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Grub Street 2016
Grub Street 2016
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Anyone is welcome to submit. Please limit your submissions to five poems, two prose pieces,
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ii
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iv
Creative
Nonfiction
Janet Carlson,
editor
Alexandra Bair
Matt Bucci
Tamela Davis
John Gillespie
Charles C. Heuer
Kristen McCurdy
Brendan Muldoon
Poetry
Samantha
Brunner, editor
Kevin Anacta
Jesse Cox
Anita David
Olivia Godwin
Kristin Helf
Justin Helffrich
Rachael Kalinyak
Josephine Lee
Kitrina Ross
Caitlin Turton
High School
Contest
Kristin Helf,
director
Kevin Anacta
Brandt Dirmeyer
Justin Helffrich
Raven Mortimer
Brendan Muldoon
Caitlin Turton
Social Media
& Web Design
Jenna Kahn,
web director
Codie Brown,
social media
director
Alexandra Bair
Anita David
Rachael Kalinyak
Kristen McCurdy
Kitrina Ross
Matt Shortess
Visual Art
Tamela Davis,
editor
Josephine Lee,
editor
Kristin Helf
Erika Huber
Rachael Kalinyak
Katherine Williams
Archival
Research
Matt Bucci
John Gillespie
Olivia Godwin
Ben Perkins
Faculty
Michael Downs,
adviser
Grub Street v
Contents
From the Editor
Katie LaHatte_____________________________________________________________ xi
Feature
An Interview with Elissa Schappell, Kristin Helf ________________________________ 39
Creative Nonfiction
Baltimore Boy Dead in China, Erica Lee Berquist _______________________________ 3
Never Trust an Addict, Taylor Dowell________________________________________ 59
Bewildered: An iPhonic Narrative, John Gillespie ______________________________ 86
Virgin, Chelsea Cassity ___________________________________________________ 134
Finding the Happy Ending, Marianne Janack _________________________________ 140
Memory, Velvet Smith ____________________________________________________ 146
Giving Up the Ghost, Kristen McCurdy ______________________________________ 148
Poetry
After Being Released from Prison, Brazil, Stephen Scott Whitaker _________________ 1
Thunk, Jonathan Greenhause ________________________________________________ 8
Deflowering Floriano on the World Stage in Florianpolis, John J. Trause ___________ 9
El nombre de las cosas, Sydney Chanmugam __________________________________ 15
The Name of Things, translated by Samantha Brunner________________________ 15
Paul Taylor to Martha Graham, Michael P. McManus __________________________ 17
Coffee/Table, Jonathan Greenhause __________________________________________ 20
Dear Diabetic, Taylor Dowell _______________________________________________ 22
My Neighbors Pet Giraffe, Stephen Williams __________________________________ 25
Untitled, Margot Block ____________________________________________________ 26
Hair cut, Monika Lee______________________________________________________ 51
Contrabands, Al Maginnes _________________________________________________ 57
vi
Poetry Cont.
Object to Be Eaten, John J. Trause ___________________________________________ 65
The Abortion, Joel Allegretti ________________________________________________ 82
Guardian, Al Maginnes ___________________________________________________ 93
My Country, Al Maginnes _________________________________________________ 100
The Wrong Way is Richmond, Timothy Dodd ________________________________ 102
Plastic Jesus, Among Driftwood, Liz N. Clift __________________________________ 109
Tangier, Jordan Wilner ___________________________________________________ 110
face value, Christine Nichols ______________________________________________ 138
Prayers to St. Penelope, Jordan Wilner _______________________________________ 153
Reading One of My Poems to My Father, Al Maginnes _________________________ 164
Stelle e fiori, John J. Trause________________________________________________ 165
Aubade with Hangover and Bug Zapper, D.G. Geis ___________________________ 168
Fiction
Crayola, Tamela Davis_____________________________________________________ 11
Life Under the Bell Jar, Hope Richardson _____________________________________ 45
Tache Noir, Emily Reinhardt Welsch _________________________________________ 53
Big Dog, Michael B. Tager _________________________________________________ 69
The Broken Chain, Mike Clough ____________________________________________ 76
How to Go Hiking in the Adirondacks, Olivia Godwin __________________________ 96
Epistle of St. Luke, Matt Prater ______________________________________________ 103
Flashlight, Maria S. Picone_________________________________________________ 135
Ghosts of Yam Market, Ekweremadu Uchenna ________________________________ 157
Visual Art
Urban Squares, Gillian Collins _______________________________________________ 2
Huellas de la tierra, Vivian Caldern Bogoslavsky _____________________________ 10
Residual, Brianna L. Pleasant _______________________________________________ 16
Hamburger Acid, Ian Postley_______________________________________________ 21
Premeditated, Erick Kogler _________________________________________________ 23
Phantom Limbs, blkVelma _________________________________________________ 24
Match Strike, Ian Postley ___________________________________________________ 27
Elissa Schappell, Jasmine A. Harvey__________________________________________ 38
Red, Blue, and Gold, Tani Teixeira ___________________________________________ 49
You, Too, Tara Patronik ____________________________________________________ 50
Waterfall, blkVelma _______________________________________________________ 52
Paco, William Strang-Moya _________________________________________________ 64
Its Electric!, Glen Banks ___________________________________________________ 66
Bird Nest Warmth, Eleanor Leonne Bennett ___________________________________ 67
A Desultory Omnibus, Ian Postley ___________________________________________ 68
Pigeons & Doves, Nessi Alexander-Barnes _____________________________________ 75
Air Jordanstein, JLaw______________________________________________________ 83
Air Memory, JLaw _________________________________________________________ 84
Yeezy Rebirth, JLaw _______________________________________________________ 85
Cumulus Congestus, Helen Bell _____________________________________________ 95
Thanksgiving Morning, Gillian Collins ______________________________________ 101
Flight, Gillian Collins _____________________________________________________ 111
Clarinda Harriss, Jasmine A. Harvey________________________________________ 125
Grasp, Brianna L. Pleasant ________________________________________________ 136
Masculine, Shelagh Cully _________________________________________________ 137
The Good Witch, Eleanor Leonne Bennett ___________________________________ 139
Haunted, Shelagh Cully___________________________________________________ 145
triangles, Anna Martin ____________________________________________________ 152
Impasse, Nessi Alexander-Barnes___________________________________________ 156
Moon, Helen Bell________________________________________________________ 166
Walk, Helen Bell ________________________________________________________ 167
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124
128
130
132
Contributors____________________________________________________________ 169
Grub Street ix
August 2005: It had been a busy, end-of-summer family trip to Saratoga Springs.
Sneaking onto a golf course and playing the sixth hole, spying winning horses at the
racetrack, taking a lopsided pontoon boat out on Lake Georgetiring things, really. So,
on Sunday morning, we just wanted a nice, relaxing breakfast.
And so, it turns out, did every other person in town.
My dads friendthe person we traveled to visithad said hed find us the perfect
place. He knew the town, knew what would be open. Four restaurants later and
straddling the line between breakfast and lunch, we seven filed into a bagel shop,
grumbling and groaning. The line was twelve deep, and my dad was finished waiting.
He told us what to order and walked out.
We moved two inches in line. Stopped. Moved two more inches. Stopped. Repeated
several times. A lot of stop-and-go for a bagel.
Full disclosure: this storys not about a bagel. Its not even about the trip. This story
is about the book my dad bought when he disappeared that morning: The Beatles
Complete Chord Songbook.
I wasnt quite sure why my dad bought a Beatles book. He was a Who fan, an
Aerosmith fan. I was raised on Wont Get Fooled Again and Same Old Song and
Dance, not the Fab Four. Besides, I thought, what kind of a stupid name is The
Beatles? We threw the book in the car after breakfast and headed back to Maryland.
About a week later, we rediscovered the chord book. My dad found our only
Beatles CD, Please Please Me, placed it in the five-disc stereo player, and strummed
along to I Saw Her Standing There, the first song on the album. Id never heard
anything like itthe simple two-part harmonies, the peppy guitar licks, the trite oooohs
sandwiched in each chorus. We played through the rest of the album hungrily, rifling
through the pages to find the next song before it started. Then we played it again.
I took my forty-year-old boy band to middle school, the Please Please Me songs
playing in a loop in my head. Id calculated that I still had 181 songs left to learn, 181
songs spanning ten years and thirteen albums. No one else knew what I was talking
about. No one else was dying to see Rain, a Beatles tribute band, at the Hippodrome
Theater in downtown Baltimore. No one else was bouncing off the walls when the
Grub Street xi
movie Help! arrived in the mail. And no one elses mother sewed Sgt. Peppers Lonely
Hearts Club Band costumes for four children on Halloween.
To my friends, I was in love with a bunch of dead guys. I couldnt help it. The
book was my portal to the pastmy gateway drug to the 60s and 70sand I liked it
there. My music had substance, rhythm, thoughtful lyrics. My boy band played real
instruments. So what if I was the only eleven-year-old girl doodling John, George, Paul,
and Ringo instead of Kevin, Joe, and Nick? The Jonas Brothers just werent my type.
History has a funny way of wiggling itself into the contemporary world. Take, for
example, Fall Out Boys Uma Thurman, or Rihanna, Kanye, and Paul McCartneys
FourFiveSeconds: classic riffs and classic artists reformed to fit twenty-first-century
needs. Or, look at fashion trends: bohemian hats and kimono sleeves, or denim
overalls and crop tops? In 2016, you can have the 70s and the 90syou dont need to
choose! And consider literature: recent films depict Romeo and Juliet as gun-wielding
kids in Verona Beach and as ceramic garden gnomes. Both modern adaptations work,
true to Shakespeares star-crossed tragedy. Okay, so Gnomeo & Juliet ends on a high
note, not with regret and pain and heartache. Sometimes, new variations twist and turn
old works for a fresh perspective.
We can find the beautiful juxtaposition of past and present anywhere. My family
owns a business selling welding, safety, and industrial supplies. The other day, while
working with my dad, we delivered packs of welding rod to the Domino Sugar plant
off of Key Highway in Baltimore. We pulled onto the property, the sweet stench of
burning sugar hanging heavy in the air. I thought about the updated code books and
regulations as I put on my safety glasses and hard hat. I thought about modern welding
practices and protective work wear, the contemporary machinery in the buildings. And
then my thoughts shiftedI noticed the details. The century-old brick buildings, worn
railroad tracks snaking through the bottom levels. The blown-out windows lining the
upper stories. Inside one building, we had to take a freight elevator to the third floor,
collapsible-gate-and-hold-for-service-button and all. The elevator, stained black with
grease and grime, crept upwards as it scraped the brick walls, jolting to a stop when
we released the button.
We delivered the welding rod, took the sputtering elevator back down, and headed
to the van. I sat in the passenger seat, marveling at how people could work in those
archaic conditions. The coexistence between past and present was odd, somewhat
jarring. I turned the radio to the classic rock stationan immediate reflexand it
dawned on me: I was co-existing with past and present. I was physically living in the
twenty-first century, but my mind was floating backwards, finding comfort in the music
of the 60s and 70s. I was twenty-one years old, connecting with people who were
twenty-one forty years ago. There was something admirable, something beautiful
both at Domino Sugar and in my own lifein that transcendence, that ability to live
beyond time and appreciate the unity of old and new.
With Grub Streets 65th anniversary issue, we hoped to marry old and new, gritty
and elegant, comforting and heartbreaking. We searched the archives and contacted
people who worked on different Towson literary magazines in the last seven decades.
We wanted real human emotion, real memories and experiences. As our first poem,
After Being Released from Prison, Brazil, says, we wanted to [live] other lives.
On our way, though, we learned something interesting. As we read pieces from the
archives, pieces inspired by past decades, and pieces inspired by present times, we
scratched our heads in awe. We thought we would stumble across strange poetic
forms, characters with outdated quirks and colloquialisms. Instead, we found that
people are still judged by their skin color, their jobs, their houses. Some people are
scared to voice their opinions. Others are still insecure about their relationships. They
feel unsafe at home, unwanted or unloved. Others are still willing to sacrifice a steady
job and a place to sleep for their country or their craft or their family. The other lives
we wanted to live? They are near-reflections of today. Humans havent changed much
over the last 65 years.
Putting this journal together was like making an album, or a mix tape, or a playlist,
depending on your generation. It was like finding a favorite band after eleven years,
after experimenting with different genres and decades. We worked the color, the tone,
the rhythm of each piece together for this journal. We wanted striking melodies and
subtle harmonies, duets across pages. We grasped at human longing, whether for the
past or for the future, like stupid insects / All rushing to embrace the light (Aubade
with Hangover and Bug Zapper).
People will always look to the past for guidanceits in our blood. Well ask for
help, revisit old stories as we rush toward the light, impulsive and hungry. But really,
we know what those stories will say. We can guess their advice because those stories
stories filled with heartbreak and struggle and joystill exist. Were living those lives
now, the same lives people lived decades ago. Sure, things change and morph. We
adapt. But we wont fade away. Our storiesour liveswill continue to exist in the
corner of the present eye. Well stand as a reminder, a guide. We wont be history.
Grub Street 1
Baltimore Boy
Dead in China
Erica Lee Berquist
Urban Squares
Gillian Collins
Oil
Grub Street 3
Grub Street 5
Baltimore Boy
Edgar F. Sinskey,
circa 1899
Tintype
Grub Street 7
Jonathan Greenhause
John J. Trause
Thunk
Deflowering Floriano
on the World Stage
in Florianpolis
{
8
Grub Street 9
Crayola
Tamela Davis
We lie in bed, side-by-side on our stomachs, one arm outstretched, shoulder-toshoulder. I like the contrast, so much so, that I decide, then and there, naked, tangled
in our powder blue sheets, that Ill make it the subject of my next series. I roll onto
my side so I can get a better look at him, my lips pursed in concentration. He glares
at me, sleepily, over the curve of his shoulder, and I smile. He blinks and shuts
them again; his thick eyelashes caress his cheek. I will make his skin apricot, with
maize highlights and beaver shadows. It has just the right amount of purple in it for
shadows. Ill make his freckles tumbleweed. I think they are the thing I love most
about him. They stretch across his broad back, dotting his round shoulders and his
high cheekbones. The suns road map to his weak points. I kiss his shoulder. He
moans and rolls over on to his side. I stretch my arm up to the ceiling and wiggle my
fingers. What color should I make me? I run through the index of Crayola colors in
my mind and the closest color I can think of is outerspace. I am too dark to be sienna
or even raw umber. There is far too much blue in my hue. Outerspace, as if I am
some sort of alien. Outerspace. I am all dark purples and deep blues in my hues, but
not bruised. Not outerspace.
I drop my hand back against the sheets and pull myself closer to him. As if sensing
my sadness and indignation or maybe just my warmth, the cover hog, he turns, and
twists in bed till I am in his arms, my breast pressed firmly against his chest. His
cheek rests against my forehead, mouth slightly open, and he snores his little quiet
snore, his chest moving rhythmically with sleep. His manhood twitches against my
thigh with life and intentions of its own.
Still dating that white boy? my sister croons as she places a cream cloth napkin
onto her lap. I roll my eyes. The tablecloth is white, most clock faces are white,
Styrofoam is white. My Nate is not white nor has he ever been. He is apricot.
His name is Nathan, thanks, and yes. I am, I hiss, setting my water glass aside.
She shakes her head, a condescending smile on her face, as if Im one of her five kids
who just wont learn.
10
You should go find yourself a good Nigerian man! One that will take care of you!
