Category Archives: Fiction

JEEP, RED by Donald Collins

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Jeep,-red

JEEP, RED
by Donald Collins

She was the Mail Lady, an aging bleach-blonde in jeans and bright fleece. All around campus there are poorly cropped images of her smiling face like “missing” flyers. I pass by one fast, and realize I am running.

My run finds me on the precise, mile-long road that surrounds our high school campus. The sun is rising, and everything is so beautiful and shines so brightly that I have to keep blinking. I don’t remember starting the run, but it’s easy to forget things you’ve done many times. There is something else I’m forgetting . . .

I’m late!

I cut my loop short, sprinting through our common up to the front of my dorm. I tug on the resistant handle, locked out, and recall the picture of my ID sitting on my desk.

There’s no one around so I break in, scaling the familiar lattice up to the second floor balcony. I pop the summer screen, and shiver through a thirty-second shower.

At 8:30 a.m. there is a memorial assembly for Jackie, our Mail Lady, who is dead.

◊

The clipping in the local paper read:

Beaumont Police report one dead after car accident on S. Palisade Avenue.

The accident took place around 5 o’clock Thursday afternoon on the intersection of S. Palisade and Main.

Police say a Jeep, red, ran the Avenue stop sign and collided with an oncoming car, whose driver was killed instantly.

Names are being withheld at the family’s request. Police investigation is ongoing.

◊

Only a day later there is a nice long article up on the school website, a formal obituary. It paints Jackie as an angel of patience and warmth. It quotes students who considered her a mother-away-from-home, and tells of the unfillable hole her passing leaves behind. Reading it makes me feel as if my whole body is dripping in honey, but I cannot deny its truths, and this: I loved her too.

◊

The afternoon she died, I had run late to the mailroom with a package. It was an essay for a statewide contest—a contest with a scholarship prize of $1500. In my last minute rush to meet the deadline, I had botched the address.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jackie promised me. “It’ll get there in time.”

“Thanks, Jackie.”

“Now hold on a minute!”

“Yeah?”

“C’mere, I got something I think you’ll like. It’ll only be a sec; I know you’re busy. But they brought it in today and I said, ‘I’ve got a few kids who will get a kick outta this.’ You gotta see it.”

“Jackie, you’re winding me up.”

“Take one of these.”

She foisted a tootsie roll on me, and led me around to the back.

In the far left corner, the narrow, cement-colored room turned into a set of double doors. An old keypad armed with a red light hung on the wall next to them, and she lazily punched in the code “1-2-3-4.” Inside was a long row of laundry carts, some large packages, and then . . .

◊

The school had ordered a new mascot suit, a fresh-smelling upgrade of our customary owl in a heather grey jersey. The costume was laid out on a plastic table like a disappointing autopsy, its open, man-sized box on the ground. The head was an owl’s all right, but the body was green with a yellow stomach and long, spiked tail. An alligator.

“You’re kidding me,” I said.

“I wish I was. It arrived that way.”

Disembodied in the low light, the animal appeared more sinister than I originally noticed. I certainly didn’t trust it, and couldn’t believe Jackie had just left it here all day while she went about her business.

“I don’t know how they got it so wrong,” Jackie said obliviously, shaking her head. “I mean, what were they thinking? You’re not gonna want that at a game now are you?”

I held up the creature’s plush, wire-fortified tail while Jackie snapped a Polaroid for the bulletin board. I couldn’t wear it; that would spoil the return, she said.

And then, within four hours of my departure, Jackie was dead.

◊

Somewhere between putting on pants and brushing my teeth, I have managed to doze off. I open my mouth to the morning air and find I am standing in the middle of the common, half-dressed, hair wet.

I squint my eyes and can barely make out something moving in the distant field. Out across waves of green-gold, a monster flees into the woods, slowly and clumsily making his escape from that grey room where we met.

◊

The morning is a slow start for everyone. It’s one of those days where all excuses are accepted, and you’ve been so overworked and put out you’re almost grateful such an awful thing has happened.

Our gymnasium-turned-auditorium is filled with 800 chattering faces, but the stage is empty. I settle into the cramped plastic seat that has been saved for me, noticing too late my baseball team, sitting like a clique in the first row.

My friend Valerie is slumped beside me, and I gently bump her awake. The assembly is taking up her morning free period.

“What?” she asks, annoyed.

“It’s only forty-five minutes.”

“You’re late. And besides, you wake up with the sun every day.”

She brushes back her hair, adding, “She’d still be dead if I’d slept in an hour.”

We fight an unexpected urge to laugh, and several rows below us look up in disgust. I feel myself flattening into a grotesque image.

“Shhh!” someone hisses.

“I’m allowed to laugh!” Valerie snaps back.

“You’re such a fucking bitch, Valerie,” a girl in front of us says.

Valerie opens her mouth but the headmaster is tapping on the microphone.

◊

Despite my best efforts, I sleep through the assembly, waking only for a brief measure of “Lean On Me.” By the time Valerie steers me out the door, I notice we have been let go twenty minutes early. Everyone is red-eyed and quiet. I feel cursed for napping, like I’ve marked myself for a slow death and empty funeral. I twist my face into something less blank, and a boy I don’t know puts his hand on my shoulder.

“You look constipated,” Valerie says.

◊

I sit across from Valerie at our student café, and under the glaring indoor light, I notice she doesn’t look very well. Her lips are chapped, and her sweater is backwards.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m just tired. I have a headache. Your food’s ready.”

“Oh, thanks.”

I’m starving, and I return to the table with a large coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. I take a jar of peanut butter out of my backpack.

“There’s no way that tastes good.”

“You should try it sometime.”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, then you’ll never know if it tastes good or not, will you?”

“Ugh.” She puts her head in her hands.

A girl and a boy, somewhat recognizable, walk past us. The girl stops, turns on her heel, and approaches our table. I continue eating with purpose.

“Hey, Valerie?” she asks sharply.

“Yeah?”

“I want you to know that I didn’t appreciate your lack of respect this morning. This has been a really awful two days, and I worked really hard setting up the orgs for that assembly.”

I recognize the girl as our student body vice president.

Valerie looks up incredulously from her sunken position.

“Look, Patty, I’m sorry if I offended you or whatever. I just had a long night and feel kind of shitty, okay?”

“What about you?”

Patty is looking at me now. I go to speak but my mouth is stuck with peanut butter.

“I’m thorry?”

“I didn’t know we had a designated range of emotion to express today,” Valerie says coolly. “You should have included that in those cute little programs.”

A swig of coffee dislodges the peanut butter from the roof of my mouth, and our silence is cut with a loud gulping sound.

“Get fucked.” Patty strides away and grabs the arm of the boy, who’s been watching at a distance.

“What’s going on?” I hear him ask.

I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “She’ll get over it,” I tell Valerie, who is posed defensively, arms crossed.

“We need to go to class,” she replies, and then points to my oatmeal. “Can I have the rest of that? I don’t feel so great.”

◊

I’m on my way to French when Valerie calls me. She’s in the infirmary with a fever of 102. I feel bad for having left her, and skip out to pick up a few things from her unlocked room. A backpack, a phone charger, a box of animal crackers I found in her dresser. The nurses don’t like visiting students to linger, so I tell Valerie I will check back tonight.

She is worried I might catch what she has, and tells me to wash my hands. I promise to, but really I know she is the kind of sick you can’t catch.

◊

I don’t go to class. A half-day has been declared anyway, so I conclude that I am only half-irresponsible. I take a restless nap and spend the early afternoon accomplishing simple errands. I clean my room. I do laundry. I finish a few assignments. It feels strangely like I’m preparing for a trip.

Outside, the all-seeing light of afternoon has gone, and everything is in high contrast. All at once I am overwhelmed with emotion.

◊

When I was a child, maybe seven or eight, I fell into a whirlpool on a tubing trip with my father. The brownish water trapped my body, holding me under for around fifteen seconds. As I began to choke, I opened my eyes. Around me, I saw the currents that gave the river life in their entire truth. It was like the sheen of oil in a parking lot; like the trembling, distorted heat off the road. I understood that I was in the fabric of some great muscle, and, long after my father pulled me out, I could see its power everywhere.

Without realizing it I have begun to walk to practice. I pass the gym and glimpse my teammates converging in on our diamond, moving through trees and between buildings.

◊

Fridays we normally walk into town for barbeque after practice, but today we are glassy-eyed and directionless. Showing up is a formality, and Mr. Wilson, our cheerful, beanstalkish coach, dismisses us almost instantly.

“I know it’s been a hard few days, so make sure you guys rest up, take care of yourselves. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” we say.

“You need anything, you know where to find me. I think Mrs. Wilson is making some of her famous blondies tonight . . .”

“Ooh,” we say.

“So give us a knock. I’ll see you Sunday, five o’clock. Marcy will be taking a few days off, so I’ll need someone to volunteer to pick up the water and equipment.”

“I’ll do it,” Alexander says.

Alexander is the closest thing I have to a best friend. He has a batting average of .701, the ninth best in the league.

Up until last spring, we were just teammates, a kind of competitive distance between us. Alexander is a boarder like myself, like most of the school. We have a few day students, locals, whose redeeming feature is their access to transportation and house parties. It was at such a party that I stumbled into a backroom looking for my coat, instead finding Alexander in a compromised position with Stanley, the editor of our school paper. I left the coat, and Alexander brought it to me the next day, along with a great, misplaced fear.

◊

Practice disbands without so much as a warm-up, but I won’t be ready to go inside again for another few hours. Alexander suggests a Drive-In Five, a familiar team exercise we usually do in groups. The race consists of two opposing routes of identical distance (around three miles), and culminates at our local diner.

I know Alexander and all his speeds. I know he will sometimes cross the street only because of the walk sign, even though it actually puts him out of the way. I know he prefers the grass and will adjust for a longer course. But today I am distracted, and he could outpace me if he’s serious about it, which he always is.

“Left or right?” he asks.

“Left,” I say automatically.

“All right, I’ll see you soon.” He backs up to his starting place across the road. “I’ll see you first.”

On the count of three, we are off.

◊

Anyone who has ever set about a run knows there is a supreme feeling when your lungs can hold air and you are capable of not drowning. Coaches and doctors will tell you this is being “in shape,” but it is more than a physical state of the body. I am attuned to a great vibration, a pulse that carries forward my entire being, and frees me from a place where there are such things as death and assemblies.

I pound along white sidewalks, under a bellowing overpass, and up a damp hill, taking in nothing but sound, color, and the feeling of light on my neck.

I am in this state of aligned consciousness when something lunges at me from my right and I lose my balance, slipping down into the muddy hillside. It’s a chocolate lab, pulling a jogger coming the opposite direction. She reins the friendly thing in as I wave off her apologies. I set off again, dirtier, aware of the aching in my left ankle, the soreness of my inner thighs.

As I round the final bend onto Beaumont’s main avenue, I spot the flash of Alexander’s sneakers up the block. Arms flying everywhere to slow his momentum, he comes to a halt in the half-empty parking lot of Dale’s Drive-In Family Restaurant. I am about ten seconds behind. Part of me burns at the loss, but the satisfaction on his face quashes my pride. We both struggle to stand straight.

“Goddamn! I never run like that before.”

“You got me,” I wheeze.

He sees the mud and laughs pitifully.

“What—? Oh, man! C’mon!”

He bends over huffing as I scrub at my clothes.

“What?”

“Thought I actually had it.”

“You beat me.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t win fair and square.”

“No one ever wins something fair and square; that’s impossible.”

He shakes his head at me, and I know he will try to beat me again and again, until he is satisfied with himself.

◊

Dale’s Drive-In Family Restaurant isn’t really a drive-in—nowadays, the sign just reads “Dale’s”—but the radial parking lot and matching roof refuse to forget. Something about it feels detachable, like a spaceship hiding in plain sight, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We sit in our usual place, at the very back.

Eating here feels like picnicking in an antique shop. Everything is old and covered in junk. Checker patterns peel from lacquered tables, and the paper menus repeat the same mazes month after month. Post games, our whole team will pile in the back three booths, chatting with the waitresses.

Alexander and I order two burgers and two shakes and fill the air with comfortable, easy conversation about classes and teachers and people who bother us.

◊

When evening sets in, mid-greys and blues blanket our little town. We split the bill and wrench our sore selves out of the booth.

“What time is it?” I yawn.

“Five-something.”

“We should get back.”

We shake out our bodies and settle into a leisurely pace. But as we begin to cross the intersection, Alexander catches something out of the corner of his eye. He shoves his arm across my chest, bunching my shirt in his fist, stopping me cold.

“Whoa!”

A car careens past, missing our feet by a few inches.

The sedan coming down the adjacent street with the light is stripped and remade into a ball of foil. The guilty, brick-colored car ricochets into a lamppost, dented, its driver dazed but awake. What little traffic there is comes to a stop around us. There is a light crinkling in the air.

Alexander leaves me on the corner to approach the wreck.

“Ma’am?” I hear him cry. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

A witness across the street is calling 911, her brown dog straining toward the commotion.

Alexander is quiet, standing above the shattered window. I hear a siren in the distance and slowly begin to walk toward him, closer and closer until the scene comes into focus.

He is holding eye contact with a dead woman, her blonde hair wet from impact. She is stunned with death, and there is something clean about it. I grab his wrist and lead him away.

“We’ve got to tell somebody.”

“It’s all right,” I assure him.

He looks at me and sets off at a run toward campus. I do not call after him, and instead, I begin to run too, my stomach still heavy with food. He will go through the town green, but I know a faster way. With measured breaths, I straighten up, hands behind my head to stop a stitch. I remember that I am supposed to visit Valerie, and wonder if she is waiting for me.

◊

I feel this current pulling me to a bright place where I do not belong.

My legs carry me faster, faster. I am running into the past, willing myself to forget. My memory grows hot with a kind of fever, and I am late, terribly late, for something.

Donald-CollinsDonald Collins is a transgender advocate and X-Files enthusiast from Virginia. He is currently finishing his B.A. in screenwriting at Emerson College in Boston. His debut short fiction appeared in Literary Orphans #16.

 

THE HURRICANE by Gemini Wahhaj

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

the hurricane

THE HURRICANE
by Gemini Wahhaj

At the time of the hurricane, they were both still working. A few days before the hurricane hit, Lila was getting on a plane to New York for an oil and gas conference. They called it Hurricane Ike on the radio, and people laughed when they heard the warning, since it followed warnings about so many other hurricanes that season that had failed to materialize. But this time it was real.

Lila saw Ike approach Houston on TV in her hotel room in New York. She tried to call Kamal, but phone lines were down. Ike finally made landfall at night. Lila watched, minute by minute, as the giant, swirling cloud simulation of a category 4 tropical cyclone hit the speck that was supposed to be Houston. News of a train accident interrupted the hurricane coverage periodically, but mostly, during the days of the conference, all TV cameras stayed focused on Ike and Houston.

Heading home, on a flight to Atlanta (there were no flights available to Houston yet), Lila listened as the pilot made an announcement about the hurricane. Houston had been destroyed, he said. Windows had been knocked out from the high rises downtown. Trees had flattened houses to the ground. Entire neighborhoods had been flooded. This was terrible news to deliver to anyone cut off from family in Houston, trying to get home.

Lila buckled herself in her seat. She flagged down a tall, clean-shaven steward to ask him if he knew anything, but there was no way to glean any specific facts. For the first time in her life, Lila made a phone call from a plane. Although they made good money between them, their frugal, middle class, South Asian habits had always precluded any temptation to make a luxury call from an airplane, until this disaster, which warranted a change.

It was no use, though. She couldn’t get through, and finally she slammed the phone back onto the seat in front of her, annoying the passenger beside her.

Lila and Kamal had come to Houston as graduate engineering students and followed the path of others from Bangladesh, landing professional jobs, buying a house in the suburbs and two cars, applying for green cards. She was a petroleum engineer and he was a civil engineer. Engineers did well in Houston. But now it seemed to Lila like settling in Houston had been the worst decision of their lives. What if Kamal had been killed in the hurricane?

When she arrived in Atlanta, Lila could not get a flight to Houston, since all flights in and out had been cancelled. Lila’s company booked her a hotel in downtown Atlanta, and she waited there for two days, eating take-out Chinese out of cardboard boxes, as she and Kamal had done in graduate school, and watching the news on TV. Periodically, she called down to the hotel desk to ask for updates on flights.

She kept her phone plugged into the charger and called Kamal every half hour or so, but he didn’t answer. She called friends, then friends of friends, then random people she had met at the large Bangladeshi parties they attended in Houston, but no one picked up the phone.

◊

Finally, Lila received word that Intercontinental had regained power and flights were starting up. Somehow, she got herself booked on the first flight to Houston. At last she found herself walking toward the arrivals gate, terrified that no one would be there. But Kamal was there. Dusty and ruffled, but there, waiting for her. Lila screamed and ran to him.

“I’ve been here at the airport, looking for you at the gate of every flight, from every city!”

“You didn’t call me!” she wailed.

“My phone’s dead. There are long lines now in front of stores, people trying to get their phones charged.”

They embraced tightly, like the other couples at the arrivals gate. Everything would finally get back to normal.

◊

Together they walked to the elevator and rode up to the parking level. Kamal told Lila they had no power at the house. Their street was littered with trees. Some roofs had been smashed. But they were lucky. On nearby streets, the rooftops were battered from falling branches. People in Galveston had lost their homes and survived the flood by climbing onto their roofs. In Houston, people stood in long lines at the supermarkets for bags of ice. Food was scarce.

“But you know the saddest thing?” Kamal said, turning his earnest face toward her. “It was on the news. A couple was trying to cut down a tree ahead of the hurricane. The trunk of the tree fell on top of their son, just ten years old.”

“What happened?” Lila asked.

“He was killed.”

“How horrible,” she said, rubbing his arm. At least they were safe; their lives were unchanged.

“We don’t have power yet,” he warned. “So the house is very hot and uncomfortable.”

He smelled of sweat.

 ◊

They climbed into Kamal’s car, a smart silver Honda CR-V, and Lila breathed out finally.

“I just want to go home,” she said, sliding down in her seat, “to lie down in our own bed. To go back to work! I’ll bet the air conditioning at the office is working.”

Once they came off the highway to their neighborhood in Spring, north of the airport, the streets were ghostly. The traffic lights weren’t working. Cars stood stopped at every intersection, as feeble policemen tried to direct masses of traffic with stop signs. They passed several pile-ups, accidents caused by a confusion about whose turn it was to go.

“It’s like a scene out of a hundred years ago, or a third world country!” Lila said, thinking that they had left their own third world country to escape such backward conditions.

“Or it could be a science fiction movie showing the future,” Kamal said.

◊ 

There was more bad news waiting at home. No matter what Kamal had said to Lila in the car, he could not have prepared her for what she was about to experience. There was no air conditioning, and it was dizzyingly hot. There seemed to be no air in the house. Kamal had flung open all the windows, but this meant that by evening the house had filled with mosquitoes. Lila slapped her arms angrily in the dark.

For the next two weeks, they passed evenings by dreary candlelight in the prickly heat. Most evenings, they ate out or cooked a laborious meal they had shopped for that day and then threw out what they didn’t eat. It was tedious, having to plan a meal, buy the ingredients, throw out the leftovers, and wash the dishes by hand, but also somehow, like play-acting, like being in a different life in which one could pretend that life was about cooking and cleaning dishes and planning the meal one was to cook.

Even eating by candlelight felt like playing house. It was frustrating, of course, and hot, and expensive to eat out so often, but when they looked back on it later, they had to admit that it had been lovely too. Neighbors came out for the first time and sat on their steps in the dark with candles, talking across the street. Sometimes a neighbor would cross over with a bottle or a cigarette, wanting to chat. People borrowed generators from one another to hook up to their TV sets and refrigerators for a few hours. Lila and Kamal met everyone on their street for the first time in the five years they had lived there.

Their house had been hit the hardest among all the houses on the street. Their roof was intact, but a pipe had burst underground, apparently. When Lila tried to take a bath one day, the water in the bathtub backed up with sewage. Black water gurgled up, and she detected the smell of swamp gas, ammonia, and sulfur.

She stopped taking baths at home. Sleepy and dirty, she stumbled into the office building before anyone else every morning and took a long shower in one of the bathrooms two floors up from where she worked.

The city warned that the water supply was contaminated, so Lila and Kamal stopped using the water from the tap at home. They suffered through mosquito-filled evenings, labor-intensive cooking, and sleepless nights, going to work for relief, so glad that they worked, that they could spend eight hours a day in air conditioned offices, earning money, able to wear nice, steamed suits, able to drive clean cars that purred on gasoline on wide highways.

At the end of twenty-one days, their lives returned to normal. The transformer at the end of their street had been fixed. Lila and Kamal hired a plumber, and for a thousand dollars he fixed the sewage pipe that ran under their yard (a tree had settled on it in the storm) and thus also fixed the problem of the water backup. They had clean water again, a working refrigerator, and a working microwave oven.

They were relieved, eager to get past the hurricane. However, with time, it became clear that the hurricane had changed other things too. It wasn’t entirely clear to anyone in Houston how the surreal atmosphere of the hurricane was related to the recession and layoffs that followed, but by September a lot of people had lost their jobs. In the middle of the layoffs, Kamal came back one day and told Lila that a man in another office in a different building in the Galleria had jumped out of a sixteenth floor window to his death. This incident also seemed to be logically related to Ike and the recession. If someone had asked either Kamal or Lila to explain, neither of them could have articulated how they were related, but they would both have said that they were related: the hurricane and the unreal weeks without power or water that followed and the layoffs that came later.

There was something the hurricane had brought on, or slammed through, besides slamming down the houses on the coast in Galveston, the hundred-year-old trees all through the neighborhoods in Houston, the glass windows of the downtown high rises, the air conditioning and the traffic lights and the refrigerators and the TV sets. It had smashed all the certainties of modern life, all the things that had made things real. Soon, there were dogs on the streets that had been set loose by owners no longer able to keep them. Houses were put up for foreclosure. People who hadn’t lost their homes in the hurricane were now being driven out of their properties because they couldn’t pay their mortgage.

The layoffs happened over several weeks. Lila lost her job first. Kamal kept holding on as more and more people in his office were laid off every day. At last, when Kamal’s office was down to thirty people, with everyone sweating and trying to outperform everyone else by staying late and taking on the projects of all those who had been fired, Kamal finally received the email. He came home almost jubilant. Lila was up on a ladder, frowning, trying to repaint a section of the ceiling that had cracked during the hurricane.

“I’ll have time to do that now,” he said as he came in through the front door in his pressed shirt and slacks and put down his smart leather bag on the dining table. For a brief moment, he felt like whistling.

◊

That mood soon passed. Laid off, they lay in their pajamas on separate leather sofas in the living room of their enormous house, their chests panting from simultaneous panic attacks. What would they do? How would they pay for the house, their cars, or their health insurance? How would they live in the only way they knew how? Kamal snatched the remote control off the coffee table and turned on MI-5, a spy thriller on a cable channel. But the high-stress episodes seemed to mirror their own lives. There was one particular episode in which all of London had gone awry. Nothing worked. Traffic lights didn’t work, and there were accidents everywhere. The plot reminded Lila of the day she had landed in Houston and witnessed the traffic pile-ups on the streets. She shouted to Kamal to turn off the TV. After that day, they stopped watching cable television. They discontinued their service.

At first, they were both on the computer all day, desperately searching for jobs in their respective fields. Lila was on the phone to friends in the oil industry, asking for job leads. Kamal locked himself in another room and carried on the same search in his field in hushed tones. They were both filled with shame. They didn’t know who they were without their jobs. They didn’t recognize themselves in the bathroom mirror, in their uncombed states, in their pajamas. Kamal had to sign on to the Internet every week to fill out forms to claim his unemployment benefits. On the radio, people speculated about rising crime because of unemployment. Kamal felt desperate enough to commit a crime, to get into some sort of shady scheme, to make money, anything to return to their former state.

Then a particularly nasty strain of flu hit the city. Lila and Kamal had attended a Bengali birthday party at Maharaja, full of sick people, and they both caught it. For days they lay without eating, unable to either cook food or keep the food down. Vomit filled the three bathrooms of the house and lay there untouched. The cleaning lady had been fired. One day, Lila crawled off the sofa on which she had been lying in an inclined position, supported by three pillows so that she could breathe out of her congested chest (the hospitals were overflowing with people with the flu, and the flu was turning to pneumonia with a peculiar cough that sounded like a drum, which ultimately killed the patient, according to the radio), and made it to the bathroom. With the radio still blaring, the world went black in front of her. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the cool tile floor and lay there crying. Her chest was pounding and she couldn’t breathe. The radio in the living room pleaded with patients to listen to their coughs, to listen for a drumbeat, which would indicate a turn to pneumonia and certain death. Patients who had a drumbeat-sounding cough should immediately check themselves into a hospital, the radio advised. But all the hospitals were full of patients already. Tents had been erected to manage the overflow. Lila listened to her cough, which sounded like a drumbeat, and her tears flowed.

After a long moment, Kamal stumbled to the bathroom and leaned against the doorjamb for support.

“What is it?” he asked weakly.

“If we don’t get jobs, what will we do?” Lila sobbed. “We’ll lose the house. The cars. Everything. What will people say?”

In response, Kamal coughed for a long time. His cough sounded hollow and drum-like, the way they had described on the radio. Lila’s panic increased and she wanted him gone.

“This reminds me of Bengali novels I read as a child,” Kamal said in a pause between coughs. He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to remember what he was about to say, as if remembering a life from a long time ago that he had forgotten.

“In a novel, things take time to happen. A problem resolves itself over six months or a year at least. You have to give it time, I think.”

Lila didn’t answer. She continued to breathe in a shallow way, thinking that she would choke to death. Kamal didn’t bend down to check on her, but instead stumbled back to the living room. Lila didn’t have the strength to get up and turn off the radio, which by its powerful force was taking on the world and morphing it, filling it with the flu, deaths, foreclosures, and unemployment figures, making it impossible to go back to the way things were. So she tried to concentrate on something long ago, before the horrors of sickness and unemployment. Finally, she remembered the parents who had been trying to cut down their tree ahead of the hurricane to stop it from falling over on their house and how they had killed their son instead. Lila didn’t have children, but she thought that would have to be the worst thing that could happen to you. Your life would end if you lost a child. Somehow, the thought made her feel better. Ultimately, she fell asleep.

In the following months, as fall turned to winter, Lila and Kamal gave up the idea of finding jobs soon. They began to read novels to each other in Bengali, and sometimes they turned off the lights on purpose and read in the dark by candlelight. Or they went out and sat on the front steps talking in the dark, as they had done in the period following the hurricane and as they remembered doing in Bangladesh during frequent power outages. One day, Kamal went out in his car, and drove aimlessly through the neighborhood.

He came back and said, “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going into real estate.”

He had suggested wild things before, such as working at McDonald’s or at Home Depot, and Lila had been filled with shame. They were professionals. They had a certain class. They didn’t work just for money, just to get by. What would their friends say at the Bangladeshi parties? Of course, they had stopped going to those parties, out of shame, and also because they didn’t want to spend money on expensive presents or gas to drive so far, to other suburbs.

Now Lila looked at Kamal with a tired face, resigned, not sure what he meant exactly, but willing to look at new possibilities.

That winter, Lila and Kamal sold their house and bought a small, tear-down bungalow near downtown. Their new home was in a “changing” neighborhood, as the real estate people called it, and some of the houses were falling apart and old, while others were newly-built, big, two-story mansions. There were young families with children living in the neighborhood alongside old people waiting to die.

Kamal stayed up nights, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, singing tunelessly and drafting a plan to remodel their house piece by piece, now that he had time on his hands. Lila sat in the same room, which doubled as office and living room, sometimes reading a book, sometimes a magazine, always with tea in a ceramic mug in her hand.

Sometimes, late at night, they would turn on the radio in the background for company. Another hurricane season had started, and already there were radio advisories about filling up on gas and storing batteries to prepare for a hurricane. In memory of the previous year’s hurricane, the newspaper had run a story recently about the family who had lost their son trying to cut down a tree ahead of Hurricane Ike. The article described how the couple had finally accepted their child’s death and begun their life anew.

Lila remembered her own low moment following the hurricane, lying on her bathroom floor without a job or money or means to keep her house.

In their new home, Lila cooked a meal with fresh vegetables she had bought that morning from the local farmer’s market downtown. Then she turned off the stove to take a walk down the street and say hello to the elderly neighbors who came out in the last rays of sunlight to chat about their dying days. As she walked, her feet in their open-toed sandals caught the dust and twigs lying on the sidewalk. She felt alive, breathing in the smell of pine cones falling off the tall trees and the barbecue cooking in neighboring houses.

Photo_GeminiWahhajGemini Wahhaj’s fiction has appeared in Granta, Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Night Train, The Carolina Quarterly, and Northwest Review, and is forthcoming in Silk Road and The Chattahoochee Review. An excerpt from her novel has been published in the volume Exotic Gothic 5, published by PS Publishing. She has a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Houston and she teaches at Lone Star Community College in Houston.

 

Image credit: Patrick Feller on Flickr

 

TALLBOY by Rachel Hochhauser

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Tallboy

TALLBOY
by Rachel Hochhauser

Aaron and Irene married in a public park with a large green lawn, though the ceremony was in the shaded woody part, where small acorns covered the ground and caught in guests’ shoes. It was a late marriage for Aaron, and a second for Irene. Her first husband, an architect, wasn’t invited. In the crowd there were familiar faces. Aaron’s college friends, bearded, stood together.

They’d all known each other at Penn and trickled out west, following one by one like senior citizens to early retirement. They met for bagels on Saturdays. At the reception, they sat at one table, alternating with their wives.

The celebration wasn’t ostentatious—simple. The groom sold magazine ad space and the bride was a painter. Irene used oils to recreate local landscapes and sold canvasses to tourists. She’d done the planning herself. Tables and cloths rented from a party supplier, champagne and a middlebrow merlot. There was no bridal party or best man, but Stuart, who had been Aaron’s college roommate, gave the toast.

He faced the crowd as he spoke, and though he had not planned the speech, the words found themselves. They reflected the convivial warmth their group felt toward one another, and the history and integrity of their happiness. Stuart enjoyed knowing that he could evoke those feelings and that he was viewed as good. As he finished, the lowering sun warmed the audience’s faces and foreheads so that they reflected his goodness back toward him. After the party, his wife, Diane, took one of the homemade centerpieces.

 

A year later, there was a small anniversary party. Aaron and Irene would defrost the top tier of the wedding cake, their email said. It would be casual: at their home.

Stuart and Diane drove over, Stuart in the driver’s seat. He asked: “Why were they fighting?” When they’d left, their children—a boy and a girl—had been arguing.

“Sam read her diary again. He picked the lock.” Diane, balancing a covered bowl across her knees, inspected herself in the mirror on the back of the visor.

“She should have hidden it.”

“Or maybe,” Diane turned to face her husband. “Sam shouldn’t read someone else’s journal.”

“Or maybe,” Stuart paused for effect, “he should find a way to do it without getting caught.”

“Stuart.”

“What does a seven-year-old have to say that’s so secret?”

“It’s wrong. He’s your son.” Diane had a way of saying this that implied Sam belonged more to him than her—divided by sex, or something deeper. But Stuart had watched his wife grow with child for all those months, and seen the way the boy looked for his mother. Their son was theirs if not hers.

Diane added, “Kay caught him because she put a strand of hair inside the page.”

Stuart felt a surge of pride. A streak of something bright—Kay’s face, round and sweet and fiercely intelligent—amongst all the other things he was thinking. “She’s so smart. How do you know all of this?”

“I was listening.”

“You were eavesdropping? How is that so different from reading a journal?”

“Stuart—honestly—”

He grabbed his wife’s hand. “I’m teasing.”

Diane sighed. “You missed the turn.”

 

They found a parking spot two houses down from Aaron and Irene’s. Stuart reflected, as he normally did, on how unusual it was for a painter to live in that kind of place: modern and breathtaking. Expensive. You don’t fund palaces of steel and glass, heated floors and succulent gardens, with canvass and color. You couldn’t.

Irene’s previous husband had built it. The roof deck with the fireplace and the tiled Jacuzzi out back and the long strip of dirt intended for vegetables. Irene had a studio downstairs, with tall blank walls. Her own gallery.

She was in the open kitchen, in high, tight pants and a loose top, waving her arms as she told a story to Joy, one of the wives. “Come in, come in,” she called, though Stuart and Diane were already inside. They went through the living room, saying hello, and when they got to Irene the two women pressed their cheeks against one another.

“We’re here!” Diane said. “So nice you guys are doing this.” She put her bowl down on the counter, next to a bouquet no one had put into water.

“Hummus,” she explained.

Irene lifted the foil. “I love your hummus.”

“Oh, yes,” Joy agreed. “The perfect texture!”

Stuart looked past the women, outside. Through the window, he could see Aaron and Toby and David around the barbecue. Diane began to describe a recipe—soaking and food processors and tahini—and Stuart excused himself.

 

His wife liked to talk about her high school friends.  The fab five—the name they had given themselves. Women who hardly kept in touch except for the occasional Christmas card. (“Happy Holidays,” they wrote, because she had married a Jew.) But there was never a label for Stuart’s group. They were just a group.

In college, there were four of them: Stuart and Aaron had been one another’s first roommate. David had come to the group rich and soft until their competition and banter formed him into something more. Toby liked to tell stories, and always had; he’d grown up outside of Boston, where bravado and not giving a fuck was currency. Every fight Stuart had ever been in was because of Toby. They kept their circle tight.

Not that there weren’t outliers—Howard MacPherson had let them copy his homework and then gone on to make millions with a shoe company that sold sneaker-sandal hybrids. And it was Howard that, for the wedding, had gifted Aaron and Irene the three hundred dollar bottle of saké that now sat on the patio table beside the barbecue.

“Brought out the good stuff, huh?” Stuart slid the door shut behind him.

“Tallboy,” Toby said. Stuart’s nickname.

“Is Howie here?” Stuart had never really liked Howard, but tried not to make a point of it. Howie’d come to the group late, a little bit younger and a little bit uglier than the rest of them. Now, he lived in Nashville, though he’d flown into town for the wedding a year before. Stuart already knew the answer to his question.

“Nah.” Aaron stood in front of the closed grill, and pointed to the saké with the tongs he held. “Just thought it was an appropriate time to crack it open.”

“He’s playing golf somewhere,” David said, and the group chuckled. Toby pointed to the tub of beer, their glass necks extending from ice water, and Stuart went over and took one.

“We were just saying,” David leaned against the wall as he spoke, “remember—remember how we drove to that concert upstate and there was so much traffic that those girls that came with us—”

“Marty and—”

“Nancy,” Toby interrupted Aaron.

“No. Martha.” David shook his head. There were so many things they had done—it was easy to forget.

“Those girls!” Toby rapped his knuckles against the edge of the planter he was leaning against.

“Suntanning on the hood of the car!” Stuart did remember—brown, flat nipples on one and asymmetrical breasts on the other. He’d been enthralled by their indifference. “Yeah,” he added.

“Yeah,” Aaron repeated.

“They didn’t come back with us.”

“They figured it out, I’m sure.”

The door slid sideways and Irene came outside, putting a hand on Aaron’s neck. “How’s the meat looking?” she asked.

Aaron opened the grill. The sausages had grown fat and were beginning to spit.

“I want to put on the veggie burgers.” Irene turned to look at her husband’s friends. “How are your kids, Stu?”

“They’re good. Great. Good,” he said, and took another swig of beer.

 

It seemed to Stuart that this was more than half of what the group did when they were together: remembered things that had already happened, as if the past tense could increase something’s worth. But there was so much to remember. The group had driven across the country together and all gotten lice. Another time, Toby had stolen a case of lobsters, thinking he could sell them, but they’d escaped and crawled along the hallways of the dorm. When Aaron’s college girlfriend had died—a freak accident, a blow-dryer falling into the tub—they took him straight out of Philadelphia for the weekend. They’d packed David’s station wagon and headed into the woods, where they attempted to talk about things far beyond their understanding and ate canned hot dogs for three days.

Over that weekend, when Aaron had seemed as dark as they would ever see him, they had made one another a promise: to look out for each other always. Simple and trite, but also pure and true, and they’d stuck to it. Or said they had. For Stuart, he felt that might have been a lie. But it was easier now, with the beers and the swollen bellies and the years between them, to forget what was real and what wasn’t, and most of the time Stuart let his decisions go unexamined.

 

When most of the food was ready, Irene arranged it buffet-style in the kitchen. Stuart took his paper plate and went to Aaron, who was finishing up the last of the burgers on the grill.

“A year in,” he clamped a hand onto his friend’s shoulder.

“A year,” Aaron nodded. “You’re how many?”

“Nine.” He’d met Diane after college.

Aaron looked down at the grill. “What’s the secret?”

“The secret,” Stuart removed his hand. “Is to enjoy the first year.”

Aaron turned one of the green patties and made a jerking gesture with his head, back toward the party. “We have scheduled sex.”

“Hey,” Stuart shrugged, then grinned. “If it’s frequent.” He felt uncomfortable.

“It works better that way. Because we’re busy.” Aaron began to move the burgers onto a plate.

Stuart told him: “Your secret’s safe with me.”

He couldn’t remember how Aaron had first met his wife. The details of the encounter hadn’t been important—Irene only gained significance as more time went on. Before her, there had been no steady or easy presence of women in Aaron’s life. It was, the guys said, psychological, linking back to what had happened to Claire.

After she’d died, Aaron went inwards. Not that he didn’t deserve grief, if grief were ever a thing to be deserved. He and Claire had subsisted off of one another. There’d been a frenzied madness to the way they had dated—from thereon, though Aaron had still been a part of the group, there was a piece of him that was always separate, even when the guys were together.

So, naturally, he’d taken the loss hard. Naturally, it would take effort to get through days and weeks and months without the presence of a thing you’d come to depend on. But while the rest of Aaron’s life had gone forward—graduation to work, studio to house—Stuart was convinced that his friend had moved on in every way except the most important way, and probably still jacked off to the idea of Claire’s long, freckled legs.

 

By the time he’d finished eating, Stuart had downed another pilsner. He didn’t feel drunk—he wasn’t drunk—but when his wife came over to lead him away from the guests, he felt a small lick of intention. Diane had taken his hand and was pulling him down the staircase, two steps below, and he could see the top of her head, the way her brown hair split at the part and her white scalp showed through, and then lower, her skirt and her hips. A skirt!

“A steal,” she said.

“What?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

They’d reached the bottom of the steps, and she opened the frosted-glass door into the studio, where Irene’s paintings hung on the tall, white walls.

“There, that one.” Diane pointed, and led him across the paint-covered floor to a smaller canvass on an easel. A stream and rocks and a fish, jumping from the water.

“It’s nice,” he said, uncertain.

“I think it would be great in the dining room.”

Stuart put a hand on Diane’s hip and moved his fingers downward, along the harder part of her outer leg. “Mmm,” he said.

“It would be great to support her.”

“Irene?”

“Imagine it in a contemporary frame. Something white, maybe. It’s acrylic. What do you think?”

What he thought was that Irene’s paintings weren’t so great, and felt commercial in a way that belonged to sentimentalists. He’d never say that to his wife, though, because the two women were friendly, and Diane had already purchased a smaller piece—a depiction of the northern bluffs—that hung in their guest bathroom. His supportive role in these details sometimes felt like the thing that held them together.

“What do you think, Stuart?” Diane repeated. “What do you really think? Be honest.”

“I think…” He looked back at the painting—rainbow bellies of trout glistened in sunlight reflecting off the water.

“It’s okay,” she said, looking generous. “We can talk about it later. I just wanted to show you, you know, when Irene wasn’t here, so you could have a reaction.”

“Right,” he said, and went to put his other hand on his wife’s body. She stepped away from him.

“We should get back upstairs before anyone notices.”

“Right,” he said again.

Diane went to the door, adding, “But I really want to know what you think.”

Stuart looked back over at the ugly painting, wondering at the shifting equation of keeping information. There wasn’t that much that he hid from his wife—or people at all. In high school, he had told his parents that he had quit when he’d been fired from his weekend job, and lied occasionally when he snuck out with his friends. During college, he’d cheated on tests and given an RA fifty bucks not to turn him in. But he kept all sorts of things from his kids—protecting them, first from life, and then from the realities of life, preserving a perspective that was precious and short-lived. And he’d never told Diane about the time he had nearly backed over the dog, or the female client who liked to sit too close, or his crippling self-doubt, his desire at times to run away from everything, from the need to support and provide and stand tall and be good and do the right thing.

He’d also never told her about what had happened between him and Claire in the weeks before the tub. More questionably, he’d never told Aaron.

 

Back upstairs, the party had changed stages. Toby was passing his pipe around, and everyone had moved toward the living area, leaving dirty paper plates on counters and tables, gathering in an informal circle surrounding the coffee table. Diane had already taken her shoes off, and was sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“We’re going to have the cake,” she told Stuart, who went beside her.

“The wedding cake,” Joy said. “Oh, Stu, give another speech. Yours was so great last time.”

“You speak with such poignancy,” Toby said, not serious.

Diane smiled and rubbed Stuart’s leg. “He just loves you guys. We love you guys.” Stuart wondered if she had drunk as much as he had.

“A speech?” he repeated.

“We have to wait for Irene,” Joy said.

Aaron looked around. “Where is Irene?”

Stuart imagined then—he couldn’t help himself—Aaron’s wife, beneath him, just as he had seen Claire, her hair spread out, a lock of it across her throat, looking up from that elemental angle.

“I don’t want to give a speech,” he said.

“Oh, come on, you’re so good at them.” Joy swiped a hand through the air in his direction. “You’re so good!”

“I’m not good,” he said.

“He’s always been. He used to walk every girl home,” David said, and then added, “Sorry, Diane.”

“Why do you think I married him?” Diane’s voice took on affectation.

“I’m not giving a speech.” He left his wife out there on that little spring of a joke she’d loaded, the spring meant for and in need of partnership. The group looked at him in surprise. Joy held her drink in midair, unmoving.

“I’ll go find Irene,” Stuart added. “So we can eat the fucking cake.”

 

She was on the roof deck, leaning against the wall that went around the perimeter. She’d brought the saké, which she’d set on top of the ledge beside her, and held a cigarette.

“They’re waiting for you,” Stuart said, and Irene turned around.

She held up the small roll of tobacco as if to say: you caught me.

Stuart went over to her side and, together, they tilted to look down the smooth side of the house to the carport below. He was sweating a bit, from the sun and from the stairs.

“I don’t come up here very often,” she told him.

He picked up the bottle of saké and looked at the hieroglyphic label—all in Japanese, far from his understanding. “It could just be table wine in here, and I wouldn’t know the difference.”

“That would be something.” Irene stubbed out her cigarette.

“Did you try it?” Irene and Aaron had saved the bottle for all that time, as if the saving itself would give more value to the contents, and Stuart suddenly wanted to taste the drink, to see if all of the waiting—the aging of the liquid and the weeks that had passed since it had come into their hands—would coagulate into something of meaning.

“You go ahead.”

Stuart took the bottle in his hands and undid the top. The wine tasted sweet and silky, and not what he wanted to have inside of his mouth after so much beer.

“Not your thing, then,” Irene said, watching his face. She reached down into a flowerpot and took out a glass tumbler, full of butts. She added another and hid the cup again.

Stuart set the bottle back on the ledge, and looked at his friend’s wife. He knew so little about her. She collected fetishes. Native American rock carvings of animals, decorated with feathers and semi-precious stones—they were on a shelf in the living room. “Does he talk to you ever? About Claire?” he asked.

“Claire?”

“She died. Aaron’s college girlfriend.” Stuart pressed against the ledge with his forearms. “It’s like the chicken and the egg. Does the pedestal come first, or do you assign it?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Irene’s voice went sharp—a honed sting that came from insecurity.

“Perhaps what it is, is that she was lucky, because she died before the rest of us got a chance to see the worst in her.” He bit his cuticle, a habit he had started in college. “I never knew if you knew about Claire.”

“Of course I know about Claire.”

“Right,” he said, seeing then that Claire was just as much a presence in Irene’s life as his own. He looked at the saké: the swoops and swaying sashay of the lettering and the neck that thinned into round lips. Reaching out, he nudged the glass with the back of his hand, so that the bottle fell from the ledge and crashed to the ground two stories below.

Irene let out a sharp rush of air and they both peered over, looking down at the shattered pieces.

“Stuart!” she said.

He thought about telling her about Claire and the things he and Claire had done.

“What did you do that for?” Irene exclaimed, but without the force of anger.

He drew back his shoulders and turned to face her. He would give Irene that dark, glistening piece of information, a shard, and wait to see what she would do with it.

It was possible that Stuart could do for Aaron’s wife what he had never done for Aaron.

“Claire and I…” he began. He couldn’t know without trying.

Rachel-HochhauserRachel Hochhauser is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her stories have appeared in Per Contra, Clapboard House, and Connu. The recipient of the Pillsbury Foundation Creative Writing Award and an alumna of NYU, Rachel also holds a master’s in professional writing from the University of Southern California, where she served as fiction editor of The Southern California Review. You can find her non-fiction in the likes of Daily Beast, The Date Report, and Inc. Magazine. Recently, she finished her first novel. Find out more at rachelhochhauser.com.

Image credit: J. Jeremiah on Flickr

FIGURES OF SPEECH by John Shea

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

figures of speech

FIGURES OF SPEECH
by John Shea  

Philadelphia

Dear Joe,

It was great seeing you again last weekend. I don’t think Sharon and I have had so much fun in a month of Sundays. Sorry for the cliché. Which reminds me: I’d be delighted to write the rhetoric booklet you spoke about. It would be fun to trot out all those dusty figures of speech, half of which I can’t even name. Is there still a market for that sort of thing, with all these students who just ramble on or pour out their undiluted, unfiltered feelings onto the page? Rhetoric is a bad word to them, isn’t it? Well, if the offer’s still good, I’ll send up some pages soon. A few extra bucks would help tide us over. Sharon is feeling a bit glum about my tenure situation, and who knows what will happen if I have to start over somewhere else.

But to return to happier thoughts. We had a great time during your visit. I don’t think I’ve seen Sharon so lively in a while. Let’s not wait so long before getting together again, okay?

I must say, the suit you were wearing at the restaurant was most impressive. Italian, I gather? And the silk tie. Not the Joseph Stabler of old, the guy in the torn jeans and the Talking Heads tee-shirt! Remember how we would argue about Chaucer’s use of narrators or his depiction of the faithless Criseyde—or, jumping ahead a few centuries, the proper punctuation of Dickinson’s poems! Interesting aftershave, too. I was a little surprised that Sharon recognized the brand, since I don’t use any. Polo, by Ralph Lauren, I think she said. I never grew accustomed to aftershave or cologne or all that. Still, when you’re visiting your authors or trying to sell those textbooks to all the college instructors, I suppose it’s back into the old tweed jacket. To foster the illusion that you are still one of us? Protective coloration?

So you see how eagerly I seize upon details, turning your spiffy suit into an occasion for an explication de texte! Nothing escapes my notice… not even the fact that you neatly slapped down the credit card next to the check before we could protest.

Let’s hear from you soon.

Yours,

Terry

 

[email protected]
Terrence R. Stark, Ph.D.
Department of English
Benjamin Franklin University

Dear Joe,
While I’m in my office, and my student seems to have skipped his appointment, I thought I’d warm up.

Hyperbole: I feel like a million bucks today.

A common problem in students’ papers is lack of parallelism. Often, I’ll get something like “I like to swim and playing tennis,” which (to continue our hyperbole) is enough to make one scream! Ah, and there we have the impersonal, aloof, very British one. Gotta love it. Pardon me, Your Grace, but one very much needs to go to the bathroom or one’s pee will be running down one’s leg.

Some examples of parallelism:

He felt so wonderful that the sidewalk seemed to soften to his tread, the breeze swooped down to cool his forehead, and the birds chirped her name a dozen times with every step he took.

The vampire had sallow skin, scarlet lips, and piercing eyes. (This one is an example of isocolon, too, in which the structure and the length of the parallel elements are the same.)

Anastrophe, in which the natural order of words is inverted:

Breathtakingly beautiful she undoubtedly is.

Parenthesis, in which the normal syntactical flow of the sentence is interrupted:

If I were to enumerate her virtues—but am I worthy to take on such a task?—I would begin with her honesty.

Her patience (for what else can one call it when she has stuck with me through seven lean years?) continues to astonish me.

Apposition, in which one of two side‑by‑side elements serves to modify the other:

Hamilton, the laboring assistant professor, stared at the computer screen in confusion.

Georgina, his beautiful wife, teasingly trailed her long dark hair across his face.

Ellipsis, in which a word or group of words is omitted but is implied:

She pulled off her pajama top, and he his own. (Too risqué for your intended audience?)

At any rate, I’m just warming up. Give me some more details about the handbook: how long you want it, what tone. And (he adds, clearing his throat) what sort of contract you have in mind. After all, Sharon deserves that vacation on the Cape, don’t you think?

Yours,

Terry

 

[email protected]
Dear Joe,

Damn, sorry I missed you! Lo Bianco mentioned he had seen you for a few moments in Kissick Hall yesterday. Down talking to old Barkin about his third edition of the essay collection? At any rate, I wish you’d had a minute to spare for a junior professor like me. I’ve dashed off a few more examples, and I’d really like a preliminary response about whether we’re on to something here. When you’re in the warren, working on those gut‑wrenching student papers, you don’t always have a sense of what’s going on. Sometimes I think the Third World War could start, and I’d still be at the office desk, tirelessly circling the dangling modifiers with my red pen! I envy your somewhat peripatetic life. At least you get to visit your authors every now and then. Which brings us around to the figures of speech booklet again: As I’ve made embarrassingly clear, I am very interested in pursuing the project. Sharon got a chuckle out of one or two of these, so I’m confident I’m on the right track—writing for the general reader who wants to learn a bit more about the words and turns of phrase we usually take for granted. I’m sure someone like old Barkin would be appalled… but he can curl up in his Main Line den and be appalled all by himself.

How about some humorous anachronistic illustrations to accompany the text? I’ve always enjoyed the 19th-century engravings that moderns like M. Ernst and D. Barthelme have used ironically.

So long for now. I’m sure Sharon sends her love.

Terry

 

[email protected]
Terrence R. Stark, Ph.D.
Department of English
Benjamin Franklin University

Dear Joe,

Great news that you’ll be in the area next weekend. Sharon and I insist that you stay with us—at least for one of the days! That will give us a chance to try that Ethiopian restaurant everyone’s been talking about… and, if you don’t mind, to block out the proposal for the rhetorical handbook.

I gave you some examples in my second‑to‑last missive. (I might have written penultimate, but Sharon sneered at my overly academic orientation the other day, so I’m layin’ off the doggone sesquipedalians for a while!) But we were considering ellipsis, I think.

Hope is the thing with feathers, jealousy the beast that never sleeps.

She yearned for better days, and he for earlier ones.

