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MONTAGE ...is a periodical of creative writing and visual art, edited and designed by students of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The journal’s goal is to publish the finest creative work that this school has to offer. We strive to recognize talented undergrads and to foster artistic creativity on campus.
Editor’s Note With the official change of our name to Montage Arts Journal, we are thrilled to present this fall’s journal to our readers as the product of not only our diligent editorial members but a brand new art and design team. The poetry and prose staff members were so excited to put our pored-over acceptances in the hands of a group entirely dedicated to constructing a work of art composed of many other creative pieces, and we haven’t been disappointed. This journal marks the second time in recent years that we have been able to publish in a beautiful full color format, only enhancing the pieces we have decided represent the highest quality U of I undergraduates have to offer. We hope you enjoy this free journal as much as we enjoyed putting it together. I would like to personally thank every Montage member for making my job an easy and engaging one. Kisses, Sarah Phillips Editor-in-Chief
Fall 2009 Staff Editorial Officers
Editor-In-Chief: Sarah Phillips Prose Co-Editors: Justin Taylor & Derek Beigh Poetry Co-Editors: Dan Klen & Mary McCormack Art Editor: Henry Del Rosario Web Editor: Kelley Christensen
Administrative Officers Treasurer: Chris Magiet Advertising & Events Coordinator: Kate Kinsella Secretary: Jeff Girten
Art Staff Ian Ferguson, Scott Jackson, Sanny Lin, Brittany Metka, Kristin Mueller
Editorial Staff David Ball, Sarah Cason, Megan Cavitt, Justine Chan, Jeremiah Childers, Elizabeth Cohon, Jason Cruz, Sam Friend, Jeff Girten, Jose Gordillo, Jack Labelle, Kevin Hsia, Olivia LeFaire, Tim Lo, Andy Logaman, Tim Madigan, Chris Magiet, Anna Majeski, Isa Mambetsariev, Carla Marin, Daniel Muldan, Jessica Murach, Raissa Rocha, Stephanie Ruiz, Demi Sakoff, Vaggelis Sotiropoulos, Kasandra Swanigan, Faizan Syed, Rachel Trapp, Garrett Traylor, Brianna Walker, Josh Todd, Kat Young, Jeanne Zeller
table
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contents
UNTITLED
Maggie Day
FAMILY PLANNING BATTER
COVER
Sarah Cellian Uhl
2
Kristin Mueller
6
MANNEQUIN
Kristin Mueller
NIGHT CRAWLING IN CHICAGO, 1968 WRITTEN FOR HER HAND MAP UNTITLED
7
Sarah Cason
8
Jason Cruz
9
Brittany Metka
10
Miriam Holtzman
11
FINGER BONES
Miriam Holtzman
12
MAKING LIGHT
Jeremiah Childers
13
Elaine Omara
14
Chelsea Fiddyment
18
DIAMOND EIGHT
UNTITLED
Kevin Hsia
22
LUNAMEN
Jeremiah Childers
23
TOO MUCH ABSINTH, NOT ENOUGH LOVING GATE 13
Jason Cruz
Ian Ferguson
24 25
THE BUTTONMAKER
Garrett Traylor
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING UNTITLED
26
Lihy Epstein
28
Miriam Holtzman
29
BURNED SPAGHETTI SAUCE RED TOMATOEY MAN WITH SHADOW
Mary McCormack
30
Kat Young
34
Brianna Walker
35
UNTITLED
Sarah Leach
36
UNTITLED
Sarah Leach
37
ANTI-CHROMATIC
CONTRIBUTORS
THANKS & SUBMIT
38 41
ART / LITERATURE
Family Planning Sarah Cellian Uhl
2 MONTAGE
“I’m pregnant.” Neil stared blankly back at me. It was nearly two o’clock, and we were eating a late lunch in the breakfast nook of his sun-drenched home. Through the window behind him I could see the last footholds of winter beginning to give way to spring. Neil blinked his soft, gentle grey eyes several times. “I’m not the father,” he said finally. “No, you’re not.” Silence. I took a small bite of my cucumber sandwich and focused on keeping my eyes dry. Next door, Neil’s neighbor started his lawnmower with a roar. The sound was oddly soothing. “Why are you telling me this?” “I don’t know.” “You should be telling him.” “I know.” More silence. The lawnmower droned on, oblivious to our conversation. “But… I can’t tell him. So, I’m telling you.” Neil picked up our empty plates and disappeared into the kitchen without a word. A few long minutes later, he reappeared with two steaming cups of tea. “Are you going to marry him?” Neil carefully set my cup in front of me before stirring in two spoonfuls of sugar. “No. He’s a nice guy, he’s fun to be with, he’s great in bed, but... I can’t see being with him for the rest of my life. And I can’t see him being a father.” I took a sip of tea. Chamomile with lemon, perfect as always.