I dont need to be taken care of, I mutter, turning to face the window. I watch
as a murder of pigeons lands by the fountain just outside the window. Is it flock of
pigeons? Does
murder only apply
There is far too much blue in my hue.
to crows? Why are
Outerspace, as if I am some sort of alien.
crows a murder
in a group? Are
they murderous in a flock? Is it because they are dark? Black as an oil slick. Why does
everything black have to be bad? I shake my head and realize my sister is still talking.
Maybe you should put some meat on your bones! Youre too skinny! Nigerian
men dont like women who are too skinny. She pinches my arm, and I gape at her
incredulously. She bulges and bursts out of her clothes in the wrong places. She is not
fat but she is far from as thin as she used to be. Having five kids and all.
Oh? Lucky for me, Nate loves me just the way I am.
Did you know that a murder of crows was coined by hunters? I shout, barely
turning my head from the bright screen of the computer in the kitchen. My mouth
hangs open as I lean in, scrolling through the etymology page. I hear Nates heavy
footfall as he rounds the corner into the kitchen.
What? he says absent-mindedly as he thumbs through the mail. I twist in my
chair. I watch as he tosses the mail on the counter and grabs a handful of yogurtcovered raisins in the golden-yellow bowl on the countertop.
Murder of crows. Hunters used terms like that, and it was popularized by authors
and poets. You know, like mob of kangaroos or whatever. Theyre called terms of
venery. I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. Nate arches one deep redorange brow, a smile on his atomic tangerine lips.
What? he says again, and the raisins in his mouth make it sound like Whot. I
roll my eyes and turn my back to him.
Youre such a freak! I huff. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and attacks
my neck with kisses. I like the feel of his stubble against my skin and the burn it
leaves after.
You love it! He kisses my cheek hard, so hard I can feel his teeth in it. He holds
a raisin to my lips, and I suck it from his fingers.
Grub Street 13
I glance at my first picture, the only one on black paper. Thats all Ian saw when he
looked at me, at us. I can still see the disgust behind his forced, tight-lipped smile at
the cookout, separating and reducing us to flat color. Black. White. Hell, this is how the
world sees us. Theyre technically shades anyway. I never really got that whole colored
thing. Black and white are the absence of color. They are colorless. I leer at the Crayola
box, all yellow and green and glaring. Outerspace, my ass. I think Ill do an oil painting
instead of my usual crayon-based medium. Oil paint has such vibrancy to it and I can
mix colors to my own specifics. But tomorrow, after Ive had my fill of him.
Sydney Chanmugam
El nombre
de las cosas
Inteligencia no me da nada;
En su lugar, tengo que usar la luna.
El viento y el mar.
La sorpresa silenciosa de la csped
antes de congelarse.
La lengua de las cosas que ya supe
un mil aos antes de nacimiento, que
no podemos encontrar en ningn libro.
Es lo que dicen las flores a las abejas y
lo que dicen la sombra al sol.
Sin paredes entre entendimiento.
Ahora solo puedo adivinar,
como supongo que tienes que adivinar.
Pero nada puede contarme
ni tu
(aunque ya ped)
el nombre de las cosas.
{
14 Crayola Tamela Davis
Translated by
Samantha Brunner,
2016
Grub Street 15
Michael P. McManus
Paul Taylor to
Martha Graham
He argues that she continues to dance well past her prime in 1965,
and consequently defends his own unique style of dance.
Residual
Brianna L. Pleasant
Watercolor and acrylic
on paper
16
Grub Street 17
Grub Street 19
Jonathan Greenhause
Coffee/ Table
My coffee table takes itself too literally & melts into a brown puddle
indistinguishable from my coffee cup & coffee cake,
while my living rooms grown a life of its own,
quoting passages from essays by Albert Camus & obsessed
with the fragility of its existence.
My dining room devours everything in sight,
dining on the table in a foreseeable act of cannibalism,
& the bathrooms drawn & drowned itself, flooding the apartments below.
The sinks sunk in a deep depression
out of which neither hot nor cold water could save it.
In the closet, coat hangers have hanged our winter coats,
killing anything able to keep us warm,
& the shed has shed itself of all its possessions.
The fire alarms have burst into flames,
the dishwasher will wash nothing but dishes,
the garbage cans have thrown themselves away,
& the bedrooms a single mattress wrapped in its linens.
What was once our common apartment
is now post-post-modern, painfully aware of its rigid definitions
& universally taken for granted,
a collection of brown puddles indistinguishable from everything else.
20
Grub Street 21
Taylor Dowell
Dear Diabetic
22
Stephen Williams
My Neighbors
Pet Giraffe
My neighbor has a pet giraffe who tells me ponderous things.
The knowing is a blessing and the blessing is a bind.
His kith have grown great weary
of the trace of man on earth.
We played with rain,
we danced in fire,
put virus in our veins.
Theyve kicked us out,
weve got to go,
to find another globe.
Abandon vulgar hunting ships,
put noise machines to rust.
Close every shop
that wants to block
the sunlight from above.
But, he calls me friend,
and tolerates
my near to ceaseless sobbing.
He likes my face,
hell let me stay.
And if Im good,
then I can draw
his daily draft of water.
Goodbye mankind,
hope all goes well,
now watch the beasts do better.
Margot Block
Untitled
and the world is a globe of fire in these hands
part machine and picture from space
and dont steal a soul because of her oceans or the desert winds or my fire
dare to bring me down to the oceans that call me glory
while she no longer feels she breathes a line
what about closer truth?
what about the song?
a hunger, never enough when you call yourself the just
to crawl this poetry home, to believe
you push the dream and you said you could not love me home
26
Grub Street 27
Creative Writing
Contest
Grub Street congratulates one young artist for the 2016 High School Creative Writing
Contest. Elissa Schappell, writer and co-founder of Tin House literary magazine, whose
work is featured in such publications as Vanity Fair and The Paris Review, served as judge
and selected our winner in poetry and prose. See page 39 for an interview with Schappell.
Prose:
Smoke and Ashes by Julia Sullivan of Bel Air High School
Poetry:
Old Eastern Avenue by Julia Sullivan of Bel Air High School
More than 50 Maryland high schools had the opportunity to participate in this years
contest. The Grub Street staff read each piece and selected six poems and three prose
pieces as finalists. The staff then sent those works to Elissa Schappell, who judged them
without knowing the names of the young artists or their high school affiliations.
28
Schappells comments: I was immediately taken with the voice of Liz, our tough,
gimlet-eyed narrator. I admired the realistic dialogue, dark humor, and the authors
willingness to allow her characters to be complicated, damaged people struggling to
figure out how to get along in a world that seems to be changing around them (as
we all are). It seems a good choice to have the ending be open. Liz may think that her
father is gone forever, but like fireworks which are supposed to be celebratory, and her
family and friends behavior which is supposed to be good fun, nothing is really as it
seemsor not for very long. Thats a hard truth, and it was handled with great skill.
Townhouses pinned us in on either side while smoke drifted over, choking us with
an overwhelming smell of gunpowder and fire. It was July 3rd and almost the entire
neighborhood was jam-packed next to each otherall because Dad wanted to start
the party early. No one in the neighborhood got the works like Dad. He had enough
alcohol and firepower packed to take out a full-sized SUV.
Everybody take a few steps back now. Getting burned by this here, motioning his
lighter towards the firework next to his feet, will make you sing louder and higher than
a baby on crack! He really does have a way with words.
We were all leaning against the siding with our heads up and then Pop, pop, pop.
Strands of neon spaghetti exploded and blossomed into large umbrellas, disappearing
for a few seconds before ash and cardboard plummeted onto our heads. It didnt help
that it was so dark and cloudy that we couldnt see the burning debris coming our way.
Every time the fireworks stopped, it was my job to find all the evidence.
Hey, Dad, how am I supposed to pick all this up? Its really freakin hot.
Liz, youre a big girl. You can figure it out yourself. He ignored my existence and
continued talking to his buddies. I walked over to the burning pieces in front of me and
kicked them halfway across the lawn, over towards the trashcans.
I stopped when I saw the flashing red and blue lights pull up behind us. An officer
stepped out of her car and slowly strutted over. I knew she wasnt here to tell us it was
Grub Street 29
too dry outside, like it had been for the past three summers. Maybe someone heard
the miniature bombs ricocheting off their roof? My mom willingly stepped forward
to speak with the officer while my dad tried to make a two-thousand dollar pile of
fireworks disappear.
Hello, maam, my name is Officer Shultz. Sorry to interrupt everyone this evening, but
we got a call saying there was a lot of noise coming from this area, specifically fireworks.
By the time the officer finished her warning script, my mom figured out her own script.
Yes, were all done now. We didnt mean anything by it, just a few firecrackers.
Were going to start to head inside anyway.
Alright. She nodded her head and looked around at everyone. Were really just
concerned about everyones safety. I dont want to get another call telling me to come
down here, okay? Next time there will be no warnings, and someone will get fined.
Thank you so much for everything. Bye-bye now! She generically smiled and
waved as Officer Shultz walked away. My mom gave me and my dad one of those
looks, and it hit me: I knew who called the cops.
It was the old lady who lived at the end of our court. The grass in front of her
house reached to my waist, while her tree branches were so long they were grinding
against her roof. My mom had found out through some of her friends that the woman
had two sons, but both were grown and married by now. Everyone just referred to
her as the witch-lady because not only was she a spitting image of the Wicked
Witch of the West, but no matter the time of day if you went anywhere near her lawn
she popped out of nowhere. Hey, get away from my house, or Ill call the cops, shed
yell as shed peek her head out the door, as if she was too afraid to say it to our faces.
Everyone said their see-you-tomorrows and headed inside. Everyone except for
my family and my next-door neighbors, Jeff and Renee, who stood gathered on our
front lawn. My cousin Dannie showed up late and flashed his headlights, sure that
hed made a worthy entranceas if his trashy Ford Pinto wasnt enough. He walked
over and made sure he said hello to everyone before grabbing a beer. When he
passed me on the way to the cooler, I looked over towards his car and saw a big
box hed placed on his hood. He came back my way, stopped right beside me and
nudged at my shoulder. Hey kid, I brought you something.
Oh, you did? I raised my eyebrows. Thatll be the first.
Stop acting so tough. He started walking towards his car. Come here, Ill show you.
Youre not that much older than me you know? I caught up to him and stood
beside his Ford with its duct-taped window and rust-covered hood. He grabbed
the box Id seen earlier and spun it around on the hood. The side said, THE
PERSECUTOR, and below it read, 1000 COUNTITLL BLOW YOUR MIND.
LITERALLY.
So you like it? he said. My eyes were torn between the pretty colors and the
bombs explosiveness.
Oh my God. I threw my hands up to my mouth and faked Miss America tears.
This is the best thing that has ever happened to me! My dad walked up behind me
and grabbed hold of the back of my neck.
Liz, you disrespecting your cousin? He took a big swig of his fifty-thousandth
beer. You need to learn how to respect your elders. If I wouldve talked to my pop
like that, shoot, I wouldve gotten the belt. Maybe thats how we can get your act
together, what do ya think? He gave me a little shove like he was joking, but I could
see that he was seriously considering it. You never know with him: one minute hes
happy as can be, the next hes screaming and slamming doors.
Yup. At this point I was just trying to get myself away from any conflict, so
I scurried over and stood beside my mom. Over my shoulder, I could hear Dad
explaining to Dannie how witch-lady called the cops on us. And then these smart
guys came up with a plan.
Why dont we set off THE PERSECUTOR in front of her house to get back at her?
My mom, Jeff, and Renee joined in on the action and started heading down the
street. I shouldve went inside, but I knew I couldnt: I had full-grown adults giggling
and running through peoples lawns, stepping on scooters and skateboards, about to
completely trigger the meanest lady around. They needed me. The whole time I had
stayed a few yards back so I could see what they were doing without getting caught.
When we got to the end of the court, I hid behind an island, crouched behind a pine
tree, while the others crouched down and squeezed between parked cars.
Dannie grabbed a lighter from my mom, quietly carried the bomb over, and
placed it on the sidewalk in front of the witchs house. Everyone immediately started
sprinting back up the street. Within a few seconds the fuse flared up and wore down
to a slight sizzle-pop. I jumped out from behind the tree and ran with them, knowing
witch-lady would catch me if I didnt. They were all so drunk theyd assumed Id
been there with them from the start. By the time we made it halfway up the court, all
we could hear was popopopopopopopopopopop! White flashes seared up into the air
with a reeeeeeiiiir pop, over and over again. The blasts were so loud Dannie jerked
Grub Street 31
and spun around, which made him knock over someones trash can, drawing even
more attention towards us. All of them were so drunk they just laughed it off, left him
behind, and kept running. By this time I realized I should help him. Dannie quickly
caught up to the crew and me, and they all made it back to base without too many
scratches. Only a few minutes after, while we were still catching our breaths, the cops
pulled back into the court. My
mom suddenly focused on me
with a look of concern and
Within a few seconds the fuse flared up
disgust, like Id lied to her.
and wore down to a slight sizzle-pop.
Get inside and shut the door.
Now. I did as I was told, but
it was too late for the five of
them to run inside without being noticed, so they all ducked, darted, and hid under
Dads and Jeffs trucks. The whole time the blasts were still going off: it felt like
minutes had passed.
My father lies back in the hospital bed, the IV in his arm continually drip drip
drips. He takes a deep breath as the nurse walks into the room.
Hello. How are yall doing today? She looks to my father. Feeling any better?
How do I feel? he says. I feel like shit, thats how I feel.
Dad, stop. I turn to the nurse. Im sorry. He gets snappy when hes away from home.
The nurse nods her head, turns towards the monitor, and makes scribbles on her
clipboard. She finishes and smiles at my father. Mister Matthew, be happy that
youve got someone here for you. Not everyone has that. She shakes a disciplinary
finger at him. You have a nice day now. She smiles and walks out the door to the
nursing desk.
I turn to him. Why do you have to be so rude? I understand youre older and
everything, but you cant just walk around talking to people like that.
Im a grown-ass man, I can talk to whoever I want however I want. He coughs
excessively then folds his arms across his chest. Why are you even here?
I was hoping I could talk some sense into you, but clearly you still cant see it.
See what?
So, you dont understand that this is the third time in the last year you were sent
to the hospital for passing out drunk in a public place? Thats not normal. You need to
help yourself, Dad. I cant watch you do this to yourself anymore.
Like that, youre gonna leave me alone, just like your mother. Thats fine with me.
No wife, no kid Finally just me and my shot kidneys I dont love you, you dont
love me. Why waste our time?
I snatch my bag and shoot out of my chair. You make it impossible to love you.
In a hoarse tone he mumbles, Get the heck out of my room.
Godspeed. I leave the room with my sleeves bunched up in my hands.
Its pouring rain when I walk out of the building. I duck under an awning before
making a dash through puddles and potholes. I shuffle through minivans and faded white
lines to get to my Mazda. I unlock the door and propel myself inside. I drop my head
against the seat. My heavy breathing fogs the windows. Why is it so hard to like you?
I sat in the dark, with my head tilted out of the living room window, and watched
as the cop walked up and down the street shining his flashlight in backyards and
around shrubs. I sighed with relief when he passed our house. Last thing I needed was
to watch my parents get bitched out in the middle of the night by an old lady with
people problems. The officer crossed the road and headed towards the end of the
street. He probably told witch-lady that it was a bunch of teenagers and that well call
you if we find out anything else. After hed left, the adults started to roll out from under
the trucks, all of them covered in dirt and oil. Within an instant, my dad was irritated
beyond belief. Renee! Did you really just squat and piss on my tire?
Sorry, but when I gotta go, I gotta go. She got up out of her stance and stumbled
onto her front steps with pee running down her leg. She stopped, randomly jolted her
head, and puked all over herself: there was an orange, slurpish vomit dripping off her
face, her hair, and on her
dress.
