Bellerive, Issue 8: Sometimes Touching

SOMETIME S TOUCHING

STAFF ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Editing Committee

Angie Benoist, Co-Chair

Bobby Meile, Co-Chair

Delaney Allen

Kelli Allen

Yevgeniy Elperin

Jeanai Wehrfritz

Nathaniel Hunton

Art Committee

Layout Committee

Jennifer Stefl, Chair

Katheryn Blankmeyer, Co-Chair

Katie Fernandez

Publicity Committee

Justi Montague, Chair

Daniel Diecker

Mark Webber, Chair

Derick Allison

Risha Stanford

Faculty Advisors

Nancy Gleason

Gerianne Friedline

All Members of the Staff Participated in the Selection Process

wings and orbs

N o tes from the Editors

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Julie Gram -----

Letter to Senator Wayne Goode

Learning to Read

Yubitsume

After the Tide

Camp 22

Inside Ought

Carbon Copy-Alnwick Castle

eternal adolescent

Sugar

words I learned growing up Honking Does Nothing

Parking Space

On the Way to Work

There's A Great Degree Program ...

The Many Faces of 6330

Burial Soil

Frozen Cattails

Reaching for the Sky

January

While Crocheting

Observation

Philosopherphilia ...

Sexton's Love, 1963

Back to the World in the silence aftershe dances in her dreams

Why Smoke?

Oh Splendiferous Drink of the gods!

Bwawk! I'm a Turnip!

G uid es tar

Prom th · E h c· . e art ity Chronicles ...

Snow Melt ..

Roots

Death o f a H o neyb ee

Juliane Dharna

Anry Perry

Kristi Rhoades

Jeanai Wehifritz

Yevgenfy Eiperin

Kristi Rhoades

Elizabeth Staudt

Mark East

Julia Murphy

Caleb Miller

Angie Benoist

Robert M. Bliss

Bobby Meile

Julie Gram

Jessica Griffard

Shaw/a Scott

Kristi Rhoades

Juliane Dharna

Ellen Herget

Jeanai Wehrftitz

Claire Jacques

Angela Woike

Jennifer 5tefl

Elizabeth 5taudt

Justi Montague

Karen Ann Bosurgi

Angie Benoist

Bobby Meile

Daniel Blak e

Claire .Jacques

Robert M. Bliss

.Jennife r Stejl

Julie Creech

Phil S trangman Claire.Jacqu

Angte

. d Bobby Meile, Editing Committee Co-Ch . . Benoist an airs

h v r of the Hyphens at Bellerive, though the It wast e rea C did ali antly to topple them. ommas put up a bit f · Ions try v . o semi-co al b t by now they were old hat to us. This was our fuss as usu ' u d d C C . a ' f diti g Bellerive an our secon year as o- hrurs of third year o e n di C mrru'ttee We started the e t1ng process earlier than the Editing O • k

ll d O we were actually able to wor ahead of schedule. we usua Y 0 , s · ff h · ceeling from that has not quite worn o yet. Many The eup one 11 • • • • • thanks to our Literary Nmias In Tram~ng for their hard work, this semester. Kelli, Kenzi, Yev, and Jeana1: you guys rock! Heres to another great Bellerive (the issue and the class), and we'll see you in '08!

Justi Montague, Layout Committee Chair

Dan and I would like to thank many people for their contributions to Sometimes Touching, from the people who were gutsy enough to submit their work to our scrutiny, to our classmates who were an endless fountain of wisdom and correct comma usage for us this semester. While layout may be a committee that does most of the work at the end of the process, I felt everything went much more s1:1o~thly this year thanks to the help of Nancy Gleason and Gen Friedline, our faculty advisors.

I would like to thank Dan for his ability to pick up computer programs at the drop of a hat, the donation of his time and reso urces to the I . .

Q k I , ayout committee, and for fixing linking text 10 uar ts been a go d 'd I'll 0 t1 e; see you guys next year.

Mark

Webber

p hli . . ' u c

Relations and Biography Chair

T his was m fi . at th e l l,mors Coll . Y irst ye ar with Bellerive and as a s tud ent . · ege bu t I c · 1 \X 'ht le ,r was a consta nt 1'" . ertatn Yhope it will no t b e m y last. ' 1 . re earning . a d . . cc t ,c wa rds Were I . . , n so m e tim e s ex h austin g ex p er1 en ' l - ing h p cnt1fuJ. I t d . . II _. ,e not' s <>rt of f, , · . n un my ex 1Je t1 e n ce w ith Be ert, ., 1~ a m asc 1nat1n g. I ' I . t \' eratttt t: l ore corn pelli . vc a ways fe lt t h at re admg p as t Jt · earn i 1 · ng and com h . 1 · 111 tot h. ng a )o ut hi st pre e ndtbl e te ac h i ng m e c 1anis istor y book• l'v· o ri ca l t im e s a nd eras t h a n i ea din g through a I' , e now I ·' · · · ' · pt- ear ned w h a t can b e to ld ab o u t th e pr o

aro und m e and m y o wn current era by reading the literature of my pee rs. I'd jjke to thank Risha Stanford and Derick Allison for their in val uabl e effo rt s in our committee . Also, we were absolutely d ep end ent on th e m e ntor s hip of Nancy Gleason and Geri Friedljne. Each student involved with Bellerive is given enormous re spo nsibility by carefully handling, thoroughly critiquing, and then tastefully arranging creative works. The thing about creative works, whether it's art, poetry, fiction or essays, is that they are all created with passion and care, and the author or artist generally has a lot of affection bound to them . Trus makes the task a sensitive obligation for everyone involved. I strongly believe that the eighth edition of Be llerive is reflective of that fact and that it stands as colorful and as lucid as any of the previous editions.

Art Committee Notes

The art commjttee as a whole would like to thank everyo ne for submitting some fantastic art to trus issue. We were in awe at the amount of great pieces and excited to help make everyone's submissions look amazing in print. We loved the photography but were glad to see people submitting other types of art, too. As a committee of three artists, we rughly recommend that people continue to submit all types of art to Bellerive. It was a joy to work as a team and help make trus Bellerive one of the best! Much love fr o m Kate Blankmeye r, Katie Fernandez, and Jennifer Stefl.

Notes from Nancy Gleason, Faculty Advisor

It gives me great pleasure every year to say a few words ab out Bellerive and all that it adds to our campus. Along with the ot her student publications on campus, Bellerive reminds me and all of t h e people who contribute to it and read it that we are lucky to have s uch ta le nt o n o ur campus. I would like to thank every perso n w ho s ubmitted so m et hing to the publication; we keep receivin g more e ntri es e ach yea r! Also, I would lik e to thank m y class, all <Jf t he st ud e nt s who took what we did seriousl y and watched a ho< ,k g row befo re their eyes . I would also lik e to thank D ea n Bli ss , S<..:na t<>r Wa yn e Good e , t ho se wh o hav e donated m o n ey to our pub li ca ticin, a nd mo s t of a ll, yo u- who a rc rea ding it ri g ht n ow. I woulJ li ke to ex press a s pe c ial t ha nk yo u to Ge ri F ri edline, th e n ewe s t memb e r of th e I lonors Co lle ge teac hin g faculty, fo r ass is tin g with th e cla ss and h<..:lpin g me t hrou gh a very bu sy se mes -

- Coll ege. A t first , t he title of this iss~u d' th e H o nor s . e id , re r in th blication but now that I think it abo n t 0 fit e pu ' . ut, seem r _ ,,... ching defines the experience of the clas th S meu mes i ou . . thi b k I . s, e Stu o d th wo rk s inside o f s oo contmue to b - d nts an e f ul e e hed by my students, fello~ ac ty _mem?ers, staff, and th ro uc , •ob at the U niversi ty of Missouri-St. Louis. It. ose I mee t in m) ) . . is alw t be a part of the Bellerive experience. ays an honor o

Notes from Gerianne Friedline, Faculty Advisor

\Vhen Nancy Gleason invited me to shadow her in thi year 's Bellerive seminar, I was delighted. At th~ end of the se;ester, I could say that I had been a part of Belle rive as a student, a Teaching Assistant, and a teacher. How cool is that?

I joined Bellerive as the publication came Out of the Void (# 3), basked in the Illumination (#4) of the first Bellerive seminar, had my artistic say In Defense of Angels (#5), shared some of the Problems with Infinity (#6), and was amazed to see Everything Can Change (#7). I can't think of a better title or cover for issue #8. Like the pebbles in the fountain, Bellerive is a collection of classm ates, teachers, editors, designers, writers, poets, artists, and readers Sometimes Touching through the magic of a good book. As we give you this good book, I'd like to thank Nancy Gleason and this year's Bellerive staff for my most profound discovery since joining Bellerive: even as a teacher, I am still a student. And that is very cool.

The Staff of Bellerive 2007 would like to thank Senator Wayne Goode for

his generous contribution to our publication.

This year at Senator Goode's birthday celebration, he invited his guests to make donations to our publication as a gift in his name. We thank him for his generous spirit.

Senator Goode was a member of the Missouri House of Represenatives for 22 years, where he chaired and served on many important committees such as the Education Committee and the Appropriations Committee. In 1963 he successfully sponsored the legislation establishing the University of Missouri -St. Louis. In 1984, Wayne Goode was elected into the Missouri Senate.

Senator Goode has been happily serving Missouri and the University of Missouri-St. Louis for over 40 years, and we would like to thank him for his service and for including our publication in the celebration of his birthday.

Thank you, Senator Goode!

LEARNING TO R EAD

Take the egg for example like a poem. And who is my father, my mother if not that viscous golden globule? Tomorrow morning you will sit at breakfast with knife and fork not realizing the b es t way to eat egg is over easy or sunny side up with your fingers and soft bread, which of course is like ea tin g cornbread 'n potlikker, it's onl y worth a damn when yo u sop.

YUBITSUME

Yubitsum e (you-b eat-sue-may): (n) th e ritual act of cutting off th ejoint of fing er as an act of p enancefar a misdeed.

Rain splits the steady trail of blood as it leaks frorn h h. h t e bullet hole wound that blooms on 1s c est. Just to the right of . . f . hi I ' 11 f ki hi s heart, staining his avorite s rt. ts a so uc ng stereotypical. The heavy rain. The twilight gloom. The chickenshit moon w hate _ ing it all impassively as it hides behind a gossamer stretch of cloud. And me, standing there, soaking wet, the smoldering heat of the gun burning the pattern of the handle into the palm of rny hand. Any minute now I'm waiting for him to sit up with a raspin gasp, like they always do in the horror movies and detective show: where the villain, ever resilient with evil, takes a final, hobbled bow before he's shot point blank in the head by the wary protagonist, splattering his brains across the wall.

That's one thing I hate about the movies, they always attribute much more to a person's strength of will than it deserves credit for. Desire to live does not overpower one's proximity to a 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun.

He doesn't move. It's obvious he's dead, and it only took one shot. I'm keenly aware that at this moment I have wedged between myself and my once mentor an impenetrable betrayal that looms like a medieval fortress, walling off Hiroshi's corpse and that part of myself I have come to consider my honor. But honor doesn't secure a man's place at the table, not these days.

I want to touch you, Hiroshi. Your hair, your lips, the fleshy corner of your eye. But he backs away, shaking his head, pleading with me. "Is this worth killing me over, Kazu?" he demands, clutching a something to his chest like he's trying to ld £ h. h

"You wou orce is eart back through the breech in his ribcage. listen to that lying so n o f a bitch over me? Didn't I teach you eve rything yo u know?"

M b · · re. Not ay e yo u did, but 1t's not en o ug h. N o t a nymo ·d1 when I d · d d how hat stan Ju ged by yo ur misd ee ds. Yo ur sh a o w, . ro- worked · · h the P10 at painting myself in yo ur imag e, o nl y to ave r uyedn type explode in my face. And then it didn't matter wheth e

was lying or not, all that mattered was that people believed him. I believed him.

He smiles that sardonic smile, and I have to turn quick as I feel the bile rise hot in my throat. To keep from retching all over his corpse, I double over and vomit on some family's back stoop, or some restaurant's, wherever this door from the alleyway leads. It's raining so hard anyway that by morning any residue from my insides will be gone, along with any residue from Hiroshi's.

''You maybe should have thought this through better, now you've got to load me up like cargo. That is, unless you were planning to leave me for the cops."

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Uyeda nods solemnly, his facial expression indiscernible as we follow the shuffling crowd toward the Shinto shrine to pay our new year's respects. The wound on my mutilated pinky is still bandaged and healing and he's setting me up for yet another severance. "Hiroshi sold you out, Kazu." Uyeda's whisper of condemnation cuts like a knife, and were it not for the tight crowd I'd probably have turned tail and ran. "He sold us all out."

"I know, I know that." I mutter to myself, propping up a cigarette between my lips and searching for a light. In my pocket, all I find is a pack of soggy matches. The nicotine mixes with the residual acidic taste of vomit; it's not really pleasant, but I keep the unlit cigarette propped up with my bottom lip. Twilight is fading, replaced by dark. I have to squint to make out more than the outline of Hiroshi's crumpled form. But he touches my shoulder in what I will come to recognize as his presumption of entitlement. No man touches me. No man other than Hiroshi.

He opens the door, ushering me inside. ''We don't stand around like you kids in Tokyo, but Nobu swears by you. He says you'll work hard, so I'm willing to risk my yen and forgive that you're Edokko."

His apartment is a mess and completely westernized. Stacks of books in English and Japanese are piled high next to his computer, a Macintosh, along with several open notebooks. McDonald's cups and empty takoyaki cartons are scattered about haphazardly, and there's this faint odor-smoke body sweat, and fried fo d M '

y taste buds are underdeveloped, he m1orms me, v-

ing o n To kyo dregs. But he give s me twelve we eks b efore I'll be eati ng like the bes t Osakan .

" In To kyo, yo u gu ys wo uld eat cardbo ard and swear it was fin e cui sine so lo ng as yo u were charged a premium for it."

l as k H iroshi if his hyper loyalty stems fr o m a deep-root- ed inferi o rity complex, if he personifies Osaka as an extension o f him self with Tokyo the embodiment o f all he perceives as the enemy. H e laughs.

It takes me a while, but it's not long before I'm standing 0 0 the right side of the escalator like a native Osakan.

My cell phone rings. I have it set to play a different so ng depending o n who's calling. It's playing this really annoying dance song by the group Perfume. Don't ask me why it reminds me o f him. Without even checking caller ID, and with an unlit cigarette still perched securely in my mouth, I flip it open and put it to my ear.

Uyeda is the only person I've ever met who launches into the conversation as soon as the phone is answered, rather than when the person on the other end of the line greets the caller. This is just as well; I never say hello.

"I just wanted to know if it's done. Is it done, Shigekazu?"

Collectively we press our palms together and bow our heads in prayer. Sawada-san, our kumicho, heads our congregation. Directly behind him is Matsumoto along with several other senior members. Uyeda belongs with them, but instead he and I form a third row so that he can whisper admonishment and praise in a single breath. With one word he guarantees my livelihood, with another, he condemns a man to death.

We aren't the only visitors to the shrine, but we might as well be. The Japanese government has yet to pass the antibo ryo kudan laws and we have no problem traveling twenty strong. Th e kat · · c di tanc e. agi recogruze us 1or what we are and keep a respectful s-

"We judge a man by his own merits" Uyeda informs m e. " W d ' c o no t want to c d c · · · h · on emn you wr Hiroshi's crimes. T at 1s wh y standing by h . uJd b 1m wo . e the g reatest mistake you could make fo r yo ur fu ture with this family"

"I und erstand that B d h."' . " I · ut eat r- Death 1s so ex treme,

stammer.

"This is no petty infraction, a finger won't suffice. Death is the only fate for traitors." His voice is rough with sincerity, and for the moment I almost forget that the real reason Uyeda is push- ing this is because Hiroshi cheated him two million yen from his tribute. What Hiroshi wrote off as an error in the books. I forget that in the deepest region of my heart, I know Hiroshi would never betray me.

"Is it done?"

"It's done." My lips fight to form the words, and in the struggle the cigarette drops and is lost to the pool of water at my feet.

"Good, then you can get off your lazy ass and help me move this TV," Hiroshi leans against the cardboard box, which is only a head shorter than him standing straight up, and regards me with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. I'm laying on my back on the bare tatami, a wet towel draped over my forehead and a book on the psychology of death and dying propped up on my stomach. It's so muggy I swear I'm dying.

"I think I'm going insane," I murmur, dropping the book off to the side and rolling over onto my stomach. "This can't be right."

"That can't be comfortable."

"Why did you buy a television anyway, Hiro?"

"So I have something to keep me up at night when you're not around to annoy the hell out of me."

A car I've never seen before pulls up to the opening of the alley. Black, nondescript, the driver indiscernible. It's Tanaka's boy, with tarp and rope. Convenient, Uyeda tells me, that it's raining. Perfect for washing away incriminating evidence, and maybe any residual guilt which clings like bits of shit stuck in the cracks and crevices in the sole of an unsuspecting shoe-one that st eps before it looks.

"We co uld just leave him there, let the cops fin~ hirr~ . Maybe frame another gang," Uyeda informs me, removmg hts sunglasses and squinting in the harsh sunlight outsid e th e crematort,, um. "But it is not our way. 'To bury his own.' This is wh at we do. He glances down at my right hand and sighs.

arates us from other Yakuza."

.

"This is what sep . b c . th Inoue- gumi long e1 o re I learn that if 1

I m not in e ak th

6 anvthing I have to t e em to Hiroshi. stions a out ; have que d ust like a fish," I had heard someone say in re f"0 en-moutbe ') k Th ·b

P . hi·'s willingness to spea " out ey attn uted it to rence to Hiros hild "In hi d e America as a c . s ten er years , he his years spent in ' d ' h -;>' b

. 11 ng He learned 'what? an w y. efore he learned 1t a wro · learned 'hai'."

"Why do we cut off our fingers as an act of. ~enance ?" I ask Hiroshi, examining my hand from a palm up pos1t1on and runnin my fingers of my left hand o v er the pink y of m y right. He loot at me over his bowl of yakisoba, stud ying me, before setting his chopsticks aside and grabbing my hand. He touches his thumb and forefinger to the very tip of my pinky.

"Talk is cheap. Anyone can talk themselves up and excuse themselves from a bad situation. But how many can prov e it?" He pushes down on my finger to force it to bend at the joint. "\-Xlhen you perform yubitsume, you show everyone, including yoursel f, that you understand what you should've known coming into the gang. You are no longer your own, you belong to your Oyabun. Every piece of you belongs to your Oyabun as well."

He sighs, dropping my hand and leaning back. " It doesn't work so much anymore. These days a yakuza is more likely to pay his misdeeds off in cash. We're getting weak, like the Italians."

''And what's the going price for a man's honor, these days?"

"It depends on the misdeed, but I guess one to three million is standard."

.

"~or th at price I'd rather sacrifice a finger."

sou d . Hiroshi laughs. "Three months and you're starting to n like an Osakan already"

"How c uld b · -;>" 0 you etray me like this Kazu? How. It hurts m h ' th e is that . ore t e second time around, because er expectation of . ·n does not prot pain. Understanding the gamut of pal h ·ill ect you fro h a t t of dread th h . m its extremes, rather it preps you wit hMP edge of th akt e1g~tens every nerve. Before I even push the ~11 I, e tllfe into m fl h the recav· rn sweatin Y es , my body aches from g so much the wooden handle is slick in my palrP·

Te ar s blur m y vision. Inside my head I'm screaming, but it doesn't sto p me fr o m driving the knife down, severing the last joint on m y ring fin g er fr o m the rest of my hand .

Tanaka's boy is cloaked in a rain slicker that isn't exposed to the rain for more than two minutes before it's drenched in water. He pops open the trunk, gathering up the length of dark blue tarp.

"Aniki, please get in the car. Please, I'll get this mess taken care of. You'll catch your death out here."

There is a moment following the severance where I still feel the lost joint. I see this pale, discarded bundle of flesh and bone and wonder if by sheer force of psychic will I can move it as though it had never been disconnected. Then it fades and I realize my hand now takes the shape it was destined to take. Two missing joints; two hobbled fingers.

I double wrap the severed joint in pieces of bleached white bed sheets, the first square of cloth being too blood stained to present at such a solemn occasion. Standing before his casket I lift the lid to secret the tiny bundle before stepping back. I only open it wide enough for a few fingers to get through because I don't want to see him. Down on my knees, my legs folded underneath, I bow low.

"Please accept my apologies."

"Please forgive my transgressions."

"There is only one person who can handle this situation, Shigekazu. That person is you." Uyeda turns his back to the shrine. In the bright winter light the wrinkles on his face are sharpened and his skin grayed. He looks carved out of granite, immobile, unquestionable. His smiles don't comfort but condemn. "Can ~" we count on you.

His is the first life I have taken, and it is the life of a man I love. I can't bring myself to look at his casket, and opt rather to continue bowing before it until Uyeda, fearing I'll degenerate into hysterics, motions for two men to escort me outside. Uyeda meets me some minutes later, bearing an unlabeled envelope which he hands to me without explanation.

"You are a g ood man, Shigekazu, but I think you need to take some time away. A week or two to clear your head.

Rcp rio nu ze:d th nvelo pe is a plane ticket to Okinawa Th In st e e e . ere is Llfnjn o- ticket. no ret ' '\Xfhen yo u feel that you are read y to. return , we will fun. to yo u so that you may buy a t1cket home." nel the mon ey .

"This is yo ur home, Shigekazu. We are your home."

What Uyeda fears is that I'm going to crack and all the effo rt he 's put into programming me will g~ do:"n_ the drain. I d d So metimes why there was a standing insistence that I 6e the one to take care of Hiroshi. That is, until I learn years later that if I hadn't dealt with it I'd be at the receiving end of the bullet. They pitted us against each other, but Hiro refused to take the bait. Uyeda had a vested interest in me, or maybe he marked me for the impressionable, blue-assed piece of shit that I was.

From the rearview mirror I see the kid roll Hiroshi's body onto the stretch of tarp. The way his arms swing and his legs splay as he's rolled over, it looks a bit like a bunraku puppet without its black cloaked handlers. He struggles to get the body into the trunk; his face wears a mixture of beet red frustration and olive nausea. Maybe I should help him, but I make no move to do so.

"You're a bit lazy." He grabs the text from me, kneeling down and staring into my face. "Help me move this TY."

"I didn't ask you to buy that ugly plastic box. I'm never going to watch it. So why should I help you move it?" I groan.

"Because if you don't, you'll be crawling over it every time yo u want to get out of this apartment."

1 _ watch wisps of smoke spiral out of the chimney 0 ~ the crematorium. Later, Hiroshi's family from out of town will pick through hi h lik h B)1 s as es e vultures. But I'll be on a plane by t en. the time th · h · · s of etr c opsttcks stumble across the five centimeter fore ign bo d hotel ne, my repentance, I'll be checking into a bu get and calling a d octor for a prescription of pain killers.

" I ·d " am so rry that things had to conclude as the y di · 1 wa Uyeda 's mouth is set in a line you could put a ]eve! to- , \' nt to as k hi h ,ou s.1 ..

" 1, m w at h e m ea ns what does it m ea n when ) -ds rn sorry'':> [ h , II wP 1 are empty · ave never heard e mpti e r words. But then, a

''\V J ,, well talk · h . lit11b· , ts c eap, isn't it? Fo rgiven ess co st s a

AFTER THE TIDE

You know they'll be sent here for your defection even so you cross the line pawning your blood to buy freedom and yet you still haven't seen a halcyon night.

INSIDE OUGHT

Submerged in sunshine

Feeling free

To feel the things

I want to feel

And feeling the way

Things ought to be

I look and see

And loathe

And savor

The day's divinity

So full of flavor

The breeze

The trees

Around me thrive

And people seem

No more alive

Than do the

Blades of grass

The lively vibe

The happy couple

A timely smile

The hope

The kind that shows

The love so tender

Only grows

An d thrives

A nd all in time

In a]l o ur li ves

We'll find ala s

A pi ece of g ra ss

On w hi c h to s t and

An d mak e a m e nd s

A nd holdin g h and s

Be fr ee to fec:I

The thin gs we ough t

Th e thin gs forgo t

The things so r eal

The thing s we 've go t

YEVG EN TY E LPERIN

ETERNAL ADOLESCENT

ELI ZAB ETH STAUDT

she writes poetry on her arms just to watch the words change in the shower. with warm hands, she touches boys with cold hearts. she wonders when her mother stopped wearing these handmade hoop earrings and joined the adult establishment, which requires a set religion and sworn allegiance to the president evidently. she laughs the laugh of caverns and lives waiting to die because she'd rather be young forever than facelessly middleage

th little slip of falling off felt e

And, god, is it good

I can't get too word)~ .

