Crack the Spine
Literary magazine
Issue 150
Issue 150 May 13, 2015 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2015 by Crack the Spine
Cover Art: “Double Standards” by Kyra LaRue Kyra LaRue lives in Harbor Springs, Michigan. This summer will be the fifth that she works in her hometown’s bookstore, it’s the only way that she can fund her reading addiction and it helps to be surrounded by people with similar afflictions all day long.
CONTENTS Marty Carlock
Good Fat
Kenneth A. Baldwin The Inheritance
Ron Singer
Cell Phoneless Friday Cancelled
Daniele DeAngelis Walker
 An ode to the gentleman who wanted to shove his tongue down my throat in the deserted hall  braces
Matthew Perron Long Weekend
Gabe Russo Fear and Werner Herzog
Marlene Olin Anticipation
Marty Carlock Good Fat
She had always been a risk-taker: extreme sports, travel to remote and dangerous countries, dodgy lovers, the strangest of foods. She had eaten fugu, the fish that is fatal unless the chef is very skilled. She was proud of that, proud that she had eaten many primitive foods: monkey brains, sheep’s eyes, buffalo testicles, rattlesnake, ants, grubs. Cockroaches. When the conversation turned wonderingly to outrageous activities, she loved to say to the fearful, ‘Oh, I’ve done that. It was a wonderful experience. You should give it a try.’ Thus she scarcely hesitated when her doctor suggested the radical procedure to remove body fat. ‘You must understand it is still experimental. Only half a dozen patients have undergone it so far, although I’m delighted to report there have been no ill effects. In fact the results have been remarkable.’ ‘I’m interested,’ she said. ‘Go on.’ He leaned forward confidentially, the overhead lights reflecting off his rimless glasses. ‘You’ll have to sign a release, of course, indemnifying us against claims of death or bodily harm. But it is far less invasive than, for instance, liposuction.’ She smiled. ‘Where do I sign?’
The procedure was, as promised, painless, once her body got over the initial shock of cryowaving, the coldest thing she had ever felt. She had been assured she would not have surface frostbite, and indeed she did not. The cryowaves had been directed below the epidermis, targeting the fat cells atop her
abdominal muscles. She read People during the hour the waves did their work. She was mildly surprised when the technician announced it was over. ‘I don’t feel any different,’ she said. ‘Give it time. Millions of fat cells are dead now, but it will take time for your body to absorb and expel them.’ She had paid enough, so of course she would take their advice. It happened just as they said. Over a few months her waistline shrank. Shrank, to her delight, for the first time in decades. But not enough. Scowling at her naked body in the mirror, she saw that loose skin hung beneath her ribs, below her navel and the sides of her torso. She was happy she had planned a follow-up consultation. Her physician was sympathetic. ‘We do see this sometimes,’ he said. ‘Your skin expanded when you put on weight – we can expect that to shrink back over time. But there’s another factor at work here – ’ She was alarmed. Not to have her body look perfect after enduring all this – well, it was not acceptable, that was all. She frowned her displeasure at him. ‘Can we do another treatment?’ ‘Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do any good. There’s no subcutaneous fat left. The surplus skin here – have you noticed any loss of height on your part?’ She had. She had not wanted to admit she was old enough to experience the shrinking of age, but she was. He pinched a roll of belly skin between his thumb and fingers, as if measuring it. ‘There is another procedure we can do which will take care of this. Abdominoplasty. Most people call it a tummy tuck.’
