Phoenix - Fall 1989

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fiction 11

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non-fiction

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, A:M.55,Brad Connaster ....... i'h~.l.¥ •• !~:~:.,: ..:...,.:..'~~~:'....~ ....... 20 A MAN'S' GAME, David Curtis .......... :.....:.:'.....\~ .....:.~ •.'~'•. ~ ...... 33

FAAm«STfMSON: VISIONS, Amy,Brithell ~i<.:". l................. 23 THE OUTLAW CONNECTIONS OF LOVE" " .Edward Francisco ............................................................."....... 29

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poetry

art , WINTER'S NIGHT, David Wolfe .............................................. 2 APA9HE, Rebecca Shope .....: .......... ~ ........ ~ .........l .....~~.. ............... 4 , UNTITLED, Aaron Benson ...................................... ~...~.. ~ ....•...... 1 GOLDtl..OCKS AND THE lH;REt; BEARS RETOLQ, ;.,' , , Kristen Reynolds ................~ .............................. ~, .• "..".,,:.~....... ~ ::.. '9 " BLUE RIDER,Susan Reider ....................... :............................ 11 .

UNTITLED, Diane Fox-McCord ..............................~ .............. 12 GRAFFITt, Van Walker .............·............................................... 15 THE SCREAM, Susan Reider ................................................. 19 SPRING FLOOD, Frank Stimson ........................................... 24 BLUE MOaN, Charlie Pate ... \,.f..... ~ ..... 26 TRADITIONAL CHINESE LAN:OSOAPE, ,,', ' Audrey Surrency ..................................................... ,..,,;.....

2.7 ~ BODYSCAPE, Tinah Utsman ................................................. 28 RESURRECTION FROM THE VALLEY, Melanie Bagby .•. ~ .. 31 SPIRITUAL WALKER, Darren Durham .................................. 34 SPIKE, Ana M. Reinert .............................................

39 UN. TfT.LEO, Valerie Clark ... ~ ..•. ~ ~O DEE;P ,BREAKFAST, Melame Bagby ... ~ ... ~ ....................,~ ......... ~2 CYCLOPS, Marshall Thurman .•• p ••••••••• : . : .. J•••' : •••• ~. :................ : .;;. 45 TREE PROTRUSION, Charlie P~te ....... :..................

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1 "" SUNRJSE, Patricia Gait Wadley .....................H c............ , ........... 3 THe~QCTOar;R PEOPl:S< {Eaetty J. Kidd .>H~ rl•. ~ ........ ,............. 5 ·M1CjiAEL,. Paula D. Helt ~ 6 MOVING FORWARP, Paula Brooks .............

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A PAINTING,.Dane L. Duggan ...................

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THE .ULTIMATE WOMAN, Emily Jordan .......

13 THE LOST BOY AND THE TRAIN, Dee Thompson .........! ..... 16 SHf;" Paula Brooks ..........................................."" ........ ;............ 17 {)L9MAN TALKING,.Carfos A. Kinsey .......~~.~~........ ,.;........... 17 REMJEMBERtNG THE DR,~AM, LindaP. Burggdif ....... ~ ....... 18 BLUE MORNINGS, BlUeOAYS, Sheri Walker .......... ~ ......... 26 .

SIGNALLING THE PRESENCE OF GOD, Carol Malone ..... 21 ' ROSE, Rose BecaUo ...................................

35 SHAMAN SONG, Charity Chang ........................................... 38 CANTO I.; David Allred ..........................................

40 WHALES, Robert Furey ............. ,............ u~ 41 FlREf:LJES, Marilyn, KaH~t .....................~ .•.. ,,~.~ •. ~?i 43 BE¥ON,DTHE YELLOWLtNE~ Michael McCtclud ................ 44 SiZeS, Hotly Beth Brown ........................................................ 47 '0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Rebecca Shope

Like trees in the fall, October People burst into color.

Like the multi-colored leaves, They time their arrival such that Everyone, everything is waiting in anticipation.

Like the sky colored azure, without a cloud in sight, The October People clear their senses And brush away the trivialities From every beautiful day.

Like the crispness of dried leaves And brisk signals of coming cold, They fill their days of preparation with Excitement And pleasure.

The cardinal is the bird of the October People: he like they Stays to face the snow, In bright contrast to the whiteness of the ground.

Not dormant do they lie, but Waiting until the seasons pass, And theirs again is the spectacular.

They the fireworks before the death.

They the harvest of the year's burden.

THE OCTOBER PEOPLE Betty

J. Kidd

Paula D. Helt

Michael is the stair-rail when I have vertigo, Michael the breeze when I run down-steps, my laughter in the wind.

Michael is the quiet feeling in the night, Michael the smell of green and blue, of tweed, of sweet milk, of smooth whiskey.

Michael is the shoulder just behind me, Michael the softness of flannel sheets or suede, of horse hair, of wool.

Michael is the knife behind my back, and I am the spoon that cradles him like gravy.

His feet are wandering troubadours, his ankles abutments of bridges.

His calves are young bucks startled in the wood, His thighs are grassy goat-paths, his hip-bone is a headrest.

His belly is a plain of secrets.

His waist is fashioned for my enCircling arm, his chest a garden of meditation.

Untitled

Paula Brooks Why bother here I went ;:',r I went gliding on my two feet in red shoes motivated by thing more the thrill of o g forward, mOVIn rtrude SteIn past a Ge . k and green haircut on a PInho g something woman munc In o rna k Ing crumbs from a bakery bag close to her face, t a preacher pas hOt shouting c ns or antichnst

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears Retold Kristen Reynolds

A Painting

Blue Rider Susan Reider

I remember my first real one Hanging in our calm barn Swept clean, but cluttered with "S" Shapes, far apart, then on top of each other.

A scythe rusted all the way through.

A tractor chain, sliding in place, Mimicking a copperhead, across the describable Floor. Back then, I tacked the cotton Canvas to the warped slats, laughing With any chance to laugh at the primitive Method. My fingers inched through the hinged Box, to touch any of several shades of delicate Purple. A single color on the colorless train, Moving in the distance, that warm morning, Into the blurring nothingness of my canvas.

Dane L. Duggan

Untitled

Diane Fox-McCord

My

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mother was old, large, and calloused among the pretty mothers of the other children in my kindergarten class.

But I always thought: if only they could see me with Ann. You were ultimate woman to me.

My mother yanked the tangles from my hair.

But you - you gently brushed until my hair was almost as soft as yours.

And I remember holding my breath each time I felt your cool, long fingers touch my temples as you stroked my hair from my face.

But it has now been many years since I felt that touch.

