AmLit Fall 1987

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Y

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A L

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mysterious passer-by, and the are not safe and secure A the covers of the magazine. Oh no; S not that simple to escape the thoughts of the person sitting next to you: ' Did they write thatł' you think, ' and that photo..."

Look around you: anmericanliterary does not begin when you pick it up, that would be too easy. Certainly, you can understand that the traf c of concepts, thoughts, images

cannot

be tucked

seiving

and

bickering,

the

whole

is shot and laid out at the

S.O.C., now you know what I mean about the deads' last rights, by the amlit staff.

Nights and Days are the stuff these dreams

are made of, and the printer wraps it up, about 2000 semesterly. We begin at the beginning of the semester, and end at the end, and anything we didn't shoot and use is still fair game. You are invited to con-

tinue contributing, both by way of art, and also by way of helping carry the bodies home. We are the nal resting place.

Some other changes have been that

into a hard

winter ground, like acorns for storage. Art lives; we are, in a sense, its burial ground, a paper

make a plea for more artwork. Please,

please more Artwork! Having done the magazine

/inks

morgue; we are, in a sense, past

tense, the net that caught the sh out of water, the hard fact of soft networking.

The artists are here, but they are also right here now. Your friend thinks; the stranger

we have instituted an amlit award with the assistance of our beni cient pulitzerwinner Dr. Henry Taylor, entitled The Henry

paints slowly a green vine, trellises a red

judgement of what's best amongst the

rose lightly up her sweating arm; where did the magazine go?

poetry submissions, as long as we, and Dr. Taylor, have tenure. This issue, Darcy

This

Taylor Poetry Prize. It is to be a semesterly

Cleaver recieves our warm commendation, as does Carl Hanni for being the

semester has seen some in-

teresting changes within amlit. In addition to the continuing growth of submissions, which we welcome, keep it coming, we

snivelling runner-up. Secondly, we have tried to re-fomat the magazine somewhat,

are well on our way to a permanent staff

so that when absorbed in the mystical at-

of editors and associates. Although the

mosphere of a poem, your eyes will not stray onto photographs, sketches cartoons, etc. We hope the idea of sectioning

names change, and I will be a ghost as of

next semester, the full-time part-time staff have levelled out to a working group of about 10-15, who really work at bringing

out this repast for your semesterly delectation. Each semester the staff sift hundreds of poems, no kidding. much much less ction, we really need more, times have been when our choice has been limited by no submissions at all, photos galore, and some semesters more sketches/paintings/woodcuts, and some semesters none, which is a crying shame since we

americanliterary

it up appeals to you, and welcome any further comments you may have on the

the american university

magazines' structure.

roper 102 massachusetts and nebraska avenues, nw

washington, dc 20016

(202)885-6414

Editorial Staff

Anyway, what makes a great funeral great is the greatness of the one who has died. What I'm trying to say with this

tedious running metaphor, is that You are the ones that arbitrate the wonder that so-

meone will feel when picking up this magazine. So enjoy it, and lets have your work inthe next issue.

have an artschool. In fact, I would like to

Editor-in-Chief Mark Peters

Art Editor and Good Guy Benjamin Barnett

Poetry Editor Julie Otten

Who Else...?

Publicity

and Promotions,

Backhanders Etc.

Fiction Editor

Carl Hanni

Other Co-Creators

Photography Editors Lara Heyman Sona Hacherian

Kermit Moyer-Our Advisor The S.C. for Jingling Silver

Judge Henry Taylor DC for Tones and Type All Contributors-too numerous

to

name Poet Lore Journal for publication of

Jennifer Karp

fi

fi

er one of these things rolls

by in the wind, rustlesin the

fi

fi

aeS

the Henry Taylor Poetry Prize Winner in the Winter 1987 edition

Darcy Cleaver David Gross

Thanks

Amer

mericanLitera

CONTENTS

Literary

Fall1987 tures Interview with B Stanley

16-18

Fiction

Tali Abbady -One SentenceProse Chuck Harwood - We Kics Mike Kentoff - Adultery Jenni Myers - Lovesick

24 27

20-21 23

Poetry

Risa Bauman - The Gift

9

Jamie Brown - Untitled Tina Buker - Amtrak and Bob's Kids

11

Darcy Cleaver - Ropeburn Troy Elliot - Miles to the Inch

15

Carl Hanni - Street Deep

13

Jennifer Karp-Food forThought Mike Kentoff- A Guide to Sleep Raymond Loczak-Programming Curses Gail Ranadive- Descent

6

10

7

11

Visuals

eco GlHarod

19,28 12,29,26 2,29 3

14 27

932

4

.

.

-

-

.

( a7

19 4

Sarah West

4

Ropeburn

Drizzle slaps my open window and hangs in the screen.

I

swallow

hard.

It's only the splitting of old wounds.

October wind cracks the scar and blows

the nightmare under my loose clothing. Black

swaying pendulum.

Eyes bulged out, like Judas. Grey

lips wet with spit.

Bloodless hands

cold as this fall

morning, reminding me of knotted boots swinging two feet above

your mother's carpet.

