Looseleaf Tea: Issue 1.1 by Mehra Gharibian

LOOSELEAF TEA

ISSUE 1.1

Looseleaf Tea A journal of cultural expression & hidden voices.

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Staff Mehra Gharibian – Editor-‐in-‐Chief Sam Jeffrey – Prose Editor Uzma Amin – Prose Editor Kamin Kahrizi – Poetry Editor Marisa Kallenberger – Poetry Editor / Managing Editor Lekha Jandhyala – Visual Arts Editor / Marketing

Dear Reader, On behalf of the Looseleaf Tea staff, we’d like to thank you tremendously for reading our inaugural issue. We’re very proud of this and we can assure you that the art, prose, and poetry in this issue is top notch. These artists are very talented, and we’re honored to display their work for you. The work that fills the following pages was selected around a central theme: the humanization of culture and alternative points of view. We’re looking to promote the ideal that people of different cultures and backgrounds and viewpoints, especially those different than the norm, are just that– people. We hope you enjoy the following pieces, and that you’ll stick with us as we learn and grow. Thanks again. Mehra Gharibian Editor-‐in-‐Chief The Looseleaf Tea

Table of Contents Staff................................................................................................................................3 Editor’s Note……………………………………........................……...........………….4 John Grey, Content…………………..…………..............................……………………5 Alan Harris, Look For Me………………………........…...........................…………6 G.D. McFetridge, Park Place Avenue………………...........................………..7 Emily Cole, Suspicions…………………………………....….......................……...28 Aaron Poller, Self-‐Doubt………………………...…................................………..30 Geoffrey Miller, Indeterminate Referent.....................................................32 Megan Binkley, The Fledgling..........................................................................40 Dane Cervine, Anti-‐Mass....................................................................................68 Ellen Woods, Pick and Pull................................................................................69 Denny E. Marshall, Hidden Side & Others....................................................78 Laura Taylor, Nurikabe Nights.........................................................................82 Ed Higgins, Morning Worship..........................................................................83 Daniel Davis, What Do You Say When There is No Word For Love?.85

Corey Mesler, You’ve Got to Pick Up Every Stitch....................................95 Gale Acuff, Onward...............................................................................................96

Content – JOHN GREY At last I live in the old house in my very own elm grove by the side of a hill with a trout stream out back and a porch with a lounge chair and a book by Fitzgerald that I read between bird sightings and a cup of rich coffee that I can fill and refill to my heart’s rare content. I am this person that you didn’t idealize but at least have read about.

He seeks nothing from life but the night fall and the day break, the preponderance of feathered companions and java the flavor of the soul, the literature that survives the centuries and yes, even the newspaper that doesn’t, with its stories of the peril of elsewhere, its terrors of being someone else. That’s me you see on your way to some place that is not this. Must you drive like a mad-‐man? It’s a sane man who’s asking.

Look For Me – ALAN HARRIS When you fear that I’m lost forever look for me in a crowd I’m huddled, hidden between the heartbeats of strangers If you watch carefully out of the corner of your eye you may catch a glimpse as our shadows embrace But our eyes will never meet again unless we see one another in the reflections of mirrors, ponds, and precocious children and even then we won’t talk but I promise to listen if you will to nature to the rhythm of life where you can close your eyes and hear me whisper your name

Park Place Avenue – G.D. McFETRIDGE So it was like this: How could I break loose from the containment factor, release the master parking brake—you know, kick loose and escape that D-‐9 bulldozer that’s behind me pushing for all it’s worth. Pushing like a wave of karma, fate, ill fortune, or whatever terms you’re comfortable with. But aside from smoldering under the weight of destiny, part of it is the health issues, all the big and little problems that creep up on you over time and get tangled into a giant ball. In my younger days I weighed about 150 pounds and could run like a gazelle, run five or ten miles at a stretch if I

wanted to. Matter of fact, when I was thirty-‐three years old, I still could still knock out a mile in just over five minutes. Nowadays I drink too much vodka. Weigh 180 and feel cumbersome and heavy. First came asthma. Came right of nowhere during a bad cold. Cut my lungpower down by a third. Didn’t have any health benefits. The young woman doctor put a stethoscope to my chest and listened, then offered a professional furrowing of her brow. “How long have you had asthma?” she asked. “I’ve never had asthma.” “You got it now,” she said. Asthma for chrissake? I couldn’t believe it. Then the allergies started, and after that high blood pressure and cholesterol. I guess you could say I was developing health issues.

My grandfather on my mother’s side is French-‐Canadian and he’s five-‐

eighths Chippewa, or so the documentation says. He married my grandmother who is one-‐fourth Cheyenne, so that makes my mom almost half-‐Indian and me almost a quarter-‐blood.

Mom didn’t like being stigmatized as a “half-‐breed redskin,” residue from the small-‐town bigotry where she grew up, so she began telling people she was part Italian to explain away her dark skin and jet-‐black hair. Although my dad, Scots-‐Irish top to bottom—the Kneelands and the McKettricks—was so taken by her striking looks, high cheekbones and flashing dark eyes, I don’t think he gave a shit what she was. Plus I’ve seen the old pictures. Mom had a great figure back then. But anyway, I don’t understand how genes and genomes function—scientifically speaking— however, in spite of my dose of Native American blood, my ass is alabaster white, I have hazel-‐green eyes and light-‐brown hair and you would never suspect I was anything other than good old western European stock. My sister, on the other hand, is dark like Mom, and I can remember in grade school—she was two years behind me—how kids teased her and said she was Mexican. Back then we lived north of the border by about a hundred miles and there was definitely a downside to being mistaken for a Mexican. I hate to admit this, but during my teenage years I told friends my sister was my half-‐sister, to distance myself. So … getting back to the original subject. What is with that

containment thing anyway? I can’t precisely put a finger on it, and I can’t make up my mind if the problem is inside me or if it’s inherent to the world in which I’m trapped. Let me clarify that. A man is in the dark and all he knows is that something smells like shit. And it’s always smelled like shit as long as he can remember. Eventually he decides—lacking any substantial evidence to the contrary—it must be he himself who stinks. Because what else could it be? And in this way he becomes the target of his own accusations, his own self-‐hatred. “My life stinks. And I stink and it’s my own fault and no matter what I do I can’t escape the stench,” he says to himself. But then one day in amidst of this ongoing darkness, a light shines down from above, as if somebody has flipped a switch, and what the poor bastard realizes is that he’s up to his armpits in a cesspool. So of course he smells like shit. And the entity with the light reaches down and snatches him out of the sewer and says, “Go to the river and cleanse yourself, head to toe, and you will never smell that stench again.”

Seriously. You do get what I’m saying, right? Either I’m all fucked up

or the world’s all fucked up, or it’s a combination of the two. This is the

total circumference, the art and alchemy of the problem.

The other approach is to ask where all that sewer came from in the

first place and how did I get myself in up to my armpits? Was the cesspool innate to planet Earth, the universe, innate to life and the human world … or was it a byproduct of circumstances, of arbitrary conditions, or was it somebody else’s intentions? I’ll remind you that we’re using sewer water as a symbol here, so don’t get anal retentive about the details. I can tell by your facial expression and body language that we’re not connecting here. So let’s try this from another angle. The first thing I like to do is divide my observations of reality and the world into logical opposites. For example: you have light and dark, and absolute light is the farthest end of the scale in one direction and absolute dark is on the other. It’s the same for temperature: absolute zero on one end and absolute super-‐heated atomic dissolution at the other. We also have something like order versus chaos. And of course, philosophically speaking, each of these dichotomies is the opposite side of the same coin, yet in that sense they are also interdependent. Light cannot exist without darkness acting as its collocation. Right? It’s the same for losers and winners.

So … I look at myself in the mirror and I see a failure, more or less. No

soaring career (I’m a middle-‐age mechanic at the local car dealership), no wonderful wife and kids, no money to speak of, no house or land, just my own tired face in that mirror, living day-‐to-‐day and doing shit work. And trust me, being an auto mechanic is basically shit. It’s dirty and greasy, uncomfortable mindless repetitive work that leaves you with grimy fingernails and the whiff of oil and burnt carbon clinging to your skin. Plus don’t forget about breathing too much brake-‐lining dust—there’s a sure way to get lung cancer. And I make a lousy 30K a year with no benefits. That ain’t no party-‐time lifestyle, although there are plenty of people who got it worse than me. But I know for damn sure that I’m closer to the bottom than the top, even though I’m smarter than you might think and have a good vocabulary. Not to mention, watch how fast this goddamn country comes screeching to a halt when there’s nobody to fix the cars and trucks and buses and every other mechanical thing with an internal combustion engine and handfuls of gears and bearings and seals and … well, you get what I’m saying. Try growing your own wheat, try mining your own coal. Because if

rich people couldn’t hire poor people, then they’d have to take out their own garbage and unplug their own toilets—and of course fight their own wars.

