SUBLIME
LITERATURE & ART
VOLUME I • FALL 2015
“Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loop-holes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime.� -Tolstoy
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Contents. FALL 2015 | VOL. 1
TAROT | 07
PHOTOGRAPH | 29
A PERSONAL CIRCUS | 09
SELF PORTRAIT OF ABSENCE | 31
Alex Hammarskjold
Jacqueline Brogdon
BLACK BIBLE & OTHER NAMES FOR THE TRUTH | 15 Camille Borders
BURNING IN BLUE | 17 Jon Freeman
SON | 19
Jared Louis Stein
AWKWARD | 21 Kennison Lay
PHOTOGRAPH | 25
Caden Robinson
Camille Borders
ILLUSTRATION | 32 Alex Hammarskjold
DYING | 33 Laura Harvey
PHOTOGRAPH | 41 Caden Robinson
SEE EMILY PLAY | 43 Elijah Armstrong
SUBJECT #1989 | 45 Tanner Boyle
Caden Robinson
FINE CHINA | 27 Emma Laplante
TO AN OLD FLAME | 28 Katelyn Taira
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DEAR READER,
THANK YOU FOR PICKING UP OUR FIRST ISSUE. THIS MAGAZINE BEGAN AS A FLIGHT OF FANCY IN AUGUST 2015, WHEN WE MISSED THE WORK OF OUR TALENTED CLASSMATES. THROUGH THE FALL, WE READ SUBMISSIONS IN BETWEEN CLASSES AND OVER CUPS OF COFFEE UNTIL WE FOUND SOME OF OUR FAVORITES THAT WE HAVE PRESENTED HERE. PLEASE ENJOY, AND SUBMIT YOUR OWN WORK FOR OUR NEXT ISSUE. 05
Tarot ALEX HAMMARSKJOLD 05 17
A Personal Circus JACQUELINE BROGDON I am alone because I want to be alone. This is what I tell the man who is blocking the sun from my face, who is blurring out the very thing I am here to see. His face is a blot of darkness, and as I squint he moves slightly to the side. Now we are both eclipsed. “A pretty young girl like you here all alone is a tragedy,” he says, adjusting the dress shirt that holds his middle-aged belly into his khakis. He said he came over here next to my table to get a better view of the sunset, but he has had his back to it the whole time. “I actually enjoy being alone,” I say and take a sip of the iced tea
that has turned warm and sappy in said sunset. This is as close to asking him to leave as I can get, because I have “chronic nice-face” (the presumed opposite of resting bitch face) and he may just stay here until his food arrives. He asks me what I’m doing here in Lisbon. I tell him I’m studying abroad in Madrid and am just here for the weekend. This is the short answer. “And you’re here in Lisbon all alone?” I don’t remember if I say that I am alone or if I conceal this information for personal safety. It would be wise to do so, but I have a
feeling that I just come out and say that I am. Why do we add the “all” to alone? Alone is already acute. The world narrows to a pinhole, and all that fits in that pinhole is you. “Well, I hope you enjoy your meal and your view,” he says, considering me behind his smudgy lenses. Wine glasses chime around the restaurant in a hum of good food and company, and perhaps the man takes this as a call back to his table. He waves goodbye to me as I add a half-hearted, “You too.” The Ponte 25 de Abril unfolds before me again in the restaurant’s
panoramic window, warm light piercing through its cables. It’s a facsimile of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I suspect it’s the same architect. I want to check this fact on my phone, but I have no international phone plan, no way to distract myself like I am so used to doing. So I pick up the book I bought earlier at a musty but dry bookstore during a rainstorm. It’s the Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan, and it feels so familiar I almost don’t want to read it. My eyes hover over lines for minutes at a time only to look up again, check the sun’s progress in the sky. The waiter returns several times during this, asking me each time if I need anything. Is it is so apparent that I need something? Finally I relieve him and order dessert in mangled Portuguese, a black tea bergamot crème
brulee. It’s the most expensive food I’ve ordered abroad, and it tastes like soap. I revel in cracking the crust into small shards. The sun dips below the bay. The draw of this high-end restaurant is gone. I pay the check and leave, tottering down the cobblestone streets in heeled boots that I regret wearing. They draw unwanted attention. I am alone because I want to be alone. Two days earlier on my first day in Lisbon I walked 19,933 steps. I have one of those apps that count them for you, and I feel productive in a very primitive way. Look how far my feet have carried my body. It feels good to punish my body, push it in a way my academic mind isn’t used to. I am recovering from a cold and the liquid in my lungs creates a tickly static with each
inhalation. The tail of each breath is a cough, and it slows my progress up Alfama, the hilly historic neighborhood. At the top of Alfama perches São Jorge Castle, a skeleton with none of the outfittings of other castles I’ve seen abroad. It’s just walls holding empty air now, something that my lungs cannot seem to do. Step. Cough. Step. Cough. Pause. About halfway up I stop in front of an old man with mangy dog in a bicycle basket. I drop a euro into the dish he has set out, and his lips peel back to reveal a crowded mouth of teeth. I unintentionally glide my tongue over my own orthodontically perfect row. “Obrigado,” he says and tips his grease-stained hat. I reach out to scratch the top of the dog’s
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head. I can barely get through his matted buttermilk hair, but he squints his eyes and pants at my scratches. “Você tem um cachorro?” Portuguese sounds Slavic to me, like the Americanized Polish my extended family speaks but never taught me, and I can almost imagine this man as an uncle, the kind that isn’t actually related to me and that gets ruddy pink off Stolichnaya vodka and strums out a folk song on a guitar before falling asleep on the couch. I shake my head, “Español?” “Tienes un perro?” I don’t know how much Spanish the Portuguese speak, so I’ve been mostly speaking English, but when given permission I slip back into it. I push myself