Youre disgusting!
I drop my head against the seat. My heavy
He started walking up
breathing fogs the windows. Why is it so
our front steps.
hard to like you?
My mom yelled out,
Matthew, where you
going?
Obviously, Im getting the hell away from that. He nodded his head towards
Renee, who was sitting on the grass beside her vomit, crying and laughing. He yanked
open the storm door, then slammed it shut. My mom helped Renee up and walked her
inside. Jeff had left her outside and said, Shes grown, she can take care of herself.
Grub Street 33
My dad stumbled over to the lamp and switched it on. I crouched in front of the
window, gazing up at him. He wrinkled his nose. What are you doing up? I thought I
told you to go to bed hours ago.
Mom said, I started as I got up onto my feet, that I could stay up a bit longer.
Umm, did I ask you what your mother said? No. See, thats what your problem is.
You dont even listen to what I say. I looked down and tried to walk past him, but he
grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Where do you think youre going, young lady?
Did I excuse you? You look at me when Im talking to you, do you understand me?
Yes I understand. I couldnt look at him when he was like that.
Really, you understand? If you understand, why arent you looking at me!?
Because youre scaring me! I broke away and fell to my knees, but he ripped me
back up. I was really scared something bad might happen, so I turned around and
tried to run up the steps. He quickly jerked forward and grabbed my ankle, ripping
me down the first few steps, and pushed me against the wall. With my face smashed
into the drywall, as if it wasnt traumatic enough, he started to kick me in the stomach.
He kept kicking me for so long I was surprised my organs didnt collapse. In the last
few kicks, my mom busted through the door and shoved him off me. She punched
and kicked at him, forcing him out the door and locking it behind him.
Open the goddamned door! He banged on the door wildly while my mom came
over and peeled me off the floor. I was curled up in a ball and impulsively shaking
from all the pain that was pulsating through my body. All I wanted, and what I got,
was my mom by my side, telling me that everything was gonna be okay. I fell asleep
at the bottom of the steps in her arms.
I woke up the next morning with an excruciating pain in my side and on my face.
My mom mustve carried me up the steps sometime the night before. I untangled
myself from my sheets and headed into the bathroom. I was shocked when I looked
in the mirror: I didnt know it looked that bad. I had dried blood around the edges of
my nose, my lips were swollen and busted, and half my face was blue and sunken. I
lifted my shirt and the sides of my gut were covered with black streaks. I reached in
the medicine cabinet, pulled out antiseptic wipes, and lightly blotted my nose. I took
a rag and ran hot water over it, waited until it steamed. I pulled myself up onto the
marble, leaned back against the mirror, and folded the rag onto my forehead. After a
few minutes I tossed the rag into the sink and gathered the strength to get back to my
feet. When I stumbled downstairs I was prepared to completely ignore his existence,
but when I got to the kitchen my mom was alone. Her hair was straggly and pulled
back into a ponytail. The heat from her coffee swirled and danced across her
hangover-riddled face. She quickly looked up when my feet creaked on the linoleum.
I didnt know you were standing there. She pointed her hand towards the chair
beside her. How are you feeling?
Where is he? I pulled out a chair as she took out a cigarette and lit it, letting out
a deep breath.
We dont have to talk about it right now.
Mom, where is he?
As of right now, he will not be living with us. She looked me in the eyes. We
dont need someone in our lives like that, Liz. I know hes your father, but until he
can get his act together, hes staying with your Uncle Greg.
What does that mean? I shook my head in disapproval. Are you guys getting
a divorce? I know he didnt mean to do any of it. He just needs some counseling or
something. I chewed the remaining bit of my gnawed-raw nail. We can figure it out.
Mom? Even as I said it I knew it would take more time and hard work than Dad had
to patch the damage hed done last night.
My mom went to put out her cigarette and missed, getting the burning ash on our
kitchen table. Crap. She swept the ashes into an ashtray with a napkin. She pointed
towards the stove. You want some eggs?
What? Oh. Yes please. After she sat down across from me, all that was between
us was the sound of my fork scraping across the bottom of my plate.
Grub Street 35
Schappells comments: I really like the jazzy feel and structure of this poem. I like
how it looks on the page. The two columns of text echo the image of neat houses and
streets, as well as stand in for the image of the young woman and the grandmother
standing side by side in the kitchen. Together but separate. I can imagine generations
of older Italian ladies passing down the familys recipes to their grandkidswho will
fumble the dough and make mistakes, just as the grandmothers did when they were
young. It matters. This is what the grandmother has to give her. At the end, despite
the grandmothers flash of anger, there is sweetness.
36
Grub Street 37
An Interview with
Elissa Schappell
Kristin Helf
Grub Street 39
Grub Street 41
Grub Street 43
Life Under
the Bell Jar
Hope Richardson
Our feet hang off through the wooden railing, skimming the surface of the water,
aching to be dipped in. The aquarium here isnt half as nice as the one in Baltimore,
and Miss Sandra agrees, often giving dramatic speeches on how long-suffering she
is, moving to North Carolina for her husbands job even though Maryland is better
in every conceivable way. She fans herself with a brochure from the front desk and
announces that shell be waiting inside with the A/C, my parents, and Mister Ray. She
turns on her heels and swings her hips like a runway model, bleach-damaged hair
swinging with each step.
I dont know where your brothers got to. That damn IMAX movie is starting in ten
minutes and I am not wasting these tickets, she mutters, the door closing on her words.
The slight breeze and the movement of invisible insects keeps the water churning
hypnotically. We cross our arms and lean over the railing just a bit, and for a moment
I can imagine were on a boat out at sea. Its physically painful to hold myself back
from jumping in. It wouldnt even be cold. Its September, and the ocean is as warm
as bathwater. Emily has the same thought. I can see it in her movements.
How much trouble dyou think wed get in? Is the marsh aquarium property or
what? she asks through her chewing gum.
I think its state protected. We might get arrested or something for screwing up
the ecosystem.
Mhm.
Emily blows a large pink translucent bubble and pops it. Her eyes are hidden
behind a pair of red aviators, but I can tell theyre fixed on a stork three yards out,
preening itself. She squawks at it with a smile. The bird takes one exasperated look at
us before flying away. At that moment I honestly cant think of anyone cooler in the
whole world.
Her dads chummy with the president and gets called over at least twice a year to
have dinner with him. Perks of designing military vessels and naming them whatever
44
Grub Street 45
you want, I guess. Being arrested is something I dont think Emilys ever been scared
of. I wonder if shes scared of anything. She pulls the wad of gum out and sticks it to the
wood an arms length away. She pulls out another piece and plops it on her tongue.
The place reeks. The stink of the marsh mixes with heavy salt air blowing in from
the ocean, a particularly nasty combination broken only by the artificial berry scent of
Emilys damn gum.
You want a piece?
I shrug. Yeah, sure.
Emily surges up and locks lips with me, so smoothly and casually like shes been
planning and practicing for days. I lean in a little more out of surprise than anything,
and when she pulls back Im chewing on a sticky blob of strawberry-orange. She
unwraps a new stick for herself like nothing, and I desperately hope my own Tweety
Bird sunglasses hide whatever emotion it is Im feeling right now. Ho-ly shit.
I push gum to the left side of my mouth and tilt my head up. Gee, thanks for the spit.
You are, another pop, welcome.
The movie isnt too bad, but I feel my mind drifting all the same. I need to get
in the water. All I can think about are the waves bobbing my body up and down,
surrounding my pink-tinged skin, weighing my hair down and drying it stiff as a board.
Emily leans into my side, and my heart skips a beat thinking its for another kiss. Here.
In public. Next to our parents.
Lets see if theyll take us to the beach after we leave, she whispers. I nod in
agreement and try not to squirm out of my seat as a 3D wave crashes in our faces.
Emily lets out an excited little holler and grips my shoulder, which I return in equally
dramatic fashion.
Girls, shut up! Miss Sandra hisses, whacking us both over the head with a rolledup brochure. The other movie patrons glare through their ridiculous glasses.
A considerable amount of nagging later, and there is finally sand between my toes. I
could have changed into my bathing suit. Probably should have. But Emily didnt have
the advantage of a fully stocked suitcase in the trunk of her car. Nor were there any
changing rooms or tents. Not this late in the season.
We shuck off our shoes and toss them behind us. Our mothers sit uncomfortably on
some towels my dad dug out of the car and shout, Were only staying for a half hour!
as we run fully clothed towards the water.
Emily jumps in first with a squeal of delight, followed by a satisfied sigh as she
dunks her head under the gently rolling waves. I wade in tentatively, bobbing up and
down as we slowly make it out to the point where our feet no longer touch the bottom.
Youre a good swimmer, right? she shouts at me.
I scoff. Bitch, Im on the swim team! Talking to me about being good at
swimming I can tread water for three hours. If anyone is in danger, its you!
Yeah, yeah!
We make it out just far enough so the waves stop shoving salt in our mouths. We
swim circles around each other while trying to dunk one another. We laugh and float
on our backs, holding hands so we dont drift away, and thats when Emily screams.
She was always screaming, quite literally for attention. I dont want to look up, but I
do at the second scream.
What is it?
Look! It touched my foot!
A little white, gelatinous blob bumps against my leg and drifts off in the opposite
direction. At least three dozen of them surround us, clumping together at the mercy
of the current. They feel like theyre made of rubber. I dunk my head
underwater and open my eyes with a bit of
amount of
difficulty. Sand swirls around like leaves in
A considerable
the wind, little fish dodging the bigger
and there is
nagging later,
particles if they can, taking one look at me
toes.
d between my
n
sa
and Emily before scurrying off. The jellyfish
hover around clumsily and without grace.
We scream out of amusement and half-feigned fear and hightail it back to shore.
The wet sand clings to everything and weighs down our clothes like concrete.
Whats wrong, my own mother yells to us, unconcerned. Wed managed to drift
a good length south down the beach from the rest of our families.
Jellyfish! Hordes of them! I yell back. It was scary!
We clutch each other at the waists to demonstrate.
Well, its time to go anyway, Miss Sandra cries back, motioning us over.
We drag our feet over the shifting landscape, sand and rocks and shells yanked
back with every retreating wave.
Ah, man. I gotta ride back home all wet like this.
My throat catches a little. Were both still clinging to each other and waddling
awkwardly.
Grub Street 47
finally
We run ahead with my parents car keys, and I hold a towel up while she changes
in the back seat of the station wagon, though the garage is totally deserted. She
pulls on my blue polo with a tiny duck on it and a pair of gym shorts that were
honestlytoo small for me but that I kept around just in case. They fit her taller, more
slender frame perfectly.
Yeah, bitch, check me out. Oh wait, she scratched her head. I wont be able to
give em back until we visit you guys next month back home.
Its cool, I say, feeling a blush spread across my scalp, mercifully hidden.
You can just keep them.
Oh! Yeah, thanks! Theyll remind me of better times. She points to our middle
school logo. Well, just mine now.
I snort. Yeah, fun times in sixth grade. Two long years ago.
Our families are saying their goodbyes
and getting ready to go their separate ways.
Hey, see you around Halloween. She
We scream out of amusement
kisses me again, right on the lips. I stand
and half-feigned fear and
stunned, and the next thing I know her
hightail it back to shore. The
car is out of the garage, driving away. My
wet sand clings to everything
mom shakes her head.
Sweetheart, dont do that with Emily.
and weighs down our clothes
People are going to get the wrong idea.
like concrete.
It takes me a minute to process her
words. I get in the car and buckle myself
in before I say, Huh?
Kissing like that. Its cute when youre kids, but when youre older it gives people
the wrong idea.
Oh, sorry.
I pull out a stick of gum from my moms purse and chew.
Red
Tani Teixeira
Oil on linen
Blue
Tani Teixeira
Oil on linen
Gold
Tani Teixeira
Oil on linen
Grub Street 49
Monika Lee
Hair cut
Hair time, hair rhyme,
for filming in Philadelphia.
I had to prepare this frightful hair
for a filming in Philadelphia.
Gray-rooted, thinning, untame,
this lank, long hair.
I went to Blue Orchid Salon,
to prepare this frightful hair
for a filming in Philadelphia.
Hair time, hair rhyme,
for filming in Philadelphia.
The salon, with hand-painted sign,
was but a hole in the wall
at the back of an auto repair
in a poor part of Philadelphia.
You, Too
Tara Patronik
Acrylic and oil on canvas
50
Grub Street 51
Tache Noir
Emily Reinhardt Welsch
Working alone in the silence of the stark white morgue was something to avoid. The
sound of his pen scribbling information into the empty slots on various regulation
forms was often accompanied by the sounds of his imagination whirring out of
control: a swish of material that might mean someone was sneaking up on him, the
smell of various embalming chemicals, like the musk of some mobile corpse peeking
over his shoulder to see just what the professionals put into a medical chart. He
often found himself slamming his pen down just to whirl around and find nothing
there. His eyes would scan the room, the bleached cleanliness of it seeming clinically
sinister when he was alone. Whereas a hospital inspired the types of nerves that
came with balancing on the precipice of death, the morgue had a kind of finality that
created paranoia and a feeling of overarching futility. In the cold silence his thoughts
turned to death and its inevitability. He missed the man who usually worked these
hours with him; the two of them were usually able to keep things light. He stood up
from his rolling seat, sliding his pen
into the front pocket of his white coat
the morgue had a kind of
and deciding to distract himself with
finality that created paranoia
more than just filling out forms that
and a feeling of overarching
required little thought. He cracked his
futility.
knuckles, jumping as the sound of
cavitation in his joints resounded in the
empty room like party poppers. He let
out a sigh, accompanied with a shake of his head, and said aloud to himself, I should
really bring an iPod next time.
He squeezed his hands into fists, warming his fingers in his palms for a moment
before he slid them beneath the white sheet covering the man in need of a final
report. The sheet came down with a familiar rush, a curtain revealing some strange
attraction: a pallid face with eyes that refused to meet his gaze, pupils impaled straight
through by a dark line. He had never forgotten the term for that: tache noir. Black
52
spot. It would happen when the eyes of the dead were left uncovered to dry in the
open air. He had been doing this job for two years now and still felt no closer to
getting used to the little surprises like that. He picked up his clipboard again, letting
out a soft breath as he noted the physical appearance of the body. The skin of the
neck had bunched up and wrinkled around a dime-sized hole in the dead center, and
his eyes lingered on that as his pen veered outside the lines of the box a little. The
cause of death was pretty evident based on this good-sized aperture. The autopsy
had already been carried out, according to the Y-shaped incision that was present
on the chest, and the chart that he was completing showed none of the markings
that signified foul play. That meant this would be easy. All he had to do was check
to make sure everything was filled out, tag the body, and get it into one of the
rectangular drawers of the freezer.
above his head gave a flicker that made it seem like the body had shifted, like it was
sitting up to share last words with him. He slammed the door shut so suddenly that
the resulting noise surprised him. Calm down, his rational inward voice advised. This
was the first time he had allowed his fears to get to him. It was best just to clock out
and go home. He retrieved his clipboard from the floor across the room, standing up
quickly and placing it on the table. His heart refused to stop throwing itself against
his rib cage, even when he made it down the front steps outside, pulling his blackbuttoned coat on against the cold. His breath was visible as it left his mouth, and
it floated up and away as he waited for a taxi to signal. Impossibly, he felt more
uncomfortable out here than he had inside the building. There was no one else on
the street; light was fading as night came on, and the wind was whistling past him.
He crossed his arms in front of himself, turning toward home and starting in that
direction, up the street.