Aroun so

d mething like this

But I have to tell so_meone

So thanks for listerung

. lls like my U ncle Bob's Garden See, 1t sme

In the middle of May

When all of those unsprouted things underfoot

Give off that scent of can-be

And my little Wal-Mart plastic

Wheelbarrow and my little shovel

And my little lawn mower

All sit in a bee-hum glaze

God, it feels so good

Over across the yard my yellow wiffle bat

Waits for a game of pitch

But I can't move right now

My green tree snake

Sammy lives on top of the fridge in our kitchen

Dad caught him just for me down b y the rive r

He says Sammy is arboreal

I know Sammy is super-bright green

I love my Dad

He loves me

I read my monster book with Mom

M 1i · Y ttle bed lies right

Next to their bed

Because I d ' h

B on t ave my own room

ut I don't want one

Because little me kn

I ows am them and

They are me

She kisses me in slow motion

Before the light snaps black

I love m y Mom

And she loves me

See, it feels just like that For only a second's second

But, goddamn, sometimes that's enough See?

It works like a blanket

It works like a light snow

When you awake it has covered everything

So I step out into that cold bite

And, god, it feels so good

My feet will start to hurt in a second or two But who cares?

It is not just like a tv commercial

There are no commercials on this channel

I pay for it

So please

I'm asking you

Listen?

So please

Can't you see what I'm doing?

Does this not follow?

It feels just like that old concrete headstone in m y backyard

The one with Cora D. Hollenbeck's Name written in dirt on the front

"In my father's house there are many mansions."

That's the inscription

And I tell all kinds of stories about

The ghosts that live in the old cabin

Right behind that headstone

Later, I find out

Th e whole hill used

To be a cemetery

And my walls are po p ul ated with bright visi o ns

Of sunken lady face s in fl owing silk d eath

It is just like the smell of my first car

It is just like the wet of my fir st kiss

It is just like the pull o f a bat kite

It is just like the feel of cinders under my feet

It is just like the first time I write

And think

Maybe this is something

WOUDS J l./ ;'A UNIJ) (,'/UJWJN<; Ul'

Mcrcuro chrom (; , pe rsimmon , s nowball busl'i, bru sh hog, fcrtiliz<.:r, m1tdoor plumbing.

tractor sc: ar, bi scu it s, splint<.: r, implcm e nt, cast iron skille t, in s<.:asu n, wate r pump.

'lcctric fence, pig sty, tomato sandwich, tick tree , percola tor, Juicy I•'ruit.

damned hay baler, feed store, Opry, talcum, barbed wire, peach pickin', out back, harvest.

stray dog, Mcrthiolate, halter, fun eral, shotgun shell, rototiUer, chicken coop.

braunschweiger, corn crib, Jergens hand cream, compost heap, Sunday layer cake, work.

springboard, home, respect, memory, heaven, smelled of earth, pulsed with adventure.

NG DOES NOTHING

. lady on a cell phone. She has a Chihu h Behind me is a . . . a ua . ting its paws on the steenng wheel as if it . . h 1 p and 1t 1s res . is in er a ' . . Th lady flails her arms as if her son had just t ld h one driving. e . . o t e k d the famil y car. She 1s stomping on the brakes to her he wrec e uli I uld c 1 . k like it has hydra cs. wo 1ee safer with th make the car roe e Chihuahua driving.

1 am late to work by an hour and twenty minutes, and l'rn halfway there yet. My only hope is that, luckily, the traf- not even . . fie is a little bit worse than normal, JUSt enough that I might be able to blame the traffic for how late I am, once I get to work. If I get to work.

Hitler would be laughing himself to tears if he could see how miserably we Americans had misinterpreted his idea for the Autobahn. The idea is to have organized lanes and roads paved properly so that drivers can go whatever speed they want. The highway is supposed to be one shade of asphalt, not five with black stripes of tar holding the cracks together.

It is late August. The inside of my car is getting hot. I have to wear a shirt and tie to work, even in the summer. The collar feels like I just got my hair cut. The seats of my 1989 Buick Century are not leather, but they are dark and I can feel them soaking in the light and heat like a sponge in hot water. Air-conditioning is out of the question. Gas prices are steadily rising and I've seen studies showing how air-conditioning makes the car burn more gas, especially in older cars sitting idle. The windows are rolled down but sin · , · h . , ce my car 1sn t actually going anywhere, t ere is no draft The Chih h · ua ua woman cuts off a Toyota and passes me on the left.

I've long been d d • sig h b an a vacate of making every new river

n t e ottom of a fi h " f t of me I d orm t at says when there is no car in ron , un erstand th h · · 1 fa ilure at t ere is no excuse short of mechanica not to keep . at a reaso n bl going, and in the event that I do not accelerate a e pace I will . 1SOdo ll ars." Th e ft~ . · pay every person trapped behmd rn e

To the ri gh _e 15 d o ubl e for senior citizens. . 1

.

t is even sky blu e. a ~an in a car that looks e xactly like 1111 n_e . e diffe re nc e is, he's able to crank his music

louder than the surround-sound system in m y living room. I don 't know why an yone would install speakers of that quality and size in an '89 Buick. I've never heard Tammy Wynnette's " Stand By Your Man" at a volume adequate to shake m y windshield before, either.

Oh rapture: now it's the second chorus, where Tammy reall y starts to belt it out. The cars seem to be fleeing from the sound-understandably-for bursts of about 40 to 100 feet. The Chihuahua woman is so distracted that, at this point, she rear-ends a Sebring convertible. Then all traffic halts again, caution lights flash next to me, and we are all faced with the insurmountable incline of the Page Avenue exit. It is jammed worse than the highway, and even if it were not, there is no chance I can fight m y way across three lanes of traffic when no one is moving. I'm not even halfway to work, and Tammy's car is still within an earshot.

Fifteen minutes pass without the slightest nudge forward by anyone in m y line of sight. People start to put their cars in park, and some are turned of£ I find out the hard way that the man in the identical Buick has his CD player on a repeat cycle. The Chihuahua lady is trying to apologize to the gentleman in the convertible while simultaneously arguing with whoever is on the phone. The Chihuahua-now finally free from captivity--circles about six times before deciding to sit right in front of my car. People get out of their cars, as if that gives them a better look at the stream of tail lights. I ask myself if driving up the shoulder and paying the price of a ticket would be worth the cost if it got me a few hundred feet farther up the road and out from behind the Chihuahua. I also ask myself why the officers don't ticket the people who get out of their cars for jay-walking. Is there such a thing as jay-standing?

Then cars start again. The semi-truck in front of me pushes forward. The Chihuahua sits there. I honk my horn. The Chih · . ~ahua sits there. I honk my horn again. I lay on the horn

unhi~l It finall y growls and slowly backs away. I hope that the huahua "th · ·d et er moves or dies of too much carbon monoxt eand makes · ·

• up Its mind about which it will do quickly. I put the car

tn neutral d . . .

rn T an rev the engine. The Chihuahua 1s still m front of e. he lad fi 11

ph Y tna Ygasps, stops her conversation, shuts her one, runs ov . hi h h f er 10 g -heels, grabs her precious rat of a c au -

feur, and gives me the finger.

I sit idle a few seconds longer, partly to soak · · lil \Yhat · happened, and partly to let a red Escort in front of me. I )Ust lid 4 ,.. . . . t hash d its left blinker on for a so .) rrunure s, and that 's got t a o count f so mething. I come over the top of the hill, and that 's when °r · · . d li h b th .d I see it· the line of spmrung re g ts on o s1 es of the high · \,·ar a wall of emergency vehicles. A sedan has toppled OYer the d·' s1 e of the cement wall, on a Mack truck, folded like a soda can. The windshields of the cab and car are fused together. The grills and doors are gone. I count five small stretchers and two large one all seven with heads covered. s,

f Jt RKJNG S PACE

AN GIE BENO IST She shrugged and smiled, and they just shook their heads.

"Why do you park so far away?" the y asked her. "There are plenty of spots out front."

Leaving the building, she watc;:hed all the people

Scurrying to their cars, eager to get away. She walks past them all, towards her space.

Crossing one, then two lots, she draws , nearer. It is quiet here, and there are trees and grass. One could almost imagine it is a forest.

She finally comes to her car and sighs. Why does she park so far away?

If you do not know, then do not ask.

You will not understand.

QN THE W AY To WoRK

In Skinker stati on a disembodied voi ce ("The next eastbound train will be arri,ring in thirty seconds' swallows the "eastbound" and the "thirty" ') like a shy speaker uncertain of his gro und. But the train comes anyway, and most days I get on it.

It's an early church, all rhythms and rituals. "Please stand clear, all doors are closin"' "Forest Park next stop. Change here for ..." One day a cyclist careens onto Delmar platform and falls onto the line. He's unhurt but breaks the routine.

We early riders form a freemasonr y, membership conferred by mysterious rites after many rides. One day I'm made by a nod from an elegant lady whose bright scarves and black stetsons say she's someone to know.

She's as regular as raisin bran and the color looks good on her, too. A tall one up from East Texas with a Metrolinked circle of friends who worry about her health as she-no,vasks after mine.

~ere always boards a small, slight man, , grizzled beard, backpack, lunch pail. Hes . . a g d. k1h ) rave igger who rides alone and (I see, snea · reads Christian science fiction, voraciously. 1 th ink up novels with him as a character, in them he never speaks.

In the morning dark a party of three waits at the next station. Mom's talkative and confident, greets people she knows. The kids are lively and very well even at dawn. One day the little girl decides I'm OK and waves, shyly, hand tucked close so not to lose it.

I wave back and enter her circle of light. Then, "Doors open on my right." And obediently I leave our train for my day at work.

THERE'S A GREAT DEGREE PROGRAM;

THER E'S A SURPR ISINGLY LARGE OB MARK ET

Doppelgangers!

Men and women that trained for years to be just like me.

Whenever I step out to get a drink of water, change my makeup, Just for a second!

I come back to find "myself" carrying on the conversation without me.

I would walk in and denounce her (or him) but ... It would be so awkward

I-I'll just wait, wait out here-and wait ...

THE ,llANY FACES Of' 6330

BURIAL SOIL

I\'I v hands remember clutching th~ seeds of granular earth, the war mth th at left them as I slo'.vly sprinkled-all over you.

:Memor y floods over again this day, as my plow-shearing fingers rake soil's crust reopening Earth's ever-healing scab.

The pheromonal odor of deep fertility wafts into my nostrils, filling them v.rith humid aromas of decomposition.

The stagnant scent of death, rotting like you belowlike me above, alone. Slowly I dig holes, filling them \vi.th seeds that might live, might die.

Prodding, my hand brushes something cold and slick. I draw out a worm, wriggling about confusedlost in an unfamiliar world of light and air.

I watch as it desperately tries to reach the edges of my fingers, choosing to risk the treacherous fall than remain in a place of alienated loneliness.

I create a small rift in the soil, off to the side, and gently place the writhing creature downinto the dwelling it remembers and loves.

I watch as it burrows itself deep into the dark recess es .

·f h E · b 1 ' Oll aocl tr () t e ::'.. arth, the ear th wh1ch houses now ot 1 Y 1

/\ l l h. I ·u t be so lone' • nc t 111 <, m aybe now at least, yo u wt no · -

fROZE N CATTAILS --

Beside a fence

we gaze at the frozen cattails, stretching their fingers w ward heaven.

f ixed in their spot, only the lake will witness the changing seasons.

The y nev er reach heaven, they never touch, they only know this is life, beside a lake.

SHAWLA Scarr

Thinness swelling. Hints of tamarind and apple. In the far corner in a stream of pale yellow roots emerging from a slim crack in terracotta: blossoms-not yet blossomsthat I water but sometimes flood unaware when gazing through puckered glass. One sky-blue suitcase with an empty belly-growlingsitting between me and the open expanse beyond the doorway. My bookcase topped with Corinthian capitals filled with hundreds of spacious eyes ever faithful companions encouraging and keeping watch. Dark ink on paper smudged and splotched on the trail I travel each night, the poem you wrote though not for me but loved anyway and waiting under my pillow.

» ' t-lllJE CROCHETING

T\vo in c hes of blu e bl a nk e t edge d pink , to be gen der-n eutral for my c o usin yo un ger and her Nov e mb e r Bab y.

Two inches thirty - four to go in which to consider the lack of such things around my home the lack of the want of such things bottles, bears, blankets. Thirty-four to go, and I'll be thinking as I loop and pull of what I won't give my family my mother.

0 BSf R VA TJON -

Yo u hate to b e touched by anyo ne except me and l've seen you squirm in these situations, but when you ask her a simple question, I see your hand lightly touch her elbow and maybe it's nothing but strangeness crawls under my skin.

PHILOSOPHERPHILIA OVER OF A LOVER OF C

Some look for truth in sacred texts, or on the temple wall And some, in education, down ivory-tower halls; s, Some look in fields of golden wheat, or follow a shinin g star, But you answer all my questions, no matter how bizarre.

Some even look to oil stains; if y~u squint at asphalt right, You'll see a marbled spectrum shine heavy in the starless night. Though melancholy Gothic souls can find themselves therein I'll journey to your abode first if I am to begin. '

Truth shows itself in weirdish ways, but I choose not to look In heavy words of wizened men nor pages of a book. Though there are many places that the answers like to hide, I think that I can find them all while lying by your side.

SEXTON,S LO VE, 1963

She is all there . She was composed for you line by line; deep like grooves in your favorite record.

She is always there like the stars, intense and breathtaking on a February night or solid like the pavement under your heavy feet.

Let's face it, I've been short-lived: a special treat. A sparkle during black spring afternoons. I'm vacant like most homes in the city, a cheap break at real estate.

And she's occupied. She'll expand to your width, accept your strength, this isn't a fling. She'll awake at 6 AM to have you before morning breaks,

make your breakfast before class, rode to the store on her bike, popped three out by your twenty-seventh birthday, all green-eyed like yo u.

She did alJ thj s without drugs, th e good and th e bad. If yo u loo k the kids in the eyes, yo u can see thei r cleanli ne ss thro ug h and throug h .

She bathed th em all on late summer evenings after th e beach scrubbing the sand away fr o m behind their ear s.

I give you back your life and your love:

for the friction in her between mother and woman burns away at her heart, stronger than that from a heavy match;

for the sharp pain behind her eye, too many men counting her steps across the room; for the cry of a heartache; for the call,

when you rip her dress off and pull at her undergarments.

She is so quiet and undressed. She is your better half, all of your life. Take her with delicate hands; she is a glass ball, beautiful and whole.

As for me, I am shards of a jar: empty, and wimng to slice.

i lie on mY back traci ng patte rns

o n my sto m ac h co,;;ered in vo u yo ur progen>"

d (r) ~-in g o n m e

>o u're n o t a good cath o lic boy: , i'm on the pill we use condoms this quickly cooling potential life

the orthodox would call us wastefulwe're just practical

staring at m y stick y fingers

i wonder if this is wrong but in the cool moonlight

1 can see your face covered in salty sweat

you are staring at me

w ith that smile of rem e mb e red ecstas y of amazem e nt

t ha t a n yon e wo uld

be h appy

lying h e r e on yo ur b e d

that srnile is worth a multitude of sins

she dances in her dreams up up

down down her eyelashes flutter. her nostrils flare-stretching, reaching warming up. her fingers twitch in¾ time she plies in the second movement. her body does a triple turn she rolls rolls rolls around the bed. the sheets are her partner. her toes tappety tap flicking the sheets. snap. snap. her belly rises and falls-keeping the timeit's the star of the show.

my cigarette smoke pays $12 for admission and gets invited on stage for the ballet. the smoke is liquidit makes her a dancer-floating in and out of herweaving the dance.

the dance slows until an eighth note lasts forever.

f stillness. my kiss on the forehead is a whole rest. four counts 0 the dancers slow-and then they sleep.

WH Y SMOKE!

And everything just slips away like the life-blood of a cigarette smoking steadily from one end winding its way to heaven or some other place sacred. Nothing is sacred here except maybe the ascent itself For it is Then we notice the life we leave

A person has so many lives

If only we could let the bad ones smolder upward, briefly lick the ceiling and disappear forever and inhale the good ones like a quitter in relapse God, it's good, isn't it?!

What a curse to find happiness. Damn the fools who find it. Kill the fools who keep it. Those who have nothing, lose nothing but those happy folk wake up every day knowing that the glass bubble could break at any moment.

That's why I fucking smoke.

KAREN ANN BOSURGI

OH SPLENDIFEROUS DRINK OF THE GODS!

Praise to coffee, ambrosia of the gods! How I love thy unsweet scent! That sets my synapses on fire, when all night up I have spent!

Wondrous in thy basic form, when you are called black! Quickly you do always awake me, when critical awareness I lack.

But also good with sugar and cream, when you turn a light brown hue. Sweeter you taste and easier to drink, making me wonder "O ne cup or two ?"

Only one form of you I love not , th e eviln ess known as decaf. Though still wonderful in taste and sme ll , in wakeful caffein e you so rel y do lack.

Praise to coffee, ambrosia of the gods!

Most splendiferous of drinks!

\X-'ar m yo u are in hand and stomach !

Neve r ~1ay yo u be poured dow n the sink!

BWA WK! IM A TURNIP!

Dun dun da, Av-i-on Green , Dun dun da, arrives on the scene!

Part biiird, Part vegetable, Shield your eyes, He's come to fight crime.

Dun dun da, Av-i-on Green!

Most horrific beast

You've ever seen!

He's got talons, And a beeeak, And an extensive root system to compensate for a lack of mammalian internal organs.

Dun dun da, Av-i-on Green!

You've made

The villains scream!

You saved the daaqy, Now please go awaaqy,

My eyes

Are starting to bleed.

fROM THE EARTH CITY CHR ONICLES: DEUS Ex

M y friend Marie is single. She insists it 's be f h . , caus e o er job: she works at Gnselde ~ra Shoppe down on Walnut, w hich isn't exactly a hotbe~ ~f eligible bachel o~s. Of course, Ea rth City, our humble abode, 1sn t a hotbed of eligible anything But you probably already guessed that. Anyway, this stor y is not about Marie. Don't get me wrong-she's an okay kind of girl. But sh e's a good five years m y senior and kind of abrasiv e. I don't think I would date her, if you get what I'm saying.

"There are only two kinds of men who come in this store," Marie likes to say in her throaty voice made rough from years of smoking. "The kind who are buying lingerie for their women, and the kind who are buying it for themselves " Neither of whom really pique her interest, I suppose.

And me? Same story. I'm a salesgeek at Radio Shanty. It 's an electronics place that sells transistors and resistors and capacitors, and stuff for circuitry and computers, and tiny light bulbs and wires and cables and also fun gadgets like LED display talking answering machines. Even so, the true geeks and nerds get all their stuff online (who wouldn't? It's cheaper, easier, and you don't have to drag your '96 K-car out into the snow to the Earth City strip mall on a Saturday a month before Christmas. Unless, of course, you work there). So I guess I don't need to tell you that the Shanty's female customers are mostly soccer moms looking for parts for their kids' science projects, or headsets for their cell phone s. Occasionally one of my female friends will come in to say hi. And I can tell you now, none of them are interested. It 's sad, but it's tru e.

So I was kind of surprised when a girl about m y age, and a strange r to m e, walked into the store one blustery day in ~o~e mber. T he s to re was packed with people buying last-minute C~mtmas prese n ts (eve n at Radi o Shanty! Can yo u beli eve it?!) bu t th Js gi rl st ood o ut as if o n e o f o ur muJd -coJo red rave -ish si- robe light -; was mak in g her d o a fu turi stic rap id -fir e electro ni c tara nte ll a. Round Fae, . · I · k b k · k -I · e, ~tra1g-1t b lac k ha ir d own he r bac k, bl ac ac ptK am ankle-lengn l hi · I ,..I-'h I I1 · · ac < coat, a nd p urp le Co n ve rse sn ea kers. os e , ac to be usele · · • · l ss in the foot ot snow o u t t he re, b u t I lik ed th em.

won't lie-she was cute, even all bundled up against th~ air. 1 kept looking, even though I must ~ave appeared to be rn the f dork than I already am. She had this pale skin and 0 re o a f kni b . Was We ally long really thin scar t m rightly-color d ar- mg a re ' e sectio That scarf made me think of the film guy in Rent. I liked her ns. immediately.

Scarf Girl bypassed all of the Christmas toys and h bl Sh d eaded er to the cords and ca es. e seeme to be looking t h ov . . a t e eth ernet cable. I wondered 1f she was preparing for a LAN Phi uld b arty, and then decided that such a t ng wo e too good to be true. NOW my brain interrupted. Before you get too carried aw , pipe dreams and she leaves. Make your move.

"Hi, can I help _You?:' Yeah. Real smooth. But hey-chicks dig good customer service, right?

''Yeah. You can," she looked at my nametag, "David. See I have this Mac ..." The vision of LAN parties that was dancin ' in my head evaporated." ... My aunt gave it to me, and I g adamantly refuse to mortgage my home, car and cat to pay for parts for the thing, because I might want to play Halo with my friends or something." Well. That was better. "See, I want to connect to a wireless network, but you wouldn't believe what Apple charges for an AirPort card ..." Well, they had to pay for those fancy ads somehow. " ... so I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way, with ethernet cable." She smiled and looked me right in the eye. Hers were what I think they call hazel, sort of browny-green with grey flecks. Gorgeous. And her smile: heavenly. It made sense that my brain supplied that word, because the store's stereo system was playing something retro called "Send Me an Angel." Good song.

"Well, you seem to have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, so what help could you possibly need?" I asked. Yes! Compliment her. Girls love that kind of thing.

"I'm too short to reach the one I want."

that's what we sales flunkeys call it, I logged out bke

After I'd rung her out which I know 1s a g ' . I'd bee

crai ne d to do after a transaction and stared fixedly at the login Creen while the co rne r s of m y eves watc he d her walk h s . , o u t to r e parking lot and drive ~way 111 a purple p ickup truck. I was feeling pretty go od at po~t be caus~ I'd gotte n he r LM screen na me. A screen name 1sn t q wte the pnz e a phone numbe r is b ut h , ' e, , with a girl like that I was read y to tak e an ything (I bet yo u 've been in the same situation before, righ t ?) I was still gazing at the co mputer when I heard a male vo ice behind me.

"Hi. I'm going to need some help here. I have this gift certificate, only I don't have it here. Can you still apply it to my purchase? Oh, yeah ... and none of my ite ms have SKU tags .. and there are, like, twelve of them .." WTF? ! Go od -bye, goo d mood. I turned sharply, ready to nail this turd of a customer. But I was surprised, instead, to see m y buddy B.J. That gu y can re all y shift his voice. But I was happy to see him; I needed a fa vor. Boy, was he just the guy I needed righ t then.

He comes to bug me at work from time to time, and he's usually right on cue. I was read y to hug him, I was so glad to see the big lug. B.J. is 6'3" and built like a linebacker. But he plays Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, not football. And I've got to say, he makes for a downright vile dungeon master, or DM, in D&D. That's the guy in charge, who m akes up ail the rules when you play. He's like a dictator. And as I'd discovered during many a game with this particular D M, with absolute power comes, well, absolute abuse of power. B.J. was wearing a white, short-sleeved dress shirt and a tie with Darth Vader on it, so I was guessing he'd just come from work.

"Hi, Beej, my man! What is up?" Yeah, okay. I know I'm a dork.

"Hi, David. What do you need this time?" He had on thi s infuriating, knowing grin.

"How did you know I needed something? I mean · ·. · nothing. I don't need a thing.... How did you get in here wi th0 ut my knowing anyway?" I demanded. .

"Dave, Dave, Dave. First off, you only call me BeeJ when you want something. So you might as well just ask. Who ~ows, maybe I'll say yes. Secondly, you were so absorbed in talki~g to th · did 't ven notice the at girl who was in here just now that you n e

- d r when I came in."

6 ll on the oo

e "Oh. Right."

"So let me guess. You told this girl you were going to ty which you can't do because you're still livi . throw a par ' d ng in Yau , 6 sement so you nee to use my place. And stop fid r parents a ' h 1 dlin . h th t mouse cable, I'm not gomg to urt you," he said . g wit a With an '"" t" evil snicker. 1. e ·

"Um." How in Hades did he know all of this stuff:>" d I , fr: d · Beyl I'm a broke college student, an cant a 1or an apartment yet,, ·

B.J. put up his hands. "Hey, hey, dude. It's all good. Lo~k I know you were interested because you carded her. You never ' card people, David. I bet you were memorizing her information too, you dastardly dorkwad you." He was right, unfortunately. Her name was Roxanne (but people called her Roxy-she'd mentioned that when she gave me her screen name), and she lived on High Street, about twenty minutes away up Highway Z. And she was so beautiful even her driver's license picture looked good.

