2014 2spring issuu by Deadly Chaps Press

SF&D | Short, Fast, and Deadly Spring/Summer 2014 | [Enter View]

Joseph A. W. Quintela | Editor Parker Tettleton | Editor Katie Peyton | Views

Published by Deadly Chaps Press www.deadlychaps.com www.shortfastanddeadly.com DCsf&d2014| 2

Susannah Jordan | Louise Brooks SF&D | i

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oncept

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Colin Dardis | Water to Winter

Water: Dear Winter, I am calling to you to apply for the position of icicle. Winter: You realise we already have many under our employment? Water: Yes, but I figured that one more icicle will not ruin the season. Winter: What are your vitals? Water: I am tall, reasonably thin, and can hang like a prosaic Egyptian statue, arms and shoulders folded in, legs crossed at the ankles; if need be, I am willing to lose weight and be wiredrawn. I think I would be an excellent addition to your team. Winter: Promising. But what of nature?

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Water: At times, I can be cold and pointed in character, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure if I concentrated, these traits will transfer over to my physical demeanour. Winter: Your employment is conditional; once you are finished with your annual cycle, could we see that you are collected in some kind of receptacle as you melt, and stored away until required the next year? Water: I am yours in expectation.

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Colin Dardis | A Perfect Radius

What of her now? Still much the same. And all the others? Still by her bed. May I see her? When she is free. When will that be? Near the end feasibly. Is that far away? She is placed centrally. Are we’re the circumference? You have guessed correctly. And so the radius…? …is the straight line. And the shortest distance…? …is only the start. Are we all tangents? Depends on your angle. Where is your arc? I’m at the bend.

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And where the end? There is none such.

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Neila Mezynski | Suffering of Furtive Girl

Intrigued person: Distressed? Furtive Girl: Side to side. Dart eye eye. They see. Me. IP: Bad? FG: They'll. Me. See. IP: Why for bad? FP: Never enough cake pie. Cookie? IP: Why some not ? FP: Signify shame blame. Him told them. Dart dart. Me. IP: Told them so.

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Wm. Todd King | SĂŠance

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Rebecca Nison | Questions for Commuters

Who? The commuters of New York City What? The holes in our shoes, the dirt on our backpacks, the runs in our stockings, the salt on our jeans, the lipstick on our foreheads, the hickeys on our necks, the coffee sloshing in our cups and in our brains. The snooze buttons on our phones. Though we haven't yet crossed the river, home already summons us back to the empty spaces behind open books, beside our lovers and dogs. We are resigned, faces blank to the day ahead. There are countless urges we will not satisfy for hours to come. Where? Underground, where the lights blare as if to substitute for the absent sun, where we cling to metal poles, grasping for steadiness against the current. When? 8:37am. Why? We work the day so that we can come back again to a home we can claim we have earned: to our dinners, our families, our books, paints,

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and beds. Some make this commute for survival, some for luxury. For others, it is merely to fund our true purposes. How? Take a deep breath. Hold your possessions close and your body parts closer. Look at others, but not at their eyes. Listen, but not too carefully. Observe without disdain. Remember, always remember, that what surrounds you are not obstacles, but people.

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Elissa Gordon | Billie Boggs and Mayor Ed Koch Have Lunch on a Park Bench

Billie Boggs: So, you gonna finish that? Ed Koch: This half a sandwich? Billie Boggs: I love tuna fish. Say, it’s cut in triangles, fancy! Ed Koch: Great smile. You’re very charming when you want to be, you know that? Billie Boggs: Don't distract me with sweet talk. What's that got to do with my rights? Ed Koch: How much can that heated grate help in winter? It doesn't make you any weaker to move inside, you know. Billie Boggs: I've got my civil rights, the right to pick where I stay. Ed Koch: Don’t you want to be inside, with beds, clean sheets and meals? Billie Boggs: Got my civil liberties, those lawyers said so. Ed Koch: You’re a product of New York, an original, what this city is all about. Why won't you let us protect you?

