Laurentian Magazine Fall 2011 by Abigail Moss

The Laurentian Magazine Fall 2011

The Laurentian Magazine St. Lawrence Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Literary Magazine Editor-In-Chief Abigail Moss

Faculty Advisors Sarah Barber Jill Talbot

Managing Editor Elle Rathbun

Public Relations Editor Sandrine Milet

Senior Art Editor Mike Cianca

Senior Fiction Editor John Vari

Senior Nonfiction Editor Sonya Krakoff

Senior Poetry Editor

Fiction Editors

Riley Spellman Christina Sportiello Caitlin Spadaccini Abby Frank Mary Baucom Matthew Shoen

Nonfiction Editors

Elle Rathbun

Jonathan Stopyra Adam Terko Maggie Sullivan Courtney Goodridge Courtney Fogarty

Senior Web Editor

Poetry Editors

Nicholas Sirriano

Senior Production Editor Mary Boucom

Production Editors Christina Sportiello Courtney Fogarty Adam Terko Breezy Dwyer

Art Editors

Sandrine Milet Riley Spellman Jonathan Stopyra Abby Frank Caroline Martin

Kate Aseltine Allison Talbot Jared Friedland Nicholas Sirriano Meggie Ryer Maddie Garone

Cover Art

Sean McGuire

Contents The Extraction of Truths Via Garlic Nonfiction

Alex Epstein

Amanda Artwork

Alex Smith

His Anatomy Poetry

Kelsey Hatch

Untitled Artwork

Courtney Kuno

For Madeline Fiction

Abigail Moss

Grandpa Guild Artwork

Holly Hunold

Memory in Color Poetry

Courtney Fogarty

Untitled 2 Artwork

Courtney Kuno

Portages and Passages Nonfiction

Allison Talbot

Untitled Artwork

Holly Stewart

Creature Poetry

Kate Aseltine

Mess About Artwork

Justin Wendler

Contents Untitled Fiction

Julia Zarbetski

Alexandria Artwork

Kelsey Hatch

Facts about Convergent Boundaries Poetry

Kate Aseltine

Mushrooms! Artwork

Justin Wendler

How to Eat an Orange Nonfiction

Lettie Stratton

Window Poetry

Stephanie Eldon

Girl Across the Hall Fiction

Jack Knych

Ring So Lost Poetry

Sean Coleman

Never Turning Back Artwork

Krystal Cummings

The House They Built Nonfiction

Erin Siracusa

Canyon Glory Artwork

Laura Berger

No Catch Poetry

Jacob Brillhart

Dirty Laundry Artwork

Lettie Stratton

Country Club Croquet Fiction

Adam Terko

Contents The Fallen Ones Poetry

Christine Biles

Saving the Croghan Island Mill Nonfiction

Mike Petroni

Invoking the Life Consumerism Against Roadside Flowers Poetry

Madeleine Garone

Untitled Artwork

Lindsay Tarolli

The Sumps Fiction

Christina Sportiello

Unraveling Poetry

Margaret Lefton

Untitled Artwork

Marc Delaney

Swiss Miss Nonfiction

Madeleine Garone

Pelican Sunset Artwork

Nicole Eigbrett

Rouen 22h00 Poetry

Madeleine Garone

Raft of Beautiful Lillians Fiction

Hunter Hague

Fish Tales Artwork

Nicole Beers

Shame Poetry

Matt Saulter

Giving Tree Artwork

Paige Pasquini

The Fence Fiction

Tessa Yang

A Note About Submissions During the process of selecting submissions for publication in the Laurentian Magazine, the names of the authors and the artists remain anonymous to the editors. This is to ensure that the process is as unbiased as possible.

The students of St. Lawrence University publish The Laurentian Literary Magazine annually. ÂŠ 2011 St. Lawrence University Printed by Commercial Press, Canton, New York

Fall 2011

The Extraction of Truths Via Garlic Alex Epstein You seem to know which way to go. If you don’t, you can feel the way—apparently, rather easily. Your DNA and environmental settings have already predetermined the size and shape that will suit you best, for growing forever is the business of none. Or, perhaps, I should say that growing forever is the business of few; the few who do not understand nature. Besides, growing beyond the limits of what your physical environment is able to provide for you would do you no good. But you know this; it is built into you. Your economy is your guide. If only we could decipher our own. *** Perfectly adapted to garner adequate sunlight, while still uncompromisingly stable under your own weight, your curly scapes wind ‘round like a corkscrew-rollercoaster on a track that is still being built. Though the rate at which the new “track” is built may not live up to computerized speeds of the digital world, I encourage any fellow man or woman to stay here for a few weeks and chart this coaster’s progress with me. Watch the garlic grow, day after day. See how it changes its position in the atmosphere to adjust to the overhead sun; or, how it “reaches for the sun,” if I dare to be so blatantly anthropomorphic. By day three, you begin to admire their patient crawl towards the heavens. The end of the week has come and you’ve realized this is the right speed for them, haven’t you? Don’t extreme technological speeds seem so comical after witnessing this natural spectacle in all its glory!? “Hey, computer! Where you headed in such a hurry? Where are you going, and why do you need to get The Extraction of Truths Via Garlic

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there so damn fast!?” Time to admire and reflect; that is all we need to set our expectations and vision aright. But that is just what we are lacking: time. *** Sugars surge, by the good graces of photosynthesis, feeding and nourishing your very cells; they rush to their limits in a swirling frenzy of organized intent, just as a child’s morning juice propels up and around to the mouth through the technological whirlwind, the plastic straw. Plastic. Though the scientist has tried to mimic the garlic scape’s shape and effect, it has been largely unsuccessful. For his plastic straw will remain on this planet long after the child takes its last sip of juice and the straw is thrown in the garbage; the pleasure is lost and never to be recovered. But the garlic plant, in its vivacious image and spirit, will continue to give me pleasure long after it has returned back to the soil as humus; and, next growing year, it will rise again from the earth anew. I cannot sympathize with the straw because we do not have a similar destiny, as it has come to this Earth with the intention of trying its hand against the biodegradation skills of nature. I, however, have submitted to her laws and plan to return compliantly into the simple nutrients that occur in the soil; the simple nutrients from which I believe I was derived. It is much easier for us, as humans, to relate to and love something that lives and dies—we can build a connection to it based on a common fate; when an object never dies, the overall strength of the relationship between the person and that object is diminished. The plastic straw, which will never die, in all of its days, will still never live. I believe there is a primal instinct that, if summoned upon, can attest to this observation. *** A couple of weeks ago I snipped off the beautiful curly loops of white-green-yellow-flowery scapes, in order to concentrate the garlic flavor into the bulbs. It was a selfish act, I concede, but a hot cast-iron pan and melted 2

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butter awaited the scapes, easing the resultant pain of my actions. Oh, the pleasures of snipping, cooking, and eating, washing away my selfish greed for the pursuit of better flavor! I did not plan, however, to eat this treasure in isolation. I have realized that pleasure is enhanced when shared with others who are curious and thankful. I could not enjoy my garlic scapes, hidden in some dark corner of a room, alone. I had to eat them out in the open air that gave birth to them, with the people who will respect and listen to the garlic’s entire life processes and cycles—not just the grand finale of eating. Time to round up some friends; the sautéed scapes are starting to burn. I feel dishonorable eating you, though I planted you, at least I thought, for that very reason. In watching you grow, I have gained a respect for your magnificence that, quite simply, cannot be attained by eating you only. But you will not stay in your glorious state forever, so I must eat you. Like all living things, we climax and start to fade. You are no longer a faceless product glaring at me with mystery at the supermarket; you are a living organism in my backyard that has a history and a story, not a production quota either. You are no longer just a “Product of the U.S.A.” And hey, isn’t that a big place, anyways? I have rid myself of consumer enslavement by growing my own crop and also by rejecting the notion that the “Product of the U.S.A.” label is enough to certify the overall integrity of the “product.” If we all could produce something— anything—the cumulative effect of that community-based production would lessen the weight of the chains and burdens the unquestioning consumerist society has forced upon us. I got the garlic, how about you? Potpourri, perhaps? Who’s with me?

The Extraction of Truths Via Garlic

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“Amanda” by Alex Smith

Fall 2011

His Anatomy Kelsey Hatch feet like flounder toes like fishermen hands like compasses ears like Libra scales a nose like a centerboard lips like high tide a chin like a boxing ring eyes like a forecast cheeks like breakfast a face like a jewelry box teeth like coquina shells nostrils like attics a tongue like a racquet hair like pulp eyebrows like horse tails a mouth like a canyon nails like ripped envelopes fingers like thermometers eyelashes like comic tsunamis a belly button like Neptune a chest like a fire place nipples like barnacles a neck like stand-up comedy knees like shy girls shins like sugar cane heels like worn canvas ankles like quarters thighs like vulnerability calves like milk bottles a back like an empty bathtub shoulders like a climax arms like a wrap-around porch wrist bones like fossils

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elbows like instinct a jaw like a security grille shoulder blades like mantels palms like soap ribs like a staircase eyelids like dawn a forehead like solace buttocks like a mercator projection pubic hair like desert weeds testicles like a chandelier a penis like a movie trailer veins like silent engines a skull like a vault and temples like ink wells a temporal lobe like a soap opera a pulmonary vein like kinetic energy eardrums like cairns saliva like cellophane a parotid gland like a reservoir abdomen like folded towels a palate like a park bench tonsils like a harvest a trachea like a highway toll a diaphragm like an opening scene a uvula like a windmill a throat like a rooftop kidneys like video games arachnoid membranes like a nonstop flight a spinal cord like a seismograph bowels like a nebula a stomach like a parking ticket optical nerves like promises ligaments like sewing thread tendons like protagonists muscles like novelties lungs like bereavement a bladder like a ceiling fan an axillary vein like oiled coasts a spleen like a dictionary cranial membranes like padlocks 6

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a liver like raked leaves a colon like laundry on a clothes line arteries like tectonic plates a small intestine like a buntline hitch a large intestine like a hymnal a rectum like a rogue pituitary glands like radioactive decay sperm glands like fondue pots urine like monsoon run-off a prostate like a light switch blood like baby tears

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“Untitled” by Courtney Kuno

Fall 2011

For Madeline Abigail Moss This story is dedicated to my grandmother, Sheila, and my grandfather, Herb, who inspire me with their strength.

Five weeks before his wedding anniversary, Arthur Welles could not rest his mind, even as he rhythmically stroked and kicked through the cool water. Seventy-seven years of life had afforded him a lot of things, and the ability to calm his mind was not one of them. He saw her everywhere, in the pool’s black lane line snaking beneath him as he swam, in the sailboats silently ghosting by as he walked from the pool to his car, in the gruff fishermen hauling their lobster traps as he drove home. Arthur drove past a woman and noticed she was carrying a bright orange purse just like the one he had bought for Madeline last year, months before he found out that she was dying of cancer. Arthur wondered if it was the exact bag that he had given her. He didn’t think he knew the strolling woman, but that didn’t matter; Madeline would have given her bag away to a stranger walking by on the street. Arthur reluctantly turned his attention back to the narrow streets of Gloucester, loosening his grip on the steering wheel when he noticed how white his knuckles were. Was she giving everything of hers away in the hopes that she would erase herself, that nothing would remain that was ‘hers?’ Arthur also wondered, as he had for the past few months, what he would give to her on this year’s anniversary. It amazed him that he could find no inspiration in a place that reminded him of Madeline anywhere he looked. The following week, Arthur found himself still floundering in his indecision. Josie was of little help. “You’ve been doing this for fifty-seven years, Dad,” For Madeline

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said Josie, her voice crackling. Arthur made sure the sound volume on the telephone was at its maximum and pressed the speaker hard against his ear. “Lilly?” he asked, plugging his other ear and tilting his head downward. A resigned sigh sounded through the receiver. “It’s Josie,” she replied and despite the poor phone connection, he heard the concern in her voice. “Right. Josie.” “Why don’t you get her some nice jewelry?” It was Arthur’s turn to sigh now. Hadn’t Josie been here just two weeks ago when Madeline gave away all her jewelry? She wanted nothing more for herself; her relatives got everything. Jewelry went to the next generation of women, the ones she had cradled in her arms and kissed and called Chicklet. She had taught them to be strong and to always have an opinion. There was never anything more shameful, she told them, than not having an opinion on a matter. She had yet to realize all that she had already passed down to them. They did not need her jewelry. Three weeks before their anniversary, Madeline gave away a vase. It had sat in their front room where friends and family wiped their feet and called cheerful greetings. The vase had always sat on the little chest across from the door. It wasn’t an expensive heirloom or an item that Arthur was particularly attached to, but he was used to seeing it there every day. It was not even a very attractive piece; its floral pattern was bold and simple and unexceptional. Much to Arthur’s surprise, a friend took notice of it. Paul wasn’t even a close friend—his visits were not often. Arthur and Madeline had been getting a lot of irregular visits lately, the kind that ended later than they should have because Madeline hid her exhaustion with the expertise only a mother of six children and a grandmother of sixteen grandchildren possessed. One off-hand compliment to Madeline and Paul left the house carrying the vase wrapped in newspaper, trying to mask his confused shame with gratitude and condolences, condolences for her imminent death. The empty space on the chest caught Arthur’s eye whenever he entered the house. Days and weeks passed by, but he noticed its absence every time. 10

