Yorick Magazine, Vol. 1, Fall 2012 by Yorick

MASTHEAD: Editor-in-Chief – Alex Grover President, Founder – Cody J Steinhauer Intern – Olivia Errico Cover photo – Eleanor Leonne Bennett

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YORICK MAGAZINE VOLUME I, FALL 2012

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor – September 2012……………………………………………………………………………7 Poetry Regina Lloyd Burn it all Down ....................................................................................................................... 8 Pyrexia ..................................................................................................................................... 10 Joe Stokes Old Man................................................................................................................................... 12 Fiction Matthew Myers Baba Yaga’s .............................................................................................................................. 15 Christina Schillaci Savanna(h)............................................................................................................................... 16 Christopher King Stars ......................................................................................................................................... 23 Christian Belland IED ...........................................................................................................................................24

Art/Photography Eleanor Leonne Bennett Prices………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………....Cover Victorian Firefighter Ladder………………………………………………………….……………………………………9 Elisabeth Stonaker Angles, Clash………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….....11 Tsingtao………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………......29 Jenea Turner Horse…………………………………………………………………………………………..……………….......................14 Monster………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………...23

A Letter from the Editor - September 2012 A print issue may be a brick in a legacy. But I see each issue as a rebirth, a reincarnation of the same spirit entrenched with new narratives, new characters, new lyrics, and new images. That being said, in our third rebirth we welcome art and photography for the first time to Yorick Magazine. Featuring work from Eleanor Leonne Bennett, who has won awards with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Papworth Trust, and other renowned organizations, we are proud to extend our mission to the visual arts. Though I claim that this new issue is different in personality and form, I never said it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t part of our ongoing legacy. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to our third brick. Thank you and enjoy. Best, Alex Grover Editor-in-Chief, Yorick Magazine

Burn it all Down Regina Lloyd I laid lines of gasoline down by the foundation. I felt the match being struck. The sound was so small, like a line drawn with chalk on the blacktop. I held it for a second, choosing once again. I let it drop like a yo-yo that I could pull back. Fwomp, spread a tidal wave of fire. “Burn it all down,” I said to myself. Crack, like lightening in a storm. It was caramelizing, it was sautéing, it was boiling. It was ready to catch and melt into ash. Then he came with his ladder and his red hat. He extinguished the fire, Calmed the storm. Bailed the wave. He saved it from the rubble, The one thing I had wanted most to burn down. The drapes, the lovely tea cups, the oil paintings, all burned to ash. But the truth, at the very core of it all. The incriminating book of memories—this he salvaged.

Pyrexia If Hell is on Earth, I know it lived in Croydon, PA, Like the rest of us sinners. In Mid July in a town with 2 strip clubs, 6 bars and a train track. There was no other side of the tracks, it was bad or more bad. In a town without shoes, The only thing you could guarantee your neighbor had, Bills and a whole lawn of crab grass. Bees would be swarming the clover flowers, Making a landmine for the shoeless feet of kids running. Saint or sinner you were all going to boil in Croydon. Mothers sent their kids out to play, Kids ran around making all kinds of hot. Noses crusted in dirt and snot and necks ringed in dirt balls. Daring backs lay bare on black top, Bragging rights the only prize

Old Man Joe Stokes Sat in the backyard swing Coffee mug in hand Resting comfortably on the years that defined his life Front-yard roses exploded In pedaled rainbows With ironic pleasure His imagination-banner quipped Cryptic Life Begat Cryptic Death Strange A pumpkin vine appeared In the backyard garden Where it had not been sown Did not belong Forced fit Uneasy truce Crawling creeper Somehow insinuated Among tall sunflower faces All heavenward gazing Truth be known Not so much heart attack As heart attacked Screaming Voice-Prophets atop spiritual high horses A lifetime of Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to hell Gnarling So now he was content to prove them Right, it was the Jesus in him Truth be shown Front-yard lilies 12

Justified eternity For a day Parading rows Uniform color Dazzling like a marching band Had the world grown too crowded for a simple Old Man? A pacifist Jesus-Gandhi-Einstein imitator A modest do unto others sort Or was it simply time to let go? Cut and placed in the vase On the summer table of the backyard patio Plebian zinnias Bowed low in wilted prayer Whispering for things of which They never seemed to get enough May we Drink until nourished and Smile at the possibilities of life Just one more morning Realizing himself more Pumpkin than rose Zinnia than day lily Backyard than front Simple Old Man Bowed low in wilted prayer Offering thanks for things of which He never seemed to get enough May I Drink from lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cup until nourished and Smile at the possibilities of beauty Just one more day In the mystic mourning Of a mystic morn Old Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life forever changed