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4 MONTAGE
“I’m going to get an abortion. He’ll never have to know.” “That’s terrible.” I blew on my tea. The surface rippled slightly, then returned to its placid state. “But they don’t justify them.” My vision blurred a little. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs to the brim with air though it stung, and then releasing all of it in one sudden burst. “You should be the father.” “I know.” “I’d marry you.” “I know.” “I’d be with you forever.” “I know.” “You’d be a great father.” “I know. But, sweetheart, you know I’m gay.” “I know.” My tea shuddered once more as two salty drops leaked into it. Outside, the familiar hum of the lawnmower came to a stop.
MONTAGE 5
batter KRISTIN MUELLER
6 MONTAGE
MONTAGE 7
KRISTIN MUELLER
mannequin
Night Crawling in Chicago, 1968 SARAH CASON
“As the riots continue, black Chicagoans are tearing through the local convenience stores, setting fire to many” - Chicago Tribune
That night my mama turned from the door, her silhouette beckoning in the half-glow, I threw my covers aside to watch from the window as my daddy and mama left me alone. I heard them talk about fires, how all the stores were without power and they were going to get theirs. They walked onto the street like raccoon people foraging in the unchecked night. When I walk in the dark I bump and crash like the thief we caught in our trash can last summer. My daddy beat him to death with the straw broom my mama made when they got married. He left it outside until morning, but I snuck to it and kneeled beside it and prayed. Lord knows no creature should die for going hungry. Lord knows I would want someone sendin’ my soul up if I was powerless too.
8 MONTAGE
Written for Her on a Warm Winter's Night I haven’t slept in ages.
JASON CRUZ
If only you could see the perpetual rings under my eyes that makes it look like I’ve been fighting with my father again or the jitters and the shakes that come along with every migraine that passes through like a raging bullet train, you’d realize how much I miss you— —how much I need you in these latter moments of the evening when there’s solitary silence all around except for the sounds of my fingers strangling this writer’s block of mine into slow submission. It’s times like this when I miss your ability to seduce even the strongest mental soldier and twist their spigots just enough to have them pour forth precious imagination in a clearcolored stream.
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Hand Maps BRITTANY METKA
10 MONTAGE
untitled MIRIAM HOLTZMANN MONTAGE 11
Finger Bones MIRIAM HOLTZMAN
Poor circulation, my mother admitted, lacing her fingers into mine. Thick knuckle bones, nestled inside my palms. She clenched, constricting air and trapping sweat. Tighter her shivering hand fell inside mine, beneath the shadow of my grip. Needling past joints, heat crawled through slits, exposing one finger and the next. Joints weaving together, and I swayed to her, drawing close her heat that was rapidly escaping from her hand. And we sat there, tangled.
12 MONTAGE
Making Light JEREMIAH CHILDERS The offices of Heaven clamor on the twelfth-hundredth and fifty-seventh floor. White suits and skirts write dove-feather memos; send them in a flurry to every desk, where sirens sing in-house litigation. A fax jams, and every South African crocodile turns left in endless circles—glitching like rabid dogs. An intern in Tectonic Management falls asleep, and a Midwest American field shakes for three seconds. No one is hurt, but seven trees are down in one, flat county, and a performance review is in order. The top floor is a vault, where the blast door has ‘R&D’ gold-leafed into its stainless face. Every century, a smoke-smudged proposal falls out the latch— pleas for another extension on the Second Coming. The graveyard shift takes over, and there’s Him (who hates Mondays, too) with suitcase and slack tie— hopes of a nightcap. Palms open down on thundercloud, he smiles low on the other side and drips rain across the powder-rolled cheek, a senator’s hemline, the untraceable fugitive’s beard, onto the newborn’s still-white wisps of hair. Baptism direct from the source. In muted explosions, soft as divinity can make them, little drops hush: welcome welcome welcome
MONTAGE 13
Diamond Elaine O’Mara
Dedicated to Syd Barrett
14 MONTAGE
Charlie says I should write, but I don’t want to. I always feel bad about writing in a new notebook. It’s so clean. My words can only dirty the page. This morning Charlie came up to my room. Not to talk. Talking with me doesn’t do any good, he says. And he’s right, I think, because anytime he tries to talk to me he gets upset and has to leave the room. I don’t understand it. I’m always so careful around Charlie. But I guess it isn’t enough just to be careful with words. I can tell by the way he flinches when I meet his eye. It hurts him just to look at me. This morning when he came, he gave me this empty notebook and a fresh ballpoint pen. Not a pencil. Those are sharp. Charlie doesn’t trust me with sharp things. But he gave me this notebook because he said it would be good for me to write things down. I would feel better if I got it all out on paper, he said. Got all what out, I asked him, and he said he was damned if he knew. I thought it was a stupid idea, writing in a journal that nobody’s ever going to read. Charlie might ask to see it, but he doesn’t count. He probably already has a good idea of what kinds of things I would write. But now I’m kind of glad to have it. It’s late and I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I can’t get my