to continue the conversation. Lately whenever I think to myself that something would be easy or relaxing, I don’t “Tienes un perro?” I don’t know how much Spanish the Portuguese speak, so I’ve been mostly speaking English, but when given permission I slip back into it. I push myself to continue the conversation. Lately whenever I think to myself that something would be easy or relaxing, I don’t let myself do it. I kill my comfort zone, bit by bit. My comfort zone is long phone conversations with my mother, kissing the boy I left behind in the U.S., being disappointed in my brother, being mad at my father. Talking to this man is none of these things. It’s the opposite, because I do not gravitate towards people at my baseline,
and I definitely haven’t gravitated towards them in my grief. It feels good though to choose the discomfort I feel, and I tell myself that pushing myself to be different is for him, my father. That I’m honoring his memory, that being dead entitles him to some kind of honor. I nod and click the home screen of my phone to show him my dog. My voice, rarely used on this trip, gets caught on the way out. “Sí, se llama Smokey. ¿Cómo se llama?” I point at the dog in the basket who is trying to climb out of the basket. I scoop him up in my arms, not caring that he has fleas and smells like stale garbage. He is warm and he likes me. I don’t remember what he says the dog’s name is. Odds are that I don’t understand it when he says it, and I just smile and nod.
“Hablas bastante bien. ¿No eres española, no?” You speak rather well. You’re not Spanish are you? “No, no, estudio en Madrid por seis meses. Soy de los Estados Unidos y tengo que irme en Junio.” No, no I’m studying in Madrid for 6 months. I’m from the U.S. and have to go “Bueno, pues nada, te dejo. Debes explorar el castillo.” Well, I’ll let you go. You should explore the castle. He points a gnarled finger in the direction I am headed. I set the dog back in the basket and smile. He whimpers up at me, jumps, and rests his paws on my breasts stretching to lick my face. “Sí, es lo que intento,” I assure him. Yeah, that’s what I’m planning to do. I give the dog one last scratch and keep going.
The top of the hill is flat, presumably leveled off when the castle was built. It lies off to the right, ignored by the crowds of tourists more fascinated with the view of Lisbon’s terra cotta rooftops. A dim gray fog is lingering over the bay, which makes everything more humid. My natural curly hair starts to coil even though I ironed it pinstraight yesterday. The baby hairs around my temple wing away from my face. I settle down on a bench with my book for only a minute beprobably live in a fancy Ikea apartment in Stockholm funded by their high profile jobs in finance. They look like the kind of people that have their shit together. I take the time to frame them properly with the bay to the left and the bridge to the right. After they check the picture and smile, satisfied, they walk away, and
I pick my book up again only to be interrupted again by another couple. This time after I’m done they ask if I’d like a picture of myself. “Sure,” I say and hand them my own camera, “thank you.” “Ohn, to, tree,” the wife says in heavily accented English. I’ve found it endlessly fascinating that in Europe, English is a default language spoken when two parties don’t speak each other’s native languages. It makes sense, because odds are that a Danish person isn’t ing to know Turkish and vice versa. It reminds me how privileged I am that I was born speaking this third, common language, but I still yearn to be less “white bread.” I suppose that my personal tragedy is the thing that makes me even the smallest iota of unprivileged now, but
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it’s so new that sometimes I forget that it even happened at all. “Thanks,” I tell her, “it’s a good picture.” Leaving the restaurant, I have a tentative plan to listen to Fado on my last night. It’s this haunting Portuguese fisherman’s music. The guidebooks all tell you it’s a must see, and there are several touristy “fado houses” in the city. They’ll charge you $20 plus the meal you’re required to buy while listening, but I heard about a hole-inthe-wall place that’s free. I starred it on my Google Maps app, and I watch the blue dot that represents me, or I guess my phone, get closer to the star until we overlap. walking. I’m suddenly no longer interested in fado, have no interest in enjoying myself. I want my mom. I want her to take care of me in my
sickness and to speak to me in English. I came here alone to prove something to myself, to prove that I was strong enough to speak in another language to strangers, to take myself out to a fancy dinner with a view, to not rely on others for my distraction. I did it to honor him, but he wouldn’t care about this. He liked his small suburb, expensive Italian loafers, company cars, vacations in the How do you honor someone when honoring them means dishonoring yourself, when the very being of yourself goes against everything he lived for? At the funeral, home for 2 weeks in the middle of study abroad, people kept approaching me, the daughter, to tell me that I was making him proud. They told me that I was living a life that he would have loved, but he hated Europe and