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“Well, you definitely shouldn’t give her another head-scarf,” said Lilly as she busily unloaded groceries in their kitchen. There were only two weeks until the anniversary dinner. Arthur anxiously looked out the window that faced the driveway. “She’ll give you hell for doing this, you know,” he said. Lilly shrugged and began to empty another plastic bag. She moved through the kitchen with a practiced ease and efficiency that he had only ever seen in Madeline. She quickly managed to put four bags worth of groceries, much of them “Heart Healthy!” items for Arthur, away without hesitation. Arthur sometimes needed to pause to remember which cupboard they kept the ginger cookies in. “Where is Mum, anyway?” asked Lilly. “Getting groceries for Fran,” replied Arthur. Lilly responded with an incredulous expression and moved onto emptying the trash, which Arthur noticed was not quite full enough to justify emptying. Lilly pushed down on the trash hard, as though all her strength was needed to compact the trash. “I know Fran needs help and she’s her sister, but Mum doesn’t have to—” Lilly gritted her teeth, pushing harder on the trash as if it was deliberately challenging her. “—help everyone.” Lilly smacked her hand down on the garbage and then just leaned against the trash can and closed her eyes. Arthur let her be a moment, then spoke. “Helping is all we can do sometimes,” he said. Lilly opened her eyes and smiled at her father. “She does too much, then.” The previous day, after having to remind Arthur again how to use his voicemail while simultaneously giving Fran a ride, Madeline had joked about how much she was taking care of everyone. “Am I not the one dying here?” she had asked, an exasperated grin stretching across her worn face. Her smile didn’t fool him anymore. He could tell when it was genuine—those occasions were becoming fewer and fewer. With each condolence, each hug, and each offering of help, her smile became more and more tired. One week before the anniversary, Madeline could For Madeline

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no longer contain her annoyance. While Madeline piled dirty plates and utensils into the kitchen sink, Arthur sat at the counter, scanning the newspaper for interesting articles. Today he couldn’t manage to find many. “I can’t stand when people say how great I look,” said Madeline as she slipped on her bright yellow rubber gloves like a soldier donning gear for battle. She turned on the faucet. “I know I look like crap.” Arthur gave up on the newspaper and instead began to watch Madeline clean the dishes. Arthur thought she looked better than great. There was a strange grace to her wiping and scrubbing and rinsing. Though she no longer had complete control and her hands shook with what looked like a fearful tremor, she insisted on doing all of the dishes at least twice a day. The task was about more than necessity, it was about consistency, about keeping things as they had always been. A soapy wine glass in hand, she turned away from the sink to gesture as she recounted the inappropriate joke Fran had made to the grocery store cashier. Fran had never been able to quit her habit of calling Japanese people “Japs,” but at her age there was no point in trying to change her. Madeline flailed her arm and lost her grip on the wine glass. In a terrifyingly long moment, the glass fell and then shattered harshly on the tile floor. The crash struck Arthur’s eardrums with an uncomfortable intensity and managed to convince him that everything around him was occurring in reality. Arthur rose from his seat a moment too late; Madeline had already crouched low around the mess. He knelt down beside her and began to help. “No, Arthur, you’ll cut yourself.” Arthur began to pick up the pieces of glass anyway. “Arthur, really, you’ll—” He nicked his thumb on a particularly jagged shard and began to bleed a little. “Oh, Arthur,” said Madeline, her eyes surveying him sadly. Arthur stuck his bleeding thumb in his mouth. “I’ll get you a bandage.” She stood up, a quiet groan in her throat as she did. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said, opening a cupboard. “We have more of these glasses than we need.” 12

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Arthur examined his thumb. “Than we will need,” he corrected. She gave him a disapproving look, but those looks (of which Madeline had a variety) had little effect on him anymore. He simply put on the bandage that she handed him and continued to pick up the glass, careful not to cut himself again. At church the next morning, Arthur dutifully did his part by handing out the hosts, saying, “Body of Christ” to those in his line. He wanted to say more. He wanted to ask them, to tell them to pray for Madeline. He was tired of just hearing that Madeline was in people’s thoughts and prayers. He wanted to promote, to recruit, to make sure. What better place than a church? This was the only place he felt any measure of solace. At home, lying in bed next to the woman with whom he had spent millions of minutes and thousands of nights—a woman who would soon be dead, he felt distant from the thought of salvation. It was like trying to find Him in a large, empty warehouse in the coldest moments of winter. He was grateful for church and its comfort. “I felt God today,” she said on the drive home, her voice and expression serious. “I’m glad,” replied Arthur. He had never meant anything so much as those words. Then, finally, it was the day of their anniversary. Dinner was a tasteful affair at the Eastern Point Yacht Club. With their two daughters and four sons around a table with them, Arthur found it difficult to believe that anything was truly dying. Sam, Peter, Henry, Josie, James, and Lilly all laughed as they recounted stories of the sibling tormenting they had done to one another and the unruly dogs that they had owned. Even though the dinner was not in the tiny kitchen they once owned and even though Madeline had not spent hours preparing the food, her place as the matriarch was undeniable. Each son and daughter unconsciously reported to her about how they were doing, as if they were children again, reporting to her what they had learned in school that day. No one was somber or pitying. They knew better. “Did you swim this morning, Dad?” asked Sam. “Every morning for the past three months.” Sam nodded in approval and gave Arthur an For Madeline

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encouraging grin, one that was quickly echoed by everyone around the table. Madeline took his hand and gripped it tightly, looking proud as she did. Arthur smiled back curtly and let the conversation move on. He didn’t need anyone focusing on his health right now. When it came time for Madeline to open gifts, she reached for Arthur’s gift first and Arthur gripped the edge of the table tightly. She unwrapped the cashmere bathrobe and smiled in delight as she caressed the fabric appreciatively. She turned to Josie and Lilly, unsure of who to thank. “That’s from Dad,” said Josie. Madeline’s smile drooped a little, and she turned to Arthur, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. This was unprecedented—a gift that wasn’t glittering jewelry or expensive accessories, things she had come to associate with this occasion. “You’re always saying how cold you are lately,” explained Arthur, suddenly becoming aware of his thump-thumping heart. Madeline looked at him with an expression of guilt for mistakes she had not yet made. Bladder cancer was not always clean. “But I’ll ruin it, Arthur,” she said. “You’ll be comfortable,” he replied. He could tell she understood then. It wasn’t a gift meant to last her years or be passed down. It was something nice that she could guiltlessly own and love for these last few months. She could move on peacefully without worrying which child it would go to. She may ruin it, but it would be hers to ruin and no one else’s. After dinner, Arthur excused himself as Madeline and Josie remained, immersed in conversation over their still-steaming cappuccinos. He walked down the sloping lawn towards the ocean and then stood on the dock as the sunset cannon sounded, making him jump. He meant to watch the golden sun slip down into the water, but a boat interrupted him. It was a small wooden boat that could comfortably seat no more than two people, he guessed. It was easily bobbed up and down and left and right by the harbor water and Arthur noticed that the cleat knot anchoring it to the dock was loose. By the next morning, this boat would surely be lost. No, thought Arthur as he bent over and tightened 14

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the knot, it would not be lost. He looked out at all of the undulating silhouettes that dotted the darkening water. There were too many boats in the harbor for it to bump up against for it to float away. Arthur heard footsteps on the creaky wooden dock planks. He turned to see Madeline, who in the cool summer evening breeze had wrapped her new robe around her. She stood by his side and he laid his arm across her shoulders. “Warm?” he asked. Madeline nodded and Arthur noticed with relief that all traces of disappointment and guilt had disappeared from her countenance. “Thank you,” she said. “You deserve more.” Now Madeline frowned as she always did when she was thinking seriously. “No,” she replied. “It’s been enough. Everything has been enough.” They stood there for a length of time watching the fading light use the sky as a canvas for its impressively vivid strokes of color. Though Madeline stood right next to him, Arthur saw her in that painted sky and smiled, grateful.

For Madeline

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“Grandpa Guild ” by Holly Hunold

Fall 2011

Memory in Color Courtney Fogarty Dark Chestnut Is the Thanksgiving at Wooltop When you were sneaking a molasses chew Into your trousersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pocket before dinner. (Hear your queer steps) Inching in silent socks on the hardwood floors It is you darting through the smoking parlor Filled with Everyone, dodging adult legs And ash trays and crystal bottles of sharp brandy (The bottles slosh fully, but are delicate) Cooking distracts those in the kitchen and you are free. It is the barn standing ready to hide candy stealers With their prizes from the prying eyes of others, The horses nickering softly from their stalls (Feel them warm against frost-tinged hands) As you rise by clumsy ladder to the hay rack. It is slow finger licking Of smoky sweet sugar And a mess from nose to chin (That molasses glue sprinkled with hard stuck hay) And you reveling in your thievery with a sticky smile It is some pair of Everyone Suddenly arriving by the biggest door Come to steal silence and space (Strain to hear the muted whispers) As they intertwine. It is Aunt Celia, all pearls and cashmere. Memory in Color

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It is her pomegranate lipstick Grazing off on his cheekbone, Two velvet half moon marks (Trace them) The color and shape both punchy and sweet It is her vanilla perfume lounging in the air With the sun smell of hay and hard metal bits Roped in leather amidst the horses’ other tack (Breathe in the finished hide) Laid over where the trough lined the walls It is Friend James. Long coat and scarf. It is his coat, For though he hasn’t one lit, Its permanent cigarette tang sticks to your tongue (Close your mouth, it burns) More than your nose It is his close cut beard shadow Scratchy, clouding his complexion And the way the coat picks up hay haphazardly (Expensive wool, because it is soft) Bright flecks caught in its dark. It is her small golden band A land-claiming flag Clasped in his unhooped one (Feel the band’s finely engraved initials: R.B.) Mismatched and rough. It is her slipping a note after her kiss Into his pocket and leaving gently. He stays and leans (Hear him creak against the knotted stable siding) To read the note to himself. It is you sitting at the smooth, wooden dinner table Later crowded with Everyone Listening as R.B. tells stories and Aunt Celia laughs (James’ voice comes from the other end of the table, 18

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separate) And she enjoys herself and lies amidst Everyone. Dark Chestnut is this table, surrounded by people you know: Warm, loving, hungry, secretiveâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Piled with a feast of foods and problems. (Taste the meats and jellies) (Hear the clatter of silverware) (Smell the soft smoke of the fireplace) (Feel the embroidery tracing leaf shapes on the tablecloth) Know you should not mention what happened in the barn.