And though I have tried to shape myself to the mold of my image of you, I fear I have failed.

Or is this merely a stage in the metamorphosis?

Did you ever squat on the floor of a tiny room, still sore between the legs where a man had rubbed your insides until you thought perhaps he had rubbed you entirely away?

Did you ever squat, head bowed, with a cigarette trembling between two skinny fingers and lift your head to find that dusk had crept in too soon?

That you no longer had Light of Time enough to read those writers you want to imitate or to add any more to the poetry fragments you've scribbled on coffee-stained pages?

'):t the outline of the bed still lingers -the bed on which he pounded you.

And you -- craving the distraction from the uncertainty of your craft, your worth, your Soul, who'd rather consume itself than feed itself.

Feed itself.

And tell me, Ann, did you believe at the time that this man would set you free?

That he would fuck you until you could write again?

Or did you find that he had only left you with the fear you were carrying another soul inside of you?

Another soul to be burdened by wet streets at dusk with cigarette butts swimming in the pools of dingy light and water on the cracked and endless sidewalks.

Did you ever fear that your lover had left something inside your womb that would grow until your mother would see your swollen belly and would cry for the irritable mornings you would spend in a filthy apartment with the tender lover, no longer tender, and you -- fat with more children, face bruised by his drunken fist.

Yet, were you ever convinced that Mother was wrong?

But somehow could not explain your lover's growing Indifference.

When you felt you had given him your ultimate -your virginity, yes, but more -a blessing, a secret kiss of comradeship.

But he eQuId not understand that additional gift, and your body was tasting old to him.

Oh, Ann, are these familiar things to you?

Are you Ultimate Woman because you avoided these things or survived them?

If they are to be avoided, I beg you, come get me.

Take me home with you.

Bring to me your fingertips.

Give me back myoid enthusiasms for the flooded creek beneath the bridge and our old crooked bicycles -yours just a little bit higher than mine.

Emily Jordan

The Lost boy and the Train Yearbooks in laps, we searched in vain for his picture. Senior year he wrecked his car, graduating only into a coma. No picture of that.

We picked up diplomas and scattered to school and work.

He learned to walk again, and ran races, arms out, flying from oblivion.

We went to work, started families - he ran.

I remember him in grade school hands on hips, hair in eyes, shouting down the teacher.

He took his punishment blank - faced, never cried, just ran onto the playground, got lost among us.

I saw him at a wedding five years ago.

We reminisced, danced.

Defiant boy gone gentle drifter, unemployed.

We promised to keep in touch.

He ran to the train ..

Shirtless, he knelt, neck over the rails Vibrations, heart and engine together, hearing the whistle of the iron horse guillotine.

The news gave him thirty seconds at six o'clock.

The train goes by my window every night, I feel his hand on my waist, we dance.

SHE

Paula Brooks

The little girl sat on the back steps feeding bread crumbs to the black snake curled at her feet as blue night nestled over the roses.

OLD MAN TALKING Carlos A. Kinsey

She talked to the snake as if it were a kitten she had taken to her breast or smuggled inside for company like a jar of fireflies under the covers a friend to hold wide awake when great night found her.

The light from the door cut my body in half and blinded my left eye.

I reach like a small child to the mother sky and let su n soothe my burning bones.

Slowly I rise and pivot on my weight. How heavy I am for a spirit who is so light.

Youth is my lover, I will grow old and weak one day and remember.

A picture I will paint for the little ones which only I can see as the man I was once , and the man I wanted to be.

They walk away with a story and I walk away with my life.

As you drive through, you may picture yourself in any heavily wooded town with only one paved road that cuts across corn fields and pastures, through the heart of a forgotten place.

You have to go through it to get from here to there, pointing to the cows and saying to your kids, "Look! Moo-moosl" The local people do not call them moo-moos.

On the outskirts of this ancient civilization squats a barn by the side of the road. Every year it seems to sink lower, as if trying to evade the headlights that illuminate the message painted on its side - MCDONALDS - 42 MILES STRAIGHT AHEAD. The residents of Dulberry didn't appreciate Harper renting his barn to those advertising people. They felt that promoting a business that was in another city was negligence in patriotism. FIVE BILLION SOLD - That's a burger for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Only the Lord knows how many moo-moos were slaughtered to achieve that statistic. Dulberrians used to cringe every time they passed that barn.

Harper loves to throw a little chaos into the mix. He calls himself an entrepreneur, someone who is not afraid to experience the impossible.

Most people in Dulberry do not know what that means. The ones who must interact with him call him an instigator and treat him with sentimental distrust. "He's a good argument for sterilization," Emma Dole always tells her gossip mongers. "Why, just the other day he .... " There's always room for invention when Floyd Harper is the subject of scandal. Half of the residents have never seen him, but they hear that he is the principle agent of mischief in Dulberry, they see the results of his actions, and they wouldn't trade him for a hundred good old boys. On a spectrum, his character lies somewhere between reclusive visonary-inventor and rogue.

Well, I have to tell you that Harper is stirring things up around the town again. He went all the way to Richmond for a ham operators' convention.

The residents just figured that he was getting into the pork business and would be bringing back some inventory of pigs and machinery. "He came back late at night real sneaky like," Emma said.

"There was this big mess of iron in the back of his truck. You could tell he tried to cover it up. Didn't see no pigs, though." She sent her youngest boy, Tommy, to spy on Harper at his farm. Tommy told her that the old barn had been painted over,

but he didn't see anything peculiar. "Must be those advertisers again," she conjectured. "I guess McDonald's must have went belly-up."

A few days later, there was a gathering off the side of the road just beside the old barn. Men had their shirts off, drinking beer, leaning against the barbed wire fence, speculating on the significance of the incongruity before them. Children were playing in the dirt and gravel on the shoulder, while anxious mothers abandoned their daily discussion of non-issues and engaged Harper's puzzle with the diligence of the fittest cerebral athletes in the Labyrinth. They huddled and whispered of "such strangeness."

Meanwhile, Harper was suspended by a rope and dangled twenty feet from the earth with a paint brush in his hand, a bucket of paint strapped to his belly and a cigar smoldering in his cheek. He was singing a bawdy limerick set to the music of Mary Had a Little Lamb, and every time he hit a dirty word, the kids would giggle, the women would cover their gaping mouths, and the men would spit with indifference. Outwardly they disparaged him, called him "saphead" and "crazy old man," but all secretly hoped to be initiated into "such strangeness." And as Emma said, 'There's nothing like intrigue and scandal on a Monday."