B.J. wasn't finished. ''And as for the party thing, you've pulled that three times already. But I'll forgive you because it's good for my social life. Anyway, it's close to Christmas. I can call it a ... howyousay ... holidqy party." He feigned some kind of generic foreign accent and laughed demonically. 'CWe can play Dungeons and Dragons."

"Well then ... are we on for a shindig?" I asked, trying not to look too hopeful, and trying to ignore that laugh, which was downright chilling.

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that." I looked at him. With a name like mine, you get tired pretty quickly of 5pace Odyssey, 2000 references. "Just kidding. When'd you tell her to come over?" * * *

Everybody met up at B.J.'s place on a Friday at seven. Well, sort of. In my aggregate of humans everyone is properl y ge k d d 't mean e Y, ner Y, whatever you want to call it, but that oesn d it ri Peo pl d , I rna e e o n t tend to show up fashionably late. Even so, . t point t h . o 1 JU 50 get t e re real early. Maybe fifteen minutes or s · f thes e wanted t k . d with all 0 · 0 ma e sure Roxy wasn't standing aroun

People sh e didn 't know, because, hey a room can get b 1 ' a o ur t,ve ve times larger when th a t h appens .

So I 'd alre ad y settl ed in, g otten m yself some D · d o nto s, an was caking p art a conv er~atlon about a game called Mage. So here I was, we ~nng m y t-shirt that says " chi cks dig pale scrawn y gu ys" an d talkin? about ano~ er fantasy role -playing gam e. Jeez , I am a dweeb. I tned not to think about it and listened to the music chat was playing on B.J.'s s tereo. It was fro m a video game I like, a song where a children's choir is singing against a backdrop of tri bal drums . It's a total paradox . I was listening to the musi c and sipping m y Mountain Dew wh en B.J. showed Roxy in and offe red her Twizzlers, whi ch she politely declined. She was visibly nervo us around him, giving him plenty of space and these surreptitious look s. It was weird. Girls normally go all googly- eyed over BJ , like he's some kind of rich dessert or something But then, that's part of his job. Jus t as I was thinking that it was a g oo d thing Rmry didn't care for B.J., because I wanted her for m yself, she came over to me with a relieved look on her face.

"Hi, Dave. Man, why do you hang out with that BJ ch aracter? And what's new?" Her long hair was plaited in three brai ds down he r back (cool!) and she was wearing a black t -shirt wi th some o n es and zeroes screened on it in silver and purple glitter And she had on that same black ba ckpack and multicolored scarf from the o ther day.

I sq uinted at her shirt, ignoring her comment ab out B.J. and trying to remember the binary I'd learned , then realized I didn't want her thinking I was staring at he r chest " The p ast tense of snow. "

" I don't g et it," sh e said . "What do yo u mean, 'th e past tense of snow' ?"

I should have kno w n b etter th an to p ull tha t kind of dumb joke on her. She w as d e fini tely too smart fo r tha t. "As in, 'i t sn ew yesterday." ' When Roxy ju st kind o f loo ked at me, like m ayb e I w~s some kind of alien , m y brain started shouting at me. Yikes! Quick! Recover!

" What 's your shirt mean? " Yeah! A sk her questi o n s abo ut herself Th ey love that.

" It says ' QT' in bin ar y," she repli ed . ''Yo u li ke?"

"Definitely. Welcome to th e dork side," I held out for a high-five She saw that I was aiming to nu· tny hand . . ss and missed too. Man, this was my kind of girl. so she

"Thanks By the way, I thought your 'snew' · k

• Jo e Was funny." She smiled.

Better and better. " So anyway," I asked casuall . · " h ' . h b k k' S y, tnaking conversation, w at s m t e ac pac :- omething

The scarf I could understand; it was kind of trendy r 1 · wr g1r s to wear those. But wearing a backpack to a party? Did she thi k . n she'd need a textbook or something?

She stopped laughing. "Yeah." I looked at Roxy and her complete and utter lack of expression, and decided to try a different tack. I didn't really care what was in the pack anyway, and even if I had, I was more interested in seeing her again than in seein what she was carrying around on her back. g

So I asked her, "Where're you from?" I already knew the answer, of course. But I wanted to ask her something generic about herself so she wouldn't dwell on the mistake I'd just made.

"O h, not from around here." She smiled.

"What? But ... " I stopped myself just in time. I didn't want her to know that I knew she lived in Apartment 2B on 1327 High Street here in Earth City, that her middle name was Angela, and that she had a signature that was completely unrecognizable as anything of the sort. I also happened to know that she was eighteen, four years younger than me. Because as B.J. pointed out, I am a dorkwad and I had memorized her driver's license info. Bu t '

... what did she mean by "not from around here?"

"Oh, you saw my driver's license when I gave you my , · ternVisa," she said. "Duh. But the Earth City place, thats JU st a . . ·1 B oh, no. po rar y address." Agam with that heavenly sm1 e. ut · · · . . . d in the next What if she lived in the next state? What if she live li ;i f Austra a. co untry? The next contin e nt? What if she was rom 1 1 . . . . . b k;:i Sta)' ca n .

What if th is amazmg girl left and n eve r cam e ac · _ . , I rh i~ ~->r t r,1

"S h f ,,, M .es t1·on was ,t o w ere a re you rom :- . y qu , tim e I had to know.

"Yo u wouldn't believe m e if I told yo u.''

T h ate it when they say t h at.

So, when have I heard this before you a k;:> ,v, ll , ' s . we ' I ll tell You. Remember m y homeboy B.J.? He has a little secret S . . • ee, 1t all started one day when I was working at the Shanty h I . , · ea , spend a lot of my tune there. A guys got to have the cash and , anyway electronics and computers are what I know. So I was at the st;re when this guy walked in. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, black dress pants, a tie with Chairman Mao on it, and the shiniest shoes I'd ever seen. He also had spiky blond hair and a black nametag with "Benjamin" on it in white. He looked to be in his twenties, like me, only he was really big, unlike me. My "pale scrawny guys" shirt is so funny because it's perfectly true. I immediately wrote "Benjamin" off as another cubicle-dwelling, business type with weird taste in ties. But as it turned out, he was a bit more than that.

I was putting cans of WD-40 on a shelf when this Benjamin person walked up to me and asked me about soldering irons. "I want one that gets really, really hot," he said to me, "and that has a really pointy tip." So I told him that all of our irons have pretty pointy tips, but if he wanted it pointier he could use this little utility-knife sharpener we have. I showed him the sharpener and the hottest solderers and figured he'd be done with me. But he wasn't.

"Hey," he said to me. "You happy with your life?"

Now, what was I supposed to say to that? I've had rude customers and I've had clueless customers, but I'd never run into ' a philosophical customer. Maybe he was a Jehovah's Witness. He was sure dressed for it. Well ... except for the tie. Grea0 I thought. Just what I need, prose/ytization. . . .

At any rate, I thought my life was just fine. "My life is JU~t fine," I said. To prove it, I added, "I've got a good job, good family, cool classes and a nice house " ' . " l

He looked at me. "You're working at Radio Shanty, , e pointed out.

"I like what I do." .

'",,. . ts" Ben ia.mm rou live in a small house with your paren ' . added " h . vou ha ve to , w ere your little brother drives you crazy, 1

ke e p your music down, and you get grounded occa . ~s1onaU ,, snickered. "You commute to a state school where Y, he , . you take e . necring classes that you thought would be fun but t ng1. . urned o bNing because they are so incredibly easy. And" h Ut to be ki R d . Sh " I d'd ' ' e concluded "You're wor ng at a 10 anty. 1 n t even pau , se to ask . how he knew all of that. I just spit out a retort which Just d . il d b must hav st mnded extraor mar y um e

"Oh, yeah?" See what I mean? But now this "Ok B . . guy Was really starting to get on my nerves. ay, enJamm-" "Please. Call me B.J." He was grinning a little bit too Wtde- ly

"Okay, B." (pause for effect) "].," I said, "just where do you work that is so fancy schmancy?"

''You wouldn't believe me if I told you." See?

Well, turned out that I didn't believe him. Because he told me he worked in Hell. And he sure as hell didn't mean that he thought what a lot of people thought, which was that his workplace was hell. He really meant that he worked in Hell. The thing was, this B.J. character was a demon. Yeah, I didn't believe it at first either; it took an awful lot of convincing. But it was true. He showed me where he worked, a shiny new office building at the co rner of Damien and Ash where souls are sent to be tortured. Makes sense that there'd be a corner of Hell decked out in cubicles, doesn't it? And that its transdimensional terrestrial outcropping would be in our very own Earth City? And that there'd be a demo n manager there who tortures people? Did I also mention that he's an evil dungeon master in Dungeons and Dragons? O~ay, I 'I] stop with the questions. Probably sounds like I'm trying to give you the third degree here. But that was the clincher for me, th at part ahnut B.].'s being a DM. 0 f di I maces an When he showed me his room full o me eva .' ·) 1 rac ks (and brand - new hot pointy Radi o Shanty soldering irons '

•s ' d tn e 11 thought that h e mi g ht have been a sadist. Wh e n h e showe . . f er fro01 red pointed tail, I figured that it might have been le t ov ·

Halloween. But when I saw him play D&D, I knew. Tno man. He was a demon. his man was

And when I finall y believed him afte hi . , r watc ng m favorite cleric get completely mutilated by drag . h y . ons Wlt a red-and black hundred-sided die, he offered me a deal H ·d h. . . . e sai t at people were gettmg wise to Lucifer, movtng over to the li h •d g t s1 e and so forth. So the boss had hired a consultant who sugg t d h . ' es e t at they go for the m~r~ middle-of-the-road, Purgatory types. Which meant me. B.J. hadn t Just shown up at Radio Shanty because he needed electronical torture devices; he was there for my soul.

"We're offering a free trial," B.J. informed me, "for a limited time only. You get a month's worth of awesome earthly delights, and if you're not completely satisfied, you keep your soul." Well, it sounded good to me. But all I really wanted was a place to take girls to, maybe throw a party. So that's what I told B.J.

"No problem," he said. ''Which mansion would you like, the one with the pool or the one with the private helicopter launching pad?"

All for one puny little soul.

Of course, it didn't really work out so well. But then, they say it never does when you're dealing with the Devil. All the girls who seemed interested in me always fell for good old B.J. as soon as the y saw those biceps rippling under his white dress shirts. The roomful of torture implements probably didn't hurt either. Leave it to me to attract that kind of girl ... only to lose them to a dem o nic table-top gamer. d 1 - h

I f sed and e ig t-

So yo u can probably see why was con u , d d d . . . . h R xy seemed not onl y c , an etermmed not to pnx lt, w en o . .d · how attractive inte rested in m e ... but afraid of B.J. Const ermg J

. h h matte r. 1nst ca u gi rl s see m ed to find him, I decid e d not to pus t e Id 'r 1 f But s he wou n asked h e r to e laborat e o n where s h e was rom. te ll m e.

. " \'v' hat do yo u say we

. "Not h e re , a n yway," s h e was saying. ' · ditch thi s plac e and go so m ewh ere?" .. If s he wasn't

"Wh h. k. "' " 1 was cu ri ous . ere were yo u t m mg:-- , ·

from around here, would she know the places to go ~ (Or lack thereof?) ,, _ City?

" Let's go to the park. O bviously she did. Th hial E . ere Was on e park in our humble, paroc arth Ci ty the ere . 0 nly r ' atively n E arth City Park. It was the spot 1or everything from k atned 1 ddin Ina eout sions co festivals and fairs to s e g and skating. It Woul ses. . d alk . d be a o-ood place to go to sit 111 a car an t pnvately espe •a11 b ' Cl y afte dark. Yeah. Talk. But before we could even decide wh r . ose car w 'd be taking, B.J. showed up, looking so perturbed his eyeb e . . rows Wer a single hard line above his pale blue eyes. I had never seen hirn e this angry.

''You don't get to leave!" he fumed.

''What?" I paused, Dorita in hand, and looked at him. "Why?" Roxy shrank back and pulled at my sleeve. "Let's g " h o, s e mouthed.

B.J. glared at her, and then back at me. "It wasn't in your contract. You're required to 'enjoy your earthly delights at a mutually acceptable temporal and physical location.' And that means here." He was shouting, and people were beginning to stare. B.J. lowered his voice. "So you. Can't. Leave." His arms were folded and his eyes were starting to glow red. It was downright freaky. "And why," he demanded, "has this ... this ... girl taken such an interest in you?" He spat out the words like they were overcooked Brussels sprouts.

I glanced at Roxy. Why shouldn't she take an interest in me? She was looking at me, her hazeley eyes wide. ''\"Y/e need to get out of here," she said, so earnestly it would have been funny if she hadn't been so serious. She gripped the straps of her backpack and murmured, ''You're in grave danger." WTF? Danger? Dude. I was with a pretty girl, in a huge house with a pool (not that it mat~ered when it was this cold outside but still) and I had Doritos. Things ' ' were fine. But then I glanced over at B.J. Where he'd been stan g there was a massive red-and-black creature with vicious teeth dripping with blood or saliva or both huge batlike wings, aD<l claws 5 ' . d He~ that made mastodon tusks look like toothpicks. A emon. still wearing his Bowser tie. do. 'd what to It took me all of .0001258 seconds to dect e rip· S ! I b R ho was g cram. acked away and walked right mto oxy, w

P

ing her backpack straps like the world was ending d th . an ey were her last bag o f Dontos. As I turned around to see if h s e was okay I saw her take off the backpack, and out rustled a pair of . . ' d klin gigantic, white-feathere , spar g wmgs. Um.

"I didn't want to have to do this," she said as her head started to glow and heavenly music filled the air. It sounded kind of like that children's choir doing a rousing rendition of somethin b . g by Elvis. But may e 1t was Just me.

Rox y had started to glow more until her features were almost unrecognizable in the bright light. "I didn't want to have to do this. But I am charged with David's protection against the forces of Darkness." So where was she when I had to take Ms. Maybury's killer of a differentials test, I'd like to know. "That contract is null and void," she went on. "Thirty-day trial? Who do you think you're kidding?" Well, it had sounded good to me. "Those souls are as good as yours when they sign that thing. Fortunately for David here, his was scribbled on a steno pad and signed with a Bic pen."

B.J. the demon started making sounds like someone having an argument in German with a garbage disposal. Finally he became intelligible. "I'm an office demon!" he cried. "That's what we use!" Suddenly a vast maw opened up in the plush carpeted floor, sucking in the BJ-demon. The tip of one of his giganemous claws was the last we saw of him as he roared, ''You're still a dorkwad . . Dorkwad!"

"Maybe next time he should try TextEdit," Roxy said, dusting off her jeans as her glow subsided. Just what I need, a Mac angel. * * *

Well, needless to say, Roxy wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't from around here. And she wasn't fooling anyone with th at being afraid of B.J. bit. Turns out she's got these fantastic powers and saves the Universe one soul at a time. A nd she plays a ' mean game of D&D. So B.J. was nothing to her. Unfortunately, ~h ough, she's onl y go t eyes for seraphim. A nd so, once sh e'd banished BJ · · to the o ffic e building from wh enc e he came, she went

b k to the video arcade where she hangs out (of cours ----th ac e, at would be a geeky angel's idea of heaven).

And as for B.J. ... I can tell you that guy was sure . hi vil not as nice as he seemed. He was using s e geek powers to m k . a e girls drool over him and not ~e. ~ot only that, he was a master of illusion, turning everyday things into far more glamorous deli h . f hi g ts. For instance, those mansions o s were really shacks. For HAM radio, no less! But worst of all, his supposed hundred-sided die on/y had ninery-nine sides. Now that's low.

Anyway, all those people at the party were super shocked at seeing the forces of good and evil duke it out in B.J.'s rec room. But I can say, my friends are geeks, and used to seeing that kind of thing in video games and movies. So they'll deal. I suspect Roxy used a Men-in-Black-style memory-erasing device on some of them, and the rest just chalked it up to whatever was in those brownies people were passing around.

As for me? Things are going okay. I still live with my parents, and to tell the truth, it's not so bad. My brother keeps to himself, and listening to loud music is what they invented headphones for. And I can live with a commute and easy classes. Sure beats the hard ones, no? Though I can tell you I sure won't be making any more deals with burly blond guys with odd taste in neckwear. I'll probably avoid girls who carry backpacks around all the time, too.

But you know what? I hooked up with Marie, the lingerieshop girl. She's really not too bad, once you get to know her. She does have some very intriguing items in her closet, and I don't mean sharpened soldering irons, either.

· ld ' where

Just the other day I came to bug her at Grise es, . she was dusting a shelf of dainty lace things. She said th~t earlier she'd been talking to a guy in a red satin shirt and a tie ~ 1th a pinup girl on it. And you know what? Marie got rid of him · · · and I learned a few interesting new words.

That's my girl.

SNOW M ELT - FEBRUARY 19, 2007

It's warm now, and the ge ntle s n o ws trickJ e down through brown ]eave s to th e daffodils I planted in the woods.

The melt is like MacLeis h's Memorial Rain, not "suddenly, and all at once" but enough to quicken my bulbs out of their grave sleep. No speeches here, just jonquil eloquence.

Presently, green stems and spathes will push old leaves aside and make new this spring with sun-bright trumpets and coronas.

R< H31·.RT M. B, ,,~°')

J~, '

D_EATH OF A HO NEYB EE

Tonight I watched a bee as it died on a Tennis court. I was entranced as it stumbled Silently around a five-inch patch of poured Concrete. It quivered and shivered, sometimes I Wondered if it was scratching its back, and I asked Myself, time and again; what I should do about This bee?

Would the kind thing have been to Kill it quick? To take my shoe and smash it Into oblivion? I told myself, ''Yes, that is what I should do." And yet I could not bring Myself to kill the bee. I just sat and wondered What a bee's last thoughts might be. Did it

Think of its hive; wonder who might miss her when She didn't make it home? Did she remember her life? Fields of clover, like moving oceans below her, as she Gathered pollen in the sun?

Does a bee understand its death, and I wonder if it was Painful. Such silence during her crooked crawl. I agonized for her, this small creature, and wondered If her breath sounded labored as she struggled in those Moments. It seemed a long time coming, her death, and I struggled with my own conscience as I found myself Unable to take any action at all.

Does a bee think of all of the days it will miss? Does it Cherish every last moment it has; every single breath it Can take? It was this thought that maybe held me back From ending it for her. Who am I to rob a bee of its Jast Heartbeats?

cihen finally she was still I poked at her with a pape r. I uess you could say that somewhere insid e I h o p ed that s he Was mere! 1 d ·u d Ys eep1ng; she was not. Sh e wa s s tiff an s tJ an

w , u.ld no longer struggle. My opportunity to be brave t . wo And I h d h · ' 0 relte · H _ ffering was past. . watc e er, sttU, as yell . Ve er su , ·ow ten . Balls flashed by on the court next to me. I wondered wh nis . . h . . at the c M might think of my interest m sue an 10s1gnificant Ute an creature b Decided I didn't care. Ut

When the ants came I found I could not give her up. I reli d . . eve then, Their treasure with careful hands; lifted her by_ one golden wing. of She was beautiful, y?u know, as many small thmgs are. I studied her Corpse and looked 1~to ~er eyes. It was strange to see that even a bee Has dead eyes when its life has ebbed out. Stranger still was the O h ' I observed. ext t ing

Her stinger was stuck in her mouth.

f_iEA

' John Belushi" ~cribbled black ac ros~ hjs chest with his bass guitar strapped to him Like a baby

Jjke Michael Jackson dangLing his baby out of a window

Not a mother caressing her newborn

The beat hlcks in and his muscles start to pulse

His black jeans karate up and he flies

chen he floats back down and dives into the gufrar and leans into the rhythm and sweet melody

His bald head bobs and his arms dance like Shiva

His face is a middle school art class F-grade bust

But I see through the contorted mouth and rolled eyes

He looks happy, and he wants to share it with me and anyone else watching

TEXT MESSAGE T RANSCRIPT - 813 / 06

sent: 314-xxx-54818 / 3 / 0621 :13

vry mchly i Iv u a clarion call 4 a d yng age my gramr 1s por but my wrds ring tru lik goldn brds in a gilded cage

received: 314-xx:x:-9260 8/ 3/06 21:21

EDEN'S Y OUNGER BROTHER

In the Garden of Good and Slightly-Le ss-G ood, Everyone is happy-or at least sati sfied .

B O BBY Ml-:. LLE

There is no hunge r o r p ove rty, except around 3:00 p.m . We would all be eguals if not for Fred; He brush es his te eth onJy once a day, and we jibe him ever so much.

The fruits of the garden are delicious, if a bit too tart, or sweet, But the vegetables are perfection itself! Oh we have an almost-Paradise here, , Only The Devil knows how.

Need th pull of the fool · d you e

I rernlll . d tool used to rule

It's the rip rappe_ d b .

l f string an rmg

The spoo o . h fli h

The rest o h d

f us right into t1g t g t

. h f the right will be t e secon

The nug t 0

Best h

Guess o

f the rest and the nest of the c est

• ht below the cleft cloven and woven

Lives ng . . .

Round the bound boys and girls of the art1fic1al superstitious fictitious pull

The right rhythm the motion of masturbation hand lotion

And the notion of consistence is consistently resistant to the Persistent persistence being pretentious to the point of a joint burnt

And in turn I learn that all I ever thol.\lght could be split and lit right in half by rhyme

So the time to be sublime is but a lime bower tree

And I find myself hent on bended knee trying to please something I can't see

Bigger figure of the literate shiver makes me quiver

To my toes and those who suppose all these flows and prose goes To verse just for the ideal of community

Grant impunity and diplomatic immunity to all my sisters and brothers who believe in Unity

The badder the better the tighter the wetter

I like to see them unsuspecting in a cardigan sweater

Bend and tw1·st th k' · · li e 1ss to resist 1s a e And I of a!J p l h . eo p e s ould know how 1t goes To lose a d di b 'd n e ut be better inside and bide the t1 e

S() no one h d d rhe

S sees t e se as creeping in and spin an men unpl e bend of a note to float on a

Self-made one b -man oat

It is but an exercise in ill w,ir m

.Rhyme is nothing but noi se And gives words no m(Jrc m eanin~ Than that sweet quote about S<.Jund and fur y

But, hey, who's watching?

You can come on inside for a minute And let me tell you a secret

Whispered in my ear

When I was but a boy

Just a puppet toy

B.!§.TY FINGERS ELIZABETH

She's absently beautiful wearing flip-flops through the snow. All her poems are suicide notesideas swinging from cliched ropes.

Eyes reveal only gray skies smelling of wet asphalt and arson.

Everything she says is a lie that used to be true of life, death, and that other thing. Where did she watch goodbye to her final illusions of innocence?

She wrote her own epitaph.

STAUDT

NO VEM BER

This November a dreary discipUne se ttl e s in with a fierce determination , crun c hy shad o ws , clogged g utt e rs and a g argoy le . Walled into a va ult, I rock a blu e baby swaddled in fright.

N -E -Y- E - R is painted boldly in bi g black letters on red brick, and m y soul SCREAMS for summer, juicy re d sen s ati o ns, sti c ky swe e t o n m y face like dri e d appl e juice and vo dka a ft e r s kinn y- di pp in g- m y G o d ! And my h e art p o undin g . And yo u wiJJ n ot leave my th o ug ht s And l ca n n ot kee p qui et wi th s u c h a co ld , vo ice les s w in d b lo w in g . An d 'vvh e re excep t from a whi te w ind ow m ay I find s tr e ngt h ?

Th e cl o ud s?

I WATCH A BOY WATCH SNOW --

His eyes stop me before l pa s11, perfect circles of liqujd blu e li ght motionlessly spelJbound .

Curious, I follow hjs gaze . . .

In the streetlamp's .fluorescent glow

Falls a silent white rajn of fresh winter snow. The flakes' airy movements reveal A graceful ballet of light and wind and water.

Turrung back to the boy, I smiJe, Knowing that because of him, I saw the snow.

I kn ow wh at her excuse was. I w1l ne,-er

·\ b.td d.1y? _ . . )

H . L)Wl1 chilh- disp os mon . er ~ . d ) The .1wkwmd silence of her tnen s . ) [\· shoddy appearance. Tl~e fact is, it doesn't matter: There was no good reason for her to kill me like that.

D esp era te for shelter from the elements, suffering from frostbite I stamped my feet as I hesitated hopeful at the threshold of Life, ~-\bout to plunge into the warm hospital lobby, ' when the nurse on duty saw me and , frowning, Froze me to the spot ,vith a stare, confronting me ,vith the guilt I had incurred by committing the awful sin of .. . disturbing her existence, I suppose. Icy apathy invaded my heart, my lungs, my stomach. The last flicker of life within me died forever as I turned and forged blindly back into the bitter night ... better to perish there

(so it seemed) than to face the utter shame that her disapproval promised.