As he was taking notes regarding his observations, his pen resuming its quick
scribbling, he pondered the route he was going to take to get home. Considering
how the weather turned out when he left the city morgue, he would either walk
the six blocks or take a cab. He flipped to the next form and was checking each
necessary space when a hoarse, low whisper made him spin around so fast that he
dropped the clipboard. It bounced against the floor with a loud clatter, then struck
his foot. He wished again for the company of the other employee who generally
worked these hours; he had lived in the city for two years and still hadnt many
friends, but when they finished their shift the two morticians would often go out
for a drink. Then he would make it back to his apartment feeling like he had been
a part of the city somehow, like he was living a real life here rather than waiting
around in his apartment for a reason to leave. His purpose in this city was to facilitate
and categorize death. It was the reason he had moved here, and the only one that
generally took him out onto the city streets. If he were to disappear, someone,
perhaps the man who had left him alone for todays shift, would take his place, and
that would be that. Wishing very much that he hadnt thought about disappearing, he
transferred the body from the steel table to the cold drawer where it would spend the
night, then stood there catching his breath.
His fist had closed firmly around the handle of the little door, and he stood staring
into the blackness of the drawer, his heart thudding in his chest, resounding in his
ears. The dark inside that drawer was playing tricks on him; the fluorescent lights
He didnt stop running until, breathless, he reached his apartment building, but
his paranoia led him to avoid the elevator. A closed-in space seemed the opposite of
productive; he was trying to cling to rationality, to let it inform his movements. Once
Grub Street 55
inside his apartment, he barely bothered to change before sliding into bed, making
himself comfortable beneath the sheets and letting the sound of his own hot breath
lull him into a fitful sleep.
The night passed slowly. Despite the repeated surprise of wakefulness, each time
he could remember nothing of the dreams that forced him out of sleep. A strange
bodily stiffness began to accompany his returns to the waking world, until at last
he could not move at all. His mind begged his muscles to respond, but his body lay
there limp and unresponsive until the surface beneath him began to move instead,
sliding him out of the darkness. Light shone through the sheet he lay beneath, his
eyes refusing to close against it. He could feel the fabric resting against the rapidly
drying membrane of his left eye. A shadow passed overhead, and someone pulled
back his covering. He was looking up at himself But the looming double wore his
face as if it didnt quite fit, his expression strangely sour. The double reached up to
itch at his neck, his fingers touching the area only tentatively at first, then, finding it
intact, itching at it with full force. With a smile, the double began to take notes on
a clipboard, being sure to indicate that the body on the slab had developed dark
brown-red strikes through the pupils, a result of the eyes staying open all night.
Al Maginnes
Contrabands
It could be a book, a bottle of smuggled liquor, cigars or seeds forbidden
to carry across the borders invisible
below the wings of the plane. It could be the tracts of some faith, hidden
and ancient, one that condones
sacraments not spoken of under certain flags. It could be a laptop stuffed
with the secrets of a collapsed economy
nested inside pictures of butterflies and soccer players. There are gun parts,
designs stolen from dressmakers bound
for the runways of London and Cannes, impossible fragments dripping
from the human scaffolding of models
trained not to speak and to move with the grand selfishness of cats. You know
the laws of your land forbid the blue liquor,
but a few sips turn you visionary at last, and you could not leave such insight
stranded in a republic where
you could only ask what something cost and how long before the arrival
of the train, dialogue
that turned to ash when a few sips from a thick glass set free a flutter
of swallows, wings speeding
between brain and heart, a tumult to cast a glittering over all you saw.
So you built a lair deep in your luggage to store two bottles, determined
to bring the sight
of near-prophecy home with you. But even the hangover of insight
will not whisper what rests
in the suitcase next to yours. The thick-set man sleeping in his seat
across the aisle, a strand
of spit silver in his beard, believes the old scripture he unburied in
a bookstore tucked deep
in the elbow of a back street contains all the knowledge he has waited
Grub Street 57
58 Contrabands Al Maginnes
Grub Street 59
Grub Street 61
She wanted me to be
impressed, but more
importantly she wanted
me to believe her.
Grub Street 63
John J. Trause
Object to Be Eaten
My father loved to cook the Italian dish
known as capozella, lambs head,
pronounced without the final syllable, capozell.
Though always bought fresh from the butcher,
he would often freeze it and defrost it
when ready to cook it.
In the days when the microwave became a fixture,
I noticed once that he was defrosting the lambs head
in the microwave, the eye spinning around
as if a Surrealist assemblage:
capozell on a carousel.
Paco
William Strang-Moya
Digital photograph
64
Grub Street 65
66
Grub Street 67
Big Dog
Michael B. Tager
LeRons paying both of us for the rats, you know. Dont matter how many you kill,
were splitting it down the middle, Nat said.
Telly ignored him and poked his head out the window of the old Buick to aim the
air rifle. When he chose one of the rats that scurried around the junkyard and fired,
the chosen rat flopped over, twitched twice and stilled. Its fellow, a big rat, dark gray,
came out to sniff it and Nat jumped in his seat. Big Grays mine. Dont touch him.
I know, Telly said, his attention diverted as the rats scattered in anticipation of
the big dumb dog pottering into the clearing. Nat watched Telly hop out of the car
and run to the dog, ruffling its fur and muttering into its floppy ear. When the dog
waddled off, Telly dragged the dead rat by its long pink tail, throwing it onto the
knee-high pile of rats next to the front fender. Only one was Nats kill: an old, fat rat
that had been sleeping in the sun.
In the beginning of the summer, when LeRon started watching them, theyd
been promised a quarter per rat. Nat had felt too old for ithe was nearly thirteen
but agreed anyway, bored with wandering the junkyard all day. The little trailer
was boiling hot and didnt have cable. There were dogs, but besides the ancient
muttIgloowho followed Telly around, they were guard animals. Besides, Mom
didnt have any money for allowance and Dad always forgot to send the money he
promised. Nat could use a little pocket change.
He missed their old house, before Dad moved out and before Mom sold it and got
a job and met LeRon. It had been a little townhouse, but thered been air conditioning
in Nats bedroom and cable and an elm tree in the front yard. Dad kept on saying
theyd get a better house, but the few times Nat saw his new place, it looked like he
hadnt been planning on moving anywhere.
Nat took the rifle and opened the passenger side door. The Buick was in the
best shape of any of the cars at the junkyard; it had not-quite-rotted leather seats,
crank windows, and didnt smell of vagrant. Most mornings they sat in the big open
space where the junkyard paths met. Mounds of trash rose: chairs at twelve oclock,
newspapers and paperbacks at one, refrigerators at two, stoves at three. The stench of
Grub Street 69
a big deal of it, taking him out to dinner and giving him the gun. At the end of the
night, Dad had said that Nats birthday would be just as big. When he repeated that to
Mom, she just shook her head.
Remember that its mine, Telly said. Nat wanted to throw it out the window and
stamp on it. Telly carried the dumb thing everywhere, even when Nat complained
to LeRon.
LeRon had said, Its his gun, isnt it? Seems he can do what he wants. LeRon was
a man of few words and considered the matter closed. He was tall and light-skinned,
their mothers first boyfriend since the divorce. Nat had thought she should have
waited longer to start dating, forever maybe. Dad wasnt dating as far as Nat knew.
Now shut up. Youll scare them off, Nat said, waiting for the rats. An ugly, brown
one marched straight across the clearing toward the Buick. Nat aimed and squeezed
the trigger. The shot blasted into the dirt. The ugly one ran off. He tossed the gun
back into Tellys lap in disgust.
Dont worry about it. Next time, Telly said. The smile quickly wiped from his
face but not so fast to be missed. A tone deaf whistle came from Tellys pursed lips:
Jimmy Crack Corn.
The whistling raised hackles up Nats spine. He gritted his teeth and then opened
his mouth to tell Telly to shut up when the mutt shambled back into the clearing.
A sheepdog mix, most of Igloos fur had gone gray. LeRon didnt neglect him but
seemed to accept that he had lost usefulness along with his teeth and left eye. Telly
had unofficially adopted him. Sometimes he mashed his hamburgers and hand-fed the
dog. Nat didnt see the appeal.
Igloo sniffed at the rats re-emerging from under carburetors and stoves. Think
hes going to try to eat a rat-sicle again? Nat grinned.
From behind a busted toaster oven, Big Gray advanced. Igloo stalked him and Nat
watched. Every day, the half-blind, arthritic, toothless animal loped after the quick, feral
rats. Nat laughed whenever Igloo half-limped after them, the rats easily evading him.
The drivers side door slammed. Telly held the pellet gun loosely, his face pinched.
Igloo and Big Gray faced each other, the rats whiskers quivering, Igloos tail swishing. Nat
licked his lips in anticipation. Igloos hind leg scratched at the earth, ready to charge.
Telly brought the rifle to his shoulder, sighted briefly and fired an anti-climactic
whip-crack. Big Gray toppled. Igloo barked at the suddenly empty clearing. Nat
clenched his fists, ground his teeth. His stomach flipped and churned. He did it
so easy.
Grub Street 71
punk. So Dad gave you a rifle? Hes going to take me out for my birthday!
Telly growled and launched up, dislodging Nat and dumping him to the ground.
Nat grunted, stunned. He lurched to his feet, braced. Instead, he heard barking.
Igloo growled at the edge of the clearing, his good eye watching Nat. Your dumb
mutt here to rescue you? he asked. Ignoring the dog, he turned back to Telly, still
tensed. Instead, Telly lay on the ground crying. Nat advanced, hand outstretched.
Before he decided whether to hit him or help him up, a furry head slammed
into the back of his knee. Nats leg collapsed, and he crumbled to the ground.
Igloo, slobbering and slavering with snapping, toothless gums, stood atop him, feet
scrabbling at his stomach and chest; Nat couldnt breathe. He gasped and slapped at
the dogs head. Igloo didnt budge, didnt seem to feel it, kept biting and growling. Nat
bunched his fist and punched half-a-dozen times, his blows thudding off the dogs
heavy skull.
Get off him, boy! Telly yelled.
Suddenly, the dog stopped biting and walked over him, paws driving his head into
the ground. He gasped for
breath. Telly stood over
Nat stared, warring with the urge to raise
him, pulling at the dogs
the gun and point it at his brothers face.
collar.
Snot and blood mixed
on Tellys face and trailed
to his upper lip. Dirt caked his shoulders and face. Slowly, Nat stood. Igloo sniffed the
ground and lay down in the sun.
Nat backed up and stepped on the rifles barrel, daring Telly to try to take it. He told
himself he didnt much care what Telly would do next, his racing heart be damned.
Dad wont take you to the game, Telly said. He didnt even call on your
birthday. Telly turned and walked away, miniature dust devils stirring with each
footprint, dying before the wind could catch them. Nat wondered if he should have
thanked his brother for helping him with the worthless dog. Instead he shouted, his
hands clenched, ears filled with white noise.
I could have taken care of that stupid mutt. Damn things better off dead anyway.
Nat grabbed the rifle after his brother disappeared, noted the patches of darkened
ground from his little brothers blood, sweat, drool. He walked to the Buick and rested
against the hood. He jumped when he heard barking.
The rats were back out and Igloo, awake, pounded through the clearing, snagging
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one in his toothless mouth, its legs churning, pink tail swishing. Even a one-eyed dog
was better than him at rat catching. Snarling, he brought the rifle to his shoulder, his
brothers instructions running through his mind. Breathing through his nose, he lead
carefully, squeezed the trigger.
Igloos right eye disappeared in a squirt of blood and fluid and the rat fell from
his mouth. Igloo rolled over howling, rubbing his snout against the ground until
blood ran. Rising on shaking legs, still scratching at the missing eye, he ran, bumping
headfirst into Nats leg. With a scrape of metal, Nat dropped the rifle onto the rusted hood.
Igloo? he asked. The animal perked its head before pawing at its eye again. He
repeated the name, thought about petting it. He extended his arm and waited.
Igloo raised his head and snapped. Toothless gums worked at Nats hand; saliva
ran down his wrist. He let the dog try to maim him, shut his eyes to block hot tears,
and waited for the rats to come.
Grub Street 75
The boy could hear them along the hallway. They were trying to keep their voices
down. He said something. She said something. And then the shouting began. He
turned over and pretended to sleep. Sometimes shed come into his room, sit on the
edge of the bed and sob. She didnt do that tonight, and he was grateful for it.
In the morning they were gone. He leaned against the stove, and the warmth
working its way up his spine made him tingle.
There was a note on the table saying he should get breakfast. If the chain came off
again and he couldnt fix it, hed to find a call box.
He put on his sneakers. It would be hot later, and there was no need for gloves.
The road going away from home was long and flat, and the chain did not come
off. It only came off once he was in the hills. He leaned the bike against a tree. The
sun was dappling through the leaves and branches, patterning his face. He took the
toolbox from the satchel and did what hed done a hundred times before, squeezing
drops of oil from the rusting tin onto the cogs and then levering the chain back on,
very gently, with the spanner. He didnt yet know that he was being watched. When
he nicked his thumb he got frustrated and swore. But the chain was on, and he rode
farther into the hills until the sun was shining right upon him, and he could unbutton
his jacket.
There was a promontory. On a clear day you could see far into the valley. You
could make out the towns joined together by long, zigzagging roads. His mother
worked in one town, his father
in another. There was a sign
Sometimes shed come into his
telling you about the valley
room, sit on the edge of the bed
but the writing had faded and
you could only make out the
and sob.
occasional word. He watched red
ants crawling across its bubbled surface. He put his hand flat and let them crawl over
it, although there wasnt much sensation and he quickly got bored. He thought about
76
Grub Street 77
off; his torso was brown and you could see the developing muscles. He took off
everything, his sneakers, his jeans, his shorts, and when he was naked he jumped in
making a whooping sound. There and back. Its your pride on the line now, and Im
already winning.
The idea appalled him. He couldnt imagine getting naked and jumping in, and
nor could he imagine cycling away. His heart beat fast. The back of his legs tingled.
He watched until the older boy was at the far side and then got back on his
bike. He didnt stop, didnt look behind, until he came to the town where his father
worked. It was a small town with a broad open road through it, along each side of
which there were farm stores and stores selling bric-a-brac that you would never
want. He didnt think much of this town. He only ever came here to get a shake or a
soda at the 7-Eleven; you could sit inside or out and the manager was too obese to
chase you off if you gave him trouble. He would stare at you instead, and then walk
off shaking his head. Hed often heard this obese manager saying all he wanted was
a peaceful life, without trouble, and you could take advantage of that. He parked his
bike and, looking disdainfully at the chain, went inside and emptied his pockets onto
the counter.
You really want a hot coffee on a hot day like this? Ill serve you that if you want,
kid, but its awfully hot today. It was meant as a joke; the obese managers hair was
plastered down with sweat, and when he turned you could see dark patches where
it was breaking out on his back. By the days end the shirt would be soaking and his
wife would tell him to strip it off and put on something else, she wouldnt have him
stinking up the car like that. The boy had seen them arguing. Shed held her nose in
a way that he could only think of as theatrical, like something from an old black-andwhite movie. It was one of the few times it had prompted his father to say anything.
Hed said, Thats what happens when a fatty marries a thinny, theres always gonna
be a gulf. She will hate him til the day his heart stops beating because of all the fat
he shovels in that big fat mouth of his. And then after they put him into a big fat hole
in the ground shell be all weepy and desperate. It wont make any sense to her, all
those years they put up with one another. And why? Because theyre lonely, thats
why. Its the only explanation.
Usually when he spoke to adults the boy got nervous; hed say please and thank
you too much and would feel embarrassed about it afterwards. But with the obese
7-Eleven manager he felt he could say just about anything. He didnt feel the need to
Grub Street 79
say please or thank you, even when he was on his own like today, and part of him
wanted to snap his fingers at him and abuse him. In a way he liked to be around
him, in all that heat and sweat. A Slurpee, mister. The hottest you got. Im dying of
hypothermia here.
