Sisyphus - Spring 2010

Sisyphus Spring ’10

Outside Cover artwork by Sonny Hagar Outside Cover design by Joseph Wright Inside Front Cover: watercolor by Conor Gearin Inside Back Cover Artwork (from left to right, top to bottom) by Eric Mueth, Joseph Wright,

Greg Fister, and Sonny Hagar Inside Back Cover Design by Joseph Wright and Patrick O’Leary Masthead photograph by Patrick Zarrick

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3 Bad Cartography, poetry by Ben Minden-

Birkenmaier 4 drawing by Greg Fister 5 Top Ten Ways I Blew It with Lori, fiction

by Adam Cruz 6 drawing by Sonny Hagar 11 drawing by Evan Orf 12 drawing by Perry May 15 watercolor by David Stankoven 16 watercolor by Nicholas Dooling 17 Striped Couch, poetry by James Fister 18 Oleander Garden, fiction by Eric Lewis 19 watercolor by Joseph Wright 20 watercolor by Will Linhares 23 Original Flight, poetry by Ben Minden-

Birkenmaier watercolor by Conor Gearin 24 etching by Joseph Quinlan 25 Summer Skin, fiction by Brian Faron 26 print by Joseph Quinlan 28 Creative Writing, poetry by Daniel Hart

L’Ecuyer 29 The Last Chapter, fiction by Joseph

Quinlan 31 watercolor by Dave Stankoven 32 watercolor by Will Linhares 33 “No.” poetry by Sam Herbig 34-5 Glittering Industry, poetry by James

Fister

painting by Joseph Quinlan 36 drawing by Phil Nahlik

37 The Columbia Sun, fiction by Conor

Gearin 39 watercolor by Kevin Kickham 42 Man from the Desert, poetry by Daniel

Hart L’Ecuyer 43 print by Sonny Hagar 44 The Operation, prose by Conor Fellin 45 watercolor by Joseph Wright 46 drawing by Clayton Petras 48 Good Morning, poetry by Mike Lumetta 50 What If, anonymous prose 52 watercolor by Joseph Wright 53 Odysseus’ End, poetry by Greg Fister

watercolor by Kevin Kickham 54 The Red Pen, fiction by Joseph Quinlan 55 Comme Il Faut, prose by Michael Tynan photograph by Sam McCabe 58 Prodigal Song, by James Fister self-portrait by Greg Fister 59 Nothing, prose by Collin McCabe 61 drawing by Perry May 62 design by Eric Mueth 65 Angel Maintenance, poetry by Ben

Minden-Birkenmaier

charcoal by Evan Orf 66 Deep Blue Sea, prose poetry by Steven

Dyke

pastel by Greg Fister 67 The Axis of Existence, poetry by Daniel

Hart L’Ecuyer 68 Easter Risings, poetry by Bill George

Bad Cartography Ben Minden-Birkenmaier

I’ve never followed a coastline, never turned rocky crags and dusty scrubland into drawings on a page.

I’ve never captured the story of a man’s life in 700 sheets of paper, or put the history of a nation into four manageable volumes for the coffee table.

I’ve never frozen a moment in oil on canvas, or etched screams and moans onto a vinyl disc.

But I do know there’s something lost in the translation, some essence that can’t be drawn or written or etched, and instead falls into that nebulous gap between creation and recording, forever drifting.

And yet, like stone replacing bone in a fossilizing skeleton, something is added until at last the recorder replaces the creator as master of the creation.

And if that conglomeration of creator and recorder, that mixing of thought and feel and soul, is somewhat imperfect, what of it?

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Greg Fister

Top Ten Ways I Blew It With Lori Adam Cruz

#10—The Night I Met Her: July, between freshman and sophomore year

I don’t buy the cliché that when you meet the love of your life, the world stops and you just know. I don’t, just to make that clear.

It was the summer after freshman year, and me and Craig walked in late to the surprise pool party. Most of freshman year, we’d hung around with my grade school friends, but, with most of their summer breaks starting two weeks after ours, we’d hooked up with some nice girls my neighbor Marta played soccer with. Two girls in particular, Carrie and Rachel. Craig and Carrie would date for two years, but Rachel I didn’t talk to very much after this surprise party, which was for her, by the way.

Being mysterious was really cool. Most of the guys were from our school anyway, and had been hanging with these girls all year, but we were new to their parties, and that made the party that much more fun, for them and for us—already they were getting bored of the same old group. And to the girls, Craig and I were a hot commodity: new, single guys. Craig was the good-looking one, sure, but I was the funny one; I had that going for me.

We walked through the gate and around Elisa’s pool to drop off our presents on the table under the deck. Already people were calling out our names to come join them for a game of Chicken, but we figured we should at least meet this Elisa girl before jumping in her pool. Well, at least I figured that; Craig flipped me his cell phone and jumped into the pool, shirt, towel, present, and all.

Now alone and not near as confident, I put my gift card on the table and bent down to fill up a drink. A few guys said hi, and I was about to jump into a conversation about summer baseball when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Is your name Eric?”

I turned around and surveyed the scene in front of me, and quietly thanked God. Three smokin’ hot girls, in bikinis, asking if I was Eric, which I was. The tall brunette with the blue-and-white-dotted bikini was the one who had done the asking, and wore a proud and confident smile. I put on a fake scowl and said, “Who wants to know?”

They all three busted out laughing at that.

“Rachel talks about you all the time, seriously. She says you are the funniest guy!” said the blonde in the green swimsuit. Of the three, she had the best body for sure, but something about how excited she was to talk turned me off.

The tan, black-haired girl with green, snake-like eyes, who was standing at the edge of the group and wore the red and by far most revealing swimsuit, held out her hand.

“Thanks for coming to my party. I’m Elisa. Rachel really talked you up.” I took it all in. I had a tiny crush on Rachel, yeah, but now she had opened up a new world for me.

I took a glance at Craig over in the pool, Carrie draped at his side. Life was good.

I don’t know why Lori joined the group at that moment: she’s not really friends with those three girls—she’s much too interesting. But when I turned around to show off my “ghetto booty” to the girls, I saw her for the first time. She was laughing with the rest of them, hard too, so I got to check out her profile a bit before it became awkward. Her hair was blonde, which got me right off the bat. Her body had a cute petiteness to it in comparison to the other three. Her smile was toothy and genuine. Her eyes were bright

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blue, the kind that look at you and you can tell they see right through whoever you’re trying to be at the moment. They could be no other color.

She did catch me staring, and gave me that knowing look with the arched eyebrows.

When everyone stopped laughing, she extended her hand.

“I’m Lori.”

“And I ... gotta go talk to Craig.” Everyone laughed at the joke as I scurried away, especially Lori. Before I got to Craig, Mrs. Sims came outside and said Rachel was here and to get ready to surprise her, so before I could even talk to him we huddled under the deck. I tried to catch another glance at Lori, but I couldn’t pick her out in the crowd.

As I said, I don’t believe in love at first sight, and I never will. But I kept scanning the group for Lori. I wanted to talk to her, even for a bit, before Rachel got there.

“SURPRISE!!!!!”

And I had to go talk to Craig …

#9—Dibs: Immediately after

When Craig’s mom’s Volvo pulled up and we had finished toweling off, Craig and I gave our good-bye hugs and headed for the fence.

After I had slipped my shirt on, Kurt asked for a ride home. I don’t know why, because he lives at least ten minutes out of the way, but I said yes.

We got into the car, the lingering dampness bleeding through our shirts and towels wrapped around our waists—Craig riding

shotgun, me and Kurt in the back.

Mrs. Hack asked how the party was, and we each gave her our one-line answers, then settled into a quiet late night mood, listening to the Fray on Craig’s iPod. Craig lay his head against the window in front of me, and I followed suit. My eyes started to flutter a Sonny Hagar bit to “Cable Car” when my phone buzzed in my lap.

“HEY Eric! I totally creeped and got your number from Jason. When are we going to rendezvous again?” It was the first text I ever got from Lori James. I started to fashion my response, but my phone buzzed in my hand again. Text from Kurt.

“There were sho some prettttty women there!” I looked over at Kurt, but he was facing forward, a smile creeping at the side of his lips.

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Any in particular?”

I started to get a little nervous and debated whether or not to text Craig to tell him to start up a quick conversation.

“A few, u?”

“Just one. Have you met Lori James?” I got that horrible feeling in my stomach, a mix between needing to poop and getting kicked.

I debated my response, and cunningly retorted, “Yep.”

Kurt’s text came back less than ten seconds later.

“Dibs.”

I shut my phone and tried to go back to sleep, but I felt Kurt staring at me, so I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

As for Lori’s text, I didn’t respond.

#8—Two

for Three: sophomore year

September,

The flashing mixer lights broke up the darkness in the gym as I sifted through the crowd, looking for Lori. I bumped a grinding senior in a purple basketball jersey and aviators, and almost knocked over the tiny girl in pink, but I didn’t care too much. I was a man on a mission. Three in a row.

Getting to know each other was an adventure, her favorite time in our relationship—we didn’t fight much then. We didn’t fight at all, actually.

We’d stay up late every night, on instant messenger and texting at the same time, trying to guess tiny facts about one another. It seems dumb now, but all day I’d look forward to it. Back then, I didn’t know her middle name was Dana, or that she hadn’t kissed a boy, or that she wanted to go to the University of Arizona. I applied there earlier this year, even though I hadn’t visited or anything. Got $9,000, too.

I had been on a really hot streak of guesses in the past week, guessing her favorite food (pizza, easy to guess) and the state she was born in (Connecticut, not so much).

And now, if I got three in a row, I would get a prize. I wasn’t sure of the question, or what the prize was, but I knew I’d guess it right, and I knew I wanted it. I wiped some sweat off from my NBA headband and fought through the crowd.

“Craig! You seen Lori around?” Craig, dressed as a monk, looked up from Carrie, who was dancing close to his body wearing some sort of ’80s spandex. I felt bad for interrupting, but, like I said, I was on a mission.

He grinned and gave me the one-second fin-

ger. I stood there awkwardly as he said goodbye to Carrie (God forbid he be apart from her for one second) and reviewed potential questions while they passed around his piece of Juicy Fruit for a bit.

Favorite color is too easy; she wouldn’t ask that unless she wanted me to get it. Dad’s name? Jack, Carl, Dave …

Craig grabbed me by the shoulder, his sweaty palm clamping down a bit too hard.

He obviously wasn’t pleased.

“Eric, I haven’t seen you dancing all night. Will you just forget about her, man?”

Craig’s hand surveyed the crowd. “We have over 1,000 beautiful young fish for your taking. Will you give up on that Lori thing for awhile?”

I had lost him around “fish,” because while I followed his hand’s path I spotted Lori on the outskirts of the crowd talking with her friend Heather. Her bright neon outfit kept with the theme, but she wasn’t like the other girls; her outfit wasn’t revealing or flashy. She wasn’t asking to be looked at, but it was at the same time impossible to avert your eyes. I loved that.

I waved off Craig and started heading over. He began to protest, but something, probably one of “those” looks from Carrie, stopped him.

Lori spotted me about halfway before I got there and waved excitedly, ending her conversation with Heather. She nearly knocked me over with her hug. I tried to talk but couldn’t manage to wipe off that dumbstruck smile that she sometimes gave me. She gave me a wink, and we danced to the rest of the song. She moved easily, guiding my clumsy arms. I stepped on her feet a few times, but she squeezed me hard at the end of the song. We were still on the outskirts, apart from the massive mixer crowd, and I didn’t see the flashing lights, or the eyes of Kurt or Craig resting upon me. I only replayed that wink in my mind again and again.

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Lori snapped me out of it when she left my arms.

“Okay!” she said very professionally, pursing her lips and rubbing her hands together like my English teacher. “Here’s the big one, the one for the grand prize: What’s my favorite color?”

I started to answer when Heather came back over and tried to yank Lori back on the dance floor. Lori shrugged her off and looked at me intently, expectantly.

“Red.”

Lori’s face fell, and her smile faltered a bit. God dammit. She recovered quickly though, and so did I, falling to my knees in fake devastation.

“Nope! WRONG! No prize for you!”

Before I could intercede, or argue, or even stand up, Heather was yanking her back into the fast-paced mob. I tried to grab Lori’s hand, but missed.

“Wait, what was the prize?” I called after her.

Lori smiled and blew me a kiss. “It’s a shame. You coulda been the first!”

Lori entered the crowd, dancing with Heather towards my group of friends. But I stayed on my knees for a while, my hands rubbing my face, my eyes closed.

I tried to convince myself that my first thought had been blue, that I should’ve gone with my instincts. But no—I had been sure it was red.

Lori’s dad’s name is Rodger. Her first kiss would be Kurt. But to this day, I have no idea what her favorite color is.

#7—Not My Type: November, senior year

My phone buzzed on the table for the second time in five minutes, but again I ignored it and kept making out with Vicky.

We sank deeper into the couch, and my hand started to slide up to unstrap her bra, but then the phone vibrated again. I felt her

tongue leave my mouth.

“Will you just get it?” It was more a statement than a question; before I could answer, Vicky was fixing her mussed-up red hair into a ponytail. I grabbed the phone and immediately popped off the couch, knocking off the blanket we’d pulled over ourselves, but Vicky didn’t even look up to comment on my “atattention soldier,” as she liked to call it.

I excused myself and locked the bathroom door behind me, but I doubt Vicky looked up from the mirror.

I hadn’t talked to Lori in a month, maybe more. She began talking as soon as I answered.

“You’re dating Farr?! I know you said somebody on the baseball team had a crush on her, but you didn’t tell me it was you.”

“What do you need, Lori?” I wasn’t in the mood, hadn’t been in a long time. Although it was over the phone, I could feel the smile fade from her face.

“Nothing, I just heard about you and her, and I thought it was funny …”

“Why do you even care?”

“Because she is SO not your type. She’s the kinda girl YOU date, but she shouldn’t be.” Lori really knew how to press my buttons. I sat down on the toilet seat and tried to calm myself and keep my voice down.

“Oh, and what kinda girl is that?”

Lori gave a short laugh on the other side of the phone, the kind where nothing’s actually that funny. “You know, she’s a ditz. Selfabsorbed, loves to hear herself talk ...”

“And what exactly is my type?” My voice had started to rise, and I turned on the sink to try and muffle it. I was standing now.

Lori’s voice was quiet now on the other side of the phone. “I don’t know, Eric. Just not that.” There was a sort of plea to her voice, as if asking me, begging me, not to badger any further. But that only made me angrier—how dare SHE try to make ME the bad guy here?

“You know what, Lori, do me a favor.

When you find that girl who IS my type, and it’s NOT you, give me a call. Until then, leave me the hell alone.” And I don’t know why—I easily could’ve just hung up—but I tore the battery out of my phone and threw it to the ground. It bounced under the counter and out of sight, and the screen of my phone went black, leaving me with just the sound of the running water.

#6—Valentines: February, junior year

We lay on the hood of my car, me in my red and black formal attire and her in gray sweatpants. I was pretty spiffed up, and I doubt she had on make-up. I loved it when she didn’t wear make-up.

“And … it’s over. Valentine’s Day, 2009, has officially come to a close.” Lori closed her phone and moved a bit closer to me, almost touching. If I had known it would be one of the last times we’d be alone together, I’d have touched her. I continued to look up at the stars and gave a fist pump at the end of her countdown.

“How was the dance? I bet Linda looked REALLY pretty.”

I shrugged. “Eh, it was fine. It was something to do. She’s not much of a dancer, but maybe I’m spoiled.” I leaned over to look at Lori, but now she was looking up into sky.

She was smiling, though, and I smiled too, glad she got the reference.

“How was your date with Kurt? Where’d he take you?” I asked out of obligation, immediately regretting it. I knew I would get one of two answers—a complaint about how crummy Kurt was or a drawn out exaggeration of his romancing. I was in the mood for neither. I got the former.

I listened and nodded, realizing this was the moment I had been waiting for since she had called me to come over an hour before.

“It’s like he doesn’t care at all. Or he

doesn’t want to.” Lori finished and sighed, looking at her phone. “I gotta go in before my mom shits herself, but thanks for coming. I needed you tonight.” I got down from the hood and we looked at each other the same way we had for months—like we didn’t really know how we should appropriately say good-bye. Before she could come in for the awkward hug or brief kiss on the cheek, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the black velvet box.