head to stop. On nights like these, ma used to sit up with me and talk to me until the sound of her voice made me sleep. Her voice was like music always, but at nights it was a lullaby. These days if I sleep at all it’s only if I get so tired that I pass out, since I can’t get to sleep without her and I’m all alone up here in this room. Charlie comes to see me when he can during the day, but he never comes upstairs at night. I don’t blame him much for being afraid. He doesn’t need ghosts or bogeymen to haunt his attic. He has me. Charlie and I never shared a room when we were young. He’d never stay in the same room as me for long, especially at night, with the door shut and the lights out. Even if I was already asleep, he wouldn’t come in. When ma asked him why he was so afraid, he said it was because of the way I slept. I remember it very clearly. He sleeps wild, he told her, and it scares me. He hasn’t changed his mind. Wild, he says, like a wolf, the way I curl up knees to nose, with my back to the door. Charlie doesn’t like that, because he can’t tell just by looking through the door if I’m asleep or awake, or even alive, unless he comes in close enough to hear if I’m breathing, closer than he’d ever get to me if I were awake. But even that’s dangerous. Something happens to me when people get that close. Even when I’m asleep, Charlie has to be so careful if he comes into my room, because even a little noise will wake me up and scare the devil out of me. Scare the devil into me, Charlie says. I gave ma a black eye one night when she came in to check up on me, without even meaning to. But she knew it was an accident, that I would never try to hurt her. Ma knew that I never did any of those things on purpose. That was back a long time ago, when I used to live with her. Ma used to let me go out walking by myself sometimes when I was feeling the way I do now, like MONTAGE 15
I’ll burst if I don’t go somewhere, anywhere. It felt good to be able to move around, but it was never enough just to walk. On nights like these it’s not the walls that are trapping me. It’s me. It’s my head, my own skin that I want to get out of. Ma understood that. When Charlie found out about it he said she was crazy, letting me prowl around the neighborhood at all hours of the night. He said it was like letting a wild animal out of its cage. She told Charlie that if I was a wild animal I shouldn’t be caged up in the first place. Charlie is a smart man, but ma always made such good sense that he didn’t argue with her. Now I live with Charlie, though, and I don’t get to go out anymore. Charlie never lets me go out alone, or stay in alone, or do damn near anything by myself. He watches me all the time. He says it’s because ma told him to look after me. But I know it’s really because he’s afraid of what I might do if he leaves me alone. I don’t think he’s afraid for me, though. Just of me. Some nights when ma would talk to me, she’d get upset like Charlie does, only she never walked out on me. She would just hold me tight, which I let her do even though I can’t stand to be touched. Charlie doesn’t touch me. He’s afraid to. But ma would hold me and sometimes she’d cry, which I hated because I knew it was only because I’m so messed up. Every day I told her I was sorry, that I wished it could’ve just been her and Charlie, because if I wasn’t around they wouldn’t have such a hard time trying to deal with me. Ma wouldn’t have had to hide all of the knives in the kitchen, or the scissors, anything with a point, or pack up all of her pottery plates and buy plastic ones that wouldn’t break if I threw them. She wouldn’t have had to put a lock on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, or a padlock on the back door so I couldn’t get out without her knowing. Her neighbors might have actually been friendly with her instead of ringing her doorbell all the time, complaining and threatening to call the police when their mailboxes got smashed in or their windows broken. They blamed me for everything that happened even if I had stayed in the house the night before. They all said I was dangerous, a maniac, a menace. Things would be better for ma without me, I knew that. Life would be easier. Normal. But ma would always hold me tighter and cry and tell me not to say those things. I was her diamond, she’d say, and she loved me, never mind what anyone else said. You’re my diamond, she’d tell me, so shine. Shine like the sun. A little while after I moved into the room at the top of his house, Charlie started having a friend of his come to the house once a week, to visit with me, he said, but he couldn’t fool me. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. I know a shrink when I see one. He talked real quiet and never looked happy or sad or even angry, not even when I called him a stinking quack and told him to mind his own goddamn business. He would just look at me and ask me why I’m so angry all the time. I told him if he didn’t already know why then he was an even bigger idiot than 16 MONTAGE