The obese manager worked the machine. Hypothermia, huh? No really, its gonna
be a hot day today. There was a chill this morning but now the sun is up its getting
as hot as yesterday, if not hotter. You takin this out, or you sittin in? You know its
extra if you want to sit in.
Takin out.
Thats right. You dont want to be sittin in on a day like this. Theyre too mean
to put in air-con and then they think you ought to pay for the privilege. Its hell on a
day like this, the fiery furnaces of hell. You dont want to end up workin here. Instead
you work hard at school, you lay it all down, and you get to go to college. Otherwise
you end up in this stinking hell.
I dont need your advice, the boy said, snatching the carton. What the hell
would I need your advice for?
He sat on the pavement next to his bike, sucking the froth through a straw and
then lifting the small cubes of ice about an inch or two above the rim before letting
them fall. It occurred to him
that his father might pass by; he
you
l,
schoo
at
hard
work
you
ad
Inste
worked in the feed store on the
edge of town but had to drive out
lay it all down, and you get to go to
this
in
up
to farms down in the valley. He
end
you
wise
college. Other
was always complaining that they
stinking hell.
never gave him a tip, although
they were charged next to nothing
for delivery and it barely covered the gas. Hed seen him before, driving along, and it
always stirred in him a strange feeling like it was something he shouldnt be seeing.
He stared along the road expecting a white dot that would become a pickup but there
was nothing but the haze lifting off the tarmac and the fields either side of it.
He tipped the dregs into his mouth, crunched the carton, and then saw him. He
was cycling so fast that his hair lifted in the wind he was making.
The boy got on his bike and pedaled hard, hoping to God that the chain would
not come off. He figured that if he kept ahead then the older boy would never catch
him. It even occurred to him that his father might drive by. He imagined him pulling
Grub Street 81
fear.
Joel Allegretti
The Abortion
Lets not
bury the evidence
in a dumpster grave
and perplex the raccoons
as their inquisitive paws
scavenge for taco shells.
Lets not
immerse the shapeless error
in formaldehyde and store it
in a pathologists cabinet
like a pickled moon-eyed
alien on The X-Files.
Lets, instead,
swaddle it in Plexiglas
and put it on display
in the living room
as an objet dart.
Well call it Untitled.
Air Jordanstein
JLaw
Digital print
82
Grub Street 83
Air Memory
JLaw
Digital print
84
Yeezy Rebirth
JLaw
Digital print
Grub Street 85
Bewildered:
An iPhonic Narrative
John Gillespie
< Messages
Ma
Details
Today 5:09 AM
Ma, I woke up last night and started crying on Maiders
shoulder. She started to ask me, Are you okay? Whats wrong?
Whats wrong? At first, I couldnt speak. I cried into her
shoulder, afraid to share the truth and mortified to continue
in secret. My heart is beating fast, I told her. Im scared,
Maider. I hope that you dont take anytime to tell me about
the dangers of sleeping with your girlfriend before youre
married, because she was the only voice of reason at the
moment encouraging me to breath when it felt like my heart
was panting, begging for a chance to quit. She was the only
consolation, and besides that, I am messaging you because I
need to know very important information.
86
Grub Street 87
You dont know that Ma. You dont know if Im alright. You
want to have faith that I will be, but you dont know that.
Today 6:10 AM
I apologize for the literary tone of my messages. Ive heard that
Long QT syndrome can either be an unnoticeable dysfunction
or a silent killer, and when my heart started pounding I could
have sworn I was going to die. I dont want my last words to
you to be whiny and sad; I want them to contain something of
substance, something you can share with Jerone so that hell
know that his brother believed in something. I love you Ma. I
am going to try to get some sleep now. Maider says goodnight.
Today 9:51 AM
JJ? Are you awake?
I called you twice. Im trying to find out if everything is alright.
I messaged you on Facebook. It says youre online. Are you
avoiding me?
Grub Street 89
Okay JJ.
Okay?
Yes, okay youve got it all figured out nowso its fine.
Today 2:00 PM
Ma I dont have it figured out.
You seem to. Youve got love, life, God, knowledge, religion,
preparation, everything just about figured out it seems like to
me.
No, Ma, I am confused. I am worried. I dont have anything
figured out. I dont know anything, and thats what worries
me the most.
Today 6:00 PM
But you will. See JJ, the thing is exactly that, you will. You
will die. You will sleep with your girlfriend at college when
I am an hour away from watching over you. You will meet
someone who loves you enough to console you while youre
crying because of all the fears you have about one genetic
mutation. You will get the knowledge you seek about this
heart condition. And you will, if you keep faith, make it to
Heaven. God knows, I know. I dont care if you believe in this
moment or not, but I do believe that we return to truth in our
despair. Truth will bring you into despair and truth will take
you out. Thats why you pray when you cry because the truth
of your death is a despair that can only be alleviated with the
truth of Him who gave you life.
Ma?
Ma?
Im not going to sit around and let your fears get in the way of
your sanity, and your foolishness get in the way of truth. So, I
will pray and I will cry every night until you come home and
say, Ma, Im not afraid to go at any time because God is going
to take care of me.
Ma?
Today 8:30 PM
The doctors synopsis says a lot of things that are very difficult
for me to understand.
Grub Street 91
moment was the word sinner and for some reason it was
so compelling to me because I had told myself that I didnt
believe in sin. I didnt believe in believing, and I didnt believe
I was capable of sinning. The word came to me as if out of
my subconscious, as if it formed as a response to my anxiety,
my agony. Thats why I began to think that sin was not what I
thought it was. Sin is bitter confusion, absolute bewilderment,
indescribable disarray. Sin makes death sting, it makes death
unbearable for believers and non-believers alike. Doctors
make things less confusing, less sinful; good girlfriends make
things less confusing, less sinful; writing makes things less
confusing, less sinful; friends, family, religion, purpose, caring,
lovingall make things less confusing, less sinful. I love you
Ma, not only because you are my mother and you care about
me, but because you help clear me of my sins and you make
death feel more bearable.
I love you too. Everything is going to be alright. I promise you.
Ill pray for you and Ill promise you; everything is going to be
alright.
I hope so, Ma. I really do.
Al Maginnes
Guardian
I, who was absent from the coupling that made you,
who, on the day of your birth, stood unsuspecting,
my shadow a simple blank, a self I cant help seeing
as empty now, I will forever feel the ghost-membrane
of that womana girl, reallyand the young man
who made you and then, in sacrifice too great for human praise,
trusted you to strangers on the thin rope, the pious
assurance that the child could be delivered to a life of classrooms,
of air conditioners, the milk and vegetables we can offer.
It is no small thing to make a child. Or to raise one.
The week after bringing you home, I sat bolt upright,
cradling you in the position that would let you sleep.
If I nodded into my own half-dream, if I slipped off
my moorings, your screams tore both of us back
to wakefulness. Your appetite was for the soft organs,
the tarnished lungs, the recalcitrant liver, the long mile
of intestine before you reach the underside of the heart, which beats
too soft for our notice, though mine must have hummed some trance
for you when your sweat-humid face pressed my skin, as though what lay under
could be tasted, taken like communion wafers between the lips,
like crumbs of ice I gave you once when you fevered, unable to sleep,
Grub Street 93
Cumulus Congestus
Helen Bell
Digital painting
94 Guardian Al Maginnes
Grub Street 95
How to Go Hiking in
the Adirondacks
Olivia Godwin
Its likely that youre going to plan this trip at the end of the summer, when your travel
fund is as bone dry as the Mojave in June.
Honey, shouldnt you be saving money for school? your mother asks on one of
your Sunday visits.
Im fine. Besides, I need this trip. This summer has been so stressful. I need to get
away, to relax.
Youve actually spent the entire summer vacationing in several cities, located in
multiple countries, but you justify to yourself that this is a vacation to unwind after
all of your other vacations. A low-key vacation, in the kind, nurturing arms of Nature.
It will do wonders for your psyche, and help you transition smoothly into the school
year. Choose Lake Placid because it sounds, well, placid.
Do not worry too much about whether you have the proper gear: the other
hikers may have Gore-Tex boots that keep out rain, snow, heat, and pestilence, but
your sweatshirt brings out the brown in your eyes, so youre coming out on top.
You want to go for a minimalist aesthetic this time around. When you backpacked
the Maryland portion of the Appalachian Trail, Tee laughed at you and Steph. You
sweat and swore your way down the trail as you lugged a backpack the size of a
baby pachyderm, containing things like five jackets in varying shades and textures,
waterproof matches, regular matches, a tent (what if the shelters had spiders?), a bottle
of Riesling, watercolor paints and paper, and three novellas by Steinbeck, Hemingway,
and Michaels, respectively. Not this time. This time, youre bringing a water bottle, a
granola bar, and yourself. How romantic, you think, just you and the fresh mountain
air, the feeling of being one with Mother Earth, tapping into your primal, early-Man
self Stop daydreaming. Its three in the morning, and you need to be up at six to
drive the eight-hour slog up to Lake Placid.
A couple days later, on the day of your hike, dont decide which mountain to
96
climb. Preparation takes the excitement out of things. Instead, just start driving from
the cozy Airbnb home you booked, and stop at the first trailhead you find. Dont even
consult Greta, your host, even though she lives here and hiking is as natural to her
as breathing. Why bother? You are an adventurer, like Columbus, sailing into foreign,
uncharted waters. A sense of direction, organization, or even a map would hinder
this feeling. You end up stopping at the Cascade trailhead, or at least, you think you
do, but when you set out into the woods you see a big red sign with white lettering
stating, Cross-country skiing only. You stop and look around, suddenly feeling like
the forest is watching you. People cross-country ski up Cascade? Are they for real?
You wander back out to the parking lot, feeling like the wind has been knocked from
your sails, when you see a fit, active-looking family in matching flannels heading into
the woods a hundred yards down. You confidently head in their direction, acting as if
that had been your plan all along. Keep up this false confidence; its going to come in
handy later.
Decide that the forest has eaten that family, because by the time you get to the
trailhead, they are nowhere to be seen. If youre being honest with yourself, this forest
does look like a throwback to the Cretaceous period, with everything dripping in
moss, ferns, and lichen. There might be dinosaurs still lurking here, for all you know.
This feeling unnerves you
slightly, and you decide
Strike out faster in case the
to write your name on
songbirds start laughing at you.
the stiff, dampened-dried
paper of the log book
posted at the trailhead. You know, just in case.
Panic excessively every time you hear a noise. There are thousands. Squirrels
frolicking in last autumns leaves sound like bears lumbering towards you. Birds flitting
through the upper reaches are easily arrows from some brutal hunter. The squelching
of your Nikes in mud is actually from a pair of phantom Nikes behind you, the ghost
of Cascade waiting to snag unsuspecting hikers. All this panic and tension should build
quite nicely, culminating in you running headlong into a wisp of spiders web and
uttering an ungodly shriek. Realize that its just a spiderweb, and start to feel a little
silly. Strike out faster in case the songbirds start laughing at you.
Farther along the trail, take advantage of a moment to salvage what little pride you
can, by judging the hikers a few yards ahead. Theyre wearing their school uniforms
wait, what? Their school uniforms? And Converses? What is this, an end-of-school
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picnic? Laugh at them in your head, and then nod in that hikers way as you pass them.
Morning.
Good morning! they say in unison.
Wow, she must do this all the time, the pony-tailed girl says to the plaited one,
as you begin negotiating the boulders up ahead. She started way behind us and shes
lapping us.
Think to yourself that if they hadnt picked such ridiculous getups that they would
be much farther along. But hey, their poor choices become your chance to feel false
confidence, so whatever.
Stop for a moment to pull out the water bottle from your fashionable cognac leather
backpack. Immediately resume without getting the water bottle when you hear other
hikers not too far behind you. Stopping is a sign of weakness, and they will judge you
for hydrating yourself. Repeat this process at least five times until your tongue feels
like parchment paper, and you begin to feel like little atom bombs are being dropped
inside your skull. Finally, hide behind a spruce tree and take a quick swig. Hurry back
out onto the path as if nothing has happened. Judge the family sitting on the fallen
birch logs as they eat their turkey jerky and drink Powerade. Those sissies.
Start to complain to yourself, stream-of-consciousness style, once youve hit the
rock scramble. Talking out loud and swearing profusely will intimidate the boulders
into submission.
Stupid fucking rocks, damn stupid awful rocks, God when will this be over, this
was such a shit idea, goddamn these rocks You stop when you see a fit, tan couple
in spandex and thermal jackets going down the rock scramble. Remember, everyone
else on the trail is your competition, and you cannot show weakness. You pass them,
hopping sprightly from rock to rock like a rabbit on caffeine.
Morning.
Morning.
Take up where you left off once theyre out of sight.
Divide your time spent on the trail into different trains of thought, in no particular
order: what youre going to eat when you get back, why you didnt bring more than
just a granola bar, why you only brought one bottle of water when youre not even
to the summit and its already half empty, why the sky is blue, why your sweatshirt
is blue, what social media has done to the values of society, what this hike is doing
to your pride and integrity, and why forests arent outfitted with toilets and air
conditioning. Spend as much time as you need on each subject but make sure to
interject these thoughts with lots of complaints. Oh, and threats to the flora and fauna
of the Adirondacks, because the moss obviously made itself slippery this morning in the
hopes you would trip, the rocks re-piled themselves on the trail so you would have to
haul your ass over them, and the goldfinch is clearly warbling only because it knows its
driving you batty.
Allow yourself to be overly
excited when you begin to see
Youve made it. Youve won. You
patches of blue sky through the
intrepid wanderer! You mighty
treetops and feel the breezes of
hiker, conqueror of the woodlands,
the open mountain face. The
majestic scaler of rocks and timber!
summit must be just around
this bend. No, just over these
boulders. Or maybe through
this copse of trees? Hate yourself for getting excited when you see the wooden sign
posted in the dirt, Cascade Summit, 2.5 miles.
Debate the merits of throwing yourself into the pine needles and allowing the
beetles to feast on your exhausted flesh, when, all of a sudden, you see it. The end.
The summit. Joy floods through your blood vessels, boosting you up and over the final
stretch of rocks and bringing you into the wonder that is bright sunshine, blue skies,
and swaying tree tops. Youve made it. Youve won. You intrepid wanderer! You mighty
hiker, conqueror of the woodlands, majestic scaler of rocks and timber!
Notice the couple that is sitting on a rock slab above you, enjoying the last bits
of their Cliff bars. The man holds the leash of a stoic-looking German shepherd. The
woman still has her pack strapped to her back, a sturdy, heavy-looking thing. And,
strapped to her chest is a baby, a chubby, human baby. They towed themselves, their
packs, and two other living things up this God-forsaken mountain.
Should we do Porter after this? That guidebook said its a less-crowded view, the
man asks.
The woman, finishing her Cliff bar, stretches her leg in that confident-athlete way.
Yeah, lets do it. It would be a nice cool-down hike. Are you ready to head out?
The man rises, gently tugging the dogs leash. Yup. Come on, Prince. Atta boy.
They head back down the mountain.
Become painfully aware of your pride and confidence tumbling down the mountain
face, like so many tiny pebbles.
Grub Street 99
Al Maginnes
My Country
My country is the billow of breath-steam
flaring from the shotgun-barrel-sized nostrils
of a carriage horse in front of the Peabody Hotel.
It is the river that runs treacherous
and full of stories a few blocks west, rolling over
soft crusts of boat hulls, the pitted marbles
of bone. A fishing lure dangles from a branch
thick as a broken finger, a pendulum keeping time
over the small creek. An oil stain on pavement,
a wine bottle shattered to claws of green glass.