And now, not even a death certificate or obituary remains to bear witness to the foolish, needless criminal negligence concealed in a

Thoughtless cold shoulder.

ARGUMENT WITH A GHOST

Warped: acoustics of the bedroom, toys of a girl who would have been four.

Ceilings rise and fall with her funeral party, their taps rippling, a surround sound system through the housetired mourners and/or

angels with sore throats and/or

demons whispering and/or

alter-egos masquerading and/or

mice goss1pmg

C ALE B MI LL E R

so quiet, so complimentary to the ringing at the door, in the hallway, in the bathroomas if the ghosts and non-ghosts play musical chairs; how can they be this beautiful and not exist? I hear creaks like the crooked walk of a nerveless God, a mumbling friend, a dying daughter, awkward comfort and the meaning of life like a joke

that has to be explained again and again. The meaning compounds as feedback 10 th e rippling room, unbearably loud aocl now untouchable, as if someone locked the door fro m the inside.

From b h. d h I e Jn t e door there is a breathaughs ech · · , · 0 as a mi ssin g hand reache s, that is wh '

t n your br-. ·11 . . · '1111 st1 pre te nd s it 1s th e re.

Emir s tood s taring ou r ot- th e "mallnine-foot room_ The old, rusrino- b b-l " , -indow of his , _. ars oc.ked hi . . s1-x-bythe rnrd outside his h ome. The s n n J; nJ... s tilted \le\\·· _ , ~~ u t, ho\,-e,- ot blocked . The ;:,un s yellow beams w er bl er, Was not e eached hi February's co ld breeze. He could nor .-.-. ~'- " - te by nl dd u1.4K e our any groun d, o y mu y p uddles mth ,-esre d _, - s_now on the bl k . . r a~ s recreano. Pnnts. The oc . " as unusualh- quiet, th n nme foot. not at Emir,,- uld heard his neighbors anyway~ He stopped li . 0 have,, sterung long ag " T· co go dm1.·n , J\fit, a Yoice intruded into hi 1 °· 1me. . s so ace. He wondered \\-hy people feel an urge to abbrenare eYen th h e s ortest of names Did 1t make them feel more connected? End d) H · . . eare · e allowed a snngy smile to escape his lips without showing his teeth. His mo vements were slow; each footstep was deliberat H _ hi _ e. e swept s iacket up from his bunk, looked OYer his shoulder at the sliYer of white light cas cading into his window, and nodded to the guard that he w as read y to go.

Abridgen was a run-down, sixty-five-year-old, maximumsecurity facility, one of the oldest in the county. The paint peeled from the exterior walls through to the interior ones. The cracked, asbestos-tiled floors were an eyesore, but they were kept clean at all times. The fluorescent lights hung high above the unsightly floors and never seemed to afford more than a dim shadow of light by which the inhabitants could find their ways. The interior walls were a colorless cross between gray and tan. The floors, furnishings, and other appurtenances were the same bland hue. _ The rusting black bars of the individual cells looked like decorations added as an afterthought by architects with poor senses of humor. On more than one occasion, Emit had rested on his mo? ha~~e, • 11 · f · by-rune livmg gazmg upon the triangular shaped co ect1on ° sixquaners and thinking to himself how much the arrangement ll · ch a dore se mbled a dollhouse. He bought his daughters JU st su d h elf He had guesse o use once· each room was a box m and of its · h h . ' . h d only taken t e

t .at it wo uld be eas y to build such a toy if he a I . knife some g ue, t.J.me. All he would have needed was an Exacto 'a d h th xact same size, n s oeboxes. After all, each room was e e d ill sion of a sta k d h · ht an u c e upon one another to create the eig

real ho use. Of co urse , there was some craft illYoh-ed The dollhouse Vlas much m ore life-like than E , . d . d. . IrlJ.ts c 1.1r_ t home It had a full-size v.1.n 0\\ o r t\.\-o m each t ren o~ r o 0 111 with pictures on the walls and ne at, ·wooden furruture agamst brightly painted walls. The b athroom eYen had a full -sized E . , . d . _ , oldfashioned claw-foo t tub. mlt s mm \\-ould dntt back to his grandmother's old apartment and the long, hot soaks he \\·ould take in her claw-foo t tub. The to y tub \V as the pnncipal selling point of the dollhouse . He was certam to p omt this o ut to his . _ l . . th . . al f I gir b while exp am.mg e re1u venatm g v ue o a o ng, h o t soak dunn their first tour. The y were much too young to under stand. \Yh at

wouldn't give to exchange a dozen c o mmunity showers for a single, solitary hot bath now.

tvlost of the cells were located on the outlying po rtion of the building. It housed a total of 20 " blocks " o r sets of 25 grouped cells. Emit resided in the "affluent" section: Cellblock 19 near the triangle's point. The prison's numbering system did not coordinate ,.vith its geography at all . The lowest-numb ered bl ocks began at the far southeast corner of the facility and stopped abruptly at 8. The numbering began anew with 9 at the opposite corner of the facility and grew larger as the cells approached the center. Emit's quarters were at the center of the pri son and in close proximity to all the best amenities , includin g the Ct1fe teri a, laundry, and yard entrance.

Emit was among its more favored residents. His quiet demeanor, cool temper, and affected speech h ad ear ned him the respect of the staff and inmates. He had few worries these days. In the not-so-distant past his life was filled with daily brawls and verbal pissing contests. Before long, he seized an opportunity to beat the spirit out of an antagonistic block leader. The six monrh s for assault added to his ten- year sentence were worth the respect and peace he gained b y his barbaric display. r

The visiting area lay just beyond Cellbloc _ a d . E t soake Ul den's office. The walk seemed to take an eternity. He had the smell of pine-cleaner as he floated down the corrtd0 r. ecial come to love the smell of cleaning products. This was an espperh had never source of private amusement for him because e 1.; more . d t before u..1S sonally used a smgle household-clearung pro uc

th re In his boyhood his grandmother made cert · h e · . ain t at the 11 rtn1ent was spic-and-span, the laundry was pressed d h. ap~ , an 1s al s were hot. In college he was fortunate to find • If . rne a g1r nend d.,.-1ng the first week who was all too happy to afford h ' . . 1,U-i •

1m s1m1lar care. His wife of fiftee~ years ~ever asked fo~ 0 ~ expected help with housework from him. _So, it was not until his fortieth year of life that he first rolled up his sleeves and put mop to floor. He rook pride in his work around Abridgen. He had tried out several details and ultimately volunteered for cleaning duty. It was work he could do alone and it afforded him instant, visible evidence of his toil. The floors of the waiting area and the wat"den's office were his favorites. These were younger than the rest. He painstakingly washed and waxed these floors on alternating days. He refused to use the archaic electric buffer that the prison owned. He felt it was defective and scratched away the very finish he was attempting to protect. He preferred to strap on kmeepads and glove his hands with the soft cotton buffing pads to accomplish his task. He meticulously worked from one corner of a room and fanned out to the center before switching and treating the opposite corner in the same manner. When his two shining sides met he would work his way backwards out of the room and into the hallway. He was always careful to stop at the exact threshold of the room; he never spread his efforts to the hallways. He decided that there was no point-it would be a perfect waste of wax.

"Sit on down in number two, Buddy," the attendant called out to Emit as he entered the visiting area doorway. Emit swallowed hard and tried to remember what he had rehearsed to say to his daughter. It had been seven years since the accidents and fiv~ years since Delilah had come to see him in person. She was getting old er and he understood she had to try and make a life from ashes He fo rgave her for her absence in hopes that the time apart ~ay heJp her forgive him for his sins as well . "Hello, Honey," Emit stam mer d . h sitting in th e . e out, uncertain how to address t e woman chair he ,~xpected to see his little girl occupying.

HeUo, Daddy, ho w are you?"

::Peaceful, Baby. Man, you've go tten so big."

What do yo u mean? You think I'm fat ?"

''No, no, Delilah hon ey. I mean yo u are so grown up.

S' I r ll ri~~ht ?" . d .

• 1 " l '"' l'lint'i-i ri g h t. l got a birth ay conun g .. ."

" I n April. " I ~mit foug h t bac k hi s te ars and swallo _ ' h' h " I ' Wedth

r;11• c I 1.11 ) ,.., d ' a y J

I , I crran Lt, swclJ tn ts t roat . m yo ur Daddy· B b e

•"' fi st you know. No t so me a cto r, not eve n yo ·

lir ld you .tr ur own

, Mel Your fat her, held yo u m th ese hand s when 1 b

lllOl1111l , I., . r o 11r,-k . . thi s world ." Lmt t exh aled dee ply, too k notic e of .h o1 1t

\I IIll in to . t e cL

· ht's <h uri htc r's fac e, and forc ed a smile to allay h c s- f r(' ss on • 1. r-o er tear

" Dad dy, 1 hav e heard that sto ry so man y tim es I can ·

• · 11 y sl,·c··p " D e]jlah rolled her eye s and tried to sque recite 11 1n , • ..., · ·· · . eze a gi _ rl c fro m her t hro at to cover the flippancy 10 her tone . "Look 1 g g ,, h ' am sorr y I haven't bee n up to see y~u . .. s e started but Emit interrup ted her befor e she could finish her apology. He tried to make her know that he did not expect her to stop living her life or um d . h . H l p th ro ugh hoops to come up an v1s1t 1m. e assured her that her lette rs were evid ence that he was in her thoughts and still in her hear t, which was plenty for him. "How they treating you in here, Daddy?"

"Oh, Pumpkin, don't you worry about these old bones. I made it fo rty-six years on this planet, both inside these walls and out, J am just fine. I always have been."

E mit shifted in his seat to correct his posture. He tried to sit perfectly erect while relaxing his spine against the back of the chair. He looked awkward, like the chair was too hard or too short fo r hjs lo ng legs. Delilah mirrored her father's actions She began to shift in her chair trying to deduce which part of the seat caused her fat her's apparent discomfort.

"I got something to tell you, Daddy. That's why I came out to da y. " Delilah's hand was almost too sweaty to maintain her gn r on the red receiver. She wished for the Plexiglas between 111cm to disappear and grow six feet thick at the same time. She haJ practice d her speech a hundred times or more in the week pr ec eding her visit. She was certain that Emit would explode at her

an ge

h ld rel v shake

e were able to get hold to me he wou su ;

1 d th ac inc 11 nr il 1 passed o ut," she told her boyfriend . She exp aine hero ~~hr and her fa th er had always been close. How he had been ~de 1 or her and her baby sist e r. "The best Daddy in the whole, \\\ ,si\\ '()ri d," she wo uld say. She explained that though he wasn t p )

_,,\. presenr in h e r /J fe right n c.,,v h e wac .011 ca.u.r ' .., s very m ·h he.r She ju s t c ou ld no r bear th e 1dea of b e uc :J fa rh e r , , 1 · rng a s0urc f anguish o r di sa ppomtm e nr fur rurr1- · e 'J fun hn E mit swallowed hard agarn , as a cu /d k . .. b d ' 1) trea <Jf re rrur spread acro ss hi s u ) · H e fo ug h t ru m aim;u n hi :s , · hi " Ok , H , c Jmpo <; urc· and no t adiu st s sea r. ·a1, o n ey. \ o u kn ow , .0 , aJ . ~ u ca n Wa) talk to your old D add y abo ur a n ything. " H e all owed hi d5 ml.fl to v:ander for a mom ent and tned to pred1ct wha t D e/JJ h' a s news cc,uJd be. "What was so seve re that sh e co uldn 't w nte m e ab,, h . out rt:- t: thought to hlIIls elf E mit and D elilah had maintai ned th · 1 e1r re ationship for the past half a d ecad e throu,gh_the m ai l Weekl y, th ey would exchange updates on on e another s lives . Delilah to ld E mi r about her first kiss at h e r firs t hi g h sch oo l danc e, her tribulati o ns with friends, and victories as captain of th e school basketball team through he~ letters. Em!t us ed this ufeline to impart hi s phil osoph y 00 life and instruct DeWah m ail matters of life from spiritual.Hy to jump shots. The letters afforded them the opportuni ty to build a bridge between them without the hurt and humiliation o f th e prison setting. At times Emit was grateful for not having to see Delilah or to hear her v oice. She reminded him of his wife and hi s baby daughter. The pa.in of their memories was acute during his first few years at Abridgen. He would lie awake nights haunted by visions of their smiles, robbing him of sleep. In time, he bega n to forget their faces. His pine-scented cleanser replaced the smell of his wife's hair. The clank of cell doors and cha.ins replaced th e sounds of his daughters' voices and laughter. He was abl e to begin to forget and heal.

"No matter how bad it may be, Hon ey, yo u will always be my baby-girl You know?" Emit smiled and invited Delilah to disclose her news.

"Oh, it's nothing bad Daddy. At least I don't think so.~' Delilah looked at her father with a wrinkled forehead as she med to_decode what he could have meant. A light bulb went off in her mind and she quickl y added " I ain't got a disease or nothing, Dadd r " · '

"Well, that is not exactly what I was thinking but it is _ hi good to know, Baby. So ... what is it?" Emit held his breath tight m s chest · • awaiting the news.

"Well Daddy, you know Chris, my boyfriend l wrot ' e you b ::>" Delilah had made her way to the edge of her seat a cl a out. · n Was . to read her father's thoughts through the glass. "His 1 trying . unc e is W·ter for North Central Uruvers1ty and he came to see · a recr me play a couple of weeks ago.'~ .

"Well that is fantastic, Honey. What did he think:>" £-. . , . · mus heart was turning somersaults m ~ls chest. He tried to exhale a bit as he released his fears of becommg a grandfather while living • In prison. The anxiety he felt in .that moment reminded him of when he first got the news about his youngest daughter, Daisyah. He felt as trapped and powerless then as he did now.

"He offered me a scholarship, Daddy." DeWah batted her long lashes the way she learned to do when she was very young and wanted her father's acquiescence. She was afraid Emit would try and hold her there. She omitted so much from her letters that would have helped him understand her urge to escape. She was, in effect, an orphan, living with her aunt in the small town. Everyone knew her story even if they did not know her name. She wanted to go somewhere new and big. To a city capable of swallowing her whole. One where she could blend in. She wanted to be someone besides the surviving Myles girl with the dead mother and psycho father. "I could go to North Central University for free. Well, I mean I would have to play ball for them and keep my girades up. But they are wilfuig to pay my tuition and room and board."

"North Central, huh? Well, Honey, that's great. But it's so far away. . No matter. If you want to go away to college, that's just what you should do. Honey, just keep your mind open, you still have another year before you graduate. A lot of things could come your way between now and then." Emit's fears began to subside.

"Oh I know it's far, Daddy. But it's a great opporturuty. I · I b t Mr t 1s true, I had not really begun to research other schoo s u · Hutchens, the recruiter, Chris's uncle, he talked to my guidance counselor and they arranged a program special for me so rbat I can graduate this year. I could start North Central in the faU, Daddy. It's a great school, and people kill for these spots. Oh please say yes , Daddy. Please , please."

E . - d . t sorn e m1t was dumbfounded · his fear mutate 111 0 '

- arnable e m otion. Thi s woman o ccup yJn a th -

UJl!1 ,-, · e ~ea t w h h

tl .;..J should be was asking him tu le t hi s c h ·id _ ere.: J<, In

e gu I m o ve h • hi Th h tw <' ''ilarc ci ay from m . ere was so muc to con sid er '' H

aw . · on ey, f d,m ' t

1. ow that I want yo u to g raduat e high sch ool ea rl Wh

fUJ hi ·· Y · Ya rc vr · Shing things? Is somet n g wrong? What are yo ' , u

ru u n< ,t telli n e?" He began to pray to h1m self that DeWah wn Id h- .

m 1 Th h u a ve n,, nL-;; bad secrets to revea. at .er t1fe was as perfect as cou ld he ' expected and that she was s1mply yo un g and impetuou c; .

''What!" DeWah was o n h er feet and pacing the three fc.: ei of floor that the telephone's cord wo uld allow h er to. " Dadd 1 earned this! Nothing is wrong. I just want it is aJJ." y, ·

"Did that boy Chris put these id eas into your hea<lt' '

Delilah's pacing came to a sudden stop. She ') lowly approached the glass and brought her face within an inch uf rh e barrier. With clenched teeth she reproached her father for hi s lack of faith in her. She expressed how offended she was at the in sinuation that she could not think for herse1£ "Wasn't it you that tr )l cJ me I could do anything I set my mind to? Why now won't yo u Jet me claim it?" Tears were rolling down both father and daughteis cheeks. Emit was impressed by the passion wjth which Delilah expressed herse1£

"I would never intentionally keep you from an ything that you earned, Baby. I just can't help but feel that there is something you are not telling me." Emit wiped his face with his shirtsleeves. His long arms felt heavy on his cheeks. He could see the red vein s of his eyes in his reflection in the Plexiglas. He forced himself to breathe deeply and pushed out his anxiety with each exhale.

"I am not happy here, Daddy. I am sick of this whole scene. Aunt Maureen-"

"Is she mistreating you? I swear if her or that pot-bellied bastard she married has caused you any-" Emit's rage was renewed. He envisioned his brother-in-law making advances at his daughter and was brought to tears again. He let the rec~iver fall to th e floor as he leapt to his feet sending his chair flying into th e rear wall "D . h ;>" The · td he mess with you? Did he touc you. cacoph 11 d Emit's scream s . . ony of the chair's collision with the wa an elicited th . e attention of the guards. ·ft"N f th officers sw1ow, Mit, calm down, buddy." One O e

-~----__th_e_P--le-x~i-gl~a-s~w~h~il-~e~a~n~o=t:h:e~r~c~u~ffi:e~d~hi~--s_w_r_is-t. ._ ly pinned Emtt to s

t~gerher:'Let my Daddy go! Do~'t do that to him. You bastard!" d with all her might and beat the glass with th Delilah screame e iver A female guard grabbed her by the waist and telephone rece . d ' . d h 1·ver from her hand. "Calm own now, Honey" th pne t e rece , e manded from behind. Delilah could not feel the fl stranger com . . oor b ,th her feet and realized she was being earned from the room enea ,, . "No! Daddy! We aren't finished, let me go. DeWah struggled to free herself from the stran~er's grip to n~ avail. Sh_e watched helplessly while her father was lifted and earned away like a pig going to barbeque.

The guards dumped Emit into his cell and instructed him to puH himself together. How did this happen? Emit's eyes searched the walls for answers. "Why, God? Not DeWah, too. Oh my poor babies," he lamented aloud. He lay prone with his eyes darting from one corner to the next-numb and cold. The pain poured from his heart as his eyes rested on the collage of family photos on his wall. Daisyah's smile appeared in 3-D to him. He felt as though he was hovering over the bed. He wanted desperately to plant his feet firmly upon the ground. He wanted to escape Abridgen's clutch and go to his sister-in-law's home and exact revenge for his daughter. He could not understand how his brother-in-law would dare to touch Delilah knowing what Emit was capable 0£ Hadn't Emit deterred every pedophile in town from messing with any little girl, especially a Myles girl? Emit's neck was hot and the tips of his ears burned and itched. He murmured to himself, "I will kill that son of a bitch." He prayed aloud, "Lord, just let me live long enough to snap his neck. They have taken so much from us, but you, you can give me this." Emit lay in his celJ refusing meals and yard time for three days, murmuring and praying.

.

"Mail call, Nut," a smiling voice said, arousing Emit frorn hi s fr etfu l sleep. "Look, Buddy, you gotta shake this thing off. What · ;:>" E · , · f m rh e .(,Tlvcs. ... mtt s muscles betrayed his efforts to rise ro bunk "Can't you get outta bed Man;) Up and at 'em.'' Emit

groane d In re sponse and let his arm fall from th e side of th e u to signif h' · b. · dd we'll fi x Y is ma ihty to do more. "Don't worry, Bu Y,

" you up. . . , The infirmary was Emits least favorite . . . portion of Abridgen. It, too, reminded him of his pain and 1 1 . . fi 11 . oss. t reminded hi·m of the dark time o owmg the accidents and hi . . s per1od of cclimat10n to his new home. For the first year of h a . . . is prison life he had spent mo~e time m the_ infirmary bed than in his own assigned bunk. Stitches over his eye, a broken collarbone, a cracked rib, and a puncture :"ound in his left side kept him in the constant company of the prison nurse for almost eighteen consecutive months. It was the look in Delilah's ten-year-old eyes at the sight of the blackened eye and split lip that came with his cracked rib that led to their decision for her not to visit the prison for a while. Emit had managed to avoid the need of the nurse's company for over five years and chuckled to himself that he had been sent back after all this time by a man who wasn't even inside the triangular compound.

Emit's eyes fixed on the dim light above his head as he listened to the rhythmic beep of the I.V. machine. "Mail call, Mit." He suddenly remembered the last words he heard before losing consciousness. He struggled onto his elbows and scanned the room for other inhabitants.

He was surprised to realize he was not handcuffed to the bed His eyes landed on the table next to his bed where a tray of cold food lay beside a thick, wrinkled envelope. As he rose to a sitting position he felt woozy and had to steady his head with one . hand. Through much labor, he managed to sit up fully and re st his back against the headboard of the bed. He extended his long arms nut and to rus left to pull the rolling table closer to him. He tore rbe pla stic from rus spork and examined the envelope. It was a lette r fr om Delilah E mi t's heart turned somersaults as tears weUed 10 h1is t yes " Wh t h h. k f " he thought to hims elf. " l

·· a s e must t m o me, ra ' h eeded me n t prm ec t my own daughter. And I lost it when 5 e n

m ,J '} I ,, I · l iolen t man but ,. ,m,t c ur ~ed hi s te mper H e was n ot tr u Y a v

raLht . fi h d rincr :1 II nf

. r a powc rl csi.; on e. H e n eve r had a single tg t u r-, ht ,; ~chr J 's fr iend Ht

>o ye ars. I le wa s always popuh1r, e ve ryon e· , .

\l.'fJUld - · ) · 1:1nkin ~ hi s

j ntve r have dr e amed o f hitting ht s wtfc: . ( 1 s1 ' ·

( aughtcr c · I . I· 1r d his mvn

n s , o r that matter. H e loved them as i e 1 )\

c'-> h. The . . d · s ·1nd 11igbr ~

· Ywere a happy, happy fam tl y. Man y ·1Y · '

' . d tears of joy and thanked God for his life and f . Emit had crte f 1 hi . am1. ting practice was success u , s marriage was co I ,. His accoun n- ) d h. children were health y tent an is

' Emit rook a bite of the cold mystery meat on his tray and unfolded Delilah's letter:

Dear Dadqy,

I am so sorry I upset you 1vhen I came up today. I had hoped that after all this time 1ve 11101,tfd he able to have a nice talk, face to face. J think I ~nder:rtand ivl-!Jyou got so upset. I ;ust want you to know that Uncle Phil has 11 11 1,er messed 1vith me. He's not like that. I didn't mean for you to think that. If som ethin~g like that were 1vrong, I would tellyou. I promise.

Dc,dqy, A unt Maureen and Uncle Phil are good to me. It's not lh f' m. Its the t01vn. I'm not ashamed of you but I can't stand everyone knowi,~~ eve rything. Th ~y think thry know and thry don't. Just because thry know some of "!Y secretr thry think it's ok to say thry know me. Daddy, they don't. .No one does. I just want them to let me alone. To let me be me and not who th ~) ' think I should be. The other day I got into an argument with a girl in the lun ch lin e and some ,girl I never even met before said to watch out I might get homicidal fl I <~et too angry. Daddy, you know that isn't fair. I can't just "be'' hm . I need space.

I miss Momma and Dai!]ah like crazy. But nothing can bring them bark. / -lnd it'.r not either of our faults. I try not to get angry at you for getting so a,~g~y. I do get cmg~y at Momma though. Mostfy cause I don't understand 1J•bat made her do it. She still had me. Wasn't I her daughter too? Wasn't I ,good enough? A unt Maureen says that it was an accident but Daddy, I don't think so sometimes. What do you think?

Even though I hated seeingyou treated like that, I know that you mrrmt it. I'm sorry that someone had to die but I'm proud that you loved Dai.!ya h mough to punish that man 1vho hurt her. Sometimes I 1vish you had,, 't because then you could be out here with me. I kn01v you say it was an rH(idm t /mt I think it'.r a powerful kinda love that a person 1vould kill for. I rMd in th e pa_p er that he had hurt other girls 1vhere he lived before and bad ,~otlm mvqy 111ith it just like he 1Vas getting aivay with doing what be did to n ais-)'ah. So _you see, Daddy, you stopped him. He can't hurt anyboqy else no n: But , Dcidcfy, I don 't 1vant to see you hurt arrymore.

. Dadcfy, I am sendingyou the permission slips for my ear/y gro d11 a·· hon proJ!,ram and admission to North Central. You can save 171) life todt!)'· 10"

ra n Sf' / mefr ee from all this. lV e can still be together 1vhen you ,get (JI//.

