Grove Burgundy
Small World Mugger’s Tale Servant of God Things We Have Bought
Contributors Authors Jen Frankel AmberLee Hansen Patrick Parr Devon Stevens Managing Editor Nyssa Silvester Layout Design Chris Taney Editors Andrea Jakeman Daniel Friend Savannah Woods
Cover art by 96dpi Creative Commons license, some rights reserved. Flickr.com: 96dpi.
Table of Contents
small world
Credits
75
Is the room shrinking?
Special Thanks Brett Peterson
Things we have bought
Call 1-800-BUY-NOWW
Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake...
Servant of god
... I threw the money aside.
A Mugger’s tale
49 7 23
13
Above: Flickr.com/John Picken Cooler
Small World jen frankel
H
e lay beside her, his long body curved into hers, knees pressing into the backs of her legs. His warmth was almost oppressive, a third presence in the bed, and although she struggled to enjoy this moment of closeness, her discomfort drove her to rise. The morning sun came pale through the window in the eaves, printing long streaks of corn-colored light over the dresser and wall. She touched the table beside the bed, thinking curiously that these familiar things seemed closer together than before. At least, her body seemed to fit more awkwardly between them as if she had grown clumsy in the night. The chair, too, seemed to have moved itself closer to the center of the room, which necessitated her holding her hand out as she passed it, a ship pressing itself away from the shoals. Maybe it was her balance, she thought, an off-kilter inner ear. She washed and dressed in silence, not wanting to wake him. The tiny room pressed in on her, and she didn’t need his help to make it seem too full. Out in the street, the sidewalks were narrower than she remembered from the day before; she crossed each pavement crack with fewer steps. When the bus came, she had the odd impression that the blacktop had itself contracted, pulling the bus to her feet. Her shoulder grazed the frame of the bus’s door on the way up its stairs. When she saw the coins, tiny in her palm as she paid her fare, she was sure. The world was shrinking around her. TM Magazine - 5
All day, it was the same, a progressive and always accelerating diminishment of everything around her. By the time she left work, she was no longer able to fit behind her desk. The elevator groaned as she boarded it. Walls pressed in on her; ceilings drooped to brush her hair. She stooped to exit the building, and found that even the sky was lower.
bus now, even if she could have squeezed herself aboard, when a single pace took her home. Another took her miles beyond, while the ground contracted so severely that the entire city became as small as the bed she’d risen from that morning. Her bed itself would have become the size of a postage stamp, now as big as a grain of rice. And, as the
Out on the street, skyscrapers shrank visibly Out on the street, skyscrapers shrank visibly, their clean lines merging as distant city blocks sped toward her. People crowding the rushhour sidewalks seemed to merge, running together like watercolor. Where before there had been individual human beings, now she only discerned an undefined mass. Worse, despite her outlandish proportions, why did she attract no outrage, no attention at all? It wasn’t worth taking the 6 - november 2012
lines of traffic became white and red threads on a darkening fabric of green, the head of a pin. The eye of a flea. She towered unsteadily over the lake, watching with sick fascination as the curve of the Earth at the horizon became prominent. And still the world grew smaller. The stars and the sky rushed toward her, crowding her and making her bend. The moon, no bigger than a tennis ball, sailed past her ear.
All the loneliness of the heavens, all the sadness of the celestial music of lost civilizations killed slowly by dying, swollen stars, or in an instant of brilliant supernova, all these swept past her and through her. She felt hollow and empty. There was not enough matter in the universe to fill up the empty spaces between her atoms, not now that the universe was so tiny. She cupped her hand around the Milky Way galaxy only to see it dwindle, a snowflake melting on a warm palm. And what size now her bed? Her table beside it? The space between his knees and hers? And she found herself beyond it all, a bystander to the continuity of creation. She had passed outside it, the moment that she bridged the final divide already shrinking away into the past. The universe itself rested in the palm of her hand, a black sphere peppered with a sprinkling of minute stars.
She didn’t know at what exact point the universe had separated itself from her, or her from it, or why she was outside creation now, a lonely being severed from both eternity and infinity. She thought of the warmth of her tiny bed, the long body which rested beside her at night. The loneliness of a billion dead worlds was nothing now to the gaping hole in her own self. She cried out (what a distressingly small protest for a creature who dwarfed all existence!) and looked at last deep into the ball of universe shrinking smaller and smaller in her hand. “No!” she screamed, knowing in that moment that her agony would rock the whole of creation to its foundations. “No!” she said, softer this time, and with determination, and wondered if her bedmate could hear. Wondered if the earth itself could have survived the percussive wail which had torn itself from her. burgundy grove - 7
Left: Flickr.com/NASA Goddard Photo and Video 1
She knew she couldn’t let the world go on without her, that even if it shrank to nothing, to the minutest synapse between the cells in her brain, to fit in the space inside an atom, she wanted to belong again to it. Her fingers curled and reached in, breaking the starry surface of the tiny infinity in her palm. She spread her thumb from the fingers, digging in deep. With both hands now, she wrenched the universe open like an orange. It distended in her grasp, as she tugged at it, willing it to let her back in. Then, as it gave under her pressure, she was able to put a hand inside, then a foot, then her whole leg. It was dizzying, this feeling of reentry. Her claustrophobia lifted, like a heavy curtain rising effortlessly on swift pulleys. Her melancholy receded, a fast ebb tide, and she felt suddenly stronger and ready to face the world on its own terms. In its own size. Something deep in the
universe changed, and she lost all sense of solid ground. With a strange whooshing noise, it opened itself to her, and she crossed into it, no longer a behemoth, no more an alien and uncomfortable beast. Just a woman, and small. Happily, comfortably, appropriately small. And she fell, wind whistling past her, buffeting her ears. It tossed her at first, seemingly with random abandon. Then she opened the eyes she had clenched shut without conscious intent, and saw she was spiraling down instead, down through a night sky filled with stars. She fell like a maple key does, in tighter and tighter circles toward the starlike city lights below. Soon she could see the familiar pattern of longarcing Davenport, the wide and traffic-hungry artery of Yonge Street, the bright foamy streams of the Gardiner Expressway, and 401, 427 and the Don Valley Parkway boxing downtown. The lake sparkled with burgundy grove - 9
diamonds stolen from both above and below. Still she fell, losing her god’s perspective and spiraling ever more closely toward a single apartment rooftop— her own. A solitary light stood in the eaves, an anchor point on which her descent was centered. A shadow moved past the light as she neared, a shape she knew so well. It clenched her insides, unexpectedly, with joy. And she slid through the
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roof with as little resistance as she had put her foot into the entire world. •
He laid his long body down, wrapping her in his warmth, knees tucked behind hers, a perfect fit. The world was a cozy place, just right for sleeping in or rushing to work. She lay in the dark, hearing them both breathe, and watched the stars vanish into the yellow morning.