The tummy tuck was not so painless. When she emerged from the anesthesia, she was aware of a row of meticulous stitching around her midriff. It had not begun to hurt yet, but she sensed it would within the day. ‘Well! How do we feel, Susan? I’m happy to report that things went very well.’ Her hand, gingerly, sought her abdomen. It was flat. It was going to look good. A sudden thought occurred to her. “Where’s my skin?’ ‘What?’ ‘What you cut off. I want to see it.’ ‘It’s on its way to the lab. We’re required to submit for analysis any bodily material removed for any reason.’ ‘How much does the lab need?’ She suddenly found it unthinkable that any part of her bodily self, even a part she no longer wanted, would be mixed in with the offal from other patients. Disposed of as garbage, perhaps. He raised his brows in impatience. ‘Well, only a small sample, really. We have to make sure – ’ ‘I want it, whatever they don’t need. I want whatever was taken off my body.’ ‘That can’t be done. It’s never done – ’ ‘It’s mine. I have a right to it. I want it. I could sue – ’ He turned, irate, and spoke sharply to his assistant. She drifted in and out of the haze that always follows anesthesia. At length the technician returned with a plastic bag. She couldn’t make out much because of the blood pooling in the bag, though she saw white strips, the same color as her skin. Without speaking, the technician placed the bag under the gurney with her personal effects and wheeled Susan to recovery. Many of the medical personnel (not including the surgeon) congratulated her on the success of the procedures. Tummy tucks were an old technology, but
cryoectomies of abdominal fat were still experimental. She was a leader, a pioneer. The plastic bag spent a month in the freezer. She was rather well healed when she found it again, wondering momentarily what it was. She set it out to thaw. She found its contents looked rather like chitlins – almost no fat, almost all skin. She hated to waste anything. She could certainly not put this, her own flesh, down the DisposAll. Suddenly she knew what to do with it. I’ll never have this opportunity again, she thought.
It was easy to slice the meat into small bits, which fried up nicely in butter. She stuck a fork into one tidbit and took a nibble. It was astoundingly delicious, something like pig’s ear. Crisp as bacon but with a sweet meaty flavor. Unique. Susan poured herself a glass of Malbec, sat and ate the rest of the meat right out of the skillet. So delicious. She paused, savoring, and then frowned. How annoying: She could never brag about this. It would not do for anyone else to find out how delicious she was.
Kenneth A. Baldwin The Inheritance
He remembered when he learned to read, struggling over words, tripping on black letter cracks in the sidewalk. The pages were foothills. The binding, mountain spines. And, proudly, he marked with flags his summits. He remembered when he read to learn, struggling over thoughts, tripping on the dreams of others, while constructing his own with borrowed bricks. The pages were stone. The words were woods for lumber. And, deliberately, he built his castle. He remembered when learned to write, struggling over words, carving out tales of mountainous climbs, treacherous seas, unforgiving deserts and jagged tundra, arctic snows and summer droughts. The pages were stone. The words were lumber. And he tore apart his castle brick by breath.
Among the scattered words and stones another learned to read. They built the castle towers high-Much higher than he.
Ron Singer
Cell Phoneless Friday Cancelled Memo Subject: press release, new initiative To: all members, Committee to Curtail Chatter (CCC) From: Melissa Bell, President Date: Oct. 28, 2014 It must have been as painful for you to read the press release yesterday cancelling Cell-Phoneless Friday (C-PLF) as it was for me to write it. After all our hard work! I apologize for not giving you a heads-up first, but the event was only two days off when I made a shocking discovery. The discovery came in the form of a fortuitous “leak” (from a trusted source) about a covert, massive and calumnious petitioning campaign, spearheaded by politicians and psychiatrists, and bankrolled by You-Know-Who (the giants of the Telecoms industry). The campaign spawned a list of thousands of signatures condemning C-PLF, and was scheduled to appear as a sponsored back-page “Public Notice” in Sunday’s Paper of Record. This list would very likely have undercut the central purpose of our event, which (as I need not remind you) was to demonstrate mass opposition to cell-phone abuse. The pernicious petition might even have had the effect of stigmatizing our membership as a flock of ostrich-like cranks. Hence, my reluctant press release --which, I assume, will now prompt our opponents to cancel their “Notice.”
Not, of course, that the rationale for C-PLF has been rendered one iota less urgent. I may be preaching to the choir when I remind you how crucial it is to curtail the myriad incidents of road and sidewalk rage triggered by solipsistic cell-phone use; to slow the epidemic of attention-related disorders and oral gratification addictions; and, finally, to remind humanity of a few of our basic needs: to regain touch with the actual world (i.e. stop to smell the roses) and to set aside a small space in which the brain can occasionally lie fallow. However, as the thousands of signatures suggest, those horses may already have left the barn. Temporarily, we trust! Extrapolating from other recent watershed social advances, such as the ban on public smoking and the movement toward healthier school lunches, we believe that a yadda yadda-less world will arrive just as soon as we can teach John (& Joan) Q. Public that cell phone-related social and medical pathologies have become endemic and undeniable. To that end, we are embarking upon a new educational initiative. As soon as funding is in place, CCC will initiate a massive advertising campaign of our own, unleashing a flood of warnings on billboards, and in subways, buses, newspapers, magazines, and e-media. The thrust of this blitz will be to convince the chattering classes to... well... just shut up! I envision using the sort of “scare” tactics that have been marshaled so successfully by anti-smoking and healthy lunch advocates. Friends, who can say when the time for C-PLF will finally arrive? And when that day does come, and when it turns into a phoneless week, month, and so on... So... Please do not procrastinate. Use your landline now to call us and make a pledge to support CCC’s public education advertising campaign: 1-888-SHUTUP.