Darcy Jane Cleaver

*

5

Winner Henry Taylor Poetry Prize-Fall 1987.

fl

fl

Food for Thought and I can see the children

restrained in fetters

of written propaganda

which drop from the U.S. airplane like snow akes onto their small heads sunken cheeks sCrawny arms

and slide off their distended abdomens to bare feet and the barren earth

dusty and hard

Now and yes

they are submerged

like small snowmen from tip to toe in white

iers

shackled

by shiny badges of hunger and povety they stare blankly at the opaque cloud

of western principles

their amber cracked faces

sprinkled with gimy wrinkles lower

little carbon eyes from the sun which drains all moisture from the soil

it melts the paper snow and

the american squiggles slip to their feet

the children play with the squiggles and eat the ground

6

Jennifer Karp

fl

)Programming Curses mr computerl listen to me when i say )INPUT:

expect bytes for thought. and when you see )READ, better check out the friday night specials next to your data statements. if i say )FLASH

better blink your eye at me, not at the girl behind me. and if i say GOTO 10

that's your next stopover. )LIST: you must bare your soul. )REM ignore me you'll never know what i wrote now: i snicker behind your disk drives.

)REM Screw you cuz you know nothing about me )RESTORE brings me to one squared.

icatalogyou and you are just a routine program with no eshy feelings. you scuttle back into your placemr computert how come you never hide )SYNTAX ERROR IN 30 when i say i hate you?

JNEW DLIST

)

Raymond Luczak

7

fi

Amtrack and Bob's Kids

It's one A.M. and as I immerse

myself

into the gut of this seat

Bob's over against

the train window, snorting dreams, and his four kids are

still twirling songs like a baton,

songs like "My Girl", reliced in antique burlap they now rap as their own.

And Bob's wife, Mary, slides a nger across the seat to Bob, and rests her hand

and mind in the crevice of his elbow.

This ride so far ain't been so smooth, and yet all of econo-class is asleep-A mediocre range of passengers, fat and somehow content.

Yet here I am.

traveling through plastic suburbia, recording the Hollow Men's travels, and kissing away my friends, as this train bleeds down

my back, from one state to

another.

Tina M. Buker

8

Sarah West

The Gift

She lies on the bed naked, exposed dreams scattered on

fresh linen, strewn carelessly the way one tosses aside emotions but does not disregard them.

And when he falls to his knees at the side of the bed,

he does not brush the dreams aside

to make room for him, but instead gathers them in his large, soft hands,

and presents them to her.

Risa Bauman

9

1

Finally, you and your woman, Noreen, holed up for panting that would melt the alabaster off of lamps or

something that would keep you awake together, get a signal, not really

2

clear, but de nitely a signal all the same.

Sure: Elaine

leaves her shiny olive kitchen to share with Bobby another quiet, unhurried, just one last beer,

but Bobby is

sprawled out, ghting for breath over countless Pretzel sh, warbling, "Princess.."

3

You and her, you listen to the soft, pampered whimpering of the woman, whatsername, as the man, Bobi, makes a singsongy smiling sound and you're thinking it almost sounds kind of sad. You listen like the belly

of summertime.

Michael Kentoff

fi

10

fi

fi

A Guide to Sleep

Like a snake,

having eaten a large

animal, sheep, calf, fawn, a baby boy, will lie in a digestive stupor like a drunk,

the evening collapses on the earth, passes out with a whiskey sunset on its breath.

Jamie Brown

Descent

On the 31st of October, a calendar

comes with no note enclosed, only the silence of a young grl leaving school dressed in black cape, chalkwhite face, silver sickle slung over her shoulder re ecting the afternoon's going over to darkness. I'll descend through our silence. Tomorrow Jack's lantern will smash, spill pumpkin

seeds over

concrete.

I must

memorize the shapes, shades of leaves before they're gone.

Gail Ranadive

fl

11

Before I go.

Gale

Harold

12

fi

Street Deep

Johnny Jewel rides the corner

with the crew, singing mohawk madrigals and spilling time, beating drums and playing the odds that the street will swallow some left over tourist on the left side of lost, Johnny's corner like a disease on the street, black leather spike heels mohawk picture postcard, but don't play cute, Mr. liberal lost tourist, time is on their side, and their time

will cost you plenty, your left over ideals are playing cards for the gentlemen on the corner, your immediate demise mohawk shop talk on Johnny's street.

Ruby Redlips sifts the street

with the girls, ngering time and watching for stray mohawk on the half shell, she left

all her blues for this corner in the city, where they play

all night dance up, they play do the do in the street, she built a leather castle corner where Ruby's girls split time like the last hair left after the great mohawk revolution, she sees a mohawk

in the White House, she plays

"anarchy's what's left," she drops diamonds in the street then Ruby street cleans time

into the gutter on her corner.

Johnny's left on the corner while Ruby plays mohawk courier, moving time uptown to stainless streets.

Carl Hanni

•

13

Runner-Up Henry Taylor Poety Prize-fall 1987.

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Miles to the Inch

It's a living room, exept everything's wrong: lazy boys behind tvs, lamps on couches, bookcases nailed to ceilings, etc.

Light lands in litle boxes on her thighs and she checks them off carefully, one by one.

This is her job: clouds, the night, headlights scuttling across her walls, every morning a list at her window, slightly altered.

Walking to New Orleans. Walking the oor. Walking in the sand.

It could be the water, the wetness in things,

car windows clouded on country roads, the couple in back, and the white mucous connecting streets to driveways, follicles to teeth, main characters to extras in malls and factories.

Nowhere to run. Running through the jungle.

Runaway.

The safety catch should always be locked in place.

Clouds oat by her room in perfect random shapes.

She records the sound of cars crashing, alters it, reshapes it, rounds it off. She aims the speakers at the sky. The spaces between the clouds become random, the clouds identical. She has had nothing to do with this.

Burning love. Something's burning.

Burning down the house.

