GruB Street
POEMS + PROSE JANUARY 2012 Contents Julia Watson..........................................IV Emily Luck..........................................XII Catlin Cooper......................................XIV Ben Switzer........................................XVI
Alex Mason................................XVII Angela Easby...............................XXI Michael Sparrow.......................XXIII Josh Schendel..........................XXXII
HURON LITERARY SOCIETY Price, paper; 2 dollars
Vol. 1 Number 2
2
GRUB STREET HURON LITERARY SOCIETY
by Alex Assaly & Michael Sparrow
Huron University College 2012 I
As for ‘Every man his own poet’, the more every man knows about poetry the better. I believe in every one writing poetry who wants to; most do. I believe in every man knowing enough of music to play ‘God bless our home’ on the harmonium, but I do not believe in every man giving concerts and printing his sin. Ezra Pound “A Retrospect”
* All all and all the dry worlds lever, Stage of Ice, The solid ocean, All from the oil, the pour of lava. City of spring, the governed flower, Turns in the earth that turns the ashen Towns around on a wheel of fire. Dylan Thomas “All All and All the Dry Worlds Lever”
Huron, The house of silent poets or a refuge for the unaware and apathetic? Although its walls stand high, the bricks appear to be laid without mortar; dispassion disintegrates its foundation and leaves the structure trembling on a hill of sand. Have the painters stopped painting? The poets consumed their ink? When letter writers stand - like hypocrites perhaps - and preach before you, listen: return to art and produce, for every nation, every race has its own creative and critical minds. Turn silence into music, letters into books, and white walls into paintings. Turn your bedlam into the house of singers and players of instruments. * The 2011/2012 school year will see a lot of changes. First, Grubstreet is now Grub Street. Second, Grub Street is now a chapbook. For those who do not know, a chapbook is a small book or pamphlet containing poems, ballads, stories, or religious tracts. Cheap to make and quick to format, The Huron Literary Society will be dedicated to creating multiple Grub Street chapbooks and giving the students of Huron and opportunity to share their works. * In the literary world of Huron there is a line drawn in the sand. Grub Street stands proudly on one side overlooking the vast expanse of an abyss on the other. The horror, the horror. We prevail on our side with pens in hand and fingers soaked in ink to bring you, our admiring audiance, the best of what the Huron community has to offer. Our next issue will be our last attempt to bring you poetry and prose for the sole purpose of enriching your lives to the best of our collective abillity. Please, submit. The Huron Literary Society would like to give special thanks to Dr. Davies, Dr. Brooks, Dr. McCarthy, Dr. Hyland, and Huron’s English Department for supporting and teaching the arts. Thanks to principle Dr. Stephen McClatchie, the HUCSC, Chuck at Double Q, Sean MacDuggle, Adam Schwartz and, most importantly, the Huron students. Breathe art, produce, and support. Your Editors, Alex Assaly and Michael Sparrow
Submit to Grub Street: getlitsociety@gmail.com Copyrights remain with the author or artist who grants Grub Street permission to publish his/her work. Grub Street reserves the right to reject or edit a piece of writing if deemed necessary. No part of this journal may be reproduced without the explicit consent of the author(s) and/or editor(s). Any opinions or views expressed in Grub Street are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Huron University College or the editors.
Typesetting and layout by Grub Street Printing by Double Q Printing and Graphics
Julia Watson
The Scholar I have it, I have it, I have it! The man, he cries, Looking up from the page with sleep-besodden eyes And he turns to his Love, and to her he says Listen to me, just this once, and what I’ve read And he quoted a poem to her and then he said But don’t you see, it’s not that, it’s more! I can feel the idea breaking inside of me! As she inclines her head he fights with the words, valiantly It is, it . . . it is a remnant that is hard to describe He stumbles to silence And she rolls her eyes. No, I have it! Just let me think! But as he ponders, she hits the brink Of impatience, and declares That all she wants is sleep, and silence And turns her back to him, the scholar Who says quietly No, wait, listen to me! She falls asleep, and as she snores He tries to recapture the fading image, failing And he watches out his window the slow procession of the dawn I had it, I had, I had it! He whispers, But now it’s gone.