Baba Yaga’s Matthew Myers I keep having this really odd dream. I wake up in a room inside a tiny cottage. I already feel uncomfortable. I get up and carefully pace across the tiny, wooden room. I just want to leave. I know I shouldn’t be there. Through a cracked door I can see a tattered old lady snapping forearms and fingers and throwing them a boiling kettle. Her head is disproportionately large. She doesn’t seem to notice me; terror begins to heighten all my senses. I hear murmurs from the corner of my room. I swivel to face them. There’s a fair-skinned girl with glasses, dressed in a beaten blue gown, who’s laid out in the corner. She’s beautiful and subtle. Her groggy voice and sleepy eyes were just coming-to, I suppose. She pushed away the loose hanging locks from her face and met my eyes with surprise. Her lips mouthed what looked like help me, and she held her wrist out. It was clad with an iron shackle chained to the wall. She had such thin wrists and such nice lips. I’m always somewhat hazy on the next part, but I know I come back in, pulling her out of a window, her hands covered in blood. There’s a horrible keening coming from where the old and haggard lady was tossing limbs into soup. The sense of urgency, anxiety, and fear almost always wake me up. But I slip back in and soon am running through a brightly lit glen with the girl in the blue gown. We run for what feels like hours until we reach a cliff, which morphs into an ocean somewhere far after our eyes can see. The hand I’m holding begins to tremble, and tears fall out from under the pretty girl’s glasses. The sound of crushing leaves and twigs isn’t too far behind us. She sobs harder. I pick her up and look at her for a while. I apologize. Some nights I kiss her. Then, holding her in my arm tightly, I turn around and fall back off the edge of the cliff. I tell her to only look at me. I’m not sure why I’m doing this. It’s the only thing that feels right to do. The dropping sensation isn’t so bad that it wakes me. On the way down I see the most curious thing: two scrawny bird legs holding an enormous amount of earth in the air, standing in the middle of a sea. I suppose I was at Baba Yaga’s the entire time, but each night it’s new to me. I wake up at the crash. Every morning, same time. It’s such a weird dream to have over and over again.

Savanna(h) Christina Schillaci I waited for her in a little café on Broughton Street in Savannah, twiddling my calloused fingers and tapping the lid of my coffee cup. She was in town to teach a seminar at Savannah College of Art and Design. We had agreed to meet here at a quarter past seven on the dot. I was an hour early. The details of the place were familiar to me. The miniature tables, the vinyl records, the colored Christmas lights that lined the walls, even now in June. The Weakerthans played so low through the speakers you’d have to be paying attention to hear it. The owner of the place was a real big fan of Canadian indie rock. All of this blurred together, lost in my anxiousness to see her again. Fifty-seven minutes to go. My fingers were made of pure energy. I felt like one of those gesture drawings I had my students sketch of the nude models in class. Draw the gesture, not the person. Don’t worry about precision. Find their energy, their very movement, and capture it on paper. I couldn’t be captured. I didn’t bring any paper with me. There were too many scenarios to prepare for them all. The last time I saw her, we were in bed. She was reading me Murakami and tracing lazy circles along my collarbone. Fifty-four minutes. I tried not to think about it. A lot could go wrong in an hour. Help me out here, you Fates. Spin my thread of life in the right direction. We met here in this café. It was evening, just after five. I ordered a cappuccino and sat mulling over scribbles in my sketchbook while I waited for the barista to make my coffee. That was when SHE walked in, wearing tight jeans, a white tee, strappy heels, and a blazer. A cigarette tucked behind her left ear. My kind of girl. She ordered a cappuccino, and when the barista set the first drink on the counter, we both reached for it. We laughed about it for a bit, and she told me her name was Savanna. “No shit,” I said. Savanna in Savannah, Georgia. Who woulda guessed? She seemed in a hurry, but instead of leaving she pulled up a chair beside mine and put her lipstick stained cup on the miniature table. She asked about my drawings, and I explained that I was people watching, sketching them out, and practicing. Drawing people isn’t like riding a bike, you know. If you don’t practice enough, the skill will leave you. I told her about my job offer as a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design. I was going to take it, I said, and teach figure drawing to art students who thought they could make it in the world with amateur drawing skills and a bit of luck. She laughed and congratulated me. Maybe it’s corny to say, but I was a damn fine artist, and I knew when she looked at me that I could never capture the smile in those eyes. She told me about her job, as well. She designed the displays in department store windows and was based in New York City. Presentation was very important to her. I thanked the Fates that I had enough sense that day to wear my good dress shirt and slacks.