My country is lightning on the horizon, thunder
calling long distance, smell of rain like a light beam
over a dark field. It is the lamb led from
the herd, abandoned to the appetite of wolves.
Heedless, it survives and finds its way back
to the tribe. In fall, blood-smeared wool will
be taken. My country is a rock and a breath of wind,
a dream of steel and steel itself. The shaking hand
of a friend who said Ill be all right so often
it was clear he would not be. My country is
the light we hid from when we crawled
into culverts to drink warm beer and stare
into a sky until we could pretend
the rip-rap laid down for drainage was a footpath
to lead to the shifting border of the moon.
100
Thanksgiving Morning
Gillian Collins
Oil
Timothy Dodd
102
Dear Charlie (and let your sisters see this, too, if you think itd be useful):
I wanted to thank you again and let you know just how much I appreciated
you feeling like you could be so open with me when we had just met. It really
was so good to meet you at our conference last week, and Im glad we got to
talk about your life. I hope you do find a way to make the decision you feels
going to be right about moving or staying. All I would say is you cant feel guilty
about using a gift. If theres somewhere you have to go to do something you
were meant to do, and you were really meant to do it, the people that care about
you will understand that. I know it doesnt seem like it right now, from what
youve told me. But trust me, theyll come around.
And dont think, by the way, that just because its not something that I would
do right now, at this point in my life, doesnt mean it might not be right for you.
I mean, I wasnt even torn when I was your age; I mean, hell, Im not that old
now, but If you could have been where I was when I was where you are
Hell, I couldnt have got out of where I was fast enough.
I mean, my growing up was a whole strange mix of things. I dont want you
to get the wrong idea; we werent poor, but you could tell we didnt always have
exactly everything we wanted. I mean, our kitchen was always a little cold, and
there was always just a little bit of dry rot on the edges of that fake linoleum.
But at the same time, I had my own truck since I was fourteen years old. I mean,
it was an 87 Mazda, but it was still a truck. My dad wasnt a monster, wasnt a
drunk, never hit my mother, always had a job, always treated me well, bought
her things when he could. She worked; she cooked and did old-fashioned mom
things, too. We were never dysfunctional.
But, yeah, there was always something.
I mean, my dad was good to me, you know? I remember one day he
brought me a guitar, a nice one, out of the blue and really for no particular
reason, just cause Id mentioned it offhand a couple of weeks before. Im sure
he knew Id never really play it, but though he didnt really have the money to
afford it, and though Id told him, in one of my drunk sneakings-in that summer,
that I didnt want to listen to a man who made less in an hour than me (I worked
part time my whole way through school), even though his weeks were sixty-five
hours and mine were just fifteenone day he just comes in and hands it to me
and says, Id heard you mention something about this and I thought you might
like it, and just went on about the whole rest of the day like that was nothing. Ive
never known, really, what to do with that.
Whether any of this applies to you or not, I dont know, but Maybe itd help
to know it. And by the way: you need to stop worrying that youve turned out
alright just cause you aint broke the bankroll yet. Youre doing a lot better than
most of my friends did when we were twenty. I meanand I can remember this
exactly and tell you whats happened to every onethere were sixteen boys out
of a class of forty-five when I graduated. All of us, by coincidence, had prophets
names: three Daniels, one Amos (we called him Pigeon), two Jeremiahs, one Cole
surnamed St. John (the Baptist), one Micah, one Ezekiel (Zeke), two Zachariahs
(Zack and Zak), one more for each of the gospel writers (me included), and a Peter.
Daniel and I went out working in the mines in east Kentucky, and he was
making good money for a while actually. But then he had an accident, and now
hes on workmans comp, and hes trying to go back to school and get on with the
police force. Daniel II joined the Army Reserves to pay for school; after he finished
his associates, he spent two spring breaks in Fallujah. Daniel III went to school on
a scholarship but got his third strike sophomore year at a party when he punched
his girlfriend.
Pigeon (Amos) came out better than the average. He owns a sandblasting
outfit-slash-garage, and gets to work with old muscle cars and big industrial
vehicles. He likes his work.
Jeremy, too, went working in the mineshim in West Virginia. But hes doing
alright with it, from what Ive heard. His company follows all the regulations, for what
that means. He even got to get in the newspaper for getting a reclamation award.
Jeremiah got in trouble with drugs. Got out, then got back in trouble again. I
saw him the other day and, yeah, hes pretty thin.
Cole St. John got a forestry degree and works in wildlife management at
Jefferson National Forest.
Micah teaches school at Bland Middle and coaches eighth-grade girls
basketball and JV high school baseball.
Zeke manages a Pizza Plus in Beckley, West Virginia.
Zack died in an accident in his tractor-trailer when he was driving back from
Ohio on 77.
Im still working at Niswonger.
Matt teaches English at Milligan; son of a bitch is dating an LPGA golfer.
Mark died. I dont know where Zak ismaybe Florida.
John went to Virginia Tech and got a BA in Ag Ed and an MBA and now
he works part time as the middle school ag teacher and handles the money for
his family farm; they do all the grass-fed beef for the restaurants in Boone and
Abingdon and Bristol and Wise and Roanoke and some other places, too.
My point is, you dont know how youre going to end up; not all of us
that ended up well started out well; and not all us that had problems, well, had
problems. Its complicated. If you can manage to keep your head above the whole
fray (and you are, whether you think you are or not), just keep going. When I
was in high school, I was the eccentric kid with the fedora and the suit coat, the
one who listened to vinyl records and brought weird things to school and didnt
really fit in any group and didnt have a lot of girlfriends and didnt like the fact
he came from where he came from. But you know what? It turned out okay. Now
Ive got an NP and a big pickup truck, and Ive worked with kids with leukemia
and all other kinds of problems, and sometimes Ive been able to help them. But
I had to go away and realize I was miserable before I could come back home and
start my work. And Ive still not come back, really, all the way. Maybe with you,
its different Maybe you hate away like I hated home, and maybe youve got to
take some push, and youll find that where youre supposed to be is out away from
home. Or maybe not; maybe you are supposed to stay. But youve got to try it, I
think, or else youre never going to know.
Im getting all preachery and dad-talk on you, I know, so I dont want you to
think I think I got it all figured out. I dont think any of us are ever going to figure
it out. I mean, take me and Pigeon for example. I drop by his shop the other day
my dad needed me to take his truck and get tires done and all thatso while his
guys are doing the rotating I go on and talk to him and just wanting to see what
hes been up to. Hand me that box of piston gaskets, he says; and I do, although
I only know which box is which because all of them are labeled.
So we get to talking about this engine hes been fixing. Apparently, some
asshat from Ohio was down here on vacation, heard about the Street Fights at
Thunder Valley, went down, and got his ass, quite literally, smoked. So he hears
about Pigeon, and brings his car down for a repair, which Pigeon usually enjoys
doing more than just about anything. You get him on the weekend, you know, or,
hell, take him to a strip club and hes still talking to the dancers about transmissions.
But this time, and so pretty soon I realize something is up, he really doesnt seem to
into it, you know?
I heard him say something about C.J.s teeth, he tells me finally. And he was
talking on his cell phone for twenty minutes while I was trying to ask him questions,
and before he let us touch his car he had to take everything in it outsunglasses,
magazines, empty bottlesand hes just standing there with his arms full for half an
hour, and he wont sit down. Finally I tell the guys to start laying transmission boxes
in all the seats so that he cant sit down even if he wants to. Ill tell you what: hed
better be glad jackass money spends as well as regular or else Id be doing more to
him than Im going to.
Still, before I can find out what that is, though, C.J. (whose teeth are coffee
yellow, maybe, but no more) comes over and tells me theyre finished and gives me
the bill. I tell Pigeon Ill see him later and hop out without him finishing the story.
Two weeks later, though, Im back at the shop (this time I have to bring my own
truck in for inspection), and while Im waiting for them to finish Pigeon hollers me
over to his desk.
Hey, you want to see what I did to that guy? he asks and pulls a merchants
copy bill slip off the nail. It looked as regular as any other piece of paper would to
me, of course, so I ended up having to ask him what it meant. You see that two
dollar charge under the muffler, right there? Muffler was the only thing in the car
that was still working. Of course, it took me two more weeks to figure out just what
that meant, until I couldnt stand the stink anymore in my own truck and found the
Scotch tape and the fish bones fall out when I sprayed the undercarriage. Yeah, but
I didnt charge you for it, cause youre my friend, he said when I bitched to him
about it afterwards.
I mean, what am I to take from all of that? Am I an insider or an outsider or
what? The truth is, I dont know. I think thats maybe both of our problems, when
we get down to it. But the more I start to think about it, the more I think weve got
to be comfortable with the fact were not ever going to know. Like, my dad called
up the other day to ask me and my daughter over. He isnt dying yet, and I havent
moved that far away, and we never were estranged enough to be estranged, even
though sometimes the two of us are quiet around each other and it can be pretty
weird. My momand she isnt dying eitherhad kvetched at him until he bought
some wood screws and said that hed unsqueak the bathroom jams. He called and
asked if I would hold the door up and hand him screws (and listen to him bitch)
while he fixed the doors, though I could have done the work myself, and though
he always bitches when I help him as much as he did when I made my first potato
bin and onion shelfor at least tried to make onewhich my mother took potatoes
from, and fried them, with creasy greens and unburnt bacon on the side, and made
us stop our work to eat them when shed finished, and didnt make us wash our
hands (or make me pray).
So I know this life isnt everything Ive ever wanted. If you asked me if I was
happy, maybe itd depend on the day if I would tell you yes. But I keep a few
things in a cheap little safebirthday cards and small tools, stuff like that. My high
school baseball uniform. And I call my parents more than once a week (I dont think
everybody does that anymore, even around here), and Im home at least four days
a month. And I called it home, I notice; I still do that. And Im not really ashamed
anymore of much about where I come from.
I thought I was. I told myself I was. Butno.
You remember that old guitar I was telling you about? You know the one my
dad had bought me? Its still sitting in a closet in my old room at home. When
we were there last visit, I was talking to my folks and Emily was in there playing,
looking around. So after a while I hear this music coming from in there, like actual
music, like she can play the thing, you know? I mean, Emily is seven, and nobodys
ever taught her how to do that, and least so far as I can tell. You know, at least I
havent. So I come in there, really actually a little curious to see what shes up to.
Whatcha doing, buddy? I ask her.
Nothing, buddy.
Do you want to take it home with you?
No. I dont want to take anything from Paw Paws.
But its mine, buddy. You can have it if you want it.
But we dont live here.
Yeah, buddy; yeah we do. We live here just as much as we live at home.
It was the first time in years Id heard myself thinking like that out loud. Didnt
even really know I thought it, to tell the truth. But I guess I do. I said it; I wasnt lying.
Now do not get me wrong: I do NOT want her going to my high school. And
then again, well, then again maybe I do. Ive seen a lot of people that havent turned
out well, and I can tell you for a God-damned fact growing up how they did had
something to do with that. But then, same town, same street, no more money and no
more luck, and its a different story. I remember Cole, when we were growing up,
hell, we looked like millionaires to him. I said that only cause he had said that to
me one time when I was whining about being a poor kid.
Like I said, what all of this means I really couldnt tell you, because I really
havent figured it out myself. But I do feel like Im part of something, like theres
some person Im supposed to be and place Im supposed to be it in. Or maybe not
in, but at least from. Pigeonyou know I guess if I had any friend in this world,
then its probably himtold me once about somebody, that boy dont walk out his
own front door every mornings his problem, which I didnt get at the time because
I thought he was being literal. And because I didnt realize that he was really trying
to talk to me about myself. But I think I get that nowor Im getting closer. Im
nowhere near where I want to be yet, but I think Im starting to get to like coming
from the place I do.
As for you, I cant really tell you what I would or wouldnt do. But I wouldnt be
afraid to be wrong. Some of the best things in my life have come from being deadass
wrong. I got a daughter cause I picked the wrong woman to be with for the rest of
my life. Ill take that. It doesnt mean my ex-wifes not still absolutely insufferable,
but Ill still take it. And when you mess it up (and trust me, youll mess it up), youll
end up finding the thing you were supposed to find in it, and youll be able to take
it all eventually, too.
Take care, and please do let Brently know I was thinking of her. She was my
best friend when we were in clinicals together at Vanderbilt, and if you get the
chance you really should spend some time with her.
Dr. James, too.
Again, be well; youll make the right decision, even if you have to make the
wrong one first.
With love,
Luke
(P.S. Your sister was right: a little red meat isnt going to kill you, and you need
the iron, especially as much as you work out.)
Liz N. Clift
Plastic Jesus,
Among Driftwood
I wonder how He wound up there,
sprawled next to a twist
of yellow rope,
spring beneath His feet
not even rusted, hands pressed
in prayer
for the weary traveler
or perhaps the oceans
or the swift end
to tumbling in waves,
to snagging in kelp.
Perhaps He wanted, instead,
to be swallowed
like Jonah
by a large fish,
like the beaked whale
that washed up
in Puerto Rico
with 10 pounds of plastic
lodged in its belly,
or maybe Jesus
is just looking
for someone to pick Him up,
or maybe He just wants
someone to dry Him out
because He got drunk
on altar wine
when He learned
He could no longer walk
on water.
Grub Street 109
Jordan Wilner
Tangier
We Watermen, we island-bred,
bleed brackish water in bloods stead
and mark our graves with our grandfathers names
in the same black mud that our grandfathers claimed
and made their homes and dying beds.
But now our children turn their heads
and sail for cities grand instead,
and from the ferry rails disclaim
we Watermen.
Our one-room schoolhouse has been bled,
the crabbers child has been misled
while bare traps dangle from feeble frames
of shanties to which none lay claim
but we Always-Dying, we Never-Dead
we Watermen.
110
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The P
Encompassed
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Tower
1950s
1950s
Athina Koulatsos is a graduate student at Towson University soon to complete her
degree in the professional writing program. Her poem, Ode to Howl, was published
in 2014sGrub Street.
Athina Koulatsos
114
116
1960s
1960s
1960s
1960s
Robert Ward is a Baltimore native and Towson University alumnus who worked on
the 1980s television show Hill Street Blues and was a co-executive producer of Miami
Vice. Ward has written for New Times Magazine, GQ Magazine, and Rolling Stone,
among other publications. The 1981 film Cattle Annie and Little Britches was adapted
from Wards novel of the same title. Ward lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Celeste.
1960s
1960s
Well, Ill say you have. He moved over to the seat next to Patch. The fan blew
just enough breeze to make the cigar smoke go in Patchs face. I mean you got a
darn good team in all sports. Take that Lenny Moore for instance. He can fly with the
best of them. I once seen him dodge six guys in one run. And these was big guys
tackles and guards
Patch interrupted the old man. Would you let Lenny Moore go out with your daughter?
What?
I said, would you let Lenny Moore take your daughter out? Or would you just let
him live here? Would you let him do that, old man?
Why I dont understand, young fella. I mean dont he live with his wife in Baltimore?
You get it all right, Patch was shouting now. Dont come off with the fake white
liberal bit to me. Patch jumped up and started for the door.
Wait a second, there, young fella. I didnt mean to say nothing. Whats wrong?
Whatd I do?
The Fop
by Arthur Campbell
120
1970s
1970s
Fred Hasson
1970s
1970s
1980s
1980s
1980s
1980s
In the post-grunge, pre-iPod span from 1997 to 1999, a swarthy, poorly dressed
character of suspicious design could be glimpsed traversing the campus of Towson
University, generally under the cover of darkness, wending a path between Tower
D and the cafeteria, his backpack full of chicken sandwiches, and with a black-andwhite string-bound composition book tucked under one arm. This was me at my
most austere (with the exception of a two-week period I didnt leave my dorm room,
scribbling horror stories and sketching pictures on lined notebook paper that I would
ultimately tape to the wall above my bed). Yet I was summoned, somehow, to attend
a meeting of the Grub Street staff one evening. Memory recalls a dimly lit room,
some lukewarm soft drinks, and a cute, bosomy co-ed who was a bit too friendly.
