 2012), the Vanguard University Symphony Orchestra (David and Goliath, 2013), the Midnight Druthers (Equilibrium, 2014), and by the Smith and Scullion duo (Metamorphia, 2014). He has been a featured artist in the 12th Annual World Electro-Acoustic Listening Project, Grand Central, Santa Ana (Humanus Pravitas, 2013), and the Eureka! Musical Minds of California (Ang Bakus ni Orion, 2015).

Hailey Motooka is a first-year undergraduate student from Honolulu, Hawai’i. She is currently on a pre-dental track with the hopes of one day becoming an orthodontist. However, if she could pick any job in the world without consequences, she would become a writer, because there is nothing more comforting than sitting down at a desk and putting your thoughts down on paper.

Cameron Murphy, a fourth-year transfer from California State University, Northridge to the University of Louisville, studies an interdisciplinary major including a minor in Creative Writing with concentrations in Philosophy, Sociology, and Theatre Arts. Cameron plans on being a barista to pay bills and studying something at the graduate level. He’s been the recipient of two Creative Writing Scholarships at the University of Louisville and has published non-fiction in Eclectic Magazine and drama in the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s New Voices Anthology. He prefers black coffee and springtime.

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Austin Beltrand is a second-year UCLA student majoring in neuroscience and philosophy. His interest in poetry began through a spoken word coalition in his hometown of College Staton, TX. Austin has since written in a variety of styles.

Katie Myers is a first-year English student who aspires to be a magazine writer, novelist, and world traveler. Katie loves reading fiction and fairy tales, while her inspirations include authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Vladimir Nabokov. She also enjoys wearing oversized sweaters.

Daniel Noh is a third-year English student with a concentration in creative writing. When not writing (which should be never), he worries about the rising cost and rarity of film. He is concerned that he is spending far too much time taking photos instead of writing, but tells himself that in the end, all of this can be used as “material,” whatever that means. You can follow his instagram at @ danielyesnomaybeso.

Lyndsay Ogawa is a first-year art student who finds that through the surrounding world, accompanied with culture, passions, and circumstances, she can express her thoughts through artistry. Pieces she creates, reflect emotions and experiences she undergoes.

Amelia Ribbens began writing poetry in the “scrunchie age” of the mid to late ‘90s. Her favorite poets include Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore, and 20th Century Brazilian poets João Cabral de Melo Neto and Vinícius de Moraes. She loves to travel and you can keep up with her current escapades, and read more of her work, at her blog www. ameliaannribbens.wordpress.com.

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Sammy Ricky is a fourth-year chemical engineering student. When he is not locked up in the Math and Science Building studying for an engineering exam, Sammy loves to read, get to know his friends’ stories, and write poetry, spoken word, and rap. You can find more of his work on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ SammyRicky4God. Ruben Rodriguez is a fourth-year English student. Both of his parents are writers. Most of his life has been surrounded by stacks of books on bookshelves and intense dinner table conversations, all for the love of literature. He writes various bits of prose and poetry in his spare time and plans to grow as a writer/editor for years to come.

Abigail Salcido is a third-year transfer student majoring in English. Her hobbies include having imaginary conversations with Emily Dickinson and Skype-ing with her dog. In the past year, she’s become a master at functioning on no sleep and hiding her fanfiction from her roommates.

Lyndsey Silveira is a fourth-year at UCLA. She can most often be found haunting the halls of Bunche or the Humanities building.

When she is not doing some kind of work or scribbling in her journal, she likes to delve into the unknown, whether it’s an obscure Wikipedia article or an intriguing woodland footpath.

Robin Smith has published in magazines worldwide and won the Academy of American Poets Prize. She received her B.A. at California State University, Northridge and is currently completing her Masters degree.

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Reem Suleiman, an aspiring poet and calligrapher, is a recent UCLA graduate with a degree in comparative literature and a minor in Middle East and North African Studies. Now based in San Francisco, Reem works on civil rights issues pertaining to Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian communities unjustly impacted by over-broad national security policies.

Rebecca Tang is a fourth-year English student, minoring in French and society, and genetics. She has been writing poems since fourteen, and gets her inspiration from Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats, and female poets Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Besides poetry, many of her other hobbies include baking, blogging, and 3-D origami.

Penelope Uribe-Abee is an artist, experimental filmmaker, and educator. She currently attends UCLA in the Art program. In addition to making works, she is an educator at the Fowler Museum at UCLA as well as an instructor at The Echo Park Film Center. Her works are based in community learning, activism, and storytelling.

She has shown her works at various galleries and venues including: REDCAT, The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, and Plaza de la Raza.

AJ Urquidi is an UCLA alumnus, majoring in Creative Writing with a special focus on poetry, as well as a Film & Television minor. This year, he receives an MFA from Cal State University, Long Beach. You can find more of his writing at http://americanmustard.weebly.com/.

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Tulika Varma is a first-year English student with a penchant for classic rock and furry things. Her hobbies include writing, destroying the patriarchy, and crying while pondering the nature of existence on Sunday afternoons (if time permits). If she ever has the time and expertise to start a blog, you can read more of her work there.

Nick Versaci is a first-year student at UCLA and plans to double major in English and statistics. He’s the author of three or four unpublished novels and a few short stories, and he dreams of becoming a published novelist. Besides writing, he enjoys reading, running, and watching movies that don’t use too much CGI. Connor Warnick is an undeclared first-year who is planning to major in American literature and culture and minor in Film. He is from Brooklyn and his favorite movie is Kids. Aside from literary arts and film, his interests include rap, basketball, and fashion.

Annie Yu is a third-year engineering student who dabbles in the multifarious arts as spare time allows, and oftentimes not even then.

She enjoys making others laugh, writing vaguely historical fiction, and contemplating the nature of extraterrestrial life. Currently she is working toward becoming some hybrid species of geotechnical/ environmental engineer, and hopes to one day steer her efforts toward helping humanity avoid a Malthusian catastrophe.

Omar ZahZah is a Los Angeles-based short story writer and poet whose work has appeared in such publications as Poetic Diversity, bozalta, and Narrative. He is a graduate student in comparative literature at UCLA. See more of his work at www.omarzahzah.com and www.deathcomic.com.

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Westwind accepts rolling submissions year-round of unpublished original works of prose, poetry, art, and music by UCLA students, faculty, alumni, and members of the greater Los Angeles community.

We currently publish two online journals in Fall and Winter and one print publication in Spring.

We’re extremely open-minded, send us your best work.

For more information, visit us at westwind.ucla.edu

Copyright © 2015 by Westwind, UCLA’s Journal of the Arts

Copyright: Font: 806 Typography Courtesy of Leonard Posavec Images: “popcorn” Courtesy of Rhett Maxwell “A ‘Way-Back’ Look at the Sun” Courtesy of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center “Binary Code” Courtesy of Cncplayer “Prairie Creek Redwoods” Courtesy of Owen Llyod 190