We would like to thank the judges of the Messenger, Areopagus literary contest, Dr. Stephen Barza, Dr. Irby Brown, and Dr. Alan Loxterman for their time and expertise. Also, a special thanks to Thom Guarnieri for his talent and support.
Cover photo by Elizabeth McDade
Copyright 1983 University of Richmond
POETRYand FICTION
Untitled
Hunger
Shaken Roots
Reflections After the Estate Sale
Homeward Bound
Amy Dietrich 3
Susan Korn 4
Keith Ta/bot 5
Michael Santa Barbara 6
Michael Santa Barbara 9-13
Reachings Heather Ott 15
The Clock
HarrisFleming 18
Fireflies Laura Johns 18
Seventeenth & Main Streets Heather Ott 19
Hello, Lorraine
ARTand PHOTOGRAPHY
Elizabeth McDade 2,7,8
Karen Ebert 4
Julia Zimmerman 14,24
Cynthia Sood 16,25,29
Jan Griffin 17,26,31
Laura Johns 20
Elizabeth McDade
Untitled
I seem to see More of them these days, These mamas wearing melon-bellies . As for me alone, Doubt's icy apparitional fingers Have not traced My flat abdomen to worry. That evokes One question that I have not Raised my eyes to shut out. Disturbed, though, I consider You , me with a Scarcity
Excluding facts Concerned , I Watch you climb down into an icy Tub of rationale and facts Meanwhile, you know it grows Meanly , while I wonder At that seed. And after Taking that tub, you had to Pull the plug, and drain A womb . And did you Stand shivering in darkness, While I, confused, forgot To give you
A towel's warmth wrapping?
Amy Dietrich
Hunger
I glanced over and saw you Rounded rosiness smoothly
Covered with skin of tightness.
And so I reached out and took you . Carressed smooth, round rosy tightness.
Took you in my mouth
Bite of satisfying sweetness Lolling around between fleshy tongue And stretchy lips
I consumed you Brief and sweet.
Susan Korn
Karen Ebert
A Love Poem for Changing Times: Shaken Roots
Loving you
Has shaken my roots Southern clay-crusted bones of generations passing and past.
The ancient soil is being shed leaving stark bare roots that are tender and vulnerable,
Mere threads that appear like leafless trees against a cold winter sky with the red hue of sunset.
Yet with fragility there is a gracefulness, Quiet slender beauty And a hidden and budding strength.
Waiting patiently for the frost to subside, the seed and bud are dormant, Waiting for the springtime to bring forth blossoms.
Shaken roots are a symptom of my land
Questing and searching people In the souls of the people the need is fermenting
No blossoms within the grasp the hands shall reach out to each other And this will be the seed.
Keith Talbot
Reflections After the Estate Sale*
I have not stopped to mourn before now , but this morning, old man, I found your tools, mallets, files, open end wrenches, and knew finally , that your fierce, blue veined hands were quiet and forgetful of a hammer's heft
I went today, unafraid, to your work room and found it empty and clean and impotent. Gone were the malignant shadows and bespectacled scowls that warned me, as a child , away from your tools. Seeing this place of yours readied for strangers , I suspect that you are gone
I will mourn now, for in your leave taking I have found that you were a man, and died as men will: alone and infirm I will take comfort , however ; you took a lion's share of life, and in your yielding you left not so much a grandfather , as the memory of a man I can love.
Michael
Santa Barbara
• winner of the 1983 Messenger / Areopagus literary contest-poetry division
Elizabeth McDade
Messenger
Elizabeth McDade
Homeward Bound*
As the last flame in the grate lapsed into pulsing coal, Shawn shifted in his chair. In the four-paned window he saw only the reflection of the dying fire ; he formed, in his mind , a melancholy corollary between that death and another he had witnessed There was nothing in the room that did not evoke her memory Joan was everywhere; she was in the widely spaced floor boards that she had scrubbed; she was in the gourds, drying in the darkened eaves overhead ; she was in the quilt that she had pieced together to cover the dark wooden bed. She ' s not really here , he thought. She ' ll never be here again. She left me Why? He struck , with clenched fist, the upholstered arm of the chair, and then came the tears
The salt stung his face, but the nameless pressure in his breast was slowly ebbing . It was the first time that he had been able to cry since she had died two days ago She had died, and he had listened to the doctor with slack eyes. After all the words had been said and all the forms signed, he had driven her tiny car with the wooden bumper home in the dark . He had walked around the lake that night, watching the moon skip through the reeds. If he lay down and tried to sleep, he knew that he would think of her; he thought of her when he walked too, but it didn't hurt as badly . When he lay down, he wanted to die.