We talked for a solid hour and fourteen minutes. We found that we both loved Hemingway and Vonnegut but couldn’t make heads or tails of Pynchon. She loved tidy things, logical things. I loved chaos and beauty. We clicked in that way you hear about in movies and books. “I’d like to see your paintings sometime,” she said. She pressed the lid of her coffee cup into her bottom lip, watching me. I told her she could visit me any time at the college. I’d be around. She sat down her coffee cup and asked if I had any paintings in my apartment. I said that I did. We stood up, gathered our things, and left the café together. That’s how we should have met, anyway. But that isn’t how it happened. Δ We met the way many people do, through a mutual friend at a bar in NYC. I had not yet been asked to teach at SCAD and was selling paintings here and there, living out my days as a starving artist and spending my nights at Escher’s, drowning away my thirty years of existence with whatever was on special. I’ve never been picky. That night, she asked me to dance. I hesitated, so she asked again, and I said yes. She punched her name and number into my Blackberry. Savanna, I thought. Not your every day run of the mill name. I didn’t call her for three weeks. I hadn’t been on a date in at least four years. I drummed my knuckles against the countertop in my kitchen, the phone poised in my other hand, her contact info up on the screen. Maybe things had changed since I had last been in the game. But when I finally called and asked her, she said yes. We went to the boardwalk. It was a chilly October afternoon and the area was empty. I wasn’t sure how to act or what to say. I reached for her hand more than once but pulled away before making contact. I asked her questions, trying hard not to interview her. I was the one who saw the sign for the psychic and suggested a tarot reading. She agreed. When we got The Lovers card, she blushed like crazy and excused herself from the shop. Talk about a mood killer. If you wanna impress a girl, take her to a psychic, right? Let the great winged figure pour down influences and your girl will run straight out of there. The suggestion of the simplicity of human love is enough to scare a person, any person. It’s not like I told the psychic to pick that card or anything. That’s not how it works. Unless it’s all one big load of crap. Who knows? Maybe I’m talking nonsense. I found her outside, and we collected seashells on the beach until it was time to find a restaurant for dinner. She didn’t bring up the tarot card reading, and neither did I. Δ I first kissed her in a little park near my apartment a few weeks after the boardwalk date. We had been seeing each other regularly. I would work on my sketches and paintings late into the night to make time for Savanna during the afternoon and evening. She would try her best to finish work early to meet me for dinner. On the weekends we would drive to small, quaint towns, park the car, and walk for hours. Eventually we’d end up at a coffee shop and chat over cappuccinos. The day I kissed her, we sat cross legged on a tattered blanket with a thermos of coffee between us. It was just after three in the afternoon. Luckily there was no wind in 17

the cold air. Savanna buttoned up her wool pea coat and snuggled into me. I couldn’t suppress the grin that warmed my face. She told me about her family, her mother and father who lived in Denver with her little sister, Abigail, who would be graduating from middle school in the spring. It was difficult to move away from her sister, she said, but she had to meet new people and see new things. She told me she had picked up smoking when she moved to NYC to have something to do with her hands at parties. She desperately wanted to quit. I said I would try to help. I told her about my hopes for the future and my silly dreams of becoming a successful artist. As I spoke, Savanna watched me, nodded her head, and asked questions. It was a first for me, having someone so interested in my dreams. We were in the middle of discussing a plan. We wanted to take a Saturday to wake up early and drive to the beach and greet the sun, get breakfast and walk on the sand. Savanna began to say something when I leaned in and kissed her. I could feel her initial surprise in the way she tensed up, but then she was kissing me back. I reached up under her ear, cupping her jaw line with my hand. She tasted like cigarettes and coffee and fresh mint. Δ Ten months after our first date with the tarot card reading, I got the job offer to teach at SCAD. I would have to move down there, I told her. I didn’t ask her to join me. She asked before I had the chance. She assured me that she could continue to work from Georgia. We avidly looked for an apartment, one with enough room for a little art studio, and finally moved in together on a cloudy day in mid-August. Being a professor was good enough, at that point. I would earn a steady income teaching what I loved, and it would pay the bills. Becoming a successful artist would take time, I told myself. I couldn’t expect to be the next big hot shot in a matter of months, or even a year. Things were falling into place for the time being. We walked through our apartment for the first time, feeling the fabric of the curtains and looking sidelong at each other with giddy, lopsided smiles. Savanna traced the back of the brown leather couch and sat down. She patted the seat beside her. When I sat, she flung her legs over mine, and with a dramatic flip of her dark hair, said, “Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.” “That can be arranged,” I said, and kissed her. We immediately took the apartment as our own. Savanna used her decoration skills to sweep the place up in a whirlwind of color and style. She left my art studio alone at first. But soon enough, the rooms collided like individual lives often do, and Savanna became an element my studio knew well. She energized the walls with bright colors to spark my creativity. As a result, my art spilled forth into the other rooms of the apartment. Savanna hung my paintings up above the sofa in the living room and in the bedroom. I tacked huge sheets of paper next to every window in the house. Some days I would open the curtains wide and people watch, right there from our second story window, and sketch. Savannah the place was the manifestation of the girl I loved. It was green and brown and beautiful. Narrow roads filled the old city, some of them made of cobblestone. Streetcars often drove by our apartment. The buildings told stories. Every few blocks sat a 18