“Look, I know you said no gifts, and I agree, but I had some money left over from Linda’s present, and I just figured … well here.” I handed her the box that held the ring I had gotten her with her ruby birthstone in it. Lori opened the box and closed it almost immediately, and her expression didn’t change.

“Eric …”

Whoa, she was near tears. That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. She looked towards the ground and didn’t meet me in the eye like she usually did.

“What? It wasn’t that big of a deal, I had just bought Linda …”

“You bought Linda a teddy bear and chocolates, Eric!”

It was my turn to look at the ground.

She put the box back in my hand. “I love it, but I can’t. We obviously can’t do this anymore. You can’t keep doing this to me.”

I threw the box down angrily. “Keep doing what?”

Lori, the hint of tears no longer in her eyes, calmly picked up the box and put it in my hand, and closed my fingers around it.

“Make me regret dating Kurt.” Lori started to walk back towards her house. I called out after her, trying to sound confident and caring, though I’m sure my voice came out more like that of a wounded puppy.

“Will you at least keep the ring?”

Lori shook her head and didn’t turn around. She closed the door after herself.

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#5—Quit Playing Around: March, #4—The Last Birthday Present: sophomore year Late February, senior year.

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I threw my backpack on the ground and collapsed on the couch. It had been a long day.

I flipped through the channels, and somewhere between Sportscenter and That ’70s Show, I decided to do it. I dialed the number without a thought. The only number besides Lori’s I have memorized is my mom’s.

She picked up on the last ring; she always did that for some damn reason even if she was right by the phone. It was as if she considered each and every call completely before she picked up.

“Hey good lookin’!” She had established early on that she didn’t answer the phone with a simple hello, but I still blushed.

“Hey, we gotta talk about something.”

I then proceeded to tell her about the confrontation with Kurt while I was doing my homework in study hall. “He wasn’t mad or anything, he just wanted to know what he needs to do for you to be his girlfriend,” I said. After a long pause, “He said he knew we were close and I could help him out.”

“Well, isn’t that just typical Kurt shit.

I—” “Why don’t you just stop messing around and date him?” There was a long pause on the phone after that, so I repeated it. And still Lori didn’t say anything, so I spoke up again.

“I mean seriously, he likes you, you like him. There should be nothing in the way of you just becoming his girlfriend. Maybe it would be better for you, and me, and especially Kurt if you would just stop playing around and just go out with him.”

Five second pause.

“Okay, Eric.”

Three days later Kurt and Lori officially became boyfriend and girlfriend.

I found it in my mailbox, after Vicky and me had finished in her car. She had to work at six, on my birthday. Some girlfriend.

The CD was pink and simply read “Birthday CD.” Lori’s name wasn’t on it, but the goofy curl at the bottom of the “y” was a dead giveaway. A piece of paper was taped on its underside.

“Eric: Shouldn’t let a little fighting get in the way of tradition. I miss you. I know that it isn’t fair for me to say that, but I do.

Happy birthday. Love, Lori.” I put the CD in my pocket; maybe I’d listen to it later. I was tempted to text her when I pulled out my phone, but I picked the next best way to get rid of the heaviness now forming in my chest.

Instead of texting Lori, I texted Mark.

I rarely drank too much, or at all, but when I did, watch out.

I was a mess that night of my 18th birthday. Mark, my ever-loyal college dropout chum, chauffeured me around and provided the alcohol as we cruised St. Louis. I wish I could describe in detail the events that led me to Lori’s doorstep around one that night, but in my memory the activities and movements of the night are broken and fragmented, like a shattered CD.

Mark offered to help me up the driveway—I’d need help in the rain, he said—but I refused and stumbled my way up it the best I could. I thought I had gotten there pretty swiftly and silently, but that must not have been the case since Lori was waiting for me at the door when I got there.

I had an entire speech planned out, beginning with “I love you” and ending with “screw you,” but when she opened the door in her pajama pants and a Fillmore North High T-shirt, I forgot what it was. I had given her that shirt, too.

She studied me for a long time, and I stared right back, the rain lightly drizzling around me.

Finally, she sighed. “Eric King, you are a mess. Get in here.” She reached to grab my arm, but I yanked back violently and took another step back, now on the grass of her lawn.

I tried to say something, I did, but the words didn’t come out. The words that would explain why I was there. Why I was going to do what I was going to do. But, for the life of me, I couldn’t force them out.

Instead, I pulled the pink CD out of my pocket and broke it in half. The noise was duller than I expected, and the break wasn’t clean down the middle like I had intended it to be. I took the two pieces and split them again, then threw them in front of her on her porch.

Lori looked at me with her eyes big, empty, and sad. She closed the door slowly in front of her, her eyes never leaving mine until I couldn’t take it anymore and started to sob into my hands. When I looked up, the door was closed and the porch light was off.

I might have stayed there all night if Mark hadn’t forced me to get in the car.

I left the pieces on the porch, but the accompanying note was still in my pocket.

#3—Choose Me: April, junior year

I parked Craig’s car on the edge of her curb and let loose a massive sigh as I flipped out the lights.

I had stolen my slumbering buddy’s Mazda and driven at three a.m. to Lori’s, but the most nerve-racking part of the night had yet to begin.

I had never been in Lori’s backyard.

From the sliver of light from the streetlamp reflecting around the house, I saw a worn swingset, a patio table, and a grill as dark as the night. I also Evan Orf saw a porch swing.

As I texted her to tell her I’d arrived, I tried not to think of how many times she and Kurt had swung on it.

The sliding glass door opened three seconds later; she’d been waiting in the kitchen. Lori put her finger to her lips and grabbed my hand, guiding me down towards her basement. We walked quietly but swiftly, her in pink pajama pants and a baggy sweatshirt, me still in my baseball uniform from the game that had ended hours before. I tried without much luck to recall what the game’s score had been as we descended down the carpeted steps, the only light the bluish beam guiding us from Lori’s open cell phone.

“Sit on the couch next to the computer room. If my dad comes down the stairs, jump behind the couch and crawl into there. Hide behind the desk,” Lori ordered, her first words of the night to me whispered hastily

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and business-like. I had never heard her talk like that, but then again I’d never put her in a position where she had to. Now I had.

Lori turned on a dim light from the fan overhead and flipped on the television. She played with the channels, stealing glances at me each time before she flipped the button, finally settling on some old movie on TNT, or some channel like that. I didn’t take my eyes off her. She turned down the volume so it was barely audible and looked at me, her electric eyes seemingly enormous in the dim lighting.

I handed her the letter before I said anything, wishing I had remembered to rip off the torn edges of the notebook paper.

“Don’t read that until I leave.”

She nodded and tucked it in her elastic waistband.

We sat in silence for a little while longer. “You played good tonight,” Lori said, her tone conversational but her voice shaky as she broke the dialogue between the two women on the television.

“That other pitcher—”

“I don’t want to talk about the damn game, Lori.” Something about my own tone surprised even me. I had never spoken with such harshness and coldness, not towards her anyway. Lori seemed taken aback too, but only for a second before she fired back.

“Then maybe you can tell me what the hell that was all about after the game.”

“What do you mean?”

Lori stood up and flipped off the television. “If you’re going to play stupid and be an asshole, I’m not wasting my time. I’m going to bed.”

“Sit down.” Lori gave me a hard glare, her eyebrows forming a V over her eyes that seemed to have lost their softness. But she sat.

Lori, I Perry May “Maybe, just can’t wait any longer. Maybe I am just sick of being second place.”

“I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about, Eric.

Second place in what?”

“I love you, Lori.”

It was the first time I had said it to her face-to-face, and I wish I could’ve taken it back. It didn’t come out caring or sweet like I had imagined, but rather forceful and accusatory. “And yet I always lose.”

“Lose what? I’m not some baseball game, Eric. You don’t win and lose me.”

“Why are you dating Kurt? He’s an asshole, and he doesn’t love you.”

“How do you know? He tells me he does.”

“He doesn’t mean it.”

“Do you?”

Nobody talked for a while after that. Lori flipped back on the television. Some kind of car chase was going on, the main character on the run. I watched for a bit, then de-

cided to quit. I was done. She wanted Kurt, she could have him. I stood up and started to walk back up the stairs when I heard her voice behind me.

“What do you want me to do? I can’t lose you, Eric. I just can’t.”

I fought back tears the best I could, but just in case, I kept my back turned to her.

“Choose me. Be with me. I will make you happy, I’ll do whatever I can to make you happy. Let me.”

She walked closer and I turned around.

She had stopped near the bottom of the steps.

“I can’t do that to Kurt. I just can’t. He doesn’t deserve it.” I started to wheel back around, but she grabbed my right arm. Held on firmly, too.

“And I don’t deserve you. How you ever got to love me, I’ll never know. How a great guy like you could ever—”

“Let’s not go into that.” For the first time in the night, my voice had lost its edge.

Instead though, it came out weak, tired. “I can tell you how beautiful you are, and how great you are, but you’ll never believe me.

And I don’t know what else I can do.”

I stepped to the last step; we were almost touching now, but I kept my gaze past her, towards the television. I tried to focus on the conversation going on in the movie, but I couldn’t really register much.

“I’m sorry about tonight, I am so sorry.

But I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to get past you, I’ve tried. But no girl can live up to you.”

“To this insane false image you have of me.”

“No, to you, Lori James.”

I met her square in the eyes now. They were beautiful. She was beautiful.

I leaned to kiss her, and our lips touched, slightly grazing, but still touching. Her lips felt soft and welcoming, and I leaned in even closer. I don’t know how long we kissed, but

I know she was the one who pulled away.

She touched her lips and looked at the ground.

“Get out, Eric. Get out right now.”

I don’t know how I managed to find my way out blindly, but soon I was stepping out of the glass door, still without the aid of any light.

#2—Burn it: August, before senior year

I teetered the salt and pepper shakers then set them back down and checked my watch again. When I looked up, Lori’s silver Corolla was backing into a parking spot next to the Applebee’s sign. Late, but not too bad.

I fiddled with the lighter in my pocket and pretended to look at the menu. I took a sip of my water. No, there would be no need to order food.

I felt two cold hands fold across my face and cover my eyes.

“Guess who.”

I didn’t want to, but I felt myself grin, and I played along.

“Well, considering the chubbiness of the fingers, I’d have to say it’s a very, very fat—”

The hands lifted and smacked me softly on the cheek, and Lori and I laughed together as she sat down across from me in the booth. I reached in my pocket for my phone, but instead felt the plastic lighter I had just bought at the Shell. I stopped laughing. I remembered why we were there.

Lori gave me a warm smile from across the table, and I loosened my grip on the lighter. “How was Bridget’s? Lots of people there?”

“Yeah, well about that ...”

“Kurt says there was a lot of people there, but then again he was drinking so he could have totally been off base …”

“Lori.”

“I’m actually glad I had to baby-sit, I

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can’t stand being around him when he’s in one of those moods. You know, those …”

“Lori.” I clapped my hands together this time when I said it this time, and she stopped and started laughing.

“Ha, I’m sorry, I just didn’t talk to you last night. You didn’t text me or anything.”

Her tone wasn’t accusatory, but I could tell she was a bit hurt. “So, why did you want to meet me here?” She put her chin in her hands and made the face I loved, where she pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. I was on now, it seemed.

“I had a long talk with Kurt last night, Lori.” Her smile faded slowly, through realization or confusion I didn’t know.

I delivered what I had to say exactly how I had rehearsed it; I was as cold and professional as possible and did my best to avoid looking at her eyes. I told her how Kurt knew everything; how I had decided to confess. And then, I told her that I found out he already knew. She had told him it all. He had even read the letter.

“But you know all that,” I finished quietly, eyes still fixed on the Applebee’s Wall of Fame. After a few seconds of silence, I finally looked up. She had been staring at me the whole time.

“So, what do you want me here for?” I felt the anger bubble inside me, her calm and apparently uncaring demeanor adding to a fury only being held back by the tight grip I had on the lighter.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” I controlled my voice the best I could, but the look I gave her was enough.

Lori continued calmly though, her eyes never leaving mine. “I could tell you what really happened, how I had to show him the first page of your letter so he wouldn’t try to steal the entire thing. I could tell you about my guilt after the kiss, and how I told him in hopes that maybe he’d finally end it. I could tell you how many times I’ve chosen you over

him. But you don’t want to hear that. You just want me to be the bad guy. You wanna blame me.”

Before I could answer or respond, she reached into her purse and placed the crumbled and weathered pages of my letter on the table. I wondered how many times she’d read it.

“You asked me to bring this here.

Why?”

I cleared my throat, and placed the lighter on the table.

“Burn it.” Her eyes shifted from me to the lighter. They widened with surprise but still showed no sign of sadness, of remorse.

I tried to say something else but couldn’t, so instead we sat there in dead silence, the letter, the lighter, and two waters in between us.

“If I burn it, things will never be the same between us again. You know that?”

I nodded, tried to talk, then just kept nodding.

She moved quickly, grabbing the letter and the lighter and placing them in her purse in one quick movement. She got up and left the table without a word, leaving me sitting there, watching her.

I toyed with the straw of my drink and pretended to text, waiting for the appropriate amount of time to pass. Five or so minutes later, I was pulling out of the parking lot. I looked left to see if I could turn onto the main road when I saw her.

She was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car, the car running and her hands on the wheel. I tried to tear my eyes away from her and back to the road, but I sat and studied her.

I had never seen Lori cry before, I’d heard her cry only once, and even then it wasn’t certain. But there she was, in the parking lot of Applebee’s, her head laid back on the headrest, her face red and puffy, tears falling freely as her hands stayed gripped on

David Stankoven

15

the wheel. She looked beautiful when she cried.

The car behind me blared its horn. I snapped back to attention and pulled out onto Big Bend, narrowly avoiding an oncoming red SUV, whose driver promptly flipped me the bird. I didn’t cry.

And things were never the same between me and Lori.

#1—I’m in love with post-sophomore year

you:

June,

I almost hung up after the first ring, but I didn’t. I was going to go through with it.

The second ring I experienced similar panic, but I remembered my perfect plan, and it calmed me.

The plan was this: I would fake drunktalking on the phone with Lori, so then I could basically say whatever I wanted.

I should’ve hung up.

Lori picked up, her voice in a barely audible whisper. I could tell she had been awake, though.

“Eric King, it is almost 2 o’clock in the morning. You better have a good reason for this.” And with that, I broke into my drunken banter, and she bought it. Completely.

She asked where I was and who I was with and why I had been drinking. At first,

she sounded concerned, but I did my best to calm her nerves and soon she was laughing at my slurred dialogue. I sang to her, and I went on a rant about the rainy weather, and she laughed and laughed. And then, in a moment of silence, I said it.

“I have to tell you something REALLY important.”

She laughed. “Oh and what’s that?”

“No, no, no, it’s REALLLLLLY important.” I kept up the drunken demeanor, but she could tell from my tone it was serious, and her laughing ceased.

“Go on.”

And like a hose suddenly unkinked, I spouted off, forgetting to sound drunk and instead talking without thinking or stopping.

“I’m in love with you, Lori.” Before she could answer, I went on. When I’m nervous, I rant.

“I am so in love with you. I can’t stop thinking about you, or dreaming about you.

Well, not really dreaming, but wanting to dream about you, which is even better. God, I love you. I’ve loved you for … ever. A long time. Since the day I met you, I think. And I don’t know what to do. I love you.”

She never told me if she was crying at that moment, but I know she was. And I

16

know it because her voice cracked when she answered, softer than it had been before.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

I tried to talk, but I couldn’t. I was choked up myself.

“All you had to do was tell me, Eric. It’s all you had to do. You had months to, you had opportunities to. Why didn’t you? God dammit, Eric. Jesus.”

“I was so scared, Lori. I was scared.”

“Scared of what? Me?”

“No, no. Just what if you didn’t love me back or that maybe…”

I heard a deep sigh. “I waited for months and months. You never said anything. Why didn’t you say something? God, Eric, you are so stupid.”

“I love you.” There was a longer break this time after I said it. I heard her heavy breathing in the phone and did my best to control mine. I stopped pacing across my basement floor and sat down when she finally spoke up again.

“Why now? Now I’m with Kurt. We can’t be together now. You could have told me for months. How could you not tell me?”

I figured the question was rhetorical,

and let it sit.

“I wish I could see you.” With that I popped up off the couch and started running up the stairs two at a time, headed towards the key rack.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Lori laughed on the phone, one short, barky laugh. “Eric, you are drunk as a dog.