Joan and he had both wanted him to be there when the baby was born , so they had gone to night classes together with seven other couples They had sat on the carpeted floor in their stocking feet , and learned about the husband ' s responsibility at birth and how to breathe properly He had wanted to be there , holding her cool hand , but the lights and the smell of the operating room had made him lightheaded The doctor told him that things would go well and that he could wait behind the windowed double doors of the delivery room He stood there , an anxious face , nosing one round window and then the next, like a curious fish in an aquarium He watched Joan , her small body fractured by the green figures with intense , staring eyes moving about her Once he saw her face , her sun light hair , dark with sweat , her eyes , with the thousand slivers of blue and white in them, staring at him, then she was gone again Morning became afternoon and then crept towards evening, and still the doctor and his attendants wavered round her body , now resting , now straining and taut. He paced the aseptic corridor, shuffling in the ill-fittingsurgical booties that they had given him. The possibility of a child both enraptured and frightened him, but the other , more dark possibility, only frightened him . All the time there had been sounds from behind the doors , like cutlery at dinner . The sounds had taken on a Messenge r
pale pastel color and he had long since stopped recognizing them Then there was nothing , a white emptiness He pushed through the doors and stood just within them , staring at her leg-limp now-and the practiced sympathy expressed by six pairs of dark, intense eyes The doctor laid his smooth hand on Shawn's shoulder and explained that both the baby and Joan had died . The words had passed through Shawn and had collected behind him , waiting to settle on him at another time.
Sitting in his chair before the fire , he felt the words that had finally come to him in his second night ; they lay , cold stones in his breast. She was gone, irretrievably, there could be no calling her back, and yet, staring into the embered • grate, Shawn culled memories of their lives together.
In the earliness of a spring morning he pushed through the French doors , dragging behind him a large ruck sack . Standing on a grey slate of the patio, he shrugged the pack into place on his shoulders . There was nothing to do now but walk away , and yet he stood wistfully staring at the white statuary on the lawn in the half light, at the bay , gently murmuring on the furthest edge of the grass As he stood , high above the glassy, far reaches of the bay , a sparrow ready to fly, he felt his resolve shudder , but it was galvanized by a gently resigned voice from the shadows: "So , you've decided to go , Shawn? Stepping into the lightening day , Shawn ' s father , with his hands in the pockets of his carefully wrapped robe, wagged his head and spoke again : "I don 't understand why you have to leave You know "
"No , you do understand!" said Shawn, his voice low , but tight in its passion "It' s things like this!" He jabbed with a finger at the pooi of slate separating them . "You ' re always there, always have been there Always with a gift or money Always ready to catch me when I fall I need to fall. I need to get kicked in the teeth once in a while How can I grow up if you're always protecting and sheltering me?"'
"Shawn , you're wrong You have grown up . You ' re a good boy at a fine school , with a future ahead of you "
"It's your school , damn it, and your future. Nothing here is mine I've never had to do anything for myself!"
Then there were no more words , each standing , shuffling a foot , stroking an unshaven face. His father looked up from the tile at which he had been staring , "If you really feel that you have to go for a while , I'll understand , but I want you to take this." He drew from his robe pocket a smoothly folded packet of money Seeing the money in his father's outstretched hand, Shawn made a move to cross the tiles between them , but as he reached out his
10 Mess e nger
own hand he realized what they were both doing, and he snatched his hand back "I have to go!" he said, his eyes wide , and then he turned and bolted down the steps from the patio . He had caught a ride with an early morning newspaper truck and left his home. From the grassy field, beside which the truck had let him off, he walked and begged rides across the state Some days went well; he walked and rode in the green shadows of the trees, following the easy curves of the road. There were days, though, when the trees lost their coolness and were covered by the greyness of the summer heat. Sometimes there were no trees , only the empty, wavering distances of the super highways Sometimes days were spent alone and nights in fields of drying corn, with starred skies so wide and empty , that he felt if he didn 't clutch the ground , he would fall away into them
Another morning came, scuttling past the gracious dawn and into the heat of the already exhausted day. He sat on his pack and stared at his world: it was empty , but for the hoarsely whispering corn that stretched from either side of the crumbling black road to the vague horizons. The road and the fields, indistinct at their farthest points , joined the washed blue bowl of the sky and formed a closed place He thought that maybe he should step across the asphalt, turn around and face home, but a smudge at the end of the road made him stop The imperfection in the horizon slowly resolved itself into a battered red V .W. with a wooden bumper, that slowed mercifully to a stop, fifty feet ahead of him .