I thought. But even then, he would just bite the end of his pencil and make a note on his pad. It was a game to him, trying to figure out what goes on in my head. He didn’t really want to understand me, or help me. I was just a puzzle that he wanted solved. I hated him for that, him and his stupid questions. He had a lot of them, questions about when I was a kid, about ma. About Charlie. I didn’t want to answer them. The shrink said that I had to answer, though, that his questions would help him get to the root of my problem, to figure out where everything started. But it never started anywhere. I’ve always been like this. After the first couple of times he came to talk to me, he gave Charlie some pills for me to take, two orange plastic containers with white childproof tops. I got a kick out of that. If a child can open a childproof pill bottle, I sure as hell can. There’s nothing wrong with my hands. Charlie still brings those pills to me twice a day, one of each, but I stopped taking them a long time ago. When he leaves the room I hide them in my drawer, under the socks. At first I did swallow them, because Charlie said they’d make me feel better, but they made my head feel like it was stuffed with cotton and most of the time I felt like I was still asleep somewhere deep down. I hated that. I don’t care how fucked up it is, my mind is all I have. I’ll die before I let anyone take it away from me. A few months after he brought the pills, I heard the shrink tell Charlie I was a hopeless case, a danger to myself and to him. I should be in a hospital somewhere, he said, where they would be able to handle me. Where I would be with other people like me. Other nut jobs. It would be better that way, he said, because then Charlie wouldn’t have to spend so much time looking after his hopeless lunatic brother. Charlie hit the shrink in the nose. He doesn’t come around anymore. Before Charlie kicked him out of the house, the shrink used to tell me how important it is that I sleep at night. He didn’t understand that I can’t. He said it was all in my head, that I could sleep well enough if I really wanted to. He thought I was making it up. Didn’t even try to understand. Why wouldn’t I sleep, if I could? I’m so tired. I want so badly to be able to. But I just can’t. The pills used to make me sleep, even when I didn’t want to. I’d take some now, but they all look the same in that drawer and I might swallow two of the same kind and die. Charlie would think I did it on purpose. It wouldn’t surprise him to find me up here tomorrow morning, dead as a doornail, cold as a fish, dangling off the side of the bed like a cloth dummy. To him it would just be another one of the senseless things I do that he’ll never understand. And he’d blame himself, for not watching me close enough, for not taking good care of me like ma told him to. But there wouldn’t be any truth in that. Charlie takes good care of me. I should tell him that. And maybe tomorrow morning when he brings me the pills, I’ll swallow them. Maybe. MONTAGE 17
Eight
CHELSEA FIDDYMENT
She was eight. Eight, 8, eight, 8, she wrote along the sides of her handwriting worksheet. Today’s first letter was L. She had already filled the dotted lines with practice Ls, big ones like in Lizzie and Louisiana and little ones like, well, little and like. She leaned back in her chair. That was another L, she thought, lean. Lean lean lean. She would be able to write lean in cursive by the end of the lesson today, after Mrs. Preston taught them N. For the time being, she continued to lean back in her chair, the tops of her legs and her lower body pressed against her desk and keeping her from leeeaaaning any further. She knew she wasn’t supposed to lean back in her chair. Mrs. Preston would cross her arms and make that face that made her seem like she was yelling without raising her voice. That look would make Lizzie’s face feel hot, and to keep from feeling more hot she would stare at her worksheet so she could pretend no one was looking at her while she got in trouble. She hated getting in trouble. It made her stomach feel like she ate something crawly, her arms and legs tingling like when you tried to make them wake up after sitting on them for a long time. She knew what Mrs. Preston would say, too, exactly what 18 MONTAGE
she said to Bobby Mott. “It’s dangerous to lean back in your chair like that. You could fall over and get hurt or hurt someone else. Sit with all four legs on the floor.” Bobby would sit forward again, looking mopey at getting caught, but would start leaning back again after a little while when Mrs. Preston was facing the board. But really, Bobby wasn’t very good at leaning. He rested his arms in his lap when he leaned. Sometimes he would shove his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. He didn’t pay attention to keeping his balance. That was why he fell over last week during math. He was staring at Mrs. Preston’s back while she wrote on the board, moving back and forth a teeny bit on those two leaning legs, when he leaned a little too far. Because Bobby and his chair both fell over, Lizzie couldn’t decide whether he made a thump or a crash when he landed. Of course, the first thing Bobby Mott did was start crying. He was such a baby. He almost cried when she punched him at recess that one time he pushed her out of bounds during four-square. Mrs. Preston moved away from the board so fast that she missed the chalk holder and her little orange chalk broke in half when it landed on the floor, the pieces rolling in different directions. No one moved from their seats while Mrs. Preston asked Bobby questions loudly over his bawling. He sounded like Lizzie’s little sister when he wailed like that. Mrs. Preston walked Bobby out of the room while he kept crying, rubbing the back of his head. There wasn’t even any blood. Lizzie didn’t know why he was crying so much. That was just what happened if you were bad at leaning. Everyone started to whisper to each other and laugh quietly after Mrs. Preston left. The talking got louder until Jill Caprezi at the front of the room heard their teacher’s shiny black shoes, the same ones she wore every day, clacking in the hallway. All the talking about Bobby Mott had stopped by the time they heard Mrs. Preston turning the door knob. She walked in looking the same as she had before Bobby fell over, like nothing had happened. She picked up another stick of orange chalk without seeing the pieces on the floor. Lizzie wondered if she would step on them, and if stepping on chalk in her teacher shoes would make her fall over the way Bobby had. MONTAGE 19