thought study abroad was a waste of money. He didn’t say goodbye to me before I left, just gave me an envelope of cash when we saw each other the day after Christmas. I decide to just go back to my hostel, because this was stupid. I am alone, and I am lonely. I hate speaking Portuguese and Spanish for that matter. I want the familiar, and I’m sick of pushing myself to do the uncomfortable thing. He never did. I didn’t even like him. That’s the truth. I don’t feel that I deserve to mourn him, to do something to honor him. I rub the lipstick off my lips onto the back of my hand that tastes salty. I loop back to the party street, because it’s the only way I know back. I catch a few lines of English coming from a bar. It’s some classic American rock, something Rolling
Stones I think. I’ll pretend it’s “Gimme Shelter,” because it feels metaphorically resonant. War, children, it’s just a shot away. It’s just a shot away. Gimme, gimme shelter. Or I’m going to fade away. Odds are it’s something a little less emotionally significant like “Satisfaction.” But the point is that it’s English. I walk inside and order a caipirinha, a Portuguese mixture of sugar, lime, and something strong. Gritty sugar filters through the straw, and I grind it between my teeth. This is perhaps the only thing my father and I would have done the same on this trip, turned to a glass of something cold to give our hands something to do. The band is Canadian and is only playing American oldies. If any of these songs came on the radio
unsynchronized applause. “Thanks, guys. We’re here for just a few more days, and we’re loving playing here at Alface Hall. We appreciate tips as well…” the frontman says, laughing nervously at the end. “This next one’s an original.” Who? Who? Who do you beat off to? I snort a bit of my drink up into my sinuses. The audience is mostly non-English speaking, and they’re all bobbing their heads to a song about masturbation. I think to myself that there is humor in this world. I laugh, which starts a fit of coughing. I cough into the small napkin under my drink and lean back into the green leather couch that I’ve claimed for these next few songs. I make myself stay for an hour. It’s not an entirely
bad hour, but I leave right as the band stops playing and it looks like Mark Ruffalo might come talk to me. At the hostel I take the steps deliberately slowly, feeling the skin on my heels sliding around at the formation of a blister. I run cool water over my face in the tiny sink of the shared bathroom. Kicking off my boots, I slip under the cheap but cool sheets. Sleep is a temporary suicide that I relish these days. I pull out the The Invisible Circus to read myself to bed, and I realize why I hate it, why I can’t read more than a page at a time. We both lost a father, and I thought that I was different because she was losing it and I wasn’t. She tried to jump off a cliff, and I just thought of it
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Black Bible & Other CAMILLE Names for Truth BORDERS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
black bible wet and ripe i could hear the church in his chest braiding the hymn into cornrolls, grape juice in the nile black joy whispering between fingertips sacrifice your only begotten people bringing us home to wash in silken coconut oil the gospels of flesh fortified the skin of judas metaphors made sterile the skin of jesus making body eternal destination crafting genesis out of noose & branch
3rd testament: bad people use us as an excuse to do bad things
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Burning in Blue It goes without saying that The greatest things in life Are most seldom talked about. Like that time you skipped politics class And we had the best sex of our lives; It’s not the kind of thing I’d put into a poem But I do like to live dangerously From time to time. I walked through town last Sunday and Spotted the edge of the tide— A spiny pink starfish was there On the beach, dried up, Arms grasping for water just out of reach, Clinging to the last vestiges of life. You’re right— I’m not going to uproot the whole fucking system I’m twenty-one years old, Old enough to get wasted in bars and fight in wars and old enough to know that I’m not going to change The way things are run around here. Then again, I couldn’t help but Feel for the poor little sucker So I picked her up and waded A few steps in, said three Hail Marys
And plopped her back into the Ocean’s embrace, Her starfish arms curling toward the heavens In prayer. It’s not my intention to wax poetic about saving starfish Especially as a metaphor for writing poems. That’s not why I’m here. The starfish thing Actually happened. Here’s something else That actually happened; In the chaotic river-city of Varanasi, I lived with a kind married couple. They had two sons. When I asked the older son what he Wanted to be when he grew up, He said “A corrupt police officer.” When asked why, he responded “our Corrupt police officer makes the most money In the whole city by taking bribes. That’s why I want To be like him.” I smiled and turned to his younger brother. “And what do you want to be when you grow up?” He smiled back. When I asked him why, He took out his guitar And played the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard
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Son JARED LOUIS STEIN
I never wanted you to think I had not done the things You knew I could not do. I did them all
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Awkward KENNISON LAY Awkward used to be the kid in the back row of the fifth grade class who always smelled weird and kept a collection of fingernail clippings in his cubby. Awkward used to imply braces, bowl-cuts, and coke bottle glasses—the denim overalls and buttonedup polo shirts of our youth. “The awkward stage”: it was something everyone had, but few liked to look back upon or share publicly. However, sometime in the early 2000s, awkward changed. Napolean Dynamite became an underdog cult classic in 2004 as people everywhere felt a strange connection with its bizarre, socially inept titular character.