The car; he remembered having driven it home from the hospital. It stood there , at the mouth of the footpath up to the cabin, where he had parked it two nights ago . Of an inestimable vintage, the car had carried Joan and him through the summer and up the eastern seaboard. Like a fragmented movie, that first day they had spent together came to him in tiny yellowed scenes It was hard to remember her face now ; he could only see her eyes, prismed in a thousand shades of blue on blue. He wanted to remember her face on that first day, but he couldn't. When he had asked her where she was going, he remembered that she had laughingly said she was running away from home to anywhere. He remembered the delicious coolness of the wind slipping through the car, the liquid land swells upon which they had finally found a town and a park with trees. They had eaten lunch in that park, and afterwards she had fallen asleep on the pine needles . He remembered that he had loved her when she slept. She was like a beautiful child, vulnerable and in need of someone to take her into his arms. He had wanted to hold her then, but had been afraid of frightening her. She must have had a peeling
"When he had asked her where she was going, he remembered that she had laughinglysaid she was runningaway from home."
nose; her nose always peeled in the sun, but he couldn't put her whole face together. She had had fine hair, more golden than yellow, and long dark eyelashes. He had driven in the afternoon, and she had slept with her head in his lap. He had driven until the sun burnt the ragged sheet of the horizon and the shadows of the corn were long upon the road; then he had pulled the car into an empty picnic area. They sat on the wooden bumper and balanced their suppers on their knees. With languid eyes they had watched the fire in the stone grill and they had drunk a bottle of wine that he had bought earlier in the day, to celebrate his ride . Then she fell asleep, her hand clutched under her chin and the starred skies over them like a blanket
Through the windy blue month of May and brassy hot June, they traveled . The plains, vast and empty and yet not unlovely, had fallen away at the rise of the Appalachians. The blue-green twisting hills, with dark and hidden streams, dropped abruptly to easily rolling farmlands , that were swept alternately by lissome rains and shafted sunlight. His favorite time had been when they had stopped driving for the day The sun here did not burn the horizon, but rather gilded it, and on the scented night breath came the mossy shadows from the trees to the field of grass where they were parked When the day was gone from the far edges of the
sky and their fire burnt, cocooning them in a pool of light, Joan would begin to sing; low and meandering, her songs were always of bloodless, long ago wars, and unrealized loves
He began to hum a melody that had been woven into those summer nights , and slowly , chokingly, pronounced the last words: " ... and there they twined, red rose around the briar, a true lover's knot." The fire on the grate had died completely now, and the room was dark but for the bluish light of the moon on the season's first snow that shone through the window. He began another fire, and , as he straightened up from the grate, he remembered the letter which sat in the tiny box before him on the mantle.
Turning his back on the letter and the fire he sat and began to remember again . They had left the muted colors of the valley and had driven to the blue then grey then green plains of the sea. The days of cathedraled skies vaulting from the flat line of the horizon, arching infinitely high over them and settling somewhere behind them, had been good. They had traveled north, lighting on a new beach each night to sleep, lulled by the dull rush and hiss of the waves He had finally called his father and explained his circumstances; the call had gone badly, his father gently bullying him and eroding his certainties . After the call, he had walk-
ed, patiently kicking a stone, wondering whether or not he should be going back to school; fall semester started in three weeks He had tried to keep his faithlessness from Joan, but she had found him out and grown angry: "If you don't know what you want , then get out of my life! Don't screw up my dreams, go back to school and daddy!" She had walked alone into the cool hours of the night, along the phosphorescent waves. She had returned later, waking him gently to tell him that she loved him.
