Beacon No. 10 — Four Eyes

NO. 10

FOUR EYES

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YVES ELIZALDE Untitled

PAVEL MISHKIN Untitled

FOREWORD Kailla Coomes

VACANCY

NATHAN WADE CARTER

LION CIDER

Japanese Clothes

WELCOME HOME Grey Traynor

JUSTIN ANANTAWAN Relax

ADEOLU OSIBODU Yemi

MATTHEW, ON-SCREEN Abigail Swanson

YUCHEN ZHANG Abstract

MOHAMMAD METRI

Passing of Time / A Vague Reflection

ORQUIDIA VIOLETA Untitled

27 28 30 32 33 34 35 37 38 39 40 42

ADEOLU OSIBODU Mischevious

SLIPPERY DIRT fish pppl

BLAKE ASHBY Untitled

I DON'T ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH Carlie Hoffman

KRISTINA VARAKSINA False Identity

AARON STERN Better Mystrionics

LIGHT CITY

Elizabeth Atherton

AARON STERN New Eyes

GIANT EYE

Michael Young

MOHAMMAD METRI Dream

MARION CONTENTIN Untitled

SITA FIDLER Untitled

FOREWORD: I COULD LOOK AT A CLOUD AND SEE S YOU WOULD SEE, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN ONE “I know that I'm always gonna hold me down | Yeah, I'm my own soulmate (Yeah, yeah) | No, I'm never lonely (Lonely) | I know I'm a queen but I don't need no crown | Look up in the mirror like damn she the one” Lizzo, “Soulmate”

“Seen fiend, seen death, seen shots, seen this, seen that | Look, I don't wanna talk about it all” Goldlink, “Maniac”

SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT OF US IS WRONG. — KAILLA COOMES “Cold stares can never put the fear in me | What we built here is godly | They can't gentrify the heart of kings | Let's just not talk about it | If I make a move, you're coming with me” Anderson Paak “King James”

"It's not a place | This country is to be a sound of drum and bass | You close your eyes to look around” Kendrick Lamar song “XXX"

VACANCY

in one hand gratitude in the other heartbreak vacancy unlasting unlasting but now I know what is possible you turn the page despite the apparent electric I walk bundled in waterproof I think I broke my aging something I feel like I look good but it dysmorphic trigger something a trip surreal in the air body somedays I feel normal orbiting my ozone intact and holding we pull at each other all planets in this system no one a sun much more than a comet the only piece you name wanting we can be quiet together & my love got quiet when you said you didn't want it or much of it unfitting container hand out holding something now what do I do with this - NATHAN WADE CARTER

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There was talk, then there were papers, then there was more talk, roundabout and direct, and then there was a thicker stack of papers, shar p, empty lines on each page, begging for consummation, and then, later, after about a week, there was a house.

With her mouth wide open, Mandy stared up at the two-stor y colonial.

Her skin cried out for refuge from the August sun, cooking and merciless, and she shuff led into the shade of the neighbor's sk y-scraping pine tree. Though cooler and sight undaunted, she cupped a hand to help pull the visual into her brain, but the infor mation, the massive multi-bedroom, clapboard picture before her proved to be beyond comprehension.

Along the sidewalk, exactly in the middle, ripping Mandy from her slack-jawed confusion, a young woman with a slicked back ponytail, wearing combination black and blood orange athletic wear, jogged passed her. Holding herself back, Mandy wanted nothing more than to block the woman's path, point to the house, and say, “Can you fucking believe this?�

But Mandy never swore; to her, foul language felt r ude and tiresome like it belonged undisturbed in bad 1980s standup

WELCOME HOME

BY GREY TRAYNOR

comedy. And she never bothered strangers, but maybe that's what homeowners did, what they were capable of doing, feeling so comfor table in their own neighborhood.

Gliding back toward the house Taking a step back, too close to through the strong, verdant grass, Mandy giggled at her anxieties, remembering the many times that Nathaniel reminded her of her own freedom, “Honey, I want us to live

SHE CUPPED A

the house for her liking, Mandy's sneaker caught one of the lawn sprinklers. Am I in charge of that, she thought, looking down. Who do I call if this breaks, the... sprinkler... repair

HELP PULL THE VISUAL guy? But maybe homeowners were supposed to have those kind of numbers.