People sported “Vote for Pedro” t-shirts and spouted off odd quotes about llamas named Tina. Somehow, this fascination with the previously “out” groups of society turned into a strange glamorization of the weird. In 2011, Awkward was given its own TV show — the namesake star of which is girl-next-door pretty and engaged in the classic decision between two conventionally attractive male suitors. Many of society’s biggest celebrity darlings describe themselves as “awkward,” “nerdy,” or “weird“ (see: Jennifer Lawrence, Zooey Deschanel, or Emma Stone). At some point, to be this idealized version of
“awkward” involved a delicate balance of maintaining conventional beauty standards and an enviable amount of social success while harboring a deep love for french fries, a habit of over-sharing, and most importantly a firm rejection of any sense of normality. There is a great little outtake from the 2013 Oscars where Jennifer Lawrence is in the midst of what is surely her millionth post-Oscar interview. She is in mid-sentence describing the “shock” and “excitement” inherent to winning one’s first Oscar when an older gentleman can be seen creeping up behind her. The interviewer interrupts
to point him out and say “oh, you’ve got a fan here,” which prompts Lawrence to turn around and have exactly the type of reaction one might expect from coming face-to-face with Jack Nicholson: Lawrence’s eyes go wide, she breathes out an audible gasp, and basically almost falls out of her chair. She turns around again, as if to reassure herself that the situation is, indeed, happening and not a figment of her imagination. She responds breathlessly to his praise, gushes like a fan-girl about how she “loved all of [his] movies,” makes a few weird jokes, an even weirder attempt at flirtation, and the entire situation is incredibly uncomfortable to watch. But somehow, the candid, real way that Jennifer responds to seeing a celebrity in the flesh makes us love her even more, simply because it seems like the exact reaction that we might have had in the same
situation.
of “wow
The whole encounter takes Jennifer out of the unrelatable realm of “celebrity” and throws her in with the rest of us. These days, we like to see our celebrities make the occasional faux pas, stumble over their words, and reveal their nervous habits because it reminds us that they are human, too. Watching Jennifer squirm and struggle for appropriate conversation makes us feel better about the time we accidently told a waiter to enjoy their meal, too; that weird and unavoidable backand-forth shuffle dance we enact with people walking opposite ways on the street; that time we mortifyingly forgot our own name when introducing ourselves to someone disarmingly attractive. The odd relatability of Jennifer’s reaction removes her from the glorified category of “wow, I wish I could be like her” and towards the comforting realization
she’s just like me.” Now, let us compare this scene to Anne Hathaway’s interview with the same man only a few minutes later. While Jennifer pulled faces, threw her head in her hands, and made cringe-worthy attempts at flirtation, Anne is all wide smiles, light giggles, gracious thankfulness, and a polite handshake. There is a reason why so many people harbor a strange, inexplicable distaste for this remarkably poised, gracious, and talented woman. Ultimately, Anne presents herself as a finely perfected version of the kind of girl most of us wish we could be, while Jennifer presents a relatable representation of how many people imagine they actually would react to the insanity that goes along with being a celebrity. There’s something about this “awkwardness” that endears
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us to Jennifer… but is it really as easily achievable as she makes it seem? What is it about Jennifer Lawrence’s version of awkward that makes her lovable and endearing instead of weird and socially inept? Is it the fact that she’s conventionally pretty, somewhere around a size 4, and genuinely very witty? The difference is best seen via comparison to Kristen Stewart, another pretty female celebrity who is often described as “awkward,” but typically with more pejorative connotations. The difference between Kristen and Jennifer’s specific types of awkwardness is their degree of comfort — viewers can just tell that Kristen hates every second of the interview circuit, as every fiber of her being radiates the impression of being horribly uncomfortable. Her awkwardness is a
quiet one, a subtle shyness and genuine social ineptitude. When Jennifer does something awkward, she screams it: wild hand gestures; extreme facial contortions; deep, body-shaking laughter. Jennifer takes an uncomfortable situation or an inappropriate comment and runs with it, forcing audiences to laugh with her rather than giggle uncomfortably at her. This new brand of awkward is a loud one; it gets in your face and forces you to confront it. It has encouraged society to gain a shared recognition that, at some point, everyone says the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, and that’s okay. Awkward is no longer the greasyhaired, acne stricken kid in your middle school geometry class who stutters when he talks to girls and spends his free time playing video games