Sky
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Servant of god AmberLee Hansen
A
delia gorged her lungs on morning air before expelling it with a smile. The green life, so dense it seemed to grow on top of itself, filled the air with moisture as if it breathed. Normally the saturation seemed to clog her lungs and make Adelia feel hot and sticky, but this morning it held a pleasant coolness, and Adelia took a moment to savor the air’s exotic flavor. This land wasn’t anything like what she had envisioned after first hearing Cristóbal Colón describe it in King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s court several years ago. But, after only a few weeks, Adelia was finding that she liked the reality more than her fantasy. Instead of a land that grew gold in place of wheat and was desirable for its wealth, Adelia had found that Colón’s new world was a trove of natural beauty: curious animals roamed the forests, birds of the most vibrant colors of the rainbow lighted on the trees, and there was so much living green it almost made her eyes hurt. Adelia turned back to examining the plants immediately in front of her, trying to sort out those with medicinal value. As she bent over the plants, her rosary swung forward and bumped against her hand. Irritated, Adelia tucked the rosary into the folds of her habit. It was going to take a while for her to get used to this ridiculous outfit. But her annoyance soon dissipated as she let herself take in the beauty around her. Anything was worth this. Voices and movement on the other side of the copse of trees drew Adelia’s attention. Father Pedro’s voice stuck out above the TM Magazine - 13
others as he tried to bring Christianity to the natives through a mixture of Spanish, Taino, and, she imagined, sign. Adelia smiled, picturing the scene as it had been minutes before she had finally left in frustration: a circle of fifteen or so natives seated around an animated Father Pedro who looked more like he was doing some sort of strange, interpretive dancechant than preaching the gospel. Adelia had “danced” along with him, but then had left to look for new herbs. Priests were meant to preach the gospel; nuns, on the other hand, were meant to serve the people. Adelia felt she would serve better as a healer than as a missionary. Besides, she had not decided to become a nun because of her devotion to God, but because it was the safest way she could think of to get to Colón’s mystical land. Adelia shuddered to think what kind of lifestyle changes she would have had to make to come as a cook or laundress as the 14 - november 2012
other women had. No, her father was right. Becoming a nun was the best path for her. He just hadn’t known why. Adelia felt a little guilty thinking about her father, how she’d deliberately gone against his wishes. He’d wanted her to marry and raise a family or, if not that, to join a convent and serve
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God in Spain. Either would have been perfectly acceptable positions for the eldest daughter of a Spanish nobleman. Not that she regretted her choice, but sometimes she wondered if God was pleased with her decision, if He was pleased she had chosen to become a nun despite her deficient love for Him.
Enough, she thought as she turned back to her plants. If God were displeased, he would make it evident. “Arijuna inaru, guaní.” Adelia jumped at the sudden nearness of a voice. She turned to see a native man standing in the trees, motioning that she come closer. “Hello. You startled me.
burgundy grove - 15
Uh . . . can I help you?” She spoke slowly, trying to pantomime her words so he’d understand. She tried to focus on his face������������������� —his lack of clothing embarrassed her. “Guaní. Guaní.” Adelia glanced back toward where Father Pedro had been teaching. His voice still rumbled on, indicating that he would be unable to help her understand what this man wanted.