FOUR EYES

But! Mandy put both her hands up as if she, with a delicate calm, were stopping traffic; Nathaniel's name was on the deed.

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who had to have to know or had to know anything about the house at all because, on paper, she possessed nothing beside her cat Sally Day.

She looked at the house again, this time taking a deep breath.

Nathaniel's name was already on delivered spam mail and would be printed on most things in the future.

Yes, she had contributed money to this acquisition and would be doing so ever y month, but Mandy was no homeowner

HAND TO together and if that's what you want too then perfect! But if you ever feel like this is too much and you want out, I'll completely understand. You are under no obligation.�

Outside a window on the first f loor, what would be Nathaniel's office, a f lower box full of marigolds shone in the sun and, with a smile, Mandy dipped her head toward them, a few degrees shy of a full-blown cur tsy.

INTO HER BRAIN,

Afraid to look away from the f lowers or risk seeming r ude, Mandy held her gaze and smiled, blindly reaching for the golden doorknob that was Nathaniel's full obligation, but

before wrapping her hand around it, she could feel a blazing heat emanating from the knob. Her hand f lew to the sk y and she tur ned away from the marigolds and the doorknob that almost bur ned her.

To reassure herself that it was only a br ush with mutilation, Mandy r ubbed her hand against her chest and continued r ubbing as she walked away from the door. She needed shade, but the sun had moved and the pine tree's shadow along with it. Mandy found a rectangle of shade between two tall, manicured shr ubs and, looking like a

SHE LOOKED AT THE HOUSE AGAIN,

FOUR EYES

MANDY STARED UP

bachelorette pissing in between a set of dumpsters, she chose to squat because the concrete was as hot as the door knob and the skin of her ass was her obligation.

Still r ubbing her ster num, Mandy squinted and reconsidered what she had been told. People who were slick, people who closed doors to bray and high-five co-workers used the word 'obligation;' it was one of those sets of letters designed to look like power was being granted, even bequeathed, but, really, it was a r use to gut and strip,

AT THE TWO-STORY COLONIAL. smoke and mir rors to help line up a neck for subsequent stepping; Mandy knew this, she had seen infomercials, cr uised her fair share of used-car lots.

She stood up and a ripping noise came from her wedges against the concrete.

Nathaniel was up to something.

When his time at the office grew longer into the ever yday, ending late ever y night, images of what he could be doing, would light up in Mandy's mind like f loodlights above a prison yard, images ranging from a toothless,

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AFRAID TO AWAY FRO FLOWERS SEEMING R MANDY HE GAZE AND SMILED, B REACHING THE GOLD DOORKNO WAS NATH FOUR EYES

wrinkled-sheet affair with his paralegal to a clandestine meth addiction and an appetite for violent por nography leading to a sex worker losing an ear and receiving a fistful of hush money, legal tender despite the blood and tears sprinkled on the bills. But then, when Nathaniel would slide into bed around 1am, Mandy could always sense how hard he was tr ying not to wake her up, lifting the sheets without pulling. And when he would whisper “I love you, Mandy,” his final words of the day pushed out before his brain shut down, Mandy would never answer back but instead silently kiss the air and reach over and r un a hand through his hair.

The fantasizing that her life had become a dark-hued network procedural would stop and the fact would sink in with a thud that Nathaniel was taking on more cases so they could buy a house and star t the dream, the dream of emptying

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boxes of dishware while the Beatles on vinyl filled the house, preceding the white dress, ending with the small cabin on the coast and somehow she lear ns to garden and he lear ns to love to cook– that dream–the dream she and Nathaniel would manufacture over bagels in her cramped breakfast nook, still in their sweaty nighttime clothes.

A r umble at her feet tipped Mandy off to what then pulled up in front of the house, the moving tr uck.

The roar of the engine died and, with two clunks, the deliver y men closed their respective doors and touched the ground.