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“Untitled 2” by Courtney Kuno

Fall 2011

Portages and Passages Allison Talbot “River ferried by Charon.” “Styx,” says Dad as my brother yells, “Peanut butter!” Mom says nothing and writes, “styx” for thirtyeight across. “Masago, e.g., at a sushi bar.” Matt, coming up with nothing as funny as peanut butter, wanders off. “Roe,” Dad says, scooting his chair closer to read over my mother’s shoulder. They bend over the paper, heads almost touching, engrossed in the terse language of crossword. Leftovers are still cooling on the counter, but the table has been cleared and wiped off for their nightly puzzle. Matt circles back, trailing after Tracks this time. Dad stops reading for a moment. “What do you guys say to going up to camp tomorrow?” “Eh,” Matt says. He’s concentrating on convincing the dog to come out from under the table. “I don’t really want to.” “It’s supposed to be a nice day,” Mom says. “If you stay home you’ll just waste it playing video games.” “Exactly.” Matt says. “Ally, do you want to--” “No,” I say. “I’d like to take a kayak paddle, maybe mow up there,” Dad says. “And put the dock out if people are up to it.” He looks around to gauge our enthusiasm. Matt starts to argue about putting the dock out, but Mom tells him to let it go. “We’ll leave at twelve,” she says. Portages and Passages

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Camp is only twenty-five minutes away, but it takes that long just to pack. We drag the big cooler out and pack drinks, sandwich meats, rolls, two kinds of cheese, ketchup and mustard, cookies, peaches and blue ice. Mom’s still scanning the cupboards when I start carrying bags out to the car. “I think we have enough,” I say. “We’re only eating supper up there.” Matt has been at the table for the last half hour, filling up before we leave. Dad comes downstairs with the juice that he’s forgotten in his hand and two books. There is an old TV at camp but it’s reserved for rainy days. Even then, the best option up there is Mr. Bean on VHS. Life at camp has its own rhythm: read until you’re too hot and swim until you’re too cold. Dad takes the food bag to the car and drops his books in the bag as he does. They fall on top of the kaiser rolls and Mom gives me a look. When we get to camp, Dad is the first to change and sit out on the deck. The sun reflects off the lake and makes him squint as he studies each sentence. I suppose it’s natural that he looks so serious, considering the type of book he prefers, but he’d look the same reading Dr. Seuss. “Dinosaur in a Haystack won out in the end, I see,” Mom whispers. “The Joys and Sorrows of Work is too straightforward,” I say. “Really too much of a beach read.” “Of course,” she says. “The day he picks up a ‘beach read’ will be the same day he looks up and notices the world instead of philosophizing about it. Not that I’m saying those two are connected,” she adds, “But neither will happen. That’s why I have to set him straight.” She pushes her hair impatiently back, smoothing a rogue curl. “Well, I’m going out to join him.” “Good luck,” she says. It’s windy and getting choppy. Matt’s gone down to open the boathouse, but quickly realizes that he doesn’t have the key. In a minute he resurfaces above the deck, taking the stairs like a football player at tire practice. “Could be winning at Wii soccer right now,” he 22

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pants. He’s gone again before Dad can say anything, so he turns to me instead. “You know,” he says, putting in a bookmark, “why I always push to come up to camp and go hiking and do all these things that you and Matt probably don’t want to do?” I can tell he’s been thinking this for a while, waiting for the opportunity to impart a lesson on us. Mostly Matt, but I am currently available and make an acceptable substitute. “I don’t know how many more days like this I’ll have. I want to make the most of them.” “Dad,” I say, “isn’t that a little dramatic? You’re not that old.” “I know, I know,” he says, spreading his hands, “but hey, give me a chance to explain. Do you want to go for a kayak paddle?” Normally I’d say no, but I’d feel too guilty at this point. I rub on sunscreen before we go; Dad slaps it on so violently I can hear him from outside. No matter how many times Dad gets into a boat he cannot do it smoothly, but he still lets me get in first so he can hold the kayak steady. We follow the familiar route around the cove, passing by camps, swimmers and the tail end of a barbecue. “I understand why you want to spend time up here,” I start, “but you don’t have to justify that with dying. Most people would just say they want to spend a relaxing day on the water. But I suppose ‘relaxing’ isn’t what you’re going for.” “No,” he says, “Relaxing is fine for an hour or so, but preferably when I’m asleep. And in my mind, it makes sense to talk this way. In Hospice, you learn quickly that death has to be talked about. And not just when you’re on your deathbed, trying to have one last meaningful conversation before you go.” “I suppose. It’s just a weird context to mention it in.” “Death is a weird concept. But thinking about it helps me to stretch out time. People are always complaining that they don’t have enough time, but I believe they’re just unsatisfied with how they’ve spent it.” He’s getting into the heart of his lecture now; he’d be talking Portages and Passages

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with his hands if he didn’t have to paddle. “A day holds the same twenty-four hours for famous leaders and thinkers as it does for the rest of us. The only difference is how we use it.” I think about that as someone goes by in a party boat. A minute later, waves beat heavier on the shore. If Mom were here, she would take this opportunity to preach the evils of procrastination. “Most people say that time flies by, but I have a different perspective,” he continues, “When I think back to before you were born or before I was married, it’s hard for me to remember what life was like. And that’s a good thing,” he says as I start to laugh. “I wouldn’t change it.” “I’m glad,” I say. My arms are tired, so I rest the paddle on the mouth of the cockpit. Now that my body has stopped moving in the kayak’s rhythm, I feel it spurt forward every time Dad takes a stroke. “It’s easy to let the time pass without noticing. That’s why I like to stick mental pushpins in it, to map where I’ve been and what I did there.” “Yeah, but I have Mom’s sense of direction,” I say. Anywhere else this might be considered lame, but that is Dad humor. “All the more reason to mark where you’ve been,” he says with a grin, speaking in the rhythm his paddle makes. The camp comes slowly into view, the boathouse expectant as an open mouth. The wind blows droplets of water onto my legs as I begin to paddle again. We drift into a comfortable silence. Even though I’m paddling again, I’m conscious of Dad’s stronger strokes pulling us in. Rocks scrape against the bottom as we beach the kayak. He ties it up carefully and stretches out his arms. “I suppose I’ll rake for a while,” he says. “Get warmed up enough for a swim.” “Ok,” I reply, “if you want to.” “I suppose raking rocks off the beach isn’t the most meaningful task in life, but every bit makes a difference for my tender feet.” 24

“He’s back on the chain gang,” I tell Mom when Portages and Passages

Fall 2011

I reach the top of the stairs. “I’d guess he’ll give himself ninety minutes of raking rocks before he allows himself to dunk.” “Typical,” she replies. “He knows that there will be more every year, but he’s still convinced that we’ll have sand one day.” “He says it makes a difference on his feet,” I say. “But after forty years of running, the amount of rocks that he’ll haul away isn’t going to do anything.” “Of course not. I think he believes that if he makes life hard enough for himself, that’ll make it worthwhile.” “I think you’re right,” I say, leaning over the railing as the first bucketload tumbles onto the pile. The noise starts low, but gets higher and faster as the bucket empties. “Your father is a very smart man,” she says, “one of the smartest I know. But god, he is dumb.” “I know,” I laugh, “I love him too.”

Portages and Passages

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Untitledâ&#x20AC;? by Holly Stewart

Fall 2011

Creature Kate Aseltine I want you inside me, And not in some bullshit metaphorical way So let’s not mince wordsI’d rather grind. This isn’t Shakespeare, You can take your iambic pentameter And shove it where the sun won’t shine. Welcome to Ginsberg’s world, Take a seat, Visitor, And get ready to HOWL There will be no rhyme or reason. I just want to get physical— Got it? Because I am not writing about souls intertwined (Though I wouldn’t mind your thighs around mine) And I can’t stomach romance, But I’m not afraid to swallow. So let’s grope and grate (Until we’re faint) Because my morning caffeine Just may be your wet dream. If this is the last gyzym of consciousness I am not about to waste a second, Or a drop So don’t compare me to a summer’s day My lips aren’t blushing pilgrims They’re conquistadors. I am a creature of modern poetry. Creature

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“Mess About” by Justin Wendler

Fall 2011

Untitled Julia Zarbetski A small child runs around their castle, ducking into rooms to fight off goblins and dragons, occasionally saving a princess or two. A brave knight. “No, Stockton, I want the meeting pushed UP from Thursday, not back.” The child battles evil witches and warlocks for a fortnight, and then arranges a meeting with the King. But the King is on his cellphone. The child is a pirate sailing the seven seas and pillaging unsuspecting ships. They get into swordfights, and almost get swallowed alive by the Kraken. “Of course I can work late this next week, it’s not an issue.” The child is stranded on an island, because their Captain was in a late business meeting. “Promotion? In China… oh, well…no, of course I’ll take it.” A small child sits in their room, staying a small child, because how can they be knights or pirates without Kings or Captains?

Untitled

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“Alexandra” by Kelsey Hatch

Fall 2011

Facts about Convergent Boundaries Kate Aseltine We are concave, convex, and complex, Composed of gradient nuances that lend us sex Creatures born of mountains and trenches Pilfering adrenaline from sudden wrenches We give meaning to hollow places Clavicles and cleavage become sacred spaces Contours traversed with tectonic palms Where trembling rifts expel magmatic alms We shudder, we cling, finding groves to grate on Ever restless on the crest of turbid elation Our sordid landscapes swallowed by the chasm Our cores compelling subversion and spasm And with conviction in convection We grasp the magnitude of connection

Facts about Convergent Boundaries

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“Mushrooms!” by Justin Wendler

Fall 2011

How to Eat an Orange Lettie Stratton How does a good Buddhist eat an orange? I had never thought about it. Professor James Boyd, or BoydoSensei as we fondly called him, asked my Semester at Sea World Religions class this very question one morning as we floated on the Pacific, headed for Kobe, Japan. It was especially blustery outside and the frail girl next to me had just fallen out of her desk due to the rising and falling of the ship. Meanwhile, we were learning about Buddhism. I was sitting in the front row, peeling an orange that I had illegally taken from the dining room only moments before. Boydo-Sensei saw me struggling to remove the orange rind and launched into an impassioned story about his days as a student of my new favorite religion. Boydo-Sensei was in a café, drinking coffee with a Buddhist man who he said was far wiser than himself, although I find it hard to imagine anyone wiser than BoydoSensei. Beside Boydo and his Buddhist teacher, there was only one other person in the café: a monk—sitting behind them and eating an orange as he read the newspaper. Once in a while, the monk would take a sip of coffee from the mug near his hand that wasn’t busy flipping pages. Boydo’s teacher said, “Look, James, look—bad Buddhist.” Not giving into the blank look he received from his baffled student, the teacher repeated, “Look—bad Buddhist.” Boydo-Sensei explained to my class that the monk was not eating his orange in a mindful way. How could he focus on the flavor and the experience of eating the orange while he was preoccupied with the newspaper and what the headlines said and getting his coffee mug to his lips without spilling the hot liquid all over his orange Monk-ish robes? He could not possibly be truly tasting the orange because he wasn’t absorbed in the present moment, enjoying the orange for what it was, and for that, he was a bad Buddhist. How to Eat an Orange

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As I left class, I asked myself, had I ever really tasted an orange before? Had I slowed down enough, with anything, to really experience it, embody it? Boydo-Sensei challenged my class to go into the dining room, illegally take fruit from it (as I had already done), and taste it—really taste it. He told us to put one section of the orange on our tongues and hold it there. Feel the texture, he said, feel the weight of it in your mouth. Bite into the fruit slowly, he said, see how juicy it becomes when the skin is pierced by your teeth. Nature created this, he said, this fruit that’s in your mouth that you usually chew without a second thought. If someone had asked me how my orange tasted previous to this class/moment of enlightenment, I would have probably said something along the lines of, “uhhh, good?” and moved on to the next bite, eager to get on with other activities. There was sunbathing to be done on Deck 7 and planning to be done for my upcoming arrival in Kobe—who had time to taste oranges? After hearing Boydo-Sensei speak, though, I too wanted to be a good Buddhist. I sat down with my orange and now, I wanted to know what it tasted like. It tasted like orange, yes, but it became more than that. When I looked closely at the peeled sections, I couldn’t get over the beauty of the orange itself, the intimacy of peeling back the saturated skin and biting into it, spitting out the seeds and discarding the white, stringy pieces of peel still attached. At this moment, I felt, Boydo-Sensei’s teacher would have been proud. “Good Buddhist,” he would say. Good Buddhist.

How to Eat an Orange

Fall 2011

Window Stephanie Eldon The off-white paint And fancy draperies Dressed you in The most Victorian way. Like a mother should, You kept me safe in my room— Allowing me to escape Or breathe. As I pleased. My legs lay stretched out With knees barely bent As my back rested against your sturdy frame Branded—once—by your threshold; The splintery wooden panes, Always exposing their sharp spears— Scatter my body with scars. I crept into your embrace, Hiding, Sneaking, Confessing— But they found everything, They always find everything. Alone We were both Punished by my sinister acts— Fresh flesh, filleted From my forearms Window

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Surrendering to this foreign place, So wan and bland White shoes, white coats, white pillsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; In a way, this reminds me of you. How I left my lifeless body Hanging, half inâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;half out, Staining your white dress . Sorry So high, the hole in the wall, Climbing is no option. Besides, your arms can no longer hold me, For metal bars take my place.