There’s no way you can drive to see me tonight.”

I had forgotten.

I tried to recover, and, returning to my slurring accent, I said, “What about tomorrow? I could come over and we could talk about it tomorrow.”

Lori continued to laugh, and her voice, which had slowly been getting louder as we had gone on, returned to a whisper. “No, by tomorrow, you’ll have forgotten all about this. Things will be back to normal, and you’ll never even know what we talked about.”

“No,” I said. I wanted to tell her I was sober, and that I needed to see her. That I loved her more than anything, and I didn’t need to hide it anymore.

But I didn’t.

“No,” I repeated. “I’ll remember everything.”

Nicholas Dooling

Striped Couch James Fister

So long you have softened the falls of children jumping up and down, of Grandma weary after the evening meal, of my bandaged arm, still there, two weeks after the football game.

Still you haven’t lost your fluff or your willingness to support us.

The countless people who have rested on your stripes run together like your colors once bold.

Red and white, now pink.

Last night some friends were over, and you did not object to their impressions, not like Samantha, the tabby that shares your shade.

You do not hiss or hide.

You rest there, waiting warmly for company.

You know, I cannot spend all my time on a couch.

I have other furniture I am committed to.

Around dinner time, the chairs get antsy.

As the night grows near, the mattress squeaks in anticipation.

The high chair in the kitchen nods its tray at me as I pass though it knows I can no longer sit in it.

But you! You know that there is always a time for sitting. To each his own purpose.

You rest there, waiting warmly for company.

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Oleander Garden Eric Lewis

T 18

he address was 12 East Battery Street, and the three-story, single-room house stood on a palmetto-lined boulevard behind the sheltering flood wall bordering Charleston Harbor. Single-room is a native Charleston term for a house that has only a hallway and a single room facing the street but pushes deeper into a block than most city dwellers imagine.

The house wore a coat of pastel green, one of the seventy-two colors approved by the Charleston Historical Society. It appeared to be made of stone but was most likely, like other homes built during that period in Charleston, plaster-covered cypress wood.

A rod iron fence encased the large garden that ran the full length of the house’s northern face. To the aware observer, the fence was obviously a relatively new addition because it was only waist-high and did not feature a crown of thorns, the decorative antebellum equivalent of barbed wire that became immensely popular in the aftermath of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. Eventually, as fears began to subside, the crown of thorns became a status symbol, an embellishment that proved the owner had someone to fear because he had something to lose. The fence was a disgusting shade of black known as Union Green, the result of the city’s defiant mixing of the paint sent south during Reconstruction.

Andrew Billie Strawhun had learned that and much more about his grandmother’s home during his first month there. He had not, however, made any progress on his honors thesis, his parents’ purpose in sticking him there for the summer.

“Come on, Andy,” his mother had pleaded. “She’s all alone there now, and you want

to research secession, right? Where better than where secession began?”

Andrew now sat on the bottom level of the breezeway that ran along the south face of each of the house’s three stories. He was bare-chested and in shorts beside his closed laptop. The breezeway squeezed into the tight gap between houses ten and twelve to prevent nineteenth-century peeping Toms from catching a glimpse of the lady of the house in her petticoats. Andrew possessed no such modesty.

Finding himself unwilling to work, Andrew rose, walked through the dining room, and emerged onto a wooden semicircular porch in his grandmother’s garden. Whiteblossomed, chest-high bushes guarded the perimeter, and a row of Japanese cherry saplings in little plastic sleeves ran parallel to the house in the garden’s center. Andrew’s grandmother knelt at the base of a tree and wore work clothes and an immaculate white hat, digging holes for bulbs.

“Good morning, Amelia,” he said from the patio. His grandmother smiled but did not lift her eyes from the garden spade in her hand.

“Good morning to you, Billie,” she said as she continued her work. “It makes a body wonder. Had you stayed up in bed too much longer, it would have been afternoon already.”

Andrew did not respond and began to walk a lap around the garden’s perfect rectangle of gravel.

“When will you be less busy?” she asked as Andrew neared her after turning the corner. “I was wondering when you’d come back to our room.”

Andrew sighed and knelt down beside her. “Grandma—” he started.

“What do you mean ‘Grandma’?” she scolded, lifting her eyes. “And why are you dressed so indecently, you fool of a husband.

What will the neighbors think?”

“I mean you, Grandma,” he said gently, taking her hand in his. “Remember me? Andrew. Your grandson?”

Realization, like age, fell across her face and left her mouth wrinkled in a frown as it sapped her strength.

“I’m so sorry, Andrew, dear,” she said, patting his cheek. She surveyed the garden about her and then rose to a single knee. She shook too violently to make it all the way up, and Andrew had to take her arm to help her the rest of the way.

Once on her feet, she padded into the house without a word.

Andrew recalled the way he had first arrived in Charleston. Tropical Storm Louie had struck three weeks earlier, and scaffolding then surrounded most of the houses along the battery, and workers scrambled over their surfaces like worker bees, removing the waterlogged plaster to reveal the cypress wood or perhaps brick underneath before covering it with plaster once again.

The city had dumpsters placed in the streets that were filled with the shattered glass of windows, the trunks of felled trees, and whatever flotsam the waves had washed up.

Twelve East Battery was the exception to the rule. She still wore the same plaster, though it hung from her frame in tatters.

Two palmetto trees lay in the garden, one

broken over the rod iron fence. The soil was upturned, and the gravel washed away, leaving a loamy scent in the air.

Amelia Strawhun had lived alone in the house for the past seven months. Her husband, Billie, died at the age of 49, when Andrew’s father was 17. The deed to the house had been a wedding gift, and thus the widow, Amelia, and her son could stay. Billie’s brother, who then took over the lucrative family shipping business, generously offered AmeJoseph Wright lia an annuity and even continued to pay the wages of her longtime servant, Sara. Seven months ago, however, Sara had died of a heart attack, and Amelia had withdrawn from her activities and usual self. Andrew’s father noted especially how she had allowed her garden, once her pride and joy, to fall first to desiccation and later, more violently, to the storm.

When Andrew first came to live with her, she had taken to a quiet life in an easy chair. She was nothing like the vivacious, often domineering woman Andrew remembered from annual childhood visits. He had to bathe and feed her as well as organize the repairs to the house. Each night when he went to the old guestroom that Billie had used after late-night meetings during business rushes, Andrew fell asleep within a page of where he had left off in his research.

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20

One morning, he awoke to the sounds and smells of sizzling meat. He leaped down the stairs two at a time, and at the bottom, his grandmother was whistling and setting the table for a Southern Sunday morning feast, complete with grits, biscuits and gravy, and homemade jam from the cupboard.

“Good morning, Billie,” she crooned from the stove. She handed him a spoon and gestured for him to mind the skillet until she got back. Andrew was spooning scrambled eggs into a serving bowl when Amelia entered the house through the French doors leading to the garden. Her hands were black with dirt.

“Sorry, dear,” she said, running her hands under the faucet he switched on for her. “I wanted to take stock of the garden after the storm. Thank God the oleander survived.

Those little white flowers are the apple of mine eye.”

Ever since that morning, Andrew had tried his best to remain Billie when possible to please Amelia and to lighten his burden of caring for her.

But as afternoon quickly progressed, Andrew followed his grandmother into the house to shower and get dressed. Finally beginning to feel guilt because of his recent laziness, Andrew had resolved to work on his thesis in earnest.

“Amelia, I’m going out,” Andrew called

as he grabbed his car keys from the rack by the door. “I won’t be back until late.”

Andrew drove inland to Meeting Street to give himself a chance to walk through the city’s tourist center. It had become his daily custom to peruse the wares of the Slave Market. Slaves had never been sold there, but had gathered there to sell what little they could scrape together. It had not changed Will Linhares much in Andrew’s opinion, now full of the dry riverbed faces of black women— who looked old enough to have been slaves themselves—and the sweet grass baskets they wove.

When his watch read 1:47, Andrew completed his circuit of the market and emerged once again on Meeting. He turned left, and when he saw the pink stucco of the Mills House Hotel two blocks later, Andrew turned right onto Queen Street. Haphazard concrete tiles lifted by the rebellious roots of a weeping willow forced Andrew to walk more carefully as he neared the safety of the haint-blue ceiling of Poogan’s Porch restaurant. Haint blue was a sky blue that was meant to convince ghosts that it was daytime and scare them away whenever they attempted to enter a house. As he told a waiter that he had a reservation for two under the name Rollock, Andrew wondered if the original occupants of the houseturned-restaurant had genuinely believed the

paint protected them.

Toussaint Rollock worked at the College of Charleston. In what capacity, Andrew did not know, because as a child he had first known Toussaint as Miss Sara’s cousin. Every year during Andrew’s childhood, when he and his parents would stay at Amelia’s house for a week, Toussaint, a professional storyteller, would stop by the house at least once.

Toussaint’s stories had first drawn Andrew to history, and Andrew had contacted the family friend soon after arriving in Charleston to tap his knowledge of Southern oral history for his thesis paper.

“Andrew, my boy,” the elderly black man greeted him warmly, his smooth voice contrasting with his pockmarked face.

“Hello, Toussaint,” Andrew said with a touch of exasperation as he endured comments about how much he had grown, which parent he resembled, and how mature he must be now.

Soon, however, they were talking about the past over steaming bowls of soup—gumbo for Toussaint and she-crab for Andrew— with Andrew’s voice recorder sitting on the table between them. They had long since finished eating and the setting sun had made the rectangle of the window red by the time Andrew switched off his recorder.

“You have no idea how much of a help you’ve been,” Andrew said, as he returned the recorder to his pocket.

“If you’re so grateful, you could have paid the check,” Toussaint said, with a humorous expression that soon became more serious.

“How is your grandmother?”

“She’s doing all right,” Andrew said, taking a sip from his glass of ice water. “She has her good days and her bad days.”

“Your grandmother—Amelia—is a very patient and generous woman, Andrew,” Toussaint said, looking Andrew in the eyes.

Andrew cocked his head to the side questioningly, and Toussaint continued haltingly.

“Well, as you know, Sara and I were close cousins, closer to brother and sister, really.

How many people know their servant’s cousin, after all—”

“Toussaint,” Andrew interrupted, leaning forward. “What is it that you’re trying to say?”

“Well, I don’t have any proof—only what Sara said and little things I saw back while Billie was still alive—but I think he had an affair with Sara, Andrew.”

Andrew leaned on his elbow, his hand to his temple. He chuckled softly and shook his head.

“You know,” Andrew said. “I never knew my granddad, so part of me doesn’t care. But why’d you say what you did about patience and generosity? Did she know?”

“I don’t know,” Toussaint said from behind wide eyes. He opened his mouth to continue, but Andrew stood and offered his hand.

“Thanks for everything, Toussaint,” he said, his mind already on Amelia’s nickname for him

Soon after, Andrew walked down a street in the dark. He had not paid attention to direction or street names after leaving the restaurant. Flames that leapt up simultaneously in the street gas lamps made him shiver. The knowledge that it was simply Charleston’s timed public gas line, another effort to preserve Charleston’s historic image, failed to comfort Andrew.

Andrew ended up at Southend Brewery, Charleston’s only haunted bar. The three-story bar and micro-brewery had once been an office building belonging to a shipping mogul and business competitor of the Strawhuns.

The man hanged himself in his top-floor corner office after watching his last three ships catch alight and sink to the bottom of Charleston Harbor. He was now known as one of the more violent of Charleston’s many supposed ghosts, having flung around furni-

21

ture and harmed bar hands on more than one occasion.

W 22

aking up the next morning, Andrew felt as though the Southend Brewery ghost had taken up residence inside his skull for the past several hours. He flopped out of bed and stumbled down the stairs to find Amelia sitting waiting in the dining room with a steaming tea pot and an already filled cup at the ready.

“I heard you come in last night, and you sounded pretty far gone,” she said, offering him the cup. “So I prepared you an old family remedy for the morning after.”

Grateful, Andrew slid into the seat and slurped the floral-scented tea greedily.

Amelia quickly refilled the cup when he set it down. The pangs in his head already felt duller, so Andrew gulped another mouthful before learning, with tears in his eyes, to blow on the tea to cool it first. As he downed the rest of the cup, Amelia brought a freshly sliced pineapple from the kitchen in the next room and set it before Andrew. Andrew ate ravenously as Amelia watched.

“Thanks,” Andrew murmured, taking the cup in both hands to drink his fourth cupful.

He settled back in his chair with a sigh, and Amelia waited for his approving nod be-

fore refilling the cup. Andrew reached for the cup once again, but his left hand had trouble closing around it. His finger hooked the handle and pulled the cup towards him. Amelia relieved him of the cup before it reached the table’s edge and gingerly poured its contents down Andrew’s throat, as a parent might administer cold medicine to a fussy child.

Instinctively, Andrew resisted. He ducked his head to the left, causing painfully hot liquid to splash across his face and neck.

His open mouth spewed tea as he fell forward towards the French doors and the garden. He managed to put one foot in front of the other until he reached the edge of the patio outside and careened into a facedown sprawl in the gravel.

“I thought getting rid of Sara would stop you, you incorrigible man, or the first time I gave you this tea, but look at what you made me do.” Amelia’s voice rose hysterically as she continued her invective. “I saw Toussaint, that prattling fool, bring you in last night, drunk. Which girl of his had you just finished with when he brought you here?

The white flowers—oleander—they’ll kill you. A heart attack. It killed you once, and Sara, too. I was so patient, too. I let her live for years. No one suspected a thing, I was so patient. It will work again. You’re dead for good this time, Billie.”

Phil Nahlik

Original Flight Â

Ben Minden-Birkenmaier

It is difficult not to pity Adam and Eve, trapped in their garden, coddled and swaddled.

There is little pleasure in being a pet, even a pampered one, and if they sought release, who can blame them?

Ignorance the lock, and knowledge the key.

And if death entered the world, so did life.

Sin, but also virtue. Yes, they toiled to build their life outside, but in doing so, gave it value.

Eve bore children in sweat and blood, creating life, a privilege formerly reserved for their benevolent jailer.

And maybe He learned something too, learned that to cage a bird, you have to cripple it, and maybe it’s better to let it fly free, to live or die on its own.

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Conor Gearin

Joseph Quinlan

24

Summer Skin Brian Faron

I

t was probably the hottest day that week, and that’s saying a lot during June in St. Louis. Me and Jo were panting in the shade of the basketball hoop as Dubs and Jay were playing one-on-one. Jo’s phone rang just as Jay raised the ball and released a distant jumper. His face turned to a frown midshot. In one fluid motion, Jo reached into his pocket, snatched the phone, and pressed it to his ear.

“What’s up?” The ball banged off the backboard and didn’t even glance the rim.

“Brick,” I added. Jay flung his arms up in protest.

“Yeah, sure. We’ll be over in a minute.”

Jo hung up the phone. “We’re goin’ over to Cassie’s.” I looked quickly at Jo. Jay put his arms down, his frown faded instantly.

Two miles on a bike isn’t so bad when you’re fourteen, you’ve got two fourteen-yearold legs, and you’re racing to a girl’s house.

The heat seemed to evaporate. A household is a different domain in the summer days.

With parents at work, kids will play, and play the way they’re not supposed to. We threw our bikes on the front yard and stepped up to the front door. Jo knocked on the door, and it swung wide open. Cassie stood holding the door, wearing a yellow bikini with pink dots.

The yellow stood out against her sun-tanned skin.

“Hey, boys!” she shouted in that suburban teenage girl way. “’Sup, Cass,” said Jo as he leaned on the door frame. “Come on in, guys.” Jo turned and slid through the doorway. Jay pushed towards the door, “Hey, Cassie.” They embraced, and I was quick to follow his lead. But Jay threw his arm over Cassie’s shoulder as he turned, and pulled her through with him. I gave Dubs a look like, “What the hell?” and stepped in.

Cassie’s friends were sitting on the floor, all four of them in bathing suits. Their skin blended with the thick white carpet. Cassie spun around, “So we were just layin’ out by the pool, gonna jump in for a little bit. You guys wanna join us?”

“Hell yes! I’m dyin’ in this frickin’ heat,” barked Jay. The girls laughed and covered their mouths. Cassie stood still in the center of us all and let out a brief giggle while her head wagged slightly.

