Evening Street Review Number 22

Number 22 Autumn, 2019
EVENING STREET REVIEW

The Green New Deal
Resolved,
NUMBER 22, AUTUMN 2019
. . .all men and women are created equal

in rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, revision of the
American Declaration of Independence, 1848
PUBLISHED TWICE (OR THRICE) A YEAR

BY
EVENING STREET PRESS
Editor & Managing Editor: Barbara Bergmann
Associate Editors: Donna Spector, Kailen Nourse-Driscoll, Patti
Sullivan, Anthony Mohr, L D Zane, Stacia Levy
Founding Editor: Gordon Grigsby
Evening Street Review is published in the spring and fall of
every year by Evening Street Press. United States subscription
rates are $24 for two issues and $44 for four issues (individuals),
and $32 for two issues and $52 for four issues (institutions).
Cover photos by Steven Pelcman
Library of Congress Control Number:2019943102

ISBN: 978-1-937347-52-9
Evening Street Review is centered on the belief that all men and
women are created equal, that they have a natural claim to certain
inalienable rights, and that among these are the rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With this center, and an
emphasis on writing that has both clarity and depth, it practices
the widest eclecticism. Evening Street Review reads submissions
of poetry (free verse, formal verse, and prose poetry) and prose
(short stories and creative nonfiction) year round. Submit 3-6
poems or 1-2 prose pieces at a time. Payment is one contributor’s
copy. Copyright reverts to author upon publication. Response
time is 3-6 months. Please address submissions to Editors, 2881
Wright St, Sacramento, CA 95821-4819. Email submissions are
also acceptable; send to the following address as Microsoft Word
or rich text files (.rtf): editor@eveningstreetpress.com.
For submission guidelines, subscription information, published
works, and author profiles, please visit our website:
www.eveningstreetpress.com.
© Copyright 2019 by Evening Street Press

2881 Wright St
Sacramento, CA 95821
All rights revert to the author upon publication.
PUBLISHED BY EVENING STREET PRESS
NUMBER 22, AUTUMN 2019

CONTENTS
BY THE EDITOR What the Future Holds 6
POETRY
MARY SCHMITT The Hollow Places 9
MATTHEW FEENEY Sun Shower 12
The Right to Write 12
RONALD K BURKE Jazz Junkies of the Fifties 24
THOMAS PIEKARSKI Land’s End 25
ALITA PIRKOPF Thoughts, Some of Them Deep 34
Remembering Gregor Samsa 35
SHAWNA ERVIN Birthmom 37
JESSE MILLNER The Lewis Place 50
Broken World 52
Beer Aisle Meditation 53
This Morning May 22nd, 2017 55
I hate Chrysler Sebrings, 56
MARTIN WILLITTS JR Coming Home, Soon 66
DAVID A HECKER Craftsman 68
Summer Fallow 69
Two Brothers 70
SHARON SCHOLL Thoughts and Prayers 76
Chemo-Brain 76
MARC KAMINSKY A Place Apart: A Tent in the Desert 79
A Coat in the Closet 79
MARCUS BENJAMIN RAY BRADLEY Buckled 83
Flu Year 84
Daughters 85
ADRIA KLINGER Cancer Stage 4 93
Not 94
Grief 94
Still Moving 95
EMILY WALL Tommy’s Birth 103
Catching Babies: Haiku 105
DANA ROBBINS Dear Mr. Klimt: 116
BRAD G GARBER Birdfeeder 121
Family Interests 122
HELEN TZAGOLOFF The Prince Cannot Find Cinderella
without Her Shoe 126
Kissproof 127
MARGUERITE GUZMAN BOUVARD Danny Rodriguez 128
WILLIAM GREENWAY Intruders 142
Migraine 143
KAREN MACEIRA Bookmobile 153
Spring 155
Salvation 156
Miss Perret 157
Late Art 157
MICHAEL ESTABROOK From Nothing 160
Batteries 160
Kidney 161
Watch only movement. What a person
does is what a person means. 161
At The End 162
CHRISTY WISE Cardboard Sliding 171
CHARLES RAMMELKAMP In the Clearing Stands a Boxer 174
MILTON J BATES Summer of ’63 180
DIANA PINCKNEY Hummingbirds and Wine 187
SCOTT RUESCHER The Last Dance 189
The Sign 191
RON DRUMMOND The Dancing Man 197
Attributions 198
MYRA WARD Before the Visitors, at the Chapel 204
ANNA CITRINO Watering the Grape Vine 204
Applauding for Vegetables 205
Lettuce 206
Desert Compost 206
KELLY SLIVKA What You Cannot Do 218
REED VENRICK The Tree that Brings me Home 219
FICTION
DR. BILL DEARMOND The Emperor’s New Brain 7
RONNA WINEBERG Kaleidoscope 13
G DAVID SCHWARTZ Rabbi B and I Played Tennis
(and Racquetball) 36
CAROL ROAN The Last of the Warners 38
ALAN M FLEISHMAN Bygones 57
ROSALIA SCALIA Daddy’s Shoes 67
FABIYAS M V Pachan’s Day 77
ANTHONY M AIZE Patty and Gert 86
GEORGE AUGUST MEIER Dandelions for Sarah 96
LAURO PALOMBA The Sultan’s Tent 107
STACIA LEVY The Real Me 122
CHRISTINE TERP MADSEN The Back of the Plane 143
GWEN NAMAINGA JONES Kwata Chamba (Hold Your Heart) 163
JANET AMALIA WEINBERG & MARGARET KARMAZIN
The Olding Challenge 175
MARK HALPERN Takeda-sensei, the Enemy 181
NICOLE WALDNER Night Skies 207
NONFICTION
THE GREEN NEW DEAL Inside front cover, 229,230, inside back cover
HARVEY SILVERMAN Yin and Yang 10
REBECCA JUNG Home Leave 28
DANA STAMPS II Art Collecting, a Memoir 71
JAMES RYAN Greeting Ike 80
ORIT YERET Sidewalk Stories 117
STEPHEN PARK Bobby Joe has a Bad Day 129
J O HASELHOEF Lying in Bed 158
NIKKI HAGGAN “A Weight Off My Chest” 172
FLORENCE LEVINE ‘Grandma?’ 188
VALERIE L. KINSEY Grandmother’s Gifts 193
BOB CHIKOS Summer of ’84 199
CONTRIBUTORS 220
EDITORIAL CHANGES
The Press enters into a new era without the anchor of Gordon
Grigsby’s words to provide us with “Occasional Notes” and “Neglected
Help.” When he gave up editorship in order to do his own work, it became
apropos to reprint his contributions. Now they have all been reprinted, and so,
for now, we are dropping those parts of the Review, but we will print
contributions submitted expressly for that purpose if anyone cares to take up
the gauntlet.
As for some mundane changes: we’ve had to add at least one issue a
year so as not to fall years behind in publishing. Thus we’ve changed our
pricing for subscriptions: instead of a year, each subscription is either two
issues for $24 or four issues (at a discount) for $44.
Online we are at https//www.facebook.com/EveningStreetPress and
https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCq14IqZqfDuBIa48mugYq1A : where
the work of Gordon Grigsby as well as a growing number of contributors is
featured. All contributors, past and present, are invited to send audio files of
their work, which we will match to their written work and post.
6 / Evening Street Review 22
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
When Gordon Grigsby and I met in late 1987 (“across a crowded

room”), it took us almost 10 years to discover that we each wished to have
our own press and then 10 more to make it real. Without that dream,
Evening Street Press would not have been created.
And so it is with so much of life and art—without a vision, often
shared, new ideas don’t become realized.
The point of view of the Press has no doubt subtly shifted over
the last 5 years, but the view of working towards a new culture that
recognizes that “All men and women are created equal” remains
unchanged, with the added consciousness that our world view is biased by
white privilege. Both of us grew up in times and places where a public
education of great quality was available to us, despite our rather modest
families of origin. Both of us earned PhDs with public assistance: Gordon
with two rounds of the GI Bill, I with state and federal grants which I
never had to repay. And the press continues to be paid for out of Social
Security and public university pension funds. These benefits of FDR’s
New Deal created opportunities for millions of Americans like us who
had previously been locked out of the oligarchy of the Gilded Age.
Derided at the time, and by ahistorical partisans now, as dangerously
radical and socialist, the original New Deal created the America that many
think of when they think of the “good old days.” This America still
excluded far too many of its citizens on the basis of race and gender, too
often intentionally, but it also created institutions and a culture that could
harness the power of the best of America to achieve great things:
defeating Nazism, going to the moon, combating poverty, and extending
civil rights.
Now the Green New Deal has provided us with a blueprint for
how to make a new economy and a new culture by working together again
toward a new and unknown future that will serve us all. It too is being
attacked as radical and socialist, as if these were words of denigration
rather than compliments: what has always been the best of America has
been a willingness to break free of the bonds of calcified authority and a
desire to serve others more than oneself. Evening Street Press is
committed to publishing work that shows us how to live our lives on a
daily basis as a way of helping to envision and realize this more equitable
future.
BB
2019, Autumn / 7
DR BILL DEARMOND
THE EMPEROR’S NEW BRAIN
Many years ago (or not) there was an Emperor so exceedingly

fond of his brain that he had his carrot-topped dome removed so that
everyone could marvel at its excellence. He cared little about reviewing
his soldiers, addressing the press, only playing golf every weekend to
show off his magnificent brain.
In the great white castle where he lived with all his family, life
was always gay (or not, maybe “happy”). But the Emperor was sorely
vexed. It seems that as he teetered into his dotage his noggin had begun to
shrink and grow soft. His complex cortical folds had flattened and become
smooth and his gray matter decidedly black.
Two anarchist scientists got wind of the Emperor’s predicament
through TMZ and ingratiated themselves into his apprenticeship. The
Emperor had heard from somebody who heard it from somebody who had
read it somewhere that the scientists were brain regenerators, and they
could make the most stunning nanobrains imaginable. Not only were their
cerebral cortexes uncommonly fine, they said, but they had a wonderful
way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for office, or was
unusually stupid.
“That would be just the brain for me,” thought the Emperor. “If I
displayed that I would be able to discover which men in my empire are
unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools.”
And so he paid the anarchists a large sum of money to start work
at once. They set up a lab in the basement of an abandoned hotel although
they bought no instruments of mass construction with their bounty. All the
funds they demanded went into a Roth IRA and they continued to hit the
Emperor up for additional grants every few days so they could perfect
their nano technology.
A month later the anxious Emperor longed to know how far along
the scientists were in creating his new brain because he could no longer
tell his daughter from his wife and his time was rapidly running out. So he
tweeted to his Chief of Staff to go take a look because he remembered that
those who were unfit for their position would not be able to see the brain.
“My Chief will be the best one to tell me how the brain looks, for he is a
sensible man and no one does his duty better.”
So the “honest” Chief went to the lab where the two anarchists sat
working at their empty station miming away with their non-existent tools.
The Chief’s eyes bugged open. “I can’t see anything at all! But I cannot
say anything or I’ll be fired.”
The anarchists asked for more money, for the final components of
the lobes were exceedingly rare. The Chief texted the Emperor that more
money was needed and that the noodle was “beautiful and enchanting.”
Another month went by with no news, and the Emperor began to
be suspicious, so he sent his son-in-law to see how the brain was
progressing. The same situation greeted him that had perplexed the Chief.
The young man looked and looked but could see nothing on the work
table.
“I know I’m not stupid. I have a Harvard degree. So it must be
that I’m unworthy of my position. I mustn’t let anyone know how stupid I
am.” Even though it was 3 a.m., he tweeted the Emperor that his new
noodle was “beautiful and enchanting.”
Eventually the Emperor could not allow any more delays or he
would become as stupid as his Attorney General, so he informed the two
anarchists that he would be arriving the next morning to have his old brain
replaced by his magnificent new one. He would then parade down the
boulevard accompanied by the Tinfoil Hat Brigade carrying their baskets
of deplorables to show off his new dome to the peasants.
Nervously, the two scientists removed the now desiccated brain
and made a great show of gently placing the new “brain” in the cranium
of the Emperor. When done the scientists exclaimed, “Magnificent! Just
look! What a design and a perfect fit.”
The Emperor stared into the mirror, looking this way and that, but
to his chagrin he could see nothing resting in his now hollow pate.
“What’s this?” thought the Emperor. “I can’t see anything! This is
terrible! Am I unfit to be Emperor? Am I a fool?”
Then his Public Relations Minister reminded him that the
procession was waiting. The Emperor looked at the mirror again. “It is a
remarkable fit, isn’t it? “ He seemed to regard his invisible brain with a
new admiration.
So off went the Emperor in his procession. Everyone in the streets
and windows shouted, “Oh, how fine is the Emperor’s new brain. Isn’t it
beautiful and enchanting.” And nobody would confess that they couldn’t
see anything wrong with the Emperor’s brain, for that would mean they
were stupid for supporting him.
Yet, as he passed a small toddler of DACA origin she pointed at
him and said, “The Emperor has no brain.” And her father, fearful of
deportation, tried to silence the girl. But others had heard the child and
2019, Autumn / 9
began to whisper among themselves, “The Emperor has no brain.”

Finally, the whole town cried out as one, “The Emperor has no brain. But
we don’t care.”
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But no
thought would ever enter the space between his ears again and he walked
on more proudly than ever. And the Emperor ruled with his “new” brain
for years and years.
First published online on SIXFOLD
MARY SCHMITT
THE HOLLOW PLACES
He told me the meaty sauce reminded him of dinners with my mother

at Gino’s Restaurant, hundreds of miles away, sixty years before,
how Gino himself would come over to their little table

with his wide smile, fill up the sweetly hollowed glasses,
pour them more of his red heady wine, homemade,

with sugar and a long taste of sun to its very dregs.
They had come to Gino’s after the heavy last flush

of a dance, her only makeup the deep red lipstick
my father said went so well, looked so damned striking,

with her white skin, her dark hair and eyes.
He always admired the primal contrasts in her face.

He only lived eight months more after she died.
Your mother never let herself go he said to me

on those nights I made dinner, while I washed the plates.
HARVEY SILVERMAN
YIN AND YANG
So much can happen in a day. Contrasts which highlight the

breadth of life; rich and wonderful things that fill emptiness somehow,
even as the outline of loss remains.
As my dad slowly disappeared into the fog of dementia my
perception of the fog was of its thickening in fits and starts, with glimpses
of the man who was my dad unpredictably visible or obscured, the fog
inexorably becoming more thick over time and then he is gone entirely,
the waiting for another glimpse eventually replaced by an understanding
that he has been completely and forever consumed. My grief likewise
played out over time, slowly, gradually, to the point of final acceptance
and goodbye. His physical death was an afterthought. Or so it seemed at
the time.
His religion and my mom’s, his wife of sixty three years,
anticipated an unveiling at which, a year after his death, family and close
friends gather at his gravesite for ritual prayers. It was a practice that was
not important to the entirely nonobservant me. But of course I intended to
participate as to my folks, to my surviving mom, it was important indeed.
She had her own serious health problems. Perhaps that was the
reason she decided to observe the rite several months prior to the usual
twelve months after death, though she never said so. Setting a date was
not without complication. There were important holidays around which to
plan during which custom and religious law prohibited the ceremony.
There was the need for a religious person to attend to lead the prayers and
her choice had his own scheduling conflicts prompted by his own medical
needs. The only date that fit coincided with my younger son’s, one of her
cherished grandsons, birthday.
“I’m sorry, but it’s the only day.”
Her health continued to deteriorate and her supplemental oxygen
was now constant. She struggled with simple activities. I feared she might
not live to participate in something so important to her.
The day before the scheduled ceremony I drove to her home
unannounced. It was the day that would have been their sixty fourth
anniversary and I thought to surprise her with a bouquet. I walked into
their home, her home, and found her without oxygen feeling just fine.
Was it a miracle? I chose to attribute it to a medical regimen of steroids
but as the therapy had been ongoing for some time by that point who
could say?
2019, Autumn / 11
The next day we gathered at the cemetery. After the ritual prayers
came an opportunity to say something about my dad. My mom expected
me to offer a few words and so to please her I had mentally prepared the
thoughts I would impart. As I began I found myself suddenly and entirely
without warning overcome with an overpowering emotion of sorrow. My
grieving had occurred over a long time and was completed with my dad’s
death. Or so I had thought. The sorrow, so acute, was intense.
Finally I gathered myself and went on, remarking on the marriage
anniversary of yesterday and the birthday of today, appropriate in a way
as my dad had said many times that having his grandsons was the best
thing in his life. My brother then followed with incredible eloquence.
Beautiful, perfect, from the heart. I listened with quiet amazement and
deep appreciation.
The ceremony over, the cemetery party returned to my folks’
home for a small reception where my mom, still without oxygen, carried
on as a vivacious and engaging hostess. Towards the end everybody sang
happy birthday to my son.
After a time, the guests having departed, we left my mom home
with my brother and drove the forty miles to my son’s home where we
planned an evening out to celebrate his birthday. What a lovely time, a
festive meal at a fine restaurant, favorite food and drinks; my sons ordered
things that they knew I favored, and we ate and drank and laughed and
celebrated. How happy a time together, my wife, our two sons, the
married older’s wonderful wife, and me.
As the evening was reaching its end, desserts having been eaten
and coffee refilled a last time, I sat back in my chair and quietly went
from face to face, silently reflecting upon how the day had begun and how
it was now ending. I considered myself to be very fortunate as I settled
back and basked in a few moments of personal contemplation.
Usually I consider, when I stop to think about it, myself in a front
row seat riding life’s roller coaster, a participant in the adventure. But that
day, sitting there and regarding us all, I saw myself rather as sitting in a
movie theater, leaning back in a comfortable seat. The theater is darkened
of course so while there may be others in the audience I am not aware of
them.
On the screen plays a movie, one of those big budget
generational epics, grand in scope and production, a story of a family
covering many, many years with characters young at the start becoming
older as new characters join the story. Characters exit, characters enter.
The movie is very long and goes on and on. I sit and watch.
MATTHEW FEENEY
SUN SHOWER
The sun snuck in the shower

with me this morning.
Traversing 93 million miles
for our personal rendezvous...
dancing over the razor wire
percolating through the stained
shower curtain
to paint itself firmly upon my stall wall.
Rivulets running down the gray paint
washed with shadow-water
blur away the bars.
Leaving the bright splotch of sun
and a lonely man
crying
together in the shower.
THE RIGHT TO WRITE

I don’t know how I’m going to survive after prison.
I don’t know how I’m going to make a living.
I don’t know if I’ll get over these hurdles.
I don’t know.
So I write.
I write about the perceived injustices.
I write kites to try to make prison a better place.
I write to Senators & Popes & Commissioners & Wardens.
I write to express my fears and kindle my hopes.
I write to all the letters in the alphabet soup:
ACLU, DOJ, LAMP, DHS, MSOP, LLSP
Most of the time I’m ignored—but I don’t give up.
I write to survive.
I am a survivor.
2019, Autumn / 13
RONNA WINEBERG
KALEIDOSCOPE
When Doreen and Willow invited Lenore to a surprise birthday

party, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You’ll meet new people,”
Willow said, “expand your horizons.” This was exactly the kind of thing
Lenny didn’t like to do—attend a gathering where she wouldn’t know
many people. But a man would be at the party whom Doreen wanted her
to meet.
“If I wasn’t in a relationship already,” Doreen said, “I’d have my
eye on him. He’s gorgeous.”
Lenny worked as a nurse at the Veterans’ Hospital then, and they
were all living in Denver. Doreen was a lab technician at the hospital. She
and Willow had steady boyfriends and liked to set Lenny up on dates or
give her advice about her wardrobe. Willow had wavy, black hair that fell
to the middle of her back and liked to wear tight, black, low-cut leotard
tops and gauzy, full, colorful skirts. Doreen favored flowing dresses with
floral prints, and she wound her shiny, blond hair into a single braid.
Although Lenny often dressed like that, she felt happiest in her hose and
simple dresses.
She went to the party, and as she would recall, she fell in love
with Adam Thompson immediately. That became her clear, irrefutable
memory. The house had been brightly decorated with red and white
balloons, and a good-sized crowd filled the rooms, but even so, Adam
stood out with his dark, curly hair, fine aquiline nose, and radiant smile.
When someone asked him to give a birthday speech—the party was in his
honor—he had smiled gratefully. “Thirty is a beginning,” he said. “My
fellowship in the laboratory at the university is almost over and what’s
next?” Then he added quietly, “I must tell you that I love life. It’s that
simple. I love you all, and life itself.” As she watched from the edge of the
group, Lenny had no doubt he was right for her.
Lenny often returned to this moment when she was considering
what had happened in her life, if there had been a grand scheme after all
or if the events had been mostly chance—moving to Denver, meeting her
two best friends, then Adam.
As planned, Doreen had introduced Adam to Lenny. Later he
walked her home. He said he’d noticed her right away. They strolled with
a group of his friends first, then took a long, meandering walk by
themselves on the dimly lit city streets, their arms at their sides, until
gradually they moved closer and Adam rested his hand on hers. He talked
about finishing his graduate degree in cell biology and finding a job. Then
he asked, “What do you like about your life now?”
Lenny thought about her desire to work with children, to have her
own children—she believed this would fulfill her—and her fear that this
might never happen. She’d always felt a bit plain and awkward with her
dull-brown hair and thin body, dressed in her nurse’s uniform, a little too
quiet and tossed about by other people’s wishes. But she said, “My life
now? I like almost everything about it, I suppose.”
“Does that include me?” Adam smiled.
Lenny looked at him, then eyed the sidewalk self-consciously. “I
don’t really know you.”
“You can start now.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her
boldly.
***
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, young people in their twenties like
Lenny—people looking for a new beginning, a second chance, a turn of
the page—drove west, toward California, in large numbers. They were
driving away from social conventions, they believed, to a place where
there were no expectations of how to live. They zoomed west on Interstate
80, past flat fields of corn, and some veered south at the exit for Interstate
76. After a while the landscape became hilly. In the summer, when Lenny
entered Colorado, the grassy verge along the highway was brimming with
sunflowers. The sky seemed wider and bluer than the one she’d left
behind in Wisconsin. Then Denver appeared, Oz-like, with the stark
grandeur of the mountains that rose beyond the city.
Lenny had come with friends on a lark. She’d finished college a
few years before, had quit her job at a rehabilitation hospital, and was
living at home in Milwaukee. One of her friends had known someone in
Denver who lived in a big house and was looking for roommates. When
the others moved on, continuing their journey to California, Lenny
decided to stay.
She found a job and her own apartment near Cheesman Park, a
grand expanse of green in central Denver. She joined an organization for
medical professionals and went on hikes in the mountains with a Sierra
Club group. Sometimes she felt desperately lonely. She had left everyone
she was close to in Milwaukee. But she became involved in activities that
she’d never experienced. She enrolled in classes at the Western University
for Enhancement of Self-Awareness and studied Law for the Lay Person,
How to Unleash Your Creative Powers, and Kundalini Yoga. The
2019, Autumn / 15
creativity class involved meditation, fasting, and learning to trust yourself.

Doreen had been in the group. Lenny had met her in passing at work.
Later Doreen introduced her to Willow.
The three women began to meet at Doreen’s small studio
apartment nights after work and weekend afternoons. They sat by the
large picture window, painted with watercolors, and talked. During the
day sunlight burst into the room. Willow had studied with Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross in England and was passionate about the subject of death.
Doreen loved to talk about garage sales, bacteria, and men. The snake-like
figures she painted on the thick, textured watercolor paper were sure and
unwavering; she layered pigment thickly. Willow drew wildly uneven
shapes. Lenny experimented with small, precise strokes; she diluted her
paints with water.
Doreen explained that at work she peered at tiny particles under a
microscope. “Sometimes I spend days searching for what I’m looking
for.”
Willow laughed and twisted her long, black hair into a ponytail.
“The answers to the universe aren’t floating in the air, waiting for you to
find them.”
Willow lived with her boyfriend Teddy then, a passionate snare
drummer from Alaska. One afternoon she confided that even though he
was wonderful, she wasn’t interested in a future with him. “I’ve had
affairs. Lots of them,” she said. “I’ll always have them. I love sex. I want
to experience the moment, now. When I marry, I don’t want sex to
become another wifely duty.”
“I’m attracted to noncommittal Romeos, unfortunately,” Doreen
said. “They’re everywhere. But it’s hard to be close enough to a man for
me to feel I’d want to be with one forever. In the end you have to rely on
yourself.” She was considering quitting her job, going to law school. “I
don’t know if I’ll ever settle down.”
Lenny had been involved in a few brief relationships before she
met Adam. Willow talked brightly about Lenny’s flings, but they often
seemed to Lenny like sad dead-ends.
“There are women who need men,” Willow said one evening,
“and women who need women, too.” They were drinking green tea and
wine in Doreen’s kitchen. Willow gazed at her two friends, then shook her
head. “Not sexually, I mean. Emotionally. I can talk to you both about my
period, psychic phenomena, and death. Orgasms. Fucking. I know you’ll
understand.”
“I need both women and men as friends,” Lenny said.
“I do, too. Sometimes when I look at Teddy,” Willow replied, “I

feel weak. Metaphorically speaking. When we met, I said to him, ‘It’s
hard for me to look at you without feeling faint.’ I expected him to say
something important and memorable. That he was attracted to me like
that, wildly in love with me. But he looked at me, kindly really, and said
he felt fine. Was I sick?”
An ex-lover of Willow’s created business cards, which Willow
liked to distribute. One said Willow: Writer, with her address and phone
number. She handed these out when she was trying to find business in
freelance PR. Another had the imprint Willow Raymond: Book
Connoisseur, which she gave out in connection with her job at a
bookstore. A third was printed in deep-purple ink with a silhouette of a
naked woman: Willow: Alternative Woman. She passed these out at
parties. Conversation openers, she said.
Sometimes she shared pot with her friends. Not really a drug, she
said. “A way to control your destiny. To see life clearly. That’s the key.
One day it will become legalized. You’ll see.” She took LSD and
mescaline, although neither Lenny nor Doreen did.
One Saturday Lenny and her two friends sat cross-legged on the
floor in her apartment, holding hands. Doreen had dimmed the lights.
They vowed they would stay friends forever, no matter what happened or
what man they were with or where they each ended up. “We will help
each other lead extraordinary lives,” they whispered in unison.
Lenny told them her real name that afternoon, saying the
nickname “Lenny” had stuck as a child, and she was glad; Lenore
sounded stuffy, old-fashioned. Doreen had stopped using Dory, her
childhood nickname. She wanted something stronger. Willow told them
her real name was Susan.
“A name is like anything else. Utterly disposable,” she announced
the day the three of them went to the courthouse so she could have her
name legally changed. “Life is about taking risks. Are you going to dive
in or not? If you don’t like something, take action and change it. You
can’t sit on the edge forever.”
“I suppose there are people who plunge ahead in life,” Lenny
said, “and those who watch or float…plod maybe.”
“Too pejorative.” Willow flung her hands in the air. Her four
silver bangle bracelets jangled. “Cautious. I could tell from the moment I
met you.”
***
Adam and Lenny began seeing each other after the night of the
2019, Autumn / 17
birthday party. Adam sought her out. They went to movies, on walks,
cooked dinners together at his apartment or hers. Even if he hadn’t called
her, Lenny was certain she would have contacted him.
He said he’d noticed her not just because she was pretty—and she
was, he told her, with her soft, brown hair and slender body—but because
there was something different about her, something solid, grounded. He
had seen that right away.
When Lenny was with him, she felt like someone other than
herself—not plain or quiet or awkward, but somehow freed. There was
the pure pleasure of being together, making love; she and Adam had
discovered a new world, she thought, and she had discovered a secret self.
Adam liked to ask her questions. He liked to talk about what was
important, which was home and family, values. These were important to
Lenny, too, although she had almost forgotten about them since she’d
arrived in Denver. How important could these values be to her, she
wondered, if she had forgotten them so easily? But they were essential to
her, she realized, though she rarely discussed this with Willow and
Doreen.
“I want to know everything about you,” Adam said, “as if I were
you or you me. Do you ever feel that? Wanting to know exactly how
someone else thinks? That close.”
“I want to know how you think,” she said. She didn’t discuss her
longing to be more like Doreen and Willow.
Adam said the timing was perfect for him to fall in love. “We’re
lucky, you and I. We’ve found each other. So many other people are still
looking, wandering around.”
At first, Lenny imagined everyone would get to know one
another: Willow, Doreen, their boyfriends, and Adam. They would be
close friends, their lives intertwined. But when she made plans with the
others, Adam would say, “I don’t want to be with other people right now,
just with you alone.”
Once she arranged a backpacking trip with Willow and the others
to the Never Summer mountain range in the north, near the Wyoming
border, a rugged, gorgeous place. Adam cancelled at the last minute.
“But if you want, go on the trip without me,” he said. “Whatever
suits you.”
He had work to finish and wanted to start rebuilding a bicycle. He
hoped Lenny would look into a class in ballroom dancing with him.
“I’m not going to force you to do what you don’t want,” she said.
But she wasn’t happy to leave him. “I wish you wanted to go on the trip.”
He said he had no interest; it was a matter of temperament.

“People are who they are.” Lenny decided to stay behind with him, and
they went to the dance class.
The studio had a dark-oak floor and large, floor-to-ceiling picture
windows. One other couple was dancing. The woman, her hair pulled
back in a bun, wore a turquoise shirtwaist dress and high-heeled, black
shoes; the man wore a white suit. He draped his arms around the woman
gracefully. They danced in unison to the music in slow, even steps. Their
bodies dipped and swayed; the man spun her around. The teacher, who
was dressed in a black suit and bow tie, watched Adam and Lenny dance.
They were more awkward but had great promise, the man assured them.
***
At work, Lenny ate lunch with Doreen. She spoke with Willow
on the telephone. The three of them didn’t get together as much as they
used to.
Doreen was applying to law schools. She was tired of keeping
track of particles, she said. She had gone on a macrobiotic diet. Willow
had begun consulting with a psychic and drinking diluted hydrogen
peroxide flavored with herbs to improve her ozones. Willow and Doreen
often visited the psychic together. They gave Lenny a gift of a
consultation.
“It’s a waste of time,” Adam said. “What can a psychic tell you?
Everything is luck or chance. They’re charlatans. She can’t see farther
than you or I do.”
“You sound as if you’re jealous,” Lenny said. “Or afraid. This has
nothing to do with you.”
Lenny went with her friends to the psychic’s house the next week.
Inside the small, wooden bungalow were shelves crammed with books on
the occult. Three black cats paced the floor. One curled on Lenny’s lap.
She and her friends took turns going into the dim meditation
room. The psychic was a heavy, elderly woman with short, straight, white
hair, like straw, and wide, swollen legs. When Lenny was with the
woman, she felt afraid of being there, of the future.
The woman propped her thick legs on a blue tapestry ottoman. “I
will go into a trance,” she whispered. Then she shut her eyes and began to
chant, swaying, as if praying. “I am with you now. I have come here and I
am Laughing Waters.” Her voice rose and fell, and became deeper. She
grasped Lenny’s hand and began to mention details about Lenny’s life.
Then she said, “You are a healer. Your womb is empty now, waiting. But
there is a man in your life.” The woman waved toward the ceiling as if she
2019, Autumn / 19
were a magician, ready to perform a trick. “Or maybe he will come into it
soon, an Arthur or Abraham or perhaps Thomas, someone who is steady
and understands life. He will lead you into the future.”
“It’s not the gospel,” Willow said later when they were driving
from the psychic’s house, “but there’s a thread, something in everyone’s
life that’s…inevitable.” The woman had predicted that Willow would
have many husbands and travel, that Doreen would live across an ocean
one day.
Lenny wasn’t sure what she believed about psychic phenomena.
Adam didn’t approve of any of it. But he liked to have a good time, like
anyone else. That’s what Lenny told Willow and Doreen after the psychic
consultation.
“Handsome, yes,” Willow said. “Smart, too. But he’s so
conservative and careful. How long have you known him? Six months? I
thought he’d be good for you to have a fling with. I didn’t realize he was
so…conventional. But I suppose you have to follow your heart. He’ll
want lots of children someday.”
“That will change your world,” Doreen said.
“You sound as if you’re taking this personally, both of you,”
Lenny said. “As if I’ve abandoned you for him. I haven’t.”
“We want to save you from an ordinary life,” Willow said.
“This has nothing to do with ordinary or not. It’s the way I feel
about him. That weakness. You talked about that when you’ve been in
love.” Lenny could imagine living with Adam, having a family together,
growing old with him, although she hadn’t told him this. “Maybe you’ll
never understand how I feel about him,” she said to Willow.
Willow shrugged. “Maybe that life is something I’ll never want.”
***
The night of Willow’s Summer Solstice party, the last night
Adam and Lenny spent with Lenny’s friends, Adam got drunk.
Willow stripped off her blouse and bra and danced alone. Adam
pinched her thighs, stroked her arms, and embraced her. He kissed
Doreen’s neck. He said he’d miss her when she became a great barrister,
that the macrobiotic diets made her more attractive. He tried to play the
snare drums.
Later Lenny drove him home, and they sat in the kitchen of his
apartment. She made coffee and watched him, his drunken transformation.
Adam stared at her, the smell of vodka strong on his breath. “I’m
going to ask you all the questions I want now,” he said loudly. “All the
things you never volunteer, you with your sweet, quiet ways and crazy
friends.” He leaned back into the chair, crossed his arms on his chest.
“Just what do you do with your money? What are you saving it for? To
see a psychic? What do you want out of life? Tell me.”
“Is this an interview?” Lenny snapped. “Or a performance?”
He kept staring at her with his big, dark, beautiful eyes, and she
felt something give in her heart. Handsome, precise Adam who loved life
but who now was a sloppy drunk and unleashed. She talked about nursing
and then she put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. It’s late. Let’s not talk
anymore.”
“No, I fucking want to talk. That’s why you need other people, to
make sense of your life. You go to psychics and God knows what. Are
you going to hang around with Willow and those friends like a hippie, a
refugee from the sixties for the rest of your life? Is that what you’ll
remember when you’re old? I want to know.”
“You’re drunk,” Lenny said.
“Just tell me.” He watched her intently, and she thought for a
moment he might cry. “You never tell me,” he said. “I want to
understand. Just what are you fucking going to do with your heart?”
“My heart,” Lenny repeated uncomfortably. “If you weren’t so
drunk,” she whispered, “maybe I’d give it to you.”
***
Lenny became Lenny Thompson after she and Adam married.
They moved to Witchita, where he had gotten a job at a university,
teaching cell biology and doing research.
Willow was in England by then, just a year after the Summer
Solstice party. She had left Denver a month after the party, left her
boyfriend, too. She said she wanted to expand her romantic horizons.
Doreen had been accepted to law school for that fall and quit work to
travel in Mexico until school began.
Adam, embarrassed by his behavior at the Solstice party, went to
Lenny’s apartment a week after the party, brought her a bouquet of white
roses, and apologized profusely. He had been offered a job in Witchita, he
said, and hoped she would move there with him. He asked her to marry
him. Lenny didn’t hesitate. She said yes.
Lenny told Willow and Doreen the next day about her
engagement and plans. “We’re all dispersing, aren’t we?” Willow said a
little wistfully.
“But we’ll write to each other and always keep in touch,” Doreen
said.
When Willow had stopped at Lenny’s apartment to say goodbye,
2019, Autumn / 21
she brought a present to help Lenny remember the years when she was
free, Willow said, when the three friends lived in the same city. To help
with the future. To shape an extraordinary life. She gave Lenny a large,
white envelope. Inside were two sheets of gray parchment paper. Each
sheet was decorated with silhouettes of purple watercolor flowers. On the
bottom of one, painted in Willow’s flowing handwriting, it read, Upon
Lenny’s departure from Denver, for a new life.
Willow dug out three pennies and a gray book from her brightly
woven handbag. She began to toss the coins on the floor, each time
recording heads or tails on the parchment paper, using precise lines.
“Hexagrams,” she explained. Then she opened the I Ching. “I use the
book now as my guide. Much better than a psychic. More
comprehensive.” She described the meanings of the configurations—the
Judgement, Images, and Lines.
“‘A quiet wind is your image,’” Willow read aloud. “‘There is
gentle success through what is small. It furthers you to have someplace to
go. Always. The wind’s power depends on its ceaselessness.’”
“I don’t know,” Lenny said. “I feel like I’m at the crossroads. Of
someplace to go. But where? Getting married. Moving away.”
“And I’m off to England.” Willow laughed lightly. “I suppose we
all zigzag from one life to another. At least we both have someplace to go.
Adam’s quite a catch after all, I think. We talked about that at the
beginning, didn’t we? Doreen and I.” She dropped the pennies in her bag
and pressed the I Ching in Lenny’s hands. “Here. You keep the book.
Read it. Think of me.”
Lenny set it on the table, and she and Willow hugged.
“I could never be happy in Kansas,” Willow said. She walked to
the front door. “But maybe that life will work for you.”
***
The I Ching accompanied Lenny wherever she and Adam lived.
At first, she kept the book on a special spot on a shelf. With the jumble of
different moves and the births of the children—three sweet daughters—
the book lost its place and lay wedged with old photo albums, folded
maps, and scratched, discarded 33 rpm records. Even if Lenny had wanted
to find the book, she might not have remembered where it was.
Her life took on a different shape. She worked as a nurse in a
children’s hospital and cared for her own children, too. Adam had taken a
job with a large pharmaceutical firm in Minnesota, and he, Lenny, and the
children moved there from Kansas. His work involved traveling.
Sometimes it seemed to Lenny that these changes in her life had happened
overnight. It was as if she had switched the style of clothing she wore or
colored her hair; she had felt this way, too, when she first arrived in
Denver, when she met Willow and Doreen. Astonished by change.
Ambushed. As if there was something fundamentally different about her
now, as if she had grown taller or happier. Or, perhaps, less plain.
From time to time she heard from Doreen. Doreen had gone to
live in Japan after finishing law school. Lenny wrote to Willow in
England once after the wedding. Willow sent a letter in response and
wrote that she would be moving but never sent the new address.
Sometimes Lenny imagined that earlier period in her life and
allowed herself to indulge in memory. The way sunlight glistened on a car
reminded her of a burst of golden afternoon light rushing through
Doreen’s picture window. Or a small, rundown house and a nervous,
pacing cat might jog her thoughts about the psychic’s words. Lenny often
recalled these moments when she felt exasperated with the children or
work, or when she was sitting with her new, married, women friends,
talking of practical things—houses, children, and husbands. She thought
about Willow and Doreen when she and Adam argued. She and Adam had
never argued until they had children. He was, it turned out, a moody
perfectionist, and he liked to drink too much and spend too much money.
He said she drove him crazy with her slow, free way of making decisions.
“I can’t tell what you’re thinking,” he said. “And you don’t tell me.”
“Everything doesn’t have to be settled and perfect,” she replied.
Sometimes she thought about divorce.
He had started balding and liked to wear a baseball cap to hide
that. Lenny knew she had fallen in and out of love with him and back
again. That’s what she would have told Willow. He still had that wide
smile and liked to say they were lucky. Sometimes she would catch a
glimpse of the Adam she had met at the birthday party. She remembered
that night, their beginning, the bold kiss. She wanted that time, when
anything could have happened, to happen again. Lenny could not have
fallen in love with him. They could have parted or never met. She might
be traveling with Willow or Doreen now. She could have stayed in
Denver or perhaps never stopped there at all. She imagined people and
events, the possibilities, like particles connecting and dispersing, a
kaleidoscope.
***
Twelve years after she’d last seen Willow, Lenny received a letter
from her. She immediately recognized the flowing handwriting on the
thin, blue aerogramme. She carried it to the small backyard to read, where
2019, Autumn / 23
the children were playing.

Willow wrote that she was living in India. She had never married
but was a mother of two children now. After she’d split up with the father,
she became involved with an anthropologist. But then we had a falling-
out, she wrote, isn’t that always the way? Now she was learning
self-healing—pulling the negative energy from her body, and fasting in
complete silence three days a month. She was doing secretarial work and
saving money so she could return with her children to London.
Where does the time go, dear friend? I thought you’d vanished
from my universe. But Doreen passed through last month and told me
about you. We marveled, she and I; you’re the only one we know who
married and has stayed that way. Extraordinary. How do you do it? You
must write and tell me. I’m ready for that stability, too. As for me, I have
two boys now. I’ve had more lovers than I want to count. Thankfully,
that’s behind me. We all have our weaknesses, hopes, illusions. You and I
will have to talk about the experience of giving birth one day, all that
follows from that. Quite remarkable.
I must go—and apologize for not keeping in touch. Or is it you
who should apologize to me? Who can remember? But you have children
to take care of. You must know how they dominate one’s life. I suppose
there is no need for apologies. That’s what our lives are like now. Aren’t
they? Always yours, Willow.
Willow was right, Lenny thought. She stared at the wildly uneven
handwriting on the page. Yes, that’s what their lives were like now. She
glanced at the children who were running in the sunshine and thought of
Adam’s balding head and smile. She shut her eyes and lay on the soft
grass. Perhaps you travel from one moment to the next, she thought,
without understanding why or being quite ready to part with what came
before. To part with the possibilities. But you have to know what makes
you happy, what you were looking for in the first place. That’s what she
would write to Willow.
She and Adam had been spared tragedy so far, but that would
come, she was sure. It would come to them all. She would tell Willow
that, too. You couldn’t wrap yourself in illusion forever.
Then Lenny breathed in the warm summer air and slowly reread
the letter. As she did, she couldn’t recall if that earlier time in her life had
been just as she liked to remember it, or if the memory itself was what
always brought her such pleasure.
RONALD K BURKE
JAZZ JUNKIES OF THE FIFTIES
IF YOU HAVE TO ASK WHAT JAZZ IS, THEN YOU'LL NEVER

KNOW—Louis Armstrong
we three teens donned our one-button-roll-suits with peg trousers applied

wild root cream oil to our duck
tail hair-dos put on argyle socks stepped into our cordovan thick-soled
shoes headed to baghdad-by-the-
bay via intercity transportation soon passed over span of golden gate
bridge anticipating a terrific evening
in acclaimed black hawk nightclub in the tenderloin district (attracted
little attention: were never proofed)
excited about piano sensation dave brubeck who transfixed us by his
power of positive swinging with
then-popular tunes now off to fillmore district (sometimes referred to as
harlem of the west) to catch
prominent vocalist little esther deliver her bluesy selections amidst a
standing room only sold-out
crowd looking forward to hear this sensation she met our wishes
gloriously as she put down a crazy beat
moved the joint to jump we three white boys were comfortable and
undisturbed by the crowded
establishment swarming with cool jazz aficionados as well a few
celebrated musicians arrived after
finishing their gigs and engaged in jive talk with us regrettably our mind-
blown time among the color-
blind celebrating throng ended got to go—as we exited the grooviest
establishment in the area we were
bowled-over to see sashaying down the sidewalk the fantastic billy
holiday with her signature gardenia in
her hair & hauling at her heels a mink coat—showing her exuberance she
shouted to a passing taxi who
came to a screeching halt we looked at each other and laughed as she
entered the cab the fabulous night
became a lasting memory in our minds it was just too much for us—that
cool evening we will never
forget—a night of nights spent among joyful jazz junkies of the fifties.
2019, Autumn / 25
THOMAS PIEKARSKI
LAND’S END
This is Land’s End, promontory

that for millennia has withstood
Pacific breakers churning ceaselessly
against its imperious rocks, those rocks
the demise of many a marooned ship
that lost its men to the ocean floor.
Just north lies the Golden Gate
with spectacular gaping maw.
A thin horizon is seen as far out
as the naked eye can extend.
At Land’s End’s cliff looking down
one observes a hundred yards below
abalone and oysters being gathered
by phantom indigenous tribes.
*
He had a personal paradise by the sea

above the Cliff House at Land’s End,
estate fit for an earl or count.
Adolph Sutro emigrated from Germany
a well-schooled engineer. He settled
in the Nevada silver country, amassing
a fortune from stock in an enterprise
to build tunnels connecting several mines
that would bring water and ventilation
necessary to assure continued operation.
It’s been speculated he swindled investors
knowing the stock wouldn’t produce.
Sutro cashed out, invested large sums
in San Francisco amid rapid expansion.
*
Some pundits think by the time

the president is finally waylaid
the republic will already be
woefully lost. Nevertheless
the Press cannot be muted
by hate-mongering propagandists
and anti-science ghouls
swarming like rabid wasps.
Babies being torn from mothers,
brother after another’s blood.
Authoritarian rhetoric lacks
love and empathy. There is
a cryptic nook reserved in Hades
where traitors joust grisly flames.
*
Gringos jumped his gold claim,

declaring it their right by virtue of
America’s victory in the Mexican war.
They raped his wife and left her dead,
then ripped off his shirt, tied him
to a post, landed thirty lashes with
a horse whip while they strung up
his brother from a wild oak branch.
This the reason Juaquín Murrieta
became a cold-blooded murderer.
California officially US territory,
and Mexicans to be eradicated
much as the Indians had been.
*
San Francisco was built by gold

that poured in when placer miners
brought bags of nuggets and dust
to be spent on merriment and goods.
There were women for rent cheap
and liquor pouring into the streets.
Slayings common, lawlessness
matched by the grip of greed.
Nevada silver mines funded much
of the North’s Civil War effort.
The gold and silver rushes a mere
ten years apart sparked expansion.
Manifest destiny come full circle,
America emerged a global dynamo.
2019, Autumn / 27
Adolph Sutro grasped the opportunity

to partake of booming San Francisco.
He purchased the Cliff House from
California’s original real estate mogul
Sam Brannan, shaped it into a palace
that presidents and elites favored.
Victorian masterpiece, it was a must
for tourists and those city dwellers
who rode horses, later took the trolley,
escaping travails of the inner city.
From the Cliff House they strode
down to a sandy beach
to wet tender feet or sunbathe
and gaze out upon seal-laden rocks.
*
Although hailing from south of the border

and like Murrieta sought gold along with
swarms of Mexicans from Sonora mines,
they called him Jack, Three Fingered Jack
because he’d lost two digits in a drunken
gun battle. Famous for sadistic torture,
Jack made his way through hot deserts
to California’s gold fields, along the route
robbing innocent citizens, then sewing them
inside cowhide pods that got shrunk by sun
and suffocated, dehydrated, sentenced
their victims to an incomprehensible hell.
Jack became Juaquín’s number one general
in an army of treacherous cutthroat banditos.
*
Complementing the incredible Cliff House,

Sutro built below. Abutting the narrow beach
an all glass arcade, engineering wonder
that featured four separate swimming pools
and fresh water piped in, heated, impervious
to the surf that attacked its thick concrete
foundation with wave after raucous wave.

Bathing beauties and brawny beaus alike
for decades engaged friendly decadence
while indulging its crystalline waters.
But it couldn’t last forever at Land’s End
where relentless elements extract revenge
for man’s insouciance, destroy structures,
filling even the nastiest demons with fear.
*
The lust after silver and gold

has meant disaster for many a soul.
A fortunate few prospectors prospered
and fulfilled their grand expectations,
but most made no impact on humanity,
lost forever in history’s dust bin.
It takes a special mind such as Sutro’s
to beat long odds. They skirted the odds,
the crew of that imperiled vessel scuttled
along the shore a half mile up from
the Cliff House. This ship carrying tons
of TNT, the sailors abandoned it amid
a monster storm, to save their lives.
When it blew the whole city rattled.
REBECCA JUNG
HOME LEAVE
After we’d lived in Istanbul, Turkey, for two years, Goodyear

Tire and Rubber, the company my father worked for, flew my family back
home to Canton, Ohio. It was the 1960s, and it was Goodyear’s policy
that employees assigned overseas return to their stateside homes every
two years for a month’s home leave.
“Your grandparents hardly ever get to see you girls,” my mother
told my sisters and me. “This is the least we can do for them.”
2019, Autumn / 29
And so, for a month, my dad and mother, my sisters, Victoria and
Leslie, and I lived with my grandparents and our Aunt Mary in their one-
bathroom, two-bedroom brick bungalow. We slept in the attic, which was
refurbished with wood paneling and outdoor carpet.
Aunt Mary was in her thirties and had never left home. She’d
been born with cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk or talk.
Her head lolled around on her neck, as if it were unsupported. Her
hands, which were pale and waxy, clasped and twisted each other. When
she did stand up with my grandfather’s help, her skinny white legs—feet
clad in white socks and saddle shoes—would flop around and buckle
beneath her.
All of Mary’s teeth had been pulled out, so she twisted her face
into a knot around her hollow mouth. The only noises she made were
high-pitched wails and grunts. Every day, she sat in a chair in her
bedroom that my grandmother had put together for her.
Yellow. Mary’s room was decorated in yellow. She even had
yellow pajamas. Yellow was Mary’s color, my grandmother said.
At night, my grandmother changed Mary into her yellow pajamas
and my grandfather picked her up and carried her to her bed. Then he shut
off the light and closed the door.
“We took her to doctors,” my grandfather said. “They all said the
same thing: put her in Apple Creek State Asylum and move on. But your
grandmother wouldn’t do it.”
“This is mine to bear,” she said. “Nobody would care for Mary
the way we do. Every day, all day, all night. Nobody else would do this
much.”
She said, “We used to take her to church, but the others didn’t
like it. They didn’t think it was right. I could tell. They thought we should
have put Mary away. I could tell they wondered what we’d done to
deserve her.
“So, your grandfather goes to church and I stay home,” my
grandmother sighed.
Occasionally, my grandparents would take Mary out for a car
ride. She sat in the back, strapped in with the safety belt, and wrung her
hands. Occasionally, she’d look out the window and grunt.
“It’s good for people to see what it’s like to live with hardship
and suffering,” my grandmother said, by which she meant her own.
I hope Mary enjoyed these outings. But there was no way to tell.
In Canton, my sisters and I didn’t know anyone and couldn’t get

our bearings in, what was for us, just another foreign country. Only this
country had junk food—and a lot of it. So, while our parents caught up
with friends and relatives, we caught up with Fritos, Coca Cola, and
glazed doughnuts.
And television.
The last time we watched television was when we were still
wearing fuzzy pajamas with feet, sitting in the tiny living room of our
own house in Canton, watching Mighty Mouse while the snow piled up
outside and the windows iced up inside. To this day, the smell of Cream
of Wheat with brown sugar still reminds me of black and white cartoons.
We sat in front of the television set in my grandparent’s small
living room and ate Swanson TV dinners on those tray stands. This blew
Mickey Mouse and Cream of Wheat right out of the water. This was the
ultimate.
Especially the Swansons Salisbury steak dinners. A mouth-
watering Salisbury steak topped with mushroom gravy alongside mashed
potatoes and corn. Hope you’re hungry!
But after two weeks of TV dinners, even the Salisbury steak and
fried chicken, none of us could stomach any more family togetherness.
We’d also had our fill of my grandmother’s dry, overcooked salmon
patties with canned peas.
If we didn’t like it, I could only imagine how Mary felt about my
grandmother’s cooking repertoire. Mary had her meals blended into a
mush, which she was spoon fed.
“I’ll bet you all haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a long time,”
my grandfather said, looking at my mother.
“Bonnie doesn’t cook. She has a maid do it for her,” my
grandmother said. “Isn’t that right?”
My mother looked down at her plate. She didn’t say anything.
They were partially right—my mother was a horrible cook,
probably because she’d grown up on home-cooked meals like these, so in
Turkey she left the cooking to either me or the maid.
A word about maids and chauffeurs is in order here.