Window

Fall 2011

Girl Across the Hall Jack Knych I just hung out with this girl who lives across the hall from me. But nothing really happened. When I went to her apartment she was half-dressed. She let me in with an embarrassed laugh and told me to wait in her bedroom while she put on some clothes in the bathroom. I waited in her room and observed the bed, perfume, clothes, and shoes. Sometimes you can get a pretty good read on someone based on how their room looks. As I started sipping the beer I had brought, she came in. “Oh. You brought beer. How nice.” She grabbed one. I gave her a bottle-opener. She cracked the beer with ease. Then she took three long gulps. “I like this beer.” “It’s one of my favorites,” I said. Then we started talking some more. “So what are you doing tonight?” she asked me. “I don’t know yet.” Then I asked her some questions. “What are you doing tonight? Where are you going? How do you like your apartment? Would you ever want to live in the city when you’re older? Do you like having to put all that makeup on? Do you like being a girl?” I asked the majority of the questions. She thought I was funny sometimes. Time passed. Then she said it. “My boyfriend will be here in thirty minutes, but you can stay because he won’t care.” “No. I will leave in fifteen minutes. It doesn’t Girl Across the Hall

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matter how much he says he doesn’t care. He will care.” “Oh. Whatever you prefer.” At this point I was in the kitchen talking to her while she was in her bedroom. She couldn’t see me. I couldn’t see her. But then she came out of her room on the way to the bathroom. We looked at each other. I was in her way, so she pushed me gently to the side. I felt my stomach tingle as she touched me. “Get out of my way boy. I have to continue putting my face on.” I laughed, but I didn’t think what she said was funny. While she was in the bathroom, the beer was finished. I had brought four beers. She drank half a beer. I drank three and a half beers. “How do you think I look?” She stepped out of the bathroom in a stunning white dress. The dress was very short. She had smooth legs. Her face was bright, but her eyes were dark. She was beautiful. “You look great.” “Good.” Just then her cell phone rang. It was her boyfriend. She went into the bathroom for some privacy. I listened to the conversation. “What’s wrong?...Your roommates aren’t there?... Just pick something out I don’t care what you wear…What am I wearing?...Currently now?...I think I’m going to wear a white dress….You like that?...Alright see you in a few.” She stepped out into the kitchen. “I have a big problem.” “What is it?” “You can see my underwear through this white dress.” Just then I noticed her dark green underwear through her white dress. “So?” “I’m going to change my underwear.” “Ok.” While she was in her room I thought about what I was doing there in her apartment. She came out flustered. “Another problem.” “What?” “I can’t change my underwear. I need to change my dress.” “Do you only have dark underwear?” “Maybe,” she said with a smile. So she went about trying to find a new dress. The alcohol had made me more relaxed 38

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than when I first got there. I thought our conversations were going well. I asked her about all kinds of things. “Are you enjoying your job? How long have you been dating your boyfriend? Do you like your roommates? Where did your boyfriend take you out on your first date? You’re a dancer, so what’s your favorite type of dance? How long have you and your boyfriend been dating?” Again, I asked most the questions. But then the conversation took an interesting turn. I can’t remember how we got there. She asked me: “Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend?” I paused too long and said, “No.” “You definitely have.” “Ok I have. But let me explain.” “Explain.” “We weren’t officially dating. I went away to a summer camp and met a new girl. We hooked up once, then I told her we shouldn’t do this anymore.” “You were at summer camp? Then that’s completely fine.” “I guess. What about you?” “Oh no.” “…” “I had a boyfriend cheat on me when I was younger. I’ve never cheated on a boyfriend. And I never will.” “Yeah. I feel like if you’ve been cheated on first, you’re much less likely to cheat on someone else.” “You’re right. I will never ever cheat on my boyfriend.” “That’s good. I feel like if you want to cheat on someone you’re with, then that means that you don’t want to be with them in the first place. But everyone says that.” “That makes sense though.” “Yeah I guess it does. “…” “I should probably go.” “Ok.” I walked to the front door. Before I left we looked at each other and smiled. She seemed ready to go out. She looked beautiful. I spoke. Girl Across the Hall

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“Alright I’m going to head out now.” “Well I’m glad you came over. It was fun.” “Yeah, I’m glad I could be your…what’s the word…fake girlfriend.” I tried to convey to her that I hated everything that happened in the last hour. “You’re funny. Don’t worry, you’re fine.” While she said that I opened her front door, left, and went across the hall to my place. My roommates were gone. I went to my room, but decided I didn’t want to be there. I went to the kitchen, and didn’t want to be there either. My cell phone didn’t have any unread messages on it. Just then I remembered that I had needed to go the bathroom for the past fifteen minutes. While I went to the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. There were water stains on my shirt from when I took a shower two hours ago. I thought those would have dried by now. My hair was too long. I told myself I would get a haircut tomorrow. My face needed a shave as well. But girls like a little facial hair. Overall, I thought I looked pretty good in the mirror. When I finished going to the bathroom, I heard a door open outside my apartment. Don’t go look in the peephole. Stay where you are. Don’t look. It’s probably not her. Don’t sink that low. Stay where you are you bastard. Anyway, I walked to my door and looked through the peephole. There she was. She was wearing that white dress. You could see her dark green underwear through it. She looked beautiful. My mind started racing. See if she looks at your door. C’mon look at the door. You know I’m in here. Look at the door. The elevator took a long time to come up. She fixed her hair while she waited. She never looked at the door. When the elevator opened she stepped in and was gone. But she lives across the hall, so I guess I’ll see her later.

Girl Across the Hall

Fall 2011

Ring So Lost Sean Coleman In a moment of desperate sadness I left her ring upon a rocky pedestal, Putting away the deep distress, And leaving it to the wind’s push and pull. And there it sat For ages and ages hence, The object of desire that Made me lose all my sense. That little silver circlet, Worn and aging, Left to nature’s judgment; To wind and rain and storms raging. Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold; Through earth’s torment and days grown old It wears away upon that mossy rock, Hidden in winds that whisper and trees that talk. Lamenting I return, but find them melded together, And yet I do not feel downtrodden; Though deep within the rock it is now bound forever, Never shall she be forgotten.

Ring So Lost

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never Turning Backâ&#x20AC;? by Krystal Cummings

Fall 2011

The House They Built Erin Siracusa My mother built our house in the summer of 1982. Of course it wasn’t really “ours” yet since I was little more than a fleeting thought in my mother’s mind at that time, if even that. But it was the house that was to become ours, and it was the house that was to become part of us. I don’t know when the idea first took hold of my mother to buy a plot of overgrown farmland and build a log house, high up in the hills of the Finger Lakes. Maybe it was her sixth grade model cabin project, or the night classes in carpentry at GCC. Maybe it was her desperate need to have a place to call her own, or maybe it was our voices, calling to her from the distant, unforeseen future, saying we would need this house to hold us together, that this would be the glue that mortared us all to the earth. Maybe, like so much else in my family, there’s not necessarily one truth. My mom is fond of telling the story of the contractor who told her she couldn’t do it, couldn’t build a house because she was a woman, because she couldn’t drive ten-inch spikes with three blows of a sledgehammer. My mother hates the word “can’t.” And she despises it when used in combination with the word “woman” and “you.” So in the summer of 1982 with $50,000 in loans, a scanty tool kit, five dogs, thirty-two acres of land and a tent, my mom set out to prove that “can’t” simply didn’t exist in her vocabulary, and that a ten-inch spike could be as easily driven in with half a dozen swings of a small sledgehammer as with three swings of a big one. In other words, “macho” simply didn’t exist in her vocabulary either. She was an original “Rosie the Riveter,” with “We Can Do It!” stamped on every inch of her dirt-stained hands and sweat-soaked bandana, and I pity any man who stood in her way. The House They Built

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There’s a stream that runs past the north side of our house. Not a big one, just a small crick, maybe four hand-spans across at its widest point, the kind that dries up into an empty bed in the hot months of the summer but can just as quickly flood its banks and drown our garden, a spring’s worth of work, in a single torrential downpour. It’s the same stream that runs past the bedroom I share with my sister. A loft really, where I squish my nose to the screen of the window, my cheek pressed tightly to the warm, rough hewn logs as I listen to her gurgling laughter and nonsensical words carried upwards on the cool breeze of an early summer night, teasing me with things I do not know and cannot possibly understand. And sometimes hers is the chatter that drowns out the words I cannot stand to hear. It’s the same water that my parents bathed in when my dad moved into the house in the fall of 1987. On bitter winter nights with no electricity and no running water they would dig through four feet of snow and then chop through two inches of ice to carry bucket load after bucket load of freezing water to be heated on the cast-iron wood stove for a lukewarm bath, a simple dinner, and clean dishes. The idyllic existence, I had thought. Two young people in love with each other and with the world around them, existing only in the breath of the moment, in the silence that comes with no TVs, no computers, no iPods, only two hearts beating in one moment of time, tattooing the timeless rhythm of life. In my memory they are forever fixed in the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp, hands flitting in the darkness like shadows on a wall, laughter caught in puffs of breath between frozen streams and spinning stars. But of course there is no memory, because I was never really there at all. Sometimes we think we know our families better than we actually do, and it’s only when all the layers have been stripped away and we are left holding the naked truth that we realize how different it is from the truth we’ve spent our lives clinging to. In November of 1982, a week before my mom was to move into the house, the doors and windows were put in, the locks installed. That same night the house that had 44

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Fall 2011

stood for weeks, unprotected and unmolested, was broken into; like a candy jar that, when placed out of reach, just can’t be resisted any longer. The more unobtainable the prize, the more desirable the object in question becomes. One broken window later, a sparse toolbox and a summer’s worth of memories, captured in still black and white, were gone. One cannot help but wonder where such memories go, undeveloped and discarded, bleached by the sun, never to be seen by human eyes. Do they cease to exist, or do they continue to persist in the minds eye, a single snapshot, a smile, a laugh, retained through the lens of time? Is a life built on memory enough? Without those crisp black and white shots do we understand fully the foundations of what we’ve become? Somewhere in the mix there’s a broken window that we piece back together with shards of what we think we know and somewhere in the dark there’s the piece we grope blindly for, not realizing we’ve come across it until it’s embedded too deeply to pull back out. It was difficult, I think, for my father to give up everything he knew when I was born. Unavoidable, perhaps, but no less difficult despite its inevitability. Kodak was going to ship him halfway around the world to Finland, and so in the winter of 1991, at the age of 42 the breadwinner became the homemaker. It was a role that he filled exceptionally well, but I think that at some deeper psychological level he struggled with this role reversal. My father came from a family with an authoritative father figure (a grandfather I never knew), whose word was law. Now, married to my mother, a woman who was as tough as the nails with which she built their house, he was caught in a paradox of tradition. A clash between them was inevitable from the beginning. It would be wrong to say that their arguments defined my childhood, because they did not. They were a passing breeze in light of the warmth and love I experienced as a child. But the fact is, they do define my memories. Some of my earliest recollections are of my father’s whiskery beard curling against the sensitive skin of my neck and tickling me until I can’t breathe, my mother’s silky fingers combing my hair into plaits. But the The House They Built

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arguments are clearer than any. The ones that would start like a whisper in the night, insinuating themselves into my sleep, wrapping their tendrils around me until I lay immobilized in bed, breathing shallowly, my heart racing. I had two Dwarf Rex rabbits once, and whenever I would reach to pick one up they would back themselves into a corner, their bodies pressed tight to the cage floor, their chest’s quivering with their rapid heartbeat and their eyes wide and glassy with fear. I was that rabbit, with my back wedged between two logs that cradled me in their sturdy embrace, desperately seeking reassurance that these foundations built with love and toil would not, could not, be destroyed in a single night. I was so afraid of making a noise that I would wad an edge of my pillow up and stuff it in my mouth, cutting off the shallow whine that would sometimes escape from my throat. I would tremble there until my pillow was soaked with saliva and silent tears, straining to hear the gurgle of a river that flowed, seemingly miles and years away, under a thick layer of ice and the laughter of two human beings before the world was color and sound and noise. Sometimes when the morning came I would think that it had all been a bad dream. Despite my cramped limbs and bloodshot eyes I had the audacity to convince myself that since no one had heard me, it had never really happened, it wasn’t real. And I would play this charade until I saw the empty bed and the cold coffee mug. Then the fear would settle, like a rock in the pit of my stomach, not knowing where he was, if he was OK, when—or if—he was coming back. I have never known, not even once, if my mother cared that he was gone. She was like the logs that surrounded us, unyielding and resilient. With a smile she would ask us, “Pancakes?” as we came drifting down the stairs. But we all knew that Dad made the pancakes and no one made pancakes like him. And so we would waltz, passing in and out of the logs like wisps of smoke, wrapped in too tight smiles and webs of half-spoken truths while the house whispered secrets of its own. In the summer of 1986 my parents built the garage together. On weekends between Friday dinner and Sunday service they labored among the birds and chattering red squirrels, the crows calling raucously and the turkeys 46

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gobbling from the woods nearby. When their muscles ached with exertion and their bodies were covered in the fine film of sweat that denotes a hard day’s work, they would collapse under the big maple tree, the same maple that I would climb as a kid ten years later. Sometimes they would find enough energy to eat a little food, other times they would fall asleep with the warmth of sunlight behind their eyes. My mom had a big German shepherd named Loki at the time, who, while not the brightest dog ever to be born, was an expert thief. And so the cooler, often left unattended while they slept, would be thoroughly and skillfully raided by the time they awoke. Yet there would be absolutely no sign (besides the missing food) that a disturbance of any kind had occurred. The cooler would stand where it had been left, securely closed, and not a single jar, bowl or container would be out of place. Loki was an artist. So were my parents. That cooler was our family after every argument: static, unchanged, raw. Existing on a fragile paradigm of pretense. My dad would come home and my relief would echo like a collective sigh around the empty space. Things would return to normal. We were experts at pretending like nothing had happened, because we were all too afraid to look each other in the eye and face the truth of love and family and the relationships we all build and break. I think it’s a natural curiosity to want to know how your parents first met. My mom and dad were always strangely close-mouthed about the subject. Whenever it was brought up in good-natured teasing they would find some way to evade the question, while meanwhile, I was burning with the desire to know. What was this love they had shared, strong enough to bind two people for life? The only thing my mother would ever say on the subject was that she and my father met in graduate school. That was it. From that point on everything else was ancient history as far as she was concerned. I remember clearly the day I first heard my parents’ story. The shouting and screaming and swearing, the house reverberating with explosive anger, fear, and pain, my sister balled up in my arms, crying so hard it sounds like her lungs might rip themselves in two, begging me to make them stop. And I’m crying silently, because I have no The House They Built