The girls sprang from the carpet and headed towards the sliding glass door leading to the above-ground pool in the back. Jay and the boys were at their heels as I followed slowly. Cassie hung back to usher everyone out.

The heavily painted red deck radiated like a broiler under us so that whether we looked up or down, our faces stung. I sat on a lawn chair and began to unlace my Nikes.

The rest of the guys popped off their Nikes with two quick, well-practiced foot-flicks and carefully lined them up by the chairs.

Mine were just white with a grey swoosh and a little grey trim, which seemed unusual next to the fluorescent color-coordinated copies all in a row. Everyone pulled their shirts off and gazed at the pool while Jay struggled to pull his v-neck over his arms. He stood at least six inches above the rest of us and had a lot more hair, even a little patch on his chest.

I wished I were that hairy. It gave Jay some texture, a slight ruggedness. He looked like he would know how to remove a tree stump.

But he also had a shirt tan and clusters of freckles. I felt a twinge of pity. I tanned like a cowhide, and the bent-back work in my dad’s garden had toasted my skin. By June I could have passed as a young Mexican boy except for my light hair. Along with “Patty,” Jay also enjoyed labeling me “Pedro” or “Paco.”

My bare feet stuck to the deck as Jay and Dubs sprang, one after the other, from the diving board screaming, “Cannonball!” The

25

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girls shrieked as they got the one-two punch of the waves, and spat the water dripping down their faces as they pushed their sopping hair away. The girls splashed back at Jay and Dubs as they rose to the surface. Dubs let out a dumb chuckle. Jay let out an even dumber chuckle. When Jay laughed he always scrunched up his cheeks and let his jaw hang open so that what came out was more of a throaty grunt than a laugh.

Jo slipped in from the step ladder on the side, taking his time on each step, getting a feel for the water. I flopped in over the side and rested my back on the edge, letting my feet dangle in front of me. Cassie followed my example and clung to the edge right next to me. Her bangs flowed over her forehead and covered the eye on my side. The reflections from the pool danced on her blonde hair. The glare of the sun and the shape-shifting patterns made her hair look like a golden sheet flowing over her ears and around her neck.

“Hey, who wants to play chicken? Come on, Cass,” Jay yelled while hanging under the diving board.

“I’ll play,” I blurted out. It was a chance.

I wanted Cassie’s thighs on top of my shoulders. I wanted to press her legs against my chest to give her balance, support. I wanted to be the one holding her above the water.

“All right, grab a partner, Patty. Cass, jump on my shoulders.” He waved her over.

“Ooh, I wanna play!” shouted one of the carpet-white girls.

“There you go, we got a game. Come on, Cass.” He kept motioning her over.

The carpet-girl was at my side now, and Cassie moved slowly through the water to Jay. I shook my head as I dropped into the water to allow her creamy thighs to slide so excitedly over my shoulders

I emerged and saw Jay standing with Cassie perched on his wide frame.

“All right, let’s go!” Jay charged forward

with Cassie struggling to keep her balance. I locked my legs and braced myself against the impact. The girls grabbed onto each other and screamed in high-pitched yelps. My girl was giggling and started to pull Cassie down. I took a step back. The bind weakened and my girl lunged forward, losing her balance. Her thighs slid off my shoulders as she made one last grab for Cassie. Her hand failed to grab hold of Cassie’s shoulders or torso or arm, but did tear down the yellow bikini top with pink dots. Cassie’s breasts faced the open sunlight, and she let out a deafening scream.

The top dropped to the surface and floated listlessly like a fallen flag. She wrapped her arms around her chest and screamed more.

Jay snatched the top and held it under water. “Give me it, Jay!” Her voice cracked higher and the veins in her necks bulged out.

It looked painful. “Give it! Give it!” Jay just laughed. She struggled to fall into the water as Jay held her legs tight against his chest and stifled her struggle for cover. The girls yelled at Jay but just stood in the water and pointed. The boys loved the scene. They just pointed while bending over with laughter.

I tried to run, but in the water I could only go in slow-motion. Jay pulled the top behind his back, putting himself between it and me. But I didn’t even really care about the top anymore. Jay scrunched up his face in that dumb grin. Seeing that face between Cassie’s bronze thighs made me sick. I cocked my fist back and punched Jay right in the chest. My knuckles hit with a “thud” that seemed to quiet even the splashing of the water. Jay fell backwards, pulling Cassie down with him. She flung her arms out while falling, and her breasts were bare right before me. Jay rose and spit water from his lips. I saw Cassie retrieve the yellow top with pink dots behind him and discretely slip back into it. Her mouth hung open, and her cheeks were stained red. Suddenly my view was obstructed by Jay’s incoming fist.

It hit me right in the nose, and immediately a stream of red flowed into the pool.

My tear ducts exploded. Cassie shrieked and cursed. It was the same crackling, painful tone as before, only hoarser, exhausted.

My head throbbed as I staggered to the side of the pool and grabbed hold of the ledge.

Through tears I saw the fluorescent Nikes being slipped back on in an equally wellpracticed manner. Cassie slammed the sliding glass door behind them all. I felt the water move and knew she held onto the ledge next to me. I couldn’t raise my eyes to face her. She slid closer so that our arms pressed against each other.

“Don’t worry. They’re gone.”

“I’m not cryin’, it’s just he just hit me in the nose.” I raised my head but didn’t look at Cassie’s eyes.

“Thanks, Patrick.” I turned and noticed that she was staring at the deck’s paint. Her hair was completely wet and pushed back over her ears. Her bangs no longer hid her face, and I could see that she was avoiding my eyes. The skin on my forearms stuck to the heavily painted deck, and my face burned in proximity to the deck’s heat. Cassie’s arm began to perspire, and her bronze skin melted into mine.

Joseph Quinlan

27

“Creative Writing” Daniel Hart L’Ecuyer

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I wanted to write a story that day About the man who dances on the Embarcadero He was poor and gold and mute And we were tourists watching.

My mother said to pray for him My father said “No eye contact” My teacher said it wouldn’t do He danced, he doesn’t dance And besides, she said, I’d missed the point Since vagrants are not heroes So I wrote about Father instead.

Michael Rose

The Last Chapter Joseph Quinlan

J

oe, Joe looks like he need a puff,” Doug smiled—a cigarette stretched out in his fingers, “It’s on me.” I froze. It had nothing to do with the cigarette.

I had smoked before; it did not bother me much.

But the cigarette from Doug did not at all resemble my eighteenth-birthday cigarette.

I mean, tobacco is tobacco and it seemed so simple: yes or no. But I was caught between decisions—I felt unsettled. I heard the voice of a manager calling me back from the alley:

“The dining room is in shambles.”

worked at Stanley’s—a local burger joint.

I was paid to clean tables, but I hated the dining room, and I tried to find jobs in the alley that kept me as far away from the unpredictability of guests. Occasionally, I would get Phil to sneak me a fry fill to eat in secrecy in the alley ten minutes before every shift. A warm fry fill from Stanley’s is all you need to sustain you for dinner, but you have to include the ranch dressing, of course.

In the alley I only had to dispose of trash, sweep, and break down boxes for recycling.

Because I had just turned eighteen, I was legal to take out the trash—it’s against the law for minors to use the trash compactor. Doug told me this crazy story about some fifteenyear-old kid trying to hold it up to show his friends how strong he was. He was crushed.

I never wanted to believe that story because it was too horrible to be true. I mean, come on. He got crushed while his friends just sat there and watched? Not likely.

The alley was defined by the far side of the building and a brick wall that divided it from the parking lot. A chain-link fence above the alley prevented others from throwing trash in the company dumpster. When I

“

I

was scheduled to open on summer mornings, something about the alley was beautiful; the sun cast shadows of the fence above and fell on the boxes in a pattern that mesmerized. Now and then a bird would fly out of the dumpster with an onion ring in its beak and try to fly up through the chain links. The morning was the best time of day to just sit in the alley and wait for something. But I was on a short leash and would eventually return inside to keep the dining room clean and under control.

Like everything else, though, it would eventually fall into entropy.

Though most of the customers enter, eat, and leave, a few can throw off your balance. Those customers you remember. That Thursday night, Kelsi, a server, was an unlikely victim. She was quiet and had received numerous awards for her customer service.

Kelsi served a group of elderly couples at table ninety-four, and at first it seemed like any other table. But Kelsi has a habit of keeping to herself when distressed, and it wasn’t until I visited the table myself that I knew what kind of people she was dealing with. I brought a fry fill to the table and heard the lady addressing Kelsi, “Everything on this menu must be a thousand calories!”

“No wonder you work here!” The whole table erupted in laughter and Kelsi left immediately as to not make a scene in front of other guests, squeezing between barstools and booster seats to get to the kitchen.

Kelsi lives alone in an apartment, and serving at Stanley’s is second to her management job at Torrid, a plus size clothing shop in the mall. I saw her there once as I passed the shop, waving through the glass at her very large figure. I had forgotten my glasses.

That summer, it seemed like Kelsi was slowly reaching her breaking point. And when I saw her from a distance turn around, ready to break down after ninety-four said something about her jeans, I realized there

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was nothing I could do. Kelsi is one of those few people who keep getting the short end of the stick, and the worst part of it: she had grown used to it. I wanted to help her somehow, but the managers had said that because of last time, I was not to communicate with disruptive guests.

Last time I had to escort a drunk woman out of the restaurant. I can still picture her at table forty-four, with her twenty-something son across from her. He slouched over the table in his black Spider-Man t-shirt, and took every abuse thrown from his mother.

“You’re not here to talk at me, Chuck.

You’re here to buy me drinks and drive me home.”

“Mom, I think it’s time to…”

“Fuck off, Chuck!” She interrupted and the whole family establishment heard. “You wanna go home? Then buy your own fucking house!” She tried to stand up quickly to walk toward the bar, but she instantly lost her balance and pulled an entire drink tray on her way down. That is usually the part where the other party member escorts the guest out, but her son just sat in embarrassment and rearranged his silverware.

I was the only male on the clock, and somewhere in Stanley’s handbook, it stated that only able-bodied males were to deal with intoxicated guests … at least that’s what the manager told me. I helped her up and brought her to a bench beside the arcade room and tried to find her son, but he had vanished.

“Ma’am, can you tell me where you live?”

Without hesitation, she brought her fist to my face in one sloppy motion. The manager took care of the rest. Now only managers may deal with intoxicated guests.

B

ut Kelsi’s table was sober. She had another waitress take over table ninetyfour while she cried in the alley for the rest

of her shift.

As I left later that night, I noticed that Kelsi and I were both scheduled to close the next evening. I didn’t like closing. Wait until all guests leave, break down tables, put up chairs, sweep, take out all the trash. You’re the last to clock out at around one-thirty in the morning.

I don’t know. There is something about staying in the same place until the end that depresses the hell out of me.

I came into work the next evening as scheduled. We got slammed with a standing line of customers out to the parking lot.

Luckily the new managers over-scheduled and we had more bussers than we needed.

Someone needed to break down boxes, and I did not want to buss so many tables. I volunteered immediately, though aware of the mountain of boxes piling in the alley.

The bulb had blown out leaving half the alley dark. I launched into my project as the sky darkened. Not long after I had started, Christina came out and pulled up a crate.

She had long dark hair that she would release from her ponytail prison whenever she came out to smoke. I never understood why she did this, because when she was done, she had to put it back up again and she came out a lot. She lit up, and sighed.

“I’m beginning to enjoy these more and more.” She looked at me but I showed no response. She chuckled and filled in the blanks.

“I’m pregnant. Soon I’ll have to get off ‘em.” Again, no response. It was not my place, and anyway, I wouldn’t have known what to say. She changed gears.

“I don’t know. Every time I come out here, I feel trapped.” Looking up, “It must be the fence. I mean, who puts a fence over an alley? Some retards, I guess.”

As she said this, a young family walked past the window and towards the front entrance and I dragged my fingers through my

hair. “There are so many boxes!”

She gave me a short look and agreed; flicking the filter into the broken glass bucket, she retreated back to her tables. The mountain was half the size it had been.

Brett, another server, came out later.

When I first met Brett, I knew he would come out to the alley a lot. He was constantly smoking. In fact, he smelled like he even smoked in the shower. He surprised me when he came out and immediately apologized.

“Sorry, I haven’t had one in an hour.” His voice reminded me of sandpaper.

“That’s fine. I don’t mind,” I responded.

I really didn’t mind.

“No. It’s not fine. How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” I lied. I didn’t want him to ask me.

I didn’t want to say no.

“Seventeen?

I thought you were younger.

Don’t ever smoke, pal. It’s hell on earth, and it’s going to kill me.”

Something in Brett’s voice wavered when he said this. He squinted and dropped his head clumsily into a more fetal slouch. He wasn’t finished yet. I waited.

“And I’ll tell you what,” he looked straight into my eyes, “there is nothing more terrifying than knowing where you will be at the end.” He was about to say more, but paused with his mouth open. Brett would pause for up to ten seconds between ideas. It annoyed the shit out of me. Sometimes I just wanted to yell at him, “Finish your fuckin’ sentences,

Brett!” and I had that line rehearsed for the right time. But now was not the right time.

“I don’t mean to be a downer. Don’t let it get you.” It got colder the darker the sky became. I watched him take a drag. With his eyes cast down, it seemed he had temporarily resented the taste; he too disposed of the Camel filter at the bottom of the bucket and retreated back inside.

Soon I was done, not with the boxes, but with the cold. I went back inside and decided to bring ice to the bar station where Kelsi was working the bar. I wanted to check up on her. It was warm inside, especially as David Stankoven I brought the buckets of ice past the hot side of the cooking line.

I could tell that Kelsi was having a bad night. She slumped at the bar, sporadically sorting her cardboard coasters in her apron pocket, and her mind was clearly somewhere else.

I loved it when she was happy. She would talk about how she couldn’t wait to get home and put on some fluffy slippers she bought herself for Christmas and fall asleep on the couch to her favorites on TiVo. Her eyes would trail off towards the ceiling and she shook as if just thinking about the slippers made her feel warm. I loved it when she was happy.

But she was not having a good night. I found her racing between the bar and her tables trying to account for every kid’s choc-

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olate milkshake. She closed her eyes, which disappeared under a cloak of heavy, black eye shadow.

I took it upon myself to help her with the ice receptacles.

“I’m sorry, Joe, you don’t have to do that,” Kelsi said. “I haven’t really been paying attention. My feet are killing me and I’m tired.” Kelsi was always tired, but I thought she deserved to complain. There was a tensecond pause. While I dumped the buckets in the receptacles, she again broke the silence.

“Joe, what are you going to do in your life, like, in the future?” She parted her hair and dragged it behind her ear.

Everything surrounding me was in full motion; children sent macaroni flying, a spill at seventy-two, hot food waiting, birthday cheers erupting, chairs screeching, change falling to the floor. I paused.

“Well, I love to write music, I love to paint, I love to create, I can’t wait to go to college, and I can’t wait to have a family.”

She nodded. It was getting late.

“What about you?”

She paused, expecting the question, “Some people can’t wait to go to college, some people can’t wait to travel abroad, some people can’t wait to get married and have kids.

I can’t wait until I get to bed, because I work tomorrow morning.”

Part of me

wanted to cry, part of me wanted to give her my night’s tips, but most of me wanted to finish with the ice. I was becoming aware of the chaos in the dining room and I wanted to get back to the quiet of the alley. I passed countless dirty tables and wondered where all the other bussers had gone. I figured Doug was probably smoking in the alley. As I came out, Doug and Zach, another busser, were hiding in the dark half of the alley, though I could see the orange glow of ash.

T

hat is when Doug offered me the cigarette.

“It’s on me.”

I had to make a decision. Why had Kelsi asked me, of all people, what future I wanted?

What world did she face? Who would help Christina break her addiction? My Grandpa always said that it is never too late to change your future. But Brett would say otherwise: how can you change your future when you’ve already written the last chapter? These people believed in me.

Why? I declined the cigarette. I don’t know why. But I did, and it felt all right.

Will Linhares

“No.”

Sam Herbig Then I’ll spend the time Between our visits Preparing for the end.

The end of that strawberry-flavored, Green-apple euphoria.

You know, The purple, green, blue, and black.

When it’s over, I’ll need a few things.

I’ll need to learn how to breathe, Someone to coach me to get my pulse Back to where it was.