You see I’m not stupid, and just because I’m stuck being an auto

mechanic who can’t even afford a house doesn’t mean I’m some kind of second-‐rate human. I had my daydreams, had lots of them. I wanted to be other things, and I think I could’ve been if things were different, but then that’s where the containment factor comes back into the picture, the invisible walls and what I said about that D-‐9 bulldozer pushing me from behind. Because it seems to me, looking back on my own life, that every time I tried to steer myself from one path and to another, I ended up back on the very road I was trying to escape—I mean come on, what’s with that? The apologists will say, “You made choices, you are responsible.” But I want you to really think about something. If a man or woman, all things being equal, actually chooses losing over winning, then we need to wonder about the content of their mind. Why would anyone freely choose to be lesser than greater? Unless of course something is wrong with the mechanism of

choice. The other possibility is that some people are programmed to fail. Then the question is, who did the programming? And I’ve heard some people say that slavery in America never really ended, it was just given a new name—employee.

I already know what you’re going to say. I’m my own worst enemy, I

suffer self-‐defeating behavior, I’m neurotic, I’m manifest self-‐fulfilling prophecy, etc. I admit, I once bought into that BS too, and that’s why I looked at myself in the mirror and pointed a finger at myself, and that’s why I hated myself because I figured it was my fault. Some people are winners and others are losers and I’m one of the losers. Case closed. I don’t deserve to be a winner. So let me tell you about Rooster. His real name is Roberto Morales, and in his spare time he raises chickens and fighting cocks. So that’s why we call him “Rooster.” He’s close to twenty years younger than me but old for an apprentice—apprentice mechanic that is. And he’s Mexican, has too many gang-‐style tattoos, drinks and smokes too much, but he’s one of life’s true characters. He has dark, intense eyes, and you can see in his eyes that he’s thinking, always thinking, trying to understand things and find some

way out of the big maze. The first time I met him I figured he’d had a hard childhood, I saw it in his face. Probably got kicked around by a drunken father, poor as dirt. A fuckin’ Mexican (that’s what the white boys say behind his back), gangs and drugs, living in racist Southern California—the whole bit. But he’s not dumb, no sir, not by any means. Sure, he’s uneducated, just like me, but he’s got a good brain, and he thinks about life in ways other people never even dream. And he has an aura of kindness about himself, in his voice, in his tone, and the way he shows respect and tries to understand how it is for the other guy. He’s conscious of his position in life, knows the pecking order, realizes his limitations, but he also knows that he could have been something else. He said that to me once, when we were talking about how things are. “Jorge,” he said (he calls me Jorge), “I know the way it is … I’m an ugly Mexican (actually he’s handsome in his own way), and white people are afraid of me and they don’t want us Mexicans here, but I know I have it inside me and I could have done a lot of other things … maybe I still can.” I nodded. I understood what he was saying—more than understood

it, I felt it, but I also saw those invisible walls closing in around him, that big bulldozer pushing, relentlessly pushing from behind along that same old road. Rooster has hope, hope he can break loose from the containment, the walls, and the order of things. But I’m beginning to think that neither of us can break loose, we’re stuck here for the rest of our lives. Or so it would seem. And the only question left … is there honor in this resignation? Will our heavenly father make it right in the end? I’m sorry, but that don’t work for me. Call it a weakness I guess.

Because here’s the catch: Is there room at the top? For Rooster, for

me, for any of us natural-‐born losers? I think it’s something my father once said: “In America anyone can become a millionaire (this was back when a million was a lot), but not everyone can be a millionaire—because there ain’t enough money to go around.” The logic of his wisdom wasn’t lost on me, though at the time I was only fourteen or fifteen. There’re lots of people just like Rooster and me, stuck doing crappy jobs and never having a chance at a better life, no chance to ascend. Some people are born on home plate and they’re busy bragging how they hit a

homerun. Rooster will never live uptown, never have a nice professional job, and I’ll never be anything better than a greasy mechanic. Maybe never is too strong a word, but in truth it’s about the same odds as winning the mega-‐lottery—what are the chances really? You see, unless I miss my guess it’s like this: America has ten losers for every big winner, or maybe it’s a hundred losers, but whatever the case, in order for one of us losers to start having a winner’s life, we got to pull one of them winners down to where we are. We got to swap lives, change places, or else figure out how to recreate the whole culture and society in such a way that everyone gets to be a winner. But then that’s not very Darwinian—not very American. What are the chances of that?

I remember when I was a kid, about eleven or twelve. Me and my

neighborhood buddies played Monopoly all summer long. We’d hole up in my dad’s garage and battle it out for hours. We played by the rules for the most part, but we also made up rules to suit ourselves, to govern the fine points of the game. Sometimes we’d get into arguments over the rules, because of course they’d change to fit the circumstances, change to tip the balance of power. Tom and I were the smartest, so we could usually

manipulate the rules in our favor, and if a dispute got out of hand, we had BB guns, and the Monopoly game would turn into a shootout. Seriously. We were tough kids. Ultimately I won most of the games, for two reasons: First, I was clever at skewing the rules to my own advantage, and secondly, I was the most vicious when it came to the shootouts. In the game of Monopoly, I was a winner, but apparently the skills didn’t carry over into real life. ***

A long time ago, when I was naïve and went into the army to do my

duty as an American citizen, or at least what at the time I perceived was my duty—a yes sir, all right now good citizen who gonna fight commies and Iraqis and whoever else—all us recruits took an intelligence test. Which I suppose helped the army people figure out what to do with each individual, cannon fodder or some kind of specialist. One of the sergeants during the later stages of processing took me aside and informed me that I had scored really high on the test, although the look on his face seemed to suggest he was puzzling over whether or not I had somehow cheated or perhaps gotten amazingly lucky.

To make a long story short, I was eventually dismissed from my military adventure because of a medical condition that I won’t bother going into. It’s not a life-‐threatening deal, just something the army didn’t want to mess with or worry about. And to this day I still wonder about intelligence tests. There’s SAT tests and IQ tests and tests to see if you get to be a doctor or lawyer or a whatever. But who makes up those tests, and have any of these test makers ever created an intelligence test that they do poorly on? Think about it. If I made up a big fancy test and flunked it, I’d be tempted to remake the test, or something. Because I was thinking about what Rooster had once mentioned to me, about how he was told as a teenager that he wasn’t very bright because he messed up on some important test. And from that point on he believed what they’d told him, at least until he was old enough to question things for himself. From my standpoint, Rooster has a very sharp mind. He understands a lot, it’s just that he understands things from a different kind of perspective. How many types of intelligence are there, and do tests really measure the total spectrum, or do they just measure a slice of things that fits someone else’s agenda? I wonder about that.

All this aside, Rooster had a story about a job he was on before he got

hired by the outfit I work for. It was another auto repair shop and Rooster was a new hire. His boss was born in Puerto Rico, named Mario, and you might think that one “Latino” would be decent to another Latino, seeing how they were both caught in the white man’s game. But not according to Rooster. Mario treated him like some sort of second-‐rate human, always talking shit to him and making him feel like he was an idiot. Rooster said to me, “Man, I could have gone off on a guy like that—I mean, hey, Jorge, he disrespected me every chance he had, and no matter what I did or tried to do, it wasn’t good enough. It got to me, man, got to me bad.”

I didn’t know what to say, except to ask Rooster if Mario was light

skinned. He said, yeah, pretty much, and he had grayish-‐blue eyes. So I said, “Unless I missed my guess, he’s working real hard to prove to his white boss that he’s just like him, you know, a man who knows how to ride herd on brown-‐skin motherfuckers.”

Rooster gave me an odd look, as if he wasn’t sure he was fully getting

what I was saying; but then I think the light went on and he got exactly what

I was saying. Rooster didn’t know that I was part Native American, I’d never said anything about my background, but he looked closely into my eyes and said, “Jorge, you’re not like other white men, you’re straight-‐up in the way you treat people, people like me. You’re a good man.”

“Maybe I can relate better than you think,” was all I said.

I was honored by what Rooster had said to me, and he grinned then

and put an arm around my shoulder and jostled me and gave me a manly sort of hug. I thought about explaining my own family history, but then I decided not to. I didn’t want to water down the moment. Because I really respected Rooster, and I understood his struggles, and despite the fact that I could pass under their radar didn’t change that—the bottom line was pretty damned simple: Rooster was a good man in his own right, a little crazy and rough around the edges, but then who wouldn’t be. I mean, try it from the other side, when you’re not sitting back in all your societal comfort and the fact that you’re part of the pretty people, the ones for whom everything just falls into to place. That’s right, get a good taste of what’s it’s like to be on the outside looking in, looking in your entire life and never even having a hint of a chance of getting inside.