he began to shake his head. “If you do not want to come, I’ll hurry right back. I am just not sure what—” The man placed his hand over Adelia’s mouth, cutting off her speech. When he removed it, she was silent. He nodded his head once and then grabbed hold of her wrist and commenced to tug Adelia in the direction opposite of where Father Pedro preached. When she didn’t follow, the native
Crossing herself furiously as she continued to kick her legs She turned back to see that the native had moved and now was standing only a few paces away. “Guaní!” His voice had become impatient. “Right. Well . . . you”—she pointed at the man—“follow me”—she walked two fingers across her left palm—“this way”—she pointed toward where Father Pedro was speaking and began moving in that direction. The man’s eyes widened and 16 - november 2012
turned and lifted her over his shoulder like a Spanish dockhand would a sack of flour and trotted deeper into the forest. Startled and afraid, Adelia pounded on the Indian man’s back and began kicking her legs. “You let me go this instant! Where do you think you’re taking me? Father Pedro! Father Pedro! Help!” she screamed in terror, but whether Father Pedro had
heard, she couldn’t tell. A series of horrible scenarios began flashing through Adelia’s mind. Adelia felt tears threatening to spill over, but she forced the emotion down. Instead, she began to pray for protection, crossing herself furiously as she continued to kick her legs: “God in Heaven, save Thy servant! Save me and I will preach Thy gospel to every native on this island! I will repent if Thou wilt but give me another chance!” Either as an answer to prayer or as the result of those too late uttered, the man who carried her stopped walking. Adelia stopped praying and opened her eyes. They stood in front of a small grass hut on the edge of a village. A quiet moaning came from inside. The man set Adelia down and pulled her quickly toward the hut. “Let me go! I am not going in there with you, you . . . you . . . you heathen!” Adelia struggled to free herself as the man kept pulling her forward. “Choreto! Guaní!” the
man called. Soon, a woman appeared in the doorway of the hut. Her face reflected weariness, and her cheeks were lined with recent tears. The man began talking to her rapidly, but she waved him to silence. Adelia stopped fighting and watched the woman approach. The man let go of Adelia’s arm and stepped aside. The woman gently took Adelia’s hand between both of her own and looked into her eyes. After a moment, she turned toward the hut. Adelia followed. Once she was inside, it took a moment for Adelia’s eyes to adjust, but she could soon see the dim outline of a man whose skin was painted in elaborate designs. This had to be the village witch the sailors had told her about, the one Father Pedro had dubbed the “heathen apothecary.” The painted man was hunched over the source of the moans, a small boy who lay curled on a mat, but he shuffled away when the woman led Adelia over. The woman placed Adelia’s hand burgundy grove - 17
on the boy’s face, and Adelia withdrew it reflexively: his skin burned like fresh coals. Adelia reached out her hand again and ran it lightly over the boy’s face and arms. The skin was unusually bumpy. She looked around the hut for something she could wet in the stream, something to cool the boy down. Nothing. The hem of her habit was too thick to tear, so Adelia removed her wimple. “I go,” Adelia pantomimed, “get help. Water. Herbs.” The woman just looked at her gravely. Adelia hurried to find the healing herbs and gathered some in her arms. Then she dunked her wimple in a stream and carried everything back to the hut. The next several hours were spent trying to ease the boy’s discomfort while the silent group of three looked on. Finally, when the boy was in a drug-calmed sleep, Adelia turned to the woman. She placed the wet wimple in the 18 - november 2012
woman’s hands and showed her how to dab her son’s forehead. “I go. Come back soon.” The woman didn’t respond, but the man didn’t try to stop Adelia as she moved to the door, so Adelia hoped they understood. Walking slowly, Adelia followed the trail of trampled underbrush the native man had created earlier that morning. Soon, she found the pile of herbs she’d picked earlier, though Father Pedro’s voice no longer animated the copse. As she neared the fort, Father Pedro hurried out to meet her. “Sister Adelia! Thank the heavens you’re all right. Where have you been? I was worried some heathen had carried you off some place. And where is your wimple?” My wimple is what you’re worried about? Adelia thought, but she didn’t smile. She was too tired and overwhelmed to smile. “I’ve been out tending to a little native boy. I think he has smallpox.”
Worry creased the priest’s face. “Is it bad?” “I’ve seen worse, but his body is not taking it very well. He may not live until morning.”
When she reached the doorway she prayed and crossed herself: “Good Lord, I came here to bring these people to Christ by serving them. I serve through healing. Accept Thou my offer-
“He may not live until morning.” “Take me there. I should pray over him.” “In the morning. Otherwise we might be stranded there when it gets dark.” Father Pedro accepted her judgment silently. “Come. You need your rest.” Together they walked toward the fort. •
The sun lit the morning sky with shades of pink, but Adelia couldn’t enjoy it with the pit in her stomach. Father Pedro was up early, ready to perform his priestly duties, but Adelia delayed their going, afraid of what they would find. They walked to the grass hut in silence and, when they arrived, were greeted with the same. Adelia
approached
slowly.
ing and let the boy be healed. Good Lord, give me strength.” Father Pedro nodded approvingly as she stepped inside. It was worse than she had feared. The boy was definitely dead, his body cold but at peace. It was the others she had left in the hut that worried Adelia now. None of them moved when she entered, none of them cried for the boy. A stink permeated the hut, but it wasn’t the smell of his body: vomit surrounded the witch man’s face. Adelia reached over and touched the woman’s arm, then withdrew. Fresh coals. A shudder ran through Adelia’s frame and, for the first time in a long time, Adelia gave in to tears. Her shoulders shook with sobs as she sank to her knees on the dirt floor of the hut, the strength of her emotion burgundy grove - 19
not out of need? Slowly, she reached up and fingered her rosary beads, then clasped the simple cross tightly in her fist. “Father Pedro? I need rags.”