She reached up to write something on the board but stopped, her arm frozen in the air. Then she turned around. “Bobby’s going to be fine,” she said. “But let Bobby be an example to all of you. If you’re not careful, you can really hurt yourself on accident just from silly things like leaning back in your seat. Teachers and parents don’t just tell you not to do things for no reason. I hope this will teach you to listen a little more closely and think about what you’re doing.” She bent down to pick up the two chalk halves from before, set them in the chalk holder, and went back to writing out handwriting exercises. Lizzie felt a little disappointed. But that was Bobby Mott, not her. Lizzie knew how to lean without falling down. Even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t cry the way Bobby had if she lost her balance. She knew how long to wait after Mrs. Preston turned around to tip back. She always held on to the edge of her desk with both hands and made sure to keep her lower body pressed against the underside of it. And she never rested in her hands in a place where she couldn’t grab back onto her desk fast, just in case. She also knew how to tilt back forward slowly, so Mrs. Preston wouldn’t hear the front legs of her chair landing on the floor. If she didn’t sit all the way down before Mrs. Preston turned around to talk to the class, Lizzie could move so slow that Mrs. Preston wouldn’t even know she had been leaning. Bobby Mott was always stupid enough to try to sit down fast. Mrs. Preston had started talking about M while Lizzie thought about Bobby falling. Now Lizzie started drawing little bumps for Ms, big hilltops and little hilltops. She leaned back in her chair the whole time, since Mrs. Preston kept putting handwriting practices on the board. It felt nice to balance with her body against her desk. Lizzie was wearing jeans today, and the desk pushed the big lump in the denim at the bottom of the zipper against her. She didn’t know why it felt that way, but it made her like wearing jeans. Mmmmmm, she wrote in cursive around the worksheet near her eights and 8s, thinking about what that spot was called. Legs were just legs, and the very tops of them touched the underside of the desk. Her hips were above the tops of her legs. So what was the hard part that was lower, but in between her legs? She knew the part that was really between between her legs. The part her mom called a silly name Lizzie didn’t like, where pee came out. She knew that part. This part was different. This part was still between her legs, but right in the front of her body. Right where the lump of the bottom of her zipper pressed. It was hard, like a bone, and it was in the front of her body, before you went down really really between her legs. It must not have felt good for Bobby Mott to lean against his desk like she did because he always kept his hands in his lap. Or maybe Bobby was just too dumb to 20 MONTAGE
think of such a good way to balance. Mrs. Preston started on N, which was almost as much fun as M. Sometimes Lizzie had so much fun drawing hilltops that she wrote M instead of N. Nice, she wrote, nice nice nice. Nice looked so much nicer in cursive. It looked fancy and good. Nicer than regular nice. Nice in cursive looked like the kind of nice she felt when she leaned. Mrs. Preston wrote practices on the board for N, and Lizzie knew she would have to stop leaning soon to keep from getting in trouble. But leaning felt different than usual while she kept writing nice around the sides of the worksheet. Where the lump in her jeans pressed, she felt tingly the way her arms and legs did when she got in trouble with Mrs. Preston. The tingling made her feel nervous but good at the same time. She wondered if she could get away with leaning for a little longer. “I’m going to give you some time to finish your handwriting worksheet,” Mrs. Preston said, still writing, “and then we’ll go on to spelling.” Lizzie knew she had to start sitting down. When Mrs. Preston started talking, she was going to turn back around soon. Thinking about the tingling and getting caught leaning made her even more nervous. Lizzie leaned back just a little further. A little, fast movement helped her sit back down slow and quiet so Mrs. Preston wouldn’t notice. But when she leaned that little bit more, it made her land hard on the chair’s front legs. Mrs. Preston turned around as soon as she heard it. The sound must have been loud, because Mrs. Preston looked around the whole class a few times to see where it came from. “Was someone leaning back in his or her seat?” Lizzie couldn’t hear her very well. Everything sounded like she was holding a big seashell up to each ear, listening to the ocean. Rainbow spots that grew bigger and bigger made it so she couldn’t see the classroom, so she opened her eyes wider and blinked a lot. She felt like she had closed them really tight for a few minutes. She felt nicer than nice in cursive, and wondered how to write that. She felt warm, too. Not like her face when Mrs. Preston gave her that look, but nice warm where her desk had pushed the lump of her zipper, and the other part—the part really really between her legs. Lizzie wondered if Mrs. Preston knew that leaning felt nice.