Any time I mention that my family had servants and sometimes
chauffeurs overseas, people’s eyebrows go up and they roll their eyes. It
holds no weight if I try to explain that it had nothing to do with having
money—all expat families had servants.
2019, Autumn / 31
They were the liaisons between our families and the countries we
were dropped into where we not only didn’t speak the language, but also
knew nothing of the culture. The servants knew the best street markets to
buy food and how to haggle over the prices. They taught us the customs
and the basics of living in their country.
For example, in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, one of
our servants, Raphael, showed us how to remove chiggers from our feet,
which thereafter, we did every Sunday.
A chigger is a kind of flea that burrows into your feet, especially
around the toenail, and lays its eggs. When this happens, you get an itchy,
stinging sensation where the eggs are. Thanks to Raphael, we became
experts at digging them out. Removing chiggers became one of the
highlights of our week.
This is what you resort to when you don’t have TV.
Chauffeurs knew how to negotiate the roads, most of them
cobblestone or dirt, some of them formerly goat trails. There was no
infrastructure, no zoning. In some countries, there were no traffic signs or
stop lights. It was a map-less free-for-all. When we lived in Sao Paulo,
Brazil, the expat community had a running joke: don’t, whatever you do,
pick your nose in the car, because if you come to a quick stop, you might
give yourself a lobotomy.
So yes, in Turkey my mother left the cooking to either me or the
maid.
We ate bourek, flaky pastry leaves cut into triangles filled with
feta and spinach; rice pilaf with pine nuts; beef stroganoff; grilled
bluefish, or lüfer; and piyaz—a white bean salad with chopped onions,
peppers, dill, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lots of olive oil. One of
our staples was feta cheese with ekmek—the local crusty sourdough
bread.
As a treat, we’d buy simits, small sesame-encrusted circular
breads, from street vendors. The simits had holes in their centers and
vendors carried them on long poles
Or roasted chestnuts. Roasted chestnuts with their oily dark
brown shells curled back from the slit where they’d been cut, exposing
their sweet golden flesh. The vendors roasted and sold them from their
trolleys. Now, whenever I smell that rich aroma, I’m back in Taksim
Square.
I offered to make dinner one evening, but my grandfather cut me

off in mid-sentence.
He said “I don’t want any weird or fancy food. The meals your
grandmother makes are good enough for me and you, too.”
But what about Mary? I thought. Wouldn’t bourek mush be better
than salmon-patties-and-canned-peas mush? Wouldn’t anything?
My mother reminded us that both my grandparents came from
Reynoldsville, a little coal-mining town in northern Pennsylvania. They
moved to Ohio where my grandfather got a job as a guard at Republic
Steel. They’d never been outside of Ohio or Pennsylvania. My
grandmother was a full-time mother and housewife and, to be fair, she did
try to make new dishes: mixed fruit Jell-O salad, salmon casserole
surprise, and broccoli with cheddar cheese. But my grandfather was a
hard-core dry-salmon-patty-canned-peas kind of guy. American was the
only cheese he liked.
On the third week of living with my grandparents and Mary, my

grandmother suggested that we all bathe once a week because of the last
water bill. This, despite the money my father gave my grandparents to
cover any extra expenses we incurred.
It was the cue for us to pile into the rented Impala, peel out of the
driveway, and hit the road in search of the real America. My dad decided
that was the Smoky Mountains.
We traveled the backroads of Tennessee and North Carolina and
stayed in motels with pink neon lights that flashed “Vacancy.” Put a
quarter in a metal box and the bed vibrated.
I ate BLTs with fries and drank Coca Cola in diners with wooden
statues of Indians in full headdress that stood outside the doors. I talked
my father into going to The Little Brown Jug, a restaurant built like a log
cabin. If we got hungry while we were on the road, we’d stop and get ring
bologna and Swiss cheese to eat in the car. We canvassed the tourist gift
shops and bought Stuckey’s pecan logs and turtles.
My dad timed the trip, so we got back to my grandparents’ with
just a few days to spare before we flew back to Turkey. But a few days
was all my grandmother needed to get her last licks in, and in the past two
years she’d built up quite a reserve of venom.
This was a side of my grandmother I’d never known about. I

don’t know about my sisters, but it came as a shock to me.
My grandmother was the person who wrote how much she missed
us in letters that we couldn’t wait to get. She wrote about all the things
we’d do when we came back: Picnics in McKinley Park; trips to Cook
2019, Autumn / 33
Forest to look at the autumn leaves; Sunday after-church lunches with her
homemade pies. A lemon-meringue pie made just for my sister Leslie,
because it was her favorite. A warm custard pie with nutmeg sprinkled on
top for me.
Lemon meringue pies were a challenge—only the tips of the
meringue peaks should be browned; but custard pie was the most difficult.
My grandmother was an artist when it came to pies.
One time, when it was just my grandmother and me, I sat in the
kitchen and watched her roll out the crust between two sheets of waxed
paper. She taught me her secrets for making the perfect pie.
She said “Don’t over-bake custard pie, or the custard comes out
separated from the crust and rubbery. Don’t under-bake it, or it’ll come
out a soupy mess, the crust mushy. But when you bake it just enough, the
custard has small beads of sweat on it and the crust is flaky all the way
through. You’ll know how long to bake it. You’ve got the knack. You’ll
know.”
This was the person I dreamt of coming back to. This was my
grandmother.
I didn’t know this woman who wanted extra money for the water
bill. Who used Mary, her daughter, as a badge of martyrdom. Who
ridiculed our mother in front of us.
The day before our flight back to Turkey, we were all packed and
our suitcases were lined up in my grandparent’s garage. We wouldn’t be
back until our next home leave. For the next two years there would be no
TV, no Coca Cola, no custard pies. And I wouldn’t see my grandparents
for two years.
Nobody said much.
My mother and grandmother stood next to each other at the
kitchen sink, washing and drying dishes.
“I’m going to miss you, mother,” my mom said. “It’s so lonely
without you.”
My grandmother slammed the plate she’d been drying on the
counter. We all jumped and stopped whatever we were doing to stare at
her. My grandmother wheeled around to face my mom.
“You think this is easy for your father and me? You, Bill, and the
girls are over there in different countries and we’re back here alone. You
have maids to do your work. Who are you to complain?
“While here I am, doing all the housework and taking care of
Mary, no thanks to you. No thanks to anyone. Your father and I never
seem to get a break.
“Wait until you come back for good, though. You’ll be in for a
surprise,” she said. “You’ll just be one of us.”
Maybe my grandmother was jealous of my parents leaving and

having a bigger life than hers. Maybe she was bitter because my mother
wasn’t around to help care for Mary. Maybe she resented the close
relationship my mother had with my sisters and me.
Or maybe she didn’t know us, either.
ALITA PIRKOPF
THOUGHTS, SOME OF THEM DEEP
I make several thoughtful trips

into the basement to wash clothes,
to follow medical instructions,
and avoid hospital germs
during surgery. In the basement
are many of my books. I pass them
like never-truly-forgotten old friends—
no longer in constant sight
on the first floor, but always present
in the foundations, the structure,
of my home, my being.
I am rereading several poets,
remembering where my mind was,
my heart—where much of my life
has since centered—
how major poets lived and thought.
Thinking of the past and future now,
I am deep into meanings—for me,
of me—the fifties, my eighties—
all the suicides and deaths, and my
2019, Autumn / 35
own amazed existence in the changed,

challenging world whose poetry
I will barely get to know.
REMEMBERING GREGOR SAMSA
The flowers in the bouquets

are dried in second death.
The clock has ceased
its artificial life—
its immobile hands, its
thin arms gone still.
Two minutes to six,
the same as when I arrived
ten days ago.
Ten days about healing

legs I cannot yet properly use.
They must be sedated, lifted,
stopped from violent movement.
Water, medicine, help!
I sicken in this neglected cell.

My messages are not delivered,
nor are the nurses’, doctors’—
I learn from excruciating waits
in my time that does pass,
in long minutes of my real world.
My arms, my hands
reach out imperfectly:
I knock the call button out of reach.
I am not delivered.
My room is dark. The closed door

opens. A nurse comes, notices,
turns wrong switches, fails,
flees—afraid? I watch, blink,
close my eyes—ignored,
trapped, still.
G DAVID SCHWARTZ
RABBI B AND I PLAYED TENNIS (AND RACQUETBALL)
Rabbi B and I played tennis in the spring and summer and in the
fall and winter we played racquetball.
I won’t tell you who was the best between us, but I will say I did
not fall. Of course George didn't fall either. We were just so good. We just
went so slow.
But as George said, tennis was excellent exercise—chasing the
ball and swinging your arms and stretching out to prevent a fall.
Both before we began and after we finished we would have
excellent dissuasion about the theory of understanding as suggested in the
works of Maimonides, AKA Ram Bam or Rom Bom, the Judaic
underrating (like there’s one) of what to do and how to act if you are
thirsty and have a dog with you and run across a cactus in the dessert. You
ought to give your pet first drink but you ought not put him or her in
danger of getting stabbed by the spines.
Rabbi B was the most intelligent man I ever knew. Much more
than me and just a bit more than my son.
One time, in the heat of play, in the heat of the day, I ran to the
net and slammed the ball right towards the rabbi’s feet.
He did not move. I knew he was not hit. But he looked as if he
was in the beginning of a stroke.
Walking toward him I said his name a few times. “Are you ok?”
Suddenly he snapped out of his trace and said, “Oh yes, sorry. I
was writing my sermon and I just thought of a good ending.”
“Glad I could help,” I joked.
“Yes, of course, thank you.”
I won that game by that one point. And I head his sermon that
Sabbath in synagogue.
It was a game stopper.
2019, Autumn / 37
SHAWNA ERVIN
BIRTHMOM
I.
Hello. What else is there to say
to you, who shares his eyes,
round face, brown skin? I don’t speak
your language, you mine.
You’d like to meet
him, you wrote. He begged. I bow,
nudge him forward. Seven years.
Do you remember him in your body?
He squeezes my hand. It’s okay,
I say, if you want
her to hold you, if you don’t, if you need
me to take you away
from here. I will remember
your orange nail polish, how your hands
fit, his hand yours, your hand his.
Please, stop smiling his smile.
I am brave, not crying, blinking,
my hand not sweating, my voice
not trembling. The blinds are dusty. You pull
him close, he looks to me. I want
to adopt you too. The couch upholstery is thin. There
is a stray
thread at the hem of my pants.
He nods fast, smiles wide.
I pat my lap. Not yet,
he says, not yet.
II.
He screamed the night
after we met you, like we were tearing
his skin off. He refused
to move in the airport security line. “You can’t
make me leave. I love her.”
Home again, he ran down the street, away

from our white faces, eyelids. I wrapped
around him tighter than he wanted, hoped
he would think of you. My bruises
are proof love can break
us. He won’t hold

my hand because he held yours. He tells me
about his toenails, how they curl, his laugh,
reminds me of you. I kiss
his cheek, the top of his head rests
on my chest. I don’t tell him to let go
when he twists my hair around
his finger, when it hurts.
He was carried
into school this morning kicking,
biting. He begged to go home.
He meant here. He meant there.
CAROL ROAN
THE LAST OF THE WARNERS
Miss Ellie Warner clutched her purse with both hands to keep
them from trembling. She’d been warned not to go near the university
ever since she was old enough for that possibility to have crossed her
mind. “No nice girl would ever think of such a thing,” her mother said. A
few of the wilder boys, Andy Merchant and his crowd, had driven around
the campus a few times and had come back with such shocking stories
about drunken orgies and nudity and desecration of the flag that Ellie had
been glad—well, mostly glad—that her own parents were so strict.
She wouldn’t have been sitting there, waiting for her interview, if
she hadn’t had to quit her job to nurse her father through his end days, if
she hadn’t been looking for work for weeks, if the house hadn’t needed a
new roof before winter. She prayed that her mother wasn’t looking down
2019, Autumn / 39
from heaven. To think of working at the university at all would have been
bad enough, but in the theatre department? Everyone knew what show
business people were like.
“Never mind ‘nice,’” Ellie thought. “What I am is desperate. And
I’m not a girl anymore. Haven’t been for way too long.” She gripped her
purse more tightly, closed her eyes, and armed herself against the
Communism, sexual deviance, and general moral turpitude she’d heard
about all her life.
Dr. Jerome Sheldon turned out to be pleasant enough, not at all
what she’d expected. Ellie told him right up front that she didn’t know the
first thing about the theatre. “But,” she said, “I was the school secretary in
Spring Valley for twenty years, and I know how a school office should be
run.”
He said, “I’m not concerned that you have no theatrical
experience. In fact, I see that as a plus. You’ll be dealing with a number of
visiting actors and directors, and we’ve lost more than one celebrity-
fawning secretary who saw this position as a stepping stone to a more
glamorous career.”
Visiting actors and directors? Ellie restrained a shudder. On the
other hand, this man seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, unlike
the pipsqueaks at her other interviews who thought they knew more about
office management than she did. Perhaps he wasn’t a Communist, after
all. Maybe not even a Democrat.
“I wouldn’t know about glamour,” she said. “What I know is how
to take good care of my teachers—have everything they need, ready and
waiting, before they ask. And I know which of my children need a firm
hand, and which a softer touch.”
They settled on her starting date right then and there. She was
relieved that his handshake held not the least bit of sexual deviance. Or
even interest.
She wasn’t at all like herself on the way home, her head full of
how she was going to change the office around and the new clothes she’d
need. Her work dresses wouldn’t do at all, she could see that. Should she
spruce up her hair a bit?
When she reached the ridge above Spring Valley, she was
suddenly overwhelmed by what she’d done. She was a Warner. Her
father, and his father before him, had been councilmen who had voted to
secede from the county so as to rid the town of any connection with the
university. Not that the county had ever allowed it, but still, what would
the town think if they knew that a Warner had gone over to the side of the
enemy?
How far away would she have to go to purchase a new wardrobe?
She’d have to get a new credit card, wouldn’t she? Have to open an
account at an out-of-town bank. Get her hair cut elsewhere. And that was
probably only the beginning.
She had gone out into the garden to pick strawberries for supper,
when Mrs. Carpenter hallooed from her back door and walked over to
their fence. “Have you found anything yet?”
Ellie couldn’t lie. She was a Warner. She said, “It’s been real
hard, having to look for a job Outside.”
Mrs. Carpenter clucked, and shook her head. “We’re all just torn
up about that. I said to Mr. Carpenter back when we laid your poor father
in his grave, I said, ‘What’s the School Board going to do about Ellie
now?’
“And he said nobody’d thought that your father was going to
linger on as long as he did. That the Board had decided, way back in
March, that it couldn’t keep Anne hanging on as your substitute any
longer.
“I would’ve told you before, but . . .”
“I don’t blame the Board.” Ellie sighed. “Hard times lead to hard
choices.” Mercy! She barely recognized herself. Acting as though she
hadn’t just gotten a job that paid more than the School Board would’ve
choked over.
“Enough said.” Mrs. Carpenter patted Ellie’s arm. “Just so long as
there’s no hard feelings.”
“Oh, no. No, this is my problem to deal with as best I can.” She
sighed again. Was that laying it on a bit thick? But a little guilt might be
what was needed to keep the subject from being brought up again.
Nonetheless, discretion would be necessary. Maybe she should
drive east out of town in the mornings, instead of south.
*
Due to her secret university life, Ellie missed out on most of the
news when the first outsiders moved into town. But the day after a
“Welcome the Porters” article appeared on the front page of The Leader,
she was standing amid the unwelcoming talk in the check-out line at the
Valley Market.
“They’re from New York City!”
“I hear they’ve got five children.”
“Five children allowed to roam the streets like they do there?
Bound to be a bad influence on our own.”
2019, Autumn / 41
Ellie opened her mouth with the intention of setting the chatter
right. Underneath their drama, the New York theatre people she’d met
were pretty much like everyone else. She’d had to close her ears to some
of their bad language but, otherwise—
Mercy! Hard as it would be not to correct the errors of others,
she’d have to learn to keep such thoughts to herself. “Indeed,” she said,
and shook her head in commiseration.
After church the following Sunday, Judge Martin told folks at the
social hour that Mrs. Porter composed music, and that Mr. Porter was a
painter who’d be teaching over at the university.
Mrs. Jackson broke the shocked silence. “The university?
However did you let that happen, Judge?”
“There are laws now,” he began.
Mrs. Carpenter cut him off with, “I never did agree with Town
Council letting in any outsiders, let alone ones from the university. You
mark my words, nothing good’s going to come of this.”
Ellie raised her eyebrows and tsked appropriately before she
slipped away.
*
As she drove home on a Friday afternoon, Ellie reviewed the day
and made plans for the following week. The program for the Odets play
would need to get to the printer first thing Monday, before she finished
the purchase order that Tabitha had interrupted. She’d need to buy more
tissues. That child had actually expected to be in the first cast, when
everyone knew Enid was getting the role. Remember to check on Vance
and that abscessed tooth. Should she bake coconut oatmeal cookies for her
coffee-bar basket? Some people didn’t like coconut. Why not a batch of
chocolate chip, too, just in case?
As usual, she switched thoughts when she reached the ridge
above Spring Valley. Easier to separate her lives that way, like keeping
her university clothes in one closet and her town clothes in another.
Probably her sour cream chocolate cake for the Firemen’s
Auxiliary bake sale tomorrow. That always sold well. Volunteer for the
cashier’s table at the church bazaar before Mrs. Carpenter dragooned her
for the set-up committee. Look at those roses! They need pruning in the
worst way.
She put butter out to soften before she changed into her
housedress and apron, and had just come back downstairs when the
doorbell rang.
“Miss Warner, I’m Clem Porter. I’m here to collect for The Valley
Leader.”
She’d heard plenty about the Porter boys, none of it good. “Are
you old enough to be doing this? You look too young to me.”
“My mom said it was okay. She signed the papers and everything.
Besides, I’m expecting a growth spurt any day now.”
Ellie, despite herself, smiled at the boy’s truthful evasion of the
truth. She paid him and closed the door. But his hungry, needy face
lingered while she creamed sugar into the softened butter and cracked an
egg against the edge of the bowl.
When Clem came to collect on the following Friday, Ellie invited
him to join her in the kitchen while she started her weekend baking. She
fed him milk and warm cookies, and they chatted about school and which
sport he might go out for if the expected growth spurt happened soon. A
charming child, no matter what was said around town about his siblings.
No reason not to invite him in again next week.
*
Clem gathered up his receipt book and cash bag, then turned
back. “Miss Ellie, can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course, Clem.”
“And you won’t tell anybody?”
“Cross my heart.” Which she did, and raised two fingers in
pledge.
“My dad left us.”
“No!” Ellie had heard that news in the Valley Market the day
after the scoundrel had left town, but had thought it best not to let the boy
know that she knew. “When did this happen?”
“A long time now. He left a letter. It said he was going away with
his muse to paint. I looked up ‘muse,’ but it was mostly about Greeks, and
I don’t think that’s right, because he went to Spain. Do you know what
muse is?”
“Someone who inspires you.”
“So he left because I didn’t inspire him?”
“Oh, no, dear.” Ellie had heard that the father had taken an under-
age student with him. But how to explain such perversion to a child?
“Why would you think that?”
“Because at the bottom of the letter, where he told everybody else
goodbye, my name wasn’t there.”
“Sometimes grown-ups take for granted the people most precious
to them. I’m sure that’s what happened with your father.”
“Really? So you think he wouldn’t mind if I went to visit him?”
2019, Autumn / 43
“Of course not.” What on earth did he mean? “I’m sure he’d be
very pleased to see you.”
“Good,” Clem sighed. “Because that’s why I asked if I could take
the paper route. As soon as I save up enough, I’m going to go to Spain
and find him.”
“Excellent plan. When you collect next week, why don’t you save
me for last so we can spend a little time learning about Spain.”
Ellie watched him swing down the sidewalk to the next house.
Clem would never be able to put that much money together, so what was
the harm?
*
The following autumn Laurence Bryden, an actor from
California, was appointed visiting professor in theatre. Ellie wasn’t sure
how he did it, but he changed the entire department. Made it warmer,
somehow. Maybe it was because he could turn himself into exactly the
right man each person had been waiting for, but hadn’t known they’d
needed. For Dr. Sheldon, Laurence was a brilliant, yet respectful son. For
other faculty members, he was a friend who read a script, or offered a
contact in L.A., or recommended a publicist. For his students, he was a
father who gently bullied them toward their best work.
For Ellie, Laurence became an imaginary lover about whom she
could safely fantasize. He had a wife and three children in California, so
what was the harm? She studied him in person and in his films and,
whenever he moved his classes onto the stage, she used her lunch hour to
listen and watch from the back row.
He was an inspirational teacher, using responsibility as a key to
ensemble acting— responsibility for the integrity of each character,
responsibility for each other on stage, and responsibility for the audience.
He taught that each action, no matter how small, was consequential, that
each choice was a determinant factor in creating a character.
Ellie was as captivated by Laurence’s ideas as she was by the
man. She began to use his responsibility theory when she counseled
distraught students and, whenever Laurence discussed a problem with her,
to explore the applicability of acting to real life. She was careful to ask
about his wife and children occasionally, but during their talks, as she
replenished his coffee cup and offered another cookie from her basket, she
felt an intimacy that she thought must only exist between couples.
Late one afternoon, Laurence brought up the affair between a
married graduate student and a talented young freshman. “Responsibility.
Dennis has no sense of responsibility. Why can’t he think with his head
instead of his prick?”

Mercy! Ellie fanned her hot face with a file folder.
“And then there’s Dennis’s poor wife,” she said, “working to pay
the bills. Every time I see her, I want to tell her what’s going on, but of
course I can’t.”
“It’s distracting everyone else. They’re gossiping and giggling
when they need to be stretching and learning. How can he be so
irresponsible?” Laurence took a cookie and put it back, untasted. “I don’t
suppose there’s anything Jerome can do about this.”
“Dr. Sheldon doesn’t like to know what’s going on with the
students unless he asks.”
“Ah, my discreet Ellie.” Laurence picked up his briefcase.
“I have had one thought,” she said. “What if I invited Dennis’s
wife to have lunch with me during one of your classes on stage? Sort of
make her part of your process.”
Laurence paused in the doorway. “You could sit down front with
me, instead of in the back. And then I’ll . . . Perfect! I have the entire
scene in my head already.”
He blew Ellie a kiss as he left.
She waved the file in reply and, after a moment, waved the kiss
away from her mind. At least she could take some credit that, when he
walked away, his back had been straight. She worried about his back.
He’d said that the doctors at the university clinic had been no better at
diagnosing the cause of his pain than any of the others he’d consulted. A
parasite that might have attached itself during a location shoot in a
Peruvian jungle had been suspected, but not found. Nerve pressure from
an old accident. Perhaps his heart.
Ellie had suggested home remedies, and had occasionally brought
chicken soup for his lunch, all without any apparent effect. She had even
shocked herself by suggesting that a visit to Spring Valley might serve as
a distraction from his pain.
“The town is quite beautiful this time of year,” she’d said. “You
love history, and our cemetery has headstones way back to the
seventeenth century. I walk through it sometimes and make up stories
about the old families.”
“You’re exactly right, Ellie, as always. I should get out and see
some of the countryside while I’m here. But not when my back is as bad
as it is today. What I need right now is a lie-down, with maybe the hot
compresses you suggested.”
She was relieved. What had she been thinking? Walking around
2019, Autumn / 45
with a strange man in the cemetery where anyone could see them? She
didn’t need to make an absolute fool of herself.
*
The end of the academic year, and Laurence was leaving. Forever.
Ellie, despite her best intentions, had been mourning the loss of him while
she deadheaded the rhododendron next to her front porch.
She stepped back to see if she’d missed any browned blooms and
nearly backed into Clem coming up the walk. “It’s not Friday, Clem. It’s
Thursday,” she said, wondering what she could feed him other than a
peanut-butter sandwich.
“I know.” Clem bounded along behind her into the kitchen.
“That’s because I’m giving up my route. Because we’re moving—really,
truly moving—and Mom put up a ‘For Sale’ sign, and I’m packing, and
everybody’s packing, and it’s all because of me. I’m the one who found
our new father.”
“You never told me,” Ellie gasped. “When did this happen?”
“Mom didn’t tell us until this morning. I’d been kind of hoping
for a while, but I was afraid to talk about it because it might never come
true. And now it has. It’s really true.”
“Where are you going? Do you like this man? You sit right down
and tell me all about it while I make you a sandwich.”
“California, that’s where we’re going. Can you believe it?”
“California! That’s so far away. And it’s for real?”
“Absolutely, positively for real. How it happened was . . . You
remember last fall when I told you I thought I’d saved enough money for
Spain?”
She nodded. “But then you never said anything more about it, and
I didn’t want to pry.”
“Well, that’s how it all started. I thought I was ready to talk to
somebody like a travel agent, which I figured there must be lots of over
by the university. So I rode my bike over there, and I was resting, just for
a minute, on a bench on University Place. That street there by the theatre.”
“Um-hmm.” Ellie did not care to mention, even to Clem, how
well she knew that street.
“Then a man walked by who looked familiar. So I thought maybe
he’d been a friend of my dad’s, and I said ‘Hello,’ and he said ‘Hello’
right back.
“And then he said, ‘You look like you’ve been on a long trip.’ So
I said that I rode over from my town to find a travel agent because I was
going to go to Spain. And he said that was a coincidence, because he was
going around the corner to pick up some tickets himself, and that he’d
been to Spain and could maybe help.
“And you’re not going to believe this, Miss Ellie, but you know
what? Why he looked so familiar was because I’d seen him in the movies,
which was why he had to fly back to California. And that’s probably why
the travel agent knew him by his name and was nicer to him than anybody
else that came in.”
Ellie placed Clem’s sandwich and milk on the table and sat down
heavily across from him. “He’s an actor?”
“Yeah, so the travel agent said I’d be better off taking a direct
flight, and what town in Spain did I want to go to, and I said I wasn’t sure
yet because I was going over there to find my dad. So then Larry—that’s
what he said to call him—piped up and said . . .”
“Wait a minute, Clem. This man’s name was Larry? Not
Laurence Bryden?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You’ve seen him in the movies, too? Films. I
should say ‘films,’ like Larry does. Isn’t he great? Sometimes he looks
different there, because he’s what’s called a character actor and has to
wear wigs and stuff.”
Ellie felt unfamiliar panic rising. “I don’t think I understand what
this Larry has to do with your new father,” she said, grasping at the last
straw that floated through her head.
“That’s because I didn’t get to the good part yet.
“When we came out of the travel place, it was starting to get dark
already. So when Larry said why didn’t we go get his car and he’d give
me a ride home, I thought it would be okay because, from the beginning,
he didn’t seem like a stranger and the travel lady knew who he was, and
all.
“And on the way home, Larry and me talked, so we were sort of
like friends by the time we got back to town, which he took to right away.
At first, when we got to that place on the ridge where you look down on
the valley, Larry said it looked like Shangri-La, but with churches. And
then when we got down onto Broad Street, he said it felt more like
Brigadoon.”
“Shangri-La . . .” Laurence had been here? In Spring Valley?
Then why had he acted as though he’d never seen the town? Why would
he have lied to her? Maybe not exactly a lie, but it amounted to the same
thing.
“That’s a magic place in an old movie, Larry said.”
“Shangri-la is in a book, Clem. Lost Horizons.”
2019, Autumn / 47
“Yeah, Larry said that, too. He knows pretty much everything.

“So when we got to my house, I asked him to come in and meet
my mom so I wouldn’t get yelled at for getting into a car with someone
she didn’t know. But to please not tell about me going to Spain, because
that was a secret. And Larry came in, and he made up a good story about
how we met that sounded like it really could’ve happened that way. And
that’s how it all began.
“Is something wrong, Miss Ellie?”
“I’m just a little tired,” she said. “You go ahead. This is a good
story. You could write it up for school sometime.”
“You think? I’ve never been so good at writing.
“But wait. I have to go back to where I left off, so you’ll know all
the rest that’s happened.
“So my mom liked Larry right away, and she asked him if he
wanted to stay for dinner. And it was like some kind of miracle, because
all the other kids came home on time, and they were even polite. And they
began to come home whenever Larry was there, which got to be almost
every night. And it was like we were a family on TV, or something,
because Larry asked us about school and stuff. Sometimes he even helped
us with our homework. He said he wasn’t any good at math, but he was
great at English. And history, too, because of all the research he had to do
for his films. See? I remembered that time. Films, not movies.
“And after Larry began to spend the night . . .”
Ellie’s gasp came out sounding like a whimper, but Clem didn’t
seem to notice.
“. . . Mom even started cooking breakfast, like she used to.”
“Clem, are you absolutely sure this man is Laurence Bryden?” It
wasn’t possible that Laurence had been visiting the Porter household for
months. The Laurence she knew spent his evenings with his students, and
then he walked the streets because of his back and the awful pain that kept
him from sleeping.
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “You think I’m making
all this up? If you don’t believe me, you can go take a look at the ‘For
Sale’ sign.”
“Oh, my dear, of course I believe you. I’m just having trouble
taking it all in. An actor like that right here in Spring Valley? And then
your family going off to California with him?” She managed what she
hoped was a cheery smile. “When you think about it, doesn’t the whole
thing sort of sound like a movie?”
“Film, Miss Ellie.” After a shrug, his shoulders let go their
defenses. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you
about Larry before, because it was so good it didn’t seem real.”
He ate the last bite of his sandwich and picked up his money bag.
“I hope you’re going to be very happy, Clem. But I’m going to
miss you terribly. If you weren’t so almost grown up, I’d ask for a
goodbye hug.”
Clem blushed. They shook hands instead. “It’s been good to know
you, Miss Ellie.” He started toward the front door, then turned back.
“What I really wanted to tell you was that Larry has never once forgot that
I’m there. Not once.”
Ellie held back her tears until Clem was out of sight. Of course
this Larry was Laurence. Clem had never lied to her. But how could it be
the same Laurence? He sounded nothing like the man she knew. And
surely people would have noticed someone like Laurence coming and
going. How was it possible that a strange car had been parked in front of
the Porter house all night long, and yet no one had mentioned it?
What should she do? Tell Cynthia Porter about his wife and
children? Hardly. Why would the woman believe her when they’d never
spoken a word to each other? And perhaps Laurence had already told
Cynthia that he was married, and they had decided, for some reason, not
to tell the children just yet. That must be it, because he had always
preached responsibility to his students. Responsibility was his byword.
But why would he have been so upset about Dennis’s infidelity, if
he . . . ? If he and Cynthia . . . ? Ellie shook the image out of her head.
None of this made any sense. Should she ask Dr. Sheldon what he
thought? Heavens, no!
Should she speak to Laurence? What on earth would she say?
And, if it weren’t for Clem, it really wouldn’t have been any of her
business who he . . .
After supper Ellie took a walk over the railroad bridge and down
past the Porter house. A “For Sale” sign had been planted in the front yard
and boxes piled on the front porch. She could hear laughter and bustle
through the open windows. She went home to her bed and an uneasy
night.
She managed to fall asleep by going over—and over, and over—
the plans for Laurence’s farewell party the next day.
*
Ellie was hugging the little freshman that Dennis had finally
dumped when she saw Laurence walking up University Place toward the
plaza. She tried to superimpose Clem’s Larry on his figure, but could not.
2019, Autumn / 49
Dr. Sheldon’s speech went well. The seniors in Laurence’s class

had prepared the Players scene from Hamlet. His graduate students had
written a Broadwayesque finale, with a high-kicking chorus line.
Laurence was laughing and applauding as he took the
microphone. He raised his glass, began a toast, then stopped. “You see
what you’ve done to me,” he said. “First time in my life that I’ve gone up
in my lines.” A tear trembled in one of his eyes. “But the words I had
intended to say could not possibly have expressed my gratitude to you
all.” He grimaced, pressed a hand against the small of his back. “Sorry.
Let me come back tomorrow morning and say proper goodbyes before I
leave.”
Ellie’s back, as it had so often, responded empathically to
Laurence’s pain. She watched him leave the plaza. When he passed the
bench where Clem had first met him, the ache moved up into her head.
*
On her way to work Monday morning Ellie drove past the Porter
house to make sure the “For Sale” sign was real, and not something she’d
dreamt. Then she had to listen to the stories about Laurence not having
shown up on Saturday, as he’d promised—first from Dr. Sheldon, then
three more times from students—and had to endure their stories without
saying a word about what she knew.
The real estate agent called to say that Laurence had dropped off
his keys to the carriage house Friday night. And that there’d be no
problem with the security deposit. “Because,” she said, “it hardly looks
lived in, Ellie.”
Cynthia Porter called, saying that she was a friend of Larry
Bryden’s and was worried because he hadn’t answered his phone for a
few days. “Do you have another number where I could reach him?”
Should she tell Cynthia that Laurence had evidently left town
Friday night? But she wouldn’t give out personal information like that to
an unknown caller. It was only because of Clem that she had had such an
indiscreet thought. And, she told herself sternly, Clem is not your child to
take care of. He’s Cynthia’s child.
Ellie lied for the first time in her life. “I’m sorry, Ms. Porter,
that’s the only one we have. But I’ll be happy to give him a message if we
hear from him. Would you like to leave your number?”
“He has it. But if there’s been an accident . . . ?”
“Mr. Bryden was only an interim appointment. We wouldn’t
necessarily be notified. I’m sorry, Ms. Porter, but I don’t know what else
to suggest. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you soon.”
Lies, lies, lies. What Ellie was sure of was that Cynthia, and
Clem, and the whole Porter family had been abandoned. Again.
She drove by the Porter house on her way home, and saw that the
“For Sale” sign had been uprooted and tossed into a trash can at the curb.
The front door was closed. No Porter visible.
Ellie turned right onto Martin. Then, as though her car had a mind
of its own, it made another right into the parking lot in front of Bill’s
Tavern. No Warner had ever entered that den of iniquity, and she had no
idea what was propelling her through the door.
As she walked in she heard Andy Merchant say, “I happened by
when the Porter woman was tugging at that sign. She was cryin’ like all
get out. I knew all that talk about their leavin’ town was so much smoke.”
Ellie said, “Move over, Andy,” and hoisted herself onto a bar
stool. “Bill, give me some of whatever is in that green bottle there.”
After her first glass, she no longer cared that the tavern had gone
silent and everyone was gawking at her. So there’s a Warner sitting here.
What of it?
After her second glass, she looked at her reflection in the mirror
behind the bar. Still in the university clothes that had never been seen in
Spring Valley, her university security card still hanging around her neck.
What the hell did it matter? Not one damn bit.
She held her empty glass out to Bill. “You boys wanna hear a
story?”
JESSE MILLNER
THE LEWIS PLACE
In those days we’d gather

on Sunday afternoons after church
for big meals in my grandma’s kitchen.
The world sparkled beyond every window
in its hymn of pine and sunlit pasture
as I listened to my grandpa offering grace

during a time when being grateful seemed less
like a chore and more just a way of being in that world
where Jesus sprang softly from the lips
of everyone I loved. After dinner, the afternoon
2019, Autumn / 51
stretched out with its whiffle ball games in the backyard,

and I’d sprint across the soft grass, hear the commotion
from the driveway next to the smokehouse
where my grandpa and uncles drank
bourbon hidden in paper bags,
their faces blushing with secret pleasure that
made them laugh louder than the whining engine
they pretended to be working on, half-
heartedly fiddling with a carburetor flap,
reconnecting a spark plug wire to the gapped
Champion that would bring fire to the pistons’
galloping in the afternoon sun. The women
stayed inside and chronicled the illnesses of relatives

in hollows down dirt roads that led to dark leafy
places where the nights were as quiet as death.
There was Aunt Lorraine who had “the sugar diabetes”
slowly taking the toes on her right foot,
and there was Uncle Harry, confined to bed
in the last years of lung cancer brought on
by the bulls-eyed packs of Lucky Stripes.
It’s taken me this long to remember that the farm

was called the Lewis Place, because my grandparents
rented it from a man called Lewis, whom I never met,
but I can see that house so clearly now, with its big
front porch, and the yard with the walnut tree
that ended at the edge of the soybean fields, which ran
down to the single lane road, beyond which
shimmered a cattail-fringed pond filled with large-
mouthed bass, bream, and water moccasins
that swam powerfully through the shallows,
reminding all of us that terrible things lurked
just beneath the surface of our world, waiting for us
to fall away from the living god, luring
us toward sin. I do not
have words for all the ways I have sinned

since those childhood days on the Lewis farm
but I do have memories of bars in a great city
where I drank beauty and sorrow away, that Janus-

faced truth about our lives, how what we think we love
are always the things we are most afraid of losing, but we
only watch silently as lovers walk out the front door, or
drink again after a few days of stormy abstinence, or
we simply give up to the cold light that is the latest morning
on the highway sprawling west toward the rest of our lives.
BROKEN WORLD
My dad joked with everyone he met,

the cashiers at the grocery store,
the man he bought cigarettes from
at the 7-11, every neighbor who passed
by his ranch style house in Newport News
with its pretty flowers out front. When my
mom went to the nursing home, he joked
with the nurses, the nurses’ assistants,
the other patients, and often took
cigarette breaks outside with a man
who’d lost his legs from diabetes
but still smoked his Marlboros
in the little patio on the side of the home
that looked out over some piney woods
filled with robins and cardinals, a little
bit of beauty in that broken world. After his
death I found out how much everyone loved
my dad, how they missed his sense of humor,
the way he talked to everyone in the kind way
of someone who knows how desperate life is
and how the little things sometimes accrue into treasures
of the spirit. Some nights I dream
of the nursing home. Some nights

I try to reassure myself that I am not losing my life,
that others aren’t aware of my forgetfulness when I can’t
remember the waitress’s name at the Mexican restaurant
we went to for years, until the health department closed
them down, until the sad sign appeared on the door:
2019, Autumn / 53
We will be back soon, which was a wish

that didn’t happen and now that storefront
in the ugly mall outside the gated community we hate
is empty and many of the other businesses have left
including the memorabilia shop with the statue of a horse out front
that sold antique guns and swords, the place we laughed at
until it was suddenly gone, like our restaurant, leaving absence
amid the asphalt and almost dead shrubbery of a dying strip mall
in Florida. Hah, the waitress’s name was Flor, and she loved me
because I gave her huge tips for not correcting my bad Spanish
and laughing at every single one of my jokes. And now
there’s no La Fogoda, and my dad is two years’ dead. I listen

to country and western songs to remind me of what’s important:
family, Jesus, whippoorwills singing across rural dawns
where the morning’s sky is a page from
the front matter in Grandma’s Bible, King James
version of course, filled with fire,
damnation, salvation, pestilence, and drought.
I think of a thirsty Jesus lost in the desert,
I think of the one-hundred-year-old lady
waiting in her wheelchair by the front door
of the nursing home, begging each
passerby to please take her home.
BEER AISLE MEDITATION
I’m buying beer for my wife and I linger too long

checking prices and brands, discovering
that the cost of a six-pack has tripled
in thirty years. I explore all the microbrewery
possibilities until I find my wife’s favorite: The Funky Buddha
and imagine being a funky Buddhist wiggling my butt a little
during meditation. Maybe I’d write haiku
that sounded best with a jazz band but right now
I’m looking at the domestic brews and wondering
if it would be bad to try the non-alcoholic brand
and then I’m thinking, maybe just one bottle of the alcoholic
persuasion, but since I’m personally of the alcoholic
persuasion, one beer might lead to more

like a single cloud becoming a week
of stormy weather. Weather is a feckless
tribute to wind and cloud and heat and cold.

The atmosphere is thin but still manages to hold in
the storms, then the calm in-betweens when sheep graze
on cool pastures outside Edinburgh and the ghosts
of Viking warriors pose for selfies in the imaginations
of heather and mountains purpled with destiny. A long,
long time ago, I got drunk in a bar in Edinburgh. There was

a man playing a fiddle. The joint offered good Chinese food
and the beer was served at room temperature. I can still see
the varnished bar, the universe of glittering bottles behind it,
and the happiness I felt, knowing this place would never run
out of booze and I could drink here until the end of history,
which is simply that moment when the foamy glass blurs,
when the bartender is speaking a language that might be
Sanskrit or Norwegian or maybe the cold syllables of Inuit
spoken to a dying English sailor. It is simply that moment
when reality softens and the desire to walk out the bar
meets the inertia of a body so deep in its dream of booze
standing up seems impossible. All those years ago, I did stand up
and somehow walked back to the hotel on Princess Street
where I collapsed on a bed in a room without a bathroom
so when it was time to throw up, I stumbled down the hall
found a toilet and looked into the mirror where all meaning was lost.
All these years later while roaming the beer aisle

I see the meaning of English words shaped into names for fancy beers.
It’s been over thirty years since I’ve felt foam on my mustache.
It’s been twenty years since I’ve had a mustache. I put the Funky Buddhas
into my shopping cart next to the ice cream I substitute for alcohol,
each one a quick fix on a cellular level, each one a sweet desire that
calms my hunger for a moment. Ice cream will not kill me as quickly,
however, and in the years that may remain I will not spin out of control
from too much Heath Bar Crunch. I go home and that night
2019, Autumn / 55
I dream of the beer aisle. It goes on forever from Virginia to California.

As far as I can see, there are bottles of beer stretching to the blue Pacific,
It’s a Manifest Destiny of sainted brews. There are three thousand miles
of highways and towns with taverns where patrons drink beer. There are
breweries next to great rivers where enormous stainless-steel vats
froth with hops, grain, and yeast. I dream of swimming in a beer vat,
of drunk-drowning my way into the afterlife. I dream of angels
dressed like barmaids, of Hank Williams on the jukebox. I dream
of falling asleep forever in the bosom of a stranger who strokes
my hair and whispers sweetly to me as I forget who I was,
who I am, whatever it was I’d wanted to be. I dream until the dream
dissolves like the cold fog on a beer glass that becomes part of the greater
air, that becomes the weather, becomes the very clouds that will one day
rain and rain again into rivers that roll into the sea.
Fort Myers 2018
THIS MORNING May 22nd, 2017
I woke up to news about a big game hunter

being crushed by the elephant he’d just killed
and how this had happened on his 52nd safari,
which to me seemed like a lot. Another story
trumpeted the Ringling Brothers last performance
in Uniondale, New York. And I wondered
what’s crueler: killing elephants for trophies
or imprisoning them for circuses? A little sorrow
for me is the memory of being invited to the circus

when we lived in Portland in 1962, how my buddy
from second grade’s mom had an extra ticket, but—
and I admit this is weird—my Baptist mom wouldn’t
let me go because my friend and his mother were Catholic.
I remember being disappointed. I remember my friend
telling me I was going to miss out on popcorn and ice cream.
I remember hating my mom and crawling under the bed
in the room where I slept each night with my little sister
and even younger brother, how only in that dark, dusty
space could I mourn, feel the sadness build up the way
it would, every day, every year until I discovered booze
and pills, ways of making depression bearable. These days,
I don’t miss that little darkness beneath the bed or the burn
of cheap whiskey followed by a cold beer. These days,
I feel sad for all the imprisoned and dead elephants.
These days the greatest threat to the world
is the white man with his big balls and big guns, with his ideas
about the spectacular specialness of whiteness, the superiority
of guns and Jesus, the inevitability of a Christian Nation
founded on state fairs where Snickers bars are dropped
into vats of burning oil and deep fried, a real communion
food for white folks and their bug-eyed little monster children
who will eat anything put before them amid this banquet that is America.
I HATE CHRYSLER SEBRINGS,
especially convertibles. I hate

early winter in Chicago, the rain
changing to snow in the 5 pm darkness
that feels like an end to the world.
I hate that it lasts for months.
I hate the abstractness of the “It”
that causes precipitation. I bet
Cheyenne medicine men knew
a particular “It” when they danced
for rain on hot Oklahoma days
the whole world stretched
away in red dirt and smoke.
I hate cigarettes, but not always
the people who smoke them.
My grandpa smoked Lucky Strikes
and I loved the red on green
bullseye on the pack, the smell
of burning tobacco, which in those days
was considered healthy, something that
could help you relax in the middle
of a drought that was destroying
your soybean crop. I hate
soy milk, by the way.
I like cow milk because
2019, Autumn / 57
I used to drink it raw,

right after my grandpa milked
Daisy and brought the sloshing
pail into the kitchen. I hate time
because it’s stolen the taste
of the wild onions the cow had eaten
the day before it was milked, and it’s
stolen my grandpa who loved the cow,
the cow itself, and even stolen
the memory of her ruminant smell
of manure, heat, and straw. I hate poems that
don’t leap and end up in the same

place they began: Riding down
Lakeshore Drive in a Chrysler Sebring
in the gloaming, that time when the world
is so ghostly and ill-defined, when the trees
themselves are a distant and foreign language.
I hate the distance between us and the woods,
the way the rain/snow melts definition,
brings the blur of cloud and branch
until the whole motion is a grey song.
I hate this constant groping

with words toward meaning—
real meanings like love and sorrow,
the way your heart trembled once
when it encountered true things
like a 1968 Chevy Nova SS
that could zip from 0 to 60 in 5.7 seconds.
ALAN M FLEISHMAN
BYGONES
The stain of humiliation does not fade with time. Thirty-one years
later mine still ate at a corner of me.
I didn’t hear from Brock Berlin after college graduation. Then out
of the blue, last week his friendly email arrived in my inbox. At one time I
thought we were best friends, but things didn’t end well. Maybe he’d
forgotten that. He said he was passing through San Francisco and wanted
to get together.
We’re getting old, he wrote, and we may not find another chance.
I still have great memories of our friendship and all the hell-raising we
did. Our alma mater hasn’t been the same since. Ha! Ha!
I’d thought about Brock over the years more often than I’d liked
to admit. I couldn’t entirely forget or forgive, try as I did. At the moment,
with my stomach rebelling, I was asking myself why I ever agreed to meet
him for lunch. This was a mistake, but it was too late to get out of it.
Besides, I was a little curious to see how he turned out.
I picked Jerry’s Place to meet because of its old San Francisco
charm with the used brick and paneled walls, plank hardwood floors, and
blue checkered tablecloths. It’s a nice place to bring out-of-town guests:
good food, good view, and friendly service. I got there early to secure a
table near the window looking out on the Embarcadero and the Bay
Bridge. Maybe in the back of my mind, I was still trying to impress
Brock. For the occasion, I wore nice jeans, a blue collared shirt, and my
brown Mephisto loafers.
As I sat there waiting for him to arrive, my mind wandered
through those four college years with him, years full of fun, foolishness
and a thousand resentments churned together. I also thought about how
my wife Lauren was always telling me I had to stand up for myself. But
conflict isn’t in me. I’d rather persuade than provoke. This time I
promised myself it was going to be different. I was going to tell Brock
Berlin what I should have told him thirty-one years ago. I wondered if he
was still capable of violence. That thought made my stomach rebel some
more.
Fifteen minutes late, Brock burst into the place as if he owned it,
just like old times. Otherwise, I might not have recognized him. He still
had the swagger and the cleft chin, but he didn’t look like the six-foot-
two-inch strapping jock I knew, with shoulders so broad you could land
an airplane on them. This guy looked more like a slump-shouldered dump
truck carrying a heavy load. His cheeks were ruddy and veined, his once-
thick blond hair now a massive comb-over sitting atop a high forehead.
My immediate satisfaction with his deterioration produced a smile
which probably came across as more welcoming than I intended. He stuck
out his hand to shake, his grip soft and spongy. He cupped his other hand
around mine so I could see his extravagant Bulgari watch. His elegant
2019, Autumn / 59
striped shirt and tan slacks might have made me feel underdressed if this
wasn’t San Francisco.
“Jimbo, just look at you,” he said with a big white smile.
“Haven’t changed a bit, you old son-of-a-bitch. Nice beard.”
“Thanks,” I answered, feeling as awkward as I always used to feel
around him.
After a few more tortured words saying nothing, our waiter
showed up for drink orders and to recite the daily specials. Brock
requested a double Stoli on the rocks with a lemon. I had an iced tea—
with a lemon.
Last I heard, right after graduation Brock joined his father’s
savings and loan company as a vice president. Apparently, that didn’t last
long. He was too ambitious even for his father. Over the next twenty
minutes, Brock recounted every detail of his business conquests and his
rise up the corporate ladder to become president of the giant AMC
Telecom. He described the brutal intramural conflicts and particularly
relished the telling of the ultimate defeat of his most bitter rival. Next, he
told of the clever ways he employed teams of lawyers and accountants to
outwit government regulators and skirt the law. When necessary he
bought off politicians. “Hell, it only takes about ten thousand dollars to
own a senator,” he laughed.
His voice rose a few decibels and heads turned our way about the
time the waiter returned with our drinks. Brock ordered a bowl of Jerry’s
famous chili with a side of mac and cheese. I ordered the Cobb salad.
Without taking a breath, Brock pivoted to his innumerable
triumphs over the fairer sex. He mentioned a couple of movie stars and an
internationally ranked tennis player with whom he’d spent the night. He
barely touched on his three wives except to say, “I finally figured out it’s
cheaper to rent them than to buy them if you know what I mean.” He
seemed to be bragging more than complaining about the huge sums he
paid in alimony. “Better they get it than the government,” he said.
He finally paused when the waiter brought our food, eagerly
attacking his steaming plate of mac and cheese. The melted gruyere
tantalized my taste buds. Nonetheless, I declined when he offered me a
bite.
I told him after graduation I joined the Peace Corps, my tone
sharp enough to make him look up from his bowl of chili. It might have
been the stab in the back from Brock that pushed me into it. I was young,
immature, confused, and maybe running away. But only good came of it.
That’s how Lauren and I met, two Americans in an outpost in the French-
speaking part of Cameroon. Twenty-six years later and I felt more than
ever I landed the best wife, best mother, and best friend God ever created.
I didn’t tell Brock any of that. He didn’t seem interested, chewing
mindlessly on another breadstick between hearty scoops of chili. He
studied every young woman who passed by the window on the sidewalk
outside, barely listening when I told him that for the past fifteen years I’d
been the director and minority owner of San Francisco’s finest retail art
gallery, the big one on Geary Boulevard right off Union Square. I loved
what I did, a college art major who found a way to put his degree to
profitable use.
I did tell him I’d been faithfully married to Lauren for over two
decades. “Three kids,” I said. “An older boy and two younger girls. My
son graduated from UCLA in June. Becka and Samantha both followed
dear old dad to Mifflin College. How about yours?” I asked out of
courtesy.
“Don’t hear much from mine,” he said, and quickly changed the
subject. “Remember the Marchetti twins,” he snorted.
“You had to bring that up,” I chuckled.
Brock started laughing soundlessly, his big belly rolling. “Tina
and Gina. Oh my god, what a night.”
“Two of the ugliest broads I ever met. Big girls.”
“They looked so much alike you couldn’t tell ’em apart, except
maybe Tina’s mustache was a little thicker.”
“Can’t remember which one was Gina and which one was Tina.”
“You had Tina, I had Gina.” Brock was laughing so hard now
tears were rolling down his cheeks. The couple at the table next to us
glanced over several times, annoyed.
“Hell, you were in love,” I responded, forcing down a cackle.
“Next weekend you wanted to go back to Baltimore for more.”
“Never had a night like that again. You saved my ass. You always
were more sensible.”
“More scared,” I answered. “As I remember, they had a couple of
mean brothers, and a father who would’ve killed us.”
Brock let out a muffled burp. “Never told anyone about that
night,” he said, settling down.
I nodded, putting my smile back in my pocket. The Marchetti
twins were not one of our proudest conquests. But there were many other
times with Brock that were good.
Brock befriended me right from the moment we both moved into
the freshman dorm, our rooms next door to each other. We seemed to fit. I
2019, Autumn / 61
was quiet. Brock was gregarious. Brock was good looking, a natural
athlete and a leader. I was a good student and tutored him, helped him
with his term papers, and let him copy my notes in the classes we took
together. When it came time to fraternity rush, everyone wanted Brock,
and he let them know we came as a package. He was president of our
pledge class, and when we were seniors, president of the fraternity. I was
his faithful sidekick, his unelected chief of staff. He was so disorganized
he could barely get out of bed most mornings, and any talent for running a
budget didn’t exist. Things like that came naturally to me.
Brock’s parents were well-off. I was at Mifflin College on an
academic scholarship, student loans, and part-time work in the college
bookstore. So, he often discreetly picked up the tab for beer and midnight
pizza runs, and an occasional road trip. He had a car, a Buick convertible.
I had an ancient bicycle of an indeterminate color. I don’t think I would
have had a date in my first three years of college if not for Brock. He set
me up with a campus cutie for every big weekend, and even occasionally
shared one from his camp of townie trollops.
He was good to me most of the time, but not everyone in our
crowd felt that way about him. They learned he was going to use any
secret they shared with him to embarrass them at the worst moment. No
girl’s reputation was safe with him. When I reflect on it, nobody really
liked him that much. His popularity came from sheer force of will and the
edge of fear he provoked. It was only after college I realized people liked
me not because I was Brock’s best buddy, but in spite of it.
I sometimes wondered why Brock was such a steadfast friend.
After all, he was everything, and I was nothing. Maybe that was the point.
But don’t think for a minute that I was immune from his mockery. With
me, his barbs were usually aimed at my skinny physique or my poor
choice of clothes, though he knew I could not afford more or better. Even
sitting there in Jerry’s Place, my stomach jerked when I thought he was
about to hurl a spike my way. Then I remembered he only did it when
there was an audience around to appreciate his cynical wit.
My mind had wandered for a moment while Brock droned on
about his days on the baseball diamond. Mifflin College hadn’t had a
pitcher like him since forever. I was the team manager, at his insistence,
which at a Division III school means being little more than the equipment
boy. The more Brock talked about old times the more the words to Bruce
Springsteen’s Glory Days sounded in my brain. But, hey, he really could
throw a fastball by them and make them look like fools.
I don’t think he noticed or cared how indifferent I was to his
soliloquy. The more he talked the quieter I got, and the madder I got. I
came here for a fight and, ready or not, now was the time for it. The
subject of Misty Harmon would wait no longer. My intestines clutched in
tighter and tighter knots. I was all ready to barge into it when he abruptly
changed the subject.
“Do you stay in touch with any of the guys?” he asked, the first
wisp of melancholy in his voice. I let out a sigh of relief, confrontation
delayed.
“I see Ron Hess and Steve Shafer all the time,” I answered. “Still
exchange Christmas cards with Bruce and Ed. All five of us try to meet up
with our wives every couple of years. Facebook friends with a few others.
How about you?” I knew the answer to that but appreciated the
opportunity to stick a needle in him.
He stared down at his second double Stoli, avoiding looking at
me. “Nah,” he said. “Haven’t spoken to any of them in years. Ya’ know, a
lot of people said Bruce was queer, don’t you?”
You were the one saying it, I wanted to argue. Instead, I said,
“Bruce is as straight as a razor blade. He’s been married to Trudy for
twenty-two years. They have four kids.”
“You know Tom was killed in a car crash?”
“Yeah, I heard. Too bad.”
The waiter cleared our plates away. We both declined offers of
coffee and dessert. An uncomfortable silence descended like the San
Francisco evening fog. He covered his mouth to muffle a burp,
unsuccessfully. I said nothing but kept my eyes fixed on him. He fidgeted,
nervous, and I enjoyed it. Misty Harmon’s haunted spirit cast a chill,
making ready for her appearance.
I met Misty in the library all on my own, probably the first girl in
college I found without Brock’s help. Near the end of the first semester of
my senior year, I somehow summoned the courage to court her. She was
cute as a pixie, innocent, and a little flaky. She worked hard for her
mediocre grades. I couldn’t believe she fell as fast and as hard for me as I
did for her. Some sense warned me not to let Brock anywhere near her—
no double dates and no sharing of confidences. He teased me mercilessly,
particularly when he found out that a few times I brought her back to my
room in the fraternity house, still a no-no in those days.
It all happened so quickly, but as spring arrived and graduation
drew closer, I entertained the idea of asking her to marry me. She was a
junior and might be ready for such a commitment. When I look back on it
now, it all seems so foolish, but then I was blindly in love—my first time.
2019, Autumn / 63
If you asked me a week before graduation, I’d have told you