For that one day, Dulberry was London, Harper was the lone thespian performing an unrehearsed drama, and the old barn was the Globe Theater freshly painted blue. Before the sun settled behind the forest, the show ended. Harper disengaged his theatrical machinery, eased himself to earth, and exited stage left without a word to the audience. A car with out-of-state tags passed by and slowed to a crawl. The driver craned his neck to behold the crowd, and then he sped away in serious confusion. The Dulberrians stood blunted and speechless. Junior, a shy man of few w0rds and fewer notions, finally uttered the ominous words which permeate Dulberry to this day: "AM 55 with Floyd Harper ... Dulberry's REAL source for en ... ter ... tain ... ment. I don't get it."

"That man's crazier than a loon," Emma said.

Everybody shook their heads in unified agreement.

The road-side gathering eroded into a confused migration homeward, and when the people reached their homes, they tuned their radios to AM 55 with anxious fingers and waited. The all-night vigilance yielded nothing but white noise. In their beds, twisting and turning, trying to find the cool spot on sheet and pillow, the residents of Dulberry counted numbers on the AM dial instead of sheep, gave the undrawn shades glances of impatience as the sun stalled in apathy somewhere over China, and slowly, very slowly, they drifted into sleep, breathing sighs of AM 55.

Emma was the first one up in the Dole household. Tommy walked into the kitchen and found her listening to noise on the radio and picking at a plateful of cucumber slices. "I'm too upset to eat breakfast," she complained. 'That's a first," he thought. Emma was supposed to be on a diet, but, to her, eating breakfast was the step just before she brushed her teeth and combed her hair; it was as normal and couched in tradition as waking. Folks say her shadow weighs forty pounds, but she claims she isn't fat, just big-boned. Normally, sounds of bacon and eggs frying and other kitchen noises filled Emma's air. That morning there was nothing but din coming from the radio.

At eight o'clock, something strange and wonderful happened in Dulberry. Emma was getting up to go to the bathroom when she heard the static on the radio change to silence. She rushed back to her kitchen chair and sat riveted. "Good morning Dulberry," called a voice. "Welcome to Dulberry's newest and only radio station. The REAL AM 55."

It is true that Emma seemed to feel nothing but aversion towards Harper, but those words coming from her little box on the kitchen table spoke of a glorious revolution - some kind of diverson from monotony, some hard-core scuttlebutt. The queen mother of gossip mongers was favored by the morning with the crown jewels of scandal and magic emotions at her fingertips. "Crazy Harper," she ex-

haled, feigning some assault to her ears. Yet she was possessed by nothing but the urgency and compulsion for thanksgiving and release of restless hopes from rural captivity.

"It's eight a.m.," Harper continued. "Today's weather is ... uh ohl Cows are lyin' down under the old oak." Emma swears now that she can hear Harper pull back the shades every time he gives a weather forecast. "They ain't got no intention of get tin' up soon. That means rain. Better take an umbrella with you. Now for the news. This Saturday is the annual Harvest Day Dance down at the courthouse. So everybody come as you are, unless you're an obnoxious dunce - then come as somebody else. This means you, Crenshaw."

It is widely known throughout Dulberry that Harper and Crenshaw have been at odds with each other ever since Crenshaw claimed some of his grazing land. Crenshaw called for the surveyors, and, sure enough, Harper's fence overshot Crenshaw's property by two and a half feet. Crenshaw made Harper pull his fence back, and the rest is Dulberry history.

"I heard a good story about Benny Boyle the other day." Harper still begins his editorials out of the blue. Mostly he vilifies a resident or two. He's still mad at Benny Boyle for selling him a shotgun with a slightly warped barrel. Benny told him that he ought to be thankful, that he had an excuse ]:lOW for whenever he missed his target.

"Everybody knows Benny can't hunt worth a plum. I went with him once - squirrel hun tin' .

He's the loudest strutting beast you ever did hear and steps on every twig and dry leaf in the forest.

Well, he finally bagged himself one. Seems he was pullin' some weeds for his wife when he ran across a squirrel at the foot of that dead tree - you know, the one that got struck by lightnin'. He snuck up on it and swung at it with a rake. The poor thing must have had one foot in the grave o already, because it just stood there and took it. ~ Mrs. Boyle saw what happened and told Benny ~ that he better bury it or she was going to lock him ~ out. I can only imagine that he buried the poor ro-

dent beside the tree to mock the grief of its widow."

Emma and her cohorts say that the editorial is the best part of the broadcast, as long as they are not the subject. They don't care much for the request hour, because Harper doesn't have a phone or many records. He does have an old turntable that works if he stacks a few pennies on the tone arm and gives the platter a little push-start. So, if a Dulberrian has a hankering to hear George Jones or Loretta Lynn, he has to bring his record to Harper's place. "It just ain't worth it," Emma says.

The other day, Harper started advertising local merchants and business people. They say his rates are fairly reasonable. He traded a few thirty-second spots advertising Grim's Hardware for an elbow pipe and some pipe sealer. He said that he needed water, Grim needed customers, and the whole thing was above board.

By now I would say that everybody and his dog have been guest announcers, excluding Crenshaw and Benny Boyle. Actually, the whole radio station has become a l,OOO-watt intercom connected to every house, business, and institution in Dulberry.

And who knows? Maybe one of these days you'll be going from here to there and you might pass through Dulberry.

If you do, turn on your radio and tune it to AM SS. Harper will look out of his window and tell you if you need to turn on your windshield wipers and lights, or you may hear the latest scandal going around town, how the fishing is down at Black's pond, how much the pothole in front of the courthouse has grown. And if the FCC hasn't eliminated Harper and his strangeness, you may hear the same thing on the way back.

Frank Stimson: Visions

Non-Fiction

Frank Stimson sits in the lobby of Morrill Hall on the UT campus, laughing with one of his children.

The young man beside him isn't really Frank's son, but as far as Frank's concerned, he's family.

When Frank laughs, his eyes crinkle at the corners and he rocks back and forth in his chair. He sits stoop-shouldered in his blue suit, the breast pocket bulging with ink pens, news clippings and scraps of satin.

Although he has no biological children, Frank has found his own special family among his University of Tennessee student friends, adopting at least 15 sons and daughters. Most of the honorary siblings have graduated and scattered across the country, but Frank talks about bringing them all together for a family reunion.

"Wouldn't that be a party? Don't guess I'll live to see that, but I'd love it," he said.

Alan Luchuk, one of Frank's UT kids, met him five years ago during summer school. 'There were about 10 to 12 of us who sat down to dinner every night with Frank," he said. "Of course, students don't have as much time for dinner as Frank had, so we would eat in shifts from about five to seven-thirty.

"I tell Frank he's 83 going on 33," Luchuk said.