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making feel weak. Almighty Father, what am I to do? But all she felt was a hollow apprehension growing in her chest. Not that she had expected God to respond. When had she last served God out of desire and
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Above: Flickr.com/Romana Correale
A Mugger’s tale Patrick Parr
I This one should be easy. Long red shoulder strap, the purse swaying slightly because of her brisk walking pace. She’s with someone, a boyfriend perhaps. Whoever he is, he’s making her smile. The boyfriend is holding her left hand. Perfect, I think, walking fifteen feet behind them, eclipsed by an overweight businessman out with a friend, drinking something from a silver flask. He’s complaining about never getting a chance to live on a sailboat. “The older I get, the more I regret,” he says, his friend staring at the young lady’s backside in front of them. I use their shoulder-to-shoulder body frame to take a peek at the young couple’s footwear. If you want to be a good mugger, shoes are very important. She has two-inch black heels, and he’s got those stiff, black dress shoes that almost always make your feet hurt after a couple hours, regardless of how old they are. They also have a pointed toe that can wreak havoc on a seed bag. As for me, I’m wearing black Nike warm-ups and white and red Adidas cross-trainers. They’re my mugging shoes. I’ve got on gloves, a dark blue hoodie, and underneath it a white T-shirt with yearold yellow pit stains. I’ve dyed my hair blonde. It’s 10:00 p.m. and my legs are tired from teaching for six and a half hours at the tennis club, but I’m not worried about fatigue. My twenty-nine-yearold body is in peak tennis form, and the boyfriend in front of me TM Magazine - 23
looks brutish, maybe a college baseball player for some small school ten years ago, back in his glory days, when he might have actually thought about catching a mugger. The couple is about twenty feet from a street corner— exactly where I need them to be. The best time to mug someone is just before a street corner. Turning a corner brings with it another world, another unlinked band of people, ignorant of what happened—calmer, placid, lack-
at one of her boyfriend’s bad jokes and smacks his shoulder. My heart starts to pound, and I smile a bit, happy to once again feel alive. I grab the underbelly of the purse and snatch it from the edge of her shoulder, bumping her into her boyfriend, and take off. “Hey!” she yells, her voice shrill enough to buzz the metal fillings in my mouth, but I’m already around the corner, dodging an old man with a wooden cane, then two
I slither around the liquorswigging businessman and his friend, confident they won’t try anything noble. ing the perspective to help the distant, unseen sound of a screaming woman. I slither around the liquorswigging businessman and his friend, confident they won’t try anything noble, and pick up my speed until I am a few feet from the dangling red purse. The woman laughs 24 - november 2012
young boys staring into a plastic bag full of Sour Patch Kids. I run down the street without blinking, the red purse under my arm like a football. After half a block I look back. Once you look back, then you’re officially a mugger, because that’s when people see suspicion—they see you’re being
chased, and you’re holding a purse, and you’re a guy, and that means you’re probably not a nice guy. The boyfriend baseball player doesn’t come after me, which is a bit shocking considering nine of the last ten purses I’ve stolen have resulted in some kind of thrilling three-and-a-half-block chase. I imagine an awkward night
with their picture inside the front flap. A make-up kit with an oversized mirror, three tubes of lipstick, one condom, and folded receipts from the supermarket. I push it all aside and feel around for what I’m really looking for. It’s under the lining on the bottom, Kelly told me a year and a half ago. I search, but I find nothing. One hundred and
I push it all aside and feel around for what I’m really looking for. conversation in bed with his girl. Why didn’t you go after him? Don’t you want to protect me? Followed by bogus reasoning. It’s okay, I caught the color of his hair, how tall he was. The police will find him. I run another half mile, zigzagging into neighborhoods with city-issued trash cans and teenagers skateboarding over wheelbarrows in their driveway with the garage door light on. I hide behind a group of trees and unzip the purse. A black leather wallet
twenty-three purses. Not one sign of it. I read the address on Red Purse Lady’s driver’s license. A local girl. Born and raised in Buffalo. I walk back to my car and drive three and a half miles to her home and place the purse on the edge of her porch. •
Kelly and I are in bed holding each other’s hand. I can barely move my legs after playing two exhibition matches with burgundy grove - 25
nationally-ranked juniors who never seem to get tired. On and off my calf muscle tightens without me doing anything, and she knows exactly how to massage it so it’ll relax. “Thank you for working so hard, sweetie,” she says. She squeezes my left calf, and then scratches my neck. Her fingernails always send a vibration down my body. “Did you win?” “Yeah, but the parents think they won’t see my style of play on the circuit, so they didn’t sign up.” “That’s ridiculous. If they want to be successful, they need to know how to beat
parents have deluded them into thinking they are great. None of this matters when I get home and Kelly tells me about her morning teaching kindergartners and her struggles writing. By our bed is a black trash can filled with wadded up balls of paper. Kelly has been trying to write stories in the afternoon, before I come home from the tennis club. In bed she tells me about it. “Whenever I finish a sentence, or a paragraph, or if I’m lucky, a page, I reread it and just hate every word. After I finish one, it’s as if I won’t let myself finish another one. I’m stuck.”
“Thank you for working so hard, sweetie.” every style, right?” “Exactly.” That’s Kelly. She knows exactly what to say, and she believes it too, which makes me feel like I’m not wasting my life feeding tennis balls to rich kids whose 26 - november 2012
“Wait, you finished one?” “Yeah. It’s short.” “Well, let me see it.” “I don’t know. It’s kind of simple.” “Simple is good. I like simple.” Kelly leans over and
kisses me on the cheek. I can see her smile even though the lights are off. Less than a minute later, we hear someone twisting the doorknob to our apart-
tennis bag into a nearby river and following it until it goes over a waterfall. I watch it bob out of sight. My dog, Shadow, a black and white Shih Tzu, jumps
“Someone’s breaking in.” ment. It’s too loud, too quick to be someone friendly. Then we hear a strange scratching noise, then a pop. We hear the familiar creak of our door opening. “You hear that?” she whispers. “Yeah.” “Someone’s breaking in.”
II After stealing the red purse and returning it, I go back to the one-bedroom apartment and plop on the couch. I flip on the television. The Australian Open. I turn it off. Teaching tennis and then watching tennis in my free time just doesn’t work. I daydream about throwing my
on the couch and sits against my thigh. She seems to always know the condition I’m in. If I’m low-key, Shadow relaxes and sleeps on my feet. If I come home wired, Shadow’s jumping up, tongue out, tail waving. If I start to cry, Shadow licks my tears. The phone rings. It’s Paul, a tennis pro I’ve worked with at the club since last year, when he joined the staff. I guess you could say he’s my best friend, because he’s the only one I’ve told about what I do at night. “You did it again, didn’t you?” he asks me. He’s drunk. His words are slurred, yet strong enough to judge. “Guilty as charged.” “And?” “Nope . . . wrong purse.” “David, man.” There’s a burgundy grove - 27
28 - november 2012
me? Let it go, and come on out drinking. I’m looking at two beautiful ladies right now.” “What color—” “Blue!” he says, knowing my question. “Blue and gray.” “Sorry, Paul. Next time.” “Yeah, sure.” “So is this why you called? To get an update?”