park. Savannah’s parks were lovely and larger than the one I had first kissed Savanna in back in NYC. Scenic fountains stood everywhere. I couldn’t hope for a better city to live in, to start fresh in. Living with a woman can change you. I had never done it before. We discovered little things. I hated it when Savanna left the bathroom door open before bed. She hated when I left toothpaste globs in the sink. But not everything we discovered was bad. There was one Sunday morning in particular that sparked a discovery. I threw on my favorite ratty sweatshirt, the gray one with the frayed edges and pit stains. I plopped down in the sofa across from Savanna, who was reading Breakfast of Champions and chewing on the end of a pencil. I pulled at the tassels on my sweatshirt and told her I felt bad for clothes. She put down the book and asked why. I said I felt bad that some get shoved into a closet and are forgotten while others are out making memories. I asked if she remembered my blue flannel shirt. “Of course I do,” she said. “You were wearing it the night I met you.” “Yeah,” I said. “Well, that was a good memory. That shirt went back to my closet with an excellent story. And this sweatshirt I’m wearing now? I’ve worn it around here more times than I can count. It knows my private life, in a way.” “Huh,” she said. “What?” “I feel bad for the people in clothes.” I stopped pulling on the tassels. “Why?” Savanna took her time answering. She tickled the pages of her book and took the pencil out of her mouth. “When my sister was six, she had this purple and white nightgown, and it had this picture of an ice skating cat on the front. And I just felt so bad for her, and for the shirt being on her. I felt bad for them both.” Savanna went back to her book. I watched her sitting there in her oversized tee shirt, her hair pulled up in a big, loose bun that threatened to come undone. She had her feet tucked under her butt in this way I found insanely cute. We sat together in comfortable silence. Δ My father paid us a visit shortly after we moved in. He loved Savanna, of course. There wasn’t a person I met who didn’t love Savanna. My father was in town for a conference or something or other, I don’t know. I couldn’t even tell you what his profession was. He was a real business-type, decked out in a fine suit pressed to perfection, his hair combed, not a speck of stubble on his face. And like any typical successful business-type, he looked down on his artistic son. He never said this to me. He never said much of anything. But I knew. He sat at our little kitchen table holding a white mug with black lettering that advertised some department at SCAD. It was a simple mug, unobtrusive, scared to be held in my father’s rough hands. He eyed the kitchen with obvious disgust. His gaze lingered on the paintbrushes in the sink and the half-finished sketches of people hanging by the window. I asked him if he would like some more coffee. He grunted in response. 19

You would think I would have gotten used to it by that point. The ignoring, the grunts, the little digs designed to keep his innocence and disrupt my peace. Perhaps that’s why my mother left him. There are only so many grunts a person can handle before they take flight and get the hell outta there. He should have been happy, anyway. His son was a professor. A professor, goddammit, who taught at a reputable college by the age of thirty. A professor who had a steady income. What did it matter? It wasn’t what I even wanted to do. Maybe it was better than what I really wanted to do. It was sensible. It paid the bills on time and we lived comfortably with Savannah’s income. Maybe in this world gone to the dogs, this was the best job I could have hoped for. Δ It wasn’t an actual decision. I didn’t sit down and mull over it for twenty minutes, biting the end of my pencil, lost in the thought of what I was becoming. My father’s grunts stuck in my head long after he left our apartment. Was being a professor at a reputable college really the best job I could have hoped for? I felt as if I had settled. I didn’t want to settle. I wanted to make something of myself, something Savanna could be proud of. I knew she was proud already, but girlfriends have to say that. It’s their job, just how a mother’s job is to view her son as virtually flawless, how a father’s is to view his son as…as what? I wondered how something as minuscule as a grunt could absorb my thoughts and evaporate my spirit. I began staying on campus long after class, throwing my efforts into paintings as big as the queen size bed in our bedroom. I worked in the middle of my classroom where the nude models stood during the day. I needed more open space. I needed a change from the little studio in our apartment. There was nothing wrong with it, but I felt I could benefit from a place that knew me, only me. I worked late into the night at least three times a week. This was how I would make something of myself. I would surround myself with what I hoped to be, and I would become it. Δ I found the note one evening before I left for SCAD to teach my night class. It was on the floor near the trash can, written on the back of a receipt from New York & Company. According to the receipt, Savanna had bought herself a button up shirt for $34.99. On the back she had written: Ars longa, vita brevis. I looked it up on the computer and found the translation, then threw the receipt away, thinking nothing of it. Later that night I felt an ache in my stomach, but I chalked it up to the bad cut of meat I ate for dinner. Δ There was a morning the following year that I remember distinctly. Savanna sat at the kitchen table, chipped mug in hand, taking a drag of her cigarette. I stood by the stove making omelets. She asked me how I could look at those nude models for such long periods of time. “I don’t know,” I said. “Does it bother you? It’s only art.” 20