"He doesn't fit the common image or stereotype of the senior citizen. He's active, he's constantly learning, he's full of the joy of life ... that's the way older people ought to be.

"Frank's probably one of my closest friends, and I've certainly found his friendship very rewarding. He gets along so well with the college students. He has a gift for relating to younger people on their level," Luchuk said. "I hope I have as many friends when I'm '33'.

"Students can talk to him as a friend rather than as a grandfatherly figure. After 83 years of experience, Frank takes life at a slower pace than the rest of the world. Being with him is a chance to slow down and appreciate life."

Frank said, "There are so many things in life that are worthwhile, and some of the things that are most worthwhile we often neglect or don't pay sufficient attention to - and I'm thinking specifically about friendships and things of that sort.

"Real friendship, it's a bejeweled thing. That's something worthwhile - we should treasure it. That's the way I see it."

Frank has lived in his apartment on the top floor of Shelbourne Towers, behind Morrill Hall, for the past 21 years. According to Frank, you need a blueprint to wade through the clutter.

The apartment is lit by one lamp on the table beside his red armchair, and is crammed with bags of rolled-up newspapers, back issues of Guideposts, albums of Bach, Beethoven and Handel, packets of club crackers, paintings, art projects, cardboard boxes, letters, and photos of Frank's UT kids. He admits he is a packrat by nature.

A sign tacked on the door was made by one of Frank's UT daughters. It reads "YOU ARE AWESOME!" in big, red letters. Frank sits peacefully in his red chair with his hands folded in his lap, surveying 21 years of accumulated paraphenalia.

Before Frank came to Shelbourne in 1968, he suffered the loss of his wife in an automobile accident.

Lillian Worley was a professor in the geography department at UT before the accident in 1966. She suffered massive brain injury, remaining in a coma for 22 months until she died.

Frank refers to those months as the most difficult period of his life. He looks thoughtful and pauses a lot when he talks about that time. While his wife was in the hospital, Frank said he turned to his faith in God, praying for an outlet into which he could pour his grief and frustration.

"I have always believed in a supreme being and in the miracle of prayer. For months I prayed and asked my God to give me an inner peace, to open my mind, to show me the way - the way in accordance with his will. He answered that prayer. He guided me every step of the way. He continues to answer," Frank said.

Rather than becoming bitter or falling into deep depression, Frank chose to accept his tragedy as a challenge that he could overcome by throwing himself into art.

During that period, Frank developed his patented oil-on-satin technique. The paintings are brilliantly colored abstract designs created from a palette of

about 35 oil-based colors which are floated on a pan of water, then manipulated by a controlled current of air. He uses white bridal satin as a canvas.

"If I wanted realism, I could photograph it with a camera all day long," Frank said. "I thought that . abstract design could convey a message that would reach deeper emotionally. I still believe I'm right about that."

He talks a lot about life as a series of challenges.

"I feel there are so many challenges in all directions," he said. "Everywhere you turn is a new challenge ... a new opportunity. New challenges are everywhere you look - north, south, east, west - just unbelievably so."

As a preface to his work, Frank related his artistic credo: liTo me, color is far more than color, or wavelengths on the spectrum. Color is emotion. It affects every one of us, consciously or subconsciously.

As a color weaves into, around, through and across another color or colors, we see another part of the spectrum and a bit of new glory. I believe there are untapped wellsprings waiting to be discovered, that there is beauty everywhere and that all things are beautiful if we look deeply enough. Into my paintings I have poured music, the music of life . May they bring pleasure to you."

The oil-on-satin technique has appeared in galleries throughout the southeast and was the featured cover of the November 1980 issue of Textile Chemist and Colonist magazine. Frank's work, which sells for modest prices ranging from $20 to $200 dollars, is a part of private collections in five foreign countries.

Frank brings a lot of energy and intensity into talking about his work . It's' apparent that he's poured much of his life into his art over the past 20 years .

"When my time comes, I just hope that the world was a little bit better because I was here . . .That's what I'm hoping. So we will see. We will see."

Amy Britnell

Bodyscape Tinah Utsman

The Outlaw Connections of Love

Non-Fiction Part I - FEAR Passing strange - the cempulsien we feel to. explain why we leve peeple ether than eur ewn kin. But explain we must, it seems, if we are to. be understeed by these no. less leving, but mere cennected, if less endurable, at times, than we. By that I mean we must be sensitive to. the privileges ef kinship that can determine who. is to. visit, and when, if at all, er whether ene, an eutsider to. appearances, will be admitted to. the sanctum afferded by presumed familiarity.

In my ewn family it was a weman my grandmether knew, hew well I ceuld never determine. Her name was Lerna. She was a little elder than I, which made me suspicieus. Why weuld anyene almest as yeung as I be interested in spending time with my grandmether, who. was a blessed trial and ebligatien fer mest ef her family mest ef the time? My aunt ceuld enly cenclude the ebvieus lie, which was that my grandmether was never mere herself than when with Lerna, never less than who. she ceuld pessibly be than when with us . We wanted her a particular way and she ebliged us. Lerna made no. such demands en her.

Naturally we did net want to. believe this state ef affairs and so. tightened the reigns, strangling any genuine effert by Lerna to. participate in the burying ef whatever remained ef eur mythelegy .

In particular I recall that we permitted Lerna to. ride aleng with us in the hearse, thanking her prefusely the entire time fer being with my grandmether at the instant she clutched her chest and murmured the remainder ef a secret lest ferever upen slightly parted lips. In shert, we were glad, mere er less, to. knew that semeene had been with her. But, given the cheice, we might have epted fer semeene different. Whe? Well, anybedy er nebedy, but surely it weuld have been mere pre per had ene ef us been in the vicinity.

That, ef ceurse, is the peint. We weren't in the vicinity, and my grandmether had net died preperly, which is to. say exlusively in eur presence. She'd admitted a stranger (to. us) into. the inner circle, and the enly

pre per thing we ceuld de was acknewledge the we man' s leeming presence as a teken ef eur ambivalent gratitude.

But make ene thing clear we weuld. We weuld make every effert to. find semething wreng with Lerna, the ugh we weuld never be so. ungracieus as to. acknewledge that was what we were deing. After all, we prided eurselves en being telerant, genereus. We even made a fuss ever her, teld her hew happy we were that my grandmether had such a special friend.

We effered cempliments and cengratulatiens easily, knewing that we weuld never be ferced, as the peet said, to. pass this way again. Fer, yeu see, eur very praises were meant to. single Lerna eut and set her apart.

By the time it was ever, she weuld knew where she steed. No. parting glances were necessary .