Brock Berlin was my best friend forever. He was joining his father’s firm
and, after clearing it with his father, asked me to come along, though I had
no meaningful qualifications. I was grateful to him. So, three days before
graduation, I told him everything that was going on with Misty, especially
the part about intending to ask her to marry me. He smirked throughout
my narration as though he was a patient parent indulging the fantasies of a
five-year-old.
Our fraternity’s annual graduation party was legendary for its
debauchery. It started at about five in the afternoon with our version of
zombie cocktails. After two of those, you turned into a reanimated corpse.
More rum, more brandy, less orange juice until you couldn’t stand up
anymore without help. It was crazy-loud music, low lights, laughter, heat,
bodies on bodies. A couple of the guys were crying, sad to be graduating;
a couple of girls I didn’t recognize were undressed from the waist up,
gyrating to the rhythm of the drums’ heavy beat.
This was no place for a girl you cared about. I spent the first two
hours or so trying to protect Misty, diluting her drinks and keeping my
arm around her to ward off the debauchers. Around dark, I had one too
many drinks myself and lost touch with my fingers, my toes, and Misty.
Someone, I think it was Ron Hess, shouted at me that I better go rescue
her. She was in the cloakroom.
Through my haze, I thought maybe she had passed out or gotten
sick. But when I stuck my head in, she was splayed on the floor, her skirt
up around her waist, and Brock Berlin on top of her, groaning and
grinding. I must have made some horrible sound because they both turned
toward me. Brock gave me a tortured toothy sneer. “I’ll be done in a
minute,” he grunted, as though that would solve everything. Misty stared
glassy-eyed but said nothing.
I have little recall of what happened next except of Ron and Steve
carrying me up to my room with me crying my heart out. By the next
morning, everyone in the house knew what had happened. My friends
eyed me with pity, my humiliation complete. I stayed far away from
Brock until graduation was over and never saw or spoke to Misty again.
Many years passed before I could accept some blame for putting her in
the position in which I found her.
It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that I had been
destroyed in every important way. My best friend had betrayed me. My
first true love had broken my heart into a million pieces. I was worthless,
my future now uncertain, my life at an end. My parents could not
understand why graduation day didn’t bring me the joy of momentous

achievement. I went home to Scranton that summer and worked in an auto
body shop for minimum wage while I tried to figure things out. If I could
have killed Brock Berlin and Misty Harmon, I would have, the only time
in my life that the urge for violence triumphed over reason. Finally, I
concluded I had to get away, far away, in some dangerous and noble
adventure. I never talked to anyone ever again about what happened, not
even Lauren. What would she have thought of me if she knew?
The memory of that night cut through me now like a honed
dagger. I wanted Brock Berlin to suffer like I suffered, then and in the
thirty-one years since. This was the time to turn the dagger on him. All
you had to do was look at him and you could see how pathetic he was,
miserable and lonely—vulnerable enough to kill him.
He burped again, this time trying to muffle it with his hand. I
forgot how often he did that in college, and how annoying it was. This
time it dawned on me that the burps usually came when he was off
balance and insecure.
“So, do you think people ever change?” he asked quietly.
I let his question linger, never taking my unblinking eyes off of
him. He squirmed, and I let him. “No,” I finally answered. That’s not
what he wanted to hear. He dropped his head.
About then, the waiter carefully placed the check on the table
between us. Brock gawked at it as if it was contagious. I reached over and
picked it up. “No, no, let’s split it,” he insisted belatedly but making no
reach for his wallet.
“I got it,” I said, eager to get this over with and willing to pay for
the privilege.
While we waited, Brock said he was glad he had been able to
clear the air and renew his friendship with the best friend he ever had. He
hoped we could get together again soon. I told him I was glad I came too
but didn’t mention that for me it was because it stitched a wound. I
wouldn’t be seeing him again, ever.
The waiter returned with my credit card. “Ya’ know,” Brock said,
“I’m sorry about a lot of stuff.” He mumbled it so softly I wasn’t sure I
heard him right. Then he looked up, sorrow writ across his brow.
“Maybe it all worked out,” I answered. He nodded, his lips
contorted, uncertain.
When we exited the café, Brock turned right, where his driver
was waiting with a black limo. I turned left toward the metro station.
On the train ride home, I thought some more about Misty
2019, Autumn / 65
Harmon. Well before that awful night, she gave enough hints she was not
ready for a future together. I had convinced myself otherwise. Anyway,
she would never have been half the wife Lauren is. Misty’s life turned out
to be a disaster. She never married, ended up in a detox sanitarium, and
died alone before she hit fifty.
Brock hasn’t changed. His life took him where it was destined to
go. But it’s an unfulfilled life with no satisfying love of any kind. That’s
why he turned to me. For the first time, I felt genuine pity for Brock and
Misty. I learned a lot from both of them, though not what they would have
wanted me to learn.
Maybe Lauren is right. I do avoid conflict. But here’s the thing. I
no longer care about Brock Berlin. He’s a lost soul who will never
change. I no longer care about Misty Harmon. She’s dead. I’m better off
than either of them.
The train screeched to a halt and the doors burst open. I was going
home to my wife.
MARTIN WILLITTS JR
COMING HOME, SOON
Coming home soon, promised the man

in a letter to a woman he’d left behind.
It was with this picture of a man,

still boyishly smiling in an oversized uniform
leaving to fight a war, all fired up,
never thinking he might not return.
They all believed they were bullet-proof,

but some weren’t. He wrote: Coming home, soon.
Does it matter which war I am talking about,

which side, whose cause? That fling he had
before departing, with a woman he barely knew—
he never thought it would lead to anything,
much less a child. Now, he had to tell her,
he’d marry her when he came back, soon.
But he never returned. Maybe, she’d find someone

willing to take her and another man’s child.
Someone who wouldn’t mind. Someone, hopefully
decent. Someone who would come home.
Someone who would not die in a car accident
or from chain-smoking or a mine collapse.
I found this picture, and a few letters

hidden inside a bureau from an estate sale,
of a man with a sideways, loopy grin,
red-lipped kissed on his cheek
by a woman tousling his hair.
I also found the letter from the government

explaining in blunt terms he’d never survived.
I had promised my wife I’d be coming home soon,

kissing her to make sure I’d remember
what I had, giving a promise worth keeping.
2019, Autumn / 67
ROSALIA SCALIA
DADDY’S SHOES
The shoes—covered by a light layer of dust—must have sat in

neat rows arranged on the shelves in the overflow closet for the last few
years. He must have been too sick in the recent years to clean and polish
them, as was his habit. Some of the shoes, perhaps the ones he’d worn
most recently, shimmered with a sheen from a distant polishing, despite
the dust. Shoes with tassels decorating the toe caps, with buckles, no
longer shiny silver and glittery gold, some squared-toed, others with a
rounded point; all bore the names of Italian designers—Gucci,
Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana—and other names, unrecognizable as
designers but definitely Italian, older, ordinary shoes, outdated pairs he
must have bought during his few trips back home to see his parents and
siblings. He must have never tossed out or given away a single pair, and
he must have rotated wearing them so that they all appeared wearable.
Organized by color—browns with browns, blacks with blacks, tans with
tans, whites with whites—some pairs appeared worn with uneven heel
tops, creased leather throats, and worn tongues, while others looked
nearly new. A few never-worn pairs still retained price tags showing
prices marked down several times from sales. Several pair of sneakers
lined the opposite shelf; their worn toe caps faced forward like soldiers,
untied shoestrings loose in their eyelets, frayed here and there. He must
have attached the electric revolving belt holder on the wall near the light
switch so that he could easily match a belt to the shoes he would wear. He
touched them all, placing them neatly in color-coordinated rows on
shelves he built himself. He would not have included his work boots and
shoes, which he kept in the basement. He must have been proud of the
sheer abundance of these shoes after having told stories of an
impoverished childhood with only one pair to his name to wear at any
given time, whether they fit or not. He must have worked hard to never be
without a pair of shoes. He once spoke of how, as a teenager, he
accidently dropped one of his shoes into one of the harbors of his birth
city on an island and was forced to dive into the water to rescue it, not for
fear of the beating he’d get at home for having lost a shoe, but from the
terror of having no shoes to wear to school.
I have come to pack his clothes, to help my mother sort through
his garments, when I came across the closet chock full of shoes on the
third floor, where she couldn’t go because of a steep staircase. He must
have been proud of this shoe closet, concrete evidence that he would
never again be without a pair of shoes. He must have polished them all
methodically, even after he stopped going to places where he could wear
them and found himself restricted to running shoes, sandals, and slippers,
housebound footwear after a series of ischemic strokes forced him to stop
driving. In the basement I retrieve black contractor garbage bags and
sprint up three flights of stairs with them. I’ll drop the shoes into the bags
to be passed along to the non-profit for homeless veterans, down-on-their-
luck men who once cleaned, polished, and buffed boots as part of their
military lives, men who knew how to coax these Italian beauties back to
their previous luster, a dead man’s shoes to become useful for other men’s
unshorn feet. I stand in his shoe closet marveling at the collection of
stylish footwear, seemingly forgotten during his battle with strokes that
killed his brain centimeter by centimeter and the dementia they bought.
The shoes looked lonely and abandoned under the thin film of dust,
remnants of a life now passed. He must have understood that the strokes
would steal his memory by degrees, a gradual erasing of his personality,
his pride, his power of basic choice as to what shoes to wear each day and
why not wear stylish dress shoes under jeans or pajamas. I considered
carefully dusting them before dropping them into the black garbage bags
but chose not to. Instead I peered into each shoe, searched for gems
hidden inside, as he was known for hiding things in unusual places, before
placing them on the floor and gingerly stepping into his treasured footgear
as I once did as a small child, and now, even as an adult, his shoes remain
too big.
DAVID A HECKER
CRAFTSMAN
Arm held level like a

violinist holding his bow,
he thrusts his file back and forth

across saw blade teeth,
bits of steel flick into the air,

springing sounds like a base fiddler.
2019, Autumn / 69
Perfect work for the winter months,

filing saw blades for a cantankerous lot,
thought to be lazy or degenerate,

a bunch of bachelors growing old together,
but master carpenters who leave their saws

only with one they trust, for they expect
blades that bite through birch

so cleanly that cut edges gleam.
Resting his arms, the filer eyeballs the saw-

like a water colorist leaning away from a painting
to measure perspective-
looks for any irregularity.
SUMMER FALLOW
We cousins waited beside the car

while my uncle paced back and forth
in front of his house.
Finally the front door opened.
The latecomer stumbled out onto
the concrete stairway. He caught
the railing with one hand,
steadied himself, and nearly
fell as he stumbled down the stairs.
My uncle watched his son stagger

towards us on the sidewalk. He then
reached his snuffbox from the back pocket
of his trousers. He held it in one hand
while rapping it with the knuckles
of the other. Dead from the asshole
to the eyebrows, he muttered.
You're on the stone boat today, boy.
That'll sweat the booze out of ya.
My uncle glanced at his side yard

where he'd parked his tardy son's
two wrecked cars. He shook his head
and got into the driver's seat. We cousins
climbed into the backseat. Nobody said a word.
TWO BROTHERS
Stop drinking! Get back to work!

As my uncle said these words,
he shifted his stout body
from foot to foot, gesturing
with his arms and hands.
His brother, a bachelor, didn't respond,
but stared at him, contemptuously,
as if to say, Mind your own business.
Standing in the driveway of my

grandma's house, my home in summers,
I watched and listened,
a witness unacknowledged.
My uncle grew more agitated,

irritated by his bachelor brother's stoicism.
He raised his arms above his head,
brushed back his thinning grey hair
with one hand and yelled,
Do your duty! Finish your work!
Be responsible.
Stumbling he fell to the ground,
flailing his arms and legs
as he spun about on the gravel.
The bachelor brother looked down

at this display of emotion, turned
and walked to an alley that led uptown.
I followed him and watched him open a door
that had a neon light flashing Schlitz on it.
2019, Autumn / 71
My bachelor uncle was on a toot.

A carpenter, he had left me, his tools,
and our unfinished job. It was too hot
to work, and he had cash for another week
of beer and billiards.
DANA STAMPS II
ART COLLECTING, A MEMOIR
(for Lynn)
Since I moved to Riverside, CA, in 2004, I have enjoyed

attending Art Walk on the first Thursday of each month, which is a major
cultural event in the city. Downtown there are at least a dozen galleries
that open their doors from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. to display artworks, always
priced well over what I can afford to buy. I have always dreamed of being
an art collector, and thought that if I won the lottery (even though I don’t
buy tickets), I would collect art. But even without buying, I enjoyed
looking at the plethora of styles and quality displayed. A few years after I
started attending, something unusual started to happen, something that
didn’t get my attention at first—but would soon become critical to my Art
Walk experience and to my life. Local artists who weren’t welcome to
display in the official, sanctioned places for whatever reason began to
show their work on the sidewalk to passersby strolling between galleries.
For the first few months, there were only a few brave artists, but soon the
sidewalks had more artists represented than the galleries did—many
more—and the work was often comparable in quality despite the lack of
gallery status.
One summer evening, I was walking through Art Walk with a
friend, local artist and poet Ryan Peeters, when I said to him that I really
liked one of the paintings, a green and black abstract, a moody piece that
seemed melancholy with hope trying to shine through but failing. The
artist overheard me, and said, “I’ll give it to you for fifteen bucks.” This
caught my attention, and I took a closer look. The materials alone were
obviously much more expensive than what he was asking for the piece.
The heavy-duty 16x20 canvas was at least worth twenty-five dollars new,
and I asked him why he was selling the work so inexpensively. He said, “I
just want to get my stuff out there.”

I could relate to this as a poet, often sending my work to literary
journals to be paid only in contributor’s copies—if I get accepted for
publication. This was the epiphany when I knew that I could—and must—
become a collector. It was a great deal, and it felt inevitable to me as
falling in love after a first kiss. It’s hard to believe that at first I didn’t
notice the artists cluttering the sidewalk, what became known as Hobo
Row, as an opportunity, but it was my transformation from snob art (so to
speak) to champion of undervalued, invisible art. I didn’t realize until his
offer—how could I—that these humble artist’s actions would alter my life
and ultimately be a part of realizing my dream to be an art collector.
The artist (I had him sign the painting on the back, but his
signature is so sloppy that I cannot read it, and I have forgotten his name)
gave me some white cardboard 3D glasses with the untitled painting that
showed how the shading of greens give the work a sense of depth only
perceivable wearing the glasses, the lighter greens floating in the
foreground, the darker greens sunken into the image. Also, the black paint
that seems to be only in the background turned out to be shaded as well
with the darker black in the foreground. I was delighted, and I bought my
first artwork. It is ironic that he got me started on collecting and valuing
the work of invisible artists and yet his identity is lost.
Buying art made me feel that I belonged to a special club, and I
was making an investment similar to buying penny stocks. You never
know if an original, one-of-a-kind artwork might become valuable.
Millions are paid for original art at Sotheby’s, for example. A painting of
Jesus holding an orb by Leonardo da Vinci recently sold for 450 million
dollars. Perhaps there is a touch of the lottery ticket buyer in me after all?
Being on a fixed income, a recipient of Social Security, I
determined that I could afford to spend about a hundred dollars a month
on art. My rule was that I would never pay more than a hundred dollars
for any one piece, and I found that that was easily accomplished because
of the generosity of most artists. Since I cannot buy every good artwork
for sale, I focus on what I favor most, which is art that shows intense
investment, that is, much time obviously taken creating the image, and
that also somehow conveys strong feelings or thoughts.
Anyone can accumulate an impressive collection paying hundreds
or especially thousands of dollars for each artwork, but how many
collectors achieve something nice for a hundred dollars or less per
artwork? Often, I paid less than thirty dollars, sometimes even less than
ten dollars. After a couple of years, the walls of my studio apartment were
2019, Autumn / 73
filled, and I began to get ambitious with ideas of showing my collection

and possibly selling it. My hope was to attract publicity for what I was
doing, possibly attain provenance for my efforts, and thus give status to
the many fine artists who contributed to my collection. I had fantasies of
significant evolvement in the outcome of the artworks akin to creating the
art, my purchasing choices a kind of art in itself. I didn’t give it birth, but
I would love it, and give it a home. Collecting art, for me, would be an art,
too.
My favorite hangout, Back to the Grind coffee shop, a place
where I often attend poetry readings, would be an ideal place, I thought, to
show and sell my collection first, which I have yet to achieve. Actually, I
don’t want to give up most of my collection for any price. Yes, I am in
love. I am also a sometimes artist (doodles and scribbles my specialty,
lacking significant talent but plenty of heart, just so I could have the
experience of being an artist), and I have shown my work there once, even
selling a few pieces for modest prices, mostly to my friends.
My favorite painting so far in my collection was actually
purchased at Back to the Grind from Jimmy Espudo titled M. Stereo
Typical (2014). I agreed to buy the 18x24 painting for seventy-five
dollars, but I had to wait a month before I could take it home. It was part
of a group show, and all the artist had to agree in advance as a condition
to show their work to let it hang for the entirety of the show. I visited the
coffee shop several times to view the piece; it was thrilling to know that it
was eventually going to hang on my wall. It is painted in acrylic pastels
on a black canvas, and has exactly seventeen forced perspective gray
cubes in the lower left corner (a pun on cubism?), and seemingly
originating from two of the largest cubes—like a piñata bursting open—
emerges a complex, highly detailed cubistic environment filling the rest of
the canvas. If the question is asked, “What does cubism look like if
painted in the early 21st century?” then this painting is a strikingly
plausible answer. I hope I am a good custodian of the exquisite painting
until it finds its eventual place in a museum. If I sell it, then it will be like
an adoption, and I will have to know the piece has an excellent home, a
collector with provenance would be preferable.
A block away, the Life Arts Building, which rents small studios
that are not supposed to be lived in, though many artists have sleeping
bags behind their easels, is a bohemian fixture in town (and I think a
serious fire hazard) that I always make time to peruse during Art Walk.
Most of the artists are considerably out of my price range, viewing
themselves as professionals and asking high prices, but a few have
negotiated with me to our mutual benefit. The best is Sophie Violette,

who draws Kandinsky-esque with markers on paper. She says she is
writing in an esoteric language of her own creation. The geometric and
sometimes wild designs are fiercely intelligent, and I admire them even
though I cannot translate them, working well on a purely visual level. She
is one of the few artists who I have paid my top price of $100 for her
work.
On the ground floor of the Life Arts Building are spaces that
individual artists rent on a onetime-only basis to show their work during
Art Walk. Again, most artists who are willing to pay for a space ask too
high of prices for me, but a few generous and gifted artists have worked
with me, wanting their work to be included in my ambitious collection.
My favorite is Ray Stevens (not the famous singer of “The Streak”) who
paints in oils on canvas, mostly representational impressionism, but
occasionally he feels inspired to paint abstracts that are somehow musical,
as if they are visual etudes. I’ve often thought that a YouTube video
displaying them with Chopin playing in the background would be
apropos. He doesn’t display these at Art Walk anymore, for display space
is a premium for him, but he brings them exclusively to sell to me; I have
thirteen of his paintings and counting. He says that his representational
work sells much better, and I have a couple of those, too. He is my
candidate for the artist most likely to succeed from Riverside. The Ray
Stevens name is already famous, after all.
Also, my friend Ryan Peeters, a fellow poet who often reads and
critiques my poems before anyone else sees them, has sold me a couple
dozen of his “process paintings” for low prices. Normally, I would have
waited for him to give me any work that he made as a birthday or
Christmas gift. Ryan is generous, and he often gives art he makes to
family and friends. But once I started collecting, he gave me first look
privileges to buy his work, costing me fifteen dollars each to buy, a nice
arrangement for each of us, as he says, and I am proud to say that I am a
major collector of his work. Always using a complex array of materials,
his images are mainly about texture with non-intentional imagery,
achieving subtle results.
Another source is the Salvation Army thrift store on Magnolia
Blvd., which is walking distance from my apartment. I am too poor to
own a car. I usually walk to get food, and then stop by the thrift store to
see if they have any new artworks. Nine out of ten times, I come out
emptyhanded. But I have some exceptional pieces that I got for
ridiculously low prices: two to twenty dollars apiece, tops. This is the only
2019, Autumn / 75
way I’ll take a risk on minimalist paintings, which I generally don’t favor,
but sometimes I can warm to a piece if I get to know it. Many of the
pieces are unsigned, too, but my best finds were Helena II and Bob
Kildebeck. I have two paintings by Helena II that are masterpieces of
color reminiscent of Matisse or Gaugin, but unique, unlike any painter I
am acquainted with. Everyone who sees my collection complements those
paintings, even if they don’t like my penchant for abstraction. I don’t
know how they got donated, not to a serious museum, but to the Salvation
Army. I will no doubt keep those two paintings for the rest of my life.
And then there is Bob Kildebeck’s work. I have four of his
paintings, all of them so different to the extent that he is easily the most
eclectic painter represented in my collection. When I bought his work, the
employee told me that approximately thirty of his paintings were
destroyed while being transported. I was mortified, because those
paintings were probably his life work, and I think he is a great painter.
This is the kind of thing—tragic or great or mundane—shopping at the
Salvation Army adds to my collecting experience. Often I get exercise by
taking a brisk walk just to see if I’ll get lucky, just to see.
As it stands now, I am humbled at what I have done on $100 a
month, and I wish I could convey to the artists how much enrichment their
works have brought to my life. It’s not the social or imagined monetary
status that is finally important. In fact, I feel fortunate that I was not able
to realize those goals because it has allowed me to discover what is truly
important about collecting art. Living with these original artworks, getting
to know them as one might get to know a person, I have had the chance to
let the art speak to me with more depth than seeing them, usually only
once, on display in a gallery. And my ambition to sell the collection,
possibly even donate much of it to charity (I am a sucker for worthy
causes), has not been entirely in vain, because I have occasionally given
individual artworks to friends and family who fall in love with one while
visiting me. Also, obviously, it helps me to make available space on my
walls for new artworks. Art occupies every available space, floor to
ceiling. My limited storage space is packed, but I always manage to find
room for more. I rearrange the art often, hanging stored pieces, storing
others. If a new one goes up, an old one must come down.
My small apartment has become a place where poetry writing
feels encouraged, a source of constant motivation, and it is a joy to live in
such a beautiful, even sacred space. In this age of vast wealth inequalities,
where art collecting is usually thought of as something done by the rich
who buy artworks by high status artists for obscene amounts to mirror
their own status, I have learned to appreciate owning art for its own sake,
to love the privilege of being enriched by such beauty, the greatest value
of any art collection. I will make the invisible artists visible, you’ll see.
SHARON SCHOLL
THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS
The phrase slips like slime

from the mouths of politicians
offering unfunded sympathy.
It hovers like a halo

over fire chiefs at news conferences
who can’t supply a cause.
Words that cast a sheen of holiness

on preachers of God’s mercy
who have no answer for His cruelty.
So easily invoked to proclaim

our good intentions
when we’re safely at a distance.
A glossy retreat for the truth

that teeters at the edge of chaos
where there’s nothing we can do.
CHEMO-BRAIN
Your eyes go suddenly vacant,

mouth slack,
expression anxious.
You search,
search for a word,
a train of thought,
a reason you have opened
the refrigerator door.
2019, Autumn / 77
You rub your face,

run your hand through your hair,
lean against a cabinet,
resort to a favorite ploy –
going through the alphabet.
Your head is a pinball machine,

thoughts trickling through synapses.
Each lights up with recognition,
but the ball bounces on
erratically until it finds
the small blinking hole
where it fits.
Oh, of course, you mumble,

a wave of relief passing
across your face.
I wanted the milk.
FABIYAS M V
PACHAN’S DAY
A brochure was circulated among the students. There was a

public-address announcement too. Yellow Mango, the manipulative
publishing company, has certainly influenced the school authority.
Monday. Lunch break. Time–12:30.
The publisher’s sales representatives, two young men, brightly
dressed, make their appearance in the school compound. They are allotted
the heavenly shade of a mango tree in the front yard of the school. They
take three long wooden desks from a nearby classroom and place them in
a row. Each desk is covered with colorful silk cloth. Books are quickly
arranged on the desks. A banner with the details of the book sale is hung
on the lower branch of the mango tree.
Meanwhile Pachan, who has put on a white dhoti and blue
sleeveless shirt that is a little faded, comes to the staff room in the back
yard of the school. He holds a large polyethylene bag in his right hand and
carries a carton on his head that is full of books, including small
dictionaries, biographies of important people, novels and so on. He is a
regular Monday visitor with a gloomy face under a salt and pepper roof.
He scatters the books on a dusty discarded table in a nook of the staff
room. The children have never paid attention to this visitor before; only
teachers plow through the table and pick up books befitting their tastes.
Pachan could usually sell a maximum of ten books during one
visit.
Many a student has brought money and the price list of Yellow
Mango, which they got yesterday. Unfortunately (or fortunately), most of
the children mistake Pachan for the Yellow Mango sales representative,
for the simple reason that the staff room is open and visible from the yard.
Some students come to the staff room to ask their teachers about the
location of the book sale, but seeing Pachan, they don’t make further
inquiries. Instead, they buy books and leave.
Now the mistaken children flow into the staff room. Nobody
diverts the flow to the mango tree. I peep inside—just to enjoy the rare
glow on Pachan’s countenance. He is encircled by a row of students.
He is truly a stone cold bookseller. His customers are familiar
with his ready-made phrases —‘yes’, ‘take it’, ‘twenty rupees’, and ‘next
time’.
The bell rings exactly at 1.30 p.m. The children flee to their
classrooms and the teachers follow them. The representatives from
Yellow Mango gnash their teeth. They are in a huff because their well-
oiled business tricks did not succeed today.
It is the day of the biggest sale in Pachan’s life. His pocket and
purse bulge like the belly of a pregnant woman. Yet he is polite. That is
his nature.
The well-groomed sales representatives flounce out of the school
compound without turning back. Well-planned strategies fail at times
before the luck of simple, innocent people.
As I remark, “Lucky man,” a smile appears on Pachan’s
melancholic face like a crescent moon emerging from behind dark clouds.
He folds his empty polyethylene bag, puts it in the empty carton, and
saunters to the road.
2019, Autumn / 79
MARC KAMINSKY
A PLACE APART
A Tent in the Desert
At age eight, I unscrewed the stick

from the broom you flew
around the house with
in your crusade against dirt.
I used it to prop up the sheet

on my bed, and welcomed my little brother
into my tent, offering to protect him
against sandstorms and marauders.
The door burst open, a wind-swept

visage emerged out of nowhere,
the shrillness of your voice
left no corner of the room un-
stung, you screeched, What did you do

with my broom? You reached in
and pulled down the tent-pole
that held my imaginary world aloft.
A Coat in the Closet
I loved to snuggle against the coat

you wore when you took me shopping
for discount outfits on Fordham Road.
The scent was like nothing else
in the world. I snuck into your closet

to rub my nose in it. Was it the mink
or your toilet water or the slightly stinging mix
of the two that burned and soothed me?
Mother, after I gave up seeking

tenderness from you, your coat
without you in it was my self-
cure for your coldness.
It melted my frozenness, tore me

open, brought my senses back
to life, in your closet I lacked
nothing, on my knees, my face in your fur.
JAMES RYAN
GREETING IKE
To the ladies who come up in June,

We'll bid a fond adieu,
Here's hoping they be married soon,
And join the Army too.
“Army Blue,” Traditional West Point Song
June Week 1960 and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had come

up to West Point to reunite with his illustrious class at its forty-fifth
anniversary since graduation. Of the 264 candidates that had entered West
Point with Ike on June, 14, 1911, 164 would graduate on June 12, 1915.
And what a lustrous crop of new officers! Fifty-nine of them—36% of the
graduating class—would ultimately receive general’s stars. It was the
most profusely star-dusted class in West Point history. Of the fifty-nine
generals, Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley wore five stars. Only
three other army officers have ever held this rank. How appropriate that
they gather at West Point in reunion, recollection and, no doubt, some
laughs.
***
Early afternoon on Saturday, June 4, military brass, civilian
dignitaries, a press corps and the president of the United States took a
one-hour hop from Washington D.C. to Stewart Air Force base near West
Point. Six classmates, all generals, accompanied the president—John
Bragdon, Frederic Boye, Joseph Swing, Thomas Larkin, Thomas Hanley
and Walter Hess. The president was greeted by Lt. General Garrison H.
Davidson, the Superintendent of West Point. Then the president, General
Davidson, and the president’s military aide, Major Richard Streiff
immediately departed in Ike’s black Lincoln Continental, flags flying
from both fenders, to West Point’s Thayer Hotel. That evening he joined
his classmates at the nearby Bear Mountain Inn for a buffet dinner.
2019, Autumn / 81
Being president is a full-time job, even on Sunday. This particular

Sunday morning he flew to South Bend, Indiana to address the graduating
class at Notre Dame University. He returned to West Point in the late
afternoon. That evening he attended a class picnic at Gene Leone’s farm
in nearby Central Valley. The president was rumored to have been the
barbecue chef…at least according to Omar Bradley. Leone, owner of
Mama Leone’s restaurant on West 44th Street in New York City, was
well-known for his generosity to West Point. So much so that the Class of
1915 had made him an honorary member. The president departed the
picnic at 10 pm to return to the Hotel Thayer.
***
June 6, 1960 dawned at West Point as “Alumni Day.” Sixteen
years earlier on the beaches of Normandy the date became an indelible
memory. “D-Day, the Sixth of June, 1944.” immediately brought a name
to mind—Eisenhower.
The first item in the president’s appointments book was:
9:00 am
The President departed Thayer Hotel for the
Thayer Museum and the New East Barracks. He was
accompanied by General Davidson and General
Charles W. Rich. The President walked through the
Thayer Museum and the New East Barracks.
And on this day the fortunes of war and peace, life and fate had so
conspired that my number had come up for barracks duty as CCQ —
cadet-in-charge-of-quarters. My company had been selected for the
presidential visit. I was in my second year at West Point. My
responsibilities as CCQ were not onerous, mostly spending the day in the
orderly room answering the telephone, supervising sick call, making
inconsequential notations in the duty book such as recording a visit by the
cadet officer-of-the-day, rendering attendance reports and… oh yes!…
Today I would greet the President of the United States! Per his schedule,
the president would be walking through New East Barracks and would
visit Company C-1… and me.
I don’t remember being particularly nervous about it. I knew that
the president had not been the most “military” of cadets, that he had
played football with Omar Bradley, longed to play baseball but had a bad
knee. Had finished in the middle of his class academically. So far so good.
And I heard clatter and voices in the hallway. Suddenly the orderly room
was full of uniforms, business suits, clamor and stars. And there was
neither time nor order. But there was one unmistakable face with an
unmistakable smile and, habit now ingrained, I snapped my right hand up
to my right eyebrow in salute, saying,
“Sir, Cadet Ryan reports to the President of the United States!”
He did not return my salute, being a civilian.
“At ease, Mr. Ryan,” he said and reached out his hand.
It was a great moment, imbedded as if it happened this morning.
His hand was meaty and strong, the hand of a puncher.
“Welcome to Company C-1, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan,” said the president.
I was adrift in stars—General Davidson, General Rich, Lyman
Lemnitzer, the Chief of Staff of the Army. The entire chain of command
in the flesh. A few more officers, the president’s aide, a major with the
yellow braid aiguillette on his shoulder, some civilians probably reporters.
The orderly room was packed.
“Do you like it here, Mister Ryan?” asked the president.
I think I may have broken a smile. My career could end right
here. Thoughts of the Cadet Honor Code, a cadet will not lie, cheat or
steal…
“Yes sir,” I said, adding a cautionary “most of the time.”
The president thought that was funny and he smiled all around his
entourage saying, “See? See? See?”
Everyone was smiling, especially the generals. They were acting
like cadets, loose and friendly.
“We fully understand what you mean,” said Ike.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Another voice—General Davidson, “Where are you from, Mister
Ryan?”
“New York City, sir.”
“Which part?” he asked.
“The Bronx, sir”
“I’m from the Bronx too,” said General Davidson.
“Yes, sir,” I said, my brain rummaging to grasp that a three-star
general could actually come from the Bronx.
“I’m from the northern part, sir. Woodlawn, next to the
cemetery,” I said.
Someone laughed.
“I’m from the other end,” said General Davidson, “the 23rd
district.”
The South Bronx. My family’s roots. What could I say? I could
2019, Autumn / 83
have told him that my entire family, mother and father, were from there,
Mott Haven and Melrose. That my great grandfather, a German-born
immigrant, owned a junkyard on 149th Street next to St. Mary’s Park. As
a child my father rode with him on the horse-drawn junk wagon. And that
this same grandfather had disappeared from the family. Going back to
Germany after World War I because of the ferocious anti-German
sentiment still prevailing. I could have told him that my uncle had jumped
with the 82nd Airborne on this very day in Normandy. I could have said
all that…but I just said, “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Mister Ryan,” said the president. “We are running a
bit late. We have to be at the library now. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Yes, sir, you’re welcome,” I said and again saluted.
On the way out General Davidson shook my hand and patted my
shoulder.
They followed Ike through the door. A reporter with a notebook
came up to me.
“Did he say anything else to you?”
“No, sir,” I said, “Nothing else.”
MARCUS BENJAMIN RAY BRADLEY

BUCKLED
My belt stays coiled on a shelf near my clothes

Like a snake that, with just the right technique,
Could be charmed up from the basket bottom
To be handled each and every weekday morning
I only freed myself of it a short twelve hours ago

But must endure it again to sustain my own nest
By wearing it to an occupation that I settled for
After realizing my dreams weren’t coming true
It wraps its way around and then buckles me in

Constricting my waist to an acceptable 32 inches
Not with a warm embrace around my midsection
But like squeezing the life that’s left out of me
I frequently tell my children at the dinner table

That they can grow up to be anything they want
And should never stop following their fantasies
I hope they never have to strap a belt on for work
FLU YEAR
We learned that five of our friends that met for New Year’s Eve
Were diagnosed with influenza within the week after the party
Feverish finger pointing began almost immediately as we hurled
Accusations about which of us brought the virus as their plus one
And proceeded to poison the others with handshakes and hugs
The kids all spread to their grandparents or other safe havens

Abandoning doomed spouses that stayed behind to uphold vows
That seemed superfluous at the time they were verbally sworn
But dealt with just these circumstances that now force them
To gamble their welfare with every step nearer the sickbed
The risk is greater still escorting them to the doctor’s office

Where the waiting room is the exact opposite of quarantine
Everyone on this side of the door looks and sounds incurable
I marvel that the staff can spend their days inside a petri dish
And remain even remotely healthy during these epidemics
We sit with our comrades in arms and quietly fight for survival
Dreading the embarrassment of being weighed in like livestock
Sharing numbers with a stranger that we’d never tell anyone
Without the ability to ration the antidote needed to restore us
To our old selves that we pledge to never again take for granted
The first obstacle is graduating from these uncomfortable seats

And air that chills again every time the entrance lurches open
To welcome the next weakened body to this bleak reception
Where we are schoolchildren with hands raised in anticipation
Of the moment when someone will look up and call our names
2019, Autumn / 85
DAUGHTERS
My grandfather had two girls and then called it quits

With no qualms about his descendants lugging around
The family name like a fragile heirloom for eternity
It’s not like he needed a boy to help out on the farm

Or to play baseball to fulfill his own childhood dream
He and his wife had two daughters and that was that
My mother and aunt went on to have two sons apiece

Who had three sons between them with no females
All interesting facts but not statistically extraordinary
I grew up learning far more about important things like

Spitting, flatulating, sports, camping, and peeing outside
Than how to behave around members of the fairer sex
This played no small part in my awkwardness with ladies

But anything can happen if you wait for it long enough
I eventually found a woman tolerant of my shortcomings
She came bundled with two daughters that I learned

To talk to and play with only by carefully observing her
And then struggling to recreate it like a magic trick
It became more natural as they started to steal my heart

We agreed that we would have one and only one more
And that we would let the baby’s gender be a surprise
We were both fully convinced that we would have a boy

So when I whispered “It’s a girl” as soon as she was born
My wife looked at me in disbelief and asked if I was sure
Later that night she asked if part of me was disappointed

That the only baby I would ever have was wearing pink
Instead of the boy we had both presumed she was brewing
I answered the question in the words of my grandfather

Who passed his kindness down to me instead of his name
“I never thought I would be lucky enough to have all girls”
ANTHONY MAIZE
PATTY AND GERT
I was on one of my four-day-weekend road trips to nowhere,

driving a two-lane road somewhere on the west slope of the Appalachians.
It was early afternoon in mid-April as I came over a slight rise in the road
and around a blind curve and ran smack into a funeral procession coming
from the opposite direction and turning left into a farm field. I slammed
on the brakes and barely avoided crashing into the side of a hearse.
Pulling off onto the side of the road, I watched the cortege roll across the
field to a small grove of trees surrounded by fieldstone wall. Two hearses
led a line of eight cars to the grove and stopped. Pall bearers got out and
carried a simple pine coffin from each hearse into the grove. Intrigued, I
shut off the engine, got out and walked over to watch the ceremony. By
that time the mourners, perhaps a dozen or so, had gathered around two
freshly-dug graves across each of which two hefty planks had been laid.
The coffins rested on the planks with ropes strung under them for
lowering the coffins into the graves. I remained at a respectful distance
outside the stone wall listening to the minister reading the Twenty-Third
Psalm. There was genuine grief in his voice.
The graveside service was brief. The coffins were lowered into
their vaults and the mourners left, nodding to me in silence as they walked
back to their cars. I was about to leave when a voice from behind me
asked, “You a friend of the girls?”
I turned to find a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties
standing slightly behind me and to my left. He was tall, clean-shaven,
wearing well-worn blue jeans, work boots, a Carhart jacket and a New
York Yankees ball cap. He held a long-handled shovel in his right hand.
‘No,” I said. “I was passing by. I almost crashed into one of the
hearses as I came around that curve. Since I had to stop anyway, I thought
I’d come over and say a prayer for the dead and another of thanks that I
was able to stop in time.”
“Well, that was decent of you. I’m sure Patty and Gert would
thank you.”
“You knew the deceased?” I asked.
“Yep. Grew up with them. I was in the same class as Patty in
school. Gert was two years ahead of us.”
“It’s a shame, them both dying at the same time, and barely
middle-aged,” I said.
2019, Autumn / 87
“Yes, it is,” the man replied. “But not surprising.”

“How’s that?” I asked.
The man picked up his shovel and started walking towards the
cemetery gate. I fell in step beside him.
“Patty and Gert were more than sisters. Each was the other’s best
friend. They were practically inseparable.”
Workers from the company that supplied the burial vaults were
lowering the lid onto one of the vaults as we approached the graves. I
stood at the edge of the other grave and looked down at the coffin within
the vault. The joinery and workmanship were an exquisite example of the
woodworker’s art.
“I’ve never seen a plain pine coffin before,” I said. “These are
beautiful. Whoever made them is a real master craftsman.”
“Thanks,” said the man. “It took me a week and I ended up
making damned near every piece twice. But they deserved to rest in a
decent coffin—not wrapped in canvas and buried in a wooden crate. I
don’t think they had five dollars between them at the end, and no family
to speak of. They would have ended up in Potter’s Field. I’m a fair
woodworker, not a cabinet maker, but I hold my own, so I offered to
make a pair of coffins. This farm belongs to Pastor Wagner’s brother. It’s
only the Pastor and his brother left and there’s plenty of room in this
family plot. Gert babysat every one of the Pastor’s three kids and tutored
the oldest in math when she was in danger of failing her junior year. So
the Pastor and his brother decided the girls should be buried here, in a real
cemetery, shaded by trees and protected by a stone wall.” The man
paused, took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
“If you’ll excuse me, friend, I got to get these graves filled.” He
walked over and started shoveling earth into one of the graves in a
deliberate manner.
Without thinking I said, “If you have another shovel, I’d be
honored if you’d let me help.”
“That’s right Christian of you. There’s another shovel in the bed
of my pick-up. There were a couple of other fellas that were supposed to
help. They’re probably down at the fire hall shooting pool or playing
darts. You know how it is. People promise all sorts of things up until it’s
time to do the doing, then they conveniently forget.”
We worked in silence for more than an hour, carefully filling the
two graves, making certain not to simply cast the earth over the women’s
remains.
I handed the shovel back to the man and picked my jacket up off
the stone wall where I placed it when I began to sweat. He extended his
hand. “Thanks, friend.”
“The name’s Bill, Bill Walters,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I’m Tom Wescott. And thanks again for the help. I’m sure the
girls will rest easy here.”
“They must have been quite a pair.”
“Oh, they were special, that’s certain, but not in the way most
people might think. They weren’t wild or crazy hell-raisers.”
“I’d really like to know more about them,” I said.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Tom. “It’s roast beef night at the VFW.
Hot roast beef sandwich, a mother-load of fries and a salad for seven
bucks. You buy the first pitcher of beer and I’ll tell you about Patty and
Gert.”
The VFW had a bar with a dozen barstools and an equal number
of tables with placemats—no tablecloths. The roast beef sandwiches were
huge. I swear they were served on Kaiser Rolls the size of saucers, the
meat medium rare and dripping au jus. The fries were hand cut and fried
crisp. The salads were mixed greens with some dandelion thrown in for
good measure.
Tom squirted ketchup on his plate of fries as I poured the first
beer.
“So, what would you like to know about Patty and Gert?” asked
Tom.
“You said you grew up with them. I assume you were friends.
Tell me anything you’re comfortable with me knowing.”
“Yeah, Patty and I were friends—best friends from the time we
were five years old and went to kindergarten together. Gert and I became
friends, too, because she knew I watched out for Patty. You see, Patty
was—well, slow. I’m sure there’s some politically correct term for it, like
intellectually challenged. But around here it’s just plain being slow. Don’t
get me wrong. Patty wasn’t retarded. She just didn’t learn as fast as most
folks. She could read and write about the level of a seventh grader. And
she could add and subtract numbers but just couldn’t grasp multiplication
and division. I know because I must have spent a hundred hours trying to
teach her.”
“What about Gert?” I asked.
“Gert was smart as a whip. Straight A’s all through school.
National Honor Society in high school. She could have been a doctor or a
lawyer, easy.”
“So why didn’t she?”
2019, Autumn / 89
“She wouldn’t leave Patty. Pour me another beer, would you?”