She blew a ring of smoke. I didn’t like her smoking in the apartment, but I didn’t say anything. “No,” she said. “That’s not it. I was just thinking about their faces. I think if you look at someone for long enough, you stop recognizing their face and they become a stranger. Like when you say a word over and over and over and over again until it loses meaning. Does that happen when you look at your models?” “Sometimes,” I said. “I guess you’re right.” Savanna looked out the window for a long time. Then she stood up, dropped her half smoked cigarette into her coffee, and left the room. Δ For a time, I stopped bringing my sketchbook with me when I went out to people watch. I would go to bookstores and pretend to flip through big books, books I couldn’t ever hope to understand, and I would watch. I watched their faces until the lines blurred. I thought about the subtle differences between faces. Everyone has the same main features. Eyes, nose, ears, mouth, chin, cheeks, forehead. I could draw these well. But until then I did not fully grasp the fact that every face is altered just so there are no two exactly alike. It is difficult to think about how many faces there are in the world when you inhabit only one small part of it. I watched them in coffee shops, parks, restaurants. It took me a long time to figure out that by looking at strangers’ faces, they could become something even further than strangers. They could become something else entirely. I thought about Savanna’s face, too. I thought about her straight nose, her green eyes, and her long lashes. I thought about her face until it became nothing but line work, like I had taken an eraser to her features, lightening the details. But I always thought about something else before she became unrecognizable. Δ Savanna sat cross legged with a copy of Cloud Atlas perched on her knee, facedown to hold her page. It was an overcast afternoon and we were spending it indoors. I stood at the window, sketching a mother and son who had paused at our apartment building to chat about something or other. The son looked to be about twenty. Perhaps they were discussing his studies at college. Or maybe they were talking about something more delicate, like a family issue. Their brows were knit in concentration — no, wrong word. I couldn’t think of the word. That was why I needed to draw it. I didn’t notice that Savanna had put down her book and was watching me. I continued to sketch the mother and son on the pavement below me. Finally, I felt her stare on the back of my neck, and I turned around. “I’m here,” she said. I smiled at her. “I know, baby. I’m here too.” I leaned over to give her a kiss on the forehead and went back to my sketch. Δ The details of what happened in the end are not important. We became corrupt, damaged, contaminated by gross material desire. Maybe it is a shame. But that is the way that humans love. I checked my watch again. It was half past eight. Savanna was running over an hour behind. It was just like her to keep people waiting. I ordered another cappuccino. 21

I was about to get up and leave when I heard the jingling of the bells above the front door, signaling someone had entered the café. I looked up. There she stood, looking around, hair tied up in a chignon and a pencil skirt hugging her slender hips. She looked the same, yet somehow better. More beautiful. A while back she had gotten hooked on this weird hybrid of yoga and Pilates. Maybe she had picked back up with the classes. In any case, she looked good. She ordered a cappuccino before she came to sit with me. She didn’t say anything at first. She just watched me, her eyes wary, her posture stiff. I tried to say hello, say something, anything, but I couldn’t. My mouth was glued shut. Once you draw a figure with a closed mouth, you can’t open it unless you scrub away at the page with an eraser. But even then you can’t completely wipe away the evidence. We stayed like that for quite some time. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe forty. Her eyes weren’t smiling anymore. When I finally did speak, it wasn’t what I had planned to say. “Ars longa, vita brevis,” I said. “Art is long, life is short. Why would you write that and then throw it away?” She didn’t answer. She couldn’t, really, because she wasn’t there. I blinked and she was gone. It was eleven o’clock and my cappuccino was cold. The barista cleaned the counters and swept the floor. The music shut off and I was left with an insurmountable silence. I knew the answer, anyway. I just didn’t want to admit it. I was sure that by now Savanna was finished with her seminar at SCAD. She was probably walking to her hotel in the dark, the only light coming from the cigarette butt clamped between her lips. I could imagine the soft glow illuminating her cheekbones. She would be returning to NYC in the morning, I presumed. The truth was that she wasn’t going to meet me here at all. She didn’t know she was supposed to. If she happened to walk into the café after her seminar, then hey, the Fates would have spun things in the right direction. But Savanna didn’t come because she didn’t know I was waiting for her. Perhaps our chapter had been sealed off, after all. Once innocence yields to corruption there is no back pedal. In the end, the café owner apologized and kicked me out. I walked back to our apartment, thinking that if I could get three more lifetimes in return, I would have quit my job and given away all my paintings on the spot.