The inevitable unspeken questien arese and, had we been less peevish and suspicieus, we might have set the recerd straight by enceuraging a different syntax.

"What dees she want?" might have been shaped mere charitably into., "What weuld yeu like to. have?" And indeed, there was ene thing Lerna all but craved: A picture, by which to. remember my grandmether and all they shared tegether.

We'd been levingly slapped. Damn her . She'd made feels ef us again by asking fer the ene thing we had no. right to. refuse her. Still, we weren't the least bit happy with her cheice. Being sentimental fascists, we wanted to. believe the werst abeut her, and she was depriving us ef the eppertunity. No. wender we were secretly angry.

If this woman turned eut to. be who. she seemed to. be, and who. my grandmether theught she was, then eur chagrin ceuld quickly turn to. netifiable self-indictment.

I, fer ene, was angry'as hell at my grandmether fer sticking us in such a predicament. At a time when we needed to. believe cenvenient lies abeut eurselves, Lerna, by her mere presence, was functiening as a mirrer by which we ceuld view eurselves as we really were.

The mest appalling questien was yet to. ceme.

What did she knew ef eur regulated hatreds? Hew much intimate knewledge did she have ef eur keen

failures and all eur venemeus accusatiens so. leng sustained that we ceuld even endure them witheut blinking. It was easy to. be genereus to. strangers. To. be less than peiseneus to. eur ewn kin required anether, mere demanding investment. Obvieusly eur paraneia was justified, even if eur resentment was net.

Perhaps mere than the ethers, I resented Lerna. Fer seme reasen I believed that my grandmether's leve fer me belenged to. me. I ewned it by right ef bleed, I reasened, and, by principle ef extensien, I ewned her tee. The prepriety ef the cennectien made it so..

But I ceuldn't help neticing the peevishness with which I insisted that I, in my nethingness, was all . Part ef my behavier prebably actually stemmed frem grief.

A line frem a peet I'd read seme years befere had suggested that this might be the case: "Is there no. child, then, in that empty heart7" Yet part ef my metivatien fer distrusting Lerna was that she seemed to. have co. me o.ut ef new here to. judge me in my weakest mement oWas that fair? Obvieusly, it was. But I was living in a jail, where guilt ceuld net be fergetten. Censidered practically, Lerna's presence in my grandmether's life was a ceunterpeint to. my absence - to. all the times I'd failed so. transparently to. keep premises to. write er ceme see her at appeinted times. I'd even teld her I'd take her fishing. She'd net been since her father had taken her as a small girl. But hew she'd enjeyed it then! It was the last thing I'd failed to. de fer her.

Fer years I have been teaching literature, and ene ef the archetypes to. which I return in my discussiens is that ef the stranger. He is the ene who. enters upen the scene, eften strangely, even absurdly clad, and who. effers a challenge, eutright er by his presence, to. all these steck characters who. have grewn cemfertable by believing they knew hew the stery will end. He upsets the status que, creates a margin ef errer, challenges assumptiens er destreys them altegether. Afterwards no. ene is the same. Allleck their deers, heping fer no. ~ return, no. repeatperfermance, no. secend ceming. But ceme he will and the way in which he is greeted is the ~. test ef whatever remains ef a genuine seul.

i

continued

Suffice it to say that in the case of a stranger named Lorna, I could offer only the coolest of civility. I have not been comfortable, however, since that time. Like a child who steps into his shoes only to fnd each one thrust snugly onto the wrong foot, I have hobbled unsuccessfully to catch up with the spectre of Lorna laughing teasingly and speaking curses in the indiscernable Wind just behind my ear. That the spectre remains nameless is my fault as well. For I never bothered to learn Lorna's last name, and there is no one left who knows it.

Of fear and paranoia, it may be said that these cannot exist in the presence of love. Whatever we clutch in our hands, whatever we are left with and refuse to let go of - these are things by which we are ultimately convicted. The law of judgement is that we ultimately judge ourselves. How simple, too, it would have been had I arranged the curtains not for hiding but for seeing out.

Part II - LOVE My son's grandfather. Henry was like a grandfather to my small son, Gabriel. To tell the truth, neither liked the other at first. They ~ere jealous. But their coming together was one of those accidents of grace by which they became inseparable friends. Imagine, if you will, a ninety-one year old man, a little bird of a fellow, full of light, whose passion had been singing when he was younger. In fact, he'd been an evangelical singer. His singing had saved people, as he was given to telling.

Imagine too that even unto the ninth decade of his life, Henry was in love with a veritable dynamo of a lady named Hazel, twenty-plus years his junior. It was she who kept him alive, gave him a reason for rising each morning, putting on a suit (Henry was never seen casual) and cranking up the old green Chevrolet in which he sat, stiff as an ironing board, peering out over the familiar landscape of a mile or so that separated his house from the apartme.nt belonging to his beloved Hazel. Henry was living proof that love can keep alive .-E' what is best in people. For he would make the Odyssey -:5 each day, refusing to let geography diminish his ardent

desire (yes, Henry embodied far more passion than the twenty-year-old students I teach) for a woman at whose sight he literally clucked with joy.

How many mornings had they shared breakfast together, Henry bleakly insisting that there wasn't much life remaining in him, Hazel sternly insisting there was.

Hazel always won out in those battles. The reason, as I was later to find out, had to do with the singularity of the woman's being. Simply put, with Hazel you find yourself, in the presence of someone so real that her essential being can never be ignored under any circumstances. Or as my wife Linda so aptly puts it, "She's the only person I know whom Ed Francisco will mind."

So for a long time Henry had Hazel all to himself, and what a lucky man he knew himself to be.

Enter, Gabriel. My wife and I had placed an ad in the newspaper for a mature babysitter, someone willing to take care of our infant son in our home each day. We probably received a hundred responses and had almost setttied on one caller, more out of weariness than conviction that we'd gotten the right person, when Mrs. Hazel Bean called.

Fortunately I, rather than Linda, answered the phone. Linda had checked out so many false leads and unsuitable candidates that she was, by her own admission, beyond all ability to distinguish nuance and the odd turn of phrase that reveals character and habit of mind. I was a bit more alert, and I even perked up when I heard the lady on the other end of the line patiently explain that she had operated a licensed day care for thirty years. She offered this piece of information not with the arrogance of credential, but as reassurance. And that was exactly what Linda and I needed. But the clincher came at the end of the conversation when I asked if she would repeat her name. "Bean," she answered, "just like a plain old lima bean."

I dragged Linda from a much needed nap and said, "We've got to go, right' now."