Very tall glass buildings hold a pitch contain it and sing it back at the fourth or fth harmonic up, a spacious apartment looking out on the street and little main

characters now moving in groups, occluded fronts now meeting in restaraunts and bars, numbers on napkins white and square as light on thighs.

This loses iself, never mind it. Forget this.

Leave it.

I can't explain. I can't help myself. I can't stand the rain.

I can't stop loving you. l can't get started. I cant explain.

Troy Elliott

15

Interview with B Stanley Conducted by Mark Peters

Actor, directo, and founder of both the Jarry performance theatre and the Javarama coffee club, 8 Stanley, was born in Alamance County, North

Carolina. Ater attending school in the Chapel Hill area he went on to the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, where he enrolled in the actingldirecting department. While he was there he became increas-

ingly more involved in experimental theatre, studying the works of Constantine Stanislawsky and lerzi Grotowsky. In addition to this, he also picked up an earful of popular musicals and ribaldry, making him today the master of the obscure son& a reat afforded attendees of the Improv Jam, the monthly open stage at the Javarama. It is upwards of six years since he

moved to the area, a time which has seen the birh of the Theatre du lour, a roupe composed of Ceorge Kaperonis and B himself, and its productions of ' Big-

ger Than Life'Co,

and' BlindnessFrom Looking to

Hard at the Sun. " In this

roots,

woks,

interview he discusses his

and visions. We are sitting

Javarama on a quiet

morning,

a stage

in the

empty

of

debacles and successes, drinking cappucinos to loosen the tongue.

| Photos by Carl Hanni MP: Tell me about your early theatrical history.

Well, then I went to the Univerity of North Carolina at Greensboro, where I did

MP:

So it was

something

you

really

wanted to do?

very straight ahead Stanislawsky. In fact, by the time I got there, I had already done

BS:

I started

most of his work. In the 2nd year I started

too. I got a good education.

out by doing things like leading the devo-

doing only experimental work, mainly in the studio, doing off-beat things, supporting myself by working in the dinner

year I didn't go back to college. I went and

BS:

Well, I was about 10 years old when

I began

becoming

a

performer.

tions at school in the

moning

before

class. They were always very animated and articulate, and people hated for me to do them, because they knew that

theatre. I slept there, ate there, commuted

from there to school,

fi

fl

Prince

Georges

In my last year I started sitting in on

that I also started working with " Hungry

fourth

graduate courses. That is where I got a lot

Foetus, " an experimental theatre company here in Washington. That was Seth

grade I started

organizing

litle

learning in

of my formal treaining in dramatic theory

school; we would pefom them for our

and criticism: in 600-level courses that

Kahn's

class, sometimes after recess. God knows

never showed up on anybody's papers. I

Church of the Immaculate Conception on

what they were about now.

recall asking an instructor one day wether

16th and Newton Streets. We did about three or four productions, the best by far

we were

group.

We use to meet at the

taking acting classes. I'd split up with my

Icould take his classand he said you can't,you're asophomore!" " Well, "I

mother and father when I was

fteen, and

said, " I'll be out of school next year and

I went to theatre as my main focuS. An in-

then I won't be able to, " but he still said "

Richard Gaylord; Donald Davidson (the painter) wrote a lot of poetry for that.

structor took special interest in me, telling me the right books to read. By the end of my junior year in high school, I had read

you can't do it. " So I asked him the next day, but he still said " no. " So I said, "

ended up directing my own production of

what if l get approval from somebody? "

a Gunter Grass play here in town, which

all of Constantine Stanislawsky's work,

but he still said I couldn't do it. So

and

erzi

asked him, " Well, if I dress up like a

was fair. Then George Kaperonis (the second member of Theatre du Jou) came

Grotowsky's " Towards a Poor Theatre."

had

also

begun

work

on

nally I

workshops. So I ended up with alot of

janitor and sweep the oor while you're having theclass, will you throw me out?"

He had to concede that i was sweeping

background: straight theatre, experimen-

the

tal theatre, and also

started going,

between

classes I went

wel-rounded study. fl

the

days.

In

fl

with

downright preach to them whatever serhad heard on Sunday. Then in

It was in high school that I began

fl

year

Children's Theatre, touring all over Prince Georges County, and eamed my living from that. During the next year, we did a children's adaptation of Moliere. It was during my second year of being with them

close. I was living the high life in those

plays of things

fi

a

However, that

something was really coming. I would just

mon

fi

which was very

did

Yeah, and he was a pretty good guy

to a lot of

musicals.., a very

oor he wouldn't throw me out...So I though I never swept the

oor. He wouldn't grade my papers thoh ca l didn't urito snu

being " Stretch, " with Kevin Kilgore and

However, that eventually fell apart, and I

up. I'd been talking to him the past winter as the season for the Children's Theatre

was drawing to a close, trying to get him to move up here and do some sort of

work. Well, soon after that, " Theatre du Jour " was formed, and we got our rst

He

become a sort of coffee house cabaret,

that I'm getting from what you are saying

n the summer, and by Oc.

lobbyesque kind of thing, and you would

is sensationalism,

dd our rst perfomance ready

enter the )arry by a side door. If we had

your

it down toAtlanta,wherewe

ever bought the building, we were going to put them together and make one large

impressions...

space.

BS: Well, I wouldn't use the word' deep ". 'd probably use the term ' layers'. It's this event that's actually pulling in people

nan Life) underway.

oed at the Alternate Roots Festival.

then indeed we were the " Theatre S Jour " and have been till now. Since then we have also done a play called " Go

Anyway, the Jarry went (it was gutted for of ce space in 1986), and the

Javarama became a

combination

", and one called " Blindness from Looking So Hard at the Sun, "

workshop.