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words left, because I can’t let them hear me, because the house is weeping too, the foundations puddling at our feet. I can’t make them stop, and maybe that hurts most of all. Then comes the silence in the eye of the storm: “Oh Jesus, don’t act so fucking high and mighty, you’re just as guilty as I am. It takes two people to have an affair.” I wonder if it’s naiveté or just simple childhood innocence to believe that you are the center of your parents’ relationship, that neither the past nor future matters. It doesn’t matter that your dad had a previous wife and two daughters. As much as you love your half-sisters, you never give thought to their ordeal because you are the center of your parents’ universe, and this is your family now. Affair. That one word sends you running; spinning, choking, scrabbling at the dirt for something tangible to hold on to, wrapping your body around a tree, as if that might somehow tether you to the earth. And you can’t see through the tears but you hold onto that bark for all your worth, while Dad yells at you to “get a grip.” But he doesn’t know what betrayal it is for your existence to get caught up in half-truths and the lies you tell yourself because you think you know. For a moment there is only air and you float, suspended above time and place. There is only this, a single truth, and it might change everything, or it might change nothing at all. On the mantle there is a picture of my parents wedding. It is the only picture I have ever seen of their wedding and for all I know it may be the only picture that exists. In it they are both smiling, looking shyly at the ground. My dad is wearing a hand-knit blue sweater that he’s worn many times since. My mom is dressed in a simple white sweater and long red skirt. Her right hand is clasped with my dad’s and her left holds a bouquet of wild flowers. In the distance the house stands tall and proud, richly colored in the early autumn sunlight. The engraving at the bottom of the picture frame reads October 8, 1989. I was born in January of 1990. If you look close enough you can see the rounded bump beneath my mother’s sweater that is me. Now that I see it I am amazed that I have never noticed it before. Staring 48

The House They Built

Fall 2011

intently I almost will my mother to look up, to catch my eyes with her hazel ones and to explain to me what that life is that she is carrying within her. The product of an affair, the progeny of love, or a mistake? Was I the impetus behind their marriage or an inevitable outcome of their love? Maybe one day I’ll work up enough courage to ask. Sometimes, as I stare at the chinked logs in the light of the fading sun, and trace with my eyes their aged and weathered contours, I can’t help but think that this house is the only thing that keeps us tethered to the ground, and to each other; that without it, we would have gotten lost long ago in our own silences. It is what keeps my dad coming back, half delirious, after a sleepless night roaming the roads, the half-shadowed memory of a frozen stream and laughter, and warm golden light spilling from a kerosene lamp into the darkness. At night when I lay in bed I often stare up at the vaulted ceiling, and in the dim recesses I can just make out a footprint against the grain of the wood. I like to imagine that my parents danced there, that in a world of silence and darkness, holding on to each other they defied gravity and the odds of divorces and affairs. But the fact is, I don’t know. The only truth I do know is that this house was built with love and strong hands; with the sweat of a hard day’s work and the half-truths we tell ourselves at night. And so I lie there as the house breathes and sighs. In the stillness of the shadows, careful not to make a sound, I press my body against the craggy unyielding logs, my ear tucked neatly into a whorl in the wood and hoping against hope that somehow I can hear the sound of two heartbeats echoing across time.

The House They Built

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Canyon Gloryâ&#x20AC;? by Laura Berger

Fall 2011

No Catch Jacob Brillhart A whimsical line lays cast Across the ripples raised By wind: the soft breeze Breaks what once was smooth. Line catches light, Shines for a moment, white Like barkless twig Bearing red apple. Red apple bobs, once, Twice, but no catch, Fish slips Away, deeper into dark Weedy waters. Aw well, Wormâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gone Enough fish for now Circling round In bottom of bucket Eyes flickering, gills breathing, But not for long, Lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s as short As a broken worm. Breathe while you can.

No Catch

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dirty Laundryâ&#x20AC;? by Lettie Stratton

Fall 2011

Country Club Croquet Adam Terko I gave a guy a life sentence once for hitting me in the head with a croquette racket. Here’s how it happened. We were playing croquet one day (no shit, right?), and I could just tell there was something off about this guy. First off, he was choked way too low on the racket handle. “You don’t know much about croquet, do you?” I asked him. “What’s it to you?” he replied, spreading his arms out wide and low in a “come n’ get me” stance. I stayed put. I looked closely at his attire. Flip-flops. Ripped khakis. One of those shirts that is made to look like a full tuxedo but is really just a cotton T-shirt with a tuxedo pattern drawn on the fabric. I had thought he was trying to be ironic. Now I knew he was most definitely not a paying member of this country club like me. Must’ve slid through some hedges, or swam through one of the coy ponds, or whatever other foul things people must do to sneak by the valets and greeters at the main entrance. They added more gates and fences to this club every year. It still couldn’t keep out all the riff raff. I often wondered when they were going to put bars in the dining room windows. God, there was a lot of trash around here. This guy was a joke. “You’re not fooling anyone!” I said to him, and then raised my voice more. “You’ve never played croquet in your life. You don’t even know how to spell ‘croquet’! You couldn’t buy a croquet set with your life savings! You better just back over whatever fence you scaled to get in here and book it back to your cardboard box, buddy!” Now that I knew the guy was trash I didn’t hold back. That gin and tonic he was drinking was probably just water from the same local fountain he took his daily bath in. I didn’t want to know which poor old man he’d stolen his nice Country Club Croquet

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silver watch from, or whose car keys I heard jingling in his pocket as he ran at me, croquet racket held high above his head. Next thing I know I’m waking up in a hospital. Next thing I know I’m in a courtroom; bandages wrapped every which way around my head except for a few wellplaced slits I can see, smell, taste and hear through. One of the things I see across the courtroom is the man from the country club. He’s called to the stand as a lawyer holds up a battered croquet racket. He is wearing a suit and tie, a nice one at that, and he nods yes when the lawyer makes a smashing motion in the air with the racket. Next thing I know I’m back at the country club and the man is nowhere to be seen. They gave him life. Life. And they’ve installed bars on the dining room windows.

Country Club Croquet

Fall 2011

The Fallen Ones Christine Biles I am waiting for the leaves to fall. The air is cool, the wind cold, now is the time to change colors, to burn in the deceptive sunshine. Then drift, crisp, to the ground, to be crushed with a crunch, broken under my foot as I walk amongst the ones who could hold on no longer. You should know though, when I break you, you break me. For when I hear your crackle and feel your crunch, I am taken back to think of my past. I had a swing set back then, colored in blue and maroon paint, old and chipped, surrounded by the softest grass I have ever known. We would uncover the green of that grass, Dad and I, as we raked the fallen ones into piles. Then, as the sun filtered through the low-horizon, casting a calmer light, I would jump high, and fall intentionally into the crispy pillow. And he would watch, my Dad, then smile, The Fallen Ones

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not quite making it to a laugh. And I would see his smile and feel safe. So fall. Let go. And I will walk amongst you in the calmer light of the low-horizon sun, picturing the past, not quite making it to a laugh.

The Fallen Ones

Fall 2011

Saving the Croghan Island Mill Mike Petroni The Croghan Island Mill draws power from the Beaver River in the western Adirondack fringe town of Croghan, New York. John Martin, owner and operator of the mill, is one of the last expert carpenters who saws, drills and sands with the traditional mechanical power from a water wheel. He will replicate anything wooden; just bring him a picture and dimensions. The Mill was built in the late 19th century, riding the post-Civil War industrial boom and taking advantage of the New York lumber trade which was leading the nation at the time. The Croghan Island Mill watched as the town grew around it and the three other mills on the dam. Log jams extended miles and miles up the Beaver River into the Adirondack forests. In the winter, it took a team of 400 men and 200 horses to haul the timber. The Croghan Island Millâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story has been one of survival. In 1912, a fire burned 42 buildings in Croghan, but the mill escaped the blaze, ready to rebuild. Over the years the mill has passed through several different owners and other smaller fires, always finding some way to keep its saws turning. In 2011, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the only mill remaining in Croghan and one of the last remaining water wheel operated mills in New York. At this point it may even outlast the dam that it sits on. Constructed in 1918 to replace the earlier log crib dam which had failed, the 93 year old two-section Croghan Dam straddles the Island and it is visibly disintegrating. The stone and concrete, mixed and poured in around-the-clock shifts by every able bodied 1918 citizen of Croghan, has cracked, spalled, and eroded over the years without any significant repairs. After thirty years of waiting, the NYSDEC in charge of dam safety has begun lowering the reservoir in preparation of breaching the dam. Saving the Croghan Island Mill

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Stressed by lower water levels, the water wheel at the Croghan Island Mill was in danger of breaking which would force the mill to run on expensive electric power for the first time in over a century. John said he would have to close the mill, the fire department would need a new source of water, and a park on the reservoir would go dry. The town of Croghan reacted. Something had to be done. Without the estimated 1.5 million dollars to repair the dam, former mayor of Croghan and good friend of John’s, Glen Gagnier, began asking for help. In a Utica hardware store, he ran into Arnie Talgo, a retired analyst from the New York Power Authority and member of numerous North County organizations. Arnie saw potential in the project and, most importantly, in renewable energy. He called his good friend Amanda Lavigne, an assistant professor in Environmental Studies at St. Lawrence University and started talking, as all good retired men love to do. One of the most powerful testaments to the importance of the Croghan Island Mill and Dam lies in my own Croghan story. I am a twenty-one-year-old rising senior at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Until about a year or so ago, I had no real connection to the North Country. It was a place I had to drive to. To me it seemed flat and forgotten, a rusting part of America that never truly shined anyway. SLU was my only connection to this place, and you could barely call it that. Looking at the North Country from SLU is like looking out of a snow globe. St. Lawrence is private, protected and a place apart. I was not a history buff, not an environmental activist, not a volunteer, writer, or leader when I first stepped foot in the North Country. I wanted to have fun in college, to go to parties and meet girls. Learning, growing and experiencing the North County were not a part of the plan. I walked into Professor Lavigne’s Energy and the Environment class last fall not knowing I was about to be hit by a freight train. Amanda’s sturdy, no-nonsense tone crashed through my ideals and security like they were dikes made of ply wood. The world is in trouble, and it is our fault. Fossil fuels, those beautiful slow cooked molecules. Those dense, transportable, energy sources are not free or infinite, nor even plentiful anymore. But the world as we know it is built upon them. Without the gasoline to get our 58

Saving the Croghan Island Mill

Fall 2011

food from Mexico or California to the local Price Chopper, we will not be able to eat, and we will die along with the 7 billion others on this planet who never bothered to learn how to grow and store food to sustain themselves. The doubters tell us that the fossil fuel shortage is too far away to be worried about; they say it will all be figured out by then. As a student, I know that any deadline is worth preparing for early. Otherwise you wait too long, cram, and fail the test. I wouldn’t be too worried if this were eighth grade algebra, but it’s not. This is the test to see if civilization can avoid destroying itself. A bad grade on this one results in more than a slap on the wrist from Mom: it means planet-wide suffering, death and chaos. Talk about a kick in the teeth. The first few weeks of that semester, I lay awake in my dorm bed worrying. So many of the things I enjoyed—the computer, the car, the music, the movies, the heat, the comfort and convenience— they were all the result of burning fossil fuels. Suddenly, I lost faith in the American dream; I even began to resent it. I need to do something and I needed to do it quickly. Then we began to learn about renewables, efficiency, and conservation. Decentralized, small scale, renewable energy production can clean up our footprint, encourage us to use energy more smartly, give towns and villages more cost options, and, almost as an afterthought, be a safer energy production system that’s less vulnerable to mass blackouts or terrorist attacks. The Croghan Dam had the potential to help realize this system of smaller decentralized power, so we traveled down for a visit. As we pulled into the Bridge Street Park across the river from the Mill, Glen stepped out of his car with a box of Croghan Candy Kitchen chocolates. He handed them to us and led us to the mill. I could feel the vibrations on the first step. The hum of the waterwheel gave the Croghan Island Mill the feel of a beehive. Speaking loudly over the steady murmur, John showed us the powerhouse and the intricate system of belts which could power the twelve machines in the shop simultaneously without pause or strain. I felt like I was in another century, but what was truly amazing to me was the evidence. This place, the Croghan Island Mill proved that modern life had and could still exist without fossil fuels. Saving the Croghan Island Mill