Hazel Bean was everything and more than we expected. She was witty, intelligent, honest as a yard stick. She was genuinely religious (without cliche), strong-willed (to put it mildly), and independent (to the exasperation of those who loved her). And kind. She held our baby as if he belonged to her. And in a short time he did. We didn't mind.

In fact, Mrs. Bean developed her own sort of relationship with each of us. She adopted us. She was never obtrusive, was always helpful. She possessed a gift for doing for other people, a gift that few people can ever lay claim to owning. And it was not long before we realized who held the most important job among us . We worked so that Mrs. Bean could work for us.

An added incentive was that if you ever wanted to know the truth about something (including yourself), she would tell you without mincing words. And you never resented her because you knew, appreciated, that she served a cause larger than herself.

There were only two things about which she was irrational. The first was child abusers, for whom she reserved unspeakable punishments. The second was dogs. She never mistreated one in her life, but neither did she want one as a housepet. We had a sheepdog named Homer whose profound ugliness, that we mistakenly regarded as beauty, prompted Mrs. Bean to wonder more than once why we hadn't found another home for him. She would make one thing perfectly clear, however. If that dog ever harmed a hair on Gabriel's head, she would "beat that thing into jelly."

We did not doubt it.

Henry was reported to have groaned when he heard that Mrs. Bean would be keeping Gabriel at our house: When would he be able to see her? he wondered. He even offered to pay her what we were paying her if she would put the idea out of her mind.

Mrs. Bean was adamant. She was keeping the baby, and Henry was instructed not to call our house.

"He can be a nuisance," she confided in me one morning. "Besides, he can't hear a thing over the phone.

It doesn't make any sense to talk to him."

I don't think Mrs. Bean figured on keeping Gabriel for more than a year or so. But neither did she figure that Gabriel would develop so natural and keen an attachment to her. The extent to which he considered her as belonging to him could be seen in the way he spoke of her when he began to talk.

"My nanny" did so and so, he would tell us, and he would ellide the words so that they came out as one linguistic construction, mirroring the closeness of his tie with her: "M'nanny." He almost never misbehaved around her and certainly never whined. With us,

Resurrection from the Valley however, he was not always so agreeable. Discipline thus brought a predictable wailing and response: "I want m'nanny."

Toward the time Gabriel began walking, Mrs. Bean asked if she might keep him at her apartment. The motivation was dual. We had stairs and other obstacles that made watching the baby difficult. Mrs. Bean was also concerned about Henry. As Henry was inclined to say, "Any day I get up is a good day." Mrs. Bean rightly understood that Henry's days were ticking down.

,~ ,

,

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-.~::"'Io'-!

The problem was how to keep a very old and a very young skull from clicking sparks. For example, Gabriel did not want Henry hugging Nanny at first.

And, just before Henry's appointed time of departure each day, Gabriel would toddle to the closet and fetch Henry's coat and hat for him. But Henry figured on a plan of reconciliation. It involved soft candy, which was the only kind either he or Gabriel could eat.

It was not long too before Henry began to exclaim at Gabriel's progress with language.

"What about that?" Henry would remark excitedly.

And when Henry had trouble rising from the swallow of one of Mrs. Bean's easy chair cushions, tiny Gabriel would offer all the support he could: "I help you, Henry," he would say, trying to steady Henry by the pants leg. It even got so that Gabriel, upon hearing Henry's car, would beeline to the kitchen cabinets where Henry's ashtrays were kept. He would be holding one out the instant Henry walked through the door. Henry would later tell me how he hoped Gabriel would remember their antics when Henry was gone.

There is one scene that Gabriel will not remember, but that I will. It is of seeing Gabriel asleep in the lap of a sleeping Henry.

"You're like a grandfather to him," I told Henry on the morning of Henry's ninety-third birthday.

Although Henry had trouble hearing what wasn't terribly important anyway, he had no difficulty making out that.

"He's my boy," Henry's blue eyes, the color of my son's own, twinkled with assurance that was genuine and mysterious. Henry and I had reached a junction of comfortable silence. The kinship we felt was beyond the obligations required of a kinship of blood. Still, I cannot begin to convey the gratitude I feel for my son's having continued

I

Melanie Bagby

experienced this outlaw connection with Henry. Sanctioned by no one's expectations of anything other than the affection they felt for each other. That my small son saw the inexpressible beauty in a face transfigured by ninety-three years of living gently and ardently and respectfully upon the earth was a source of delight for me. We forget that children see what was meant to be seen. To them old people are beautiful.

That my son was connected to another, earlier century, by virtue of Henry's memories of other people's memories, inspires me with nothing less than awe.

Naturally, everyone expects someone who has reached ninety-three years to be a raconteur, whether that person likes telling stories or not.

But Henry enjoyed recounting the past. He liked to talk about the tent revivals he'd attended over the years.

And he loved to tell about the tent revivals he'd attended over the years. And he loved to tell about how Frank and Jesse James had once robbed his great-grandfather near LaFollette, Tennessee. My son would nod seriously at Henry's retelling of this story, as if he understood every word of it. Whatever else can be said for Henry's, they made some sort of impression on Gabriel, the total effect of which remains to be seen.

Henry's decline was sudden. He stopped driving the old Chevrolet on one October 10, a day he himself marked on the calendar. From then until his death, Henry depended upon his family to drop him off each morning at Hazel's apartment. Gabriel understood the significance of this gesture and, on one or two occasions, literally tried to close the door on Henry's family.

Two worlds and two types of knowledge were about to collide.

People began to insist they knew what was best for Henry. With, doubtless, nothing but good intentions, a family doctor prescribed a tranquilizer for Henry.

Although Henry wasn't ailing, he was growing wobblier. As Mrs. Bean would remark, "He's shuffling those feet. Pick up those feet, Henry."

During the Christmas holidays, Henry fell. We who paid attention to every nuance of his stride o ~ couldn't help thinking that the trCJ,nquilizers were at ~ fault. Someone of Henry's family should have been ::ยง thinking, we concluded.

It wasn't long before such a conclusion led us to other, darker conclusions.

That was not entirely true. Under the watchful and loving eye of Hazel, he was improving daily. This reversal of the doctor's prognosis only underscored something we believed Henry's family hadn't counted on. To Henry's family, his demise was a fait accompli As far as Hazel was concerned, Henry could be nursed back to health. She would not let him die just to fulfill someone's expectations that he should.

But the nursing home was no good place. People came there to endure interminable solitude and die.

Henry needed out. One day he lifted his head from the pillow, clutched Mrs. Bean's arm, and spoke the words that haunt me from a distance of corridors and a blurring of days whose significance I can scarcely recover: "Call Ed. If you'll just call Ed, I know he'll come get me I" I almost did. I actually entertained the possibility of rescuing Henry by doing what his family refused to.