That’s double right—all those lucky ones riding in puffed up on privilege and background, all born with silver spoons and tickets to fancy universities where they’ll teach you how to run the world, or if you’re one of the really privileged, they’ll teach you how to own it. But what have you really done? You just got born under the right stars and the stars are out there in an empty void and even if you assign meaning to those stars it doesn’t mean they have any meaning at all. It’s just a trick, like religion, like every preacher and liar who talks about pie in the sky—it’s just another way to convince the slave that it’s God’s will that you’re the master and he’s the beast of burden. The bottom line is simple. One class does all the dirty work while another class has all the good jobs and money. But let me tell you what, people like me won’t stay stupid forever. *** So anyway … back to that containment thing, that Karmic bulldozer pushing me forward. How can I become something other than what the world of humans has decided that I should be? I dream about a hundred

things that I could be, yet the world allows none of them, except the lowest. I’m a dumb-‐ass mechanic, a zero, a social and monetary nothing and the world moves on without me. The world doesn’t give a shit about me … and I suppose, in my darker hours, I wonder if the world isn’t right. Hey, I’m nobody, I am a zero, but there are other times when that’s not how it seems to me, not in my interior world. I remember when I was a little boy and Mom read stories at bedtime, and one of the stories that stuck in my mind was the one about the emperor who had no clothes. Did you ever hear that story? Well … if you did, fine, and if you didn’t I won’t bother telling the whole thing. Truth is, I think there’s a whole boatload of people just like the emperor—they got nothing on, just an illusion that everyone agrees to buy into. That’s what I think about most of these so-‐called famous people, all the movie stars and TV personalities, the tin-‐plated politicians, Paris Hiltons, Trumps, and all the other luminaries that working-‐class people are taught to idolize. But I say fuck ‘em. Give every regular guy his fifteen minutes of fame and give all the famous ones ten years of hauling garbage or digging ditches or picking fruit. I want to see some of these privileged candy-‐ass bastards

do what I do. Or do what Rooster has to do. I want to read about some rich boys dying in coalmines or getting blown up on oil-‐drilling platforms, getting their asses shot full of lead in Afghanistan or Iraq. Get out there. Sweat and get blisters and broken backs and breathe hazardous dust and chemicals and die too young and every other damn thing. Grab every sonofabitch at the Oscar Awards and put a pick and shovel in their lily hands and kick ’em in the ass and if they can’t hack it, throw the bastards under the bus. So … Rooster and me are walking down the avenue and we see a couple corporate dandy dudes in their suits and ties, with their fancy eighty-‐thousand dollar cars and downtown condominiums. Why don’t you boys come and do our shit-‐work jobs for a while and we’ll take your jobs. We’ll get your BMWs and your Barbie Doll blonde trophy wives and your big credit cards and golden parachutes, government bailouts and all that other good stuff. One of them eyes us and runs his fingers back through his hair, smoothing his seventy-‐five-‐dollar haircut. He glances at his buddy and they

laugh and keep walking, like we’re a couple dumb-‐ass jokers vying for their good humor. Rooster elbows me and we exchange a look of our own. Because it’s real clear, at least walking down Park Place Avenue. There ain’t no one trading lives. Rooster grins and says to the fancy boys, “Hey man, we are you and you are us. Don’t you get it?” But they smirk and keep walking toward the big glass doors of the skyscraper, to the elevator that’ll take them up to the twenty-‐seventh floor.

Suspicions – EMILY COLE I think my roommate is a lesbian. No, really. I can barely believe it myself. She seemed like such a nice girl when she pushed through the sagging screen door on the first day of her lease – clean, articulate, blonde. You know, normal. This is what I get for letting her room with me sight unseen. Everything was fine for a few months. We both kept to ourselves. She paid her rent on time, dressed casually, and was generally quiet, but I did notice that she read her weird books and

watched intellectual TV shows where the characters spoke in British accents and said “Blimey.” Maybe that’s the sign I missed. Anyway, she transformed overnight when a raven-‐headed girl showed up at our doorstep. I could hear them, giggling in her room sometimes talking, sometimes moaning. Like a good Christian woman, I bought earplugs. How could she live with herself, moaning like that, loud and ungoverned, as if that other woman were a man. How dare she degrade herself under the roof we share? These days, I keep my boyfriend around for protection, just in case she tries anything. It’s sad the way this all worked out. She seemed like such a good person.

Self-‐Doubt – AARON POLLER Always a curving moon that cuts the sky. The inner work of February cries for consolation, abstinence, curled lip demonstrating flexibility through attachment to the nipple of a god. Could mere mortals compete with this? Will there be a heaven for the narcissist, composer of sweet lyric excursion to your heart? Will there be a nectar there for all to drink? Will costly remembrance of the endured impart self confidence? Back roads lead to places we have left, exits evaporate within the blood, maybe all of truth we intend to keep.

What sings into reflected mind, how quiet now the pine trees stand.

Indeterminate Referent – GEOFFREY MILLER

The Fledgling – MEGAN BINKLEY The night-‐spirits were quiet on the evening of Sethunya's wedding. Earlier that day, when the village women had gone to draw water, they talked among themselves, marveling at the unusual silence permeating the air. “It is a good sign,” one of the younger women declared. “It is an omen from the spirits saying that the wedding of Sethunya and Eniola will be blessed with peace and ease.”

Obi stayed close to his cousin all day. At dawn he rose and crept

across the rock of the mountain path, lingering mist clinging to his hair

with delicate fingers. He found her sitting not far from camp, cradling her legs to her chest, her back pressed against a slender baobab tree. As Obi approached she looked up, an expression of surprise on her face. He was reminded of the gazelle he and the other tribesmen had tracked not two nights ago, the sudden rise of the doe’s head above the flickering dune-‐colored grasses as she scented them closing in. Sethunya continued to watch him as he picked his way towards her. “How’d you know where I’d be?” He shurgged. “I didn’t. But after twelve years of exploring and running off with you, I know the kinds of places you like to go.” She accepted his explanation wordlessly. He gazed at her for a minute then settled himself on the ground next to her. She turned and curled her head to his chest, nestling in to fill the shallow indentation between his breastbones, so clearly visible beneath the sparse muscularity of his child-‐body. Her thin shoulders moved rhythmically with each exhale and her breath was a whisper against his skin. They remained this way for some time, unmoving and soundless, until Obi felt as if they would dissolve into the very dust itself and float away into the

sun-‐lit sky.

Daylight had barely finished blooming above the mountains

when he heard Sauda's voice calling for her daughter. “Sethunya! Where are you? Sethunya?” Sethunya stood and stretched, catlike, her shoulders scrunching towards her ears and her arms pushed out in front of her. A shower of dust sifted down from her skin. Obi reflected that this lack of cleanliness would probably anger Sauda more than the fact that Sethunya had not been in their family hut when she woke up that morning. “Sethunya, this is no time for your games! Come here right now. I don’t want to have to come looking for you again!” Obi stifled a laughed at the look of abject exasperation on his cousin’s face. She gave him a mock-‐evil glare before huffing in resignation. “You wouldn’t be laughing if it was you she’d been squawking at for the last twelve years.” Sethunya was silent for a second. “I have to

go.” “I know, I heard her.” He paused for a second. “How do you feel, Sethunya? Are you nervous? Surely you must be happy to marry Eniola.” She raised an eyebrow. “I must not be anything. I don’t know Eniola, at least not personally. We’ve both seen him from a distance but he’s always with the other hunters. I haven’t even talked to him.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’s always been one of the adults. Plus, the tribe is large enough that...well, we really just haven’t had much of a chance to interact.” Obi pursed his lips. “You will, though. He’s the best hunter and he hasn’t had any previous marriages. You won’t have to care for another woman’s brood.” Sethunya looked at him pensively. “You’re right, of course. It’s just...” she paused, eyes drifting away from him. Her fingers, tightly knit before her, flexed and straightened as if they were their own creature, hanging from her slender wrists.