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pause. The bar he’s at is loud in the background— the sound of girls laughing, the clanging of glass bottles. Even though he’s sloshed, I can tell he really cares that I didn’t find the right purse. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. There’s got to be thousands of red purses out there. Let it go. You hear
“Thanks. I owe you one. Or like, ten.” •
“Yep, just checking.” “Annnnd?” There’s a pause. I can hear him chugging his beer. “It’s gonna be tough getting up for that seven o’clock lesson.” I nod and Shadow stands, does a small circle, and sits back down against a different part of my thigh. “All right, I’ve got you covered.”
I start to get out of bed, but Kelly grabs my forearm like a clamp. “No.” “What?” “They might have a gun.” I listen a little while longer. I hear whispering. A man and a woman. Papers are flapping and flailing, drawers get thrown open. I hear the kitchen light click on. Silverware jangles. In the living room I hear cords being unplugged, objects tossed into a plastic bag. I try to break free of Kelly’s arm, but she holds on even harder. Our bodies are under a white sheet. “No, David. It’s too risky.” “It’s okay. They probably don’t even think we’re home. I’ll just scare them.” “No. Please, stay here. Don’t move.” Kelly holds on to my arm, squeezing hard enough I start to lose circulation. She is staring into my eyes. She knows I burgundy grove - 29
want to go save our stuff, she knows I want to try and be a hero, she knows I like knowing I can protect her, but she doesn’t let go. “I can’t lose you. Please. Just stay.” We continue to hear the sounds of our electronics being unplugged, our laptop closing. They even take the bottle of change I’d been saving so Kelly could attend a writers conference in Honolulu while I checked tennis clubs for available openings. It makes my stomach twist hearing the coins jingle. They could have stolen everything else and I would have understood, but when they take a sixty-fourounce plastic orange juice bottle full of quarters, nickels and dimes, I realize they are not decent human beings.
III The next morning I wake up, fix some food for Shadow, and pull in to the tennis club at 6:50 a.m. Three cars are waiting, their headlights 30 - november 2012
spotlighting the snow falling in slow motion. I turn off the car and zombie toward the front doors with my key ready and pointed. My adult students turn off their heated Mercedes, Jaguar, and Hummer and join me at the entrance. “Gee, it’s really coming down, isn’t it?” says James,
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owner of three Mighty Tacos in town. “Yeah, it is,” I say, but my mind is already thinking about tonight, which town I’ll go to, who I will find, who I will mug, if they’ll chase me. Maybe I will find the right purse, or maybe I’ll finally be caught by the police and put in jail, a place I can’t fully
imagine, which makes it exciting in some way. We take the court closest to the lobby. I turn on the lights and put the students in a line, feeding forehands along the baseline, telling them to take it crosscourt, down the line. “Follow through, stay on your toes. Keep enough distance between you and the ball . . .”
burgundy grove - 31
I’ve fed enough tennis balls that accuracy is not a problem. I am a robot, a ball machine dispensing platitudes that mean little to nothing. Some mornings I say them with energy, others with a face as expressionless as a cow. Most of my job is making other people feel like they are having a good time. If I can do that, it doesn’t matter what they learn, as long as they sweat. James always hits his forehands right at me because he knows I’ll hit it back, which means another shot, a “challenge.” He thinks I like it when he does it. Today he’s come with his wife and her sister. After two shots, I see they are beginners, and James has probably brought them here to show off, which explains why he’s cracking the ball at my face. I hit it back perfectly so he can continue hitting his hardest. This will sound conceited, but I like making people look like heroes. I like hitting the perfect ball back to them the 32 - november 2012
exact height they want, with just enough spin. I like seeing how satisfied they are, and how they don’t care about it being an illusion. It’s similar to when I mug people. Several times in the last year I’ve been chased. I’ve been thrown in a trash bin by a young, bald white guy as his girlfriend watched, satisfied with justice being served. I’ve been uppercut by a black man with dreadlocks, tossed down a snowy hillside by a Kevin Spacey look-alike. The pain feels good, and I feel even better knowing that their relationships will experience a spark of passion, all because the man got to be a man. The lesson finishes and I can tell the students are exhausted. James’s yellow shirt is drenched in sweat, while the two ladies dry themselves off with towels. I did my job. But then I see it. There it is, against the back green curtain, next to a lavender warm-up jacket. It stares at me, and I stare back. It seduces me, and all at once I
forget being a tennis teaching pro. I am at night, summoned by a familiar object of desire. I try and recall James’s wife’s name. I said it a few times during the lesson, back in robotic land. “Ellen?” “Yes?” “Is that your red purse?” “Mmhm . . . why?” “Oh, nothing. I just didn’t want you to forget it.” Ellen walks over and puts
James shouts, chugging an Aquafina. “It wasn’t that bad.” Ellen shakes her head. “Don’t listen to him. I remember how bad it was.” “What did you do?” “Well, when you’re struggling, you have to be creative, David. You have to think outside the box.” I wait for her to continue, but instead she picks up her red purse. She opens it, and
“Is that your red purse?” on her lavender jacket. I join her. “Thank you so much for the lesson, David. You know, it wasn’t more than a year ago when we were worried we wouldn’t be able to continue lessons.” “What do you mean?” “Well, I lost my job, and you know, this recession . . . it really hit Mighty Taco hard. We took out a second mortgage. We were desperate. Some days it was even difficult to put food on the table.” “Oh, she’s exaggerating,”
as careful as I can, I lean in to get a look, on my tiptoes, and almost headbutt her. I hear a pop sound—her two fingers find a bill. She looks around and hands me twenty dollars. “Can we tip you?” “Oh, no, I shouldn’t.” Technically my boss tells the pros not to accept tips, but Paul does it, and he tells me Cassander does it, who tells everyone that Brian, our boss, does it, so we secretly break the rule together. burgundy grove - 33
Ellen shakes her head and refuses my pretend act of modesty. She crushes the bill into a ball and puts it in my right hand. “You deserve it for getting up so early.”