Anyway, I suppose I’m a little drawn to a rhetorical device like ellipsis, because it doesn’t waste words. But I’ve learned—unfortunately! as a heated chat with Sharon underscored last night—that in what we euphemistically call “real life,” we academics have to beware of holding too many words back. “Why don’t you ever say what you’re thinking!” and all that. Well, sometimes it’s hard….

But let’s move on to asyndeton, one of those devices everybody recognizes but nobody can name. For example:

He wheeled toward the basket, he launched his shot, he watched the ball drop through the net.

What we’ve done is to omit the conjunctions between related clauses.

She stamped her foot, she frowned, she called him an idiot.

The opposite approach, more or less, is to insert the damn conjunctions wherever possible—that’s polysyndeton. If you’ve heard youngsters (even college students!) talk recently, you’re hearing examples of what we might call extemporaneous polysyndeton.

So I go, “Who’s been using my makeup?” and she goes, “It’s not your makeup,” and I’m like, “Oh yes it is, I bought it right at Frank’s Bargain Hut,” and she gets real huffy.

Another sort of repetition to explore in the book is the repetition of sounds. The most common sort is probably alliteration.

She accused him of spending his days in a meaningless muddle of mediocrity.

Wondering where she was, he buried his face in her silky, satiny dress, savoring her scent.

Another interesting form of repetition is anaphora, which many of us recognize from its use in the Bible (where I’m tempted to take refuge sometimes, let me tell you!) or in religiously oriented passages. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Yes, doesn’t He/She! Sometimes a little deficient on the giving side, if you ask me. Anyway, the rhetorical device involves repeating whole words or groups of words at the beginning of clauses.

He loved her because she never complained about his lack of success. He loved her because she stood by him when the rejections threatened to bury him. He loved her because she could make the bad times a little less bad.

By the way, Joe, some hints are being given out by one or two of the old‑timers in the department about this year’s tenure race. It may not be looking good for me. Still early, of course, but it’ll be hell on earth if they turn me out after these seven years. Sometimes I think my only chance is to drop everything else and push on with the study of Forster’s Italian pastoral scenes… although it’s beginning to seem that all something like that will get me is a chance to spend the rest of my career in stodgy obscurity in Podunk U. And Podunk U. is not a place Sharon wants to be, let me tell you! Especially now, when her consulting business seems to have picked up. She’s certainly spending more time than usual with clients, so I find myself watching the TV with my microwaved Chicken with Saffron Rice. Well, that gives me more time to work on the handbook. Hint, hint.

Sorry to unload on you like this, old pal. It’s certainly beginning to look like you made the right choice to get out of the damn academic race when you did and find a real job!

Well, I’m off to teach my last class of the day.

So long.

 

[email protected]
Terrence R. Stark, Ph.D.
Department of English
Benjamin Franklin University

Dear Joe,

Hey, buddy! Did you forget your little black book with all the phone numbers and addresses? I was looking forward to a nice conversation with you in some restaurant. But not a peep from you. As it turned out, though, Sharon was busier than we originally expected, so perhaps it’s for the best. I’m beginning to think she’s working too hard. Sometimes I even have a hard time getting my calls through to her.

At any rate, some more examples for the rhetoric book. (By the way, I hope I can put my fingers on all of the earlier ones I sent you, because things have been somewhat hectic and messy here recently.)

How could we forget our old friend personification (also known as prosopopoeia): Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so.

Not that one can top Donne, but here’s another: Suspicion slid off its barren tree and slithered into his dreams.

And we haven’t done metaphor and simile yet, have we? (Sorry, Joe, but it’s a mess in the office.) Her words were as sharp as daggers. The sneer she turned to him was fire in his heart.

Damn. Joe, I’m sorry. Got some business to attend to. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can.

Fragmentarily yours.

 

 

Philadelphia

Hello, Joe!

I’m writing late at night, pen in hand. The silence in the house positively crackles. Everything is piled up on the desk, ready for when I need it: dictionaries, thesauri, handbooks, style guides. And yet I’m as still as they are. It’s very frustrating. I look out the window, see the face of the moon half-hidden by white wisps of cloud. A coy thing, isn’t she? Pock-marked and lifeless, we know, but not to our eyes, not with her decorative midnight veil.

I had a dream. No, not tonight. Another night. It spooked me, all about wandering through Kissick Hall, never finding the door to my office. And no one would answer my questions. When I do find the office, there’s somebody else’s name on the door! They’re almost like a figurative language, aren’t they, dreams? Telling us something in a vivid way, but obliquely. Not the literal way, which can be so boring.

It’s still silent. Writing by hand is so much more tactile than clickety-clacking at a computer keyboard. Moon. Tempest. Rage. Illusory. You own those words when you write them with a pen. Inkblood oozing out on the indifferent sheet.

It’s late. I said that already. Take care.

 

 

[email protected]
Joe, old pal!

In case you hadn’t noticed, you haven’t heard from me for a few weeks. And I hope to God you didn’t pay any attention to the chicken scratchings I think I might have sent last! I’ve been trying to straighten a few things out—the job’s a real hassle. A lot of things to consider. Anyway…

I vaguely recall that we had begun with metaphor and simile when last we “spoke.” No need for much elaboration there, but then there’s that trickier trope, synecdoche, in which the part expresses the whole. My eyes thirsted for those familiar sails on the horizon. There, sails stands in for the entire ships. Throughout the expensive restaurant, the suits were preening. And synecdoche’s cousin is metonymy, in which a related concept or defining trait is used for the original word. He has given up the sword for the pen. Mr. Aftershave helped her into her seat, smiling like a cheap Valentino.

But you know what’s really interested me recently, Joe? One of the figures of speech that I’ve always recognized but never been able to name, until now. It’s adynata, in which the writer expresses the impossibility of expressing himself adequately. A paradox? Or just a ploy? Loved by the classical writers and some of the medieval poets we used to argue about, remember? Our old friend Chaucer, he must have used it in Troilus and Criseyde, don’t you think, protesting his inability to describe their magnificent love and later the depths of T’s despair at her betrayal. But let’s try some more modern twists—I mean, after all, who among the booklet’s potential readers would know Chaucer!

There are no words sufficiently jagged to express his pain.

I suppose the cleverest writers then went on to tell you exactly what they could not or would not tell you. I have no skill to describe the massive ships of the Achaeans, taller than the tallest walls of Tiryns. I have no skill to evoke the treachery of the beautiful Criseyde. But you get the point.

As far as I can remember, we haven’t looked at one of the most popular forms of rhetoric—antithesis. A little odd, don’t you think, to overlook that? The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas. But not, I hope, in a way that suggests schizophrenia! The clown smiled, though his heart was breaking. Hold on—that’s definitely a cliché, and we should by all means avoid clichés, even if they turn out to be accurate. For all his cleverness, he blundered in his desperation to see her again.

“But Mr. Jones, I’m married!” she exclaimed indignantly, while under the table her fingers stole up his thigh.

Antithesis. I suppose it is also handy for purposes of comparison, covert or otherwise. Her gaze passed over Carl’s frayed collar before settling on Derek’s silk tie.

And speaking of ties, Joe, do you remember that year we went to the MLA convention? Tough times then, as I recall. Academic jobs were at a premium! You got drunk the night before you were to deliver your paper comparing Pandarus from Troilus and Criseyde and that scheming, matchmaking aunt in Washington Square. Do you remember how we sat up together practically the whole night? I can’t recall the name of the woman who had just dumped you, but I know I cursed her at least a hundred times that night. (Hyperbole?) Of course, those were the days before you started wearing scents like Polo, which I am quite sure have an allure no woman can resist! Where was the conference that year? One of the big D.C. midtown motels? No: hotel. They don’t hold MLA conventions in motels. Still, the ride back to the university was a lot happier, remember? Some eminent critic in the audience had actually commented favorably on your presentation, and the road to the future looked paved with gold.

But back to our glance at the Wonderful World of Rhetoric. We did metonymy, right? Antithesis, then:

With every animal thrust, he made her gasp like an angel witnessing the Mystery.

You know, Joe, much as it grieves me to say this, I’m just not sure the world is dying for another rhetoric handbook. Or maybe I’m not the one to write it. There are some other things I’ve got to do first.

Your friend.

 

Joe,

How could we forget about litotes! It’s sort of the opposite of hyperbole, and I think a rhetorical form much more suited to my personality. As in:

Seeing them writhing on the bed was not the most pleasant experience.

And its more familiar relative, understatement: He wondered whether there might be cause for concern.

See you soon.

Sent from my smartphone

John-SheaAs a Foreign Service brat, John Shea spent his early years in Europe and probably didn’t appreciate his good fortune enough. He is an editor and writer at the University of Pennsylvania, and he may be the only person to have published stories in both Partisan Review and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Other stories have appeared in Columbia, Literal Latte, Philadelphia City Paper, The Café Irreal, Ampersand Review, and Philadelphia Stories.

Image credit: Laura Billings on Flickr

SILKWORM by Emilia Rodriguez

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

SilkwormSILKWORM
by Emilia Rodriguez

They rode the bus at dawn and again before bed. Some of them talked, but Luz never did. It was easier to rest her head against the trembling glass and listen: Someone’s husband came home drunk, Someone won at bingo, and Gloria’s daughter finally had the baby. Gloria reminded Luz of her mother: rotund, vivacious, and demanding. It was so unnerving to be around her; Luz wished there were an earlier route, or an alternate route she could take to keep from hearing Gloria’s voice. Luz was unable to conceive, and she dreaded the mornings when Gloria bragged about her daughter’s pregnancy, recounting every ailment from the swollen feet to the constipation. Gloria was so proud of the pregnancy you’d think she was responsible for it herself. And though Luz felt some jealousy at the news, the thought that Gloria might have to quit to help her daughter care for the infant made her smile.

Luz looked out at the houses that lined the drowsy streets. They rushed past her in a blur, awash in the pale pink of sunrise. Some were so similar, with changes so subtle, they appeared flashing at the window like a flipbook of cartoon sketches: a house growing bigger, taller, rising like a monster from the ocean.

Mulberry Avenue was the last stop before the hill. No one who rode the bus needed to be at the bottom of the hill, but the route ended there. The driver stopped and the doors opened to a city bench and a yellowed poster of the bus routes encased in plexiglass. On one side, the rainbow of routes like veins in the stratum of beige shore; on the other, the women with their tangled hair and faces easily forgotten or remembered as someone else’s.

Luz was the last to exit the bus and the slowest to climb the hill. When she reached the iron gates, she pressed a small red button inside a brass lion’s mouth and spoke her name into the intercom.

“Lucy?” begged a man’s raspy voice.

“Yes…Luz!” She took the opportunity to correct Mr. Greenwood whenever possible. He and his wife seemed determined to call her Lucy.

A loud buzz unlocked the wrought iron scrolls and they swung back dreamily like a plastic ballerina pirouetting in a music box. Luz walked through the gates and past the fountain, past the roses, past the tall limestone urns of creeping ivy and up the winding driveway. She climbed the steps leading to the front door, and paused to catch her breath.

Inside, Luz was greeted only by the faint pine scent of yesterday’s job well done. But already the staircase was littered with green plastic soldiers and crayons. It was Luz’s job to be silent, invisible, and thorough. Though there were times when returning to work and finding a house she’d left clean an unlivable mess drove her to tears, as with all things Luz had found ways to cope.

She and her younger sister had been raised by their mother, who worked as a washerwoman in their neighborhood. As a child, sometimes Luz tagged along to the laundromat, helping her mother fold clothing until the sun set. She was always saddened to see classmates’ clothing sudsing in the window of the washing machine. Luz knew she didn’t have nice things like the rest of the girls in her class, but she coped with that by begging their mother to request a catalogue to Penney’s department store. When it arrived, she and her sister lay on the bed for hours flipping through the glossy pictures. They dreamed of the day when they could wear beautiful clothing like those girls. It was then that her sister proposed a deal.

“Everything on that side is yours,” she said indicating the page on the right, “Everything on the page on my side belongs to me. If you want something from my side, you’ll have to trade me something from your side, okay?”

When they’d grown tired of trading purses for shoes and pillows and scarves, they cut out the watches and taped them around their wrists. Luz cut out a pearl necklace on the cover so meticulously around each bead that when she was done, her sister argued that the cover was her side, so Luz had stolen it. After Luz refused to hand it over, her sister demanded Luz to tell her where she would even wear the pearls. When Luz replied that she’d wear them to the laundromat, her sister scoffed and said, “You don’t wear pearls to a laundromat.”

Now Luz coped by imagining she was the lady of the manor, and everything in the house belonged to her. That was why it was so important to keep everything clean and in the right place. At first it was innocent enough. Blouses were ironed and the mail was stacked neatly into piles by size. She’d been prompted by Mrs. Greenwood to throw out the leaflets and junk mail. One day as Luz was getting ready to leave, she slipped the trash stack into the front pocket of her apron, meaning to throw it away later. When she got home, Luz realized she’d brought it with her.

It was then that she noticed the poinsettia embossed on the back of a red envelope from the orthodontist. And though she wasn’t sure why, she could not throw it away. Luz slid her finger under the seal and tore it open. Inside was a Christmas card with the image of the three wise men crossing the desert. Two were holding jeweled boxes, and the third held a vial and pointed to a golden star. Beneath the star, there was a small silhouette in the distance: Mary, in a manger, holding the baby Jesus in her arms. Inside was a printed message: A silent night, a star above, a blessed gift of hope and love. Merry Christmas! Then handwritten next to Merry Christmas was Mrs. Greenwood’s name. Luz closed the card and took it to her room where she stood it on the bedside table.

Mr. Greenwood was on his way out the door as he passed Luz hunched over the stairs and gathering crayons. Suddenly remembering something he turned to face the wall.

“Mrs. Greenwood isn’t here. She took the boys to their grandmother’s.”

Then he turned from the wall without waiting for a reply. Luz heard the front door click shut. A few seconds later, the car’s engine faded into the silence.

At around four o’clock that day, Luz ascended the stairs with a basket of laundry to Mrs. Greenwood’s dressing room. She ironed, folded, stacked, and when she was done made her way into the bedroom. She knelt at the foot of the bed and pulled Mrs. Greenwood’s high heels out from under it. She carried them into the dressing room where she dusted, polished, and lined up the stilettos and pumps by color and height on the lucite shelving. On the vanity in the dressing room, Mrs. Greenwood had a picture of herself taken at the hospital after giving birth. In the picture, Mrs. Greenwood stood by a window in her baby blue gown, the light from the sun haloed around her as she cradled the newborn in her arms. And though her hair was smooth, and her mouth pouted like a perfect pink valentine, she looked somber. Distant.

Luz reached up to where her hair was tangled into a bun and let it down so that it fell over her shoulders like Mrs. Greenwood’s. Seeing the photograph, Luz was almost happy she couldn’t have a baby and had no desire for her husband. It was hard to desire the empty fridge and the leaky pipes. So after a while, spending all day cleaning the Greenwood home wasn’t a problem; there were few other options. Luz had stopped going to middle school when her mother needed help with the bills. She started washing clothes to help, then at sixteen became a washer woman herself while her sister continued school. But that was over fifteen years ago. These days, as her mother recalled it, she had never asked Luz to be anything more than a child.

Luz gathered her hair off her shoulders and back into a bun. She looked around the dressing room one last time to make sure everything was in its right place. Having worked with the Greenwoods for over a year, Luz knew the dressing room and its contents well. New shoes were always taken out of their boxes and proudly displayed on the shelves. So when she spotted a new shoebox peeking out behind a suitcase, Luz felt curious. But as she went to pull the box from its hiding place, she heard high heels clicking across the marble floors.

Sometimes, it was difficult to stop playing lady of the manor because it was hard not to believe the Greenwood home was hers. After all, she cleaned, cooked, took out the garbage, and brought in the mail. She knew where the dustpan and vacuum bags were. She knew when the air filter was due to be replaced.

On the bus ride home, Gloria talked and talked. Listening to Gloria was like having a constant reminder of how she felt when her mother called with the news that her sister was pregnant. Luz had immediately called her sister to congratulate her, but as always there was no answer, and her call was never returned. Luz leaned back in the bus seat and saw herself in the window’s reflection: her shirt was stained where she’d dripped bleach down the front of it, her hair was plastered to the cold sweat on her forehead, and wrinkles were finding their way into the corners of her eyes. She knew it was the reason her sister never spoke to her anymore, and she hated being a source of embarrassment for her upper-middle class sibling. Luz closed her eyes and thought of the shoebox hidden in the corner of Mrs. Greenwood’s closet. She thought of what it would feel like to wear those secret shoes. Allowing herself to fantasize about that moment, Luz kept her eyes closed until the bus made its last stop two blocks from her apartment.

Luz unlocked the door and walked into the one-bedroom apartment. The rooms were dimly lit, and they smelled of rust and the dank mildew of an unfinished basement—no matter how often she cleaned. She saw her husband’s clothing was scattered in a trail leading to the bathroom. Miguel usually left his clothing this way, never bothering to consider how many hours Luz spent bent over the Greenwoods’ laundry. She dropped her keys on the kitchen counter.

“Luz?” he yelled through the bathroom door.

“It’s me.”

“Your mother called,” he said.

Luz heard the toilet flush. Her husband walked out of the bathroom drying his hands on his boxers.

“She said they’re having Christmas dinner tonight.”

Luz was collecting his clothing off the floor and putting it into a pile by the couch.

“Two days early?” she asked.

She rounded the corner into their bedroom. She looked through her closet for a clean shirt.

“Yeah, she said your sister was gonna be out of town, something about the in-laws and the kids wanting to spend it there…”

He followed her into the bedroom. Luz was taking a shirt off its hanger. She was about to ask him if he would go with her until she saw that he had picked up the Christmas card and was about to open it.

“Put that down!” she ordered. “Maybe you should pick up your own things! Every day, I walk through that door, and every day I find your filthy rags scattered all over the house!”

He put down the card and quietly walked out the room. Luz buttoned up her shirt and washed her face. She walked to the pile of laundry by the couch, stuck her hand into the pocket of her husband’s jeans, and fished out his keys. Then without saying a word, she closed the apartment door behind her.

Her mother’s house was the same house Luz grew up in, but it had changed. Her sister had had the cabinets redone, all the mismatched dishes had been replaced with fine china, and their old bedroom had been converted into an office space. Abstract paintings hung on the walls next to photos of her sister’s children. Luz hated it. She hated how her sister had stripped the house of all its memories and turned it into a picture from a home décor catalogue.

When Luz walked through the door, they were already eating.

“Luz!” her mother shouted. “Come in, come in.”

They sat in the candlelight—black-burgundy orbs on crystal stems. On one side of the table, cinnamon poached pears and figs surrounded an apricot-glazed ham. On the other, a stuffed turkey anchored by cranberries and a Dutch-chocolate trifle. Luz pulled a chair out from the table and sat next to her sister. She watched as her mother dug her fingernail into the heart of a fig. The hands once graceful with a calloused tenacity now twisted in front of her like a tree uprooted in a storm. She broke the skin and scraped out its fleshy seeds.

“I’m tired,” Luz said.

“Where’s Miguel?” her mother asked. Her glassy eyes focused on the fruit.

“It’s Christmas,” her sister argued.

“No it’s not!” the children yelled.

Luz’s nephews were surrounded by piles of crumpled wrapping paper and playing by the Christmas tree with toy cars. They rammed them into the wall and made loud crashing noises.

“It’s not Christmas,” Luz assured them, “It’s a workday, and I’m tired.”

“We haven’t opened our real presents!” Julio shouted.

“Santa took them to Grandma Laurie’s,” Tony explained to his brother.

Luz sank her head into her hands and laughed.

“I can’t believe you,” she began.

“Wait!” her sister yelped, jumping out of her seat, “I almost forgot Luz!”

Her sister pulled out a gold wrapped box from under the tree and presented it to Luz.

“I’ll open it later,” Luz said.

“Open it now,” she protested, “You might want to use it.”

“I didn’t buy you anything.”

Luz looked to her mother who was fixed on her reflection in one of the spoons by her plate.

Luz undid the bow and peeled back the golden wrapping paper. Inside was a heavy, glass-domed coffret. She lifted the lid to reveal the velvet interior containing a set of perfumed oils and soaps. Luz set it down next to her plate and stood to pour herself a glass of wine. Then walking past her sister, Luz sat on the floor next to her nephews where they’d been racing cars down the hallway.

“I’ll be the red car,” she said to Julio. “But don’t let me win.”

Luz knew her sister was making their mother happy. So when she walked into the living room and found her sister draping a pearl necklace around their mother’s neck, she ran to hug her in gratitude.

“Do you remember the Penney’s catalogue?” Luz asked.

“No,” her sister replied.

That night when Luz got home after dinner, she pulled the extra blankets out of the closet and slept on the couch.

 

The next morning the Greenwoods’ gate was open, and when Luz reached the front steps she saw a note on the door:

Lucy,

Please ask Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey to let you in.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey owned the property that faced the Greenwood home. It was where Gloria worked. Luz was thinking about whether or not she should leave and pretend she never saw the note when she heard Gloria calling to her from the roses.

Luz walked to meet Gloria halfway down the driveway. Gloria started talking before Luz could thank her.

“Mrs. Humphrey says she wants the keys brought back immediately,” she said, doing her best impression of a nasal American accent. Then retreating into her own thick accent she said,“Ay, you’re so lucky mija. I love it when la doña isn’t home.”

Gloria removed the key from the unlocked door and hurried down the driveway back to the other side of the street, waddling as large women sometimes do.

Luz shut the door behind her and walked up the stairs, checking to see that every room was empty. Then she walked into Mrs. Greenwood’s dressing room. Once again, Luz eyed the shoebox. She kneeled reverently and paused only a moment before lifting the lid.

Inside was a pair of black leather, pointed-toe heels with red soles. As the light grazed the surface of the leather, Luz traced it with her fingertips. She pulled the shoes carefully out of the box and set them on the floor. She removed her sneakers and peeled off her socks. Then, after dusting the lint off her feet, she slid one foot into the binding leather and then the other.

She walked proudly from room to room picking things up and putting them down as if they were her own. And when the phone rang, Luz ran into the bedroom and reached for the phone as if she expected to hear her sister’s voice on the other line calling to ask for cooking advice.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Greenwood, this is Patrice calling from Newhart Orthodontics.”

Luz smiled into the receiver.

“We’re calling you to confirm Leo’s appointment on Tuesday.”

“Yes, we’ll be there.” She replied coolly, catching her reflection in the large freestanding mirror by the bed.

“We’ll see you then,” the receptionist said before hanging up.

Luz walked over to the mirror and turned sideways. She looked tall, beautiful, like the type of woman you might see in a movie: walking into an elevator, smiling at men, hailing a taxi. Luz had always been admired for her figure, and never having been pregnant, she had no trouble maintaining it. She remembered how Miguel worshiped her when they’d first met. Spending his meager earnings on elaborate bouquets he would have delivered to her mother’s house. The card always read the same: Para mi Luz Divina. The card had upset Luz’s mother. She called it sacrilegious. Luz loved it. To be referred to as his divine light, as a goddess.

Luz walked back into the dressing room. She looked through all of the dresses she always dreamed of owning, but what Luz fantasized about most went underneath the dresses. She walked to the back of the dressing room and opened Mrs. Greenwood’s lingerie drawer. She ran her hands down the front of her shirt and unbuttoned it down to her navel. Luz looked at her abdomen’s skin, it was tan and taut. She remembered how one day she had walked in on Mrs. Greenwood undressing and had seen the way her stomach looked. Tiny stretch marks ran up the sides of her belly and a Cesarean scar was embedded in the crease of her pelvis.

Luz unhooked the clasp of her bra, and chose one of Mrs. Greenwood’s from the drawer. It was made of ivory Chantilly lace. She hung it from the drawer’s edge by its strap and found the matching panty. She quickly removed her clothing and slid into the lingerie. Then she walked back into the bedroom and observed herself.

She stood there a long time. Not moving, only seeing herself differently from what she’d known herself to look like. Her body smooth and glowing, her hair loose and wild. She no longer hated the way her mouth turned down at the corners when she wasn’t forcing a smile. She loved the way she looked. Her eyes brightened, her legs looked longer, and her back straightened. The bra’s cups were molded to Mrs. Greenwood’s modest chest, and the top of Luz’s breasts spilled out over the lace. She brought her hands up to where the fabric pressed into her skin. Slipping her hands under the lace, Luz pulled her breasts out by their erect nipples. She watched her reflection. She slid her hands over her waist and then down over her hips. She was breathing more heavily. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, finally finding the heat of her body. She worked her hands between her legs. Her skin throbbed with heat. It felt like it was tightening around her. Then the bedroom door swung open.

Luz pulled her hands out of the panties and opened her mouth to speak, but no sound followed. Her heart raced as she frantically searched for any possible excuse that would justify what Mrs. Greenwood had just witnessed, but every word in Luz’s vocabulary seemed to have evaporated. Mrs. Greenwood looked confused, but then she turned to close the door behind her and locked it. She looked back at Luz who was standing and holding her arms in front of her breasts. Her eyes fell to Luz’s feet. Her face contorted as she held her hand in front of her face to shield her eyes.

“Go change,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

Luz said nothing, only walked slowly into the dressing room. She removed the shoes and pulled them to her chest. Shutting her eyes tightly, she fell to her knees and clutched the heels. Hurriedly, she began rubbing the shoes together like she was trying to start a fire with two twigs. She rubbed until the sides of the shoes scuffed and revealed the tan-animal hide stretched over the shoe’s frame. Then she carefully placed them back into the shoebox and lowered it into its hiding place. After some hesitation Luz picked the box back up and placed it on the dresser over the picture of Mrs. Greenwood and the infant.

She pulled down the panties. A dense, clear liquid connected them to her. It looked like a long silk thread. She pinched the slippery strand and tried to pull it away from the cloth, but it seemed to have woven itself into the web of the fabric. When they were off, she dressed in her own clothes, tied her hair back, and stuffed the panties into the back pocket of her jeans.

Luz walked down the winding driveway, and through the iron gates. She walked past the Humphreys’ happy that she would never see Gloria again. But when Luz arrived at the bus stop, Gloria was standing by the bench. She twirled a thin gold wedding band around her finger again and again. Luz stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and felt the lace. She pulled her hands back out and crossed them in front of her.

“What are you doing here Gloria?”

“I quit,” she said. The first time for Luz, and then she cleared her throat and said it again, “I quit.” She looked down at her ring.

“I quit too,” Luz said.

Gloria turned to Luz whose hands had made their way back into her pockets.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Luz replied, “Why did you quit?”

“Because she fired me—Mrs. Humphrey. I wanted a week to help Linda with the baby, but she said I wasn’t cleaning behind the toilets anymore. They needed someone else. Probably someone younger.”

“I quit because I hate my husband,” Luz said.

The bus tires screeched. The doors folded open. Gloria waddled up the steps. Luz followed. The women sat, for the first time, side by side.

“Doesn’t he let you work?”

“He does,” Luz assured her, “It’s not that.”

“What then?”

“He prays.”

Gloria’s eyes widened and she leaned in very close, “and?” She rolled her eyes and laughed.

Luz forced a smile.

“You don’t understand. He prays for me to…” Luz heard her voice crack and took a deep breath to assure herself Gloria would not see her cry, “He prays for me to get pregnant.”

Luz looked over to Gloria who had begun cleaning the dirt out from under her fingernails.

“Maybe that’s too much to hope for,” she continued, “to be loved for more than just keeping a clean home and getting pregnant.”

“I’ll pray too,” Gloria assured her.

That night Luz wept silently in her bedroom, her back turned to her husband. She wept for the pearls. She wept for the shoes and what she’d done in Mrs. Greenwood’s home. She wept for hating Gloria. She wept when she felt her husband’s hand on her trembling shoulder, and because he never asked what was wrong, and because she never cared if he knew. But most of all she wept for the card with the golden star in the desert sky.

Luz stood. She walked through the dark, and took the card into the kitchen. She set it on the counter next to the phone. A silent night, a star above, a blessed gift of hope and love. She mouthed the words to herself, then reached for the phone and dialed her sister’s number. After a few rings, she heard her sister’s sleepy voice on the line.

“Do you remember the Penney’s catalogue?” Luz asked.

There was a short pause, “I already told you I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Well, I remember,” Luz said. “I remember, and I need you to remember.” The words like sand in her mouth. “I need you to remember because we made a deal.”

Luz waited. She hoped her sister would apologize. She hoped that at the very least, her sister would admit that she remembered. And maybe she would agree that in life, if someone you love needs help, you help. You trade. There was a long silence until Luz heard the echo of a click like the sound of a shutting door.

Emilia-Rodriguez

Emilia Rodriguez is a Chicano-Feminist writer, and a native Texan. She was raised in the Mexico-bordering city of Roma, Texas, and is a graduate of Texas State University where she is currently pursuing an MFA degree in Fiction. She lives in San Marcos, Texas with her husband, jazz bassist Lewis McMahon, and is working on a collection of short stories.

 

 

Image credit: Ley on Flickr

THE HERD by Annika Neklason

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

The-Herd
THE HERD
by Annika Neklason

The cows are clustered together at the crown of the hill. From where Priya stands on the shoulder of the highway they look like shadow puppets, dark, shifting silhouettes backlit by the harvest moon. They seem small enough, insubstantial enough, at this distance to be knocked over by a strong wind, or even swept away entirely.

Beside her, Amo cups his hands around his mouth and moos at them. The low vibrato of the sound makes Priya shiver, but the cows are too far away; they can’t hear him. They don’t lift their heads.

“Got to work on that, man,” Ben says, coming around the hood of his Volvo. “You sound like a dying mule.”

“At least I don’t look like one,” Amo says.

Ben flips him off.

“Come on,” Vanessa says. She’s already straddling the fence at the base of the hill, her feet dangling in the dry grass. The tops of her socks are still visible where they’re rolled up over her jeans. She made them all tuck the cuffs of their pants in. To keep ticks out, she said, though she shed her shirt in the heat of Ben’s car and is now stripped nearly bare from the waist up. She’s still wearing her bra, some complicated cross-backed, front-clasping contraption that casts off a luminous pink glow in the dark, but the long planes of her abdomen and lower back are entirely uncovered. Priya thinks ticks are probably mobile enough to reach her stomach or her arms once they start walking up the slope, where the grass is tall enough to bury them up past their knees. She tells herself that’s the reason she’s still wearing her shirt, even though it’s sweat-damp and claustrophobic and she wants to look as free and uncaring as Vanessa, sitting on the fence with her back straight and the moonlight slanting over her bird-fine shoulder blades. Because of the ticks.

“Come on,” Vanessa says again. “My mom’ll kill me if I’m not back before she wakes up.”

Amo shoves Ben’s shoulder and moves to join her. He’s shirtless, too. Priya’s fascinated by the hollowness of his stomach, the way his ribs hang over it like branches in an arbor. Ben shrugged his shirt back on before they left the car, but the buttons are undone all down the front and the sleeves are rolled up above his elbows. Priya watches them scale the fence, Amo gracefully and Ben less so, and feels grateful for the paleness of Ben’s narrow chest, the way the fabric clings to his back where he’s still sticky with sweat. For the smattering of acne across the line of Amo’s shoulders. She hates herself a little for feeling it.

Amo turns to extend a hand back through the slats, toward Priya.

“Let’s go, Patel,” he says. “Move it or lose it.”

Priya goes toward him. Before Ben’s car pulled up in front of her house earlier tonight, before Amo came through the side yard to knock on her bedroom window, she’d seen him only from a distance: slumped over a desk at the back of her second period history class; moving through the hallway ahead of her, just tall enough to stick out from the mass of other students walking between periods, to follow in a crowd; stretching at the edge of the outdoor track as she ran warm-ups and Coach yelled those same words at her. Let’s go, Patel. Move it or lose it.

Now Amo’s watching her through the fence, close enough that she can make out the uneven regrowth of stubble along the line of his jaw, darker in the spots he missed the last time he shaved. She thinks he’s saying it in solidarity. Like he’s laughing with her about Coach, who tells her to move from the legs, not the stomach and thinks her last name is Patel just because she’s Indian. She doesn’t think he’s laughing at her.

“Come on,” Vanessa says.

Priya fits her sneakered foot between the slats of the fence and presses her palms to the flat wood at the top, hoisting herself up until she’s folded over at the hips. She swings a leg up, then the other. Amo reaches out to steady her as she drops into the grass, his warm fingers curling briefly around her forearm.

Vanessa pushes off the fence and lands beside them, light and purposeful. She starts up the slope, letting her hands dangle by her sides so that her fingers can catch and part the brittle blades of dead grass. She elbows Amo in the ribs as she passes him. Priya feels the easiness, the closeness of the contact, bare arm against bare chest, even as Amo flinches away from it and Vanessa moves forward, away from them.

Amo swears at Vanessa in Spanish and releases Priya’s arm to press a hand against his side. “What was that for?” he asks.

“For being slow,” Vanessa says, not turning around.

“We haven’t even started walking yet,” he says to her back. Ben laughs as he goes by, following her. Amo goes after them, swearing again, and Priya moves with him like a dog on a leash. When she opened her window earlier, bleary-eyed, to find him standing among the wild nasturtiums that grow thick and bright at the side of her house, Amo had said, Come on, get dressed. We have to go. It should have taken more than that, but it didn’t. It doesn’t. He goes after Vanessa and Ben, so Priya goes, too.

They wade through the high grass toward the top of the hill. The walking is difficult, tiring, like trying to run in dry sand. Priya stumbles over a loose stone hidden close to the earth and cuts her hands on the grass when she catches herself. The cuts are small and thin like paper cuts; they sting like paper cuts, too.

Ben helps her up. He’s breathing loudly, and the fabric under his arms has darkened in broad crescents. His palm is slick against Priya’s as he pulls her to her feet. “Sorry,” he says. He wipes his hands on his jeans and pushes his sleeves up further on his arms.

“It’s fine,” Priya says. She can feel her shirt sticking to her back, can feel the sweat beading on her own palms.

“Come on,” Amo says beside her, hoarse and heavy. “Come on come on come on come on. Some gringo’s going to jack Ben’s hotmobile while we’re scaling fucking Kilimanjaro over here.”

“They’re welcome to it, man,” Ben says, blowing out a long, warm breath that Priya can feel against her arm.

“Yeah?” says Amo. “Then you’re in charge of carrying me home.”

They’re almost at the top of the hill now. The slope beneath their feet is evening out; the cows are close enough that Priya can make out their smooth-edged spots and the brands burned into their flanks.

“Hotmobile?” Vanessa asks. She’s outpaced them enough that Priya can’t make out her features anymore in the dark; she’s just a silhouette against the lighter sky, all curves and legs and narrow waist. “Since when is Ben’s mom car a hotmobile?”

Priya tugs at the hem of her shirt and turns to look at the cows instead.

“Since my hot ass inherited it,” Ben says.

Amo laughs. “That car is like an oven, man. Anybody’s ass would be hot if they sat in there long enough.”

The seat warmers in Ben’s Volvo are broken. And not, as Ben pointed out when Priya first climbed into the backseat, in the regrettable but survivable sense of just not working at all. Instead they automatically switch on to the highest setting when the engine starts and can’t be lowered or turned off. Priya can still feel the phantom heat radiating up through her body even now, more than twenty minutes after leaving the car.

“At least I still have a license,” Ben says.

Amo flips him off, and Ben laughs at him.

A cow has turned to look down at them, one pitchy ear pricked toward the sound of Ben’s laughter. Its eyes reflect the moonlight; they glow pale and depthless in the shadow of its face.

“Shhhh,” Vanessa says. “Christ, you guys are loud enough to start a stampede.”

Amo responds by cupping his hands around his mouth and mooing again. This time the cows all turn, their eyes fixing on his face.

“Shut up,” Vanessa says. “Seriously, you’re going to spook them.”

Amo lowers his hands and turns them palm-out, toward the cows. “We come in peace,” he says solemnly.

Vanessa shoots him a dark look, and Ben laughs again. Priya keeps watching the cows, silent.

Amo knocks his arm against her shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to bow or something?”

“What?” Priya asks.

“Cows are holy for you, right? Hindus?” He gestures broadly.

“I’m not Hindu,” Priya says. She crosses her arms over her chest. “I mean, unless you ask my grandmother.”

“Oh.” Amo blows out a breath through his nose.

Ben laughs at him again. “You asshole,” he says.

Amo shrugs, looking at the cows again. Some of them have turned away, dipping their heads toward the grass or moving toward the opposite side of the hill. One is folded down onto its legs, asleep, with its face hidden in the grass.

“They’re so big,” Vanessa says.

“Yeah,” says Amo. “Roughly cow-sized. What were you expecting, chickens?”

“Whatever,” she says. “They just look like they’re going to be hard to push over, is all.”

“We’ll put our backs into it,” he says. He walks toward the closest cow, lifting his hands like he’s approaching someone with a gun cocked toward his chest. “Shhh,” he tells the cow. “Stay chill, okay?”

Ben goes to stand a step behind him. “Won’t it just move out of the way?” he asks.

“Not fast enough,” Amo says. “Come on, are we doing this or what?”

Priya walks toward him, not looking at him. Looking at the cow. It’s both bigger and smaller than she imagined a cow would be from up close, both slower and brighter. Its eyes are enormous and round when it looks at her in return. It smells like fertilizer and like animal, warm and alive.

Amo loops his fingers around her wrist and drags her hand forward until it’s pressed against the cow’s side. Ben steps up beside her and puts his hands on it, too. She can feel it breathing, the rise and fall of its flank against her palm; she lifts her other hand and splays her fingers over one of its spots. She wonders if the cow’s supposed to be this thin. She can feel its ribs, separate and distinct.

Vanessa draws up on her other side, shifting nervously. “It smells awful,” she says. She runs a hand through her hair, and then runs it through again.

“Like shit,” Amo says. “Literally.”

Ben laughs.

They stand at the cow’s side, hands raised against its flank in a neat line. The cow’s head is turned to look at them. Its nose is only inches from Ben’s face.

“Okay,” Amo says. “Push on three.”

“One,” he and Ben count together. “Two. Three.”

 

“The thing is,” says Amo as Ben drives them back toward Mill Valley, toward their sleeping houses and dark bedrooms and parents that don’t know to miss them, at least not yet, “the thing is it turns out cows are fucking enormous, and kind of impossible to tip over.”

The rest of them hum in agreement. Priya watches the hills recede out her window and hopes the sweat bleeding through her shirt doesn’t leave a dark mark on the seat. She hopes her dad hasn’t woken up to find her gone. She hopes her hands and her shoulder didn’t bruise the cow’s side, where she pushed between its ribs and tried to knock it off its feet.

From the driver’s seat Ben says, “Maybe you just need to work out more, man.”

And Amo says, “I work out with your mom every night.”

Priya watches the first streetlights come into view, and says nothing.

 

She sees the first trailer a month later. She’s driving home with her father from a weekend trip to San Francisco, down the same highway, slumped down in her seat with her feet propped up on the dashboard and her cheek pressed against the window. The trailer is ahead of them in the next lane, but moving slowly; they edge up closer until they’re right alongside it and Priya can see the mottled brown and white heads and flanks pressed against the latticed side of the enclosure closest to her father’s Lexus. One of the cows raises its head and meets her eyes through the dusty glass of her window.

“Dad,” Priya says. “Dad, look at the cows.”

Her father glances over her, his knuckles tightening to keep the wheel straight, before he adjusts the mirror and faces front again. He grunts an acknowledgement, something distant and noncommittal.

“Where do you think they’re taking them?” Priya asks.

“Somewhere with water,” her dad says. His mouth tightens, the way it always does when the drought comes up. “Probably out of state. I heard they were taking some of them to Texas.”

“That far?” She turns to keep the trailer in view as they start to pull ahead of it.

“We don’t have the water to grow cow food anymore,” her dad says. “We’re having trouble just growing people food.”

“Cows are people food,” Priya points out.

Her dad drums his fingers against the wheel. “They’re inefficient. We can’t prioritize them right now, not when the state’s agriculture industry is hanging on by a thread.”

The trailer is far behind them now; Priya has to twist around in her seat so she can watch it out of the rear window. Eventually they outpace it enough that it disappears from view, lost among the hills and the highway signs and the other cars, full of other people driving home.

She sees another trailer passing through town later that week. She watches footage of ranchers loading up cows on the local news. She sees Amo slip into his seat at the back of the room late for history one morning, and remembers the feeling of the cow’s ribs beneath her hands.

The Sunday after Halloween she climbs up onto the roof of her house and sits for hours with her legs propped up on the angled solar panel her dad installed when they moved in last year. From this vantage point she can see the hills, smooth and gold like the haunches of an immense lion, stretching out toward the silhouetted mountains at the horizon. She can see the still-green lawns of the golf course, shaded by clusters of evergreens. She can see Pickleweed Inlet, extending from the mudflats to the broad edge of Richardson Bay. The water is bright with reflected sunlight.

She can see a long strip of the highway, too, cutting through the grass and the trees and the hills like a long gash. She watches the cars that go by, trying to pick out cow trailers, but from this distance it’s impossible to distinguish them from produce trucks and SUVs. She watches anyway; she watches until the sun sets and the cars become nothing more than shadows in the dark, and then she just sits on the roof and looks up at the stars.

Every time a car turns onto her street she sits up, wondering if it’s Ben and Amo and Vanessa, come to take her back to the farm.

 

They don’t go back until December, after they’ve finished finals and started in on the driest winter break Mill Valley’s ever had, or at least the driest anyone can remember. The manager of the country club finally agrees to shut off the sprinkler system, and the grass on the golf courses begin to die. Two brothers start selling Christmas trees out of a lot off Miller Avenue. Their needles are brown at the tips, and fall from their branches when the trees are lifted or shaken or touched.

They go back because Priya asks them to. She doesn’t have to go with them; she could ask her father to drive her, or maybe call herself a cab, or find someone else with a car. But Ben is the only person she knows who can drive her into the hills and who was also there with her that night in September, his hands pressed against the cow only inches from her own. So she calls him one evening while she’s sitting at her kitchen table, and tells him they should go see if the cows are still there.

“Why?” he asks her.

She doesn’t know why. Not why she wants to go so badly, and definitely not why he would want to come with her. “I’ll bring beer,” she says.

Ben is quiet. “Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll tell Amo and Vanessa.”

This time Priya is sitting on the front steps of her house when they pull up. Amo leans across the backseat to push her door open. She hands him the six-pack she took from her father’s office, still cold from the refrigerator under his desk.

“Alright,” he says. “Patel, bringing the party.”

She climbs in. The car is cooler than she was expecting. Ben grins at her in the rearview mirror as he pulls back out into the street. “I got my baby all fixed for Christmas,” he says. “They wanted to put the seat warmers back to normal, but I told them to just take them out. I don’t think I’ll ever want to warm my seat again.”

“No kidding,” Amo says. He pulls back the tab of a can, slurping at the beer that foams up through the opening. “I like my ass room temperature.”

Vanessa stretches a hand back from where she sits in the passenger seat, and Amo hands her a beer can. Their fingers touch briefly in the exchange.

“Hey,” says Ben. “Can you wait until we get out of the car? If I get pulled over with open containers in here I’m in deep shit.”

Vanessa ignores him and pops open the can.

“Don’t get pulled over,” Amo advises, taking a long drink.

Priya watches his Adam’s apple move in the dim light. Everything about Amo seems to be sharply angled and pressing outward: his Adam’s apple, his bones, his tongue, which rolls out to wet his lip once he’s finished drinking. It’s like he might shed his skin and expose his insides at any moment, like a snake.

Amo looks over and meets her eyes, the side of his mouth crooking up to expose a flash of teeth. “What’s in the bag?” he asks her, gesturing toward the plastic Safeway bag in her lap.

She shrugs, looking out the window.

“Don’t hold out on us, now,” Amo says.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “Just some fruit and stuff.”

“For what?” Ben asks. “Snacks?”

“Fruit’s a pretty shitty snack,” Amo says.

Priya watches the streetlights disappear behind them as the car rounds a bend. “It’s not for us,” she says. “It’s for the cows.”

Amo laughs.

Headlights flash over the windshield as someone passes them, headed the other direction; by the time Priya blinks away the spots left in her eyes by the sudden brightness, the car is too far behind them for her to make out the people in it. Vanessa reaches back from the passenger seat again, and Amo hands her another beer can.

“Come on, Vanessa,” Ben says, reaching out as if to take it from her. She twists away from him. “Seriously,” he says. “One, you’re going to get my license suspended. Two, you can’t have a second beer before I’ve had one.”

“You can’t drink,” she says. “You’re driving.”

“Whatever,” Ben says. “Wait. I think we’re there.”

He pulls off onto the shoulder of the highway. Priya opens her door and looks up toward the top of the hill. It’s darker tonight, the grass lit by only a thin crescent of a moon. She thinks she can see shapes moving, cows, but she can’t be sure. They might already be gone.

The others climb out of the car, slamming their doors behind them and going to stand by the fence at the base of the hill. Priya closes her door more gently as she goes to join them. Amo takes another loud drink from his beer can, and Vanessa gestures upward with hers.

“I see them,” she says. “Look.”

Priya looks, and she hopes.

“Yeah,” says Amo. “I see something.”

Priya breathes out a long breath. “Let’s go, then,” she says. “Come on.”

She hands Amo the plastic bag and starts toward the fence, pulling herself up onto her stomach and rolling over until she can drop down into the grass at the other side. Amo passes the bag back to her through the slats and then climbs over himself, landing awkwardly beside her and steadying himself against her shoulder. Ben and Vanessa follow, one at a time.

It’s colder tonight, too. Priya wishes she’d brought a jacket. She crosses her arms over her chest, fitting her hands into her armpits. The Safeway bag hangs down from under her arm so that it knocks against her hip each time she takes a step.

They’re almost at the top of the hill before Priya sees the cow. It’s alone, its head dipped toward the grass. She’d forgotten how big it would be. Her memory rendered it small, the way distance does.

Amo cups his hands around his mouth and moos.

“You’ve been practicing,” Ben says. “Now it’s more mule giving birth than mule dying.”

The cow looks up at them, its eyes only slightly lighter than the rest of its face. The night is dark enough that everything is just shades of almost-black. In silhouette the cow looks substantial, not as thin, as hungry, as Priya thought it would.

Amo moos again.

Priya reaches into the bag and pulls out an apple, cupping it in her palm as she walks toward the cow.

“It’s not a horse,” Vanessa says. “You can’t just feed it fucking treats.” She drains the last of the beer from her can and drops it into the grass, crumpling the aluminum under the heel of her boot.

The cow just watches Priya as she gets closer, as the slope evens out beneath her feet, until she’s standing in front of it on the flat crest of the hill. It’s only when it moves forward, lowering its head toward her palm, that Priya sees the other cows behind it, clustered together down on the opposite side of the hill.

“Cool,” says Amo. “It just sucked that whole thing up.”

Priya can feel the cow’s mouth, warm and wet, against her palm, and then it’s gone, replaced by the cool night air. Softened pieces of fruit drop into the grass at her feet as the cow chews.

“Gross,” Vanessa says.

None of the cows on the other side of the hill are looking at them. A couple are asleep. The rest are gathered into a tight knot, pressed up against one another as if to share warmth.

“Do you have another apple?” Amo asks Priya, stepping close enough that she can feel the heat of his body against her back. “I want to do one.”

She nods, reaching into her bag to produce a second apple. Amo takes it from her and holds it out to the cow, but this time it just turns its head away to look back at the others.

Amo lowers his hand and takes a swig of beer. “Guess it wasn’t that hungry after all,” he says.

“Or it just wants something better than fruit,” says Ben.

“I feel you, cow,” Amo says. “Holding out for a nice steak.”

Vanessa yawns, coming up beside him to take the beer from his hand. “That’s so wrong,” she says. “Cows can’t eat steak. Steak is cows.”

“McNuggets, then,” says Amo.

“I could go for some McNuggets,” says Ben, reaching out toward Vanessa and wriggling his fingers until she hands him the nearly empty can. She turns to press her face into Amo’s neck, yawning again.

Amo hands Priya the apple. “You give it a go, Patel,” he says. He slings his arm over her shoulders. It’s warm and heavy, the sleeve of his sweatshirt rough against the exposed skin at the back of her neck. She shivers. “You’re like a cow whisperer or something.”

Priya shifts under his arm, unconsciously sucking in her stomach—an automatic response to being touched. She holds the apple out toward the cow again. But it’s already shuffling down the opposite slope, leaving her to stand there, arm outstretched, and watch as it moves slowly, steadily, away from her, back to the herd.

Standing up to her knees in the long-dead grass with Amo’s laughter shaking through her shoulders, she watches as the other cows move to make room for it, letting it press into their circle of warmth. The relief comes over her like a living thing, like a warm hand curling around her arm: relief that the cows are still here on this hill overlooking the highway; that they haven’t been driven in the night to a distant field in Texas, where the grass is still green and rain still falls. Relief that none of them have been taken. But, mostly, relief that none of them have been left alone.

Annika-NeklasonAnnika Neklason grew up in Santa Cruz, California. She currently resides in Philadelphia, where she is pursuing a degree in English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Bassini Writing Apprentice for Cleaver Magazine.

IF YOU DO NOT KNOW by David Hallock Sanders

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Busara Road
IF YOU DO NOT KNOW
by David Hallock Sanders
Excerpt from BUSARA ROAD, a novel in progress

“King Solomon was a very wise man. This we all know. How do we know this? Because the Bible tells us so! Right here in ….”

Pastor Hesborne Kabaka made a small production out of opening his Bible and reading from it.

“…right here in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. There you go—clear as can be!”

Someone in the congregation exhaled a soft laugh. The pastor shut his Bible.

“So…we know that Solomon is wise. We know there are many, many stories of his wisdom. But how did he become such a wise man? What was the source of his wisdom?”

The pastor let the question hang in the hot, humid air of the chapel. The smell of sweating bodies mixed with a scent of cow dung wafting in the open windows. Mark found the sour-sweet blend surprisingly pleasant.

He was attending his first Sunday service at the Friends Church. Mark had arrived just days before at the Kwetu Quaker Mission, a modest clutch of cinderblock-and-tin buildings high in the equatorial rainforest of western Kenya. It was just three years ago that the country had gained its independence. Only a year ago that Mark’s mother had died. Mere months since his father had accepted the job to support Quaker schools for the newly independent nation.

“A fresh beginning,” his father had called the three-year appointment. “For Kenya. For us.”

Pastor Kabaka answered his own question.

“The source of Solomon’s wisdom was the source of all wisdom…God!” The pastor shouted the name of the Almighty. “When Solomon became the king of Israel, God came to him in a dream and said, ‘What do you want from me? Would you like great wealth? Would you like great fame?’ And Solomon said, ‘No, Lord! I only ask you for wisdom. I am facing many great challenges and responsibilities. Please give me the wisdom and knowledge to rule my people well.’”

The pastor trilled his r’s like thunder.

So far, little of this Kenyan service had resembled Mark’s Quaker meeting in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, the service was an hour of silent worship only occasionally punctuated by spoken ministry. Anyone in the meeting could speak from the silence, as long as he or she felt led by the Spirit. Some weeks, no one spoke at all. There was no music, no singing, and certainly no one standing at a pulpit waving the Bible above his head.