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Billie Boggs: You say “protect”; I say “move and hold me against my will”. Ed Koch: Billie, we've only been sitting out on this park bench for 20 minutes and I already know I'm too old for this temperature. Billie Boggs: Mr. Mayor, Ed, bubala, it is my choice, my street, my corner. I know everyone who settles here at dark. It's Second Avenue, I can yell if I want to. Ed Koch: When it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, your freedom to say and do, theirs to walk there, unafraid. But after getting hot meals and medicine, hasn’t that felt safer, more comfortable? Billie Boggs: How did you find a place for us to talk, away from all those reporters, anyway? Ed Koch: But don't you feel better? Billie Boggs: With the medicine, I feel weird; dull, slow. Which is perfect this week - did you hear I am speaking at Harvard? Reporter: Here they are! Billie! Billie! How do you feel about being forced to move from where you were outside? Ed Koch: We're having a private conversation here. What do you think you're doing?

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Reporter: I am asking Billie, but let me ask you, Mr. Mayor. What about NYCLU President Norman Siegel’s condemnation that your forcible removal of Billie Boggs from her chosen sidewalk home is a violation of her basic rights? Ed Koch: What do I think? I’ll tell you what I think. People who don’t have a home, who are living outside should be offered a place to come in out of the cold, be clean and dry, get meals, and if they need it, medication. Reporter: What if the person doesn't want to go? What if they are being removed and held against their will? Ed Koch: Can you walk over here with me a minute? Reporter: Yeah, but shouldn't we say whatever we have to say in front of Billie? Ed Koch: Oh, now she's “Billie”? You may think you know her, but I bet you don't. And let me answer your question. The mentally ill need help just to get to a condition where they can make decisions. What kind of exercise of free will is not being able to take care of yourself? Do you get what I'm saying to you? It's not freedom of anything if you can't recognize your situation and your options. Reporter: OK. We’re done here.

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William Considine | New Questions

For hours in the afternoon, we played puzzles, and my daughter even let me watch an opera on TV while we played. What are they doing? They're all singing that they want a new king. What happens? A man becomes king and they sing and then later the king dies. I want to see the king die. That became the day's refrain. Is the king going to die now? I want to see the king die. Ten weeks ago, her Aunt Lizzie died. Since then, at mention of Lizzie, my daughter has turned away and pulled inward, her arms at her chest. Watching the king on TV, she asks, Will someone step on him? (This must refer to ants on the kitchen floor, the first and only beings she saw die, stepped on.) No. He gets very sick.

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Will he die on something? He'll die on red steps. You'll see them. People die on something. Yes. What did Lizzie die on? Lizzie died sitting on a chair, dear. This is her first mention of Lizzie since the morning after Lizzie died. Then she ventured to ease her mother's grief with, I think Lizzie's getting better now. Is the king going to die now? Soon, dear. I don't see the steps. The red steps are in front of his chair. I want to see the king die. The operatic climax when the great basso Nesterenko sprawls as dead Boris Godunov on red stairs in the Kremlin was my daughter's first glimpse at age three of human dying. She sat in my lap. Her mother came and sat beside us on the couch. She needed to talk too about grief in her sister's death. We were all pulling inward. She answered attentively our child's effort to share loss.

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Why does he die? He's very old, old and sick, very sick, not a little sick like we get sometimes, but very sick. Why did Lizzie die? She was very sick. I don't like doctors, our girl said with a shrewd look. The doctors helped Lizzie a whole lot. The doctor's didn't make her die. Doctors help us. Lizzie died. Yes, Lizzie died, and we're very sad. I miss Lizzie. We miss Lizzie too, very much. Lizzie died. Yes, she did. But we - we won't die. She waves among us three inclusive loved ones, so briefly dreamed an eternity. Her mother says, We won't die for a long, long time. No, I said, we won't die. We won't die for a long, long time. She curls her lip, looks hard and does not dare to repeat the question, to hear again an awful amendment to her answer.

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The next day, I don't want to see opera again. It's too scary.