Mandy r ubbed her tongue against the back of her teeth; the sense of something rotten retur ned like lice on a young scalp.

she

She was a second grade teacher, could handle obligation and

coordinating and organizing and responsibility. An entire classroom, the walls, the bodies; a one-bedroom apar tment, Mandy's name on the lease; a hoard of evidence that made her overqualified for the position of homeowner, a resume that would make any other par tner salivate and do whatever possible to lock her down but no. For some uncer tain reason, Nathaniel did not need Mandy, he merely accepted her, a nominal fee on a long-distance call, so why was he stringing her along?

Her r ubbing hand fell from her chest to her stomach and, taking in soft, deep breaths, Mandy stif led her intense urge to vomit as this man swaggered up to her foster home (her prison?), interested only in payment, caring nothing for the helpless woman he was sending up the river. The stomach pains

FOUR EYES

O LOOK OM THE OR RISK RUDE, ELD HER D BLINDLY G FOR DEN OB THAT HAN

quieted and Mandy understood she had to stand up for herself, had to devise a plan of her own to get out of what Nathaniel and these cronies had up their sleeves because, despite his hard work and gooey promises and war m neck, there was a reason thick pens were kept from her hand. There was a reason her signature meant nothing.

“Wait!” Mandy cried, r unning, rounding to the front of the house and soon her eyes met those of the mover, his expression one of confusion, his hand an inch away from the doorknob just as hers was minutes ago. Was he mocking her or was this a display of his casual relationship with Nathaniel?

“Just let yourself in and get it done,” she could imagine her boyfriend dictating into a phone.

Back in the sun, Mandy felt the moisture in her bangs, heavy with sweat, 15

and she tittered to soften her appearance until she remembered who she was dealing with and the mission she was up against.

“I mean, help!” she said, her face falling into an expression of loose panic, reaching the front door. “There's someone, my, um, grandmother's inside and she needs an ambulance and I need you guys to move your tr uck! Now!”

He star ted to speak, “Oh, miss,

I'm an EMT. Maybe–”

“No! I mean,” Mandy r ubbed her eyes, “My, um, grandmother is old, she won't let anyone just touch her.

You'd need one of those....” She gestured to her neck as if she were wiping away crawling insects.

“...A stethoscope?” The man's tone was f lat, filled with incredulity.

“Yes! YES! But you have to go,

FOUR EYES

MANDY SQUINTED AND RECONSIDERED WHAT SHE HAD BEEN TOLD.

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please! Your boss will pay you. I mean, Nathaniel will pay you! I'll-I'll pay you, you just need to get that tr uck out of here!”

A dense silence filled the space between them as Mandy fumbled in her jeans for money and the mover backed away in small steps.

“We don't have a warehouse or anything so I'm not sure–”

“It's an emergency! You need to leave!” she barked and her wallet hit the ground with a slap.

Eyes searching, the moving guy nodded without a word and walked back to the tr uck.

She tur ned away, facing the front door, rejecting their calculating presence and judgmental gazes. But Mandy was relieved and she smoothed out her damp shoulder-length hair, the sweat on her hands only adding to the mess. They would be back, but she, too, would show up for the next fight, she was her only hope.

Mandy pulled the soaked cotton of her t-shir t from her ar mpits, but felt no relief or dr ying breeze; this was too much, a sow for bir thing then sudden death? Tired, she leaned against the impeccably white beam holding up the por tico then staggered back as if str uck.

None of this monstrosity belonged to her, rather it was designed (had Nathaniel had his men build this house?) to bar her in until she bore fr uit and, now, Mandy had to get away, before a gritty shingle loosened and dove straight for her skull, before a deliver y man under Nathaniel's spell grabbed hold of her postpar tum neck.

Stepping back into the sun, a brick loosened under her foot and Mandy knew her time was r unning out; her chance of sur vival, her oppor tunity to f lee back to a life she understood, was dissipating.

And then the front door opened.

Mandy gasped and retreated fur ther and there was Nathaniel in the doorway, smiling and then not smiling,

EYES SEARCHING, THE MOVING GUY NODDED WITHOUT A WORD AND WALKED BACK TO THE TRUCK.

MANDY FOUND A RECTANGLE OF SHADE BETWEEN TWO TALL, MANICURED SHRUBS acting so good for her, the perfect par tner, her wellbeing his biggest concer n. In his stockinged feet, he walked toward her.