MP: How did your own performance

MP:

spaces, the Javarama and Jarry come to be?

Theatre du Jour have?

BS: The Jary came rst, in 1982, after the Theatre du Jour had been in existence

mance

BS:

space,

rehearsal

perfor-

studio,

and

attention.

something that keeps

Yet it can leave deep

to watch it. I look at'

Blindness' as an

event' but within it, it would be fruitless

What kind of philosophy doe the

There are two seperate philosophies.

Anything that is written, anything you hear spoken other than guttural moans is

to deny that l'm not working towards something; I'm using the movement, the repetition, towards something which is within the things that go on in the play: the visions, the sights, the sounds, the words, the actions, and the little scenes. I want these to simply rest, so that the

for two years. We founded it with a ve year plan in mind, which would culminate in us having our own peformance space.

The idea was, instead of getting a building and trying to create theatre to ll

although calling it my

it up, to create theatre and develop an au-

mean its new. Artaud

dience for it. We hadn't quite developed the audience that we'd like to but the deal

out, is what I call the Palate of Event.'I strive to use whatever is given as a struc-

those kind of things sets you into a mode

was offered so we took it. We needed it

ture, be it to use George's words, as a way

of, " havesomewhereto think now".

oretty badly. When the space next door, now the Javarama, also became available,

and director: to become a channel to that

going

to be from

the

playwright,

so

anything that is read into that is George's

events become a memory away from intellectualization; so that one day, when

someone

work. The direction is where I fall into it.

is

driving

to

New

York or the beach, with nothing to think they will come back in mind. And then when they're thinking about that, they

My own theory behind the way work at the Theatre du Jour as a director,

own ' doesn't certainly brings it

will

open

out.

I

believe

in

"super-

conscious" activity, where thinking about

I took a lease on that myself, as I had a

of presenting an event, something that you just see. An event similar to that of people who will gather around a police

pretty well-paid job at the time; it sort of

car stopped to arrest a guy. In this, there's

superconscious energy, and that's the key.

If you're "onto the energy that

became my pet project. I worked on it,

nothing going on; theres no theme. You could analyze it but that would be trite.

everybody's open "onto'", you're going to be hip.

cleaned it out, made it up. Then with the Javarama going it was supposed to

RAMA

of

course

They're going to arrest this guy: he's going to kick, he's going to scream, and people

love it! Oh Boy! A whole crowd will

SANA

That's what I try to tap into as a performer

MP: So, in a sense, certain things in your plays are symbols to "awaken'" people?

gather. Its an event in a boring day. People

will stop, look, intent on it. So my objective

in

presentation

is

to

BS:

present

Not so

much

symbols,

as I

don't

something just that way, so that you have to watch, because god knows what's going on! And I choose things that don't lend themselves to interpretation, because

create anything to be directly one thing.

There are things, though, which could be taken as symbols. There are a lot of things

you'll never know the story of the guy be-

there. I do not put them there to be that, I

ing arrested. Was he wrong or right?

These psychological questions have no

just put them there to put you in a mind to think about those things. I don't make a

bearing on the event itself; it's like wat-

pretense of telling anybody anything.

ching a stomach digest: no right or wrong, just something going on. What makes it

the way

here.

I am

not

unaware

that

they

just show them what I have seen. peared to me. I have a very vivid

and for you to enjoy

style.

it. I don't

know why people enjoy watching a guy get arrested, but they do. I'm not trying to judge that. Ive cottoned on to that and

This is

direct, in the way that it ap-

theatre is its ability to hold your interest, watching

are

Whenever I read, I see

reading

everybody.

In a novel, everybody is walking around

doing things. theatre.

So

that's

how

I

create

that's what l'm trying to present. That is what makes theatre different from lm. In

lm we know what we're going to see, but in theatre, it's live. At any point it can break off from the rehearsed performance

MP: How about your work at the Javarama: the songs, your work as impresario, as puppeteer? What are their

and be live. This is why people enjoy

origins?

barn-storming acrobatics, they want to see if someone gets killed. There's no intellectualization of that. There's no critics.

BS:

The songs.

Well, a lot of them I get

from Groucho Marx.

Some of them I get

from bluegrass, and some are old showMP:

Yes, it ties

in

fi

fi

fi

fi

fi

I

tunes. One song I sing by lving

performers

used to sing it.

wondering

fi

question

protest song about W.W.l.

and acts

Javarama are certainly

fi

with a

wanted to ask you about altruism. The you

have at the

Berlin is a

Groucho Marx

There's a funny

story

'events'and I was

behind that, because Iving Berlin said to

about that. The impression

Groucho, "every time you get a real urge

all me and I'll give you ars not to sing it". He admit that he wrote this sing it too.