water with electrolytes in our vending machine. You need to be drinking that stuff. She runs out to the vending machine, and I run over to her red purse and hunt through it,
Ellen shakes her head and refuses my pretend act of modesty. “Don’t give him too much. We need him to stay,” James shouts before leaving the court. I smile and wave goodbye to him. He doesn’t need to worry. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got work to do. Since the 9–2 adult school doesn’t start for another hour, I take a nap on the couch in the lounge. No one else is there, so I take my shoes off and smash my face into the hard pillow. I dream of having another lesson with Ellen. A private lesson. I move her around the court until she can no longer breathe, then tell her about the power of hydration. Never underestimate it. I tell her about the bottled 34 - november 2012
but quickly I remind myself, even in my dream, of the consequences if she catches me. First, trust is broken, then comes gossip, then disgust, students quit, and just like that I’m out of a job. Paul shakes me awake. “Dude, it’s 8:55.” I rub my eyes and look at Paul, who looks ready to tip over. “Even my eyes hurt. I can’t move ’em back and forth without hurting my head.” “How many drinks did you have?” Paul shrugs and lets out a pesky laugh. We walk back into the ball room, surrounded by ten shopping carts of tennis balls and long, colorful plastic tubes to help pick
them up. We grab a cart and push it against the halfway open door and walk behind the green curtain to the courts farthest away from the lobby. We are about to begin a fivehour cycle of feeding tennis balls, delivering motivating lines and bad jokes, and running side to side, all without sitting once. I try to tell Paul as much as I can behind the curtain. “You know James’s wife?” “Yeah.” “She’s got a red purse.” “Dude, c’mon. Don’t bring this to work.” “It looks familiar. I’m telling you. It could be the one.” “But, Ellen? You really want to do this?” “Listen. What she was telling me, the way she talked about it. It kind of matched.” We both check our watch: 8:58. Paul looks around us to make sure we’re alone. “David. You’ve got to stop this. You’re obsessed. I mean, it’s just a purse.” I grab his shirt. I’m
frustrated. Am I obsessed? Definitely. But Kelly was my life. “It’s not just a purse, Paul. There’s something in there, some kind of message maybe. I don’t know. But I have to find her.” “She’s gone, man.” I push him against the wall. “Not yet.” Paul fixes his shirt, then cracks his neck. “All right. I got a private lesson with her later. Come out to the bar tonight and I’ll let you know what I find.” I shake my head. “You know I got plans tonight.” “I know. After that.” We roll our cart onto our courts. I see Cassander in the distance, preparing his ponytail and brushing off his matching white and black warm-up suit. Babolat. Cassander is endorsed by Babolat, and Paul and I joke that he’d tattoo his face with the logo if he didn’t have to worry about scaring students. Even though it’s nine on the dot, Cassander saunters two courts over and is smiling at me. burgundy grove - 35
All three of us meet at the net. Cassander gives me a high five, not because I’ve done something great, but because he thinks it’s cool. “Heeeey, David. What’s up?” Cassander adjusts his Babolat hat and then Babolat wristbands. “You know we start like, now, right?” “Eh, they can wait. I haven’t talked to you in a while.” I dart my eyes all around. Cassander’s court is already filled with five advanced-level students, waiting for their Macedonian national champion to return. Cassander makes air circles with his index finger and yells at them in his thick Eastern European accent. “Two laps.” He turns back and keeps a strange smile on his face. “I have a funny story to tell you. Can I tell you now?” Paul is laughing, bent over at the net. Both of us can’t believe how Cassander is not affected by his surroundings. If he wants to tell me a story, he is going to tell me a story. 36 - november 2012
“So, my wife and I, we were out getting Cokes . . . you know, at night. Like, oh, an hour away. And we see somebody get mugged.” He laughs and slaps his knee. “Mugged! We watched him run. And it was kind of strange, you know. My wife, you know, she doesn’t know much, so she thought it was you, but I told her you had brown hair, and the guy we saw running had blonde hair. But still, funny, right?” He tries to high five me again, but I look the other way. “Yeah, funny.” “Mugging. It’s kind of stupid, you know? A purse? I mean, c’mon. If you’re poor, you should rob something bigger, right?” My students come onto the court and place their water bottles next to us. “Yeah, Cassander. Funny story.” •
They leave, and after a few minutes we get up together and open our bedroom door. The couch cushions are on
the floor. The TV’s gone, DVD player along with all the DVDs, the laptop, all of Kelly’s jewelry. I check under the couch. Behind one of the legs I’d taped an envelope filled with $1,650. Our emergency fund. I pat all around, but it’s gone. “Shit!” I kick the couch as hard as I can and then run to the window. They can’t be
seen her too frightened to let out tears. She leans against the wall then slides down, eventually rolling into a ball. “Don’t leave me alone,” she says. I feel as if I’m being pulled in opposite directions. Everything aggressive in me wants to barge out the door and catch them, but instead I take my shoes off and put my
“Don’t leave me alone,” she says. far. I run over to the closet and throw on some warm-ups and shoes. “Where are you going?” Kelly asks, her face like a ghost. Her arms are crossed and she’s shaking. “I think I can go catch them. They took our savings.” She stares at me without blinking. She looks more than afraid. In our five years together, I’ve seen her cry many times. At movies, good books, when we have to leave each other for a few days, when her parents give her guilt trips, but never have I
arms around Kelly. I rub her shoulders. She rests her head against mine. Time passes, and we don’t move. She continues to shiver. After a moment she points to our coffee table, now with nothing on it. “They took my purse,” she says without expression. She starts sobbing. She says words, but I can’t hear them because her mouth is pressed into my shoulder. She lifts her head after settling down and wipes the wetness from her eyes. “There was something in there. Something for you. It wasn’t a big deal, but . . .” She burgundy grove - 37
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me straight in the eyes. “Can you find it? Can you find my purse?” I hug her as hard as I can. “Please, David. You’ve got to find it.”