~k-,,-,;1- , ~ ·1, ~I~,v~i:ll~rJ=n/y ~ h~a:ve~a~y~e~a~r~lej.=t~i~n-sc.~h-oo~l~a-nd_I__h_l / !)111 'J d b can etp you inst, d

J yo1,1 havinf!, to take care 0 oth of us. No, Dadd11 Nort.h C ea U; , h :n entra/ was • • 111a /jut it/eels 1th more t. an an accident to me I c. ,, b , not ,11y tai · · an , e ,ost ·

1 I ,von be left to rot among the gossipers. Please Dadd I dagam /J iff(}. · ' :fY, nee you to me fee JJJhat I need Remember when I 1vas six and D • h .r1Je • , · . azsya was five y(Ju

I: 1 1,1ur that bl)!, Barbre Dream House? I loved that thinw v • • 6' 1 ou were all stuck on the little bathroom. 'Check out that tub, ladies, 'you said. 1 still rt!t!lember everythingyou ever told us. North Central will be my clawfoot tub /just knmv that I can take a long, hot soak there, Daddy. J haven't had th~t since Dai!yah and Momma and t~en you left me. I need this Daddy, please. 1his is what_you have been preparing me for.

With Love, Dee Dee

The sobs made Emit's body quake. He lifted his paper napkin to his face to cover his shame and catch his falling pride. The nurse stirred and came to his side. He was too weak to make her stop rubbing his back and shoulders. He found himself burying his head in her armpit and wailing uncontrollably. Relief and guilt fought for dominion over his emotions. It seemed his tear Jucts had run dry, for his body continued to heave yet his eyes were no longer moist. The nurse's hand found his chin and lifted hi s face towards hers. "There is nothin' like a good cleansin' cry, for us all, from time to time," she whispered as she wiped his face like she was comforting a child with a scraped knee. Emit made no effo rt to stop her doting.

"You alright?" she inquired without expecting a response. He atte mpted to speak, but his voice cracked, so he nodded in stead. "Good," the nurse said releasing Emit from her bosom.

.

"Would you happen to have any paper over at your statir n)" E · · "I d ·t a i · ,mi t asked wj th a crackling, raspy voice. nee to wri e lc:nc.:r."

"Oh sure. Gimmie a second and I'll grab it for ya suga'."

, Emi t's mind was racing he did not know where to begin. l here w ' · h Th rse ., as so much he wanted, needed to tell Delila · e nu 1c1urn cd · h . li · h d to h . wit a legaJ pad and a pencil, which she re nquts e. 1m with , . ·i .. d · d utcklv ., . a sm i c. r_., m,t re turned her kindness an trte to 9 · <a pturt hi s .. · t.h0 ughts on paper:

.

J) et1r Delilt1b , I so glad thatyou told me how you real/yfeel I th . &~ d . ~a J;ff, 1 thinas could have been, 1vo1.dd have been. But th i t ho1v alj;eren b ere'r lot a'J~tl .· thepast. J don't blame you for wanting to get awa fi · 110 sense !fl recounttng . h . , ry rom al/

I , ry JI never occurred to me t. atyou might ve had som ~~mW e~ 1 ,,fl everythina that happened For so long I have chann , d ettmg a,ong t1_;1er b e,e al/ g . 1 tryina toforget the huriful things zn my life. Foraet tho h

"!Y energy tn10 b c se t at I lost, hut look at what it nea~!J ~ost me.

Theres something znszde me _that hopes for a skzp card or an ea.ry button to fast forward pass the har~ tzm_es. I 1van~a label them unfair.

A!!Jthing ivorthwhile, worth savonng, zs never going to be easy. The same things ive dream of from child-hood on and n:ork so hardfor we probab!J ivouldn 't even cherish if they came standard issue or easy. I had my dream in the palm of my hand and I was a sore loser when it was pluckedfrom me. You, Delilah, are better than me, better than human nature. Human nature contains so ma,ry ugjy things that come in with the good You can combat human nature because you are all that is sweet and kind like the divine fruits of Gods spirit.

Recognize the benefits of allyour experiences. Even your pain. Hasn't it made you strong? Hasn't it shown you thatyou can persevere and still love? Baby, letyesterdcry stcry in the past. I have a whole stock-yardfull of yesterdays, but they are useless to me now. Memories andyesterdays are selfish. Thry YI hoard up al/ of your time and mental energy if you let them. My yesterdays-your mother, your sister and her killer--have all sat on my shoulders dcry in and day out faryears. I been so busy trying to shake them off that I forgot about what I still have left.

Delilah, there is no point in wishingyou were different or anyone other than who you are- it's rough all over. So, if you are running away, don't. But if you re going on ajourney of discovery, by all means, I support y ou I wantyou to have whatyou want. And I trustyou to make good decisionsforyourse!f.

You asked a lot of questions and I don't have straight ansivn:rfor all ef them. A II I can tellyou is that life is Juli of accidents. So1JJeli!!JfJ ll 't' ~et out tr~ do o.ne thing a~d something complete/y different come~ 0111 _qf 0~~~-neffarts. ,j ~mehmes that different thing is JJJondeiful and other ft!IJtiS 11 ,s L hie. Life zs unpredictable that 1vqy.

ni I nouJ feels less than deliberate btJt

•itaL J can~ wart until the dtf.Y I am on the outside d ~atl accme,. . , . an 111r: arr:

t ,l • uke JJJC used to be on/y better. I can'/ JJJatl /o be the/'J!i') d r. I touef/Jef. . J db r,u 1aloer rj

· r .,1. Central Umverst!J grauuate an 'asketba/1 star. &memh, ,1 a j vOf>fl 'L t r ilia/ yrll,( l ,,115 be 1!!) bal?J-gtrL Toank you for not being ashamed r/ h

11,1'/J a1JJJC!,, 'I; me, ecau rr: 1 a/JJJavr been proud of you.

l /J(Jf}C .'F With /1 II lv[y J// Vr:, . I>addy

Emit folded t~e pages and slowly la1_d th em on hi s rrJIJ in~ table. The sun was setting, he could see the light from th e win d,Jv; across the room. He still felt a bit weak, but he struggled tu swin g his legs out of the bed. He took a deep breath and scooted him -self out of bed and onto his feet. He felt the moment wa s yuickl y escaping him. His knees felt weak, and his legs were altogether lik e rubber. A quick scan of the room revealed nothing that co uld help him. He looked down at the rolling side table he was supporting himself upon and decided it would have to do. He firmly grabbed each side of the table and shifted the weight of the upp er half of his body onto the table's top. With slow, deliberate steps he and the table made their way to the window. The panes were cl o ud y with salt and soot from the outside, but he could still make o ut the yellow ring descending into the horizon. He was not exactl y surt where or what the horizon was; if it was the fence of the yard o r the side of the neighboring mountain. But he was certain of the colors-<::ertain that the yellow was the sun; the pale blue, green, and white swirls were the cluster of clouds. And that everything else didn't matter.

INANIMA11J WAil

Lifeless behi11d the glass, cards occupy the enemy soldiers, rope suspends the woman in air and a thousand nails point to the man waiting in the box.

We're too late.

NucLEAR PowER ls£ UJVALENT To McDoNALD's Tw1cr1

We are the Cannibal Scientists. Don't confuse us with thos e barbarians, The Scientist Cannibals. Such backward folk, with their Trite, tribal religion and Lab coats made of pelt.

I.Pe follo w in the glorious tradition of Bacon, Newton, and Einstein; If we happen to enjoy A different kind of meat, Just who are y o11 to judge?

WILL You FEEL SAFER

If I don't linger in your bookstore aisles flipping pages or taking extra time finding the correct size or color in your department store if I don't feel the fabric texture of the pants you sell forcing you to pretend to work nearby to keep an eye on me neglecting your job

\Xiill you be at ease if I don't call your business phone and ask you in accented tongue to clean m y house to fix m y washer to mow m y lawn to work in m y yard to mend my shoes

W iLJ yo u be confused if 1 reveal to vo u ' my occupation if I te ll you of m~· hobbi e-; if I am n(Jt: pu s hing a c us tod ian \ ca n or huJd111 g a mop broom or bru s h and 1 am in st ea d

preparing to give a lecture at a science convention

LOB ACHEVSKIAN K ENNETH l

The dog with one of those cone things Obstructing vision from a holistic view, Through hyperbolic scans of awkward images Met the horse peripherally blinded.

Nice to meet you, said the dog. Then, with her paw wrote:

<5Q f-=-N T

Into the dirt.

Is the universe a closed system?

Pondered the horse, Writing with his hoof:

dS >O dt

Into the dirt.

Tethered no longer, Ir hurtles ever closer.

Steel begets sted, Consumption and c.: xpuh;i()n. Th e continual approach of an unreachable.: h, ,nzr,n _

Stopping onl y when calJ cd up, m, Sometimes, too late.

Crimson ribb ons drap e sto ne, Perpetual twilight emerges, Slowly fades. The memories melt as ice, Waters rise, spilling Onto the tracks below.

Sudden separati on startles. Space expands, Existence is divided.

Today am an was struck by a train And killed ' '

End of the line.

Under a dust blanket, a tomb of bygone days ages on an oak shelf.

The faded cover hides a mother's lost backbone, a sister mute by defiance or the resin in her throat, his beady eyes.

The rings bind their bruised minds to a daughter's blank face, a grave premonition inside his bankrupt house.

]EANAI W EHRFRITZ

BLIND DATE

At a bookstore cafe, cold banana flakes and cream cheese stained her lips. I tried not to notice, too busy masking acne and. dandruff with wit. We exchanged biographies every other page, tore out sections, used eccentric fonts to hide our mistakes, traded punch lines 'til the parking lot turned a Timex green, headlights chased us away.

l tched her crawl into bed that night, sadness in h wa er Sl .1:dn't intertwine herself with me like she usuallv did h eve~ ,ew · ' ,s e ~ · d h .,1·ndow and I faced the wall. I awoke at 3am to her b tace t e \ ,v . ' so s

1 kin the bed-silent sobs, so she d1dn t wake me up. I was srn g d h d watching the football game an s e sat own on the couch next to me and said, "Are yo u going to be here for our child?" I turned down the game and faced her.

"What?" I asked. She raised her voice a little.

' 'Are you going to be here for our child?" I was pissed that she was interrupting the game for this shit.

'

'\'(!hat the fuck are you talking about?" I stood up. "I wo rk my ass to the bone to provide for you and this household." She looked at me calmly.

"Are you going to be here for this child?"

"What do you want me to do?" I shouted. "Quit my job and stay home and make frilly shit with you all day? Not everyone can sit on their ass all day, Jillian! Now, could you leave me alone, I just want to watch the fucking game!" She left the room crying. I wanted to follow her, but I physically couldn't.

When I was a little boy my mom used to tell me an African wives' tale about the two suns. One day, a sun would rise in the East and a sun would rise in the West, and when they met in the middle, that would be the end. When she first told me this story, it frightened me. The more I heard it, the more I began to understand that there is a beginning and an end for everything, and sometimes the end is just a new beginning. I feel that old fear now, not understanding what is happening. This mornin~, when 1 woke to her gone, it was as if those two suns were crashing togeth er, and everything was over. 1 he didn't called her mother and Joyce pretended that s kno\l h J· · ' . . · in her · v w ere 1ll1 an was. I could hear the he m her voice, ton e. She wasn't used to lying. l didn't go to work that day- r instead I St' , cl l . fl t king in he ' ,lye iome, wa nd e ring around the at, a · . rat scents h d }ookJng, er aura I spent a lot of tim e in our be rootn,

d You can tell so much by looking at a bed. o h db the be . . . . ur ea oard il r and whimsical. We found 1t 1n an old antiqu was s ve e store, and I d ·r from the second I saw it. But we were newlyw d d hate 1 e s an I d already learned to choose my battles, so I let her hav · I ha e lt. was issed when I came home from work the next day to find she had ~etired my black and _grey c~mforter from our college days and replaced it with a plam, white down comforter. Sometimes I just didn't understand her.

I lay on the couch in the living room for a long time, my face pressed into the fabric. All Jillian's clothes and perfumes were gone, and I was already forgetting what she smelled like. As I lay there, my face pressed so hard into the throw pillow that my nose began to hurt, I began to worry. Her smell was wearing of£ The longer I sat there and smelled her, the more her smell became natural to me, and I couldn't smell her anymore. I felt as if I were going crazy just to smell her, to feel her, to have some small sense of belonging to her again.

I looked at our wedding scrapbook. I remember when she made it. I would come home from work at night to find her spread out across the entire living-room floor with pictures. She would show me the pages she had made that day and I would glance over them, pretending to be interested, but really just wanting her to move her shit so I could relax and watch TV. It wasn't the last time I put that hurt in her eyes.

I thought about my mom a lot in those days at home by myself I remembered her crying for days after my father left her an~ then just picking up and moving on. She didn't really date again, she was a mother first and foremost and that was basically ' ~t. I wondered if Jillian would date. I remembered my mom picki~g me up from after-school care when I was eight, cooking me dinner, and then reading me a story. I remembered her coming to every one of my track meets in high school. I remember when I called aft I fi · · I d"d 't know h er irst realized I was in love with Jillian. 1 n w at to d kid f I 0 · She told me just like she did when I was a ' 1 gave every ' d I would have ounce I had, every single day, maybe some ay what I wanted.

1 don't know why I did it. A s a child, I had watched m y mother over and over again, and I had sworn t~ father hurt my . . If 1 t 1 would never do 1t to Jillian. I was always careful with myse t1a 1 di d th B t mv boss liked the a es aroun e office to be secretaries. u 1

d Kate was just so different from Jillian. The first time 1 pretty, an . h d f d her I was putting a picture Jillian a rame for me on m y met th .£ ;:>" 1 . desk She rolled her eyes, "ls that e ~1 ey. couldn't stop looking in her eyes. They were dark, mysterious. .

''Yeah, that's Jillian." Her eyes drew me m.

''Well, that frame is really ... cute," she snickered. She sat on the edge of my desk and crossed her legs. I swallowed and loosened my tie. She had legs all the way up to her ass. I changed the subject to a project we were working on together.

"Did you finish looking over the Patterson file?" I asked .

''Yeah it's pretty deep. I think we'll be here pretty late. I don't mind, I'm an insomniac. I have to be really worn out to sleep."

"Really?" I asked. "I don't know how productive I am late at night."

"Well," she replied, ''We're gonna win this one. I always get what I want." I liked that she was a woman I had to chase.

Sometimes I would fuck Jillian and imagine she was Kate. I would close my eyes and rip into her, feeling rough, like a real man for one of the first times in my life. I would smack her and pull her hair, tear her apart. It was violent and I liked it. She screamed once and begged me to stop, but I couldn't. The more she tensed the more I liked it. The fantasy was finally becoming real. With every plunge I imagined Kate . Her eyes. Her lips. Her hair. As I got closer and closer to cumming, I pictured her thighs. Every time I entered her, Jillian's eyes became more empty. She clenched her teeth, her eyes brimming with tears, and tried not to sh o ut o ut. She knew I would only like it more.

Jiman b ecame afraid of me after that. She w as afraid to ki ss me o r to uch m e, to do normal things a husband and w ife do. She didn't h · . b e aft er- wan t t c animal to appear again. I remem er o n ' n oo n we we re I . . l . I t to grab P ay1n g w1 t 1 my n e ph e w in th e park. we n · · her aro und the wais t, a n<l s h e shrank away fr o m m e like I was

.

ing to hit her. I was irate. We took Ja cc,I 1 _ go . h . . ) 1011 ic: , ancl ,-1 . for a run. When I. got om e sbc had already , 1 , 1 u1 I wen, h . ' ni,ll l: d1nn . s· ade Jove to me t at night. Sweetly and t l 1 · e r. · ht 111 . ' <.:nce r y, 1ryin P for her m1stake . Trying to love mt: mor • 1 1. . g 1'' lll}d«u e. <.: I he r I I reaUy forgave her for that day. ' )Lfl r 1c vt: r

The sex with Kate was just as l bad im , 1. . agincc. . On ih c leather couch m my office, groping, grunting sw " . 1 ,, . C,Lt1ng, )JI ing. 11 was ruce to be detached from someone. To have . . ' sex JWH to h,:iv c sex without havmg to love the person afterwards w··h . . h . It <,u1 av1ng to eat breakfast the next morning. I started worlr 10 I t . . . _ , g a c every Tuesday 01ght after that. I told Jillian I was doing a pr I .. · · " · o - 10m, case for a homeless woman downtown and my boss wouJdn't let me work on it during regular hours. I would come home around nine.: exhausted, and fall into the recliner. Jillian would bring my dinnc/ into the living room and watch me eat it while pretending to read a book.

When Jillian and I met, she had this cute habit of underlining in her books. Not just her school books, books she wa s reading in her free time. I remember scanning through the book on her nightstand one morning while she showered. She had underlined quirky bits of advice about love, life, and laughter. I thought it was optimistic, innocent. After awhile, it became annoying. I would find little bits of paper all over the flat with these sayings on them. She always used pens to mark her spot in a book, and I would get so pissed when I saw my personalized pens st rewn about the library. A few weeks after I started seeing Kate, she w -,pped underlining.

I hilarating It was n the beginning playing the game was ex · . ljk ~d · ' dm y ne xthir was e oing drugs. I never knew when or how goo , g< · · · c ase J ,vas

)Jng to b e, but J had my secret s tash at hom e iu s t 10 • · 1 Li cun sta J h k' t he n whil e l 1 ~n

· nt Y hungr y for sex . I wouJd go into t c 1 c . .Was k · ., t 6-10 111 th e ma m g bre akfa s t and pull Jown h e r p a nti es a -. ·ak in g rnornin I . , , ag t r aJ!Jttn, ~nc, . g. wa s craz ed It wa s lik e b e ing a t cc n r · vne r into th e b k w ithout th e o, ac of the book s tore t o look at porn , ba thcatchi , . . to th e n, cn s ' ng rne. E xcept thi s tim e , J wa s s n ea king in

roo m at ,1.-ork to haYe sex without m y wife catching m:------

I remember the day Jillian told me she was / d I · h · pregnant I was a Tuesd ay. Kate an were avmg lunch across th · t ll h e street from our office when m y ce p one rang. Jillian knew b h . - • , etter th to call m,- cell p one it 1t wasn t an emergency so I an · . . _ . , answered. I-{ ,-oice was qwvenng with excitement when she told m I f er . e. aked interest and renunded her I would be off work late. Whe th . n I hung up Kate was stanng at me, at piercing look on her fa "S , ce. hes pregnant?" she asked.

" Yeah, I guess so." She looked at me skeptically.

" Do you want it?" I was getting kind of tired of l • . . p aymg 20 Questions with her.

" Do I really have a choice?"

''You don't have to get pissy '\\t-ith me," she replied. "I'm not the one who's knocked up." She slipped off one of her stilettos and rubbed her foot up my pant leg. I knew what she wanted. She went into the ladies room, and I waited two minutes then followed her.

I could tell Jillian suspected I was having an affair. She tried harder. She started to wear makeup everyday and style her hair. She got weekly manicures and cleaned the flat every day. She started picking up my clothes from the dry cleaner on time and cooking gourmet dinners. I knew she was trying to redeem herself, but I couldn't tell her to stop. I didn't want to. I didn't give a damn. It was too little too late.

I know she saw us that night. I had just looked up from w hispering something sexy into Kate's neck and I saw Jillian there.

\Ve were at a bar after work with some colleagues, planning to go , littl 1 w, :vere careftu back to m y office or Kate's apartment a e ater. we' f them knew. around our co-workers we didn't know how many O 1 ' l w"

As I took a sip of m y drink Jillian's eyes caught mine. Shes O ' 5 . d 1 f There wa pa1d for her dnnk, scooted out of the booth, an e t. . t- nr . f me 111 ru no argument, no big scene, no making an ass out O _ be here o f m y colleagues, just that calm, quiet, "Are yo u going to for ou r child ?" later that evening.

1 LiY 10 bed th,H rn!!ht and tmJµ-tn cJ ho w n \Yo uJd feel if . , n ll he re. I f I hJdn 't push ed her ,1w~n-. l th o uohr ab o ut l i11t 1n ,, err :-- - - t->

. . ,11 of ht>r h.ur an d the Llut muscle s o r h e r back. I rern e mrhc :-nl t

J h, cur n:~o t he r up s .1nd the '1ght 1n her eyes \\-he n she hl·rc o r lI i \k :irnis remembered ,,-h at i t telt bke to be ,napped

I nw iec. ' .

• ,.., 1 1 , r l thought :1bo ur th e 6:1 6\ · and h o\, - g o o d of a mot.her .Ln>ll nu c c • • •

/ill i:ui wn~ go mµ tn be. I 1m:1gmed us _p laying o n th e Linng-room • 1 ,, 1rL. th e bab y, going sh o p ping to r littl e bab,- dot.h es, and I on t JI ' L

,11 na ,1 srr o Uer aro und t he p a rk ; and fo r th e fir s t time sinc e nw pu:- ,.,dad let~ m~· mother, I cri ed.

I had a dream th at nig ht. l alm ost neve r dr ea m , so th at made 1t mo re strange than it wo uld 've b ee n initiaJJ y. In my drea m , the Three Fa tes we re m a king a d ecisi o n upon m y life. Th e~· we re m~r moth er, K at½ and Jilli an. K a te and m y moth er both wanted to cut d1 e string th at ,;vas my life, and Jillian was the onl y one w h o hadn 't decid ed ye t. She sto od there , looking at Kate and rubbing her swollen bell y, a look of distrust in her eyes. And then slow ly, sil entl y, she nodded. I woke up in a cold sweat, the horror of Jilli an wanting me to die filling m y lungs each time I took a slow, conc entrated breath. It took almost an hour for me to get back to sl ee p.

I woke up the next morning with a crick in my neck. Damn those feather pillows . I walked into the kitchen and beg an to notice that the dishes had piled up in the days since Jillian had b~en gone. I needed to pick up m y dry cleaning too. I opened the k1tch · d ·en win ow as I drank m y coffe e. The lawn needed to be mow~d. After I drank m y coffee I got a trash bag from the pantry and pick d 11 h l e up a the wadded up tissues and newspaper from t e iv10g ro fl h om oor. I looked at the clock-1 :30. Perfect. I would ave tim e t I O get some things done today. .

Pr 1 cleaned the house the best I could with what little sup- ies had a 1 d .

I \ , lk nc ectded to go the grocer y store. On the way home V,t ed thro . . .

rcce . ug h the big park where Jillian and I had our wedding

Ption I sa t had t' k · o n a bench and remembered the dance lessons we , ,t en to r -

So uth er P epare for the wedding. I hated them, but the n old m d th I Was a bl on ey In Jillian's family persisted, so we ha em. atant as ·I l d ' ' s 1 0 e th e whole time. Then one day we were anc-

--. _ . the aparan ent ,\.-hen I loo ked at 1illt d -o5 :,ong in _ _ _ an io2: ro :l.f1 ol ttY bab \-." She kne,v exactl y ,vhat I nv•

-~ ··Dance me pre ' . - -..ant. U1d sa.id ' th danc e chsses at t e r that. T hey \\-ere red · __ ed out o t e . · uced \\ e dropp . the rwo o f us, barefoot o n the cold linoleum of the ro jus t us , 1u st . ur ap aranen t. kitchen in°

lilli an and I h ad remodel ed th a~ kit chen ?Y o urselves.

.· th office asked me why didn t l 1ust hire someone bu People 10 e _ . . , t d l·r to be ours. \"'Ve npped out the cabin ets, co unteno p we \.vante _ s, til _ edid evernhin g. It was o urs. \"'\e bought all new kitche e-~er . n appliances and Jilli~n saved up h er poc~et mone y little b y little to buy me a wine refngerator for our anruversary.

I opened a bottle of wine and sat dow n to call Jillian. " Hello," she answered briskly on the second rin g. 11y heart stopped beating when I heard her voice.

" Hi," I cleared m y throat. "It's me."

" I know. Do you need something?"

" I want you to come home, baby, we can talk about this." She paused for a moment, "1 think we're w ay past talk-

" mg.

''NO! No, we're not, baby, I want to work thi s out ."

"Well," she replied evenly, "I wanted you to stay your ass home and not go out fucking secretaries, and I didn' t ge t that did I?" I hadn't expected her to be like this. l thought this would be easy. I thought she would say yes right away, and come home, and we would be happy again.

"This isn't fair."

''A fair is a place with cotton candy and roller coasters, and we don't have either of those here." She paused. "Do you need anything else?"

"No." I knew I was defeated.

"Then goodbye." She hung up.