IV
Julia Watson
From The Norton Notebooks Part 1: In the Darkness Darkness He interrupts the static darkness as he must. It parts for him, navigating easily through the reams of alleys digressing from this other, undistinguishable but unfamiliar, alley. Who is strong enough to resist hope? Not I; I follow him as he passes through the emptiness, never speaking. I do not know what he is looking for, not straining his treacherous senses as I do, down here. I begin to measure time by how my body moves. Minutes replaced by footsteps, hours by bruises. Messages litter the ever-empty hallways—or should I say alleys? The walls or buildings rise too high for my eyes to wander. We all came in with light and once I saw paintings of cities and stairways and scorpions. Now I feel the papers but cannot read them. Now I see this man but cannot stop his progress. The light faded. The static darkness lets him in, as he follows the whim that will leave him here. He maps these endless reams, bought by darkness, as if he could find what led him here. And the darkness waits for the sputtering day when he drops his candle—perhaps hoping that he will put it out. Each time his eye slides by me, his vision impotent against the creeping numbness. He is starting to feel it. I see him chafing his hands, choking back questions that come to him. I too came in here looking, now I wait. I measure time by how his body moves. Minutes by tears, waxy hours by ooze. If we were in prison but not trapped, if we were trapped but not in prison. The circularity of it kills us slowly. His unacknowledged shadow, I have seen him try to escape the trap. He can do it for weeks, picking up and reading the endless messages that litter this open dungeon, mapping his route, even masturbating—mundane things I have forgotten how to do. He picks up these things which are not his own, these estranged words, and reads what lies in them as I remember doing. I do not remember what they say. V
Julia Watson
Standing still and silent is a danger to him but I cannot speak to warn him. He cannot sense what I do. “Do I live or am I dead?” the question rang out through the air until the walls around us seemed to lean in and smack. What is the use of asking? I want to ask as he cracks, throwing himself against the emptiness. “All these messages! To strive, to seek, and never to find . . .” I listen with the darkness for the ending, for an end to his questioning, for his lost willingness. As failure creeps in closer to him, he lays him down then gets back up and runs, trying to go straight. I almost lost him; he almost got away. “To be only deeper in this private place!” The scene familiar but at an accelerated pace as he weeps and as the darkness gathers with his tears puts the dying candle out of its wretchedness. I remember now. He goes wild after. And disappears. Now no static darkness parts. No one can make it this far. And with this accepted fact I find the words to whisper: Of my own house I made myself a gibbet. M
VI
Julia Watson
The Genius: Post-Structuralist narrative & Allusion in Darkness
With characteristic hopelessness, “Darkness” moves from Sylvia Plath to Dante Alighieri, locating nothing of worth in the literary canon. The showy theft of fragments of poetic phrase litter the story in the same way that the messages litter the “endless reams” of alleys, signifying nothing but the speaker’s inability to create. Indeed the messages hinder creation as the mysterious man stoops in and among them, reading instead of exploring. He cannot find the centre, driven mad by the lack of hope inherent in all the messages–or should I say suicide notes—strung out along the streets. The utterance of the last line defines the voice of the story as a magpie. He must not be identified as Dante himself but as a failure, incapable of penetrating the labyrinth and finding his own words, his own locus of meaning. Instead he borrows Dante’s description of the history of a self-destructing city, echoing his own relation to literature. And it is this clumsy, or should I go so far as to say half-assed, representation of referentiality that defines the collection. From the opening reference to “Ariel” to the tacky “Of my own house I made myself a gibbet,” the story is centred by the absence of any authoritative literary figure to counteract the “endless reams” of papers–not alleys–that feed the speaker’s neuroticism. Indeed the entire collection seems designed to question our notion of the writer as a centre of meaning. Heavily indebted to post-structuralist theory, the story denies any attempt to find a final meaning. There is no line that sums up the speaker, with his strange hopefulness. Indeed there is little precedent for the speaker of a meta-fictive narrative to be so acquainted with literature yet so incapable of writing. The endless repetitions, the lack of a so-called plot, the minimalist characterization, the strange crassness throughout it: all declare the story a failure. Yet its popularity remains. Is it possible that the mysterious M, through the act of creating a failed writer, has reached a level of creative ingenuity hitherto unknown? VII
Julia Watson Theorists will posit a relationship between the so-called genius and an economic situation where it is virtually impossible for an artist to make a living. In the digital age, the artist must be willing to throw his voice out among all the others—most of whom have nothing to say—and to declare his or her own intrinsic value. And then hope that someone will hear and respond. But if the past truly means nothing and the present says nothing, the artist is in a conundrum. We used to understand the world through the incomprehensible: that is to say, the Absurd. But what follows nihilism? What recourse is there for the agonized mind to find? W
VIII
Julia Watson
W: Characterizing the Genius “The Genius: Post-structuralist narrative & Allusion in Darkness” reveals a writer at his prime. His character, his speaking voice, has been perfected into a nonchalant but hardnosed emissary of Truth. His word, we are to believe, is God’s word. But to what extent is the character of “W” an unreliable narrator? His voice and status as a critic defines him as someone with taste. Someone capable of, in the Hume-anist tradition, of looking at a work impartially and judging it on the basis of its own merit. W cannot do that. Reacting against the needless networking of allusion that defined Modernism, W instead is a character who refutes the power of allusion in favour of a more compact style: metonymy over metaphor. He wants to control the referents of “Darkness” because the chain of unending reams of alleys frightens him. He interprets the story literarily, creating a false centre of the innate value of Literature to back up his argument. We must ask why W looks at “Darkness”? What does the story of a man wandering alone in reams of alleys filled with messages hold for W? Obviously it pinpoints his inferiority complex as a critic, not a creator. If the writings of real artists are worth, in the end, nothing, then how much less for the voice of a critic? W wants to be a poet. The internal rhyme of his ending line—“What recourse is there for the agonized mind to find?”—reveals him. But W cannot be a poet. He must be a critic. The narrative demands that he, despite being similarly unable to find his voice, cannot spurt out: “Of my own house I made myself a gibbet.” He cannot create a narrative out of failure. Instead he resorts to his favourite device: questions. As a critic, he puts the responsibility on us to find the answers. He believes that questioning is enough. No wonder he is lost in his endless reams! No wonder the essay reads like the mumbling bursts of the madman’s last drain.