I tell you now That I’m preparing For the End. When all I can hear is The resounding “No.” I won’t hear the “I’m sorry,” Or the “See you tomorrow” (Someone will need to teach me What a tomorrow is too).

I won’t see the awkward smile, Feel the uncomfortable hug, Or remember our last dance.

A “no” to this May well be a “no” to everything.

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34

Glittering Industry James Fister

The glowing metropolis rests on the horizon As I drive, slowly but deliberately, northwards.

Maybe it is my destination, the windy city, White city, late bloomer in a modern world.

Where lights shine, businesses and families Blinking in and out of view. A silhouette of modernity.

Joseph Quinlan

35

Even where there is no light, the vaulting figures Are clear to see, monoliths draped in a gown Of a Hollywood sky. Hundreds of stars, in building shapes.

I can tell where the sky really begins— I cannot see the real stars for the stars of The Chrysler Smokestack and the Empire State Refinery.

I pass the industrial park, much less distant. Still Spouting smoke, telling lies. I’m burning daylight.

36

Phil Nahlik

The Columbia Sun Conor Gearin Arbuthnot

Jim Arbuthnot gazed mutely at the wad of papers on his desk. The wad was the Columbia Herald, the student newspaper of Columbia High School, and it was delivered every other Monday during homeroom. The other students in his homeroom had either opened their newspapers or were reading the story below the fold, but not Jim. Jim hated the Columbia Herald.

Jim hated the Herald for a number of reasons. When it was delivered every other Monday during homeroom, students read it in grim silence, killing the usual pleasant din of conversation. This made homeroom as lifeless as the carful of freshmen he drove to school every morning.

Also, the Columbia Herald was written almost entirely by students who never entered the Herald’s office and who wrote news articles in an impish, mock-stupid way they thought was somehow satirical. Guest speakers, new faculty, and deceased animals in biology classrooms were reported on in articles consisting of garbled syntax, buzzwords, and run-on sentences struggling to make jokes while simultaneously giving up a minimum of fact.

“55 students came Saturday because they had nothing else to do,” one reporter had written. The sentence that was published, though, read, “Fifty-five students came.” In fact, the whole article had been purged of facetious nonsense mixed with bland facts, leaving merely bland facts. This purging was the third thing Jim hated about the Columbia Herald, because it was the fate of every article. Jim knew this because he had once been an editor of the Columbia Herald. In fact, he had changed that sentence himself.

Jim despised that invisible reporter for mak-

ing him read his sloppy Dadaist news report and forcing him to edit the article until it was completely innocuous. The resulting article left the reader feeling he or she could have written it better in about ten minutes.

In fact, Jim was technically still an editor, though he had resigned three months earlier. However, the Columbia Herald was so desperate that they refused to accept his resignation. They even liked to pretend he still worked for them actively. If he turned to page two, he would see in the credits NEWS EDITORS

James Arbuthnot Al Brown Ralph Griffard

but Jim would never open to page two. He would not touch the wad of papers on his desk. Other students had opened to the inside of the paper or were reading the story below the fold because that was where the sports articles were. Sports articles received a minimum of editing and retained their original adolescent wittiness.

Jim would rather eat the wad of papers than read it.

Harvey

“You think you’re hard for beating up on a book, Harvey?”

“Why d’you gotta be such a bitch?”

They tried to soften their taunts with crooked smiles, but the malice came through in their empty gazes. Tim Harvey’s lunch table was angry with him.

They were angry with him because of his last book review. Tim was the Columbia Herald’s literary critic. His column was called lit critic. No one read it. But that did not matter much to Tim, who reliably placed a goodnatured book review of around 800 words on page five, the Herald’s human interest page.

Tim reviewed only books he read, and he read only books he was certain to like. The

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column was therefore guaranteed to be upbeat and drily witty.

However, his last review, while drily witty, was not upbeat. In fact, it was downright malicious. He hated that book. Reading it had been an experience of very deep and profound betrayal. He had thought it would be excellent: written in a genre he liked and by an author imitating other authors Tim liked. Yet Tim had found the book sentimental, silly, and even boring. Tim, who had built up an incredible immunity to boredom through years of reading, had been bored.

No one bored Tim Harvey and got away with it. Nemo me impune lacessit. In his review Tim built up an effigy of seeming praise in paragraph one, then set it aflame with burning, angry sarcasm in paragraph two.

Ever since its publication that morning, people he thought had never read his column made fun of him for his review.

“‘Her ludicrous musings about existence are exposed as nonsense by her own childish characters’? What the hell does that even mean?” said a girl in his homeroom who had failed freshman comp.

“Man, you’re weird,” said a guy who sat next to him in third-period AP English Lit. “Why do you even care about that shit?”

Tim supposed that because they thought reading books was pointless in the first place, getting worked up over an already meaningless thing was even worse.

Tim looked around his circular lunch table.

“I didn’t know you guys read my reviews,” Tim said.

The strange crooked smiles became bigger crooked smiles. Sal snorted sarcastically.

Jen mouthed the word “what?” as if Tim had just insulted her.

Tim was suddenly struck with inspiration.

“Do you guys even read the paper?” he asked.

They replied with hostile silence until Brett said, “Why d’you gotta be such a bitch?” again. Apparently they knew precisely what disgusted them about the review without even having to look at it.

Tim decided to change the subject. “Did you see that basketball won?” he asked, holding up the paper and pointing to the story below the fold.

Brown

“Hey Ralph, did Crowley e-mail that article yet?” said Al Brown to fellow news editor Ralph Griffard.

“Yep,” said Ralph. “I’m printing it out now.”

A minute later the double-spaced rough draft was in front of Al, under his hesitant editing pen. He looked nervously across the office to the Columbia Herald’s faculty censor and advisor, Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. Jenkins was a grey-haired English teacher who wanted nothing more than to be a grey-haired English teacher. He wore a tweed suit with a narrow ugly tie, and was currently grading English papers with a frown as he always did while in the Columbia Herald’s office—except on Sunday afternoons, when he saw the final draft of the Herald in its entirety before it went off to the printing company down the street. If Ralph and Al had not bleached out all of the silliness in the news articles in the name of professionalism, Mr. Jenkins would look at them with his lifeless grey eyes and say, “This paper needs work. Editors, you should be catching these things.” Then he would hand them back the paper, which bled from a thousand marks from the red editing pen, with whole paragraphs completely rewritten. Then he would lecture them on professionalism, something which apparently required “tact and seriousness and maturity.”

If Al did not heavily edit Crowley’s article now, Mr. Jenkins would be furious. But

if Al did, Crowley would never write for the Herald again.

Al knew this because Crowley had told him. Crowley was the sort of kid who was obsessed with movie directors and authors with a cult following. Crowley was in every cult there ever was. This, coupled with Crowley’s fantastic ability to imitate his cult leaders, made him a young snob suspicious of anyone who might not like his writing and therefore his cult leaders. He was also a good writer—just the sort of kid that Mr. Jenkins hated.

“You know what?

I’m pretty sure you took out all those adjectives just because you don’t know what they mean,” Crowley had said to Al after his first article had been heavily edited and published.

He had looked terrifying behind his thin rectangular glasses.

“Just because your writers write better than your editors doesn’t mean you have to edit until everything looks like you wrote it. If this happens again, I’m not writing anymore.” Actually, Crowley had sworn at Al throughout the monologue, but Al had edited those words from his memory.

Al wanted so much to put down his pen, to beg Mr. Jenkins to let him leave the cultural references and just edit Crowley’s article for grammar, to tell Mr. Jenkins that Crowley was their last decent reporter, and

that if Mr. Jenkins edited this one on Sunday as he normally did, Crowley would quit. But Al couldn’t do that. He couldn’t bear Mr. Jenkins’s cold grey eyes looking at him like he was an idiot, or being lectured on professionalism again in front of all the other editors.

Al lowered his pen and removed the subtle comparison of STUCO to the mobKevin Kickham sters of Miller’s Crossing in the first paragraph.

Arbuthnot

Jim would not go into the Columbia Herald’s office for any reason.

Actually, if there were girls in the office, he might go in. But there were never girls in the office. Girls suspected —correctly—that whoever wrote the boring news articles could not possibly be someone with whom they would have anything in common. The girls who had once written for the Herald had left after Mr. Jenkins had cut an entire review of the first Twilight series book two years ago by a female sophomore. Mr. Jenkins held that his literary critics should review only what he called “serious works of literature.” The girls correctly identified the incident as misogyny.

The ones that did not resign that week were eventually pressured to by their friends.

So Jim would not go into the Columbia Herald’s office for any reason. But this time he did look in.

39

Through the open doorway Jim could only see Tim Harvey, looking at something or someone out of view in the office. His face was red.

“No,” Tim said quietly. “I quit.”

Stieglicz

40

Jen Stieglicz was the best student in her journalism class. Jen knew that only a few people had realized that yet, though. Her teacher didn’t know it because he was a little crazy. At least, that’s what Jen thought.

Their teacher Mr. Kennedy had covered the Vietnam War for a wire service and was rather old now. He rarely talked about what they were covering in the curriculum.

“Well, once again guys, your book reminds you to keep opinion out of a news article,” Mr. Kennedy said to his senior journalism class with a wry smile. “Well obviously the book’s editors weren’t in Vietnam. Hey look, I understand as much as the next guy that you can’t have an agenda when you’re reporting,” he said, standing up. He was about to plunge into one of his infamous tangential lectures. “But you know, what I say is, if you see shit, you gotta call it shit! You can’t always be—well, you can’t be a real reporter if you’re a robot. You know how I tell you guys about the robotic journalist. This is a perfect example!”

Jen’s cell phone went off, playing the high-frequency ring tone Jen used during school to avoid detection. Adult teachers, with aged ears, could not hear it— least of all Mr. Kennedy, who had been embedded in an Air Cavalry unit for the wire service during the siege of Khe Sanh.

Jen pulled the phone out of her pocket, keeping it under her desk. The screen read,

1 new message from Jim A.

She opened it. It read,

Hey u want to start a newspaper with me?

Morgenson

Principal Morgenson was a large man just past middle age with small blue eyes that were continually wincing, as if he were continually being stuck with a fork. The two newest forks in his life were Jim Arbuthnot and the youngest English teacher, Mr. Jones, and they now sat in front of Mr. Morgenson’s desk in his dark office.

“See, this is the thing with these independent newspapers, though,” Mr. Morgenson was saying to them. “I’ve been in college, I know what they do! And if you guys print something inflammatory or tasteless, we could have a situation that’s bad for everyone.”

“Right, right, and like I said,” replied Mr. Jones, “I’m going to see the paper before it gets published, just like Mark Jenkins does with the Herald—”

“Yeah, about that. Jim mentioned to me in his e-mail that he wants this new newspaper to be ‘semi-independent’—do you mind explaining what that means?” Mr. Morgenson paused to enjoy the pain on Jim’s face. “Does it mean you turn a blind eye every now and then? What’s the system you have in mind?”

Jim opened his mouth but Mr. Jones stopped him with a glance.

“Well, it really doesn’t mean much,” said Mr. Jones. Jim winced, but Mr. Jones continued. “All it means is that they can have a little more leeway in the content, but still, still, anything inflammatory or offensive will be cut. And I will see every issue before it’s published.”

“So then what exactly makes this paper ‘semi-independent’?” asked Mr. Morgenson.

“You’re asking for school funding, you’re going to use our professional printers, so what exactly makes you different from the other paper?” Jim winced again. “Is it because you’ve got the cool young English teacher as your moderator? Really though, why did you want to do this in the first place?”

Mr. Jones actually smiled at the last question. He looked confidently at Jim. “I think Jim should answer that question,” he said.

Jim looked down, smiling weakly.

Columbia Sun

One Tuesday students received a wad of papers in homeroom. It was an unfamiliar wad—an unfamiliar newspaper, in fact. The top of the front page said “Columbia Sun” in Old English lettering. Between “Columbia” and “Sun” was a drawing of a sun that was either rising or setting. Below this was an editorial with the headline WHY WE STARTED: THE SUN’S PLATFORM.

The most compelling paragraph of the editorial read:

“We, the editors, perceived a general disenchantment among the student body with the Columbia Herald, which is not to suggest that anyone was ever enchanted with that thing. That was why we started the Columbia Sun: to give the student body a paper that, while still publishing authentic journalism, realizes who its audience is—teenagers. We will serve the needs of this audience rather than hold ourselves above them. We intend to publish pieces that reflect the character of the student body—articles that students enjoy reading.”

The editorial went on to explain the format of the paper. The paper would be sixteen pages long and would come out every week on Tuesday. There would be opinion on page three, including a biweekly column by Jennifer Stieglicz and book reviews by Timothy Harvey. Sports would start on page seven.

Students could read the Sun online and access additional content at www.columbiahs. org/media/publications/not-the-herald.

It was actually just the Herald’s old website renamed, courtesy of former Herald web editor

Joe Thompson, which was fine because no one had known the Herald had had a website, least of all the Herald’s other editors.

In homeroom S144, Jim’s homeroom, the Sun’s deliveryman was met with shrill cheers of victory. Jim narrowly survived an attempt by his classmates to hoist him into the air in triumph. At last, Jim was riding a wave of public support, which was all he really wanted in the first place.

“Oh, what’s this? Two papers in one week?” asked well-meaning chemistry teacher Mrs. Hobbes in senior homeroom S168.

The freshman conscripted at the last minute to hand out papers was mortified.

“Uh, read and find out,” he suggested.

He began to turn around.

“Oh no, is this a misprint?” asked Mrs. Hobbes, stopping him. “It says Sun instead of Herald.”

At this, Herald news editor Ralph Griffard, who maimed large adolescents as a wrestler in his spare time, stood up as if to charge. The freshman ran from the doorway.

In homeroom O98, upon seeing the new paper, Brett turned around, looked at Tim Harvey, and pronounced slowly and carefully, “Bee-yitch.”

In homeroom E52, Jen Stieglicz opened the door in with a bundle of newspapers under her arm and then promptly turned around, the bundle undiminished. E52 was Mr. Jenkins’s homeroom. She pulled the door closed behind her and began to stride away quickly.

“Jen? Mr. Jenkins wants to see you,” called a boy from the doorway. Jen walked back in, her heart slamming.

“What is this?” asked Mr. Jenkins. Jen handed him a newspaper. Mr. Jenkins looked at it and walked briskly out of the room. Before the door quite closed against the frame, the studens heard Mr. Jenkins shout a phrase from the hallway that would have been censored in any newspaper.

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The Man from the Desert Daniel Hart L’Ecuyer

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the outsider came in the darkening quiet on the dry and desperate highway to somewhere that toils resolute unbending to the will of the desert the desert’s will is this: be gone be dead and never be back but if you do be beaten and burned in the blazing savage emptiness but still he came through the desert with the dark on foot through the realm of the savage sun to this dirt road sand-scarred time-frayed town of the dry farm empty wallet amble-minded people from the tar the sand the wind the sun the heat the empty sky the circling birds the wondering is anything? the wishing that you were the wanting— the seeing it all around and at the end of the road something better than here

Sonny Hagar

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The Operation Conor Fellin

Y

“

44

ou’ll be okay,” Mike Wentz whispered into his wife’s ear.

Sarah looked up from the yellow curb at her feet to her husband’s face. His smiled, but his eyes intently scanned her face.

“I will,” she said as she pushed open the door and stepped into the lobby of Christian Hospital Northwest.

In an instant, the pastel-blue wallpaper of the lobby replaced the blank blue expanse of the sky. Visitors and doctors filled the space below as they shifted across the lobby in every conceivable direction. Near the center of the lobby, a cluster of families gaped at the massive wheels of an old-fashioned bike and the gaudy dress of a dozen antique dolls.

“Sure is a nice hospital,” Sarah commented to Mike.

As she marched towards the main desk, Sarah heard a hushed, curt voice behind her, undoubtedly belonging to some father scolding his son for losing control of himself and crying over a toy he could not have. Two bright polo shirts in front of her parted, revealing a woman in her early forties with a narrow mouth smothered in lipstick and a stocky build wrapped loosely in a parka. The woman shuffled towards her, intently focused on a space just to the left of Sarah’s left ear.

After a second, her eyes slipped onto Sarah’s face.

“Hey, nice to see you here of all places!” she said. “How’s your baby Goomba doing?”

“Well…” Sarah began, browsing her internal catalogue of faces. She suddenly found it hard to believe how many people she had told about her pregnancy.