"I'm sorry that I got angry with you, Shawn, it's just that I need you to help me." The light of the night colored her face; it was a solemn mask of sh ifting darkness and luminosity. "I had a lover who left me He left me carrying his child My family wanted me to abort it, but I needed that baby and so I carried it until my fourth month, when I miscarried After that I lost everything; I didn't care I wanted to die . I was trying to die , but when I got to the edge, I found that I was in the way. I liked myself too much , and so here I am, trying one more time." She raised her hands and smiled weakly, a comedian squirming out from underneath a lame joke
They had slept holding one another, and in the grey morning light as they sat, their heels dug deep into the moist, grainy sand, she had pointed out the image of a seabird against the dirty sky.
"You have to always believe in yourself, Shawn, in what you do and where you're going. See that gull there ... "
He watched the bird, shuddering slightly in the updraft, and then suddenly, gracefully , falling
"The instinctual promptings to flight that move that gull are the same as faith and belief in you and me . If that bird didn't know that it could fly, even if its wings were a mile wide . . ." and she spread her arms in a parody of her giant bird, " well, then, it couldn't." Her arms collapsed and she looked out to where the sun was hammering the bright copper of the sea . "Shawn , I love you and I want you to believe in us I want you to believe that maybe we can start again , maybe on some far away northern lake But you ' ve got to believe; you've got to do what makes you happy " She had said this staring hard at the horizon, as if afraid to see rejection in his face . He had gathered her in the cradle made by his arms and legs , and held her .
Late in August, when the nights came quicker, they found their northern lake. It was small and irregular , with tiny inlets hidden beneath stands of blue dark evergreens. On a corner of the lake , sitting on the yellow sand and disjointed clumps of grass , was a small cabin . The door and the window were a toothless mouth and a sightless eye, a corner of the birch shingled roof had fallen in , allowing 12 Messenger
a finger of sunlight to drag slowly across the floorboards, but the chimney of round stones was good .
Beneath the growing harvest moon, the roof had been made taut, the · door and the window replaced, and slowly a home had appeared They planted a small garden beside the house, with a larger one planned for the spring. In the autumn time, as they walked through the colorful leavings of the summer season, Joan told him that she was pregnant. They celebrated quietly that evening, and as Joan slept, new life within her, Shawn stared into the dark eaves above him. His world then had been a closed place again, but it had been closed against emptiness and filled with Joan and him; he had needed nothing else .
The next day, crystalline in its coolness, they drove to Dodderson's Grocery, where Shawn worked part time, to pick up the next weeks supply of food and oil. Dodderson's was a single story clapboard building, painted white with picnic table green trim. On the resounding floor boards were stacked shoulder high piles of cans with vintage labels, proclaiming white corn , green beans, and tuna fish As Joan picked her way through the cramped aisles of Dodderson's, Shawn filled the V W .' s tank at the antique pump and then sat, lounging in the cool sun of October When she had come through the green trimmed door, looking for him to get the packages, she had found him hanging up the phone in the plate glass booth.
"You called your father, didn't you?" Her face was flushed by the cold and had a sideways, questioning cast to it.
"Yep," he said, clapping his mouth on the sound and moving towards the front door of Dodderson's.
"Well . .. what did he say , what did you say?" Her face was animated now, and she danced between him and the door.
"I told him where he could reach me if he needed me I told him that I was staying, that I was in love and that I had never been happier. Now let's get those groceries before Dodderson tries to sell them again " He pushed past her embrace into the door, and pretended not to see the tear that brimmed over and slipped into the corner of her smile.