A mediocre student at best, whod spent more time skipping classes than studying
for exams, I was suddenly enthused by the prospect of working with my fellow
students to publish a journal of fiction, poetry, and artwork. I was writing constantly
at that time but had only been published twice before, so I saw Grub Street not only
as an outlet to possibly submit my own fiction but as an opportunity to learn from
my peers. I just barely recall from memory the fiction I had published in Grub Street
between 97 and 99, but I dont have to rememberI still have the issues tucked
away in a steamer trunk in my basement. Theyre not the high-quality publications
you see todayin fact, theyre every bit a relic of the late nineties, with poorly
transferred black-and-white artwork and basic font (at the time, I thought the glossy
covers were pretty cool, and I suppose they still are)but theyre filled with a ton of
heart. Much like the mysterious jar I keep under my bed
Ronald Malfi
128
1990s
1990s
Will Fesperman won the Grub Street High School Creative Writing Competition in
2011 for his poems Dog Poem and At Penn Station, A Monday In July when
he was a student at Towson High School. During his time at Brown University, he
worked with American poet C.D. Wright and wrote for The Indy and The Brown
Daily Herald. Fesperman now teaches English in Spain. Because he came of age
in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Grub Street asked him for poems
suggestive of the decade.
I dont know that much about South Beach, Miami, but I think lots of people have
written about Florida weirdness. Mid-Atlantic weirdness, not so much. In May the midAtlantic has a lot of static in the air. Toads are migrating. The plants are aggressive.
Postbellum, post-Jim Crow dirt, but still the weeds are Technicolor green by I-95. In
the woods you can feel the buzz of surveillance from the Capital.
Will Fesperman
South Beach
Oh my god, the flip- he said flop trash,
and I was thinking how the Earth
is four point five four billion years old or
one trillion six hundred billion something
days and those bitchy South Beach gays,
he said, and took off his Ray Bans and
dangling them stared, the sun is seven
hundred million years older than Earth and
it sprang to being when the gold god flexed
Will Fesperman
Frequency
2000s
2000s
130
Grub Street turned out to be one of my favorite college experiences. I was honored
to be given the opportunity to work so closely with some amazing writers and
artists. The experiences I had working on the magazine broadened my horizons and
expanded my love for literature even further than I thought it could go. I read short
stories, creative essays, and poems that I still think about today. I wonder where
some of my favorite characters ended up, and if they ever went on another adventure
across the page.
During my time at Towson University in the communications and English
departments, students were told constantly that our futures were going to be working
in online media. While working in the digital space opens up a lot of creative doors,
it was refreshing to know that with Grub Street we were creating something tangible.
Seeing our work in physical print is something I will always cherish.
The skills I used managing the magazine have helped me immensely in the
professional world. I am not currently working in publishing, but I am working for a
nonprofit, planning major fundraising events. The organizational, management, and
communication skills I used on the magazine are crucial in my daily job.
I am so grateful for my time at Grub Street, and I am so happy to see that it
continues to grow each and every year. It is a legacy that I am proud to be a part of!
Whenever I reflect on editing the 2014 issue of Grub Street, I cant help but think how
lucky I was. I will be the first to admit that when I stepped into the role of editor, my
experience with creating a literary magazine was limited. I had been a student editor
for both semesters of Grub Street the year prior, but critiquing poetry and short fiction
hardly prepares you for the challenge of managing the creation of a magazine. I also
went into the position knowing that I wanted to do something entirely different with
the issue. I wanted it to stand on its own. And somehow, against all odds and in spite
of my limited experience, we created an issue that exceeded any expectations I had.
At the time, I was reading a lot of postmodern fiction: short stories by authors
like George Saunders and Nathan Englander. I liked poetry but rarely read it and
never wrote it. And my art knowledge was limited to an art history class I took in
community college. But I was hopeful that I would have a team of editors with
diverse backgrounds and points of view. Somehow, I ended up with editors that were
also photographers, singers, dancers, musicians, athletes, graphic designerssome
of the most creative and talented people I have ever meta team that took on the
thankless task of reading and critiquing hundreds of poems, short stories, and works
of art in order to create a magazine that they hoped others would want to read.
Fortunately, the submissions blew us away.
One submission Ill never forget was from writer Rick DeMarinis. Im fairly certain
that the email said little more than, My submission to Grub Street is attached, but
our faculty adviser recognized the name and helped us determine that yes, this was
award-winning author Rick DeMarinis, and the story, about a woman raising an apelike child in Depression-era New York, ended up closing our issue. (We later learned
that DeMarinis decided to send us his submission simply because he was familiar with
Grub Streets name!)
Today, two years later, Im a proofreader for a publisher of financial newsletters.
The job isnt nearly as difficult as editing Grub Street but it is enjoyable, and from time
to time I get to proofread original pieces from authors like P.J. ORourke. Would I be
here had I not had the opportunity to edit Grub Street? I cant say for sure. But the
experience is one that I will never forget, and I can only hope the other editors of the
2014 issue are as proud of our magazine as I am.
2010s
Susan Connelly
Chris Gaarde
132
2010s
Susan Connelly served as editor for Grub Streets 2013 issue. She works as a
community manager for the American Cancer Societys Relay for Life.
Virgin
Flashlight
One Christmas, buried in my stocking beneath a new gel-handled hairbrush and a roll
of Sweet-Tarts, I discovered a silver circle. It was at least two sizes too small for my
chubby left-hand ring finger. My parents assured me they would get it resized to fit and
that we would have a conversation about what wearing this ring meant, what wearing
a purity ring meant. Neither of those things ever happened. The cheap metal clouded
over and left a green circle in the pink velvet of my ballerina music box. I was eleven
then. Until fourteen, I thought virgins were people from Virginia.
When I was seventeen I spent a lot of my time between community college classes
in Leonardtowns square, that small town fed by the bay just across the street from
campus. One day at the North End Art Gallery I caught sight of a delicately thin silver
band in an abalone shell under locked glass. It was pockmarked with thin lines, a
mere gesture of decoration. It fit me perfectly, and I kept it on my finger while I paid
for it. I twisted it in slow revolutions below my knuckle as I browsed faded bindings in
Fenwicks Used Books and Music across the street. I liked the subtle scratching sound
it made against the coffee cup I sipped from as I surveyed the choppy water off the
wharf. I was glad to have a ring of my choosing. I had decided for myself, and even
then I knew what this would mean. I was going to be a virgin for a very long time.
My momma didnt say sin tasted so sweet. She thought I was safe at JoAnnes church lockin. JoAnnes momma thought she was at my house. Bobby and I dismembered the grass,
rolling through nature like we owned it, until the light came.
Yall git on, Sheriff Bud said. He was a good man, and his job was to turn us away
from sin. I rubbed my face, but I had dirt on my hands. It stung like the flashlight.
Then the beam swiveled, and we watched it make its way across the field. Bobby and
I looked at each other.
Well git home. He licked his lips, and there was a shimmer in his eyes. Its too late.
But I was desperate for Bobby. He made me wild inside, and I could feel it swirling
down deep in my stomach. The far field, I said. No ones there at this hour.
We ran. Only our hands held us together.
Some months and the swirling spun up in my belly. JoAnne and I both went through
it, wiping each others tears. Nothing was as sweet as that time with Bobby when he stood
by the bedside and said, I dont want no baby. The shimmering came back to his eyes, a
blank spot of wetness in a primary world.
I hear my momma singing, but I cant see nothing but the flashlight. Click on, click off.
My momma sings about Gods light and a little candle. Voices carry the beam. They talk of
dilation and timing. They act like it can stop the swirling, but I know it moves on.
Chelsea Cassity
134
Maria S. Picone
136
Christine Nichols
face value
Shadows peek under a sag of hammock lids.
Conservative collar starched
and roundshe strides into every
room wearing someone elses suit.
She wishes she was dressed in sweat
shirt, jeans and tennis shoes or that she
was comfortable in this skin.
She thinks all day about the cubic weight
of shame. How can she be lesshow to show
inside, she is still a fifteen-year-old waitress,
slinging waffles down a Formica
run, mammas stolen lipstick
wrapped around a menthol slim,
a fuck-everyone tilt to her chin;
or a married twice too-young
mother in a transparent Goodwill
nightgown, white trash in a sinking
trailerits shoulders collapsing;
warding off bad-dream monsters
with Avon talcum powder,
calling it magic dust to her baby girls
while possum paw prints appear in the white
under the bunk come morning. How
does she let you know inside her head a spin
of quarters still jangles on the countertop,
beaded eyes glow red in the dark, claws
still scrabble down the halland what else
she carries, tucked inside a pressed
cotton shirt.
138
Finding the
Happy Ending
Marianne Janack
Angela Carter called the spirit of fairy tale heroic optimism, a better phrase for the
promise of the happy ending.
Marina Warner, Once Upon a Time:
A Short History of Fairy Tale
The Prince, like most aging princes,
looks his worst in the morning. Having
rolled out of bed and having given up
the habit of wearing the crown, he puts
on his pajamas, shuffling from his dark
bedroom into the bathroom, where he
sits to pee. He leaves the door open.
Im dying, the Prince tells the
Princess as he shuffles into the kitchen
in his Black Watch plaid flannel pajama
bottoms and a long sleeve T-shirt. The
T-shirt is like a petrified forest of their
dinners and breakfasts of the past week:
a spot of tuna noodle casserole, some
spaghetti sauce, a flowering spot from
olive oil they had on their salads two
nights ago, a dab of almond butter. His
progress from bedroom to bathroom
through living room to kitchen, where
he makes this announcement, has been
marked by intermittent moaning.
140
Haunted
Shelagh Cully
Mixed media:
watercolor and
acrylic paint
Memory
Velvet Smith
Whats it like?
You dont have an answer. You have a
script. Its terrible, its horrible, its not the
way he is at all. Antithesis. Horrible.
Its like, you know, you cant see
many stars in the city.
No. Theres too much light and too
much pollution. Light pollution.
Right, you say. At the horizon,
where the stars fade out and the light is
stacked, you know, because youre not
just looking up out of your own light
pollution anymore, youre looking over
the whole city and all of its light, all
stacked and mixed in with pollution, and
the sky is the prettiest shade of violet.
Thats because of all the pollution.
Right. But its very pretty.
Its sad, though, he says.
Pollution. You have two different
scripts for this, both wrong. Is it? or
To you. One is annoying because it
denies the normal reality. Of course it is
sad. He knows you know it is sad. Thats
whats wrong with that. The second? Its
too true. Men dont want you to tell them
that their opinions are opinions. Its been
years since you knew how to actually
talk to people. You dont remember the
146
1
Shirley Jackson, author of The Haunting of Hill House. Note:
The author thinks that a greater level of understanding of
this contemporary idea of haunting can be gleaned via an
understanding of Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House,
considered one of the greatest modern ghost stories, in which
Jackson employs the use of terror over horror, the important
distinction being that terror is derived from the anticipation
of something rather than the something itself. The terror
that Jackson instills is mainly via the unfulfilled promise of
something horrifying.
2
Note: At the heart of Jacksons novel are the final questions
of whether the main character is merely a young woman
suffering from an emotionally disturbed psyche or whether her
death was at the hands of the supernatural via the house.
148
3
The Cowardly Lion, The Wizard of Oz. Note: The author
has always admired the pragmatism of the Cowardly Lion in
contrast to the unbridled overconfidence of other fictional
characters faced by a potentially scary situation. As such,
the author might be predisposed to the aforementioned tailholding scenario.
6
Jacques Derridas Theory of Hauntology. Note: Derrida
presents his theory of hauntology in his book Spectres of Marx,
wherein he asserts that immediacy of presence is supplanted
by the haunting elements of the ghost. The author believes
it is imperative that the reader note that Jacques Derrida
was in fact born Jackie. It makes his work a lot less daunting,
although it perhaps ruins some of Derridas mystique for the
authornow he just sounds a little pretentious.
8
The Hold Steady covering Bruce Springsteens Atlantic City.
Note: The author would like it to be known that, despite all
evidence to the contrary, including Springsteens appearance
here and in a song cameo at the authors wedding, the author
does not actually like Bruce Springsteen. This fact only further
serves the authors overall argument for that which haunts us
9
Jorge Luis Borges, The Other Tiger (translated by Harold
Morland). Note: This Borges poem, in the authors opinion,
perfectly crystalizes the slippery sucker that weve been
chasing throughout this entire essay. The third tiger, which
Borges cannot fully materialize through his words, is:
a system of words
A man makes and not the vertebrate tiger
That, beyond the mythologies,
Is treading the earth.
Ultimately, Borges leaves the poem still searching for the tiger
that is just out of reach.
Jordan Wilner
Prayers to
St. Penelope
I suffer small
in comparison to war wives,
whose stakes are higher than
Aegean tides promising in fluid white noise
to devour the time and heart they have spent
waiting for the last cycle of the nostos
with the mortal finality of teeth
blades, bullets, bombs; war
changes its dentures every century,
but as long as there are lovers to swallow
it will chew them.
The horror of the real martyrs sacrifices
are not lost on me, Queen of Ithaca.
I am unfit to kiss your sandals.
My loss is impermanent,
and I have only ever perceived the dogteeth of war
with imaginative fingertips.
Still I prostrate, weak-backed from poor
driving posture, at your loom, the altar
at the Temple of She Who Waits.
My man is close enough to reach
by car. I offer you synthetic pine incense,
four hours stale.
My man is too far to touch
152
Ghosts of
Yam Market
Ekweremadu Uchenna
Back then, all the area east of this motor park used to be referred to as Yam Market.
Although it is now occupied by Grants Rehabilitation Centre and St Eunices
Cathedral, it used to hold a cluster of over fifty pubs. Contrary to what the name
might imply, nobody sold yams anywhere around the place. Even now I still have not
met anyone who could tell why a body of pubs managed to acquire such a name.
Yam Market was a ghost town during the day but got busier than a trade fair by
night. One sat inside the parlour to drink and choke under the thick fog of cigarette
smoke while some lady sat on ones thigh to stroke ones head. And when indoors
proved too hot, one could sit outside under the night sky to drink or dance, not
minding the reek of body odour that hung in the air. One was at liberty to bawl with
the music, or to drink until one fell down and rolled in vomit. Sometimes all it cost
to pat the waitresss buttocks as she walked by was a slap. Nobody judged anybody.
People trooped in from the surrounding Kaduna slums to loiter about at the service
of whoever needed a one-night stand. Ones marital status didnt mean anything.
Besides, it was the perfect rendezvous for a tryst. To serve the class of honourable
folks who would rather not be seen setting foot on the corrupt soil around Yam
Market, some of the girls took to standing along the main road, from where they
would run to the cars once they stopped a little way ahead. There were moments that
the dark cloudless sky gave the place the look of a large hall with a high arched roof.
By then, the distant blinking stars would resemble fancy lights dotting the ceiling, and
the cold breeze that occasionally swept over one would seem as if it was emanating
from some fan or air conditioner.