“Solomon’s respect and humility greatly pleased the Lord.” The pastor’s voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “How could you not love a man like that! So the Lord said, ‘I will give you what you ask for—wisdom, knowledge, and common sense. And because I like you, I will add the wealth and fame for free!’”

Mark couldn’t remember ever hearing laughter at his meeting back home.

“So now…” the pastor’s voice began to rise. “What is our Swahili word for wisdom? For understanding and common sense?”

Mark heard a cowbell outside.

“That word is Busara.” Pastor Kabaka nodded as though letting the congregation in on a secret. “And what is the name of the road that runs directly beside this house of worship?”

A few congregants whispered the word.

“Correct! Busara Road. You see? Right now, we are on the very road to wisdom and understanding. And right here…” He lifted the Bible above his head. “…we have the road map!”

The pastor removed a white handkerchief from inside his black suit coat. He carefully unfolded it and wiped his brow.

Mark was sitting toward the back of the chapel next to his father on a long wooden bench. The chapel was filled with a mix of Africans and whites. Some of the African women held babies in their arms or small children at their sides. He recognized a few grownups from the Fourth of July party his first night there, but he saw only two of his classmates—Darrel and Mathew. He wondered if the other children were all skipping church.

Mr. Mbote was seated near the front, but his daughter, Layla, wasn’t with him. Also near the front, but on the opposite side, sat a man dressed in a suit. He had a square head and looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he turned his head and Mark saw his thin mustache that Mark realized it was Mr. Okwiri, the man from the Industrial with the missing arm. Mr. Okwiri caught Mark’s eye, but Mark turned away.

Mark’s bench was just like the benches at his Quaker meeting house back in the States—long, hard, and uncomfortable. The whole chapel was similar to his Friends meeting. Simple white walls. A weathered wood floor. A small balcony at the back. Rows of windows on both sides. Benches in the middle.

But there were also a lot of differences. Instead of the benches facing each other from all four walls, they were lined up in one direction. Instead of a facing bench up at the front for the clerk and other meeting elders, a series of steps led up to a raised platform and a low brick wall decorated with flowers. Behind the wall stood a tall-backed wooden chair beside a pulpit, where Pastor Kabaka carefully folded his kerchief in fours and returned it to his pocket.

“Now!” he continued, his voice filling the chapel. “Let us say that you are living someplace in Kenya. Not here in Kwetu. Someplace far away. Let us say…Nairobi. And let us say that you want to come visit us here in Kwetu, but you have never been here before. Maybe someone in your family lives here now. You want to come visit, but you do not know the way. So what do you do? Do you go and find a map of Tanzania or Uganda to consult? No! What good would that be? Or do you go and ask directions from a friend who has never been to Kwetu? Someone who does not know the way? Of course not!

“If you want to find your way, you must consult the correct map. You must ask the correct friend to guide you.”

The pastor took a deep breath, then his voice boomed across the room:

“It is just the same with your life!”

He leaned over the pulpit and let his eyes pass slowly over the congregation. He looked deeply pleased to see everyone’s eyes on him. He nodded as though he were about to share some special secret.

“To find your way, my friends, you must trust in the wisdom of your guide.”

His voice was a whisper, but everyone could hear.

“To find your way, you must trust in the correctness of your map.”

His voice began to rise.

“And who is your guide? God is your guide! And what is your map? The Holy Bible is your map! God’s wisdom is your map! James 1:5 says, ‘If any of you lacks wisdom; let him ask of God who gives to all men generously.’ God will provide! If we desire wisdom we must ask God — humbly and deeply in faith — to grant us that wisdom!

“Let us pray.”

Mark looked around the chapel. All heads were bowed, even his father’s.

Maybe this was when they did the silent part? Mark had been told by his father that Quaker worship in Kenya had less silence than his unprogrammed meeting in Philadelphia. So far, though, there hadn’t been any silence at all.

He took a slow breath, exhaled, and let his focus soften. Back in the States, Mark had a private game he liked to play in meeting for worship. He called it, “Catch the Spirit.” It was a simple game. During the silence of worship, he tried to guess who would be the next person to stand and speak. He imagined the silence as a pool of still water, and the leading of the Spirit as a ripple in the stillness. Sometimes it was easy to guess. Somebody’s breathing changed or someone’s body shifted. But other times it was much more subtle—like an electric current in the air that circled the room until it settled on one person or another.

Today, though, all he was sensing was the sound of voices drifting in the open windows and the smell of smoke and dung from outside.

“Amen,” said Pastor Kabaka.

“Amen,” the congregation echoed.

That was it? That was the entire silent worship?

“And now,” the pastor gestured to someone in the front row. “Imani, if you please?”

An elegant woman in a long, blue dress rose from the bench. A soft chime rang from the rows of bracelets that shined brightly against the black of her skin. She stood by the pastor’s side.

“My dear wife,” said Pastor Kabaka, “may not have the wisdom of Solomon…”

The woman fluttered her hands, and her bracelets chimed like bells.

“…but the good Lord granted her a beautiful voice. Imani will now sing, ‘The Wise Man Built His House upon the Rock.’ When she has concluded, we invite any children still among us to join Teacher Salama and the others in Sunday school.”

 

Mark stepped tentatively through the open doorway. Imani’s hymn was still echoing in his head.

The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rain come tumbling down…

The dining hall was filled with children scattered in clusters on the floor. Some sat atop the long tables lined up in a row down the middle of the room.

The rain come down
And the floods come up
And the wise man’s house stands firm.

Some of the children stopped what they were doing to register the arrival of Mark, Darrel, and Mathew. Mark noticed Sarah and Robin playing some kind of hand game at the far side of the dining hall. They glanced in his direction, then returned to their game.

An African boy, sitting on the floor with a book in his lap, jumped to his feet and ran to greet Mark. He was Mark’s age and Mark’s height, dressed in tan shorts and a white tee-shirt. His skin was dark, almost a bluish black, and his hair was a closely cropped nest of black curls. His eyes were wide and bright, and a smile lit up his face as though he recognized Mark.

“I’ve been waiting for you! I saved you food.”

Mark was confused. He didn’t know the boy.

“Your name is Mark,” the boy continued without waiting for a response. “My name is Radio. My father is the doctor. Do you want to play together?”

A tall woman approached from the far end of the room. She wore a long brown dress with a yellow apron. Her hair was a waterfall of black strands tied at the back.

The woman placed her hand atop Radio’s head and gave him a gentle warning glance.

“Raymond, if you please,” she said. “Give our new friend some room to breathe.”

She extended her hand to Mark.

“Welcome! I am Teacher Salama. Salama Mwendia, your Sunday school tutor. And you must be Mark. We are very pleased you have joined us. In future, you may attend the opening of chapel as you have this morning, or you may come directly here for Sunday classes. I save my Bible studies until all the children have gathered. But do not fear, it is not so serious as it sounds! We also enjoy many games and art projects, as well as refreshments. You will find that we manage to have some fun while we are learning the Lord’s lessons.”

Salama put a gentle arm around Mark’s shoulder and led him toward the waiting group.

“I believe you have already met most of the American children. And Radio has lost no time in making his presence known. But let me introduce you to the others.”

“I’ll do it!” said Radio.

 

Mark’s father sat on the edge of the bed, reading aloud by the light of the single lamp. His voice was accompanied by the night sounds of the jungle—the rhythmic hissing of cicadas, the rasping of frogs, the occasional chuck-chuck-chucking of some larger animal.

It had been a long day, and Mark was already tucked beneath the mosquito net and under his covers. He felt safe here in bed, as though the netting not only protected him from mosquitos, but kept all dangers at bay.

His eyes were heavy and sleep was near, but he wanted to stay awake for the end of the chapter.

“When the monkey groom was announced,” his father read, “the Jade Emperor said, ‘Come forward Monkey. I hereby proclaim you Great Sage, Equal of Heaven.’”

Tonight’s chapter had followed the latest exploits of the stone Monkey as he journeyed through the Southern Gate of Heaven. Mark’s father had started reading the Chinese folk tale to him back in the States, and Mark was happy they’d finally returned to Monkey’s adventures. Monkey had already talked his way past heaven’s Guardian Deities, gotten himself appointed keeper of heaven’s stables, and then, insulted by the lowness of his position, abandoned his post and returned to earth where he fought a series of battles with magic spirits sent to arrest him. Monkey was finally tricked into returning to heaven by the Jade Emperor’s offer of an honorary title.

Mark wished he were more like Monkey. Always ready to take risks. Always ready to rock the boat and do what he wanted. Never worried about disappointing or messing up. Never scared.

“‘The rank is a high one,’” His father intoned the Emperor’s deep voice. “‘And I hope we shall have no more nonsense.’”

Mark yawned and rolled onto his side. He blinked rapidly to keep from falling asleep. He didn’t want to miss his favorite part: the final words that closed each chapter.

His father’s body was warm next to Mark’s. A single lamp lit the book in his hands. A moth beat at the window. Sleep gently pulled and pulled as his father read.

“Monkey was begged not to allow himself to get in any way excited or start again on his pranks. But as soon as he arrived, he opened both jars of Imperial wine and invited everyone in his office to a feast.”

Mark could sense the chapter’s end was near. He studied his father’s face, its features softened by the dim light.

“The star spirit went back to his own quarters, and Monkey, left to his own devises, lived in such perfect freedom and delight as in earth or heaven have never had their like.”

Mark leaned his head back on his pillow.

“And if you do not know what happened in the end…”

He closed his eyes and let the familiar words wash over him.

“…you must listen to what is told in the next chapter.”

David-SandersDavid Hallock Sanders has had his short fiction, plays, and novel excerpts published in journals and anthologies that include Sycamore Review, The Laurel Review, Baltimore Review, 2000 Voices, The Best of Philadelphia Stories, and others. His novel-in-progress, Busara Road, was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2013 William Faulkner–William Wisdom Prize, and he is a winner of the Third Coast national fiction competition, the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Autobiography Project, and the Dwell/Glass House Haiku Competition.

Image credit: Greg Westfall on Flickr
Author’s photo by Nancy Brokaw

NO-BAKE by Charles Ramsay McCrory

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

No-Bake

NO-BAKE
by Charles Ramsay McCrory

It would be Bridget’s first Christmas without alcohol, and mentioning this fact to her sponsor she was conscious of using the seasonal language of loss: “My first Christmas since the divorce,” “Our first Christmas since Rachel died.” Gratitude, or the pressure to feel grateful, compelled her to admit she’d been spared such tragedies. Trent had stayed married to her through Blendergate and the ensuing six weeks of rehab, and Selena, their daughter, would be meeting them by train from her college for Christmas dinner at Rob’s. She’d managed to keep the bakery (though one pushy counselor had cautioned her not to reenter the melee of the food industry), along with the upstairs apartment, and her hand had healed nicely, leaving just a few silvery crosshatches and numbness in her index tip. The blender was nonrefundable, but then she was only counting blessings.

Still, as she packed for Rob’s, she felt as if she were leaving herself exposed, neglecting sunscreen or a life raft or crucifix. Christmas was sure to implode on itself; she could smell the gunpowder.

“You’re projecting again,” Claire told her over coffee at the bakery. They met this way every morning at seven, an hour before she opened the store. Claire sat poised for her morning run in a tracksuit and ponytail, with a Big Book on the counter between them. “You’re creating this picture of what Christmas will look like, and you really have no idea.”

“I have quite a precedent to go on,” said Bridget, and before she could catch herself, she was on a roll. “Every Christmas since Selena was born we’ve gone to Rob’s. Rob and Trent sequester themselves on the porch and drink because they can’t stand each other sober. I hover over Vicki in the kitchen because we must allow Vicki to cook every year, even though I’m the one who went to Le Cordon Bleu and she’d julienne her fingers if you didn’t watch her the whole time. Selena sequesters herself in her room with a book, which hurts Vicki’s feelings and pisses off her kids–”

“And all the while…”

“–and all the while I’m drinking, yes. And after dinner Rob calls the spades game to order, and always it’s him and Trent against Vicki and me, some middle-school boys-versus-girls bullshit, and I bid too low or too high and everyone’s jumping down my throat, and I’m dying for a drink between hands so I don’t exactly focus on my strategy; besides, it’s just a game anyway, but then Rob rears his head and says, ‘Yeah, that’s why you’ve gotta win.’”

“Yes honey, but you can’t control them.”

“I know I can’t control them.” She wiped a hand on her apron. “That’s why it’s so overwhelming. It’s the same thing every year.”

“But is it the same thing this year?” She paused theatrically, letting Bridget anticipate the answer she knew was coming.

“This year,” Claire said, “Bridget’s not drinking.”

◊

At ten she left the morning shift to her sous-chef and let herself in upstairs. Atop the liquor cabinet she’d cleared out and restocked with homemade jellies sat a small white box Trent must have brought in before leaving for work. A bright gold tag on the lid read: “To Bridget, Love Vicki and Rob. Merry Xmas!” Opening the lid, she returned instantly to the summer she was seventeen and the engine of her first car had overheated, the hood popped to acrid fumes, suffocating smoke. The smell was unmistakable: whiskey. Good whiskey: bourbon. There in the box, on a bed of rice paper, were two dozen homemade no-bake bourbon balls.

Her own laughter surprised her. She was actually howling. They might even hear her downstairs in the shop. What an idiot Vicki was. What a clueless, insensitive… Or maybe an asshole. She couldn’t be both, and yet Bridget wanted to hate her equally for both possibilities. She could hear herself recounting this incident at the A.A. meeting tonight, clarifying Vicki’s folly for the benefit of anyone unschooled in regional desserts. It’s not like a rum cake, she would explain. The alcohol doesn’t cook out. It doesn’t cook at all, actually, you just roll up the dough raw. Scholarly nods from some of the more domestic women in the room; grunts of tolerant disinterest from the men. And never mind sending me desserts when I run a damn bakery for a living; why she had to send me bourbon balls is beyond me.

Her projection hit a snag. Why would she be addressing this in a meeting at all? Unless–

You are encouraged to offer anything threatening your sobriety as a topic.

The powdery lumps stared back at her from the rice paper. Were they, at this very moment, threatening her sobriety? Had she just opened some insidious trap, a Trojan horse, bomb disguised as a cake? She smudged one thumb thoughtfully against a ball, as if submitting her prints at a police station. Would it be relapse, really, if she ate one? She’d made bourbon balls dozens of times before, they were a hit at parties, sweet and robust and (she prided herself on this point) daringly strong. But even with her liberal interpretation of the recipe, she estimated that you’d have to eat your way to insulin shock before acquiring a decent buzz. You metabolized more alcohol from the Sacrament than she would from a handful of Vicki’s offerings (and anyway she only took the wafers at mass these days). Could she really be blamed for eating one?

Not that Vicki’s cooking tempted her; a batch of her sister-in-law’s Oreo balls or mesquite-hard brownies she’d have left untouched and unconsidered. Honesty demanded that she account for the smell, the nostalgic burn on the tongue, made to feel safe and wholesome by the nuts and confectioner’s sugar. The smell she couldn’t help; it had rushed upon her out of the box, a Proustian trigger (already it was all reeling back to her, the bleeding fingers shaking to replace the Precision-Blade in its box–quick, think of something, anything else). But what would she do, of what was she capable, with that taste inside her again?

Beside the box, her phone suggested itself. Claire would now be finishing up her run; she wouldn’t stop to hear Bridget bellyache about a batch of potentially evil-intentioned desserts. This was too silly to bother anyone about; she could figure it out on her own. Wasn’t this new life of hers about making her own decisions, about learning when to say yes or no? Any sane person would have thrown the damn things out by now, having quickly weighed the costs and benefits. But the longer she weighed them, the more power accrued in those bourbon balls. They had grown larger and heavier than themselves. She couldn’t just chuck them in the trash. She would have to dispose of them in some special, ethical way, the way you disposed of toxic waste.

Her sous-chef wouldn’t want them, and Trent never ate sweets. For an insane moment she considered taking them with her to the meeting. Exhibit A: my sister-in-law’s relapse bait, and my gift to you all. Dig in.

The bakery donated each day’s surplus to the homeless shelter downtown, but somehow it seemed dubious to lump this batch in with their donations. Was alcoholism not a rampant problem for the homeless? Hadn’t it helped land many of them where they were now? Immediately she recoiled from this line of thought. Nice one; generalize an entire subset of the population. And anyway, if you want to see a real alcoholic–

“Look in the mirror,” she said aloud to the empty kitchen.

◊

Blendergate had been Vicki’s doing, too; not that Bridget could conceive of blaming her for it, but it was worth noting that Vicki was ubiquitous in these moments of crisis. She’d accompanied Bridget and Trent to the culinary expo in August, the one with the open bar (a term Bridget now feared like “open-heart”). Bridget had wryly enjoyed watching Vicki ooh and aah at the stainless-steel displays of elaborate equipment she’d never have the wherewithal to use. In her enjoyment she hadn’t noticed herself getting staggering-drunk on half-glasses of chardonnay at the bar. So when, at the auction that concluded the event, Vicki started salivating over the pièce de résistance, something called the Dresner Precision-Blade Hand-Powered Blender, Bridget found herself on her feet and in the fray, shrieking bids against Trent’s protestations until, for a sum she couldn’t remember even now, the blender was theirs.

The cab ride to the apartment and the one to the hospital were separated by a timeless smudge of which she remembered only a few sharp details. Setting up the blender on the kitchen floor; Styrofoam packaging around her feet; directions in maddeningly small type in a printed manual; Vicki, not far behind her in alcohol consumption, watching attentively with her legs crossed. Trent had barged in a few times, begging her to put the blender away and go to bed, only to be appeased back into the bedroom (“I know what I’m doing,” “Le Cordon Bleu” and all that). She still couldn’t remember plugging in the blender. When the Precision-Blade slipped in its socket, doing to her hand what it had been expertly designed to do to a cucumber or banana, she had watched for a moment in detachment, her nervous system failing to verify what was happening to her even as the blender swam orange with bits of her own pureed skin. Her eventual screams had roused Trent to action (had he expected them, waited patiently for them at the door?), and in that second cab, Trent gripping the bags of frozen peas against her lacerated hand, Vicki passing her numbing shots of vodka in baffled silence, the problem had become impossible to ignore any longer.

That whole night re-formed now in her mind despite her best efforts at suppression. The scars across her hand glowed like tidemarks as she punched out a hollow thank-you text to Vicki, along with the news that she wouldn’t be making it to Christmas. She forwarded the text to Claire. Already she could hear the response. “Pride will close every door in the world to you, honey.” But was it pride, really? Or just an instinct of self-protection she’d lacked four months ago when she’d stuck her hand into a revving blender? She upended the box into the sink and flicked on the garbage disposal.

Charles-McCroryCharles Ramsay McCrory is pursuing a B.A. in English at the University of Mississippi. His work is featured or forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine, plain china, The Cossack Review, The Coachella Review, Amethyst Arsenic and other journals. He reads fiction submissions for The Adroit Journal.

 

 

 

Image credit: Anne Swoboda on Flickr

THE SLOW ACTS by Sanaë Lemoine

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

the-slow-acts

THE SLOW ACTS
by Sanaë Lemoine

1.

In the autumn when the summer heat has burned to the ground, my father drives me to Elsa’s home before school. Her house is old and tall with peeling white paint. It reminds me of my mother’s flaking skin. Plump-armed vines crawl the walls and the windows fight for territory, small gaping mouths into Elsa’s house. Elsa hasn’t dressed yet and I help her with the buttons while her mother trots around naked. She is pale other than red elbows and knees from the cold weather. Their plumbing is rusty. I don’t know if the heat works. Their house is by the seaside and holds humidity year round. Its floorboards ripple from dampness and patches of black mold grow like soot in the bathroom.

I noticed it in Elsa first, as I was buttoning her school uniform, beginning at her round thighs. I was so close to her skin that I could see soft bristles on her legs. I buttoned up to her belly and then past her flat chest, the buttons closing with ample room as they closed the space between two tiny hills. I could fit my head there easily, as if resting on an ironing board. But she seemed very far away that day. I saw this in the thinness of her neck skin, her throat glowing like a fading light bulb.

I’m dying, she said, it’s happening. Her voice creaked. It reminded of a smoker’s, raspy and dry.

It’s not supposed to happen at our age, twelve, we are too young to change. In the town we see the alone men and women, their sheer-skinned bodies skimming the pavements like Jesus walking on water. But these are older men and women. You don’t die of love at our age. Who is it? I ask Elsa, my fingers fluttering over her warm throat. She feels ablaze. I finish the buttons. She gives me a stern look and says: Love requires no age.

Elsa’s mother squats in the garden picking roses. I wonder what she would think if she saw her daughter with the other dead creatures. They aren’t bothered by sand or cold. They don’t feel water and they have no eyesight. I ask Elsa if she is going blind. No, not yet. She looks up at the ceiling, there’s a faint smudge of grey mold above a bookshelf. She seems wise and I fear she’ll give me a loud, adult sigh any minute.

In this town, when you lose a love, you lose a limb. Your liver explodes, your neck turns yellow, and you begin to disappear. But you stay, walking among the living. You join the troupe, and there are songs and rituals to cope. They are less agile than us humans, their hands are clumsy, and they have no texture.

I go to my father’s shop after school where he fixes prosthetic limbs but people come for all kinds of repairs. My father is with a client so I sit in the waiting room accompanied by wooden and metal displays. One of them enters. He must be sixty years old. He smiles apologetically. My wife left me for a truck driver, he says, and I nod in acknowledgment. He leaves a trail of clutter. His chair falls over and the prosthetics are strewn on the floor like children’s toys. I’m sorry, he says. His feet toss and stamp, he leaves with a rattle of the glass door. We always clean up after them, we don’t complain.

The following day Elsa’s eyes are clear like the deep pools in the hidden coves, north of the town. Her hands are light and they breathe rather than touch when she holds me. I think it happens quicker in us, she says, because we are younger and have less life to give.

 

2.

Out of the water the air bakes us, roasts us, and we are hot, so hot that we don’t want to touch one another. The boat is small and we are perched on it like birds, our legs dangling over the edge, four pairs of legs, we are four sisters. Matilda fixes lunch and hands us sandwiches dripping with mayonnaise and tomato juice. We munch on them like soldiers and drink lukewarm water from plastic bottles, though it’s hard to feel hunger when your body is fighting the heat. We are fifty kilometers from land: we have a captain and Matilda and the sea around us. She is thirty and has weak arms and legs browned with sunspots. The ozone layer is thin in this part of the world. We are zebras with zinc on our noses and upper cheeks, war paint for the sun. The water is cold when we sink in, stepping down on the metal ladder, it is marble stone cold, cold like the flat soles of our feet in the winter, and it cuts our breath and sharpens our skin. Matilda leads the clan with her slender arms swimming long strokes into the sea. Matilda knows these waters well, but we sense in the air, we know, for an instant that though she knows these waves, she owns them and guards them, there is something amiss. In the way her hair shrouds her face and in the way she splashes her twig fingers saying: come here. We are strong, swimming behind her. The captain stands, a tall Viking against the aquamarine sky. He waves at us.

We swim down and up, our thighs grazing against the coral and bleeding. This coral infests the waters like weeds. We see the fish and their colorful scales. Matilda, we don’t see. She’s to the left, to the right, no, she’s gone, we scan the horizon, the current is mighty, there’s a hand somewhere, we’ve lost her, we look under and our eyes burn from the salt. We don’t see her legs. The captain yells from the deck and we swim to the ladder, climb out one by one, solemn children. We’ve lost Matilda, we say, banging water from our ears and wiping our pruned toes against the wooden planks. The boat sails in circles but still no trace of Matilda. The sun shuts down and the sky blackens while we are now dry, salted, clothed in our bathing suits, mourning Matilda. But we knew, that morning, as we bit into our sandwiches and Matilda smiled at us crooked, teeth bleached like old bones in the sun, rubbing her weak arms with cream, limbs not made for swimming or breathing, not wings but sad things, we knew she would disappear and so we turn around with understanding and tell the captain, Return to shore!

 

3.

Market day comes every five days and that is how the rhythm of the week is regulated, weeks built around food: cooking, eating, storing in voluminous pantries. The market is a dry place despite the nearby sea. Food keeps for longer, better preserved by the salt air. I weigh myself on market days to verify that I’m not losing matter, turning into another one of those. They’re not like us, Mother says, the same shape perhaps but they weigh nothing, so light that the wind could blow them away when they hide behind bushes to urinate, a moment of stolen privacy, before they go up into the grey and wet heavens. They keep Russian novels in their coat pockets to stay grounded. At night their throats glow like lanterns as they dance down the streets. Mother checks on our weight, writes it down in a small notebook before she dresses for the market. Leo used to keep a handful of polished stones under his bed to slip into his pockets if he ever felt the tightening in the soles of his feet, that odd buoyancy. I don’t want him to change, but I tell him, No Leo, don’t lie to Mother, no! He tenses and knocks his fingers on the side of his hard-boiled head. Shut it sister. Let me be, he says. I am glum. I observe my weight with scientific rigor, and retreat. My weight hardly varies. At times I weigh a little more if Mother buys steaks and potatoes at the market, the meat served with a glistening béarnaise, sprouting with shallots and tarragon.

The winds blow like trumpets outside. At night I tiptoe out, past the black TV, the whirring refrigerator, and my wheezing brother. I creep to the beach and hide behind aloe vera plants. I watch them, their bodies nimble as grasshoppers leaping into the air. Mother says: being around them contaminates our earthly, pure, pumping souls, we who are plenty heavy. But I feel extravagant, sitting there on a mound of sand, my ottoman, with this fleshy weight pulling down my body like a black cape.

And then I begin to change. There must be an illness within me. Here I am, standing on the old, rusted scale, listening to Mother whistle in the room next door. My weight is down ten kilograms. My body is identical of course, the same paunch on my belly and the closeness of my two thighs. I have to search for my ribs under the fat. I have a few months left, I calculate, and as I arm myself with stones, stealing from Leo’s collection and sliding them in my underwear, I watch my body grow lighter.

Mother remains unaware of my transformation, and how does a daughter say: look, I’m dying, soon I’ll weigh as much as your shoes, soon I’ll weigh as much as a wisp of your hair. I can feel how the ground grows harder to grasp when I glide to the market. My hands hover over the potatoes, the fish slips through my fingers. The cobblestone streets are silent when I walk them. I caress the earth. Six months go by and it’s time for the beach. Past the shrubs, down the hill to the water, I see them dancing. I weigh as much as a penny. There they are, hopping in circles. They turn when they see me approaching, and they jump higher in frenzy, their limbs quiver and they shake their arms. They invite me, saying they will show me how to work the wind currents.

 

4.

There were no seats, so we stood arms touching arms and legs against legs. We filled the space until we were all perspiring and every time someone shifted or lifted an arm we caught the strong smell of anticipation. We licked our lips, sucked on rinds of oranges from our drinks, and passed messages among our neighbors. The yearly show was an attraction of some sort, mostly because by December the streets of our town had emptied, the shops were quiet and the beach gutted out. We missed the tourists and so we found ways to cheer our spirits. The large auditorium housed five hundred of our eager bodies. Its square windows were fogged and the stage took up one long wall. It was built with dark wooden slabs that shone from being freshly oiled. Resplendent. We waited. The lights flickered and dimmed. We didn’t hear them enter but we saw them, they looked just like us after all, with the same body parts, though they made no sounds. We heard the hum of wonder, the tensing of our shoulders, as the performers settled on stage like the first snow of winter. One of them, tall and thin, walked to the center, noiselessly clapped his hands and began. He took a thick canvas sheet, folded it in half and spread it out on the stage. He removed his sneakers and slid into the sheet as one does into a bed. His body, now hidden, wriggled. From under the sheet he sewed up the seam until he was tightly encased. We watched his legs kicking against the material, his chest thumping up and down with vigor, and then he stopped. Asphyxiation, a voice whispered in the crowd. They cleared the stage. A second one walked to the center. She looked like a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven, with hair tousled like feathers. She undressed until we saw her white body glinting under the stage lights, a peeled radish. Our tongues grew warm, we licked our lips, we waited. Her knees were pink and her stomach slightly rounded with a popped belly button. She pushed a ceramic bathtub to the front of the stage. We heard water sloshing up its sides. She stepped inside, her head disappeared below the edge, but there were no bubbles. We waited, she stayed under, until someone said: It was her mother who drowned her.

The show lasted two hours. There were new additions, new performers, and old timers as well. We yawned during the slow acts. One sat in his rocking chair without moving; another bent down on her knees and mimed placing her head in an oven. We applauded and wiped our sweaty brows. Our feet grew tired but we were glad to have witnessed another year. As the evening ended we filed out of the building and asked one another which ones had been our favorites, those that we would like to see again, but we did not speak of when we would also begin to perform.

Sanaë-LemoineSanaë Lemoine was raised in France and Australia. She received a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and is a graduate student in the School of Arts at Columbia. Sanaë teaches essay writing at Columbia and meets with writers in the Writing Center. You will often find Sanaë in her kitchen at work on her novel, cooking, and writing about food at www.petitriz.com.

 

 

Image credit: ciadefoto on Flickr

ORPHANS by Becky Tuch

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Orphans
ORPHANS
by Becky Tuch

Four in the morning and Maddie and I have nowhere to go. I said I was sleeping at her place and she said she was sleeping at my place and, well, now we’re in this diner. We’re both afraid to go home, me not wanting to wake my mom whose voice can be as shrill as hard rain and Maddie not wanting to bother her own parents, who’ve been having a hard time ever since her one brother ran off with the Krishnas and her other brother started rescuing stray dogs.

Hours back, we’d put on our platform shoes, took the F train to the city and stood in line for a rave. When the bouncer looked at my ID, which said I was sixteen, he turned us away, saying you had to be eighteen to get inside. Maddie protested, said of course we were eighteen, sir, there’s just a mistake. But he just looked us up and down with our round baby faces and our eyes that were hungry for something but too young to know what. He turned to the line, said, “Next, come on,” and we were shoved off to the side into the hot open night.

On the subway back Maddie asked me who the hell gets a fake ID that says you’re sixteen. I shrugged, not knowing what to say, except that sixteen sounded pretty old to me.

“So one time,” I begin, and Maddie’s blinking her eyes so slowly, eyes big and brown the color of horse hair, freckles clustered all over her nose. She’s looking at me, waiting.

“One time,” I say, holding down laughter in my throat. “My brother…he came home with this girl and my mom…”

But I can’t finish the story. That’s how it is with Maddie. Trying to get the sentence out is like trying to stand on the foam in the ocean. I want to do something straight and clear, but all I can do is tumble and laugh and give in.

She shakes her finger. “Let me tell you about my brother.” She tells me about the older brother who went to California to follow the Dead and came back home in a Lightning Van, which was just a van with lightning bolts painted over it. Then about the other brother, who owns a pit bull and always wears reflective sunglasses.

“Will that be all for you ladies?” the waitress asks.

“We have nowhere to go!” we tell her.

“Poor things,” she says, and drops off the check.

Tonight, we are refugees. We are orphans. We are stars sprung loose from the solar system, clinging only to each other in our hot glowing orbit.

We can’t let each other fall asleep. Then they’ll kick us out for sure.

There are plenty of stories to tell, though. Stories about our brothers, both older, both lost to us in the dark forest of late adolescence. Stories about our parents, dim suns hovering. Fantasies that are dreams that live all day long in our minds and which we’ve never revealed to anyone, until now.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Maddie says.

“I’m afraid of getting fat,” I tell her.

“I’m scared I have an addictive personality. Both my brothers are addicted to drugs.”

“I’m scared I’ll never fall in love. Both my parents are dying from loneliness.”

Just around the time the sun is coming up, the bell over the door jingles. The guys who come in are guys that we know, from back in the day when we used to hang around in the neighborhood. JayJay is a skinny Puerto Rican boy with a sharp pointed Adam’s apple and a smooth face the color of the coffee in our cups and always too much cologne and a way of looking at you that can make your thighs become butter.

Azzo is his friend, a taller, rounder, Puerto Rican kid with a soft voice and curly hair and gentle hands and the kind of guy you want to confide in and get advice from, usually advice that has to do with whether JayJay likes you. Azzo is sweet and tall and broad-shouldered and wears knitted sweaters in the wintertime and has a habit of putting his arms around girls in a protective loving way and has lots of acne.

They’re so high. That’s what we say the moment they sit down. “You are so high.”

They just laugh. Their hair and clothes smell like they’ve been rolling around in a marijuana field, and their eyes are screaming-red.

JayJay reaches across the table to pick up a menu and starts reading it, tapping his knuckles on the table. Azzo asks what we’re doing here.

“Just hanging,” we tell him, like it’s every night we stay up ‘til sunrise in the Grecian Corner diner.

“I’m hungry!” JayJay announces, his eyes big as he looks back and forth at me and Maddie, shrinking in our red leather seats, not sure which one of us he wants to eat first.

We talk about our respective nights, me and Maddie waiting on line at Nassau, being turned away in spite of our heroic feat of getting fake IDs made on West Fourth Street, then all our efforts to purse our red lips in a way that makes our cheekbones higher, our baby fat melt away.

They tell us about some party over at Luc Bustomanta’s house, how the music was bad but the weed was good, how the beer was bad but the dancing was good, how the party overall was bad but the walk there and back through the hot summer night was good and, now, since they’ve run into us, just getting better.

We don’t know what to say. How do we talk to these men, these boys with their soft hands and their red eyes and their loud pleased laughter? We want to run. We want to stay. We want to drink our coffee and be quiet and pretend they never came in and that it’s just me and Maddie and we are innocent as babies. We want to seduce them and dance with them and be the ones to make their nights ones that they will never forget.

JayJay eats a plate of waffles with whipped cream. Azzo eats oatmeal with sugar and fruit and nuts.

“Oatmeal?” JayJay says.

“I’m on a diet,” Azzo admits.

“Hey,” JayJay says. “You girls want to come back to my house?”

And what could be more perfect? We, who have been orphaned by our own incompetent plans. We, who are surely older than we are, who want nothing more from our lives than to grow out of them.

“Where do you live?” I say, but by then we’re already out on the avenue and stepping into the warm summer night.

JayJay leads us into his bedroom and doesn’t turn the light on. He’s got a bunk bed with two thin mattresses. Up on the top bunk there’s a white window curtain and if you peek through it you can see the street that leads up to the schoolyard where we all used to hang out and play handball and drink forties, before Maddie got into raves and I got into following Maddie wherever she went.

For a long time, we do nothing but sleep, the four of us like sardines lying side by side, warm and snug and safe in the darkness of the room and the night.

The first thing that wakes me is the tingling in my shins. When I open my eyes, JayJay is on top of me, his left hand around my ribs, slowly sliding upward, his right hand pressing down on my hip, pushing into the mattress. His lips are on my throat; his hair smells of coconut oil. Then his forehead is on my chin, a firm pressure. His tongue tastes of sleep, of whipped cream, of maple syrup.

I can feel his legs moving between my legs, like eels squirming up along the shore. And my eyes are flickering and I’m running my hands along his back, up and down, soothing, whispering, “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

On the mattress below me I can hear Azzo and Maddie doing the same thing. The same swishing of the sheet. The same creaking of the mattress. The same sticky sounds of lips and saliva, boy grunts and girl hums and bodies entering bodies, skin yoking itself to skin. The same darkness wrapping itself around us like the arms of our parents, holding us safely and tenderly in the night.

Eventually, we drift back asleep and I wake to find Maddie up in the bed beside me, curled up like a baby lamb. I turn to her, caress her back, run my hands down her hair.

The boys are out of the room and daylight is spilling in. Blue and bright through the thin white window curtain. I hold Maddie like she’s my child. I kiss the top of her head like my mother always would to me and my brother.

“Are you sleepy?” I say, lips near her skull.

She nods against me.

“Me too,” I say.

“Do you think it’s too early to go back home?”

“I think it’s okay now.”

We dress and make our way into the hallway. JayJay and Azzo are in the living room talking to JayJay’s aunt. She’s got a cane stretched out before her and one leg bent, the other straight in front of her. She tells us to sit. We do. Her voice is raspy like a thousand cigarettes have been smoked and burned inside her lungs.

“Why are you dressed like that?” She points her cane to our platform shoes, our pants.

“We were going to a rave.” Maddie’s voice is soft, apologetic almost.

JayJay’s aunt bangs her cane on the floor. “You look horrible,” she says. “Ridiculous.”

Maddie and I look at each other. JayJay and Azzo look at us. We all look at the floor.

“I’m a lesbian,” says JayJay’s aunt. “And I sure wouldn’t fuck ya.”

“Well,” Maddie says. “Okay then.”

She bangs her cane on the wooden floor, many times, over and over. “Ya hear me?” She points her cane at Maddie as she lets out a loud raspy laugh. “I say, I’m a LESBIAN. And I WOULD NEVER FUCK YOU.”

I stare at Maddie, wondering what she’s thinking, what she’s going to do.

But all she says is, “I hear you,” and it’s the way she looks away from me then that tells me how alone we are, how adrift. We miss our older brothers. We miss being small. We miss believing that there is such a thing as a grown-up, and that grown-ups live on a place called land. ‘Cuz if there are no grown-ups, and there is no land, where do you return home to?

After a moment, Maddie and I push each other up, leaning against our armrests. We think it’s time to go. We stand and walk through the hallway, JayJay trailing behind us. At the door he kisses me on the lips, reaches for my waist. Then he leans over, kisses Maddie on her lips, cupping the back of her head.

“Fun running into you girls.” He smiles a sweet boyish smile.

“You too,” I say.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime,” Maddie says.

And then she and I walk, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, heads pressed close, down the front steps of JayJay’s house and slowly along the sidewalk, down toward the avenue, where, just over the lips of the buildings, on top of the houses and bridges and stores, the radiant round sun is beginning to rise. It’s a Sunday. The day is just beginning.

Becky-TuchBecky Tuch is the founding editor of The Review Review, a website dedicated to reviews of literary magazines. She has received literature fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and The Somerville Arts Council and her fiction has won awards from Moment Magazine, Glimmer Train, Briar Cliff Review, Byline Magazine and elsewhere. Other writing has appeared in Salon, Virginia Quarterly Review online, Hobart, Quarter After Eight and other print and online publications. Find her at www.BeckyTuch.com.

 

Image credit: Nika Gedevanishvili on Flickr

BERGAMOT by Alina Grabowski

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Citrus_bergamia_-_Köhler–s_Medizinal-Pflanzen-184
BERGAMOT
by Alina Grabowski

“I wish my sweat smelled as good as yours,” Nellie told her grandmother when she was little. She still remembered asking, sitting on her grandmother’s lap on the porch, carving a frozen Hoodsie cup with a wooden spoon.

Her grandmother laughed. “That’s not sweat,” she said. “It’s perfume. Bergamot.”

“What’s bergamot?” She liked the way the word was unfamiliar in her mouth, a new twisting of the tongue. She whispered it when she said it—it seemed like the kind of word that held secrets.

“A bit like an orange, a bit like a lemon. We don’t have them in the U.S., really.” Nellie hadn’t realized there were things that didn’t exist here. Everything, it seemed, was contained in the world that stretched from her house to her grandparents’.

“How do you know what it’s like, then?” She stabbed her Hoodsie cup again, eating the chocolate half-moon first because she liked it less than the vanilla. Her grandmother reached a thin arm over her shoulder and hooked a finger into the ice cream, then lifted it to her mouth. Nellie could smell the musky sweet scent as her wrist glided past her.

“When your grandfather and I traveled to Turkey for our honeymoon we had bergamot marmalade with our toast. I bought the perfume there,” she said. “You can borrow it whenever you like. Especially if a boy’s involved.” She mussed Nellie’s thin hair, her fingernails pleasant against her scalp.

“Ew,” said Nellie, scooping out a taste of vanilla. “Jenna says Lisa’s front tooth fell out because Bobby kissed her on the slide. She says if it happens again her lips could melt off.”

“You know what I heard?” Her grandmother wrapped her arms tightly around Nellie, pulling Nellie’s arms to her own ribs. Nellie liked being this close to someone.

“What?” Nellie asked, taking the last bite of ice cream and tossing the plastic cup onto the pollen-dusted table beside them.

“If you tell them secrets, your heart starts melting, like a candle.”

“Does it stop?”

“I’m not sure,” her grandmother said. “I’ll let you know.”

◊

perfumeNellie used her grandmother’s perfume for the first time at her grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary party. It was a warm August day and everyone was outside under the tent her mother had rented, but she snuck into her grandmother’s room instead. She opened the drawer and found the perfume beside the rice paper facial blotters and spongy make-up triangles. The drawer smelled like oak and baby powder. It wasn’t until she twisted off the golden top that she smelled the familiar crushed flowers and fruit. She plugged the bottle’s open neck tightly with her fingertip as she turned it upside down, the honey colored liquid cool on her skin. She swiped it quickly over her wrists, her collarbone, her neck before returning the bottle to the drawer. Then she went to find her neighbor, Sammy Travers.

She had her first kiss with Sammy that afternoon, in the hull of the above-ground pool her grandparents hadn’t bothered to fill in years. They sat with their backs pressed to its metal frame, which stretched a few feet above their heads. They were both thirteen. The age you got kissed.

They had picked pea pods from her grandfather’s garden, but Sammy couldn’t split his because he had no nails. Nellie took the shell from him and pried it open easily, hoping he would notice the red nail polish she’d stolen from her mother. “Hold out your hands,” she said.

Sammy cupped his hands beneath hers and she plucked the peas from their boat, dropping the tiny green beads into his palms. They weren’t ripe yet, smaller than pebbles.

“You want one?” he asked, holding up a pea caught between his thumb and index finger.

“Sure,” Nellie said, and kissed him as he leaned in to hand her one. His lips were thin and flaky. The metal frame of the pool was burning her back, exposed beneath the knot of her halter-top, and she pulled away. She looked at Sammy and suddenly felt like she had to get as far away from him as possible. She felt as though something she hadn’t realized was inside of her had collapsed. She stood up and put one hand on the pool ladder, one foot on the bottom rung. Sammy was still sitting down, touching his fingertips to his lips. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have to pee,” she said, hoisting herself over the lip of the empty pool and scrambling down to the lawn. She ran into the woods bordering the house to avoid the tent, following them around the right side of yard, weaving between the trees and mossy rocks. She tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground, her palms grinding into the damp earth. She stayed still for a moment, listening to her own breathing, loud against the silence of the woods. Then she hoisted herself up and wiped her hands on a rock in front of her, the dirt like coffee grounds on her palms. She heard something crunching in the grass behind her and held her breath.

“Nell?” someone in the distance called. It was her grandmother’s voice.

Nellie stood there, saying nothing, moving nothing.

“It’s just me.” Her grandmother’s frame came into sight, pulling her red skirt up as she stepped over roots in her black heels. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Nellie moved to sit on a low, rectangular rock nearby. “Just taking a break.”

“I saw you running, I thought something was wrong.” She came and sat down next to Nellie, kicking off her heels into the dirt. Nellie watched them land on a cluster of dandelions a few feet away. “Do you remember these?” her grandmother asked, holding up one of the papery helicopters that had spiraled down from the maple trees.

Nellie nodded. The red seedpods were scattered all over the rock, and reminded her of the display of insect wings at the science museum, fragile pairs torn from their host.

“Your grandfather and I used to collect these. I still do.” Nellie’s grandmother handed her one. “Open it.”

Nellie watched her grandmother split open the tip of the pod with her nail and then peeled open her own. It was sticky on the inside and her grandmother stuck the helicopter to the bridge of her nose, nodding at Nellie to do the same. “Why did you start collecting them?” Nellie asked, gluing the wings to her face. She was afraid to take her hand away for fear they would fall off.

“It was a game we used to play before we got engaged. If the seeds stuck, we were together forever. If they fell off, we weren’t going to last.”

“I guess they stuck, then,” said Nellie. There was a warm breeze and she could smell her grandmother’s perfume, which wasn’t a smell anymore but the time they threw cookie batter at each other, the time they climbed over the fence to the neighbor’s pool, the time they held each other when the hurricane rattled the house.

Her grandmother pulled the helicopter off her nose and spun it between two fingers. “We should go back,” she said, standing up. Nellie noticed that the hem of her dress was brown with dirt. “It’s my party, after all.” She held a hand out to help Nellie up. “Well, sort of.”

◊

Bergamot1-for-webNellie barely knew her grandfather. He was obligatory hugs at family gatherings, $20 checks on holidays, balloon-printed cards on her birthday.

He spent all of his time in the garden or a wooden shed next to the garden. He was there even during the winter, when it sometimes became so cold and windy at night that he would sleep there instead of venturing outside. “He’s got a space heater and some blankets,” her grandmother would say as the icy wind puffed through the cracks beneath the windows and doors.

“Can I see the shed?” Nellie asked her grandmother once when she was little.

Her grandmother laughed. “I haven’t even seen the shed.”

“What do you think he does in there?” Nellie asked.

“I know what he does,” her grandmother said. “He paints.”

“Oh,” Nellie said. “Why?”

“He wanted to be an artist,” her grandmother told her. “Once upon a time.”

“Huh.” Nellie thought about this for a moment. “What does he paint?”

“The garden, the house. And he paints little trinkets for the church fair every year. Ornaments, toy boxes.”

“What if it’s all a lie?” Nellie asked when she was older. “What if the shed is full of dead bodies? Or guns? Machetes?”

“Your grandfather is not a violent person,” her grandmother said. “Just a cold one.”

 ◊

He died when Nellie was sixteen. The day of the funeral she got ready at her grandmother’s house, pulling on her dress and brushing her hair in the room that had once been her mother’s. When she went to use the bathroom her grandmother was standing at the sink, running her wrists underneath the stream of the faucet.

“What are you doing?” Nellie asked.

“Washing off my perfume,” her grandmother said. The water was so hot it was steaming, and Nellie could see that her wrists were a bright pink. “The smell is making me sick.”

Nellie hid in the bathroom during the funeral reception. She sat on the closed toilet seat eating chilled shrimp she had smuggled into her dress pockets. Neither her mother nor her grandmother cried that day, but her father couldn’t stop, and she could hear him through the bathroom walls. We didn’t even know him, we didn’t even know him, he kept saying.

“Pull yourself together,” Nellie heard her mother hiss when she slipped into the hallway and passed them near the coat closet. “He wasn’t even your father.”

◊ 

Nellie drove her grandmother home afterwards. “Don’t let her stay long,” her mother told her, “Just let her pack a few things, then right back to our house.”

“Okay,” Nellie said as she parked the car. “Quick in and out? Yeah?”

But her grandmother didn’t walk towards the front steps when she opened the car door. She took a right turn and headed around the garage, saying nothing.

“Gram?” Nellie called, slamming her door shut and watching her move through the weak beam of the automatic porch light. “Where are you going?”

She followed her to the shed, stepping over the wilted strawberry bushes that surrounded it. Her grandmother was fiddling with the lock on the door, spinning the dial with shaky hands. “I don’t know it,” she said when Nellie came to stand beside her. “I don’t know it.”

“Did you try his birthday?” She nodded. “His birth year?” Another nod.

Nellie stepped in front of her and tried, her grandmother clenching her shoulder with small fingers. The lock dropped down and Nellie slid it off the door and into her pocket.

Her grandmother squeezed her shoulder. “What was it?”

“Your birthday,” Nellie said.

They pushed the door open together. The interior space was small, no larger than a walk-in closet. There was a twin mattress in one corner, covered in pillows and thick blankets, and a small space heater plugged in beside it. Directly next to the mattress was a small desk and chair, pushed tightly together. Nellie couldn’t step further inside without having one foot on the mattress.

The desk was covered in glass circles the size of a palm. Some had light blue circles rimmed with white painted on them, a bulls-eye of navy in the middle. There was a palette set to the corner covered with dry, clotted paint and thin brushes. An empty jam jar stood beside it, still filled with murky water.

“He said he was working on something new,” Nellie’s grandmother whispered.

“What are these?” Nellie asked, picking one up.

“It protects against the evil eye,” her grandmother said, leaning forward to take one. There was so little space that they had no choice but to touch elbows and ribs, and Nellie could feel her grandmother’s breath on her neck as she spoke. “We got one as a souvenir in Turkey, but he dropped it when he opened the box back home.” Her grandmother traced the circle of the eye with her finger again and again. “I said we were cursed after that.”

Nellie placed one of the eyes back on the desk. “Were you joking?”

Her grandmother held the eye up to her face and looked at it like it was something she didn’t understand. “I think so,” she said.

◊

A week after her grandfather died, Nellie’s grandmother fell down the stairs and broke her hip. “I knew this was going to happen,” her mother said, pacing up and down the fluorescent hallway outside the hospital room. Nellie didn’t bother saying anything, because she knew her mother didn’t want to be comforted. Her father knew this, too, and made himself useful by buying Ding Dongs and Fritos from the vending machine. They ate them while they sat in the hard, floral print chairs in the hospital room and watched Nellie’s grandmother sleep. The only sounds were her snoring and the rustling of the plastic wrappers.

“I’m tired,” her mother finally said.

Nellie wanted to say Me, too but knew they were the wrong words.

Her father pulled his chair closer to her mother’s and patted his shoulder. She dipped her head to meet it, and he tipped his cheek to her forehead. They both closed their eyes.

◊

Nellie started doing nightly checks on her grandmother when they let her leave the hospital. “But the nurse is there until eight,” Nellie said.

“It would make me feel a whole lot better,” her mother told her, pressing the car keys into Nellie’s palm.

“Why don’t you do it, then?” Nellie asked, already opening the door to the coat closet.

“Nell,” her mother sighed. “Just do this for me, please?”

Bergamot2-for-web

Her grandmother thought something was wrong when she answered the door, leaning forward on her walker suspiciously. “Is your mother sick?” she asked as she unlocked the screen. “Your father?” Nellie shook her head twice. “Did you get kicked out?”

“Gram,” Nellie said, taking her grandmother’s arm and gently guiding her farther into the house. “Let me in, please.”

Her grandmother shuffled away from the door but wouldn’t let Nellie take any further steps into the hallway. “Are you pregnant?”

“Gram, no.” Nellie unbuttoned her coat and slung it over the banister. “Mom wanted me to check in on you.”

“What am I, a teenager at an unsupervised party? A toddler at a subpar daycare?”

“You know Mom. She worries.” Nellie found herself scanning her grandmother for new bruises, cuts, scrapes.

“God knows she gets that from her father, not me.” Her grandmother was wearing a lilac bathrobe, and she tightened the fabric belt around her waist for emphasis.

Nellie slipped past her grandmother and into the kitchen. “Come sit down, I’ll put on some tea.”

They sat on the couch with mugs of chamomile, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire playing muted on the television.

“It’s a Friday night,” her grandmother said, putting her tea down. “You’re sixteen. Go get into some trouble.”

Nellie laughed. “What kind of trouble?”

Her grandmother shrugged. “Sex, drugs, rock and roll.” She took a sip of her tea. “I broke into a mattress store once after hours with my guy. We jumped on all the beds like we were five years old.” She took another sip. “And did some other stuff, too.”

Nellie pretended she hadn’t heard that last part. “With Grandpa?”