IX
Julia Watson No. To question is not to make sense. To make sense is not to question: to put your mind out into this new age, this digital age, and to say: why I have something, something to say. (But I’ve forgotten what.) A.G.
X
Julia Watson The Norton Notebooks: Part 1: In the Darkness
But can you really call it a theme? Poetry is thought in motion. Poetry is thought in motion.
Do not define me for I am aware of my own futility. As was he.
I asked someone I once knew to define postmodernism. (In our pure state we exist, and exist solely) He told me it was conceptual. I rather think it wandering.
You will ask me what my thesis is. The answer is quite simple: there is no thesis; there is no centre! And when you ask me what I think of it I quite simply answer: Why, of course I am of three/four minds about it(!). 0
XI
Emma Luck
Simple Simple lines, simple dashes, simple criss-crosses and zigzags. Simple scars. So many people don’t understand why we choose to do this, and why we are so sad. Our real lives are fleeting moments, small gasps of air, where reality comes and wakes us up, like a splash of cold water, coming out of a dead faint. We are left breathless by our splashes of real life, the moments when we temporarily awake from our unending slumber. We try to squeeze these moments and hold them, because the rest of our lives are in a pretend world, in a private cell of solitary confinement, where we live with only our demons and ghosts to keep us company. Depression is a massive prison, and thousands, millions, of us are kept here under lock and key. We know there are others like us there, but we’re unable to reach them. All we see are our demons haunting our cells, guarding the doors, and our ghosts slipping through the bars for another visit. We are surrounded by others who know our numbness, our anger, our anguish, who know it all too well – yet we are the loneliest people on Earth. We have no sight, but still we can see the truth; no one anywhere cares about us, and we are alone in the world, and there is no path to salvation but death. People – parents, siblings, friends, partners, children, teachers, psychiatrists – all try to breathe life into us, but they have no eyes. They cannot see that we are already the dead, we are the living dead. We have no sense of touch, but still we can feel the pain of numbness. Who knew that emptiness, nothingness, would bring such anguish. We have no sense of time, but still we know that this has gone on too long, and will always go on, never missing a beat. We have no ears, but still we can hear ourselves screaming. We have no hearts, but still we can feel them beating. In our cells, the ghosts come to talk – sometimes they are the ghosts of the people we have harmed, of the regrets in our lives. Sometimes they are the most terrified we have ever felt, coming back to us again and again. We cannot wave the ghosts away – they do not hear, and more importantly, do not listen. We have no voices anyway, the ghosts take them away with invalidation, with blame, with hate. XII
Emma Luck Our anger is one thousand times more than your frustration with us. We seem to be forever furious, but you never stopped to think about who we are angry with. It was us. It was always us, the person we were always angry with was ourselves, the person we were always getting back at was ourselves! Our anger is stronger and deeper than any frustrations you might ever have with our limpness, our lifelessness. You cannot compete to hurt us more than we have hurt ourselves. You will lose. We live in this prison, with demons that guard the gates, that stand outside our doors and scream all the things we’d rather forget – all the things we found we could no longer hide from, that closed in on us like four walls, that caged us like birds and raped us, over and over, until we simply closed on ourselves, like a musical locket, and our song was no more. Chaos surrounds us. Destruction abounds from us. Yet the silence is so perfect, the only thing we can make perfect in our lives, that we cannot bear to break it with words. We delight in our own destruction, of waiting for the inevitable, but at the same time we fear our end, and the process of ending is so painful. To quote Tristania, “I’m a falling stone in a world of glass. I’m a ticking time bomb with a smiling mask.” In this world of instant gratification and the easy fix, it should be so simple. Pop a pill and feel better. In this world of ignorance, misinformation, and stigmatization, it should be so simple. Snap out of this, your life isn’t really so terrible, you’re lucky, feel better. To everyone else outside the world of glass, it should be so simple. Make yourself happy, find things each day to make yourself happy. And maybe one day, it’ll all be that simple.