Jillian

The more I thought about it, the more I k.neW ntlewould have to come home Her father the old Sout ber~ ge ce to . ' . s a disgra man that he was, would see her getting a divorce a

the family, and although she and her mother got al uldn' 1 h ong rather fab 1 Usly Joyce wo t et er stay there forever E ·a11 . u- o , • spec1 y wuh baby She'd say a baby needs a father. And after Jilli th a bo~t it she'd agree, and her and the baby would an hought a , . , . _ come ome. Besides, she d1dn t have any Job skills under her belt d h , an er par- ents weren't gomg to support her forever.

I called my boss the next morning and told him I was coming back to work. The flu had been going around, so I used that as an excuse for my four-day absence. He said all was well at the office and he would expect to see me back the next day. I told him Kate wasn't really working out as a secretary for me; I would like a new one when I came back. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the apartment. I felt as if I had to scour this affair from my life. I knew, even if my hands were bleeding from the combination of bleach and steel wool, they would never forget what it felt like to have Kate moving beneath them. I bleached all the sheets and towels in the house, and I scoured the bathroom of its weeklong filth. I had never brought Kate into our apartment, but I felt as if I were cleaning her out of it. I opened the windows and let the clean scent of the air flow into the living room, I put the books back on the shelf in the library, I swept the hardwood floors. And that night, when I collapsed into bed, I felt better about myself than I had in a long time.

The next morning, back at work, I tried to busy myself with legal briefs, catching up on my phone messages, and avoiding the death stares Kate was sending my way. I had a new assistant: He was a man, a gay man I think-Will. He was cordial and polite, but he just didn't get things done the way Kate did. I didn't dare Co 1 · M · ·d · k how I was feel- mp am. y boss came m m.1 mornmg to as me i I 1 · · k and when he ng. to d him I was glad I had such a qutc recovery, offered to take me out to lunch to celebrate, I accepted.

We went to this Thai place Greg loved wi th half~naked, Asian waitresses and I could see his eyes and pants bulging. .

" ' ff the watt- You know. Patrick " he didn't take his eyes 0 ' ' ress " d ' everyone has affairs." I was shocke ·

" How did you know?"

A d if they

" E f ki Kate n d. veryone could tell you were uc ng · w assis1dn't k d like your ne now before, they do now. How O you

- d d then finally looked at me. "So I guess yo u -;>" He laughe ' an . d ffi rant. ,, Jilli'an was well liked aroun my o ice-her turtle i1li then;) left J an al. hit at the Christmas party. ki were ways a coo es tly" 1 sipped my water. "She left me."

"Not exac , . . .

His eyes snapped from a waitress ad1ustmg her thong to d P"

"You let her fin out.. me. . h " "Gre I didn't do 1t on purpose, s e saw us out. g, ' . ";> I h h 1i

"It was the working late wasn t 1t. t oug t you ked Jillian because she was smart.. Pat," ~e loo_ked at ~e the way my mother did when she was disappointed m me, you never should've let her find out."

I went home that night and called Jillian again. "Hey, how are things?"

''You know, just getting ready for the baby. I had a doctor's appointment today."

"Did we find anything out?"

''Well, we didn't find anything out. But my mother and I got some news. It's a boy." We were both silent for a minute, that comfortable silence you develop with a person after you've been married to them for a long time.

"Jilli' ";>"an.

''Yes, Patrick?"

"When are you coming home?''

"I think it would be best if I just stayed with my parents for a while. They're really happy to have me home again, and they're excited about their grandbaby."

"Oh." Apparently I had misread her silence.

"If you don't need anything else, I'm going to help my mother with dinner."

"Oh, okay."

"Goodbye."

She hung up.

For the next three weeks, I went on with life in the rnan~ ner I had fabricated for myself. Every Sunday, I bleached the entire apartme t 11 fl ors sur- n , scoured Kate and the old me from its wa s, 0 ' faces I we t k . . Id have · n to wor six days a week, all of which I wou

---h-Wl~-th~G=-r--e~g.~W:=e~w=o=ul=d~t:alk~a~b~o~u~t~J~illi~-an__a_n_d______ lune , ways for me . her back and he even told me some affair st . f to win ' ones rom his ger days. After work, I would go home have k . youn ' a qmc dinner d call Jillian. At first, she was distant, even cold b ' an , ut as the days nt by she began to warm up to me. I was finally s • th . we , eemg e light th e end of the tunnel. I was sure she wouldn't stay 1: at away 1or longer than a month.

~ednes?ay after~oon I came home from work early and saw J11lians Jetta m the dnveway. My heart skipped a beat. She was home! Jillian _was back ~ome, probably making me dinner right now, and everything was going to be okay, we were having a baby, we'd buy a house, get new cars, and love each other more than ever. When I saw her come out the door carrying a small suitcase, her father in tow with a large cardboard box, I knew something was wrong with my scenario.

"Patrick." Jillian stopped walking.

'½.re you moving out?" I asked, praying it wasn't true.

''Yes, I am, Mom and Dad found me a little apartment not too far from there, so they can help with the baby."

"But, you're moving out? What about the talks we've been having?''

"Patrick, I never said anything about moving back in during those talks."

"I kn b " ow ut

"Let's go, Jillian," her father offered. "Goodbye Patrick." They got into the Jetta, and I stood, dejected, in the driveway until I could no longer see the car.

Jillian stopped answering my phone calls after that, and after about a week, I stopped calling. I figured she'd call when she came to her senses and realized this was not what she wanted. But she n 1 ft that She was ever called. I started calling my mom a ot a er · dating d · d my mom a lot, someone, and she really liked him. I a mire d for her . h son she love , b commitment to me her putting me, t e per .f I a ove all 1 ' . uld' worked out 1 k e se. Maybe this marriage thing co ve 1 · , not new h f: · y ta e 1t s ow to do that. I realized love is not some air ' ki 50rnethi ' k It's loo ng, ng that just happens to people. It's hard war ·

but never touching, it's tears and pain, and sunshine. It's the little memories that creep into your mind when you think you've forgo tten that person. It's thinking of something she did and laughin o ut loud on the subway. It's not being afraid to make an ass out

yo urself. And sometimes, in matters of love, giving every ounce yo u have, every single day, just isn't enough.

HAVING CHILDREN WITH You -

Side by side we wait

As these small, faithful ones Stumble bravely along, little fishermen waiting To catch what the y can in the dizzying stir And whirl of our tiny cluttered pool. Yet, so deep are these waters that even in our strongest moments we can only cast out, with great hope, and pull back simple treasures To offer our young watchers.

Even the most absolute happiness has a past and ours is laced, weighted down, by anticipation, desire to flame through our connection, hold solidly together by teaching our whistling, shining babes that the path from river's mouth to the ocean's sweeping doorstep is worth the journey. It is not what shows brilliant up from the bottom That deserves our attention.

Oh the smallest shining things Glow the brightest.

T he willi ng rind sinking in to its own sweetn es sve ry soo n p o etry will be dead y h · our room as alread y caved in. N othing's left bu t fo r me to follow.

Th~ugh barely begun, I struggle aga1nst the fuzz y blue tongues licking their way up ankles, calves, thighs. N either will they stop till the last red pulse-reluctant stops.

In all things there is consolation.

In long mellifluous mouth-filling Latin phrases, even if they dev our. Penicillium Italicum is born on the wind thriving in cold dark places where it breeds fillino- wooden crates with happy rot. b

It starts as a love affair, something touched like the sound of snow falling or how I fall into your translucence becoming the shape of a snow angel.

· ·t tion it likes: · This is the 1nV1 a . · sweet and iuicy . b the interior a cool firm exterior . ut like the fruit of Florida, d from the branch already remove f n ice chest, and stored in the center o a rip e within itsel~ .. with ever y poss1b1lity.

like a panda in the woods, being stalked by platy J arn . pus es ; puckbilled, that is. .

My [ear is ever-present but distant, dullUntil, ALLATONCE!

1 arn being beaten to death by 4 species simultaneously: The eating apparatus of a duck!

The aqueous propeller of a beaver!

The webbed protrusions ... of a different duck! And The laser beams of an ill-tempered sea bass!

(Damn you, Dr. Evil, for finishing the demented job that God started)

I am as a panda in the woods. Alone, and my enemies are misshapen.

THE ROOSTER

Thick, stick y clouds hang overhead; globes of reason. Heaven is a glass of water o n the night stand.

Shoes, Shirt, Socks, Pants; floor constellation. Stillness breathes, and somewhere a Rooster crows. The bed is tall and Brave and too big, too big, too big. It is a vehicle for Journe ys too far and too long for the mind.

The curtains' delegation of shadows, the door's boastful opening, the naming of a Prince o n a Sea of Solitude.

. like a hard choice. j\rld it seems

s always seem to call for dream .

lu. h noon beneath a seanng sun at g · ·th 1 · kin b ked romantics wt porce am s . to bare- ac . out in desperate raven v01ces, Ideas cry driving dreamers mad. And few can understand that it is not a choice at all. To stifle a dream is to Die a slow asphyxiation of the soul.

Perhaps they will live on water and bones but they will have a purpose, their truth will be told, and their true beauty seen.

All must choose the shock of real light on virgin eyes or the dark comfort of ignorance. They know that it is not a choice at all. Such is the boon of the dreamer

Sn ap.

;\nd there it is.

Finished.

AJJ corners alligned

A year or more of mighty patience

Trying this way that way

Ivfaking something big and beautiful out of a mess.

It's tedious, huh?

Sometimes you think you'll never finish. Why is this fun?

It's not, exactly It's a purpose with a price tag A calling in a box

The time, the frustration, the pain in your neck

Then, suddenly, it all makes sense

Your work has paid off Snap.

And there it is.

Finished.

You stand back and admire it Loo k what you've done!

Your chest heaves and slows

i\ nd on e by one

YrJu pLll I ·

,, 1 t 1 e pi eces apart

, nd ru t them back in l'h e b()x

'JrJrnrirro . I I • w nig 1t we JI start agarn

I don't even know yo ur first name . I know you as my harabo/i, Words between us get lost in a wind. Sometimes, there are no words.

Your son tells me, "they all died during war." And now I see why you take my orange peels and throw them away.

MOONSHINE

Blue eyes drink moonshine on an empty stomach and spend the rest of the night puking a cold panic.

Someone once said the moon is made of green cheese. I believe it.

B " "Money ags, m y p ee-rs taunted me fro th . m e penph \ 1 walk ed by th ey ce~sed beating o n each other .th ery. J s . th d Wl sharpened . ks and crept into e e ges of m y vision. Te _ d stJC . n an twelve- ·e Id s in dirty robes, their cheeks sm udg ed and thei· . Ii Y aro , " r e) es g ttenn d k with mauc1ousnes s. Here he comes! He v M B g ar ; , oney ags! Her Go ld! Isn't yo ur dad a m o ney changer, Ryo? How come he didn;' ;," Th k d · t •usr change yo u o ut. ey sruc ere , trymg to bait m ail . J e, sn -trailng their sticks m the dirt as they followed me They we . I • re VlClOUS in th eir taunts but merc1full y short in attention. For the past week every evening for a guarter mile, I'd had a band of scab-kneed fol~ Jowers that shouted, jeered, and laughed at my monk-like composure. I always lost them at the bend in the road where it followed a sharp drop down a hill and toward the Shijogawa.

They were loathsome children with too much time and not enough sense. Jealousy compelled them to mock my given name, which my father in his naivete had dubbed me. But he was a merchant from Eda, an ambitious man with eyes more gold than black, who married and was adopted into the family of a poor woman of Samurai stock from Kyoto, with no interest other than increasing his own standing. Money was all he knew. And when my mother died in birth, he could think of no better name for me than that of his coveted ryo; it was his way of claiming, I suppose, that all that came forth from her loins was pure gold.

I endured their taunts with admirable stoicism. It was not maturity or training that made this possible, but rather a pervading fear that they would discover darker details to mock. For that quarter mile I held back my breath with the tip of my tongue, breathing freely and confidently only when my loud-mouthed shadows bled back into the twilight.

Shimabara, Kyoto's pleasure guarter, swallowed up th e ri ver in a formidable castle-like fortress. The government kept all that w cl cc t to keep such . as es1rable and indulgent caged up ID an enor frivolity f . .c D · bot summers rom tamting other spheres of lire. unng steady t ffi . ates oght up . ra le streamed in and out of the 1mposmg g . until th d . h to slip in b e istrict was locked down; it was easy enoug .

Cf:\veen th b hful samurai.

e sweaty merchants and the as

. 1 ·lls bl ocked off six blocks of tea houses an Th e h1g 1 W ,t - ' h 1• Th ea te rs and Ge1ko houses sprouted on both 1 ,,~, ·tnd brnt e s. 11 · ' h c ms shodd y constructs meant to bend to the b u1k s lik e mus ro >, · . . f he riv er. The steady rhythm of drums provided the l) (' fSU.tSJOl1 () [ falli f h I. e district. The sun was ng ast; s opkeepers set lwa rrb ea r ro r 1 · I · . "pe r lanterns before stepping back to adrrure the ( )LIi I.!; l)\\'ll1g P" ' -- · ·r·i ter-o-o e rs spilled out of playhouses as Kabuki perform- c.·ttec r 1ea t- · _ ln11 0 ,. r,.·d the once-audience gazing around at the natural •1nces cu " ', :,·orld with a style-accustomed eye. Wouldn't the Oil Dipper make ,1 stronger impact if he moved his arms just so? And the merchant traip:-i~g down the road with a stick strung with fans to his back; couldn't he have just a bit more poise? After hours of careful mov ements and white-faced drama, anything less was just unseemlv.

I approached with caution, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It was no place for the son of a prominent, if not exactly wealthy, Samurai family. Which is more or less what Jiro, my singular unrelenting shadow, said to me in a voice so timid it almost caused me to jump straight up into the air.

I had ducked back behind a building when I felt a tug on my sleeve. "What are you doing here? Ryo? Are we allowed to be here?" Seven-year-old Jira stared up at me with wide-eyed earnest. ]-le was one of the gang that followed me around to tease me, but he was not one of the catcallers. He enjoyed tagging along with his brother and the older children, drilling them on their exploits and adventures. After the other kids gave up, he alone persisted in following me, perhaps deciding that my mysteries were of more interest than their faux duels.

"No," I spoke slowly, trying to choose my words carefully, ,, , all 1ve aren t owed to be here."

''What about you?" Jiro asked without missing a beat. ''A rc yo u allowed to be here?"

"Not exactly."

l crept along the alley, Jiro's fingers still hooked in my ~lccvc, until I came to a building which I knew to be a print sh~P· fhe stai t I d · · ned 111 ' rs t mt c to the second-story terrace were positio . the front of th b

• ked iust . · · e store, ut the barrels outside were stac high enough that if I stood on the tips of my toes I could latch

fi ngers onto the wooden walkway and h uJ ---rtlY 1 d th · a my se lf , · always stacke 1s way; she mad e su f . up. l hey were . re o it.

Lulls m the steady din of casual ch at, sales caU allowed other sounds, secret sounds t 1... : s and drum beats , o W1 us per Corning from the second story of that print sho Past rny ears k d c t . d PI heard the h ffle of soc e 1ee on tatarru an a song t d . s u . ra tng hi ghs d lows. One person performing two parts. an Conscious that Jiro was still following d · me an watch in, every move I made, I slipped off my sandals and li b d . g . d c m e up onto the first barrel. Jiro ma e a sound in his throat a m 'ld ' 1 protest and scurried closer ~o reach up and grab my ankle to pull me back, down. By that tl~e I was already swinging one leg over the terrace railing. I was hoping he wouldn't follow me, but a moment later he was scrambling up the barrels with a determined expression.

He stood on the last barrel and reached but fell inches short of making contact with the terrace. I was half-tempted to leave him there, until the barrel began to tip dangerously. Jiro gasped, looking around wildly before reaching out with fingers outstretched.

"Help, help me, Ryo!" he whispered harshly. I knelt down and thrust my arms through the bars on the railing, latching onto his wrists. The barrel fell away beneath him and crashed to the ground, splitting open, just as I hauled Jiro up onto the terrace with immense difficulty. Jira opened his mouth to thank me; I shook my head to keep him quiet. A side door to the print shop slid open and a squatty, disgruntled man tumbled out to inspect the scene.

"'Ay, 'Ay, what's going on out 'ere?" The shopkeeper waved his arms about finally spotting the wounded barrel. He b d ' . d I h Id ur breath. The ent own to inspect the contents. J1ro an e O sh k . d £ £ minutes until op eeper continued to look aroun or a ew . so · w·th a wave of his rneone from inside called him back m. 1 . hi ha d h . d h ded back into s n s, e gave a grunt of exasperation an ea ,, shop • fc f "bloody cats.

· , muttering something to the e 1ect O

1, his mouth

''Th hi d unnecessar1 ), " . at was dose," Jiro w spere h e we here? nght d · Ryo;> W Yar next to my ear. "What are we omg, · 1 d ng out to . . . he door ea 1

·h Seemingly 10 answer to his query, t hi Some fra- t e ter . d . lit room wit n. · race slid open to reveal the im-

. 1, titi able, ca rried hy th t d r y summ er air o ffered a h in ' •111t1Cc! ' llnll en

tt> wh :H :1~ ,n s1c I;'.

1 • · i , Iirn an d l loo ked nt each o ther before starino

1 c . r·ii th·u em erO"ed m o m e nts la ter. H e too k n o no tice

:1tter u e 0:1 mu • • . . . ssiblv his WlLle b nmm ed h a t gu ard ed us fro m vtew- and l)t u~- pn,, . . . in stead busied himsel t w1th shp ptng o ~ h1s geta and clambered down the steps ;U1d into the th ro ng o f p eople that headed in the direcrj lHl o f th e shrine.

A h:rnd app eared in the d oo rw ay, p ale, its w rist swallowed in the orn ate fabric of its owner's kimo no sleeve. It was followed shl)r th· after bY a face p ai nted w hite and with intricate makeup that made ·it lo o k like it b elon ged to a d eranged geisha. Jiro noticeably shuttered, inching b ack into me and stuttering in a low, horrified mumble, " G -g-gh os t! "

''l was wo ndering w h at that ruckus downstairs was. I did- L n't know yo u ,vo uld b e bringing any guests, Ryo-kun."

Ji ra turn ed to stare at me accusingly. ' 'You know this apparitio n?' '

The gh o st gave J iro a withering smile. ''You can call me O kiku.'' H er vo ice, a high , practiced falsetto, quieted Jiro. He stilled himsel f, examining her carefully with childish disregard for propriety. Finally his eyes settled on the mere suggestion of an Adam's appl e that spoiled an otherwise flawlessly feminine neck. He n odded to himself, affirming his suspicions.

' 'Ah ," he spoke more to himself than anyone else, " an 0 " nnaga ta.

Okik u rolled up the sleeping mat and stowed it away on a shelf behind the wall. "I apologize for the state of m y makeup." She bri efly to uched her fingers to the side of her face, hands frail and smoo th as porcelain. " Some visitors are irredeemably heavy- handed."

She m o tio n ed to the cushions scatte red around the fl oo~. an im·itatio n to sit. l did, but Jiro hung b ack in the doo rwa\' as it t,1r rying on the lip to th e lair o f the beast. " \Xlhy d o you wear rn ;i l cup d t · l · -;>' '

' . an sucn gi r y thin gs w h e n yo u 're n o t on stage. O kk

'

u see m ed surpris ed by th e qu e stio n but n° t n l • _

- lt ,gerb-

0 ma inta in the illu sio n o f K abukl, l ac _, . hi~

tn

w

w ith ev e r y li fe ch oice there arc sn

) sur rc n

cnu cr ~ , t

"ls that why Ryo is here ? Does h . te ' like you?" e Want to be a 'd rost1tu anc1n g P She co vered her mouth to stifl . . . . e a girlish · ,, h too beautiful to hide behind white f giggle. Ryo is rnuc . . ace paint B pect his lord will prefer him just the way he is." . es1des, I sus-

1 felt my cheeks fluster. Luckily, the dim . _ · , flickenn Ii th indoor lanterns cast Just enough shado g ght of e ' w to mask cha . igrnent, but I couldn t stop m yself before I di nges tn P . 1· ' di . rected such ornous glare in 1ro s rection that it choked him . a venaril 11 d hi hildi • off lllld-word and tempor y que e s c sh inquisition. 0kik d bl d d u set out a srnall woo en ta e an poure out three cups of b . • • ·th h l tea, efore settling mto position Wl er _egs folded demurely beneath her.

''What would you like to ask tonight?"

I sat down across from her; Jiro fell into place at my side. Suddenly the strength went out of my neck and I couldn't lift m . ' . . y head . Jiro s pres~n~e, a trunor nwsance up until that point, kept me from freely admi~g wh~t I wanted. 0kiku seemed to notice my hesitation and waited patiently. The words I wanted to form, that burned deep in my breast, sat unused in my mouth and scalded my tongue. After a minute or so of silence I could no longer hold them back; they spilled forth in a barely intelligible slur.

''Wasshehapwiherife?''

Make that unintelligible. All I got in response were blank stares. I took a breath and tried again.

''Was my mother happy with her life?"

I felt Jiro shift next to me as if a ripple of shock coursed through his body. I could understand why. None of my peers had ever heard me mention my mother. Nor had my father ever me~tioned her. She was a nonentity, a relic of the past best left u~disturbed. 0kiku simply watched me with a small, measured smile.

"She was happy to be having you." b ath h lding my re A sigh pushed past my lips; I had been ° k the w· h h d ut to ta e it out realizing it. I relaxed a little and reac e 0 ne I "Oh;>" g ected cup of tea that Okiku had set out. · . irl

"Oh . d h as carrying a g th , yes. She was convmce s e w . k names for ough · to dun up , and spent much of her time trymg . all those You D d discarding n · rove your father crazy, trymg on an , because you ames. She claimed none felt right. I suspect th at 5

, boY but sh e didn't kn o\\ that." were acruali ~ a , '

" Oh?' ' h u.l d ~,u o n an d o n al:x, u t n . 1u. H e.m ng he r tJ.lk

";\h, s e \\ O r · , . 'd think sh e spent he r en nre Life up un nl the p r~ "tfl.incy m som e ~ou t· f \ 1th 0 0 real purp os e . \'\ dL sh e h a d co ld p :u e ms 1nd so rt o ugue' an ab sent •husband, so I s usp e c t. . ."

I settled mm th e c o mfort o f !J sternn g to Ok1ku spe.1k. lt wasn't so much th e wo rd s, thou gh he 1nng my m o t he r spo ken o f so freel y and fo ndl y was quit e alien to me, b ut th e id ea th at so mehow learnin g about h er co nn ec ted me to h e r. I had fo r so me um e doubted th at a conn ecti o n e xi s te d a t all , until th at e nc o unt e r fi\'e nights ago. I h ad snuck int o th e pl easure district to catch a glimpse of the prostitutes as th ey sat in th eir broth els b e hind th e wo ode n bars that opened out onto the street, spaced just far e n o ug h apart to allow a lanky arm to snake throu gh , but n o t much m o re. I had seen women before, of course, but it was always so sti ff and fo rI mal. The way these women so casually exch an ge d se ntim ents \\ith male passersby was unpreced e nted in my secluded life. I held my breath, trying to make out the words when I h eard a soft , ·oice riding on a breath of wind.

''Asami?" The voice whispered, a nd I turn e d aro un d to see a ghost-pale figure glowing in th e fast fading light. " ForgiYe me, you look so much like h e r. You must b e Rvo.' '

"And who are yo u?" .•

"I, well-that is to say, I knew vo ur m ot h e r."

1 had spent every evening afte r that e ncounter secreting away to drink tea and speak on forbidden topics. I did not botber to ask my father for permission; he would have refused it, and wouldn't hav d fi t place. e un erstood why I wanted to go m the irs kn The conversation hit a lull as is often the case when you ow so littl d ' s for c e an want to know so much. I was ravenou . or in10rmati b to beglfl

· on a out my mother but I didn't know where d I what to a k J· ' k p an s · iro asked to try on some of Okiku's ma eu ' 1 Watched he · . -rea h r paint his face as the topic turned to gh0sts g osts not P . d , atnte entertainers. ku

"Do . ;i'' Oki . k you know how Kabuki first came to be. . to ult as ed placi h fi . .ng b1J1l his f ' . ng er inger und e r Jiro's chin and directl ace up as she applied rouge to hi s cheeks.

------ ,' J.

1 ·0f course, 1ro answered promptly. ''A da ----

·•" ed t he country and set up her performa b ncing harl ot crn:-;s . nces y th .

· I I "r t ro up e di s tract e d men and inspired fi h e river She ~11t i t: ig ts until Sh

, "U saw fit to ban women from performi· ll 0 gun lcy,1 s ng a tog th ,, ·

''Ah, what an interesting version yo , 1 e er. u ve earned "

"Yes , only after the seductresses wer · e out of the · was Kabuki able to develop into a mature art form ,, picture

"Forgive Jiro," I said blandly "his fath · · . " , er is a renowned misogymst.