“Mandy, sweethear t, are you all right?”

A familiar r umble rocked the ground and she tur ned around to see the moving tr uck pulling up once again.

Time was nearly up.

“Yeah, I heard the tr uck pull away so I called them and they said–”

FOUR EYES

His cronies had been in his ear, chattering away about her catching on to what she must stay blind to until procreation, until bir th, until the dream was breathing, cr ying out for its god.

Shaking, eyes watering, Mandy ran to Nathaniel and grabbed him by the powder blue shir t.

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Through jagged breaths, she said, “I know what you're tr ying to do!”

Then she released him and bolted toward the van, ar ms f lailing, hoping for rescue and relief.

“STOP! PLEASE!”

STOP!

HELP

ME,

The movers, eyes wide, looked down at her in hor ror from inside the cab of the tr uck with no moral compass to guide them away from promised riches and toward a woman in crisis.

Just then the jogger, with the ponytail, in the black and blood orange track suit came into view. Perhaps here was an ally, a hero and Mandy cut away from the tr uck, toward the woman.

“CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE THIS?!” she cried.

FOUR EYES

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Matthew, on-screen Abigail Swanson an iphone screen image of him: lucid lenses gnawing beef jerky in a red truck hurtling down wide southern roads

his face rests stationary on a shelf in my apartment behind him: a truck bed, new orleans, the open road, a book i'll never read

the distinct staccato of his screen-static laugh melts my heart a little his cavalier american grin pixelates, service fails, the call ends, and i am left alone with my books forevermore

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FOUR EYES

FOUR EYES

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ORQUIDIA VIOLETA

FOUR EYES

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BLAKE ASHBY

I DON'T A l WA Y S T E L L T H E T RU T H Believe me when I tell you our visions have lost all meaning. This morning one came like a stone dropped to the bottom of a well. The solution for lightlessness is going down there. To climb down like you know what you're looking for.

I am just now learning the names for the furniture that separates us.

It is the same way I have forgotten entire people. Sometimes sleep is wicked; sometimes it’s a sparrow driving its beak in dirt.

CARLIE HOFFMAN

In Manhattan the cord of my w rap shirt is caught bet ween the taxi cushions. I step from the taxi and in the w indow of the restaurant I watch the white tr iangles of my w rap shirt cross and separate.

The black leather space of the open cab, my body, and the shirt which is l ike t wo air planes park ing.

draw ing. The falcon frow ns w ith concentration and because of the nature of the face-of-a-falcon, alert and worr ied. Two soft l ines beneath its lower l ip, subtle as sand when the tide pu l ls off.

These l ines, and the grav it y of the head, and the shape of the head suggest not a humanish personal it y but an actual human.

I have just come from the Its absolute shape is of a bird; Met. I am in New York to see the the impression I get is of a huart works which I have read about man man above a human man. since I was a chi ld: Sek hmet, At home in Los A ngeles I seated in a row; the Chr ist y Turl- see the Visitation by Pontor mo. ington mouth of Hatshepsut; the It is painted on wood and it comes Book of Coming Forth By Day from Tuscany (a place which is and A nubis’ gracious cartoon orange). Mar y and Mar y’s maid ar ms. and El izabeth’s maid and El iza I stop at a statue which is beth are turning. Their feet are of the falcon-god Hor us protect- rayed along the ground. Mar y ing a k ing. It comes from Hel iop- and El izabeth reach for one anol is. The falcon is the size of a other and regard one another: “I hatbox: l ike most Eg y ptian art, it k now exactly what you mean.” is a soft container f i l led w ith a gi- Lucent gummi colors, the calcigantic weight. It stands above um tones of the Midd le A ges and behind the l ittle f igure of the gr ipped and pu l led up: the pink k ing l ike a house in a k id’s bone of the medieval prayer

books becomes l ike the head of a closed rose in the afternoon. Colors l ike l ight passing through mater ial which is not transparent—through a peach, a lung, the breast of an or iole. Mar y’s face is in shadow, and the l ight on her nose, l ips, cheek and heav y eye is a ref lection of the l ight which is spread completely on El izabeth’s face. L ight is coming out of the round, revolv ing fr uit of Mar y’s

shou lder and it reverses its body.