XIII
Caitlin Cooper
For My Brother You would be twenty-three years old now which means you’ve been gone fifteen years. I miss you.
Some days the space where you should be is more pronounced.
I’m sad that my memories of you are fading, as childhood memories often do. But I haven’t forgotten that I love you and that our faces looked much the same. I look at your pictures around our parents’ house and wonder if they’ve ever noticed that we have the same cool blue eyes and the same shaped face. We were so different, I am told. You were the sensible, gentle one. I was the dramatic and rebellious one. Often when I visit Mom and Dad I look at them and wonder if they’ll ever be as happy as they were when we were our close little family but I know despite that the usual family arguments that somehow you still bring us together and make us close.
I’m mostly sad about the things you’ve missed out on. We never got to watch each other grow up, graduate, or fall in love. But for all of that, we visit your grave on your birthday to give you flowers, light a candle, and talk to you. Can you hear us? I hope so.
XIV
Caitlin Cooper
Sometimes I think: Mathew would have loved this movie, this song, this place. And as impossible as it is to fully accept that you didn’t get to truly live, I have come to tell myself that you’re in a good place where you can’t suffer from illness anymore, that somehow you’re watching over us. Our very own guardian angel. If you’re watching over me now, know this: we’ll always love you.
XV
Ben Switzer
Marketable Miracles The muffled knells of fractured bells came ringing in my ears, while hawkers sold the tomes of old, ordaining mortal fears. Of rocky dome, of metronome, of faded Western Wall; of holy Three, of Bodhi tree that pillaged in their thrall. Now the priests give sermons least in musty, vaulted halls; while thinkers, deeper drinkers read the Writing on the walls. Truth not gone, but all along it slept in light cascades; so capture, know the rapture soon before the feeling fades.
XVI
Alex Mason wall st. patron st. (robin hoodlums) source codes have been all but stamped out now on our palms, a product now of our environment as the ivy leagues overgrow and a street composed of walls becomes impossible to Scale; too heavy now to fit in the weights the feather long since tossed away the heart pushed between the cracks in playground cement and pay/vementrobbing hood stalks the corridors in a dior jacket and calvin klein tie we painted his arrows in the streets but they have long since broken and his dripping cheques continue to live on and on as others dyeas the friar has taken to drinking all of his holy water away and the lost boys smoke cigarettes in filtered ad campaigns of course, the streets read post no bills but our pockets are emptythe lovers of a country illegitimate are now friends without Benefitsthe bar/skin graphs have begun to rise sky scrapers composed on ancient burial grounds of the settlers who now continue to do as suchthe 1% settling in the sediment XVII
Alex Mason treated into dirt upon which the fucked pitch their tentsand as soon as this refreshes the rest will continue to wait loading for the last 99%.
XVIII
Alex Mason drummer’s heart did my drummer’s heart ever beat so loud? never before as it does with You nowwith skin stretched ‘cross the bare bone and tanned hide to flesh, each praying pulse deepening as it is on to the next. ferried amongst our fluids, balanced in the inner measure between which secretive horns signal in flourish our synchronized pleasure, exchanged as conducted and ovation timed together. can you hear its throb from beyond our expanse? it has risen to its fever pitch in Dionysian dance. with hand held over its head the space expands, to envelop us both in its marching advancehear it as it slows, it is a tempered tapping now only to be heard in the silent seconds between a drummer’s heart and the clasp of our hands.
XIX
Alex Mason
mother sometimes I think whatever ghosts that made you want to kill yourself still haunt this house and are telling me the same things it told you. (and we could pray but what Good would it do?)
XX
Angela Easby
Frosted Windowpanes
The corners of my mind fall in on themselves Like a letter left out in the rain, and I can’t help but open ‘Cause the edges stick out Oh, the edges stick out and I know what’s inside We dimmed the lights that night, because Our eyes were full and heavy We draped across the couch, the floor, our little living room We never wanted to move We all felt so stoned Buttery voices and warm water touches Drifted from one to another, our crime was our gluttony. Our saving grace was our love for each and all And everyone, and every atom of that house We spoke in rhyme, in gibberish Our melted minds tried vainly to quantifyInstead we called for more dessert. Pierre asked, in French, what we thought I lolled my head back to the ceiling to think. Xanthi told a tale of love and independence And the chimes of her voice sent us to silence. A draft blew in through a thin glass pane A dark and chilly draft, but it couldn’t cut through Our heady scarlet glow. Someone somewhere slammed a door And the muscles around me moved, a loved one rallying A loved one rousing to answer the kettle’s call. Eyelids drooped, breathing formed a choir The night was done, to any observer But we would never willingly leave.