Her grandmother laughed. “God, no! That man was scared of everything. He yelled at me when I didn’t wash fruit before eating it.”

Nellie put down her tea. “Do you miss him?” she asked quietly.

Her grandmother stared straight ahead at the television. “Now what kind of question is that?”

Nellie took her grandmother’s wrist and squeezed it. It was so thin she felt like she was touching bone. “I should get going,” Nellie said. “Do you need anything else?” Her grandmother shook her head. When Nellie leaned in to kiss her, she smelled like fabric softener and hydrogen peroxide. It was a scent she didn’t recognize.

◊

Nellie’s grandmother recovered from her hip, but a blood clot formed in her leg six months later. When she was discharged this time, she didn’t go home. She went to Nellie’s.

She moved in during January, right before the blizzard hit. They moved the treadmill and weights out of their extra first-floor room and into the basement, then filled it with a bedframe and dresser instead.

“You know you’re in trouble when they put a baby monitor in your room,” her grandmother said, playing with the white walkie-talkie on her bedside table.

“It’s not a baby monitor,” her mother said. “It’s a safety alert system.”

◊

Blizzard Boreas hit in early February. He brought snow packed dense as brown sugar, heavy drifts that pinned doors to their hinges and pounded roofs to their breaking point.

The power went out and Nellie and her mother lit candles while her father brought cans of baked beans and SpaghettiOs up from the basement. Her grandmother sat in her bed, wrapped in her bathrobe and two knit scarves. “What a way to go,” she kept saying.

They couldn’t leave the house for three days. When they lifted the curtain covering the sliding glass doors to their porch, all they saw was white.

Nellie sat in bed with her grandmother to keep warm while her parents sat in their bed upstairs.

perfume1“I want you to have something,” her grandmother said, putting down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich they had been sharing. Nellie took the plate and balanced it atop her blanketed knees. Her grandmother reached over to the bedside table and opened the drawer where Nellie already knew she kept her perfume. She knew because she borrowed it every time she had a date.

The amber-colored liquid sloshed inside the perfume bottle as her grandmother held it with quivering fingers. “This is my last bottle,” she told Nellie. “I bought ten of them during our honeymoon. I didn’t think I’d ever be back.” She handed the perfume to Nellie. “And I was right.”

“I can’t take this,” Nellie said, rolling her fingers over the glass ridges of the bulb.

“I’m not giving you a choice,” her grandmother said.

All of a sudden the whole house shuddered. The windows and doors clattered like they were trying to break free of something, and the bed slid forward despite its locked wheels. They’d found the brass bedframe at a local yard sale—it was an old rollaway meant for guest visits, and the stops on the wheels had begun to stop working.

“Sandwich, please,” her grandmother said. Nellie handed her the nibbled half she had been eating before, crumbs scattering over the blanket that was already stained with the morning’s oatmeal they had made in the fireplace. “Do you know why I bought that perfume?” her grandmother asked, a wet glob of jelly clinging to the corner of her lip.

“Why?” Nellie asked, still turning the perfume bottle over in her hands.

“It was one of the few things your grandfather and I both liked,” she said, wiping the jelly away with the back of her hand. “We were scared of agreeing with each other.”

Nelly brushed some crumbs off the blanket. “Why?”

“We got married so young.” Her grandmother leaned back into the pillows and looked up at the ceiling. “I think we were afraid we’d become each other instead of becoming ourselves.”

◊

Her grandmother started forgetting things. First, the small ones: where the sugar was kept (in the drawer with the tea boxes), which type of water removed grass stains (cold), what you called the time of night after the sun set (dusk).

Nellie came home from school one day to find her grandmother on the floor in her room, swiping a hand beneath the bed skirt. “I’m looking for my glasses,” she said when Nellie asked.

Nellie laughed, dropping her backpack to the floor. “They’re on your head, Gram,” she said, bending down to tap the wire frames buried in her white curls.

Her grandmother withdrew her hand and sat up, leaning against the foot of the bed. “Ha!” she said, laughing. “God, I’m one of those old ladies now, aren’t I?” And then suddenly the laughing became crying, and she shook her head at Nellie’s extended hand, pulling the collar of her sweater up over her face to hide her wet eyes.

Nellie stood there for a moment, wringing her hands like her father when he didn’t know what to say, and then picked up her book bag and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She walked to the front door and sat outside on the step, where she could see her young neighbors practicing bike riding in their driveway, endless halting loops on their tricycles.

◊

Nellie started keeping a list of what her grandmother forgot.

Bergamot3-for-webApple crisp recipe
Sarah’s name
Doctor’s name
Where I go to school
Mom’s age
How to use the washing machine
Our address
What our car looks like
The Lord’s Prayer

She found her mother crying at the kitchen table one Saturday. Her arms were folded on top of a placemat and her face was pressed to them so all Nellie could see was the back of her head. “What happened?” Nellie asked from the doorframe. Her mother never cried and seeing it made her feel anxious in a way she never had before. “Where’s Dad?”

Her mother said something that got lost in her arms and the table.

“What?” Nellie knew she should enter the room but felt like she couldn’t. Her mother didn’t make any attempt to repeat herself. “What did you say?”

After a moment her mother yanked her head up to look at Nellie. Her face was bright pink, as though it had just been splashed with hot water. “She didn’t remember my name!” She dropped her head back to the table.

Nellie slowly entered the room, stepping lightly on the wooden floor. She pulled out the chair beside her mother, which made a scraping noise that echoed through the entire house. “I’m sorry,” Nellie said, placing a hand on her mother’s spine, which felt wrong, and then moving it to her shoulder blade, which felt a bit more right.

Her mother lifted her face again, rubbing her dripping eyes with the back of her thumbs. “You know whose name she remembered?”

Nellie didn’t say anything.

“When is Nellie coming home? I have something to tell her. Where’s Nellie?” A wobbly strand of mucus hung from her nose and she made no effort to wipe it away.

“I’m sorry,” Nellie said, pulling her hand away from her mother’s shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry! I hate when people are sorry for nothing.” Her mother took a napkin from the center of the table and blew her nose.

Nellie didn’t have anything to say to this, so they sat in silence for a few minutes while her mother wiped her face with another napkin and pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes. “You know what I wish you could have seen?” her mother asked.

“What?”

“She and your grandfather used to have this beautiful, tiny cabin on a lake in Maine. We went up there every weekend during the summer and went fishing and swimming.”

“That sounds nice,” Nellie said.

“My dad was a quiet man, as you know, but up there he was a chatterbox. Completely different person. You know what he told me one night when we were grilling?”

“What’d he say?”

“That he was saving up for another trip to Turkey. It was going to be a surprise for Mom’s birthday.”

“But it never happened?”

“No, he lost his job a few months later. We had to sell the cabin. He got even quieter after that.” Her mother was looking out the window, at the frost-tipped March grass.

“Still a nice gesture, though.” Nellie patted her mother on the shoulder and got up to put the kettle on.

Her mother gave a little laugh, which came out sounding choked. “My dad was good at gestures, if nothing else.”

“Kind of like Dad,” said Nellie, opening the cabinet to look for two mugs.

“I guess,” said her mother, folding one of her napkins into a tiny square. “But your father is always telling us he loves us.” She flicked the square across the table like it was a paper football. “My father was never very good with words.” 

◊

Nellie waited for the day when her grandmother wouldn’t know her name. It came in mid-May, when the peonies were speckling the border of the driveway pink and the neighbors were playing daily games of wiffle ball. “Excuse me?” her grandmother had called from her bedroom when Nellie walked past her open door. “Yes, you dear—do you know if this place has any iced tea?”

That night Nellie couldn’t sleep and knocked softly on her mother’s door before she opened it. Her father was out of town on business, and her mother looked small in the bed alone. “Do you mind?” Nellie asked from the doorframe.

Her mother didn’t try to hide the surprise on her face. “Of course not.”

Nellie climbed into the bed and pulled the blankets tightly over her shoulders, facing away from her mother. She could hear both of them breathing.

“I’m right here,” her mother said, touching her back.

Nellie turned over to look at her. “I know,” she said. She fell asleep with her head on her mother’s chest, listening to the constant thump of her heartbeat.

◊

When June arrived her grandmother was somewhere else.

She spent her days in bed watching the television Nellie’s father had moved from the living room to her bedroom floor. She watched game shows, and knew the answers. She didn’t know the day or the current president, but she knew the Scottish word for lake, the address of the prime minister of England, the 1939 Best Picture winner.

marmalade-jarMost of the time she was on honeymoon in Turkey. Nellie drove to a Turkish bakery an hour away to find the bergamot jam her grandmother demanded. When she brought her grandmother a plate of toast smeared with the orange jam her grandmother blinked twice, as though she didn’t trust her eyes.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding the toast so close to her face that the jam got on her nose.

“The jam you wanted,” Nellie told her.

“I had this with my husband yesterday,” her grandmother said.

“Really?” Nellie sat on the edge of the bed, careful to avoid her grandmother’s thin legs and feet.

“We never order the same thing, but everyone loves this stuff.” Her grandmother took a large bite and Nellie leaned forward, holding a paper napkin under her chin to catch the crumbs. “Do you have anyone special in your life, dear?”

Nellie laughed. “Not in the way you mean.”

“That’s a shame,” she said between bites of toast. “You wouldn’t believe how much other people teach you about yourself.”

Nellie nodded. “I can imagine.”

That night Nellie took the perfume from the drawer in her nightstand and rubbed a drop into her wrist. She held it up to her nose and tried to remember how her mix of skin and scent was different from her grandmother’s. When she fell asleep she dreamed a bergamot tree was growing in her grandfather’s garden, growing evil eyes like apples. She tried to pick one, but it was just out of reach.

Alina GrabowskiAlina Grabowski grew up on the south shore of Massachusetts. She is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has received the Phi Kappa Sigma prize for best undergraduate writing. Her story “Scorcher” appeared in Cleaver Issue No. 5.

THE WEEKLY VISIT by Emanuel Melo

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Weekly Visit. jpt

THE WEEKLY VISIT
by Emanuel Melo

Every week for the past five years, Jake has approached the front door after a slow walk from the bus stop. He gets off several stops away purposefully. The long walk to her house gives him time to decompress after a long day at work and ward off the resentment of duty that brings him here to her front door in the first place. The weekly visit, after his father died, to his aged and disabled mother, has begun to wear him down and now he shows up at her door as if in front of a trap he consciously, and dutifully steps into. He stays overnight, too, only to spare himself the exhaustion of a late night trip on the bus and then the subway and then another bus home.

Standing at the door, his eyes move to the green recycling bin and the blue garbage bin both placed directly in front of the driveway’s locked iron gate. The bins were left there by the next door neighbour, who out of kindness takes them to the curb every week and then leaves them by the gate for Jake to put them away. He rings the doorbell and while he waits for her to open the door, he peaks inside the black metal mail box and finds it empty. The door opens to reveal his mother: short and overweight from too many sweets and cakes, she is dressed in black from head to toe as she will always be dressed until the day she dies, a symbol of mourning for her dead husband. Her hair has grown too long below the shoulder, the curl from the last perm of eight months ago in need of the hairdresser’s touch. She looks haggard, worn out, and old as she gazes at her son. She saves her smile until she can figure out if he’s come in a good mood or a bad one.

As chaves! are the first words of greeting that come out of him, the keys! He waits outside the door until she turns around and gets the keys and brings them to him. He opens the locked gate and moves the bins to the inside part of the driveway and locks the gate again. Only then does he go inside the house. Before he even takes off his coat, he pours all his energy into doing any remaining chores, mumbling to himself when she hands him a dead pot of poinsettias, left over from Christmas. She lets out a small cry as he walks out to the back of the garden where he throws the old pot to decompose after the frozen winter months turn to spring. Back inside the house, he locks the screen door then locks the three locks on the inside door. He doesn’t understand why she needs to have so many locks on the doors; what if one day there’s an emergency and someone needs to break into the house to save her—if she’s fallen down and can’t get up again.

With the house locked up for the night, she sets the house alarm and he is her prisoner until she disarms it in the morning. He’s been there for a good ten minutes already and the visit hasn’t gone well. He knows this as he closes the door to the bedroom where he stays overnight.

He changes from his work clothes and puts on the pair of pants and shirt that is always there for him, along with the clean underwear for the next day. When he reappears in the corridor it’s only to see his mother waiting for him, still standing there and, as he walks close to her, she throws her arms around him, releases her pitiful cries and tears of complaint.

“What have I done,” she says, “You’ve changed, you don’t like me anymore. You don’t even greet me with a smile. All you give me now is desprezo, neglect.” She says it all in Portuguese and her son hates to have to defend himself in Portuguese. He doesn’t relate to the language of his childhood. It makes it more difficult to argue with her or to explain what he’s all about. The language stifles his ability to express himself to her. He hasn’t told her yet that he plans to stop the weekly visits. She won’t understand why he is no longer able to devote so much time to her—the shopping and the errands and the cleaning and the banking and the doctors’ appointments, all the things that his father would have done for her. But he is not his father nor does he want to be his father’s substitute.

And there she is, standing in her dark corridor, clinging to her son who doesn’t want to be
there anymore. She holds on to him, afraid of him slipping away from her. “I’ll leave right
now,” he warns her. “So, go!” she yells back but doesn’t really mean it nor does she expect him
to be good to his threat. He disentangles himself from her desperate embrace, feeling no softness or warmth toward the woman who is his mother. His heart is rigidly cold against her and he himself does not really understand how it got to be this way. He did love her before and maybe he still does but he’s so tired that he no longer feels it.

She moves into the living room where she spends all her days and evenings. The room feels like some old fashioned funeral parlor with heavy furniture where frames of photographs of his father are placed on top of every available surface. An array of santinhos has fallen out of her prayer book, fanned out on the floor in front of the sofa where she sits all day. Jake bends over to pick up the holy cards but she tells him to stop.

“You don’t know the order they’re supposed to be in. I was in such a rush to get to the door that I let them drop when I got up from the sofa. I never know if you are going to be in a good or bad mood. Eu não tenho sorte.” She says her favorite expression regarding everything that happens to her. I have no luck, is what she means. It’s a mantra that covers all the unhappiness and disappointments of her life. He ignores her command and takes his time picking up the holy cards, slow and deliberate, trying to re-establish some order out of the emotional chaos he has felt since his arrival.

She has spent the entire day cooking his meal. Lately, this has become hard for her. She can’t stand for very long and her legs are in constant discomfort and pain. But she has been doing this weekly ritual for five years now; he has been coming to see her every Tuesday night. The weekly visit has become a regular part of her routine and for him to get out of coming on any given Tuesday requires much explanation and a weighing of the validity for missing it.

She always makes elaborate home cooked meals for him: Portuguese recipes for soups like caldo verde and vegetable soups with feijão and repolho; codfish dishes like bacalhau à Gomes de Sá and galinha com arroz. She has a very sweet tooth and each meal must include a chocolate pudding or a crème caramel.

Tonight, he’s not in a hurry to eat; he’s lost his appetite. So they both sit on the sofa by the dim lamp light waiting for him to want his dinner. She’s still upset about how he neglected to greet her with a smile or a hug. “I don’t know how I can take so much desprezo,” she complains. Jake panics. No matter how much he does for her, she still feels neglected. “I don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve all this desprezo.” She doesn’t let it go. Jake sits at the other end of the sofa and with every word she utters he wishes that he could find the courage to get up and leave and go home. He can’t hear the same complaints over and over again. I live alone, nobody wants me, the least they can do is call; this has become her recent mantra.

It’s the end of January and the Presépio still needs to be put away. He goes down to the basement and retrieves the box for the crèche figurines. The nativity set was bought decades ago at Simpsons, the price tag of $29.99 still stuck to the bottom of the box. She takes each statue, Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the Three Kings of the Orient, the Shepherds and their little sheep, each figure returned to its individual bubble wrap container. Jake takes each statue from her withered thin hand and sorts them into place inside the protective box. They don’t say much while they put the statues away and the lack of words allows for a breathing space between them. Her face starts to look calm. He feels sorry for her just then and he wishes that he had been kind to her when he arrived.

Jake gives in to his hunger. At the kitchen table, she places the plate of chicken with rice in front of him and watches him eat. She never eats with him. Her dinner is always around three o’clock, without exception. He eats quietly while she tells him about who phoned during the day and which doctor’s appointment is coming up, especially the one to determine when she can have her knee replacement surgery. After dinner he gets up to wash the dishes. Normally, she doesn’t let him wash the dishes but tonight she is tired, and so lets him do it. She dries the plates and cutlery sitting down.

Once everything is put away, they move back into the living room and she turns the TV on to her Portuguese shows. He doesn’t mind watching the Brazilian soap operas and the news from Portugal with her. Jake, Joaquim, was nine when the family moved to Canada but he has always remained curious about the culture and the language they left behind, so listening to the anchorman speak the language he cannot speak fluently pleases him.

After a couple of hours of watching TV he gets up from the sofa. “This is it. My brain is closed for the night, boa noite.” He bends down to give her a kiss on the cheek and a hug that she expects from him but which he gives dutifully and not with a joyful heart. He doesn’t understand why he’s changed toward her. It saddens him to feel the way he does but he can’t help it. She pulls him toward her body with a smile and a reconciled heart. “Eu gosto tanto de ti,” she whispers into his ear but hearing her say that she loves him so much only makes him feel guilty and ashamed of his behaviour.

The next morning, he sits for a few minutes in the quiet dark kitchen, the only light coming from above the stove, and has an instant Sanka and toast, which his mother prepared while he showered and shaved. “You have changed,” she says sitting across from him at the small kitchen table. “You are so distant, you don’t like me anymore.” She is brave enough to say it head on. He sips his coffee slowly, not daring to answer her. He chews the dry toast to give him time to get out of answering it. Instead, he just makes up excuses of how busy he is at work, so overworked that he won’t be able to come back next week. He tells her this, anticipating a bad reaction. She looks at him with disappointment all over her face. But she says, “Well, if you can’t, you can’t. I can get used to anything. It’s just another desprezo.” There, she has said it again, another example of abandonment. And he puts the coffee cup down on the table with a bang, pretending afterwards that it slipped from his fingers, so that she doesn’t see his anger. It’s like this with everything. She can manipulate any statement he says, she can twist anything he says so that she comes out being right. If he says that he’s tired, well, she never gets tired and even now at her age. And all the years that she took care of her own bedridden mother without anyone’s help, who will do that for her now? She has no sorte. Her luck ran out when her husband died, leaving her to fend for herself alone in the world with a son who, frankly, is starting to be a disappointment. “Pensa bem no que fazes.” Think carefully about what you are doing, she warns him. “Not to take care of one’s parent is a sin against God.”

It’s only 7:15 am and he’s already exhausted. His ability to shrug off her words is gone and he can’t wait to leave. She hands him a plastic bag full of lunch. He has been telling her to cut down on how much she puts inside the bag but she dismisses his plea. “Nonsense, you need all of this. What you can’t eat today, save for tomorrow.” Realizing that there’s no point in arguing, he takes the bag but it feels like a heavy weight that wears him down.

It’s a dark morning and a snow storm is starting. He gives her a stiff hug goodbye so as not to feel her touch. She always stays by the window to watch him walk down to the bus stop. Normally, he looks back and once the bus arrives, he throws her a kiss or a wave before getting on the bus. But today, the snow is falling fast and by the time he gets to the bus stop visibility is none. Her house up the road is shrouded in clouds of twirling flurries and the window he knows she’s standing behind is nothing but a dark shadow. He doesn’t see her at the window but he knows that she’s there as he mechanically raises his arm to gesture a dutiful goodbye before entering the refuge of the bus that takes him back to his life.

Emanuel-Melo-June-2,-2014Emanuel Melo was born on the island of São Miguel in the Azores and immigrated to Canada at the age of nine. He lives in Toronto. His articles have appeared in Toronto World Arts Scene, on the Canadian Centre for Azorean Research and Studies website, and in Mundo Açoriano.  His story “Avó Lives Alone” was a finalist in the Writers Union of Canada 20th Annual Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers in 2013 and was also published in Memória: An Anthology of Portuguese Canadian Writers in 2013. He is currently working on his first short story collection.

Image Credit: Leo Elroy on Flickr

THE CONVERSATION by Robert Pulwer

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The Conversation

THE CONVERSATION
by Robert Pulwer 

“Are you an anti-Semite?”

I looked up from my mother’s crumbling copy of Journey to the End of the Night, which I had pilfered during my last visit home. I was so shocked to hear that someone actually recognized what I was reading that I stammered at first, unhinged my jaw as if to say something, anything, in response to his question, thought, pulled my head back, and finally furrowed my brow and said “no.”

“Yes you are. You’re reading Celine. That man—that guy, he was the most…anti-Semitic of them all. All the French people at that time. The non-Jews, they were against us, and he was the worst”—woist—“of all. The worst! How could you read him, and in public, too?”

We were on the D train between Grand Street and Broadway-Lafayette. After we had both gotten on the train at Atlantic, he through the second door and I through the front, I resumed reading and had re-entangled myself in this most intensely difficult novel. After the usual scrum at Grand Street I saw the curl flop from off the top left corner of the page.

I hadn’t been prepared for this. Who knew who Celine was anyway, except for Francophiles and the French people they wished they were? Wasn’t he a footnote of the French catastrophe of those years? And I’m Jewish—real Jewish, on my mom’s side. Who the fuck asks me—and I know I look Jewish, too—who the fuck asks me if I’m Jewish? It’s obvious.

“I, well, it’s great literature. Scholars of…”

“Great literature! Great lit…” His head darted to the other end of the car, then back to me, then back again, then back to me. His mouth was agape, and he was panting with disbelief. “Great what? The man hated the Jews! There’s no great literature in that. There’s no art in anti-Semitism. You…” He huffed a few more times, and the women around us had taken notice. Even the Chinese ladies who had gotten on at Grand Street seemed to recognize the word “anti-Semite,” or maybe they figured that anti-Semitism was the only plausible explanation behind a Hasidic man’s outburst on a subway train.

He had now squared his body toward me, though he was still holding on to the bar above his head. He traced my vertical measurements with his head, stared a moment, then turned around and bellowed “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Attention! This man”—pointing at me—“hates the Jews! He is an anti-Semite!” He put a long pause between the two parts of that last word.

“I’m not,” I managed. “I’m, my mother, we’re Jewish. I am Jewish, I don’t hate the Jews.” I realized that sentence didn’t come out correctly.

Everyone on the train was watching. An older black man wearing a pork-pie hat, a trio of Japanese tourists, a suit, a short Central American with a ponytail: everyone was watching this play out.

“This man”—again motioning to me—“this man reads literature by an anti-Semite! This man reads French literature from the time of Vichy, from the country who, that sold out their Jews, and he’s—”

I tried to interject, but he continued.

“—reading the worst of them. On the train”—sweeping motions toward me—“in public, to make everyone see that he’s an anti-Semite. No! A self-loathing Jew. The worst kind!”

By now he was pointing madly at me and his eyeballs were as revealed as those of a patient who is about to have his pupils dilated.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…the worst Jew in the world! The worst! You’re a bad Jew to be reading that anti-Semite. What’s he saying? Huh? He talking about killing us yet? Huh? You thinking about killing us yet? Yeah?”

“I don’t want to kill anyone, man!” I had now raised my voice to match the intensity of his, and my increase in decibel level was met by an increase in his eye size. He looked like a madman, and I opened my mouth to let him know as much, but nothing escaped.

I fought back more words for a few seconds. Now he looked almost defeated, as though he had reached the peak of his intensity and had no choice but to descend the summit. His stare grew less menacing, his mien now less of a bomb and more of a disappointed father. Shaking his head with tightly pursed lips, the man swiveled toward the door and waited for the 47th-50th street stop. Aided by the blackness of the tunnel, I could see him mumbling words to himself, and I wondered at the scale of his derision.

Did he really think that I hated him, hated myself, hated Jews in general, because I was reading a novel?

I couldn’t resist watching him bumble into the crowd at his stop. The train had emptied out. I could now continue my journey in quiet, in the company of at least one ardent anti-Semite, constrained to paper perhaps, but whose life still haunts some of those whom he hated.

Robert PulwarRobert Pulwer is an education professional who lives in New York City. A graduate of Tulane University, he is a former NYC Teaching Fellow and a 2012 Fulbright ETA to South Africa. When he has time, he likes to tap the rubber practice pads in his room and wish they were a real drumset.

Image credit: My Name’s Axel on Flickr

METEMPSYCHOSIS by Caleb Murray

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metempsychosis

METEMPSYCHOSIS
by Caleb Murray

John Henry made circles with his bare feet on the carpet. The overhead light was on a fader, which was set low and gave the room an almost hazy affect. Against one wall was a purple couch, its frayed and shredded fabric covered with overlapping blankets and old bedsheets. Against the opposite wall was the television, which was off. The classical music station was playing some minor baroque drivel; it was set on this station because the jazz station, with its squeaks and honks, bothered John Henry’s cat, Felix, who was currently transfixed by the concentric undulations of John Henry’s taunting foot and the disembodied violins. His eyes were like black saucers, with only a faint hint of silver, a mere suggestion of an iris. “Have you eaten all my drugs again?” John Henry said in the high-pitched, playful voice he used for Felix when his girlfriend was not visiting; no other cats had heard this particular voice, though they had each received their own unique inflection. “Are you tripping balls, murder pants? Are you tripping balls?”

The cat, crouched behind the legs of a dining-room chair, eyed him, then returned his face to John Henry’s feet.

You’d better put on a pair of socks.

“What?” John Henry blurted, and, setting his foot flat on the carpet, removed his eyes from Felix. He was alone in his apartment.

I don’t need to put on a pair of socks—you need to put on a pair of socks. Asshole.

John Henry wiggled his toes. Felix wiggled his butt, probably without intention, but rather as a by-product of the transubstantiation of the toes into prey—such is the capacity for metaphor in the animal kingdom—although who knows what a cat thinks. Or whether thought is an accurate word for their mental processes. John Henry imagined that if he were to inhabit Felix’s consciousness—that was the word he chose, for the sake of convenience—he would go insane in less than a minute. The sudden and inexplicable animation of a cotton mite into a moth, the swell of hot air out of the guttural underbelly of the firmament, and the feeling of being followed, constantly, by some furry double, like a shadow materialized, would be enough to lose higher consciousness in a twitch. He could not explain it, but Felix experienced metempsychosis. A ray of sunlight, a ball of cotton, a wiggling neutered claw all happened upon their true reality—that of flies, moths, and mice. And liquid’s yielding texture as crumbling earth, as melting sands. There was no filter between one and the other. “Reality” is only a word that is put in quotes, as should be “soul” and “god,” because it is experienced by higher consciousness as detached from itself, like a live video playback. Cats probably don’t use quotation marks, but, again, who knows. Thought may not be an accurate word, but if it isn’t for them then it likely isn’t for us, and John Henry wouldn’t presume to know the reality of his own consciousness any more than Felix’s.

A phalanx of metallic tubes, several centimeters wide, through which circulated enough wind to durate pitch; followed by an infantry of vibrations muffled by hair, like screaming bits of smoke uncoiled from cords of firewood; then hammers, whittled, shaped, fur-wrapped, beat on sheets of metal and wrappings of dry skin; in between each outburst an equal, opposite, awful restraint, like a surly and self-righteous vowel in the consonant midst of the alphabet. John Henry only listened to the classical music station when his girlfriend was visiting, except now, when the music, like her, was enough to lure Felix out from the back room for long enough to register a purr and to animate a burlap-wrapped ball of cotton. Her handmade mice were exquisite—hand-cut strips of burlap wrapped around cotton balls, strapped with button eyes, pipe-cleaner tails, laundry lint noses, and seam mouths. As no mice were visible, however, Felix remained for John Henry’s elliptical feet, and for the music.

You are the protector of souls, John Henry, and I am the eater of souls; do you dare defy me, you mongrel cretin bastard?

John Henry tucked his bare feet beneath his legs Buddha-style, and held his gut with his palms, as if to keep his organs from spilling onto the floor. Strings, brass, woodwinds, and drums crawled through the speakers like spiders in the room’s dark corners. A lamp on the couch’s end table burned a 40-watt bulb, though it was designed for 60. Bouncing off the wall was a face, the residue of a 40-watt shadow, that might have grown, doubled, tripled in size, a piece of angry machinery, a broken spoke, a lonely troll in the spirit kingdom, that might have eaten his own shadow into a physical impossibility, had Felix not jumped into his lap at just the moment he was to unfurl his legs and relax. His heels on the coffee table, cranium in his palms…

“Felix, what is it? I’ll give you anything you want, just tell me.” Felix podged John Henry’s lap, one paw then the other, for so long he forgot he had even spoken. When he finally lay down he moved his leg so his head would fit in the nook of his knee. A choir of shaking bones, a chord of ribs, a chorus of white keys blaring through his crotch into the couch. He tried to speak but not through language because he did not have language, so he vibrated through the bones of the sofa, like the departed across the river Styx, in order to ask for one of the mice from the stocking. John Henry’s socks were by the dining room chair, he had checked them already. Strings, tails, whatever, gathered near their entrances. It was possible that John Henry had given him his gift already, and he’d just forgotten. But was it really his responsibility? Felix was in his lap, looking up at him like a child whose mother had relinquished him to the saints, clearly—anxious for something, but—what responsibility did he have toward the creature? Especially if he did not believe in his omnipotence? Did he even believe in omnipotence? The concept of omnipotence could not be beyond cats, who clearly recognized agency behind scurries, thrusts, and the glares of other predators. “I don’t know what you think, or if you can even think at all,” John Henry said, as if Felix hadn’t been present for the last five minutes. “You haven’t been present when I’ve needed you the most. Indeed, you haven’t been present at all.” Felix looked at the wall because it had turned into a spider web. “I can’t help you anymore, Felix. Not with where you’re going. Not with where you’ve been, or are now, and neither with the questions you had before nor the answers you need notarized now and will need stamped forever. Felix, I can’t help you,” he said, and he realized he was crying only because of the salty slug trails he felt crawling down his nose. “I can’t help you anymore, and I’m sorry.”

Your cat has no idea what you’re saying.

The tables were turned. Felix looked up at him, something on his mind, or whatever you call it, but John Henry had no idea what it was. In that moment, their look contained within a tenth of a second, John Henry thought he was Santa Claus, and that his brother Joshua was still alive, and was asking to not have to go to hell when he died. Then it clipped off, like cotton mites, dandelion skeletons, off in the wind. Felix bit his toe, his head crouched and ears flat, and jumped down from the couch before John Henry had a chance to react. A slight residual yowl left the room bereft; a thrift-store painting of a vase John Henry’s girlfriend had bought, “for decoration,” sloughed up on the opposite wall; the beaded gray fuzz of carpet underneath his punctured toenail; the tremulous murmurings of an Austrian, an uncharacteristically equivocating breath between tirades, newly holding forth on the radio, were all the sensations the room allowed in his absence. John Henry wiped his cheeks dry with the back of his hand, for he wanted to forget that they’d been wet altogether, when he’d already forgotten why he had cried and what he’d said. “Felix!” he called, high-pitched, all throat, nearly militaristic. He wiped blood off his big toe with his thumb and wiped it on the couch. Blood blended well with the purple couch in the low light. John Henry looked up and winced. The lights were on faders and needed to be turned even lower.

Caleb MurrayCaleb Murray is from Montana and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a kitchen manager. He is a graduate of Linfield College. He is at work on his first novel, Cup of Oblivion.

RAVEN IN THE GRASS by Kelly Ann Jacobson

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Raven in the Grass

RAVEN IN THE GRASS
by Kelly Ann Jacobson

A single blade of grass. Long and thin, streaked like the drag of paint left behind by a brush. A singular shade of green, like the color of nothing except itself. Among others it is just a pinpoint in a larger plane, which we see the way a child draws grass, scribbled shape colored in with the nub of a crayon. But up close. Up close, near the nose so that your eyes draw inward and cross, that blade is one entity. Albeit picked and soon to be sun-withered, it is whole.

Marilyn lies beneath her husband’s green army blanket. Her arms hug her sides so that her body, beneath the wool, looks straight and stalky. Her feet are small, two doll feet barely rising from the flatness of her chest and legs, and the blanket covers them and hangs off of the cot like pie crust not yet crimped. The chest rises and falls with effort, almost mechanical in its singular purpose, emitting only the whisper of stale air through her partially parted lips.

The room is covered in light blue paint, so that when Marilyn wakes, she thinks for a moment that she floats through the cloudless beyond of the sky. She has already died, and risen above the city. The window is not a window to the real night sky but the other way around, the early polka dot moon peering in the glass panes to glimpse the expanse of Marilyn’s walls.

The clatter of pans brings her back to herself, and the pressure of her weight and the bones of her shoulders digging into the hospital cot ground her. They bought it for her, she remembers, and when she returned from the hospital there it was, in place of the four poster. They placed her in the open mouth of the sheets and left her there, alone, with only the problem of gravity to solve. That and the mystery of her missing bedside table, the set of drawers where she kept her nighties and silk stockings, the mirror above the dresser. Do they fear this will draw her to suicide, the simple slice of a sliver of glass right to the vein? Or that she will stumble, clutching at air, until she falls onto whatever sharp corner has been left in her path?

How could the decorations be dangerous when she lies pinned down to this cot, unable to change for dinner or do her hair the way she likes it, in the loose bun pinned at the nape of her neck? She is subjected to the torture of her children’s clumsy fingers rambling through her scalp and pulling the hair too tightly into the braids of a little girl, one on either side of her face. The little ones are better at braiding, but pull at the hair afterward like a cat’s tail.

Occasionally, one of the children brings her something to eat and feeds it to her like a bird. Something warm, like pudding, that slides down her throat in a wash of cocoa powder and milk, or cold, like pieces of frozen fruit. She is their doll, as lifeless and false skinned.

The seasons do not move here in this sky room, except for the changing of hot and cold. Of sweet mango or warm apple pie.

 

Penelope lies splayed out on the grass, her backpack on one side and her book, A Wrinkle in Time, split open on the other. She does not read; she waits. Spring tickles her eyelids and the skin on her exposed forearms, the little bouts of warm breezes and seed pods carried on their waves. She rolls her jeans up and removes her shoes, the socks with white polka dots too, so that her toes can massage the moist earth beneath the grass. Soon she has weeded herself into the dirt; when the boy finally comes, she is surprised to find herself still able to detach.

Bobby pleads with her to reconsider their breakup. Penelope has already forgotten the many nights in the back seat of Bobby’s Toyota—the pressure of the car door on her back, the steamy air, the unbearable heat that, even with her hair pinned back, sent beads of sweat into the crevices of her back. The tears, when she told him she did not want a boyfriend anymore. This summer she will spend a week at camp, and does not want to be tied down.

Now he seems so far away from her, as though he floats over her like a balloon, or maybe it is Penelope that floats.

She imagines returning to her book. Penelope likes the character of Meg, who, unlike Penelope, manages to be wearisome yet wise. Penelope is never wearisome; she is the perfect student, ballerina, and daughter, three unrelated and yet similar things. All three require great discipline, and quiet submission. On the inside, however, Penelope yearns to fold into the fabric of time like butter into batter, to go back or forward or anywhere but outside her school, where Bobby grasps at her arm.

After shaking him off, Penelope returns her socks and shoes to her feet. Then she stands and moves toward the parking lot, where her mother waits, reading a magazine about home décor or perhaps filling in a crossword puzzle.

If she had not turned to take one last look at Bobby, she would not have seen the bird behind him. But she does turn, and there it is, dead and rotted and covered in flies. The bones like teeth in a black mouth. Suddenly she knows she must not let him see the bird, that one look at the bird would be too much for poor Bobby to handle. He is fragile, easily consumed. And there is something about this raven, this large-beaked bearer of death, which sends a chill up the girl’s spine.

“Come,” she tells him. He wipes his snot on his bare arm and follows her to her car.

 

Richard cannot bear the scent of newly cut grass, the chocking grip of allergenic pollen. As he passes Bobby, the boy from down the street who cares for Richard’s yard, he brings his shirt up to cover his face, creating a polyester screen. Is the boy purposely whacking away at his petunias? Richard wants to call out, but ends up clutching at his throat and running for the door. Damn his asthmatic lungs, the constriction of his chest and the accompanying wheeze. The feeling of drowning, again and again, in air. If he could, he would cleanse the air like a pool hand with his skimmer net, until the whole world was a sterile, scentless known.

He arrives home early, before Molly, and relishes the quiet calmness of the house. Richard takes time removing his tie; he kicks off his loafers at the stairs and pads through the living room to the kitchen. At the sight of the red voicemail light he remembers that Molly will be at her brother’s tonight, tending to her mother while the older sibling and his even older wife take a night off, which in turn gives Richard a night off—no arguments, no waving of thermometers and plastic sample containers.

Still in his work trousers, Richard treks to the gas station across the street. At the refrigerated beverages he pauses and considers; he likes to feel spontaneous, though he always picks Pennsylvania’s pride. A worn ten dollar bill slides one way across the counter, and the six-pack, now bagged, slides the other way. Richard walks back down Main Street carrying the beer like a child, balanced on one hip.

By the time that Molly gets home, six empty beer bottles lie at the bottom of the recycling can Richard carts out to the curb every Tuesday. On her walk to the door she finds a bouquet of beheaded petunias piled on the step, and pauses to gather them in her arms. Only the hanging planters remain unscathed, their pink and purple faces turned away now that the sun has disappeared. Inside, Molly divides the petunias into three vases: one in the dining room, one in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom where she leads her inebriated husband by his belt loops. On the way, Richard steadies her when she trips on a careless pair of leather loafers.

 

Penelope should be sleeping, but after her parents’ bedroom light goes off, she creeps down the hallway to her grandmother’s bedroom. Though the Marilyn lying in the hospital cot looks nothing like the Marilyn who used to feed freshly bakes cookies off the pan to her only grandchild, Penelope still feels connected to her, like she might just bolt up in bed and ask when the next episode of Jeopardy starts.

The girl brings her book. Sometimes she reads to Marilyn, if her grandmother’s green eyes wander along the surfaces of the walls; other times Penelope reads silently while Marilyn sleeps. Tonight Marilyn dozes with her eyes closed and her mouth open, propped up against the pillows like a queen. Occasionally she calls for her husband, or for her daughter, Molly, though only Penelope is there to place her palm in the wandering hand.

Penelope has grown accustomed to Marilyn’s strange breathing, the raspy struggle to inhale and exhale. The girl imagines the cancer like a stain on her clothes, embedded in the very threads in her grandmother’s own faded fabric.

Only when the breath stops does Penelope glance up from the page, so quickly that the words seem to superimpose themselves on the walls. Then she closes her book and tucks it under the hand that has taken on weight like a sponge its water, a book that for Penelope has come to an early end.

 

Through squinted eyes, things that once had distinct shape blur until they are only splotches of color. Spills of green and blue. In one room, Marilyn closes her eyes; in another, her daughter opens them, sensing the change. From this distance, despite the folding in of one stalk and the start of another, the shade of the grass still looks the same.

Kelly-Ann-JacobsonKelly Ann Jacobson is a fiction writer and poet who lives in Falls Church, Virginia. Kelly is the author of the literary fiction novel Cairo in White and the young adult trilogy The Zaniyah Trilogy, as well as the editor of the book of essays Answers I’ll Accept. Her work, including her published poems, fiction, and nonfiction, can be found at www.kellyannjacobson.com.

Image credit: Sylvia McFadden on Flickr

 

THE INGREDIENTS OF DOG FOOD by Kevin Tosca

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

The Ingredients of Dog Food

THE INGREDIENTS OF DOG FOOD
by Kevin Tosca

Each night my father dipped two fingers into meat and sauce and then passed that wet present down to Django’s drooling mouth. It was no secret. I saw. My mother saw. My father wasn’t trying to hide anything.

And this didn’t just happen at dinner, it happened whenever my father ate or snacked. If three slices of cheese were to go on a sandwich, one more went to Django. If my father grabbed a handful of peanuts, Django got his share. If there were an orange to eat, Django got a segment. If there were ice cream at the end of the day, Django licked the bowl. The only food my father didn’t give Django was salad, but that’s not because my father hadn’t tried. Django just didn’t like it, which became Django lore, the one thing Django wouldn’t deign to touch: lettuce.

All this food was given to Django in addition to his two regular meals, one in the morning, fed to him by my mother, and one at night, fed to Django by my father. My father wouldn’t miss this six o’clock ritual. He loved the frenzy the sound of the dry food sprinkling into Django’s dish caused, how the buzz of the mechanical can opener spiked the fever. My father prolonged the moment, spooning half the contents of the Alpo can out slower than it needed to be spooned, giving the mix a few extra turns though every morsel had been moistened, waiting before picking the dish off the counter, using his strength to box Django away when he bent down. “It’s his pleasure,” my father liked to say.

I didn’t feed Django, not, that is, like my father fed him. When asked, or when my parents were away, I would give him his regular meals and make sure he had enough water to drink. That was it, and my not feeding Django, my not giving him scraps from my plate or from the table or ever sharing anything I ate or snacked on with him, became lore too—“He ain’t gonna give you nuttin’,” my father would amusedly inform his dog who never gave up hope, who would, in-between deposits from my father, accost me and stare at me with those big, pleading eyes—though I had no doubt that Django loved me, and that I loved him.

Django had been living on the outskirts of one of the construction sites my father supervised. He was a mutt—part beagle, part pit bull, the vet later said (more lore fuel)—and he was friendly and handsome: white (though gray from dirt and outdoor living at the time) with a black patch over one eye. The men cut out the straps from an old hardhat and gave him water. Some, irregularly, tossed him food. Was Django underweight in that vagabond period? His ribs were showing and the number of days and nights he went hungry were incalculable, so yes, he no doubt was, but over the next few years he graduated from his thirties to his forties to his fifties and on into his sixties. By the end of things, he tempted seventy pounds.

At that stage, he could still chase a tennis ball, but only a couple of times: all gratuitous running was over. He could still be considered strong, but not wiry. When his energy came, it came in bursts. He napped and slept a lot. But his food pleasure never waned.

I don’t know who else brought up the weight issue. I know the vet (a man—I’m not making this up—named Dr. Katz) did. He would mildly admonish my mother (my father never went) and talk about diets and weight loss and the complications associated with obesity, not so different than with humans, things like ambulatory trouble and joint trouble and heart trouble and cancers.

But nothing changed. Home and happy, Django would be lovingly scolded: “Dr. Katz says you’re too fat!” and then be patted on the head and fed in the same manner by both my parents, my mother having picked up the habit from my father. “He’s living the good life now,” my father liked to say.

Django died the summer after I graduated from high school. Or: My parents gave Dr. Katz permission to give Django a lethal injection the summer after I graduated from high school. At the end, Django’s breathing was awful to hear. At the very end, he could barely wag his tail when he heard the sounds of the dry food and the can opener, and it was when my father saw food being left in his dog’s bowl and Django not making it to the dinner table that he accepted the inevitable.

The five of us—me, my mother and father, Django and Dr. Katz—were in that small white room together. My mother cried, and then, so did my father. It was the first and only time I ever saw tears come out of my father’s eyes.

Django had lived with us for eight full years, and he had lived at least a couple before that. Many dog lives are much shorter, and harder, and this one’s brought us all a lot of joy and comfort and memories, but I couldn’t help but think that that life could have gone on longer, that there were more memories to make, that this death was preventable, that Django had been murdered.

That is not something you accuse your parents of doing, not when the feeding was, for them, a form of love, so I got myself ready: I was going north to college, leaving home for the first time.

One day, just before I left, my mother and father visited a shelter and chose a new member of the family, another mutt named Sandro. Sandro had been shot multiple times by pellet guns; he had been deliberately burned. He was big, a natural sixty-pounder with an enormous head, one black-patched eye, and black spots dotting his otherwise white-haired body.

My father was proud. My mother seemed hesitantly happy, making it no secret she would have liked a smaller, more manageable—perhaps less masculine—dog. I was simply surprised. There hadn’t been any talk of getting another dog, not with me at least, and I guess I hadn’t given it much thought, but I wouldn’t have bet they’d replace Django so quickly, not that replacement is the best word for what went on, though it does do necessary work.

On those last few days and nights in my parents’ home, that brief time before I left for college and the start of my so-called real education, I watched how my father and my mother fed Sandro. Nothing had changed. Nothing had been learned. And why would it? Nothing, from my parents’ perspective, was wrong.

What could ever, I hear them saying, be wrong with pleasure and the good life? What can possibly be wrong with love?

Kevin ToscaKevin Tosca’s stories have been published in Spork, Full of Crow, Bartleby Snopes, Vine Leaves Literary Journal and elsewhere. A frequent contributor to Cleaver, his short-short story “Romeo and Juliet” appeared in Issue 4 and his flash pieces “The 104”, “Tibet” and “Like That” appeared in Issue 1. He lives in Paris. He and his work can be found at www.kevintosca.com and on Facebook. Like him. He’d like that.

EMILY by Jan-Erik Asplund

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Emily
EMILY
by Jan-Erik Asplund

Desire not the night, for that is when people will be destroyed. Or perhaps: to drag people away from their homes. Or maybe: when people vanish in their place.

(Job 36:20), variations

The speed was a natural solution to Professor Flowers’s death. The only thing left to do after we had laid it out on the table and crushed it up and all was talk—and it turned out we could do that for hours. It was a beautifully orchestrated display, a symphony of run-on conversation and exuberant denial. We talked shit about the neighborhood, and what it was like to extort your parents for thousands upon thousands of dollars a year in the guise of receiving an education. We wondered if we were doing the right thing. We understood each other even when we didn’t.

“It’s so messy in here,” she said.

“I don’t really like cleaning,” I said.

“I didn’t say that because I disliked it.”

More long, thin, white streaks appeared on the table. Insufflatio in the Latin, she told me. Up and away.

“Your eyes are so big right now,” I said.

“Really? Yours are too.”

“Well, it’s bright in here.”

“Do something about it. That lamp is just—violent.”

I had gone to the wall and turned the light off. A thought had occurred to me in the darkness. I turned the light back on, grabbed the orange shawl she had hung on my chair and laid it on the sconce. The transformation was instant. A warm, red glow covered the entire room. We were silent. It could only have been a moment, but it seemed to be hours, like in a dream. I sat still and watched her.

She leaned back, completely at peace, as if she had come to an irreversible understanding. Then a muscle jerked somewhere near her mouth and she was back.

Her neat little finger reached to pick up what was left of the speed and then disappeared into her mouth. Her eyes lit up. Then she brought her hand down to her chest, and with that same finger extended, as if by reflex, made the sign of the cross.

“You’re so pious,” I laughed.

She pointed at me and intoned. “And are you among the believers?”

I crossed myself. “Lapsed,” I said.

“All the better,” she said, “so was He.”

“Explain.”

She pointed out that God and Christ were the same; any forsaking of his son was a forsaking of Him. We did some more of the stuff. The taste of it dripped into my throat and I gulped to clear it. She kneaded the side of her nose with her finger.

“So God was a suicide,” I said. “Why?”

“So we’d be free,” she said, “and I think St. Paul said it best—sapientiam sapientum perdam—to ‘destroy the wisdom of the wise.’”

“Destroy the wisdom of the wise,” I intoned.

“Sound good?”

“Yes,” I said, kissing her.

In the red light, we are all beautiful. Blemishes, stains, pockmarks, bruises, sickness, death, all fade away under its soft glow. It must have been visible from the road, because not long after that, some people showed up at the apartment. A blond man uncorked a bottle of wine and everyone cheered. Drinks were poured, cigarettes were lit, and everyone had a lovely time, drinking and carousing in its amiable light. Given the right ambience, even strangers can be friends. And I didn’t spare a single second to think about the old man.

Sometimes I close my eyes and try to remember the way she appeared the night she first showed me her hair loosed from that messy blonde bun. If I could just recall exactly how she lay down, how she reached back and let her hair fall, and how exactly it splayed over my pillows, maybe I could open my eyes and find every little thing restored to how it was. We all think like this from time to time.

One day she came in and told me that she had been lying in bed in the dark when she noticed something strange in her vision, something the Professor had once told her about. It had something to do with prolonged exposure to darkness. Astronauts, prisoners, truck drivers, devout practitioners of meditative techniques: all types of people had reported seeing these spontaneous shows of varicolored lights, often without discernible form but occasionally resolving into human forms. Apparently, it’s caused by sensory deprivation coinciding with the arbitrary misfiring of neurons in the retina.

Anyway, stare into the sun on a cloudless day, squint tight, and the play of the light through your eyelashes can do something pretty similar. That night, with her by my side, I squinted into the red light until my eyes ached from the strain and begged for closure. Then I saw it.

I was walking through a hallway in a large hotel, carefully checking the number on each door. I found the one I was looking for and a soft nudge got it open. There was a woman lying naked in my bed. Around her was a crowd of observers, each one angling around the others to try and get a better view. The woman was very beautiful, but there was a look of sadness on her face, and she ignored them.

I came into the room, hung my coat and kicked off my shoes. What is going on in here? I asked. The crowd ignored me. I looked to her but she ignored me too. I wanted to scream. But under the red light, I always find it difficult to assess blame. There was a burst of white light. “No flash photography,” I think I said, but the damage was done. She was putting her clothes back on. The crowd was muttering something under its collective breath. She walked toward the door but turned to me as she passed and whispered into my ear. “We tell lies at night,” she said, “because that way, they vanish.” The people started putting on their coats. When they were gone I got into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

I woke up next to her and thought I was safe. She was still asleep. I glued my eyes to the high lumen fluorescent overhead and lay perfectly still so as not to wake her. After staring for a few minutes, I noticed a single fly stuck dead inside the dome of the fixture.

She woke up anyway, yawned, and asked if I could grab her something to eat while she went back to sleep for a while. Since I’m already “up.” It took me a few moments to respond because I was busy with the fantasy of being there, in bed, with her. She groaned when she realized I was not going anywhere, and we started to talk. Lying there together under the red light, I had no trouble mishearing when she said things like:

“Just to be clear. This all doesn’t mean we can keep doing this.”

Not like this, I agreed.

“Right. Not like this.”

But maybe some other way?

She closed her eyes and I followed her into sleep.

When I awoke she was already out of bed, sitting at my desk and checking her e-mail. Our times were always out of joint. She turned around as I climbed out of the covers and looked at me in a state of nervous agitation. Father sent me an e-mail, she said. Father does not like the things I am doing with my life, she said. Father thinks I am sick. Father thinks I have spent my life following in the footsteps of the lost. There are verses that support this: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit?” I got out of bed and read it out loud off the computer, looking up at her and laughing into the hard-boiled light of day at what I thought were the funny parts. She does not find it funny when I offered to help her draft a reply.

“You shouldn’t take stuff like this so seriously,” I said.

“How can I not take this seriously?”

“It’s just scripture.”

“And?”

“Well, that stuff about St. Paul. Destroying the wisdom of the wise.”

“What about it?”

“I guess we must interpret that differently.”

“How do you?”

“As an attack on little-minded people who claim to be wise.”

She didn’t say anything right away and I knew I had hit the wrong note.

“Are you saying my father is little-minded?”