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Sitting in a meeting with Arnie and Glen, the Energy class planned out our semester project on the Croghan dam. Our task: find a way to save the Croghan Island Mill and Dam and promote the renewable energy lifestyle represented there. This was the first project I had done like this. It involved no hypotheticals, no wiggle room. The project, people, and problem were real. I knew I was hooked when Arnie looked at all of us and, in his deep gravelly voice, declared that this was what everyone had been talking about and desperately needed. This was renewable energy and if we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do it at Croghan we had no hope of doing it anywhere else. With some help and hard research we produced a presentation and paper. The report suggested adding a hydroelectric production unit of some kind to the dam using the energy to add value to local business, like maple syrup or bologna production, or using the energy to bring new businesses to town and create green jobs. On-site businesses could use the electricity directly and off-grid, making it more cost-effective. We wanted to recreate the idea of the mill and bring businesses back to the river, back to small towns like Croghan. Local radio stations and papers were covering our progress and given the 6,907 dams in New York State, some renewable energy fans thought our idea was a good one. The college parties became a bit less exciting for me. Although still very much a part of my experience, I began to realize that booze and girls would not be the defining events of my college years. I signed up for an independent study to continue to work on the Croghan Dam with Amanda, Arnie and Glen. The report had sparked some interest but we were still far from getting funding. My task was to present our plea to what Arnie called â&#x20AC;&#x153;the court of public opinion.â&#x20AC;? So I created a Facebook group and I started emailing like mad. I was looking for money, but I found something far more influential. It started with a group called Traditional Arts of Upstate New York (T.A.U.N.Y) that exposed me to the enchanting history of the backwoods and farm country filled with canoe builders, hops growers and storytellers. They wanted to preserve the way of life I had gotten a small taste of at the Island Mill. I met small organic farmers. I 60

Saving the Croghan Island Mill

Fall 2011

met builders who made homes and dams with recycled and scrounged materials. I met young and old energy activists, frustrated with oil and war and dependency. I met people who loved more than anything, to be outdoors, to run the rivers and climb the peaks, to work with their hands, to tend and build, to harvest and protect. These were not public figures. Never would you see them on the television. With a little digging, I found a network of folks, organizations, towns and schools all with the same desire: to live simple, happy and free from the sprawling chaos of American consumerism. Suddenly, the North Country was no longer a place to drive to, but a place to escape to. So I decided to spend my summer there and see if I could further help Croghan. When I was not emailing and researching, I paddled the rivers and biked down farm roads and through sugar maple tunnels. I helped plant a garden. I ate with locals, sharing and listening to stories. Walking carefully atop the Croghan Dam, I watched the water crash over the spillways. Standing on those stones, being mesmerized by the churning power, I joined generations of men and women before me: dam builders, log drivers, growers, fishers, paddlers, all of whom have been inspired by the unique properties and importance of water. I turned and looked up the river. For a moment, I saw the jam with men walking atop the floating Adirondack logs. I could barely hear their shouts above the four purring waterwheels. I sensed the hopefulness and relief after the war, the joy of boom-time. Then trees came down and the cows came in on the train, then the roads. Kids launched off a plastic diving board into the deep area behind the south section of the dam. I jumped into the water and swam around the reservoir a bit, coming back to the present and realizing how easy it is to underappreciate a place you do not call home. I had been in the North Country physically for years without taking time to learn about it. When I finally took notice of the history and connected to the energy, when I finally took the time to look and feel and ask, I found a quiet, hidden, and beautiful community of which I had become a part of. This community had been working with the land in sustainable way for hundreds of years, and the Croghan Island Mill has seen and survived it all. It remains Saving the Croghan Island Mill

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today a physical reminder of a nearly lost and increasingly valuable lifestyle and it has surely affected me. All the while, the North Country network was organizing and no one said that saving this landmark was a bad idea. In July we received a grant of $99,000 from the USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG) program to do a design study on the dam. With this news, the NYSDEC agreed to halt their stop log removal. It is a temporary victory for the team, allowing us more time to find funding. John Martin will not have to close his doors just yet, and in fact may be opening them more often to tour groups. Glen Gagnier working with the Lewis County Development Corporation received matching funds from the town, the village, the fire departments, and other local businesses to perform the study. Just like in 1918, when the dam was constructed by every able-bodied citizen in Croghan, today the community is uniting yet again to save their history, their energy and their water. I am happy to be just a small part of this effort. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the least I can do, for I have received purpose and a sense of belonging from the hum of Croghanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s waterwheel and the smiles of bearded North Country men.

Saving the Croghan Island Mill

Fall 2011

Invoking the Life Consumerism Against Roadside Flowers Madeleine Garone listening made simple, like peace on a game show; I mean, what the fuck would Jesus do? Artificial Bullshit, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infecting us! licking our empathy dry, salivating at weakened bones, weaker minds, we are weak, our faces anonymous in a sea of skin. we wash our hands without soap, anointing our obsession with illusion, the fake: our souls are on sale today, wrapped in paper with coffee stains and eight layers of duct tape. Artificial Bullshit and its skyscraper of bills, they greedily colonize the cash register as the butcher coyly unveils a gilded smile, a condemnation of peace. ignore the volcanic engines, leaking memories onto old pavement in the form of rainbow oil stainsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Sunflowers, lonely on the side of the road; They will listen to you. Invoking the Life Consumerism

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Untitledâ&#x20AC;? by Lindsay Tarolli

Fall 2011

The Sumps Christina Spotiello There are never enough spots for an underage kid to drink. Especially in the town of Levy where it’s so compacted, a dinner conversation would be called a noise complaint. The teens of Levy don’t have the issue of getting their illegal substances; they have their ways. It’s finding a spot to ingest and smoke what they have. To throw such a “party,” they need to do it at night while avoiding the early morning commute and look hard for a place not too many people know about. The burnouts claim the fields and those too scared to go out stay in the basements. But the most common ground is the one place that no one would dare to look around: the sump. There is an art to throwing a sump party. First things first, contact the supplier. Kenny usually gets his booze from his parents because he’s lucky. Not too many people in the area are that fortunate. For the rest of them, they go to that one friend who knows another friend who knows Brando, the guy who would willingly buy alcohol for the kids. It beats waiting outside Monday Liquors, down on Market Lane, begging for strange old men to buy. Next, bring the goodies down to the sump itself. The biggest sump in town is the one beside Quaker Field. Ironically, it’s a children’s baseball and soccer field. The sides of the sump are always moist and slippery and will most likely have some kind of swamp water waiting at the bottom. This makes it hard to play drinking games such as pong or quarters, but there are rumors that Courtney and Alexis have made it work. Then, while wading in ankle deep muck, summon down the rest of the party. With the use of a flashlight, flag down the rest of the people into the sump. Watch out for cops and homeless people. Sending a text message to a designated individual provides the best reassurance. And then, the party begins. The Sumps

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Levy teens don’t need much to be entertained. Hell, they don’t even need a reason to drink; they can just stand in an open space and be completely satisfied. In the case of the sump parties, the one thing that keeps them entertained is finding the buried “treasures” in the mud. Aside from the trash, used condoms and bottles, some items found in sumps range from bikes to unopened paint cans to dead (or live) animals. Many heads have been turned by the sump discoveries. The parties go on for hours or until the beer runs out and the weed is burned up. That leaves the one hurdle that every Levy teen has trouble handling: getting out of the sump without falling back into the muddy pit.

The Sumps

Fall 2011

Unraveling Margaret Lefton Some letters Coarsely woven together Unweave the very soul that I have taken so many years to create. Intricate quilt, meticulous stitches; Scissors cut it in half and half of it falls away to the water, Slowly dampening and beginning to sink. These crass words, a monstrous contrast to the half-quilt; I wish I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak this language That I unlearned all I knew And could simply start anew; Years later someone saw me Rocking and back forth.

Unraveling

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Untitledâ&#x20AC;? by Marc Delaney

Fall 2011

Swiss Miss Madeleine Garone Fifty minutes was all the time I had to switch train stations in Paris, according to the bold print on my train ticket. Arriving at Gare St. Lazare in Paris by train from Rouen took an hour and ten minutes, a stretch that crossed fields of dull grass to the graffiti covered concrete walls that lead each train into the mouth of Gare St. Lazare. I was a debutante solo traveler searching for history, unexpected rencontres, and myself. I was going to Lausanne, Switzerland, a city one could easily find on a world map, worlds away from my native New Jersey; but here I was, on the number 14 Metro line from Gare St. Lazare, making my way to Gare de Lyon through a tunnel that had been excavated by man. I can only imagine that I looked like a foreigner, an étrangère—in tall black boots and an oversized sea foam backpack fit for someone hiking the vastness of the Alps— perhaps I could manage that one day. I saw myself in the reflection of the train car’s window; I was thinking about adventure, thinking, Holy shit, thank God this metro is not filled to capacity and that I can breathe. That was all I needed to do, breathe and exit that damned Metro, because a high-speed “TGV Lyria” wasn’t going to wait for me, and now only thirty minutes remained. People were sitting, people were standing, oversized families, single moms, loners in black, no one smiling. I like to think they were all daydreaming without giving the impression that they were. “Prochain station, Gare de Lyon,” a feminine robot voice sounded throughout the train car. I simply stood there with one hand grasping the metal pole near the door. Someone pushed the button to open the automatic doors, and I became a one-woman exodus, except I didn’t quite know where I was going. Dull colored signs coated the ceilings in the metro’s Swiss Miss

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underground. In bold gold letters, a sign told the world “Main lines, ascend here.” It was perched above a roaring escalator packed to capacity with other people—commuters, tourists, world travelers, perhaps people who had not a single inclination of where they would be later that day. In a way, we are all followers—not merely of signs or maps, but followers of ancient minds in history, followers of our present, followers of our future visions for ourselves. Upon reaching the top of the escalator, I realized I was surrounded by ticket composting machines, some with red circles dictating no entry, others that would maybe allow me to get through to the other side—but where were the main lines? I didn’t understand why I needed my metro ticket to enter the main station; I may have carelessly missed where I could freely exit without hassle. I reached into the pocket of my down jacket, fingers blindly searching for the metro ticket I had used to ride the number 14. I swiftly slid the ticket into a composter expecting to slide through the pinwheel-like structure separating me from the rest of Gare de Lyon. Oh, fucking machine, it refused to eat my ticket, vomiting it back into my hand along with an aggravated beep—the sound of rejection, which caused, for me, the birth of a baby panic attack. I didn’t have the patience to search for my cell phone for the time, to see how many minutes I had left to find my train. I was about to turn around to buy another metro ticket to get myself through the gate, but immediately, I saw a family of five to my right, seeing only the backs of their heads and forest green suitcases. The father placed the ticket into the machine and the rest began to enter through a set of doors that opened; it was my chance. For less than five seconds, I became a member of an anonymous family, squeezing the thickness of my body and backpack through the doors in an attempt to remain unnoticed by them. They may have seen me, but it didn’t matter—I was a lone traveler exiting the metro family style. I yielded right and began pacing through the hall of the station. My mind was thirsting for a sign. The corridor was missing the massive chart of departs and arrivals like the one I had seen before at Gare St. Lazare; those charts are the cardiac system of the Parisian train stations, sending floods of people far away to other colorful European cities and receiving 70

Swiss Miss

Fall 2011

others who seek solace under Paris’ glittering lights. The hallway of the Gare was inundated with people clustered together and shoving one another, like panicked schools of metallic mackerel creating a bait ball in the open ocean. A group of people surrounded a large television, its screen glowing a radiant electric blue. I checked my cell phone— white electronic digits read in my phone, 12:44 p.m. Fifteen minutes until my departure at 12:58 p.m. I joined the crowd circling the television, my eye drawn to the letter L, an L for Lausanne. My new destination, by foot, was Voie N, platform N, which was just down the corridor. I saw the train, the rewarding color of Burgundy wine, resting gently against the platform. Voie N, this is it—soon you’ll be on your way to Switzerland. Good work, kiddo. I eagerly boarded the second or third to last car of the train, with the expectation that I would easily find my seat so that I could place down my heavy backpack and elongate my fatigued legs. There was a man sitting next to the window, probably in his mid-50s, bearing a resemblance to a beardless and slim Jerry Garcia. He was wearing thin-framed glasses and a worn navy fleece, and his hair reminded me of tangled grey and white wires. He seemed like a sunny optimist, him with his coffee in a plastic cup resting on top of a rustled copy of Le Monde, one of the many French newspapers whose headlines are often consumed by political wildfires. He was smiling; he was a stranger I could trust. Our conversation proceeded in French. “Excuse me, Monsieur, do you know which car this is?” I asked him meekly. “Ah, je ne sais pas exactement,” he replied. He turned his head to see if he could find any signs saying what car it was. “Do you have your ticket with you?” Beneath me, I suddenly felt the wheels of the train start to turn, like the cogs of many clocks. I’m standing up and feeling weighed down like a pack mule, but at least I’m on my train. I fiddled in my handbag for my ticket, and clumsily placed it in his hands. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and I saw his wrinkles deepen between his eyebrows. “Madamoiselle, je suis désolé,” he began, “but this train isn’t going to Switzerland. It’s the Burgundy RegionSwiss Miss