XXI
Angela Easby
Porch Love Triangles
Why Every time she looks at you, you’re looking at me Like I’m wearing your shirt And why Every time I look at her, she’s looking past me Like there’s something better on the other side And why Every time I look at you, you’re looking at me Like you already were And why Every time you look at me, she’s looking at you Like she’s thinking about the kitchen knife And why Every time she looks at me, you’re looking away Like the ceiling is a work of art And why Will nobody look at each other?
XXII
Michael Sparrow The Fire Preface John Nahash had just finished work for the day when the sky opened and hundreds of tons of water began to free fall. Stepping out of his office, he glanced quickly at his left wrist for the time while using his right to loosen the tie around his neck and, in one motion, throw the noose to the back seat of his enormous rust colored Buick. It was almost six, it was almost fucking six o’clock, and he had planned to be on the road by four. As he impaled the steering column with his key, the engine groaned like it always did, slow and loud. He took a deep breath, lit a smoke and tried to remember why he was getting into his car in such a rage. --------------------- The responsibility to preform for his clientele over drinks was possibly John’s favorite part of his job. It was something that required at once both a great deal of effort and the utmost degree of indifference. Obligatory indifference was his specialty. Growing up in a family of wildly successful men, all of whom had made a name for themselves, John had, for a time, done his due diligence. He paid his own way through school. He moved away from his childhood home to reduce distraction. He started up his own firm right out of school in the hopes of being the most successful architect in Canada. He had alienated everyone around him until he had all that he wanted and was free from distraction. Now he had a family who he alienated out of habit. He was known for his success and people flocked to him for guidance. He was caught in a void of apathy with nothing to distract him. But he had his money; he had means and he had time. It had been a long while since he had been actually required to design anything that was built. At this point in his illustrious career he was able, if not prompted, to simply sit in his office and be a strong chin to place in front of countless plaques decorating him for projects from years past. He smoked and drank and went home to his wife and kid. He was good at his work, of course, and his work was always there for him.
XXIII
Michael Sparrow For the past few months John’s home life had begun to affect his mindset. This preoccupation while usual for most of the world, or so those bastards would have you think, was beginning to claw at John in ways he never thought imaginable. Sitting in front of the radio the night before, his beautiful wife Peggy had brought him his ol’ fashioned. His six year old son Thomas sat quietly reading, some damned comic book. Peggy placed the monogramed crystal glass gently on a coaster by his right. With a drink of her own in hand, she kissed him lightly on his left cheek from behind his chair before going to her place. She took her usual seat on the couch furthest from the radio and began to read from one of her father’s old books, like fucking always. Peggy was constantly reading. After graduating top of her class from an all girls school that could only have existed in the 1930’s, what with its grammar drills and chapel Sundays, Peggy had quickly enrolled in nursing school and become one of the youngest nurses at a downtown Toronto hospital. The war had taken her father and brother to Europe and left her alone to care for her mother. The story seems a common one, a young woman’s spirit being broken by her responsibilities, but Peggy is special case, one far less tangible. Taking a job on a psychiatric ward of a veterans hospital, Peggy split her time between caring for her depressed mother and those poor veterans unfortunate enough to be treated to insulin seizure therapy in an attempt to settle their minds. Somewhere during this time, Peggy began to read. She would hold down the convulsing bodies of war torn soldiers. Fold their sheets and clean their broken bodies while ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies’ played over the loudspeaker. She would return to her parents house, change the sheets on her brother’s untouched bed and hold her mother’s hand as she shuddered and gasped and cried, her mother was an old bird; screaming for her husband. While listening to Edvard Grieg on her father’s phonograph, Peggy would wait for her mother to cry herself to sleep and open one of her father’s books and stare at each page. Rhythmically turning the pages as her eyes reached the last few lines, she would go days without sleeping. This all continued until her father returned, without her brother. Her mother stopped crying and then speaking. And then she found John, and learned to make an ol’ fashioned, well enough I guess, and a vodka gimlet for her steady hand. XXIV
Michael Sparrow John looked at her now, just as he had every night they found themselves in the den, which is an ugly fucking room, and wondered when it was that he allowed her to become so separate from him. When he had found her, he was approaching his goal of finally attaining a reputation of wealthy self-reliance. She was a well-to-do daughter of an old family who made up for their lack of money with history in their name. He was self-made and she looked good on his arm. Fucking Beautiful. She loved him; but she could stand to show it more. Every night since their wedding night she had kissed him softly and told him so. It seemed lately however that they didn’t know each other anymore. John was not able to talk to her. He stared openly at her while she read but she gave no indication of notice other than the occasional glance and smile. The only movement aside from Peggy tucking Thomas in would be the refilling of glasses, or rustling for cigarettes. The two would stumble upstairs and fall asleep back to back, most of the time, and wait for morning to do it again. Anything other than their established colloquials seemed too personal but the pleasantries they shared were empty too. Why this hadn’t seemed important before was beyond John, its difficult to take note of such things when you have a fucking job, but he couldn’t stand that tension he was building in himself. Why doesn’t she shower me in attention? Waking up in the morning had turned into a mad race to work, but the drive in was a battle to not turn around. The plan from the beginning of the week had been to get out of the city and try, just fucking try, to have a conversation or two with his wife and son. But as he sat at his desk looking up at the clouds that were pummeling his prim parking lot with shadows, he felt an anxiousness that would not cease. The tie his wife had bought him would not sit right around his throat and as he poured his scotch into his monogramed crystal he coughed and patted his breast for a smoke. Something about this fucking weather, it won’t let me think. He walked back to his desk from the bar in the corner of his office and the deliberateness of his footsteps announced his frustration to the building. Within a few moments, an eager child in a three button suit showed up in John’s glass doorway with a pot of coffee and a thinly veiled sense of misdirected enthusiasm.