Above: Flickr.com/It’sGreg
tries her best to breathe in and out without shaking. “It was under the lining, on the bottom.” She grabs her legs and squeezes, rocking back and forth, then stops and looks
IV After almost being spotted by Cassander, I decide to drive an hour and a half south to
Erie. I’ve colored my hair blue and wear a baseball cap. Fifty of my muggings have been in Buffalo, and I try to dye my hair as often as I can, since that is the one trait people remember when seeing a thief run away. That and if they’re skinny, which I can’t change unless I stuff pillows down my shirt. I play Tonight’s the Night by Neil Young as loud as I can. No matter how many times I listen to it, the album always seems to motivate me to steal again. Maybe it’s because Neil’s voice sounds like he’s on drugs and about to break into a million pieces, but it lifts me to a place that reminds me why I do this over and over again. The answer isn’t an “answer”—it’s a feeling, and something I count on, like an addiction, or perhaps a promise to Kelly that needs to be fulfilled. I park three blocks from the center of downtown Erie and check my watch. It’s 9:15 p.m. Paul will be waiting for burgundy grove - 39
me at Neddy’s back in Buffalo around 11 p.m to discuss the red purse at the club, so I want this one to be quick. More than anything, I want to find her purse tonight and bring it back to Paul, buy a round of drinks for everyone at the bar, and try my best to imagine moving on. My black gloves are warm from the heater, and I slip them on. Snow is falling, like it does almost every winter night along Highway 90, next to Lake Erie. As I walk toward a busy street, I fall back in love with the idea of reminding people of the fragility of everything—that their life could be taken from them at any time, that everything they believed in could be flipped on its head. When nothing bad happens to them, they begin to believe they are more important than other people. They’ve been chosen, and I don’t blame them for feeling that way, because that was me at one point, and perhaps it will be me again in the future. I take the folded Time 40 - november 2012
magazine I have in my pocket and open it up next to a convenience store. Standing by a bike rack, I watch families walk by holding their children’s hands. Kelly and I both heard two voices that night, a man and a woman, and they sounded young, happy, in love. That helps narrow down the possibilities. Ten minutes go by, then twenty. I start to get impatient. I realize that I started too early for couples going to a movie or a restaurant, but I catch a break. There’s a couple in the distance. The man has his arm around the girl. He’s twice her size, bomber jacket, crew cut. If he isn’t a pilot, then he probably dreams about it at the gym. I wait for them to pass, and I get a good look at the girl. Blonde hair, a giggler. Probably laughs at even his bad jokes. She takes care of herself too. Strong enough to lift a TV? Possibly. The red color is the exact shade I remember Kelly’s purse being. She swings it by the strap. It
feels almost like a taunt, as if she knew what I was about to do. They make their way up the sidewalk, streetlamps lighting their way as the wind begins to blow snow into everyone’s faces. I track them and get behind an elderly couple who
A spaced-out, text-messaging teenager trips me, and I almost run into a kiosk, but I’m able to spin and regain my balance. I look back and there he is, running at me like the liquid guy in Terminator 2. I try and find a place to turn and lose him, but there’s noth-
She lets out a scream. are probably returning from some kind of dinner theater. I check my watch: 9:45 p.m. Damn. As much as I love my night job, I love beer just as much. I jog around the elderly couple and tighten my cap so my eyes are barely visible. I wait for the purse to swing back to me. I grab it, but she holds on. Shit. She lets out a scream. We play a quick tug-of-war. I figure I only have two seconds before bomber-pilot dude dials in on what’s really happening. Luckily I’m able to rip the purse away from her and sprint around the corner.
ing, and in no time he grabs the back of my coat. I empty out the purse as quickly as I can and am able to look in at the bottom. Black fabric lining, just like hers. But before I can check under the fabric, he’s thrown me against a brick building. I glance and see his girl not far behind, watching, along with a few other bystanders. He doesn’t say anything to me, which I appreciate. Few things suck more than getting your ass kicked while being told how to live. He punches me in the gut, and I lose my breath, then he does it again, and suddenly I can’t find burgundy grove - 41
any oxygen. I’m on another planet. He hits me across the face, and the edge of his wedding band leaves a cut under my eye. I’m done, on the ground, but he picks me up. That’s when I realize he wants to put on a show. He has an audience, and I am so clearly a bad person. He throws me against a blue mailbox. I try to punch back, not because I think I can hit him. He’s a blur, everyone’s a blur, and I can taste the blood dripping from the cut under my eye. No, it’s so it doesn’t look like he’s overdoing it. Out of my good eye, I can barely make out his girl, who looks proud of her man. She’ll make sweet love to him tonight. She’ll call him a hero. She’ll feel safe in his arms, protected. And he’ll feel needed, loved, admired. He tosses me into an alley, on top of a pile of black trash bags. “Stay the hell away from us,” he says, fixing the puffy collar on his bomber jacket. I hold up my right hand. Gotcha. Nicely done. 42 - november 2012
•
We’re at the airport. She’s going to fly to Seattle, rent a car, and visit her mother for five days. “I just need to calm down. Plus she hasn’t been feeling well since Dad passed,” she says. Ever since the break-in, she hasn’t felt like our apartment is her home anymore. “I keep
Below: Flickr.com/mezone
checking the locks every ten minutes,” she said to me the day before. “I watch people pass by and I’m scared. Are they watching us?” I understand, but it doesn’t make it any easier. We’ve rarely been apart longer than a few days. I want to go with her, but missing forty hours of tennis lessons means missing
out on around seven hundred dollars, which means missing out on bills. She asks me again before going through security. “Are you sure you can’t come with me?” There is just enough in the bank account to cover a ticket, but it would leave us completely broke. “It’s better
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to play it safe,” I say, trying not to break down, trying to look as if I’m being strong. “Please call me when you land.” She does, from the airport. The phone is full of static. I can barely understand what she’s saying. “I’m in a bad area. I’ll call you ba—” Her voice cuts off. She doesn’t call me the next day, so I call her mother’s landline. “She was supposed to be here last night.” Everything slows down at that moment. You immediately start to feel like an outsider observing what life might be doing to you. Where is she? I think as I pace the living room, as I feed tennis balls to students. By the time her mother calls me several hours later, my stomach is twisted. I can’t eat a thing. “Oh, David,” she says, sobbing. “I’m so sorry.” I tell my boss at the club and take the next flight out to Seattle. I go directly to the police station. A female police officer tells me what happened, and then an old man, 44 - november 2012
a veteran who had to be close to ninety, finished the story. Kelly had waited for the light to turn green, but he didn’t see his red light. His station wagon plowed into her side of the Chevy Aveo. She’d probably wanted to save some money, so she got the smallest car possible. The veteran is sobbing, and I can tell it was simply an unfortunate accident. I walk back to my own rental car and lean against the door. The truth hits me so violently I feel nothing. I’m numb. Here I am, and where is she? Although I know she is gone, I cannot accept it. To me, she never dies. She simply vanishes, and all I can do is hope that I will one day stop looking for her.