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untitled KEVIN HSIA 22 MONTAGE
Lunamen JEREMIAH CHILDERS
Moon’s dusty face turns round in the night, held together only by a lack of stirring; some ball of lint the wind might whisk off. Forty year-old foot-waves still crest, and the Lunamen—those little moonmen—creep. Pallid and small as seahorses with smooth faces they file down from huts carved in a pebble-ridge. They lean from their homes, from doors and windows, holes knocked square in the stone. They come in lab coats to marvel at the ceaseless sky, to track and pray on Earth— two-faced god that looms in white-streaked, blue phosphorescence. They trail lines in the pale sand, plant charts, measure astral distance with a moonrock compass.
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Too Much Absinth, Not Enough Loving JASON CRUZ 24 MONTAGE
MONTAGE 25
IAN FERGUSON
gate 13
The Buttonmaker. GARRET N. TRAYLOR He walks the long American road, whistling cloven, broken tune, thumb out, smiling. Green Jeep Wagoneer rolls down Dakota road, Mr. Driver just drivin’, ain’t no place in mind, no lights nowhere and can’t see a damn thing – ain’t no matter. Sounds like Grieg in the open air, three notes soft and sweet slipped curtly out His curled lips. Brights are broken, but road ain’t curvin’. Keeps straight on for miles. And miles pass slowly on open American road. Knuckle to the wheel, Mr. Driver keepin’ steady. He walks the yellow lines, colorless in night, stepping careless in slowly lighting street, thumb out, smiling. Long drives sometimes call for a spot of caffeine, manifest cup-a-joe hot between the legs, settled in a make-shift cup-holding crotch – coffee’s hot.
26 MONTAGE
Road is getting shorter, grin is getting wider, steps a little softer, tune a little louder. Eyes droopin’ at the Wagon’ wheel, Mr. Driver don’t think to pull over like He does, a little to the left, right in Wagon’s path – with a crash. Mind a-reelin’ at the dizzy, spinnin’ feelin’ of a world slippin’ away... Mr. Driver ain’t behind the wheel like he was before. Body burnin’ like a dark-roast Hell, stoops a coated figure at upturned window, “Are you well?” Man’s got no response, a lot of nothin’ on his mind, but the figure stays a-loomin’. After a silence, offers a hand: “It’s not that you were goin’ too fast, just didn’t have your eyes on the road. Now take my hand, ‘cause I know you’re just a-burnin’ to meet me.” Absent minded, was-Driver does. “Must be hard. So I’m gonna make things easier,” and He does, and keeps a-whistlin’. MONTAGE 27
Hit the Ground Running LIHY EPSTEIN 28 MONTAGE
untitled MIRIAM HOLTZMAN MONTAGE 29
Burned Spaghetti Sauce Red and Tomatoey MARY MCCORMACK
Mom tells me not to because of my burns, but I always go into the backyard anyway to pick the cherry tomatoes she keeps in those white pots that Dad gave her for Christmas. Dad said he doesn’t like her working in the dirt, that it’s a stupid form of therapy and the tomatoes will just remind her of the accident, but he did get her the pots so I don’t know. Dad gets mad a lot, but Mom says I should just ignore it because he doesn’t really mean to get angry and that when I’m older I’ll understand. She says that I still have to mature, but I don’t know what that means because last year when I asked Thaddeus he told me to tell him what I thought it meant and 30 MONTAGE
I said maybe it was what was happening to Olivia and how she was starting to look different because I heard Mom say she’s turning into a mature young lady. Then he said I was stupid, that only happens to girls. And when he told Drew that I wanted to get breasts even though I’m a boy they both laughed and I didn’t know what to do so I laughed too. I laugh a lot and Olivia always used to say it was annoying but Mom says that I can laugh if I want to and doesn’t she need more laughter in the house? Olivia never laughs now even though she used to all the time. Mom says that it’s just a stage she’s going through that she doesn’t much anymore. I hardly hear Olivia at all now since she’s always locked away in her room doing homework that her teacher gives her who she says is mean and never gives them a break from math boxes, even when all the other teachers do. Dad says she shouldn’t complain and that she’s lucky to be getting an education, but I agree with Olivia that it’d be better if we could just be outside in the sun the whole day instead of sitting in tiny classrooms where it feels like everyone’s staring at you even though they never talk to you because they have their own friends already and don’t need to make any new ones. Thaddeus and Drew stay away from me now too. Mom says it’s because they’re afraid of my burns, but I’m not contagious and they don’t even get close enough to jump out and scare me like they used to from behind the door of our classroom. Maybe I shouldn’t care because Mom tells me not to, but I miss that even though once when Mrs. Sharma wasn’t there they yelled so loudly that I jumped back and the door slammed on my fingers and I started crying. Drew says that crying is for wussies, but I don’t think so. Mom cries sometimes when she’s making dinner and she says it’s just the onions, but she says that even if she’s cutting up carrots or stirring tomato sauce for spaghetti. Her spaghetti is really good this fall because she’s using the tomatoes from the pots and so maybe that’s why she doesn’t want me to take them because then she says she won’t have enough for the tomato sauce recipe. Olivia doesn’t help Mom make dinner because of her teacher and the math homework she has every night, but the other day she left the door to her room open and when I went upstairs to tell her dinner was ready she didn’t have her backpack out. She was just looking out the window and she didn’t notice me when I said her name and it was only when Mom started yelling from downstairs that she finally came down. When we eat Dad usually stares off through the window too, so a lot of times it’s just Mom, Olivia and I talking and Olivia ignores me. Mom says it’s because she’s having a tough time with life right now and I guess Mom knows better than me because she was an older sister once. MONTAGE 31