in his basement. This new, idealized awkward is now the loud girl who laughs at her own jokes, tells everybody about the time that she tripped and fell into a fountain at the mall, and stuffs her face with chili cheese fries at lunch while pointing out to everybody the ensuing stain on her shirt. That being said, does this recent embrace of the odd really mark a widening of cultural norms? Truth is, it’s only endearing in society’s eyes for a girl to love fries and Chinese takeout while scorning exercise if she’s also (somehow, without trying) thin. It’s only cute for a girl to love Mario Kart and Legend of Zelda if she does so while maintaining perfect hair; sporting flattering, designer black-rimmed glasses; and flashing a disarming megawatt smile. It’s only funny for someone to tell bizarre, TMI-
level stories if he or she does so with perfect comedic timing and a genuinely sharp wit. Somehow, in moving towards an idealization of eccentricity and a lack of inaccessible poise, society has managed to limit its ideals even further. Now, it is not simply enough to be a pretty face; it is not “cool” to simply be “cool.” Now, you must be naturally beautiful, without trying or even knowing it; naturally thin, while hating exercise and constantly downing junk food; sharp-witted and quick on your feet, without coming off as pretentious; quirky and eccentric, without being too disagreeably weird; all-together perfect with only tightly defined, acceptable “flaws.”
upon to seem just like us, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth
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Awkward became the fallback imperfection that genetically blessed, talented, and intelligent people rely
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CADEN ROBINSON
See Emily Play ELIJAH ARMSTRONG A Dickinson Pastiche Counterfactuals are Real – I know that this is so – Because – if they were not true Things – Suffering – who and How – If not for Counterfactuals – I would not have Regret – A hundredth-part – of what I do – And find it right and meet – That when I must needs take some risk Or undergo a Trial – I would not feel an ounce of Pain – For what could I but fail –
Fine China EMMA LAPLANTE My mother leaves tap water for our two tabby cats in fine china: delicate porcelain cups with floral designs meticulously painted in gold leaf. They once belonged to my great-grandmother; now they belong to cats
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CADEN ROBINSON
Self Portrait of Absence CAMILLE BORDERS When my mother’s hot comb was a metaphor for obituary she was tired of writing this boy into my body. Unaware of the flesh as artifact while witnessing copper turn black. Or when Malcolm was at Mecca on his prayer mat and he wondered who had become him. The duplicitous spine, limbs of waiting. And the bottom of his feet speculated: what happens when we love our nightmares. The sometime boy lines collarbone, shoulder, elbow mapping a separate nation. Did you want to go home?
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Yes
ALEX HAMMARSKJOLD
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Dying LAURA HARVEY It had that scent of old-people about it— you know, that blend of mildew and draperies long overdue for cleaning—and I guess that made sense. Most people who die are old. Most people get to live a lot of years of relative peace before they die in a more or less expected way. And this place itself was out of another era, one that would comfort those mourning lives completed. The floors glistened terrazzo. The draperies were faux-bois silk. And all the furniture was this grainy walnut. Everything about the place made me feel like I had walked through the door and into the
sixties. It was like the house of our aged nextdoor neighbor Mildred. She was over ninety and hadn’t changed her carpet in fifty years. Her automatic coffeepot was from the 1950s. This place was the same, a singular instant in style transmuted across decades. It was silent and I was transfixed by the details of my surroundings, acutely aware, seemingly outside my body. I could detect the lines around my father’s eyes, the shaking of my mother’s hands. I would remember the looks on their faces for years to come, almost pathologically pained in their stillness. I wondered if I was too calm or if
it was right to try to hold it all together. It seemed appropriate to be always crying but that was not how I actually felt, if I felt much at all. Tears had been cried and would be cried and could not ceaselessly flow. There was a calm to this storm. I had not prepared, no, but worrying would not make it better, so I just rode on. If there was one thing I had learned in my life, it was that tragedy cooccurred with the most quotidian of tasks. Dying, I found out that week, was a complicated process. And one that had a mechanism to it. It took you for a ride
and let you off a week later with no more instructions on how to live in a universe altered.
just that since I could remember.