Blessed are the silence-makers! (signed) Melissa “Missy” Bell (598 words) When she has finished crafting the memo and is about to send it off, Missy hesitates. She imagines that telling her SO, Mark (“Tinker”) Bell, that she has had second thoughts about putting the kibosh on The Big Event might awaken the startling alter ego of her normally rational spouse, a sarcastic Yorkshire man. (Mark is not even British.) “Well, then, luv! Off-again, on-again, that’s fookin’ brilliant!” With this in mind, she carefully taps the “Save as Draft” button, rather than the “Send.”
Daniele DeAngelis Walker
An ode to the gentleman who wanted to shove his tongue down my throat in the deserted hall Most of the time, radical feminism makes me tired, but you did what you did to me and then you didn’t even remember it. And I’m not going to have children, but one of the people I love could, and someone like you could touch one of them. and no matter how many times i shower, i can still feel your fingernails (g)raze my neck.
Daniele DeAngelis Walker {(braces)}
our hands have gotten tremendously bad at not holding (each other) palms creeping toward, sneaky and almost automatic this undercurrent of indigo and temperature these fingertips and the morse code of our pulses losing track of whose beat \is whose and liquidation of boundaries (between who owns which finger) and saying so much when all i really set out to say was thank you (for the extra iloveyou at two AM)
Matthew Perron Long Weekend
Heat from the box warms my palm as I trudge home from the pizzeria. Megan’s returning from a deposition in Seattle, and I’m hoping her suddenly ravenous appetite will distract her, because if she reads my mood, if not my shame… When I open the front door of the apartment building, yet another gift from Babies “R” Us has arrived. A throb of panic jolts through me before I pick up the package and go upstairs. Our place is being inundated by presents; I add the latest to the expanding stack and then slide the pizza into the oven to keep it warm. I open a beer, slouch to the love seat, and find a car chase on the flat screen. The sound system magnifies revving engines and squealing tires to floorshaking volume, but it only heightens my impulsive anxiety. For the umpteenth time last night’s mistakes reel through my mind. The woman sat curled on a stool at the bar. Many times I’d noticed her trim muscles and bouncing ponytail as she ran on the treadmill at my gym, and more than once I caught her noticing me. She glanced my way and her eyes lingered for a moment, before she turned back to the Mets game on TV. It’d been too long since I’d felt flattered by anybody, so I slid the ring from my finger into my pocket and approached her. “I see you around all the time,” I said. “My name is Joe.” I extended my hand. She smiled and clasped my palm. “Jennifer. What’re you drinking?” I can’t stop remembering our lips pressing over empty shot glasses, the smell of smoke trapped in wavy hair, and her slender fingers in my palm as we
staggered through the neighborhood to her place without a care. Drunk, is what we were. If not for that phone call and the sound of her argument in the next room… The fact is that I’m becoming an extension of the worst in my bloodlines. My father left my mother for a toll collector. He must’ve fallen for her as she leaned her big rack out of the booth to collect his change. Who knows what he liked about the multitudes to follow? And my mother, in the great tradition of the Massachusetts mill town of her youth, or so she says, is a functioning alcoholic. But at least they both can keep a job. When the hall door opens, I turn the TV off and jump up to meet Megan. Exhaustion has darkened the skin around her eyes, and her makeup can’t hide the blush of hormone-fueled acne spreading down her neck. I wrap my arms around her back and her swollen stomach pokes my groin like an accusing finger. It seems like just yesterday when she missed her period and I found myself standing in front of a hundred witnesses between the sagging walls of a giant white tent by the East River, and already I’m hiding something from her. “Hi, honey,” she says and gives me a squeeze. “How was your trip?” “My back is killing me, and I have to pee. Don’t go away.” She disengages and closes the bathroom door. “How’d the case go?” I say. “Typical shit show. The other lawyer made baseless objections to every question and kept coaching the witness, who was feigning stupidity to the point of ridiculousness. It was all I could do to keep from snapping.” She opens the door. “OK, now give me a real hug.” We embrace and kiss.