I refilled both our classes and went over to the bar for another
pitcher of beer.
“I guess I really should begin at the beginning for you to
understand,” Tom said as I sat down.
“That might help,” I agreed.
“The girls were raised by their mom. She was a single parent.
When you’re a kid, you might ask ‘Where’s your dad?’ If the answer is ‘I
don’t have one,’ you might think it’s strange, but that’s the end of it.
“There was only eighteen months between Gert and Patty. Gert
was six and Patty four and a half when their father took off. Their mom,
her name was Delores but everyone called her Deedee, worked at the
dress factory five days a week and tended bar and waited tables here
Friday and Saturday nights. ’Course that meant she had to pay a sitter, so
money was always tight even though she worked two jobs.
“Like I said, I met Patty in kindergarten. You ever meet someone
and have an instant connection with them? That’s how it was with Patty
and me. We were friends from the first day of school. By the time we
were in second grade, I would walk a block and a half out of my way to
meet Patty at her house each morning and walk to school with her. That
made Gert happy ’cause she could walk with her fourth-grade friends and
not have to worry about Patty.
“The year we were in third grade, the union went out on strike at
the dress factory. It had happened before, but it never lasted more than a
few days, a week at most. This time, it dragged on for weeks. That meant
the only income Deedee had was the few dollars weekly stipend from the
Union strike fund and what she made tending bar and waiting tables at the
VFW. It was lean times. They never had much to begin with, now there
was next to nothing.
“One day at lunch, Patty and I were sitting together. We both
brownbagged our lunches—me because I couldn’t stand cafeteria food
and Patty because her mom couldn’t afford the thirty-five cents a day for
lunch. Anyway, this day all Patty had in her brown bag was half a peanut
butter sandwich. Not peanut butter and jelly, just peanut butter, and no
half pint of milk from the vending machine. I didn’t say anything, just slid
her half the ham and cheese on rye that my mom had packed for me and
stuck a second straw in my carton of milk. I split the homemade oatmeal
raisin cookies mom packed for desert. That night, mom caught me making
a second sandwich and slipping it into my lunch bag for the next day. She
asked me what I was doing. ‘Wasn’t one sandwich and some cookies or
an apple enough to hold me until I got home from school?’ I thought

about lying and saying I was going through a growth spurt or something
and was hungry all the time. But I also thought about how good it felt to
share my lunch with Patty, otherwise, she’d have gone hungry all
afternoon. So I told the truth. Mom looked at me kind of funny, tousled
my hair and said she was proud of me. The strike lasted three months, but
I packed an extra sandwich and cookies or an apple for Patty every day
for the rest of the school year. Put a head on this beer, will you?
“The summer between third and fourth grade, a new kid moved
into town. His name was Danny Moore. I guess every school has its
version of Danny Moore: big, dumb as a rock, arrogant, and mean—the
school bully. He was in the fourth grade with Patty and me, but he had
been held back a few times so he was twelve, instead of nine or ten like
the rest of the class. He was also taller and had a good twenty pounds on
any other boy in fourth grade. You see where this could be a problem,
right? From the first day he started picking on Patty and me. Our route to
school went right past his house, and he’d wait for us in the morning and
taunt us all the way to school and all the way home in the afternoon. He’d
call us Romeo and Juliet and make up lewd ditties and rhymes about us
being boyfriend and girlfriend. Gert said we should just ignore him, that if
we refused to respond he’d get bored and stop.
“Then one day on the way home from school, he asked if I’d had
sex with Patty yet, only he used the classic four-letter word for it. I was
ten years old and had a basic knowledge of the differences in male and
female anatomy but was a little cloudy on how the parts fit together. I told
him to bug off, that even if we were, it was no business of his. Then he
asked if Patty had any pubic hair. When he lifted her skirt and made as if
to pull down her underwear, that was the limit. I was on him like stink on
a dung heap. It wasn’t long before he had me on my back, sitting on my
chest with my arms pinned to the ground with his knees. He was pounding
my face with both his fists. He broke my nose, split my lips, and opened
cuts over both eyes. I thought he was going to kill me. Then, suddenly, he
wasn’t on top of me anymore. He was rolling around on the ground,
holding the side of his head. I sat up and saw Patty holding a rock the size
of a baseball in her right hand. She’d clouted him upside his head with
that rock hard enough to draw blood. Danny got up on his hands and
knees, and Patty ran up behind him and kicked him square in the balls
with all her might. That boy went down for the count, holding his crotch
with both hands, gasping for air. Patty stood over him, tossing the rock in
the air and catching in one hand. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget
2019, Autumn / 91
that scene, her looking down at him saying, ‘Leave us alone, creep. You
may be able to take one or the other of us, but you’ll never be able to take
us both, and it will always be the both of us.’
“Danny never bothered us again. Oh, I knew he and the other kids
made snide comments about me needing a girl to protect me. But we
didn’t care because everyone left us alone.
“In high school, Patty was in a lot of special ed and transitional
classes, so we didn’t see much of each other during the day. We never
really dated, but we were always spending time together.
“Gert was awarded a National Merit Scholarship in her senior
year. When she started talking about going away to college, Patty was
frantic. She said she would go with Gert and stay in her dorm room. When
Gert finally got Patty to understand that was impossible, Patty went into a
severe depression. In the end, Gert didn’t go to college. She got a job as a
payroll clerk in that plant that used to make TV picture tubes over in
Henningsville. Patty and I graduated two years later. Patty got a job as a
lunch lady in the same elementary school she and I went to as kids. I
joined the Army and got sent to Afghanistan.
“Deedee died while I was in the ’Stan—pancreatic cancer. When
it was the three of them living in the house and all of them working,
pooling their paychecks, they were able to make a go of it. With Deedee
gone, it was lean times again, not to mention the emotional strain of
losing your only parent. It was especially hard on Gert ’cause now she
was both sister and mom to Patty. It didn’t matter that Patty was twenty
years old by the calendar. Emotionally and maturity wise, she was about
fourteen.
Tom stared off into space for a moment, as if watching a memory
only he could see play out in his mind.
“By the time I got out of the Army, Gert had sold the car her mom
had left them. They couldn’t afford the insurance and upkeep on it. She
was paying a coworker twenty bucks a week for a ride to and from work
with him.
“I bought a ten-year-old pickup truck and started my contracting
business with the tools my granddad left me. I helped the girls out when I
could. Anytime Kroger’s had a two-for-one special on anything, I’d give
the extra to the girls. I’d drive them to their doctor’s appointments and
such.
“They managed like that for a few years, then everything turned
to shit. The school board closed the school where Patty worked. Said the
enrollment had fallen to the point it wasn’t feasible to keep it open. They
bussed the students to another school ten miles away. So Patty was out of
a job. Then the plant that made TV picture tubes closed. By the time
March rolled around they were far enough behind on the mortgage that
the bank was going to foreclose.
“I guess it was a week ago last Tuesday, Gert was explaining the
situation to Patty, that they had to move out of the house, that Gert was
trying to arrange for them to get public assistance and get into rent-
controlled housing. Patty was crying and said it was all her fault, that if
she wasn’t a dummy, Gert could have gone to college and married a
doctor or lawyer and been living in a nice house rather than being stuck
here with her and ending up homeless. Gert finally got her calmed down
and into bed.
“That night we had one of those miserable early spring storms,
rain, sleet, snow. The kind that makes you want to pull the covers over
your head and leave a wakeup call for late May. The way Gert told it to
me, something woke her about four a.m. She went to check on Patty but
she wasn’t in bed. Gert searched the entire house, but no Patty. She found
a note from her on the kitchen table. The note said Gert would be better
off if she didn’t have to worry about Patty, so she was leaving. It said that
Gert should find herself a good man to take care of her and not to worry
about her, that it was time she took care of herself.
“The nearest berg of any size is Henningsville, so that’s where
Gert figured Patty was headed. She never called anyone, just took after
her on foot in the freezing rain. Just by luck, I was headed to the Home
Depot to pick up some materials for the job I was working on and came
across them about 6:30 in the morning, sitting by the side of the road.
Patty had stolen a shopping cart from Kroger’s and had all her stuff in
garbage bags loaded in it. Somehow, one of the front wheels had come off
and when Gert found her, Patty was trying to fix it. Gert convinced Patty
to let her help get the cart back home where they could work on it
together and in the dry. Gert would hold the front end up while Patty
pushed. Patty had been out in the cold and wet for hours by that time and
was chilled to the bone. Eventually, she couldn’t go any farther and just
sat down by the road. That’s how I found them. Gert hugging Patty, just
rocking back and forth. I threw the shopping cart in the back of my truck
and piled both girls in the cab. It was a good half hour drive to the
hospital or five minutes to my place. I opted for home. I turned the heater
up all the way, and by the time we got to the house, Gert could at least
walk. We got Patty’s wet clothes off and put her in bed. I told Gert to get
in the shower and make it as hot as she could stand it. The fifteen minutes
2019, Autumn / 93
between the time I hung up the phone and the ambulance getting there
were the longest of my life.
“Patty was gone. The EMT said it was probably hypothermia. The
autopsy confirmed it. They took Gert to the hospital for observation. She
told me what had happened with Patty and her before she got too weak to
talk. I stayed with her until she died two days later. The Doc said she’d
developed galloping pneumonia.”
Tom wiped his eyes with his napkin. “So there you have it.”
We finished our drinks in silence.
On the sidewalk we shook hands and stood there in awkward
silence for a moment.
“You’re a good man, Tom.” I said then got in my car. It was time
to head home.
ADRIA KLINGER
CANCER STAGE 4
Not ready to die yet,

wind in my hair,
flowers
as April approaches.
Your crooked early-morning smile.
The way the sun rises and sets
at fixed intervals,
nevertheless.
The sky,
sapphire or storm-wild.
Good news and bad:
the car crash
Isis and Syria
a blue moon
a kiss.
Not ready to die…
The air humming.
NOT
At your bedside after you’d gone,
I wanted to speak
but was muted
I sat next to your body,
and looked, then looked away
from the shell-like absence
It wasn’t death I turned from
but what was not,
the chasm between us
I should have had something to say,
something huge,
a blessing, or a prayer,
suited to the occasion,
at least something someone,
anyone, had said
that I could recite from memory
I wanted to say goodbye
but had said it so many times before
How was this different?
I wanted to flee the hollowness
I bowed to you as I had learned in India,
told you I’d talk to you later,
but didn’t
GRIEF
Strange, you
are only memory now,
ash
Yesterday
I touched your cremains
in their
plain black plastic container
2019, Autumn / 95
then wore you

all day, perfume,
for my wrists and earlobes
Nothing morbid
in breathing your last remnants
purified by fire;
maybe your ghost would cheer
this quirky use of you.
You thought science
explained everything
but I am not convinced
and still look for you everywhere
STILL MOVING
A decade ago, I became an old lady
but I didn’t pay too much attention.
I figured I’d be okay in a month. After all,
in the past, ailments and aches
were temporary. After about a year,
no longer hobbling on my purple floral cane,
my neck began to hurt. I complained to my GP,
chiropractor, neurologist, and orthopedist:
“I think I’m headed for a wheelchair,”
to which they all said
(but not in these exact words): Nonsense!
I know I’m not twenty but my body feels at least one hundred
and Uncle Louie played tennis until ninety.
Once the neck improved, the knee went bad again.
But now it was the wrong knee, the other knee.
Hell, I’d been aqua-exercising
since the back doctor told me to.
Next I exchanged my platform shoes
for the aquamarine sneakers with pink laces
but I couldn’t restore my thirty-something gait.
I clung to my skinny black jeans—
pondering how I might continue to flirt with
bus drivers, firemen, or train conductors,

and fantasized—not about sex—
but owning two robot knees
which I know surgeons can do these days.
My hips are okay and still swivel nicely.
In my mind, I’m still forty,
and my face goes pretty well with the lie.
But the body has no mercy.
GEORGE AUGUST MEIER

DANDELIONS FOR SARAH
Infatuation, a meager stream compared to love’s

torrent, can nevertheless trickle for years.
Despite being in ninth grade, I was sitting in one of those silly

classroom chairs that’s attached to the desk, my right leg unconsciously
wrapped around a metal leg. Class was to begin in about ten minutes, and
my plan was to finally ask lovely Sarah Mason to the upcoming dance,
The Freshman Frolic. I didn’t want Sarah to see me looking her way, so I
stiffened my neck against movement and strained my eyes to the right to
see if her girlfriend was still there chatting with her.
The girlfriend stood, like she might be leaving, and my right leg
tightened its grip on the chair. For an instant, I think I prayed for her to
stay to grant me a reprieve. Because when it came to girls, I had no
confidence—I was gutless, a real chicken. But I’d vowed to ask her to the
Freshman Frolic. Vowed to myself, mind you, not a buddy, who would
surely tease me if she said no.
I recall noticing Sarah as early as the fourth grade. One bright
spring day during lunch recess, I decided I would do something to let her
know I liked her. When she and a girlfriend were walking across the grass
playground, I left the boys playing kickball. A couple of them started to
leave with me and gave me a strange look when I told them I had
something to do—alone. Oddly, I still hadn’t decided what I was going to
do.
2019, Autumn / 97
As I ran in Sarah’s direction, I thought it would be nice to bring

her a flower. But of course, I was empty-handed. My naïve search for
flowers on the spot drew me to a few yellow flowers along the chain-link
fence separating the school fields from a neighborhood. I picked three
dandelions to make a small, yellow bouquet. I then ran up to Sarah,
handed her the dandelions without a word, and ran off to rejoin the boys.
The day before Valentine’s Day, our fifth-grade teacher had each
boy draw a girl’s name from a shoebox and had the girls draw boys. I
crossed fingers on both hands in hopes of getting Sarah’s name, and when
I didn’t, quizzed every boy until I found the lucky one who drew her
name. I then bartered away three cookies from future lunches to get her
name so that I could give her that generic Valentine card.
The chatty girlfriend walked off. Sarah was sitting alone opening
up a book. I thought she looked particularly good this day, her reddish
brown hair eased its way through an S-curve and hung lightly across her
shoulder. If I was going to do this, now was the time. I stood, took one
step, and stopped. My face felt funny, as if in front of a heat lamp. My
breath was labored. I didn’t like the feeling. I debated with myself and
lobbied for sitting back down. Somehow I commanded my feet to shuffle
forward. I reached her desk and looked down. As soon as my eyes landed
on her, I short-circuited, and the words I had endlessly rehearsed the night
before couldn’t be accessed. The prompting marquee in my head was
blank. And I just stood there.
“Just ask her! Just ask her!” echoed in my head. My collar
tightened around my throat, even though it was unbuttoned. I sensed that
if I tried to force out a word, I would produce a cough, a bark, or, worst of
all, a squeak. With her seated and me towering over her, awkwardness
permeated me. She had that same expression as when I handed her weeds
on the playground.
“Would you like to go with me to the Freshmen Frolic?” finally
found its way out of my mouth.
That was all I could muster? No “Good morning.” No “How
you’re doing?” No, heaven forbid, clever remark? Just the eloquence of a
Neanderthal, “Woman, you come?”
She flashed a smile. A sweet smile—a smile forever imprinted.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a pained tone so gentle that I
inexplicably felt sorry for her. “I already have a date.”
“Okay,” I said and shuffled off as unceremoniously as I had
arrived.
The smile she gifted me that day became the default setting for
how I pictured her thereafter.

Asking Sarah had spent all of my courage, leaving none left to
ask anyone else, and I didn’t want her to see me at the dance without a
date. So I skipped the Freshmen Frolic. I thereafter regretted that. The
Frolic was one of those events that generated a lot of memories. Years
later, at reunions, my friends still reveled in stories born at that dance.
While I was certainly disappointed Sarah said no, I took solace in
having ventured to ask. I think doing that was hard for many boys of that
age. My wife and I have debated whether it was more difficult for boys or
girls at high school dances. A boy had to take the initiative, walk up to a
girl, usually in the company of her girlfriends, and in sight of his friends,
and ask a girl to dance. My wife pointed out that a girl, on the other hand,
had to wait for someone who might never come. “The boy,” she argued,
“can be proactive, and at least take a chance.”
“True,” I said, “but, he risks what he views as humiliation if
rejected. The girl never has to worry about that.”
We never did settle that issue. But, I will add that whenever I’ve
been at a dance where they announced “Lady’s Choice,” I’ve never said
no to any girl who asked me to dance.
There was a rare breed of high school age males who seemed to
have no fear in asking girls out. I estimated this was less than five percent.
I attributed this to one of two things. I’ve noticed many of them had older
sisters. They grew up in the presence of girls and were very comfortable
around them. And then there were those guys who were really good-
looking, and intuitively knew they would rarely be turned down by the
opposite sex. Neither described me.
I had “on and off” crushes on Sarah throughout high school.
“Off” whenever I was seeing someone else and “on” the rest of the time.
Although she never gave me any indication she was interested in me,
there was just something about Sarah Mason that always charmed me.
Call it a chemical reaction. It had to be. I hardly knew the girl.
There’s been only one other woman who has affected me like
that—my wife. The first time I saw her, I wanted to find a dandelion to
give her. I gave her a ring instead. We married a year following college.
Regardless of devotion to my wife and the tempering of time, I
was never able to completely shrug off Sarah Mason. I’m embarrassed to
admit, I had a dream about her a couple of weeks before my ten-year high
school reunion. Except for perhaps welcoming the dream, it was innocent
enough. Sarah and I simply talked and danced.
I was hoping to see her at the reunion. Why, I tried to figure out.
2019, Autumn / 99
She would likely be married; I was married; and we had no memories to

share. Part of it was curiosity, I guessed. She didn’t show.
I didn’t think of her again until the fifteen year reunion was
announced, and she engaged me in conversation in another dream. She
asked me if I was going and said she was.
That was in the dream. But again she didn’t attend. And I still had
this longing to see her. A few years later, it appeared I would finally get
my chance.
The list of alumni expected to attend our twenty-year reunion
included the name Sarah Mason Hendley. The event was to take place in
our high school gymnasium, where the Freshmen Frolic had been.
I should mention that by this time I had become a moderately
successful writer and had written a short story about a guy’s persistent
fascination with a girl. The story basically tracked the events related
above. I was fortunate enough to have it published in a national literary
journal. I had, of course, changed the names and referred to Sarah as
Samantha Madison.
Also, by this reunion, my wife and I had both given up attending
each other’s reunions. We had each been the alumnus trying to do the
impossible task of entertaining the “accompanying spouse” while
simultaneously attempting to renew old acquaintances with former
classmates who now resembled strangers. We each had also been the
“accompanying spouse” and witnessed the poor alumnus in this struggle.
At the events, each of us had ultimately released the alumnus to “go have
fun with your friends” and then suffered the evening with similarly
situated spouses.
My wife also knew about my tiny, silly, meaningless, pointless,
insignificant, itsy-bitsy “thing” about Sarah.
“Hey, your reunion is just around the corner, isn’t it?” she said a
couple of days before the reunion.
“Yes, it is,” I responded.
“Maybe your old girlfriend, Sarah, will be there,” she teased. “Bet
you haven’t thought about her in a while.”
“You’re right about that.”
I’d disclosed everything about Sarah, with the exception of one
detail—the dreams. I loved my wife, and my interest in Sarah was trivial.
We had no relationship. The dreams were simply a part of that. But I
suspected that if my wife learned about the dreams, she might not
understand them, or worse, be hurt by them. Not understanding myself
why they occurred, I realized I wouldn’t be able to adequately explain
them to her.
A couple of nights before the reunion, as I slept I drifted into a
haze that had Sarah and me dancing to a mellow oldie. We were gliding
through pirouettes in the middle of a large, dark room, with dim overhead
lights casting faint purple shadows that followed us around the wooden
dance floor.
“Do you remember me giving you dandelions on the playground
in fourth grade?” I asked Sarah in a soft whisper.
“Yes, and I remember your Valentine card,” she whispered back.
“And me asking you to the Freshmen Frolic?”
She gave me that imprinted smile and said, “Of course. And we
should have gone together.”
Before I could fully absorb the fulfillment of that moment, an
unwelcome and insistent intruder tugged hard on me and took me away
from Sarah. I stirred and sighed, then silenced the alarm.
All day long I anticipated the evening. As I was getting dressed
for the event, my wife came into our bedroom to confirm my tie was right
for my jacket.
“Have fun tonight, dear,” she said. “But not too much fun.”
“Honey, it’s me,” I responded.
“I know. That could be the problem,” she said jokingly. At least I
was pretty sure it was a joke. I feigned attention to the tie but sensed she
was staring at me.
I tried to suppress blood rushing to my face. But how did one do
that? I forced myself to think about the Pythagorean Theorem. If my wife
saw me blush, she would know I had too much emotional capital invested
in this evening. To get me past this tricky moment, I attempted a mock
laugh, which came out a little awkward.
She raised her eyebrows and said, “See what I mean.”
With my wife sitting comfortably at home reading a mystery
novel, I walked into the gymnasium with my closest high school friend,
Ben.
“Wow, the decorations look a lot like they did the night of the
Freshmen Frolic,” Ben said.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said and quickly regretted. “Only kidding,” I
added. “And I plan to make up for that tonight.”
As we walked across the empty dance floor, I wondered if I’d
dance there with Sarah that night. I noticed a twinge of tension run
through me. Here I was, a grown man, happily married, successful in my
career, and confident in most endeavors. How was it that the thought of
2019, Autumn / 101
encountering Sarah made me ill at ease?

Maybe I was still that ninth grade boy when it came to Sarah
Mason. Thinking I might be minutes away from seeing her, I quickly tried
to rehearse the first few words I had planned to say to her, and drew a
complete blank. Again? This only intensified the anxiety.
There were clusters of people scattered around the room. With
what must’ve been a most attractive expression, I squinted my eyes to the
extreme and scanned the room. No Sarah. I exhaled in relief. But that was
followed by disappointment. Maybe she wasn’t coming after all. Ben saw
it on my face and shrugged his shoulders. I made the best of it and hung
out with a couple of friends I hadn’t seen in years. As soon as I was
absorbed in the moment and had nearly forgotten my purpose for
attending, there was a tap on my shoulder. It was Ben. He had an
uncharacteristically serious face. “She’s here.”
I turned toward the entrance. There she was, in the flesh, as they
say, not an invention of my dream world. She walked toward a table
occupied by several girls, her hand on the arm of a distinguished looking
guy in a well-tailored gray suit. I assumed it was her husband, Mr.
Hendley. As she looked around the room, I instinctively looked down and
away. Remnants of chicken-man had surfaced. When it comes to the
province of our high school years, can we ever really escape the notions,
fears, and conventions etched back then? Who hasn’t wished to return to
high school days armed with the advantage of experience and wisdom
accrued since then? But who can guarantee we would be capable of acting
much differently?
“Tonight you have to resolve these bizarre feelings and put an end
to this nonsense once and for all,” Ben said.
“I know,” I replied.
“I never should have traded her Valentine card to you for those
cookies,” Ben added.
I admitted to myself my thoughts about Sarah, especially the
dreams, were increasingly laced with guilt. While my thing for Sarah was
sometimes a pleasant distraction, I knew it would be best to terminate it.
My thought was that if I could just speak with her, I would somehow be
released, like a character in a fairy tale being set free from a spell.
Contrariwise, I believed that if she slipped away without us meeting that I
would not escape her haunting my dreams.
I waited for her to settle in, speak with her girlfriends, and dance
a couple of times with Mr. Hendley. After that, he seemed to fade into the
background. Perhaps he released her with “go have fun with your
friends.” Following a break in the music, I got up and began to walk in

her direction. This was it. When I got within about twenty feet, another
classmate approached her. I veered off and headed to the bar. When I got
there I ordered a drink. I sipped on it, and watched them dance. The song
seemed endless. But the frustration from the wait seemed to energize me
with bravado for the task ahead. As the song trailed off, I put down my
half-empty drink, slapped a dollar tip next to it, and gave the bartender a
wink. I advanced a couple steps in Sarah’s direction to see another
classmate walk her back out onto the dance floor. Apparently I was far
from the only boy in our class who admired this girl.
A few minutes later, the song was old, the beat was slow, Sarah
was seated, and the scene was set for the reckoning. Notwithstanding
confidence garnered by maturity, I was still uneasy. It was a nervousness
born of the species surviving since ninth grade. As I approached her, I
could hardly believe that she was talking with the same girlfriend as when
I was about to ask her to the Frolic. This time I didn’t wait for them to
finish. I politely interrupted and the girlfriend excused herself and walked
off, with a glance back to Sarah that I interpreted as, “Tell me later what
happened.”
Again I was standing and she was sitting, a reprise of the scene
from freshman year. But to my utter relief, she stood and greeted me,
almost like she was expecting me. She smiled. That same smile. She
looked like the lovely Sarah I remembered, only more our current age.
“Hi,” I began. “I’m Jeff Wells. I don’t know if you remember me.
We had some classes together.”
“Sure I remember you, Jeff,” she replied. “Would you like to
dance? It’ll give us a chance to talk.”
After stepping onto the dance floor, I took her left hand and
placed my right hand lightly on her low back. Evidently too tentatively, as
she put a firm grip on my back and sort of gave me a signal to strengthen
my grip, which I did.
We exchanged small talk until I gathered the mettle to ask,
“Sarah, do you remember me running up to you on the playground in third
grade and giving you dandelions?”
She leaned back a bit so that we faced each other as we continued
to dance. “Yes and no.”
I gave her a quizzical look.
“I had completely forgotten about that until I read your story,” she
explained.
I’m sure my face blushed like it did that morning in ninth grade.
2019, Autumn / 103
“Your character, Samantha, is actually me, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.
Her eyes smiled into mine.
That was the last I was to see her in person or in my dreams. I
again firmed my grip around her waist, and under the soft purple lights,
imagined I was dancing with Sarah Mason at the Freshmen Frolic.
EMILY WALL
TOMMY’S BIRTH
for foster parents, everywhere
I peel off the stained pajamas, two sizes too big

for your too-small body. They smell of cigarette smoke
and homelessness. Someone put a Pooh hat on your
head. Your mother? Who held you today?
Deep breath.
You begin to cry as I dip you gently into the sink
of warm water. Luke cradles your head and you scream.
We don’t think he’s ever had a bath said the social worker.
I hold you with shaking hands, I hold you with my voice:
I’m here, little one.
I remembered to buy baby soap, trying to choose a brand

in my rush through the store an hour earlier, you
in the backseat of the car, heater on high, snow starting to fall,
Luke checking, again, that the car seat straps look right.
Deep breath.
The soap is clean, smells good. Your head reeks of

smoke and garbage. I gently rub each arm, each leg.
I wash between each toe. I want to lift them to my mouth
and kiss them, but you are still screaming, your eyes unfocused.
At the OCS office, standing beside a metal desk covered

in pictures of kittens, the woman handed us a baby bag
with a rubber duck, some powder, and a book—the things
someone decided a foster mother needed on her first night.
Deep breath.
I forgot a baby towel so we wrap you in ours.

Have you ever been rubbed with a towel? Does it feel terrible
to have wet hair? We want to dry you quickly but gently,
not frighten you even more. Our dog licks your small foot.
Only a few hours ago, at work in the hospital, I took the call
in a dark exam room: do you still want a baby?
Those words, after years of testing, after losing
our own too-small babies, after years of being told I’m sorry.
Deep breath.
I put one of the diapers on you. Your bottom is chapped, skin cracked.
I slip on the new jammies I’d chosen, the softest I could find.
You are crying less hard now, your eyes looking off into the corner.
There was domestic violence, drug abuse, alcohol.
Are you too cold? What if you caught a cold while we struggled
with the car seat? What if the OCS woman is even now calling someone
to say we’re not the ones? I feel your forehead.
No baby thermometer. We didn’t want to jinx it by buying baby things.
Deep breath.
At nine weeks, you’re only 7 lbs. 4 oz. Tomorrow we will call

everyone we know, and they will bring us frozen bags of breast milk,
casseroles, books, stories, advice. They will ask to take
our picture. They will say he’s beautiful, and you look tired.
2019, Autumn / 105
And finally, you fall asleep, face pressed against my chest.

I can’t move. There’s a hair in my mouth. I whisper
sweetie, could you? and he lifts the hair away, presses
his cheek to mine. We just look and look at your small face.
Deep breath.
I think of how you will look, after I’ve filled you with milk
for days and weeks and months. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t come
from our bodies. I feel your good weight in my arms.
The snow drifts down, begins to fill our small window.
You are here, finally.
You are here.
CATCHING BABIES: HAIKU

for the Juneau doctors, who shared these stories
First, out came a fist.

Now I’m not just doctor
but her first handhold.
She is just fifteen

delivers on hallway floor
asks: where’s the T.V.?
Mom sits on dad’s lap

who sits on top of toilet.
Baby drops in my hands.
The first baby I

delivered, an accident:
just me in the room.
Obese 12-year-old
no idea a baby
is crowning. Right now.
I kneel between legs

waiting. The parents both watch
a porn film on T.V.
Mom on drugs, baby

dead, cord dangling. In dark
room, I hold him close.
Not on call but I

came, in my camping gear, stayed
for twenty-five hours.
Young mom claps her hands

at ten centimeters, says:
let’s go people!
Emergency room
gunshot wound, pregnant mother.
My first dead baby.
From the birth center

she came screaming, defeated
already hating me.
I meet the airplane

on the tarmac, girl from Haines,
to say: you’re safe now.
2019, Autumn / 107
LAURO PALOMBA
THE SULTAN’S TENT
They’d lost the game. Or rather, Rory had. But, as a non-playoff

game in a town league, and because they were friends, there’d been no
recriminations.
Athleticism undiminished at thirty-eight, in the blazing wattage of
the baseball diamond lighting, with bugs and midges shimmying in the
muggy glare, Rory had made a fine running catch in centerfield to send
the game into extra innings and begun trotting in with the ball in his glove
held aloft. Except he also had a lesser reputation for distraction, twice
noted in his supervisor’s reports at work. His catch had been merely the
second out. The runner on third had tagged up and, to the furious shouting
of teammates, opponents and a modicum of non-family spectators in the
bleachers, even his accurate throw to the plate couldn’t make up for the
brain cramp.
Yet again, for the third or fourth time, the first two while sober,
the burning competitor in Rory was apologizing. “I’m really sorry, guys.
That’s the stupidest play I’ve ever made. Ever.” Almost ninety minutes
after the howler, it still sounded genuine in the darkness of a July
Saturday night, a darkness restful and hushed as a pillow.
Since two of the three others had attained their own levels of
impairment, the apologies were losing their force.
“Don’t say that,” advised Kareem, the catcher who’d futilely
waited for the ball to reach him before the runner. “Nineteen games left in
the schedule.”
“Stupidest you’ve never made,” corrected Zach, the measure-
twice-cut-once, carpentry whiz.
“Howie’s fault, if you ask me,” Jordan sympathized. He was the
closest of the three to Rory, companions since high school, and the one
most likely to lighten his pal’s burden from where he sat cross-legged on
the floor.
“Yeah, stick it to Howie,” Rory happily agreed, reclining on a
couch, his baseball cleats—the only one who wore them—removed.
“Grass grows between pitches with him on the mound. Can’t blame us
fielders if we lose track of the outs.” Scapegoating wasn’t Rory’s style; he
was just looking for more fun to mix in. “Zach, I love this place. Makes
me never want to shag another ball.”
“The Sultan’s Tent to you lot,” Zach said, sprawled beside
Kareem on the second couch. He enjoyed watching British period drama,

particularly the layout of rooms, and liked to toss its expressions into his
conversation.
“I’m gonna charm ME into getting one.” Rory usually referred to
his wife Mary Ellen as ME, a habit taken up by the others. “What it set
you back?”
“Couple of hundred. They call it a canopy. We got it on sale at
Bellini’s.”
“Good. ME likes sales.”
“Would the sultan be you?” Jordan asked.
“My hunch too,” Kareem complimented. “What does that make
Ana?”
“My favorite wife,” Zach said. As she doubtlessly would have
been in a polygamous arrangement with her accounting ability, acquired
knowledge of wood and renovations, forthright dealings with clients and
knack for collecting deadline payments subsequent to her husband’s
labor; the pen to Zach’s hammer in their thriving enterprise, the computer
to his craftsmanship. “Beats sitting in an air-conditioned house.”
Out of consideration for their fussy neighbors, Zach and Ana had
located the indigo canopy in the farthest corner of their expansive back
yard beside the communal cedar fence. Eleven days in, the neighbors had
yet to grumble.
Zach and Ana had extended the cedar fence to the remaining
perimeter of their property to keep out animals that might wander in from
the ravine and protected forest beyond. Ana’s exuberant gardening
abounded with flower varieties—an approximate pattern emerged if you
studied them uninebriated in daylight—short-stemmed and spreading,
waist-high and climbing, and now overgrowing the grassy paths that once
divided them. When guests entered via the backyard gate and came
around the house, the canopy stood out—delighted with its beauty—but
not the way to get there.
Its steel frame and vaulted inner ceiling supported four removable
flaps and netting. Normally, the flaps facing the neighbors and ravine
were kept shut and the pair allowing a view of the yard and house
curtained back and tied. Ana had furnished the canopy with two couches
at right angles, cushions, a low, rectangular table, three small lanterns and
citronella candles that were supposed to zap any mosquitoes that had
penetrated the netting and its zippered closures. Zach had contributed a
custom-made, wooden end table to bear the weight of wine and gin bottles
and a large, round metal tub swimming with ice cubes, iced tea and fizzy
2019, Autumn / 109
liquids, and beer domestic and imported.

Ana had also suggested they include a rock fall fountain in the
purchase. Nearly a meter high and plugged into one of the house outlets, it
softly illuminated a tiny radius as the water tumbled among the fake
stones. The birds had taken to it immediately, flitting down for a sip.
Before heading off with the children to the grandparents’ lakeside
cottage for the weekend, Ana had stocked the fridge with snacks and dips,
gazpacho soup, cut-up pita bread and treats of her own making, a feast
now arrayed on the canopy table like a Persian carpet while a cool draft
breezing through the netting had begun shoveling the day’s humidity into
the ravine.
“What’s that story about the girl and the sultan?” Rory asked.
He’d swung his legs off the couch to sample more food.
“There being just one, you’d think we’d know it,” Jordan said.
“You mean from the Arabian Nights?” Kareem asked. He’d been
christened after a professional basketball player but it had set in motion
only a negligible interest. Following university, he’d tried his hand at
sports broadcasting without enthusiasm. Since then, he’d risen to store
manager of a nationwide sporting goods chain.
“Mmm. Yum-yum. Is this an Ana special?” Already Rory was
stretching for a second.
“She told me to call them Ukrainian tapas,” Zach said. “Bless my
European in-laws.”
“Somebody pass me another cold brew,” Rory said. “Any shape,
any country. You realize this is the only planet that has beer?”
“I know the one.” Kareem fished into the tub and handed over a
dripping can. “There’s this woman. She puts her daughter into a harem by
mistake instead of a nunnery…”
“Not likely,” Jordan pointed out. “She’s as Moslem as you.”
“Don’t interrupt,” Kareem scolded amiably. “Turns out mom had
been a little loose and the girl discovers the sultan is really her father…”
“Before or after?” Rory asked.
“Don’t interrupt,” Jordan said.
“Thank you. She’s really teed-off and so she poisons the sultan’s
prized camel.”
“Isn’t that an opera?” Zach said. “Ana listens to that stuff.”
“Help me out here,” Kareem encouraged. “You know what I’m
talking about.”
“We do but do you?” Jordan said.
Kareem snapped his fingers several times. “Begins with an S.”
“How many letters?” Zach asked.

“Scheherazade,” Jordan said.
“Leave it to the teacher to come up with it,” Rory congratulated.
“Say it again.”
“Scheherazade.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” Rory said through a mouthful of
pita bread and baba ghanouj. “It’s what I’m naming my next kid. Boy or
girl.”
“We’ve gotten this far,” Zach sighed, “I could use a brush up on
the details.”
“Like you ever knew them,” Kareem said.
“There’s this king or sultan,” Jordan began “and his first wife has
cheated on him. In revenge, he marries a new virgin every night and then
beheads her the next morning.”
“Before or after?’ Rory asked.
“Can’t recall. I didn’t read the dirty version.” He gulped from his
bottle. “After he’s killed a thousand, along comes Scheherazade. Well-
mannered, has read a lot. She knows histories, philosophies, the sciences,
poetry, all by heart. A very bright girl. And she volunteers to spend a
night with the sultan.”
“Tough bloke,” Zach said. “She doesn’t sound too bright to me.”
“Tougher to get it up a thousand in a row,” Rory said. “That’s
some batting average.”
“During the night, she starts telling the sultan a story. It’s
enthralling and the sultan listens. But Scheherazade’s no fool. When dawn
comes, she’s only in the middle of the story. She’s got the sultan hooked
and he spares her so she can finish it. Sheherazade does the same trick
with the second story and the sultan doesn’t behead her. She tells him a
thousand stories in a thousand-and-one nights and then runs out of gas. By
then, the sultan has fallen in love and marries her.”
“That calls for another iced tea,” Kareem said.
“Lucky Kareem doesn’t have those worries to eat at him,” Zach
said, looking for a clean bowl to fill with gazpacho. “He’s smart and
single.”
“You don’t have to be married to be betrayed,” Kareem said.
“That’s right,” Jordan seconded. “Life does it automatically.”
“You weren’t betrayed,” Rory reminded him, “you were
divorced. Or have you been holding back?’
“Six of one, half-dozen of the other.” Jordan said.
“And no more chips,” Kareem complained.
2019, Autumn / 111
He and Zach went into the house to replenish the bowls and the
tub. When they came back, Jordan had switched to a chair to make
himself a gin and tonic. Rory was lying down again, holding the beer can
on his stomach.
“There’s quinine in tonic water,” Jordan said. “Good for the
muscles.”
“Then you shouldn’t cut it with the gin,” Zach said.
“What about the muscle between the ears?” Rory lamented. “Was
that bonehead or what? You’d think by now I could count to three.”
“I believe I’m coming around to your point of view,” Kareem
said.
“Come on you guys, be pals,” Rory pleaded. “Haven’t you ever
embarrassed yourselves in a game?” It bothered him that the uniqueness
of his sporting skills that stood him apart had been tarnished by a unique
error that left him standing alone.
Denial, or calculating the cost of an admission, or needing time to
dredge up an incident, but the Sultan’s Tent fell quiet. No one drinking,
chewing or budging. Only the fountain had something to say.
“Okay,” Kareem finally spoke up, though it sounded like his
thinking had crossed a greater distance than the seconds of silence had
made possible. “You can laugh at me first.”
“Anybody doesn’t fess up,” Zach said, lending him support, “no
more booze, no dessert and you have to go in and start the coffee.”
“Wait,” Jordan said. “This could take a while. I have to leak.”
“You know where the bathroom is,” Zach said.
“Too far, too many doors to get there. Would Ana mind if I piss
on her flowers?”
“Just don’t take a selfie. They could use it. Saves me hosing.”
“Then I’ll give you company,” Kareem said.
“That’s it, clear the deck,” Rory cheered. “Don’t bring any
mosquitoes back in with you.”
They unzippered the netting, stumbled in opposite directions,
flattened flowers that they then splattered with streams of urine and
exaggerated groans of relief.
“You’re liable for damages though,” Zach called out, probing by
lantern light in the tub’s thawing ice for a Heineken.
When they’d settled in again, Kareem began without prompting.
“I was twelve maybe. I hadn’t played very long. My father had signed me
up for Little League to get my nose out of electronic games. So, it’s bases
loaded, two outs. And it really was two outs.”
“Thanks,” Rory said.

“Sorry, slip of the tongue. Everybody’s screaming. Both dugouts,
the infielders, the runners. It was only the sixth inning but they were first
in the league and I think we’d won once. I had this scrap going with the
pitcher, a kid from my school. Always trying to get my goat. Why didn’t I
use a rug when I squatted behind the plate. What happened if I wasn’t
facing Mecca when I went up to bat. Where could he buy halal popcorn.”
“Important Islamic questions,” Jordan said. “I see why they’ve
stayed with you.”
“I should’ve been mad. Instead I let it get to me. The first three
pitches were balls. Maybe I thought there was an easy way out. Let the
jerk walk in a run. I’d look stupid taking a cut at one of his fastballs and
missing. He was a bastard but he could hum it. He’d do it for me and I
wouldn’t have to swing. But he threw three strikes. Right down the
middle. And I never lifted the bat off my shoulder.”
“But you lived it down,” Rory said, his tone hopeful.
“When he moved away, he took most of the abuse with him. He
was sort of the ringleader.”
“Well, you swing now,” Zach said. “Wanna hear mine?”
“We’d love to hear yours,” Rory heartened him.
“I’ll start by saying we didn’t go hungry but there weren’t
allowances for the kids. I was about the same age as Kareem. I’d deliver
papers, give half the money to my dad. I collected empties at the
intercounty softball games and returned them for nickels. The nickels I
kept to buy baseball cards. One summer they came out with a series on
former baseball greats. Mays, Koufax, Mantle. My father was from New
York—the state. Huge Mantle fan. He’d collected when he was a kid. The
plan was to get the Mantle card and give it to him on his birthday. I blew
every nickel I had. Dimes, quarters, dollars saved from Christmas. No
Mantle. But the class slob said he had it at home. Well, I’ve just won the
lottery. We talked trade, I offered him cash I didn’t have. He said he’d
bring it in. But every day it was another excuse. Left it in his other pants.
Forgot to put it in his lunch bag. His mother had cleaned his room and he
couldn’t find it. Did I get wise? No sir. I wanted it so bad, I’d have
believed aliens stole it. Every morning I waited outside the school for his
mother to drop him off. Two weeks he strung me along and then I finally
clued in when he started recycling the excuses. But let me tell you, it hurt.
Not because I was such a sucker but because I had to admit he didn’t have
it. Dummy from the word go. He played me. And him, a con artist before
he had pimples.”
2019, Autumn / 113
“Despite that, you’ve recovered,” Rory said, throwing out his

arms from the couch to encompass the canopy, the property, the many
nickels they represented.
“I salvaged just enough brain,” Zach replied, “to know I should
marry Ana.”
“That’s a contender,” Kareem declared. “Right up there. But
there’s one to go.”
“I don’t have a baseball story,” Jordan begged off. “Honestly.”
“Then any humiliation will do,” Kareem said.
“I hear the coffeemaker percolating,” Zach hinted.
“No, no, I’m game. Just give me a minute.”
“You chaps. Isn’t that what they say in Cricketland, Zach?” Rory
said. “Not the screw-up of the century so far.” His gratitude for their
confessions was suspiciously propped up by an alcoholic drawl, as was
his unexpected willingness to now acknowledge aloud a long ago
mortification. “I’ve got one from elementary school too. While Jordan’s
working on his.”
“Okay but don’t expect a second from us,” Kareem cautioned.
“Hey, I’m just joining the party. My first. If you don’t count you-
know-what. And it’s short.”
“Go into extra innings,” Zach abetted him. “You won’t outlast the
beer.”
“I’m six. Grade one,” Rory lazily set out on his retrospect.
“Fifteen minutes to the noon bell. I’m dying to pee. Nobody explains to a
six-year-old but it could be the bunch of smarty pants in class had been
taking turns peeing. Goofing off. Ducking out on whatever exercise we
were on. And the teacher’s clueing in to the copycats. So I ask for
permission like the others. But I need to go for real. Never be the fourth.
The goodwill’s all been used up. They think you’re just going along for
the ride.” His voice was slightly slurred—the easy delivery mitigating it—
and deflated, memory pared of emotion. He lifted his head to drink from
his beer can. “Teacher says no. Three times I ask. I was a very polite
pupil. No, no, no. The kidneys are floating. I’m cross-eyed squeezing it in
but I do as I’m told. The bell rings but we have to kneel backwards in our
seats and say a prayer before we’re dismissed. That’s because the picture
of the Sacred Heart is on the back wall. I’m praying like crazy but I can’t
hold back the dam. I wet myself. There’s a trickle on the floor. Not many
kids see it because they’re busy running out. I stay put. Peeing, kneeling,
crying. Now the teacher couldn’t be sweeter.”
“Anything happen to her?” Jordan asked.
“Thirty plus years ago? Slap on the wrist probably. Do that today,
you might get suspended. If she did it to my boy, I’d want her booted. But
my parents tore a strip off the principal. I was in the secretary’s office. It
came right through the door.”
“Did you good,” Kareem said.
“How’s that?” Rory challenged. The first mildly combative tone
the Sultan’s tent had had to diffuse.
“You grew up to be a bus driver and now you can tell everybody
where to get off.” Kareem hadn’t fogged his mind with alcohol and the
line seemed particularly clever to those who had. They all laughed,
equanimity reestablished.
“That’ll be hard to top,” Zach said to Jordan.
“It’s another nunnery tale,” he warned, perhaps hoping for a
delayed exemption, for Rory’s misery to have found sufficient company.
“Fine,” Rory said. “Catholics gotta stick together.”
“You remember Ms. Donahue?” Jordan asked him. “Graduation
year.”
“Vaguely. I had Mitchell. The bottle’s best buddy. Plenty in his
noodle and he’d dole it out if you asked. But he was by the book. Yawn.
He’d be proud I haven’t forgotten him.”
“Donahue was different,” Jordan said, with a weave of remorse
that hadn’t been apparent in the previous three recollections. “Baseball
wasn’t number one with me in high school. I wrote poetry.”
“Explains why you have trouble hitting a curve,” Kareem said.
They hooted again, Zach the loudest—“Nasty, nasty, nasty” he
chanted—until he worried it would carry to the finicky elderly neighbors
who sank under the covers with the sun.
“I considered myself the cat’s meow. Full of insights but mainly
full of myself. She never mocked me. I wrote two, three a night to impress
her and she’d spend time reading them, writing comments. Like they were
as important to her as to me.”
“Another teenager with the hots for his teacher,” Zach said. “Nice
bod?”
“Nowhere near a Playboy type. Tall. Tall and thin, pleasant face.
But boy she loved her subject and she made us love it.”
“You mean you,” Rory said.
“Even the dumbos who couldn’t tell a word from a number
looked forward to her classes. She was into the world, not just the
surface.”
“Sadly, she was run over by a school bus,” Kareem said.
2019, Autumn / 115
“Another opera,” Zach concluded.

“The topic is embarrassments, not melodrama,” Jordan reminded
them.
“Fired for giving everybody an A,” Zach guessed.
“You’re miles off.”
“Fiddling the class valedictorian?” Kareem ventured again.
“Where’s the embarrassment?” Rory asked.
“Will you give me a chance?” a frustrated Jordan replied. Where
he had been hesitant to participate, he now refused to be sidetracked. “I
went to say goodbye after getting the diploma and to tell her I’d drop in
from college at Christmas. But she said she was going away.”
“Free agent. Contract expired,” Rory said. “It’s always about the
moolah.”
“She’d decided to enter a nunnery. Out of the blue. For me, not
her. She said she’d been wrestling with it. I was so stunned I didn’t ask
why. Not that her reasons would’ve meant anything to me.”
“What kind of dough do nuns make?” Rory asked, as if a part of
his education had been neglected.
“She was in her twenties, hardly older than me. Wanted to
disappear into a nunnery in Michigan. I didn’t think they even existed
anymore.”
“Oh embarrassment, where art thou?” Kareem affected a falsetto
Shakespeare.
“She had it figured out better than anybody I’d met and she was
throwing it away. She was letting me down, when it was really the other
way around. She was showing me something new and I didn’t get it. After
all she’d taught me, I didn’t get it.”
“At last,” Zach said. “I’m not sure it’s up there with Rory’s.” It
was safely assumed his allusion involved kneeling and peeing and not
harping on the baseball blunder.
“Did she end up going?” Rory asked.
Jordan regretted relating it poorly, failing to entice them to
understanding. “This is where I pull a Scheherazade and stop,” he said.
“You’ll have to come back tomorrow night.” His friends’ bland protests
confirmed the failure.
“Can’t make it,” Kareem said with sharply feigned
disillusionment. “Off with his head.”
“Well, that’s that. Now we’re all in the same boat as Rory.
Anybody ready for a coffee?’ Zach being hospitable rather than wishing
to wind up the festivity.
Amid the shrugs and shifting, the murmurs trailing unfulfillment,

no one answered distinctly, much less accepted. Beer and iced tea still
floated in the tub though the table had become disorderly, the bowls and
plates originally stacked now scattered and soiled, the food gouged or
depleted.
They snuggled deeper into themselves. The game, the drink and
fare, the remembrances, the hour, was finally catching up and tiring them.
The candles had burned low and the glow of the lanterns weakened so that
the men appeared more silhouette than substance. It was impossible to see
who’d closed his eyes to mull how much of the youthful damage had been
restored; who was reckoning if he’d exceeded straight confession; who’d
been lulled thoughtless by the patient gloom outside. Remarks arose from
time to time but they were unobtrusive, trifling. In the lengthening canopy
pauses, the fountain water could be heard cascading to the remotest petals
turning in for the night, and onward to the woods, trying to console them
all.
DANA ROBBINS
DEAR MR. KLIMT:
The Academy has determined that your painting, Hope 1, which

depicts a naked woman in the family way, is obscene.
We find the cloud of red hair, the iridescent white skin, too
provocative. We find indecent the small upturned nipples, the
ginger tuft, the bare swollen belly. The good Christian nation of
Austria cannot countenance such a pagan fertility goddess.
Your painting is an example of the decline of standards at the birth

of the twentieth century. We are returning this lamentable work to
you. Please keep our judgement in mind should you decide to
submit any future work to us.
Sincerely,
The Committee on Morality
2019, Autumn / 117
ORIT YERET
SIDEWALK STORIES
“I have no idea how it happened,” Leah says in a trembling voice.