It all began in 2001 when Chris first went to rehab. Or maybe it began in 1997 when he had his first drink at the age of fourteen. Or maybe generations ago when the first of my family members was to succumb to alcoholism. He had been dying for years. And of course we are all always dying, but he was doing it at a more rapid pace. The enamel wore off his teeth and his cheeks puffed up. His stomach bloated and as though fighting against his fate. He had scars on his arms where he used to cut at his skin.
I loved and hated Chris in equal parts, but the hate would’ve vanished had he simply apologized. There was a particular way in which my brother’s addiction caused my mother to feel like her love must’ve been too small, like she had failed him and herself and all of us. And it made my father feel paralyzed by circumstance. And it made me feel lost in an intricate web of forces I was too young to understand. We learned to choreograph our silent movements around invisible weights that we all carried with us. Weights of shame and fear and guilt.
This moment, the one where he died, while not expected in its immediate instant, was also one that bookies wouldn’t have called a long shot. Chris was born for dying it seemed. He’d been doing
And here I was, tasked with coming home to bury my brother. He overdosed on a Saturday in January and now it was Monday morning, the second of February, the day after the Super Bowl, the day after I got the Call. It
was drizzling and the sky was impenetrably overcast so that sun could not peak through. It was like nighttime at midday. I was sleepwalking through my existence, simply drifting to where I was asked to be, having no inclination of my own as to what I should be doing. I would have been in my psychology lecture, I thought. I hadn’t bothered asking a friend to take notes, which was unlike me. Instead, I left simply sent an email to my academic adviser that read as tersely as a telegraph: ‘My brother died. I am going home and will be back next week.’ There was no more for me to say. I refused to admit what was happening in my inner world. I had no words for it, not yet. I couldn’t share it with the prying eyes of those who were politely concerned but more likely disgustingly curious.
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We were in this particular lobby because it was supposedly the best funeral home in Dallas. I’m not sure how my father knew this. Probably Google: we didn’t know anyone who had died in Dallas before. My closest brush with death to date had been a greatgrandfather I’d never met, whose funeral I could not attend. He was 99, and that makes a difference. Dying at 99 is appropriate and dignified and expected. Dying at 30 leaves only open-ended questions and broken spirits. The only way that I was familiar with SparkmanHillcrest was that it was across the street from Neiman Marcus where my mother had always taken me for tea and shopping. I had often caught sight of the headstones while toting home bags filled with new leather sandals or a bright red lipstick. An enormous hedge stood between the two,
probably a nod to the profane nature of a shopping mall being juxtaposed with a cemetery. But for the first time, I was on the opposite side of the green, manicured wall. The rules, it seemed, were just as clear on this side as they were on the other, but I was not privy to the business of dying. A man appeared from behind the corner. He was wearing a suit. He looked like a bank teller or a travel agent, but he introduced himself as some sort of funeral director. His brass nametag exclaimed that he was certified by some sort of service called Dignity. It was trademarked and branded, this concept. And yet the abstract meaning was elusive. This death was not one of dignity but of misery and shame and depleted reserves of hope. The funeral director expressed his sorrow
for our loss. I didn’t really register that part because it blended with the empty chorus of condolences. The thing was, I didn’t think he, or anyone else for the matter, was truly sorry. They were just politely sorry. They could not have fathomed the years of grief that had whittled away at the strength of each one of us who had supported Chris. They could not have understood what it meant to see my father crying on the floor when Chris tried to kill himself. They could not have understood the overwhelming fear and anger that led me to cut Chris out entirely on my eighteenth birthday, just the year before. “Thank you,” I said, at the same time as my parents. The funeral director looked to be in his thirties, and I thought it seemed like an odd trade for one so young. His suit was a cool
charcoal and his tie a rather upbeat tone of blue. I was offended by any note of happiness. The quality of his voice seemed practiced in the balance it struck between reverence and matter-of-factness. He knew what to do. People outside of this place were baffled by my existence. They were uncomfortable with my loss, unsure of how to respond. In the coming weeks, I would learn what it felt like to be considered with the same anxiety one reserves for explosive devices. People refused to address me or speak with me honestly. But this man was one who dealt with the bereaved for a living; he was poised and confident. He guided us down the hallway and into a door on the right. Inside, there was a dark green wallpaper that seemed thick and expensive, like something you might see in an old
southern home. The décor in here struck the exact, odd balance as did most older homes in Dallas: furniture that seemed to harken to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with hard fixtures that tried to be modern in a mid-century fashion that now seemed pathetically out of fashion. I was comforted even though it was fairly ugly. There was a circular walnut table with inlaid leather around which we all sat. The funeral director opened a black portfolio and began his spiel about what would happen. There were actually package deals. You could die in a bronze, silver, or gold fashion. It was too bizarre to put into words. Bronze seemed stingy. No one wanted their loved one to go out in the cheapest fashion possible. But gold was for someone proud, with a wide social network. This golden funeral was an