She pulls away from me. “For Christ’s sake, Joe, you’re not at Syracuse anymore.” “What do you mean?” “You reek of booze. And you promised you’d stop, or at least limit it to a weekend night.” “Last night was a Saturday.” She shakes her head. “I’m out there working…six months pregnant…and this is what I come home to?” There’s no good response. “Just show some consideration,” she snaps. “Or is that too much to ask?” “Of course it isn’t,” I say. “It’s just that the bank I interviewed for called yesterday with the bad news.” “On a weekend?” “Nice touch, no?” “So what’d they say, let’s go out for a drink?” I shrug. “If you were here, I would’ve stayed in.” “Don’t blame this on me.” “I’m not. Just lonesome was all.” She gestured at the beer bottle on the coffee table. “You’re really starting to freak me out. When are you going to grow up?” This question stings more than anything else she’s said, because I’m not sure what it really means. Growing up in the houses of my childhood meant growing gray as you made the same old mistakes. “Who says I haven’t?” I grab two television trays from behind the couch and open them. “I’m starving.” I feel her stare on my back as I walk to the kitchen for our dinner. We eat in silence. I grab a second slice. “It’s not my fault the economy sucks.”
She grunts. “All you do is throw money away on booze from the moment I leave. God knows what else you do.” The disdain in her voice is chilling. For a moment I wonder if someone has already said something to her. But that’s paranoia; she’s probably talking about my father. She’s profoundly unimpressed by his history. “What’s that crack supposed to mean?” I ask. “You tell me.” “I spent thirty bucks.” “Yeah, right.” “Listen, what I spent this weekend is going to be nothing compared to the diapers, shoes, clothes, schools, and who knows what else over the next twenty years.” For a moment she can only stare at me in disbelief. “That’s your argument?” “I’m getting it out of my system.” She picks up her pizza and then drops it again. “You think I want to live in some rented apartment with an infant and be the sole support while you stumble from bar to bar doing God knows what else?” “Just what are you suggesting?” “Oh, I’m sorry, make that from yet another job rejection, to the bar, and home again with a pizza.” “Remember the banking crisis, the housing bubble, the offshore jobs? You know damn well it could just as easily have happened to you.” “And what if it does?” She spits the question with such derision that I fire back without thinking. “How’d you get pregnant, anyway?” She raises her eyebrows. “What are you trying to say, Joe?”
“I’m just saying…” “What?” “It’s just…we never discussed it.” She slowly shakes her head. “That’s nice. So I did everything and you did nothing? And you’re still doing nothing, nothing that I care to talk about.” “I’ve been looking for a job.” “Where, the bar or the bottom of a bottle?” “That’s what happens when people are unemployed.” “Yeah. If they’re right out of college; not if they’re thirty years old and expecting.” “You’re the one who’s expecting.” For a moment she can only clench her jaw. “You said you wanted this baby.” “I do. It’s just that…” “Just that what?” “I’m feeling some pressure.” “You’re feeling pressure? My hormones are so messed up I never know if I’m going to puke or start to cry. And if I lose my job…” She shakes her head and turns on the television. The news watchdog team has caught some airconditioning guy cheating customers on Long Island. “Want some more water?” I ask. She says yes and I bring it to her with extra ice. I sit next to her and the silence builds. “I am so sick of these swollen feet.” She takes off her shoes. “So, other than your lost dream job, any other developments?” “One of the websites found me an interview at a small investment firm in Midtown. It’d be a big pay cut though.”