Our favourite pub was Urchmanteros, which sold everything from local gin to
Guinness Stout. There, one was sure to get the best fish soup, too. But most of all,
Urchmanteros hired the prettiest waitresses, the brightest of whom was Estella. Estella
was polite but not loose, self-conscious but not arrogant. Estella was one of those
156
who didnt need the help of make-up, because God had lavished it on already. And she
could be a no-nonsense type of girl. One night, I watched her slap a man on the face
despite his giant stature and the fact that he was in the company of friends. The man
had pinched her behind as she made to place the seventh bottle of Star Beer on his
table. By the time the man and his friends recovered from the shock and were bawling
at the top of their voices, threatening fire and brimstone, she had sauntered away to
another table. And when the proprietor came out and called her back to the table,
she took his scolding calmly and apologised to
the man, having been taught that the customer
Contrary to what the name
was always right. Unlike her colleagues, who
might imply, nobody sold
seemed to have accepted the life and the price
yams anywhere around
that their vocation required of them, Estella was
like an eagle that found itself amongst chicks,
the place.
not forgetting it didnt belong there. She carried
out her duties with all sense of commitment.
Keeping her apron snow-white, shed balance
the tray on the tips of her five fingers, wearing
that professional smile as she moved from table to table. When I had drowned enough
alcohol to trick my senses and the coloured lights played on her form, I would think
she was Chinwe, a girl I used to know in my childhood. And whenever she came over
to our table, and I flattered her for her hairy arms and large eyes, she would grin in that
special way that I could almost swear she was actually Chinwe. All that Estella seemed
to want was a quiet life spent with a man she loved. She had nothing against celebrities
and famous figures, but it wouldnt break her heart if she never became one. Although
it was difficult to read her mind from the look on her face, I always thought I caught a
gloomy shadow underneath her smiles, an echo of boredom in the background of her
laughter, flashes of despair under her cheerful eyes.
I cherish your company, I blurted out to her one Wednesday evening she came
around my table.
Me too. She smiled. Not that much needed to have been said, though, for it was
plain enough that we were attracted to each other. And that was how we started seeing
each other.
I was one in a clique of seven that went by the name Seven Wonders and which
haunted Yam Market nightly. Murphy would ride ahead in his Mercedes 220E carrying
two or three guys, while I followed behind in my Toyota Carina with the rest of the
crew. We engaged in occupations so intense they heated up our guts before the close
of the day such that we would need cold drinks and plates of rabbit broth to assuage
our tempers. It was that phase of life when one realized that this reality called life
could be horrible and boring, that one would do anything to find relief no matter
how short. Some found such escape routes in alcohol and smoke. Some found it
in prayer books. We in Seven Wonders found it in all of these and in many other
channels. We could not have been counted among the rich, but we were well off
in our own way. We had notes in our wallets. We were young. Pretty girls were
everywhere. Life was beautiful.
I ran a garage on the outskirts of town. After my junior secondary, I had
proceeded to the technical college at Malali to read automobile mechanics. Business
was good enough for me to afford a life that many guys my age would envy. I had
the shoes and the clothes. I owned a silver-coloured Technics stereo and a tall Singer
refrigerator that almost touched the ceiling. I lived in a two-bedroom flat.
Victor, my friend from the technical college, was a horrible engineer who
was frequently visited by the police because he wouldnt fix his clients electrical
appliances on time even though he was always quick to ask for advance pay. He
had not visited home for over a decade, since after his family found out the lie about
his studentship at Ahmadu Bello University, a discovery that had rendered his father
hypertensive. The old man had sold
off his land and had gone deeply
I was one in a clique of seven
into debt in order to satisfy his first
that went by the name Seven
son, who always came back home
for money to either pay some
Wonders and which haunted
college fees or to buy some books
Yam Market nightly.
when he wasnt actually a student.
On beer-sodden nights, he would
gaze into his frothy tumbler and think of himself as the black sheep of the family, the
prodigal son.
Sammy was a bookworm who shouldnt have had anything to do with running
an auto parts shop in the first place, for he spent more time sitting under the shade
in front of his shop reading books than promoting his business. He had to drop out
of secondary school when he lost his father at the age of seventeen, and join his
maternal uncle at Panteka Market to learn the trade. He would always bore us with
his hopes of acquiring a university education someday. And, eventually, we all got
tired of trying to make him see the absurdity of this dream, considering the reality on
the ground. But as if to prove to us that he was actually going somewhere, he sat for
GCE as a private candidate and came out with an impressive result.
Adamson was a loafer who cared for nothing else in the world so long as he was
satisfied with his looks, for he was always working to impress some new girl. But
once his father fell down from a hospital roof he was working on and broke his back,
the mantle of carpentry fell upon Adamson, who took over and introduced modernity
to the family business.
Orji had risen to junior foreman in the same construction firm he had started with
as an unskilled labourer. His outfit was never complete without the tape measure
hanging on his waistband like a pistol in a cowboys holster. And it gave him great
pleasure drumming his two fingers on the measuring tape as if he was striking the
strings of a bass guitar. It seemed he had no fonder plaything than this tape measure,
which he would pull out, then smile as it rushed back inside in a zip. Orji begrudged
his boss who he claimed hated him for no special reason and hindered his promotion.
And to counteract this, he took to marking his forehead with a cross of olive oil, a
bottle of which he had gotten from some prayer house he patronized. Moreover, he
would stand over his bathwater with an open Bible to read out loud the entire verses
of Psalm 109, and then pour in a spoonful of the anointed oil into the water before
taking his bath.
Charles was an industrial artist who was unlucky at falling in love. He had suffered
heartbreak so many times he had lost count. After his last breakup, he wallowed in
agony and solitude until some weird illness shook him to his very core, an illness
which the doctor said was psychosomatic. That was when he found us. He had been
occupying the table beside us, fixing a miserable gaze at his frothy glass of Star Beer,
when he woke up to the revelry emanating from our table. He had come over to sit
with us and to even order drinks for us, a gesture that became his entry fee.
And then, there was Barrister Murphy, another childhood friend, who did not
desert our company even after he was called to the bar.
Things started to fall apart that cold evening at Yam Market when Barrister Murphy
broke it to the group that he was going to marry Amaka, a barmaid at Sista Vicks.
The rest of us did not like the idea, for the girl in question was fond of the crucifix,
which suggested she was the highly religious type. And, just as we had feared, the
more he settled down, the less he came to cherish our company.
Victor, being the only son out of seven children, had always been under pressure
from his aged parents to take a wife. One day, two of his uncles arrived from home
with a teenage girl whom they said he must either make sons with as soon as possible
or be ready to bury a disappointed, old father. Moreover, they informed him that
their investigation into her family history showed that the women had the tendency
of having three males out of every five children. At first, Victor had in mind to make
the poor girl so uncomfortable that she would run back to the village. But on second
thought,
seeing that
she too was
Before long, one of them slid down his rifle from
equally a
his shoulder, pressed hard on the trigger, and
victim of
swung his arm in a wide sweep.
circumstance
as he was,
he resolved to provide her food, clothing, and shelter. Nothing more. At night, he
would bring over a pillow to the sitting room and sleep on the sofa, relinquishing
his prized mattress in the bedroom to his child bride. Victor began to dread nightfall,
at some point during he would have to leave us and go home if for no other reason
than to ensure she had not burned down the house while trying to put on the gas
cooker. Besides, once it was eleven p.m. and he wasnt back yet, his bride would sit
at the veranda of the house and cry as she waited for his return. There were times
he would stagger home and find her lying out there, having cried herself to sleep.
One day, he got a telegram from home reporting that his old father had taken ill.
Despite our efforts to get him relaxed in the evening, he remained dispirited, guzzling
tumbler after tumbler of beer. He left us earlier than usual, rushing home with a heavy
heart and a turbulent hip to rock the dear mattress which he had missed for so long.
Victor began to put up flimsy excuses for us to not visit his house. But it didnt take
long before we discovered that his child bride had become a potential mother. Sam,
whose sense of humour knew no bounds, began to call Victor a child abuser. And at
such times, the latter would just keep mum, fix his gaze at his glass of beer, and flare
his nostrils in anger or embarrassment. And one night at Urchmanteros, barely four
months after he first went into his wife, Victor blurted that all we did was a waste of
time and money, and then he bolted out and didnt show up the following night.
Orji was caught sleeping on duty one afternoon and was dismissed. Not knowing
what to do with his life, he left town with some woodcutters, and the next we heard
of him was that a felled tree had crushed him to death.
Adamson, who had been growing alarmingly wane lately, left a note one night by
his bedside saying he had AIDS before leaping into a well.
Another evening, Sammy got so excited he offered to take care of our bills. At the
middle of our revelry, he rang one of the empty beer bottles with the opener to get us
to listen to what he had to say. Something told me he, too, had found a wife and would
be signing out of our league like Victor, but he took another draught and cleared his
throat before saying that his brother-in-law had come in from the States and had made
him an offer he could not refuse: come over to Lagos for a university education.
Days came and went. One Saturday evening, I spent over an hour staring at the
empty chairs I had arranged around the table with the hope that the other boys would
all show up somehow. I had never felt more alone in my life. It seemed like hours
later before Charles, the only person with whom I had continued the fellowship
after all the others walked away for one reason or another, showed up looking so
crestfallen, like a cock that was caught in a rainstorm. I quickly signaled Estella to
bring him two bottles of Bergedorf, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
Its over, he sighed as he slumped on the seat directly opposite me. Cecilia. She
said goodbye, he creaked. Just when I thought we were finally going somewhere.
When he was done with the first two bottles, he swore on his mothers grave that
he would have nothing to do with love again. Barely a fortnight after then, it began to
dawn on me that the charm of Yam Market was losing its hold on Charles. Since after
he turned to the Bible, growing his awareness of sin and holiness, and of heaven and
hell, he became haunted by a divine call to the priesthood. But one afternoon, barely
a week before he should leave for the seminary, he lost his mind and murdered his
ex-girlfriend who had visited him with a baby she claimed was his, threatening to
frustrate his ambition if he didnt agree to contribute to his upkeep.
Several times, on my way from work, I would pull over across the road and just
stare at Yam Market for close to half an hour, wanting to get a glimpse of that garden
once again, yet dreading the very thought as though a fiery sword-wielding angel was
standing by the entrance to bar me from doing just that.
In the third month of her pregnancy, Estella quit her job at Urchmanteros and
moved in with me. Knowing how much she loved fish soup, I took it upon myself
to stop at Urchmanteros at least once a week to get her some. Estella was such an
angel. I couldnt have made a better choice. She made me feel needed and useful
for once. I began to want to rush home to her from wherever I was, once it was past
six in the evening. Finally, I began to understand how Nelson and Victor could find
happiness and fulfillment outside our old fold.
On the night of Christmas Eve, the eight-months-pregnant Estella and I went out
to Yam Market with a pack of cards. We would play ten games and whoever scored
the highest would choose the babys first name. Three or four soldiers occupied a
table quite close to ours. Already drunk, they raised a barracks song and exploded in
a wild howl midway. Estella and I were still on the third game when these soldiers
began to argue over what arm of the military was the most important in wartime.
Before long, one of them slid down his rifle from his shoulder, pressed hard on the
trigger, and swung his arm in a wide sweep. One of the two bullets that went through
Estellas back and shot out from her chest broke my bottle of stout and brushed my
left shoulder.
I woke up in a new, iridescent world where I lived with Estella and our
transmogrifying baby, who kept changing from Adamson to Charles, or Orji, or
Sammy. It was golden until the day some hostiles, among whom I recognized
Murphy, broke into my shell, fastened me onto a stretcher, and confined me to a
larger, lonely shell
I got a letter from Murphy last week. They had named their first son after me, and
Amaka was pregnant again. He wrote from Port Harcourt, to where he had relocated.
Mainly, he wrote to inform me he had arranged a small place for me down there and
would come for me once my discharge was due.
One of the attendants tells me it was Murphy who brought me in and directed
that my bills be placed on his account. Two days after Estellas death, this attendant
informs me, I had locked up myself, subdued by hunger and agony for my great loss,
dazed with alcohol and Indian hemp. Concerned neighbours had contacted Murphy,
who showed up immediately with the ambulance and nurses.
For us back then, campaigns at Yam Market were not just a way of life. They were
the Way. They were the Life.
Al Maginnes
John J. Trause
Cattedrali di fiori
millefiori
stella, stella
stelle
stelae
Reading One of My
Poems to My Father
listening to him. Tonight, a cicada tunes
in the great ballroom of grass. The moon coughs
into star-free dark. And these syllables disappear
as they rise, like smoke from the Camels
he quit over and over, like glasses
of spring-clear vodka, spirits raised and vanished
into thirst and desire. In a field beside
one of our houses, he threw a flaming skillet
of grease and potatoes. It may be there still,
rust-scaled, filling with the rains, molecules
leeching into red soil. In the place he has gone,
his weather-grayed flag hangs
Stelle e fiori *
asters, pastors
astrophysical inflorescence
held together by cerulean vistas
histrionic histories
and constellations come in all colors
become
come
cum instellations, catasterismus
asterisk and it will be open
little stars
stardrops
starburst
flourishing
come
164
Moon
Helen Bell
Collage pieces made with graphite, pen,
and china marker on paper, digital
painting, and Hubble telescope pictures
from the public domain
166
Walk
Helen Bell
Collage pieces made with graphite, pen,
and china marker on paper, digital
painting, and Hubble telescope pictures
from the public domain
D.G. Geis
168
Contributors
Joel Allegretti is the author of five
collections of poetry, most recently The
Body in Equipoise, a chapbook. His
next full-length collection, Platypus, is
forthcoming from NYQ Books. He is the
editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ
Books, 2015).
Glen Banks is from Baltimore, Maryland
and in his free time enjoys exploring old
buildings and photography.
Nessi Alexander-Barnes achieved a BFA
in art and design and a BS in art history at
Towson, and is going on to pursue an MFA
in Fall 2016. Xe makes allegorical paintings
about xyr experiences as a genderqueer
and generally queer individual.
Helen Bell is ecstatic to be in included
in Grub Street. Ending her third year at
Towson University, she has been working
towards a BFA in digital art and design
with a minor in film, which she hopes will
prepare her for a career in animation. She
can be reached at hjebell.art@gmail.com.
Contributors
Samantha Brunner is an English major
with a double minor in creative writing
and Spanish. She has always dreamed of
writing a contributors note for Grub Street.
Her aspirations include becoming a
television sitcom writer and a competent
yodeler.
Vivian Caldern Bogoslavsky is a
Colombia native born to Argentinian
parents. She has studied art for over
thirteen years with a well-known
Argentinian art master as well as studying
in Florence, Italy and in the United States.
Today, she is living in Madrid exploring
her art. Vivian has shown her work in
both individual and collective shows in
Colombia, the United States, and Spain.
She has been published in various books,
magazines, and webpages, and she has
received multiples awards.
Chelsea Cassity is a recent graduate and
long-time key collector. She enjoys hours
in empty ceramic studios, spiral staircases,
and German shepherds named Bailey.
170
Contributors
A four-time nominee for the Pushcart
Prize, Jonathan Greenhause was a finalist
for the 2015 Aesthetica Creative Writing
Award and was highly commended
for Southword Journals 2016 Gregory
ODonoghue Poetry Prize. His poems have
recently appeared or are forthcoming in
FOLIO, Green Mountains Review, Mantis,
RHINO, and Stand, among others.
172
Contributors
Emily Reinhardt Welsch is a recent
graduate of Towson University with a
masters in humanities. She is currently
working in transcription and as an editorial
assistant, but her ultimate goal is to be an
author, specializing in horror stories.
Stephen Scott Whitaker is a member of
the National Book Critics Circle, and the
literary review editor for The Broadkill
Review. Punks Writes Poems will publish
All My Rowdy Friends in 2016. His previous
chapbooks include The Black Narrows,
Field Recordings, and The Barleyhouse
Letters. Whitaker teaches in rural Maryland.
174