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al line train!” Fuck, so that explains the train’s burgundy coloring. “Oh no, really? What should I do?!” My brain’s circuits began reacting as if a child had stuck a metal fork in its sockets. I didn’t know how to reply nor did I really want to think about it—I was heading towards the Burgundy region, alive in the center of France, nowhere even near the French-Swiss border. I thought of smiling Swiss people and light eyes, the snowcaps of the Alps glistening along the horizon. I missed my train and I wondered if I’d actually make it. “Il faut parler au contrôleur,” he replied calmly, “Many trains leave for Switzerland from Paris throughout the day, but you need to talk to the controller now.” My heart wanted to leap through my chest cavity and crumple itself in the cramped aisle. I left my hefty backpack in the seat across from the man, my only concern being that I find the controller and somehow get off this train—who knows, maybe I would even have to jump off the back of the last car and hike my way back to Gare de Lyon. Being that I was in one of the last cars of the train, I bolted through sliding doors in my puffy coat, knocking against the arms of people who sat in the seats next to the aisle. I could feel sweat slowly dripping down my forehead, my body becoming a furnace underneath that dreadful coat. I knew I was being watched by the passengers: that crazy girl, what is she doing, why is she walking so fast and why is someone so young practically losing her breath? I, the American dumbass, finally got into the second car of the train after speed walking for what felt like an eternity through a straightaway of transfixed eyes. Just within my sight further down the aisle was the controller, a young man dressed in a somber grey uniform, clipping away at people’s train tickets. I approached him, my hands somewhat trembling. The conversation once again commenced in French: “Excusez-moi, monsieur,” I said, my breath giving out after enunciating each word, “I got on—the wrong train, I’m supposed to go to Lausanne—in Switzerland— what should I do? I’m going to—or, I’ve already missed— hah—my train!” I was almost laughing. It was the nerves. He looked at me with eyes that reminded me of 72

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Fall 2011

those of an ostrich, wide and slightly confused. “D’accord, you can get down at the next station in Moulin in 20 minutes. You can take another train back to Gare de Lyon.” I may have asked the controller a few more times to make sure what to do, since I wasn’t sure if I comprehended what he was saying. I think I wanted him to tell me that I would eventually make it to Switzerland, to reaffirm that this calamity I had created for myself would be resolved, but I just hadn’t been able to accurately form that question with the jolts of stress that pulsated throughout my brain. There was nothing I could do except wait. I returned to where my backpack and the friendly stranger were waiting together. That friendly stranger, with his sinewy hair, offered me a seat across from him. He had wrinkles along the sides of his mouth, maybe from smiling more frequently than many French people. We spoke of traveling, he asked about my studies. His voice was like a gentle stream one rarely came across in the woods that shows stragglers their way home. He descended at the train station in Moulin, his own stop, and showed me to the platform of the train that would take me back to Gare de Lyon. I don’t think my mouth ever overflowed with as many mercis as it did just before I boarded on the train heading towards Paris. I never asked him for his name, but I still remember the way his hair blew freely in the wind as I waved goodbye to him. *** I found myself once again at Gare de Lyon. I received a free exchange for a ticket to Lausanne, free of any extra payments. The deities of voyage were on my side this day, revealing their secrets on how to make a smooth transaction in French with the ticket vender at the train station. Maybe he thought I was cute, with dried sweat on my cheeks and my hair looking like I had been having crazy sex the entire afternoon. On the downside, I had to wait two hours in Paris until the departure of the next train to Lausanne. After smoking numerous cigarettes with my coffee at a café down the street from Gare de Lyon, I found comfort in a late lunch: an omelet, served with a surprisingly kind smile and a “Bon appétit” from my server. Taking my fork and knife, I dissected the delicate pocket of fluffed eggs, slicing pieces melted together with tender goat cheese and provincial herbs. Next to my omelet was a bed of evSwiss Miss

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ergreen and violet lettuce. Each bite I took reminded me of the late-morning breakfasts I would sometimes make in the kitchen at home; my mom would often look at me quizzically, with green eyes whose almond shape were very much like my own, wondering why I would be making an omelet so close to lunch time. The memory invoked the reassurance of the familiar: of the English language, of my home, of my stove. There I was, sitting and waiting with another cigarette in hand. I wondered about the people I would meet at my hostel; I imagined the Alps with wigs of powdered snow on their summits. As I gathered my things and walked towards Gare de Lyon, I remembered that I have a history that shifts with every single breath I exhale, one that echoes the footsteps of ancient people who traveled across vast plains in search of food, water and safety. I wanted to live for myself, but I had created a fiasco. American optimism told me I would be okay, that everything will be fine, that I’d make it if I believed it. *** On the “TGV Lyria,” I was gliding over tracks, flying past flat pastures and the blurring tie-dye sunset that accompanied the arrival of dusk. We had stopped briefly at Dijon, but all I could see was a bleak station platform outside my window. There were buildings whose lights illuminated the coming dusk, only to become distant shadows. I was in transit, knowing in that moment that I would make it to Switzerland, but I longed to know details about the experiences I would soon be creating, if I could even really call it “creating.” I felt like I was peeling away like faded wallpaper, slices of it curling up and slightly revealing what formerly covered the walls underneath. The anticipation of arrival and finding myself in unfamiliarity made me want to raise my arms towards the clouds in the sky like I did when I was a child, imagining my fingers were caressing marshmallows—I didn’t even have a real vision of what I was hoping to find in Switzerland, but I wanted to harvest whatever had become of those first 21 years of my life. The train was nearing the French-Swiss border and was going to make another stop in the town of Fresne, a French town that rests on the border between the two Francophone countries. A few rows in front of me on the other side of the aisle, I saw a nun who was knitting some74

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thing yellow that reminded me of spring. After making a few stitches, she would pause and turn her head to glance outside the window. I wondered what she was thinking about—about where she was going and why, who or what she was following. She wore a veil the color of dust and her glasses were like perfect circles guarding eyes that may have never seen evil. I imagined her as someone who helped others, wanted to embody Christ’s patience and love. A wooden cross hung around her neck; maybe she liked to make sacrifices. I thought of other nuns, ones who lived in convents and rarely saw daylight, prisoners of their own beliefs. I thought of the principal of my Catholic high school, Sister Ellen: her laugh was sullen and her skin was pale and aged. She wore a black polyester dress that hung just a few inches above her ankles and made her body look like a rectangle. She scolded me once because my kilt was too high above my knees, but she didn’t yell. I tried not to see the woman on the train as a nun; I wanted to see her as a woman, someone who marched in the streets with painted picket signs that pleaded for peace in the world, a dream whose struggle is endless, sans fin. Maybe this woman longed to wander, maybe through the desert for forty days, or to float weightlessly in the Dead Sea. The train began to slow and she stood up, her delicate hands buttoning a solid black coat over her cable-knit sweater. We arrived at Fresne and the nun descended; it was then I realized that I might see people as devout as she was, but never would I encounter that same nun who left for Fresne. The nun’s shadow was swallowed by the coldness of the blue night. *** An hour and a half more, I had made it to Lausanne. The sun was gone, but I had made it. I stepped out of the train car, my legs stiff from having sat for three and a half hours. I climbed up a set of stairs, quickly finding the exit through the sea of travelers and their black suitcases. I had written down directions of how to find my hostel, which was apparently only a five-minute walk from the train station. I headed right and started to walk down a gentle hill, whose road curved like a horseshoe. I saw a tunnel a hundred feet ahead, its entrance ominous with graffiti. Suddenly, I was asked a question. In French. “Excusez-moi, Madamoiselle, do you have any Swiss Miss

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Swiss Francs for these euros?” I turned. The voice belonged to a man with olive skin and dark eyes, hair the color of soil. “Non, je suis désolée. Je n’en ai pas,” I replied. “Bonne soirée.” I thought my reply would suffice, but he continued to walk in my direction, making a valiant effort to walk at the same pace as me. He was suddenly next to me, looking at me. “Comment t’appelles-tu? Ton accent, t’es américaine?” I told him my name was Madeleine and he liked it, said it was a pretty name for a pretty girl. I learned that his name was Daniel. “You’re here alone?” “Oui, je suis toute seule.” Unless you count my backpack as another person, then yes, no shit, I’m by myself. “Oh, you don’t have any friends?” He laughed, a laugh that was more like a high school boy snickering after having just told his friends he lost his virginity the night before. You’ve got to be kidding me. “My friends are staying in Rouen during vacation, some are in Greece. I just wanted to come here to have an adventure. I want to surprise myself.” “Do you want to get a coffee later, maybe get a drink? You’re a beautiful girl.” Maybe I shouldn’t have told him I’m looking for an adventure. We had descended into the tunnel. Its space was very open for a tunnel and its end was within sight. He told me a bit about himself, though I couldn’t exactly pay attention to what he was saying because a wave of uneasiness had flooded my veins. I didn’t know what this man wanted; I tried to be polite, but the adrenaline continued flowing. “Um, I really need to find my hostel now. I have this heavy backpack and I want to find my hostel. Today has been exhausting.” “You can give me your number.” “I don’t have a phone I can use.” Lie. “Well, I can give you mine and we can have a drink later. You are really beautiful!” Enthusiasm couldn’t get 76

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any more cliché. I needed a drink. “Thanks, that’s nice,” I said. “I need to find my hostel soon—this backpack is really heavy and I’m tired.” “Mad-leine,” he replied with slight inflection in his voice, “Est-ce que tu veux coucher avec moi ce soir?” “Non!” “Ah, bon?! T’es sûre?” “Non, je ne veux pas faire ça. C’est pas mon style.” I don’t want to do that—I don’t care if you’re Parisian, that you find me beautiful. Dear Daniel, you aren’t bad looking, but I have standards, and one of those standards is not to sleep with someone who asks me to sleep with him while walking on a sidewalk while my spine is being oppressed by the bulk of a heavy backpack. I could read in his eyes that he was stunned by my rejection. I was surprised that he was surprised. “That’s really too bad, since I’m going to Geneva tomorrow,” he said. I supposed that was his way of reattaching his balls. “On peut faire les bises?” I told him yes—I was willing to do anything to just get him to leave me alone—and we proceeded to act out a French tradition that has existed for centuries, that simple kiss on each cheek that just yells that the French adore their women. I turned away from Daniel and took about five steps away when I heard him call out my name once again. “Mad-leine, but you have beautiful lips!” Les jolis levres—it was his last final attempt to persuade me to walk in the same direction as him and perhaps never be heard from again. Instead, I let out a nervous giggle and I felt like bubbles were floating through my lips. I didn’t look back. My laughter turned into hysteria—I couldn’t help but laugh at this man, so desperate for a liaison, but then again, I suppose we are all desperate for something. For me that day, it was the desperation of getting somewhere. It was then I realized that I was following myself, following the very intuition that sometimes lies dormant in my stomach but had then become alive like fireworks blooming into the sky of an eternal summer. I knew I would wake up and see the Alps the following morning. Swiss Miss

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pelican Sunsetâ&#x20AC;? by Nicole Eigbrett

Fall 2011

Rouen, 22h00 Madeleine Garone Five minutes until the metro. Black trench coat on the platform, alone on my side of the underground. The escalator moans after years of suffering the stampedes of the blind commuter.

The men on the other side, they smile with hunger at my tights, my thighs, my heels. My spine rests against the wall.

Three minutes until the metro. The loud roaring of lion wheels, another train; its destination is not mine. Smoothness gliding on iron, the train slows to swallow those on the other side of the tracks.

People automatically exit through automatic doors.

Their replacements, I see their faces, vacuous through dim windows—I wonder where they’re going, why I’m not going with them, if I fade. Their faces blur, and I forget myself. I distort like a dull watercolor, A painting without a name. Roeun, 22h00

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One minute until the metro. Sometimes I don’t know where I stand, but I’m standing on a platform. The metro is too empty and cold, these blue walls could drown me— I oxidate like the iron tracks. A silent shout echoes in the tunnel: Growing artificial light comes,

and I’m only fragments of it all.