“Just?” She gave a small shrug. There was several seconds of silence. Then suddenly she smiled, a startling flash of white behind coffee colored lips. “I think I’m just nervous.” She laughed self-‐consciously. “I haven’t been married before, I don’t know what to expect.” “Couldn’t you ask the other women? Your mother, or Chausuki?” Sethunya stared down at the dirt, tracing a pattern with her toe. She seemed embarrassed, Obi thought, and slightly lost, as if she no longer recognized the world around her, stripped bare of the trappings of childish certainty that had previously sustained her. Sethunya cleared her throat. “I did. I asked her and my mother. They just smiled at each other and told me that marriage has many faces, and that there are some things they can’t guide me through. I think they meant, you know,” she leaned towards him, her voice low. “What I mean is, I think they were talking about when I make a baby. Eniola’s baby.”

“What do you mean, make a baby? You mean when you give birth?”

“No, not that. I think there’s something else that happens with the

woman and the man, before the woman’s belly gets big.”

Obi frowned thoughtfully. “Do you remember four summers ago,

when we overheard Shangazi Sauda talking to Chausuki? Before Chausuki married Hadi?”

“Yes.”

He paused, licked his lips. “Do you remember what they were

saying?”

Sethunya frowned and reached out to a patch of bobbing thistle

heads, pinching the tallest off the stalk and bouncing the whithered husk absent-‐mindedly against her palm. Its rustling sound reminded Obi of the dry rasp of snake skin over stone. Sethunya cleared her throat, speaking slowly. “Talking...they were talking about how babies are made.”

“Yes-‐-‐they were saying it was hard work, but that they enjoyed it.”

He blushed. “But they were talking quietly, as if it was talking about

something dirty.” “Oh...” the two of them stood looking at each other speculatively. “SETHUNYA!” Sauda’s bellow shattered their reverie. Sethunya jumped, her eyes wide. “I really do have to go.” She turned and scurried several steps down the trail before glancing back at Obi. “Are you coming?” “I’m not allowed in the hut while you’re getting dressed, remember?” “Oh. Yes. Well, will you come after?” “Of course.” “Thank you.” She darted away, her footprints becoming instantly blurry with the clouds of dust that resettled behind her.

The tribe was a hive of activity. Women wove lithely through the

tangle, balancing voluptuous water urns on their heads and carrying trays of food ready to be prepared for the feast. As Obi approached his hut he felt a hand clasp his shoulder. “There you are! Where were you been hiding this time, Obi?”

Ekwueme looked down at his son with an expression of amusement. Without giving him time to answer, he steered Obi back into the throng, towards a knot of men huddled by a hut with a well-‐thatched roof. As they got closer Obi caught a glimpse of the inside. The floor was covered with pelts and a fire burned in the center. “Is this...?” “Eniola’s? Yes. Sethunya’s a lucky bride! She won’t ever have to worry about lacking for anything, with him as her husband.” He turned to the gathered men, who Obi recognized as the more experienced hunters in the tribe. The oldest, a wiry man named Sefu, nodded a greeting to Ekwueme. “Good timing. The groom should be just about done bathing, I think, not that he hasn’t already spent more time on it than most of the women I know.” Sefu scratched his bare belly thoughtfully, then scowled at Obi. “Are you the robe assistant? Aren’t you a little young for that?” Ekwueme cleared his throat. “Obi is my son, and the cousin of the

bride.” Sefu sighed. “Hm, yes, I suppose...” He tilted his head reflectively. “Now that’s an unfortunate situation. No sons! It’s a wonder that Mwenye manages to provide for them all.” Ekwueme frowned. “I don’t think them all is exactly appropriate. It’s only Mwenye, his wife and two daughters.” Sefu squinted and pursed his lips, causing all of his features to condense in towards the center of his face. Obi stifled a giggle. “Of course, of course...what are their names again?” “Sethunya is the younger-‐-‐she’s the one marrying Eniola-‐-‐and Chausuki is the older. She’s married to Hadi.” “Well, Hadi and Eniola will makes sure the two girls are provided for-‐-‐and the parents too, when the time comes.” Sefu cackled. “I doubt that Mwenye will take kindly to living off the charity of his sons-‐in-‐law, when he’s old! Proud, that one, and stubborn...none too bright, either...” “However, he does happen to be married to my sister, who has never once complained about the quality of his care-‐taking.” Ekwueme’s voice was sharp and an awkward silence fell. Obi stared at

the hunters. A sense of unease filled him. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Is the robe-‐helper here?” The sudden sound made Obi jump. The voice that had spoken was deep, tangible in the same way as the smouldering air that hangs low over the desert at noon. He turned to look at the hut’s entrance.

Eniola was commonly considered one of the more handsome men

in the tribe. Many of the women-‐-‐married and unmarried alike-‐-‐had long hoped to catch his eye. Studying him now, Obi thought that he could understand why. Eniola was tall, with a lean muscularity that only came from years of traversing scrub lands in pursuit of prey for whom running was a way of life, whose spines and hooves and wind-‐smoothed pelts launched them skywards with a grace and strength that no man could ever achieve. Obi knew that Eniola was unusual in his skill. He alone out of the tribe had learned to watch not the nimble delicacy of the antelope’s high-‐stepping gait. Instead, he had learned to listen to the beast’s heartbeat, hear it echoed in the potent drumming of hoof to ground, up and down, on and on, thud-‐thud thud-‐thud thud-‐thud until

he knew exactly when that last second would be, when all tethers of gravity were stretched to the limit, ready to snap and release the prey back up to life. It was then that Eniola’s own blood rose and his breath quickened, his answering pulse hammering like a battering ram against his ear drums. It was then that he thrust his body forward, arms reaching out as if towards a lover or a god, and he released the spear, the last note in a cyclical song which could end only in death.

Ekwueme put his hands on Obi’s shoulders and pushed him

forward gently. “This is my son, Obi. He is the cousin of the bride, and would be honored to act as a brother to her by taking the role of robe-‐assistant.” Eniola nodded and gestured for Obi to step forward into the hut. Obi’s first impression of the hut was that it was large, surprisingly so. His bare feet sank into the thick fur of the rug. Obi became suddenly and acutely aware of the mud and dust covering his feet. Shame burned his cheeks and he curled his toes inwards, hoping that Eniola didn’t notice the clods of dirt nestled in the rug behind him. To Obi’s right stood three woven baskets, their narrow bases

swelling with height until they were almost the same size as Obi himself. They seemed to him almost like sentinels standing guard by the entrance of the hut. A cot occupied the far wall. Obi had a sudden image of Sethunya standing next to it, clad in her bridal robes, staring up at the man before her as he placed a gentle fingertip to her cheek. Obi shivered abruptly and turned to find Eniola watching him, a curious expression on his face. “I’m actually very glad it’s you who’s going to help me.” He saw Obi’s mystified look and hesitated slightly. “You are...very close with Sethunya, yes?” Obi frowned. “We’ve known each other since she was born...’ he paused, watching Eniola’s face. “We’ve always been more like siblings than cousins, probably because I’m an only child and her sister is much older. The two year difference between us didn’t really matter as much.” Eniola pursed his lips. “I see...’ he was quiet for several seconds. “I’m over thirty summers but I have never been married before, you know this. I know about women, of course,” he added hastily “but

Sethunya’s different. I want to make her happy, and to be a good husband to her.” He turned and strode over to the cot. With his back to Obi he slipped the brown-‐weave undershirt off and lifted the finely spun white one, pulling it over his head. “She is barely even a women yet I am nervous to speak to her. What does she like?” He picked up the crimson ceremonial robe and put it over the undershirt, adjusting it to hang smoothly. He motioned towards the ties running down the back and Obi moved obediently forward, picking up the cord and threading it through the first loop. Eniola continued. “How do I treat her?” He sighed. “I need you to tell me about her.” Obi pursed his lips. “In what way?” “What does she like? Is she dull, or witty? Kind, or quick to anger?” Obi frowned. “Sethunya is not like her mother. She is gentler, I suppose, and she prefers to sit and observe things rather than be the center of attention.” “What do you mean?” “When she was younger, she used to wander off by herself into

the mountains. I was usually the one who found her. She was always tucked away in some hidden place, just sitting and watching everything around her.” “You don’t mean to say that she spent hours staring at a rock or tree, surely?” “Well-‐-‐no. Mostly it was animals or the insects she saw.” Obi’s fingers slowed and he smiled. “She likes birds best, I think.” An image materialized in his mind-‐-‐Sethunya, perched on a rock in the center of a hollow. “Especially hummingbirds.” Yes, she had loved the hummingbirds she had found in that hollow. It was a hidden oasis in the mountain’s face, accessible only through a short passage in the rocks, lush and colorful from years of accumulated rain. And Sethunya herself, the motionless heart of it all, watching the birds as they darted around her. How comfortable they had been in her presence! They had seemed to gather towards her, centering around her, until it looked as if she had an aura of shimmering iridescent spirits dancing in a thrumming cloud. Eniola spoke slowly. “So...would she maybe like a feathered cloak? I know where the best places for finding the larger birds are—

would she enjoy that?” Obi resumed knotting the ties. “I don’t know...she used to cry when her father brought animals back from the hunt, so maybe not that.” He thought for a moment. “You might ask Chausuki to weave her a blanket with a feather pattern?” Eniola sighed again. “Yes, I could do that...” he trailed off. After a couple of seconds, Obi cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, that didn’t really answer your questions. I don’t-‐-‐I’m not quite sure how to tell you what you want to know.” He looked up at the back of Eniola’s hair, the only part of him visible to Obi. Eniola had his head bowed. “Is there anything else? That you want to know, I mean. I can try to tell you.” “No...” Obi knelt down and began on the ties at the hem of the robe. He looped the first three then tied the last one tight. He stood back up. “The ties are finished.” “Hm? Oh, yes, thank you.” Eniola turned and stared down at him

for a minute. Obi stared back, uncomfortable in the silence until he realized that Eniola wasn’t really looking at him, didn’t really see him-‐-‐ he was gazing into some far-‐off place in his thoughts, inaccessible to everyone except for himself.