XXV
Michael Sparrow
“There are some people here for you, sir. They drove in from Regina to thank us for the designs on their new low income housing.” The boy was boiling over. Not physically shaking with excitement, though he was obviously enjoying his first time in the office, but vibrating in anticipation to engage the stoic John. As if some one had filled his head with office mythology and shook him to carbonate his body with the singular goal of office efficiency, the boy seemed volatile if not well mannered. The boy’s name was Walter, and he was empty. Having found himself unemployed after graduating, Walter’s father had eventually been able to place the boy fairly high up in the Nahash firm as John’s personal assistant. This Friday concluded his first week on the job but he hadn’t been able to find a reason to go into John’s office until this very moment. This had mostly been due to manipulation on John’s part. Graduating indifferently with mediocre grades and hundreds of friends with similar demeanors, Walt hadn’t even realized he was being helped until this very moment in John’s office. Staring at the man behind his desk, with the huge bronze sparrow hung from the wall a token from an early client with a love for contrived imagery, Walter was overcome with a guilt that, though he hadn’t felt it before, seemed to have been missing all along. It nestled in next to his lungs and inflated his chest with false bravado. Not wanting to seem distracted by his personal thoughts, Walter quickly added, “They are eager to see you!” This kid is going nowhere. “Well you’d best bring them in if they’ve come all this way. I’m here to show our commitment to excellence and I doubt they are getting that impression from the lobby.” XXVI
Michael Sparrow
Moron. Walter apologized while spilling coffee on his freshly pressed pants. He brought a shaking mug to John’s desk and almost managed a smile before dumping the rest of the pot on his own shoes. If I cared enough I might have yelled. Mumbling something about getting someone to clean the spill, Walter wiped his soaked brow, patted at his coffee stained pants and turned to bring in the investors. “Try not to loose them on the way!” John called after him. You’re a fucking embarrassment! John had just finished his third scotch. Having not yet been able to bring himself to drink Walter’s coffee, he sipped at it now for appearances and to mask his breath in case the investors were of the opinion that a man can’t mix business with pleasure. To his surprise, the investors were not the type to mind. In fact, had he not just them been told the investors were on their way in, he likely wouldn’t have recognized them as the investors at all. They were dressed much like Walter, their suits hung like wet clothes from narrow hooks; looked just like Walt. From the looks on their excited faces when they walked into the office, it was difficult to distinguish them from some spoiled intern. Very difficult actually. They seem like the type that may try to persuade me to buy booze for them. They walked in side by side. Two young men without the hint of a shadow on their faces. Without giving John the time to rise from his chair, they were both at the bar in the corner of the room pouring themselves glasses. Looking down at his coffee, John scowled and looked at his steaming reflection. Is this how business is done now? Sending kids? “Gentlemen. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I hope you’ve been pleased with the progress we have been making together. The building permits have all be taken care of and as I’m sure you are aware construction will be starting in the next few weeks.” If you kids understand what a building permit is, blink twice. XXVII
Michael Sparrow Downing their drinks in a synchronized gulp, the young men’s expressions were mirrored on each other’s faces. They could have been twins, hell they might be twins. They looked at John expectantly as if waiting to be praised for their own initiative in the work. Taking care to remember the specifics of their project, John continued, “You have signed off on all of our art department’s final designs as well as the construction fees and blueprints and, failing a catastrophe, I see the building beginning to earn in as little as 2 years. An astounding result considering the scope of this venture.” The boys looked to each other now a trace of concern soaking through their sealed lips. I hope who ever sent you here is having a good laugh. “We are here, Mr. Nahash, to discuss our concerns regarding our project. We feel as though we have not been treated with the degree of respect we deserve. Being a semi-philanthropic organization, such as we are, we assumed a certain extra measure might be due. While it seems that we are now near the close of our negotiations, and recognize the possibility of any suitable treatment is long past, we are willing to accept a financial compensation in light of your past negligence. ” What. “What?” The boys didn’t seem to think their statement needed any clarification. The shorter of the two noticed John was as still as the finger of scotch in his monogramed glass. Drawing his cigarette case from his breast pocket and standing quickly, John struck a match and placed a snow-white smoke between his lips. Before bringing the match to his mouth, he looked down at the two boys and spoke. “I must have misheard you just now. you arrogant shits. Our business has concluded, XXVIII