Pale tracks on its breast l ike the indentations made on the page after the page I w r ite on. These days, in this time, art works enjoy me: they stand and watch me open. Someday, when I am whole, I w i l l enter the art work and it w i l l eat me l ike magic bread. The art work and I w i l l accept and impose our bodies in turns, l ike some k ind of u ltimate Calder

A FALCON HAS SWUNG UP FROM THE AIR INTO THE WHITE TREE SOME FEET AHEAD OF ME, LEVEL WITH MY EYE. FOUR EYES

face, in which there is no l ight.

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I w r ite to you from the balcony of my home in Los A ngeles. A falcon has sw ung up from the air into the white tree some feet ahead of me, level w ith my eye. Its body l ike a cop’s sap; its r inged tai l and its cal l, which is dots. It looks at me over its

whose for ms don’t merely seem to pass through one another.

Final mater ial, perfectly dense, which can through courtesy and love move our bodies into our bodies as if there were no bodies.

- El izabeth Atherton

JUSTIN ANANTAWAN

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FOUR EYES

AARON STERN Better Mystrionics, pg. 34 (2019) New Eyes, pg. 35 (2019) @diet.doom ABIGAIL SWANSON Matthew, On-Screen, pg. 22 (2019) @abigailjeanswanson ADEOLU OSIBODU Mischevious pg. 27, Yemi pg. 20 @adeoluosibodu BLAKE ASHBY Untitled, pg. 30 CARLIE HOFFMAN I don’t always tell the truth, pg. 32 @carlieelianahoffman https://www.carliehoffman.com/ SLIPPERY DIRT fish pppl, pg. 28 / Welcome Home supplemental art, pg. 8 Slipperydirt.com ELIZABETH ATHERTON Light City, pg. 35 (2019) Elizabethathertonletters.com @elizabethaether GREY TRAYNOR Welcome Home, pg. 8 (2019) @gaytraynor JUSTIN ANANTAWAN Bee / Relax 2019 Cover, pg. 19 Model: Ranaldo @rohazed Joey @xshade13x Natasha McMinn @ natashamcminn Agency: Want Model Management @wantmanagement @justin_anantawan KRISTINA VARAKSINA False Identity, pg. 33 https://kristinavaraksina.com/

LION CIDER Japanese Clothes, pg. 7 behance.net/takm333333a909 MARION CONTENTIN Untitled, pg. 40 Marioncostentin.com MICHAEL YOUNG On and On, Back Cover (2018) Giant Eye, pg. 38 (2018) @kingwhoband MOHAMMAD METRI Passing of Time / A Vague Reflection pg. 24-25 / Dream @MohammadMetri Talent/Model: Hana Atash Faraz, Sara Jahangiri, Vali, Fateme Asgari Venue/Location: Tehran, Iran NATHAN WADE CARTER Vacancy, pg. 6 (Fall 2018) @purrbot nathanwadecarter.com ORQUIDIA VIOLETA Untitled, pg. 26 orquidiavioleta.com PAVEL MISHKIN Untitled, pg. 2 @hi.mishkin SITA FIDLER Untitled, pg. 42 @sitafidler YUCHEN ZHANG Abstract, pg. 23 yuchenzhang.net/ YVES ELIZALDE Untitled, inside cover Elizaldeyves.com

CHACHA SANDS | editor-in-chief When I was a teenager I cut my bottom eyelashes into shapes ZACH WESTERMAN | director of design My right eye is bigger than my left eye BRITT MOHR | director of visual content One time, I accidentally used childrens nasal spray instead of contact solution.

KAILLA COOMES | director of written content I used to fold up my eye lids to scare kids REID KILLE | director of video production I trim my eyelashes APHELION CRAMPTON | digital communications I have a scar on my left eye ball CLAY HOWARD | lead graphic design intern I just found out I have a freckle on the inside of my left eye STEPHANIE GUY | senior graphic designer I’ve been told I sleep with my eyes open MARK WOODWARD | web master intern

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