The drums throbbed through the dry earth as the wedding

preparations escalated. Obi hurried towards Sethunya’s hut. The sky no longer held the golden blush of high-‐afternoon; rather, it was harsh and orange, transforming the mountains into silhouettes edged in burning sky.

When he arrived the hut was quiet. The noise from outside was

muffled by the thick walls and the light was cut off sharply at the door frame, a distinct boundary between the luminescence of the dusk and the candle-‐lit darkness within. Obi paused at the brink, listening for sounds of movement within, then stepped inside.

Sethunya stood on the far side of the hut, her slim frame cased in

white fabric, her head turned downwards towards her hands. When she heard Obi her head came up and she smiled a greeting. It was a small smile, a smile of recognition but not of happiness. He tilted his head

back in return and the two of the them stood that way, silent, contemplating each other, neither wishing to be the first to speak. Finally Sethunya coughed and looked away. “You came.” “I said I would, didn’t I?” “Yes, well...” she trailed off, picking at the edge of her sleeve. “You helped him with the robes, right?” “Yes.” “What is he like?” Obi pursed his lips. “Well...tall, you know this, handsome, you know this too. He wants to make you happy, Sethunya. He asked me what you like and what he could do to please you.” “What did you say?” She looked at him carefully, waiting for his answer. “Well-‐-‐he asked about what you were like first, I told him you prefer to watch rather than to be watched.” He grinned. “It made me think of the hollow in the mountain. You know, with the hummingbirds?”

She smiled whist fully. “How could I forget? They were so beautiful...” “Do you still have the feather?”

“Yes, in my chalanki.” She pulled out a leather pouch hanging

around her neck. “It’s probably a little crumpled by now. Will you find a place for it in my hair?” Obi nodded and walked over to her. She seemed to become shorter and more distinct as he approached. She looked up at him with wide eyes. Obi was again reminded of the pallet in Eniola’s room, of the expression on Sethunya’s face when Eniola stood over her and reached down to caress her. Sethunya opened the bag and pulled out the feather. Even in the dim room it shimmered like burnished blue-‐tinted copper. Obi thought it looked more like a scale than a feather, almost other-‐worldly in its beauty. Somehow it had stayed perfectly smooth and unwrinkled. He ran a finger along the rim of the barbs then reached up and tucked it into one of the coils of Sethunya’s hair. Then he paused and grinned down at her, wiggling a finger into the tight fold of the braid and

yanking playfully. She squealed and giggled, wriggling away from him. “What’s going on?” Sauda’s voice was sharp. Obi jumped back, startled, then opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Shangazi Sauda! Um, nothing. I was-‐-‐I was helping Sethunya...with her hair...” Obi trailed off and his aunt sighed. “You really aren’t supposed to be in here, Obi, you know that well enough, even if Sethunya here doesn’t.” Sauda set down the basket she was carrying. “Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter now,” she walked over to Sethunya and started fussing over her hair “and it is the last day that she can be alone with you...” she found the feather and plucked it out with deft fingers. “What on earth is this, Sethunya? What were you doing today? I thought I got all of the bits of wildness out of your hair earlier.” She flicked it away. Obi watched it flutter downwards, flickering like an air-‐born candle flame in the fading light of outside. When it fell out of the doors line of light its radiance abruptly winked out and Obi blinked, trying to make sense of the sudden unbroken darkness.

Sauda finished the flowers quickly. She balanced the basket on

her ample hip and sashayed out of the hut. “I’ll be right back, love, just have to go get the ribbons,’ she called over her shoulder. “Obi, can you help her with the garland? Just be careful not to crush those flowers!”

Sethunya grinned at him. “Yes, Obi, don’t you dare crush the

flowers, don’t you dare...!” She laughed softly as Obi grimaced, picking up the heavy wreath of white lilies and holding it speculatively over her dark head. “Where do I...huh...there we go.” He stepped back and looked at her, admiring his handiwork. In that moment she looked to him to be both child and woman, two entities crushed like over-‐ripe berries into one cup, juice over-‐flowing onto the muddied ground below. Obi reached out and pulled her close. She seemed to thin for him to hold tightly enough, and no matter how hard he squeezed he could feel the empty space in the corners of his embrace. Obi could feel the racing of her heart pounding through her rib cage. He had a sudden, vivid image of a hummingbird, wings fluttering frantically, its dark eyes spread wide. He pressed his lips to her ear. “Sethunya...”

She shook her head quickly. He sighed and pulled away, his hands still on her shoulders. They stood and stared at each other for several seconds before Obi leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead.

The night-‐spirits were quiet as all the villagers gathered for the

wedding. The hyenas and lions lay hushed and silent in their shaded baobab bowers and the wind nestled contentedly in the hollows between the grass-‐fibers. Sethunya and Eniola stood side by side under an arch-‐way of flowers. The tribal talismans, carved from dark wood and worn smooth from years of handling, hung on leather thongs from the wooden lattices. The drummers stood in two lines fanning out away from the arch. Eniola looked magnificent in his crimson robes, a too-‐large grin stretched across his face. Next to him, Sethunya looked fragile. Looking at her, Obi thought that if someone were to grasp her arm she would shatter, hollow bones crushed. Her head was ringed in a corona of orange and red flowers.

The ceremony went by quickly. The village priest was a short man and years of easy living had caused him to expand until he resembled an unbroken sphere from the top of his bald head to the bottoms of his plump feet. He stood with his arms opened wide, chanting in a reedy voice. Somewhere in the back of his mind Obi noticed that the night seemed to be coming on faster than normal, as if the priest was calling it, ushering it in. Sethunya and Eniola did not look at each other. His hand was tight around hers with all of her fingers tucked passively into his grip, the way he might have held a tool or a piece of firewood. Obi watched as Eniola leaned forward and kissed Sethunya once, a mild brush of lips to lips. The entire tribe exploded into applause. The priest turned and addressed them. “Let us begin the feast!” The tribe rose and began migrating back to the eating mats. Obi suddenly felt stifled and hot, sweat beading above his furrowed brow. He began pushing his way out of the crowd, ignoring indignant comments around him. He reached the edge-‐-‐funny now that he thought about it, but there was a very sharp boundary around the

crowd, a wall of body to body people who corralled each other in-‐-‐and stumbled away, wide-‐eyed and panting. “Obi!” Ekwueme’s voice rose above the noise of the assembly and Obi turned, watching his father shoulder through the people towards him.

“Yes?” Obi felt suddenly numb, as if nothing in the world could

touch him.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re doing alright. Or ask if you’re

doing alright...” Ekwueme trailed off, looking at his son intently. Obi stared back at him, then shrugged.

“I’m fine. Just overwhelmed, I guess,” he gestured in the general

direction of the people crowded around the eating mat “and being in the middle of that...I don’t know.” His own voice sounded strange, as if it was coming from a different person-‐-‐an older person who had seen enough of life to understand it and too much to marvel at it.

“Obi, look.” Ekwueme stepped closer, his voice low. “I know that

this is probably very strange for you. You and Sethunya have been friends since the day she was born-‐-‐almost inseparable, you two were.

But you were always the older one.”

“But...I am.” Obi looked at him in confusion. Ekwueme huffed and

frowned.