“No, no,” I said, “I’m just trying to say that, well, we need to do what’s right rather than let others tell us what is right.”

“And how exactly,” she said, “are we supposed to always know just what’s right?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I guess you just do.”

She moved across the room, toward the door.

“You just do?”

“I just mean, I don’t see any theologians around here.”

“Well you,” she said, “know nothing of the Torah.”

I followed her and put my hand on hers, tried to kiss her.

“Fuck off,” she said, and opened the door.

“Emily. Please.”

“I feel miserable. I need to go see the doctor.”

I reached for her again but she had already slammed the door closed behind her. After she left, I got back into bed and stared at the ceiling again. A chill ran through me as I realized that I had missed something. There wasn’t just one dead fly: there were dozens, maybe hundreds. They had a proper cemetery up there, all to their own. It still eludes me how exactly it is that flies make their way into those domes which look so airtight.

She came by the next afternoon and told me that she had been to the doctor. I just wondered which one. She said she was sick. I put my hand on her shoulder and told her nothing was wrong, that it was all going to be okay. Sometimes—rarely—you tell a lie so blatant you can’t even believe it yourself.

“But the doctor told me I was sick.”

“So?”

“You’re not a doctor.”

I know that, I say, and squeeze her shoulder a little tighter.

“Why are you touching me?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away.

“You always put your hands on me to say that everything’s going to be fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But it doesn’t matter whether or not you touch me.”

“I know.”

“Because the truth is that we’re both sick and you’re just denying it.”

“I thought things were going really well,” I said.

“Well, frankly, I do not know how you got that impression.”

A few days later, the crowds came back for more. Emily was nowhere to be seen. A man wearing his black sunglasses inside pulled a dartboard out of his duffel bag and a game began. The darts, as if defective, flew wobbly and uncertain: my plaster walls sprouted deep track marks from drunken blunders. Someone, in a bout of curiosity, pulled the orange shawl from the sconce and threw it across their shoulders. The crowd erupted in a disdainful shout and the shawl was replaced.

A few more days went by. Emily was still avoiding me. I didn’t know how to convince her I was right—and her doctor and father were wrong—so I decided to stop trying. I went to the mailroom to invite her out on a little adventure and she was already standing there by her box, as if she had been waiting for me.

“I’m going to leave,” she said. “I’m just picking up what’s left.”

“Why.”

“Because I’m sick.”

“No you’re not.”

“I am.”

“I’ll help.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then how is it?”

“I can’t be here.”

“What does that mean? Here with me.”

“That’s not what I mean. I just can’t be here.”

“We’re the only ones here though, so you wanting to leave here basically really just means that you want to leave me.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever understand.”

“Try me.”

“It’s not you. It’s who you are sometimes.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She touched my face.

“You looked so beautiful under that red light.”

“So did you,” I said.

She smiled, weakly. She had expected this. There was a resoluteness to that gesture, an ultimatum embedded inside it, but at the same time I could see that she had given up on something: maybe she just didn’t see the purpose in fighting anymore.

“Will you come with me somewhere?” I asked. “One last time?”

“Okay.”

We reached the car as dusk fell and drove until the road became dirt and the truck began to jostle. She groaned loudly, and I just hoped that we were going the right way. Then it came up on the left: a clearing in the woods that Flowers had told me about. He said that at night people saw things here, that they had visions. That kids liked to come out here at night and scare each other silly. I was about to stop when I noticed another car already parked on the side of the road.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Park,” she said.

I turned the car around and parked on the opposite side of the street. She said we were going to get out and cross the street but that we had to do it as quietly as possible. She led me through the woods, treading lightly through the underbrush, until we reached the edge of the clearing. Once there, she took a deep breath, let it out, and screamed. She turned around.

“If I don’t put the fear of God in them, who will?” she said.

I thought one way to clear up the ruins of our language would be to simply fall silent, the way we had done together under the red light, the way we did after she screamed into that clearing. But somehow even in silence there seems to be a speaker and a listener, one who imposes the silence and one who merely obeys or observes. So the possibility is still open for storytelling. One just has to squint one’s ears, so to speak, and allow the story to be pulled out of the silence. Then, like a slide, one can follow it down.

Anyway, the last party. I struck up a conversation with this tall, dark-haired girl. She looked out of place and I guess that’s the kind of thing I sympathize with. It turned out she didn’t go to our school and had just come to visit a hometown boy she had been dating for a few months. When she arrived at his room, she found it was locked. She knocked for a few minutes until he came to the door, disheveled and confused. Not about to calmly accept what was going on, she pushed in past him. Then she saw that the window by his bed was wide open, the curtains softly swaying in the breeze. And the air was thick with it.

“I love the red light,” she said breathlessly, leaning over the coffee table.

“Me too,” I said, leaning over after her. We were a real community of believers.

Emily was with someone else that night. I knew this because someone had gone to her window, noticed a crack in the blinds and looked through it.

I jolted myself out of bed and ran down the stairs to her room. I pulled at the doorknob—locked—and banged on the door until my fists started to scream. It was futile. Someone noticed what I was doing and wanted to know what was wrong, why I had made my fingers bleed. It was the new girl. After I explained, I asked if she wanted to come back to my room and talk. She asked, dazed, if mine was the room with the red light. I said yes, it was, and we went up the stairs.

After we had sex I asked her if she knew the story of Job. She didn’t. Job had lost everything that he held dear in life, I told her. Job’s friends came over, saw him despondent, and tried to justify his misfortune for him. They tried to tell him that his suffering must have been some kind of punishment for his sins, that he should repent and pray for mercy. Job argues with his friends, says he is a righteous man, and cannot believe God would be so cruel to such a righteous man. “Whence, then, cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding?” Someone named Elihu chimes in. “If you do sin,” he asks, “how does that affect Him? Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, your righteousness only other people.” That’s when God appears. He tells Job he’s right, and that everything his friends said was wrong. That there is no meaning in catastrophe.

“You knew Arthur Flowers, didn’t you?” the dark-haired girl asked.

Desire not the night, when people vanish in their place.

I woke up with a headache in the middle of the night. I left the new girl in my bed and went downstairs to try and explain, apologize, make things right. I told myself to tell her that I understood that she didn’t feel well. I did not. But that was what I should have said to her long ago: “I understand everything, that is what makes us special. We understand each other. These trials are nothing.”

The door to her room was ajar. I nudged it open slowly. There were no posters, no clothes, no sheets on the bed, just one thing. It was an old, thin hardcover from which the jacket had been long ago removed. The initials A. F. carved into the front. The title page reading The Red Light. The inscription reading For E. No sign of her at all.

The room was terribly cold. Someone had left the window open.

Jan-Erik Asplund

Jan-Erik Asplund lives in Brooklyn. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Potomac, The Bad Version and The Silo.

Image credit: Shavar Ross on Flickr

CUTMAN by Marc Labriola

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CutmanCUTMAN
by Marc Labriola

If the needle swung from side to side, it would be a girl. If the needle swung in circles, a boy. Lailah’s three sisters lay her laughing in Ben’s arms as her mother dangled the needle above her belly. Each woman willing the azimuth of the needle like an ancient geographic divination.

No one agreed on the gender of the needle and thread. Lailah’s mother saw a boy. The youngest sister swore it barely moved. The sister who had sworn off men blamed Lailah for the cryptic emanations of her body. Her mother, laughing her head off, mapped out Lailah’s body as the tree of life—naming ten parts of her body from head to toe which formed the ten Sephirot where God was broken into male and female. Lailah and Ben were silent in their pose. They had both distinctly traced the needle as it swung to the left, then swung to the right.

The women passed around the black and white sonogram of the baby. Seven more days until the eleventh week, and Lailah and Ben Amora would know if the baby would be male or female. The women warned Ben from the doorway. Whatever Lailah doesn’t eat will be missing in her child. Everything edible that she sees she has to bite, sip, lick. If she gets ugly, she’s having a girl.

Looming in front of the washroom mirror, Ben faced his own broken face. His features would be ugly in a girl. He was afraid to inflict a daughter with his hooded boxer’s eyes. Working as a cutman now at the ring, he thought of how many times he’d seen faces opened up, re-arranged, lopsided. One eye swollen shut with blood. Top lip opened wide. One cheek bigger than the other. The very idea of human features themselves, engorged or stretched by the spasms of happiness or misery, seemed grotesque. The clumsy orbit of shamefaced eyes. The stupidity of a lonely man’s nose. The little arch in the center of the top lip—the Cupid’s bow—the instrument of the god of sexual love. The two philtral columns between the nostrils and the upper lip, where Ben wore a small stitched scar after failing the ten count, was sunken, according to legends told to mystic children, by the finger of an angel of conception to make babies forget the miracle of birth. The features of man and woman are purely vestigial, he thought. Remnants of a divine history—part god and part baboon.

Dead drunk by ten, he succumbed to an exaggeration of his fusiform visual sense—deciphering faces where there were none. Baby girls’ faces in nighttime foetal clouds with their sonogram silhouettes seen from his third floor apartment balcony. Faces in the memory of a pattern on a woman’s dress who was sent to him after he lost the fight. Faces in the entoptic phenomena of the eye—seeing two blue girl’s eyes when he closed his own eyes, face down on the kitchen table.

Waking up as the husband of a pregnant wife, still seeing double from the dregs of the hours before, he picked up the needle and red thread which had been left untouched on the table. All domestic objects were really veiled ciphers for the most mortal of life’s happenings. To Ben, the bottle of bourbon, the pack of smokes, a needle and thread, petroleum jelly, cotton swabs, retained all of their original magical savagery.

Ben looked over to see his naked pregnant wife asleep in the bed of their one room apartment. He thought of Lailah’s body as the perfect cipher. For ten weeks her body had not moved involuntarily. The gesticulations of her body—her heartbeat, the blinking of her eyelids, were all tiny revelatory acts of the baby inside his wife. Careful not to wake her, he took hold of her palm. He was a man who knew about hands. Ben took her pulse. He bent over her to count her heartbeats per minute. Lailah’s sisters had instructed him that evening that even one beat over one hundred forty heartbeats was a girl. He tried to sleep off the booze.

Lying there with his hands on his wife’s torso as if scrying her bare belly, now iridescent from the light of the street, there opened a lesion of jealousy between Ben and Lailah. He remembered times he had come home too late in the night to be a man. He knew she felt he was losing his handsome boxer’s face. That he began to fear other men. That he had lied to her when he said he was not bothered that she was older than him, at the five years it took to conceive—each one secretly blaming the other.

Ben knew that Lailah began to see him as the bearer of weaknesses. His bad shoulder. His fear of water. His scarred lip that burned in the cold. She saw him as Ben “Animal” Amora, the man that had lost his job two times in as many years after giving up fighting following that knockout in the tenth, who had to take the job as a cutman at the ring where he was once an animal god. Fixing busted up eyes and flattened noses and smashed mouths of men transformed into wounded beasts. She had left behind a wealthy home to come live in this apartment, in this cold, shitty place. Ben was terrified that she would begin to revile him, as his blood unfurled in her unborn baby, for the possibility that his faults were being repeated unstoppably in the child. That even his cicatrix lip was a feature that could be passed on to the baby. Every scar that the cutman had collected was as much a part of him as his grandmother’s hairline, his dead mother’s eyes.

Waking up now, she climbed on top of him the way she had done since her belly started to swell, and undid his buckle. Ben became attentive to his feminine nails holding her thighs. He felt the usual blush of his cheeks. Lailah, too, was also suddenly aware of what she saw as her failures as a woman—the growth of hair on her legs, her small breasts moving up and down. Ben couldn’t help thinking up names of fruit for cock and birds for cunt.

During the last two burdensome years seeing him weak, she became more attracted to him for what she saw as a rise in her own beauty through the elaboration of femininity she showed in the face of his lack of masculinity. But secretly, she half-knew that he too was attracted to her because of her boyish looks, her smoker’s voice, her square shoulders. In seven days, the revelation of the baby’s gender would be, in fact, a testament to their own identity, their success or failure as a man or a woman. Both of them, separately, were measuring their own divinity in the creation of the child and their own desire to pull apart the spherical androgynous creature that they had become in Lailah’s belly. To unveil it, undisputedly, as male or female.

Afterwards, Lailah pretended to scoop out his eye, placing it in her belly. I want the baby to have your eyes. She mimicked pulling off his eyebrows and putting them in her belly. I want the baby to have your eyebrows. Lailah removed his ears, his forehead, his hair. Leaving his lips. Moving behind him she draped her long black hair to curtain his face. You look like a girl. They didn’t look so different, Ben thought. Years of contorting their faces alongside each other as they made love or as Lailah watched Ben get hit in the kidneys, in the gut, in the face. Their mimicked convulsions were what reshaped them. They lay down back to back as they had begun to do after making love.

Less than seven days before learning if his own child would be a boy or a girl, Ben dreamed that he was not a man. In the ring he let another man explode his nose, dislocate his jaw, close up his right eye, scar his lip. No one but Ben knew why he kept dropping his hands. But tonight, Ben “Animal” Amora rose after the ten count and fixed himself up with his cutman’s tools—his enswell, his cotton balls, his petroleum jelly. With his implements, he added two new blue feminine eyes, a new jaw, perfect lips. The cutman made himself into two. Into some ancient spherical person with back to back bodies of a woman and man, whose androgynous strength could challenge any man who tried to pull them apart.

Examining the scar on his dreaming face, where ten stitches had once closed up his lip, Lailah put a finger to his Cupid’s bow and imagined for a guilty instant, the way all lovers secretly imagine at the moment of their greatest love, what it would be like if Ben died.

Marc LabriolaMarc Labriola writes stories and poems and is involved with the world of theatre. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto. He has taught literature in Canada and in Italy and has taught English as a second language to students the world over. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Image credit: Cia de foto on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY IN VENICE by Julie Kearney

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Sunday in Venice

SUNDAY IN VENICE
by Julie Kearney

The alleyway was paved with humped dark stones like so many dead or hibernating turtles. On either side of these stones, walls leprous with peeling plaster inclined inwards towards a sliver of grey sky. The man walked ahead trundling his suitcase, the woman followed dragging a matching one. Their wheels made a thunderous noise on the stones.

‘Wait for me,’ the woman called. Her face was red.

The man kept walking.

‘Will you stop?’ she called more loudly. ‘Are you deaf or what?’

The man stopped but didn’t turn round.

‘That’s it!’ she said when she came up to him. ‘I’m not going another step!’ She wiped her sweating face with the back of her hand and said without looking at him, ‘I hate you. Why don’t you ever listen to me? If you’d listened to me we would have got off the vaporetto at the right stop.’

He turned round to face her. ‘We did get off at the right stop,’ he said. ‘According to the map it’s only a couple of laneways from here.’

‘No, it’s not! I saw the map. You’re not the only one who can read maps you know.’

The woman perched her anorak-covered behind on the black suitcase, which teetered on its metal wheels. ‘My feet hurt,’ she said. She sounded as if she was about to cry.

‘It’s not that far,’ the man said. He pulled a map from his pocket and unfolded it. ‘See. We’re about…um…about here.’ He stabbed his finger at the middle of the sheet.

She looked away and stared at the peeling walls.

They were alone in the alleyway. Where it joined up with the next one another wall rose up, fitted like a jigsaw piece under a flat section of grey sky.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, still staring at the crumbling plaster. ‘And I don’t care what you say, I’m not going another step.’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You can’t stay here.’ He was having difficulty refolding the map. When he couldn’t get it to go into the right creases, he swore at it and shoved it in his pocket.

‘I told you, my feet hurt,’ the woman said. ‘Much you care about that.’

When he said nothing she tightened her lips. ‘Where are we anyway?’ she demanded, casting glances up and down the alleyway. ‘There’s no street name that I can see so how come you know where we are, Mister Smartypants?’

‘Let’s go,’ he said and began walking again. The rattle of his suitcase on the cobblestones echoed against the walls.

She watched him go. When he didn’t look back she got up from the suitcase, pulled up the handle and followed him. The man turned the corner, his bag bumping on the dark stones. The woman reached the corner and saw that the new alleyway was no different from the last one. She stopped walking, but when the man was about to turn the next corner she followed him with dragging steps.

The man and woman continued in this way for five more alleyways until they came to a large open square surrounded by grey stone buildings. The man kept walking but the woman pulled her suitcase upright and looked around. She seemed surprised. She looked at the expanse of cloud-covered sky, then at the stones under her feet. They were not so dark as the ones in the alleyway but a lighter grey, much the same color as the sky. People were walking in twos and threes over the stones and children in their Sunday best of frilled dresses or miniature suits trotted beside them. A small boy dribbled a black and white soccer ball beside an obelisk-shaped stone fountain in the center of the square. A tall thin priest in an ankle-length black gown walked arm in arm with an old woman who also wore long black skirts.

The woman caught up with the man who had stopped and was waiting for her.

‘At least I can sit down now,’ she flung at him from the side of her mouth, not slowing her stride as she rattled her case past him. She trundled it across the square to a café on the other side. When the man arrived she was sitting at a grey metal table, frowning at the fountain. The other tables around her were unoccupied.

‘I want a coffee,’ she said.

The man pushed in the handle of his suitcase and sat down opposite her on one of the grey metal chairs.

‘Are you going to get it?’ she asked.

‘What do you want, flat white?’ he said, taking out the map again.

‘Oh, leave that thing alone. Cappuccino please. And a packet of cigarettes while you’re at it. See if they have Winfield or something similar.’

He frowned at her. ‘Don’t be stupid. You’ve given up.’

‘Too bad. I’m taking it up again.’ She shifted her gaze from the fountain to the square. The boy with the soccer ball was playing with another boy now, taking it in turns to drop-kick the ball across the cobblestones.

‘Why don’t you calm down?’ the man said. ‘I’ll get you a coffee but I’m not buying any cigarettes.’ He started to get out of his seat but she was up before him.

She stood over him. ‘Just give me the money then. I’ll get them myself if you won’t.’

The man took out his wallet and passed her some notes and she went over to the café. He sat in the metal chair, watching the people in the square as they strolled about or stopped to greet one another. The boys with the soccer ball weren’t playing anymore. They had joined two couples who stood chatting in a circle near the fountain. One of the men waved his arms about as he spoke and the other three laughed.

The woman came back, pulling open the cigarette packet as she walked. She sat down and fumbled with the lighter, then touched the flame to the cylinder in her mouth. She inhaled deeply, forcing out a long stream of smoke, and inhaled again. The man watched. Her hand trembled as she took a third drag.

‘This is all your fault,’ she said, narrowing her eyes to look at him for the first time. ‘Why can’t you be civil? Why can’t you talk to me properly? Why can’t you listen when I try to tell you I’ve found a shorter way to the hotel?’ Ash fell on the stones beside her feet as she spoke. ‘You think I’m stupid, that’s why! You think you’re so smart but you’re not.’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

‘I’ll get the coffee,’ the man said. He stood up and walked over to the café. When he came back he said, ‘I know what this is about. It’s because you gave up smoking. I told you it was a bad idea to give up at the start of our trip.’ He put the cups on the table and sat down. ‘You’ve been hanging out for a smoke for weeks. That’s why you’re carrying on like this.’

The woman pulled a second cigarette from the packet. It was a Winfield packet with Italian words on it. She frowned at it and pushed it aside. ‘Is that what you think?’ she said. She lit up and began puffing again. ‘How very convenient. Nothing to do with you of course. Nothing to do with your behavior.’ She waved her free hand in the air. ‘Nothing to do with ignoring me when I try to tell you something useful that would’ve spared my feet six alleyways at least.’

She drew on the cigarette in quick sharp puffs. The man picked up his coffee and sipped. The woman reached forward and stubbed out her half-finished cigarette, grinding it into the ashtray. When her hand came away the butt was torn and tobacco fibers were mixed into the surrounding ash.

The woman bent down so that only her shoulders were showing above the table and began jerking at the laces of her shoes. When she had the shoes off she sat up and looked at her feet. The man looked too and saw they were red and swollen. He looked away.

‘You shouldn’t have bought those cigarettes,’ he told her. ‘Now you’re back to square one.’

‘Make up your mind.’ She was smiling now. ‘You just said I shouldn’t have given up, now you’re telling me I should have.’

The man picked up his cup and took another sip. ‘You shouldn’t have stopped when you did, but since you did you should have stuck to it.’

‘I see.’ She stopped smiling. ‘Whatever I do will always be wrong. Whereas you, of course, will always be right.’ She rapped the cigarette packet on the metal surface of the table. ‘In that case, conversation over.’

The man opened the map and began studying it. She watched him, her head tilted back so she was looking down her nose at him, then shifted her gaze to the square. The boys with the soccer ball were gone. Three jeans-clad young women with shoulder-length black hair were walking across the cobblestones, bending their heads together as they talked. On the far side of the square a young man came with loping strides, his arm around another girl who also had black hair and was wearing jeans. In the middle of the square, next to the fountain, he stopped and turned the girl towards him. She put up her face and he kissed her, his arms wrapped tightly around her. A little girl ran past them in a frilly pink dress, carrying two ice-creams.

The woman watched the kissing couple for some time, then closed her eyes. Her face was less red than before. She wriggled her toes and sighed.

‘I feel a bit better now,’ she said.

The man looked at her over the top of his map. ‘I think I know where we are,’ he said. ‘The hotel is only two blocks away. Want to have a look?’

She shook her head. ‘If you know where we are then let’s go.’ She bent down and began to put on her shoes.

The man folded the map, which took him a long time. She stood waiting for him, one hand gripping the handle of her suitcase. When the man finished his folding he got up from the metal chair and put his arm round the woman’s shoulders. He massaged her neck and she sighed, relaxing her grip on the handle.

‘It might not rain after all,’ she said, looking up at the sky. ‘I think it’s clearing up.’

‘You’re wrong there,’ he said. ‘It’ll pour cats and dogs.’

She turned her head to look at him.

‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘you could be right.’

They walked away, trundling their noisy bags.

Julie KearneyJulie Kearney is an award-winning artist and writer who lives in Brisbane, Australia. She has written a fictional autobiography of her great-grandmother titled True History of Annie Callaghan, and is published in national and international anthologies. Her stories have appeared in Griffith Review, Hecate and Idiom. Currently she is working on the second of a trilogy of historical novellas with an Indigenous theme, inspired by The Tempest, Shakespeare’s iconic depiction of the colonised and the coloniser. You can find her on www.juliekearney.com.au.

Image credit: Tim Sackton on Flickr

MAGDALENE’S DREAM by João Cerqueira

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Raffaello_Sanzio_-_Christ_Blessing_(Pax_Vobiscum)\

MAGDALENE’S DREAM
by João Cerqueira

That night Magdalene dreamt about Jesus.

She was wearing a green overall and gloves, her hair was protected by a plastic cap, and a mask covered her mouth. She was in a large laboratory, looking through the lens of a microscope. All around her there were similarly dressed people—some sitting, others standing, each engaged in a different task. All of them were concentrating intently, and no one spoke.

She worked for Monsanto. The evil gene-manipulating, pesticide-and-defoliant-inventing multinational. But, weirdly enough, Magdalene was happy. Absorbed in her work, as if nothing else existed other than that experiment in genetic alchemy. Like a goddess about to create a new species, more perfect than all the others she had engineered, Magdalene the scientist took delight in her experiments. However, as is always the case in lucid dreams, the awareness of this pleasure disturbed her.

There was a project: to create a new kind of fast-growing corn that would be immune to all known diseases and would let off an odor that would repel predatory insects. This extraordinary plant would do away with the use of toxic herbicides and nitrogen fertilisers, chemicals that pollute groundwater, raise CO2 emissions, and require great amounts of watering. Such a grain would represent a miracle far greater than nature’s abilities—showing how nature represents a past of deprivation, while genetic engineering heralds a future of abundance; it would be a super-food designed to deal with population growth and put an end to famine. And only the biotechnology of Monsanto could produce this future. The Brave New Agricultural World, with only Alpha corn.

Expectations from the scientific community and from consumers were high. Newspapers speculated that this was one of the greatest discoveries of mankind; the radio said the same. On the news Cristiano Ronaldo was shown with two Swedish girls—“they like me because I’m rich and handsome,” he said. This and other information were part of the dream, like the text shown in some film scenes to set the time and place.

Other companies were trying the same feat, but it was Magdalene and her colleagues who had lifted the veil on the secrets of the genes, mapping them, decoding them, manipulating them—and coming closest to the finish line. Within Monsanto itself, Magdalene was heading the research, with the other scientists forming a team that followed her lead. They were just spare parts in a whole she controlled. As such, she closely watched the results of the latest tests, feeling that the chimera was edging closer and closer.

In truth, Magdalene, when awake, knew almost nothing about genetics and less still about the technological processes behind their manipulation. She had read stuff in the papers, browsed websites, watched documentaries, listened to layman conversations, and these scraps of information had provided the tattered rags with which she had sewn together her short, patchwork blanket of scientific knowledge. Put another way, she knew diddly-squat about the matter. But that didn’t stop her from dreaming that she was the greatest geneticist, about to invent a plant resistant to everything—pests, mice or environmentalists—and saving mankind from famine.

Even if we lose our identity, dreams enable us to reach for the stars, to walk in the clouds, to play with a magic wand that transforms frogs into genetically perfect princes. And so, radiant dreamer Magdalene was testing the magical powers of her wand; and her corn prince was almost ready.

Suddenly, the dream changed.

Proceeded by the crash of the door as they broke it down, Judas and his green militia stormed into the laboratory, shattering test tubes, pipettes, beakers, funnels, flasks, stirrers, centrifuges, microscopes, tables, chairs and computers. Everything went flying. The muscles of a choleric triumph twitched on his face and a rage yet to be quenched roared in his eyes. Eager to raze Monsanto to the ground, Judas even managed to hit his comrades with the equipment he was tossing against the wall, and to cut his hands on the glass he broke. It was in this blood-soaked form, like a beast that corners its prey after the chase, that he made his way towards Magdalene, the traitor. Holding a chair above his head, Judas was going to crush her as he would a GM crop. In Magdalene’s wide eyes, the color of terror was blue.

It was then that a door opened and Jesus appeared, stopping Judas in his tracks. He was wearing a white tunic and his hair and beard were longer than before. The serene physiognomy Magdalene knew had gained an expression of authority. He seemed taller and endowed with superhuman strength; omnipotent and omniscient. Nothing could oppose him. If she hadn’t have been terrified of Judas, she would have been intimidated by Jesus. Just as the others were.

The cold light of the laboratory had disappeared before the glow coming from Jesus’s body, forcing both intruders and scientists to cover their eyes with their hands. Only Magdalene kept her eyes open, immune to his radiance. Very slowly, everyone began to recover from the impact of the light and headed towards Jesus, with no difference between assailant and victim. Defenders of nature and its researchers walked side by side, as if they had discovered that they were heading towards the same destination.

Only Judas stood still, but he lowered his chair.

Magdalene had finally shed her fear and freed herself from anxiety. There was now an agreement between the feelings of the woman who was sleeping and the woman in the dream. Genetics and nature had become reconciled. Jesus had not only protected her from Judas’ blow, but had also freed her from the guilt of being a gene manipulator—far from being a miracle, this was no small thing.

However, when everyone was gathered around Jesus and waiting for him to offer words of wisdom, to give good advice, to explain what he was doing there, the saviour pulled up one of the few intact chairs remaining and sat down. He then crossed his legs, took out a cigarette, tapped it a couple of times against the back of his hand and began to smoke, peacefully—a behavior that irritated the scientists as it violated safety rules and disturbed the environmentalists, who suspected that it contained GM tobacco.

One puff, another puff, and nothing. Not a word. Just grey smoke, very unhealthy.

Even Magdalene started to become intrigued. A saviour appears for gene manipulators attacked by gene defenders, avoids a blood bath and astronomical damage, puts everyone in a daze, and then sits down for a smoke? It didn’t seem right. A few words were required, an explanation, a telling-off.

But Jesus rarely did what was expected of him.

He observed the bewildered men and women in front of him, waiting for the right moment to start his peacemaking speech. He was enjoying the cigarette, so he would finish smoking it. And what a shame one of those little machines couldn’t make coffee; or that there was no cognac or port wine in those test tubes. The bad thing about scientists is that they don’t know how to appreciate the good things in life. In the meantime, researchers and intruders were becoming desperate. But Jesus was now entertaining himself blowing smoke rings. It was a small punishment for those who wanted to play at gods, just as it was for those who wanted to destroy temples.

Finally he put out the butt in an intact flask, shifted his gaze from face to face, lingering on Magdalene’s, and then spoke, with Judas in his sights.

“Judge not, that ye be judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measure to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

 

João Cerqueira João Cerqueira has a PhD in History of Art from the University of Oporto. He is the author of seven books: Blame it on too Much Freedom, The Tragedy of Fidel Castro, Devil’s Observations, Maria Pia: Queen and Woman, José de Guimarães (published in China by the Today Art Museum), and José de Guimarães: Public Art. His works are published in Toad Suck Review, Hypertext Magazine, Danse Macabre, The Liberator Magazine, All Right Magazine, Sundayat6mag, and Literary Lunes. His website is www.joaocerqueira.com.

Image credit: Raffaello Sanzio, Christ Blessing (Pax Vobiscum), 1505-06 

LE PAIN D’AFFLICTION by Steven Anthony George

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LE-PAIN-D'AFFLICTIONLE PAIN D’AFFLICTION
by Steven Anthony George

The piercing, relentless buzz rises and falls in pitch. It starts and stops for only a moment, before resuming again near the upper corner. I have been cared for in this same room for nineteen years now, I think. It is difficult to say for certain. Most days are like any other, except for the weather, which changes almost daily here in the spring. Raindrops tap gently on the unbearably narrow window. On days such as this, I am not permitted to go into the courtyard. I try, through the aggravating buzz, to focus my eyes on the stark, white ceiling in order to again project mental images of my memory of Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc: the questions of the tonsured judges, Joan’s responses, the exact words of a simple county girl, not in armor on a field of battle, but in the simple garb of the lunatic, filmed as if lifted directly from the intricate script of medieval France.

I swear here to tell the truth as I remember it, ignoring those pictures that rely upon speculation or solely upon imagination. I first must assert that I do not believe the others in this place know or they do not care to know of the Fifteenth Century world to which I have returned so long ago. Medications, observational notes, and sleep and wake times, are all they seem to care about. In my solitude, I can feel the soft brush of the floral tapestries with scenes of the hunt of fox or boar, the arming of knights by young ladies with slender and awkwardly leaning bodies. I lie on the bed, observing the rainclouds, contemplating my clothes. I wonder that I must dress as neither a man nor a woman, often only the robe an angel would wear, I suppose. I imagine Michael descending to Earth enrobed and I doubt whether I would dress any other way if it were left to me.

I return my attention to the movie screen I have created above my head, where I notice the first fly land briefly on Mlle. Falconetti’s face, as Joan was questioned about her need for the Church. Should one who has gained her salvation by doing God’s work require the instruction of man? Once the Lord in his glory has promised to keep my soul, there is no longer reason for prayer, the mass, or confession. I hope personally for my redemption, but I know neither the day nor the hour, nor if I may already have it. It must be assumed that the fly of La passion fell rigid to the floor within days after the scene had been played if it were fortunate enough to evade the judgmental swatting of the director’s assistants; it led a life preserved by Dreyer, but the actress dismissively brushed it away, and neither could control it.

Did that second fly that landed briefly on Falconetti’s face as she lay on the cinematic bed return off-camera to drink momentarily of each theatrical tear, to nourish generations to follow as she knelt painfully on the stone floor? Perhaps maggots of the flies that visited Saint Joan, feeding on the bodies of those slain in the siege of Orleans, gave birth to flies who, tens of thousands of generations later, begat maggots feeding on the discarded scraps of Dreyer’s film crew and they, in turn, gave birth to flies who, thousands of generations later, perhaps carried on a merchant ship from France, resulted in this fly that speeds past my eyes, though those monitoring me keep the building secured so tightly that I cannot imagine how a fly would enter or where a maggot would feed.

That fly that flew both left and right before Falconetti’s face as the smoke rose before her was, perhaps, overcome and killed in the same manner as Joan, choked by smoke and singed by the rising flames, its body becoming an ember, floating through the boiling air, but I can only speculate, because the fate of flies is never certain. C’est la façon de mouches. We find them desiccated on the windowsill and wonder at their possible attempted escape, though the truth is that they have been given no more than a month to live, and I believe that they are aware of how soon they will perish. If that should be true, then to such similar loathsome creatures they are martyrs—messengers that hear the words of God and send them to our ears. 

Steven-Anthony-GeorgeSteven Anthony George is a poet and short story writer who resides in Fairmont, West Virginia. He finds inspiration largely in historical events, visual art, and film. His work has appeared in several online and print journals and is also forthcoming in the anthology Diner Stories, to be released in late 2014. He is active in the autism community and often speaks on the topic of self-advocacy. Visit his website at www.stevenanthonygeorge.com.

Image credit: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)—Carl Theodor Dreyer, film still courtesy of AWorldofFilm.com  

HOW A GHOST IS MADE by Sean Jackson

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How a Ghost is Made

HOW A GHOST IS MADE
by Sean Jackson

This is the part that gets to Shelly every time: running past the Horner’s fence with a big, bright smile on her face. It can’t be the sour pucker that she wants to display. It has to be a buoyant expression, otherwise Mingyu will talk about it in the clubhouse.

So she sprints along the freshly painted pickets (Mingyu Horner isn’t one to forgo spring improvements) and bares her teeth, chin high, shoulders back, and a proper curl to her lips. The Shih Tzu scrambles through the flowers behind the fence and leaps at the wheeling legs, yapping and clawing at the wood.

“Fuck off, Roxy,” Shelly says through her teeth. The sprinklers click on and the Belknap’s maid appears down the sidewalk, searching for the morning paper. Shelly flies past her, doesn’t even nod hello, her mind locked in on the fact that Dave’s car will be rolling by soon. She can practically hear the thump of his music, that awful heavy metal he still listens to, and the whine of the rear brakes he won’t take in to get looked at.

She leans into the next turn, bursting up Spindale Street like they taught her at Oberlin: run till you can’t think straight, then back off one gear. But only one. Too much and the pace erodes so that you won’t find it again. She imagines she is sprinting to Mingyu’s murder scene—cops and medics and white chalk outline, the whole bit. Dave will be there, peering out of the perfectly tinted Audi windows, his face wracked with grief and shame.

“Hey!”

Shelly stumbles at the Brier Lake intersection as a dude on a bike hops the curb and blows past her the other way, a shitty look on his face as he yells something rude about her having an alleged cocaine habit, being a whore, and needing to look where the fuck she is going. This is the Walser kid, back from prep school (booted for partying) and on a rampage through the neighborhood. Mingyu got him barred from the clubhouse and the pool after catching him rifling through lockers. Nancy what’s-her-name got him blacklisted from the tennis courts because he (allegedly) stuffed a dead cat inside the Lobster practice machine.

Dave plays tennis with James Horner, who said it wasn’t a big thing and we all make mistakes and maybe we should try to be more lenient with the Walser kid when it comes to banning him from proactive activities like tennis, swimming and working out.

Shelly digs into the rise up Bowman Hill and, though her head is lowered, she can feel the old Claremont Castle staring down at her. All thirty rooms of it. Granite and iron, the high gaping windows (“arched maws,” per Dave), and the woeful willows bent around the center statue of Garland Claremont atop a muscled steed. Shelly’s face warps into a wry smile as she pumps her way around the estate. Claremont sits in federal prison due to years of tax fraud. Millions of it. His wife “entertains” a host of “tennis pros” who come and go like pigeons on the turrets—there one minute, gone the next.

The whole neighborhood is on an Old Testament whoring binge: omnisinfidelitas.

Shelly reaches the greenway trail head, which is a fence-covered foot bridge over the Durham Freeway. She pauses, counts along with her stopwatch, till she sees Dave ease into a relaxed line of RTP-bound nerds and immoralists. Then she pops in her earbuds and descends along the bridge into a canopy-covered swath of nature so green it makes her sick.

◊

Radisson v. Marklitz, et al. is what they’ve given her at work, a six-figure payday for the firm and likely an eight-figure payout for the hotel which claims the City of Raleigh cockblocked its efforts to build a luxury high-rise near the train depot. Marklitz is the city planner who led the cockblocking. He’s also a manic depressive who Shelly knows will lose his job, kill himself, then become a martyr along the lines of John the Baptist or…who was that guy from Joy Division?

She’s trying to remember Ian Curtis just as Sambo goes by her door. He leans back, hand on the jamb, and grins in that manner he does which stops all negative thoughts. He is maybe fifty, with a mane of silver and immaculate pompadour hair, and is two uncles removed from the governor’s mansion. There’s already a fellowship at Wake Forest University Law School named after him: the Samuel J.K. Lammartine II Fellow of English Literature & Shakespearean Studies. Or, as he calls it, “the Sam-Lam sub chair.”

“How goes Radisson?” he says, smiling as his eyes dart around her walls. Every time it’s like he’s never seen her degrees and certifications. He always seems to be in awe.

“No chance we lose,” she tells him. (Ian Curtis! Love, love will tear us apart again.) “Not a question of win or lose. The question is: How much do we win?”

Sam’s eyes roll around and he laughs. He actually claps. Then he points at her:

“I knew you were my guy! First time I saw your CV, I told Kane—or maybe it was Julius—that you would kick ass here. Just totally kick ass.”

Shelly nods.

“There’s no ass too big or small to get kicked all down the courthouse hall. Isn’t that from a play or something?”

Sam makes a comic face.

“No it isn’t,” he says. “I think you made it up.”

Then he grins some more.

“No such thing as too much,” he adds. “Make sure you touch base with me the first time you hear anybody even think the word settle. Okay?”

She gives him the thumb, sideways, then jerked straight up. It’s like a ball team around here sometimes. Victory is joyous and defeat is fucking wretched. But they win way more than they lose.

“Oh, what’s the sitch with Dave?” he says, back at the doorway again. “You guys, you know…is he, you know, still…?”

She gives him the other thumb, sideways, then jerked down. She makes the YOU LOSE! videogame sound effect.

After a couple hours drafting emails for the hoped-for Radisson victory party (the invite list includes the widow Claremont), she plops into her car for the post-rush hour drive home. Twilight is in full bloom, a misty purple and gold that obscures the horror show of wires and billboards flanking the route she takes home. She listens to the radio and daydreams, those visions of Mingyu on a capsized boat or at the bottom of a well.

At home, Dave sits out back, surrounded by Tiki torches, whispering into his phone and watching her through the sliding-glass doors. He gives a tepid two-finger wave and looks away, probably telling Mingyu to steer clear of sailfish boats and open wells. She has stopped checking his outgoing calls. He claims he gets James and Mingyu’s numbers mixed up. But he never has an answer for why he’ll talk to the wife for an hour when he meant to ring the hubbie.

“Did I get any mail?” she calls through the glass. He points to the basket on the coffee table (god she loves Ikea). He has that irritated furrow, a fold in his face she never saw till he met Mingyu at the clubhouse bar (Love Forty) and came back saying there was this Chinese girl (even though she was at least thirty) who reminded him of somebody from an old Ang Lee film. Shelly didn’t quiz him, didn’t really even listen as he went on and on about this stunning, graceful Asian girl (married, a daughter, early thirties) who’d played on the women’s pro tour when she was just sixteen.

Shelly stops when the powder-blue envelope appears. Her fingers tremble as she tears the gold seal on the back and removes the registration card. She’s been accepted to the Montana Blue Sky Writer’s Retreat. In fact, her application was the best in years, the Texan, Bobby Short, tells her in the space at the bottom of her acceptance card. Just fill out the registration (a formality) and get it back to the Blue Sky Ranch within two weeks. She looks out at Dave, who cradles his phone between his cheek and shoulder so he can dig at something on the bottom of his foot. Finish off Radisson, have the victory bash, tell Sam she needs a break, drop poison tablets in Mingyu’s water bottle (haha!), and then head for Blue Sky. Easy peasy.

Lemon squeezy. It’s racist, but there’s a name for Mingyu. She wants to offer it to Dave, tell him it’s okay to fuck James Horner’s wife, so long as James never finds out. Horner is a big guy, a software programmer, but he works out and played lacrosse in college. Or maybe he rowed. Either way, the guy is huge compared to Dave.

“Something’s wrong with my foot,” he says as she comes out to check her tea roses. It cost a hundred bucks to get a guy to come spray them with organic something or other. The guy guaranteed it would keep the mites away, or else her money back. Sure.

“You should soak it in salt or whatnot,” she says, seeing that the bushes are strong, enjoying the humid summer.

“I don’t know,” he says, frowning. That furrow. Like a disappointed father. “I hear Mingyu does a homeopathic thing for feet, for athlete’s foot or whatever this is. Some kind of tennis secret, you know?”

Shelly stands behind him as he digs at the flaky soles of his feet.

“Lemon squeezy,” she says.

“What?”

“Get her to squeeze lemons on your feet.”

What an idiot. She lies in bed (her side, nearest the master bath), has some wine, and uses her laptop to research Blue Sky and Bobby Short, et al. She’s written a memoir that traces her mother’s rise and fall in the literary world—a 1960s confessional poet with pieces in The New Yorker, followed by accusations of plagiarism, a descent into alcoholism, the divorce, four years institutionalized (the entire Carter Administration), and finally the breast cancer that ate her away till she was nothing but a cobweb in a Fripp Island bedroom.

Shelly writes angrily about ugly truths and feels she has to get this me-and-mother memoir into print because a scathing account of adultery in a miserable and childless marriage is forthcoming. And also she has a lazy, clichéd notion that maybe, just maybe, she’ll come across some cowboy poet at the dude ranch (is that just a TV term?) and, you know, things will happen.

There’s got to be somebody somewhere who will be her lemon squeezy.

◊

Dave wowed her because he fucked her with arrogance—not with hostility or aggression nor a lusty bravura, just a confidence in his abilities. And he was so calm in the face of adversity, a stoic captain in the Ahab sense. When her mother died and the funeral home in Savannah tried to say the burial insurance was lapsed, Dave swooped in and smacked them across the face with the policy, saying honor it or face the wrath of the federal government. Some kind of Medicare issue, but he was a goddamned genius and the funeral went on, though Shelly was wrecked and the family turnout sparse. He was all that she needed: stability, confidence, and a fair share of good looks.

He still works in insurance, but he no longer fights for the little guys. He’s what Sam calls a douche. Along the lines of, “That douchebag at First Rock National Coverage is going to make us file a tort.” Or even specifically: “Dave is a fucking douche, Shelly.”

It’s something she’s watched before, when her father crept away over the course of a year.

There were times when Shelly thought she could actually hear her mother’s heart breaking. Like a creaky wall in an antebellum house that yawns during storms. Only worse. It was like watching a ghost being made. Piece by dreadful piece. Having seen this, Shelly doesn’t fear divorce or estrangement or loneliness or any of that shit that brought her poet-mom down. She’s put up walls, kinda like an old fucking castle on a hill that uses ramparts and hedges and murder stories to keep trespassers away.

All the fucking immoralists. Shelly hates them all. Soup to nuts, stem to stern—a gigantic waste of her time. A bag of dicks and all that shit.

She realizes she’s had one glass of wine too many about the time Dave pops his head in the room and asks her who is she talking to? Is she Skyping?

Pfft!

She goes back to her screens and reads about the workshops at Blue Sky. Daylong musings over core characters’ motives (why did she kill that little whore bitch?) and possibly delving into magical realism during the evening sessions with some Guillermo dude. There’s a reading by an Oglala Lakota poet who lost a hand at Wounded Knee. (Give him your card, no statute of limitations on malicious wounding.)

Nightly jam sessions are scheduled and everybody is encouraged to bring an instrument of his or her choice. Shelly goes to Amazon to look at acoustic guitars. She played one years ago. Was in some indie band while at Oberlin who did forty minutes of R.E.M. covers. “Swan Swan H,” remember that? Nobody ever figured out what that song was about. She fucked a stranger one night after a shitty gig at a frat party and thinks his name was Johnny Reb. Some guy with a dick shaped like a sweet potato.

She checks a box to attend a midweek gala on Tumble Mountain, a couple hours’ drive in a well-worn Jeep, or an all-day journey atop horses with “the wolfpack,” Bobby Short’s own group of cow punchers (ex-rodeo friends and Bighorn poets) and roughnecks (rumor is that these are a retired prizefighter, maybe that guy from Bon Jovi who nobody remembers, and Matt fucking Damon). It costs $500.

Then she gets an instant message via the site, a short bio and a headshot of her bunkmate. It’s a California woman, with dyed blonde hair, about sixty, who goes by “Carol of Palo Alto.” Carol has crow’s feet, a gold charm necklace (seagulls and starfish), and large, luminous eyes that radiate a forced happiness. That’s the face Shelly sees in the mirror, only younger. The strain of a complicated relationship with a lover is written everywhere. Like a man (or maybe it’s a woman?) has wiped his crappy boots all over it, from hairline to chin, ear to ear, on his way in and out of lies about whether he still loves Carol. Poor Carol. There’ll be two of them at Blue Sky. At least two. Who knows? They could all be jilted hearts turning over stones to find that page that will cry out to a publisher.

Shelly replies through the moderator: “Love Carol! Future BFFs for sure! ♥♥”

Then one last page to RSVP to. The BRING SOMEONE ELSE’S WRITING page. Has to be the unpublished writing of somebody you’ve known personally who means something to you. DON’T JUST BRING US YOUR HUSBAND’S/WIFE’S LOVE LETTERS TO YOU! MAKE IT COUNT.

Ha! If only. Dave’s not the type. He can write a grocery list and a sorry-excuse-for-why-he’s-not-home on a Post-it, but romantic stuff? You may as well ask him to stop fucking Mingyu.

Shelly knows what she’ll bring. There’s a notebook in her closet, in a box with things from high school and corresponding summers, a journal, a nice Moleskine that her mother got in Italy during her only trip abroad. There are four or five rhyming poems in there, a couple of never-ending sonnets, and a little travel piece she wrote for her sister. It tells all about Milan and Rome and the young man (her fiancé George) who was whirling her from destination to destination, an absolute love affair with life, sex, art, and experience.

It’s the only thing her mother ever wrote that uses the word “justification” in relation to her own life. It was the happiest she ever was. Shelly will bring that. That and, sure, one of the notes Dave dropped in her nightstand dish. About a year ago. A curlicue-laden piece about his having to meet a client’s lawyer at a golf course in Raleigh, how sorry he was that this came up last minute. Happy birthday. Save some cake for me.

Sean JacksonSean Jackson’s latest stories have been published in Main Street Rag, The Potomac Review, Niche, Sliver of Stone, and Conte Online, among other literary magazines. He was a 2011 Million Writers Award nominee. He wrote for more than a decade for newspapers across eastern North Carolina. Jackson lives in Cary, North Carolina.

IS THIS IT by Sidney Thompson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

baking pie

IS THIS IT
by Sidney Thompson

Jewell

Jewell Young didn’t know what made her son happy anymore. There was a time she did, and for most of his life she did. It was why she was making this pecan pie for him, because such a simple thing had once made him happy, joyously happy, and maybe, just maybe, she hoped, she could come as close to that as she could, the way a happy memory sometimes will. Even when it was a bought thing that Cooper had desired, something she couldn’t make, a bag of army men or a baseball glove or a Swamp Thing comic book, she knew she could find it and make the finding of it her own, likely at a garage sale, last resort a dime store, and for practically nothing. Now, the venture of trying to make her son happy was an impossible trap of high stakes. At some point, it seemed, he’d decided that if Leah was happy, then he was happy, but who in the world knew what could make her happy? A house? What thing could do that? But if somebody was smart enough to figure out what that thing could be, who in the world could afford it? When Jewell lay in bed late at night, feeling alone, with her ear plugs in, Henry already snoring but hardly audible, she sometimes prayed herself to tears.

She crimped the edge of the pie crust with the tips of her fingers. This was what made Jewell happy—sunlight slanting over the windowsill, Henry’s lawn mower humming in place of his Fox News, and dough, plenty of dough. She was actually making two pies, though one she wouldn’t take with her to Alabama. That one she’d freeze for the future, because no one could ever predict when the church might call for a fund-raiser or when you might need to pitch in a pick-me-up at a funeral potluck. Her mother had always kept something on hand in the freezer, and Jewell preferred to be prepared, too. It made her happy to be prepared. She just wished she could think of something that could possibly make Leah close to happy, too.

The problem was that she didn’t know Leah very well outside the horrible facts of her father’s suicide too few years ago, and that Leah’s mother sent envelopes of Ambien in the mail so Leah could sleep. Cooper had only brought her by to meet her and Henry a couple of times before marrying her, and they hadn’t seen much of her since. She was an attractive girl with a very cute body, so Jewell guessed Leah made her son happy in bed before she went out like a log. Jewell hoped so. She hoped her son had plenty of semen, that everything worked every time, and that someday soon, before she got much older, she’d have a grandchild. It was the one thing left in life that she wanted and couldn’t make or find herself, and she was growing tired of waiting.

In a motion that mimicked the pecking of a bird, she collected the strips and pinches of left-over pie-crust dough off the wax paper, then proceeded un-birdlike to roll them together between her hands into a ball and then to place the ball in the oven on the baking sheet next to the pies. She smiled, remembering her mother, who’d taught her this trick. A cookie to go with her afternoon coffee.

 

Henry

Leaving your home vacant, even for a couple of days, required more preparation than what Henry Young preferred to consider. Asking their neighbor to collect their mail and newspapers. Tracking down the timers for the lamps. Of course, mowing the grass, and this was the worst part of it, going around and around the crepe myrtles, all five, six, seven of them.

Twice over the years they’d been burglarized, and whenever he thought of the second of those two times, he always winced from the vividness of his memory. While waiting for the police to arrive, while Jewell waited safely outside in the car, he made the mistake of investigating the house, not expecting that it would be what was left behind and not learning what was stolen that would startle him with disgust—in the master bathroom commode, his commode, lay the foulest of insults one human could possibly deposit for another, and of gargantuan proportions.

That was it. After that, he and Jewell finally anted up and invested in security doors and lamp timers. That was thirteen years ago, not long after Cooper had received his PhD from the University of Memphis, first in the family to be a doctor, and had moved out of the house for what everyone believed then to be for good, the last time, in order to marry his first wife and begin an illustrious career, trying to out-do his old man, as a university professor.

He and Jewell both believed rather blindly, and unfortunately passed that blindness to Cooper, that it was only a matter of time, no more than a semester or two, before their son, their only child, forever a straight-A student, would prove his worth and be promoted from part-time to full-time and be making more money than they ever did after thirty years—Henry as a high-school history teacher and Jewell a middle-school home-economics teacher. Even when it became painfully evident that Cooper would never be hired at any university without a doctorate from a more prestigious university or without prominent publications, that the world of academia was changing, with qualifications increasing, and that he should go back to school to get certified to teach in secondary ed., do what it took, become street smart, he remained stubborn in his self-worth, believing with a religious fervor that eventually others would accept him for who he was.

Struggling with the lawn mower underneath the unkempt branches of the crepe myrtles had left popcorn-shaped blooms clinging to his shirt, but what he was thinking about now was his father’s face, the last time Henry had seen it and could ever remember holding it in his hands.