V After sitting on the trash bags for twenty more minutes, I hobble back to my car and make it back to Buffalo around midnight. I take some
napkins from the glove compartment and dab the cut under my eye. The left side of my face is swollen, and I can only breathe short breaths, my chest tight and sore. I can’t keep doing this, I think, but I have no intention of quitting. I only say it because I feel like I should say it. I limp into Neddy’s and see Paul at the bar. Three empty mugs are in front of him. He’s slouched over a beer, elbows on the wooden counter, still in his blue tennis warm-ups. I collapse onto the leather stool next to him, cigarette smoke hovering around us. “Sorry I’m late.” He turns, his eyes tired, hollowed out almost. “Holy shit.” His concern feels good after being publicly destroyed. “Somebody caught you.” “Don’t mess with bomber jackets,” I say, touching the tap of the brand of beer I want. The bartender pours me something and it goes down smooth. My chest cools and tingles. I push the frosty glass against my cheek.
“Didn’t find it, right?” he says. I shake my head and drink more of my beer. “Well, I’ve got a surprise for you.” Paul says, not the least bit excited. He reaches down at his feet and pulls something out of a paper bag. “As I told you, I had a lesson with Ellen tonight.” He puts the red purse on the counter between us, then slides it over to me. “Go ahead. Have a look.” I almost laugh. “You just took it?” “Something like that,” he says, taking another sip of beer. The red purse seems familiar to me, more than any of the purses I’ve taken at night. It looks squashed, the red leather worn somewhat. I push aside three bottles of lipstick, a Native American coin purse, a brochure for Niagara Falls, an orange bottle of medication, and get to the bottom. There’s an inch-long tear in the black fabric. I stick my index finger through the hole and brush along something smooth. A photograph. I tear the black fabric more, my burgundy grove - 45
heart pounding through the chest pain. Out comes a picture of me and Kelly, holding each other outside the tennis club. On the back is her writing, in blue pen. My first haiku, it reads. You are happiness And all I will ever want Is your happiness.
The picture stays in my hand. I stare at it as Paul finishes his beer, the glass shaking in his hand. After hundreds of purses, it’s finally in my hands. Seventeen syllables I didn’t have before. “It was in the tennis club all along,” I say, shaking my head. “So this means . . .” I try to
“Write a haiku,” I said to her I slide my finger across her cursive writing. Just being able to look at something she wrote, to know that she was once sitting somewhere, writing, that she was here, in this world. I imagine all of those wadded balls of paper, the daily struggle she put herself through to like something she put down. “Write a haiku,” I said to her, a month before the break-in. “They’re about as short as you can get.” She never told me why she kept it at the bottom of her purse, but something tells me she thought it brought good luck, or protection of some kind. 46 - november 2012
imagine Ellen as the woman we heard from under our white sheet. “She did it.” “Now wait a second,” Paul says, patting his face with a napkin. He keeps it pressed against his mouth. “What? I mean, c’mon, Paul. How else does she get it?” Paul takes a long deep breath, then another one. “It was my girlfriend’s idea. Ex-girlfriend now. We were broke. It was before I landed the job at the club. We must have hit five, six different places along the block. I didn’t know it was yours until you told me what you were doing at night, why
you were doing it. Sometimes I wish you’d never told me, then I would have never made the connection. I sold it to Ellen for fifty bucks after my girlfriend left me.” I start to get nauseous. “How long have you known?” Paul pushes an empty beer glass away. “I’ve kind of known for a few months.” “Kind of?” “I didn’t want to find out for sure. I mean, hell? Willingly find out that you screwed over your best friend? Who does that?” I clutch Kelly’s haiku a little stronger. “An actual friend.” I feel sick just sitting there. All the connections are being made. His phone call updates, his discouragement. I want to hit him, but the disappointment, the heaviness of realizing I’ve lost my best friend keeps me from doing anything. But still, I try. I grab Paul’s collar with both hands and
force him to the counter. Beer glasses slide off the edge. Right now I can be the guy with the bomber jacket. I can hurt him. I have the right. After all, he started this spiral, this fall into darkness. But I can’t hit him. The energy just doesn’t want to come out. Neither do words. I walk out of the bar and get in the front seat of our—of my Buick. I hold Kelly’s haiku in my hand and look at the backseat. It’s all there, in a white plastic container. The dyes I used, wigs, gloves, coats, a list of names I’ve scared. It has been my life for almost sixteen months, and now, after ten minutes in a bar, it ceases to matter. All I can do, all I can hold on to, are Kelly’s words. Happiness . . . I read, over and over again. What is it? Where is it? I start my car and pull out onto the road.
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Above: Flickr.com/tinou bao
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52 - november 2012
Right: Flickr.com/mezone
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