“I’m sorry,” Mike interjected, “but I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“I’m Jill. Remember, I work right across the bridge from your office.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember,” Sarah said. She didn’t.

“So what about the baby—you call it Goomba, don’t you?” Jill insisted.

“Yes, we do,” Mike interrupted.

“Yeah, about that—” Sarah sighed, “the pregnancy failed.”

“Oh …”

“Well, a couple of days ago, at work, I had some bleeding. I called the doctor, and he said that chances of miscarrying the baby and keeping him were about even. Unfortunately, I got the first option. I was disappointed, but I’ve dealt with it relatively well so far. I’m here to have a D&C.”

“Oh, how sad,” Jill murmured.

“Yeah, Mike and I were so excited when we heard I was pregnant. It was definitely a let-down. But don’t worry about me. I’m doing fine.”

“Well, that’s…um…nice to hear—that you’re doing well, I mean. I guess I’ll see you soon.”

As Sarah and Mike continued out of the lobby towards Outpatient Procedures, they fell in pace with a small, t-shirted woman bellowing some Michael Jackson lyrics that had recently besieged the airways. Mike, chuckling, covered his ears and hummed a distinctly Knopfleresque tune louder. Sarah could not suppress a laugh as she remembered Mike’s uncompromising tastes in music. Even at their wedding, he had insisted upon Graham Nash’s “Simple Man” for music. Sarah’s father had escorted her to the massive oak under which Mike waited to that gentle rhythm of a pleading whisper set against a moaning harmonica. The female Unitarian minister had spent most of her few comments dotingly repeating the lyric, “I just want to hold you/ I don’t want to hold you down.” At the reception, Sarah’s maid of honor, Debbie, had begun an unusually moving toast with a joke about Mike’s obsession with music.

Like everything else that day, Debbie’s

toast had reflected Sarah and Mike’s relationship in its sheer elegance, and Sarah was glad she had chosen Debbie to write it. Sarah had known she wanted Debbie to give the toast at her wedding ever since that time at the deep-dish pizza place. That day, she and Debbie had stopped at a local pizza place for dinner after an afternoon of sightseeing around Chicago. As Debbie’s first and only boyfriend Jesse had recently proposed to her, the conversation had naturally drifted to dating. By that time, Sarah had finished boasting about how romantic Mike was and how many hours they had spent laughing together.

Debbie stared at Sarah for a couple of seconds as she finished swallowing the last bite of a slice of pizza. “So, how’s it with Mike?” Sarah asked.

Debbie continued chewing.

“Are you excited to be engaged?”

“Yeah,” Debbie said, “almost as much as Jesse.

He’s already trying to figure out how many children we’ll have and what their names will be and where we’ll take them on our family vacations. You know, I really love him.

I love the way he plans something nice for me when he can tell I’m having a bad week and I love the way he makes dorky engineering jokes that no one else thinks are funny.

And yet…” Debbie began scrutinizing the near edge of Sarah’s plate. Her lower lip quivered slight-

ly. “Sarah,” she finally said, “do you ever wish you could date men besides Mike? I mean, not that you don’t love Mike, just to—just to make sure you know what others are like, just to make sure you’re making the right decision?”

Sarah immediately shook her head.

“Well … I do,” Debbie said.

Sarah probed her experience for an adequate response. After several seconds of silence, Debbie sighed and took a bite out of a fresh slice of her pizza. She bit into a pocket of cheese saturated with sauce, and the sauce splattered into a long glob just above her upper lip. Grease began to drain down from the glob off her upper lip in a slow trickle. A Joseph Wright

45

46

she hadn’t just met Debbie in college but had known her since she had first learned to ride a bike.

Not that she’s as close a friend as my husband, Sarah reminded herself as she studied Mike, now seated beside her in one of the Outpatient Procedure Room’s aluminum chairs.

Across from them stood a dark-haired, hazel-eyed, thirty-something nurse, dressed in the green scrubs and plastic clogs she would need for a procedure. Posed halfway between sitting and standing, Hazel-eye was offering one-word responses to the queries of a doctor halfway across the room. Sarah’s eyes drifted to a set of supply shelves at the opposite corner of the holding room. She wondered what heroic tasks the doctors there were preparing for. A Middle Eastern doctor sorted out some pieces of equipment that seemed more suited to sculpting clay than creating incisions. At the adjacent sink, a nurse with tufts of blond-white hair playfully poking out from under her green hair net filled a plastic cup with water. A crisp voice returned Sarah’s attention to Hazel-eye.

“Now—Sarah, isn’t it?”

Sarah nodded.

“I have a few questions before we can get you ready for the procedure. First of all, when did you last eat?”

“I haven’t eaten since…about seven last night, I think.”

“That’s correct,” Mike interjected.

“Good. Any high fever?” Hazel-Eye continued.

“Not in the last couple of days.”

“All right, how far along would it have been?”

“The baby?”

“Yes.”

It? Sarah thought. It? Doesn’t she mean he or the baby or Goomba—

Suddenly Goomba had left her womb Clayton Petras and sat before her on a high chair. He had sky blue eyes, a wide, flat face, and slight tufts of brown, curly hair.

And he had mashed carrots smudged across his cheeks.

She had tried to spoon them into his mouth, but he had barely bothered to open his lips for them. She was breathing a long, low, deep sigh—

Sarah cried.

Goomba was now pouting and banging his little fists against the shelf of his high chair, as if he somehow imagined his soft hands could dent the hard plastic—

Sarah shook her head back and forth, as if a slight jerk could somehow toss off the vision that was driving its spurs deep into her mind.

I’ve missed my chance for love. I’ve missed it—What am I saying? I have a husband and parents and friends … But Goomba was going be different. Goomba was going to love me in a way they couldn’t. Children give you finger paintings of

hearts that are cute and sloppy at the same time.

Goomba was going to be different …

When Sarah had finally recovered, Hazel-Eye’s hand lay snug upon her own.

Mike’s eyes gaped open, dry. In the corner by the sink, a surgeon was running his violetpatched hands under hot water. The others had left.

“Just whenever you’re ready,” Hazel-Eye murmured.

Sarah’s gaze dropped to her lap. Forget it, she told herself. Just forget it. Stop crying. Stoo-op. Stop! Don’t make that nice nurse watch you lose control. Don’t do it. Get control of yourself.

Get control of yourself.

After Sarah had finished whimpering, she told Hazel-Eye that Goomba would have been three months old. She gave the nurse her height, weight, and age. After she had answered enough questions, another nurse guided her into a smaller room, where Sarah changed herself into a hospital gown, and laid herself upon a gurney. As she took a foot off the ground to step onto the gurney, Sarah felt cool air from the room’s vent trickle up through the opening in her gown to the space between her thighs. I wish Hazel-Eye hadn’t seen me that way. I’m usually so grateful, have so much self-control. Dad always said I was good at putting my best face forward. If only she had seen that.

The nurse began to wheel Sarah to the procedure room. For most of the journey, Sarah’s head lay limp against the gurney, occasionally jarred upward by the soft jerks and pushes of the nurse trying to navigate her through the hospital hallways. Her eyes focused on the ceiling lights slipping by her one at a time. I am grateful, I am. I have a lov-

ing husband and I have lots of devoted friends. I have good parents. I’m not like those children in Africa who have nothing to eat or drink. I can get good healthcare. A streak of green with a slit of pale passed through Sarah’s periphery, assembling into a lime-garbed surgeon for a second only to wane into the distance.

Maybe I’m not as grateful as I should be. And she’s seen it. Sarah tried to discern a murmur from behind her so intently that she almost didn’t notice when her gurney stopped. A second figure, this one a blob of pale above a splotch of red, approached and stopped just as it was beginning to gain definite lines. As it began to crane downward, Sarah recognized it as Hazel-Eye, wearing a rose t-shirt instead of her work uniform. Hazel-Eye held Sarah’s arm snugly. She opened her mouth as if to say something and then shut it again.

Instead, her eyes just rested on Sarah. They did not scrutinize her chest as it rose and fell in short, shallow pulses. They did not count the dark stripes left on her cheeks by tears.

They just took her in, quick breathing and tear marks and all.

Sarah suddenly remembered Debbie with the pizza sauce squirted over her lip.

She wondered if it had been the mess after all that had made Debbie feel so close. She wondered if Hazel-Eye saw her now as she had seen Debbie that night. Hazel-Eye finally let go. The cart began vibrating beneath Sarah, and Hazel-Eye floated back to the obscured horizon from which she had come. Sarah turned her face to the side and let tears drop from the ridges of her face into a crystalline pool beneath her, a pool that shone silver with the gurney’s aluminum.

47

Good Morning Mike Lumetta

48

Why does April smell like a supermarket?

The sun’s slowly rising, Resting its girth on the horizon, And its rosy red rays, Recolored, recovered from the pale pink of winter, The light pall above a leaden land, Tinge all the tips of all the blades of grass.

The buildings shift in their sleep, Dark clumsy things cutting off the sun, And it all smells like a supermarket from the old days.

I remember how they used to work.

The doors would spring open, No matter how I tried to trick them, And I’d step out of the sweltering summer Into a cool rush of air, Into an oasis of lush fruits I never took But always loved to look at in their high heaps.

You never knew how the doors worked, But they always did.

I’d walk in and take a free cookie, Choosing carefully, deliberately— Sugar, M&M, or chocolate with powdered sugar.

I specialized in cookie taxonomy— Could’ve had a degree in it.

Whatever I chose, I’d eat deliberately.

Anyone would— The slow deliberate way to make it last, Or the fast deliberate way to feel the rush Of sugar to a limited brain You never knew was limited, Just like you didn’t understand Why adults never took a cookie too.

And when mine was gone I always felt disappointed (anyone would) Even though the cookie was free.

But nothing cost anything anyway.

The cart I rode in front Filled steadily with things I wanted And things I didn’t, But I didn’t care Because I never paid a precious penny And never had to.

And I’d always leave happy.

Nowadays, though, They charge you for everything, even the cookies, And someone’s gone and made a bunch of rules Whispered by the fluorescent lights, Their gleaming reflections on the tile floors Someone’s worked so hard to mop, The chilling breath of the AC And the electric doors you finally walk out of.

I don’t go there anymore.

April rolls around every year, smelling, In the morning, like the old supermarkets.

I don’t know why, and I don’t think That they’re ever coming back.

But April rolls around every year.

49

What If

J 50

Anonymous

ust an average day: Mom and Dad, running around like madmen, getting their lives in order, just to leave the house; all the while, the two of them lashing back and forth at each other.

“Has anyone seen my tie? Where in the hell did I leave that tie?” Dad screamed across the house.

“I don’t know, dear. Retrace your steps.”

Mom set down her purse on the kitchen table, closing her eyes.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I am losing my mind! I can’t find anything in this goddamned house!”

Finally, the Ford Windstar pulled out of the driveway; calm at last. It was a different world there in the minivan. I pulled my iPod out of my pocket, unwinding the headphone cord and plugging our ears. Kate and I sat in the backseat, listening to our music and watching people, cars, and buses fly by as if they were in some sort of hurry. All the while, Mom was telling Dad about some recent happening with one of her homebound patients, or Dad was going on about politics or breaking news.

From time to time, something would be said between the two of them and set Dad off again. Every time his fuse seemed to get shorter and shorter. Normally, Mom would try (how wholeheartedly, I’m not sure) to make amends, and Dad would refuse. That woman that he married twenty-seven years ago doesn’t understand him anymore. He did everything for her, and she didn’t appreciate any of it; no one did. Mom would make her rebuttal and reassure him how much he was appreciated. I looked over at Kate, saw some sort of agreement in her face, and clicked the volume button on my iPod up, muffling the world around us.

While the music kept up, I tried to for-

get about the world around me. I blocked myself off from the world and tried to recreate a better one inside my head: a patient and caring father, and an understanding and supportive mother—parents who loved each other, or seemed to at least. I couldn’t wait until we got to the party. At every party or family gathering, Mom and Dad always put up a façade to fit in with the others.

As we drove home that night, everyone was too tired to care about the conflicts of that afternoon. No one said a word. In a way, that dark, silent, calming drive home was my favorite part of the day.

A

s we pulled into the driveway and the van came to a stop, I could hear the sound of Dad’s door open and close, and the creak of the hatchback rising. Dad unloaded the trunk of the van, insisting on carrying the laundry basket full of leftover food and empty dishes himself, as if to make a point of his sacrifice for the family. While my eyes struggled to adjust to the light in the car, I forced the sliding door open and absent-mindedly found my way through the front door, up the stairs, and into my room. I began to wake up as I walked up to my room, avoiding the squeaky spots in the floor, stepping over boxes and clothes strewn throughout the upstairs landing as well as my own room. I shut the door closed behind me, kicked piles of dirty clothes aside, and sat down at my desk to begin the weekend’s homework.

As I sat at the desk, rocking back and forth in my black office chair and staring blankly at my math problems, Mom and Dad’s voices from their bedroom right next to mine began to overpower the steady rainfall outside my window. Yet again, as I found myself doing so often, I retreated to my music. I quickly shook the little white mouse, waiting desperately for the computer to awakem and iTunes to open. Soon enough,

the music began to play. I kicked the volume up as far as I could and started on my homework once again. “Soon enough,” I thought, “Dad will be off to the airport again, and, for a few days at least, there will be peace.”

It always got like this right before he left for a trip. As I became more aware of it, I realized the patterns of his behavior and his need to get things done. The massive white calendar on the side of the refrigerator marked every day of his flying for the month, as well as when he would leave that day, where he flew to, and when he would return. Those markings coincided with the days when Dad had it set in his mind that he needed to save the world and solve world hunger before he could leave us for a week. He would be out in the garage for hours, working on recurring car problem, fixing odds and ends around the house that had been left undone for years, or upstairs in his office working on his slowly increasing Childhood T.V. show or Turner Classic Movies collection. And God help us if you got in his way, especially as he threw his bag together, ran around the house finding his uniform, and got himself dressed for work.

F

or a few days, maybe even a week if we were lucky, Dad would be out flying planes across the country, Mom would find things to keep herself busy, and Kate and I could live peacefully, more or less. That is, until Mom just couldn’t bear it anymore and started her nagging and complaining that we hadn’t done just as she asked right when she asked it. She made it a point to go around the house, find everything we had left lying around, and make piles for us on the couch. Just as I sat down to begin the night’s homework, she began.

“I am getting so sick of you two slobs leaving your crap lying around the house!” she said, pointing to the piles sitting on the couch, as if they were giant mounds of crap

upon crap filling her home: two college envelopes, a pair of socks, and a book. She had impeccable timing, that woman. She knew the most inconvenient time to nag someone about something she didn’t feel was up to her standards.

I soon found myself picking up the things she had so kindly piled up, as well as my school books, and I retreated to my room, yelling all the way there that I had more important things to do than sit around and listen to her nag all night. After all, she always said that homework was my first priority.

T

hat Friday, I drove home from school, listening to the radio, excited for the weekend. It seemed to me that Friday was about the only day I could keep myself from dozing off at a stoplight as I made my way home. It was a day when I actually had something to look forward to: getting out of the house and spending time with my friends. I came to the last stop sign before Sussex Drive, and the engine of the white Saturn jumped as I pushed the pedal down.

Our house sat right at the end of Sussex Drive, down a long, winding street. I drove down that lengthy hill, making sure to avoid the numerous neighbors who felt it necessary to park their cars out on the side of the street while their driveways sat empty. Right as I made the last turn down the hill, I could see the end of Sussex Drive, our house, and Dad’s old maroon Toyota Cressida sitting in the driveway. I pulled up next to it and listened for the click as I shifted the car into park. As I made my way up the sidewalk with the load of books on my back, I found myself dreading what I would find inside.

I shut the door behind me, pushing it until the latch clicked, and carefully set my backpack down next to the small table inside the door. When I undid my laces and kicked off my battered sneakers, I noticed

51

52

the statue of the Holy Family that Mom set out on that table every Christmas. My eyes traced the fine details of Mary and Joseph’s smiling faces, which were gazing at the child in Mary’s loving arms.

Dad was in the kitchen cleaning up the mess from last night’s dinner.

“Hey, kiddo. How was school today?”

Dad asked, as he lifted the lever and let the faucet run, masking the dirty dishes that lie beneath the hot foamy water.

“Oh, it was fine. Nothing too exciting.”