Henry had arrived at the nursing home cradling a watermelon. His father had had a stroke six months earlier and remained paralyzed down the length of his entire left side, his shrunken left limbs propped on pillows. Though he couldn’t watch television anymore without crying, because it reminded him too intensely that he wasn’t at home watching television, with his dachshund asleep in his lap, he still loved the taste of food, even if most of his food had to be pureed, and he hadn’t had a watermelon once yet that summer. It was that day, after eating watermelon, when his father asked Henry to please shave him.

Henry had never shaved his father before, holding his pallid face and wiry gray stubble, while bringing the razor slowly through.

It saddened him that Cooper had settled down on the coast, so far away. And was a car salesman, not a professor. Was so far away.

 

Cooper

In the amber light flickering through the leaves of the banana trees that ceaselessly and silently undulated at their bedroom window, he could see Leah’s blonde hair fanned across her pillow. He thought of waking her up, but waking her up had never led to sex before.

He eased himself out of bed, and his knees buckled from the hardness of the glazed terra-cotta floor, which by the day was feeling harder and harder to his feet and ankles and hips, as if he’d brought the pavement of the car lot home with him. He moved toward the bathroom with the speed and tentativeness of a senior citizen, and once he’d reached the bathroom and touched the door to the frame, he decided, like a senior and a woman both, to draw his underwear all the way down and sit.

There was great relief in sitting. He sat for a long while, then stood finally to his feet, and this time there was a little more strength in his legs, a little less ache.

He knew what Jimmy Bertella would tell him. That was his sales manager in training, his shadow.  Let’s be proactive, Coop! By God, take control. Don’t let her dictate the goddamned outcome. Whatever she says, ignore it and redirect and you keep going, keep redirecting, until you have to acknowledge whatever objection there is, but after you acknowledge it and show a little empathy, keep going. Objections don’t mean shit. They’re signs of fear about doing what she wants to do, or why else would she be here? Nobody dragged her at gun point to your bed. But if you have confidence, you have control, and she will follow you with the same level of confidence that you’ve got. It’s a habit for people to follow. It’s polite to follow. Do you want to be an order-taker for the rest of your life, or do you want to be a fucking salesman? Cooper, you pussy, make her follow!

He hiked his boxers and gently, very slowly, swept the door open. He was about to start his day the way he wanted to start it and hoped that was what she was up for because that was what was about to happen.

He even absorbed the shock of the floor with a pinch more youth, then two steps into the room, a blow—the bed was void of any wife, docile or not. Then in the kitchen he heard the unmistakable sucking sound of a refrigerator closing.

As he approached the kitchen through bars of sun filtering in through the living room blinds that she opened every morning before doing anything else, he heard, amid various knocks and clatters, one of his favorite sounds, quite possibly his favorite—that rare, happy sound of Leah humming.

He watched her at the cutting board for a moment in her camisole and striped pajama bottoms, buoyant on her tiptoes, before she realized he was at the doorway and stopped humming.

“Hey,” she said, carving the air with a steak knife, “I thought I’d make us an omelette.”

He smiled, and she said, “I don’t know why, I woke up just craving one. And then after we eat,” she said, setting the knife on the cutting board between mounds of sliced onion and cubed cheddar, “I thought, you know, we could go look at that house in Point Clear Stables I was telling you about.”

He hesitated. He didn’t mean to. It was his day off. It was like his day. But he quickly thought better of such logic and nodded with enthusiasm. “Sure,” he said.

“It’ll be fun,” she said.

“It’ll be fun,” he agreed. He met her at the stove and kissed her. She even resumed her humming in his presence.

He understood that her happiness wasn’t definitive. What made her truly happy, feel complete, serene yet ecstatic, like sex with her was for him, was beauty, wow beauty, rare beauty, genius beauty—watching Savion Glover tap dance or Mavis Staples sing or Liev Schreiber act, or standing so close to a Jackson Pollock that you could pick out the nails or buttons buried in the oils, or comfortably at home reading a Cheever or Carver short story, Susan Minot’s Evening, Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, or as on their honeymoon in Venice, walking along the canals and alleyways in awe. He understood that she was in that difficult transitional period of redefining happiness.

Even for him, sex gradually receded into the décor of the dining room. The omelette was in its place, then buttered wheat toast sprinkled, her way, which was becoming his way, too, with black pepper. Then there was the mutual excitement of a bluebird lighting on the balcony railing. And when she turned up Is This It by the Strokes to get ready to their constant up-tempo beat, he appreciated her choice.

Sidney ThompsonSidney Thompson is the author of the short story collection Sideshow. His fiction, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared or is forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Atticus Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Clapboard House, Danse Macabre, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Grey Sparrow Journal, NANO Fiction, Ostrich Review, Prick of the Spindle, Ragazine.CC, The Southern Review, storySouth, TINGE Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Denton, Texas, where he teaches creative writing at Texas Woman’s University and is the Assistant Fiction Editor for the American Literary Review.

Image credit: Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr

 

BALLAD by Patrick Dacey

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Ballad

BALLAD
by Patrick Dacey

OK she’s gone let’s get setup amp cord guitar now this is romantic this is a gift D C G yep way out of tune needs a good tuning can’t remember how to tune just listen listen it all makes sense if you just listen that’s what Miles Davis once said I think maybe it was Mingus turn the keys thumb the E and A and OK we’re in tune music first then lyrics a mix of dark and light of high and low nothing too dark nothing too light it’s her birthday she doesn’t want a slit-your-wrists song and she doesn’t want some loopy gumball sing-along a ballad of course ballad in D too light, ballad in E minor too dark ballad in C C to F to D C to F to G something’s missing C to F to A minor to G that’s it that makes sense there’s a balance there OK C to F to A minor to G for a while and shit the kid’s squawking squawking and hiccupping and that cute-as-hell laugh can’t miss him laugh got to see that maybe take a picture if I time it right though he never seems to do it when I got the phone pointed at him guitar rest camera phone on hiccup and he stops altogether when I get to the doorway looks at me like I’m some creature from Mars wide-eyed scared shitless considering the size of his world for the past ten minutes little stuffed monkeys and parrots and lizards and then this giant indigenous freak from across the river comes stomping through the bush into his perfectly unreal world wanting to strip it bare take him away turn it into a resort which think about it little buddy think about living your first couple years in a beautiful resort no bugs or scary animals just people like your mother all there to serve you while you relax under an umbrella with the sun on your little toes doesn’t that sound nice sound like something you could appreciate later on in life if say you were to make a bunch of money and then lose a bunch of money at the point your future wife is five months pregnant surprise and already has you in a convertible crib on credit without considering the possibility of and we moved all the studio equipment into the garage where mommy says it should be anyway considering I haven’t recorded a thing since 1992 and what was that just a little number called I Do and I Don’t just a song that put her in the cream colored Mercedez she rides into Boston to have lunch with Karen and Odessa and Hilary like they’re the goddamn New England version of Sex and the City like they’re impressed by my twenty-year-old Benz she says I have to take the train in from Haverhill for christ’s sake well at least you have a car and you’re not some poor Mexican walking to work along Route 1 OK OK no sad time Daddy talk I get it come here spit up on my shoulder get rid of those hiccups OK I didn’t mean to bring you down let’s go out to the living room and you can help with mommy’s birthday present there you go buckle you into your little rocking chair and here’s your giraffe Sophie and your winkle and let’s clean the drool off your lip OK ready no don’t squeeze Sophie Sophie doesn’t have the right voice for this kind of song she’s more a Mezzo Soprano not what we’re looking for here OK squeeze Sophie we’ll work around her not like I haven’t had to deal with my share of aggressive background vocalists maybe I can cut her out of the master tape and that cough and that sneeze and don’t cry pal nothing to cry about I’m sure Sophie’s a good vocalist or maybe you’re just not interested in writing a song but if I could afford a present for mommy I’d get one though it wouldn’t even be a present more like a debt and she’d see it in the checking account probably return it claim it’s too extravagant just some earrings or a bracelet I don’t know something to make her feel pretty but what’s more important she’d say me looking pretty or some diapers for the boy yeah no brainer diapers but every once in a while something nice maybe and for the life of me I can’t imagine what we’d do if I didn’t lift your vitamins and formula and those stupid plastic toys well not lift as much as use the sweet Korean girl who runs the self-check line at Stop and Shop claim confusion with the machine tell her I like her green eyes and her hemp necklace but forty bucks for formula organic formula ‘cause it has to be organic or else what you might end up like OK let’s sort of cradle you take off the guitar strap OK get this underneath your butt and put your arms up here on the side and rest your chin there in the curve how’s that better feel better feel sleepy all right sleepy is good this is going to be sort of a sleepy song anyway now what was that chord progression G to no C to F to A minor right then G OK C C C C C fucking A buddy you almost fell out of the strap don’t make that face I know that face all right OK look at me look at daddy it’s smiley-time right isn’t it smiley-time do you even know what the hell smiley-time means it doesn’t mean anything that’s right that’s right keep smiling for smiley-time because smiley-time is a world that only exists in my mind and you won’t ever remember that you used to love smiley-time until you have a baby and then you’ll probably call it something different some inane phrase that gets stuck in your head and you’re walking around thinking about a world where people have smiley-time at some point during the day standing still wherever we are smiling at each other and not with some condescending coffee house how-you-doing smile but a real genuine smile that can crush your heart the way it does when you see true happiness on a person’s face like when they’re on a rollercoaster or sledding down a hill whatever it is that makes them forget about themselves for a few minutes maybe not a good idea to have you resting your head on the wood so back in the rocker OK now let’s get to work take mommy into the past ‘cause that’s what a good song does takes you back in time sets you down next to old friends and lovers well hopefully not her old lovers especially not that Australian dude the two of them out in the wild looking at kangaroos taking peyote can hear that stupid accent in my head picture Greg Norman with mommy’s face in his lap while he keeps saying ‘oy ‘oy ‘oy but what’re you going to do that’s the risk you take with a good song a good song brings you back in time a great song brings you to a place you’ve never been and you feel good being there you Jesus you little bugger you were so relaxed there during smiley-time you went ahead and dropped a load right as I was about to reach the nexus of this song for your mother how it has something to do with our past and present and future and how they can all work so perfectly together if you never think about time at all if you erase the concept of time from your being and just be OK that’s ripe here we go put the guitar down gently diaper wipes a bunch of wipes and all right it’s up your back Jesus how long has it been since you took a dump your mother never keeps me in the loop on your dump cycle we need a dump calendar or an eraser board guess we’ll have to get you in the tub the tub is a good thinking place I’ve gotten a lot of thinking done in the tub over the years of course a lot of that thinking got lost once I got out of the tub because I never remembered to bring a pen and pad into the bathroom with me so let’s clean you up and get a pen and pad and run the water and start thinking of lyrics for mommy’s song all right listen to the sound of the water listen to everything around you that’s music everything’s music have to make sure it’s not too hot too hot and you’ll get that pumpkin head screaming like a cat caught on fire all right me first got you up Jesus I hate the tub I look like a washed-up seal what a body no wonder mommy turns off the lights and my nuts cauterized forty-seven years old don’t want to risk another well not a mistake no you’re not a mistake but well we weren’t planning on doesn’t matter you’re here you’re beautiful you ready for the tub ready for the water OK here we go legs first yeah feels good doesn’t it now your back and your arms don’t worry I got your head I won’t let you go under we’ll just float you around OK it’s warm isn’t it you’re gonna love the ocean maybe you’ll be a surfer or maybe you’ll build sailboats or maybe you’ll be one of those guys who fishes in the summer and smokes dope in the winter and never really minds what happens around him because he’s generally satisfied with his life and doesn’t expect too much and never gets his hopes up and hasn’t a clue why everyone’s always arguing about what’s fair and what isn’t come on pal not in the tub well at least it’s clear means you’re healthy and you’re smiling because you think you got away with something well OK we should get out of the tub not much thinking done after all but it’ll come to us I mean you can’t stop yourself from thinking it’s impossible even wrapping you up in the towel and the tag says MADE IN CHINA and where in China it’s so damn big though you have to think some factory where they’re pumping out towel after towel all day it’s towels or it’s clocks or it’s Elvis Presley key chains whole factories producing Elvis crap and not one of those Chinese kids probably knows who Elvis is or was or how if he didn’t stop in at that little recording studio in Memphis or if he didn’t shake his hips on the Ed Sullivan show or die on the toilet or have this myth about him still being alive and all these whackos visiting Graceland like it’s some kind of church then none of the Chinese kids would even be working the Elvis factory and it might be the only factory in their town so without Elvis they might’ve lived a happier life working a farm or fishing doing something outdoors where the air is clean and no one’s breathing down your neck about printing a thousand of those Jailhouse Rock T-shirts by noon your skin’s soft too soft maybe hasn’t had to take a blow yet except that time you tumbled out of your little rocker but you knew to keep rolling and finally pressed up against the TV stand what’s this spot on your belly spider bite do we have spiders fuck I hope not it hurts when I press no good that’s good probably bitten a few days ago spiders crawling all over the house can’t see ‘em maybe they hide until night come out in packs crawl into our bed down our throats that’s why mommy’s coughing at night coughing on spider legs and what if they’re pregnant what if they’re delivering baby spiders inside us oh god OK let’s zap those spiders out of our minds OK zap no more spiders get the diaper on your onesy your little sweats and how about one of these sweatshirts a little chilly in here right can’t turn the heat up past 64 heat’s expensive if we hugged each other all day wouldn’t need heat at all zip you up looks like you’re ready to get back to work are you ready to get back to work good little smile stick your tongue out make that fart sound all right buddy ballad in C for your mother haven’t written a song a real song since I don’t know when tried to get the band back together but Dan’s a financial consultant and Randy works a farm in Montana and Caesar’s been cleaning toilets at Logan guessing drugs brought him there or maybe he’s off the drugs and that’s why he’s cleaning toilets maybe he’ll be ready to join up again in a year you only really need two founding members who am I kidding you won’t ever know your father the rock star you’ll probably see me as some old know-nothing like I saw my father until I got older and got interested in what his life was like before he started wheezing and coughing all the time and we needed to hook him up to an oxygen tank ‘cause all I knew of him was that he was a finish carpenter he’d talk about staircases and mantles and window trim whatever but later he told me how he dropped out of high school and flew to Madrid and from there trekked through western and eastern Europe and to Egypt and down to South Africa and over to Chile up through Southern America Panama Guatemala Mexico basically travelled the world except Asia said he wished he could get to Asia and I asked him why there were no photographs from his travels and he said because it’s all in my mind it’s for me not for anyone else and I came to respect my father more than I ever had before and then well he died died before he got a chance to see you or even known you were coming said how he wished he had a grandchild all the men in our family, since the dawn of time failing like it’s a birthright to dream big and touch greatness and then crash hard I’m not sure your grandfather ever even went to the places he claimed to visit maybe he was dreaming up a more adventurous past for himself maybe I should too who am I who was I who should I have been for you going to that dark place again try to stay away from the dark if we can so what was the point of right well you’ll see videos of me when I had long hair and purple suits and you’ll think where’s that guy he was famous he was weird he was cool but things change buddy people change and you’re my world now and maybe I dream of getting the band back dream of me and Caesar at the Paradise but I know that’s not going to happen too many mistakes band’s got a bad name I got a bad name put down the booze and coke put up all that dough in a vegetarian restaurant called ROOTS which your mother said was a terrible name and I went with it despite her thinking if it stuck with me then it’d stick with others but it wasn’t the name no one was willing to pay fourteen ninety five for a plate of raw vegetables and even after selling the house and most of my old guitars and pumping the rest of our savings into a self-published memoir printing off fifty-thousand copies and only selling about twenty mostly to your mother’s family with her thinking I didn’t know and a few to collectors of one hit wonders and becoming sort of a laughing stock on the local news during a where are they now segment claiming to have a connection with the spiritual world which I don’t but I thought it might drum up some interest in my music again and maybe kids’ll look up your last name find out who your father was make fun of how I used to look the music I played but you take out the synthesizers and you have some pretty lovely anyway it won’t matter shouldn’t matter ‘cause unlike their fathers and very much like my own father I went for it and I did it and no one can take that away from me just like they can’t take it away from you and I know sometimes I talk down about your mother but she’s been with me through it all rich and poor and she deserves some slack deserves a break and she’s a good mother to you and good woman and she’s still the only girl I know knows how to give a decent foot massage and maybe that sounds like it’s not a lot but trust me it’s hard to meet a woman you can love all your life and when you arrived it seemed to make us love each other even more and I guess that’s the point why it’s so hard to write a song I don’t have any songs left maybe you were my last song and maybe all your mother wants is a deep kiss and a warm bath and to be here with us a family our own little world just beginning.

Patrick-DaceyPatrick Dacey’s stories have appeared in Bomb Magazine, The Greensboro Review, Guernica, Salt Hill, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among other publications. He has recently completed his first collection of short fiction.

Image credit: Liz Davenport on Flickr

 

THE ELEPHANT by Erika Price

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Pink Elephant

THE ELEPHANT
by Erika Price

He got the news in the usual way: via Twitter. At 5:00 am when he’d already given up the prospect of sleeping (the thrum of his across-the-hall neighbor’s Skrillex ebbing into the rattle of the broken refrigerator), his phone silently lit up, providing an oasis of attention.

@scoliosis: Sounds like @brafshu is at Middleheartst in a coma #sad

He sat up, pulled the iPad out from under the spare pillow, and cast its light on his face. He pulled up Facebook. The first post, at 4:26 am from a former high-school peer, Misty Siler.

Soooo sad to hear about @BraffleyShumaker. Our prayers are in your heart!

At first he pulled the iPad away and stared into the kitchen. He remembered the tin of white chocolate cocoa his mother had mailed in a recent care package. He asked himself, just how could a prayer be in a heart? Is that what Misty really meant? Of course, grief could rot a person’s brain. Misty was second in the class, GPA-wise.

He tilted the screen back at his eyes and kicked the covers so one foot was bare. Perfect. He brought his forefinger of his right hand to Braffley’s highlighted name.

The page was awash in recent, well-meaning, and frustratingly vague posts, all prayers and wishes and memories for Braffley. The man asked himself, is Braffley dead or what? Then he found a post from Braffley’s cousin, Veronica.

Hey ya’ll Braffs folks have been too swamped to respond. He is in a stable condition and we are all with him, he’s been moved to the coma ward on the east side please park accordingly.

But still that wasn’t enough information. The man scrolled on, past old teeball playmates and ex-girlfriends and pastors, old neighbors and labmates and fraternity brothers and mystified, concerned internship partners. None of these dipshits know what happened to Braff, the man thought to himself. They weren’t there for what happened. They’re just hangers-on!

It was after five minutes had passed and a sparrow landed on the man’s windowsill that he finally scrolled past all the well-wishers’ non-updates to an old post by the now-unconscious Braffley himself. It was a sepia-filtered, low resolution image of the young man in a bright Hawaiian shirt, holding the camera aloft and at a cockeyed angle with one hand, a row of thick teeth glinting. In the other hand was a perfectly globular drink container, overflowing with a substance both frothy and green. There was a caption.

Ninety days sober! Here’s to big mojito mocktales and never missing a party just cuz there’s booze around! 😉 ~

The man held the back of the iPad with both hands and gently stroked the cool aluminum. This man, this overgrown boy whom he hadn’t seen since sixth grade, he had over ten thousand likes on the most insipid of feel-goodery posts. Were his eyes always blue, or was there something coming off the tiki torches that looked funny in the filter?

The man placed his tablet on the dresser and pulled his watch from the bottom of the key bowl. There was gum sticking to the face; he hadn’t worn the thing in weeks. Keeping time, wearing time had become useless since he’d taken the plunge, thrown out his desk and shelving units and rolled his Pilates ball out of the office and into the spare bedroom of his home.

For the past month, the days had been marked and kept by belly rumbles, faintly muted Skrillex beat drops, and the honking of the Thai delivery guy’s moped horn. No more. The man rolled until his bare, cool feet brushed the ground. He felt the crumbs dig into the webbing of his toes and regarded the burnt-orange sky and the clank of the dumpster in the alley. He went and brewed water for coffee, not cocoa, and thought of the steel-slicing jaw of Braffley.

He pulled into the hospital parking lot at 4:37 pm, swearing at himself and clicking Phil Collins off the local radio station. The man stuffed a few Verde Green Fritos into his mouth, opened the door, crunched his left boot on the snow, paused, reached back into the car to retrieve a mint from the cup holder, and flung himself out.

It was dark. It seemed impossibly late. The man hadn’t planned for early-afternoon commuter traffic, not in this disintegrating burb. He approached the old cement building, which was smeared on its sides with black and grey sooty filthiness of unknown origins. It was too late in the day for visitors. He was sure it was too late.

The man walked past the Emergency Room, through a wide set of doors. A woman screamed at him and gave chase. She approached, in toothpaste-colored scrubs, with a face both stern and impassive. This is the emergency room, she said.

I know, said the man. There was a beat. He said, I am looking for the coma ward.

The woman rapped on her chin with a pen, one of those five-color dealies with the multiple clickers. Okay, she said. You’re going the long way, though.

The man didn’t want to seem like he was uncertain, so he went along. It was important, he was pretty sure, to ape belongingness since he was about to maybe-probably violate the law. He reached the end of the hall and found a small sign made of dark plastic with a fake wood grain.

Rehab ^ (pointing nowhere)
Geriatric <
Burn Ward <
Pediatric <
Morgue >
Coma >
Yoga >

He took a right and found himself in a narrow passage smelling like a biology lab. Remembering the sign, he took a deep breath and held it low in his chest. Then the man was working his way slowly around a dance (or yoga) studio with open windows. He had to take an almost perfect u-turn around the room, full of old women in terrycloth workout outfits, to reach the hall leading to Coma.

As he walked, the man opened his phone. Still no substantive updates on Braffley. A girl the man remembered from Orchestra had posted on Braffley’s wall and tweeted at him. Amanda Sugar.

I remember camping with you and all the other tadpoles on Lake Wannempokka. You were so scared to be away from your mom and dad, you nearly cried. But when the fireworks came up over the cabins and showered you with stars, you stood up and started to cheer. I hope you are okay little tadpole!

The man clicked on Amanda. A poetry teacher now, with a degree from Swarthmore. Seemed legit.

The man reached the ward and found a small gaggle of blonde people gathered around the receptionist’s desk. He waited for them to clear.

I’m looking for—uh. Braffley Shumaker? He stammered.

She didn’t look up from her crossword puzzle for a long time. The man straightened himself, patted his tie. He thought, shit, I should have gotten some flowers from downstairs. That would look much better.

Braffley? The receptionist asked, too loudly. She ran a purple fingernail along a sheet of paper.

I, yes. The man stepped closer and tried to push her into whispering by doing so himself. He’s an old camp mate of mine. Just got in a horrible accident.

What kind of a name is Braffley? She asked. Is that Irish? Is it fake?

She looked up at him. Her glasses were thick; the rims were covered with a bright fish pattern that reminded the man of a children’s book.

I guess it is kind of silly, he allowed.

Five oh-nine C, the woman said. She pointed with a casual flip of her arm, then eased back into her chair. Just over there.

Oh? The man said. He took a step and looked at her desperately. Oh?

Just over there. Five oh-nine C.

The man began to stride. He pushed his posture up, once again. He struggled to remember which position Braffley played on the high school football team. Or was it soccer?

Hey, the woman called, and the man was sure the jig was up.

Yeah?

There’s a guy with emphysema in there, same room, she said. I hope you’re not wearing any strong cologne or anything like that.

Oh I’m not. And I won’t smoke either, ha, ha! The man realized this was the wrong thing to say.

Room 509-C was in a small archipelago of doors, some of which had to lead to closets or circuit boards, otherwise they made no architectural sense. The door was cracked and the man couldn’t hear anyone talking or moving around, so after a good forty-second pause, he let himself in. The window was drawn but facing a cement wall, belonging to another of the hospital’s many disorganized wards.

The old guy with emphysema was on the first bed, but that didn’t prevent the man from joltingly mistaking him for a hyper-aged and very world-weary Braffley Shumaker. His chest rose and fell like a little bird’s. He had many cards, including some hand drawn ones, but no balloons.

On the other end of the room, behind a half-pulled curtain, was, presumably Braffley. The sleeping man looked very little like his beaming, newly-sober Facebook self. His face was flat. Its flesh almost slipped into the fabric.

A monitor and a bag of clear fluid was attached to the left side of his body; where, exactly was unclear, as he was mostly covered with papery hospital bedding. On the table beside his perfectly square head there were many pots of flowers and cacti, plus big cards made of shiny stock, plus stuffed animals and balloons.

The man fingered the ear of a stuffed elephant. It was oddly squishy, like it was filled with microbeads, and, unfunnily enough, pink. It didn’t seem right, giving a recovered and almost-dead drunk a pink elephant doll with a squished-in head.

Uh hi Braffley, he said. I mean . . .

He looked behind himself, at the door.

They always say you’re supposed to talk to coma patients, don’t they? There’s no such thing as bad stimulation, is there? Even if it’s a big ‘what the fuck is this guy talking about’ kind of stimulation? I mean . . . I just mean mental stimulation.

Braffley had tubes in his nose. His hair was matted and looked darker than the man remembered. No one stays blonde forever, except Nordic men and women with extensive stylist budgets. Every other towheaded child or teen fades into a dingy, dishwatery adult. The man had orange hair.

So I’m surprised no one’s here, he said. All these people are writing to you on Facebook. I thought I was gonna get busted for sure.

The old man wheezed, moved a bit, and settled. His machine beeped, but it didn’t appear to be an alarming beep, just a regulatory one.

Security in here isn’t so good. Are they treating you okay? Are you getting enough sponge baths or whatever? I hope . . . do they have a spotter, or is it just one person that gives them?

The man leaned in. Despite the condition of his hair, Braffley smelled pretty good, and not at all like hospital.

The man stood, hovering over the comatose former classmate’s body, for quite a long time. The lights in the hallway dimmed, which signaled the evening shift and the end of visitation hours. If the man tilted his head just so, he could hear a booger whooshing in Braffley’s nose.

When a nurse came in, she let out a sing-song giggle and said, okay! Visiting hours are over! You come on back tomorrow bright and early if you like!

And she threw back the curtain. She was petite with big lips. The man had grabbed the stuffed elephant and was holding it a few inches from his body.

Can I leave this here? He asked.

Of course! The nurse walked behind him and straightened Braffley’s sheets, which were already immaculate. This created a nice barrier between the man and the patient. She took the elephant and plopped it back into its original place. Smiling, she moved forward with tiny squeaks of her Crocs and effortlessly edged the man out.

On the way out of the coma ward, the man made eye contact with a stricken-faced middle-old woman with frosted blonde hair and an ungodly perfect, square jaw. Her eyes were ruddy and streaked from crying, but they were undeniably blue. The man considered going up to her and telling the tadpole story, but decided against it.

Three weeks and four days later, the man was typing up a report while chewing watermelon gum and listening to golf on the television when his phone bleeped several times in quick succession. He flipped his phone over and found that seventeen different people had just retweeted the same message, which had originated from @brafshu.

Hey guys! Offficially released today. Thanks to every1 who visited prayed sent cards and etc. So blessed. The long road begins here.

Then another message popped up.

Special thanks to Misty for those scrumptious butterscotch blast cookies. Reading all your posts now . . . my heart! #happytobealive.

The man checked the replies and retweets but still couldn’t figure out what had happened.

Maybe I’ll never know, he said to his beta fish. Maybe that’s just it. I sure wish he’d post something, though.

He set his phone down and turned the television off. He switched Pandora to a jaunty little Django Rhinehardt station and put the water on for cocoa, a wide smile on his face. Then he returned to work.

Erika-PriceErika Price is a writer and social psychologist in Chicago. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has been featured in The-Toast, Liar’s League NYC, Full of Crow, and others. She writes regularly at erikadprice.tumblr.com

THE THING ABOUT A BOAT-IN-A-BOTTLE IS NOBODY STEERS by Erin Peraza

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Ship-In-A-Bottle

THE THING ABOUT A BOAT-IN-A-BOTTLE IS NOBODY STEERS
by Erin Peraza

Two figures sit on the bamboo gangplank jutting off a model pirate ship.

A man and a woman. They aren’t quite to-scale, and slightly over-sized as they are, they can’t explore the cabin space below or stand lookout in the crow’s nest. So they dangle their legs over blue-green silicone that feigns at ocean waves beneath them. Their relationship is more fragile now, contained in glass, than it’s ever been before. She’s a wide-eyed citizen of the world—packs a light suitcase, counts passport stamps—and he’s just grateful to have found a way to get out of town without ever having to leave it.

Time feels different inside a bottle, on a ship, at sea. There’s no telling how long they’ve been inside.

“Balmy,” Faye had said when she first arrived. She emerged through the bottleneck, jumping with two feet onto the hardened-putty ocean. Lance sealed the entrance quickly behind her—he’d grown accustomed to the quiet—gripping the cork like the wheel of a car as he guided it back into place.

He walked Faye across the sea to his pride and joy, his masts and sails.

“It’s modeled after a real English flagship called The Love Nest,” he’d said, trying not to smile.

Faye had held back and appraised the taut green sails, the cannon mouths, the sterile, artificial little barnacles affixed to the hull, before squatting down and propping her forearms on her thighs. A thinking pose, first, and then, a decision. “I think I like ‘em better sunk,” she said.

Lance shook his head. “You archaeologists. You like a ruin more than anything.”

Faye stood up again and played like a tightrope walker on the solid sea, her arms cast out from her shoulders. “Has all this walking on water given you a Christ complex?” she teased.

“I grew up ice fishing,” Lance reminded her. “Walking on water’s nothing new to me.”

When they reached the ship, Lance tossed Faye a rope ladder and said, “But you know, a bottled ship is more or less a sunken one.”

Faye put a foot on the lowest rung. “Because neither one’s going anywhere.”

Lance nodded and they clambered up onto deck.

There’s a certain puppetry in the assembly of these models. Sometimes they call them impossible ships. You slide the pieces in, tissue sails, thread, whittled wood, and you tug them into place from the outside using little tweezers, hooks, needles, and string. You pry and prod until it’s something you’re proud of, and then the cork goes into place.

“It’s sturdier than you’d think,” Lance had assured Faye as he patted a mast. She’d responded too readily, “That’s what I’m afraid of.” And for a while they pretended not to hear each other.

They fashioned hammocks from fishing nets. They stole scraps from the sails, folded them into paper cranes, and arranged a flightless flock along the rails of the ship. They cut string on their teeth and made the kinds of bracelets that kids make at camp. They scaled the masts, danced from bow to stern, and sprawled on the hard water beneath the bowsprit. There, they bathed in sunlight that passed through windowpane first, and then bottle glass, before it reached their skin.

They’re telling stories to each other. They’re laughing.

Then Lance asks Faye if she’s still seeing Mark. Faye asks Lance in return if he’s decided to go back and finish school.

No room for secrets within glass.

Up on deck, Lance is compelled to confess to more. He isn’t leaving the boat-in-a-bottle he says. Not now. Not ever.

“Of course you’re going to leave,” Faye says, dragging her thumb across the lacquered gangplank.

Lance crosses the ship and leans against the starboard rails. He examines the glass perimeter, cleans his fingernails, crosses one foot over the other. Then he turns to find Faye at the captain’s wheel.

“We could try long distance if you wanted,” he says.

Faye grabs the wheel spokes. She likes having something to do with her hands, to ground her thoughts.

“…but I think it’s really for the best that we don’t. ”

“What is this, Lance? Why’d you invite me here?”

“I’m ready to settle down, Faye, whether you are or not.”

“But here?” Faye asks. She glances past the glass enclosure at the looming office bookshelf outside it. Then she gives the wheel in her hands a spin. She wishes that the wood were splintered, dusty.

“You could stay here with me,” Lance adds, uncertainly.

Faye’s hair is braided, like the ship’s figurehead’s, and in her anger she feels as stiff as that mermaid with her carved chest strained toward the sea.

Faye marches across the deck and says, “I know a thing or two about escape, and you’re doing it wrong, Lance.”

Then she’s down the rope ladder and across the sea, one foot after the other, one last time.

Her shoulders are already starting to feel too large for the bottleneck as Faye passes through it. With her feet back on hardwood, she drives the cork into the bottle with the heel of her hand, and she lifts the bottle to her face.

Lance is lounging on the gangplank with a fishing pole.

Faye avoids his eyes, and lets her own rove the ship deck. “Eleven sails to take you nowhere.” She can’t hear what he’s saying, and she doesn’t care anymore, not really, but on the other side of the glass, Lance replies, “Eleven sails isn’t anything more or less than I want.”

He likes how still the sails are, how they don’t need the wind to get anywhere because they’re already exactly where they ought to be.

Faye’s at a dig, in a valley that used to be a sea long ago, but maybe not as long ago as you’d think.

She’s crouching with her forearms on her thighs when she dredges an old copper coin from the earth. It’s a nice find. Good condition. Whole.

But it’s facedown in the dirt, and Faye has to remove it with her brush and her pick. She blows air out her cheeks to clear the dust, and she pries the piece free, wipes it clean against her chest. It’s late, neither day nor night, so she holds the coin out of the shade and into what soft sunlight is left in the valley. That’s the light she first sees the coin’s kingly profile in. His face is so clearly hewn in the metal, like new.

Faye’s still holding the coin when she takes her seat on the bus at the end of the day, bound for the hotel.

She rests her ponytail against the window and sets her boots on the seat across the aisle, one heel balancing on the other’s toe, and the artifact is on her stomach. She studies it. It’s been still for so long now, for centuries, and it’s moving now. Down the dusty road and up the mountain, but it’ll be in a museum exhibit with others like it soon enough.

It’s funny, but lots of things just end up behind glass, and that’s how we learn from them.

Erin-PerazaErin Peraza is a Philadelphia-based writer of short fiction and screenplays. She has had an artist/writer collaboration published in Symbiosis Magazine, and her story “On a Whale Watch, Sober” won second place in the 2014 Phi Kappa Sigma Prize. She was also featured in the Emerging Philadelphia Writers program of LIVE at the Writers House. Erin is currently working on her fiction portfolio, while she works and eats at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.

IT’S THE NOISE YOU MISS MOST IN THIS GIANT NEW WORLD by Henry Margenau

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

It's-the-Noise-You-Miss-Most

IT’S THE NOISE YOU MISS MOST IN THIS GIANT NEW WORLD
by Henry Margenau

As soon as Ray’s wife had walked out, all the appliances stopped working, like she took all the electricity along with her. The refrigerator stopped humming and a few light bulbs blew out. The television wouldn’t turn on because the batteries in the remote had died. The angry voices were silent. Everything stopped but the heartbeat of the mantle clock, which ticked away sheepishly as if not to disturb the quiet.

It had been a long while since Ray was alone. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He made a turkey sandwich without the crust and ate it and then decided to go out. He put his hat, coat, and gloves on and called up the stairs, “I’m going,” before he realized what he was doing. When he left, he still closed the door behind him softly.

That was days ago. Since then, he spent most of the time walking. Walking in the park. Walking around town. Walking along the train tracks that hadn’t seen commuter transit in decades and whose ties were half hidden in the embrace of overgrown ryegrass. He passed evenings at the Rail House, drinking and reading, and slept in a rented room across the street.

“Lookie here now,” the man at the end of the bar said.

The paper was spread out in front of him on the bar. The edges had started to curl and there was a wet ring on the right page from his glass.

“The planets are moving away from the sun and each other at an alarming speed. The entire galaxy is spiraling forward and away.”

“Where’d you get that?” Ray said.

“The paper,” the man said.

“I don’t feel any different. Should I feel different? Shouldn’t I feel the speed like on a roller coaster or something?”

The man looked from Ray to the bartender who only responded with a shrug.

“And besides,” Ray said, “the paper’s not the gospel truth.”

“This is not just some scandal sheet. This is the New York Times.”

“My point,” Ray said.

“What the hell do you know about it?” the man said.

The man went back to his drink and Ray went back to his. It really didn’t seem so implausible when you thought about it. He felt it now in his own house, in his own life. Everything seemed like it was getting bigger and farther away. The negative space repelled him so powerfully that it drove him right out the front door.

When his wife left, Ray tried staying home in all that quiet, but now even the thought of it was unbearable. Everything in the house was made for two. Two chairs at the kitchen table, two sides of the bed. Now, the furniture seemed an odd fit for each room. Everything was too spread out. Ray felt too small for the house, or perhaps the house felt too big for him. The house was not just big but vacant, empty. He would have to replace the furniture, no doubt. Get rid of the loveseat and replace it with a few odd chairs here or there.

He knew when she was there, washing dishes and whistling under her breath, doing crosswords in the blue armchair with that constant papery scratch of her mechanical pencil (she was never bold enough to work in pen). He knew it even if he didn’t advertise it. The small sounds you barely hear until they stop making waves, he thought. Now he could feel the difference.

“You want another?” the bartender asked.

Ray looked at his empty glass. Then he looked at his surroundings. The loudmouth at the end of the bar was smoking the stub of a little cigarillo and sipping bourbon in between puffs and staring into space. There were usually a lot of sad characters at the Rail House, down and out middle-aged men, like the loudmouth, who should be home with their families if they had families, older women who sat in twos and threes, cackling and knocking over glasses, and people like Ray somewhere in between. Out the window it had begun to snow and Ray could see his little motel through the gray flakes.

“Not for me, thanks,” Ray said. “I should be getting home.”

He paid his tab and left a few singles for the bartender. It was colder than he thought outside so he wrapped his scarf over his mouth and pulled his wool hat down over his eyes. The thick veil of snow masked most of the foot traffic on the sidewalk. It made the air quiet the way snow usually does and Ray wondered if perhaps he was the only one out walking.  He had just finished that thought when he bumped into someone right in front of him.

“Keep your distance, fella,” the voice said.

“Sorry,” Ray said.

He continued on and, after walking for what seemed like a few blocks, Ray realized that he hadn’t seen a traffic light or an intersection. He looked back but, even squinting, could just barely see the lights of the Rail House sign, a few hundred yards back. That’s strange, he thought, and looked at his watch. I’ve been walking for half an hour. He continued up the street for another ten minutes or so until he came to a light. There was a group of people waiting to cross. Ray tapped the guy in front of him on the shoulder.

“What block is this?” Ray said.

“Clarkson,” the man said.

“Clarkson?”

“Yeah, Clarkson. The sign’s right there,” the man said and pointed.

“That’s the first light after the Crown Motel,” Ray said.

“Yeah.”

“The first light?” Ray said.

“Yeah, the first light. Are you lost?”

Ray thought for a minute. Am I? No. Drunk, maybe. That was it. Drunk as a skunk.

“No, I’m ok. Thanks,” Ray said.

When the light turned green, Ray went to step off the curb and was stopped short by the man who pulled him back by the arm.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the man said. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Huh?” Ray said.

The man let Ray go, then sat down on the curb and lowered himself backwards off the edge.

“Take it easy,” the man said right before his head disappeared beneath the curb.

Ray looked to his right and saw other people headed down the curb. Some made their way down on their bellies like the man he spoke to and others went forward, reaching their hands down to be helped by someone at the bottom. Ray walked to the curb and looked down. The street was a good five feet down from the sidewalk.

He sat reluctantly on the curb, with his feet dangling over the side. Far on the opposite side of the street he saw people climbing up the curb to the next block, some making it on their own, finding little footholds from the cracks in the pavement, and others being hoisted up on the hands of strangers. Suddenly he felt a foot nudge his back.

“Come on, buddy. Today,” a voice said.

With that, Ray slid forward and pushed himself off the curb. He stood up to dust off his coat and was startled by the sight before him. It was the main drag that he had been down hundreds of times before only on a much larger scale. There were cars and buses as usual, but the street was as wide as a tarmac. People scampered up and down the five-foot curbs on each side, trying to make it up to the sidewalk before the light turned green. Rather than scale the curb again, he walked on the shoulder of the road. The streetlights projected onto the street the tall shadows of the people walking above. A cab pulled over alongside him.

“Need a ride?” the driver said. “You should probably let those socks dry off.”

Ray looked down and saw that he was ankle deep in slush.

“I’m alright,” Ray said.

“Ok, then,” said the driver.

The cab pulled away and merged back into the four or five lanes of traffic. Ray kept walking until he could no longer ignore the people honking their horns and yelling at him to get out of the road. He found an unoccupied piece of curb and made his way up the concrete wall to the sidewalk.

He sat down on a bench next to a forty-foot tall streetlight and let the snow land gently on him. The main street looked the same as it did that afternoon, same newsstands, same bars, but the buildings looked as if their proprietors had added an extra story or two to the top of each. They were set far back from the street as well. The walkway from the sidewalk to the entrance of the post office, for instance, was at least twice as long as when Ray mailed a letter the other day. It was a little after rush hour and people went about their business, helping each other up and down the enormous wall of a curb, walking the hundred feet or so to the front door of a restaurant, like nothing had changed.

Maybe nothing had changed. Maybe it was just that he was only now feeling it, the space he put between himself and everybody else. If he felt it earlier or just more deeply, the distance, maybe she would have delayed her exit, Ray thought. He didn’t know why his life had always carried on so inwardly but, watching the snowflakes and the little life going on around him in every direction, he regretted that it had.

Across the street, directly facing his bench, was the Abstand Building, the tallest building in town even amidst the towering masses in this strange new world. It rose away from everything else around it, alone up there, profiled by the bright lights below, no one to talk to at that height. Ray stared up into the Abstand until the wind became too much and he lost feeling in his brow. The people on the street went about their business, which was something unmistakably separate from his. There was a couple coming down the street, arm in arm, looking for a place to take in the sights, looking much a part of the expanding world around them, and so Ray gave up his seat.

 

Eventually, the center of town began to fade behind him as he walked on. It didn’t seem to matter which way. The night air was so unforgiving that he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes, like parts of his own body were separating off and floating away in contradictory directions.

It was a poignant exit; he had to give that to her. One final clash of voices, hers more than his, and then the purest silence. It was the same silence that Ray had kept until she was gone. It wasn’t malicious. He simply failed to realize that other people aren’t as content in the company of their own thoughts, that other people depend on conversation to reaffirm their own sense of being.

At some point, what felt like hours later, Ray found himself in his neighborhood. Though it was still early enough, the neighborhood was nearly pitch dark except for the streetlights. The houses on the block were set too far into the blackness to be seen from the street and so Ray was alone between the giant furry skeletons of sycamore trees that leaned tiredly in his direction. It was so quiet, he felt like he was the last man on earth. How strange, he thought, that the drink had still not worn off.

When he got to his street there were more ghostly sycamores and as he walked along the block, the streetlights burned out one by one. He could see his house in the distance. Really, it was too dark to see the actual house but he recognized the mailbox and the way the curb broke there.

The driveway had to be at least a mile long now. If it weren’t for the moonlight, the house would have been impossible to see in the distance. As it was, the only thing discernable within the jagged silhouette was the porch light, nearing extinction now, glowing a downcast honey orange. Ray must have left it on when he went out. He couldn’t help but feel like the house was trying to keep him at arm’s length.

Ray surveyed the landscape. On all sides was darkness and, sitting on his porch swing, he felt like he was on an island or his own planet. He stopped the bench to see if it was the swinging he felt or the planet hurtling away through space. Entranced with the night sky, Ray was surprised to hear a barely audible voice in the distance.

“Hi, Ray!”

“Is that you, Wilt?” Ray said.

Wilt’s house was so far away that Ray couldn’t really see it, but if he squinted he could just make out a few small lights dotting the dark horizon like the last embers of a firecracker that had wept back to earth. It wasn’t until he was alone in the midst of the blackness that he realized how sensitive he was to the sound of other people. There was only Ray now, his house, and the moon, bright and big as a serving plate, painting the landscape with porcelain light.

“The universe is expanding!” Wilt shouted.

“What?”

“The universe is expanding!”

“So I’ve been told,” Ray said.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Henry-MargenauHenry Margenau is a writer from Montclair, New Jersey.  His work has previously appeared in Prick of the Spindle and The Normal Review. He has an MFA in fiction from The New School and currently teaches writing at Montclair State University, Drew University, and Fairleigh Dickinson University.  This is his first headshot.

 

 

Image credit: NASA on Flickr

BIRDS / NERVES by Max Bartlett

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Bird/ Nerves

BIRDS / NERVES
by Max Bartlett

There’s this bird.  It’s nighttime, and there’s this bird.  And he’s flying, and who knows how long he’s been flying, because that’s not what’s important.  The thing is there’s this house.  Everything outside the house is dark, and the house is warm and bright.  And there’s a window openSo he flies in.  You would too, don’t pretend you wouldn’t.  But he can’t stop, he has to keep on flying.  Across the room there’s another window open, and it’s dark outside.  That’s it.  Dark before, dark after.  A few seconds of light and sound and heat and after that it’s back to nothing.

He keeps flying.  No choice.  He passes through the other window.

           

29.       She’s in a downtown café with her mother.  Not that you can tell, from the outside.  She looks like the older woman.  Back hunched with scoliosis, left leg folded up on the chair, the useless one hanging limp.  Birthmark on her face, café-au-lait, a burned-on map of nerve endings. They pass a notepad to each other across the table.  Her mother never figured out sign language.

So that’s it? she asks.  He just flies off into the darkness?

Because he doesn’t know, her mother says.  Maybe there will be another house, he doesn’t know.

She stirs her coffee, a half-finished plate of eggs in front of her.  Religion always makes her lose her appetite.  As if they haven’t had this conversation a thousand times.  Her mother toys with the cross around her neck, a nervous habit, displacement activity.

And I’m the bird? she asks.  You think I’ve stopped flying?

 I just wish you had something to believe in.  You should come with me on Sunday.

Worried about my soul again?  Telling yourself I’ll shed my ever-flawed mortal form?

 Don’t be a martyr. 

 

34.       Body.  She knows about body.  Here she is, in the mirror, watching it.  It curves wrong, the spine bent where it shouldn’t.  Her left leg is smaller than her right, atrophied from disuse.  Here’s the scar at the base of her spine, when they removed the tumor from her sciatic nerve.  Here’s the scar on her right knee, her left foot, just under her right breast, just over her left shoulder.  That one stands out, cutting across one of the milky brown spots spread across her body.

Here are her ears, useless, deaf from age thirteen.  Here are her eyes, filmed over with cataracts.  But not blind, not quite yet.

Here are her hands.  They’re fine.  They catch her on the counter and she hits the floor gently as the world spins, a black tunnel closing in.

 

5.         She can already spell better than any other kid in the class, and she knows the biggest word: neurofibromatosis.

 

14.       There is a dead bird lying in the snow.  It is a dark-eyed junco, migrated south to Idaho for the winter.  It is about six inches long but looks smaller, eyes closed, wings and legs folded into its body.  Black head, brown body, white breast, dark and vivid against the snow.  There is less blood than she would have expected.  Thousands of miles of flight, ended by a closed window.

Her mother has told her not to touch it.  She kneels in the snow with a pencil and a pad of paper, carefully sketching it.  She traces the curve of its head, the short delicate tail.  When she believes her mother isn’t looking, she spreads its wings for a better sense of anatomy.  She traces the right wing, counting each delicate feather.  Over the course of her life, she will draw thousands of wings.  The secret she never tells anyone: they are all this wing.

On the ground, the junco looks like it is flying.  When she wraps it in paper and lifts it away, it leaves a silhouette of wings in the snow.

 

34.       She is lying in a magnetic resonance imaging machine.  It is a smooth white tube, turning and shifting above her, taking stock of every inch of her body.  She cannot hear it anyway, but she can only imagine that this machine moves without sound.  This is the twenty-fourth MRI she has received in her life, the sixth since the fainting began.

The machine knows every inch of her, every nerve, every part of her brain.  It is the gentlest lover she has ever had, and she wonders if she can keep any secrets from it.

 

11.       Nerves bring two things: feeling and death.  There are 214 named nerves in the human body.  Neurofibromatosis type II causes tumors, properly called neurofibromas, to grow along the nerves, particularly where they meet bones.  They are especially common in the ears, eyes, spine, and brain.

She has had this explained to her so many times.  As long as she can remember, she has known that, one day, her own body will kill her.

On this day, for the first time, she believes she understands what her body is for.

There are 1,300 nerve endings per square inch in the human hand.  There are 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoris.

Her mother’s church, her church, has taught her for years that touch is sinful.  She believed it, because until this moment her body had only ever caused her pain, and so she has known the body must be evil.  Now she understands that every word of it was a lie.

 

26.       When she draws herself, she always has wings.  Oh, the women in the drawings have better bodies than her.  Straighter spines, better skin, amazing hair.  But that’s just vanity.  They’re all her.  And they all have wings.  Feathered, yes, but not angels’ wings.  In her comics they call them superheroes, but in her mind she thinks of them as goddesses.  Egyptian.  She likes the Egyptians, who worshipped birds and understood, as she does, that there is no difference between body and soul.  That is why they preserved themselves for the afterlife.  And armed themselves, too, because they believed that yes, you can take it with you.

In her will, she has asked to be buried with a gun.  She tells herself she doesn’t believe in an afterlife, but she also thinks she’s owed some answers.

 

25.       She is in love.  Not for the first time, but this is the one that will last the longest.  He is a naturalist, a veterinarian who works in bird conservation.  He would like children one day.  She doesn’t want to talk about it.

Neurofibromatosis is genetic.  She said she doesn’t want to talk about it.

 

29.       Whose house is it?

What?

The house the bird flies through.  Whose house is it?

I don’t know.  Does it matter?

Yes.  What do they think about the bird?

I don’t know.  I guess they’re surprised.  You would be too, a bird flying through your living room.

Do they care?

What?

 About the bird.  Do they care?

 Of course they care.  It could hurt itself, and it’s beautiful, and they’ve never seen anything like it.

 So they care.  And they’ll remember, after.

 Then it’s not God’s house.

 

0.         Something is already wrong, but she doesn’t know it.  Her new consciousness is still unformed, and she is nothing but nerves and body, each sensation lighting up her mind like a power grid overloading.

The doctors say she is probably going to die.  Very few infants born with neurofibromas have ever survived.  Fewer than five.  She was born with two neurofibromas.  One is in her leg, the other in her upper back.  They can operate, but it’s risky.  She’s lucky, though.  One of the surgeons here is an expert, he’s seen this before.  He holds her, shows her parents the places they’ll cut into her.

He is explaining the procedure, carefully, step by step.

 

34.       Getting an MRI means she can’t move for two hours and thirty-five minutes.  Not a muscle.  She can blink, that’s all.  There is nothing to look at or feel.  It is a smooth white tunnel, and she can’t hear a sound.  Just white, and cold metal.  She is a bird lying in the snow.  She is in limbo, devoid of feeling or motion as she awaits judgment.

When the machine is finished, it will tell her whether she will live or die.  In her mind, it is a pair of scales.  Were she Egyptian, Osiris, the heron, god of the dead, would weigh her heart against a feather.  She wonders how a tumor would compare.