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Jacqueline Doyle | Bare Necessity: Nathan Lacky Interviews Rex X

On a gray Saturday afternoon, Rex X and I met to talk about his genredefying aesthetic of bare necessity, and his newest book, Some Tiny Things I Wrote. We met at the Void, described in the latest Literary Tittle Tattle as “the hippest bar on the dark side of town.” Tall, lanky, and unshaven, Rex X was dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt. He was nursing a martini when I arrived, and asked if I had any aspirin. Nathan: This is a great honor. I can’t believe I’m sitting here at the Void with you, actually meeting Rex X in person. I’m speechless. Rex: Not noticeably. Nathan: You are of course well known in the literary underground. A cult figure, even. But less well known to the public at large. Tell our readers something about yourself. Rex: There’s not much to tell. Nathan: Exactly. You’ve been called a minimalist and master of the micro-form. One critic writes, “Poised precariously on the boundary between consciousness and the abyss, Rex X in Some Tiny Things I Wrote strips language to its essence, employing form as a bare necessity.” Is that an accurate characterization of your work? Rex: You could say that.

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Nathan: In “Rendezvous,” your character Ramona arranges a tryst with her ex-lover Ramon but they’re unable to connect when they meet. Is “Rendezvous” a commentary on the human condition? Or on contemporary malaise? Rex: Or something. Nathan: I couldn’t help but wonder whether the similarity between the two characters’ names was intentional. Would you call “Rendezvous” a parable of solipsism? Rex: Probably not. But you could. Nathan: This sentence in “The One-Legged Man” seems to sum up so much about your aesthetic. “Most of the time he felt incomplete.” Could you comment further? Rex: Not really. Nathan: Mental derangement and linguistic incapacity seem to be persistent themes in works like “Depressive Aporia” and “A Schizophrenic Struggles with an Artichoke,” among others. I think it was Samuel Beckett who once said, “We are all born mad. Some remain so.” What do you think? Rex: Yes. Nathan: He also said “Words are all we have.”

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Rex: I’ll have another martini. Nathan: One could argue that the silences on the page are as important as the words in your work. Would you like to comment on that insight? Rex: Not if silence is so important. Nathan: Do you feel that all great literature is transgressive? Rex: Trans-something. Nathan: Your pieces seem to defy conventional genre classification. Flash epic, anti-tragedy, postmodern farce, micro-novelette, prose poem sequence, neo-fiction, faction. All of these terms have been used in reviews. How would you describe your newest work? Or do you think all generic descriptors have become irrelevant? Rex: Well, there are big things and there are tiny things. Recently I’ve been writing tiny things. Nathan: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about today? Rex: I don’t think so. Nathan: Do you have any advice for young writers? Rex: Write. The rest is bullshit.

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eaturing

Sophia Starmack | Questions // Sophia Starmack | Photograph // Sophia Starmack | Toccata and Fugue

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Sophia Starmack | Questions

Who? Dieterich Buxtehude (1637?-1707) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Anna Magdelena Wilcke Bach (1701-1760) Elizabeth Linett Phillips (1958- ) Sophia Gould Starmack (1980- ) What? There is always an art under the art. All good poets I can think of got their start as painters (Joni Mitchell) or musicians (Tomas Tranströmer). For me, music, always music. When? In 1705, the twenty-year-old Bach walked 250 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck, in order to find the great Dutch organist Buxtehude. They had never met. There were no recordings; Bach knew of the master only through copies of sheet music and murmurs. In 1992, my mother, Elizabeth Phillips, completed her undergraduate degree in vocal performance. She was 34 years old, a single mother with three daughters and a secretary’s minimal income. To my mind, these pilgrimages are the stuff of genius. Art can only be accomplished through bodily will.

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Where? As a young person, I accompanied my mother to lessons, master classes, rehearsals, recitals, and of course, to church, where for twenty years she earned supplemental income as a soloist. I went to the weddings and funerals of many strangers. When needed, I turned pages. We went to all denominations, but mostly the Lutheran church. Lutherans are great musicians; Martin Luther was a composer and organist. Why? I’ve always been the kind of person who thrives on challenge. I’ve come to know myself through my reaction to a difficult task or situation. Ezekiel 37: “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones… This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” How? By listening, mostly. And besides, what choice have you got?

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Sophia Starmack | Photograph

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