“One minute I was staring at my phone and the next…I
was…underground!”
Leah is sitting curbside next to Max, the paramedic who pulled
her from the underground staircase. He hands her a sterile pad to wipe off
her bruised lip.
“Maybe that’s how it happened.” Max retrieves the pieces of the
broken phone.
“Aww,” Leah sighs with disappointment.
“Been happening too often lately, people can’t stop staring at
their phones.” Max packs the remains of the phone in a plastic bag and
puts it down on the curb between them.
“And then they fall,” Max continues as he examines Leah’s vitals
and shines a light in her eyes, “not noticing the elevator shaft, or the
underground staircase. Can’t tell you how many times a week we get
these calls.”
“Can you tell me your name?” Joe, the second paramedic, asks as
he stands above them, jotting down notes. He is holding a clipboard with
various forms attached.
Max shuts the light and Leah squints.
She removes the pad from her lip, looks up at Joe, and says,
“Leah Mullen.”
“Leah, nice to meet you.” Max shakes her hand, suddenly. “I’m
Max and that’s Joe.” He points up at Joe. Max notices a bump on her head
and searches his bag for an icepack.
“Here,” he hands her the icepack, “hold this for a second; it
should help.” Max smiles at her, and Leah tries to do the same, but her
whole body is sore.
“Lucky we were here,” Joe calls out now from inside the van. He
fetches another icepack and a few bandages and hands them over to Max.
“This thing is a hazard…” Leah finally says, pointing at the open,
unmarked staircase.
“You mean this thing?” Max holds the plastic bag with the broken
phone. “This is the real hazard these days. People not looking up.”
“Down,” Leah replies, and removes the icepack from her head for
a second.
“She’s right, though,” Joe says, “the place isn’t secured properly.
It’s dangerous. I’m gonna go find the owner. You good here?” Max signs
him off and Joe disappears inside one of the stores.
Leah looks at Joe walking away.
“He’ll get to the bottom of this, don’t you worry,” Max says to
Leah. “He’s one of the good guys, you know, did two tours in Iraq…best
guy I know.”
“Did you also…” Leah hesitates to complete her question.
“Yep. Afghanistan.” Max hands Leah a sterile pad.
“Thank you. How…” she mumbles.
“How was it?” Max completes her question with a smile. “Let’s
just say, it’s very different. Over there a busy day is…well, every day
was…nonstop, exhausting, unthinkable sometimes. And here, a busy day
is…” Max pauses for a second to think.
“Rescuing idiots who can’t stop staring at their screens?” Leah
half smiles.
“Well, that too…” Max laughs softly. “But it’s got its perks.”
Max looks her in the eyes. Leah blushes and covers her mouth with her
hand to conceal a shy smile.
“But Joe…he really did more than me…he saw some things—you
can’t quite put it into words, I guess.” Max looks behind him, in the
direction Joe went.
“How long have you been working together?” Leah asks, moving
the icepack across her face.
“Going on five years now.” Max looks down at his bag. “It’s true
what they say, time flies. How’s your leg feeling?”
“It really hurts.” She stretches it flat on the curb. Max touches her
ankle.
“Awww, awww, awww…” Leah cries out, and frantically asks,
“Is it broken?”
“Doesn’t feel broken, probably just sprained. Do you want to try
standing?”
Leah shakes her head yes and Max places her arm around his
shoulder for support.
“Awww, awww, awww…” Leah cries out again, halfway up. “I
can’t! I can’t! It hurts too much.”
The both of them sit back down. Leah looks away, but Max can
see she is crying. He hands her a tissue and she takes it.
“No worries. We’ll try again in a minute.” Meanwhile, he grabs a
box of pocket-size bandages and opens one to place over the cut on
2019, Autumn / 119
Leah’s forehead.
“Oh man,” he laughs as he opens the sealed package, “he got me
the cartoon ones!” Max holds it up and shows it to Leah. She suddenly
releases a soft laugh through the tears.
“Do you mind? I can go grab another box,” Max says.
“It’s fine,” Leah wipes her runny nose, “might as well…guess it’s
that kind of a day.”
Max glues the adhesive onto Leah’s forehead and smiles gently.
Max and Leah sit quietly for a few seconds, looking at the cars
driving by and the people walking up and down the street in the usual
morning rush.
“Is the ice-cream place across the street any good?” he suddenly
asks Leah.
“I’ve never been there, but apparently it’s quite famous.” She
points at the huge pink and white neon sign that says Bartellochie’s Since
1909.
“Funny, we’re usually here in the mornings just getting coffee,”
Max says.
“I walk by these stores every day on my way to work, for the past
three years, but have never entered any of them. I see people coming and
going, but I’m always…too busy…running.” Leah massages her ankle
again until she feels the pain. “Ironic, isn’t it? Now I can’t even walk.”
Max turns to face Leah and gestures for her to put her leg on top
of his to ease the weight. Leah’s foot and ankle are now a few inches
above street level, and she rests her palms on the curb.
Looking up, Leah notices Joe outside a restaurant talking to a
middle-aged woman. The two of them are standing a few feet away from
the open staircase, from time to time glancing down and then back up at
the people walking down the street. Three employees come out of the
restaurant wearing white aprons with yellow sashes that have the words
Danger! Careful! written across them.
“Careful…” Leah calls out suddenly.
“Trust me,” Max laughs, “I know what I’m doing.” He takes out a
muscle-relaxing ointment from his bag, takes off Leah’s shoe and sock,
rubs her ankle gently, and wraps the area.
“I’m not usually like this,” Leah says as Max tends to her ankle.
“I never…I mean…” She looks down at the plastic bag that contains her
broken phone. “I’m under a lot of pressure…from other people and their
expectations.” Max finishes wrapping up her ankle and places any
leftover items back in his bag. “See, I was staring at my phone because I
just got an email from my boss about this project I’ve been working on
since forever, and now there’s something wrong and I have to fix it for
him and I can’t…” she feels tears running down her cheeks again, “I can’t
freaking walk!”
Leah’s leg is still resting on Max’s leg, her foot elevated.
“Let me ask you something.” Max locks eyes with Leah. “Why
would you ever live your life for anyone else?”
The question lingers in the air for a few seconds before Leah says,
“Because… Because that’s what you do…isn’t that literally what you
do?”
Max smiles. “I help people. I don’t live my life for them. You
know,” Max continues, “people say we’re lucky, Joe and I, that we
survived those situations, that we were not injured severely, that we even
came back at all. I think that, mostly, those experiences made me humble,
made me see life for what it’s really worth, you know?” Lost in thought,
both of them stare at each other for a moment. “Anyway,” Max releases
his gaze first, “if you ask me, I still think it’s lucky we haven’t killed each
other, working together all these years…”
Max places Leah’s sock and shoe back on as Joe walks toward
them.
“Cinderella, wouldn’t you know?” Joe teases the two. Max and
Leah smile, embarrassed.
“Talked to the owner, here’s her information.” Joe hands Leah a
folded piece of paper and she takes it. “In cases like these, they are mostly
afraid of lawsuits. I made sure—she will take care of any medical fees,
but get your insurance involved right away, that’s best.”
“Okay. Thank you,” Leah says to Joe.
“Told you—best guy I know.” Max smiles at her and Leah nods.
“We’re gonna try standing up now.” Max takes Leah’s hand and
places her arm around his shoulders. He places his arm around her waist
for support. They take a few steps together.
“The ankle isn’t broken; just try not to stress it for a few days.”
Joe looks at the two of them as they walk around in a circle. “And the
bruises will fade; treat them as battle scars,” Max whispers in Leah’s ear.
“Lucky we were here,” Joe says and grabs Max’s bag. He puts it
in the van, gets in the driver’s seat, and starts the engine. “You need us to
take you somewhere?” Joe asks from the van.
“No.” Leah and Max stop walking. “My office is right there. I
think I can make it.”
“Are you sure?” Max asks, seriously.
2019, Autumn / 121
“I think you could use an escort,” Joe says and winks at Max. “Go
ahead, I’ll follow along.”
Max nods at Joe and continues walking alongside Leah until they
reach her office building just up the street.
“There it is, I can take it from here…I think.”
Max lets go of her and she manages to stand, somewhat
awkwardly.
Max starts laughing all of a sudden. “What?” Leah asks, smiling.
“This Band-Aid does look pretty silly,” he says as Joe pulls up
behind them.
“It does?” Leah tries to hide it under her bangs.
“Yeah,” Max strokes the bandage gently, “but it suits you.”
Max pulls out a business card from his left-side pocket. “Let me
know how you’re doing,” and then places it in Leah’s hand, “health-wise
and life-wise.” He smiles at her.
Joe honks the horn, signaling they have to go.
“Take care, Leah. Look up…and down…once in a while.” Max
squeezes her hand before letting go. “And let’s check out that ice-cream
place sometime…” He calls out as he walks over to the van. “More than a
hundred years, must be something special.”
Max waves at Leah as the van drives away.
BRAD G GARBER
BIRDFEEDER
My dying father began feeding birds

again, after taking the feeder down
because of a bear that wanted
black sunflower seeds in winter.
Exuberant colors of cardinal
bunting, jay, nuthatch, bluebird
oriole, tanager, were invited back
into the drabness of waning days.
It’s a shame to exclude beauty
for years because of fear
but death encourages boldness

a chance to take a chance
to fly joy back into life
even for fluttering moments.
FAMILY INTERESTS
My father was a baseball player;

I took up golf and never played baseball.
My father, also, played basketball;
I ran the mile and mile relay, in track.
My father played the drums, a trap set;
I played trumpet and guitar.
My father took up karate in his 40’s;
I played pool, and still do.
My father hunted deer, elk and moose;
I hunted rabbits, squirrels and ruffed grouse.
My father read medical journals;
I read legal decisions.
My father drank brandy;
I drink bourbon.
My father preferred hotel rooms;
I preferred camping.
I enjoyed baking pies;
My father enjoyed eating them.
STACIA LEVY
THE REAL ME
“You’re not even funny, Sharona,” my mother said.

“No, not funny.” I examined my makeup, the best I could, in the
cracked and foggy bedroom mirror. The curtains were drawn against the
late afternoon sun, not making things any easier. Still, the costume looked
pretty good, from what I could see—the white pancake makeup, the
rivulets of blood tears down my cheeks, the garish slash of mouth. “I’m
hilarious.”
2019, Autumn / 123
“You’re not that either.” She stopped pacing the room like a
panther—in fact, she was dressed like one, for Halloween—and stared at
me with hard slivers of green eyes, cigarette holder tilted in her hand.
“You’re sexy.”
“Nope.” I continued to look at myself in the mirror, adjusting the
orange and black mop of hair, which looked like a wig but was actually
my hair, with the orange streaks added. “I’m funny. Scary funny. Scary
clown.” Stephen King, here I come.
“You could be sexy, if you just tried.” She strode over to the
dressing table to knock ash into the tray.
“If I just tried.” I sat in the dressing table chair and looked at her.
“Rachael, you’ve got to be the creepiest mom ever. Who encourages her
teenage daughter to be promiscuous?” Not that I needed much
encouragement, but that was a different story.
“Not promiscuous. Just—sexy. Do something—” she made an
expansive gesture with the cigarette hand “—with your hair, at least. You
know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Do something with my hair, my makeup, my
clothes, body, life. “Well, sorry to disappoint you and all, Rachael. You
just beat me to the cat costume, that’s all.”
She stopped pacing again and stared at me. “And what’s that
supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” So funny the way people asked “What’s that supposed
to mean?” when the meaning was pretty obvious.
She sighed and came back to the dressing table to stub the
cigarette out in a crystal tray. She looked at her watch. “I should get to
work,” she said, more to herself than to me.
Just so that you don’t get the wrong idea, my mom was not a
streetwalker or anything, at least to my knowledge. She was a
professional party girl. That is, since my dad took off, she had made our
living catering parties. She had some big thing tonight in one of the
Victorian mansions in the historic section of the city.
“Sure,” I said. “Get to work.”
She shot me another hard look. “And what are you doing?” she
demanded. “Don’t you have a party to go to?”
What did she think?
I started to make some smart-assed comeback to the effect that
no, I had gotten all dressed up like this for no particular reason, then
stopped. “No.”
“No?” the green cat’s eyes drilled into me. “I thought you were
going to a party at school? With Tom?” “Jesse,” I corrected. “Tom was a

couple of boyfriends ago. And no, we’re not doing anything together. I
don’t really know what he’s planning to do. Don’t care, actually.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “Just hang out, I guess.”
“Like that?” Her voice rose as she gestured at me from head to
foot, from the frizzy hair to the torn harlequin clothes to the pointy gold
shoes.
She was really easy to tease. I almost felt bad about it. But not
really. She ignored me most of the time, stumbling around the house in an
alcohol and depression-induced haze, partying either professionally or
recreationally most nights, but sometimes she turned on the concern when
it occurred to her she should be parenting me.
“Sure.” I got up and crossed to the closet—I wasn’t sure why—
and opened it, making a show of looking inside.
“Well, what are you going to do?” She followed me.
“I don’t know.” I reached into the closet and pulled out the first
thing I laid my hand on, an old tennis ball. Oh, good. Perfect. I bounced it
on the scratched hardwood floor. “Practice, I guess.”
“Practice what?”
“What do you think?” I stopped bouncing the ball and began
juggling it—managing to keep it in the air as I passed it from hand to
hand over my head. Not bad, for someone with no practice. “Clowning.”
“Clowning?” She dove to grab the ball from me and failed as it
landed in my hand. I passed into the air again. “What do you mean by
clowning?”
“It’s just my new thing.” I continued juggling. “I’ve already
checked out a couple of books from the library on it. Next thing is I’m
taking a class.”
“Sharona—” she lit another cigarette with a trembling hand.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I assured her. “It’s only like ten dollars.
Through parks and recreation this winter break.”
She sat in the chair and stared at me, puffing away. Her lipstick
was smudged, her eyes wide.
“I wish I had another ball,” I said to myself. “I need to practice
this with two.” I went to the closet and looked through it again.
“Why are you doing this?” Mom asked.
“Damn, no other ball,” I said. “I’ll have to get a couple more.
What did you say, Rachael?”
“I asked why you are doing this.” Her voice rose. “And don’t call
2019, Autumn / 125
me ‘Rachael,’ young lady.”

“Sorry. Mom. Well, like I said, it’s my new thing.”
“I mean why are you screwing around like this? It’s not funny.”
She stubbed out the cigarette and rose again.
“No, like you said, I’m not funny.” I put the ball back on the
shelf. “This is for real. I’m being real. Authentic.” I looked in the mirror
again, at the white skin and dark fright hair. It was the real me, the hair
and skin. Well, almost. “This is what I want to do with my life.”
“What you want to do with your life.” She went to the window
and gazed out at nothing, the side of the house next door, probably
wondering how things had gone so sour, the same thing I tended to
wonder. “What exactly does a clown even do?”
“Entertain at parties? You don’t know that?”
“Stop it.” She looked at her watch. “I’m going to be late.”
“Well, you should go then,” I said. “I’ll be all right. I have to
practice my pratfalls anyway.”
She stared at me, as if summoning the image of me in big
bloomers falling on my ass. “Stop it. You aren’t funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“So this is a thing with you? You’re serious?”
“Entirely serious. Do you know there are whole colleges
dedicated to clowning? Stratford Harlequins at Ashland and the Traveling
Mistrals, that’s in upstate New York, forget which city.” I was making all
of this up off the top of my head, of course. But the weird thing was that
even as I was talking, I could picture the colleges—white columns, wide
paths through green lawns, kids juggling on them. “The Stratford
Harlequins are the more classical, I mean, you know, Shakespearean
approach, while the Traveling Mistrals are more modern. And of course
there’re a lot of online schools as well. I haven’t decided which I like
best.”
“Well, I’m not paying for it.”
“No, I don’t expect you to. You have your own cat costumes and
such to finance. I’ll work my way through. As a kid’s party clown. I’ve
already learned how to make balloon animals.”
She stared at me long and hard some more, a cat’s gaze. I smiled
back. She averted her eyes.
“I don’t know how you turned out so badly,” she said, again to
herself. She was hunting through her handbag now, as if for her car keys.
“Well, take a wild guess.”
“I did my best,” she shot back.
Guilt stabbed me then. She probably had, with all her limitations,
left as she was with no husband and nothing to put on her resume except
prom queen.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up then. “You’re putting me on?”
“Sheesh, Rachael, what do you think?”
“You are not funny, young lady.”
“Had you going, didn’t I?”
She shook her head and turned her back on me, going to the door.
“So you’re staying home, right? There’s some leftover pizza in the
refrigerator.”
“Mom, really? Didn’t I just tell you that it was all a big joke? I’m
going to a party with Jesse. I’ll get something to eat there.”
She shook her head again. “You aren’t funny, young lady.” She
went out, slamming the door behind her.
“Not trying to be,” I shot back although she was already gone.
I wandered over to the mirror then. I should probably run a comb
through my hair, touch up my makeup, before Jesse got here.
I picked up the comb and then stopped, looking at myself in the
mirror, the white skin, dreadlocks, blood tears.
I did, in a weird way, look like the real me.
HELEN TZAGOLOFF
THE PRINCE CANNOT FIND CINDERELLA
WITHOUT HER SHOE
Buying tickets to the performance of Cinderella,

I have three major worries. At ninety dollars a ticket,
this will be the only ballet we’ll attend.
No Swan Lake this time, always a winner, even
if the dancers are not the best. My second worry –
the dancers are not Russian, and I admit my ethnicity
comes to the fore, but can I be blamed if the first ballets
I saw featured Ulanova and Plisetskaya?
Most important: has the performance we saw
a decade ago now become the standard repertory?
2019, Autumn / 127
Everybody knows that the uniqueness of Cinderella

is her feet and yet there are those who would take
that away, make her merely another manipulative
rags to riches pretty face. And that’s what
the choreographer Vinogradov did, whether trying
to leave a mark for posterity, or perhaps concerned
that the Prince not be portrayed as a foot fetishist.
The audience applauded—can’t punish the dancers –
after getting over the shock of shoelessness,
giving up hope for an announcement that this was
a little joke and now sit still, while the Prince produces
the shoe that fits Cinderella’s unique foot.
The dancers, Cinderella, Cuban Xiomara Reyes,

the Prince, Canadian Guillaume Coté, are as good
as the Russians. I am anxious, pray that the ending
not be tampered with. Prince, please don’t be foolish,
don’t be lazy, try that shoe on her! It’s the only way
to be sure that you’ve got the right woman.
Hooray! She is trying on the shoe made by Freed,

The Official shoe of American Ballet Theater, shyly
taking out of a wool sock its twin, just as her Fairy
Godmother intended, for why would she have left
Cinderella the shoes, while stripping her of
everything else at midnight as she had warned?
KISSPROOF
Kissproof lipstick was the topic in the lavatory

as my classmates rouged, curled eyelashes, applied
mascara, powdered, tissued off lipstick smears
from their teeth. I had nothing to say, but I listened.
Instead of spending my allowance on pastry

after school, I resolved to buy the kissproof lipstick,
which I’d hide until needed. At fifteen I was not allowed
to wear makeup or perm my hair.
I’d like to buy a kissproof lipstick, I said

to the saleslady at Woolworth, a plump grand-
motherly woman whose lips were raspberry red.
We don’t have it yet. Stop by next week sweetie.
What were the chances of my being kissed

in the near future, I wondered, biting into a cream puff.
There was Ron, who looked at me as he pressed his
brilliantined head to a wall, leaving a spot of grease.
And Jack, when he walked with Polly,

seeing me, would try to disengage his hand
from hers. Was he letting me know that
it was my hand he wanted to hold?
When the time came, I wanted to be ready.
MARGUERITE GUZMAN BOUVARD

DANNY RODRIGUEZ
7:00 o'clock.
The light is getting dim.
You are waiting for the door
to open, to hear your daddy's
voice, asking you how your day
went, to feel his arms
holding you. He will read you
the stories you hear at bedtime
every night. But this time after
he came in, another door
opened. A man entered who is
an ICE* official, was an angry face
whom you've never seen before.
He grabbed your father and dragged
him away. You cannot sleep,
2019, Autumn / 129
and when you do, you scream.

You have no words, so you just
throw your breakfast on the floor,
and pull your hair. You have no
answers. The door doesn't open
when the light dims, although
you listen. Your home is strange.
When the light dims, you are
so afraid. You have no words,
the air is empty.
*Immigration and Customs Enforcement
STEPHEN PARK
BOBBY JOE HAS A BAD DAY
“The Good Boy” Evening Street Review #19 and “Short Stay” Evening Street
Review #21 set the stage for this story. All three: eveningstreetpress.com/steve-
park.html
I hurried back from my class in Infection Control and rounded the

corner down by the office. I knew we had trouble when I saw our female
staff standing around Bobby Joe in a loose circle. Even Bonnie from the
night shift was there. She should have gone home already. Our gals
looked casual, happy. They looked at Bobby Joe with bright expectant
smiles. Quick glances went back and forth between them in hopeful
anticipation.
Watching everything, loving all the attention, Bobby Joe smiled
his characteristic grin. I watched while he gave a slow exaggerated wink.
All the women exclaimed simultaneously, “Aw, isn't he cute!”
Grin widening, Bobby Joe lit up with unfeigned glee. He spun in
place and hurried to the bathroom; he was meticulous about his grooming
skills. He announced, “I'll have to hurry, or I'll be late for school.” He'd
never been big on school before.
I had a difficult time coming to any conclusions about Bobby Joe.
His black hair was always carefully combed, unlike the other patients on
the unit. He showered regularly without prompting and refused any but
the best clothes that fit him perfectly. He always brushed his teeth and
kept his bed area clean and orderly. All this was inconsistent with the
other patients on the unit.
There was that psychotic aspect to him. You see, he was driven to
flex his muscles every day, all day, clenching his fists, craning his neck,
grinding his teeth, and building an almost inhuman strength. As a
consequence of his isometric exercises, his shoulders were thick and
heavily muscled, his chest deep and wide. Add some of the inhuman,
berserk strength that all psychotics have, and what you had was a
fearsome combination. Bobby Joe feared nothing.
Glancing at the clock in the office, Bonnie said, “I have to hurry
home and get my kids off to school.” She turned towards the office door.
Hard eyes showing relief, Vivian sighed softly and said, “That
one was close.”
Deadly serious, Pam glanced first at me, then at Vivian, “Yeah,
that was a near thing. Bonnie said he didn't sleep well last night.” She
hurried to the dining room to count and prepare silverware for breakfast.
I turned towards the west dorm and Vivian called out, “The beds
are already made and the dorms locked. Sam and I did the showers.”
“Thanks.” I called back to her.
Down the hallway, the top part of a door opened and Bob called
out, “Medications!”
I immediately changed goals and walked over to the patient
bathroom. “Time for medications, time for medications.” I shouted.
Donald and his buddy Gary hurried into the bathroom from the
other door, hurried through while Donald touched the mirror, rinsed his
hands, then passed me to his self-appointed rounds.
“Donald, time for medications.” I spoke loudly.
Donald made a rude noise and flipped me off, using the wrong
finger as he'd been taught. I feigned anger, glowered, and he burst into
high-pitched maniacal laughter and hurried away.
Over by the far sink, where there was a side entrance to the
bathroom, David looked up at me while he played in the running water.
By the dull look in his eye and his awkward mannerisms, I saw that he
was the old David, not the attack-minded psychotic David who was so
dangerous. I was glad for that because he'd hurt a lot of people, myself
included.
I made a quick tour of the dayhall, announcing, “Medications,
medications, medications.” I unlocked the plastic box they'd built to
protect the TV, turned it off, and announced, “It's time for medications.”
Brian jumped up from his seat, dropped his hands to his waist,
2019, Autumn / 131
and with his elbows up, mashing his face, asked eagerly, “Is it medication
time, Mr. Park?” His affect, his emotional response to any given situation,
was not normal and the littlest thing was like a big thing to him. He
needed a regular routine, what we call structure in our business.
“Sure is!” I said in a loud voice.
Brian grinned wildly and wiggled his fingers.
Jimmy had moved his chair all the way across the TV room to the
far wall where he glowered up at me. His eyes were red and his face
puffy, he'd been crying, and there was a wounded look to him. Poor kid.
He'd been told that he couldn't learn the material in school because he was
retarded. The teacher who'd told him was currently in the center of a big
controversy. We were all worried about Jimmy. A thing like this could
lead to violent attacks, or self-injurious behavior.
To present reality and tell the truth of a thing was important in our
line of work. Ted, the teacher, had told Jimmy the truth, but he'd been
brusque in how he'd said it. To be fair, it might be that Ted was in a hurry;
we all were most of the time. Maybe he lacked the experience to be gentle
with Jimmy. Vivian had marched all the way up to the school and warned
Ted that he needed to be more considerate.
With few exceptions, we didn't have a hard time lining up the
patients for medications. They all loved the juice that came with meds.
And right after medications, we had breakfast. The only problem was
their exuberance boiled over to physical activity and they'd start playing
with each other, pushing, tickling, and wrestling.
Looking down the hallway, I saw that Ralph, the morning shift
charge, was bringing up the rear of the line and escorting Fritzy at the
same time. That was how it was back then: we did multitasking whenever
we could.
“Everything going okay?” Ralph asked.
We looked at the patients lined up in the hallway, with Sam the
Pre-Licensed Psychiatric Technician at the front. Next to Sam was the
office supply room, where the carpenters had made rows of shelves for all
the different paper forms we used on the job. Bobby Joe often fixated on
that room, in order to “tear it up,” as he liked to say. Not today. Bobby Joe
hadn't even glanced at the office supply room.
Ralph said, “We got a memo from up the hill yesterday afternoon.
The problem with Bobby Joe tearing up the office supply room has caused
one of the big administrators to insert himself into the problem.”
“How so?” I asked.
Up at the head of the line, Sam raised his voice and told a couple
of patients to stop wrestling. Doing mouth-checks, Vivian turned her head

and raised her voice in support of Sam.
“We're to call the office of a Mr. Hill and report to him whenever
Bobby Joe fixates on the office supply room.” Bobby Joe would stand in a
crouch, feet braced, and stare at the room he wanted to vandalize with an
avid, eager look.
Our medication guy, Bob, handed Fritz a cup of medications. Just
like that Fritz opened his mouth and downed them. Bob followed with a
cup of juice.
“Whatever for?”
Fritz gulped his juice, grinned in appreciation while he wiped his
chin with the back of his hand, and handed Bob the empty cup.
Ralph smirked, “He's going to come down and give us a little in-
service training and show us how to stop Bobby Joe from tearing up the
office supply room.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You've got to be kidding. He
doesn't know what Bobby Joe can do!” I remarked while keeping an eye
on the line. Medications were over and the patients stayed put so that they
could be ready for breakfast.
I heard the phone ring in the medication room and a moment later
Bob stuck his head out and announced, “They're ready for breakfast!”
Up and down the line the patients turned to one another with
eager looks and emphasized, “Breakfast is ready! Breakfast is ready!” It
was an exciting time for them, with one exception.
Poor Jimmy continued with slumped shoulders and a hanging
head. The kid was hurt and there wasn't anything any of us could do to
bring him out of it. Gone was the old exuberant Jimmy. He used to escort
Fritz to the medication line, no more. He used to look forward to all the
meals we had and looked them up on the activity board, not now. The
patients were used to him announcing what we were having, but he'd
stopped that too.
Not only that, but his appetite had dropped off. He often just
played with his food. Yeah, the psychologist, the social worker, and all
the staff kept a close watch on him. We feared he might even become
suicidal.
Breakfast went well, and no one tried to steal food from anyone
else. Because we had doughnuts, Michael was happy and presented no
problems for us. When we finished breakfast, and counted in all the
silverware, we headed back for teeth brushing and shaves.
I brought out the stainless steel cart with the little drawers. Each
2019, Autumn / 133
drawer had a toothbrush in it for each patient. I put on a pair of gloves and
started squirting little dabs of toothpaste onto torn-off pieces of paper
towel. I also manned the clipboard with the patients’ names and checked
each one off when they brushed their teeth. Sam helped the lower
functioning patients, like Fritz and Gary, while Vivian and Pam went out
to get the patients who hadn't shown up.
I heard Vivian say, “Come on, Jimmy. You've got to brush your
teeth. Otherwise they'll get all slimy with gunk...”
“Why should I? I'm nothing but a...”
“Now don't say that!” Vivian interrupted. “You're a smart, good
looking boy and you should keep your teeth clean or you'll get a cavity.
You won't be as nice looking if the dentist has to start pulling teeth.”
They entered the bathroom, she leading, cajoling, and mothering
him. Jimmy thumped his helmet. “Look at this. I have to wear this stupid
thing and people know what that means. It makes me look like some sort
of freak.”
“You're not the only one who wears a helmet around here. Look
at Raymond and Johnny, they wear helmets too. There are patients on
other units who also wear helmets. A lot of people have seizures.”
Outside, I saw the psychologist stop at the bathroom door and
look in. She was very professional, and concerned with the patients,
Jimmy especially. She'd spent extra time with him of late.
Jimmy sighed heavily and said, “Oh, all right.” He stepped up to
the cart, waited while I opened his little drawer and took out his
toothbrush. I gave him his toothbrush and toothpaste and watched him
turn away to the sink. Looking at the clipboard, I saw that he hadn't
brushed his teeth at all yesterday.
Vivian and the psychologist shared a look. The psychologist
nodded once and walked away towards the office. My unit had
professionals who were team players and worked well together. There had
been an entire conversation in that shared look.
Finished, Jimmy looked over at Vivian and said, “There. Are you
happy now?”
“Let me see.”
Jimmy opened his mouth and showed her his clean teeth.
Vivian smiled and said, “They look much better. There's nothing
better to bring out the best in someone than clean white teeth in a bright
smile.”
Sam finished shaving Fritzy with his electric razor, and with that
we were done. We were responsible for half of the unit. The afternoon
shift was responsible for shaves and teeth brushing for the other half of
the unit.
I checked every drawer in the cart, making sure all the razors and
toothbrushes were accounted for, then pushed the cart to the room where
we locked it up.
Out in the dayhall, I heard Jimmy protest, “I'm not going to
school. I just can't go back there. There's no use. I don't do nothing but sit
there.”
I saw Sam in the TV room with a clipboard. Evidently, he was
escorting to school.
Jimmy looked left and right like he wanted a way out. His
reddened eyes were glassy and he seemed ready to cry. Vivian and the
psychologist rushed over.
The psychologist said, “It's all right, Sam. He doesn't have to go
to school.”
It was as if Jimmy had been spared the gas chamber. He relaxed
visibly, shuddered out a ragged breath, and slumped in his chair.
Ralph came out of the office and joined the little group.
Concerned, he asked Jimmy, “Do you want to go to the canteen?”
Looking between Vivian, the psychologist, and Ralph, Jimmy
seemed fearful.
Vivian said, “I'm escorting to canteen, Jimmy. Please come with
us.”
Jimmy took off his helmet and rubbed his watery eyes. “I'll go.
Just don't make me go to school, okay.” He looked away into the distance,
as if he was seeing the world in a different, unpleasant light. “I just can't,
can't...”
“That's all right, Jimmy.” Ralph interrupted. “You don't have to
go to school today. But go ahead and go to the canteen with Vivian and
Steve. Get an ice cream or something.”
Vivian hurried back to the office where she grabbed a plastic bag
of damp washcloths; some of the patients going to the canteen got messy
things like chocolate bars and ice creams and we had to clean them up.
Vivian and I waited for the other groups to clear the stairwell
down to the courtyard, then headed out. I counted seven patients. Outside
the building, the accepted ratio was eight patients to one employee, but we
took an extra staff whenever we could. We'd had trouble before and the
employees assigned to grounds patrol weren't always easy to find; they
patrolled a big compound and could be anywhere.
Calvin was appropriate, but he could quickly escalate from
2019, Autumn / 135
speeches to violence. I didn't look for any problems from Jimmy, Gary,
David, or Billy. The main problem I anticipated was Donald, nearly
running down to the canteen, while Ricky Lou insisted on taking those
tiny little steps and falling behind the rest of us.
We made it down the stairs to the courtyard, where I made sure
we had all the patients, then unlocked the courtyard to leave for the
canteen.
I quickly raised my voice, “Slow down Donald or I'll take you
back.”
Donald stopped in place, looked back at me then towards the
canteen.
“Ahhh...”
“Just wait, Donald.”
I looked behind our group and saw that Ricky Lou was lagging
behind as I expected. “Ricky, could you hurry it up?”
Ricky Lou liked his brown hair cut a little long, in what they
called a shag back then. “I'm going as fast as I can.” He looked genuinely
worried. Still, he continued taking those little steps.
Jimmy moped along and was just ahead of Ricky Lou. His
shoulders sagged in defeat and there was an air of hopelessness about
him. Vivian hovered around him, extolling him, trying to comfort him. I
didn't hear what they were saying to each other, but it looked as if they
had an argument, or a difference of opinion.
At the canteen, there was another unit ahead of us, and we took a
table and waited our turn.
Vivian and Jimmy walked up and I could see some frustration in
both.
“How can you say that?” Jimmy demanded. “The teacher didn't
do anything wrong, he just told me the truth. Don't you see the helmet?”
He knocked on his helmet with his knuckles. “Who would hire someone
like me. I might...” he gestured with one hand, “...fall over or something.
I'll never get a job. These seizures are, they...I'll never even have a
girlfriend.” Voice shuddering, he added, “There's no use, no one likes me,
I wish I hadn't been born.” He fought to hold back tears.
Vivian looked torn. “I've been here a long time, Jimmy. You can
have a life and find happiness Jimmy, you'll see.”
“It's not so.” Jimmy exclaimed. “Just ask Steve.”
Where did Jimmy fit in our world? I'd admitted him and filled out
a form with marks, scars, and tattoos. Jimmy had a deep scar running
across the top of his head, from where he'd been beaten with a chain. He
was here for fighting in school, for standing up for himself.

I said, “There is a place for everyone in our world. You'll find
your place someday.”
Jimmy's voice hitched when he drew in a deep breath, “I'm never
going to...”
Vivian interrupted, “Oh Jimmy.” She stepped forward as if to
comfort him. “Don't say that. You'll be happy again, just wait and see.”
I was maintaining the line, we stood in order around a picnic
table, and it was our turn.
Donald was the first to go up to the little window. “I cream.”
The canteen employee knew us and waited until I came up with
Donald's canteen card. He also knew that Donald liked chocolate.
In a little while, Donald was content, sitting in his place, licking
his chocolate ice cream. The line moved quickly.
Ricky Lou said, “Well, this is the first time I'm not the last in
line.” He looked pleased.
Behind him, wilted in defeat, looking like a wounded animal
who'd been run to ground, Jimmy just stood there and stared at the far
distance, at nothing.
Jimmy looked over when someone walked by and stopped in
front of him. It was one of the female patients who'd lagged behind her
unit. She looked over at Jimmy with a coy smile and held up one hand.
She closed the fingers of that hand, giving a little wave, and batted her
eyes at him. She straightened her helmet and hurried off to join her group.
Though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, it was as if Jimmy had
been struck by lightning. He jolted, ramrod straight, and froze in place.
His right eye was opened wider than his left. He wasn't looking at anyone
or anything at the canteen. He mumbled to himself in a soft voice,
“She...she liked me.” He took in a shuddering breath. “She liked me.” he
said again.
Jimmy came out of his fugue, looked around to see the girl was
gone, then over at Vivian.
“Did you see her? Did you see...”
Vivian was pleased. She said, “She liked you, Jimmy. I told you
that you were a good looking boy.”
Like a dancer pivoting on one foot, Jimmy spun to me and said,
“Did you see her...” he grinned broadly, “...smile at me?” He took two
quick steps towards me, was earnest, “Did she?”
That's all it had taken: a shy smile and a little wave, and Jimmy
passed a major block in the road of his life. A block that could have ended
2019, Autumn / 137
his life.
“Yeah Jimmy, I saw her wave at you. Vivian's right, you know.
That girl liked you.”
He stepped up to me, hungry, eager, and asked, “Tell me how she
waved at me. How did she do it?”
I told Jimmy how she'd waved at him, and he dashed over to
Vivian to ask just how she'd smiled at him. We left the canteen, with
Vivian in front and me bringing up the rear, while Jimmy ran back and
forth between us. He wanted to know every detail of every little thing. We
weren't on the unit long before Jimmy started questioning the other
patients. They weren't as reliable, but some of them had seen something. I
still remember him balanced precariously on the back of a couch, back to
the TV, talking to Calvin.
Pleased with how things with Jimmy had turned out, Ralph left
for lunch. Vivian, Pam, and Bob took the entire unit downstairs to the
courtyard for some sun.
I was in the office when the phone rang. “Hello.”
“Hi. This is Carol at the school. We had a problem with Bobby
Joe. He went up to Ted and, well, you know how Bobby Joe sometimes
winks.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Ted was in a rush, he was late handing paperwork out to
the students, and he just didn't have time to stand there and wait for
Bobby Joe to wink, and to tell him how cute he was.”
“Oh oh.” I said.
“Bobby Joe started tearing up our school supply room and, I don't
know if you've seen him do something like that...”
“Yeah, I've seen him in action. He can be a real terror.”
“He started throwing things all over and Ted ran over and
grabbed him and they had this terrible fight...” she took a deep breath,
“...and Ted is escorting Bobby Joe back to the unit right now. They could
be there any minute.”
“I'll go and a—everyone else is in the courtyard downstairs.” I
said. “I'm sorry.”
“That's all right, it's not your fault. But he hit Ted and they got
into the water colors and he tore up Ted's brand new shirt. Ted's pretty
mad.”
“I've got to make sure a restraint room is ready, they could be
here any minute. Thanks for calling.”
“You're welcome, and good luck.”
I hung up the phone, rushed out of the office and up the hallway
towards the entrance to our unit. I slowed down on the way to glance
through the little window on the door of the restraint room. I gave a quick
look and saw that it was made up and ready. Fearing the worst—there
could be a terrible fight going on—I ran on.
I opened the door to my unit and saw, down the long hall, three
people coming towards me. Bobby Joe was in the middle, with two men,
one holding each arm, escorting him. They were fighting, careening off
first this wall, then the other. Even from the distance, I could see that they
had different colored paints all over them. They were smears of different
colored paint all the way down the hallway. I rushed away and opened the
restraint room, then dashed back.
We reached the door at the same time. Ted was a stocky man with
blonde hair that was almost white. He'd been special forces or something
in Viet Nam and was supposed to be a tough guy. That two men were able
to control Bobby Joe was something. But I could see it hadn't been easy.
Ted had paint smeared all over his face and clothes. I couldn't mistake his
anger.
I said, “The restraint room is...”
Ted spat angrily, “You knew he was like this when you sent him
to school.” He was white with anger, except for these big red blotches
where Bobby Joe had hit him.
I was speechless with astonishment when Ted shoved Bobby Joe
into the unit. Ted stepped back, pulled the door closed, then watched
through the narrow little window.
Bobby Joe was blown up, as they said about a violent patient back
then. His breathing was quick and shallow, throwing his oxygen and
electrolyte blood levels off, which made him even crazier. His bloodshot
eyes protruded. Though he had a twisted little smile, I'd learned that didn't
mean he was happy to see me. I stepped up gingerly to him and gently
took his wrist.
“You need to calm down, Bobby Joe. Let me take you to the time
out room for a while.
Bobby Joe's face turned a violet shade of red and he shouted, “He
didn't care if I winked, and I DIDN'T GET TO TEAR UP THE SCHOOL
SUPPLY ROOM.” I remembered how eager he was to go to school
earlier.
Bobby Joe tried to jerk his arm away from me, and I converted a
hand on his wrist to a Judo Arm Bar. He broke the Judo Arm Bar, then a
Hammer Lock, a Modified Half Nelson, and a Boston Crab. These were
2019, Autumn / 139
supposedly unbreakable holds.

I ended up using a Full Nelson. Bobby Joe twisted left, right, then
wheezed, “I give up, I give up.”
I asked, “Will you stop fighting?”
Bobby Joe agreed to give up. “Just don't put me in restraints.” I
agreed but he had to sit for an hour in the time out room. Though he was
psychotic, I knew he'd keep his word. I let him up and escorted him to the
time out room, where he went in and sat on the bed.
I heard the sound of feet; they'd come up from the courtyard. Bob
ran around the corner, saw me standing there, and asked, “Is everything
all right?” He looked confused and a little angry.
“Yeah. Bobby Joe tried to wreck the school supply room. Ted and
another guy escorted him to the unit and he agreed to sit in the time out
room for an hour and calm down.”
Bob glanced in the time out room, took a look at Bobby Joe. “The
girl from the school called down to the courtyard” He nodded and left.
In a while Ralph returned from lunch, listened to what I had to
say, and the whole office became animated.
Vivian pointed her finger straight up and said with conviction,
“You see there! I told Ted that he needed to be more considerate. Maybe
this will teach him a lesson.”
“Well, Bobby Joe's time is up. We got to let him out of the time
out room.” I said.
So Ralph and Bob and I went down the hall to tell Bobby Joe he
could come out. The first thing he did was to put an unreasonable demand
on us.
“I want to go back to school.” Bobby Joe announced.
“They're still cleaning up the school,” Ralph coaxed. “And Ted
has gone home with a headache. No more school today.”
Bobby Joe escalated right then, looked around wildly, and
focused on the office supply room. He marched up the hall, took up a
position with one leg in front of the other, went into a crouch, and fixed
his eyes on the room with an avid look. We knew what that meant.
“Hey,” I said. “I thought you said you'd be good.”
Bobby Joe's head snapped over to me, then back where he
focused on the office supply room again. “I said I'd sit in time out for an
hour.”
I started to say something, but Ralph spoke up, “Wait Steve,
remember Mr. Hill. We're supposed to call him.” Ralph grinned and
winked at me.
So we went down the hall to the office where Ralph made his call.
“He's on his way.”
Mr. Hill came in the unit and saw Bobby Joe standing, staring at
the office supply room. They exchanged a few words, then Mr. Hill
walked to the office. He was a very tall man—maybe he'd been a
basketball player in college or something.
“So that's Bobby Joe.” Mr. Hill said. “What we have here is a
little in-service training.” He handed out a form that we all signed. He
looked around the office. “With a case like this, you must be gentle, but
firm. I will try to reason with Bobby Joe, talk him out of destroying the
office supply room. If that doesn't work, I'll open the door and gently but
firmly deny him entrance until he gives up and goes away.”
Ralph spoke up, “But Bobby Joe is very strong...”
With a look of disdain, Mr. Hill looked at Ralph, then the rest of
us, as if we were weaklings. He did tower over us.
“Watch how I do this. You just have to be firm.”
With that, Mr. Hill turned and left the office. I noticed that he
wore an expensive pinstriped suit, with dark brown wing tip shoes. He did
look every bit the professional. But I wouldn't wear clothes like that on a
unit where we sometimes ended up rolling around on the ground,
wrestling with a patient.
When Mr. Hill had almost reached the office supply room, Ralph
led us out of the office. Mr. Hill spoke in a slow, reasonable tone of voice.
Bobby Joe wasn't having it. So Mr. Hill stepped between Bobby Joe and
the office supply room, opened the door, and braced himself.
Bobby Joe charged him like a bull. Mr. Hill put out one big hand
and the two clashed. There was a flurry of activity, a shout of surprise,
and I saw Mr. Hill's expensive wing tip leather shoes go all the way up to
the door jamb and then down. I heard the sound of their impact when they
slammed onto the floor. Ralph and Bob and I ran.
“Get him off me!” I heard Mr. Hill shout. “Get him off me!”
I'll have to give Mr. Hill this: he grabbed Bobby Joe and stopped
him from making it into the office supply room. But Bobby Joe was on
top of him, frenzied, scrabbling to get away.
Ralph was first to jump on Bobby Joe, who was on top of Mr.
Hill. Bob jumped on top of Ralph, and there was a pile of people on Mr.
Hill. I heard him grunt with effort, try to roll away from all that weight,
and the pile sloughed off to the side. I grabbed Bobby Joe's foot and drug
him back and out of the office supply room. He fought the whole way.
Ralph and Bob jumped up and we got control of Bobby Joe.
2019, Autumn / 141
“Let me go!” Bobby Joe demanded. “I'M GOING TO TEAR IT

UP.”
Ralph said, “When you hurt someone, we put you in restraints.
You hurt someone.”
Bobby Joe said, “It's not my fault. I had a bad dream and I
couldn't tear up the school supply room and now I can't tear up the office
supply room.” He looked around like a kid who'd had his bicycle stolen.
“I'll be good. I'll go to the time out room.”
“You're just having a bad day, Bobby Joe.” I said. “Will you be
good for the rest of the day and not tear up anything else?”
Trapped, Bobby Joe looked around him for a way out.
Ralph said, “We'll put you in restraints.”
“Oh, all right. I'll be good for the rest of the day.”
Behind us, Mr. Hill got up, dusted off his expensive suit, and
looked over in trepidation. “I'm all right. You don't have to put him in
restraints because of me.”
So we escorted Bobby Joe to the time out room again, with Mr.
Hill trailing several steps behind.
Bobby Joe went in and took a seat, and Billy stepped around the
office, close set beady eyes glaring around him in suspicion, as he
carefully put a little piece of string into his bag.
Billy shouted, “Anybody tries to steal my string,” he brandished
one large scarred fist, “I'll bust him one.”
Ricky Lou came around the other side of the office, taking his
little steps as fast as he could, shouting, “Get out of the way,” he gestured
with one hand, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
I heard Calvin exclaim from the bathroom, “You see how it is.
They are the establishment. We must defend ourselves against them.”
Then Michael dashed out of the bathroom, down the length of the
hall and Mr. Hill backed up against the wall to let him go by. Michael
reached the double doors, turned around and sprinted all the way to the
office. I guess we didn't have pie for dessert today.
I heard Fritzy exclaim in a threatening voice, “Don't hit me, you
son of a bitch.”
Looking all around him in apprehension, Mr. Hill flinched when
Donald raised his voice and shirked in maniacal laughter. Mr. Hill turned
and went back down to the hall and left our unit. I never did see him
again.
WILLIAM GREENWAY
INTRUDERS
I rolled out of bed this morning,

hitting my head on the bedside table,
which was better than being squashed
by the train. I can still feel the crossties
down my back—big ribs—my arms
outstretched across the chill rails
like a crucifixion.
They always seems to come from behind,

ninjas with their knives, mother
with her garden rake, the rabid dog,
lion, rhino, zombie, sneaking up.
Either flee or fight.
What are you afraid of, the therapist asks,
and I answer, Ontologically, apocryphally,
or alphabetically?
In Scotland the Lairds spiraled the stone

staircases of their keeps, with steps
and risers unequal, to slow invaders down, or
at least sound the clanking alarums of sword
and shield, and, at best, confound them utterly,
pile them into one another’s’ backs
like Keystone Kops.
My therapist says, Well, it’s good

you’re not dreaming of overflowing
toilets anymore.
No, I say, it’s not inside,
but out there in the dark
of every night,
waiting for their chance, for sleep,
while I listen again for steam whistles
and the stumble of steps.
2019, Autumn / 143
MIGRAINE
Another one stalking her,

bringing its auras
like halos from hell.
My forebears only gave me

Grandma’s “sugar,” Mama’s thyroid,
some drunken uncle’s tremors, hallucinations,
tinnitus, the scourges of all
those old dead doctors,
Meniere, Eckbom, Parkinson,
Hashimoto, instead of what
held Daddy in bed groaning
and crying aloud for days
in a darkened room,
hiding from the lances
of any light.
I’m sure that Baptist preacher

prayed in his dark bedroom gethsemane
let this cup pass from me,
and “half-skull-pain”
is what the Greeks named it.
Me grain, the British say,
as if it were a harvest
but of bitter rue and loss,
and more like a last
nail into a cross.
CHRISTINE TERP MADSEN

THE BACK OF THE PLANE
The first thing she noticed was the smell. It was a combination of
nondescript steamed vegetables, adhesive tape, and the stale odor of her
own body. For some reason, she thought of her mother after she had her
stroke. Ah. The smell was the smell of a hospital.