“I didn’t mean older as in your physical ages. Now, don’t take this

badly, but Sethunya-‐-‐well, she’s sort of a strange girl. Or, no, not strange, just maybe a little...young. She’s more comfortable with animals and trees than the people of her tribe. You know her, Obi. There’s really no other way to say it. She’s just a young person. In terms of what she’s seen, what she thinks-‐-‐in terms of what she expects from the world.” Ekwueme paused. His full lips were turned down and his cheek bones jutted like wings from beneath his sad eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“You already know what’s going to happen, Obi. With the two of

you. You know the way it has to be.”

Obi thought for several seconds. “We won’t be able to be together

alone anymore, will we? I mean, it’s the law,” he looked down, his shoulders slumped “but I just never really thought...I mean, I’m not trying to say I never thought the law applied to us, but...” he gestured

helplessly with his hands, then stood before his father, palms outstretched, half in placation and half as a demand for the all-‐powerful parent wisdom that he had only now begun to recognize as the last and greatest lie of childhood. Ekwueme stepped back.

“I’m sorry, Obi. I only wanted to say this because, to be honest,

Sethunya still hasn’t quite realized exactly what her marriage will mean. I know you do not want this, but,’ he grimaced ‘I’m afraid it’s up to you to make sure she wholly and unfailingly follows the laws of our people, at least for a little while. You know her. She will come to you, expecting the welcoming arms of her childhood companion. No matter how wrong it feels, you must convince her that there is no more solace to be had from that quarter.”

“But-‐-‐”

“Obi, listen to me!” Ekwueme’s voice had a harsher tone to it.

“You need to understand what she does not. This marriage to Eniola will ensure a good future for not only Sethunya but her parents and sister as well. She cannot be allowed to do anything-‐-‐however unknowingly, however innocently-‐-‐that would ever make him doubt her

suitability as his bride. Do you understand?”

Obi nodded wordlessly. The numbness had crumbled and he felt

pressure building inside of him. He drew in a shaky breath and looked up at Ekwueme’s face. With a jolt of surprise he saw the older man’s eyes glisten slightly. Oddly, his own pounding heart calmed and the tension in his chest subsided until he stood dry-‐eyed and composed.

“Yes, I understand. I won’t disappoint you.” Obi half turned

towards the rest of the tribe, indicating them with an outstretched hand. “Shall we?” The food was delicious. Obi piled his wood tankard high with roast antelope and ground tubers, squeezing crystallized fruit in on the side. He sat down next to Ekwueme and dug in. The older man cleared his throat uncertainly. “The antelope is very good, don’t you think?” Obi nodded. Ekwueme nodded awkwardly several times. They sat in silence for several minutes. Obi fiddled with the edge of the grass eating mat. He glanced up towards the head of the table. Eniola sat cross-‐legged,

red robe stretched tight over his knees. He was laughing at something that the man next to him had said. Honey wine sloshed over the edge of the cup clutched in his hand and checkered his hand with a spray of thick red droplets. Looking at him, Obi thought that his smile looked a little too wide and his laugh just a little too loud. Beside him, Sethunya sat with her legs curled under her, looking down at her plate. She did not seem to have eaten anything. She looked up as Eniola’s gesticulating hand swept near her face then back down when it became clear he had not been addressing her. Eniola noticed the movement and looked at her uncertainly. His hand, larger than Sethunya’s face was long, hovered over her knee before falling to his side. The line between them solidified.

The last trace of daylight had long since died by the time the

newly-‐weds rose and prepared to return to their hut.

The people turned in unison to look at them, many calling out

congratulations, some of the younger men snickering and whistling at Eniola. The tall man gave a forced-‐sounding chuckle and grabbed Sethunya, pulling her against his side in a clumsy embrace. She looked

at him with wide eyes and seemed to curl inwards towards herself. She did not make eye contact with any of the assembled people. She looked lost and fragile. Obi was reminded of the cicada husks they used to pluck from tree trunks together, how they had climbed to a high platform on the mountain and released them one by one into the air, watching the shells float outwards on the indifferent breeze. Obi considered calling out to her, giving her a word-‐-‐a smile-‐-‐a look-‐-‐of compassion, but in the end he remained silent.

Anti-‐Mass (Charcoal and wire modern art piece by Cornelia Parker) – DANE CERVINE Charred remains of a Southern Black Baptist Church destroyed by arsonists hang from the ceiling, blackened board fragments suspended in air by wire in a perfect rectangle, defying gravity, floating as a miraculous spectral object—the lost church. The bodily presence of its congregation made more powerful by their absence. The unthinkable happens. The sign says Mass: elemental substance of the universe; and the sacramental ritual at the center of Christian faith. This blackened sculpture an Anti-‐Mass, then. Nails still embedded in wood.

Pick and Pull – ELLEN WOODS I keep men at a distance. As the youngest child of three, in a conservative patriarchal family, I was schooled in catering to men’s needs. Was it the internalization of feminist values that changed me? Or my nasty divorce? Or was it the fifteen years employed as a social worker sidekick to too many ego-‐driven male doctors? I don’t know the origin of my withdrawal, but now most of my friends, my doctor, lawyer, therapist, spiritual teacher, chiropractor and dentist are all women. I prefer frequenting women professionals and hanging out with women friends because among us baby-‐boomers, women seem to be better

listeners, reciprocal problem solvers, and often kinder and more empathic. At sixty-‐six, interacting with men, let alone finding my second soul-‐mate, has fallen to the bottom of my to do list. I have discovered the joy of meeting my own needs and making my own decisions without being entangled in the concerns of others. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

So when I returned with my latte refill to my table in the garden

room of the new café in Berkeley’s Elmwood district, I hardly noticed the man who had taken up residence next to me. Earlier, I had shifted my corner table so it was flush with the floor to ceiling window. My efforts had created an alcove overlooking the outdoor patio, which was surrounded by a redwood fence and graced by two ginko trees beginning to shed their lemon colored leaves. With my back to the other customers, I had been plunged into a childhood memory of solace. As a seven year old, I created a hideout which only I knew about. The thick golden Forsythia bushes which edged our house had a secret entrance to a cave-‐like interior, creating a canopy under which I could sit, cross-‐legged, and

look out at the front yard. I was free to dream and imagine whatever I wanted, with no big brother or sister around with which to compare myself. Eventually, my thoughts returned to the cafe and I glanced casually at my new neighbor. He was writing in a notebook. His table was similarly realigned to overlook the patio, so we sat essentially side by side. He seemed to have a reserved self-‐containment about him, like me, and I quickly forgot that he was there. My latte to my left, my MacBook in front of me, I began to revise an essay I was working on. At some point there was a glitch with my laptop and after a couple of failed attempts to fix it, I considered interrupting him and asking for help. I noticed he was dressed in black athletic pants and shirt, and black running shoes, a version of my own black walking attire, and looked to be about my age, or maybe younger. A possible comrade? I was amused at my wondering. So, I said, “Excuse me, do you have a minute to help me figure out what’s wrong with my laptop?” I often ask directions or help from friendly strangers, though I take pride in being self-‐sufficient.

He turned his head, which sported a graying buzz cut and a slightly scarred complexion, and looked at me over my latte which I had inadvertently moved to the right after a sip. “Sure,” he said, smiling. He made eye contact in a way that was not intrusive, yet present and attentive. “I can’t close this window.” I moved my curser around and he observed, until I stopped and moved the latte from between us. He laughed and said, “Better to get that out of the way.” I chuckled, imagining the grief that would be created by a toppled latte. He then reached over, and after a few strokes said “You know, I think if you just reboot it, it will be fine.” So I did and it solved the problem. Effortlessly. “It’s the solution ninety nine percent of the time,” he added. I hadn’t even thought of that; perhaps I was a little high on espresso. “It’s like discovering that you forgot to plug in your typewriter back in the day,’” I added. I hoped he wasn’t so young he’d never used a typewriter. He laughed quietly, his brown eyes squinted with crinkly laugh lines, his smile modest. We went back to our work, sitting three feet

apart, with the window in front of us, yellow foliage and occasional floating leaves our landscape. I felt a kind of intimacy with him, like reading in front of a fire with a good friend, close by but in separate worlds. Almost like letting a fellow dreamer into my forsythia hideaway without a thought of being judged. I was suddenly cold and put on my coat, looking around for the cause, unable to find it. A few minutes later I looked up and he had arisen from his chair and was closing a barely visible plate glass door to the patio. I didn’t bother to thank him as it all happened so quickly and by the time I processed it he was already back to his writing. .

“Oh no,” I said later, mostly to myself, worried that I had parked in

a street sweeping zone. I turned and inquired of him, “Do you know if this is a street sweeping day on Russell? I don’t want to get a ticket.” It just seemed natural to ask him. “I don’t know. I didn’t drive,” and I suddenly realized his clothes had the fit of bicycle attire. “Oh, you’re a cyclist,” I said. “Yes, that’s mostly how I get around.” He again smiled.