Michael Sparrow
you’d both understand that were you to have read the papers you were signing for the past nine months. Any possibility of further negotiation concluded last week when the permits were field with municipal offices, you ignorant children. While I do appreciate your hands on approach to business, coming all the way in from beautiful Regina, I should have you sprayed for fucking fleas, I don’t think there is anything to be done. I’d love to continue discussing the matter further but unfortunately I do have meetings to keep. I’m sure you understand.” He lit his smoke to signal the end of the conversation. Staring back with eyes wide, the boy on to the left of John began to stand. Buttoning his suit with one hand and raising the other in a clearly practiced motion he tried to speak but stopped as a river of smoke poured out from John’s mouth and he turned to stare up at the clouds. As he led the smoldering cigarette back to his mouth, the boys slowly backed out of the office and closed the door. They looked darker than they had a moment ago. Turning his attention back to his office he looked at the clock next to the brass framed picture of Peggy and Tom on his desk. It was two. The plan he had made for Peggy earlier was to meet at a little Swiss run hotel near a lake in British Columbia. She would be leaving in her car with Thomas around now but was a reliably slow driver and would take at least an hour longer to arrive than John. Breathing deeply, he got up and walked around his desk taking care to step around the coffee soaked carpet. Walking the dozen steps to his bar, monogrammed glass in hand, he decided driving angry would do him no good. This weekend was going to be a chance to connect, finally. Filling his glass up to the brim John walked back to his desk and sat slowly down in his leather chair. Outside his window the clouds were looking darker still. The wind had died down and the trees circling the parking lot were motionless. John stared at the clouds, they wouldn’t care to move, but paid no attention to the winds disperse. He just needed a drink to close his eyes for a moment and imagine the calm that awaited him after this weekend.
XXIX
Michael Sparrow
Opening his eyes the first thing John noticed was the man on his hands and knees next to his desk scrubbing out Walter’s mess. That kid Walt has better get his shit together, spilling all over my office... Cleaning staff don’t get here until 430. Sitting up quickly and adjusting his eyes to the light, John looked at the clock on his desk, which confirmed his fears. Swearing under his breath and pulling his coat on, John grabbed an extra shirt from his office closet and headed for the door. Quickly mumbling a “happy fucking weekend” to the man on his hands and knees, John stepped firmly out of his office, shit under arm, and walked down the red carpet hallway to the lobby then out the front door. It is almost fucking six! -----------
The liquor store’s newly paved lot was so smooth and fresh it allowed him to change his shirt, light a smoke and turn on the radio all the while holding a beer in his lap without a drop spilled. Checking the watch on his left wrist again for time, he thrust his arm out of his open window and signaled right as he spun the tires and drifted quickly away from the city. The bonus he had received the year past was so large he had suggested to his wife that they buy a cabin somewhere secluded. A place of seclusion with which to impress potential business seemed a logical stepping stone to becoming a tycoon of architecture. Better yet taking Peggy out shopping for a place to build a cottage would be a great setting to talk things over. Having a pretense like driving twelve hours every few weekends round trip to a secret hideaway would surely bring a measure of calm to their lives. If I could just get my head straight, this would all be perfect. John drained the beer in his lap and opened another before feeling around for his smokes. Quickly tapping the smoke on his dash, John lit up and pulled another beer from the brown paper bag on the passenger seat. This drive didn’t look so long on the map.
Two hours into the six hour drive, John noticed the black clouds had caught up to him. Winding back and forth through the arbitrary switchbacks from Golden, the world seemed to take a deep inhale and everything went still. The wind stopped, the trees were static, my cigarette burned slowly, and the road was bone dry. There was nothing out side his car for him right now. XXX
Michael Sparrow
It had all burned so slowly, Taking a long drag off his smoke, he accelerated suddenly and drove his Buick off the winding road. With a trail of smoke pouring from the passenger window the car was integrated into the tree tops. John died instantly but the car tires spun, slowing lifelessly for a few weeks after. His family found him the day they realized he was missing: Two weeks after.