She realized her eyes were closed, but when she tried to open
them, they resisted. She concentrated on them, and they suddenly flew
open.
“Look,” said an unfamiliar voice to her right, “her eyes are open.”
Her eyes settled into focus, and she could tell by the pale green
walls and the unforgiving light that she was indeed in a hospital.
“Maggie? Maggie?” She recognized this voice, the voice of her
husband Don. She tried to turn her head to look at him, but her neck felt
bound up.
“Maggie?” This time his face loomed into view above her. She
worked on focusing her eyes on the short distance to his face. “Anna, get
the nurse,” he said.
Her daughter Anna’s face appeared above her, too. “Mom!” she
said. “Mom, it’s me!” Maggie smiled, or thought she did. Sleep pulled at
her.
“I’ll be right back!” said Anna, disappearing from view, her 13-
year-old voice bouncing with excitement. Her husband’s face appeared
again.
“Maggie, blink your eyes if you can hear me.”
“I can hear you, Don,” Maggie said, but the words seemed to bind
in her throat. Sleep tugged at her again, and this time she obliged.
——
She thought she was dreaming. She was floating, but strapped
down. Ah. She was in an airplane, her seat belt uncomfortably tight. She
leaned forward to look around the woman seated to her left next to the
window. Things felt wrong, but she couldn’t tell why. The clouds
obscured everything outside the window. The only sound was the wind
rushing by. No drone of the engines, no chatter from the attendants or
passengers. Even gravity felt wrong, pulling her toward the earth instead
of temporarily loosening its grip as she floated through the sky.
She must be dreaming. The plane was sliding down. The clouds
broke open, and she could see the checkered fields below. Someone
towards the front of the plane started to sob. She looked at the woman
sitting next to her, and their eyes met. Maggie wondered if she looked as
terrified as the woman did
This face might be the last I ever see, Maggie thought. She leaned
toward the woman, and touched her black, curly hair. And then, without
thinking, Maggie leaned even closer and kissed her on her lips.
——
2019, Autumn / 145
She woke from the dream—it had to be a dream. Someone was

tugging at her arm. She felt a band around her arm, uncomfortably tight.
Ah. Hospital. Blood pressure. She worked on opening her eyes. It was a
nurse standing above her this time, and her face had a sort of impassive
encouragement about it, she thought.
“Welcome back,” said the nurse. “Are you going to stay with us
this time?” She turned to someone standing behind her. “Get the doctor.
And the family.” She turned back to Maggie. “You’re doing fine, Mrs.
Leaseback. Don’t try to talk. The doctor will be here in a minute.”
——
In the dream, she felt the impact, felt her lungs moving forward
out of her chest, it seemed, and then crashing back into her ribs. She felt
her blood sinking into her feet, her arms pulled from their sockets and
wrenched behind her back. She felt the woman next to her, the one with
the deep terrified eyes, pushed against her and then tossed back into her
own seat. For an instant, just an instant, she saw outside the tiny airplane
window the tops of the trees ringing the field in their leafy sparkling
spring green, and each vein of each leaf seemed to pulse in defiance to the
noise inside her ears.
——
“Mrs. Leaseback! Maggie! Wiggle your toes!” The voice was
demanding, but the demand was ridiculous, she thought. She wiggled her
toes. “Good!” boomed the voice from the foot of the bed.
“What—” she sputtered. Her voice echoed through her body.
“It’s OK, Maggie,” said Don, and his face came into view above
her. “Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital. Why?”
“You were in a plane crash. But don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“Hurt—” Her ribs ached, as if something had slammed into them.
Her right arm felt limp with pain, and neither of her legs seemed to be
hers.
“We’ll get you something for the pain in just a few minutes,” said
the demanding voice, this time closer, to her right. She tried to turn her
head in that direction, and caught a glimpse of a burly man in a doctor’s
coat. He reached toward her and tugged back her eyelid. “Good,” he
boomed again. “May I speak to you in the hallway?” Maggie realized he
was talking to Don. Suddenly the room was silent.
“So,” said an unfamiliar voice to her right, “welcome back.”
Maggie tried to turn her head again, and this time caught a glimpse of a
woman in the bed next to hers. She had a thick bandage around her head,
a neck brace, and two black eyes. Her left arm was in a cast. Despite all of
this, her face seemed familiar. Maggie sank against her pillow, waiting for
sleep to tease her again. But the walls of the room refused to close in on
her, refused to wrap her in their pale institutional greenness.
“Where—”
“In Bernardston, at St. Mary’s Hospital.”
“You—”
“Yes, me too. I was sitting next to you.” Ah. That was why she
looked familiar.
“Mommy!” A small boy, maybe eight, rushed into the room, past
Maggie’s bed, to the other woman.
“Michael! I’m so happy to see you!” A man carrying a younger
child, a girl, followed the boy to the far side of the woman’s bed. He
leaned over and kissed her, and the little girl stretched her arms towards
her mother.
“How are you today?” the man asked.
“About the same. But look, Mrs. Leaseback is awake.” The man
looked at Maggie.
“Well,” he said, “nice to meet you. I’m Charlie, and this is Chloe.
And our kids Michael and Angela.”
“Maggie—”
“Well, Maggie,” he said, “it’s good to hear your voice.”
——
She knew she was awake, because the walls were green and the
smell was the same. Had she dreamt that she was in a plane crash, or had
she really been in one?
She remembered the terror in the woman’s eyes, Chloe. She
remembered their color, a deep and golden brown, each iris ringed with a
golden band. She remembered the soft light through the window framing
her head. Chloe said it had really happened. Don said it had happened.
Had she dreamt that? Could she hurt this much in a dream? She knew she
could see and smell and laugh and even taste in dreams, but could she feel
pain?
She remembered the plane, medium-sized, not quite full, either,
she recalled. She remembered deciding to move up to a seat that reclined,
rather than staying in her last-row seat that didn’t. After the seat belt sign,
she had decided. It was just a 90-minute flight to Cleveland, but she had
wanted to lean back and take a nap. Preparations for the trip had been
rushed, and she was tired. She remembered thinking that she should look
for another job, one that required trips to vacation spots. She thought of
2019, Autumn / 147
how languid the spring would be in Florida, how unexpected it would be

in Maine, how rich and moist it would be in Vancouver. In Bernardston,
spring rushed past on its way to summer, a heated outburst of flowering
shrubs and trees giving way too quickly to the incessant sun.
——
Hospital rooms were never dark, she thought. Something was
always glowing or flashing, or the streetlights crept through the curtains.
Don and Anna had spent the afternoon, talking about anything except why
she was there, and Maggie was exhausted. Still sleep did not seem near,
after it had encased her so thoroughly earlier in the day.
“Maggie?” Chloe whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.” Maggie’s voice had strengthened since the morning. She
no longer had to gasp out each word.
“Do you remember the crash?”
Maggie hesitated. “I’m not sure.” Her head filled with the
memory of Chloe’s terrified eyes and the line of trees out the tiny
window.
“Did we land in a field?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Chloe. “A hay field.”
“With trees around the edges?”
“Yes.”
“Was anyone killed?”
Chloe didn’t answer.
“Chloe?”
“Almost everyone was killed.” Chloe spoke even more softly.
“Eighty-seven.”
Maggie remembered the size of the plane. “How many survived?”
Again Chloe hesitated.
“Three. The two of us and a man named Richard Wood. He’s in a
room down the hall.”
Maggie stared into the dim light of the room. She must not have
been dreaming. Or was she dreaming now? Was there some trick she
could use to wake herself up? Should she scream, thrash her way free of
whatever bound her to the bed, force her eyes to pierce beyond the pale
green walls?
“Chloe?”
“Yes?”
“Am I dreaming?”
“No.”
——
She woke with a start. Her head pulsed with pain and anxiety, and
the sunlight from the window was unbearable. She turned towards the
other bed. Chloe wasn’t there. She felt panic bubbling in her stomach.
Had Chloe died during the night? Had she left?
Wait. Here she was, in a wheelchair, being rolled back to her bed.
Their eyes met.
“X-rays,” Chloe said.
“I was worried.”
“I’ll be here a few more days.”
Another wheelchair came through the door. The elderly man in it
had both arms in casts. His bathrobe sagged open, and Maggie could see
his torso wrapped in bandages. She remembered him, she thought. He had
sat across the aisle from her on the airplane.
“Hi, Mr. Wood,” said Chloe. “Maggie, this is Richard Wood.”
“Please,” said the man, “call me Richard. So it’s the three of us.
We are all blessed, are we not?” he said, looking brightly from one to the
other.
“Yes, Richard, that is certainly one way to look at it.” Chloe said
lightly.
“I take it as a sign from God that we are chosen for a great
purpose. How about you, Maggie?” His eyes were shockingly blue against
his white hair.
Maggie thought for a second. She couldn’t tell from Chloe’s
answer if she agreed with Richard or not, and she felt too tired to discuss
the crash with him.
“I haven’t sorted it out yet,” she said finally.
“Mr. Wood, they’re waiting for us upstairs,” the attendant said.
“Tests,” said Mr. Wood. “Always another test.” He waved
goodbye with his left arm, the one in the less restrictive cast, and the
attendant wheeled him from the room.
“Chosen?” said Maggie. “I don’t feel chosen right now. And I’m
not sure I agree with the selection process.”
Chloe laughed softly.
“Richard is intent on finding a meaning in all this,” she said to
Maggie. But Maggie had drifted back to sleep.
——
She remembered the surprise and then willingness she felt from
Chloe when she kissed her as the plane pitched downwards. Chloe took
her hand, and they waited together, just a few seconds, but forever.
Finally, when she could no longer hold her breath, when the treetops out
2019, Autumn / 149
the window were above her head, when all noise on the plane had ceased,
it smashed into the earth, its force echoing off the trees and the land with a
shudder and moan she could still hear. All of the colors around her burst
into thousands of shards of impossibly perfect rainbows, glittering and
streaming around her. At once she felt bound again to the earth, grateful
for its presence, and delivered from it, delivered from her body, and from
the moist darkness creeping across her vision. She recalled the
impenetrable silence that followed the thunder of the crash, the silence
that echoed off the trees surrounding the field, the walls of the plane, and
her own being.
——
“What do you remember?” Chloe asked her.
“I remember trying to picture Don and Anna in my mind, trying
to picture myself putting my arms around them. I remember being so sad
that I was abandoning Anna. What about you?”
“I remember seeing Charlie standing right in front of me, as if he
was actually there. And I remember thinking how hard it was going to be
for him. And then I realized he was holding Michael and Angela on his
shoulders, and they were saying to me that it was okay, they would be
okay.”
“Do you remember the crash?”
“No.”
“Did you pray?”
Chloe hesitated.
“No,” she said finally.
“Neither did I,” said Maggie softly.
——
Maggie was jarred awake by the commotion in the hall. Through
the open doorway she could see nurses and attendants rushing past,
dragging several large pieces of equipment with them. She turned and saw
that Chloe was not in her bed. More x-rays, she assumed.
She realized that for the first time in days she felt hungry. She
longed to sit up, stretch, use the bathroom, look out the window. She felt
clear-headed. She wanted Don to appear and nestle her into a wheelchair
and take her for a long walk.
She buzzed the call button to see if a nurse could get her
something to eat. She waited a few minutes, but no one came.
An attendant wheeled Chloe into the room. Maggie could see that
Chloe was upset and crying. She waited silently as the attendant helped
Chloe back into bed, fluffed the pillows, straightened the sheets, and
finally left.
“Chloe? What’s wrong?”
Chloe turned towards her and wiped her tears on the back of her
hand.
“Richard Wood just died.”
Maggie felt her heart thud against her broken ribs.
“I saw him die,” Chloe continued. “He died in an instant. One
minute we were talking about his grandchildren and the next minute he
was dead. Just like that. They tried to revive him, but he was dead.”
“Eighty-eight,” said Maggie. “The crash killed 88 people. Eighty-
seven on the ground and one here.” Maggie realized that she too was
crying.
“Two left,” said Chloe.
They lay there, heads turned towards each other, separated by the
narrow aisle between their beds. Maggie wanted to reach across the space
and touch Chloe, assure herself that Chloe was there, soothe her, remind
them both that they were real. Maggie didn’t know how she would ever
stop crying without it.
——
She slept again. Sleep could be safe, or it could be perilous. She
might dream of watching Anna running across the field behind their
house, or she might dream of the wind buffeting the airplane as it pitched
toward the ground. She might dream of Don waiting for her on the
ground, in the field, arms outstretched to catch her. She might dream that
she was the only one who could save the aircraft, but that she was
incapable of moving, bound by whatever it was that bound her legs and
ribs and arm.
Instead she dreamt of the trees. She saw them ringing the field, in
the full flush of spring. She dreamt of the farmer who cleared the field
years ago, who carefully planted the grasses that would feed his livestock
all winter, who sharpened his blades every year to cut the grass, who kept
the hay baler going year after year with luck and a few well-placed turns
of a wrench. She dreamt that she saw him standing at the edge of the field,
watching the plane plunge toward his field, his hat over his heart as he
anticipated what was to come.
“What did you see?” asked Chloe.

“I saw every leaf,” Maggie began. “Every single leaf, and each
one was different. Each one a different shade of green, infinitely small
variations in color, almost imperceptible changes in the veins, and
2019, Autumn / 151
together they made a tree that dazzled my eyes. And the next tree was
even more beautiful, where the leaves swayed with the uncoiling of the
dark buds of the flowers. I could feel the leaves swelling with the
moisture in the air, and I thought I could smell all the shades of green.
“I remember hitting the ground, and I remember that you were
next to me, and I remember regretting that I didn’t know your name.”
Chloe was silent for a moment.
“Do you remember the fear?” she asked.
“Yes. Do you?” said Maggie.
“Yes. It will always be with me.” She paused. “I saw our hands,
holding on to each other, total strangers, and how dark my skin looked
against your pale freckles. I closed my eyes just before we hit the ground,
and watched little points of light dance across my eyelids. I remember
how dry my mouth felt, and how rancid my tongue tasted. For a split
second, I even wondered if I had any breath mints—imagine that, as we
were about to crash—and then the fear took over me and I started to cry. I
wanted clarity of thought, I wanted to be thinking something pure and
noble, but instead I was shot through with the most intense horror and
panic.”
“And then,” said Maggie, “the most dreadful noise.”
“Yes.”
“And then nothing but a terrifying hissing sound.”
“Yes.”
“And then nothing,” Maggie whispered.
The silence stretched between them.
——
Don was in the room, with Anna. Charlie was there too, with
Michael and Angela. The two younger children clung to Anna, teasing her
into playing with them. Maggie tried to block out the noise, the
exuberance, even if it meant concentrating instead on the steady pain in
her left leg.
“Say, Charlie,” said Don. “Would you mind if Anna took your
kids down the hall to the play area?”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Charlie said. “I think they’re a bit too
much for Maggie and Chloe.”
Maggie sighed in relief as the room quieted. She turned her head
to look at Chloe. The bandage around her head was still large, but her
eyes looked better. Her face still looked anxious, she thought, as if she
was bracing herself for whatever came next. Don stood at the side of her
bed, holding her fingertips exposed at the end of the cast. Maggie turned
her head back, but kept her eyes closed, willing herself to relax, willing
her leg to stop cramping and burning. She could hear Charlie and Chloe
murmuring next to her. Don pulled his chair closer to the bed and sat
down. She knew he would be content like this. He always brought a book
to read while she dozed and rested.
“No, Charlie, not now. Not yet.” Chloe sounded irritated, and she
spoke loudly enough for Maggie to hear her clearly.
“I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready. Please drop the
subject,” Chloe said. Charlie backed away from Chloe’s bed.
“I need some coffee,” said Charlie. “Don?” The two men left the
room.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Chloe. “Charlie wants me to talk to
our minister, and I just can’t face him.”
Maggie waited. Don had brought up the same subject earlier and
she had rebuffed him. What could a minister say to her now, she thought.
How could anyone explain away 88 dead people?
“It’s not as if I’ve lost my faith,” said Chloe, quiet and controlled.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Richard thought there was a reason we were spared,” said
Maggie.
“And look where it got him,” Chloe snapped. Then she softened.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”
“No, no, I understand. I never was comfortable with Richard’s
interpretation, anyway.”
“Do you think there was a reason?”
“For 88 people to be killed or for the two of us to survive? I can’t
think of a reason for all the others to die.”
“How do you explain it then?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t accept the simple notion that it was
intentional, part of some master plan. And look at us—I’m a museum
curator and you’re a social worker. There is nothing extraordinary about
us, really. We just happened to get seats at the back of the plane.”
“So we were spared because we made last-minute reservations.
There’s a twist. We’re talking about leaving God out of the equation
entirely.”
“Or changing our notion of him,” said Maggie. “How would you
explain it?”
Chloe let out a sigh.
“It is unexplainable,” she said. “I’ve been lying in this bed for
over a week, and it’s just unexplainable. Maybe I need to read more about
2019, Autumn / 153
this. Maybe I need to rethink the whole thing.”

“Maybe,” said Maggie, “maybe we need to stop trying to figure it
out.”
“No answers?”
“No answers.”
——
It was Chloe’s last night in the hospital. Her head wound was
healing, and she was starting to be able to move without her neck brace.
She was walking steadily enough with a walker that the doctors trusted
her legs to get her around. Maggie lay in her bed, watching Chloe return
from the bathroom.
“I’ll miss you,” said Maggie.
“I know. It will be hard without you, too. But you’ll go home
soon. You have my phone number. I have yours.”
“We are part of each other’s life.”
“Yes,” said Chloe. She walked stiffly to Maggie’s bed. There was
just enough space for her to stretch out next to Maggie. The darkness
gathered outside the window as they lay next to each other, their hands
clasped.
“No answers,” Maggie said after five minutes.
“No. No answers.”
They lapsed into silence again. Finally Chloe stood up to return to
her own bed. She stood over Maggie, and Maggie realized with a sudden
certainty that she wanted to kiss Chloe again. She felt unable to move,
unable to breathe.
Chloe reached out and stroked Maggie’s hair. Her hand wandered
down to Maggie’s cheek, and then the curve of her neck.
And then, wordlessly, soundlessly, in a second that lasted forever,
she leaned in and kissed Maggie on the lips.
KAREN MACEIRA
BOOKMOBILE
We form a queue under
the oaks in front of the school.
The bookmobile rolls in, becomes
the head of a tranced
sperm, restless sixth graders

its quietly waving tail. I hold
books to my scrawny chest.
This year I first loved a boy,
wordlessly and from a distance
except for the day he stopped
at my desk with his project, lima beans
neatly split and taped, tiny white fingers
of embryo plants held against
cellophane, think black arrows pointing.
The line moves. I’ll be next
to step into the warm dimness,
the narrow aisle crowded
on both sides with books,
the familiar, enveloping odor
of paper and ink and glue.
I know my shelves, the fat

fairytale books in every color,
and the wealth of thin, blue-bound
biographies of resolute
women: Amelia Earhart, Jane Addams,

the fairytale I determine my life
will become—goodness sharp,
stinging as their dark
profiles on the pages.

I center on this thought, alert
to the membrane resisting me.
I try the circumference,
the different angles of approach,

wondering what it feels like
to kiss a boy, what it’s like
to be beautiful and brave.
2019, Autumn / 155
SPRING
It's April,
time for the curtains to billow
on the clothesline, time
for the blinds to soak clean

in the tub, time for you,
Mama, to stand outside
on the ladder, me inside,

rags in our hands dancing
in swirls across the panes
until we swear there is no

glass, nothing between us.
It's April.
I don't realize the ache

I can feel in my throat
is wanting your hands on my face, your face
a rose scudding,
blooming away from me.
It's April
the night I sit with a boyfriend

on the red, nubby sofa
in our living room and let him
touch me where I shouldn't,

Ronnie spying, witness
to the naked blush on my face.
You're not my sister.

Sister now awash
in the cry that brings
my father to stand over me,

the boy sent away,
father grim at the green-
marbled Formica kitchen table,

me staring at the specks of rust
on the table's bent, chromed legs.
Then you look at me

across the room and the glass
between us shimmers
into rain.
It's April
and you are holding me,
Mama, your arms the petals

of a cloud,
your hands telling me,
clean and good,

I am your child.
SALVATION
When I, at 15, was saved by the Baptists,
(especially by one 16-year-old Baptist named Jimmy),
my mother swore, “You’ll return to your religion.”
The Baptists made me Evangel. I wore

a white robe and children came up to hug me.
But after the play, in the car by the lake,
Jimmy’s lips were warm and sweet on mine,

and I discovered my body had a religion all its own,
old as the tide before us swaying with the moon.
That night I got home past curfew.

Mother made me go with her to Mass
the next day. I cried through the sermon.
Kneeling at the communion rail,

I bent my head and thought
how my hair must be shining under the light.
2019, Autumn / 157
MISS PERRET
In a wide, white house she lived,

so unlike our narrow shotgun
just across the street.
Each day, at her door to greet a boy or girl,

I saw her, white haired, soft-
shouldered, a gentle puff
of a woman you could make a wish on.
Each day, through her open window,

I heard the tentative scales, the notes
like stepping stones to another land.
I wanted to learn what Miss Perret taught,

to spread my fingers over the keys, spilling
what I held close in my twelve-year-old mind
that could not even imagine my feet carrying me over

the narrow strip of asphalt to sit beside Miss Perret,
her hand on mine, the keys cool, and then warm
under my fingers, the stumbling, pure melody wafting past
her sheer white curtains, out across the world.
LATE ART
Gentleness
I husband now.
Kinder than I had imagined—

one life’s work:
the muted earth to furrow,
the slight seed to sow,
a season’s yield to gather

with hands that learn
what they can hold.

J O HASELHOEF
LYING IN BED
I woke in the early morning, the sunlight shining through the

curtains onto the east-facing wall. I lay, looking at the stillness.
Reaching for my mobile to learn the time, I saw the world already
began. Headlines and real-life communications filled my screen with
journalistic leads about Hurricane Irma, North Korea, the end of the
Dreamers. On a personal level, a text flashed about our long-time senior
friends moving from their family farm, I listened to a voicemail from a
pastor asking if I could taxi a woman without a car to see her son, and I
read an email that my best friend did not get the job offer she desperately
needed.
Within the calamity, hardship, awfulness, fear, anger, and
problems for others, I own nothing but good fortune. Hurricanes, missiles,
and immigration won’t affect me directly. I worry about my friends, yet I
am outside of their decisions. Today, I am lucky. Tomorrow, it might be
me.
And yet, not appearing in any headline or social media was my
overall feeling of frustration, anger, and lack of power—a general sense
that had no exact source.
I don't like feeling as if I'm powerless. In the past, to regain my
sense of control, I fired off letters to my congressman about immigration
reform. I donated money to the former U.S. presidents’ hurricane relief
fund. I Googled to find groups who planned to march for peace.
Nowadays, chaos appears to reign: Is it my age, the fast-moving
technology, an irreverent president, climate change, new communication
styles, or…? Perhaps my confusion requires a new strategy. It may be I
need a more seductive, artful approach. Something more trusting? More
personal? Quieter, but stronger?
I turned to look again at the bedroom wall. There, five paintings
hung—each, green- and blue-hued. Their framed edges organized in a
way that their mass created a rectangle. A bit of area surrounded the
artwork and fit them comfortably on the grey space. I collected those five
paintings or drawings over many years—artworks I liked for their
appearance and the memories they brought.
A Haitian friend painted two of the six. Looking at those images
helped me remember the Haiti I knew when we visited—the pungent
2019, Autumn / 159
smell of the dinner fires, the heat and humidity on one’s skin, and the
green valley seen from the mountain top where we stayed.
Inherent in those images were the reasons we went to Haiti twice
a year for seven years—to help the village, where those paintings came
from, to improve its peoples economic conditions. We contacted
Americans to help them. The Americans were not in charge but could
help financially. They needed to trust the Haitians to solve their own
problems. That was a moment I did not feel powerless.
Two of the other artworks, my mother drew with pastels. The
subjects—children she met on her travels during World War II as a Red
Cross recreation worker. She encouraged me—learn a bit of the local
language, watch carefully, compliment a mother on her child, and play
with the kids. She knew where real diplomacy took place.
Tomorrow, I will take to heart my mother’s words. I will pack
cardboard boxes for the couple who is moving and neatly write the objects
held on the outside of each container. I will offer to drive the woman to
see her son and read a book during the three hours they chat. I will offer
to talk with my friend about her job prospects and hope her own
reflections can help her. That will be a moment I will not feel powerless.
I looked at the last of the five art pieces—swirls of disparate
colors on a rough surface. I stared as those shapes seemed to mix and
separate, combine and part. Their infinite imagined movements captured
my full attention and calmed me. I heard my breath flow in and out. I felt
quiet. In stasis.
There are times I’ve taken action, leading or participating in
activities with a group or as an individual. This period feels different. I
need to stay out of the maelstrom of the moment. I should withdraw, not
because I want to avoid involvement in the discourse, but because I must
engage in it—with clarity and timeliness. I will watch. I will listen. I will
absorb. Then, I will act.
I lie in bed. Now, I do not feel powerless.
MICHAEL ESTABROOK
FROM NOTHING
Physicists, astrophysicists, geophysicists, astrobiologists,

astronomers, cosmologists . . . all of them
state it like it’s clear, obvious,
irrefutable—in the beginning
of the universe there was nothing, nothing at all,
no space, no time, no matter, no energy, only emptiness.
Then suddenly out of the darkness
out of nowhere for no reason
like someone flipping a switch
an infinitesimally small speck of something-or-other
appeared then immediately exploded
into the Big Bang BOOM!!!
And the universe—everything there is
or was or ever shall be—
spiral galaxies, dwarf stars, planets, comets, asteroids,
black holes, quasars, quarks, dark matter, neutrinos,
gravitons, photons, mesons, and the Higgs Boson—
was formed just like that, from nothing,
absolutely nothing.
Seriously?
BATTERIES
I try to keep up but the youngsters
walk faster talk faster work faster eat faster
play faster learn faster . . .
“Becomes harder every year doesn’t it”
quips another old man at the beach
in his floppy hat and Growing Old Ain’t
for the Faint Hearted T-shirt
watching me taking up the rear
clutching onto my towel and chair.
Sure does but at least I made it
to the ocean
again this year best place
in the world to recharge the old batteries.
2019, Autumn / 161
KIDNEY
His kidney transplant is six months old

doing great but he stays home afraid
to move fearing it’ll be rejected
and he’ll die. Understandable.
But Rick are you exercising?
Doing some walking.
No, I mean exercising. Can you lift weights?
You need progressive resistance training
to strengthen your core, your back, chest, legs
and arms. It’ll make a new man
out of you. Start with light bench presses,
curls, deadlifts . . . and he’s staring wide-eyed
at me like I’m trying to claw
the new kidney out of his body.
WATCH ONLY MOVEMENT. WHAT A PERSON DOES IS

WHAT A PERSON MEANS.
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
Man’s Man
50 years after high school Jack’s roaming the Panhandle
gaming, gambling, golfing, new girlfriend 30 years his junior
same devil-may-care man’s man he always was.
Cousin Kathy
Hair pure white sticking straight up down the middle
of her head. “After
I almost died of cancer I said fuck it.”
Uncle Bob
Pace-maker, 3 knee replacements, new hip, takes
a ton of medicine. Yet never complains, positive, optimistic
about the future, turning 85.
Denzel
Denzel Washington in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar on Broadway.
Why bother for $1000 a week when you make
$20 million a picture? “Because it's Shakespeare.”
Ron
Ron’s wife ran off with his best friend.
At first inconsolable, then angry: “I gave her everything!”
Not realizing that no, no he hadn’t.
AT THE END
After The Scream painted by Edvard Munch
A man trapped
in nature
confused out of sync with nature.
Don’t know what to say to my brothers

hanging around wringing their hands waiting
for me to die
Hallucinating in coiling colors dark and bold

as he’s being bent and torn
by nature coming undone.
I’m only 61 the damn cancer appearing

out of nowhere unannounced uninvited unexpected
coming on suddenly
Is he screaming or about to scream?

Has he any recourse, anywhere to go?
I feel so isolated helpless hapless hopeless

so alone not knowing how to get out of this mess
He has no control
is captured and contorted by
his environment, with nature herself
just as the Romantics wanted to be
at the start of the Industrial Revolution.
And they came Katie and Emily with their guitars

and mandolins their long dark hair and tight jeans
and played Angel from Montgomery
keeping me alive for two more days
those dear sweet girls I miss them already
2019, Autumn / 163
GWEN NAMAINGA JONES

KWATA CHAMBA (HOLD YOUR HEART)
Excerpted from the first chapter of Jones’ debut novel,

Three Miles Too Far, Kwata Chanba is set in the
rural African village of Mwila in Southern Zambia.
Mukale narrates her story in English peppered with
native Ila expressions and gives us a glimpse of
archaic traditional customs still practiced today.
The news spread like a bushfire, crackling through the village,

gathering sparks as it leapt from hut to hut. Already a crowd had gathered
outside the main gate of the compound and the women were peering
through the fence to catch a glimpse of my sentencing; they had smelled
blood... I looked at the crowd and wondered Which one of you has done
this to me?
Holding my baby in my arms, I stood before what had once been
my home compound but now was an outdoor court. My accuser—my
husband, The Trader—towered over me at his great height and in his
authority.
I had been accused of having an affair, and thus I was banished
and ordered to return to my own people, to my father’s village of
Buswaka, three miles away.
How was it possible? I was only eighteen years old, a bride for
less than two years, and a mother for only seven months. How could my
husband, who seems so strong and kind, and who desired me so much,
turn so cruel? How does a man exile his wife and the mother of his child?
How can he send me walking alone, my breasts swollen and already
aching? How can he enforce the tribal law that our child will now become
his sole property?
Only a year and a half ago, The Trader had wanted me so much
that he had paid my father the highest bride-price ever known—twelve
fine cattle. He had seemed to fall in love with me; he’d held me every
night. He had watched me nurse our baby while he sipped his fine
whiskey and smiled.
All had been well, until this day I was called before him and, on
the basis of gossip—oh, how some of the older women in the village
hated me! They despised me for my youth and status as the bride of the
most prosperous and powerful man in Mwila. The whispers had snaked,
poisonous, around me, and then reached my husband, The Trader. I could
guess that the pernicious gossips of the village had resented me as the
young, pretty wife of The Trader and mother of his child. Their jealous
rumors of some “lover” had seeped like toxins into The Trader’s mind. He
was so many decades older than me; perhaps this made him susceptible.
He was handsome, this brown-haired giant of a man, but old enough to be
my grandfather. Perhaps he believed I wanted a young lover? But I had
truly loved him. He was warmer to me than my own father, and I had
found peace, resting against him in the night. I had listened to his great
heartbeat, felt his large, gentle hand playing with my hair.
I was accused, found guilty, and sentenced.
“You have to leave and go back to your people, Mukale, but you
will leave the child with me.”
I denied my guilt. My mouth dried out and my stomach cramped.
Eventually I found a word, one single word. “Why?” I could not speak the
rest of my thoughts—why do you believe the vicious gossips and not me?
There was a pounding in my ears that thrummed louder than the
ritual drum call of Shimunenga. Fear ran cold and hot, gushing high in my
blood. Fear is physical—my blood raced and my heart hammered.
I knew my husband’s sentence was irrevocable; no one crossed
him. After all, The Trader, Banyama, was almost as powerful as the
Chief.
“You dare to bring your customs to my home?” my husband
said—it was not a question, but an accusation… “Kubeta Lubambo may
be something familiar to your people, but it is not my way and I will not
stand for it.”
Kubeta Lubambo. For centuries my people, the Ba Ila, had
practiced a form of polyamory known as “Kubeta Lubambo,” the official
custom by which a married woman was allowed by society to take a lover,
who was announced through a public ceremony. Although the practice
Kubeta Lubambo still existed, it was less recognized in modern times and
was falling out of favor with my generation. I had not asked to take a
lover—I had not done so. I had no other lover. I did not want one. There
was no need. My husband had pleased me, satisfied me in every way a
man could please his bride.
“I…” I began to defend myself. I wanted to say that this was not
true…
“Quiet, I won’t have it.” My husband turned his face away from
me.
“Please…”
The Trader would hear no reasons or denials. I waited a few
2019, Autumn / 165
minutes and then rose from my crouched position on the floor. I knew
there would be no redeeming words that I could offer to explain myself;
the gavel had been thrown and arrangements for me were already
ordered—to return to my father’s compound, to his village. Three miles
away, three miles too far from the man I still loved, from my new home
and village. Would he really invoke the tribal law and take my baby away
from me? Could he have become so cold, to keep my little baby as his
property?
It did not matter that I was innocent. I turned and stared back at
my husband. His face was gray as granite, his lips pursed white; his
humiliation had blinded him. Even under the hot sun, I felt cold and began
to shiver.
I held onto my little daughter, my sweet baby Jinni, pale-brown-
skinned, so much lighter than I was (at least there was no doubt for The
Trader that he was her father). What would become of my baby now? The
Trader, not so long ago my loving husband, spoke the words—my baby
daughter must stay behind. She belonged to him, not to me. I would have
no right to her from this day forth…
Trying not to surrender to my dizziness, I again knelt to the earth
and let my baby slide from my arms onto the dirt. I memorized this
moment, for I knew it was most likely my last chance to hold my
daughter. How soft her baby skin was, how sweetly she looked up at me
with her shining eyes. Her small lips curved—her pretty smile. She could
not comprehend…yet. I inhaled her scent for the last time, breathed in her
infant fragrance, that perfume of her new skin and my milk, her silky bit
of hair.
How I wanted to pick her up, hold her close. I knew that I could
not. I couldn’t trust myself to kiss my baby daughter goodbye; it had to be
this way.
The infant carried my blood in equal amount to the blood of her
father; the two bloods flowed in separate streams like oil and water,
swirling within my little baby’s body and never mixing, an incompatible
condition which would remain and define Jinni as long as she lived. As if
understanding her fate, my little Jinni began to cry out—long, plaintive
wails unlike a usual baby cry. Jinni had seldom cried; she was a happy
baby—until now.
Turning, trying not to weep in public, I walked back to the rear of
the compound to my assigned cottage, which I had seldom used during
my short marriage, as my husband had preferred me to share his bed in
the big house. The long shadows of dusk loomed ominously and
accompanied me like animate beings. I did not look back, but felt
hundreds of pairs of eyes on my back and heard whispered voices that
would echo within me for all my life… I knew this was farewell to my
daughter, to my husband, to the village where I had known my brief
married happiness.
I was sentenced to leave by first light. My life as I had known it
was over. Had I known what awaited me in the wild land, I would have
been even more frightened. Perhaps my heart, beating hard in the cage of
my ribs, would have stopped.
The sun glared off a few zinc rooftops, and smoke wafted from
the cooking fires. As I approached the village, I could see Buswaka was
already a hive of activity. I could make out my father’s large thatched-
roofed compound; I could even inhale the distant cooking scents. The
thatching gleamed under the sun; women could be seen moving about,
carrying pots.
I reached the kitchen hut where the women were preparing
morning tea for my father. With a sigh, I set down my heavy bundle. The
women of Buswaka had already heard the news—gossip in the village
traveled almost as fast as real time, even if it was carried word-by-word
on the wind, from woman to woman. I was greeted by my brother’s wife,
Puma, my favorite sister-in-law of my brother’s four wives.
After an hour of waiting in the sun, I was summoned to see my
father, Muswaili, in his hut. I bent to avoid the lower eaves as I entered. In
a way, having been banished, it felt comforting to come home, to breathe
familiar smells, to see my own parents, who surely would believe me and
not the accusations.
My mother could not actually see me—she is beautiful and not so
old, but blind. She had been blind almost as long as I had known her. She
was blinded when I was age twelve, before my puberty. Now that I was
mother to Jinni, I thought, How sad, not to see your baby grow up. My
mother had loved me well.
She knew I had entered the hut and cried out my name in a soft
voice of welcome. I looked at her—her sightless eyes were open and
colored violet-blue, filmed by cataracts. She reached out for me to come
to her, and I did. Since early girlhood, upon greeting me, my mother had
always touched my breasts, to determine how much I had grown—now
she squeezed so hard, a bit of milk dripped from me. Her own breasts
hung emptied, like leather sacks, lying flat down her chest.
“You are a mutumbu; you have a baby,” she said. Her smile
shone—despite the fact that her upper front teeth were missing, knocked
2019, Autumn / 167
out, as was the cosmetic custom in her youth. She began to laugh in
happiness. I loved my mother, the joy she took in her life. How I wished I
could present Jinni to her.
My father was very unlike my mother, and I noted he had been
silent since I entered his hut. Now, he motioned me to sit on the floor
before him. He was tall and thin, and his voice rasped, like smoke in the
hut. He had four wives and twelve children. My mother was his first wife
and had the most status; I had fetched the unheard-of bride-price of twelve
cattle, which was also a source of pride—or it was…
I sat on the floor and we exchanged greetings; my father asked all
the usual questions—how I had slept and how I had been eating. After the
requisite polite period of pleasantries, I requested to return here, to my
father’s home, in light of my departure from my married home. “Please,”
I said. “I have nowhere to go.”
There was a long pause. I assumed the answer would be a
“welcome home.”
As the silence continued, my stomach clenched. Then I heard my
stomach actually growl, as if to fill the emptiness.
The longer the silence lasted, the louder my stomach sounded. I
remembered every indifferent moment he had shown my mother; how
little he had helped her in her blindness, how my sister Katiki was the one
to assist with our mother’s eating and walking. I pictured Katiki guiding
her, lifting the wooden spoon of porridge to her mouth. My father could
easily have helped my mother, but chose not to… Now, I thought of my
father drinking, how some nights he stank of liquor.
His voice sounded raspier than ever as he said, “That’s not
possible, Mukale. You have been a married woman now for more than a
year; while you were married, you refused to help us financially. You no
longer belong in my house. I cannot shelter or support you.”
A paralysis assailed me. I could not speak or move as my father
told me I was exiled, even here—I must go to a hut at the outskirts of the
family compound, in the wild land. That was all my father would provide
for me. My tongue went numb; there were no words. I could not and
would not question it; I knew that in our Ila culture, once one was given
such a declaration, it would be called rude to question. That had been the
law that governed my husband’s home, and now there were rules that
dictated what happened in my father’s home. The new life sentence bore
down on me. I was banished, in exile, and almost homeless. I must find
the strength to begin some sort of new life.
***
I fought back tears and was reminded of a woman, Kalindowalo,

the village freak who lived in a small lean-to on the outskirts of the
village. By all accounts, Kalindowalo had a mental illness that was not
understood in the village and had been branded as a witch, an outcast. As
children, the village girls and boys would throw stones at her and
Kalindowalo would chase them; the children, driven with fear at the
prospect of being caught, their hearts beating a wild tattoo, would run
their fastest to get away. I had always been intrigued by Kalindowalo and
wondered why she was in her predicament, but this brief curiosity would
always give way to some other pressing distraction. Yet, even as a child,
something held me back when the others threw stones. Now I felt sorry
for this tortured soul, and for the first time had compassionate thoughts
about her; I was now in the same disfavor as Kalindowalo and I had to
survive…
Walking out of my father’s darkened hut into the sunlight’s glare,
I realized how alone I was. My own father would not shelter me.
Staggering, I walked to the boundary of my father’s property,
deep in the wild land. In the distance, I could see the decaying reeds and
slanted walls of what had once been a small hut. The years of alternating
seasons—drenching rains followed by scorching sun—had taken their
toll.
My first night on the hard earth floor, I tossed and turned; I was
numb, I thought of my little baby daughter left behind and wondered if
she had been bathed and fed today. At last, in the predawn dark, I drew
my knees to my chest to warm myself and fell into a deep sleep. In my
dream, my baby lay next to me and nursed; I felt the draw on my breast
and the corresponding pull deep within me. When I woke, I was alone, my
chest soaked in milk.
I did not have a mattress and had been trying to sleep on the hard,
earthen floor of my new home.
I looked up to the roof of my shelter and saw why the night had
been so cold—the thatching of the roof was splintered and separated, in
desperate need of repair. I could see the hut had not been re-thatched in
several years, and thatching should be done prior to each rainy season.
How many years had this roof been open to the sky? As if on cue, the rain
began—lightly at first. A trickle…puddles started to appear around me. I
vowed to tackle this as soon I could…
When the new day began, I would have to plan for my survival. I
braced myself for what I would have to do.
I huddled in a ball on the floor of my new home, afraid to move
2019, Autumn / 169
lest I let in the cold drafts that would penetrate my small cocoon. Outside,
the rain pelted down, relentless in the fury of being held back through the
hot October. Now, in November, Luwanda began, the time when each
year, the Kafue Flats flooded with rainwater.
Suddenly, a sound cut through the falling rain—there was
movement just outside the hut—difficult to identify through the sound of
the downpour. What could it be? I heard something rubbing against the
outside of my hut; I felt the pressure as the weight of some animal shifted
the walls… He was trying to break into the hut.
Kwata Chamba, I said to myself. Hold your heart. I placed my
hand on my chest to steady the hammering of my heart. My heartbeat
pounded loud in my ears and drowned out all other sound. For the first
time since I left the homestead of the Trader, I was truly afraid. I was
terrified—not only of the animal outside that was threatening to break
through the makeshift door, but of the gravity of my aloneness.
The sound outside was symbolic of my state; having always lived
in community, a family compound, where solitude, but also loneliness,
were unknown—this feeling of exile was as menacing as the threat of the
wild animal outside. Or maybe they were the same? I had been discarded,
thrown to the predators—an unwanted, useless thing.
Grunt. Grunt. The animal’s grunts jolted me back to reality. First
I sensed, rather than seeing, the dull, yellowish eyes staring through the
crack above my makeshift door. Then, in the narrow opening, I saw—
glistening fangs bared in a snarl. I couldn’t make out what animal it
was—lion? Wild boar? Hyena? It didn’t matter—it was feral, dangerous.
Its senses had already alerted this predator that I was alone and helpless.
Prey. How quickly he could kill me with those teeth. One bite to the neck,
then he could shake me, and I would fall limp, dead. Then he could
devour me.
As I stared back at the fiery glare through the dark, the shiver
overcame me, and I began to tremble. Physical fear.
“Shoo, shoo.” I made a feeble attempt to frighten him, this
creature—as we glared at one another through the narrow open space, that
piece of rusted metal that so far prevented his entry. Would he push his
way in, pounce, and attack? Devour me on my first night alone here?
My voice, shaking: “Go away. Shoo,” only seemed to embolden
the creature to scratch and push harder against the door. Minutes passed—
I heard his panting, just inches away…my captor, my killer? As he could
smell me, I smelled him. The scent of old blood, rotten. I felt him, his
body heat—fever-hot.
Then I remembered the piece of dried meat in my bag. I could use

it to distract the animal, and perhaps it would leave me alone.
With my eyes held fast on his glowing yellow-red stare, I crept
toward my bag, retrieved the dried meat, and threw it over the gap in the
door—I used all my strength to hurl it as far as possible.
It worked. The animal, which I now sensed was a hyena—those
close-set eyes—ugly, not like the beautiful but dangerous eyes of a lion,
pounced on the meat, ate it. I heard it tear at the flesh, growling in its
voracious appetite… Then, too soon—seconds? It had eaten all the meat
and rebounded to my door. He wanted more. My mistake. His appetite
was not sated, but whetted…
We stared at one another in silence. I smelled him closer now—
that decay of other blood meals on his teeth. I picked up the stink of his
fetid fur. I had no more meat; I had nothing to offer, no peace offering.
The rain began to pound harder. The water poured, rather than trickled,
into my hut. Outside, it was a deluge.
I didn’t know how long the hyena and I stared at each other
through the early morning light.
Perhaps the hyena had been inhabiting this hut for some time and
wondered who had given me permission to use it now? Eventually the
rain paused, and my new visitor gave a final growl, deep in his throat.
The metal door resettled in place—he had stopped pressing
against it. I could envision the hyena in the darkness, as he loped away.
Then, silvered by the rain, the first shaft of light appeared through
the largest hole in the roof. I sat under its thin beam and drew myself
closed, my face to my knees, now shaking from relief, and began to feel
the warmth of the weak sun.
The night had ended, and my new life had begun.
2019, Autumn / 171
CHRISTY WISE
CARDBOARD SLIDING
A nail?
When did you step on a nail?
Where?
Silence.
An eight-year-old’s confusion.
Summer days glide one into another.
The baseball field?
Walking along the railroad tracks?
Cardboard sliding?
Her mind screened through

the past few days,
hovering on cardboard sliding.
It was more exciting than usual.

Dry grass was extra slick,
just the right size cardboard flat
left by another child.
She smiled.
And you think this is funny?

We’ll have another doctor’s bill.
You might get an infection.
The weapon, it turned out,

was not a nail.
But a needle,
from her mother’s chaotic
sewing room.
She used crutches for weeks,

suffered no infection.
After that,
in her mother’s sewing room,
everyone wore shoes.
NIKKI HAGGAN
“A WEIGHT OFF MY CHEST”
If it’s true ‘bigger is better,’ then why is breast reduction surgery

“one of the most commonly requested and most predictably successful
plastic surgery procedures” as the American Society of Plastic Surgery
website says? It’s true—we live in a breast-obsessed culture, where large
breasts are for some reason coveted. We’re bombarded by cleavage daily
on magazine covers, TV cameras zoom conspicuously toward the chest,
and celebrities like Angelina Jolie, who underwent a double mastectomy
for a serious health concern, face backlash.
The truth is big boobs can be a burden. Though some women are
still willing to pay upward of $3500 on implants, those who were
genetically cursed with a large rack understand the discomfort. Ladies, big
boobs aren’t as glamorous as society makes them out to be. The back
pain, the rashes, the sacrifice of support over style. More and more
women are opting for breast reduction, a procedure with a reported 90%
satisfaction rate six months after the surgery. I am one of those women.
Personally, I’m 4’10” and was somewhere between a D and a
DD, depending on which store I bought bras. That was a lot of weight to
carry around on such a short frame. My boobs made me look much
heavier than I actually was. I’d always been active—I hike with my
family, jump rope, and I’ve danced my whole life. For a while I thought if
I exercised more and lost weight, my boobs would get smaller. I
eventually learned from my surgeon that most of the weight, in my case,
was actually dense breast tissue. A lot of the women in my family have
pretty large chests, so I guess I was destined to as well. Even if I ran every
day and slimmed down the rest of my body, my boobs probably wouldn’t
have changed much. And doubling up on sports bras was getting to be a
pain.
Sometimes there’s this attitude of “well, so many women pay to
get bigger boobs. Appreciate what you’ve got!” I think we forget that
every person is different. Everyone has different body types, different
genetic factors, and different proportions. It’s not about other girls or
other women, and it’s not about what men “like.” I had big boobs but I
was never ogled. And I think we sometimes forget to consider how it
affects young girls who are ogled. It’s about the individual.
In reality, most of the women in Hollywood and the fashion
industry aren’t so stacked. Photoshop, lighting techniques, and clothing
choices create the illusion of bigger boobs, yet ultimately clothing stores
2019, Autumn / 173
do not accommodate women who actually have big boobs. All the larger
size bras are matronly and bland. I’d tried wearing “minimizer” bras
which sort of helped, I guess, depending on what kind of shirts I wore. I
never wore tank tops. Dress shopping was a nightmare that always ended
up in tears of frustration and snapping at my mom who just wanted me to
stop beating myself up. Finding a dress that fit my chest meant sacrificing
a good fit for the rest of my body. I didn’t even wear a dress for my high
school graduation—I opted for a skirt and blouse because that fit better.
Separates are fine, but it would have been nice to at least have more
control over my outfit selection. Bathing suits—ha, forget about it. I had
to order tops off the internet and even then I did not want to be seen and
the tie on the bikini top really hurt my neck.
For those considering breast reduction, it can be weird to think
about the surgery as removing part of yourself, but I can guarantee, if
you’ve felt the same as I did, breast reduction is so worth it.
I had the surgery in July 2012 at age 19, the summer before my
second year of college. While they administered the anesthesia and put
those circulation boots on my feet, the nurses asked me about school in
Boston. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was one of the
nurses telling me her son goes to Tufts—I don’t think they even had me
count down like they do in movies. I was out quickly.
The surgery was same-day, so I woke up a few hours later in
another section of the facility. A nurse was standing to my left, and my
mom and dad were seated to my right. It was great to see them! My dad
had taken work off that day to take me and wait with me in the waiting
room, and my mom had ducked out of work once the surgery was
finished. Let me tell you, those two are more supportive than any bra. I
had surgical tape, bandages, and a Velcro surgical bra underneath my
button-down flannel shirt. They say to wear button-down tops for a few
days after the surgery, until you get full range of motion back in your
arms. I doubt I looked red-carpet ready, but walking out to the car in my
flannel shirt and comfy basketball shorts, holding my pillow, I felt the
most beautiful I had in a while. I could already feel the difference and I
could already tell getting this weight off my chest would change a lot of
things. I remember my surgeon telling me I ended up losing a pound from
each. I am now a happy C cup. C for comfortable and confident.
(A companion piece appeared in Evening Street Review #21)

CHARLES RAMMELKAMP
IN THE CLEARING STANDS A BOXER
Only fifteen when he became

Middleweight Champion of Greece—
All-Balkans Middleweight Champ the following year—
Salamo Arouch, “The Ballet Dancer,”
had never lost a fight
when the Nazis deported his family,
along with 60,000 other Jews,
from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz.
The Nazis killed his parents,

his three younger sisters,
almost the minute
they got out of the cattle car,
but when they learned Salamo was a boxer,
they spared him for their entertainment,
their gambling pleasure.
Two or three times a week
The Ballet Dancer got into the ring,
fighting for his life over 200 times,
the losers sent to the gas chambers or shot.
Undefeated at Auschwitz
though he’d had to fight twice
while recovering from dysentery—
Salamo was sent next to Bergen-Belsen,
liberated in April 1945,
still standing, if bloodied, scarred,
after the final bell,
but you can bet he’d carry the reminders
in his anger and his shame
until the day he died in 2009.
2019, Autumn / 175
JANET AMALIA WEINBERG & MARGARET KARMAZIN

THE OLDING CHALLENGE
I worked at night, after everyone had gone home and taken their
raised eyebrows and false smiles with them. I may have been one of the
first females to chair a major university physics department but once I
retired, I became just another little old lady. Granted, they made me an
emeritus but they expected me to share an office with a student—a
student!—and over time, people stopped coming by to consult with me or
swap ideas. They probably thought a shrinking, wrinkled woman with
thinning gray hair and some memory loss didn't have any.
I had some heavy-duty pity parties at first and used to imagine
throwing the whole damn department into a black hole—until I started to
appreciate my ignominious position.
When I was a kid, my grandmother used to tell me about another
world. “It’s right here, right now,” she’d say, “only most people can’t see
it.” I believed her and decided to become a scientist when I grew up so I
could find this other world myself. At the start of my professional life,
however, “other worlds” was a subject for stoners not aspiring physicists
and I couldn't risk my career on it. But I no longer had a career; I was free
to finally do the work I’d always wanted.
It took years before I made my breakthrough. No one knew
anything about it. I kept my equipment locked in my office closet and
never discussed the project with anyone. At one point, I got so sick of
being patronized, I almost revealed my discovery to Patel, the guy who'd
replaced me as department head. Fortunately, it never happened. When I
knocked on his office door at the time of our appointment, he yanked it
open, yelled, “I told you I was too busy!” and shut the door in my face. I
was devastated at the time but with hindsight, realized my work was so
radical, he might have dismissed me as demented or barred me from the
lab.
At least Lisa, the student who shared my office at the time of the
breakthrough, respected me. Sometimes I'd even go to the office early,
just to run into her. I missed being around the energy and optimism of
youth and Lisa had plenty of both. I'd grab a coffee, she'd fill up her water
bottle and off we'd go for a jaunt around the quad or sometimes we'd just
hang out on the couch and visit. Mostly, Lisa talked about her career,
men, babies—the usual young women worry about, but one day she asked
me why I became a physicist. I hesitated but decided to tell her about
Grandma’s other world. At first, Lisa looked at me like I was nuts. In my

defense, I said that even though Gran might have been a bit far out, she
could still have been on to something. It was humiliating—the once head
of the department pleading for approval from a second-year student.
But Lisa seemed delighted. “That’s what you're working on?” she
exclaimed. I knew I could trust her when she added, “Patel would shit a
camel if he knew.” Then she said something that really touched me. “I'm
honored you told me. Truly.”
Not long after, the time came to put my work to the test. It was
around midnight and I was checking my apparatus for the umpteenth time.
I flipped the switch on the receptors, set the focusing coordinates and
watched as an approximately four by five foot area of space in the center
of the room began to ripple. That was my great discovery. In the process
of researching hyper-dimensional space, I’d stumbled upon this
phenomenon. I didn’t know how it got there but was fairly certain that it
was a link or portal to a hyper-dimension. Once I figured out how to hold
it in focus, I started testing it. Everything I'd already placed in the area of
oscillation—organic as well as inorganic, had disappeared and reappeared
intact when I re-set the focus. Now it was my turn.
Unfortunately, if I wanted to come back, the equipment had to
remain set up during my absence. The shimmery patch of space would be
visible as well. I had no idea when—or even if—I'd return but counted on
my lack of importance to keep people out of my office. As for Lisa, I
trusted her enough by then to leave a note asking her not to worry or
interfere.
I re-checked the controls one last time, stood at the border of the
rippling area and before I could change my mind, stepped in. There was a
deafening roar … every cell in my body seemed to vibrate . . . I felt I was
spinning and spinning….
I must have blacked out. When I came to, I found myself in a
windowless room about the size of my own office. It was bare except for
a strange apparatus in one of the corners. I cracked the door open and saw
an unlit physics lab. The workbenches and equipment were all similar to
but oddly different from what I was used to in my lab. It was hard to
believe I was actually in another world, but what else could I think?
Suddenly, a man burst into the lab, turned the lights on and yelled
that he’d been looking for me.
It was Dr. Patel! Instinctively, I stepped back and shut the door.
But was it Patel? The man didn’t sound angry or arrogant but rather,
seemed relieved to find me. And his clothes! A velvet kimono jacket and
2019, Autumn / 177
bell-bottom pants? The Patel I knew was the tweed jacket and khaki
slacks type. I cracked open the door for a second look.
Patel amiably drew me out, said everyone was waiting and
hurried us through the lab, down a hall and into a conference room.
As I entered the room, a woman who looked just like me was
coming through another door! I stared, speechless. She, and the five or six
other people present seemed just as stunned.
Patel’s look-alike broke the silence. He said they had been
expecting something like this but it was still hard to believe. Then he
introduced me to the other woman. “This is Dr. Marty Kravitz,” he said.
“And you are?”
I could barely speak. That was my name, only I called myself,
“Martha” not “Marty.”
The Patel guy adjourned the meeting to give Marty and me a
chance to get used to each other and the group broke up.
Still dazed, I followed my double to her office—a prestige-palace
compared to the dump I worked in. She led me to a cozy sitting area and
we just sat and looked at each other for a while. Like me, she had a flat,
Slavic face, high cheekbones and s stocky build. Unlike me, she had a
relaxed glow that reminded me of what my girlfriends used to call the
“just laid look.” Only it was different… deeper… more present. In fact
everything about her—from her silvery chignon to her stylish slacks and
suede boots—had pizzazz. In comparison, I felt like a schlump.
But was she really real? It's one thing to mathematically calculate
the existence of hyper-dimensional realities and quite another to
physically be in one. It was all so hard to believe.
Marty interrupted my thoughts to suggest that, until proven
otherwise, we should both assume that each of us was real.
It was like looking in a mirror and hearing my reflection talk to
me.
As it turned out, she was also a physicist and had been concerned
with the same questions I had, only her work was way ahead of mine.
When I observed that I had merely discovered the portal but she had
created it, Marty said she may have been the lead investigator but her
whole department had been involved.
‘Her whole department’! I thought about all my lonely hours in
the lab after midnight and felt my blood start to boil. But this was no time
for resentment. I stood up, anxious to see her lab and hear about her work,
but she leaned back in her chair and said she was facing the Olding
Challenge now and didn’t go to the lab much anymore.
‘The olding challenge?’