A (the puppet) is a creation of jarry. The plays about Ubu brought to his audience.

be just expelled. Im all for that. So philosophy? I don't know. I can't do it forever; so l won't do it forever.

ing off literature the more itll fail to be theatre and it will lead to "theatre of lies,"

MP:

ple who go there to see it. That's an im-

living'" will go on for the living; the peoI was going to ask you about the

future.

portant thing. When theatre is live, or

So l took it straight

tof his book. I feel a great af nity for

dbu and Albert Jarry. I've had the puppet six years now, from before "Theatre du Jour'". He's made appearances all over.

anything else is live, the people observing BS:

Well, the future of it lies in the hands

expect to spend the rest of my life here, that's for cetain. If the building were to

ideas say, like that behind the Tarot: the idea that part of the purpose of eternal

have stayed and the club were to have re-

energy existing is to re ect back onto itself. And that's what theatre is. It's just

things that don't necessarily need to be embraced. Which brings me back to the question of altruism. You allow all sorts

meone would have had to take it over.

of diverse things to take place.

this

I've got other things to do. I was in the

middle of something else when I took on

project, so the only people who bene tted from it were the people who

Well, yeah. They have to take place.

got to perfrom here, and make any money; and the audience. And me? Per-

MP:

I know that you're not necessarily

sonally? Well, meeting a lot of people, geting to taste lots of things, it boned me up in many ways. And then for the future,

books, or in lm, although in music there is some. But the "live" thing. That's were it's at. Making it exist!

So you asked what do you get out of

I have an option

all these things I do:

making a lot of money here. I wonder if

BS: Well, honestly, there's no money in it It's quite strapping. l certainly lose a lot of money to do it. I have to live day-

byday to make it all happen.

I don't know... There is a philosophy

of "everybody has a right to fail". I lived in Washington for a while when the big

cry was "where to perform?" You'd run

now to take a building

that has a lot of square footage. It would still be a rent situation, but much more long-term, say ten to twenty years. It's a bigger thing then I have ever tried to do,

and investments too, you're talking about raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, I'm in the middle of trying to gure that out, and if that comes to be, then I

will have my theatre again. I'll try to do

be the way it will go if it works out all right. The other alternative is to get a better offer to perfrom somewhere else, or

direct in another city,or an opportunity to with a great companywith whom

act

we get takers and I give them a shot and

Ihave always wanted to act. Then maybe

see what happens.

l'd take that option.

MP:

2

It's the senses your aiming for, isn't

dismay by the state of curent modern theatre. Several of my compatriots here, at

RS: Oh ves, even the smell. A theatre

other theatres, presetn what consider, 'poison theatre'; theatre that's going to make the death of theatre. How many

that doesn't smell isn't a great theatre. It's verv important. One of the big complaints Artaud had was, and I still have to agree with this, is that most theatre uses words

psychological dreams can we withstand More and more it's very television; you know, plays which require you to to know the theme tune of a beer commercial. You o even have to be in the town where that ad is currently playing. And I ask myselt, will this play stand a test of time? I doubt it.

This is trite psychological stuf. Is it worth it? We'll

see in a hundred

years, I guess.

A lot of stuff here you'll also not see in a hundred years time, but here there is a

spectrum. The more to the let the spec trum can swing, the more middle of-the

ne

road stuff seems, and it is shown up for

what it really is. Then you can say I've really good which I've been moved by,

And I've seen really crazy stupid abstract things that I never want to see again and in

fi

fi

the middleof-the-road is stuff that should

fl

And afterwards everybody goes home.

Hopefully the next time you see me, I'll be having another little live item for you.

do it..it's so hard to

I believe indevelopingan au-

fl

A live thing," and it goes, and there it is.

the same kind of lobby as this here, a sort

dience. We've been led down a path of

fi

going to live - "LadiesandGentlemen -

of cabaretplace, and that would probably m

for it, and here it's a litle more casual, and

fi

in all of this is that I've been given a great

gift; to be able to take that moment and say, we are all now here, and now this is

into someone who was an actor or direcnd a place to per-

as a crutch.

Without the written word it

doesn't exist; it then exists in a much more

literary sense than plays really existed.

Plays don't exist on paper. The "framework" of what people saw exists on paper, but the "event" just doesn't exist on paper. A lot of things have been

written lately about the reasons why not much new theatre have become

"classic. " Individual companies do great theatre., but when they stop doing it, it's no longer done.

Grotowsky's Lab is a case

in point; they performed his plays for 13

years, and then they stopped doing it.

Now you don't see it anymore. Yet, you can still see Brecht, O'Neill, Becket. People like that seem to me to have a more

literary base. The more theatre starts thriv-

the Javarama, the

puppetry, the songs, the theatre, the acting instruction? Well, the one thing that exists

tor and they'd say, " you know B, I can't

form. " And I got tired of that and so opened up the Jarry and got some takers, and then I opened up this place (Javarama)

fi

other parts of the sphere re ecting back onto itself; it doesn't even exist until one thing is lung out and it hits something. and is re ected back. So it becomes an external mirror. It is that motion which makes theatre. And it doesn't exist in

BS:

there is a philosophy behind that?

fl

in a com-

munication which is, if you look to the

mained with it, I wouln't have stayed; so-

You really do

it get a chance to takepart

of the people who got it started. I didn't

embrace a lot of

MP:

"dead theatre." And, the "theatre for the

1

Leslie Close

19

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daylight, revealed a tag she hadn't noticed earlier and couldn't see underneath the

overpass: MARYLAND STATE POLICE 4396. She locked onto the licence plate

almost immediately after driving into the light.

She was struck, as she was passing

to tell

Dennis on the idea (not a fully thought out one) that she'd take care of it before she ran into trouble again. Well, here it was less than three weeks since the last traf c ticket and she was rolling down

her window, anticipating Trooper's rst line.

the

He was an older man, tall.

State

"Ma'am,

the blue car, with the empty feeling that just made some kind of error, so she look-

was looking off to both sides of her and,

ed for a sign of that error in her rearview

every once in a while,

mirror. Nobody who kept a car that well (and she'd noticed earlier the sunlight echoing off its chrome bumper) would buy such a boring piece of shit as the one she passed. The licence plate and the

"Sixty-seven

eventual

ashing light on the dash backed

her up on that.