XXXI
Josh Schendel
Untitled A mad man he thought, showing up at his door at such an hour. He wants skin tattooed onto his face, this can’t be done; the scars. The skin underneath the ink would not allow for such a transformation. To go unnoticed by the eyes of those who he would inevitably encounter was impossible. Everyone would know. The man was no doctor, but he had performed the art long ago, he hadn’t sculpted the body in years, not since remembering the day he left his tribe. He remembered how they removed the modification he would soon deliver. Dark days he thought, he had not seen one family member or friend since.
He had lived in absolute seclusion, isolation; since, until now, at the knock and request of such a peculiar kind to fetch his tools, his dusty tools. So late in the night he thought. In such a storm, it was natural to be suspicious. The man was known; he had been in the papers. He wanted a new face, this one he could no longer bare. “A touch up” he said, “I want a paintbrush dipped into the perfect skin color, that beige.” So it was up to the ‘shaman’, that is what the Town called him. He is the eldest of them left, they would say, but they knew not of the tribe, only of him. Only of, the thin rods of steel, dipped into natural color, and applied through a painstaking and lengthy process. He tried to explain to the man that he would have scars upon scars and that the process left a mark of it’s own. But he would not listen. The ‘shaman’ could not tell if he was unconscious or asleep. Propped up on the man doing all the talking, also a suspicious fellow. They appeared to be engaged in a professional relationship. A butler or a servant, the man was wealthy, and in his presence dressed to point. Both of them wore it, like a lion sports it mane. These two were not the type supposed to be sitting inside his modest abode, and at such a dreadfully offensive hour, with the one the townspeople referred to as the ‘shaman’. XXXII
Josh Schendel The ‘shaman’ though had not said a word, he remained silent, thinking his thoughts. The man who requested the new face spoke, with great difficulty. “I can not live with the scars of my past, they break my cheek, and the vision into my person is interrupted, to those with eyes who peer past-” he took a breath and leaned forward: “to those who peer past the present, they know of me, and my name.” He stopped and leaned back against the wood, wincing. The butler said nothing, his role had been played; he had knocked, sputtered out a few words, and walked him in to the house of the ‘shaman.’ The butler was anxious, this hut, outside of the city, it was like no dwelling he was accustomed to. The final act was far from him, and there. The curtain call for this mayhem was yet to be heard, perhaps never will be the butler thought. They knew nothing of the ‘shaman,’ but had heard of him. Now they stood before him, at this late hour posing this request. The ‘shaman’ just stood there; he had no inclination as to what to do. He knew if he refused them there would be trouble. The injured man was rich; the ‘shaman’ knew all to well the power of paper-the shaman knew of the dollar. He too needed to eat. The sterling silver of a barrel glinted from beneath the butler’s coat. There was silence. When they returned to the scarred estate he sent the butler to his tasks with haste: “Prepare my things, and above all the medical supplies, then send for all of my things once I have arrived safe and sound.” The butler turned and went off busily, only to yield from his duty to perform another. The look of his face although better, was still scary, especially when upset. “Sir-there is a Mrs. Lamont at the door, will you see her?” “I said no guests!”
XXXIII
Josh Schendel
“Very well, I shall dismiss her immediately-pardon me in advance for my insolence and the gravest apologies for it.” “Enough I will take her in the sitting room.” “Which one sir?” He said nothing. “Very well sir.” The sitting room was pealing; he came in to catch her staring at the spots on the wall. “Daniel what happened to your face?” “Nothing dear Mrs. Lamont, nothing at all what can I do for you?” “Daniel I am not convinced that nothing has happened to your face, it is offputting, usually you are so well put together, have you taken a fall?” “Mrs. Lamont?” He straightened up, “Surely you did not come over here to call my face into question.” “No Daniel I most certainly have not.” “The Law is angry and so am I-you know who my husband is.” “I know very well who he-“ “No Daniel you don’t know. That boy killed in the tribe! This whole town is in jeopardy!” She was past the point of frantic. “The town is having a meeting trying to decide what to do, they’re thinking about asking the shaman. The tribes are upset Daniel-Someone tried to kill and did, now what is going to be done.” He stared out the window feeling the still of time. “We do not go into their territory Mrs. Lamont, anything that has happened there is not yet known to me.” “Their tribe has been splintering for a long time now Daniel, people know that you know that, now things are going to be bad, where are you going to be Daniel?” “Here, I’m going to be right here...” XXXIV
Josh Schendel
“Sir-there are the ministers of the justice department for you.” The butler interrupted. “Mrs. Lamont always a pleasure-“ She interrupted her dismissal and the ushering butler and stared the wealth right in the face: “The tribe claims that one got away, he was hit bad-right in the face.”
XXXV
Brought To You By Alex Assaly & Michael Sparrow
Grub Street