I glanced at Mom’s giant calendar on the refrigerator as I reached in the pantry for a bag of chips and saw Mom’s pink writing in today’s box; “Kate’s Mother/Daughter Retreat. 6-10 p.m.”

T

he next day, as we loaded the coolers into the trunk of the little white Saturn, I was not looking forward to the drive ahead of us. I loaded Mom’s laundry basket full of dishes of baked beans and coleslaw, plates, napkins and utensils, and slammed the hatch of the van shut. That was the only way I could ever get it to close. I lifted the latch of the door and slid in next to Kate in the back seat, listening for the thud of the door next to me.

The little car’s engine revved and jumped as we accelerated onto the highway. I found myself staring off at all the houses and trees flying by, waiting for the inevitable. As I tried to avoid the people around me and to lose

myself in anything else I possibly could, I noticed something a little out of the ordinary.

As the car puttered along the bridge over the Missouri River, I stared out my window and saw a man standing at the ledge of the bridge. I couldn’t help but wonder what that man might do. My heartbeats quickly became overwhelming, and I felt a tear start to form in my eye.

“Dear? Did you see that man there on the bridge?” Dad’s voice suddenly brought me back to reality. “That reminds me of one time, when we were stationed in Indiana. I Joseph Wright remember the one day, driving home from training and passing a man on the bridge there.

I really didn’t think much of it at the time, until that night.

I remember hearing on the news about a man who had jumped off a bridge and drowned in the river. It just makes you wonder, I guess. It made me wonder … What if that man on the TV was the same one that I had passed on the bridge? What if? ... What if I had stopped and done something?”

I glanced up from the dirt and trash on the car floor and saw Dad’s face in the rearview mirror, tears streaming down his rough face. The mud from my old worn shoes began to harden on the carpet beneath them. Some movement caught my eye, and I saw Mom’s hand reach over and rest itself on Dad’s lap. I couldn’t help but wonder.

Odysseus’ End Greg Fister

Where now, O man so ridd’n with strife? Where now?

The suitors dead and gone who wooed your wife, You now sit on your throne, content but how is your end complete to a hard-won life?

In your heart you know you must be alone, Out on the sea as you were those long years.

You’ll not die in a cage with bars of stone— So out you sail weighed not by any fears The sea feels different, your heart not in pain.

Though oft the water and its god were foes, It seems a fitting place you to remain, A place to bury all your earthly woes.

The sea is calm, Poseidon slumbers on.

By dawn’s red fingers is your curtain drawn.

Kevin Kickham

53

The Red Pen Joseph Quinlan

54

T

his better be it! I handed Dad the essay. I was almost afraid to provide the red pen, but after thirty-plus drafts it had become automatic. We had been at it for hours, tearing up this stupid research paper and putting the pieces back together over and over and over again, and I was tired.

Dad wore his look of tireless concentration, his lower lip pushing up his upper, and squinting his tired eyes as he started each new paragraph. He looked so damn old. He wore his reading glasses shamelessly on the tip of his slender nose, which he would rub with his palm now and then.

Did he really have the balls to send me back downstairs with another marked-up paper? It was late, and I had other homework to do, but every time I tried to leave, he’d call me back in case he had questions. I felt enslaved to the Jazz Age. I had chosen a good topic though. It’s better than being enslaved to a research paper about the Holocaust.

If he put a single mark on my master-

piece, so help me God … I don’t know what I’d do. Killing Dad actually did come to my mind twelve drafts earlier. Hah! No. That would have been ridiculous … twelve drafts ago. Now the gold metal lamp stood ominously on the end table. Or the hardcover of Speakeasies: The Underground World of Jazz.

Or the pitchfork beside the fireplace. Or the bust of Abraham Lincoln.

No. There’s just no way. Anyway, I lacked the creative juice left to make it a good attempt. And even if I did succeed …

He turned to the last page. Almost there. I looked at the clock. One thirtyseven. Screw the other homework. I wanted to get to bed. He stroked his chin again. His pen flinched once or twice but never found a landing. Holy crap, this could be it! Leave it, or I’ll kill you.

“Perfect!” His voice rang out. I snagged the paper from his hands in an instant.

“Swell! Good night, Dad.” I hugged him and at last ran up to bed.

Comme Il Faut Michael Tynan

W

“

hat does comme il faut mean?” I texted to Tess.

Tess had studied French for a few years, so I was always asking her bits and pieces of the language I came across in this or that book, so much that I could speak almost-passable broken French if the opportunity arose.

The opportunity arose mostly when I wanted to impress girls who never paid attention in their language classes.

“It’s an idiom,” she responded. “It basically means expected or proper.

Why do you ask?”

“I was just reading about corporate executives for whom it is comme il faut to boast about sexual encounters with the company’s younger, more attractive personnel.”

“Bâtards,” she replied

“Oui, mademoiselle.”

I slipped my phone back into my pocket, dropped my book on the ground, and leaned my head back against the top of my black leather(-looking) chair, closing my eyes together tightly. After I tried to rub out the numbing affect of four hours of pale airport light, I dropped my hands to my lap and looked around at the collection of humanity around me.

Overweight families surrendered their natural mobility to the moving sidewalks.

They passed, casting glances behind cheap sunglasses, looking like products floating along a factory floor. Other travelers walked

briskly beside them, checking their watches anxiously, and yielding to the occasional men in loose-fitting suits or torn jeans sprinting past and nearly dropping their luggage with each hasty pump of the arm. Girls walked leisurely in prides. Lionesses crowded around each other to laugh at this and that on cell phone screens, adjusting their Coach(-looking) purses, and sipping coffee past their pink Sam McCabe luminous lips.

My acquaintances in gate B6 surrounded me in the same uniform black chairs, most of them businessmen tapping on laptops and Blackberries. I kept glancing back at a man sporting a threepiece pinstriped suit while reading the Wall Street Journal. He crossed his legs at the knee, revealing his argyle socks and gleaming black leather shoes. His chin rested near the knot of his regal purple tie as he peered through square-framed glasses discerningly at the bottom of his page. He raised his eyebrows slightly and gave a subtle nod of the head every few seconds, as if he had come across an interesting point in his article. The elegant man often rested one half of the open newspaper on his leg, freeing one hand to adjust his glasses or smooth his lapel, and the last time he did so before he gathered up his belongings and rushed out of the gate avoiding eye contact with any fellow travelers, his other hand slipped off the page, causing the whole paper to fall off his lap, accompanied by the copy of Penthouse magazine he had been hiding in the “Marketplace” section.

55

56

I hadn’t thought of that trick since 5th grade, when I hid The Spectacular Spiderman behind my Math textbook, but I forgave the man as I watched him scurry away. Life is dull at O’Hare International, and it drives us all to different extremes. Though I wondered how the rest of his escape plan would unfold.

He had to come back to the gate, after all, unless missing his flight was worth avoiding the shame.

“Did you see that?” I said, laughing and turning to Drew.

“See what?” he said, looking up from Good as Gold. His independent reading project was due in two days.

“That guy. That guy with the porn.”

“What?”

“There was a guy hiding porn behind a newspaper.”

“Huh,” he said nonchalantly, finding his place back in the middle of a long paragraph.

“You should really put the book down for a second or two. There’s some funny stuff around here.”

D

rew had invited me to go along with him to Detroit to see a concert. His parents gave him tickets for Christmas and told him to bring a friend. Traveling without my family freed me to indulge in small luxuries like laughing openly about pornography and eyeing college girls with “PINK” printed across the back of their sweatpants.

Three such girls were walking the rows of black chairs in B6, looking for a place to drop the luggage they were dragging behind them, approaching the row directly in front of Drew and me. Their t-shirts fit snugly, and their hair bounced slightly as they placed one flip-flopped foot in front of the other toward the three open chairs in front of us.

“Play along,” I said close to Drew’s ear, as they approached.

They turned into our row, and I immediately defaulted to one of my few reliable moves.

“Ton arrivée passe inapercue, mais ta tete toutes les lumieres sur toi se ruent. L’image se bloque mais toi tu continues. La soirée n’avait pas d’sens mais tu es venu. Tu vis dans un clip de rap tout te reussit et tu claques, mais ce soir en rentrant chez toi tu seras seul devant ton mac.”

I laughed after the last words and Drew mirrored my amusement at the apparent joke, though he looked uncomfortable.

I have no idea what I said. They were lyrics to a song by some French pop artist.

Tess put the song on a CD for me, and gave me a rough translation. Something about rap videos and night clubs.

The girls turned to each other and smiled.

One said her friend, “Meg, you took French, what are they saying?”

Meg said, “I don’t know, he said it really fast … and I dropped that class junior year of high school.”

“They’re kinda cute,” the other one said, “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

“Shut up,” she said, laughing.

“Talk to them,” the others urged.

“No!”

They argued for a moment while I turned to Drew, taking his book from him and hiding it behind his chair so our native language could remain hidden.

“Mon café besoins un peu de sucre,” I said with a wink.My coffee could use some sugar.

“What the hell are you doing?” Drew said through his teeth.

“Où est la gare?” I responded. Where is the train station?

Drew leaned in closely. “Cut that shit out. I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Neither do they.”

“You don’t really think this is going to work, do you?”

“Ne vous inquiétez pas, l’amant. J’ai perdu mon passeport.” Never mind, lover. I lost my passport.

“God damn it,” Drew said as he turned back to the girls.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you guys,” Meg still argued, “I’m not doing it.”

Her friend turned to me abruptly and said “Hi! My friend wants to talk to you.”

Meg stared at her, and turned to me, blushing.

“Bon jour.”

“Salut,” I replied. “Parlez-vous français?”

“Un peu.”

“I speak some English too,” I replied slowly with a heavy accent. “Prefer to you?”

“Sure, yeah,” she said. “Are you here on vacation?”

“Yes, we are from Nice. I am Jean. He is Gervais.”

I turned to Drew, whose hands clasped the arms of his chair like vise grips. He stared at me as the girls waved at him.

“Hi, Gervais.”

He stood up and walked briskly out of the gate. I turned to the girls and said “Je suis désolé,” before following him into a coffee shop.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I can’t do a French accent.”

“I was doing the talking anyway.”

“I can’t lie to people either.”

“Oh c’mon, I was just having some fun.”

“Whatever, let’s just hide out for a second until our flight leaves.”

“Like the porn guy?”

“Shut up.”

B

6 was boarding, so we walked back to the gate. We waited in line for a moment, and while Drew was looking around

apprehensively for the girls, I was watching a small blond boy smile up at his mom with his shirt tucked in and an arm around his younger brother. Having been a seven- or eight-year-old boy at one point myself, nothing in the world made less sense than the scene in front of me. The mother rubbed the blond boy on the head, and he gave her another toothy smile. She turned to the man scanning tickets at the door, and while she watched the green light flash over her three tickets, the blond boy took the opportunity to punch his brother in the gut. The brother cried, and as the mother turned to him, the blond boy gave his brother a consoling embrace. I couldn’t help smiling a bit.

This scene was more of the attitude I remembered at that age.

My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked down the carpeted tunnel to the plane.

“How’s the layover treating ya?” Tess said.

“Might be better if Drew knew French.”

“Did you try that bullshit on some poor girl again?”

“Three poor girls actually.”

“Bâtard.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Drew and I took our seats in the center of the plane, with an aisle on both sides of us. As all the people chasing their destination prepared to appear calm and relaxed, civilized and informed, courteous and prepared, I spotted a little blond boy helping his brother with his seatbelt across the aisle on my left, a man in a regal purple tie reading the paper across the aisle on my right, and directly behind me, I could hear girls chattering about two strange Frenchmen, who weren’t at all what they appeared.

57

Prodigal Song James Fister

58

In the hall music is playing, But the younger is discontented.

A new beginning, that is What I will call it.

To throw it all away and Leave. But not throw away,

Isn’t that how it always ends?

Loose women, fine foods, pearls.

Seize and make the best of.

Leave the monotony, the dirge.

In the hall, music is playing But the older is discontented.

His father hears But doesn’t understand.

I am trapped—too young, too large For my own mind to handle.

In a distant land music plays, And he is happy; but how long?

I’m in the wrong key; I need to be modulated.

And then swine, muck, deep In his own filth, his humiliation.

This is my day to day. I want to be Outside of this house, this city.

Poorer than the hogs of the field, Wealthier than death, he crawls.

I can pick up the pace.

I can make better time.

Of course open arms wait, Not all are as selfish as he.

I am blameless, there is no Fault in being unhappy.

“He was lost and is found.

Everything I have is yours.”

Greg Fister

Nothing

Collin McCabe

I

went to the coffee shop with my friend Alice that night to visit my buddy Conor, a cashier there, who often gave us free drinks. It was a Thursday night in mid-September my senior year, an unusually cold but still tolerable evening beginning a three-day weekend. I had agreed to tag along only because I had few plans for the weekend, and I’d decided that my homework wasn’t really important, considering I had a random day off the next day. Alice said that she would drive, and she picked me up a few minutes later.

As we pulled up front, I could see a girl opposite the towering plate-glass window.

She was the only person in the shop. She had a blueberry scone in her hand, the only flavor this shop offered, and was reading something from her laptop screen. She looked eerily familiar, and I paused as Alice locked the ’92 Camry, wondering where I had seen her before. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Alice ended up throwing a pinecone from one of the planters outside the shop at me to break my stare, and just as I started walking away the girl looked out the window. I didn’t make eye contact.

“Who’s that?” Alice asked me as we walked inside, thinking I knew the girl. “She’s pretty.”

I looked back at the girl to verify this.

Alice was right—she was beautiful. The girl was a blonde, her wavy locks flowing down her back and ample chest and parting at her shoulders. Her rosy, prominent cheekbones contrasted with her round face, and her eyes were a deep blue. Not wanting to get caught, I didn’t spend too much time looking back. She appeared to notice me anyway and cracked a smile in my direction without looking up.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Alice said. “Do you know her?”

I was quick to answer this time. “Nope.

I’ve never seen her in my life.” I opened the door for Alice and we walked inside.

Alice was not my girlfriend, but sometimes we acted like we were dating. She would call me on weeknights and we would talk for hours, but I didn’t think she wanted anything out of our friendship. We had met each other freshman year after we both joined District Band—she plays viola, I play violin—and almost immediately became friends. I often had considered dating her, but for the most part we just hung out as friends, cracking jokes, laughing at movies like Tommy Boy, and helping each other with schoolwork.

When we needed something to do, we called each other and planned something. It never crossed my mind that people thought we were dating until junior year, and even then I didn’t really do much; I had girlfriends that weren’t Alice, and that was enough proof for me—nothing else seemed necessary.

Alice wasn’t as gorgeous as the coffeeshop-window girl, but she certainly was pretty. She had straight brown hair that often featured a streak of a bright color—tonight’s color of choice was purple—that reached to her shoulders and a round face that elongated at her chin. Her eyes were a pretty shade of gray-blue, and she wore a pair of black plastic-frame glasses. Alice didn’t think she was pretty, but Conor and I disagreed.

Alice and Conor had dated briefly junior year. Their relationship had started as nothing extraordinary; the three of us hung out as a group most of the time, but a few months into junior year they started hanging out privately. At first they were very secretive about it, not bothering to even consult me. When I found out, I was upset; I didn’t want to start getting left out of our shenanigans, and I didn’t want things to get awkward when they broke up (a development that I considered

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inevitable). They disregarded my campaigning for nearly a month, and I found myself getting more and more worried about the possibility of their relationship continuing.

Near the end of their relationship, Alice had called me on a cold December Friday afternoon after school, inviting me over for a movie night at her place, and I was hoping it would be just us. I showed up a little after seven, like always, and her mom let me in and sent me downstairs.

As I came down the stairs, I heard a movie playing, but when I reached the bottom I didn’t see Alice on the couch. This didn’t faze me–sometimes she would lie on a bed of throw pillows on the floor–but as I walked over toward the couch, Alice and Conor came into view. They were on the floor, Alice on top of Conor, his hands on her lower back, their lips pressed tightly together, their eyes closed. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Then Alice opened her eyes for a split second and saw me.

“Gabe!” She immediately rolled off Conor and got up, brushing herself off. Conor was a bit bewildered, but Alice blurted out a rehearsed-sounding response. “I didn’t know you were going to be here so early.”

“Really?” I said, doubting her. “Because this is the time I always come by.”

Conor chimed in. “What time is it?” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. A lump was rising in my throat.