"Oh my GGGA," she gnashed her teeth and exhaled through her tiny nostrils as she pulled over, her heart rumbling nearly out loud. She wasn't really scared, but aware she was probatbly in for a nice long sit, which nobody looks forward to. To be sure, she would more than likely sit here for a while; she didn't have her licence on her (she lost her wallet a few days ago) and, she remembered, she kept her car registration in her wallet. She also knew

you were exceeding the speed limit," he

area.

in a

over the car.

fty- ve

mile an hour

Sign before the bridge said DO

NOT PASS;

licence

you passed me.

and a

registration

Have a

for the car

please?" He was going to be one of these.

He wasn't going to look at her and he was going to take forever. She would answer No to both questions and he'd do whatever

it was cops did in their cars

when they left you sitting there to become cozy and familiar with the cut of the land around you until you knew that the land you were looking at was mostly wild sidehill with long bolts of dead grass and

and tried to think of what the D might stand for. Dwight, probably, or Derwin, these hick State Troopers.

Somewhere in between his approaching the police car and his entering it, she whispered, "Don't Screw me over here." He did.

After nearly an hour, he handed her four tickets. "Speeding, forty dollars; illegal passing, thirty dollars; driving without a licence, ten dollars; driving with wrong tags, thirty dollars," introducing each one before handing them over. Then he said something in a slightly different tone of voice. It sounded like advice, "Now be careful," or something, but she sort of tuned him out. She had her four tickets and

two points and was starting the engine when he spoke.

She was agitated for the st few seconds after she pulled out onto 95; everything she looked at was shaded by her anger. Soon, she started to calm

down, though, tugging at the neck of her dress, taking in some air before rolling her

window back up. Yeah, well, you know,

sorry litle trees that would probably never

she said to herself.

amount to very much seeing as they were in the constant shade of those larger, older trees. As he -D. INGRAM she read off his

passing a car like that.

I mean, who the

hell,

sedan

from the last time she was pulled over that

breast- walked back toward his car, she lit

the tags on her car belonged to her hus-

a cigarette.

band's car and vice-versa. She'd forgoten

the exit ahead to some telephone wires

She stared vacantly beyond

20

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As Daisy skittered under a bridge, she passed a shiny dark blue sedan that, with

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Adultery

a

shiny

I was tupid about it,

blue

with

no

stickers..Eventually, it dropped from her mind how she got carried away ying down 95 in the rst place.

Just as well, probably.

A woman like

the car revved, not responding with the speed right away because the air conditioning was on, but s0on locking onto the road, making up lost ground. The LTD was to the right of her as she crept up toward it, both cars travelling well above seventy.

He seemed to be speeding up

now as though he noticed her catching up to him. She was intially pleased by the

thought.

Traf c

became

thicker as they

cam

closer to VWashington. Daisy started get-

ting annoyed whenever the LTD pulled

before her, their's not. This would be her

word

last effort.

She accelerated but the truck didn't fade

consciousness.

She had managed to slow down enough before she blacked out for the shoulder to stop her from going into the ditch. Half her car was still on the shoulder, half was on the grassy ledge between shoulder and ditch. She sat there sleeping a half mile down from where the driver of the LTD sat slumped over his dash in a fallout of glass and a few strands of twisted chrome.

behind her. Instead, it began to creep into her lane. She jabbed the horn and instinc-

tively swerved away from the truck, only she cut the swerve too sharp and instead of bobbing brie y into the next lane, probably not even really touching it with her tires, and slowing down, she lunged into the next lane, nailing the brakes only after

came

down

she hit the back corner of the LTD and

sent it sprawling, skimming over the gravel shoulder, full speed, and plunging straight on into a weedy ditch.

Daisy only saw him headingoff and had no idea if he actually went off or how fast

he was going. She grazed the side of the car behind the LTD, forcing it over the shoulder, and lost the steering wheel. It

away, because it was getting harder and harder to weave through cars and keep

spun her sideways where she was hit on

up. She said to herself, I've just about had

gripping the wheel, but it was locked to

it with this shit, and pulled along side a

still watching to make sure she wasn't los-

one extreme. The movement of the carsideways and backwards-threw her against the door. Her head smashed into

ing ground.

the side window.

car carrier lled with new white golf carts,

the passenger side by a van.

She tried

She felt a warm pulsing

She held there until she noticed the

sensation in her left ear and when she

truck driver signalling to move into her lane. She saw the LTD starting to pull away and she decided she could pull it off: she could blow by the truck and and

turned lazily toward the window, she saw

time.

the LTD with one thrust, her lane clear

left her with very little

blood.

Lots of it. At least more than she

thought she could bleed in such a short

That half of head went numb and

21

fi

fi

She stepped again on the gas, hard, and

fl

fi

Daisy Hextal, completely in love with and loyal to her husband, wouldn't want to be reminded of how her heart swelled when the square-jawed brunet with the cleft chin and sunglasses passed her in a black German convertible.

ght when the

Michael Kentoff

for

her

to

lose

ándo

22

fi

fl

fi

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fl

Nesick

Drunk with the red blue green gold of the night, she waltzes in front of the mirror, baby in her arms. Mary Mary, to the

Waltzing Mathilda hummed invisible in her mind.