“That’s wonderful. I hate cars,” I said. “My car was just stolen,” he said, and he proceeded to tell a story

of how his car, an eighty-‐eight Toyota Camry, was the number one most frequently stolen car because many keys fit the ignition. He talked in an offhand way but with a steady smile, his eyes sparkling as if he enjoyed the story, maintaining comfortable eye contact. He continued in the same vein with how when the police recovered the stolen car it had missing parts so he went to Pick and Pull, a huge outdoor car parts mart in East Oakland. “You pay a ten dollar entrance fee and they will pick a matching model and pull the needed part off, sell it to you for next to nothing and then two burly guys appear and offer to install the part in your car for an additional fee.” We laughed. “An offer you couldn’t refuse,” I said, and we laughed again, I then told a story about a friend who had insisted, against my objections, that he would replace the broken taillight cover on my ninety seven Odyssey, then left me waiting for months and never did follow through. I was told about Pick and Pull by a young man in a black

hoody outside Grand Auto after I stormed out when I was quoted one hundred and twenty dollars for a taillight cover. “I never could get up my nerve to go to Pick and Pull, so I still drive with half a right taillight.” He nodded. “I know what you mean. I took my brother along for protection.” We laughed and returned to our work. I found myself wondering briefly what else we had in common, having enjoyed our exchange of stories. We sat quietly working for over an hour.

When I got up to leave, having decided I wouldn’t interrupt him by

saying goodbye, I was surprised when he caught my eye and said “Do you come here every day? Is this your office?” “No,” I said, wondering why I had thought saying goodbye would be an interruption. “I usually work at home. My internet was on the blink. How about you?” I had forgotten that a conversation with a man could be engaging. And fun. “Yes, I come here a lot. What kind of work do you do?” I told him I was retired from social work and had been writing for a few years, was working on a book. I noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring. Maybe he

was gay. He had a gentle quality. Were straight men more gentle these days? Had things changed without my knowing? “I’m an artist. My wife is an editor. Maybe she can edit your book.” I admit I was disappointed to hear he was married, but took the reigns on that uncomfortable feeling and switched to doubt. Was he simply drumming up business for his wife? Was his kindness genuine? Or was I jaded? I hardly thought of myself as jaded. “Only if she’s kind,” I said, and he smiled. I pulled out my card that said simply “Writer” and my name and email address and gave it to him. I’d gotten the cards recently and had not handed any out. I felt strangely giddy, as if I had willingly given a part of myself away. Was it a sign? Was I changing? “Here’s mine. The address is wrong, but the email is current.” I looked at his card. “Your address was in London. Wow, you’ve come a long way.” He didn’t have a British accent. “I’m making a transition,” he said. His body language was open, but his words were not. “Ah,” I said. “That can be challenging.” A divorce? A job change? I

didn’t ask. Had I intuited that he preferred not to reveal much? Or was I afraid to ask, as if in asking I myself would reveal too much? I sometimes wonder if I know how to talk to men, having known the strong silent types of my youth, the loud argumentative ones in my family, and unfortunately, the passive aggressive one I was married to. Men often seemed to speak another language, a foreignness that left me mute or hyper verbal with anxiety. Could I find comfort in just being myself with a man? “Yes,” he said, revealing little, confirming my intuition. “ Well, I’ve got to get to my car before the meter maid does,” I said, terminating the conversation. “Yes, those tickets can be hefty.” He smiled, his eye crinkles reappearing. Walking out the café door to a burst of midday light, I felt the sun’s warmth on my face, and was hopeful. Had men changed? Or had I? When connection with a kind-‐hearted man comes unbidden, I am reminded that they, too, are alive and well. Unless he was just drumming up business for his wife. I laughed to myself, wondering if I could ever change.

Hidden Side, Idea Bug, No Borders in the Key of “E” – DENNY E. MARSHALL

Nurikabe Nights – LAURA TAYLOR Personal concerns appear insurmountable; all contain a flaw Nurikabe nights crystallise anxiety, hamper forward thought Psychic aggregate Night-‐time nurikabe wall; universal door Crawl on midnight floor Weaken the foundation stone Walk through wall to dawn If you let the spirit conjure walls of worrisome, chip at edifice

The nurikabe is a Yōkai, or spirit, from Japanese folklore. It manifests as a wall that impedes or misdirects walking travelers at night. Trying to go around is futile as it extends itself forever. Knocking on the lower part of the wall makes it disappear.

Morning Worship – ED HIGGINS Sitting beside a beautiful woman in church this morning it occurs to me everything seems necessary to losing one’s way or finding it. Even the thought now that somehow real devotion belongs to her: furtive impressions of shoulder-‐length hair cascading blond shadow over smooth, freckle-‐ sweet flesh onto her indigo & white polka-‐dot dress, cautious shadows of form beneath the cool, cotton, summer fabric.

What part of my desire swims in her blood too rushing through sea-‐green veins on the back of prayer-‐folded hands? The sermon, like thunder so far off it barely disturbs the stilled air, threads distraction into my kindled more personal devotion. A momentary snake disturbing the garden’s edge. Its flicking tongue finding no significant prey moves beyond my hearing. There is much more I wish to tell you: Like, she’s the morning’s sunlight attended, fire flamed into poetry, an act of holy attention rending the fabric of all repression.

What Do You Say When There Is No Word For Love? – DANIEL DAVIS My son came home from school and told me that, in Anthropology class, his teacher had mentioned an indigenous tribe in South America that did not feel love.

At first, I was confused, wondering what my six-‐year-‐old son was

doing in an Anthropology class. In a Catholic school, no less. Then I said, "Which teacher was it?"

Mr. Henderson. Not Father but mister.

"How do they get married if they can't feel love?" my son asked

me. "Do they love their pets, or can't they love animals, too?"

I assured him that I knew nothing about such a tribe. After a

moment, I said that perhaps Mr. Henderson had misspoken. "Everyone feels love," I told him. Lamely, and primarily in memory of his mother, I added: "God designed us that way."

He went upstairs satisfied. I, however, who hadn't spoken a word

about God since the funeral, and rarely before that, sat down on the couch and stared at the blank television. Dinner was in the crockpot, and I needed to turn the heat down, but I remained in place, not really sure what I was thinking about, or if I was even thinking at all. What constitutes thinking? Concentrated rationalizations? Images? Or are we always thinking, our minds constantly seeking out new thoughts and ideas?

The following afternoon, I took off work early and picked up my

son from school. I told him to wait outside, yes he could talk to his friends, I had to have a word with Mr. Henderson. The teacher was in his office, and for a moment I thought he must be an aid. About half my age, in a beige cardigan sweater—this was still the warm half of September—with a blond bowl-‐cut and wire-‐framed glass. He looked like a grad student, so I hesitated in the doorway. He looked up from his

desk, smiled, and said something that I didn't catch.

He must've sensed my confusion, because he pushed his chair

back and repeated himself.

I introduced myself and extended my hand. He stood to accept it.

His grip was stronger than I'd anticipated, confident. You expect such a grip with construction workers and politicians, not Catholic schoolteachers.

"Carson's father," he said as we sat down. I nodded. He smiled

wider. "Your son is a great student. Very bright, very eager to learn."

Eager to learn. Weren't all kids? I'd never met a child who wasn't

eager to learn something. That was part of the point: children learned, adults forgot.

"You teach Anthropology?" I asked.

He laughed. An infectious laugh; I had to fight off a smile. "Our

Social Studies class has an Anthropology section. We teach it once a week. We try to rotate through the sciences, to give the students a broader range of knowledge. Also," and here he leaned over his desk, "it keeps them interested."

We shared another laugh.

"My son mentioned that you told him about a group of people in

South America that don't feel love."

He nodded and pronounced the name. "I thought the children

might like to hear that. Naturally, we don't know much about this tribe yet, as contact has only recently been made. Scientists are trying to keep interference to a minimum—to preserve the aboriginal way of life."

The aboriginal way of life.

"Isn't that…" I searched for the best way to put it. "Isn't that

contradictory with the Church's teachings?"

He frowned. Not a worried frown, not a disappointed frown, but a

thoughtful frown. "I can see your point," he said. "But at the same time, the Church has advanced. It's an attempt to come into the modern era, while retaining the faith and strength that have kept the Church going all these years."

He was reading a brochure. Instead of my face, he saw a brochure.

Cue-‐cards.