 

34.       The body feels pain through nociceptors, specialized nerve endings that detect heat, pressure, and chemical changes.  There are none in the brain.  So she doesn’t feel the tumor growing where the vestibulocochlear nerve meets the temporal lobe, until it begins to cause vertigo, her sense of space distorted.  She falls to the ground and continues to feel like she’s falling.  She crawls across Escher architecture, trying to reach the phone with the TTY hookup for the deaf.  The message from the other end prints off on ticker tape.

What is your name?

 

28.       Name?  She, her, that girl, the poor thing.  She lives in a world of pronouns.  She lives in other worlds too.  Here are the women she has been, in her short but storied career: Canary Woman (artist, 8 issues), Dark-Eyed Junco (writer and artist, 15 issues), Peregrine (writer and artist, 36 issues), The Silver Falcon (artist, 4 issues), Songbird (writer, 6 issues) Eagle Eye (writer and artist, 10 issues), Redwing (artist, 18 issues), Red-Tail (writer and artist, 4 issues), Starling (artist, 13 issues), and Canada Goose (a short-lived Alpha Flight spinoff, artist, 2 issues).

They all have secret identities.  That’s important.  Like her, all her heroes are someone else.  And that begs the question: which one is the real one?  The hero or the alter-ego?  Batman or Bruce Wayne?  Superman or Clark Kent?

Her success comes from an understanding: there is no such thing as a real name.

 

16.       She is looking at a picture of her spine in grayscale, a cutaway showing bone and flesh and nerves.  It is pinned to the wall of the radiologist’s office, and it is the fourth magnetic resonance image she has seen of her own body.  The technician is showing her the neurofibromas growing on her S1 nerve, which passes through her sacrum, at the base of her spine.  It is growing around the nerve, and the pressure is narrowing it and blocking the chemical signals.  This is why her left foot is numb, and it is the cause of her sciatica, the shooting pain through her upper thigh and lower back.

It has grown larger since they last examined it.  It will continue to grow.  If she does not have it removed, she may lose the use of her leg.

So remove it.

If they remove it, they may damage the nerve.  She may lose the use of her leg.

 

 

29.       When she draws herself, she has wings.  When she draws herself, she is a hero.  She has developed a detailed world of these winged women, Valkyries and superheroes and bird-headed goddesses.  They fight crime, and threats from outer space, and fate, and death.

But there are enemies, and they also have wings.  They are messengers.  They bring bad news, births, deaths, disease, pain, and tumors.  They live in the clouds and come to Earth in lightning storms and power lines.  They love magnets.  They seek out neurons and hide inside the electricity of synapses.

She doesn’t talk about whose messengers they are.  There are enough galactic threats for one superwoman to face.

 

34.       She is looking at a picture of her brain in grayscale, a cutaway showing bone and mind and no pain, because the brain is the only place without pain.  It is the thirty-seventh such image she has seen of herself.  For decades now she has navigated her own body by electromagnet.

When birds migrate, they find their way by the Earth’s magnetic field, in much the same way that humans navigate by orienting themselves to the north pole.  They know exactly where they are, where they have been, and where they will be through this magnetic map.  She does the same thing.

The image shows the tumor growing in her brain.  The radiologist is not sure if it is operable.

Pigeons and doves, which are closely related despite their opposing reputations, also navigate by magnetic field.  It is how homing pigeons find their way.

Here is a story from her childhood: When God flooded the Earth, Noah took two of every animal onto his ark and sailed the endless oceans.  But the birds, who were smarter, took to the skies and skipped the ark entirely.  So it was a dove flying by that showed Noah the way to land.

She always liked that story, because it was God who tried to destroy man, and a bird that saved them.

 

27.       There is so much history in her body.  She is an amalgam of every woman before her: her mother’s eyes, her grandmother’s blood, her great-grandmother’s hands.  But she is a flaw, a dead end, a failure of history.  A mutation in the neurofibromin 2 gene, or “merlin” gene, and that is it for the family line.  A merlin, of course, is a kind of small hawk.  She can’t help but feel betrayed by one of her own.

 

19.       She likes comics, because they let her control time.  She traces panels with pencil and ruler, each line another point in history.  She is so many other women, and they are timeless, and they all have wings.  When she is reborn, she says, she will have wings.

 

27.       No children, she says.  Not can’t, won’t.

So he leaves, and it ends there.

 

34.       The doctor sits on a stool in front of her, takes her hand, looks her in the eye.  As the tumor grows, it’s going to start putting pressure on other parts of your brain.  You may experience some other symptoms.  Sleeplessness, confusion.  Your perception of time may change.  It may affect your memory.

She laughs.  It reminds her of another story from her youth.

 

There’s this bird.  He’s flying through this house, and it’s nighttime outside.  It’s so cold out there, and so warm in here.  But he doesn’t stop.  He keeps flying toward the other open window.

 He has to keep going, because he’s following the magnetic field.  That’s how they navigate, you know. They follow the magnetic field, just like it’s a map.  It’s all drawn out.  They can fly for a long time until they reach their destination. 

Birds turn, they circle, they find new paths.  There are other houses.  That’s the secret.  There’s always another chance.

And when he passes through your house, you remember him.  This brief flash of wing and speed as it flies through for only a moment.  The bird is not forgotten.

Max-BartlettMax Bartlett is a journalist, part-time writer, and public radio producer. He has a degree in Journalism from the University of Idaho, and enjoys books about robot wizards fighting space dragons. His literary inspirations include Margaret Atwood, Anthony Doerr, and Daniel Orozco. When he is not creating classic works of art that will probably be taught in schools in fifty years, he lives indoors and mostly sleeps.

Image credit: angela ☾.on Flickr

FLYING by Grace Connolly

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Flying

FLYING
by Grace Connolly

I was wearing my turquoise suede moccasins. I was afraid they would get wet because I knew it would start raining at any given moment. There was an ominous raincloud making its way down the block.

I decided I needed to leave the city. I packed a small valise with silk scarves and kid gloves and a completely impractical lace shift that I figured could double up as a cocktail dress in case the need should arise for it because after all, you never know.

I carried my red umbrella with the pink beaked duck handle over my head willing it not to break or blow away. It didn’t. Thank you Lands’ End.

I reached the train station and bought a ticket for the New Haven line without a destination in mind. The train left the station as the sky turned a pitch black and we chugged slowly up the Hudson. Expect delays if the tracks are flooded. I prayed to God we’d beat this one way or the other and wished the Hudson Line had rooms with beds like an overnight train. I walked in between cars and my hair clung to my head wet, all in order to see if there was a seat alone. There wasn’t. I sat next to a woman who was highly engrossed in a book about business tax. She didn’t seem too thrilled about having to have a seatmate either as her body language pointed out: shifting all the way to the right nearly smashed up against the glass.

I decided that I’d take the train and stay overnight maybe in Cold Springs on the Hudson. I could weather out the storm there, maybe at a bed and breakfast. I decided it would be fun if the Hudson was a large lazy river so that in the summer time you could float on rafts and the current would take you down past New York City. Country to city and then out, out way out in the ocean floating in the salty sweet. I decided a rainstorm might not be the best time to try out this idea but before I knew it I was in Cold Springs, getting soaked on my walk to the bed and breakfast because I was too cheap to take a taxi—even in a rain storm. Luckily they had one room left.

Before I had reason to question rhyme I put the lace slip on and went into the dining room for a drink. A Dark and Stormy, I requested. The gentlemen all raised their eyebrows and the suburban housewife looked intrigued as she downed what I am sure was her third glass of red wine. I lifted my glass, Bon Voyage, I toasted myself realizing as I glanced down that the slip as a cocktail dress was a magnificent idea. The blue really glistened. The perfect attire for a trip out to sea.

I walked down to the muddy bank in my bare feet and threw the glass behind me in complete abandon. I’d never been one for diving in and so I didn’t. I gently dipped one toe and the current grabbed my ankle sucking me under. A branch, a branch, find a branch, something to float on which was anyway part of the original plan that sounded way more romantic in my mind. I surfaced. I’m not dead popped into my head and then I saw it, the branch that would be my lifeline. I felt my stomach scraped by excess offshoots as I struggled to balance myself around it. I looked to the left and the lights of Cold Springs were missing. It was in pitch black that I was carried down the river, shooting left and right somersaulting around the branch.

This happened for a very long time. I can’t tell you how long because all I know is it was dark and rainy and I was fighting for dear life to hold onto that branch and to breathe and not swallow too much water. Later things calmed down and I realized they would probably stay that way. My eyes swollen with sea water I decided I’d keep floating. Now it would be better. I’d float way out to that salty sea and I’d finally get some rest. I don’t mean that I wanted to die, it really is just that this all came from wanting to relax after such thrill seeking on what turns out was the farthest thing from a lazy river you can imagine. But I found out the hard way which is what most people do anyway and I lived so I figured, chapter 2. I decided I didn’t want to live on land anymore. So I stayed floating on that salty sea for a pretty long time. Unfortunately sometimes the body really does win out over mind. There was this major issue of dehydration. The marvelous fantasy of sustaining on sea life and brine had fallen through and there was no way I was turning into a mermaid. I mused that they were probably rooting for me to die so I could be the delicacy of the week in that mermaid stew we all hear about. I hated to admit defeat and so I just altered my plan. I considered that maybe Mermaids were a myth.

I decided to start flying. Way up and out of the salty sea back to the land where I had come from.

But the wings that grew had different ideas. They decided to fly up and up into the atmosphere where the raindrops glazed my lips clicking my brain on. Why go home? I reasoned. I’d fly. I’d fly to Paris and Venice, Rome, Madrid, Cairo. I’d see the tangled rainforest of South America and the icy terrain of Antarctica. I’d see everything in the world I’d ever wanted to see. So after the bumpy start I really took off, flying as it turns out was the life for me and my body made modifications.

The more I flew the more I really began to resemble something that belonged in the sky. Whereas the sea had rejected me the atmosphere gripped me up, blew wind down my throat and insisted I stay a while. My skin out of necessity acquired a layer of thin down-like feathers. My depth perception really improved. I found that what I once thought necessary to sustain myself was rather frivolous and so I feasted on whatever was available. Even sometimes, garbage. One man’s waste I joked to myself, every time that happened (which sometimes was pretty often). I flew so far and for so long that it became difficult for me to remember what my life was even like before, when I was only a woman down on land.

Time passed. After a while, I began to grow bored as the exotic nature of my travels suddenly became a routine bird exercise. Here in the summer, here in the winter. Flight patterns and such.

I decided I’d stop flying. Start remembering what real life was like again. See what I’d been missing.

When I got back to the city I had a hard time finding a place to stay. It had been ten years. Time flies when you fly (literally), and my friends were hard to find. My apartment building was gone replaced by a new multimillion dollar condominium. I stayed in a shelter the first several nights surrounded by people who spoke a language I realized I now barely understood. I learned it was better to shut up than to share my story. Where are you from? People kept asking.

I found my family. They insisted on doctors. So many doctors, all kinds with probes and lights. They chalked the down up to a hormonal imbalance. They too really didn’t want to hear about where I’d been. They gave me medicine to make me forget. I was lectured—did I know the trouble I’d caused? You eat like a bird now, my mother accused me. They told me I needed to get my act together, I heard them mumbling about me using phrases like ‘bad choices,’ ‘free spirit,’ and even ‘schizophrenic.’ My dad chalked it all up to art college. That was the mistake he kept repeating, that was the mistake.

I dug out the old diploma and got a job as a secretary. I eventually found an apartment. A place with 3 other roommates. My legs became stronger. My stomach readjusted. I whistled and then I stopped when I realized whistling is not a normal thing to do constantly. All of this took so long and felt so arduous that I’d wonder to myself how it had all come down to this.

Slowly and surely the various aspects of my life improved. Within a year I made new friends, I joined a gym, I found a Chinese place I really liked right in my neighborhood. When it rained, I went inside and prayed to God the power would stay on. Sometimes I remembered about the flying and felt a sort of yearning inside. I repeated a mantra. I told myself that that period of my life was, well, a little nuts. Better to forget, not to live in the past. After all, I’d come so far to get back to where I started that by the time I finally arrived, everything had changed.

Grace-Connolly

Grace Connolly is currently based in Harlem, NY. Her poem “The Fool” will be published in an upcoming issue of Black Heart Magazine. Previous publications include pieces in Blazevox, The Commonline Journal, and CC&D. She enjoys traveling and playing ball with her Patterdale Terrier, Spanky. She currently studies through the UCLA Writers Extension and is working on her first screenplay.

 

 

Image credit: Toni Frissell, 1947, on Wikipedia

HUNGER by Amy Burns

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

hungryHUNGER
by Amy Burns 

I was sitting at my friend Bebe’s kitchen table. She was standing at the counter using a black and yellow handled screwdriver as an ice pick. I was telling her about it while she chopped.

You should have seen her, Bebe. Not a hair out of place. Perfect. I stood by the salad station and watched her until Louis told me that I was down at table three. I mean, I knew I was down at table three. I was staring at table three.

When I tell you that she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, you best believe me. She sat like a picture; real still, you know, with her middle swayed, shoulders back.

Louis shouted at me from the counter. If you don’t pick up three, I’ll give it to Gwen.

I’m going. I’m going, I said.

Give it to Gwen. Like Gwen needed another table. She’d already cycled through her station twice. But me? Oh no, not me. I was stuck with a foursome at table one that had been there since my shift started and a couple at table two making a night out of dessert and coffee.

Anyway, I poured a glass of water, added a lemon wedge and walked to table three.

Hello. Is this your first visit to Brownwood’s?

Yes, she said.

Her skin was perfect. She looked airbrushed.

In that case, if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you about our specials and answer any questions you might have about the menu.

By all means. And then she smiled.

Bebe, when she smiled I could hardly remember my own name let alone the specials. Her teeth were perfect. I don’t even think they were capped. I couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. She had this extra little pucker around the cupid’s bow and her lips were glossed in a very tasteful nude-colour.

The specials tonight are grilled mahi mahi with a ginger glaze, côte de boeuf served with steamed summer vegetables, lime chicken on a bed of mashed potatoes and butterflied tiger prawns in garlic butter.

That sounds delicious, she said.

Shall I give you a minute to decide?

No. I’m ready.

What can I get for you?

I’ll have the specials.

No problem. Which would you like?

All of them, she said. And I’d like a house salad with extra bleu cheese dressing. And do you have spinach of any kind?

I pointed out the spinach queso starter and the creamed spinach side.

Excellent, she said. I’ll have both.

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, she had me fixed with this expectant stare, not really daring me to question her order, but . . . I don’t know, more like silently asking me not to question her order.

Will that be all?

Yes, thank you.

Would you like to start with the spinach queso?

I’d like it all at the same time, she said.

No problem.

So I took the menu from her and went over to the posi-touch and started tapping in the order. It took me a long time because I had to over-ride the system so that everything would go at once. If you placed an order for say a starter, a salad, a main and a dessert, it’ll automatically put a few minutes delay on each course. Stagger them, you know.

I walked the long way around so that I could check on my other tables, still gabbing, all of them.

Refusing to make eye contact with me, refusing to be rushed. I mean, seriously, Bebe . . . how do they think I’m going to make a living?

When I came through the alley Louis pulled me to the side.

What the hell is this?

Send it all at once, I said.

He took two steps back so that he could see.

Where’s the rest of her party?

I think it’s just her.

Louis shouted to the kitchen.

Hold table three.

He started to walk over.

Well, I mean, I don’t know how to explain it but I felt this strong urge to protect her.

No, I said. Leave her alone.

Nobody comes in by themselves and orders food for four or five people. What’s her deal?

I shrugged my shoulders.

Fine. You’ll be paying if she skips.

She won’t skip.

Fire it up for table three, he shouted to the kitchen.

The house salad with extra bleu cheese dressing was already sitting in the window, so was the spinach queso. Gwen ran the salad before I could tell her to wait and so I decided to take the spinach queso too.

She smiled at me again when I brought the food.

I’m sorry, I said. The timing’s a bit off. I didn’t want it to get cold.

Don’t worry about it, she said.

I went back to the salad station so that I could watch her without being too obvious. She pushed the plate with the house salad to the far right of the table and she put the bowl of spinach queso at twelve o’clock. I folded napkins while the rest of her order cooked.

She sat there with a devastatingly placid look on her face. She looked around the restaurant and admired the paintings, watched the other customers. She seemed genuinely interested in what was going on around her. She looked comfortable, not at all conspicuous. She sipped her water but she didn’t touch the salad or the queso.

When Louis sent the mains the table was crowded, barely room.

I gave her a few minutes and then I went to make sure everything was OK.

Can I get you anything else?

Not right now, she said.

The foursome at table one had left without bothering to ask for the tab. They left two twenties and a ten which covered it, barely. I cleared the table and told the hostess that I was ready to be seated again.

It’s a slow night, she said. You’ve already been cut.

I was feeling pissy at that point, Bebe. It’s a really pissy feeling when you go to work and don’t even make enough to dry clean your uniform, you know?

As I walked back to the kitchen the woman got my attention and gave me the bring-me-the-bill, air signature. I thought, fuck it. But I smiled and got her the tab.

Can I get you a to-go box?

No thanks, she said.

Everything was exactly as it had been placed. She hadn’t taken a single, solitary bite out of anything. I was in a mood by then, a real mood, and I don’t know why but I just stood there. I stood there and stared at that big table of untouched food.

Was everything ok?

Oh, I’m sure it’s all delicious.

She leaned over to me and, I swear I just couldn’t help myself, I leaned over to her. Real close.

There was a time when I would have eaten every single bit of this, she whispered.

Everybody deserves a treat now and again. I whispered too.

It wasn’t just now and again for me, she said. I was fat.

I don’t believe it. You’re gorgeous.

I was morbidly obese.

Well, I said, you can’t tell it. You can’t tell that you were ever fat.

Look closer, she said.

Bebe, I did. I did look closer. I looked into her big green eyes and, I swear, what I saw there liked to broke my heart. All I could think to say was, would you like to see the dessert menu?

She laughed. I was never a sweets girl, she said.

Then she paid and I cleared the table.

 

Bebe was filling a graduated blender with ice, midori, whisky sour mix and Sprite. When she realized that I had stopped talking she looked at me.

Then what, Bebe asked.

Then nothing, I said. She left.

And?

And what?

Did she stiff you?

No.

Oh. And she didn’t eat any of the food?

Not a bite.

And, what? So she used to be fat?

I felt my bad mood coming back. Bebe didn’t get it. I didn’t want to explain.

Yeah, I said. Fat.

People are strange, she said.

Bebe turned on the blender and the noise of the blender made my teeth hurt. She bent close to the blender and watched the green liquid spin. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a different life, a different place. I thought, somewhere in the world there is a place with black-sand beaches and old, grey-boarded fishing boats anchored just beyond the break, sorting the daily catch; rejoicing.

Amy-BurnsAmy Burns holds a PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Glasgow. She currently serves as the Managing Editor for Mulberry Fork Review. She is nearing completion of her second novel and is represented by Lucy Luck Associates. For more about Amy please visit: http://amyelizabethburns.com/

COUCH by Jenny Wales Steele

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Jester Hat

COUCH
by Jenny Wales Steele

[?]

It was an okay day. I don’t understand zoos, the appeal. The kids thrill to it, sure, but kids are dumb. My nephew flounced around, did his giddy slash sissy thing. He was wearing his jester’s hat, this idiotic hat with floppy, pointy, velvet prongs, jingle bells on the ends. And his nose was all snotty. I’ve told Clay to put the kid on meds, to put an end to the wacky antics, to dam up the endless flow, flood of snot. But no. He never listens to me. He says, ‘Val, please, please.’ Anyway, the zoo. Polar bears, elephants, funny monkeys. The reek of piss and dung. And the kids saying, ‘Look, that aardvark or panther or llama is going to the bathroom.’ They’re obsessed, scatologically speaking. And don’t even bother telling them that animals don’t have bathrooms. It’s maddening. But we were trying so hard, the adults. Such anguish trying, trying to create happy childhood memories so when they’re old, they’ll have some dumb story to bore the hell out of someone with. So, we were trying hard. That included me. Good Aunt Valerie. As if I’m only that. There’s another self. Selves. Not shallow. Not a cipher.

[?]

No. Don’t switch on that lamp. The dim is soothing.

[.]

So, the zoo. You know how the enclosures always have a door in the back? The door the zookeepers use? It’s always painted to blend in with the phony habitat, a trompe-l’oeil kind of thing. Jungle fauna, a sand dune. Meant to fool, meant to trick. Ocean and wharf for the seal habitat. We watched the seals in their cement moat. Frisky and playful they were. But I was looking for the door. The hinges, the outline. I found it and then, bang!, out came a zookeeper in yellow rubber boots and with a pail of dead fish. That has always, seriously, bothered me. Even as a little girl, on a school field trip, as the other kids hollered and squealed, I looked for that door, and if a zookeeper came through it, I would get this knotty clench in my stomach.

[.]

Anyway, it was an okay day. We picnicked too, in this filthy pavilion. Candy wrappers, smudges of gum. A band aid, yuck. We had baloney sandwiches, but they had gotten all hot on the bus. I worried about that. I worried if potentially toxic bacteria would somehow activate if the mayonnaise was heated to a certain degree. But none of the kids seemed queasy afterward, so I stopped worrying. I was never a worrywart until I became Good Aunt Valerie, until I became this chaperone slash buddy. Since Lily died. Since Clay became a heap of useless.

[.]

True, that is unkind. But what a sloth he is. The kid is too, except when he’s suddenly a crazy maniac. And then in an instant he’s sweet again, a sweetly damaged boy. Girls will love this. He’ll get all the girls, what with his tragic childhood, his mother dead when he was only eleven, uterine cancer, and add that to his looks, he has Clay’s looks, and blam!, girls will swarm him.

[?]

Tea? Herbal as usual.

[.]

Thank you.

[.]

Of course they grieve too. I’m not insensitive to that. But Clay has this kid to raise and he’s got to pull it together. He can’t expect me to schlep to his house day after day to make sure his kid is washed and fed. I let myself in, all cheery and bright, ‘hello, boys,’ and there they are, slovenly louts slumped in these rotten bean bags that Clay bought at a flea market. Gross. And the TV is on, as always. A baseball game. A soap opera with foxy bodies between the sheets, grind and moan, and then a commercial for toothpaste, and Clay and my nephew are totally blank, a bowl of burnt popcorn between them. And soda cans, beer cans. So I have to step in. I say to Clay, ‘Here there are dirty dishes. Do the dishes. Here is soap and here’s a sponge.’ And his kid? A blob on his bean bag and then he’s wild, a banshee smashing things against the walls. That crystal swan my mother gave to Lily for her tenth birthday? Smash! Shattered into a million pieces. I was so sad as I vacuumed it up, as I listened to a million tiny slivers, clickety click click. I was mad too. Mad and sad simultaneously. It should be one word. Madsad. You could add that to your fancy schmancy lexicon.

[.]

Yes, okay, I use sarcasm to shield my bruised soul.

[.]

Thank you. Madsad. It’s funny, and I don’t mean funny ha ha, I mean funny weird, that I was totally aware of being madsad as I poked and yanked the vacuum, as I monitored Clay attempting to make pancakes. Madsad is my coping mechanism. The words coping mechanism are in my brain, written in fancy calligraphy across my gray matter. But what is its meaning? Then I think, how can I wonder about the meaning of coping mechanism while in the midst of coping? You understand the conundrum.

[.]

And then, get this, this is ripe, Clay accuses me of being or of wanting to be pseudo dash wife and pseudo dash mother. The nerve! I’m fond of him and his kid, but only slightly. Clay is, frankly, a bit of a dunce. He’s smart and all, a hot shot architect, but he’s also this dunce. He doesn’t know anything about me. Zip. Zilch. He doesn’t know about STEVE. Capitalized, italicized. That. That situation.

[?]

Of course. The, quote, status, unquote, of our, quote, relationship, unquote. How his mother and slash or his step dash father and slash or his first girlfriend said and slash or did this brazenly hurtful thing to him and that explains why a, his peculiar quirks, plus b, my emotional issues, i.e. my inability to consider the word love, equals c, our current dilemma.

[.]

Hilarious.

[.]

Of course he and I discuss it, but first we have to rattle around with small talk, irrelevant bullshit, miles to the gallon, highway, city, to get to where we meet, the place half way between here and Phoenix, a hundred miles?, petty nonsense until one of us finds a slot in the blah blah blah to insert a cruel or smarmy or cryptic comment, a slot, a gap, to inject poison into. We circle around. That’s how Steve puts it. ‘We circle around.’

[?]

Yes, we’ve analyzed our options. Ad nauseum. Option a: continue our afternoon trysts in cheap motels, cash only if you please so his dippy wife won’t find out, or option b: not continue at all, in other words, we’re kaput. But option b seems ridiculous because yesterday was an option a kind of day, so why have an option b? And then there’s option c: not go kaput and sayonara, but figure out what Steve and I have. I mean, circumscribe it in transparent terms, and also to what to do about the wife.

[.]

I’ve met her. She’s no prize, believe me.

[?]

Anyway, I tell Steve that we’re not getting any younger, we’re not the proverbial spring chickens, as the saying goes, though I’ve never understood what the hell are spring chickens, or why they’re proverbial, and what’s proverbial anyway?

[?]

The point is this: we’re at this crucial juncture, or is it junction?, well, crossroads, in what is or maybe isn’t a genuine romance. Seriously. With Steve, it has been, no, sorry, it is, present tense, a kick, our naughty tumbles, a true blast. And guess what? We went out in public together. We wanted to find out how it would feel to have people looking at us. So we went to a carnival. He convinced me, in his seductive slash goofy way, to go on this utterly scary whirligig that flung us around at a crazy angle high above the ground. How we survived is a mystery. I swear the bolts were loose. Rusty too. But I made no mention of it even though I had extreme concern about our safety, and, get this, I modified the pitch of my scream so it was a joyous scream instead of a scream of absolute terror. This, to me, proves that I am FUN!, capital F, capital U, capital N, exclamation point, and also that I am not unwilling to take a risk, even if said risk is a threat to my life and slash or quality of life. Think about it. We could have been thrown out of that rickety, clatter hyphen clank whirligig, snapped our necks on the pavement, and become instant cripples. The bolts were loose. It was hazardous.

[?]

The tones you use! In shrink school, did you take Tones One dash Oh dash One? This wry tone, with a little edge to it: use with severe words or with mockery. Or use a sappy tone if the words are heartfelt. Ha! Now I’m analyzing you! I’ll send you a bill. Anyway, what you were saying, maybe becoming a carnival ride safety inspector would be an interesting career move. Interesting, but not practical. Not smart either. I mean, where I am now and then jump to that? I’m on the middle rung of the company ladder. The slippery rung of middle management. I’m half sycophant, half authority. I fawn and kowtow to some pouty child executive on the top floor and within an hour I have to admonish some trembling underling because he or she has blundered with the numbers of some piddling account.

[?]

[.]

So, me and Steve. If I’m totally candid about it, one of my main peeves is how obstinate he is. Are he and I only he and I, completely separate individuals, vaguely acquainted, who rendezvous, n’est-ce pas?, sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly, in a squalid motel? That’s the crux, isn’t it?

[.]

I’ve already told you, she’s no prize.

[.]

Of course I have plenty of flaws. I’m aware of that. I admit, yes, that I have, quote, neuroses, unquote. Isn’t that why I’m here? On this couch? This couch, I’ll add, that needs better upholstery, a nice damask, dark blue.

[.]

Is it? Is our hour almost up? Crap. I have to rush across town to Clay’s house, to make sure he and his kid haven’t breathed their last due to malnutrition, that they haven’t completely melted into those stinking bean bags. Pseudo slash who I am slash not that good aunt slash this self who would rather be sprawled elsewhere anonymous and horny.

[?]

Summary and final think. I’m looking at the door of this room. I’m thinking of the door of Clay’s den. I’m thinking of the door of a motel room. Outline and hinges. And any minute now, any minute, a zookeeper will come through the door with a pail of dead fish, a bowl of meat. We’re all animals, aren’t we? We are. Only animals. Animals who talk and talk and talk and tell fibs.

Jenny Wales Steele

Jenny Wales Steele’s fiction has been published in The Ampersand Review, juked.com, Quay, The First Line, bluelakereview.com, among several others, and she’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. A native Arizonan, she lives in Tucson. Visit her website at www.jennywalessteele.weebly.com.

 

 

 

Image credit: Quinn Dombrowski on Flickr 

TOUGH by Geoff Peck

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Tough

TOUGH
by Geoff Peck 

You picture it: fourteenth floor of Walker dormitory. A former wrestler dangles from a window. The one they call Bisonhead has him by one ankle and another ex-teammate, a freshman, by the other. It’s late April in Oklahoma, athletic tape scaling his shins to combat the humidity, but it’s only so long before he’ll start to slip through sweaty palms. He’s the only one crazy enough to try this and that means something. Pride is all that’s left.

This is your father.

He lost his scholarship this term. In two more weeks he’ll lose his dorm and crawl back to Sand Springs to work in the box factory, scars on his palms from fresh cardboard for the rest of his life. He hasn’t been home since high school. The state champion. One hundred fifty-five pounds.

A week after he bends Tulsa Webster’s Randy Sutcliffe into origami for the title he comes home to Mom nagging over the trash he forgot to curb before school. He says sorry sarcastically as he knows how and your grandmother slaps him, hard.

He doesn’t move. Swears he doesn’t even flinch. Can’t let her see. This does not hurt you, he tells himself. This does not hurt you.

Tears gather in your grandmother’s eyes. Her jaw tightens. She does it again.

Bisonhead notes the slippage but your father won’t respond. He enjoys the aerial view: the blackjack oaks, the coeds distant and removed, unaware. He considers velocity.

This is the University of Oklahoma, where the nickname for the football coach is literally The King. The football players get the cocaine and cars, the hundred-dollar-handshakes, but they don’t know the first thing about tough. Your father likes their egos because they look at him, one-five-five, and mouth off at parties—the arrogance of royalty—and it always ends badly for them. Until the night when he and Bisonhead put two in the infirmary, including an All-American linebacker. The King is displeased.

It costs his scholarship. Bisonhead gets stadium stairs.

Bisonhead gets stadium stairs because he’s never lost a match. Because the Olympic team has wet dreams about sending him to Seoul. This has been your father’s plan, too. Until the match he becomes expendable when his kneecap pops off the tendon and bone like a champagne cork and leaves him on the mat reaching for the leg suddenly rendered Dada, a visual so wholly dislocating he submerges into aphorisms: this does not hurt you, this-does-not-hurt-you.

He feels the actual slip, Bisonhead’s palm nearing his heel, and Bisonhead says it’s time. Your father goes limp, lifeless, a boot reeled out of pondwater. He imagines falling, unaware of the daughter he’ll conceive. The little thing he’ll never be quite certain of so he’ll call you buddy, and in a fit of anger at thirteen you accuse him of wishing you were a boy. You see tears gather in his eyes.

He imagined falling. Something he never tells you until you’re home from college for the first time, a fall semester in Fayetteville so frantic you just couldn’t find the time until Christmas. In your absence, you feel his aging, know he’s reckoning with his own mortality, and it makes you consider your own for the first time. Falling. Consumed by opportunities lost. You carry these stories with you, recall them at odd times. A fourth date with a Walton-money Sig Ep who you sense being less than transparent so you step forward, direct a finger between his eyes. “You will treat me right,” you tell him. He doesn’t call again and this makes you proud, the toughness. You imagine this was what the loss of your father’s scholarship had been about—a young woman and an appropriating football player.

And again, after graduation, when you’ve been working for the Department of Child Services in Tulsa and a sorority sister takes a job in Manhattan and invites you to her apartment on the Upper East Side. You’ve never been east of the Mississippi and the city roars through every bit of you, telling you there’s more more more. But that first night she invites over her New York friends, transients like herself, for an aperitif only to snicker at the Okie drawl you’ve never been aware of until then. Blood rushes to your face and you deprecate a laugh, suddenly aware of their handbags and shoes, the Prada and Louboutin that accompany their news-anchor drone, their practiced way of being from nowhere.

During a second drink where the conversation piques and allows you to disappear you find yourself crawling out to the fire escape and listening to the city below, tormented by your inability to suppress these emotions that seem so trivial by comparison—not just the challenge to your conception of self but your daily dose of the real at DCS: the current case of a newborn thrown or dropped or what? from a moving car on Peoria as it passed the Coney-I-Lander.

The fire escape groans and you think of your father, imagine the maze of iron giving way, collapsing beneath your weight and then you’re freefalling into the rush of headlights on eighty-third and first, through Midtown and SoHo and the sweep of the plains to Steinbeck’s red and gray country and an a-frame in Sand Springs where the sweat and grease from your father’s work clothes would permeate the kitchen and mask the smell of his evening coffee. You crawl under the kitchen table and he becomes all boots and denim, his stilted stance favoring the leg with the scar. Soon he’ll move to the garage for his second shift but first he calls out to you, pitching his voice towards your room. Buddy? he calls again, less certain, and his boots turn as the porcelain mug sounds against the countertop. You keep quiet, waiting for him to shuffle across the linoleum, squat low, and draw back the tablecloth.

Geoff-PeckGeoff Peck received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota, where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Floodwall Magazine. His fiction and poetry have appeared in over a dozen journals, and in 2013 he was nominated for Best New American Poets. While not on campus at UND, he lives in New York with his wife Meredith.

 

 

Image credit: Scott Swigart on Flickr

HUNGRY by Rachel Estrada Ryan

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Hungry

HUNGRY
by Rachel Estrada Ryan

It has been seven days since we’ve run out of meat and vegetables in the freezer and most of the cans and boxes and jars in the pantry. My husband reminds me that we have not run out of money. He says this as he leans against our stainless steel refrigerator that matches the stainless steel stove and the stainless steel dishwasher and the stainless steel built-in microwave. Of course I know he’s right; I also know we probably never will. No, we will always have too much, and the people on the charity websites will never have enough, and frankly if I have to spend another afternoon hauling reluctant children and unforgiving paper-or-plastic bags I might just lose it once and for all. I’m not sure I can ever go to the supermarket again.

Instead I do my food shopping through the aisles of my crowded brain. I push the cart with the wobbling front wheel, and the metallic saliva glaze of its handle coats my palms. The refrigerated stink of raw fish hangs overhead. I push down the plastic child seat even when my daughter isn’t with me, so that a jar of tomato sauce sails through a leg hole and splatters at my feet.

Those shoes still smell like last week’s spaghetti night; I know I should just throw them out already. Which sucks, because I really liked those shoes.

◊

The smallest one doesn’t talk much. She grunts and pulls her knees up under the tray of her highchair and scowls at her brothers. Her small feet are plump and dimpled, so how hungry can she be. Compared to those poor children in Myanmar, or Sierra Leone, I mean really. Some of them never even develop the strength to walk.

She begins to whine.

“Talk,” I say. “Use words.” She is two and she has to learn. Last month, her pediatrician raised her eyebrows and wrote down the name of a speech therapist.

“Hung-ee,” she says.

“Hungry,” I correct. I unstick the half-chewed piece of wheat bread from her tray. The crust has started to go stale, but the center is soft. “Bread. Eat.”

“No,” she says. She is shaking her head and her black curls bounce. She points to the kitchen stove. “Hung-ee.”

The boys, all three, kick their feet underneath the table and smile and eat. They know how to make the best of things. The middle one leans over to kiss my hand and transfers a small arc of crumbs.

“I don’t know what you want,” I say to my daughter, who has begun smacking her palms flat-clap-loud against her tray. I look at my husband. He is twisting the metal tie of the bread bag around his pinkie, forming a perfect spiral, half a strand of DNA. “Tell Daddy what you want. Go on.”

“Hung-ee.”

He doesn’t look up. “I think she wishes she had something else to eat, Leah.”

“I’ll go to the supermarket tomorrow,” I say. “I promise.”

We chew in silence for a little while longer and then the oldest one says, “But you always say that.”

I have noticed that my children say always quite a lot. I mean, consider their exaggeration. Perhaps one’s perspective is distorted to scale. This would certainly explain how my husband keeps so calm. He is six foot four and three hundred pounds, give or take. The man is downright unflappable.

◊

Day twelve. The refrigerator is almost empty now, except for his beer. There’s only our Brita pitcher, a quart of milk, lemon juice, an abandoned pork chop, ricotta with blue-green spots, the remaining unsalted butter from the peach pie I baked over the summer. I don’t think I have replaced the box of baking soda since we moved in here. The refrigerator always smells the same.

I look at the clock. He’s going to be home any minute. I should run to the corner store to pick up a few cups of ramen at least. But the smallest is still in a T-shirt and diaper. Her hair is a mess. My hair is a mess. I am wearing a stained bathrobe that was new and perfect last Christmas and I have no idea where this day went.

When we spoke on the phone earlier today, he was almost angry. “Just pick up a few things,” he said. “Not a whole big trip. Just a few things. We need to eat a real meal tonight, Leah.”

I considered it and cried.

He softened and shushed me and cooed from his cubicle. “Just a few things. Chicken, maybe. Some broccoli.”

I suggested that he go instead.

He hung up, but not before he cursed quietly, then apologized, then said, “Honestly, I don’t have time for this. I love you. Goodbye.”

When he gets home, dinner is still not dinner—but oddly nobody, not even him, not even the smallest, complains this time. My husband is all white shirt and loosened tie and weary forehead. My big boys smell like playground sweat. I want to gather them all into my arms. I want to copy and paste this day into tomorrow. Even the sound of them chewing, usually so abrasive, is bearable tonight.

“Mommy,” the smallest one chirps, holding up her toast, the unsalted butter dripping down her wrist. “Ook. Eat.”

She is getting so much better at talking.

My husband says, “I see you vacuumed,” his eyes scanning the portion of the floor that is still crumbless. He smiles, and I do too. “Thank you for doing that.”

We finish our meal in silence. I lay down on the couch and rest my eyes while my husband puts the children to bed, and when he comes downstairs we finish the beer together and make love on that same crumbless part of the floor.

◊ 

Day twenty. I promised.

After the older two left for school, I awoke to the smell of urine. The smaller two both wet their beds. There were great, seeping stains on their sheets, and I found them each resting in their own waste, wriggling, whining, their cheeks chapped and wet with it. I stripped their bodies and their beds and herded them naked into the bathroom. How they thrashed and soaked the floor today, rendered the bathmat dripping, a stray magazine warped. The smallest one still won’t let me rinse her hair without an angry, drowning protest. She jumps to her feet and gasps for air and rubs the soap into her eyes as if this does not happen almost every day, as if her hair has not been washed and rinsed almost seven hundred times and counting.

Every time, I tell her, “Put your head back and close your eyes.” The boy complies and I point to him and say, “See? What a big boy your brother is. Aren’t you a big girl?” She just stares up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

Today, I wrapped her in her old pink hooded towel and hugged her baby soap body to my chest. The boy stayed behind and splashed as I dressed her. He drained the tub to a mere puddle and laid flat on his back so that the water was just over his ears, and he shouted out over and again, unaware of how loud his voice carried above his personal sea. “Look at me, Mommy. I’m swimming!”

When he quieted I felt relief before anything else. I listened for the next splash to signal he was still among the living. I just needed five more minutes to do the smallest’s hair. She reached up to take the comb from my hand, and I wrestled it away and rapped her head with it. I worked the comb through the wet tangles that remained, doing my best to grab the hair at the root to avoid pulling against her scalp. She whimpered. I shushed.

“Oh stop,” I said. “I’m not hurting you. I’m almost done.”

Almost was not soon enough. The boy decided to get out of the tub on his own, and in so doing managed to sidestep the bathmat. There was the terrible thud of bone against ceramic, and then the pause, and then the wail.

I am still holding him on my lap now, nearly six hours later. He would not leave my embrace all day. His bottom lip is half bitten through, and as he dozes through his naptime hours I apply the bag of ice in careful intervals. The smallest one has refused to sleep at all. In her mad unreason she is impatient with the television, with her bowl of ancient cheese crackers, with her toys. Her dolls are all undressed, their skirts and barrettes and panties scattered across the living room floor, their hair mashed with yellow crumbs and drool.

I think I might have really gone today.

 ◊

 “Man cannot live on bread alone,” my oldest says on the first day of the second month. He is standing beside me in the kitchen, smiling and absently pinching the fat that hugs my hips just above the waistline of my jeans. He must have overheard this from my husband’s joking a few days earlier, and though I want to laugh I am overpowered by a tic of superiority.

“That doesn’t mean we need peanut butter and jelly on it, and then we’ll be fine,” I retort. “That’s from the Bible. You shouldn’t joke about the Bible.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he says. His smile disappears and he looks down at his socks, inside of which he is rubbing his big and second toes together. I want to hug him, but my arms won’t move.

“Man cannot live on bread alone,” I say, “but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

He nods his head, then stills. He asks, “Is the Lord saying anything now?”

◊

There is a gaunt young woman from Haiti on the Internet. She is a girl, really, and there are all sorts of pictures of her and of the other people from her village. One is of her crying amidst a huddle of women and the story reads that her ten-month-old son is dead. He was the width of a small branch, and he withered away. In a full-length portrait, I see that she has twin newborns tied to her midsection with a large swath of fabric. Her four-year-old son is the size of my smallest, half of what he should be.

The white people from the charity are bringing metal bowls of water and mixing grains with it, and a group of mothers spoon indistinct mush into the children’s mouths. One of the bowls of water is tipped to the children’s lips. As they drink some of the water escapes and runs down their faces, making streams in their desert cheeks. In another picture the girl has knelt beside her four-year-old and the two stare into the camera. Neither of them smile, but the mother’s eyes are speaking. They are writing books that nobody will read.

I fold my laptop closed.

◊

The corner store has a small shelf of groceries. Very few items among them are perishable. Nothing is ever on sale, but it is only one block from our house and it is small and warm and everything I want to buy I can carry with my hands. The children cannot get lost; I don’t even have to watch them. They walk to the newsstand and turn the pages of the magazines and Mr. Raj doesn’t mind at all. He gives them pretzel rods from a jar he keeps on the counter. I don’t know if he sells the pretzel rods or eats them or what and frankly I don’t care. They like Mr. Raj and they keep quiet, savoring the salt crystals and catching up on news about Kim Kardashian while I buy my expensive bread.

The girl from Haiti is with me. I don’t think anyone else sees her, but she is standing right beside me. She is nursing one of her twins inside the wrap and watching as I pick over the varieties. Potato. Wheat. Wonder. I look over at the suckling baby and I remember when it was so easy to feed my children, and for a moment I am jealous. When my oldest was just a baby, I could sit in peace and be drained and filled all at once. Everything was simpler then; so much more time and energy. The baby could poop through three layers of clothing and onto his car seat in the middle of church, and we’d laugh about it for days. If we ate toast for dinner, it was silly and romantic. We shopped for our food with baskets, not monstrous metal carts. The baby drank from me and grew fatter every day. Hunger never crossed our minds.

The girl from Haiti interrupts my reverie and places a loaf of bread in my hands. I tuck it underneath my arm and we approach the children at the newsstand. The smallest one has fished out a women’s magazine and is holding it up for me; on the cover is a chocolate cake, frosted and garnished with berries, surrounded by Christmas ornaments and glitter. The large print reads, “Eat, Drink, and Be Skinny.”

“Hung-ee,” she says. I can see that she has licked the cover, and she screams when I take the magazine from her. The boy chimes in and their voices swirl around a single carrying note. I do not have the patience for this today. I give Mr. Raj the money for the bread and the milk and the magazine. The girl from Haiti smiles and shakes her head at my wailing children. I am too embarrassed to respond. She begins to walk home with us, but when she stops to burp one of the fussing twins we leave her lagging behind.

◊

I reason with myself: if she will come with me, I’ll go. She is here now, nursing the twins on the couch, and I sit in the recliner. Her four-year-old plays the quiet game better than any of my children ever have. I don’t want to tell her this, but in my dream last night her baby visited me, not one of the twins but the twig baby, the dead baby. But he is not a twig anymore. This is the part I almost say out loud: that he is fat and happy with all the other babies in heaven. He is not hungry anymore, nor is he alone. There are so very many of them.

My husband calls and asks what I am doing and I tell him, “nothing,” because really what can I say. He sighs and murmurs and hangs up the phone. He has stopped asking the other question. He eats like a king at work, imports the remnants in greasy brown bags for the children, and maybe he thinks I don’t know this. I can smell his lunchtime haunts in his hair at night.

The girl from Haiti has turned the twins onto their stomachs, one atop each of her thighs. She is patting their backs and singing to them in Creole. The four-year-old sits beside her. They look up when my smallest comes toddling into the room, carrying pages from her magazine. She has taken to sleeping with them. She places a crumpled, glossy rendition of a roasted turkey on the couch beside our visitors. I think she sees the four-year-old, too, because she smiles at him and points to the magazine meal and says, “Eat.” He looks at the turkey and then up at his mother.

“Okay, I’ll go,” I blurt out. “I promise I’ll go, but only if you come with us.” Before she can answer, I jump up from the recliner. I take the stairs two at a time. I can’t look at her face; I call out over my shoulder instead. “I just have to go wake the boy from his nap first. I’ll be right back.”

◊

I snap down the cart’s plastic child seat and ease the smallest into it. The girl from Haiti walks beside us, her boy and mine in between. The children are quiet as we browse. In the produce aisle I hand them each an apple; I know we shouldn’t, but we let them eat. They mash the crisp, white flesh into their mouths. My daughter holds hers out to me.

“Apple,” she says, I think, or maybe she said, “Happy.” She is holding out the fruit and waiting.

I lean forward to take a bite. The taste is a jolt, a brilliant red-green tang. I steal a second, and a third, and then she pulls the apple away.

As the children’s teeth approach the cores, I reach into my bag for a baby wipe to clean their hands and faces. I notice that someone has uncrumpled the pages from the magazine and tucked them into a zippered pocket. Turkey and stuffing, candied yams and green bean casserole. Even the chocolate cake from the cover.

I look at the girl from Haiti. She nods.

Our pace quickens. Up and down each aisle, it quickens. She walks with her arms open wide. I push the cart.

Together we buy all of it, every single ingredient from every single recipe. We toss the bags and jars and packages against the clanging metal, and the children clap and squeal. We cannot stop when we have enough for dinner. We work frantically, until we have emptied every shelf and every freezer and every bin. The girl from Haiti finally smiles, and I smile too. We look around at our handiwork, at the empty store, at the brilliant shining nothing. The abundance that surrounds us has found its way out. We have done our jobs and set it free. Not even the cart can contain us.

 

Rachel-Estrada-RyanRachel Estrada Ryan is a writer and graphic designer. Her freelance consulting firm, Both is Better LLC (www.bothisbetter.com), serves authors, nonprofits, the health care sector, and businesses large and small. Over the past decade, she’s written more than forty essays and articles for local, corporate, and national newsstand publications. This is her first published piece of fiction. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and lives in New York with her husband and three children (and one more on the way).

Image credit: Cia de Foto on Flickr

THE GREAT WAVE CARRIES YOU FORWARD by Nick Kolakowski

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa

THE GREAT WAVE CARRIES YOU FORWARD
by Nick Kolakowski

Marie’s husband Zachary passed away in early March, followed two weeks later by the dog. Marie would never confess this to anyone, but she missed the dog a little more than Zack. At least the mutt could stick to one bed.

Marie would never confess this, either, but a deserted house can be pretty enjoyable. She took down Zack’s framed Bullitt poster from its prime spot in the living room and, with the help of an online art class, painted a giant wave crashing onto a skiff of Japanese fishermen. None of her friends knew it was a copy of “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” the famous Hokusai woodcut from the Edo era—they just assumed the pummeling whitewater was a metaphor for depression, a cry for help, and reacted accordingly. Her life filled with dinner parties; bone-crushing hugs arrived at random and often startling moments; her phone blinked and hummed with text messages of love and cheery quotes from dead philosophers.

Marie had only wanted a little more color in that part of the house, but she accepted the attention with slightly befuddled grace.

As summer draped its moist blanket over the city, her friends finally downshifted to a more normal gear: phone calls once a week, movie nights twice a month. The house was quiet once more, and she spent her evenings reading books that had sat dusty and unopened on her shelves since college: underlined and dog-eared texts about samurai and geishas, the Floating World and red battlefields. She had never seen Japan, despite majoring in its art. There were so many things she hadn’t experienced, come to think of it: deserts and Great Plains and the cities heavy atop them, the cold Pacific pummeling the California coast.

One night Zack appeared in her dreams, in the lacquered red armor of the shōgun, to apologize for his petty life. Before it was all over, he said, I never realized the small things don’t matter. Don’t make that same mistake. And by the way, what you did to my poster was sacrilege.

That was Zack, always needing the last word. The next morning Marie had the car nearly packed with luggage when her friend Joan pulled into the driveway. Joan made the expected sounds of surprise and concern as she circled the overstuffed sedan: “Where are you going?”

“West,” Marie said, tossing a backpack full of snacks onto the passenger seat.

“Okay, but where west?”

“California, maybe sell the car there, fly to Tokyo,” she said, casual as announcing she was headed to the corner store for some milk. “Beyond that, not the faintest clue.”

Joan was theatrically aghast. “But why, Marie?”

“Because why not.” An empty life is a canvas for starting again, Marie thought. It’s a melancholy gift you’ve given me, Zack, but I’ll take it.

Nick Kolakowski

Nick Kolakowski’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Evergreen Review, Satellite Magazine, Carrier Pigeon, and Shotgun Honey, among other publications. He’s also the author of How to Become an Intellectual, a book of comedic nonfiction that covers (and sometimes, lovingly skewers) everything from ancient Greek tragedies to Albert Einstein. He lives and writes in New York City.

Image: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai, c. 1829-32

BUNGALESE CONSTRICTOR by Jason Kapcala

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Bungalese-ConstrictorBUNGALESE CONSTRICTOR
by Jason Kapcala

No one told me that Carlos’s gallery exhibition was that night until after I’d wrangled the Burmese python from under the porch and I was drenched through with rain and covered with dead leaves and muck. Storm clouds hung low in the sky as I slammed shut the sliding door on the back of my truck and nodded to the woman on the porch. Her husband had been the proud owner of the exotic snake and a ten-month-old Pit Bull; now he was just the proud owner of an exotic snake. Former owner, at least. The snake was tan with brown hexagons—its body thick like one long muscle, the head a small diamond with tiny black eyes. It had taken me forty-five minutes to drag and tug and wrestle it from the hole in the latticework where it had crawled with a full belly to hide, and it had sapped me of all my energy. Before climbing into the cab, I double-checked the back door to make sure that it wouldn’t fly open and dump the two-hundred pound reptile somewhere on Old Route 209 as I drove toward the Snake Farm, a small reptile zoo on the outskirts of Lakeville. I could feel the cold rain blowing sheets through my wet shirt as my cell phone rang in my pocket.

“Are you on your way home?” my wife, Rhoda, asked.

“Just about,” I said. “You won’t believe what I pulled out from under this lady’s porch.”

“Great. Don’t forget we have Carlos’s exhibit in a couple hours,” she said. “And for God’s sake, let’s try not to be the last couple through the door.”