On the weekends Mom keeps me inside with her because she said she needs someone to talk to with Dad being so much in his own world and Olivia always doing homework, and I like talking with Mom but I wish Olivia wasn’t in this stage because if I wasn’t afraid that she’d get mad at me I’d ask her if I could go outside and play with her and her friends. The only time I get to go outside is to get to the cherry tomatoes because they’re just in the backyard, but Mom always notices that I’ve snuck out even before I’ve touched a tomato and then she gets upset because she says that with my burns the sun could do a lot of damage. I always tell her it doesn’t hurt though, it doesn’t hurt, but she doesn’t believe me because how could it not hurt when it looks so painful and the doctor said, but I don’t remember what the doctor said. She’s always talking about the doctor, but I don’t remember him and everything she says I don’t remember like how the boiling water splashed all over my face when she was dumping the pasta into the bowl in the sink and she says she’s sorry she’s sorry, and she tries to hug me but I don’t feel anything and then she starts crying more because maybe they’re right, she says, maybe they’re right. Okay, she says, okay, and with her hand she wipes her eyes so that some of the snot from her nose sticks to her fingers. And then Dad comes in and gets angry because Mom’s crying again, and Olivia isn’t in the room but she’s probably doing homework so she doesn’t have to listen and I wish that things could just be normal again and everyone would be happy. Even if Olivia would yell at me for laughing too much I just want things to be how they used to be. How Dad used to pick me up and swing me around in his arms, around and around until he got too tired and he had to set me down on the sofa where I couldn’t even stand because I’d be too dizzy. I don’t know why he doesn’t do that anymore. Mom says it’s because he wants to see me how I used to be and he feels like it’s his fault too and by staying away from me he’s protecting himself, but
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I am the same as I used to be. I’m the same as I used to be I’m the same as I used to be I’m the same as I used to be. And then at dinner I was thinking that so I just said it out loud and Mom told me to be quiet and she sounded mad so I started crying and then she got up from her seat and put her arms around me and said she was sorry, she hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. It was just that she’d burned the sauce and even though no one said anything she could tell they were all thinking how bad it tasted and then I couldn’t hear her words, could just smell her breath all red and tomatoey and I felt better until I saw Dad’s face. His eyes were big in his head and he told Mom to get a grip on herself, for God’s sake get a grip or he’d have to take her to the therapist again. And I don’t know why he was so angry but he was. His voice was scared and Olivia stopped with her fork only halfway to her mouth with the noodles slipping off and when she set it down I started to get scared because I’d never seen her face like it was then, all twisted, like Drew when he’s about to say something really mean. She stood up and pushed her chair back and said he’s dead, he’s dead Mom, and I didn’t know who she was talking about so I started to ask Mom but then she was ignoring me too and just looking at Olivia and her shoulders were shaking but she wasn’t saying anything. It looked like she was laughing so I started laughing because everyone else looked so angry and upset and there was Mom laughing and so I couldn’t help it but then she turned around and her eyelashes were all wet and stuck together and I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there looking at her and Olivia and Dad and even Olivia and Dad had tears in their eyes and they went over to Mom and started hugging her. My nose was stinging and my throat hurt and my eyes felt all watery like I was about to cry, and then I did start crying and Mom lifted her head and she saw me. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
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man with shadow KAT YOUNG 34 MONTAGE
anti-chromatic. BRIANNA WALKER
your enigma electrifies the space between mathematics and Romantics in the blue-black clutter of my backward mind. you are ink in my pen a pirouette on paper. plain and grainy, with eyes so careful, hands so calloused. static swallows me, so i skip to you, a scattering of staccato rose petals. the wind whispers her wildness against my neck, where your fingers dwell as we pour ourselves together, our skin talking lips interlocking in insolent crimson kisses. in green, you emerge. the piano in your voice echoing in time with your mahogany step. black white black.