"I emphasized in class that the"—he said the name again—"have

their own religion and belief structure. That they are still, in spirit, as much God's children as we are, but that we have to respect their differences." He nodded, as if hitting his selling point. "The Church is about acceptance now. About respect. At least, that's how we at St. Luke's see it. We try to give a fully rounded education to these children, so that they will have everything it takes to make it in today's competitive world. While retaining the strength and faith of the Lord, of course."

This last was almost an afterthought.

"I just don't see the point of teaching children that some people

are incapable of love," I said.

"Well, it's not that they are incapable of love; they just don't

understand the concept as we do. They are…well, you could say they are fond of each other. But they do not call it love, or any synonymous term; nor do they express it in the way that we do."

"Isn't it strange that you'd teach that concept in church, though?"

I shrugged to show how absurd the idea seemed.

He looked at me for a minute, like he was dissecting his argument.

Then he said, "Are you a religious man, Mr. Smith?"

The question caught me off-‐guard, and I answered immediately

and honestly, instead of phrasing a better answer.

"My wife was the one who enrolled him."

Henderson sighed. "Mrs. Smith. We all miss her so much, you

know."

What did that mean? That I wasn't religious enough for them, that

somehow my lack of faith was bringing down this school? Maybe they missed having someone volunteer every week, taking time out of her busy schedule to help with odds and ends, fieldtrips, etc. Perhaps Mr. Henderson was suggesting that the school resented the fact that I could not fill my wife's vacancy.

My son was waiting by himself outside the school entrance. "We

learned division today," he said. "Two divided by one is two."

No, I thought of saying, two divided by one is one. You'll find that

out eventually.

Later, after I tucked him into bed, I told him I loved him and

goodnight. He said, "Night, Dad," and rolled over.

The next morning I told I loved him and good morning. He said,

"Good morning, Dad," and grinned at me.

I tried it again before the bus picked him up, and several times

again after school. That night, after I put down the book I was reading to him, I said, "I love you."

"Night, Dad."

"Don't you love me too?"

He looked at me, all smiles. "I'm like that tribe Mr. Henderson told

us about. It's fun!"

"Don't you love Mommy?"

"Mommy isn't here anymore."

"But you still love her, right?"

His smile faltered. I could see the tears, not yet present but

beginning their journey. So I patted his shoulder and said, "That's okay. You have sweet dreams."

I picked him up from school the next day. Henderson was in his

office again, wearing pretty much the same getup. He saw me before I

could say anything and greeted me like an old friend.

"My son refuses to say he loves me," I said.

Henderson's smile turned to a frown. Not an angry frown, but not

the thoughtful one from a couple days before, either. He seemed confused, so I repeated myself.

"It's because of that tribe," I said. "It's because you taught him

that it's possible not to love."

"Mr. Smith." The smile was back. "I assure you, the lesson was

strictly educational, and in no way was I trying to convince the children that people are incapable of love. In fact, I was aiming for the exact opposite. I taught them that we must love everyone, including people so different from us that they do not understand the concept."

"He won't even say he loves his mother."

"Perhaps…" He looked over my shoulder, as if making sure no one

was there. "Perhaps I could talk with Carson. See if he should, well, you know…" The confidence faltered. Only for a split second, but it was there: he was speaking without a teleprompter now, improvising, flying blind.

"If he should speak to the school counselor," he finished.

Once, when my son was two, I got into a bar fight. I can't

remember what caused it; we were both incredibly drunk, drunker than any parent has a right to get. I know I started it, and I ended it. A couple blows to my opponent's midsection; he landed a few on me. And then a glancing blow across his face that almost tore his nose off. There was so much blood. It had caked my fist when I withdrew my hand.

For a moment, a half-‐moment even, I was going to punch

Henderson. I wouldn't waste time going for his stomach. One clean punch to the face. He would never see it coming. Try my best to take off his nose, break those glasses, rearrange that knowing smile and those smug eyes. I could do it. I was strong, and I knew from experience the best angle to take.

But the half-‐moment passed. I turned and walked out of the

office. Snuck into the men's room and punched the inside of a stall. Then went outside and took my son home.

At dinner, I told him I loved him. He smiled at me, and I added,

"Mr. Henderson was wrong."

"Huh?"

"About that tribe. Everyone feels love. That tribe. They just don't

have a word for it."

"Oh." He nodded, as if this made sense. "Then what do they say?"

"Moo-‐who-‐woomba."

He giggled. "That's silly."

I nodded. "Yes. It is. But that's what they say."

"Moo-‐who-‐woomba, Dad."

I took another bite of pasta, swallowed it drily. I thought of not

answering, to pretend to be like that tribe, the tribe that no one really knew very much about. Probably they did feel love, of course they did, Henderson had simply spoken before all the facts were known. Irresponsible, especially when your students are so young. I wondered if there was a way I could complain. Try to get him removed. Maybe transfer my son to another school, with a normal education and normal instructors. I would look into it.

"I love you too," I said, and tried to match my son's eager grin.

You’ve Got to Pick Up Every Stitch – Corey Mesler The shadow of a passing plane, here on September 11th, 2012, throws a gallows over the room. The milk glass on the sideboard, for a tick, turns red, while flowers near the cellar door go achromatic. The shadow stays too long. The man and woman rise to hold each other, like twin towers in their privacy invaded. Afterward it’s ok. Everything outlined loses its outline, yet, nearly everything stays.

Onward – Gale Acuff In Sunday School today we sang the one about the Christian soldiers, marching as to war, Tromp, tromp, tromp, tromp, Miss Hooker pounding the piano. She's our teacher and I love her and want to marry her one day and sit on the sofa with her head on my shoulder and my arm around her holding her, holding her close, our heads touching and not just touching but as if we're joined there, kind of like Adam and Eve. Miss Hooker says that she came from his rib, Eve did, I mean. That might've hurt but no, it happened in a dream and God did it so Adam wouldn't be alone with just animals but have himself a girlfriend. There was no TV back then, not even radio, so they watched the animals but one animal was a vigrous [sic] snake

who stood up on its leg of a tail and sweet-‐talked Eve while Adam was away, not the sweet talk of romance but temptation, says Miss Hooker. One day Adam and Eve ate an apple they shouldn't have eaten, God warned them not to. God told them they could eat the fruit of any other tree but Eve wanted the one they shouldn't have wanted, the snake did his job pretty well, awfully well I should say, so she plucked it and munched some and handed it to Adam and he munched some and then there was thunder and lightning, or was it darkness, or maybe all three, I forget, sometimes I don't read the lesson like I ought to and that's a sin, that's what Miss Hooker says and she should know, she's a lady barber, hairdresser I mean-‐-‐cosmetologist if you want to get fancy about it. So they tried to hide, did Adam and Eve, but you can't hide from God, Miss Hooker says -‐-‐He sees everything. Sometimes I think Miss Hooker does, too, she can tell when I have gum in my mouth and I'm not even chewing it, or when I've stashed a comic book inside my Sunday School workbook and her eyes tell me not to dare pull it out during class even if it's just Archie, which is rough because it's usually Justice League of America or The Mighty Thor, who's a god but a false god and she says that's the worst kind. To make a long story-‐-‐well it's not that long-‐-‐short Adam and Eve got booted from Eden for committing the first sin, that means they

practically invented sin, sort of, like figuring out the atom bomb, or Playboy magazine, which shows naked gals. Miss Hooker didn't say that, I learned it from my father's workbench drawer, I looked in there-‐-‐I guess I didn't honor him when I did that and not honoring him is a sin but those naked gals are, too, and so is looking at them so that's three sins right there between father and son. If Mother ever finds them she'll give Father heck. I hope I'm not there if that happens. It would be like being tossed from Eden all over again, kind of. At least that's how it feels right now. But naked gals are alright if there's just one and you're married to her and you're in your bed and not out on the street or in the yard. If I get Miss Hooker for my wife I guess I'll see her naked, at least on our wedding night and if she still loves me maybe on our anniversary. Could be it's a sin to be thinking about that now but she keeps telling us to be prepared, as if we're all Boy Scouts though some of us are girls. But she means be prepared for when Jesus returns-‐-‐it could happen at any time -‐-‐No man knoweth the hour, she says, and if I'm an unforgiven sinner then it's Hell for me for sure. It's Adam and Eve caused it all but that's no excuse, she says. If I'd been Adam I would've said nix when Eve handed me the apple but then I'd have been lost without her, like I am without Miss Hooker the other six days

of the week. He wouldn't have been right not to sin. Somehow that's what love is. It's not perfect but maybe that's why it's got power. It's not always righteous but it's good for something. I can't sing and march too well but just play the tune and watch my smoke. And when I'm out of breath, with the cross of Jesus going on before, it's over my head.

Thank you for reading. Sincerely, The Looseleaf Tea (thelooseleaftea.org)

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