She is at a dance hall, a Satur-

day night, and a band plays, slow, fast, on

and on forever in one moment. People are all around, smiling, happy, amazed at I am sitting in the windowsill, looking out on the street. There, in the crowd, see him, he is leaving the building.

I im-

agine that he had come to visit me, wanting to talk, wanting to tell me everything was not faling down as hard as I thought.

I imagine his heavy feet walking down the

long hallway, up the stairs and stopping at my door, afraid, maybe.

her beauty, her grace, and then they see the baby, growing under her dress, the rounding of her stomach. They shout

"Slut!" and "Whore!"

her. She looks up at the faces, laughing, A pair of scissors pointing crowd. descends to cut her open.

I am no slut!

And I imagine

him turning around, walking back down the stairs, back through the long hallway,

I am no

love and I desire.

for, I wonder?

in case.

he made everything right. After I got preg-

nant, things went wrong again, like they had always been. Drowning in the vomit of not wanting a baby, I wondered,

how

could desire do this to me? He was hot and smooth, like a train moving against me, inside me. That was so much me, so

much love.

And it was so much not me,

Prynne!

in that? | lie awake in bed, sweating, fear-

ing the wrath of God.

ago, before he made love to me, be fore

Hester

Tell me where is the sin

back out the front door into the street.

Why else would he be there, in the street?

He told me that he needed me. What But that was a long time

They push her to

the ground, kick her like a dog, trample

My life is an illu-

sion today, a dream and a bad existence.

Please, God, let it be a dream.

I pray just

But it is done.

To love someone, to have them love you, and to kiss them, sticky and hot and sweet, like strawberry jam still in the pot.

To lie with someone, moving slowly in unison, faster, faster. To fall deep into the ground, trapped, forced, but oh so good.

This is the best thing in the worlid. Split

open, falling, ying, naked against naked there's no need to talk. Naked wet warm

later, as I lay prostrate, pink and naked,

his face, his skin. Eyes, nose, sticky breath

my back glued with sweat to the rough paper of the doctor's table, altar of medecine. Not hot and smooth there, on-

on your body. Pushing hips, arms around you, all over you. Colors kaleidescoping around in the shadows, in the light, barely discernable in the dizziness.

Then dead still. To breathe deep, tangled together, blind in the stillness now, quiet. Too quiet. What now? And you fall again, sotly this time into sleep in the wet of the bedsheets swallowing you whole. Near far here.

ly cold and sharp, poking, sucking, turning me inside out. And this man, doctor, priest, didn't love me anymore than I lovSo I became someone else,

ed myself.

there, anesthetised from the waist down, and still feeling everything. Someone else heard the word "slut!" shouted out in the street, and turned to look for heraccusers.

There, on the empty street, someone else was exposed to the stinking night and to

God, her only fair judge.

Does this monster named God know that it was not me?

Alone at night, I think I would have lov-

ed my daughter.

I would have called her

Mary, after the virgin.

I would have laid

with her at night, as she fell asleep, singing to her songs of somewhere else.

Idid agoodthing.

She dreams again.

In a forest, somewhere she has never ben. It is late

afternoon, and the orange re sun blazes through the trees. She lies down on the moss of the ground, and it is damp and cool and soft and it takes her in, molds around her , under her.

Ass,

shoulders,

head. And the orange spinning with the green of the sky, no the trees, becomes a cat. God, she calls it. He falls down toward her, and she realizes that if he

comes to0o near, the whole forest will be set on re. But still she calls him to her.

I did a bad thing.

And the trees go up in

on

ames and she is

re and she thinks as she dies, God is

fucking me. And someone calls her Mary, and someone says, "Behdld, thoushalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son;

and

thou

shalt

call

him

Jesus."

23

Jenni Myers

carpeted

oors,

sweet

privacy

and a

meeting with Barbara who is a solace and human and beauty and how I thank God

(if there is one to address) that we've grown so close and how I can tell Barbara

that nostalgia is eating a large black cavity

in my gut and stomache and that my spirit feels ill and that I want to swallow all the

people I love in big gulps like steak cattle and I do know that Barbara will unders-

tand and identify with my words because she knows that I pray to make a connec-

tion, if anything, an earthly connection and

I

pray

trans guration

not

to

be

alone

in

this

of myself into a college

person and she knows too, because I do

tell her, that some of the girls here are like champagne, bubbly and eventually to be urinated out of one's system, but some are lovable,

creative human beings and I too

have met a pair of good men, as I told Bar-

bara who knows, because we interrelate well and make a ne weave of conversation, a real fabric,

one of which was a

painter with whom I ventured on a date and told her he kept scratching a salt, or dandruff I guess, from his head and kept

dissecting my face saying "you have a straightforward nose, seductive mouth and playful eyes, a nun's bonestructure so please turn and give me your pro le to stare at," so there we were in a tawdry, dark bar listening to blues music and this man is sucking my face, my stiffened countenance, with his awful stare and me praying to an empty, ethereal navy-blue sky that he quit and he staring and staring with his Adam's apple sill as a trapped

nut on his throat.

Tali Abbady

24 fi

fi

I did have a relaxing, sedative time in a

real home, with fresh food, hot baths,

fi

fl

One Sentence Prose

Soonhee, Won

Gale Harold

26

fi

s) Part I

bulance, Mom

K tocrossthe empty street. Tommy is safety patrol captain of Huntington

were really excited because we had a cool

smoked pot and cussed at us kids when

story to tell to our friends. Once we got there though we were embarassed to learn that not only had most of the others seen

we threw dit clods at them.

his stupid orange badge and belt. He gOOSestepsOut into the middle of the road and waves his arms like a homo on the looseo after he decides there aren't any cars coming. If you so much as have your toe off the curb the captain Liebersnitz, as

Volvo wagon and drove us to school. We

the same thing, they also had stuffed the

tells us how lucky we are to be in a public school without Negroes but that they might as well be here for all the difference it would make because we're such rotten

little kids anyway.