When Marty realized I had no idea what she was talking about,
she said that each life stage has unique tasks and that the task for an
Olding was, at least for her, the most difficult.
“Like how to quietly disappear into the woodwork?” I joked.
She wasn’t amused and said the Olding Challenge was about
facing losses that come with age—loss of loved ones, loss of health, and
ultimately, loss of life.
I thought she must be going through something awful, like maybe
someone close was dying. Or maybe she was. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
She seemed puzzled by my reaction, then explained, as if to a five
year old, that loss can constrict those who face it with fear and despair and
expands those who react with gratitude and compassion and that her
world values such expansion and regards people who achieve it as great
souls and teachers.
None of that made sense to me, of course, but then suddenly it
did! For a moment, my mind seemed to turn inside out: I saw my
resentment for Patel and realized how foolish it was; he wasn’t malicious,
just ignorant. And the poor man had no idea that by demeaning me, he
was demeaning his own future older self.
I must have looked confused because Marty stood up, put her arm
around my shoulder and suggested we get some fresh air.
The neighborhood around the school looked like college towns
back home. There were bars and cafes and lots of young people coming
and going. There were older people too and some had the same glow that
Marty had. And that I didn’t.
Marty noticed the difference too. She observed—in as nice a way
as possible—that I seemed diminished and wondered if I was having a
hard time facing the Olding Challenge
“Me and everyone else,” I said.
She looked concerned and suggested we stop for tea so we could
talk.
We entered a cozy cafe and chose a table with a yellow tablecloth,
a small vase with daffodil-like flowers and a view of the street. Right off,
she wanted to know how Oldings were treated in my world and looked
more and more disturbed as I told her.
Soon a waiter arrived and while Marty ordered for us, I watched a
group of teens stroll past the window. They all had white hair!
Marty smiled at my surprise and said it was 'in' to look old.
She wasn’t joking. In fact she was surprised that I couldn’t
2019, Autumn / 179
imagine anything about women our age that girls might wish to emulate.
Our order arrived and I got lost in the marzipan and sherry-like
taste of my creamy pink ’tea.’ When my attention turned back to Marty,
she looked grim and asked if Midlers ran my world without input from
Oldings.
'Midlers' it turns out are what Marty’s world calls those who are
up against the challenges of middle-age. Without input from Oldings, she
explained, Midlers might get a lot done but they’d be driven by their egos
and hormones to constantly reach for more or better. And “the poor
things”—that’s actually what she called people who are in the prime of
life—the poor things probably don’t even realize how out of balance they
are and shouldn’t be trusted with our discovery. She worried they would
use it for self-aggrandizement or that the military might take it over and
turn it into a weapon. I had to admit she was probably right.
In the end, she urged me to return home at once and shut down
the portal—at least until my world became more balanced. Right off, I
knew that meant I could never come back. We sat for a while in heavy
silence. She looked as glum as I felt but suddenly lit up and said, if I went
back and destroyed my equipment, she would hold the portal open just
long enough for me to return to her world and stay.
Stay?! That set off an upheaval inside me. I imagined life at
home—the lab, the people who ignored me. It would only grow worse as I
got older. On the other hand, everything and everyone I knew was there.
And I still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that Marty's world was really
real. I needed time to think.
As Marty walked me back to the portal she said I could have three
days to decide. I entered the shimmering space with a heavy heart and
almost immediately conked out.
Next I knew, I was sitting on the couch in my office. And I wasn’t
alone. Patel—my Patel—and a man in uniform had their backs to me and
were examining my equipment. With a new sense of confidence, I walked
right up to them and asked what was going on.
They both spun around and froze when they saw me. The
uniformed guy recovered first. He grabbed my arm and barked, “How'd
you get in here?”
“Release me!” I said with authority I hadn't felt in years. And he
did! So I turned to Patel and asked him what was going on.
He sputtered but managed to explain that a strange instrument had
been discovered in my office. “It seems to be generating unexplained
oscillations,” he said. “Word got out and now the army is taking over.”
With a look that could kill, he introduced the other man as Colonel Clark.
I asked Clark to leave my office but he totally ignored that.
“You’ll need to be debriefed,” he said, “even if you know nothing about
what’s going on here.”
‘Know nothing about it'? My mind shifted to high gear. I knew
the man would probably confiscate my equipment or take over the whole
lab and I knew I had to stop him. Luckily I’d had the foresight to install
an auto-destruct program in the controls. There was no way to alert Marty
to keep the Portal open. My plan was to initiate the self-destruct command
with, what I hoped would be, enough of a delay for me to make it through
the Portal before it imploded.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I am responsible for this!”
The look on Patel’s face was priceless: confusion, dismay,
disbelief, anger.
“You?” he said.
Colonel Clark took over. “What do you know about that
apparatus?”
My age worked in my favor now. “Let me show you how it
works,” I said with grandmotherly sweetness.
As I slowly backed toward the instrument, I realized I didn’t hate
Clark or Patel for what they were making me do; their world was so out of
balance, they couldn’t know any better. And in the time it took to re-
position the device and discreetly start the self-destruct program, I
suddenly decided to stay in the world I was in. There was so much these
poor Midlings didn’t understand; it was time Oldings stepped in to help.
MILTON J BATES
SUMMER OF ’63
It was a freakish accident in gym class,

the last before graduation, that changed
my summer plans. I could still indulge
in dates and drive-ins, sunning at the beach
and concerts. But I couldn’t take the job
I was counting on to save for college.
The gas station owner shook his head.
Who could use a kid with a broken hand?
2019, Autumn / 181
My father, for one. He hired my good hand

to stain the half-log siding on our cabin
in the north woods. Somehow I managed
with one arm, moving the ladder to stay
in the shade, handling brush and bucket
while swatting deer flies. A plastic bag shed
splatters of stain from the bandaged hand.
Several days into staining, I stopped

feeling sorry for myself long enough
to notice I wasn’t alone. Quail took
dust baths in the driveway. A woodchuck
waddled to the meadow from its den beneath
our shed. Bats and nighthawks skimmed insects
from the sky at dusk. A whip-poor-will
rehearsed a single phrase on its slide whistle.
Maybe you have to be broken just
enough to mend in ways you didn’t know
you needed to mend. Fresh from high school,
I was still too smart, still too intact, to know
what I needed. The stain was barely dry
on the siding when I packed my gear
and drove one-handed back to the city.
MARK HALPERN
TAKEDA-SENSEI, THE ENEMY
It was right then—the moment Takeda-sensei heard I would start

up my own law firm—that I realized he was a greedy bastard. A control-
freak greedy bastard. A puffed-up control-freak greedy bastard. Staring
down into his shiny gold cufflinks as if they reflected an awing self
entitled to absolute and permanent loyalty from those he commands, like
some feudal lord of old. Like the great samurai lord of a magnificent
domain, and not merely the proprietor of a small law office.
He grasped that I would take away clients—I saw his shudder.
Calm returned, and his buttery courtroom voice instantly promised

cooperation and friendship. But I’d seen the shudder; his words were not
to be construed literally. Before that shudder, I hadn’t perceived the very
badness of him. Adversaries I’ve always had. But I’d never, at least since
childhood, regarded another human being as enemy. To this day, Takeda-
sensei remains my sole true enemy.
I mechanically recited a brief speech, describing my plans with
clarity and resolution, and felt hatred. And a rising desire for combat.
Then, understanding we were already in combat, I stared a few seconds
into Takeda-sensei’s eyes, summoning up the “stern” look I’d used for
scumbag defendants when I was a prosecutor, and, then, walked ten hard
steps or so back to my own office. I closed the door. I patted the cold
sweat off my face and neck with a small towel kept hanging, together with
a full spare set of business attire, including several ties, in the wardrobe
closet. Mounted inside was a small, square mirror, and when I saw my
face—pale, like a stone—the laughter came. Only because I’m consti-
tutionally incapable of taking myself seriously. That silly laughter. It in no
way implies any reduction in anger or hatred.
Anger fades, but hatred is forever. It’s what will make me always
refer to my enemy as “Takeda-sensei,” the respectful way of addressing a
lawyer or doctor, etc. I will unfailingly acknowledge his formal status—
people will understand that “sensei” also implies a distance between him
and me. I won’t say “Mr. Takeda” even when speaking in English with
people who know nothing of Japan.
The laughter can be unpredictable. Mostly it is emitted when I
confront people who regarded me as their enemy. For example, Tony
Lappano once challenged me to fight him after final period; I laughed; he
failed to show up and then avoided me through the remainder of junior
high. Or my cousin Freddy, who let his parents think that I had broken a
lamp when we were horsing around—though I only found this out much
later. He thought I laughed because his deceit looked humorous from a
distance of so many years. And there was an obnoxiously-competitive
first-year associate at the Wall Street firm where I started my career but
soon had to leave. He learned I’d been assigned to redo a research memo
he’d botched up, and initiated a rumor that during the Christmas Party I’d
been caught drunkenly peeing onto the bathroom wall. On those
occasions, once the laughter was over I felt forced into harsh action to
ensure the malfeasors suffered. Not as revenge, but only so they
understood there’d be more to come were I pushed further.
I am no longer a child. Law school disciplined my intellect and
2019, Autumn / 183
has allowed me to refine my analysis of when and how instances of

badness should be punished. As for Takeda-sensei, it was still unclear
whether his malice of mind would lead to a wrongful act. Nonetheless, as
on the earlier occasions, I laughed.
You see, I might laugh even when not put into the position of
having to inflict punishment, in the strict sense of such concept. Thus,
during my stint at the District Attorney’s office, the laughter came
whenever I conducted brutal cross examinations. Each time—invariably a
successful performance—I afterwards raced down the courthouse hallway
to the lawyers’ bathroom, where I burst out laughing at myself; usually
defense counsel didn’t catch me. I was only doing my job. But my job
was an act. Just like now and just like the rest of life.
Frankly speaking, when first giving thought to starting my own
office I realized Takeda-sensei might cause difficulties. Even back then,
back when I still thought of him as my friend and my teacher—my sensei,
in the literal sense. So I kept my intentions hidden, as well as my actual
preparations.
Building a prospective clientele was key. I’d approach business-
men sitting in Starbucks and ask help with terminology in a Japanese
financial newspaper. Their surprise at the sophistication of my questions
made it easy to start conversations. Wealthy oddballs make particularly
good clients, so I’d aim for expensively-dressed guys with pointy
moustaches, excessively-small hats, cravats, or brightly-colored socks. I
got many leads. By the day I learned Takeda-sensei was my enemy, I’d
grown confident about my future.
That day, I gave him three weeks’ notice, per my employment
contract, notwithstanding that under Japanese law such requirement was,
arguably, unenforceable. Afterwards, once I’d stopped laughing, I went
home and called existing clients. I’d originally thought to target only the
few I’d helped bring to Takeda & Associates. But following my meeting
with Takeda-sensei, I figured he’d try to thwart my plans by making his
own phone calls. So I went after more clients, which I believe was only
fair. By the time I actually departed, my prospects looked very good
indeed.
Except that Takeda-sensei refused to pay my bonuses—that for
the preceding calendar year and the pro-rated bonus for the current year.
The total was somewhere between ten and ninety thousand dollars—
Japanese-style contracts tend to be slightly vague—but he repudiated the
entire obligation. It’s true that at our meeting I claimed well over a
hundred thousand, but that was simply an opening gambit. I’d have settled
for much less. Then, on my last day—the very day payment was due—he
brazenly ripped me off, handing me a memo with some bogus legal
argument. Utter bullshit. Definitely not bona fides.
Since I’d earmarked the bonus money for initial expenses,
finances were excruciatingly tight. Fortunately, I could immediately
invoice several clients for work already completed at the old firm.
Technically speaking, that was improper, as probably was my speaking
with Takeda & Associates clients before I’d left there. But in the
circumstances I consider these steps not only entirely reasonable, but to
have been forced upon me by Takeda-sensei. Anyway, he wouldn’t
embarrass himself before the clients by stirring up trouble over this. Also,
I vowed never to make peace unless and until he paid me at least thirty-
five thousand dollars, plus six percent annual interest, plus an apology.
But Takeda-sensei would never pay and never apologize. This I
knew from having watched his strategy in zero-sum-game scenarios
throughout our years on the same side. He’d always commit to non-
negotiable positions, which I now recognize as evidence of his
fundamentally very bad character.
We would now play our own zero-sum game and I was committed
to winning. But there is a correct sequence: First take care of business.
Then Takeda-sensei.
I worked diligently, hoping that within two years I’d be in a
position to hire my own associate lawyer. Meanwhile, to drum up more
clients, one step was to meet with Japanese lawyers who might
occasionally need help from a foreigner like me, and I particularly
cultivated relationships with those who might be on bad terms with
Takeda-sensei. But, although my professional network grew, no one gave
me dirt I could use against him.
Still, I often heard stories about Takeda-sensei. Reading between
the lines, I found corroboration of his greed and also his obsession with
control. Small details could be telling. Such as when he jumped the queue,
as if accidentally, to get an extra serving of sea bream at a bar association
function. Such as when he tried to limit a karaoke evening to a certain
musical genre. Eventually I realized it was unnecessary to decide between
his motivations—the control obsession and the greed. Both were
malicious.
So many hours I’d spent with Takeda-sensei—I should have
predicted his turn to evil. I’d heard about his grandfather’s grandfather, a
high ranking retainer to a great daimyō lord, before the samurai class was
abolished. Later, the family lost their wealth with the postwar inflation
2019, Autumn / 185
and land reforms. But I always detected Takeda-sensei’s pride of heritage.

Sometimes I think he only became a lawyer because the shi in bengoshi—
“lawyer”—is written with the ideogram that means samurai.
Perhaps he thought his erstwhile kindnesses gave him the right to
a measure of loyalty. If so, his greed destroyed that right. Any claim on
my loyalty as might once have been justifiably asserted had been vitiated
and should, I would argue, be regarded as void ab initio.
Eight months passed. My billable hours were healthy. It was time
to act.
But I had to contend with Takeda-sensei’s reputation in the legal
community, his high-powered connections, his known ruthlessness and,
also, the paucity of documentary evidence that might compel support for
me in the mind of a third party who didn’t know Takeda-sensei as I did. I
myself had little reputation. Not only was I a foreigner, but I’d
deliberately kept a low profile to avoid drawing attention to certain
aspects of my pre-Japan career. So financial compensation was
unrealistic. Anyway, there are other forms of justice.
Thus, I decided to inflict punishment. In the strict sense. Further,
for the reasons cited in the immediately-preceding paragraph, prudence
dictated that I avoid being identified as the source of Takeda-sensei’s
coming troubles. The day will come when he’ll know—perhaps on his
deathbed. Perhaps he’ll think I’ll be visiting him there to make up. But for
now, caution was in order.
I compiled a list of restaurants that delivered to Takeda-sensei’s
neighborhood—where we’d once spent so much time together. Then,
twice a month, at random intervals, I arranged late-evening deliveries to
his home, though only a few pizza places would deliver as late as
midnight. It was helpful that this technique, though widely known among
my grade school friends, seemed new to Japan. But the operation was
complicated by the need to hire someone trustworthy to make the phone
calls. Also, I anonymously sent each restaurant cash corresponding to
double the price of the order. I myself would act justly. It was only
Takeda-sensei who merited punishment.
There was more.
Three years earlier Takeda-sensei had quit smoking following a
respiratory ailment. During evening, after work, he’d often talked about
his craving for tobacco and his fear that his willpower would crack. I
started sending cartons of cigarettes to his office, again at random
intervals and twice per month. I’d use different courier services and
variously-sized parcels marked “personal” or “confidential,” identifying
as senders the names of his clients. He’d have to open the parcels himself.
I also sent letters purportedly from Takeda-sensei to every
Japanese legal publisher: Huge numbers of law books, in multiple copies,
arrived at his office. Sometimes I called his home very late at night from
pay phones and hung up when he answered, until he got an unlisted
number. I posted humiliatingly-stupid comments in his name on internet
sites that discussed cross-border legal issues.
My law practice continued to expand and I hired an associate
sooner than expected, which allowed more time to fight my enemy. My
further tactics included, without limitation, a timely cancellation of credit
cards, well-placed blobs of chewing gum, bogus criminal complaints, and
the sending of phony gifts on Valentine’s Day.
During the New Year holiday period, Takeda-sensei and his wife
always took their grandchildren to Maui. I waited for January. Then, in the
darkness of the earliest hours, when people wander about headed to local
Shinto shrines, I slipped through bushes in front of his house and
squeezed the inside parts of two rotten bananas under his door. When he
returned a week later he’d find a horrible, stinking mess in the genkan of
his beautiful home, where I’d once been welcome. Afterwards, as always,
I laughed. Even though the matter was so serious.
At last, amidst the miscellaneous reports came word of a positive
development. Takeda-sensei had been seen smoking. And coughing. That
night I got home and imagined him smoking and coughing, smoking and
coughing, smoking and coughing. This, after he and I had once promised
each other to give up smoking forever, shaking hands solemnly, and then
celebrating our joint success again and again.
Justice had been achieved. Someday Takeda-sensei would die
from lung disease. I need not take additional steps.
Still, I will definitely not go to wash his gravestone and adorn it
with flowers, the way they do it here in Japan. Not unless he or his
surviving family apologizes and pays me at least thirty-five thousand
dollars plus interest. But that won’t happen.
Takeda-sensei is a greedy, bogus-samurai bastard. But that’s not
why I laugh and laugh.
2019, Autumn / 187
DIANA PINCKNEY
HUMMINGBIRDS AND WINE
Drinking and watching

from the deck, I surprise
myself by smiling, finally laughing
at the fight and flight

of the only bird able to fly
backwards. They buzz

over our red feeder, chirr-chirring
through heavy air

in this late light
that I love, so close

I see the beating of their frenzied
hearts and raise

my glass to the life
surging in those tiny bodies.
I think of my daughter’s
heart, stilled
by the wine she fought
in her last flight.

FLORENCE LEVINE
‘GRANDMA?’
Before I heard the news I never fathomed myself a grandmother,

though it would've made perfect sense, both girls married. Free as a
winged butterfly, my days filled with the gym, writing class, or spur-of-
the-moment dinner with friends. On a good day with a spring in my step, I
was Jack Benny’s ’39.’
One sunny Tuesday life-as-I-knew-it changed. My daughter and
son-in-law say “sit!” hand me the package. The unwrapped bib in my
hand verifies what I'm hearing, “The baby is due in May.” Their words
jolt me out of my youth. My mind slips into a reverie of young me, the
grandchild. I step back in time to the magical protected place at my
grandmother's. It's a Friday night sleepover. The house is dimly lit in
observance of the Shabbos (Sabbath). Random low lights are left on.
Candles light dark corners of rooms, she and I in curled up in a big chair
as she regaled me with stories, some about little me. Not until later do I
realize the rich legacy I have to pass on to a granddaughter of my own.
A friend of mine recently became ‘Grandpa.’ I watch him feed
little Zach in his high chair, spooning applesauce from the jar to baby's
mouth. His joy flows out in dramatized “I love you’s.” My friend like me,
is still 39. I feel his hand outstretched leading me into this alien new-
grandma era. Like geraniums in summer, grandmothers are ubiquitous,
dotting restaurants, parks and zoos. But the word ‘grandma’ sounds
foreign if it means me.
Several months later I meet her, sprawled across my daughter in
the hospital bed. I am unexpectedly and instantly transformed: ‘She lay
tiny and still, except for the rise and fall of her diaphragm. Her six pounds
warm my lap like a kitten, ten minuscule silken fingers in mine. We
remain like this simply, breathing together. Our own private cocoon
transcends the larger hospital room. In this moment I'm the only
grandmother. And she's the only baby. I feel a surge of protectiveness,
wanting life to be better for her, to correct some of the mistakes I made
with my own kids.
This time I'd give positive messages instead of the negative ones I
received, then passed on like a baton to my own kids. I've since gained
wisdom and perspective.
Several months later while babysitting I anticipate an afternoon
devoid of words and probably, boring. Instead, surprisingly, I’m in an
2019, Autumn / 189
Alice-in-Wonderland-like oasis. Daniella's relaxed into my lap, nestled, as

I read her “The Very Clumsy Click Beetle,” by Eric Carl. She bolts
upright as the page comes alive with clicking, small fingers tracing a red
poppy flower. Then, with a twist of her torso doing a 180 from the waist
up, she positions herself squarely face to face with me. From there with
great focus, she studies my mouth as if to trace the source of the words
she's hearing and verify they are indeed, coming out of grandma. Her
inch-long fingers strong beyond their size grip my hair like the tow of a
ton derrick, really hurting, and forcing a laugh out of me, knowing, there
is no place I would rather be.
I remember back to when I was the young mother. ‘What was I
thinking?’ I yell at my younger self, focused on the treadmill of life,
rushing to pick up that container of milk, get to that birthday party on
time. So much seemed pressing. Today I see clearly past the chores.
Winter wanes, and springs mild air arrives. Strolling around the
backyard carrying Daniella, arms wrapped around each other, we follow
the musical chorus of birds. Their sound system surpasses the finest, our
personal Philharmonic! A blue jay flits out of a nearby bush, she and I its
captive audience. We watch his show from center stage, among towering
trees, where butterflies gently kiss perfumed petunias. Chirping cheerily, a
young bird journeys through the air, stops to perch on the wood post
fence, then lifts up to disappear into a thicket of green leaves. “Mo, mo,
mo”, she commands I choreograph Mother Nature’s birds. What a joy to
have these moments I somehow forgot to have with my own kids. I truly
believed they would stay little and stay mine forever. I learned the lesson
too late for them, but happily not too late for my granddaughter.
SCOTT RUESCHER
THE LAST DANCE
“At the end of the night, at one of the first desegregated

Dances at our high school, done doing the Mashed Potato
To the band’s cover of ‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll,’ the Herky-Jerky
To ‘Hound Dog,’ and the Twist to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’
With a giddy young blonde girl of European heritage
In a powder-blue summer dress, spotless white tennis shoes,

And little gold ear studs, I knew I’d never see the world
In quite the same light again,” declared the man at the open
Mic at a bar in Memphis, at work on his sixth martini.
“It wasn’t because she’d been particularly good

At keeping the rhythm, not because she was a virgin
I knew I’d be deflowering soon, and not because she was
Some ‘woman of my dreams,’ but because now as she ran off
To finish the night with a flourish, brushing me away
With an apologetic frown while rushing into the arms
Of the quarterback on the football team, I found myself asking
Someone else to dance with me, to a slumberous rendition
Of the slow final Elvis number, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’
“And that someone”—here he paused for dramatic effect—

"Was a young woman they might have called mulata,
High yalla, or octoroon, back then in Elvis’s day, given
Her mixed ethnic heritage and her mysterious mien,
Her spatial grace, and her serious sensuality; a brown girl
With butterscotch eyes, café au lait skin, and caramel hair,
From just the other side of the color line we drew back then
With a much darker mark than we tend to use now.
“She wasn’t the sort that someone of my persuasion,

A blue collar boy yet to be versed in the diction of the left,
Necessarily would have considered an icon of integration,
A realized utopian dream of mass miscegenation,
Or a symbol of the new multicultural North America
Yet to come true, but just a poised young woman of color.
“She was as serene as they come,” he said before a sip

Of that sixth martini, “with the voice of a chime moved
By the wind, one of those people you meet sometimes
Who have an ability to see, without corrected vision,
All three dimensions of a problem, holding her head
Above the rabbling crowd, as unlikely to end up living
With the president in the White House as she was to do time
Picking trash along the highway in a chain gang from prison.
2019, Autumn / 191
“She was dressed,” he continued, taking a sip from his drink,

“In red flats, white ankle socks, a black plastic hair band,
And a halter-necked red dress with big white polka dots
To make the most of the narrow waist, long neck, and high hips
Of a beautiful lithe body that I drew close to my own
Tall straight frame in its plaid shirt and its ironed black slacks
And she moved with me in harmony to the sultry song
Till I felt that I just might be embracing history after all
By crossing a color line that Elvis had crossed before me.
“She had been tearing up the floor, really going at it,

Before she accepted my invitation to dance, you see,
With a tall young black kid whom I had also admired
Across crowded rooms, from a certain cultural distance,
For being among the best students in the whole school
And for being at once so damn square and so incredibly cool
In his khaki trousers, his clean white shirt, and his red bow tie.
“She had been doing the Monkey with him, the Wooly Bully,
And the wild Watusi, in the corner of the gym, in the lane
Near the net, under the hoop, moving from the foul line
To a spot under the rim that I had seen him hang from
When he had stolen the ball at mid-court in a basketball game,
Forewent the easy lay-up, and slammed home the dunk.
“And that’s it, all you social science fiction fans. My poem.
A true story from the distant cultural past. A slam poetry dunk.”
THE SIGN
There were no other Yankees on the streets to be seen

That Monday morning in January, in Memphis, Tennessee.
As I made my way to the terminal from the Hotel Peabody

After splurging on breakfast in their elegant white dining room
Rather than settle for the stale muffins and weak coffee
They offered with TV back in the lobby of the youth hostel
That I was technically a decade or more too old for anyway,
I didn’t spot a single tourist there to see where Martin Luther
King was killed, or where Elvis lived in the Graceland mansion—

No Rotary Club entourages, Japanese charter buses,
Harley-Davidson biker gangs, gaunt German backpackers,
Or gaggles of bobby-sock prom queens from the 50s on the loose
From the senior-citizen elder-hostel twelve-seat shuttle buses
That had driven them in after omelets at the Marriott.
There was no one waiting in line at the terminal, even,

For the express bus to Graceland; no one occupying the seats
When I jumped aboard, greeted the driver, and let my fare jingle
Like a tambourine in the hopper; no one standing patiently
At a bus stop along the way for the entire first mile
Of the bus ride south; and no one laughing when I quipped
Under my breath, to no one but myself, that I was getting
The equivalent of a private coach to Elvis’s opulent house
In the suburbs on the way to the Mississippi border.
And when the bus squealed to the curb a half-hour later

And I lurched toward the front like a surfer on a black roller,
There was no one but the driver and two other passengers
We’d picked up along the way for me to nod farewell to.
Already I could see, even before I stepped to the curb,

That no one was waiting in line at the gate of Graceland, either,
To get a good look at the mansion in the off-season;
No one waiting to pay tribute to someone who believed more
In the private possessions that they’d driven there,
The hot-rods, souped-up trucks, and vintage sedans, than he did
In the sustainable practice of public transportation;
And not one single tourist ahead of me in line reading,
In grave disappointment, the telltale sign, in big black capital
Letters on white, CLOSED ON MONDAYS AND HOLIDAYS,
That I saw now as the bus sped off, leaving me to cross
Elvis Presley Boulevard in astonishment in the walkway.
No one to share my view of the ostentatious house

Up the asphalt driveway, to gaze with me at the private plane
Parked across the street, or to see in the gate of Graceland
Itself—in the images of the twin duck-tailed guitarists
Mirroring one another in wrought-iron filigree
2019, Autumn / 193
As if on the facing pages of a book, between a complementary pair

Of wrought-iron musical notes on the horizontal bars
Of the sheet-music staff —the resemblance of those black notes
To some birds I’d seen in silhouette, in the bare branches
Of a dead tree, on the shore of a Boston reservoir
One winter night when I was out walking, ten years before.
But at the sight of those guitarists jamming their way to ecstasy,

Rocking out completely, I found solace in those birds again—
Herons, maybe, wild turkeys, or black cormorants
Like those in Paradise Lost that came straight out of hell,
With long necks, shut eyes, sharp beaks, and dark plumage
That, picked as clean of lice, fleas, and flies as an intricate poem
That’s been preened of excess rhetoric and downright lies,
Of adjectives and adverbs, incoherent associations,
Exaggerated claims, squinting modifiers, irrelevant figures
Of broken speech, poorly coordinated syntactical units,
Clichés, circumlocutions, illogical or pretentious connections,
And misspelled malapropisms that aren’t even words,
Shimmered in the moonlight with iridescent beauty.
VALERIE L. KINSEY
GRANDMOTHER’S GIFTS
Grandpeg—that’s what we grandkids all call her—gave us gifts

every time we drove the two hours to her house for a visit. Upon arrival,
my brother and I would run to our beds, throw down our backpacks, and
open presents wrapped in her “all-occasion” wrapping paper, which was
meant to look like old newsprint. I can’t remember much about these
gifts, but their material existence lingers—the proof of her love we could
touch.
“I always had something waiting for you to open,” she murmured
in a phone conversation not long ago.
“Always,” I agreed.
Grandpeg gave gifts wrapped in black and white and gifts
wrapped in technicolor. She took me to Disneyland for my sixth, seventh,

and eighth birthdays. Twenty-one times in a row we rode my favorite ride,
a long gone attraction called “Inside the Atom.” At night, she watched as I
twirled before the dancing fountains—water illuminated with multi-
colored spotlights set to music—outside the Disneyland Hotel. She taught
me to sew and gave me her old sewing machine. After my brother was
born and I was displaced from the nursery, she paid to have the spare
bedroom done over. I was allowed to choose the peachy floral wallpaper.
For her grandkids and extended family, Grandpeg made advent
calendars. She personalized these with photographs, creating for each
child twenty-four shadowbox scenes out of miniatures, felt, beads,
greeting cards, glitter, and glue. Mine was a replica of my actual
childhood playhouse—also a gift from her—white with blue shutters.
These days, I open each little box with my own little girl. Behind the door
of my favorite shadowbox is a photo of Grandpeg holding me. We are
both beaming. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland is reflected in the
lenses of her sunglasses.
The craft closet where Grandpeg made the advent calendars was
dismantled some years ago due to her cataracts. That roll of newsprint
wrapping paper, once thick as a salad plate, was left behind when she
moved. She now lives in a place that looks like many planned
communities in suburban California—ranch houses, golf course, and
clubhouse—but has facilities for end-of-life care. Residents buy places
that are spruced-up versions of the homes they left, and as they age, they
downsize into smaller units until they live in what is basically a hospital
room decorated with some mementos. I know this because Grandpeg is
the only one of my four grandparents who is still alive. Three others died
in one of those rooms.
At just over a hundred pounds and just under five feet, Grandpeg
fancies herself a kind of living doll. She has “her” colors and her sizes.
During our phone calls she describes choice outfits. She is particularly
fond of sumptuous wraps that shield her from the institution’s air-
conditioned dining room. She loves turquoise jewelry. When I lived in
New Mexico, I’d shop for brilliant stones mounted on clip earrings and
imagine her bright eyes as she opened the package. Grandpeg will soon
celebrate her ninety-fifth birthday, and it is time for me to select a gift.
What to choose? Something that honors the past? Admits the present?
Acknowledges the future?
Gifts send messages from the clear to the opaque. Grandpeg’s
gifts used to communicate adoration. Today—really since I reached
2019, Autumn / 195
adulthood—her gifts convey different, often mixed messages. Often, they

sting. For many years, her gifts have been the source of much confusion
and pain as I have tried to reconcile my childhood memories with my
decidedly different experience as a grown woman. Did she change? Did I?
What happened, I have wondered again and again.
Last year, I spent Mother’s Day with my mom and Grandpeg. My
daughter was entering the terrible twos—fiercely independent, unruly,
challenging. I was pregnant. My daughter and I gave Grandpeg a twisted
bead necklace. I hoped, at the very least, for an acknowledgment of my
status as a mother—in a card or a box, it didn’t matter. Almost as an
afterthought, Grandpeg offered me a package swaddled in tissue. Inside
were two scarves: one in pastel colors and heavily stained; one with a fall
leaves camouflage pattern.
I tried to be gracious. I knew I was feeling emotionally fragile; it
wasn’t Grandpeg’s fault that I was hormonal or that my husband couldn’t
be there. But after she left, as has become our custom, my mother and I
rehashed the worst of Grandpeg’s gifts.
There was the time she wrapped up and gave my mother for
Christmas some pairs of “expensive” but “uncomfortable” underpants.
“Worn only once or twice,” she explained without irony.
She gave me a beautiful lace dress that had been hers. Then she
asked for it back.
There was the broken pitcher. The broken nutcrackers. The man’s
belt.
Still smarting from the soiled handkerchief, I boasted, “For her
birthday, I’m giving her a paperweight, or a garden gnome, or an
encyclopedia set of The World’s Greatest Military Generals!” Why not let
her puzzle over the meaning of an inscrutable and possibly useless thing?
Fair payback for enduring years of such “gifts.” But I do not play
recklessly with her heart, even though I have felt, from time to time, that
she has done so with mine.
This past Mother’s Day, Grandpeg sent my children a package
that included two cards for me: one for Mother’s Day and one for
graduation. The second weekend in May, I’d finally earned my doctorate.
In April, she asked me what gift I wanted to commemorate the event. She
insisted she wanted the gift to be meaningful—something I’d treasure.
Soon after our conversation, I had this weird, dreamlike thought.
Ten years ago, my home was burgled. I’d been living with my
boyfriend and working as a waitress. I wanted love. I wanted to revise the
novel I’d spent the last three years writing. But things were not working
out. When my jewelry was stolen, I felt bereft. In the aftermath of the
burglary, I believed I’d lost everything: my self-respect, my way forward,
and even the special gifts that made me feel valued when I wore them.
The theft of the pearl choker that my other grandmother gave me bothered
me the most. The pearls came in a case from my great-grandfather’s
jewelry store that bore our family name. I had not thought about those
pearls for a long time.
When I told Grandpeg what I wanted, she said that I asked too
much. Perhaps I did. I felt ashamed, even grasping. I would not have
requested such an extravagant item unprompted, or without an awareness
of her financial well-being—without, in short, the understanding that she
could, if she so desired, choose to make such a gift.
In reflecting upon my mistake, I searched myself. Watching the
movie Annie with my own little girl and explaining that Annie, an orphan,
wants desperately for her parents to come and get her, I realized I was
holding onto a conventional fantasy—the fantasy that something precious,
once lost, can be restored.
That pearl necklace is gone for good. What I knew the day it was
stolen, I know today: it can never be replaced. Time flows in one
direction. Grandpeg will never again carry me across the threshold of
Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.
Grandpeg’s gifts—and her feelings toward me—changed because
I changed. Slowly, irrevocably, uncontrollably. I grew up. I am no longer
a child. But that child who reveled in the glow of her adoration lives on
and wants more. I want returned what was unfairly, even cruelly, taken
away. When I am with my grandma I am still that little girl, just
transformed. But that is not what she sees.
After my graduation weekend, Grandpeg told me over the phone
that her pearls had been stolen too. Like many others in her situation, she
has had help divesting herself of worldly possessions. One of her former
employees stole checks, golf clubs, and the opera-length Mikimotos my
grandfather bought her in Japan. She confessed that her greatest fear was
that whoever found her body would take her wedding and engagement
rings. She sounds scared sometimes. My heart hurts that my grandmother
entertains thoughts of being violated in death.
“Not to worry,” she told me in a steadier voice. “Everything is
locked away in a safety deposit box.”
I am not worried about your rings, I want to say. I want to tell her
that I am sorry if I ever, ever, ever led her to believe that I confuse an
item’s material worth with its symbolic weight. I want to tell her that I do
2019, Autumn / 197
not believe our possessions are our legacies, but the way in which we give
of ourselves to those we love. I have the sudden urge to take her to
Disneyland where we can sit in the cool shade of the castle. My yearning
is so vast, and our time together is so short.
Gifts are but one way we communicate, and they stand as dubious
proof of love’s presence or its absence. And yet there is something
comforting in their tangibility. Gifts given at the right time and in the right
way, regardless of their intrinsic value, confer feelings of dignity upon the
receiver and the giver.
For her ninety-fifth birthday, Grandpeg has asked to spend time
with our daughter. We have our plane tickets. My sense—untested from
afar—is that Grandpeg’s desire to surround herself with beautiful material
objects is suddenly, irreversibly on the wane. But I am still bringing
something for her to open. Among the belongings that have vanished from
her home is a pale blue throw. I nearly bought the same one as a
replacement. Instead, I ordered a blanket decorated with photos of our
children. As our family’s celebration of Grandpeg’s ninety-fifth birthday
approaches, I want to give her something soft to keep her small body
warm.
"Grandmother's Gifts" appeared in the Santa Fe Writer's Project

Quarterly Issue 15, Fall 2018 (online).
RON DRUMMOND
THE DANCING MAN
After a drawing by my father
A dandy penned in precise ink

in mid-jig, in mid-fling, in mid-leap,
I kiss your crooked fingers!

I salute your bony knees!
I extol your arms and legs in offbeat opposition!
To say you are all angles would ignore

your grin, your insteps, your interior curves,
the upsweep of your sidelocks, your eyebrows,

your very being,
how your curved nose conducts every movement,

propels your flight!
Such arrhythmia!
Such lift!
Yes, the brocade of your vest is broken,

your leggings are patched and your crotch cross-stitched,
but your outsized cuffs and collar provide

all the majesty you need.
And your jesters:

two wrens a-riot –
one in awe, the other in disbelief.
Such gratitude, such grief!
ATTRIBUTIONS
for Bob and Jordan
If it had to have been: his four words upon her skin –

would he have preferred a more mystical route?
Invisible ink first written upon the heart, moved
to percolate to her fair flesh through the body’s will,
the medium not tattooer’s dye but her own melanin?
Better that freckles letter out the phrase than that she let
some leathered hipster stain the words into her with, what?
some buzzing, bloodless tool not long before her wedding day?
Damn the rain, anyway
If it had to have been: his words upon his daughter’s skin

inches below her left clavicle, slightly northeast of the heart,
all too clearly visible in a nearly strapless gown–
of course it would have to have been from that poem,
2019, Autumn / 199
her favorite of all her father’s verses, the one he dedicated,

after all, to her, and now the one she re-commends;
he and she bound first by blood, then words, then words in flesh.
Damn the rain, anyway
If it had to have been: a father’s text upon his daughter’s flesh–

And how this all dissembles…. They’d never been his words at all.
The syllables she wears are a quote by him of her, right
from her three-year-old mouth. And now she’s reclaimed it,
albeit in her father’s font, four words again forever hers. And yet,
the phrase resembles, yes…. How does a three-year-old come to say
“damn,” anyway, except through want and spark?
Mimetic tribute to her poet next of kin.
Damn
the rain,
anyway
BOB CHIKOS
SUMMER OF ’84
The ten-year-old Indian boy pedaled faster and faster along the
sidewalk, cutting through early evening mosquitoes.
The white boy gained on him. “Stop!” he yelled.
The Indian boy rose out of his saddle to increase momentum.
“Stop!” The white boy yelled again, his front tire now one wheel
length behind the Indian boy’s rear tire.
The Indian boy grunted with each downward pedal; his legs
churned like pistons.
The white boy kept his left hand on the handlebar as he pulled
alongside the Indian boy, reached out his right arm, and pushed him off
his bike, sending him tumbling to the ground, rolling three times until he
stopped, splayed on the grass. Crying, the Indian boy gasped at the fresh
cut on his elbow.
The white boy braked. With his legs still straddling his bike, he
waddled to the Indian boy. “When I say stop, you stop, n-!”
But of course, he didn’t say “n”. He said the king of all racial
epithets.
The Indian boy looked up at the white boy through thick, tear-
smudged glasses. His face changed from pain to confusion. He sniffed
and said, “I’m not black, I’m Indian.”
The white boy crept his bike closer to the Indian boy’s bike,
pulled his bike up by the handlebars, then hovered his front tire over the
Indian boy’s rear tire.
He smashed his tire on the other boy’s spokes over and over and
over. Every time he did, he used that word.
The smiling white boy backed his bike a few feet. The Indian boy,
seeing an opportunity, pounced on his bike, lifted it, and scurried home, as
his bent rear wheel wobbled behind him.
I saw this entire event at close range.
It was the summer of ’84.
And I was the white boy.
The previous year, when I was eight, we had moved from rural
Ohio to suburban Illinois. Chicago was so futuristic and big, but it was
also daunting. The town where we lived was in O’Hare’s flight path. In
addition to the noise, TV stations went fuzzy every minute or so. People
lived crammed in condos and apartments that abutted the Interstate. Prior
to Illinois, I hadn’t seen a Hispanic, Indian, or Arab person. Now it was
like living at the United Nations.
I had been friends with Pranav the entire year. A year ahead of
me, and a year behind my brother, he played well with us. Being the
1980s, kids played outside during blissfully pointless summer days. We
had to. Back then, parents weren’t as concerned with perverts as they
were with kids wasting their youth watching TV. We just rode our bikes
until we came across someone we knew. At that point, we would ask each
other, “What do you wanna do?” “I dunno. What do you wanna do?”
Our subdivision had been built in the 1970s. The architecture
could be described as what people in the ’70s thought a dystopian future
would look like. Extended roofs covered potential windows. Driveways
ran between houses, allowing a third house to be crammed behind two
others.
Once, after playing baseball, we went to Pranav’s house to get
water. Inside, I was hit in the face by a bizarre spicy smell, which I can
2019, Autumn / 201
now identify as curry. On the wall was an Indian sculpture. It looked odd
to me. Not normal, like our religious artwork of a man who had been
beaten and nailed to a large cross.
“I’ll just tell my mom we’re getting water.” He said, then yelled
in another language into an adjoining room. He took out two aluminum
cups from his cupboard, filled one with water, and handed it to me. As he
filled his cup, I drank from mine. It tasted like metal. I had never drank
from an aluminum cup before, nor have I since. I finished the glass and he
asked if I wanted another.
“No thanks.” I said, as he refilled his.
I don’t know what caused me to do what I did to him that day.

Everything prior to that bike ride is lost to memory. I can say it was
nothing Pranav did. He was a gentle soul.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t.
I was overweight at the age when kids start tormenting you about
it.
My parents fought regularly.
I had a mean teacher.
I was a horrible student.
To top all of this, my brother was the opposite. He was lean,
popular, and a top student. The sibling jealousy was killing me.
Instead of doing anything about it, I allowed my anger to take
over.
When I pounded his bike and called him that word, it felt
liberating, powerful. I had heard that word before, but had never said it.
This was beyond a curse word. The Seven-Words-You-Can’t-Say-on-TV
no longer had the sinister thrill they once had. But the N-word. Now that
felt exciting to say!
On that day, my brain released a flood of chemicals, like a
narcotic. I felt strong. I felt a sense of belonging: a part of a powerful race.
Pranav may have been a good student with a bright future ahead of him,
but I was something he would never be: white.
When I watched Pranav limp his bike home that evening, I didn’t
feel remorse. I was concerned that his parents might call mine and that I
would get in trouble, but his parents didn’t know mine. Instead, that night
I watched sitcom after sitcom, waiting for the phone or doorbell to ring.
Nothing happened.
Our family was in the process of moving—again. As each day

passed, the chances that I would be caught were reduced until, finally,
moving day came. I never got caught.
Or did I?
By high school, I had changed. I was still overweight and a poor
student, but by now I had grown a heart. It ate at me that I couldn’t make
amends for what I did to Pranav.
I couldn’t tell my friends. Half of them were minorities and I
feared I’d lose them if they thought, deep down, I was a racist.
I waited for an opportunity to work it into a conversation with one
of my parents.
One Sunday, as I watched football with my dad, I saw a lineman
sack a quarterback, then bark something at him while he was still on the
ground.
“Man, that’s rude!” I said.
“Yup.” My dad said, after downing a gulp of beer.
“I was kind of mean like that once.” I started.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. When we lived in Rolling Meadows. That Indian kid
Pranav. Remember him? Before we moved I kind of roughed him up. I
pushed him off his bike, then called him the n-word over and over.” I
looked straight at the TV as I said this and felt warm tears cover my eyes.
“And...”
I couldn’t continue.
Dad picked up the remote and muted the TV.
“In Detroit, they have Devil’s Night.” Dad said. “October 30th
every year, the night before Halloween. What the kids would do is go
around doing minor vandalism, egging houses, TP-ing trees, that kind of
thing.
“Well, when I was in eighth grade, I told my parents I was going
to my buddy’s house and he told his parents he was coming to mine.
Instead, we went to Mr. Aronowicz’s house and smeared his car windows
with bars of soap and wrote ‘Jew’ on the side of his car.”
Dad looked into the fireplace and shook his head. “I thought we
were so cool at the time, you know? Getting revenge on the Christ-killer.
Now I think about it and I wonder what the hell he thought when he saw
his car the next day.” Dad’s eyes watered and his voice shook. “Mr.
Aronowicz had numbers tattooed on his forearm. He probably thought, ‘I
left Europe to get away from the Nazis, but I didn’t have to. They’re here,
too!’”
2019, Autumn / 203
I could count on one hand the times I’ve seen my dad cry.
He took off is glasses and wiped his eyes with the bottom of his
palm. “Goddamn little Nazi. Hitler would’ve been proud.”
I broke the silence. “I feel I should apologize to Pranav, but it’s
been so long. I don’t know if I could even find him.”
“I’m not sure you’re meant to apologize to him, Bob. Mr.
Aronowicz’s died a long time ago so my punishment is that I can’t do
anything that will make me feel better. So I’ve learned everything I can
about the Holocaust and I teach others about it, to do whatever I can to
stop hatred in the world.” He looked straight into my eyes. “You can
apologize to Pranav by being kind to others.”
I never did track down Pranav, but my life has been a series of
apologies to him.
I’ve become a special education teacher. I work patiently and
tenderly with children who have severe physical and cognitive disabilities.
I educate myself on other cultures, whether it’s eating a new
cuisine, learning a few phrases in a different language, or attending a
Pride parade. I believe it’s important to celebrate, not desecrate, what the
world has to offer.
I vote, election after election, for candidates who support equality
for all.
I extinguish comments and jokes that belittle others.
Perhaps most importantly, I have near-daily conversations with
my teenager about justice. If the next generation is to be any better than
the current one, it’s up to parents to plant the seed.
I don’t know what became of Pranav, but if living well is the best
revenge, I hope Pranav’s getting a lot of revenge on me.
It’s easy to dismiss what we do when we’re young and say, “I was
just a kid back then.” But what’s the point of childhood? If it’s to become
a good adult, then the guilt that I have, that guides me away from the false
pride of being in a race to the humility of being among the human race,
has been the teacher that keeps teaching.
MYRA WARD
BEFORE THE VISITORS, AT THE CHAPEL
lit by golden upright sconces

Mother in her fushia dress, floral jacket
four sizes smaller than she once wore
a pink pearl necklace,
matching earrings she loved
flocked by circles of pink daisy mums
planted upright like an easel
among potted ferns, peace lilies
an old photograph collage
should be closer to the white columned chapel
nothing should steal the light
I began rearranging plants
red, pink tones closer to her
tall ferns, other greenery moved to the center
sliding wicker baskets closer
as not to obscure old wedding photos
dragged a yellow wing back chair
for the weak, weary
standing back seeing all was pleasing to the eye
straightened her jacket, repositioned her hair.
Mother, the house is tidy now.
You are ready for guests.
ANNA CITRINO
WATERING THE GRAPE VINE
The vine was dead, we were sure of it. Nothing

but a wrinkled stick pressed through the ground
2019, Autumn / 205
and shriveled brown tendrils

shrunk to tiny stubs. “It’s not dead,” our neighbor said.
“Water it. It will come back to life.”

I remembered how the stalk, thick
with wide leaves, had climbed the post,

and though I was skeptical, I gave it
a long drink each morning from the hose.

For weeks, the vine continued on a twisted twig
of nothing. Until one afternoon while watering

I noticed the smallest slivered leaf poking
its green and ruddy head from the stalk’s side,

fully formed, though miniscule. There was the leaf
I was waiting for. And here I am, too,

standing in the dry sun, morning after morning
watering the stick of a dream I’ve planted inside,

hoping for a leaf to burst forth, a vine to grow.
APPLAUDING FOR VEGETABLES
The gardener’s hand held them high for the school children audience,
the sturdy, curded heads of cauliflower dressed to dance
in their leafy tutus, and the blushing beets with their pointy feet.
He reached round the cauliflower’s white waist, raised its firm
and flowery body from the earth-filled pot—lifted, too, the rosy
beet balloons—their root-toes twirling in arabesque
above the crowd’s faces as their mouths let go a sigh.

Morning’s light spilled on to the cauliflower’s ruffled green skirt.
The gardener deftly spun the white florets in his hand,

then set it gently on the stage, dance complete—
the audience’s cue to applause—as if all those days

soaking in the sun, roots reaching into the dark earth damp,
are the seed of what we need to be admired for what we are.
LETTUCE
We painted the room brilliant green, called it the lettuce room,

and planted lettuce in the window.
The seedlings rose from the earth, delicate leaves

glowing florescent in the backlit sunlight, as if stained glass windows
speaking the story of a holy life. We knew they were merely

lettuce leaves, though, and cut them from their stock,
rinsed, and placed them in a bowl—tender tongues, telling

of the thin places between life and the deaths we give ourselves to.
DESERT COMPOST
We are making a compost pile out back

for a garden we may never grow, piling
up discarded carrot peels, banana skins

and pumpkin rinds to dig into the ground.
We dream about basil for pesto, delicate lettuce

filling a bowl, green life
springing from desert soil—pushed up
from a hidden world. Last spring, the yard filled
with purple cosmos, and tomatoes. But satiated

now with sun, I say, “Why not blueberries
or a meadow filled with wildflowers?” though any

wild dream tossed out that feeds the heart might do.
2019, Autumn / 207
NICOLE WALDNER
NIGHT SKIES
Part One takes place on Kristall-nacht in Berlin (Nov. 9-10, 1938)

where Hansi König, a famous Modern artist who’s been persecuted
by the Nazis for years, has a nervous breakdown and disappears.
His wife Tünde is left alone with their baby to pick up the pieces of
their shattered lives. (Evening Street Review #20 eveningstreetpress.com/
nicole-waldner)
Part Two Hansi König, a famous Modern artist, is arrested for

sedition by the Nazis and deported to Dachau concentration camp.
In desperation his wife Tünde, who has been left alone and
penniless with their baby, takes Hansi’s remaining paintings to her
native Budapest to meet with a wealthy collector. (Evening Street
Review #21 eveningstreetpress.com/nicole-waldner)
Part Three–Budapest
Two days later Tünde and Greta arrived at Keleti train station in
Budapest. It was the city’s busiest train station, and rather grand in its
proportions, yet there was about it a stubbornly rural air. The morning was
mild and damp. It smelt of dust and pálinka, garlic and hay. She sat and
waited for a taxi. Greta was mercifully quiet. In amongst the
undifferentiated grey flannel suits were the Gypsies with their wild
moustaches and broad-brimmed black felt hats. Then there were the
Székely women from Transylvania hawking their straw hats and
embroideries. They wore wide, heavily-pleated skirts, aprons and beaded
necklaces. Their elaborate, quaint costumes excited pity, and irredentist
fantasies. She watched the women and listened to their heavily accented
Hungarian. They came from distant, proud villages that had been stranded
over the border in Romania in 1920. Villages surrounded by the grandeur
of the Carpathian mountains, where bears roamed freely and isolation had
stopped time. But they did not think of the capital as their Jerusalem. To
them it was a corrupt, dirty, cosmopolitan sprawl, swarming with
Communists and run by Germans and Jews. One of the women jerked an
embroidery at Tünde. It was a wall hanging. On it a pair of winged angels
was holding a map of Greater Hungary. Below that were the words:
I believe in one God.
I believe in one Motherland.
I believe in one Divine eternal truth.