“Right now nothing is a pay cut.” “Do you have to be so nasty?” She nods toward my left hand. “Where’s your ring?” “My ring?” “Yeah, your ring. Or have you forgotten you’re married?” She knows I’m afraid of losing it to the point of never taking it off. But now it’s still in the front pocket of my jeans. “That’s strange,” I say and scratch my chin. “Maybe it’s on the bed stand,” I say and walk into the bedroom to take it from my pants in privacy. I return to the living room, show her the ring, and slide it onto my finger. “You’re acting weird. What the hell is going on?” “Nothing. I left it on the bed stand.” “You never leave it anywhere but on your finger.” “I was chopping vegetables for a salad.” “You made a salad?” “Wasn’t hard.” “In the bedroom?” “No, that’s just where I took it off.” “One thing I love about you, you’re a terrible liar. That’s why I can’t imagine you having an affair. That’d be the last straw.” “I’m not.” “Something is going on. So what is it?” “Nothing is going on.” “Joe, just tell me.” “Really, it’s nothing.” “Joe.”
“All right!” I raise my hands and let them crash against my sides. “I drunkenly kissed someone at the Ale House. Then I walked her home. That’s it. I don’t even have her number.” She leans back on the couch and caresses her temples with her fingertips. Somehow the act makes her seem more hugely pregnant than ever. “Unbelievable,” she finally says. “Even when you cheat, you’re wishy-washy.” “I didn’t cheat.” “And at the Ale House. How am I supposed to go back in there? I think you need to go.” “Where?” “Back to the bar, wherever you want. I don’t care. Just go. I can’t stand the sight of you right now.” She turns toward the wall. I try to touch her. She slaps my hand away, and before she turns back to the wall, I see tears streaking her cheeks. When I reach the street, I sit on the stoop. It seems I can add “husband” to my current list of failures, and fatherhood won’t be far behind. I hear sirens. They grow louder and louder until a fire truck rumbles past on Carroll Street. Once beyond the buildings abutting the intersection, the blaring suddenly quits. I walk to the corner. Firemen scurry to attach a hose to a hydrant. Red flashers flicker on the windshields of parked cars. A milling crowd watches from the opposite sidewalk. As I get closer I notice oily smoke billowing from the third-floor window of a brownstone next to Sacred Heart’s rectory. An unnatural chemical smell permeates the air. Grateful for the distraction, I admire the courage of the men in heavy rubber coats hustling in and out of the building. And then I see a
woman with wavy black hair staring at me. I turn away, but she approaches anyway. “Hey,” Jennifer says, completely unembarrassed. She’s not as good-looking as I remember her being; there’s a slightly masculine aspect to her brow and nose, but she’s still attractive. “Hey,” I say. “You know how the fire started?” “Heard some neighborhood guys talking about candles and a curtain.” A fireman knocks the glass from a window, and it shatters on concrete. “What happened to you?” she says. “I came back into the living room and you were gone.” “You were arguing with someone. It sounded serious.” “That asshole? I couldn’t care less.” I shake my head. “Never should’ve been there in the first place.” She nods and her hair drifts briefly across her defined cheekbones. Even now I’d love to sink my face into it. This has got to be some kind of family curse. It can’t be that all men are like this. “I see your ring.” She shakes her head. “Guess I should thank you for leaving.” “Be careful who you meet in bars.” “I almost never do that. But it’s hard to meet decent guys…sometimes I do stupid things.” She drops her eyes. An arc of protective spray splatters the roof of the rectory, and mist floats down through the smoke to obscure a statue of a monk holding a child. I want to say something to make her feel better, less alone. Maybe something about my father and the woman who remained after he went bald and his belly swelled to crimp his belt. How he ended up linked to someone constantly enraged by imagined slights by everyone from supermarket cashiers to his suddenly
fleeing friends. That when it came to loneliness, my father was a self-made man, and that the problem was only permanent for people like him. But she doesn’t want to hear anything from me. So I quietly leave her and walk home. At the apartment door I half expect that Megan will have somehow managed to change the lock, but the door swings open. The silhouette of our stack of presents is illuminated by streetlight. My eyes adjust quickly and I notice she has left a pillow and blanket for me on the couch. Even in the depths of anger, she is capable of grace. I open the bedroom door. She’s there, big beneath the blankets. Her head turns toward me as I undress, but she doesn’t speak. I slide between the sheets beside her. Still she says nothing. “Couldn’t stand it out there by myself,” I whisper. “Stop talking and go to sleep,” she says. It’s not a warm welcome with open arms, but it’s enough.