Rouen, 22h00

Fall 2011

Raft of Beautiful Lillians Hunter Hague Lillian said on Facebook that you two are in relationship. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, in a relationship with Lillian. To confirm this relationship request, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/n/?home.php&mid=118c01bG2a 5b3aeaG2bf2791G4 Thanks, The Facebook Team *** We here at the Facebook Team suspect Lillian is losing interest in you. She has not viewed your pictures or written on your wall in 2 weeks. Why not send her a private message using our new Love Letter app? The Facebook Love Letter app is a messaging portal shared between two Facebook users in relationship. http://www.facebook.com/loveletter/default Give it a try! The Facebook Team *** Bad news, bud. Andy Cockfoster tagged Lillian 10 times in the album “Ampersand Mountain,” 3 times in the album “Frisbee Formal” and 2 times in “str8 chillin’.” These numbers are statistically significant. Perhaps if you spent more time reaching out to Lillian using our Love Letter Raft of Beautiful Lillians

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app, she wouldn’t spend so much time with other ‘friends.’ The Facebook Team *** Well, we saw it coming. There was a 67.6666-% chance that Lillian would leave you for Andy Cockfoster based on the rate at which she has appeared in his photos, and now they are in a relationship. Maybe you could have listened to our advice and used Facebook’s new Love Letter app at least once. Take this opportunity to clear your head and lend a hand in Facebook’s Community Garden app. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, kiddo, The Facebook Team *** We have received a request to permanently delete the account associated with jjfros07@stlawu.edu. Oops! Accidents happen and it is easy to become confused with Facebook’s new layout. Speaking of, have you tried the new Wall Post of the Week app? To straighten out your mistake click below to maintain your Facebook account: http://www.facebook.com/s/home.accountactivation=118c0 1bG2a5b3aeaG2bf2791G4 The Facebook Team *** It has been 3 days and you have not clicked the link to maintain your Facebook account. If you fail to do this in 11 days then your Facebook account will be lost forever. Please, please, please, please click the button. The Facebook Team *** 82

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You have 10 days remaining. Here is the link in case you lost it: http://www.facebook.com/s/home.accountactivation=118c0 1bG2a5b3aeaG2bf2791G4 The Facebook Team *** You have 9 days remaining. Here is the link in case you lost it: http://www.facebook.com/s/home.accountactivation=118c0 1bG2a5b3aeaG2bf2791G4 The Facebook Team *** You have 8 days remaining. Here is the link in case you lost it: http://www.facebook.com/s/home.accountactivation=118c0 1bG2a5b3aeaG2bf2791G4 The Facebook Team *** You have 7 days remaining. 7 whole days and you have failed to click the link to maintain your Facebook account. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on? Are you still sour about Lillian breaking relationship with you? Still angry with Cockfoster? There are plenty of fish in the sea. You have 67 female friends who are single. You also have 90 male friends who are single. Perhaps you should check out the new HomoSecrecy app. To use this app simply type a straightforward Raft of Beautiful Lillians

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question and send it to a same-sex friend. For example, “hey Mike, what color are my eyes?” If he has not downloaded the app then he never sees your question. But if he does have our new Homo-Secrecy app he will be able to respond with the answer, which will mean a great deal more than “chestnut.” The Facebook Team *** We tried warning you about Lillian, but you did not listen to us. When she left you for Andy Cockfoster we stayed by your side. Now, you have requested to permanently delete your account, and if you take no action this will be fulfilled in 3 days. You give us little recourse. We have been forced to include in this e-mail personal messages sent between you and Lillian to remind you what The Facebook Team is all about, which is bringing people together. Hopefully you will reconsider deleting your account. You sent Lillian the following message on January 14, 2009, 11:28am: [“Alas, the Biddie by Anonymous I know of a biddie who lives downstairs I do not know for my love if she cares Her face is a Hart her body a dove Our two blended souls could fit like a glove Thighs like golden spring boughs in the sun Her spirit melts like a cinnamon bun A most graceful skier on slopes of love I know of none more heavenly above Shackled is she to a devilish goon He is a con man, a long-necked loon With a ghastly face and young complexion For his biddie I hold great affection 84

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Alas, the biddie from the granite state Trouble my eyes, your beauty is too great.”] And Lillian replied on January 20, 2009, 8:23pm: [“Ode to Anonymous One Wednesday evening, in the thick of the night I found myself teeming with sheer delight It was you, you have done it again How dare you steal my heart with a pen? You were keen on keeping your identity blocked Too bad your note has your name in the box… Secret’s out & the truth is revealed But I would not have it any other way, I would not appeal Your words are sorcerous & little did I know That you’ve had all these feelings suppressed down below I do believe the kitchen brought us together And our love for NH, two birds of a feather I get the picture, you’ve illustrated it well But what we have is fleeting so release me from your spell Keep your English major charm away Unless you want to know a secret someday”] Remember that correspondence? Guess what, The Facebook Team facilitated that. All these stored correspondences go away when you delete your Facebook account. Are you prepared to delete your life? The Facebook Team

***

1 day remaining. Here is another personal message: You sent Lillian the following message on February 20, 2010, 2:00pm [“Lilly, here is a poem for our one year anniversary: I floated here on a raft of beautiful Lillians They joined together, shoulder to shoulder Raft of Beautiful Lillians

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Some faced up and some faced down I laid upon their bellies and pillowed my head upon their breasts “Sex, no thank you, but kiss us once before you rest” I followed their orders diligently I had to dive down to kiss the underwater Lillians My raft was more warm and more soft than wood By day four, I knew every inch of that vessel I wish I could have sailed forever It was a great time to be alive In my distracted state I ran the beautiful boat aground The Lillians un-spun their arms and legs They had dismantled the raft Each one fled the island, stark naked. I had only ocean spray and moonlight for company The beach creatures were not even friendly I fucking hated it there I wanted to sail away on my old raft and live forever in that moment One day I was rescued… By a raft of floating men I will not describe how I steered such a craft, because it haunts my dreams I sailed home too bitter to think Love, John]” And Lillian replied on February 20, 2010, 4:09pm: [“John, are there some men I should be worried about? Come back to my raft… XOXOXO, the Lillians”] The Facebook team 86

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*** The Facebook account associated with jjfros07@stlawu. edu was recently reactivated. If you were not the one who reactivated this account, please visit our Help Center http://www.facebook.com/ help/?topic=security Thanks and welcome back bud, The Facebook Team

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“Fish Tales” by Nicole Beers

Fall 2011

Shame Hard is Shame

Matt Saulter

A single drop, can burn or soothe the pain or ignite sensation. Gliding down, currents carry through channels; A forbidden fruit, cherished, abused; Memories vanished, bridges burned; Wake up, wake up, wake up. Gone.

Shame

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“Giving Tree” by Paige Pasquini

Fall 2011

The Fence Tessa Yang The way I understand it, there was only one thing Carmine Romo wanted in his life, and it was sons, lots of sons, who would carry on the good family name. God gave him and his wife Sylvia four daughters. They came every two years like clockwork, and after the last one, no more could be had. The family of six lived in a tiny house in the city of Hadsburg, not far from New Haven. For several years, the girls shared a bedroom—two to a bed—until Sylvia’s singing began to earn an unforeseen and a more than satisfactory profit. Then they moved to a hundred-year-old house on a great drafty hill overlooking the city. There, each daughter only had to share a bedroom with one of her sisters, and there was a dining room, a bathroom with a big marble tub, and even a study for Carmine to retreat to when he returned home from his business trips. He and Sylvia shared a bed, and that was about it. She continued with her affairs and her singing and hired a nanny to look after the children; he traveled Monday through Friday, and the youngest, Vivian, whose earliest memories were of the drafty bedroom she shared with the next-oldest and the huge, sorrowful, gutted backyard in which the nanny had hung a tire swing, spent the first several years of her life thinking of him only as the man who came on weekends. Carmine, though, had his scattered attempts at fatherhood. He gave the girls Italian names and saw to it that they went to church each Sunday, that they got there early to steal the first pew and that they even had hideous, old-fashioned dresses to wear for the occasion. Sometimes, usually on a Sunday after church, it seemed as though he were seized with sudden fatherly fervor, and he’d start some project. He’d start a collection with Bianca, he’d The Fence

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begin a book with Gemma, but he rarely ever carried that project over to the next Sunday, and the collection was left measly and unimpressive, the book unfinished. The one exception was the fence. It wouldn’t have been a fatherly project at all had Angelina, the oldest, not decided to build it with him. She was a well-built girl, tall for eleven and already strong. She had all the robustness of her grandfathers, the long-dead Alfonso Romo and the just recently dead Everett Satchwell, both of whom had been strapping men in their time. Her face, though, was soft as velvet. She hadn’t inherited the hard, crystalline beauty of her mother, nor the lopsided ugliness of her father. She was pretty. Her skin was never great, but she had a wonderful smile. Carmine began the fence in April of 1961. It was an especially wet spring. He’d already made the mistake of trying to mow the lawn and the lawnmower had left huge, glistening gullies in the yard that were now filled with dirty water. As usual, he didn’t tell anyone what he was planning to do. He went to the hardware store on Saturday and hauled the boards into the backyard Sunday after church. It was a big backyard. It was going to be a long process. He started on the west side of the house, working the boards into the slippery earth and nailing them together with a hammer that was so old, his grandfather had used it back in Italy in his own hardware store, up until the point he’d gone mad and been shipped to a mental institute on the other side of the country. Carmine’s father hadn’t spoken much about that, though. No one had. He knelt to grab another nail and saw that one of the girls had crept up sneakily behind him. “What are you doing here?” The girl shrugged. It was Angelina. “Don’t shrug. Use words. I asked you a question.” “I’m watching you.” “Go inside. Help your mother with something.” Angelina dug the toe of her shoe into the mud and ground it deeper and deeper until the mud squelched satisfyingly over the top of the shoe. Carmine placed another board in the ground. This time when he knelt to retrieve another nail, Angelina was already there, and she handed him one. 92

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Carmine was irate. “I told you to get in the house! You listen to me, now. Get back in the house and help your mother. You’re getting your Sunday dress all dirty and it was expensive. Go!” Angelina bolted across the yard and through the back door. Carmine finished planting and nailing all the boards he’d purchased on Saturday. Then he too trooped inside, washed his hands for dinner, ate, went to bed, and rose early Monday morning to leave for the week. But he came back to the fence. Not the next week. The next week it rained so hard that the cat, which had somehow gotten locked outside, damn near drowned under the front porch and slunk inside after the storm plastered with rainwater, as skinny as a starving rat. The week after that, though, there was sun. Carmine went to the hardware store on Saturday. Sunday after church, he picked up in the yard where he’d left off. It was a little after noon. The air was moist and heavy on Carmine’s back. Soon he was soaked with sweat. He knelt to retrieve another nail and out of the corner of his eye, saw a figure swaying side-to-side on the patio. For a second he thought it was a little boy. Then he realized it was his own daughter, but she was wearing pants and a shirt and had her hair tied up in braids. “Where did you get those clothes?” Carmine demanded. “Shelia gave them to me.” “Who?” “Shelia. Our nanny.” She skipped into the yard and came to rest at her father’s side. “What are you doing? Can I help you?” “Where’s your mother?” “I don’t know.” “Where are your sisters?” “Shelia took them to their piano lessons.” “And why aren’t you at your piano lesson too?” “I quit.” “Since when?” Angelina shrugged. She placed her palm flat against the warm wood of one of the fence slats. “Is this gonna go all around the yard?” The Fence

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“Yes. It’s a fence. Now get inside and help—do some homework. I don’t want you getting all dirty out here.” “I don’t mind. And Shelia says these clothes are for dirtying. They used to be her little brother’s, but then he drowned in the ocean. Isn’t that sad?” Carmine snatched the nail out of her hand. He began to hammer almost urgently. The toneless, rhythmic heartbeat sound didn’t shatter the afternoon stillness as much as heighten one’s awareness of it. Every few minutes, he would reach down for a nail and find one waiting for him in Angelina’s palm. She squatted at his side, watching the earthworms wiggle and flop as they tried to squirm under the newly placed boards. She started to hum, but stopped abruptly when Carmine ordered her to. Then she said, “Where do you go during the week?” “To work.” “But where?” “All over. I sell things.” “What things?” “Insurance.” “What’s that?” “It’s like…a guarantee. Or a promise. It says you’ll get money if certain things happen.” “You sell promises?” “Yes. Give me a nail.” “Where is the gate going to be?” “Why would we need a gate?” Angelina laughed. “To get out, of course.” Carmine stopped hammering. He hadn’t really thought about it. “We don’t need a gate,” he said decisively. “We’ll just go through the house if we need to get out front.”

The Fence