I believe in Hungary’s resurrection. Amen.
As far as the eye could see, from every lamp post, the tricolour
flapped importantly. Hungary was cobbling together its empire once
more. Tünde had read about the 1st Vienna Award granted earlier that
month from Czechoslovakian lands. Parts of Romania would follow in
1940, and of Yugoslavia in 1941. Hungary had entered a Faustian pact
with Hitler. Hitler would give the Magyars back their empire piece-by-
piece, and in exchange the Magyars would become model Nazis.
In spite of feeling rigid with hunger and exhaustion Tünde liked
hearing the obscure, ornate sounds of Hungarian again. The occasional
motor car spluttered by, or a tram, but more often than not came the
clattering of hooves on cobblestones followed by acrid, steaming piles of
horse shit. Everything seemed smaller and slower and shabbier than in
Berlin. When at last a taxi came she collapsed onto the back seat with a
great sigh. She hadn’t been home since her honeymoon in early ’37. She
bit back her tears. She could not arrive at her mother’s undone with grief.
She kissed Greta’s soft, blonde curls. Her mother hadn’t yet seen her only
grandchild, but Tünde wasn’t sure how enthusiastic she’d be. She
rummaged around inside her travel bag to make sure she had the almond
paste for her mother—a widow and a retired pastry chef—as Tünde knew
she would not delay in asking for it.
The first thing Tünde’s mother said when she saw her was, “Has
the German divorced you already?”
“Not to my knowledge,” she replied, and stepping into the tiny
apartment she handed Greta to her mother and said, “Have you got any
eggs?”
The four egg salami and cheese omelette filled her with such
rapture that she almost did not mind her mother’s disapproving questions.
“So where is that husband of yours?”
“Oh, Hansi, he’s in Berlin, working.”
“Working, but not making a penny! You should have listened to
me and studied stenography. They’re always looking for good
stenographers right here in Budapest. If I hadn’t carried you in my own
belly, I’d swear you weren’t my child! Just like your father you are, may
he rest in peace...” And here she crossed herself, sighed and carried on,
“…always art, art, art. I’ll never understand why you had to go to Berlin
in the first place when…”
“Because I won the scholarship, Mama. I needed to see the
2019, Autumn / 209
world.”
“Hah!” She shrugged her shoulders as if all the world were
nothing more to her than old bread dressed up as French toast. “And what
are you really doing here? You’ve not come to visit your mother I’ll
warrant that.”
“I came to see someone in Budapest on gallery business. It’s just
for a few days. Leo couldn’t come himself so he sent me.”
“If you’re only planning to stay a few days, what on earth are all
those suitcases for?”
Tünde wiped her mouth and sat back. “Thank you mama, that was
delicious.” She looked at her mother now and saw that she was older and
a little stouter, but still she seemed so vital, so strong. She had worked
every day of her life since she was 13 and even now she continued to
work, baking biscuits and cakes for cafes all over the city. On every
available surface in the immaculately kept apartment were trays of walnut
meringues and jam biscuits cooling. Above the bed that by day served as a
couch was an embroidered wall hanging of inter-twined tulips and roses
in the national colours, and beside that a Catholic calendar turned to
today’s date: November 23, 1938. She was a woman who did not live
with doubt. Hers was a world of absolutes and certainties. Tünde no
longer despised her for this, but instinctively she knew that there was no
room in her mother’s mind for the shipwreck that her life had become.
“The suitcases are filled with Hansi’s paintings. I’ve come to sell
them.”
“Who needs art at a time like this?” She shook her head. Then she
stretched out her thick arms and took Greta. “This child is skin and bone.
I’m going to make her some semolina. And now off with you, you need a
good wash.”
After her bath she left Greta with her mother and went out to buy
cigarettes. She smoked rarely, but when she did it was with single-minded
passion. She found a bench in a small park nearby and sat and smoked.
She smoked until her throat burned. She felt like a novice boxer who’s
just taken their first real pounding in the ring. She was bruised and
bloodied, but her veins were pumped full of adrenalin. When she thought
of the sale, and only of the sale, she got up, walked to the post office,
telephoned the Hotel Gellért and asked for Elza Waldburg.
“Fräulein Waldburg?” the operator said, sounding confused. “Do
you mean Gräfin von und zu Waldburg-Althofen?”
“Yes, that’s who I mean.”
It didn’t matter that the Austrian aristocracy had officially been
dissolved for almost 20 years. People everywhere still craved the glamour
of the aristocrats as they did sweets and wine.
“Ahhh, Frau König, I’ve been expecting your call,” said Elza
Waldburg.
How unhurried, how delicate and silvery was her voice.
“And your timing is excellent, Frau König, because I must soon
be in Vienna for my cousin’s debutante ball. The only way we could
possibly meet is tomorrow evening. Would that suit you?”
Need she ask?
“Oh, I’m so glad. I was worried I’d miss you,” said Elza
Waldburg, without the slightest trace of worry in her silvery voice. “And
will you have something nice to show me?” she asked.
Tünde looked down at her chipped nails and smiled. Leo’s words
came to her: “Anticipation is an aphrodisiac.” So she said as little as
possible.
“My friend, István Horthy, will be joining us. He’s invited us up
to the residence,” said Elza Waldburg. “He’s taken a sudden interest in
my collection since the Vienna Award. He wants to make sure I don’t buy
anything too degenerate.” Then she laughed softly. Her laughter tinkled
like a tiny silver bell in a doll’s house. “He’s a darling,” she murmured,
“but he doesn’t know the first thing about art.”
After her phone call with Elza Waldburg, Tünde was even more
nervous than before. She hadn’t been expecting István Horthy to be there
and she couldn’t tell what his presence would mean for the sale, but what
she did know was that she could not afford to turn up at the Horthy
residence looking desperate. She needed nail polish and lipstick, and
maybe some hair dye too. But first, she had to see if Max Muller had sent
her any news about Hansi. She forced herself over to the telegram counter
and waited.
On the following day, at eight o’clock in the evening, she stepped
out into the street clutching her travel bag. The night was grey and damp
but she had no money for a taxi, so she took a tram across town, got off at
the corner of Andrassy Avenue and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street and waited.
Elza Waldburg had insisted on sending a car for her, so Tünde had lied
about her address. The trip had been harrowing as every step of the way
she’d worried about rain and worried about the paintings, and that her
vernissage shoes would get wet and that her hair combs would slip out of
place in the wind. At precisely a quarter to nine, a glittering black
2019, Autumn / 211
Maybach pulled up and a liveried driver jumped out to open the door for
her. She was so light-headed with relief she thought she would faint. She
sat inside the car and wrapped her arms around the bag of paintings, as if
it were a sentient being, trembling with life. But she could not help
noticing that the car seat was deeper and plusher than any she’d ever sat in
before. Poor Hansi would have hated it, she thought. In spite of her brittle
nerves she sat back, looked out the window and smiled a little to herself.
She, Tünde König, was sitting in the very seat where His Serene Highness
the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary had once sat.
The Horthy residence was not very far from the city centre and
soon she was in Buda and just a single bridge away. The Danube
narrowed and curved along the Saint Gellért Embankment and the amber
lights of the city glowed softly across the moving river like sequins on a
ball gown. No sooner had they passed Elizabeth Bridge, they began the
slow, winding ascent to what had for centuries been the home of
Hungary’s lords and masters. She thought of Leo, of how he stood when
he was showing a client a painting. Always back just a little, with his
hands in his pockets, but leaning in towards the art work, so that he
looked both relaxed and attentive. Relaxed because he knew the painting
was quality, and attentive because before a client parted with the sum he
had asked, he would need to assure them that what they were
experiencing as they looked at the painting was indeed awe.
The car stopped by a low stone wall with a single unadorned
door. A sombre-faced butler in tails and white gloves stood waiting. He
stepped forward and opened the car door for Tünde. Then he silently
ushered her in over the threshold, down a cold, stone corridor lit by wall
lamps and smelling faintly of winter apples. They passed through one
more door; she thought she heard the clarinet, then the butler parted a
heavy set of velvet curtains and she was inside the Horthy residence. Or
rather, she was inside the basement of the Horthy residence. It was,
however, a rather grand basement, as it was István Horthy’s very own
playground. It was well lit and furnished with Persian rugs and
mismatched armchairs and standing lamps, bookshelves, occasional tables
and a quaint but very efficient pot belly stove covered in glazed green
tiles. In the centre of this affectedly casual setting was a model aeroplane
the size of the Maybach. Beside it was a long wooden table, and on it sat a
sparkling new Edison gramophone surrounded by tall, messy piles of
records. A young man in a dinner suit was looking through them. When
the butler announced her he turned around and before Tünde could stop
herself she gasped. The young man walked towards her and smiled. He
was used to people looking at him that way. The resemblance to his
famous father was uncanny. He stopped before her, bent slightly from his
narrow waist and clicked his heels together. “Horthy István. Welcome.
Please come in.”
Tünde stuck out her hand but wondered if she should have
curtsied instead. It was not so very warm in the basement, but she was
sweating. She tried as discretely as possible to dry the palm of her hand
on her dress. The butler took her coat and asked if she wished him to take
her bag too.
“Oh no János, we’ll be needing that,” came a voice from across
the room, followed by the tinkling, silvery laughter that belonged so
entirely to Elza Waldburg. The butler nodded morosely.
“That will be all for tonight János, thank you.” István Horthy said.
Then the butler vanished silently into the night, his coat tails
whooshing ever so softly as he turned to go.
Elza Waldburg was lounging in an armchair by one of the
aeroplane wings. Her long fine legs were crossed. In one hand she held a
Manhattan, the other she extended up to Tünde.
“Frau König, I’m so delighted you could make it,” she purred.
She wore a peach chiffon and cashmere dress by Schiaparelli,
sapphires she’d inherited from her maternal grandmother, silk stockings
from Paris and handmade shoes from Milan. She wore her fair, wavy
tresses loose and they floated down her back white and soft as foam from
the sea. Tünde felt ugly, bulky and grasping in Elza Waldburg’s exquisite
presence.
“May I offer you a cocktail?” Horthy junior asked.
Tünde looked over at the butler’s tray opposite the gramophone.
It was full of oddly-shaped bottles filled with colourful magic potions and
cut glass decanters and crystal glasses in a dizzying array of shapes and
sizes. A sterling silver cocktail shaker took pride of place. It was engraved
with the coat of arms of the noble house of Horthy. A drink would be just
the thing, she thought, but only one. Any more and she could get weepy,
and no one wants to buy art, or anything else for that matter, from a
frowzy woman with streaky mascara.
“Yes thanks, I’ll have what you’re having,” she said, with far
more pluck than she actually felt.
Tünde perched on the armchair beside Elza Waldburg and sipped
2019, Autumn / 213
her drink cautiously. It was delicious. She would gladly have had a dozen.
“István,” Elza said, “won’t you join us?”
“Oh, yes, of course I will,” he answered, sticking his head around
from behind an enormous wooden tool box. “My apologies Elza, Frau
König, but I just need a moment… You see, it’s an Arado Ar68 fighter
plane from 1934, it’s a prototype and it’s not a bad old thing I suppose,
but its propellers are rather unpredictable, a bit like a beautiful woman,”
he said, grinning at Elza and then ducking his head back down.
Elza looked over at Tünde, rolled her dazzling blue eyes and said,
“Oh, he’ll be hours.”
There could be no question of looking at the paintings until he’d
done with his tinkering.
“How’s the cocktail?” Elza asked.
“It’s very nice. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite like it.”
“István gets his whiskey sent over from America. He worked in
Detroit for a year. He’s crazy about the place.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Oh, I’m simply dying to see what you’ve got for me! And I
am glad István sent that butler away. These walls have ears I tell you. ”
Elza looked over at István and then lowering her voice she said,
“How is dear Leo?”
“He’s as well as can be expected. He’s trying to get out of
Germany with his family.”
Elza nodded and watched István playing with his toy plane. She
was unsure where her new lover’s sympathies lay so she thought it
prudent to be discreet.
“And how is your husband?” Elza asked, offering her a cigarette.
“Is he still able to paint?”
“He does what he can,” she said vaguely.
“And was he able to keep his teaching position?”
She shook her head.
“I’m terribly sorry to hear it,” Elza said.
Elza Waldburg’s perfunctory inquiries seemed more cruel than
polite. She must have known that Hansi had lost his teaching position,
along with all of the other Modernists in Germany, just as she must have
known that all of the Jewish art dealers had been shut down. So why all
the questions? To gage the full extent of Tünde’s desperation. But, she
reminded herself, Elza Waldburg was also desperate to buy. The best
Modern art was either crossing the Atlantic to America, or was being
systematically stolen by the Nazis. Or, being bought up by Peggy
Guggenheim. Peggy Guggenheim was Elza Waldburg’s rival. Elza was in

fact known as “The Catholic Peggy Guggenheim.” It was a running joke
among the dealers. The reality though was that Elza did not have Peggy
Guggenheim’s money, nobody did. But what she did have was
connections to the oldest European families. She’d proven very
resourceful in coming up with funds, or failing that, with buyers. It was
even rumoured that she had helped some of the Modernists escape to
America. She was a daring woman, thought Tünde, no doubt about it.
Anyone still buying Modern art in Europe in 1938 had to be. Daring, but
vain too. All collectors were inherently vain, irrespective of what they
collected. Vanity fuelled their acquisitive natures. To them their
collections were an extension of themselves, the embodiment of their
culture and sophistication. The hermit collector who acquires
anonymously and shuts those treasures away was the stuff of fiction.
Every collector, sooner or later, wants the eminence of their collection
recognised.
Tünde watched Elza as Elza watched István. He was lowering the
needle onto a record.
“I hope that’s not Billie Holiday,” Elza called out gaily, “she’s so
gloomy!”
“Oh, so you don’t want gloomy,” he said, “well alright then, I’ve
got something so catchy for you darling that you won’t be able to sleep
tonight.” He looked at her meaningfully as he changed the record and then
he came over to join them.
The record crackled expectantly. There came a few short bars of
piano, and then a clarinet burst into the room, piercingly clear and fresh,
with all the vertical energy of an American skyscraper. Horthy junior
immediately began tapping his well-shined shoes and snapping his
fingers. Tünde noticed that he wore a signet ring on both pinkies, for
István Horthy was born of nobility twice over. Now a woman’s voice
came, full-throated and confident.
“That’s Martha Tilton,” he said, pointing towards the door as if
she’d just walked in the room. “What a voice, what a songbird! My friend
Árpi Esterházy just got back from America. He bought me this record in
New York. It’s Benny Goodman.”
“Is that German she’s singing in darling?”
“Yes, if you can believe it. Listen.”
Bei mir bist du schayn,
Please let me explain,
Bei mir bist du schayn means that you’re grand…
2019, Autumn / 215
“Funny, isn’t it? And hilarious pronunciation, but that’s the

Yanks for you. Árpi says the Magyars in America don’t even speak their
mother tongue any more. It’s just English all the way once they get there.
And did you know that in January this year Benny Goodman actually
performed on stage with a bunch of negroes at Carnegie Hall? Can you
believe it?! Jews and negroes performing together for the cream of New
York. And a sold out show too. Those Yanks, they go too far! Do you like
the song Elza?”
“I do indeed, I think it’s grand,” she said with her silvery laugh.
“Would you listen to that clarinet! Allow me to mix you ladies
another cocktail.”
Elza handed him her glass. Tünde tried to refuse but to no avail.
When Horthy junior was over at the drinks tray Elza said, “He likes it
when I’ve got a few cocktails in me,” and winked at Tünde, who didn’t
consider herself a prude but was a little shocked by Elza’s remark. It must
have shown on her face, although she hadn’t intended it, because Elza
laughed and said, “The more drinks he fixes me, and the more he fixes for
himself, the better for us both, believe me.”
Horthy junior handed round the cocktails and said, “I’ve just got
to hear that tune again!”
When he came back it was with outstretched arms to Elza.
“Dance with me drága,” he said.
She laughed and stood up.
“Excuse us please, Frau König,” he said.
The music was infectious and joyous. They danced on the rug
between his toys. They were both tall and slim and elegant, but whereas
she moved well, if unenthusiastically, he was enthusiasm itself. His legs
moved in one direction, his head and arms in another. What he lacked in
coordination he made up for in energy. He twirled Elza round and round
till her skirts flew up and her garter buckles winked at him. He roared
with laughter. He dipped her backwards and kissed her loudly on the
mouth. What a show off, thought Tünde scornfully, and how
disrespectful. Hansi had always been a gentleman on the dance floor.
Hansi had rhythm, he knew how to move in time to a beat. But the music
was so exuberant, the cocktail so delicious, that her thoughts were
directed in ways she could not fully control. She dreamt of Hansi, she
dreamt of America. She dreamt of being freed from dread. Horthy junior
was twirling Elza round like a spinning top and laughing. The hem of her
dress grazed the edge of the plane. Elza tried to ease him away from it,
but Horthy István did not follow, he led. He led, and shimmied, and shook
from side-to-side and twirled Elza round some more. He liked seeing her
beautiful thighs. He wanted to touch her. He pulled her in tightly towards
him, stepping backwards as he did so. But he’d misjudged the distance to
the edge of his plane and he tripped over backwards, taking a wing down
with him. Elza bent down quickly and tried to pull him up, but he pushed
her hand away, jumped up, dusted off his trousers and straightened his
hair. His high cheekbones flamed red. He turned and surveyed the damage
to his plane.
“Dammit!” he shouted.
Then he stormed over to the gramophone and pulled the needle on
Benny Goodman. He took off his dinner jacket, threw it to the ground and
looked down into his tool box with a scowl. Elza walked over to him and
gently touched his shoulder. He seemed to then remember that he was not
alone. “My apologies, Elza, Frau König. Please excuse my shirtsleeves,
but I really must attend to this now.” Then he knelt down and began
rifling noisily through his tool box. Elza grabbed a chair and sat down
beside him. “Just don’t move is all I ask,” he said rather curtly.
Tünde turned away from them and gasped for air. This did not
bode well for the sale, not at all! Her head spun. A vile wave of nausea
threatened to overwhelm her. She tried to take a deep steadying breath but
her entire body was trembling. If the sale was lost she had nothing. No
Hansi. No home. No money. But still she could not collapse in front of
these people, these strangers. If there was any hope left of selling Hansi’s
paintings tonight it did not just depend on the spoilt child’s whims, it
depended on her. She stood up, grabbed her handbag, slipped off her
shoes and tip-toed away from the circle of light. When she was
surrounded entirely by the darkness Tünde howled silently. She let the hot
tears come, could not stop them. Let them wet her cheeks, let them fill her
ears, let them pool in the dark, bony spaces where necks and shoulders
couple.
Yesterday afternoon at the post office a telegram from Max
Muller had been waiting for her. She’d tried to take it and walk away
from the counter, she’d wanted desperately to be alone in that moment,
but her knees had buckled and she couldn’t move. She tore open the
telegram with such violence that it ripped in two. She pushed the two
halves together. The words stretched to infinity.
Hansi gone. Condolences Max.
She’d stumbled out into the street. She didn’t recognise anything.
She thought she was still in Berlin. She thought she would faint, or
collapse, something, anything to just stop time. She couldn’t believe that
2019, Autumn / 217
the world wheeled on around her same as it had when she’d walked into
the post office only minutes ago. Was it really only minutes ago? No, it
wasn’t. It was already a lifetime ago. It was in another life when she and
Hansi had been in love. When she was Tunde König, wife of Hansi König
the celebrated German artist, the reviled degenerate, the melancholy
house painter. All around her people came and went. The sun shone on.
Time trickled forward, blind, indifferent, impervious to everything except
its own relentless beat. In her mind a single thought began to form, slowly
and heavily, like fusing bricks. She had to see Hansi’s last painting again.
At dusk she walked towards the Danube, rocking Hansi’s painting
in her arms. She looked straight ahead so that the people as they passed
her appeared to be no more than darkening streaks of colour. Ash grey–
charcoal–black. She counted her footsteps as she went, mouthing the
numbers silently. November air streamed out of her frantic lips. The
counting numbed her mind, kept thought at a small remove. But the dread
was impossible to contain. It seeped in through her skin like an oil spill
suffocating life in its wake. She counted. She walked on. Out to the
Danube she went.
Dusk was waning as she arrived at the river. Electric lights blazed
through the windows overlooking the Danube. The streetlights spluttered
to life. And above, the night sky slowly gathered brilliant momentum. A
set of stairs cut into the stone embankment took her down to the silty,
lapping water. She breathed in its peculiar mix of dirt and eternity. She
un-cradled Hansi’s painting and looked at it once more. beneath fear
liberty awaits. She did not feel there was anything beneath her own fear
only more fear still. But then she had always lacked Hansi’s faith. Freed
from the anarchic violence of Kristallnacht the painting no longer seemed
grotesque to her. But she could never love it as she did his others. This
painting would forever be a poisonous reproach to her. It would forever
accuse her of not having saved Hansi on Kristallnacht. Of having slept
instead of barring his way. Of not stopping him from going out into the
burning streets with his hard, bright, suicidal idealism. She pushed the
canvas to her face and kissed Hansi one last time. She looked again at the
otherworldly dragonflies hitched to the rounded bellies of the vowels.
Their cross-hatched wings flapped in the river wind. She knelt and gently
laid the painting down in the water. She watched it float south in the
twilight. Down to Szeged it would go, across the murky borders of
Yugoslavia and Romania and out to the Black Sea. Hansi’s final work had
never been destined for a gallery wall. It had to become one with the
eternal waters. Such was its spirit. She whispered her final goodbye to
Hansi.
“Tün-de!” She thought Elza Waldburg was calling her name. Her
heart pounded violently in her chest. She held her breath, but all she could
hear were the sounds of hammering. Of nails being forced into wood.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. István Horthy was repairing his plane. Her
cheeks were thick with wet kohl. She set to re-applying her mask. Now
she was certain Elza was calling her name. She stopped breathing and
listened. “Tün-de! Where have you got to? We’re simply dying to see
your paintings!” The wing had been repaired! Elza was letting her know
that the sale had been salvaged. Hope lingered. She had sixteen of Hansi’s
paintings to sell. That was a lot of good art, maybe even enough to get her
and Greta to America. She just needed this one sale. She followed the
smells of varnish and glue, whiskey and tobacco, and Chanel No. 5. She
listened again. She heard the clarinet, she heard Elza’s silvery laugh. She
heard the sweet pulse of life thrumming in the air. Tünde stretched her
arms out, felt the bliss of it, felt its muscular, blind contours, and her
entire being was electrified by the animal urge to live.
KELLY SLIVKA
WHAT YOU CANNOT DO
On my writing desk, I keep a magnolia bud, twisted off a tree

in spring four years ago. It is the size of an almond, still attached
to a piece of its woody stomata-studded stem. It is silkily furred,
the skin underneath now dried out and brittle, a piece of the
sheath broken, revealing inside the tiny, tightly-rolled papers
of petals that never saw the sun. I think it is good
to hold in your hand a thing you could never make, not if you
harnessed all your human ingenuity and had a million lifetimes
with which to hew, to fail, to create, to try again.
It is important to remember what you cannot do.
You are surrounded by magics you cannot perform.
I have the heart-center swirl of a broken conch,
a chocolate-smooth Ohio buckeye and three
2019, Autumn / 219
Northern flicker feathers, too,

on my desk. What is the point of a feather? you must
ask. Then, What is the point of a bird?
It is important to ask questions
until you arrive at the ones you will never be able to answer.
There are so many unfathomable facts. A feather is pushed
fully-formed from the skin. A five-ton Ohio buckeye tree unfolds
from a seed you can set in your palm, each twig breathing
through tiny mouths in its bark. A queen conch might live her
slow,
mysterious life on the ocean floor through ten presidential terms.
It’s likely every object you’ve ever touched
was made from something made by the earth.
When I look up at the stars and know some of their names,
I sometimes think I am bigger than I am.
But to name something is not to conquer it.
Nor is to hold it.
I remember this with the magnolia bud in my hand,
helpless to conceive how it is made, or why.
REED VENRICK
THE TREE THAT BRINGS ME HOME
This grandfather live oak, rising above

and round this Central Florida lake;
grandad planted it the same afternoon,

just hours after I was born, after a thunderstorm.
"No more than a yard tall, no thicker

than my finger."—those, the words, I remember.
Moved it once to give more sun, moved

it again for a an added shed,
but when it rained heavily in May

of that year—too big to transplant.
They built the porch around the oak,

cantilevered over Bok Tower's high,
sandy ridge, across the savannah

of Central Florida to connect
the high tide at Vero Beach.
Now, 70 feet tall and 60 wide,

I nail another ladder step up on mighty limbs,
as I navigate my way along the lower branches

of the rough, textured bark, while I count
my rings inside the trunk, marking

all the years I remember and try to forget,
as I climb back down to curl in a hammock

and turn my bow toward a breezy shade,
snoozing with the consciousness of my

natural twin, where the roots keep me home.
CONTRIBUTORS
MILTON J BATES is the author of books about Wallace Stevens, the Vietnam
War, and the Bark River watershed in Wisconsin. He has also published two
poetry chapbooks, Always on Fire (Five Oaks Press) and As They Were
(YellowJacket Press). His poetry collection Stand Still in the Light is forthcoming
from Finishing Line Press. He lives in Marquette, Michigan.
MARK BELAIR’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including

Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Poetry East. His latest
collection is Watching Ourselves (Unsolicited Press, 2017). Previous collections
include Breathing Room, Night Watch, While We’re Waiting, and Walk With Me.
2019, Autumn / 221
He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize multiple times. Please visit
www.markbelair.com
MARGUERITE GUZMAN BOUVARD is the author of ten poetry books, two

of which have won awards, i.e. the MASSBOOk award for poetry. Her books and
poems were featured on Blue Heron Review and have been widely published. Her
most recent book is The Flame of Life. She also writes non-fiction books because
she is passionate about human rights.
MARCUS BENJAMIN RAY BRADLEY grew up in Perryville and now lives

in Versailles, KY, with his wife and daughters. His work has been published in
the pages of The Louisville Review, Poetry Quarterly, Chiron Review, Five 2 One
Magazine, Ink in Thirds, Futures Trading, OVS Magazine, Beechwood Review,
Third Wednesday, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and Torrid Literature Journal
as well as online at the Kentucky Arts Council and Fifty Word Stories websites.
RONALD K BURKE is a retired professor of the Humanities at Syracuse

University and a free-lance writer residing in southern California. He has
published in several small presses. Also, four of his plays are listed in the
Brooklyn Publishers Catalogue. He has three books in print; 1) Samuel Ringgold
Ward : Christian abolitionist, 2) American Public Discourse : a multicultural
perspective, and 3) Frederick Douglass : crusading orator for human rights.
BOB CHIKOS is a 22-year veteran of working with people with special needs.
He teaches at Crystal Lake Central High School. In his third stage of life, he has
finally reflected on enough life lessons in order to advocate for change. He lives
in Cary, Illinois with his spouse Aileen and son Martin.
ANNA CITRINO grew up in California and taught abroad in international

schools for twenty-six years. Her current home is Soquel, California. A graduate
of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont, her work has appeared in
various literary journals including, The Adirondack Review, Canary, Paterson
Literary Review, phren-z, and Spillway, among other publications. Her chapbook,
Saudade, was published with Finishing Line Press. You can read more of her
writing at annacitrino.com
DR. BILL DEARMOND is Professor of Mass Communications and Film at

Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.
RON DRUMMOND is the author of Why I Kick At Night. His poetry and
translations have appeared in many literary journals, as well as in the textbook
Literature as Meaning and the anthologies Poetry Nation, Poetry After 9/11, This
New Breed, Saints of Hysteria and Flicker and Spark. He has been awarded
fellowships from Ragdale, VCCA, Blue Mountain Center, and the Macondo
Foundation.
SHAWNA ERVIN is an MFA candidate at Rainier Writers Workshop and a

Pushcart nominee. In 2017, she attended the Mineral School residency thanks to a
fellowship from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Recent publications include
poetry in Summerset Review, Tampa Review, Talking River, Jelly Bucket, and
Hiram Poetry Review; and prose in Apalachee Review, Front Porch, The
Delmarva Review, and Superstition Review.
MICHAEL ESTABROOK has been publishing his poetry in small presses since
the 1980s. He hopes that with each passing decade the poems have become more
clear and concise, succinct and precise, more appealing and “universal.” He has
published over 20 collections, a recent one being Bouncy House, edited by Larry
Fagin (Green Zone Editions, 2014).
FABIYAS M V, a writer from India, is the author of Kanoli Kaleidoscope,

Eternal Fragments, and Moonlight and Solitude. His fiction and poetry have
appeared in several anthologies, magazines and journals. He has won many
international accolades including Merseyside at War Poetry Award from
Liverpool John Moores University.
MATTHEW FEENEY(www.matthewfeeney.com) is currently incarcerated in

Minnesota. He received 2nd place in the 2017 PEN America Prison Writing
Contest for Fiction and more recently won the 1st Place/Grandview Award in the
2018 League of Minnesota Poets 34th annual poetry contest. His work has
appeared in numerous publications including The Analog Sea Review, Spotlight
on Recover, and Pinion Review. He is a member of his prison's Restorative
Justice Council and a trained Conflict Resolution Mentor.
ALAN M FLEISHMAN has previously published three novels, a novella, and

ten short stories. An historical novel, A Fine September Morning, has been his
most successful work to date. Prior to becoming an author, he was a senior
corporate executive, a strategic marketing consultant, and an officer in the U.S.
Army. Today he and his wife Ann live high on a hill overlooking San Francisco
Bay with their kittens, Dolly and Bailey. www.alanfleishman.com.
BRAD G GARBER has degrees in biology, chemistry and law. He writes,

paints, draws, photographs, hunts for mushrooms and snakes, and runs around
naked in the Great Northwest. Since 1991, he has published poetry, essays and
weird stuff in such publications as Edge Literary Journal, Pure Slush,
Burningword Literary Journal, Sugar Mule, Third Wednesday, Barrow Street,
Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Ginosko Journal, Junto
Magazine, Slab, Panoplyzine, Split Rock Review, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine,
The Offbeat, and other quality publications. He was a 2013 and 2018 Pushcart
Prize nominee.
WILLIAM GREENWAY’s Selected Poems was the winner of the 2014

FutureCycle Press Poetry Book of the Year Award. Everywhere at Once, won
2019, Autumn / 223
the Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award, as did his Ascending Order. He has
published in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Southern Review,
Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, and Prairie Schooner, and has won the Helen
and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award, the Larry Levis Editors' Prize from
Missouri Review, the Open Voice Poetry Award from The Writer's Voice, the
State Street Press Chapbook Competition, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, and was
1994 Georgia Author of the Year. He’s Professor Emeritus of English at
Youngstown State University, but lives now in Ephrata, PA.
NIKKI HAGGAN is a creative non-fiction writer from the Boston area. By day
she works at a law firm in the city. She attended Emmanuel College where she
graduated with a degree in English with a concentration in Writing and
Literature. Other essays of hers have appeared in VerbalEyze Press’ fall 2015
Young Writers Anthology and Grace Magazine.
MARK HALPERN has lived since 1993 in Tokyo, where he runs his own law
firm and writes stories about foreigners in Japan. He was born in America, grew
up mostly in Canada, and has spent substantial time in the UK and France. As for
Japan, Mark has, like some of his characters, found a way to be both an outsider
and an insider.
J O HASELHOEF is a social artist who writes and travels. Her work appears in
print or online at Wising Up's Anthology Surprised by Joy, Fiction Southeast,
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Extra Newsfeed, Healthcare in America, Haiti
Global, and Stuff dot Life, as well as www.JOHaselhoef.com.
DAVID A HECKER lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington. His poems have

appeared in Exhibition, Paper Boat, Poets West, Pen, Ars Poetica, and Cirque. In
2017 MoonPath Press published his first book of poems, Natural Affinities.
Garrison Keiller read “Hitchhiking,” one poem in Natural Affinities in his Writers
Almanac Program. Another poem in Natural Affinities was nominated for a
Pushcart Prize in 2018.
GWEN NAMAINGA JONES (GWEN MARTINEZ JONES) was born in

Zambia to a teenage indigenous mother of the Ila tribe and a middle-aged rancher
of British lineage. She grew up with both heritages: commuting between an
English prep school and her mother's tribal hut. Her novel, Three Miles Too Far,
is inspired by her own life and her mother's and provides unique insights into
African life. She lives in the US but often returns to Africa as an activist, fighting
disease and poverty among women in her native Zambia.
REBECCA JUNG is a writer and poet who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Her work has been published in The Impetus, Pennsylvania Review, Wazee
Journal, Purple Clover, and the Pittsburgh Quarterly. Her poetry has appeared
in two books: Along These Rivers: Poetry and Photography from Pittsburgh, and
Burningword Ninety-Nine, A Selected Anthology of Poetry, 2001-2011. She
earned her B.A. in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
MARC KAMINSKY is the author of eight books of poems, including A Cleft in

the Rock (Dos Madres Press, 2018). His poems and essays have appeared in
many journals and anthologies, including The Manhattan Review, The American
Scholar, and The Oxford Book of Aging. He is a psychotherapist in private
practice in Brooklyn.
MARGARET KARMAZIN’s credits include stories published in literary and

sci-fi magazines, including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review,
Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, The Speculative Edge and Another
Realm. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine, Licking River
Review and Mobius were nominated for Pushcart awards. She has stories included
in several anthologies, including Still Going Strong, Pieces of Eight: Autism
Acceptance Benefit Issue, Daughters of Icarus and Space between Stars. She has
also published a collection of short stories, Risk. See entry for her co-writer,
JANET AMALIA WEINBERG
VALERIE KINSEY earned her MFA and PhD from the University of New
Mexico in Albuquerque. She now lives in the Bay Area with her husband,
children, and dog, and teaches writing at Stanford University.
ADRIA KLINGER’s publication credits include After the Pause, The Cape
Rock, Drunk Monkeys, The Key West Review, The Paragon Journal, Soundings
East, Visible Ink Anthology, Visions International, and the anthology Passionate
Hearts. She studied writing with William Packard, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds,
and Molly Peacock, among others. She successfully used the power of metaphor
to transform and express experience in both her writing and professionally as a
psychotherapist. She passed away in the fall of 2018.
FLORENCE LEVINE is co-publisher of SandStar’s Immortality, a chapbook.

Her short story “My Cocoon” was published in the North Shore Towers Courier
newspaper. She was a teacher and counselor for 33 years and presently teaches
continuing education classes on happiness in Great Neck, New York.
STACIA LEVY lives in Sacramento with her husband and daughter. She teaches
college writing, education, and literature classes. Past publishing credits include
short stories in The Blue Moon Review, Sambatyon, True Story, Storgy Magazine,
Forge, and The Apalachee Review. She was a second-place winner in The
Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards of 2010.
KAREN MACEIRA is a New Orleans native and holds an M.F.A. from Penn
State. Her poems appear in numerous journals such as The Lindenwood Review,
The Beloit Poetry Journal, Louisiana Literature, and Blackbird. Her chapbook
My Father and the Astros was published in May 2019 and she has completed a
full manuscript entitled The Courtyard at Croissant D’Or. She can be reached at
2019, Autumn / 225
kmaceira@bellsouth.net.
CHRISTINE TERP MADSEN is a fiction writer and poet who lives in

Moretown, Vt. Her work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Adelaide
Magazine, and Northern New England Review, among others
ANTHONY MAIZE was born in Plainfield, New Jersey and raised in south
eastern Pennsylvania. At various times he worked as a plumber, a house painter, a
free-lance photographer, a sports car mechanic, and spent twenty-five years as a
traffic analyst and highway designer. He is semi-retired and spends his free time
woodworking, photographing land- and cityscapes, and writing short fiction. He
recently completed his first novel, The Rikeman Chronicles.
GEORGE AUGUST MEIER has focused his writing on short stories, several of
which have won awards. His work has been published in Amarillo Bay, Diverse
Voices Quarterly, Forge, Hawaii Pacific, Newfound, The Write Room and
Writers’ Journal. He has degrees from Colgate University and The Ohio State
University, with honors. He resides with his wife, Yvonne, and their lab, Lily, on
the ocean in Wilbur-By-The-Sea, Florida.
JESSE MILLNER’s poems and prose have appeared in the Florida Review,
upstreet, Conte, West Texas Literary Review, River Styx, Pearl, The Prose Poem
Project, The Best American Poetry 2013 and other literary magazines. His most
recent poetry chapbook, Noonday Duende, was published by Kattywompus Press.
He teaches writing courses at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers,
Florida.
LAURO PALOMBA has taught ESL and done stints as a freelance journalist
and speechwriter. Approximately seventy of his stories and poems have appeared
in American and Canadian literary journals.
STEPHEN PARK, the Southern California author of “The Good Boy,” has
worked for over twenty-five years for the California Department of Mental
Health as a Licensed Psychiatric Technician. He is a member of the Inland
Empire Branch of the California Writers Club. He learned many things working
in the field of psychology, the most important of which is that eighty five percent
of the patients he worked with had been abused as children. Consult websites:
childabusemuststop.org, or thenewhorizonbystevepark.wordpress.com.
THOMAS PIEKARSKI is a former editor of the California State Poetry

Quarterly and Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and interviews have appeared
in literary journals internationally, including Nimrod, Florida English Journal,
Cream City Review, Mandala Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Poetry Quarterly,
Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and Boston Poetry Magazine. He has published a
travel book, Best Choices in Northern California, and his epic adventure Ballad
of Billy the Kid is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print versions.
DIANA PINCKNEY, Charlotte, NC, has five collections of poetry, including

The Beast and The Innocent, 2015. She is the Winner of the 2010 Ekphrasis
Prize, Atlanta Review’s 2012 International Prize and Press 53 Prime Number’s
2018 Award. Her work has appeared in such journals as Cave Wall, Arroyo,
RHINO, Tar River Poetry, San Pedro River Review, Green Mountains Review
and other magazines and anthologies.
ALITA PIRKOPF grew up in Seattle and attended Middlebury College in

Vermont. She received a master’s degree in English Literature from the
University of Denver. She became increasingly interested in feminist
interpretations of literature. Eventually she enrolled in a poetry seminar
conducted by Bin Ramke, at the University of Denver, where it became clear that
poetry, already a necessity, would become an obsession.
CHARLES RAMMELKAMP is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in

Baltimore, where he lives, and Reviews Editor for Adirondack Review. His most
recent books include American Zeitgeist and two chapbooks, Jack Tar’s Lady
Parts and Me and Sal Paradise.
CAROL ROAN holds graduate degrees in vocal performance from Indiana

University and in business from Columbia University. One of her short stories
won her a fellowship to Summer Literary Seminars in Russia, where she studied
with Gina Ochsner. The author of three nonfiction books and a co-editor of three
multi-genre anthologies, she now writes, teaches voice and public speaking, and
dances in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
DANA ROBBINS, following a long career as an attorney, earned an MFA. Her

book, The Left Side of My Life, was published by Moon Pie Press in 2015. Her
poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has been featured
on the Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor. She lives in Bronx, NY and Palo
Alto, California. You can learn more about her at Danamartinerobbins.com.
SCOTT RUESCHER’s 2017 book, Waiting for the Light to Change, includes
poems that won contests from Able Muse, Poetry Quarterly, and the New
England Poetry Club, and one poem that appeared in an earlier issue of Evening
Street Review. He has been contributing new poems to Solstice, Tower Journal,
Pangyrus, About Place, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and other
publications.
JAMES RYAN, a graduate of West Point, has published in Shenandoah, Eleven

Eleven, Eureka, Inkwell, Op-Ed News, Monthly Review, Who.What.Why and
numerous others. He was a columnist for Aydinlik newspaper in Istanbul, Turkey,
one of the few leftist publications in the country. Along with advanced degrees in
economics and English literature, he holds an MFA from Columbia University.
ROSALIA SCALIA’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Oklahoma

2019, Autumn / 227
Review, North Atlantic Review, Notre Dame Review, The Portland Review, and
Quercus Review, among many others. She holds an MA in writing from Johns
Hopkins University and is a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist's
Award recipient. She won the Editor's Select award from Willow Review and her
short story in Pebble Lake was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in
Baltimore, Md. with her family. rosaliascalia.com
MARY SCHMITT is a Michigan poet and short story writer who has been
published in the MacGuffin and Moon City Review. A grandmother and retired
English and English as a Second Language tutor, she has been writing since high
school. Her writing themes often focus on the complexities and ambiguities found
in family relationships and the healing properties of nature.
SHARON SCHOLL is a retired college professor of humanities and world

cultures who convenes A Gathering of Poets critique group and is poetry chair for
the Florida Heritage Bookfest. An Associate of the Atlantic Center for the Arts,
she has two chapbooks (Summer's Child and Message on a Branch) in
circulation. Individual poems appear in Sky Island Journal and Red Coyote.
G DAVID SCHWARTZ is the former president of Seedhouse, the online

interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue
(1994) and Midrash and Working out of the Book (2004). Currently a volunteer at
The Cincinnati Meals On Wheels. His newest book, Shards and Verse (2011) is
now in stores or can be ordered on line.
HARVEY SILVERMAN is a retired physician who writes primarily for his own
enjoyment. He lacks the imagination to write fiction. but his memoir essays have
appeared in various publications including 3288 Review, Ocotillo Review, and
Hadassah Magazine.
KELLY SLIVKA is a writer and producer whose creative work appears in

Alaska Quarterly Review, Rise Up Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review,
TriQuarterly Review and elsewhere. Her chapbook, This Strange Grace, is
forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She received the Pearl Hogrefe
Fellowship in Creative Writing from Iowa State University and now lives in the
Colorado high country. She is online at kellyslivka.com.
DANA STAMPS II has worked as a fast food server, a postal clerk, a security
guard, and a group home worker with troubled boys. His chapbooks are For
Those Who Will Burn, Drape This Chapbook in Blue and Sandbox Blues. His
recent journal publications include: Rattle, Chiron Review, California Quarterly,
Santa Fe Review, Mudfish, and Dash.
HELEN TZAGOLOFF was born in Russia, coming here at the age of eight. Her
poems and short prose pieces have been published in Another Chicago Magazine,
Poetry East, New York Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Barrow Street, and others. Her
book of poetry Listening to the Thunder has been published by Oliver Arts and
Open Press. Fears and Pleasures is coming out from Word Poetry. She has been
nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was the First Prize winner in the Icarus
Literary Competition in honor of the Wright brothers.
REED VENRICK lives on the second floor of a restored lighthouse

on a Florida key, where the county is lost to find
a numbered address. His best writing happens when
leaning on a salty rail at night, watching passing ships,
their riggings all lighted up, as they go sailing out to sea.
Who could doubt, this is better than movies or t.v.
NICOLE WALDNER’s work is forthcoming in The Chaffin Journal. Her short
stories have also been published in Australia, Germany and Hungary. She is at
work on a novel set in Budapest during the fall of Communism and the present
day. She also writes a quarterly blog called Poetic Boost about art and writing.
More about her writing at www.nicolewaldner.com All three parts of her story
appear at: https://eveningstreetpress.com/nicole-waldner.html
EMILY WALL is an associate professor of English at the University of Alaska.

She holds an MFA in poetry and her poems have been published in journals in
the US and Canada, most recently in Prairie Schooner and Alaska Quarterly
Review. She has two books published with Salmon Poetry: Liveaboard and
Freshly Rooted. Her third book, Breaking Into Air: Birth Poems is forthcoming
from Red Hen Press. She lives and writes in Douglas, Alaska. She is online at
www.emily-wall.com.
MYRA WARD is a poet, artist, and business owner. A career in medical imaging
led her to write about human emotions and landmark phases in life. She is a
graduate of the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She was owner of
Sonoservice, Inc., an ultrasound imaging company focused on women’s health.
She served as Alabama State Representative for the Society of Diagnostic
Medical Sonographers. Her poetry has won national and state recognition. She
serves on the boards of Alabama State Poetry Society and Writers Anonymous.
She resides on Lake Logan Martin in Pell City, Alabama with her husband and
two orange cats.
MARTIN WILLITTS JR won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry

Award; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June, 2015; and Editor’s Choice, Stephen A.
DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018. He has 24 chapbooks including the winner of the
Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award: The Wire Fence Holding Back
the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 14 full-length collections including The
Uncertain Lover (Dos Madres Press, 2018) and Home Coming Celebration
(FutureCycle Press, 2019).
2019, Autumn / 229
JANET AMALIA WEINBERG is a former psychologist and the editor of an

anthology, an Independent Publisher Award Finalist (Still Going Strong;
Memoirs, Stories, and Poems about Great Older Women (Routledge). She has co-
led a conscious aging group and presented a paper at the New York State Society
of Aging. Her stories and articles have appeared in Room, Long Island Woman,
Mused, Psychology Tomorrow, Wild Violet, New Age Travel, West Wind Review,
Long Story Short, Midwest Literary Magazine, Ascent Aspirations and elsewhere.
See entry for her co-writer, MARGARET KARMAZIN
RONNA WINEBERG is the author of Nine Facts That Can Change Your Life, a
story collection; On Bittersweet Place, a novel, winner of the Shelf Unbound Best
Indie Book Competition; and a debut collection, Second Language, winner of
New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Literary Competition. She has been
awarded a scholarship in fiction to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and a
fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the
senior fiction editor and a founding editor of Bellevue Literary Review.
www.ronnawineberg.com
CHRISTY WISE is a poet, author and essayist. Her work is informed by deep
California roots, a love for nature, curiosity about ancient civilizations, and
intense pursuit of justice and equality. Her poems appear in The Anthem,
Confluence, The Ravens Perch and Gyroscope. She is author of A Mouthful of
Rivets: Women at Work in World War II and Banished to the Black Sea: Ovid’s
Poetic Transformations in Tristia 1.1.
ORIT YERET writes short prose and poetry. Originally from Israel, she
currently lives in New Haven, CT. In addition to writing, she engages with
various forms of art such as painting and photography. Her work recently
appeared in the Borfski Press and Ink Pantry, and is forthcoming in Drunk
Monkeys and The Voices Project.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The Green New Deal (cont. from inside front cover)
7. working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United

States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from
the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible,
including—
(i) by supporting family farming;
(ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that
increase soil health; and
(iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures
universal access to healthy food;
8. overhauling transportation systems in the United States to
eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the
transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible,
including through investment in—

(i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing;
(ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation; and
(iii) high-speed rail;
9. mitigating and managing the long-term adverse health, economic,
and other effects of pollution and climate change, including by
providing funding for community-defined projects and strategies;
10. removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and receding
pollution, including by restoring natural ecosystems through
proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such
as preservation and
11. restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile
ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects
that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency;
12. cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites to
promote economic development and sustainability;
13. identifying other emission and pollution sources and creating
solutions to eliminate them; and
14. promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise,
products, funding, and services, with the aim of making the United
States the international leader on climate action, and to help other
2.
countries achieve a Green New Deal;
3. a Green New Deal must be developed through transparent and
inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline
and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil
society groups, academia, and businesses; and
4. to achieve the Green New Deal goals and mobilization, a Green New
Deal will require the following goals and projects—
1. providing and leveraging, in a way that ensures that the
public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns
on investment, adequate capital (including through
community grants, public banks, and other public
financing), technical expertise, supporting policies, and
other forms of assistance to communities, organizations,
Federal, State, and local government agencies, and
businesses working on the Green New Deal mobilization;
2. ensuring that the Federal Government takes into account
the complete environmental and social costs and impacts of
emissions through—
(i) existing laws;
(ii) new policies and programs; and
(iii) ensuring that frontline and vulnerable communities
shall not be adversely affected;
Evening Street Press
Sacramento, CA
Evening Street Press
Sacramento, CA

Evening Street Review Number 22

Uploaded by

Copyright:

You might also like

Evening Street Review Number 22

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Evening Street Review Number 22

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Number 22 Autumn, 2019

EVENING STREET REVIEW

NUMBER 22, AUTUMN 2019

. . .all men and women are created equal

PUBLISHED TWICE (OR THRICE) A YEAR

Cover photos by Steven Pelcman

Library of Congress Control Number:2019943102

© Copyright 2019 by Evening Street Press

NUMBER 22, AUTUMN 2019

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

When Gordon Grigsby and I met in late 1987 (“across a crowded

Many years ago (or not) there was an Emperor so exceedingly

began to whisper among themselves, “The Emperor has no brain.”

First published online on SIXFOLD

He told me the meaty sauce reminded him of dinners with my mother

how Gino himself would come over to their little table

pour them more of his red heady wine, homemade,

They had come to Gino’s after the heavy last flush

my father said went so well, looked so damned striking,

He always admired the primal contrasts in her face.

Your mother never let herself go he said to me

So much can happen in a day. Contrasts which highlight the

The sun snuck in the shower

THE RIGHT TO WRITE

When Doreen and Willow invited Lenore to a surprise birthday

creativity class involved meditation, fasting, and learning to trust yourself.

“I do, too. Sometimes when I look at Teddy,” Willow replied, “I

He said he had no interest; it was a matter of temperament.

the children were playing.

IF YOU HAVE TO ASK WHAT JAZZ IS, THEN YOU'LL NEVER

we three teens donned our one-button-roll-suits with peg trousers applied

This is Land’s End, promontory

He had a personal paradise by the sea

Some pundits think by the time

Gringos jumped his gold claim,

San Francisco was built by gold

Adolph Sutro grasped the opportunity

Although hailing from south of the border

Complementing the incredible Cliff House,

foundation with wave after raucous wave.

The lust after silver and gold

After we’d lived in Istanbul, Turkey, for two years, Goodyear

In Canton, my sisters and I didn’t know anyone and couldn’t get

A word about maids and chauffeurs is in order here.

I offered to make dinner one evening, but my grandfather cut me

On the third week of living with my grandparents and Mary, my

This was a side of my grandmother I’d never known about. I

Maybe my grandmother was jealous of my parents leaving and

I make several thoughtful trips

own amazed existence in the changed,

REMEMBERING GREGOR SAMSA

The flowers in the bouquets

Ten days about healing

I sicken in this neglected cell.

My room is dark. The closed door

Home again, he ran down the street, away

us. He won’t hold

instead of his prick?”

“Yeah, Larry said that, too. He knows pretty much everything.

Dr. Sheldon’s speech went well. The seniors in Laurence’s class

In those days we’d gather

as I listened to my grandpa offering grace

stretched out with its whiffle ball games in the backyard,