''Ah, well did you know, little Jiro that sh c .. ' e per10rmed on d, e riv erbeds of the Sh1Jogawa? And did you also kn h · ow t at she's s6ll there?"

"That's silly," Jiro scoffed. "She lived years and years and years ago. She's dead now."

"You're right, she is. But I've heard whispers on the night air from people who claim that they've seen her. They say that if you look out to the river at the right moment during a full moon you'll see her dancing still. Okuni was so taken by her art that she dances to this day."

"Have you ever seen her?" Jiro was the perpetual skeptic, perhaps hardened by his brief encounter with the faux paranormal upon first meeting Okiku.

"Well, no. But my work keeps me quite busy." She glanced out the window and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Ah, the sun's all but gone. You two should go before they close up the city and the night watchmen nab you and lock you away for goo d."

It was a command buffered by the hint of a Sugge_st100 · Sh h d d did , h ny more ume to '- e a customers to attend to an n t ave a 1pa re chatting with two young boys. Okiku collected the emp ty ( . d owed them away rn in c) and n o t so empty Qiro's) cups of tea an st h to li <.:fr h • d nly long enoug

Jrt us e rmg us ou t the door. We pause O d ing

,l1 n r h terrace and ropp

,, in ou r sandals before climbmg over t e . tl ,,bove , II I d brte V " ·

' t~nt Y tq the gro und below. Okiku's head appeare · ·

IJ <.; I( . -

· > wi~h us $sOOd night and ofter a warning. . , nJ,nost :1

,,. Afte r all, tt s , r Keep your e yes open for Okun1. ·ull rno,m,,

. ues ttons

''C . I you rno re q .a n 1 come sec you agam to as (

:> " Th e name di ed in my throat as I whisper ed the qu es- about .. .. . o ki ku simpl Ysmil ed . t10n. •

" I' m ahi-aYs ere.

h "

\'(.'e trud g~ d h o me , pausing o nly at a wa t er b asin so that Jiro could was h o ff ~s painte~ face. Th o ugh n ei ther of us said so, both o f us we re keeping careful ,vatch out the co rners o f our eye s for any twisting, feminine apparitions on th e b ank s o f the river. There were none , and when we parted w ays w e w ere b o th relieved and dis appointed that Okiku's warnings had not borne fruit in reality. I slipped in the backdoor of my father 's house , surprised to see a faint glow through the thin walls that separated the hallway from his office. He was still up, which meant he had been waiting for me.

Sure enough, as I slid the doors to the outs ide world shut I heard my father call my name, softly. I seated m yself on the floor outside his room before pushing open the door and bowed low. My father had settled down next to a long, low wooden table on which lay scattered coins: gold from Edo, silver from Western Japan. He didn't look up to acknowledge my presence , a bad sign, and instead spoke as if addressing his beloved money.

"I've heard that you've been spending some time in the theatre district; is this true, Ryo?"

There was no sense in denying it. More than likely my band of tormenters had run to inform my father of my whereabouts once determining where I was going; no wonder Jiro had managed to follow me without their noticing his absence-maybe they had even sent him as a spy. "Yes, sir "

"It's no place for a young boy such as yourself. You should be studying and training, you're almost of age. If your grandparents caught wind of your whereabouts . .. " He trailed o~f, finally lifting his eyes to fix me with a disapproving stare. "l don t want you going back there. I hope you understand."

I did . For a moment I had been confused as to why my f h d · hi ork that at er care at all; he was usually so wrapped up in s w . he paid me no attention or concern. But this was a potential ld embarrassment for my mother's parents bitter and twisted 0 ' . d rner- creatures that had adopted my father, a lowly and despise had a h . hi h y father c ant, into their family for want of money, w c m

t- The\' pick ed and nee dJ ed at m y fath _ lot o . ' er tor eve. · ,., 0 d for the maior disgraces-such a t ) niinute 1111rn.kc, , L <- s myself h sd to their torture should the,- g et th . ~t ·e re Wo uld 6 no en . . . e impress ion 1 . e c, her couldn't keep me in line. There would 6 t.1at rn y 1nt . .th thi e n o argu . rn ronuses w1 s issued command . rn ents or co p . " I .d -tl

" Yes, slf, sa1 sof y.

''You understand?"

''Yes, I understand."

"Then you may go."

I started to, but stopped m yself in mjd- h . . cro uc as a que stt·on pressed on my nund, forcing me down again I d 'd , k · J n t n<)w how to breech the silence that stood between us a siJ f . . . , ence o in visible mountams and long stretches of plains, of rivers without bridges. "~-father ... ',', My voice faltered, ~jpping on th e edges of my chattermg teeth. May I ask ... a question? Not about thj s." I added quickly, lest he think I was trying to rajse objection to hi s mandate. '½.bout my mother."

My father looked up sharply. He stared at me for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. It wasn't until he found something in me, some unwritten weakness, that his stojcism broke and he offered something of a smile, though to a strange r it wo uld be unrecognizable as such. I took it as an invitation.

"Did she have any siblings?"

He sighed and settled back. "One, a brother. Her N in. And don't you ever ask your grandparents about him, they don't speak of him or even acknowledge he was ever of their blood. They disowned him when he ran off to join an acting troupe. Your mother spoke fondly of him; I regret never taking th e opportunity to meet him before it was too late." . _ ,,

"Too late? What if there was still a chance, what it"'T' ·0 the fire tha r 100 late, Ryo. He died three years ago 1 swept the theatre district. His whole troupe died."

" Di ed." I repeated slowly. d hi , Life w "v , 1 , nowle ge · h 1 our grandparents wouldn ·t eve n ac" c,, ea r f h. 0 · is d ea th " · - • 1 thr cn1i:h 111 ~ ''M: ,, A . f . J is sprea o , li I m. numbing so rt o paia ys l , <'f 111r tn ) S to . . · g th e pa ni ha d . 111 Y fin ge rs. I nodd e d vaguely, pres sin '. 1. J our ()f rhc n s Int l . c t 1 bao,eo 0 t 1e tatarru to push me to my iee ·

room, bowing to him before turning to leave.

"Ryo," my father's voice ventured, causing me to pause. He sounded almost timid. "The next time you ... I mean, I was just waiting for you to show some interest. If you have any more quesh " tions about your mot er, you can come to me.

I thanked him and left. In the back of my mind I pictured Jiro, stammering out the word as he saw Okiku's face. The colorless skin. Even the name, a reference to the old folktale of the maid who killed herself rather than be forced into a tryst with a lusty Samurai. I set up my bedroll next to the door, left open a crack so that when I laid down I could see the almost full moon hanging low over the trees.

As I had promised my father, I didn't return to Shimabara, not even to confirm or deny the explanation my father had given me. Maybe he was wrong-he certainly wasn't infallible-and if it were true that he had ne ver m et my mother's brother, never been in any sort of contact with him, he could have just as easily misheard a bit of information in passing and crafted it into a story, an excuse never to seek him out. On the other hand, I couldn't deny the vacant chill that my bones recalled whenever I thought back on those meetings.

But still, whenever Jiro and I played on the banks of Shijogawa, my eyes would stray to the distance with the full moon bloated and spotlighting the knee-high grass. I knew better, and yet still I couldn't stop the half skip in my heart as I scanned the backdrop for some sign, some indication of a translucent female figure glowing in the night, turning. Dancing.

o, tJ·c poets redefined w ith g reat pro f undic, , the The ru.>man. . . . . -' . h et and th e valu e o f art m human ci vili za tion. functifJ n of t e po h .., in the nineteenth century w as allmarke:d bv Poetry in Europe . . l nd reflective. Poet r y w a s n o longe r so much a be in g perso na a

f di..dacticaU y co mmurncat1ng and uph o lding tradit:1 o ~ means o . alue s but a m edium t hat changed the very way people dogrnanc v ' thought ab o ut life itsel f. Nature wa s a source o f msp1rat1 on: it was a sanctuary of bo undJes s and transcendent beauty that unified human ex perience with the seemingly vast and terrifying complexity of th e world. The human condition was celebrated in all of its duality; the imagination and spirit allow us to realize the deepes t forms of o ur personal and aesthetic expression, while our ph ysi cal bodi es are subjected to the decay of time and the distractions and res ponsibilities o f our quotidian existence. Central to the Romantic visi o n, however, were the unified theories of the universal impo rtance of the artist (or poet-yet there is a definite commonality in the two) to society. Fundamentally, their conception was of a human being who could communicate philosophical insights in meticulous, engaging, and magnificent detail that would provoke their audience into recognizing the totality and beau ty of life . However, the question was raised, most eloquently by John Keats, of what exactly is the value of art, and even human life, in a world that is inevitably subject to death, despair, and decay? The poem "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" by John Keats conve ys the tragedy of the vulnerability of humanity and art in a world of mort~lity; yet, Percy Bysshe Shelley in his poem "Ozymandias"_ c.iuest1ons th · l 1 · 111 · finite ' e essentia va ue of human achievement 10 an and indiffe rent cosmos.

S Jo hn Keats, arguably the greatest English poet since . · hak es pear h aliz a. e, was consumed throughout his career by t ere , t1on of t h I' • c ll :ved : , e Jmtted ness of life and the implications that 10 0 ~ specifically th h th1n g th h ' · e s ort time that he had to accomplish every t lc at e want d , mark~ ' bod v f c to acco mpli s h (although he produced a re ' ,•cl 1 ° w0rk) Th ' · oel11 5• , he I ·1L · 18 theme 1s recurrent m many of his P . JtJ anti · •"111 Yexte nd h. · J • · , net

S1·ei'ng h , s t J S lo ea to aesthetics m h1 s son " )' t e r 1 · , ·

~ •. glrl Marbles ." The po e m begins:

l\'l y s1?irit is to <~ wea k _ m o rtality

We igh s bcavdy o n me lik e ·w

J h . . unw1 ng slee /\no eac 1mag1ne d pinnae! d P,.. ' e an st

O f ~ocllikc h ardship t e lls me 1 eep · ' must d' ·I · I l le

L1 <C a sic< cag e looking at th.e k ( s y. 1-5)

. 1 •tt th e outset, Keats cre ates an atmosphere f . R1µ1t • · . . • 0 inexplicable

I 11 The phys1caltty of th e spe a•ker (who is most lik 1 g l >0 1 · e Y Keats · . ·cl"' is ac knowledged as an unavoidable burden th h ' h1t11s •I . at tnders his potential and d esire} o cr_e~te, especially in the simile which co mp ares mortahty to unwilling _sl~ep," making it disturbingly rclatabl e to t~ e .read e r. An?ther s11~1le that is even more profoundlyagonizing 1s _m ~h e last _line of C:~1s passage. Here, human beings are inh erently inflicted with the sickness" of mortality. The sky seems to represent the unfathomable possibilities and complexities of the world that human beings can only aspire to, never fulfilling the perfection and wholeness that we relentlessly long for. The end of the poem presents a new predicament to its reader about the essential value of art in a reality that brings the poet such despair. The Elgin Marbles of the poem's title are Greek sculptures that were recovered from the Parthenon. They are aesthetic masterpieces that rank among the most prestigious of the form, arguably only rivaled by the works of the Italian Renaissance, and are the foundation of Western civilization, but now have been ieduced to rubbles. Keats writes: "That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude / Wasting of old time - with a billowy main -/ A sun -a shadow of a magnitude" (12-14). Here, the poet uses the alliterati on in the last two lines and the series of dashes to reflect th e decay of the statues and the infinitude of the universe. Keats Sugg h " · kn ,, f human ests t at there is a correlation between the sic ess 0 mo rtali ty and the fragmentation of these sculptures; h e qu eSri o.ns the v J f h . d h' rn ent as he ts · a ue o uman artistic expression an ac ieve . , · ::, . co nfronted with the reality o f the decay of th e E lgin Marb les. . Even th stincr away. ls ese work s o f tre m e ndou s grand e ur are wa ,., . · 1l there h. . . ents 1f the wo r c. any purp ose o r m eaning to hum an ac tevem · Progres s · d' - · · es tn tffe re ntly to o ur as piration s . . . h \so Sh , . " . os w o n t at a - elley s poem "Ozym a ndia s 1s a co mp

th a-ic limitedness of hum an ac c o mplishments in a illustrates e trao- _ . h ature is inbmte and incomprehensib le U pon first world w ose n .

. · the poem may seem to be a cnnqu e of tvranny interpretation , . , , which was an institution that S~ell~y ':as emphancally o pposed to throughout his life. The poem 1s hig hli g ht ed b y a hum oro us irony that appears towards the end of the wo rk. Yet at the co~clusion the existential and grievous depths of the poem are realized .

Shelley writes:

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Oz ymandias, King of Kings, Look on m y Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Rou nd the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far aw ay. (9-1 4)

Ozymandias was an Egyptian king who had a huge statue erected in his honor, but now the head is looking up. Tradi tionally, sculpture was an art form that was associated with Apollo, which made this medium represent balance and order and reason. In this context, however, the Apollonian order of the sculpture reflects human folly (the tyranny of the king), and is subjected to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe and the dec ay of time. The most haunting aspect of the poem arguabl y comes in the second-to-last line. That line is impossible to read quickl y an d passively. It is hallmarked by the longevity of the alliteration of the b sounds in "boundless" and "bare." All human achievement fades away into nothingness and meaninglessness, and all that we can do is accept the tragic fact that everything we accomplish will eventually decay and bring forth no resolve.

The poems of Shelley and Keats convey the despair 0 . li h ondimorta ty, an overwhelmingly tragic aspect of the uman c H li e the tlon. owever centuries before Shelley and Keats were a v ' . V gil ' onde~ 5 poet 1r made a profound insight in an attempt to re~ problem. One of the central themes in his epic masterptece _ A b s to ere enetd is the grand value of the attempt b y human eing tvrhat t · . . til. orld . w

a e rat.1onal order m an apparently chaotic and hos e w d (in h . f his or er

howeve r, is what the realizatton ° Whether Virgil s case lt 1s the founding of Rome) costs humani ty-

~hdestruction of Troy or the suicide of Did v· . . IS t e · · O, lrgil lS t ir . chronicle 1t ill marvelous detail. The insight . a ains to f gamed here P b pplied to the work o Keats and Shellev p h . . can e a . ; · er aps lt is an . to think that what we create will last foreve . thi . illusion . r, s 1s obvi1 not the case. However, there 1s value to the insi h b ous Y . g t ecause li •ted as our achievements are, they make us bett Th . as nu . . . er. ey give us something to li~e for, and to aspire to. They enrich and make our lives worthwhile, and they make human civilization flourish and prosper.

Works Cited

Keats, John. "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles." The Norton Anthol ogy o f English Literature Volume D: The Romanic Period. 8th ed. Ed. Deidre Shauna Lynch, Jack Stillinger. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 883.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Ozymandias." The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume D: The Rom antic Period 8th ed. Ed. Deidre Shauna Lynch, Jack Stillinger. New York: W. W Norton & Company, 2006. 768.

As you roll in between your Calvin Klein b d . h d f ran ~hct"¼ in ning and lift your ea rom you r Tcmpur- d the rnor pe Jc mc-m, ,r '

mattress you may wonder what the da y will h<)l<l c ) foaJJl ' · r< ,r you

__:11 probably get up, walk past your clo set and d · You ww . ress ers fulJ of Lucky brand jeans or your Gap t-shirts and wa s h yo ur fa ce wit h Neutrogena soap or scrub, cov~r your face with an Aveda tinted 1sturizer, brush your teeth with Colgate t oothpaste and O 1 rno . an raB toothbrush then walk back to your room and get dre ssed in a Banana Republic ski~t and The 1:jmit~d bl~use. You will shp on those Manolo Blahruk heels you re still paying off on yo ur Vi sa Credit Card, pick up your Coach bag and grab the Chanel mascara in Stiletto black and run the wand over your eyelashes which you view (mouth half open) in your Pottery Barn mirror which hangs beside your door. You'll walk out into the Los Angeles sunlight and stagger, remembering to put on your Fossil sunglasses and SPF 15 Clinique lipstick then walk to your Audi convertible to drive a quarter of a mile when Madonna's "Material Girl" comes on, and you tap your nails on the leather steering wheel to the beat, realizing how great it is to have such wonderful things-you work for the world, and the world works for you.

Truly, we are all "material girls" living in a postmodern world. The blind advancement of mass consumerism is part of an idea propositioned by postmodern philosopher Frederic Jameson who, according to Mary Klages, recognizes the current phase of the world as "consumer capitalism with emphasis placed on marketing, selling, and consuming commodities, not on producing th e~" (Klages 3). Additionally, Jameson believes that bo~h modernism and postmodernism are correlated with these particular stages f · . h hil this loss of 0 capitalism. Klages goes on to say t at w e co nnecu· · . . d rn world open- I vity was tragic to moderrusts, the postm~ e . In y .embraces fragmentation and schism from any ideas of unity. t h1 ~ po . d li .tl s wealth but strn ° ern community there is not only mi es · also ncJ ' ter purpos e. \v, · reason or ethic to use your wealth for a grea h with a 1 k . . mone y to t e ch _ ac of faith in the reli01ous front why give · . then Urch.i w·th t,· Jd ide unit y Why d · 1 a detachment from ethics and wor w d .otion on ate . , h · · ;> Wh ere ev tnoney to bmld h o uses m Et 10pia.

- d apath\- has arisen , but is 1t really t o rtur o us to L.. __ _ once exisre , . _ _ _ Lui\ e _1..;ng with o ut guil t o r wo r n- 0\-e-r purushmem:- Tue po st e\-en u u.modern wo rld o ffers a sep aranon _fro m mo rality and ~o lidariry which in turn affec ts all as pec t s o t sonety, namel y human relati ons and roducrion / con sumer cul ture. Thi s course , titled "De~tination U nknow n: And \X'h o Really C ar es? ' will dis cu ss through literature and one philosophical \.\·ork h o w the on celamented move from modernism to postmoderni sm has disillusioned the \X'estern world. Discussion will center on the m ain question posed b y postmodernism in the world today: In \1,·hich way is this postmodern disillusionment a po sitiYe prog res si on an d in which way is it not.

As with any liberal arts course, discussion \ Vill be open and hopefully activ e. One reason why this course may intrigue students to discuss postmodern issues is the same as in many libe ral courses, point of view While some students may see the third stage of consumerism that is associated with postmodernism as a good thing, others may not. Just the same, some students may see how fundamentall y postmodernism is antagonistic towards religion, yet some may see this disenchantment with religion and grand theory as liberating. In "Only Connect" b y William Cronon the ideals of a liberal arts education are discussed and listed with great detail. The third point that Cronon makes is the ability of those educated in a liberal fashion to speak with many different people from different backgrounds. "They can hold conversations with a high school dropout or a Nobel laureate, a child or a nursing-home resident, a factory worker or a corporate president.''

Cronon closes his discussion on the goals of liberal education programs by saying, "More than anything else, being an educated pert m~ son means being able to see connections that allow one 0 f th . " If post- sense o e world and act within it in creative ways. th d · · eater rru mo errusm is broadly defined as the rejection of one gr ot cl h n then n an t e celebration (and making sense) of fragmentat1o ' f

nl d · ledge 0 0

Y

oes the idea of a liberal education promote knoW cl , 0 stpost d · · · heren ' P mo errusm as a significant time period but is in · 0 f mod · · • • ,, ake sense ern m its ability to encourage its students to rn the world and ·tl · · · · " act w1 1m 1t m creative ways.

The course 's fir st re ading assignment will b F . d . e redenc

On 's '~Postmo errusm : The Cultural Logi·c f L James . . _ _ o ate C icalism. '' This reading discusses m detail mode_ th ap d . ul . . rruty, e postde rn world, an its c tural s1gruficance "Postm d . rno . · o errusm" . oduces man y of the ideas that will be brought ab 1 111tr . out 1n arger r us bv the novels. An example of how this piece will 6 1 . 10c , e re ative rnany of the other works the class will be reading is th to . e para- graph where Jameson discusses sexuality. "As for the postmodern revolt against all that, however, 1t must equally be stressed that its own offensive features-from obscurity and sexually explicit material to psychological squalor and overt expressions of social and political defiance .no longer scandalize anyone ... " CTameson 4). This quote embraces Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters, as well as a few others on the reading list. Jameson's "Postmodernism" also focuses on the economic situation that occurs alongside postmodernism-something important when discussing In visible Monsters as well as the current era of mass consumensm.

While the focus of this class is ultimately postmodernism, I believe that it is exceedingly important to explore the late modernist movement to better understand the social importance of postmodern thought. One of the most poignant examples of late postmodern work is William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, a story of a family who goes on a journey to bury their dead mother where she wished to be buried. The story is written in stream of consciousness, a style that is modernist by design, from the viewpoint of fifteen separate narrators-the son Darl being the most intelli?ent and perceptive character. The novel deals with issues of what it means to be devoted to a family member, even in death. The ~amily's blind devotion to honor the wishes of their dead mo th er is often foiled by Dad's disenchantment with death and filial piety; at one point he even attempts to burn his mother's coffin by set~ng alight the barn where she was laid. His disbelief in th e a~ove ideas (f: il h hi famil y · . am Yand death) eventually brings about w at s calls ins · 1 p ulkner uses D anity, and Darl is shipped off to an asy um. a ad as a hi h ht to post- rn d ve de for the evolution from modern t oug 1 , o ern by ill . d . . al values Dar s ch ununating his disregard for tra 1t10n · aracter i al but as one s no longer regarded as the intellectu son,

. . because his rejection of traditional beliefs and valu es who is insane ' . . all nd immoral. This novel 1s an example of how seems c ous a d th ought was something brash and considerably nega- postmo ern tive to modernity.

. .

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 1s a novel that will blatantly test the students' hold in postmodern thought. Lolita is a story of a man named Humbert Humbert who is madly lustful over a twelve year old girl named Dolores Haze. This novel will hopeful- ly incite discussion over where the rejection of larger truths is socially acceptable and where perhaps it is a slippery slope. Fundamentally Humbert's obsession could easily be seen as sicken- ing, yet with an embracement of a society where personal truths are relative to each person, Humbert's lust over Dolores may be relatively ethical Lolita will be controversial and may bring out the fundamental conservatism in even the most liberal-minded of stu- dents, yet I believe that many will accept it with "the greatest com- placency . .. and [become] one with the official or public culture of Western society" Qameson 4).

I think next the course should celebrate the postmodern era with the playful Wa itingfor Godot by Samuel Beckett. In all of its absurdity, this play turned novel will exemplify what it means to embrace fragmentation and essentially nonsense. Waitingfor Godot's thin plotline and backwards dialogue will most likely be a difficult read, however to ensure th.at the students both read and under- stand it there will be in depth in class discussion and a three to four page paper on Waitingfor Godot and its applications to the cur- rent era. Additionally, Pulp by Charles Bukowski is a fun and fairly mindless piece of postmodern literature; mindless in the sense that the pi ece rejects the ideas that novels have to reveal some greater tru th. Pulp is a playful private-eye story of Nick Belane, an alco- h,)hc gambl er wh o can't get himself straight. Belane quite fre- ~uemly puts n ff se ri o us investig ati on for drinking in a bar aocl

I e reading lists, man y individuals would have t 1 ----

cg . · o re y <)n th . J, Gulli ve r's Travels b y Jonathan Swift to ge t a ta ste f t • atcd. B k~ £ . o co01 1ca l ::; q ual riricism. Vonnegut m rea -:,1ast of C hartmwns div . c . . r . es tnt,, ~ocial

O rnmentary usmg dark humor and 1llogi·caJ c h a,· . _ f c , n s o eve nt :-,, Many of Vonnegut s characters are connected in ob _ . . - scu1 t: mann 1.:n, for no specific reason. This allows Vonn egut to pok _ f . . . . e un at txi~ tentialism and general ideas of connectivity whi ch w , l fi ere g on 1ed in modernity. Breakfast of Champions will show the stud ent h . s t e pr,> gresswn of the postmodern novel; where onc e dj sin tcgratjon ()f ideologies was mourne~, then accepted and embraced, Vonneg ut blatantly makes fun of tt-an embracement in itself of po stmoderrusm.

In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut deals seriously with ideas of addiction and obsession, ideas that tagline what it mean s to be postmodern. With an affluence of uppers, downer s, alcoholic beverages, sleeping pills and muscle relaxers on the mar ket tu make the public feel okay with their postmodern and somewhat meaning-deprived lifestyle it is no wonder that the era has birthed what is called "drug culture." While Vonnegut mainly focuse s o n alcohol addiction (a martini every day is the "breakfast of champions") William S. Burroughs loudly announces the birth of extreme addiction in popular society in his novel Junky. In Jun~ Burrough s recaps his seedy existence as a heroine addict and pusher. Burroughs' language style and the pulpy content in Junky will tie in to the discussion of the drug culture.