event in a way that Chris’s could not be. He had burned those bridges. We weren’t sure many people would show, whether we would even invite many to come. Silver, we decided, was the best option. I had wondered on the plane ride home, early early that morning, how all of this would go. Everything that I knew about dying came from books and movies. I was eighteen years old and just stepping into the real world; I was too young to know much about this part of life, the ending part. The night before, when I had found out about his dying, I was equal parts lifted and crushed. I could let go of my hate, I could let go of my worrying and wondering. You see, there was some relief in an ending, no matter how terrible. But I was also left to flail and despair and doubt and question and lament and re-count and
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witness. I was left without a roadmap in a world that was suddenly turned on its axis. And suddenly, here we were event planning. It was a question of white or cream programs. Of thermography or engraving. Did we want a particular Bible verse at the top of the program? It seemed like a nice gesture, but we had never gone to church. And Chris, in fact, was a hostile atheist, the kind that laughed coldly when we would pass a sign during the holidays that reminded one to ‘Keep the Christ in Christmas.’ A Bible verse would’ve bothered him deeply. And of course that made the whole nature of a funeral highly stilted. Would he have even wanted a funeral? Probably not, I thought, but it seemed wrong to not have one. In the end, we decided the funeral was for the living. My parents and
I, though, were unsure of how to proceed. A southern Baptist funeral for an atheist drug addict—the two just didn’t go together. There were hems and haws and we danced nimbly around the question of faith. The nature of the universe was too large of a question for that February day. No, we were just trying to make it through to lunch. “I don’t know what we do,” my dad said. “I really don’t.” We made eye contact and smirked at one another. We knew it was ridiculous. “I mean, I think he would have wanted us to throw him in the ground and say ‘Namaste.’” I chuckled self-consciously, but everyone joined in. I had always been one to deflect with humor. And we all snickered in spite of ourselves. It was hard to do
anything halfway in that discreet period of time in between realities. I laughed as hard as Chris would’ve laughed at the absurdity of the situation. At the three of us wedged into this room, trying to honor his memory with a particular weight of paper. As I exhaled deeply, I appreciated this deflation of tension. I had been purposefully trying to look despairing when I was not sure how to label what I felt. I was numbed and notions simply passed through my consciousness one by one, memories of sadness and joy, premonitions of hardship, and fear about the future. The experience was one that was unfolding before me in minute expressions of horror and all the while I was powerless to cease the movement. Of finding old photographs. Of hearing my father cry
for only the second time. Of convulsing uncontrollably with the power of my sobs. I was a freshman in college when Chris died. I’d been drunk a handful of times in my life. At parties. With friends. This alcoholism had never been my problem and my sympathy could not stretch into empathy. I was too young, too naïve, too filled with memories of awfulness. I hated him with most of my consciousness. But beneath the layers of simmering anger, I loved him more powerfully than I even wanted to. My anger was for betrayal and for rejection. They say that love and hate exist on opposite sides of the same coin, that one cannot exist without the other. And my Chris was proof of that. My hatred of him was fueled by my unbaiting love for him. Never was I apathetic. On this Monday, Chris
wasn’t really gone yet, not to me. I had yet to feel his absence. I had yet to experience the desire to call him on the phone only to realize there would be no answer. I had yet to pass a Christmas where he hadn’t critiqued my placement of the old crocheted snowflakes in the windowpanes. I could hear his voice clearly in my mind. He was out there somewhere, for certain. I had not seen him in a year. Did his dying make him any more gone? They showed us pages and pages of photos of past floral designs. This was a task that could be taken and done well. Holding the vellum pages in my hands gave me something concrete to grasp onto when my mind was adrift in wonderings most existentially wrought. The arrangements were gaudy at best—filled with oranges and
purples and greens. I thought them more suited to a quinceañera than to what would be the worst day of my family’s collective life. The bright hues would mock us with their exhortation to be cheerful. I wanted no such commandment. “Belles of Ireland,” I said. “I want Belles of Ireland and white roses. The roses should be open and full. Closed roses are tacky. And the Belles of Ireland should be used as an accent. Simple. Elegant.” This was what I knew how to do: be discerning and directive. My mother had raised me to know the ins and outs of floral shops and stationery stores. I could detect the difference between cream and bone, and I could tell you what season to order peonies. This wasn’t all that useful of a skillset, but today it was. Today, my mother could
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not be counted upon to breathe, much less to plan the details of her son’s funeral. I would have to. I would have to act methodically. I’m not sure what made me think of Belles of Ireland. Perhaps that our family hailed from the gloomy land. Perhaps that it was plagued with the same issues that we were facing now: good men lost to the ghosts inside bottles. With a program and floral arrangements, we were mostly set. There was just one detail, perhaps the most horrifying, to attend to. We had to pick his urn. We were led down a narrow hall with fluorescing floral walls. The undertaker looked at me and smiled. “Where do you go to school?” he asked me. Polite conversation seemed out of place. “Oh, um, I go to WashU, I mean Washington University in St.