But getting back to

Tommy, we were all just standing on the corner waiting for him to tell us to cross freezing to death because it is about as

cold as old puke in the morning when all of a sudden Mr. Winson comes out of his front door and down the walk and heads for Mr. Johnson's house Across the street.

Some nameless litle third grader beside me asked Mr. Winson where he was going. "Oh hello kids, my car is in the shop and Mr. Johnson's giving me a lift to work'" he said to us as he stepped over the curb. We all gasped, terror stricken.

"Cross only at the command and at the

Tommy screamed furiously.

"Im running late kid" was all Mr. Winson replied without even looking at Tommy.

Tough titties for him. Tommy puled out

corner!"

his service revolver and pumped three quick shots into Mr. Winson's skull. Later that day at school Tommy had a big head

Christmas.

pretty

impressed.

Part I

Bobby Tucker had the best parents on the block.

After school, all us kids would

meet over at Bobby's house where Mrs. Tucker would have juice and cake for us and some type of activity planned. On warm days it would be something like kick-ball or red-rover in the back yard. In the fall it was leaf jumpimg and we would rake all the leaves into a humongous pile and then scatter the thing everywhere; all of us laughing our little heads off. God those were innocent and blissful years. In winter when the weather tumed gray and cold we would go inside and Mrs. Tucker would wheel in her ancient mother and dump her out on newspaper on the oor so we kids could nger paint the drolling old woman.

Afterwards, Mr. Tucker would arrive from work and after making

Honeycutt's summer parties. Everybody in the neighborhood would show up. The hung-out

in a

conforming

others' spouses while us kids went batshit trying to "rock the pool" and splash any adult who ventured too near to try and show the other adults how popular and how "cool" they were with us. Mr. Honeycutt, the only man I've only known to remain logically consistent, stood over the barbeque pit oblivious to his environment

with

an apron

labeled EAT MY

MEAT and chumed out indistinguishable lumps of brown esh all coated with his "special sauce'" which was really just Al and ketchup mixed together.

But anyway, the best of these parties was the time when Mrs. Klingman and Mrs. Whitehall

got in a

ght.

It started after a

woman

behind the counter who had hair on her

the country club council of which Mr. KI-

Us call our parents to see if it was all right,

he would drive us to the Dairy Queen for chocalate

dips and to see the

arms like a man. While we ate and laugh-

ed Mr. Tucker chainsmoked and told us

stories about the various genocides which have occurred throughout history.

Part V remember growing up in my neighborhood in Fox Meadows Estates. It

was a new suburban

development about

matter nether did foxes.

At least I never

There was also no

At breakfast Dad fell over dead from a

massive heartattack. He had been reading the Wall Street Journal when the paper slipped from his hands and we couls see

meadow,

ingman

was a

member

since she was

almost broke and could no longer afford the dues.

At that Mrs. Whitehall was righteously indignant and retorted hotly that her sleeping around with the board members had nothing to do with a reduction of her membership fees. A few of the council members at the party who had slept with Mrs. Whitehall concurred and added that it hadn't really been worth fty cents much less three thousand per year Vindicated, Mrs. plus court fees.

Whitehall had folded her arms and glared triumphantly at Mrs. Klingman who, through an act of pure genius, redeemed herself in the eyes of her neighbors by hiking up her skirt and revealing a tatoo on her butt of a muscular man with an ex-

traordinarily large penis. The party resumed on a happy note and us kids went back to rocking the pool and wondering if an EXPERIENCE had just been committed,

that his eyes were really glassy. Without saying anything his head just plopped over into his plate with a cigarette making tinguished into his runny yellow eggs.

After nishing our meal and calling an am-

Mr.

whole lot of gin and tonics had become kidney juice and after Mr. Klingman was caught in the poolhouse with his hand inadvertantly down Mrs. Whitehall's pants.

Mrs. Klingman went nuts and accused Mrs. Whitehall of sleeping around with

saw one.

a little hiss as both it and her were ex-

were

beer. The grown-ups converged in a great

forty- ve from the city where, daddy once told me, Negroes lived. They certainly did not live in Fox Meadows nor for that

all

most

mass on the patio and drank gin and tonics and mentally undressed each

Part IV

secretly

were

remember

adolescents

I

we

I

lump in the driveway and sulked because the adults wouldn't let them have any

cold platter as he bragged to everybody how he had shot a jay-walker.

We pretended like it was no big deal but think

what

in the attic for decorations on the tree at

and thought he was really hot snot on a

I

But

hearts and lungs of their fathers in boxes

Tommy makes us call him, tells on you to Mr. MacKay, who is the meanest old bastard in the world. He was in the army during the civil war and makes us stand if we're bad in front of the room while he

packed us kids into the

unless you counted the vacant lot behind the 7-11 where teenagers drank beer and

dtherewe were, at the corner waiting Aoid-face Tommy to tell us it was

lementary and he thinks he's hot-snot in

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fl

songs trom

Chuck Harwood 27

but then again these were the suburbs and when it came to the question of what is

reality one could never really be sure.

Leslie Close

28

Erik Moses

Gale Harold

29

Paul

30

vglesias

31