"What would they do," I wondered, "if I helped Henry vacate the premises, if I stole him away in my car and took him to Mrs. Bean's apartment?"

I didn't dare raise the possibility of such a thing in earshot of Mrs. Bean. She might have talked me into it.

Images of being arrested for kidnapping and trying to explain to some clench-fisted judge, doubtless a friend of Henry's very respectable family, that I was removing Henry from the source of the regimented care he was receiving at the nursing home to the haven provided by Mrs. Bean's apartment, assailed me with only as much absurdity as I could imagine imagining. Only if one was mad with love would one do such a thing.

And so by mutual consent we let Henry die, rationalizing our decision by reassuring ourselves that somebody, some doctor or anonymous whoever, would probably know what was best for Henry. It was an example of how irrational it is to be too rational.

"As virtuous men pass mildly away," wrote the poet. So it was with Henry. His beloved Hazel, refusing to acknowledge that her ties of love for the man with whom she had no "official" connection were any less binding that those of kin, of blood, circumvented the subtle efforts of Henry's family to keep her away. She

simply waited for them to do the expectable, leave when visiting hours were over. Then she went by herself to see Henry one last time. He was animated, cheerful, grateful. He ate as he had not done in a week. One would have thought that he was on the road to recovery. We were genuinely surprised to hear that he'd died in his sleep.

But I have a theory. I believe Henry died while dreaming the sweet dream of love from which it would only be agony to awaken. In fact, I'm sure of it.

For years I've heard people mutter cliches about the natural appearance of some corpses. To tell the truth, I never saw a corpse that looked "naturaL" That is, until I saw Henry. I will also never forget the dignity with which Mrs. Bean took her rightful place, standing beside what remained of him. To Henry's family's credit, they created room enough for love and grief other than their own.

I will also never forget when our "faction" gathered at Mrs. Bean's apartment the Saturday morning after the Friday night of Henry's death. My young son wanted to know why his nanny was sad. I tried to explain, ineptly of course, that Henry had died and that Nanny was sad because of that. He nodded, then scooted out of my lap, only to disappear into the kitchen. He returned momentarily with the ashtrays he always held out in greeting to Henry. He also had a toothpick poised between his fingers, like a cigarette, and would have tapped the ashes, just like Henry, had not his father's anguish intervened.

One might say that he was too young to possess the proper understanding. Or perhaps one might take a differentturn of thought and say he understood the likelihood of a temporary departure of love for which he was the living reminder of its return.

Edward Francisco

fiction

A Man's

Game David Curtis

Now don't get me wrong: Old Magruder was a great football coach. I guess for all the pain he put us through and all the dirt we ate and all the shit we took from him and Cochran, we're probably better people now. At least I hope so. And we were the best. I mean, we're like legends around here.

Undefeated, five straight years State Champs.

Unscored upon my junior year. We still have that. But when Magruder left, and they pu.lled the old Board up out of the ground, well, I wasn't exactly sad to see either go. And I think you ought to hear about it just like it happened, from somebody who was there, not someone who got it third or fourth hand. And, man oh man, was I ever there.

But it wasn't exactly my fault, and it wasn't exactly Whatley's fault, either. I mean, if I told you a boy named Carlisle Jamison Whatley IV came out for football - football at Hampton, mind you - you'd have to laugh, especially if you knew Coach Magruder. All old Magruder would have to do is raise up on his hind legs and growl out two words from that big rough face, and any ordinary "the fourth" would be gone. But Whatley was huge - a helmet taller than me, and I was the next biggest. He was bigger than Magruder, and Coach was a tackle at Alabama before his knee blew out.

But we were the two that ended up on The Board that day. Besides wind sprints, it was the only part of practice I really hated. "The ultimate test of manhood," Coach called it. "The ultimate pain in the ass," I called it.

Just a reinforced two-by-four nailed to the tops of two

studs anchored in a sandy pit, sort of like a real low balance beam. The Board rested a foot over the sand.

Two of us linemen would face each other in the center, straddling it, one leg on either side. We'd get in a threepoint stance with our helmets almost touching, and when the whistle blew, we'd try to drive the other guy backwards off his end of The Board. Of course, it was nearly impossible to keep your footing, and you'd fall and bark your shins or turn your ankle or really bust your ass good . I suppose you could have gotten racked, too, but none of us ever did. But if you did fall off, you just had to get up and do it again, until there was a clear-cut winner. I guess I should be proud: I never lost on The Board.

But you have to understand, it wasn't just because I beat him on The Board that day. I mean, I beat him before, only Cochran was running it, then. Cochran was the line coach for a while. He came over from Collins, the teachers' college, to help Magruder with our team.

What he actually did was wear these stupid mirrored glasses and stand by the pit, legs apart, arms folded, and blow his whistle all day. He only took his whistle out of his mouth to spit tobacco at us or chew our asses, trying to work us into a high state of piss-off for our next game.

So the first day of practice, Cochran called my name out to be first on The Board. It made sense. I guess they expected me to be a leader, and to have a great senior year and all. And then, with this evil smile, he said "Whatley." continued on p. 36

,

Spiritual Walker Darren Durham

Rose 8ecallo

Well, this giant pushed his way through the small crowd of white helmets, and I stood there saying, " Holy shit." And a couple of guys were laughing, because we didn't know about Whatley yet, and I guess they thought I would finally get mine on The Board. Even Whatley was smiling, and there almost wasn't room in his helmet for his big red face. I mean, even then you could tell he was a little fat, but he was just plain big, too.

So we got in our stances, and I concentrated on working up a really good hate for him, on driving into him, and I wound my body into a coil, anticipating the whistle. Well, when it came Whatley raised up a little and I caught him just right, I mean perfect, on the numbers with my right shoulder pad, and just pumped my legs until I fell over him , two feet beyond his end of The Board. I have to admit it was a sweet sight to see Cochran's whistle drop out of his mouth and nothing come out after it.

And there lay Whatley, sweaty dirt on his beet-red face, eyes wide open and starting to tear, gasping for breath on the ground like a landed carp. We helped him up and even then thought how lucky he was that Magruder wasn't right there - Cochran tried to chew him, but we always kind of ignored him anyway.

So it wasn't just that I beat him. I mean he was kind of a humpty, too big to keep out of the lineup, but he didn't want it bad enough to be as great as he was big.

And that's what Coach Magruder could never understand - why Whatley didn't want it. Coach sure wanted it. Jesus, he drove us. Especially after Cochran was asked not to come back anymore.