Gabe Russo
Fear and Werner Herzog Shel Silverstein jabs It’s a cruel go-a-round in the face of his giving stump (encased with a heart) he lifts his knees— blade clacks in, brushes kin out of his palms then turns the page, Hurry up through the library buying groceries for the week to come home, eat, watch TV and you don’t ask a thing from me well, you do— silently you’re dreaming: Be something, be something, be something
but you love me even though I’ve never sacrificed for your health so I gnaw my forearm to the bone while you click through channels we watch the Rio Grande float bodies and some people are running so fast their Achilles’ shatter like nebulas then I sit and write; I’m trying to bruise language crack open words more ostentatious than Grail cram in a bloated, scabbed philosophy not worth the toilet paper you buy I want to eat that paper, though— get dizzy from its comfort chew my wadded blanket
while I waste hours in the bathroom picking my skin because I don’t want to disappoint so grow up everyone’s thirsty at 4 AM, dry-heaving the things no one talks about: we writhe to alleviate pressure, usurp barometers of pleasure the quiet acceptance of Herzog’s burdened dreams still shrieking in their jungle a flat, apathetic hum: his mother hung up when she heard him smiling at the bottom of a mountain,
steeped in madness, crying: Mother, mother, I moved the earth I split it wide with my demands and now it arches... (his labored breath pulling apart each word— imploding her heart) ...so beautifully
Marlene Olin Anticipation
I watch his hand work its way up and down the page. Strong. Veined. Tanned. His thumb sits on the spine and as his gaze shifts, as he works his way through each line, as his thumb slides slowly down, I shift in my seat and wait.
Contributors Kenneth A. Baldwin Kenneth A. Baldwin grew up in Southern California where he learned to love the ocean, strawberries, and oranges. He speaks fluent Italian, loves reading, cooking, and dabbling in all forms of art. Marty Carlock For almost 20 years, Marty was a regular contributor to The Boston Globe and other publications; more than 30 newspapers and magazines have published some 1,600 articles under her byline. She is author of two editions of “A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston.” At the present time she writes for Sculpture and Landscape Architecture magazines, and she reviews fiction and nonfiction for the Internet Review of Books. Kyra LaRue Kyra LaRue lives in Harbor Springs, Michigan. This summer will be the fifth that she works in her hometown’s bookstore, it’s the only way that she can fund her reading addiction and it helps to be surrounded by people with similar afflictions all day long. Marlene Olin Born in Brooklyn, raised in Miami, and educated at the University of Michigan, Marlene Olin recently completed her first novel. Her short stories have been featured in publications such as Emrys Journal, Upstreet Magazine, Biostories,
Vine Leaves, WIPS, Poetica , Edge, Ragazine, The Jewish Literary Journal, Poydras Review and The Saturday Evening Post online. She will be published in Meat For Tea, Red Savina and The Broken Plate in the coming months. Two of her stories will be anthologized next year. She is a contributing editor at Arcadia magazine. Matthew Perron Matthew’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cadillac Cicatrix, Compass Rose, Blue Lake Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Gemini Magazine, Sanskrit, The Dos Passos Review, RiverSedge, and G.W. Review. He also won the Table 4 Writers contest in 2014 for his story, “Rent Control.” Gabe Russo Gabe Russo is a writer and filmmaker currently living in Melbourne, Fl. His poems have appeared in Wilderness House and Black Foxamong others. He has a hatchling. Ron Singer Satire by Ron Singer (www.ronsinger.net) has appeared in many publications (The Brooklyn Rail, diagram, Evergreen Review, The Journal of Microliterature, Mad Hatter’s Review, Word Riot, etc). His eighth book, “Uhuru Revisited: Interviews with Pro-Democracy Leaders,” has just been issued by Africa World Press/Red Sea Press.
Daniele DeAngelis Walker Daniele DeAngelis Walker is twenty-three years young, but her soul feels much older. An avid lover of colors and words, she graduated from Drew University with specialized honors in creative writing. She works in the publishing industry and lives in New Jersey with the fiancee she never thought she’d have. Her work can be found in Tell Us A story, Fuse Literary‘s anthology “The Burden Of Light: Poems On Illness And Loss,” and is forthcoming in The Jet Fuel Review, The Nassau Review, and The Survivor’s Review.
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