The days of poignant color and lonely skies, with nights that came like a knife, went by quickly October became November, the lake took on the greener cast of winter, and Joan's small figure began to swell with the child She was very conscious of how she looked, and she began to secrete herself in their presence by the lake; only the night classes, "Fatherhood at Pregnancy," where there were seven other similarly disposed women, would draw her away from the cabin Shawn had to shop on the days that he worked at Dodderson's;
holding the awkward wire basket in one hand and a list made up by Joan in the other, he would careen through the aisles of dusty cans. In the first grey week of December he had driven to Dodderson's, past the quiet fields, still furrowed from the fall. As he was ringing up Shawn's groceries, Dodderson tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger and said: "I almost forgot, a registered letter came for you the other day." He turned from the counter and reached into the pigeon holes in the wall behind him. From a tiny, dark ended box, Dodderson drew a large letter and placed it on the counter in front of Shawn. It was from his father and bore the red registration numbers. Shawn hefted it in his hand; it was thick, but not the thickness of a letter, more, the solidness of two heavy cardboard layers protecting a check. He wondered what he should do with the package; open it and use the check, they could use the money, but that was what he had run away from originally; refuse the letter? He had finally placed the letter in his jacket pocket. Later that night, he had hidden the still unopened letter in a box that he kept above the fireplace and had gone to bed, vaguely guilty.
It was late in December, the day washed of color, the sky laden with the season's first snow. In the dark morning, before the passionless sun had risen from the horizon, the pain had come to Joan. She had clutched herself around her distended middle and made small mewling sounds. The pain had come and gone in waves, with each new attack becoming stronger and quicker than the last. It had appeared that the baby was going to be born a month earlier than expected. By midmorning, Shawn had driven Joan to the hospital
Having come full circle in his memories, Shawn stared blankly into the fire. She would never be there again. He would never wake to find her on a pearl gray morning again. Her songs would never scent a summer's evening again. There was nothing here for him now, his world had fallen outward and left him alone and unclothed. She had gone, and taken with her all the strength and loveliness that she had brought to his life. He pushed himself from the chair and walked to the fire, where, with slow hand and unthinking eye, he reached for his box on the mantle. He drew out the letter and turned it in his hands, staring at the wavering lines of the postmark, the indistinct red registration numbers, and then he tore it open. He was going home.
Michael Santa Barbara
• Winner of the 1983 Messenger I Areopagus literary contest-short story division
If I had to invest my faith, I'd go with the movies.
Julia Zimmerman
Reachings
Sherwood Anderson chronicled the rare moments , the succinct instants of precious life. There is windswept glory to be had, woven in from out from the promised mortality . Soaring, the testing of lungs, lean legs of a triumphant mile, the stretch into an oh so still arabesque Meeting eyes full open You see it too.
The wry turn of your head, the brooding looks deep to your insides You'll choose not to embrace tangled despair , you'll explore the instants : jewelled petals of March daffodils their buttery gleam brimming against grey skies. the haunting rush of Bach's geniusits sadness and whispered heartache
Seize the glimpses into passionate existence Look towards the last challenge of the funhousewobbly legs steadied , arms raised . Look towards the horizon's limitless promise.
Heather Ott
The Clock
He glows, Undaunted by the darkest night. He knows, No eyes needed to sense the light.
I lie
So peaceful in my sleep No eyes
To see my enemy creep.
He screams And tells me to arise He beams And mocks my bloodshot eyes
With hate, I grasp his circular head. Too late He realizes he is dead
He flies And shatters on the floor I rise, The battle lost but not the war.
Harris Fleming
Fireflies
With their first blink, we knew it was summer . The fireflies signaled the start of that glorious season And we longed to capture the reminders of past summers In the dark cups of our hands
They were mystical creatures then, With powers to luminate And we would look forward with eagerness
To our evening outside, chasing the elusive flecks of light.
At night, when they were taken in hand , We would hurriedly place them in their glass prison One by one-very carefully We would be mesmerized by the delicacy of their tiny flashes
But then in the morning, When we awoke and rushed to our jars
To see the beautiful soft glow of our friends , We would only find ugly black bugs , Crawling along the sides of the glass. And disgustedly we would dump them Into the garden , All the while wondering where our fireflies had gone.
Laura Johns
Seventeenth and Main Streets
The willowy women in their lame have chosen to perch on barstools uptown. They'll flash white teeth and glossy mouths for men with AmEx gold cards.
Farther down the uneven stone sidewalks, overturned bushel baskets display the vegetable vendors' turnips and potatoes . I leave the gallery and pull my coat close to stay warm. Fifteen yards away a grizzled white man threads a path around meters and his own imaginings. The evening still new, his whiskey scent is freshtempting me with the same adventure that trapped him. I can't understand what he asks, so I smile like you do for a familiar face across a room ; I pass him by.