I arched my back, felt something pop. My feet were muddy from slogging around half-bent beneath the porch for nearly an hour. I wanted to channel my inner Ralph Kramden, hit Rhoda with my best shot, something witty and mean, something about her aging like her mother, but I couldn’t think of anything clever.

“I’ve got to make a trip to the Farm,” I said.

“Now?”

“Rhoda,” I said, leaning against the side of the truck cab. “I just crammed a ten-foot snake into the back of my truck. What would you have me do? Leave it there overnight?”

“Allen, you know I hate unhappy surprises,” Rhoda said.

“How’s this for an unhappy surprise: would you want to start your morning off tomorrow yanking on the business end of an angry constrictor? It won’t take me long.”

“Your clothes are laid out on the bed,” she said, and she must have clicked shut her cell phone before I finished because the dial done cut me off.

“Yes, mother,” I said, scraping my boots against the running boards and climbing into the cab.

I muscled the big white truck around in the driveway and wheeled out onto Spruce Street. I could feel the weight in back, and as I pulled up to a stoplight, I heard something slide across the floor. It was a soft brushing noise, like sandpaper, and I imagined the python back there, curled up, skimming up to the cab and then back toward the rear door every time I accelerated. The truck was old and the alignment was perpetually off, but now with a full load the steering was so heavy and awkward that my forearms were beginning to burn as I snaked down Ninth Street and accelerated toward the exit ramp like a freight train. I blew through two intersections and felt the springs dip. I could feel the mud seeping down into my work boots. But I didn’t stop. I had less than an hour to get to the Farm, get the snake unloaded, and get home to change.

Every November, The Lakeville Mountain Gallery Exhibition was held in the ballroom of the Best Western downtown. It was a black tie event, invitation only—the kind of soiree that invariably made me look and feel like a jackass—but we went anyway. Rhoda had a permanent spot on the guest list, and she was kind enough to make me her plus-one. The event itself was usually a bore, lots of asymmetrical faces and bleeding clocks, but the wine was half decent. Carlos always stood on the opposite side of Rhoda. He’d whisper in her ear all night long, and sometimes they kicked off their shoes and danced slow and tipsy to the Muzak. During those impromptu foxtrots and mambos, I’d customarily stand with the rest of the onlookers and introduce myself as Rhoda’s first husband, but no one ever laughed. Not even when I explained that Rhoda’s never been married before. Usually people shook their heads, or else looked the other way as Carlos dipped Rhoda and spun her vigorously around the room. In moments like those, it must be painfully clear that I am the best she can do.

When the light changed, I hung a sharp right onto the highway, tires licking the pavement. There was a dull thump, and I heard the snake smack the metal wall of the truck. The old truck shimmied like a rollercoaster car, and I sawed the wheel, leaning forward and practically willing her up to speed, until I heard the pop and felt the tire go. I cursed under my breath, checked my rearview mirror, and flipped on the flashers. I could probably make it to the next exit. It was getting dark.

I let the truck coast down the exit ramp toward downtown and through the intersection at the bottom of Main. I brought it to rest at the first gravel lot I could find. The low stucco building was inconspicuous; a red neon sign proclaimed “BAR.” Across the street, catty-corner from the lot, I could see the fancy hotel where, in a little under an hour, my wife and her friends would drink expensive hooch and peruse even pricier art. I pulled my collar high and stepped out into the wet air and surveyed the damage. The rim was pretty bent up, and I imagined a slow leak, unnoticed, had drained the tire of most of its air before the blowout. I had a full-sized spare and a jack, but I caught myself halfway to the door. There was no way I was going to wrestle a thirty-pound tire out of the back with that snake in there. I could see the headlines in The Morning Record: Animal Control Officer Killed By Burmese Python; Snake Wrangler Strangled In His Own Truck.

I knew had to call Rhoda.

The bar was warm and dry. It smelled like old cigarettes and stale beer. The jukebox was cranking out that Harry Chapin song about bananas. The secretary at the Snake Farm had gone home for the night, so I called the emergency beeper number not knowing how long it would take to get a response. As I leaned against the doorway with my hand cupped to my ear, I tried to figure out how to explain this mess to my wife. I felt lucky when her voicemail picked up.

“Listen, babe,” I said. “Ran into some car trouble. I’m right across the street from the exhibition, but I still have the snake in the back. I’ll be over as soon as I can get things squared away. Be good.” Then I sat down at the empty bar to wait. The warm wooden interior glowed softly in the light from hanging lanterns, and I sat alone at the end of the bar, stinking like a wet mutt, surveying the dozen or so beers on tap. My back hurt. My socks squished in my boots.

“What can I get you?” the bartender called, glancing away from the election coverage playing on the corner television. He was lean and pale, his head shaved to the scalp.

“Just water,” I said, and then when he narrowed his eyes at me, “Okay, a whisky sour then.”

The bartender left his post under the television and snatched a bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf as he walked toward me. The drink was tart and cool. It stung the inside of my mouth a little, but I was tired and it tasted fine.

Before long I was knocking those puppies down like Prohibition was making a comeback. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and it didn’t take much to get me space brained. Midway through my third whisky, I could feel the barstool starting to float.

“Pal, you’ve been here less than an hour,” the bartender said when I motioned him over for another. At some point, he’d introduced himself as Donnie. “Maybe you’d like to actually taste what you’re drinking?”

“Maybe you’d like to taste what I’m drinking,” I said, cocking my head.

“Good one,” Donnie said, glancing back at the television.

I ran my finger around the top of my glass, trying to make it sing. “I think my life is cheating on me,” I said. “My wife, I meant. Both really. She’s the life of my love.”

Donnie sighed and leaned down on the bar. “Wow,” he said. “Wife and life. That’s some bad luck.”

“Women try their luck; men risk theirs,” I said. “When a woman marries again it’s because she detested her first husband. Oscar Wilde said that.” It had been my dad’s favorite quote, one he recited often.

“Oscar Wilde? I think I saw him in concert once,” Donnie said, wiping out the inside of a glass. “Big O and the Wildemen—that was back before his solo career.”

“Right,” I said, nodding and taking another gulp. Then, for lack of anything profound to say, I added, “Women—they’re from a whole different planet. Or something.”

“That’s deep,” Donnie said. “I haven’t heard anyone say that in almost twenty minutes.”

I belched and glanced down at my wavering reflection in the yellow liquid. “I can almost see the bottom,” I said, swirling the ice around in my glass. “It makes me dejectable.”

“Listen, pal,” Donnie replied. “I’m not one of those I’ll-dispense-some-prophetic-bullshit-wisdom-if-you-get-drunk-enough bartenders, okay?”

I let my chin fall, and I shook my head. I felt like a petulant child. “I’m supposed to meet my wife at an art exhibit,” I said, and I could feel my chin beginning to vibrate above my collar. “If I’m not careful, they’ll start calling me her first husband.”

Donnie blinked a couple times. “That’s some motto for a happy marriage,” he said.

 ◊

Outside, the rain had stopped, and I could see dozens of Yuengling caps glittering in the gravel. The branches of the huge oak trees behind the bar were silver in the evening sky. By now Rhoda would be leaning in against Carlos’s side, staring at something that looked like a squashed bug, saying something like, “Clearly, What’s-His-Name has gotten himself perished. No doubt eaten by a serpent. Let us toast his memory with our heartiest wine and then pasodoble the night away.”

I waited for traffic to slow. Then I crossed the street.

The hotel lobby was warm and bright, and I managed to stagger back to the ballroom without any of the staff hassling me. From the doorway, the room seemed to tilt a little. I could see all of the display easels set up, the waiters in their maroon monkey suits whisking trays of cheese and champagne around the room. Carlos was the center of attention. He wore all black, and he kept petting his goatee as though he were afraid it might get pissed and run off. A small crowd had gathered, and he gestured emphatically at a few of the paintings on display behind him. I saw one of Rhoda’s artist friends, Tess, nodding pensively while he spoke. And, of course, I saw my wife. She stood by his side in a plunging black gown that stretched almost to the floor. She lightly brushed his arm, and every so often she would throw her head back and laugh at something he said. When her eyes settled on me in the doorway, a look of abject horror spread across her face. Even from across the room, I could see her redden. I looked down at my splotched pants legs, my muddy boots. I’d left a dark wet stain on the burgundy carpet.

“What are you trying to do to me, Allen?” Rhoda said, clacking briskly across the room and grabbing me by the arm. “First, you’re late, and then you show up looking like . . . this?”

“Surprise,” I said, swaying a little, remembering then just how much she hated unhappy surprises. “Didn’t you get my message?”

“Have you been drinking?” she said, sniffing me. “No, I don’t even want to know. Just get out of here before anyone recognizes you.” She pushed me back out of the doorway, but Carlos had all ready come over, and he was now standing behind her.

“Good to see you, Allen,” he said, holding his hand out. I could tell he didn’t mean it, and when I didn’t shake his hand, he stroked his chin hair some more and glanced back into the ballroom. “Listen, friend, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said. “I mean, until you get changed around, of course.”

Rhoda stiffened, and her jaw muscles fluttered. “You’re so stupid,” she hissed, punching me in the chest. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

The room was hot, and I felt like I might yack any second. I’d known this wasn’t a good idea even before I left the bar, but now it was really starting to sink in: I had screwed up. Big time. And yet, I didn’t feel bad about it. Carlos was a fraud. A fraud that spent far too much time touching my wife. And Rhoda—why, at that point, I couldn’t have told you why we’d even married in the first place.

“I’ll go home,” I said, finally, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you help me put the spare on my truck.”

“I’ll find someone to help you,” Carlos said.

“No,” I said, leaning in close. “I want you to help me.”

Carlos looked down at Rhoda, and then back at me. “Fine,” he said, turning to grab his coat. “If that’s what it’ll take.”

 ◊

The temperature had dropped a little, and the cold air felt good on my face as we trekked across the street to where my truck sat, still parked in the bar parking lot.

“A classy place to break down,” Carlos said, wiping his rimless glasses with a handkerchief. I knew what he thought of me.

I stopped and pressed my hand hard against the side of the truck, letting my forehead rest against the cool sheet metal. I heard something move inside. My brain was starting to clear up. Tonight, it was going to be ugly when Rhoda got home.

I felt my cell phone buzz in my pocket, and when I looked down, I saw it was one of the other Animal Control experts from the Snake Farm answering my page. I didn’t want to pick up. The thought of returning to that glorified petting zoo with its filthy displays and lethargic animals nauseated me. I didn’t want to go back to work, I didn’t want to go back home, and I definitely didn’t want to climb into the back of the truck with that snake.

“Are you going to vomit?” Carlos asked.

I shook my head. “I was just thinking about Rhoda,” I stammered.

Carlos cleared his throat and put his hands on his hips. “Well, certainly she’s not happy,” he said. “It’s pretty bad when you are too drunk to change your own tire.”

“You try changing a tire with a Bungalese Constrictor in the back,” I said, pointing at him and nodding as though I were a man who had it all figured out. “You’re in for an unhappy surprise.”

Carlos paused for a second and squinted at me. “What in hell are you talking about?” he said. He walked around to the rear of the truck. “Let’s get this over with so I can get back to my patrons.” He grabbed the door latch and nodded. He smiled politely. “Someday,” he said. “I may even look back at this and laugh.”

“Me too,” I said, waiting for him to make the next move.

Behind us, I could hear the deep bass of some live band playing inside the bar, and across the way, I could see the bright Best Western canopy and a single woman with the bottom of her dress bunched up in her hand, half running and half tottering through the wet Main Street intersection in high heels. I knew it was Rhoda; she’d finally checked her voicemail and heard my message about the flat tire and the man-eating snake. And though I had no way of knowing if she was running for me or for Carlos, I had to admit she looked beautiful that way, urgent and frightened and just a little messy.

 

Jason-KapcalaJason Kapcala lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he runs a series of community writing workshops for adult students. His writing has been published in Blueline, Santa Clara Review, The Summerset Review, and The Good Men Project Magazine. He is currently shopping a novel and working on his next book about a small-time rock band from a ghost town in central Pennsylvania. His website is www.jasonkapcala.weebly.com.

Image credit:  Arno Meintjes Wildlife on Flickr

AN EVEN, PERFECT BURN by Royee Zvi Atadgy

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciadefoto/6944663286/sizes/l/

AN EVEN, PERFECT BURN
by Royee Zvi Atadgy

Come here, he said.

No, you can just watch me and then afterwards we’ll go to sleep and that’ll be the end of it, she said.

You mean that we’ll go to sleep like it never happened.

It never did, she said.

In the glow of the single desklamp, yellow glow, onionskin, he watched her shed her black cardigan like a snake in the darkness, revealing first the shadowy bones of her shoulder blades—very thin and on the verge of falling out of her back like two ice shelves. Then it was the middle of the back, almost all spine and the shadows played on her disks as if they were small mountain ridges in a diorama. There were two moles he had never seen before and a scar, pink-shaded, about three inches long that lay diagonally across the bottom of her left blade. He had waited forever for this. Well, not entirely forever, he thought, because by forever something else would have occupied his mind. As she revealed her arms to him, he saw where the elbows attached the two pieces of each of her arms and, as bad as it was to imagine, he couldn’t dissociate the way they looked from the bones of the cheap and thin raw chicken wings he marinated at the restaurant on Wednesday nights. He felt bad for thinking this and then replaced this feeling for the proud and stupid other one about how she was the most beautiful girl he or any of his friends had ever seen and even just watching her undress was like a second sort of sex to him. Now, she finished peeling off the cardigan and when she breathed, it appeared as if she had inhaled a demon that moved around in her, and exhaling, she gave it back to the universe and, inhaling, she had it again. To him, she seemed to have so much power that she was able to do this easily, willfully, many times.

The pipes rattled in the walls as she turned to look at him, her tanned breasts sighing in the shadows and her flat, almost muscular stomach revealed another unknown dark mole.

She lived at the edge of the woods in a small Pennsylvania town so that even with the windows open there was no human noise and you could see the stars behind her dark figure, resting on the wooden balcony in silence.

Well? she said, standing naked now, half in shadow, half in the yellow light and completely out of his mind like she never had been before.

He wanted to say the thing about how it was enough for him to watch her, like a second sort of sex. He also wanted to say that he had waited forever to see her like this, that she was the most beautiful girl he or any of his friends had ever seen, but nothing came out of his mouth and he wasn’t thankful either because he knew she was sick and he had recently gotten into the habit of only wanting things he could fix—like her bad relationship with a Greek boy who hit her, and her terrible upbringing in New Jersey. But now that she faced him, he could just barely see the demon moving in and out of her eyes—burning and burning like the reflection of those stars on the plants hanging off her balcony and he knew that this was the end of it, that it never happened, that it never did and he smiled secretly to himself but she caught it and moved toward him thinking he was inviting her to bed with it.

He lay up against the pillow and felt her blonde hair hang across his chest as she placed her head on his stomach.  He didn’t know what else to do except to stroke her hair and hope she went to sleep as fast as possible and that she wouldn’t try anything. Holding her, he felt as if he were holding a string of pipes, breathing and sighing beneath him. He stared at his feet and her feet and at the perfect pattern on the sheets, the perfect veins of the plants, the equal, even, perfect burn of the stars and thought that maybe it was about time he stopped using that word.

Royee Zvi AtadgyRoyee Zvi Atadgy currently resides in Philadelphia after returning from a three-month stint as a farmer in Israel. He works as a part-time oyster shucker and lives with his cat Bubbles in the Northern Liberties section. In his spare time, he walks around the city aimlessly looking at the architecture. Previous publications include short stories in The Brasilia Review, Hemingway’s Playpen, Nib Magazine, and Daedalus Literary Magazine.

Image credit: ciadefoto on Flickr

BLACK RAINCOAT, BLUE STOCKINGS by Anthony Wallace

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BLACK RAINCOAT, BLUE STOCKINGS
by Anthony Wallace 

Nobody took Rhiannon there, and nobody took her home. She managed the whole thing by herself. When she woke up, it was dark outside. A light was on in the living room, and she could see it through the open doorway. She lay in bed with her eyes closed, trying to decide if it had really happened or if she had dreamed some version of it and it hadn’t happened yet. She hoped it had happened and that it was finally over, and at the same time she hoped it hadn’t yet happened, something that was still out there, a possibility among other possibilities. She lay quietly in the place between happening and not happening, between what had been and what might yet be.

In the doctor’s office she’d waited longer than she’d expected to. She read a couple of magazine articles. One piece was about ants finding their way home. If the ant’s legs were extended, the ant would go past its home: the ant would walk farther than it needed to. If the ant’s legs were shortened, it would stop before it reached its home. She couldn’t remember how they lengthened or shortened the ants’ legs in the experiments. To lengthen them they could attach tiny stilts, perhaps, but to shorten them—

Then there was another article about Portuguese men-o-war. They were a type of jellyfish. She remembered laughing at the idea that the plural of man-o-war is men-o-war. It seemed ridiculous to her, but she couldn’t figure out why. She pictured the school of jellyfish like a gang of men rocking back and forth even as they marched forward with cudgels in their hands. She laughed now, still with her eyes shut, thinking of it.

In a while she got out of bed and walked toward the living room. She was unsteady on her feet, but she was thirsty. She went from the living room to the kitchen and drank water out of the plastic gallon jug in the refrigerator. Only then did she realize she was still wearing her raincoat. She unbuttoned it. Underneath the raincoat she was wearing a long white t-shirt and below that a pair of striped blue stockings.

She shrugged the raincoat off at the shoulders and let it drop to the floor. On the counter was a canvas supermarket tote that contained a large bottle of Orangina, a bag of Ranch-flavored Doritos, and a fresh copy of People magazine. She took the things out of the tote and lined them up on the countertop. In the sink was a dish partially covered in water, and on top of the dish an empty drinking glass. A long strand of blond hair lay across the wet plate. She dumped some of the Doritos into a terra cotta salad bowl her mother had given her, poured warm Orangina into the glass that had been in the sink, and placed the bowl and the glass along with the magazine on a wooden bed tray. She took the tray back into the bedroom where she lay quietly, enjoying the snack and watching the six o’clock news with the sound turned off.

She still didn’t know if it had happened or if it was still in the future, something that was going to happen but which hadn’t happened yet. She might have been in the doctor’s office just to schedule the appointment and have a preliminary checkup. She might have a card in the pocket of her raincoat or in her wallet that gave the date and time of the procedure. It might still be out there, a possibility among others.

She changed the channel and another program silently appeared. The show in progress, she found out by scrolling the remote to the viewer’s guide, was a documentary called “The Witch of Hunan.” It was on the History Channel. But the program seemed to be almost over and she couldn’t figure out what it was about. The viewer’s guide had given the title but no description. On the screen was a small brown mummy, or what looked like a mummy, ceremoniously arranged in an open pit. Then there was some footage of a woman in an elaborate costume, a pointy black hat with arcane symbols on it, loose clothing that billowed up and undulated as the woman twirled round and round a roaring bonfire, a stick in her hand that looked like a magic wand. She recited something Rhiannon couldn’t hear and the people huddled by the fire sat listening, mesmerized. The woman in the pointy hat must be the Witch of Hunan.

Rhiannon took the remote from the night table and turned up the sound, a row of green dots moving across the bottom of the TV screen, but it was too late to hear what the witch had to say. The witch started screaming and waving her magic wand, the History Channel blared some fake-sounding Chinese music, and all the people fled as the bonfire seemed to engulf the screen. The credits began to roll over a final shot of the mummy in her burial pit: gourd-like shoes curled up at the toes; brown, leathery face pulled tight beneath the pointy black hat; swaddled in the witch’s loose-fitting robe a mummy so small it might have been a cat, a tiny blue cap on its head, a tiny blue stone over each tiny eye.

Anthony Wallace

Anthony Wallace is a Senior Lecturer in the Arts and Sciences Writing Program at Boston University, where he is also Co-director of “Arts Now,” a curriculum-based initiative to support the arts at BU. Tony has published poetry and fiction in literary journals including CutBank, Another Chicago Magazine, the Atlanta Review, River Styx, Sou’wester, 5-Trope, the Republic of Letters, and Florida Review. His short story “The Old Priest” won a Pushcart Prize and was published last fall in Pushcart 2013. His short story collection The Old Priest is the winner of the 2013 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published in September by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Image credit: Wikipedia

PLACES TO WALK OUT TO by Gabriel Ojeda Sague

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Places to Walk Out To by byronv2 on Flickr

PLACES TO WALK OUT TO
by Gabriel Ojeda Sague

I read the note scribbled wildly on torn paper:

“Language is not the signifier nor the signified. It is the significance.”

The only constant is the height of buildings. I hate the way you find things like that and I’ve just now realized it’s the smoke that’s making that taste of oranges in my mouth.

A yellow cat bolts through a black street. I am drunk and swinging through concrete paths, my legs twisting and stumbling, pivoting and sliding.

Billboards sneak into my field of vision.

“For tough cleaning, toughen up with Husky brand paper towels.”
“No more pests with Nomopest bug spray.”
“Feel the fragrance. Be the woman. Rise. Rise, by Vaudlin.”

The night is long and I hate the names of streets.

“Washington St. Mulligan St. Perricone St. Franklin St. Jefferson St. East St. Hawke St. Levi St. 15019 Levi St. 15021 Levi St. 15023 Levi St. 15025 Levi St.”

My house is simple, affordable, and gray. I remember to smell the coriander that I’m growing on my porch. My welcome mat is damp and tattered.

“Robertson Home”

Two weeks before he left, he wrote a poem about my breasts. What a piece of shit. Tits don’t go in books and that bastard will never be published anyway. I sit on the couch avoiding the hole in the fabric where soft cotton or whatever that white stuff is pours out. I pick up the book on the table next to me, one of the books he was reading, titled “Woman” and obviously you can already tell it’s written by a man who is just gonna blab about women who have hurt him even though he loved them so much. It’s the kinda shit John loved to read. I open to a random page:

“The woman is lost,
anger passed down for generations
through brown hair.

She bends like clay
to his touch.”

Of course, well of course she bends like clay and yeah of course the women in her family fuck her up and make her lost and angry, well of course, cause that’s what men write. Men writers. Fuck the crowd of ‘em. I’m too drunk to read anyways, so I slip into my room and without changing fall onto my bed.

◊

Oh god, I should never have gone to Jeremy’s place last night. I was such a mess, saying things I never would say or never should say. I just remember stumbling and I really couldn’t tell you where. My head was in such bad places last night and now just hurts.

The only dishes that are clean are the fine china so I fix myself toast and jam on a ring of swirling blue and I slowly eat. I pick up a book next to me and read from it as brown crumbs slip through my lips.

“Stories erupt. Stories burp. Sentences drip from the ceiling and coat the floor in mixed letters and phrases. A kiln will bend glass. Dear Roma, nobody’s books will give you the day and the water doesn’t move so near you now. You should have them climb out of sewers instead of being pulled from pages. The spine is bending in a kiln. Dissolve that mess of anecdotes you graze off the page, like a cow in a field of grass, and find it again in the air.”

I’ve always thought those books were a way of putting too much pink in the eye, but I’ve been reading this one for a few weeks now. Sunlight hits the window wrong. John left me because he did not have a single clue what he was doing. John left because he doesn’t want to understand the way he is. Or am I just losing myself here?

I see the book he left on the table by the couch. “Woman.” What a title for one of John’s books, that’s the kind of stuff he loves. If it talked about me in there he would close it quick and abandon it. On finishing eating, I place the plate in the sink over a stack of many others covered in dried food. I couldn’t tell you what I was eating four days ago; now it’s just brown chunks. Think, Marianne: what did you eat that could have become brown chunks? Chicken Kiev was Tuesday. Lasagna was Wednesday. John left Thursday. Yeah, it must have been lasagna.

I pick up “Woman” and read from a random page. A prose poem: it’s always hard to find those and really pay attention. And when you do, you inevitably have the question in your mind “well, there weren’t any line breaks or anything, so what’s actually making it poetry?” and god if I could tell you. I’ve never had a knack for classifications.

“She doesn’t remember the way we were in the garden. She doesn’t remember the way I kissed her golden hair and the way the sunligh—”

Jesus, this is awful. Never talk about the sunlight and gold; never. Maybe a different page. There’s got to be a reason he reads this. Another prose poem:

“Devilish walks nowhere and again no-one. I don’t have time for the slip of the thumb or the nailhead. You hit the nail right on the. She doesn’t take a dip of day or slip into old patterns. My lover is really there, but hardly happening.”

I gave the thing too many chances. What trash. Masculinist romanticism. I’ll take it to the church tomorrow for donation.

On Saturdays, I usually take time to go to the gym and go to a museum or something after. I’m getting tired of art, though. Every time I go, I walk so fast through the rooms only reading names of artists and so all the paintings blur together.

“Paul Gauguin. Edgar Degas. Paul Cézanne. Claude Monet.”

So, instead, I decide to just start walking. I get far, even past Jeremy’s house. John always hated the way Jeremy put his laces into his shoes instead of tying them. John and I would probably be arguing now about whose friend Jeremy was first, each giving the other the blame. John left me because he had someone else. John left me because he thought I was too much. John left me because he hated himself. John wouldn’t care if the dishes piled out the windows. If I have a purpose here, it is one of opening.

I am no more today than I was yesterday, but that’s all really getting muddled. He never moved while he was in the house. His friends always commented that he was the quietest sleeper.

Walking farther, I find a crumpled paper on the sidewalk and it reminds me of the note I saw last night. Language is a signified or something? Give it a day and it will come back to me. I pick up the small ball of crushed paper and open it slowly. Frantic scribbles, again. People don’t have time anymore, or at least that’s what everyone keeps saying.

“Dear Darian,

You forgot to pick up the kids again from school. I feel like I’ve said that a thousand times. They waited two hours for you. Do you know what it felt like to get home after work and not find them there? Not find you there? Realizing you had gone again to do the stupid shit you do. They were crying when I picked them up. You can’t explain how a father goes wrong to six year olds. I can’t give you any more chances.

-Molly”

I wonder how the vowels do that. I wonder why the consonants do that to them. “Sentences drip” was it? God, no one has got a clue why I’m walking around this way. If someone could define the word “there” and I mean really tell me what that means and how you can describe “there” I’d be more grateful than I’ve ever been. See that? “not find them there? Not find you there?” If we were translating into, hell, I don’t know, Chinese, that “there” probably couldn’t fit. Allí, là. John hated the way the stairs creaked in e’s and a’s when he walked to get water late at night.

We used to walk down old streets by the river and moss would rub against my heels. I would listen to him spout old nonsense for hours. John left me because he ran out of things to say.

I eventually make my way back home and pick up the first book I see on my shelves, “The Occurrences of Jacques Ponteau.” It’s a book I read at some point in my childhood, one of those adventure books kids read, and I haven’t looked at it in years.

“What was obscure in Jacques eyes was not how he felt about Marie, but what he was going to do next. She stared at him not with fear, but anticipation. Swiftly, he pulls out his blade and places it against her throat. “But Jacques, why?” His only answer is the forgetfulness in his face.”

I pick out another, “The Sewer,”

“When I was just 5 years old, my brother fell into an open manhole. It went so deep it was black inside. My family, so large in number, was relieved by the loss. When I was twenty, I passed by that sewer again and, out of cruel chance, it was open. I peered inside and found a note in a bottle with my name on it. ‘Brother, I am in a world like no other’ it said.”

It’s all places to walk out to. John left a black tie on the chair. He could have at least cleaned up after himself. Even the note he left was messy, everything messy, that’s how he always was and I could never tell you different. When we fought, he said things he didn’t believe and I can’t decide if that was because he went wild with anger or because he believed nothing.

“Your Wickedness”

That’s what is painted on the side of the church; I remember that. I stare at that engraving every Sunday. I remember that. I leave my house again, without a place to go.

“Levi St. Hawke St. East St. Jefferson St. Franklin St. Perricone St. Mulligan St. Washington St. Carrion St. Standing St. 15th St. 14th St. 13th St. 12th St. 11th St. 10th”

What feels like miles and probably is. If I have an agenda, it is one of searching. John is filled with selfishness. Fuck men writers, fuck the lot of ‘em. He wrote a poem about my breasts. Fuck the lot of ‘em.

I walk along the old street by the river the way we used to do. A plane writes along the sky.

“952-555-6809 A NIGHT OF FREE DRINKS AND DANCING. $12 AT THE DOOR”

A poster beside me reads,

“Want to learn a new language? ¿Quiere usted aprender español? Your wait is over! Spanish lessons $20 an hour, twice weekly.”

A red dog sleeps by the water. It’s become night faster than I could have noticed. Woolf said something about wires and electrics, so did Kesey. This is a wired city. Or, to be more specific, the body is stuffed with words and without legs. We put stories on walls and paper to keep them in one place. It is all places to walk out to. Alone, and feeling filled with copper. The brick wall says,

“This will not be televised”

in bending, sprayed letters. John wanted to get in contact with things I have no place in. John left because a red dog sleeps by the water.

I walk further along the river and reach an empty park. Someone has left a small brown book on a bench, ants crawling on the ridges of its pages. I sit and open the book. The words inside are handwritten and it seems like a diary.

“‘Afterwards, showers.’ There you’ve got the same sounds inside of each one and I didn’t make that, Grenier did. What it does to hear that sound again and, to be more specific, to ponder moving sound in such a way. I didn’t want to tell you of the way those sounds come out at us, but nobody was there to tell me otherwise. It’s not that I’m obsessed or crazy, I only think those stories have control of us.

I couldn’t believe how he was then and how he treated me. He couldn’t have loved me a day of his life and so I’ve set myself to writing it instead. If he wouldn’t make a minute for the curve of my hips, then look at the way the letters move.”

Setting the book down again, I look out onto the water. With the way the air sits, I can hear my fingers moving.

 

Gabriel Ojeda-SagueGabriel Ojeda-Sague is a fiction and poetry writer currently residing in Philadelphia where he studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been published in Apiary and the Daily Pennsylvanian, and in his collection JOGS, a poetic rewriting of the 1977 book The Joy of Gay Sex.

Image credit: byronv2 on Flickr

HOW TO MASTER SOCIAL MEDIA by Brennan Cusack

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How to Master Social Media

HOW TO MASTER SOCIAL MEDIA
by Brennan Cusack

Take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror because it’s got a frame like a photograph and you need the practice. Move around and play with angles until you find the most flattering position. Now practice snapping into picture position. Repeat until it’s automatic. Practice makes perfect. Smile perfectly.

The next day you sign up for a photo class with Abby. Pick up your rented cameras and practice your photo smile as Abby points the lens towards you. Click. You look pretty, she says.

Make it your profile picture. You’re on the right track.

As the professor drones on about camera settings, begin laying groundwork for network popularity by scrolling through your newsfeed and liking pictures and statuses accordingly. Watch as your name appears across the newsfeed as you click, think of footsteps in the sand, think of I came, I saw, I liked, think of a like for a like. Someone has liked your comments. It’s Tara, a girl from your IR recitation last semester. You click her name and scroll through her recent pictures. She looks fun outside of class. You’ve almost made it through a year of photos when Abby says it’s time to go.

Over the next couple of days be sure to sign up for Instagram. Abby will complain about spending all her money as you drag her from trendy cafés to dimly lit sushi bars searching for the best food and drink to picture and post. Order eel for the shock value. Take a picture and filter. Ask Abby about a caption. Try not to seem disappointed when she says she doesn’t care and asks if you’ve heard anything she’s been saying. The eel tastes salty and slippery going down your throat. Offer some to Abby. Post the picture and share it with Facebook.

Act surprised when Tara comments that you’re at her favorite restaurant even though you knew that. You had found the place from one of her Instagram hashtags.

One day, while walking to Photo class you see Tara. She tells you about a party tonight and says she’ll invite you.

Receive Facebook invite and click attending.

Use the money you’ve been saving for a perfect new outfit. Go to party in perfect outfit and take pictures with Tara and friends. Learn to strike picture your pose as soon as you see a flash going off. The picture of you and Tara gets a lot of likes.

You begin to go to more and more parties with Tara. Start bringing your camera from photo class and watch as new friends fling themselves in front of you smiling waiting for the flash. Upload the albums on Facebook with clever titles and tag all the people you recognize.

Abby invites you to movies but realize that those kind of nights out are not really popular to document on social media so instead invite her out to get eel again. Be understanding when she says she still doesn’t like eel that she’ll just see you in photo class.

One morning, you wake yourself up snapping into your best picture pose as the first flash on sunlight cuts through your shades. Blame it on a stress-induced dream. You forgot to do your photo project on ‘Change’ so you turn in some pictures of your new friends posing at a party. Call it ‘Day to Night.’ Decide to call your Facebook album the same thing.

Abby says she never sees you anymore. Try not to act confused as you remind her about the personal snap chat you sent that morning.

Ask your mom for more money because living in a city is expensive. She gives you more because she’s never lived in a city and you spend half of it on concert tickets. The other half you use to buy more makeup because your eyes look tired all the time now. Notice your hair is no longer shiny. Switch shampoos.

Go to concert and spend the entire time on elevated surfaces or on the shoulders of your new guy friends so you are more visible to the cameras around you. Spend the next week checking Facebook waiting for the photos to go up.

See Abby on the way to the library. You haven’t seen her for two weeks because you were so tired from the concert you skipped photo. She says it looks like you had a really fun weekend. Say you did but you have to run because you have so much work to do.

Study in the library. Feel overwhelmed by all the work you have to do and feel down because you asked your mom to go to Thailand to ride elephants for winter break and she asked if you were crazy. Decide to start a twitter so you can tweet about all the Netflix you’ll be watching confined to your home. Put your books down and start a twitter. Start following people.

Your photography teacher says your black and white shots from the concert don’t capture depth. Tell him you’re better with color. He sighs and says you’ll do poorly in the class if your final project isn’t better.

For your final project decide to do a self-portrait. You need a new profile picture, anyways.

Call Tara and friends to come help with your project. They ask if you’re taking pictures of them. You say no. They say they’re busy.

Text Abby about it. She doesn’t respond. She’s never been good with phones.

You decide to create the most popular profile picture of all time. Camera in hand, borrow the neighbor’s puppy. Get in a bathing suit. Go out to the snowy graveyard. Set up your tripod and cue the timer

Run through snow barefoot towing the puppy on a leash. Throw rose petals in the air at sunset.

In the photo lab, reduce the redness of mild frostbite—thin your thighs and fluff the puppy. Saturate the colors to make the petals look more exotic. Clarify the inscriptions on the tombs and erase your footsteps. Send it to your teacher in an email with the subject, Final.

Wait for when Facebook has the most traffic to post your profile picture.

Your teacher will give you a C in the class. He says the picture has no expression. Asks why you erased the shadows and why you are in a bathing suit and if your feet were cold in the snow. He’ll also ask for his camera back.

As you wait to post your new profile picture, Abby comes up on your newsfeed. It’s a picture of her head bent down her hair covering her face above a coffee mug. You can’t see if she’s smiling but you think she is. You think about calling her but don’t really know what to say. So you just like the picture.

It’s time. Post it.

Now wait. Wait. Refresh.

Brennan-CusackBrennan Cusack grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She graduated from Cate School in 2011 and is currently a junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She recently arrived back from a semester abroad in Turkey.

Image credit: LearningLark on Flickr

A SAD, LOGICAL CAPITULATION by Justin Nicholes

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GROUP OF SOLDIERS

A SAD, LOGICAL CAPITULATION
(after D. H. Lawrence)
by Justin Nicholes

The day a welding rod shimmied down Zou’s collar and combusted his shirt into singed tendrils, the same day my stomach caught traction in the scoop of his lower back and I knew I was in love, also the same day the building gave way, all of us died.

It’s how these things happen, I guess. During our lives our bodies ricochet along until all we stumble into, all that’s rolled our ways, amasses into these blurred mirrors (I’m getting at corporeality here; I’m getting at ghosts). The building’s integrity flagged, and we all lurched ground-ward in common cataclysm.

It sure did surprise us. I mean, we built this place. Just that morning we’d been gawking at Zou’s computer at an image he’d found. It was what the building would finally look like. Twilight purpled on the Dell’s loose-hinged screen. The sky smoked with purple-bellied clouds in the Dream-Weaver image. Living space in the building would sell for eighty-eight thousand Chinese yuan per square meter. Zou turned, his face cracked in tragic reflection (the last cast of beauty he’d manage). If we, workers from unit 414, stopped eating, in ten years each of us could afford closet space.

Provided we were alive, I said, and ventured a hand to Zou’s hip.

We’re not alive, though. Now we drift through beams. Our handprints beat into climaxing clarity then fade. We have bodies that seem whole, but that are invisible. This is no metaphor.

 ◊

Those of us who are dead worked long enough to raise the thirtieth floor. Beams glitter, almost blinding in the sun. A river runs beyond that. I could shoot my arms out, open them in front of me like an imitation of God, pierce through air and form a kind of slide-beam, an escalator angling from this skeleton. Down below, white hats surround the spot where we landed. They are looking up but cannot locate me. I’ve taken my white hat off. It’s rough around the rim. The smell of tar should be stinging my nose. We slathered it over joints for water resistance. We knew it would rust over time.

We once smoked Hongmei cigarettes. Smoking’s something off limits when dead. Eating steaming spicy soup, then smoking these cigs, would singe your lungs like inhaling chili peppers. The Hongmeis went for five yuan from street vendors. A red rose with a couple leaves and a thorny stem arced on the cover (a more affordable dream than luxury condos). I offered Zou one that morning. When he refused, I knew he’d really quit. I never smoked myself. Just kept that pack for him. He might’ve noticed that I traced the peck of his fingers that smooshed the filter in no casual, coworker way. He bit the tips. You always knew which butts were Zou’s by the four little incisor indentations, two on top, two on the bottom. I had a half pack at the time of the structural break.

My hand is trembling now. From this height, the wind roars.

The wide-hipped girl who operates the elevator—she’s the one to blame here.

She reads romance novels, almost all day. They’re printed on cheap paper and strung together with thread. The books are pirated, and we couldn’t stop thinking about her being interested in sex. She’s young, sure, and her face is smooth and bronze. Her hair is always in a ponytail.

Her name is Meimei, and she made it hard for Zou to sleep. After a day on the upper levels, after being lowered from the cocoon of bamboo scaffolding and debris-catching netting, I could smell her when she opened the elevator doors—all shampoo and laundry-detergent clean. When she looked up at us from the ground, we must’ve seemed like insects at work inside some bandage. Last night Zou left the encampment. His cot lay empty. I watched and watched but he never came back. I thought he’d left, escaped back to family and (God help him) work that pays.

Below me now, on the ground, the concrete workers mix. No point stopping over a few dead men. Yellow hats have arrived. They have probably parked their BMWs a block down and walked, which is why it’s taken so long. Last year, when the Production Office stalled on paychecks, we squatted around one manager’s car. Yellow hats point with hoarse, smokers’ voices. They’ll want to know why work paused. We’re dead, someone should say.

The intercom crackles beside me. “Hello? Hello?” They ask who is up here though they damn well know.

Meimei must be one hundred and fifty pounds. Plump arms make her hands seem delicate. I studied those hands. What was I missing? I watched and wondered why the answer wouldn’t come to me. Such a simple image had to be hiding intent.

Just minutes before the starting whistle, Zou showed up. Zou and Meimei didn’t look at each other.

He had his gloves in his hands, though, both of them, and slapped them on her hip. A small amount of dust exploded and Meimei’s face flushed. When the elevator gate closed, her eyes trailed him until beams broke her line of sight. The elevator’s pulley engine geysered steam and hissed. Zou stared off over the city, gazing through smog toward the last traces of blurred stars.

“What’d you do that for?” I finally asked.

The elevator gate screeched opened. One gate gave way to the crisscrossing of beams we’d welded, the other to the cityscape. His arms pin-wheeling, I didn’t have time to say I was sorry.

“Zhang?”

The voice through the intercom is a woman’s now.

“Zhang?”

It doesn’t matter. We’re dead down there. We fell, and there’s nothing Production or Meimei or Zou’s parents can say to bring that back.

Justin NicholesJustin Nicholes received an MFA from Wichita State and is the author of the novels River Dragon Sky (2012) and Ash Dogs (2008). His stories have appeared in The Saint Ann’s Review, Prick of the Spindle, The Summerset Review, Stickman Review, Sassafras, Outside In, The Medulla Review, and elsewhere. He’s the chief editor of The Pavilion and teaches English composition in China.

Image credit: Wikipedia

DEGENERATIVE DISEASES OF THE BRAIN by Juniper Green

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

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DEGENERATIVE DISEASES OF THE BRAIN
by Juniper Green

When I walk into her room Mrs. Goldberg does not recognize me. Every morning I help her out of bed, clean her up, and dress her. Every morning we meet for the first time. Some days she is thankful for my help. She calls me love, sweetheart, darling. Some days she curses me under her breath, scratches my arm when I try to steady her and cries out for a husband long deceased to come and chase the stranger out of their house.

“Did she give you any grief today,” Sam says as we meet by the bin in the hall.

“Nope,” I throw away a dirty nappy. “Sweet as a kitten.”

“That kitten has claws,” he lifts his forearm.

Three thin scars protrude from the skin. They’re smooth and translucent, catching the light as Sam flexes his arm. I want to reach out and touch them but Sam moves his arm away as he stuffs dirty sheets into the hamper next to the bin.

“Are you almost done with her?” he says.

“Almost, I’ve just got to get her down to breakfast.”

“Just put her on the settee,” Sam points to a worn sofa by the elevator. “I’ll get Suneeta to take her downstairs.”

“Thanks,” I smile a weak smile.

Looking forward to an extended coffee break, my shoulders straighten a little.

“You can help me on the two,” Sam says as he goes back into the room he’s been cleaning.

Of course, I think, and my shoulders slump back down.

After I have placed Mrs. Goldberg on the sofa where she will wait for Suneeta, however long it takes, I head over to the part of the house where Sam is helping the residents out of bed, waiting for me to come and join him.

“Sam?” I call through the corridor.

I cringe at the echo of my own voice. Most of the residents are still asleep and in room B12 Mr. Hauser is dying.

“In here.”

“In where?”

I take a step.

“Warmer.”

I don’t believe this. I shake my head but can’t fight the smile spreading on my lips.

“Sam?”

I take another step, eavesdropping on doors that harbor snoring residents.

“Getting warmer.”

“Sam?”

Another step, I push my ear up against a likely door. I snicker, I bet he’s in there.

“Hot now.”

I grin and rip open the door to room A17.

“Gotcha.”

“Got whom?” says Mr. Powell, the resident of A17.

He is standing in the open door to the bathroom with Sam behind him washing a bedsore on his buttock. Before Mr. Powell can fetch his glasses I shut the door. My cheeks are burning, Sam again.

“Since you’re taking care of Mr. Powell, I’m going to get started on Mrs. Wolff across the hall.”

“Sure.”

I walk off to B14, and this time I knock before I enter.

When I get down to the breakfast room with Mrs. Callander on my arm, most residents are seated. The more agile ones move around the room, making small talk about sleeping patterns and the current night nurse, giving shoulders a rub here and there. As I sit Mrs. Callander down I spot Sam at the far end of the room. I try to put my annoyance at him disappearing with Mr. Powell and leaving me on my own to get the rest of the residents ready into a single gesture. He smiles at me like a cheeky schoolboy and walks over. I have a feeling once he’s standing in front of me I won’t get a word out.

“Good morning Mrs. Callander,” Sam bends down to peer into her eyes.

Mrs. Callander smiles and blushes a little.

“Well, good morning to you, too.”

“Did you get another visit from your Johnny last night?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Callander chuckles. “He came through the window. We talked all night.”

I have to bite back a grin.

“I’m sure it was a lovely night,” Sam says.

“Oh, it was. Whenever my Johnny comes to visit it is very lovely.”

As I walk over to the kitchen counter to fetch Mrs. Callander’s breakfast, my stomach aches with the effort to hold back a laugh. I let out a choked thanks as I take the breakfast tray from the kitchen aid.

“Sam flirting with the old ladies again?” the aid says.

“They’re talking about her Johnny.”

“Hell, you make it to eighty and the president comes for a visit,” the aid mumbles and goes back into the kitchen.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I walk back to the table, the bubbles in my throat have settled.

“Here you go, Mrs. Callander,” I put down her tray. “Enjoy your meal.”

“Thank you dear.”

Sam winks at her before he follows me through the room.

“Cigarette break?”

He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Is Jenny here yet?”

“Dunno. Why don’t we get Suneeta to watch ’em?”

“Suneeta is not your personal slave, you know.”

“She’s not? I thought that’s why they sent those candy stripers in the first place.”

I bite my tongue before I say the things I can’t take back. He shrugs and grins but then he turns away. I look at my feet.

“There’s Jenny,” Sam says.

I look around the room but all I can see are residents chewing on stages of mushed breakfast.

“Where?”

“Over there,” Sam points across the room. “Hey Jenny.”

And then I see her too, straightening Mrs. Cowan’s wig, waving a distracted hand at Sam.

“Let’s get out of here before she comes over to talk to us.”

Sam grabs me by the elbow. As he drags me from the room, I spot Mr. Coleman, who is feeding his wife a slice of honey-buttered toast, and I think, Sam’s right, I need a break.

Outside I am rubbing at the goose bumps on my arms while Sam lights our cigarettes. The morning sun just isn’t enough when I’m standing here in a T-shirt.

“Here you go,” Sam hands me one of the cigarettes.

The filter is soggy with his spit but I don’t say anything.

“Such a nice morning,” Sam says. “They should build a conservatory, so the residents can eat outside.”

I look at Sam and raise an eyebrow.

“The board might take you up on that if you pitch it right.”

“You think so?”

“Sure,” I laugh. “If you build it yourself that is.”

Sam snorts and takes a drag from his cigarette.

“I could.”

“You’re a DIY-man?”

“No, but I’m a builder,” and that surprises me.

We stand there for a moment without saying anything until I can’t hold it in anymore.

“You are a builder? I thought you were a nurse.”

“Both,” he looks at me as if he can’t believe that I can’t believe that. “I used to lay brick.”

“Huh,” I exhale, the smoke stings my eyes. “Who would have thought?”

And as I look across the half-empty parking lot I can’t help but imagine Sam’s lean frame in a hard-hat, sweating the working man’s sweat, and when he touches my arm, I jump.

“Relax,” he says. “Where did you just go?”

“Just thinking about what to put in my notes after the shift,” I stare at his yellow fingers on my skin.

“Long time until then,” he sighs.

“Look there’s Mr. Coleman,” I hope Sam is distracted enough to move his hand away. “Good morning, Mr. Coleman.”

Mr. Coleman lifts a hand from the handles of his wife’s wheelchair and waves.

“I hope he’s put sunscreen on her,” Sam says and waves, and I hope that too.

I watch them as he wheels her off into the garden.

“So you fancy a lift after work?” Sam says, and I wish he hadn’t.

Mr. Coleman is gone and there is nothing to distract him with. I nod and when he smiles and leans in, his chest brushing my shoulder, I regret that I did. The heat radiating off him makes me go back to daydreaming about hard-hats and bricks and all these things I don’t know about him.

Since Jenny is in a mood, I am feeding Mrs. Coleman at lunch. Sam is on bathroom-duty. Mr. Coleman has gone home for the day, I wonder if she knows. I crush the potatoes and vegetables before I navigate the mush into Mrs. Coleman’s toothless mouth, gaping at me like a wet, pink cave.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” Sam nods to the mush on the plate, as he returns Mrs. Callander to her seat. “She’s never had dentures.”

“So?” I try not to look at him.

Jenny is watching us from the door.

“Here it comes, Mrs. Coleman,” I smile at her. “Open up wide.”

“Her gums are so callous. She could chew steak.”

I doubt that but I don’t argue. Mrs. Coleman chews and smiles, humming like a small, wrinkled refrigerator.

“Someone likes her meals,” Sam says in that exaggerated voice he uses with the residents.

Mrs. Coleman doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t look at me either. She looks at the spoon before it goes into her mouth.

“If only you were that content,” I say.

“Maybe when I’m old and have no more teeth,” Sam grins. “For now I’ll have to settle on being young and restless.”

I shake my head and concentrate on shoveling more lunch goo into Mrs. Coleman’s gaping mouth. Sam watches me, until Mrs. Callander starts tugging at his sleeve.

“Excuse me young man. But would you mind fetching the nurse?”

“Mrs. Callander. I am the nurse.”

“Oh, well then would you mind accompanying me to the bathroom.”

Sam bends down and puts an arm on her sleeve.

“Mrs. Callander, we just went. Five minutes ago.”

Mrs. Callander studies Sam’s face, pursing her lips but he just smiles at her.

“Did we? Well then I guess it can wait a while.”

I am mesmerized by Sam’s patience, which he appears to have reserved for the residents only. As he strokes Mrs. Callander’s arm, smiling at her, I feel acid bubbling up my throat. I can’t wait for my shift to end and for Sam to quit his job and return to working in construction and then I wave Suneeta over before I end up smothering Mrs. Coleman in her mashed potatoes.

After lunch I scribble down some notes for the late shift, an eye on the door of the break room. Sam is still helping residents go to the bathroom, since Mrs. Callander ended up soiling herself.

I can see him entering the break room as I round the corner, heading for the exit. I should change before I leave but that would take another ten minutes. Time I don’t have if I want to catch the bus and I want to catch the bus because if I don’t I’ll end up catching a ride with Sam and as much as I want to, I have a feeling I shouldn’t. So I run across the street where the bus is approaching my stop and as I get on I see Sam exit the building. he’s looking around, looking at me, turning a gesture into a question. And I want to turn back, get off the bus, walk over but there’s a line behind me pushing me forward, so I just shrug at him, pay my fare, and find a seat.

 

Juniper-GreenJuniper Green is a writer at the very beginning of her career. After long periods of aimless wandering she has settled in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she is working on her portfolio as well as editing her first novel. Previously her work has appeared online in Foliate Oak and The Dying Goose.

Image credit: Ulrich Joho on Flickr

ALL GOOD THINGS by B.A. Varghese

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

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ALL GOOD THINGS
by B.A. Varghese

The milk was white and it squirted out from under his hands. He pulled and pulled the cow’s udders one at a time to a rhythmic beat and I watched it fall down in spurts after each pull. I didn’t know that. I just didn’t know that. I was mesmerized by Appachan’s hands as he pulled and pulled and out it dropped and when it hit it made a metallic clink until the bottom started filling then it sounded like liquid hitting liquid.

I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want to leave home without my father. I told him I didn’t want to go but he told me I had to. He told me we didn’t have family here and that we had no one to help my mother once the baby came so we had to go. He told me I’d get to see all of Kerala and I’d get to see my grandparents and their farm. I told him I didn’t want to go but he gave me a look like I had no choice and that he wasn’t going to be happy if I didn’t go. I asked why he couldn’t come and he told me he had work and that he would come later, after the baby was born, and then he would bring us all back to the States. I told him I still didn’t want to go to India.

It took a long time to get here. I was on a plane, and then a car, and then a bus that said Pathanamthitta in faded black letters with a bunch of other letters I didn’t understand. Now, I was here watching Appachan as he sat crouched down on a stool, pulling and pulling. I wanted my mother but the