Stars Christopher King The voices of the beat down and forgotten echo throughout the halls of greed, lust, and apathy. The selfish souls donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care to listen; their own needs and desires drown out the calls of the good ones, the mistreated ones, the used ones. The glorified gluttons of the world sit on their thrones, fattened by bread and meat and wine, as they wipe their noses with the discarded tissues of the world, throwing these people into the wastebasket without compassion or concern. Can they rise and build themselves up? Are they able to reconstruct the fallen walls of their hearts and minds? No, not them, but their shadows, the imprints of their thoughts and feelings; those gain strength. They become solidified, cemented in the air. But soon after cracks begin to form, and the emotions and wants start to show their weaknesses. The wishful hopes and dreams of the sensitive and sincere shatter as they float into the dark night sky, bonding to the stars, constant, haunting reminders of what can never be achieved, what we can never reach.

IED Christian Belland Part III —dark where am I feels like I’m floating can’t see anything just dark dark dark I hear something a voice no just sounds rolling past me like explosives oh god my ears are ringing my head’s gonna split open feels like I’m gonna die am I dead can I die if I’m dead already who knows maybe I died in that explosion last month and this is all a dream what’s in the distance looks like black hole tidal wave thunder fuck I’m going to die if I’m not already dead here it comes holy shit that’s fast the tornado is calling me a coward I am not a coward yes I ran but it was to save myself I should’ve died with them I ran away and they died instead of me I’m a fucking coward yes I am a coward yes I am— Δ The morning sun was blinding. Gavin awoke sprawled across a musty old couch, one arm off the side and a foot on the carpet. The rough fabric scratched his neck as he sat up and stretched. His vision blurred and a sharp pain ran through his skull. Every muscle in his body was sore. He took a deep breath and sat back on the couch; rusted springs squealed in protest. After a few minutes he finally worked up the strength to stand. When he was on two feet, he lurched forward and narrowly missed another partygoer passed out on the floor. He leaned against the far wall to support his weak legs. He took a moment before stumbling towards the bathroom. He gazed deeply into his reflection, unsure if the washed-out, tired face in the mirror was truly his. He felt enormously worse than he looked, which was impressive considering the sorry state of the visage staring back at him. He flipped the water on and hunched over the sink. A lime green post-it note fell onto the porcelain. It took a moment for his dulled senses to realize it had been attached to his forehead the entire time. He snatched it off the side of the sink before it could fall into the water pooling under the faucet. Turning it over, he was greeted with one word etched in black sharpie: “Graduation?” Underneath was the second half of the elegantly simple message: “M.” His eyes worked over the delicate yet assertive script multiple times before his head began to throb again. He wanted to assume the note was from Mary, and his heart fluttered in response to the notion that she actually noticed him last night. What was more puzzling, however, was the actual content of the note. Was she making a snide jab at his juvenile exit from consciousness in the kitchen? His thoughts slid backwards four years. He vividly remembered their own graduation, where he and Mary tossed their caps into the air. They ran into the chaos and shared a beautiful, spontaneous kiss. That was the last time they ever saw each other. Δ