The nighttime air fills me, and I walk by a club that pulses quietly. Neon casts color through the bubbled glass, a door swings open and a man and woman step out. Their lovelow voices caress each other; they turn the corner
The air smells of bread now I look around and wonder where it comes from, but this is a private place. It is not for me to know
Heather Ott
Laura Johns
''Hello, Lorraine,,
"Hello?"
"Hello, Lorraine "
"Oh , Jesus Stephen , what's wrong with you? I told you I have nothing to say to you."
"Bullshit."
"No bullshit. I've said everything I have to say I've said everything I have to say a hundred times. That's the limit, Stephen . Leave me alone ."
"I can ' t do that."
"Why not? It seems simple enough. Just stop calling me. That's easier than calling me . If that's too tough for your feeble mind to handle, stop paying your phone bill. Ma Bell will help you out."
"I've already tried that. They screwed up the billing and gave me a $200 credit. Isn't that great?"
"That's terrific "
"I knew you'd be thrilled. Lorraine, you can't end three good years just like that ."
"You're right , Stephen If we had three good years, I wouldn't be doing this Has anything I've said in the last eight or so months sunken in?"
"Lorraine, I'm sorry I never dreamed it was all this important. I'll cancel my subscription to 'Hustler' if you want."
"There's a lot more wrong with our relationship than pictures of nude lesbian bikers, Stephen ."
"Like what?"
"Stephen , I really don't have time for this . "
"Why not? Got a date?"
"That's none of your business. "
"That means yes . Thanks for being honest. What's his name? He's not a hair-dresse r or anything like that, is he? "
"Why are you making everything so difficult?"
"Why do you want to throw everything out the window?"
"I do not have time for this now, Stephen!"
"When will you?"
"Never. Good-bye!"
"Lorraine, I'll do something desperate!"
"Please , Stephen. No more suicides. I'm really very sorry things didn't work out. I really think you're a nice guy Now get out of my life "
Click
"Shit!" cried Stephen , slamming down the phone
"Nice guy?" Three years of off-and-on living together and the best that she could say was that he
was a nice guy? Good God, what did she want from him?
He'd been on his best behavior for over a month and it was starting to wear him down. He could take sharing Lorraine with her friends. He could understand that she didn't want to spend every waking moment with him. He tried to take her seriously when she abruptly converted from Judaism to Zen Buddhism, although it wasn't easy. He'd even kept his mouth shut when she approached the "Black Warlords" and asked if any of them had change for a fifty.
He simply could not tolerate, however, this lack of communication. All he wanted was a chance to show her that he had really changed. Was that too much to ask? Of course not, Stephen reasoned. Then again, he was a bit biased.
In any case, he was getting desperate . He was consumed by the desire to get Lorraine back. His boss at the insurance company accepted Stephen's story that he had pneumonia. But people get over pneumonia, and it had been almost three weeks since he'd been to the office. He had to devise a fast, definite plan for getting her back. He would stop at nothing.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Lorraine "
"Stephen! Leave me alone. I don't know if you think I'm kidding or what, but I have absolutely no interest in talking to you. Can't you understand that?"
"No, I can't."
"Well, you're going to have to learn."
"I think not, Lorraine "
"I think yes, Stephen "
"Hello, Lorraine." The voice shocked her.
"Momma?" Lorraine said wide-eyed
"That's right, Lorraine," Stephen said "Your mother's here with me She's decided to stay with me for a few days As a matter of fact, she's going to stay with me until you stop playing these silly little games and start talking to me again."
"Stephen, let me talk to my mother right now."
"Sorry hon She's tied up right now Bye "
"Stephen-" Click.
"Shit!" cried Lorraine, slamming down the phone
At least Stephen was honest. Mrs. Palmer was rather neatly tied to a chair in his apartment. Aside from the fact that she was terrified, she was fairly comfortable
"Stephen, this really isn't necessary," she said. 22 Messenger
"I'm afraid it is, Mrs . Palmer."
"Oh." So logic wasn't going to work. She'd have to try another approach.