I looked at my watch. The only sound was the movie playing in the background. “It’s seven twelve.” I paused again and looked up to see Alice staring down at her shoes, unsure of what to say, finally looking up as I broke the silence again. “I didn’t know Conor was coming over.”

“He wasn’t.” Silence again.

Conor finally broke the silence. “I’d better go,” he said, and started toward the stairs, but I beat him to the bottom step.

“No, I think I should,” I said sarcasti-

cally. “You two have fun now. I’ll see you on Monday.”

Alice said nothing as I left. She broke up with Conor only days later.

lice sent me up to the counter to convince Conor to give us some free coffee. “He’ll listen to you,” she said. “He’ll only mess with me.”

Conor was waiting when I reached the counter. We had a way of making it look to his manager that I was actually buying something rather than Conor giving it to me, but he told me to give him fair warning each time: I’d texted him that we were coming before Alice picked me up.

“How may I help you, sir?” Conor asked in his smart-ass tone.

“Well, I’d like two white-chocolate mochas, please. That’ll be it.”

“Alright, your total is three twenty-seven,” said Conor, taking the ten and change I gave him, putting it in the cash register, taking out two fives and giving me the same handful of change back. It was perfect.

“Thank you” I winked at him as I took the money. “When will these be ready?”

“Shortly,” he responded. “Can I have your name?”

“Free.” I hadn’t used this name before.

Conor looked at me, obviously thinking it was a bold choice.

I walked over and sat down next to Alice while we waited for Conor to make our drinks. The only people in the shop were Alice, me, the girl in the window (who kept glancing across the room in my direction), and a mid-twenties guy writing in a notebook at one of the tables. Alice had picked the booth in the back corner, the furthest from the door and the window-girl. After I sat down opposite her, Alice jumped up and sat down on my side of the table.

“So,” she said, staring down at her hands as if trying to think of something to start a

A

conversation, “I think we should have a movie night tomorrow. It’s been a few weeks.”

She paused. “I’ll supply the popcorn,” she added, as if she needed to convince me.

“I like that idea,” I replied eagerly. “What would we watch?”

“I dunno. We could decide later.” She paused as if she was contemplating something. “I wish I had the day off tomorrow like you. Then we could just watch movies all day. That would be quite fun, wouldn’t it?”

I cracked a smile, saying, “Indubitably.” Alice and I often used words that were far beyond our normal vocabulary. We thought it was fun to use words that most people don’t, like indeed, quite, and the like.

Suddenly the kid with the notebook knocked his hand into his cup of coffee, sending it toppling to the floor, and watched it explode; it had been nearly full.

He looked down at it, pausing for a moment as if debating whether or not he should clean up the mess, then picked up his coffeestained things and made for the exit. Alice and I stared for a moment then erupted in laughter.

“Did you see that?” Alice said, holding back tears. “He just ran out of here like he killed somebody!” She kept laughing.

My reaction wasn’t much different.

“That was awesome. I have never seen anyone bolt like that. I mean, it’s just coffee. He should’ve cleaned it up, though. I feel bad for Conor. He’ll probably have to clean that up.” And indeed he did; he started walking over toward us with a mop, giving us his typical death-stare when he saw us laughing and pointing to the mess. He wasn’t supposed to

talk to us while on the job after the last time we were there—Alice and I distracted him while he was on coffee-duty by balling up napkins and tossing them at him. Not only did he get behind on drink orders, but when he threw the napkins back he hit an old lady in the face, causing her to drop her coffee.

Instead of firing him, they demoted him to cashier.

Alice, still laughing quite hard, looked Perry May over at the girl in the window and caught her looking at me.

“I think you know her,” Alice said, pausing, calming down. “That or she knows you. She keeps looking over here.

It’s weird.”

“Alice,” I said, “I can assure you that I have never seen her before. She’s gorgeous, though.”

Shouldn’t’ve added that, I thought.

Alice decided this was a perfect place to pounce. “So you like the way she looks, huh? Well,” she pushed her glasses down her nose a bit, looking over them, and put her index finger up to the corner of her mouth, trying to be faux-seductive, “what’s she have that I don’t? Hmm?”

“Nothing,” I said, trying to fix my mistake. “But what do you have that she doesn’t?

“Brains, of course.” We both cracked a smile, and I saw that Conor was chuckling, too. Alice wasn’t too fond of blondes; she thought they were all ditzes.

A shout came from the other end of the shop:

“Two white-chocolate mochas for ‘Free?!’”

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s I got up to go get our coffee, Alice began to laugh uncontrollably in the corner booth, something I expected. But I didn’t expect to see the window-girl looking in my direction. I looked over, grinning at my mischief, and looked directly into her eyes. She winked at me and motioned for me to come over with her right index finger.

I didn’t want to leave Alice alone, but she seemed content for the moment reading the banners on the wall, so, both mochas in hand, I went and sat down opposite the window-girl.

“So, I’m guessing your name isn’t ‘Free,’” she said.

“So what is it? I’m Hailey.”

She smiled at me in a devious way, as if she knew something I didn’t.

“I’m Gabe.” I took a drink of my mocha, glancing over at Alice. “You seem familiar. Do I know you?”

“I work here,” Hailey said. “My shift ended a couple of hours ago, but I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I stuck around. I usually make your drinks,” she said, nodding to my mocha.

“Thanks. They’re delicious,” I could see Alice getting antsy. She wanted her coffee, but I wasn’t finished yet.

“Oh, you’re quite welcome.” Hailey was smiling at me. She paused, then looked in Alice’s direction. “She’s not your girlfriend, is she?”

Alice and I had for quite some time answered the “are you two dating” question from strangers with “yes,” just to throw them off. We then would act like we thought the world’s cutest couple might, including obscure pet names—I would call her “gooberschnitzel” and she would call me “monkey

buns”—never letting go of each other, and always sitting on each other’s laps. It was usually quite fun, but Hailey didn’t ask if we were dating. She was making sure Alice wasn’t my girlfriend. I liked where this was going.

“No, she’s not. Just a really good friend,” I said. Alice had finally stopped reading all the banners and started staring at me, sticking her tongue out, contorting her tongue and lips, crossing her eyes, waving for me to Eric Mueth come over there. I ignored her gestures.

“Ah. I see. You don’t really seem like her type anyway,” Hailey said. She still had that devious look in her eyes.

“So, tell me about yourself.”

I did. I told her all about the music I was so passionate about and how I planned to major in music wherever I decided to go to college, even though I had no idea yet where—or even if—I might go. I told her about my band Crescendo Grand Finale, about the fanbase we were finally building and the clubs around town we had played. I found myself talking too much, almost bragging, trying to impress her. I soon found out how I knew her; she played the lead in my all-male high school’s most recent musical, for which I had played the stand-up bass. Hailey seemed generally interested in everything I had to say, closing her laptop and actually making an effort to listen. She was a junior at a nearby all-girls school, and she already knew exactly where she wanted to go to college (University of Missouri), what she was going to major in (broadcast journalism), and what she wanted

to do with her degree. She obviously knew what she wanted to do, and she gave me the impression that she always got what she wanted. I wanted to go back over to my table with Alice, but I couldn’t resist staying with Hailey for one more minute, which became two more, which became five, which became ten. Every few moments I would look over at Alice. Her funny faces were no more; now she simply stared at her phone, occasionally typing something, checking her watch, a glum look across her face. We had come to the coffee shop to hang out, to screw around like we always do, but now I wanted nothing other than to keep talking to Hailey. Girls like Hailey didn’t usually talk to me—I was the quintessential band geek, obsessed with music in all its forms and focused on little else, keeping to myself and my small group of close friends—and I just wanted it to keep it going. She’s talking to YOU, I thought. This doesn’t happen! I didn’t want to let this chance get by; I wanted to at least try and make something—anything—happen.

As Hailey and I continued our conversation, Alice got up from the booth. We three were the only people in the coffee shop, and it was relatively silent except for my voice and Hailey’s. Alice started walking around slowly, almost pacing, waiting for me to get up and come over and give her the mocha she had asked for. And at that moment it became obvious to me as I watched her stare at the ceiling, waiting as patiently as she could for me: she wasn’t waiting for me to come over there. She was waiting for me to realize that she wanted to be mine. I could see her jealous glances every time Hailey laughed, every time I cracked my crooked smile that made Alice blush.

But I didn’t want her to be mine, at least not anymore. I had wanted to date her for a while after I first met her, but it didn’t work out. Then, she had had a boyfriend, J.J. He was everything I wasn’t, and I didn’t think

he was her type. He was a lacrosse player, the star and senior captain of his school’s state-winning team. He lived in a suburb and attended a private school nearly twice the price of mine, one that competed with mine on every level (and usually won). He was the epitome of the clichéd, better-than-thou jock, and he knew it. He carried himself as if he were the king of everything, and whenever the three of us would hang out he pulled Alice as close as possible and refused to let me get near her, as if I were a threat. One could easily set off his temper, and he didn’t like how close Alice and I were.

The last time I had seen J.J., Alice and I had been listening to some music and playing video games in her room when he showed up out of nowhere, threw open her door, jacked me in the face right below my left eye, and knocked me to the floor. Alice and I had gone bowling with some District Band friends (but without J.J.) a few nights earlier.

He called and texted her a few times while we were out, but she ignored him until she got home. When she finally called him after midnight that night, he was really upset and forbade her from seeing me anymore, but she didn’t think he was serious. He thought I was trying to steal her from him, and he was right—but Alice didn’t know that.

“What the hell, J.J.? Gabe is my friend, and nothing more,” she said. “Our relationship means nothing. What is your problem?

Oh, God, Gabe, your eye.”

Nothing. The word echoed in my ears after she said it. Nothing. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what to say. Nothing. Alice and J.J. were still arguing, but I wasn’t listening to them. Nothing was all I heard. Grabbing my backpack, I picked myself up and walked out of the room, taking my jacket off the doorknob and gaining speed as I headed downstairs. J.J. came out of the room and began yelling at me to come back upstairs, calling me names, threatening me, but I ignored

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him, never once turning to face him, never saying anything back. Alice’s mom, somewhat stupefied and bewildered at the situation, said something as I walked toward the door, but I didn’t hear her; nothing was still bouncing around in my ears.

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lice began to walk over toward the table where Hailey and I were sitting, slowly at first, sort of meandering throughout the shop, but then deliberately, as if she were on a mission. She paused every few steps, occasionally turning around for a split second, taking a step back to the booth in the corner, but then turning back around, working up the courage to come and say something, anything. I never saw her gaze lift from the floor, and after what must have been five minutes she finally came all the way up to the table.

“Hey Gabe?” she said timidly, “Can I have my coffee? It’s been nearly fifteen minutes, and I really don’t want it to get cold.”

For a moment I stared at her blankly, forgetting that I had her coffee at the table.

“Oh, sure,” I said, handing her the cup. It wasn’t hot anymore. “I’m sorry about that.

Meant to bring it over there. Kinda forgot.”

I was lying. She knew.

“Oh, it’s OK.”

She was waiting for me to invite her to sit down and talk with me and Hailey, but the invitation never came, and the three of us just stayed there in awkward silence for a few moments. Alice looked down at her feet.

Then, quietly:

“Gabe. I love you.”

I had no idea where this came from, and I was shocked. Hailey was too, apparently, and just looked at me, asking with her stare: and your response is?

Alice was my friend. We had been friends since we first met in District Band,

and we had been inseparable since that day we first sat next to each other in the string section. I thought she was beautiful that day; she didn’t look like any of the other girls I knew, and she had a sort of “whatever” air about her. She didn’t take anything seriously—and that’s what I had loved about her.

She had never cared if I would bring my girlfriend along with me to an outing, never showing any interest of dating me. But this had changed, and I hadn’t noticed. Why now?

I wondered. Why do you say this now, after so long? Couldn’t there have been a better time?

Hailey was embarrassed, and as she began to gather her laptop and books she muttered quickly, “I should go.” She seemed flustered, a bit upset and confused. I still said nothing, and I let her leave without even saying goodbye. Alice sat down in Hailey’s seat, but I stared through her.

“Well?” she said, hoping I would utter those three words back to her, suddenly cracking a smile. “Something seems wrong.

What is it?” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand, looking straight into my eyes. “What are you feeling?”

But I couldn’t say it. Her sudden profession of love hadn’t changed anything. I had loved her, but she had told J.J. our relationship meant nothing, and she had said nothing when I walked out on her and Conor. As I sat at that table for what seemed like an eternity of silence, mulling over my response, nothing bounced around in my head, reminding me that I wasn’t nearly as important to her as she was to me, that although we might last for a little while together, nothing would resurface eventually. Nothing would be forever between us. As I gently pulled my hand out of her grasp, leaving her wispy fingers to curl upon themselves, I finally spoke.

“Nothing,” I said. “I feel nothing.”

Angel Maintenance Ben Minden-Birkenmaier

Even Seraphim, sailing smoothly above this dusty earth, must finally fail, and fall.

Like a pond collecting crumpled beer cans, Like a carcass being slowly devoured, their wings grow chips, cracks spider across their faces, and into those cracks slip fear, anger, despair, and that most insidious, jealousy, and at last they fall.

Why else would He have sent His only son?

No, Judas never did it for the silver.

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Evan Orf

Deep Blue Sea Steven Dyke

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he water from the sea trickled up onto the beach, wetting the sand and turning it a dark brown. She sat just above the borderline of damp earth, her head tucked in between her knees. She wrapped her arms around her shins and stared out to sea. The sun was just dipping below the horizon, as if it were an orange slowly falling into the ocean. In one hand she held her mother’s old necklace, a worn golden chain softly reflecting the light of the setting sun. The waves tumbled onto the shore, roaring deeply under the breath of the wind. The breeze caught the girl’s hair, softly flipping it into the air and tangling it into light ivory webs. The sun was departing, letting its light glimmer one last time over the horizon. It sank below the depths of the ocean, and the girl closed her eyes. A lone tear trickled down her face, and she gripped the necklace tighter. She sat listening as the waves kept rumbling. She breathed in the scent of the ocean air. Cracking her eyes open one final time, she saw the orange horizon darkening, dimming the reflection against her streaked cheeks. She let her eyes slip closed again, and from that spot in the sand, she let her mind drift off. She let the rumbling waves pull her thoughts into the waters—out there to float away into that deep blue sea.

Greg Fister

The Axis of Existence Daniel Hart L’Ecuyer

He toils by day in his fields of wheat That rustle in the evening wind And tell him what they used to be Then, so very long ago, before the light of day When he walks amongst them quiet and slow And listens to the twilight whispers.

He clutches the fence with his withering hand A sprawling spine from some dead something’s skeleton Whose bones came to dust and dust to dirt And from dirt to the fields of wheat that he harvests When the winds of the fall bring it all to the ground.

His eyes are set hard in his rough weathered face And stare past the fields and over the trees Beyond the horizon of the land of the living On his wife of the past in the clouds of the sky That ever are slurring to all the same gray, That ever are shifting and drifting away.

His cold flat lips sit stooped and hunched A rock in a rainstorm that’s seen them before Jagged only at its broken side That, given time, will wear down too.

Her body is buried past the garden Beneath the stone that bears her name and time The letters’ little curls and subtleties fading Her winding life seamed up and covered, Her story scrawled on scraps and writ in stone With charcoal sticks and mason picks.

But through the windy, ever-ebbing tides of spring and fall Through the scorching snow and cloudy drought Through death and life and death his callused heart beats on.

For the leaves that die are always later leaves again, The wheat will come again, he knows, And his sons will harvest that When he is gone and sweat is spent and blood dried up And the meek inherit his tears.

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Easter Risings Bill George

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On April sixteenth, two thousand and six, a mother, whom I do not know, bequeathed to me and others whom she did not know living fragments of her dead child.

In the terror of the night, beneath the blank stare of a hospital’s pitiless light, she opened the tomb of her heart, her grief dropping like cerements that we might rise with the sun.

In March of two thousand and ten, two callow widows clutched to their breasts a grief honed by a vengeance born when their Chechen husbands died.

In the dark one terrible night they saw in it the right to pierce untold others with fragments of their hearts of stone.

Sweet mother of God, as you cradled your dead child against your heaving breast, did vengeance grapple with your heart?

Or did you, like my savior, envision Easters in Jerusalem and Gaza, Dagestan and Belfast, St. Louis and all hearts that salved your roiling ache?

April 25, 2010