When Gavin found his way home, his father was mowing the lawn. He watched the lean man push the mower with an intensely stoic calm. For as long as Gavin could remember, his father was wrapped in an eternal battle with the grass. It was too personal to relegate to a landscaping service, or even a riding mower. Every Friday at eight in the morning the pair waged their war like clockwork. Gavin spilled out of Arthur’s passenger seat like a bag of bones, sunglasses on to hide his eyes from the bright sun. The droning of the lawn mower pierced his ears. He thought his head was going to split open. His father stopped as he passed by on his next row. “Where were you last night? You look like hell.” Gavin shrugged, ears still ringing from the lawn mower engine. “Out.” His father looked him up and down. He removed his gloves, methodically, finger by finger, and hung them over the push bar with care. “If you think you can disappear all night and just roll in when you feel like, you’re going to be very disappointed living under my roof.” “I’m sorry.” His father took a moment to look him over again. “You’re a mess. Is this how you represent the Corps?” “No, sir.” “Damn straight it’s not.” “Can I go inside now?” His dad sighed heavily. Gavin was mesmerized by the way the man’s collarbone pushed up against his skin. “Your sister’s graduation is tonight. It might be nice if you were there.” Before Gavin could get a word in edgewise, he restarted the engine and pushed away. He loved ending their conversations on his own terms. Gavin meandered into the house, silently praising the air-conditioning. Through the sliding-glass doors at the back of the house, he saw Kelly lying out by the pool, clad in a skimpy white bikini. A torn, faded copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was sprawled across her bare stomach. Yesterday’s episode with the mirror came rushing back to his head. With a sigh, he slid the doors open and approached the pool. Gavin stood next the chair, his long, dark shadow looming over her. She stirred. “You’re blocking my sun, dad.” “It’s me, Kelly.” “Gavin!” She jumped up, and the book fell to the concrete. Her legs were striped with the red bands from the plastic bands of the lounge chair. “What are you doing?” “I just wanted to—apologize about yesterday.” “You scared the crap out of me. And what were those marks on your back?” “Nothing.” She raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Gavin tried to smile. “Everything’s fine. You should only have one thing on your mind right now.” “I didn’t think you’d remember. You’ll be there tonight, right?” She reached down to pick up her book. Gavin chuckled in disbelief. “Reading? On graduation day?” She smiled sweetly. “Might as well. It’s for my summer class at DU.”

“Tell me how it is,” he said, half-joking. He hadn’t cracked open a book since he was forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird in junior year English. Despite his facetious intentions, she nodded. Gavin turned to go, but spun around as he remembered one last thing. “This is our little secret. Mom worries too much as it is, yeah?” Kelly nodded. “You think this is the first thing about you I haven’t told mom? Δ The graduation was being held in the center of the track on the emerald green grass of the football field, directly in the sun. Cheap plastic chairs were arranged in long, deep rows. In the center was a dark wood podium facing out into the home stands. It was nearly a hundred degrees outside, but Gavin decided to wear a safe baseball t-shirt with long sleeves and blue shoulders. By the time he arrived with his mother and father, the band was already bumbling through a tired rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.” The apathetic notes struggled to reach his ears through the thick summer air. He tried not to think about how long ago his own graduation was. Gavin’s mother rushed ahead, heels clacking on the asphalt, when she noticed the flood of monochromic gowns streaming onto the field. “We’re late, George!” She charged forward like she was taking a hill in Vietnam, digital camera raised and ready to shoot. “You know we have two more hours of this, right?” Gavin’s father tried to call after her, but she was long gone. “That woman is ridiculous. She’s acting like this is her first graduation.” He fished out three tickets from his stiff, pressed khaki shorts. A profusely sweaty man dressed in a cheap beige suit stopped them at the gate to the football field. “Hello,” he wheezed, in obvious discomfort from the heat. “Tickets?” Gavin’s father looked the fat man up and down in derision before handing him three. “The extra is for that crazy woman who most likely ran past you without a ticket.” The fat man smiled politely, and then wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Of course. Enjoy the ceremony, sir.” They found their seats easily enough. After squeezing by the people already sitting, Gavin plopped down on the scalding metal bleachers. He grabbed his shirt and tried to fan out his chest. “You should’ve worn something with short-sleeves,” his father noted. Gavin simply nodded and wiped some sweat from his forehead. It was too hot to argue. Out on the field, the last graduates were finding their seats after the customary three laps around the field. He spied Kelly in the fourth row on the right, beaming. Her smile was pure, unadulterated happiness—the smile of someone without a single worry in the world. Gavin was jealous. When everyone was seated, an odd calm fell across the field. The only sound was the wind blowing across the grass. The long graduation gowns flapped like the flag hoisted over the scoreboard. The speakers of the PA system rumbled from the wind on the microphones. A thin, relatively attractive man with a clean-shaven face and close-cropped hair strode across the grass in an elegant suit. He stepped behind the podium and adjusted the microphone slightly. “Hello friends, family, and faculty of Pearl High School—” 26