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untitled SARAH LEACH 36 MONTAGE
untitled SARAH LEACH MONTAGE 37
LIHY EPSTEIN has been working
SARAH CASON Jambo. On Wednesdays I wear pink. I only wear a ponytail once a week. My first boyfriend was named Kyle and he was, like, totally gorgeous, but then he moved to Indiana. I really want to lose three pounds. Kthxbye!
JASON CRUZ be repping the H.G., majoring in writing creatively. Once he loved a pretty from Missouri, but it was not to be. He didn’t have the courage, you see, and that’s why his lonely heart drowns in cheap whiskey…
MAGGIE DAY is a sophomore
JEREMIAH CHILDERS hails from
the dirty-south backwoods of Murphysboro, Illinois. He enjoys caffeine, pumpkin pie, and an embarrassing amount of Motown. One day, he hopes to make it in the big city as a writer (see: not be homeless).
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in the Photography Program here and loves every opportunity to get out and shoot. Experimenting with new processes and finding new locations to shoot in are favorites of hers. She would like to thank all of her friends for laughing with her and allowing her photograph them.
with a camera since high school, and loves it. Despite the obvious draw toward studying photography, Lihy hesitates to take something she loves and make it something she relies on to eat. Lihy is majoring in News Editorial Journalism and minoring in Business and Gender and Women’s Studies.
IAN FERGUSON is a sophomore who’s probably going to end up as a computer scientist. He is interested in computers, photography, typography, and drawing. He consumes plenty of coffee and wants to live in Japan.
CHELSEA FIDDYMENT believes every good day is exactly like listening to João Gilberto. She currently writes an opinions column for the Daily Illini, works at Allen Hall/Unit One in Urbana, and sings jazz. Her website is Drawing Coffee.
words, woods, space, film, grain, analog gear, & funk’n’disco. Kevin is a classic soul. Join him on his adventure. This one’s for the books.
Contributors
KEVIN HSIA loves
MARY MCCORMACK is not an
eccentric, polka-dot-dresswearing stalker who listens in on random conversations between people she doesn’t know so that she can include them in her stories. She’s just a writer.
SARAH LEACH is a senior
photography major at the University of Illinois. After graduation she hopes to move to Chicago and use her degree in a creative field.
BRITTANY METKA is an art teacher and photographer. She enjoys going out into the world with her camera and capturing real life.
MIRIAM HOLTZMAN is 1 cup
butter, softened. 1cup white sugar. 1cup packed brown sugar. 2 eggs. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. 3 cups allpurpose flour. 1 teaspoon baking soda. 2 teaspoons hot water. ½ teaspoon salt. And 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips.
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GARRETT TRAYLOR I’m oldKRISTIN MUELLER is a junior in
Industrial Design. Besides starring in her own musicals, she enjoys painting, coffee, and bursting out into songs from “The Night Man Cometh” in hopes that people will join her.
fashioned for new-fashioned reasons. And I like to wear socks. And read books. And stuff.
BRIANNA WALKER is a sopho-
more from Chicagoland, studying English and Creative Writing. Her favorite writer and main muse is her younger sister, whose talents far surpass her own. I love you, Yvonne.
SARAH CELIANN UHL is a senior
ELAINE O’MARA is a design student who happens to play bass. So was Stuart Sutcliffe. Peace and love, brothers.
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and looking forward to finally graduating this year! She enjoys hanging out with friends, playing video games, and spending way to much time on the internet. Oh, and writing. That too.
KAT YOUNG is a speech and hearing science major who has always had an interest in a wide range of art. She has been exploring different mediums, but pencil and paper holds the strongest connection for her. Her hometown is Lake Zurich and fifty percent of her diet is ice cream.
THANKS and Gratitude We would like to thank all those who donated funds to Montage. Without the help of these organizations and individuals, this journal would not exist. We are honored to be indebted to: Janice Harrington • Richard Powers • Student Organization Resource Fee
If you enjoyed this issue and would like to help the journal continue its important work in recognizing upand-coming literary and visual artists, we encourage you to write a check out to “Montage” and send to:
Montage Literary Arts Journal University of Illinois Department of English 608 South Wright Street Urbana, IL 61801
SUBMIT Prose Poetry Art If you are interested in contacting us or submitting your work email us at: montagejournal@gmail.com You can also reach us at our website, which has more information about us, past issues, and current news: http://www.uiuc.edu/ro/montage
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SARAH CASON JEREMIAH CHILDERS JASON CRUZ MAGGIE DAY LIHY EPSTEIN IAN FERGUSON CHELSEA FIDDYMENT MIRIAM HOLTZMAN KEVIN HSIA SARAH LEACH MARY MCCORMACK BRITTANY METKA KRISTIN MUELLER ELAINE O’MARA
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