Louis,” I said. “Oh you don’t have to tell me what that is,” he responded. “I actually applied there, but I didn’t get in,” he laughed. “I went to funeral school instead.” I tried to smile and laugh. I was silently uncomfortable and probably visibly perturbed. I found this information nonsensical. I was perplexed, and angry that I was perplexed, and sorry that I was angry. Nothing seemed to flow without morphing. We turned right into a large back room. There were all sorts of caskets aligned toward the rear portion of the room, but we were guided to a small corner with a collection of urns. We were told his ashes would be delivered in a plastic bag and we would place them inside a box of our choosing. Tacky. That was the only
word that came to mind. There were gold gilt vases and ornate green marble faux-finishes. They were outdated and ugly. This was all that I could think as I looked at them, like I was shopping for a new decorative piece. “I will not allow my brother to spend eternity in one of these. They’re fucking ugly,” I said. I was being rude and I didn’t care. My mother shushed me. My father winced but laughed under his breath. The funeral director swallowed, said “Um,” and began looking in cabinets for other options. And then my father smirked and I laughed and my mother laughed and funeral director laughed. I continued to stare at the faux materials with outrage. I didn’t want this to be what it
all came to, a plastic box. I didn’t want my brother to be treated as disposable. I didn’t want him to be poured into a plastic bag and stuffed inside a Lucite box. “I need other options. I just can’t even deal with these.” I sounded like a bitchy woman in a department store, demanding more assistance. But I was outraged at my most basic level. My father slapped me on the back. My mother mockingly shook her finger at me. The emotion in the room had turned in on itself and we had a single second that didn’t feel quite so heavy. We could be ourselves. Finally another option was brought out. A mahogany box with inlayed details. It resembled a beautiful cigar box. It was okay, I said. I was
comfortable with Chris being placed in this box. We went back to the meeting room and squished around the circular table once more. There were forms to sign. His death certificate. I imagined my parents signing this birth certificate and now this, as though slips of paper that filter through bureaucratic desks had the power to define the beginning and end of a life. And yet there was this finality to it. All this mechanism carried with it an immense power. I was told how to bury my brother, as though there was some simple answer. My parents were coached in how to mark the end of their son’s life. There was a bizarre neatness to it all.
normal. It was akin to financing a car and picking the addon features. But it was my only brother’s life ending. It was my family ending—we would never be the same after that. It could never go back to the beautiful pictures we used to take in placid years like 1996, when my mother was happy and my father was rich and Chris didn’t drink and I was a smiley toddler. It could never go back. It could never go back
.
The procedure stripped the specificity from our horror. For a moment, we were just people here doing something that they made seem so
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CADEN ROBINSON
To An Old Flame KATELYN TAIRA I miss you, sometimes, in a retrospective kind of way, the kind of way that soldiers get decorated in pins, but also in scars, in the kind of way that I can point to them and know all of the battle names that are hard to say (other people cannot pronounce them correctly; I cannot love them correctly— there is a correct way, I think). Someone once said they were afraid of not being in love with me one day. They had nightmares about it. >>
<< He wakes up in the middle of the night and tells me about him, middleaged, in the kitchen of his home, reading the morning paper. I imagine him with coffee, even though he hates coffee (I love coffee—I usually don’t care for bitter things, but I loved our love and I love myself). He flips to the obituaries and he sees my picture beneath my name and you put your mug down and you adjust your jaw and you cry. You did not intend for us to be so distanced. In the middle of the night you call me so you can hear yourself say you love me: a shout in the dark, a confession in a burning church
.
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Subject #1989 TANNER BOYLE (San Haven Sanatorium, Dunseith, North Dakota 8/13/2015) Q. Mary’s mind was on the lam, fragile romantics should make no plans. I take these idle hands and fold them, hoping to hell a fickle phantom didn’t follow us from Floral. Q. A curator of absolute accuracy. Q. The sod house dwellers at odds. Q. Invest in trapeze artistry, communicate with words.
Q. Lo! On vertical endives felonious regents invent endless novelties. Does she hear it? Plato looks onward. You are lost to you. Q. An unremarkable face-melt, an implacable guilt. Q. He yells: “Glory to all those who compartmentalize their sadness.” “My time is limited,” she says. “You should not be so foreboding.” He won’t leave her alone. “Compartments,” he insists. Q. An orifice bludgeoned into your side, worth an ovation. A lovely lymphoma, a wonderful open wound. A bloody nose that makes you brood with envy. Q. Why are you asking me all of these questions?
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