Gavin began to tune him out. Gavin caught snippets of information in between daydreams. The younger man was the new superintendant. He was very proud of the class of 2013 and unduly confident that they all had bright futures. The crowd was listening intently, but Gavin knew better. They were recycled words for a recycled ceremony. Gavin rejoined the audience as the superintendent was wrapping up. “—but before I hand over the podium, let me just say one last thing.” Gavin sighed at the man’s thinly veiled urge to pontificate. “I know a few of our graduates here today will be joining the armed forces. Their selfless sacrifice to defend our country should not go unmentioned. They will all be heroes in their own way. Speaking of heroes, I’d like to be the first to officially extend a warm welcome home to one of Pearl high school’s own— Corporal Gavin Reynolds!” Gavin froze. At first, he thought that he just dozed off under the bright sun. Then, he looked over to his mother and realized it was all too real. Time seemed to stand still as she smiled at him, the muscles underneath her face contracting in super slow motion. She waved her hand in an upward motion. It took him a moment to realize she was goading him to stand up. Before he fully understood what he was doing, he felt his legs lift his body up. His head swiveled to survey the rest of the crowd. Every eye was on him. Every head was poised in his direction, staring up at him from their seats. His heart was thumping. A cold sweat washed over his back and his stomach turned. The cotton shirt burned against his skin. He scolded himself for not wearing something darker. He just knew they could all see right through to the skin. They were all staring at his scars. They all knew he was a coward. They all knew everyone was dead because of him. After the applause died down, a more oppressive silence descended onto the field. Gavin felt an immense pressure pushing down on him. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. Everywhere he looked, his eyes found judgmental glares. A bead of sweat formed at his hairline. He felt it run all the way down his face. The superintendent wore a painfully forced smile. His eyes seemed to say, “Now sit the fuck down, kid.” He needed to escape. He needed to find shelter from the prying eyes crawling all over his skin. He rushed to the end of the aisle. His mother shot him a confused glance, but he wasn’t paying attention. He reached the stairs and retreated. Δ He found asylum behind the old elementary school, where he was rocking back and forth lazily on a swing set. Gavin could hear the compressed, tinny voice of a young student speaking through a microphone. He was glad the graduation had proceeded without him. His heart was still thumping, but he felt better as he drifted weightlessly on the mulch. “That’s quite an exit you made.” Gavin jumped, shook off his stupor. The chains next to him rattled. He looked over to see Mary in a bright, summery sundress, sharing the other swing. They swung in perfect unison as he stared, jaw open. A graceful sentence left his brain with the best 27

intentions but got caught up somewhere in his throat. “I—uh—what are you doing here?” “You got my note, right?” And then, the post-it memo on his head this morning made perfect sense. She was asking him to go to the graduation with her. “You had a rough night. I’m surprised you’re still alive.” “Thanks for taking care of me.” Gavin noticed his reflection in her giant aviators. He looked just as stupid as he thought. “I was too sober to see you on the floor like that.” “I owe you one. I was gonna say something to you earlier, but you were with that guy—“ “My boyfriend, Carl.” Gavin mouthed the word a few times silently to himself. He knew it. How could someone as beautiful as her be single? “He’s a lucky guy. You’ve only gotten prettier since the last time I saw you.” She almost blushed. It was impossible to tell what she was hiding behind those sunglasses. “Are you feeling alright?” she asked. The directness of the question was disarming. “I’m fine,” he said, by rote. Those words had quickly become his standard response. “You didn’t seem fine ten minutes ago.” Gavin cursed under his breath. He was hoping to have more time to craft a good lie about that debacle. “I don’t like all the attention. Makes me uncomfortable.” “But aren’t you proud of your service?” The question hung in the air like the thick stench of burning flesh. He considered lying again. She seemed to be buying it. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” She sensed his somber tone and backed off. She pointed towards a short bridge that ran over a tiny creek at the far end of the recess yard. “Remember that time in fourth grade we kissed underneath the bridge?” A grin crept over Gavin’s face. “You tricked me into doing it. As far as I’m concerned, girls are still gross.” “My dad brought it up the other day after he bumped into your mom at the grocery store.” Her voice grew high-pitched and nasally. “Remember that Gavin boy, Mary? The one we caught you kissing under the bridge at recess?” Gavin couldn’t stop a laugh from escaping. “You didn’t have to come down here and keep me company, you know.” “I know I don’t have to. I want to.” Gavin blushed. “You—want to?” “I missed you, believe it or not. I told myself I was going to be angry at you, but when I saw you last night…” “I’m sorry for disappearing after graduation.” “It’s my fault, too. I wanted to get out of this town so badly that I left a lot of people behind.” She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and smiled warmly. His skin tingled with electricity as he lost himself in her shimmering green eyes. “I knew I’d find you down here with this psycho.” A gruff, unfamiliar voice shattered the magic. Gavin and Mary looked in unison at the source, which was a short, thick man with five o’clock shadow and too-small eyes. One side of a wrinkled button-down shirt was haphazardly tucked into a pair of dark 28

jeans. His faced looked familiar, but Gavin couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t place it. Then, he recognized him as the one with Mary last night. Her boyfriend.