She knew she should be angry, not scared. Stephen wouldn't do anything to actually hurt her. She'd come to know him as a nice young man, if a bit quiet. She'd never dreamed him capable of doing what he was obviously all too capable of doing The more she thought about it, the more her fear subsided and the more her anger grew. And she was just as angry at herself as she was at Stephen
It was not as if she was some defenseless old woman. At 46, she was only twenty-one years older than her daughter, although she looked a good five years younger. She was a very successful business executive, an influential board member of a fairly good sized small parts corporation. She'd inherited the stock from her husband upon his death five years ago. Rejecting generous bids from several other board members, she took the board position and proved herself a valuable addition to the corporation And she had been duped by a 30-yearold insurance salesman. God, her blood was starting to boil!
"Stephen, I think I've had quite enough of this I want you to let me go right now "
He just looked at her and bit into an apple.
"Dammit, Stephen! What are you trying to prove?"
"I'm not trying to prove anything." He got up and walked around the room. "I just want to talk to Lorraine . She seems to be incapable of showing me any form of human decency."
"Human decency! Do you call this human decency? You've tied me up like an animal, not to mention the fact that you dragged me here with a lie and won't let me leave.!"
"I'm sorry about that. Really I am. I can't let you go now, but I do apologize I realize it's not terribly civil," he said as he walked into the kitchen. She just growled and made a mental note to call her lawyer as soon as she was able.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Lorraine "
"Stephen, I don't think this is funny. Not one bit. You let my mother go or I'm going to call the police ."
"Negative I don't think the mayor's office needs to hear that one of its P.R. people conspired with me to have her mother kidnapped. I'm in control for once. You talk to me and I let your mother go. That's all."
"Forget it, Stephen . You are not going to push
me around like this, you bastard."
"Okay. Bye ."
Click He turned to Lorraine's mother.
"That was Lorraine, Mrs. Palmer. She sends her love "
"Are you enjoying this, Stephen?"
"In some perverse way I suppose I am. It's nice calling the shots for a change "
"Why don't you just find someone-well , someone more like you? "
"I don't want someone else. Just your daughter. Are you hungry?"
"Yes, I'm starving , " she said, caught off guard.
"Me too . Have you ever had a Tunisian omelette?"
"No, but it sounds good."
"Yes, it does . Unfortunately, there probably isn't such a thing How about a cheese omelette?"
"That sounds good, too "
He went to the kitchen and returned twenty minutes later with two very decent looking omelettes.
"Thank you for untying me Stephen ."
"You're welcome I really couldn't let you eat like a pig in a trough, could I? Well, I could but I'd have to clean up after you ."
"It really was delicious. Do you cook often?"
"Only right before I eat. I find most dishes are better if you cook them first. Same thing goes for the food You pick up little things like that when you live alone "
"Yes , I know I've been doing it since Mr. Palmer died."
"I hope you enjoy the solitude more than I do," he said.
"I doubt it. I miss having a man around the house."
"Why haven't you re-married?"
"Oh , I don ' t know I guess I haven't found anyone special. Why haven 't you married?" She knew instantaneously she shouldn ' t have said it. He just looked at her with an obtuse look on his face .
"I'm sorry I wasn't thinking. I'm sure you must love Lorraine very much. You're taking a tremendous chance by doing this."
"I guess I am It just seems like Lorraine is cutting me off on a whim I mean, one minute she's crying because she thinks she isn't good enough for me and the next, she's telling me to get lost." He shook his head
Mrs . Palmer started to look at Stephen in a new light She felt pity for him and wondered if maybe Lorraine wasn't being insensitive.
They talked all night , about everything under the sun . It wasn't until the sun came up that Stephen realized the time
"I seem to have kept us up all night. I'm sorry, Mrs . Palmer."
"Please call me Beverly," she said, taking his hand He smiled "All right, Beverly."
• • •
"Hello?"
"Hello, Lorraine."
"Stephen, I've had enough It's been four days! You want to talk? Fine! We'll talk from now until the cows come home. Now let me talk to my mother and don't try to tell me you can't do that!"
"Okay " That took some of the wind out of her sails
"My God, what? Did he do anything to you?" Lorraine got a sick feeling in her stomach
"Yes, he did," she said And she actually giggled .