When the class is finished reading this, students will be asked to research one drug substance in depth and explain its current and historical influence in relation to Jun~, as well as th e postmodern movement. The individual will present to the class th eir research in the form of a discussion of their research by an y m b · . th h l s will gain more eans es1des power point, m hopes at t e c as k l d d h n th e wodd now e ge on the purpose and effects rugs ave O 11 tod ul O e example wou c ay and their meanings to different c ture. n . . b" - · South Amer1Ca

e to question whether the production of coca 111 . 1is p 1 c . dicinal value in cu ure Y1or making drugs or if 1t h as some me . · tures f S ld b tl e use of Peyote Jn 0 outh America; another wou · e 1 · f drugs Nat1v A . d' hat the us e O · l.1 e m encan rituals. By und e rst an mg w ' d " _ to bet1 (e c ·n 11 the stu ents oca , peyote etc. once signified w1 a ow ·

- th . •gru·ficance in today's drug culture. derstand e1r s1 . rerun . fi ale to the ideas of mass consumensm , fragmentaAs a m k' I . .b , ;\ ,, ul e Chuck Palahniu - s n vm te d 1onsters will be tion and drug c rur , . . . the class will read. This contemporary piece of the final piece d rk is the story of an ex-beauty queen (now ostrno ern wo . . . p d b an accident expla.med rn the novel) and her Journe y deforme Y . . . , fi d run . g in her life by explomng the wealthy for their preto m mea . .

- · medications This novel deals with the need for the prescnpt10n · scribed fo<, as well as the search for a soul in a world made of plastic. Palahniuk exploits the popular girl clique to make commentary on the importance of mass-produced beauty and happiness in the 2000s. The story ends and begins at a wedding with a shotgun and a fire, beginning where it ends and vice versa, rejecting traditional forms of writing. This novel coincides with Jameson's "Postmodernism" because the excessive use of brand names epitomizes a society's obsession with popular culture.

"Destination Unknown: And

is a course that will question where the world is headed through literature. The literature obviously expands from late modernism into fairly contemporary postmodernism and explains the transitions and different movements inside of the era. As was said before, ingratiating one's self with the postmodern experiences of every generation is inherent in a liberal education because liberal education seeks to teach its students about the human experience on a global level. The books and essays which I chose for this course explain ideas that are pertinent to postmodernism, as well as a liberal education: consumerism, drug and alcohol abuse, the rejection of religion and big ideas. Additionally, the course questions its stu dents' hold in postmodern thought. The course sheds much needed light on the positive and negative influences that such thought has had on society and individuals within it, and will be a useful tool in each student's understanding of historic and contemporary issues.

Who Really Cares?"

Works Cited

Jameson, Frederic. " Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism ." 1991. www.m arx ists.org / re fer enc e

Klages, Mar y. "Postmodernism". Jan 2007. Continuum Press. April 28 2007. <http:/ /www.colorado.edu>

HE CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCE DEVRy B ECKER

\X lwn tifty h.its the interstate the highYray might end, hut d1c route sure doesn't.

PIERRE LACLEDE HONORS COLLEGE

EXCELLENCE IN WRITING CONTEST

2006 - 2007

1000 - LEVEL WRITING: SARAH O'BRIEN

"DESTINATION UNKNOWN: AND WHo RE -\LLY C -\R.Es ~"

HONORS COURSE TAUGHT BY D Ai\ GERTH

2000 LEVEL WRITING: GEOFFREY HARMON

"THE SYNTHESIS OF ECTASY AN D RATIO NALITY"

HONORS COURSE TAUGHT BY V ASSILIKl R APTI

4000 - LEVEL WRITING: KIMBERLY WILBANKS

"THE FEMALE CONTRIBUTION OT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE SUSTAINING TOOLS"

HONORS COURSE TAUGHT BY KIM BALD US

FICTION WRITING: BEAU WOODALL

"DIVORCING LADY LUCK"

HONORS COURSE TAUGHT BY NANCY GLEASO N

PLEASE JOIN Us IN CONGRATULATING OUR WINNERS!

BIOGRAPHY

Kelli Allen is a senior at UM-St. Louis, majoring in English. She hopes to teach literary theory, Shakespeare,_ and contemporary t the college level. She has only written one poem regard- poetry a h 1 . ing children. She is an amateur photo?rap er, aves F~r S zde, and is something of an awesome cook. Kelli keeps a dream Journal for inspiration.

Maria Balogh is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Anthropology & Languages at UM-St. Louis. She began teaching Spanish in the fall semester of 2003. She also received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from UM-St. Louis in May 2007. Maria is working toward getting more work published by dedicating herself more to her writing. She writes in both Spanish and English, but mostly in English. She enjoys teaching Spanish, so she plans to continue to teach at UM-St. Louis as long as she is invited to do so. Interestingly, Maria is now teaching an Intro to Creative Writing in Spanish class, which she created, for Spanish majors and/ or Spanish high school teachers in the area. She would like to create more inter-cultural or advanced language classes in the near future. Her hobbies are closely related to her professional interests. Maria's story "La mordida" was published in an anthology of short stories in the Spanish language whose authors live in the United States, called Meis afld de las fronteras: cuento. As part of the M.F.A. program, she was also section editor for the Natural Bridge / Dreams Issue.

Devry Becker is currently a senior at UM-St. Louis majoring in Philosophy.

Angie Benoist is currently a student at UM-St. Louis, working ~n a major in English, a Math minor, and a Writing Certificate. She is ~aid to be host for an entity that will one day pop out of her ~heSr m g o ry detail. Benoist hopes to eventually find work as an editor somewh ere, as well as to establish herself as a writer. Because of t he lack o f parking on South Campus she had to park in Lot X d . ' b t fi ve an da sh t o cla ss 1n the Honors College in the space of a o u

· Sh 1 am e to minu tes . c co mm e nts "At first I was annoved, but ate r c • ' 1 - wh ere e n1 oy th e walk be twee n th e C ollege and m y car t o th e p o int h I ld I er to t e wo u p a rk ov e r th ere eve n wh e n there w er e space s cos Co lJ ege. 'Parkin g Sp ace ' wa s b or n of that ." An gie

d to '\\-rite i.n btnges. whene·ve r 1nsptra t1on h .

re.fl s d h . its a~ opt'\ d

_ g creaonty; an s e 1s s ure that Batman ~d , o sc to torCl(l fi ht wo cru sh

Superman in a g .

D oiel Blake is cur r e n tl y attending graduate sch 1 U a ki 7 d h . p . . oo at M-St.

Lo uis. He 1s wo r n g to\\ a r 1s h. D . m P ht' Sl c s a d h . . f 1 . J n opes to ch at a uni versity a t er c o mp e t1 o n . H e was bo r n d . cea 1 d hi an grew up in Mar),land, and he comp e te s und e rgradua te d egr R d · . . . . . b c . ee at a ford Universi ty in V irguu a e1ore m o vm ~ to th e Mi dwes t to wo rk o n his graduat~ degrees. Dan lov es to nde moto rcycles and has been known to ode year round He also has been know n to ta ke pictures an ywhere he goes and occasionally he catches one or two good shots in some random places

Robert M. Bliss w~s- appointed dean of the Honors College in 1997 and started wntmg poetry almost immediately. It's the air, perhaps. He had an earlier period of poetry writing (ca. 1970- 7S) but had given it up. Even before then, he was an undergraduate History major (modern Europe) and a postgraduate History major (US Colonial), but both times he minored in Literature (American), which was not accidental. He first came to admire poetry as a senior in high school under the tutelage of the late Oakley Valimore Ethington, teacher (and pianist) extraordinaire. Readers of his poetry will admit that Bob lacks Oakley Ethington's fine appreciation of tune and metre in poetry, but that's life Bob tends to write poetry about things he has seen in m~tion or ~hang- ing, e.g. apple blossoms dancing across a road or trams runrung through a storm or, for that matter, daffodils pushing up through snow.

Karen Ann Bosurgi is an undergraduate student at ~M-St Louis, studying Business. She is from Beaufort, South Carolina.

K f UM St Louis with a enneth M. Burke recently graduated rom - · . H M.Ed. in Higher Educational Leadership and Poli~y ~al:::· e currently has pending publications for the academic JO~\ G Elobalization, 5ocieties and Education, and The Journal of Hig ::reer in ducati p ,. al e to pursue a on oucy and Management. His go s ar . . · ddition educati . d . wrinngs, in a on and continue publishing aca enuc in this to creati . t y The poem i ve endeavors such as writing poe r · 1 tide in the ssue of Belieri ve was partly inspired by a scholar Yar

, . , . I .r pf'11cho/ooy_(2006, No. 97) and its positive analysis of Hntt.rh Joto 11< 1 q; :;, , · . ~ ':) h · l d . · li • 1 1 nm es through a tee mca 1sc1p ne. rhc a rts ano ,uma ·

C h 1·s currently a senior at UM-St. Louis. Her major is Julie reec L , 1 S ' t dies with concentratJons m photography and creative (r en e rn u · · , • Sh " l,op es to attend a M.F.A. program for creative writing writmg. e · . · . r " he graduates . Julie's future plans include a career involving ,11 ter s d . . h d fashion photography, writing, an ra1smg er new a~ghter. Julie is int erested in all kinds of arts and crafts and researching whatever questions pop into her _mind; curren~y, th~y are usually questions about babies and puppies. She conceived Death of a Honeybee" while pretending to watch a tennis match, and she actually witnessed the high drama of a bee's last moments.

Juliane Dharna is an English Major at UM-St. Louis. She is also in pursuit of a minor in Classical Studies and certificates in Honors and Writing. She plans to attend graduate school in the near future.

Mark East, an undergraduate English major, is hopeful about starting the M.A./Ph.D. program at Mizzou in the fall. He started to earnestly write poetry because he needed an outlet after he deliberately smashed his guitar to pieces on a staircase. His love for words in some ways can be credited to his love of harmony and chords. For him, the most attractive thing about the written word is the transmission of sound and rhythm created without vibrating air. His favorite place to go is a hilltop in Rockwoods Reservation. He grew up in the park nearby because his family lived very close and his father worked there when Mark was young. He would like to make a special dedication. "Sugar" was "Written with the Highest Respect, Adoration, and Love for Robert Higgins."

Yevgeniy Elperin is an undergraduate student at UM-St. Louis. !1e is worlcing to obtain a Certificate in Writing. His interests . includ e reading, writing, and music. Yev plays the guitar and w:ites his 0 V.: n so~gs. He likes to incorporate various aspects of _music ~nto hi s_ writing, especially when it comes to poetry. His bigge st msptrattons have been from musicians such as the Beatles, th e Grateful D ead, and Pink Floyd, as well as his favorite autbor:;uch as Aldous Huxley and Geo rge Orwell. He loves to wnte_abo · things that he o b ser ve s, wh ether it be people, places, or ideas.

. F oandez is a senior majoring in Ar t H.. 1l ue er . . W . . isto r y at UM

·s She is also rece1vmg a rttmg Ce rtific ate anc.J a St. 1,ot11_ 6 · re. Her most beloved hobby is pain tin ., d' n Ho n, >r s C rt1 1ca 1 . 1 g, an shl: . 1 e . ir·ation to the c ose c1rc e of peopl e ar 1 att n )LJ l <.:1.i 111sp oun c her K · beruld like to add that she has greatly eni·o yed h ., . at1c o er exp cn w S Louis and plans to pursue her master's d encc at OM- t. · eg ree bet . t the collegiate level. <>r c reach1Ng a

u1i Gram an administrative staff member in th .. C 11 J e , ' ffi e o ege of 0 wmetry Deans O tee at UM-St. Louis since 19 90 h . , P 11 , as spent her entire career on co eg~ campuses, from the East Coast rrTniversity of South Carolina) to the Pacific Northw (P v / • est ortland State), and back to the South Midwest (double digjts at th e University ?f Arkansas) b_efore ~ettling here in the heartland She enjoys the intelle_ctually stimulating atmosphere of academic settings and appreciates_ the ma~y and varie~ venu~s for creativity on campus. Photographically, Julie has a particular interest in abstract images, her selection herein notwithstanding. The weathered vessel from "wings and or~s" ?n Bellerive's cover was spied at water's edge in a lush garden setting m southeastern Minnesota.

Jessica Griffard is currently an undergraduate student attending her junior year at UM-St. Louis. She is pursuing majors in both English and Anthropology. She is also working on a minor in Spanish, which she is "enjoying a whole lot." Her hobbies generallyrevolve around being in the outdoors. She has a love for hiking, rafting, kayaking, biking, and other things outdoors. Jessica feels that when she is out in the natural world, she can see, hear, and experience a wide variety of things that encourage creative ideas for stories. In the poem, "i watch a boy watch snow," she a~tually had an ordinary experience, and even though it was_so_merbing_s~

· l h · f 1gruficance m It. simp e, s e thought that there was also a grain ° s . d th is made her feel like it was something worth remarking on'. an that others who have had similar experiences might rd ate to It.

G ff d

eo rey Harmon is an undergraduate stu ent a . • Lo · H • . . . 1 · a mmor m

ttending UM-SL

Ui s e IS maionng m English and comp etmg . d an Phil · · Certificate an L r oso phy, as well as earning both a Wrttmg . t r and CTo ing n.o · ext win e ' 0 nors Ce rtificate. He plans o n g raduating n 6 me •1 co ll ege to g d , d to eco ' f E. r~ uate sch ool. Ultimately, Geoff mten s · th e Wo rk s 0

J nhglish professor. Hi s es say, "Mortality aocl J? ecaall y ';s ub mi tt ed in 0 n K ll " as o rtgin ) eats and Percy Bysshe She ey, w ·

Bill ~fayhan 's survey class of English_literature. _G eoff 's mspiraoo ns are th e an cient Greeks, T. S. Eli ot, and F nedrich Nietzsch e.

Ellen Herget is an UM-St. Louis student and is graduati ng '-'i th a BA in An thropology in May 2008 and plans to attend graduate sch oo l shortly afte r. She is an avi d reader an d moYie geek. She also en jo~·s the Japane se language-tho ugh sh e fe els she nee ds to practice more-and , o f course, poe try. She is Buddhi st, an d her work is strongly influenced by that phil o so phy E ll en is in spired by singular moment s and memories. ·

Nathaniel Hunton is an underg raduate stud ent at UM -S t. Loui s. He is a Physics major, has earned a Writing Certificate, and has no definite career plans His poem, " Manslaughter," was o riginally written for an informal little contest. He says "fair warning: don't take it at face value." He currently has upwards of a dozen unfinished (or even unstarted) writing projects that he would like to get back to at some point. Nathaniel would also like to add that " the hyphen is a sadly underappreciated punctuation mark."

Claire Jacques graduated in August with a B.A. in Fine A.rt and a minor in A.rt History. She plans to become a world- famous graphic designer and typography expert while writing and illustrating quirky children's books. She loves pursuing any creative endeavor: drawing, painting, sewing, writing, and making computer graphics. Her cat, Barry, and her boyfriend, Christopher, are her two best muses. "Text Message Transcript 8/3/06" was based on an actual text message she sent to Christopher.

Bobby Meile is an undergraduate student at U M -St. Louis majoring in Math and working on a minor in Biology. He has no career plans as of yet. He likes to fiddle around with words in his head, and most of his poetry comes from some turn of phrase tha~ catches his fancy. Whenever he starts giggling madly over an idea, he knows he has a poem in the works.

Caleb Miller is currently an UM-St. Louis student majo~ing ill Phil~sophy, with a minor in German. He is also comple~~ a~fter English Writing Certificate. He currently works at a hospit · his B.A., he plans to go to law school and study heal~care 1:~k Circumstances in his life have allowed him a lot of time to and write and edit He finds it easier to write at the computer,

1 no sin g le method wo rks best for him Cal b rhoug 1 · · · e com 90 % of what he w ntes 1s nev er seen bu a ments that J n yone else.

Montague is a junior majoring in Political S Justt . d w, , aence with 6 res in Wrttmg an womens and Gender Studi Sh cer- tl tca . th W . . L . es. e also ks as a tutor m e ntmg ab and is assistant . wor h fu h copy editor fo "h Current. In t e ture s e would like to go to la . h r 1 , e . h 1 bb . w sc ool and b ome a human rig ts o y1st. Justi states "I like t . ec · . , o wnte down rny dreams . .. when I w~ke up m ?1e ~orning that's usually the first thing I do. M y favorite dream is this one: I was the most farnous auth~r in the world~ and everything I wrote made people sob because it was so beautiful. But I had only written one sentence in my life, and that was 'she dances in her dreams' and that one sentence was filled with so much clarity and beauty that it made people sob."

Julia Murphy is a senior at UM-St. Louis. She's a Ps ychology major, with plans to attend graduate school in a Clinical Psychology program. She hopes to work with veterans. Julia spent many summers on her grandparents' farm, where she learned to sew and quilt, and where she gained the inspiration for much of her work. She likes to write at home in the middle of the night when everything is quiet and time is uninterrupted. She is a certified American Sign Language interpreter, and when she writes poetry she often thinks of how it would look in ASL.

Sarah O'Brien is a second year student at UM-St. Louis and a student at the Pierre Laclede Honors College. She is an Anthropology ~ajor and Biology minor. She is interested in both mortua~y and bioarchaeology research. She hopes to continue her education thr0 ugh a masters and doctorate program. Sarah also hopes to teach h' h . hil · g to graduate 1g school anatomy and physiology w e gom school. "Dan Gerth told me that I should submit one of my . d essays so I did. I was really shocked when I was honored. T1than eve n fu h • · h Bellenve. e rt er when I was asked to have 1t put m t e essay i b f ding Bret p s ased on a collection of her ideas a ter rea . d f ~asto n Elli ' d h entire 1 ea o <>ver s s American Prycho. The book (an t e d her life a.nd connectedness causing complete isolation) change a lot of h . er views on things.

Arny Perr . Eventually she hopes to get h Y is curre ntly a Psychology major. 1 dclition to er doctorate and teach at a college level. n a

bei ng a poet, she al so writes and slee p s. Th o se ar e th e t\J.·o big o nes She knows th at the best, m o st struc turall y so und wri nngs ar e ch o se that have bee n planned o ut 1n ad \.-an ce. She has heard tru s time and time again from w rit er s and would -b e writers alike . Howe ver, from a sh o rt sto ry standpo int, she fin ds that her be st stories are the ones where she 's just al o ng fo r the jou rne y. She starts with an idea, a sentence, a word , and w ri te s fr o m the re. More often than not, she hits a brick wall and it turn s o ut to be nothing, but sometimes she begins writing a story that, as it unfolds, she thinks, " I love this, how come I couldn't have pl otte d this out from the beginning?" She's watched a lot of Kitan o Takeshi films, and it shows in her writing.

Kristi Rhoades is an undergraduate student attending UM -St. Louis. She is pursuing a major in Political Science, a minor in French, a Non-Profit Leadership and Management Certificate, an International Relations Certificate, and an Honors Certificate. She is unsure of exactly what she would like to do in the future, but is sure she would like to work for a nonprofit company whose mission she believes in so that she can have a rewarding career. Kristina's hobbies and interests include photography, scrapbooking, knitting, interior design, cooking, and traveling. She would like to point out that anything can be an inspiration. The reason she loves photography so much is because it forces her to appreciate the beauty in even the most seemingly unattractive things. "The world we live in, in its entirety, is a beautiful place and nothing should go unappreciated."

Shawla Scott is a graduate student at UM-St . Louis studyi ng English Literature. She hopes to teach at the college level.

Elizabeth Staudt is a senior working on her undergraduate _ _ degree. She will receive a B.A. in English and a B.L.S., emphasis m Biology, in May 2008. She hopes to go on to graduate school an~ eventually work as a science writer. When she's not in class, she is generally reading fantasy novels and children's books, watching cheesy chick flicks and disaster movies, or going to local rock concerts. Her favorite authors are Robin McKinley and Roald Dahl; her favorite poet is Saul Williams. She abides by the quote fr?m Professor Charlie Bright, "The purpose of writin~ anythin~ is ~~ed make so meone somewhere feel something." She 1s mostly insp by small revelati o ns about ever yday life and believes all her beS t

------- o n paper; she belieYes typing rem o , ·e s the w rit e r 'begat1 . . b cl

poe rn - e ro cess of w n nng e c aus e \\? r . son a c omput e r screen

fror11 th P , to change. E li z abeth fe els lt 1s b etter to be ab le to s

0 eas, ~ee are to · and all of th e al te r a ti ons you make along the w ay ur Proce ss yo

ennifer Stefl is a Second ary ~uc atio n j\ fa ~ e ma tic s majo r . Cpon

J d · n she hope s to wor k rn th e St. Lo w s P u b li c Sc hool gra uatto , . . • t teaching al g ebra , ad v anced alg ebra , o r tngo n o me tn-. D1stt1c , . b . -

J •fer grew up in South St. Lows ut attended public sch ool in

St. Louis. She has al_ways had an interest in art, esp eci ally drawing, and honed her skills first at Carr Lane VPA l\ liddle School and then Central Visual and Performing Arts Hig h Sch oo l. The art featured in this issue was taken between September 2002 and May 2003 under the guidance of the amazing and tal e nted Kevin Cook, her former photography teacher. The shots were obtained using a Pentax K1000 35mm manual camera The rwo subjects in her work, Janae Cole and John Parhomski, gav e permi ssion to publish their photographs. Nowadays, her photography is a passionate hobby.

Phil Strangman is an undergraduate student at UM-St . Louis w ho is graduating in December '07 with a B.A . in Music Education. His career plans are to be a teacher and/ or a performing musician. His interests range from musical things such as writing, recording, and performing music on the keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums, to watching and playing sports and traveling/ road-tripping. He also loves to read, but only when he has the attention span and concen~ation to pull it off. He loves writing things down based on emotions and other experiences that he is feeling at the moment, and ?e loves the sound and rhythm of words, phrases, and sentences JUS t as much as the meanings behind them.

Brian 'T' rill · · • . S L · He is majoring in . .ter ts a Juruor attending UM- t . outs. Political Science.

Jea · . . E li h department (M nnita Tnggs is a graduate stude~t m the n~ 5 She plans to .A.) . Her concentration is in English Compostt10n, ·cion and cornpl t h Rh . nd Compost , e e er Ph.D., most likely in etoric a . Sh 1 ves to to te h li ll tttng e o ac terature and writing in the co ege se .' have an attend s k these settings ' d . po en word venues · the poets m 11 5 trage Yi.n unc ' d lifi as we a . f anny knack for talkin g about every ay e _ "Th e t11L" 0 a Way th · · . J anntta says, at 1s engaging and e ntertammg e,

unc.u 1m kru ck for t:tlkm~ :tbnut e vcryc..hv Life as w e ll a" tra d . • • • • • " < ge yin

1 w 1, tlut 1~ t'n~:u~1ng tnd cntcrta.imtw· )e:1n111ta says "l~he · f · · . · · , ' , mix o \\ h i~pc.r:-. n :llinµ. stamrnenng, and flu1d1ty always reminds me of · t be 11<)Llritie:-- th :H we hav e to function with." It is at once sob · · · _ · ermg .rnd c~hil.lr.iting tor her. ln her own work, she likes to write about .1 frer m nh

Jeanai Wehrfritz is a student at UM-St Lou.is, majoring in F ngli:--h . She pl:.ms to attend graduate school. She enjoys cooking gl)\fing, :md \vriting. ,

Rose \'Xiheeler is a graduate student and teaching assistant with t he hthc1natics Departrnent. She is currently working on her Ph D. in applied mathematics, and hopes to eventually work as a prnfrssnr in a four-year university. She has always been fascinated b~- the patterns that mathematical equations produce and enjoys e.x ploring the almost mandala-like shapes one might discover while gr:1phing them. These patterns bear a resemblance to many things in n ature, like sand dollars or flowers. The radial symmetry of natur:1.l things is often the inspiration for the coloring she uses on the 1.)riginal '\vebs" that the equations produce. Her favorite thing about creating these images is that when producing the initial shape, one is discovering a new pattern, a thing of beauty that materi:1.lizes from a few terms of an equation. "It's like finding a . d l " treas ur e m an unexpecte pace.

Angela Woike is a 2007 graduate with a B.A. in Anthropology. She is a member of the Teach for America 2007 Corps. She currentlv lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and teaches kindergarten at a focus school for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Angela's prior motivation was her carefree college life, one which lef~ room for " feelings" and "drama." Her current motivation is the eighteen 5 year-olds within her classroom, and not much else. Her future pl ~ns include a lot of coloring, singing, and playing games for th c n e xt two yea rs. And maybe some trips to the mountains.