"Oh, Momma, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."
"Lorraine, stop it. I want to thank you . Just consider it an early wedding present."
"An early what, Momma?" Stephen came on the line
"You heard her , Lorraine . Your mother and are getting married."
"Stephen , you son of a bitch . ... "
"Please, please. A little respect for your new father ."
"Stephen, I really don't think I can handle this "
"You don't have to . We're moving to Tahiti. Hey! Beverly, cut it out!"
"Stephen?"
"Beverly , Jesus! Stop that!"
"Momma?"
All she could hear were her mother's giggles and the phone falling to the floor. Her mother picked it up . "Momma?"
"Hello, Lorraine."
"Momma, please tell me this is a sick joke , " she pleaded.
"Good-bye, Lorraine " Click.
Harris Fleming
Julia Zimmerman
Cynthia Sood
Untitled
That open, empty pack of dunhills sits on the second tier of my bedstand Its presence sketches coloured chalk again into my mind : when we sat, blanketed by the deep night glow of kitchen fluorescence , and talked humourously, talked importantly into the source of the cool darkness We drew on each word like well water It rains the chalk out of my mind . Me , in my quiet despair that vines intently up my empty house . I have an urgent question And the telephone wire doesn't wear your eyes, or hold itself the proud way you do I have an urgent question , and I sweat through a desert carrying only a flask of past and pages of letters to await your return .
Amy Dietrich
Vacation
I've sailed to the Bahamas when the sun scorched the sea And I've camped over Banff when the stars sliced the sky. There are posters in my memory that no travel agent ever imagined I've seen visions never before dreamed Yet the image etched most deeply in my mind is that of your face, in a certain lightwith eyes greener than any pine New Hampshire ever grew and lips sweeter than any wine California ever knew So what I want to say what I really want you to know is that you're the best vacation I've ever had.
Kathryn Spatz
Jessiman
To capture your voice and have it always in my head always to tickle my ear Always it melts my insides .
Weaving in from out from your tangled curls that dizzy me . Up from down from up your long loose body my eyes stumble and stick and drink in your goldenness .
Heather Ott
I.
The sun still shines ever dimmer feathered clouds exhale and drift away . The laughter from below reeks from shadowed corners of the ruins . The smoke and ash have settled like a veil whose censorship collapsed . Charred remnants cannot pierce the skylinenoise no longer lights the night.
There are no birds to singno leaves to rustle in the wind . And the breeze? Shifting stubbornness brought a thorough death .
The grass is gone-the soil is bare ; all lies more than fallow
The brook no longer sings with clarity , lamenting the absence of an audience .
The rivers still run black with forgotten wastes into the oceans-calmly waiting for an end to time
Submerged beneath the depths, where the blasts were never felt, the darkness boils with life that would not seek a self-destruction
Greg Hudson
Modem Novel*
We'll have three gin and tonics and separate checks.
Well anyway , we call her Muckraker because of her reinventing of our world. She is short and fat and has myopic eyes that look further into America than any good novelist would bother to. She made a mistake by involving the rest of us in her head.
At first we ignored her, as any good citizen would do-I mean it was easy-she is pretty ugly But she wouldn't go underground as any good outcast is supposed to do . No, she did it all right in front of us-divorced her husband of fifteen years, gave her two kids her phone number in case of an emergency, went to night school, (to study writing! told Harry , "It's just menopause."). Then she went too far.
She wrote a book about all of us
We knew even though she changed the names . I mean , we all know Harry drinks, and the Nelson kids smoke pot. It was so obvious But she lied
She had all these "characters" hating what they were ; spouses, jobs , kids, and even the country club
She wrote that we probably all live because that's what our parents did . She laughed at our sex, called it "something we do when we can't get to sleep ." And blamed it all on the fact that we're like sheep We eat sheep, wear designer wool, (she's jealous, of course) and follow one another around It was all very insulting . I would just love to skin her alive.
Well anyway, she created this heroine, (guess who?) and she escapes it all, and lives happily ever after The book ended with this woman saying, "All you have to do is wait awhile " Nobody understood, but we knew it had to do with us, and we didn ' t like it.