Man, oh man . We had just kicked the crap out of Fernandina Beach at their place, something like 49-0, and usually after the games the team and the band and the cheerleaders would pile in a couple of buses and head back to Hampton, where our folks would pick us up. But after the game I guess Rochelle Walker decided she'd rather ride back in Cochran's Camaro, and, well, she didn't get home until about four, her parents raised holy hell, and that was it for Cochran. I guess Coach felt betrayed, because he never did hire anyone to replace him.

So Magruder got to see a lot more of Whatley, runnâ&#x20AC;˘?S ing the whole practice like he did, prowling from the run~ ning backs to the defensive backs and linebackers to ~ the linemen.

And the more he saw of Whatley , the less he liked him.

There wasn 't anything wrong with Whatley, really.

He blocked okay, and he never really screwed up real bad, and a couple of guys who had classes with him told me he was okay , nothing too weird about him. He just went out for football mostly because his dad starred at Hampton in the fifties sometime, and I guess he couldn't stand his only son sitting home watching TV on fall afternoons.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Whatley?" Coach would bellow. "Why do you waddle onto my field every day like some damn giant Baby Huey?" And Whatley just stood there, huge and quiet and red-faced. Coach tried everything to get a little spark, to make Whatley mad . He yelled and spat and kicked dirt and cussed to no avail. He ran Whatley after practice alone, his big, red, chubby cheeks puffing, to the point of exhaustion.

He would have benched him, too, and that probably would have been okay with Whatley, but we just didn 't have enough guys for that. Me and a couple of other guys were playing both ways already.

Coach didn't understand that either. I guess it is kind of surprising, considering our tradition and all, that we co~ldn't get enough decent guys to field a big team.

But I guess football wasn't as big a deal anymore, except for us guys who needed it to go to college. I mean, there were better Friday night parties to go to, and we really hadn't had a close game in five years. It was like all we had to do was show up on time to win. Even the guys on the team were planning where to go on Friday after the game one time during practice, and oh, Jesus, when Magruder found out he made us run wind sprints until two guys passed out and the rest of us couldn 't plan anything but going to bed.

I guess Coach really believed in the whole Lombardi thing. You know, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," and "The harder you work in practice, the harder it is to quit in the game." You should have seen his office - it looked like some kind of football shrine. I mean, there were pictures of Lombardi and Bear Bryant covering the walls, and somehow all our championship trophies (seven in his nine years, to that point) were hoarded into that little room .

One year the old headmaster came to his office to force him to put the trophies in the big , empty-Iookinq

trophy case in the main hall , and Coach told him to go to hell in a hurry. He said, " The school did not win those trophies, mister - I did. " Well, everyone kind of expected him to get fired for that one, trophies or no trophies, but nothing ever happened. The headmaster left later that year, though. I guess having our trophies meant more to Hampton Academy than any fight over where to put them.

Somehow he held on to the reins, and damn if we didn't go undefeated again, and waltz through the playoffs like Hampton did every fall.

But the strain really showed . A couple of dads volunteered to help, but Coach flatly refused. He said it would be more of a distraction at this point in the season. So there he was, holding it all together, driving us harder than ever before. We were all " dumb" after barely edging West Nassau, 37-6 ; and we were " lazy" after we gave up two touchdowns, just nipping Zephyrhills, 54-14; and after we squeaked by Mount Dora 28-3 in the state semifinals, Coach allowed as we were "the most damn unfit group of football players" he had ever seen. His whistle blew endlessly, and now big purple veins popped out of his splotchy red neck whenever he really got wound up. We knew we'd win the championship, if only we could survive the last week of practice.

We damn near made it, too . I mean we were bearing up, really giving a pretty good effort in that last Wednesday practice, but Coach didn 't exactly see it that way . If the hits on The Board didn't nearly knock somebody out, all he did was scream. And man, was he ever in full voice that day.

Two unfortunate sophomores on The Board, I mean guys who never played in the games, were kind of grunting and pushing each other around when Coach went up and pushed them, not viciously, but just kind of in disgust. They plopped over gently in the sand.

"Gentlemen!" he shouted, so loud the running backs across the field stopped, afraid he was yelling at them for dogging it while he was working with us.

"Gentlemen, I will have no nanny-goats on this football team," Coach growled to no one in particular. He kind of turned his head sideways, gritted his teeth and clenched and unclenched his fists , fighting for control.

"I just don't know what it takes, Gentlemen . You 're too damn soft and you're too damn lazy, and if you think

for one damn moment that this kind of half-assed effort is all that it takes to beat Newman, then you're damn idiots as well!" He- paused, stopped shaking, and seemed to have beaten the beast back down.

It's not me who'll be embarrassed Friday night, Gentlemen. Now, get me some football players on my Board , I'm tired of looking at these damn nanny-goats."

He looked right at me. " Campbell!" he shouted, and I obediently took my spot over The Board. Coach scanned the rest of the linemen, gravely, like some sort of general trying to pick just the right guy for some dangerous mission. " Whatley!" he said. " Oh, shit," I said to myself. And I guess this is kind of where it's my fault, what happened. Because I knew.

I kn ew that if I whipped Whatley again, with Coach there and with his shit in an uproar anyway, something very bad would happen. And I could have half-assed it, or let Whatley win, which I probably should have, but I'm not that good an actor, and I would've gotten doubly chewed for not trying. ' But Whatley should have seen it coming. He knew Coach would brook no shit that day. He could have yelled or held or something, but he just stood there with that red, placid face squeezed into that helmet. And it was just like instant replay, only this time Magruder was there.

And the whistle blew again and I fired out again and caught him just perfect, and as I drove I could feel his complacent hugeness until he fell, two feet beyond The Board , and I fell over him. And when Coach blew the whistle for us to stop he was already on us. " Whatley! " he screamed. "Whatley! What in the hell is wrong with you, Whatley?" With one flip of his arm he rolled me away and crouched over Whatley. We thought honest to God he would have a stroke. His crazylooking eyes were popping out of his brick-red face.

Whatley's eyes just got huge and his chubby face kept looking younger and younger. " Whatley! " Coach growled. With each word, he slapped Whatley's helmet concussively, alternating his big gnarled hands. "What-in-the-hell-is-wrong-with-youWhatley?" His powerful legs lifted Magruder out of his squat, and he grabbed Whatley's facemask, jerking him violently to his feet. Whatley was crying now, and we felt bad, but what the hell were we going to do? Coach

yanked his facemask from side to side as he screamed at him.

"You don't understand, do you Whatley? You need a lesson, don't you, Whatley? You need a lesson in being a real football player, a real man, don't you, Whatley?"

Whatley continued to cry and snuffle and tried to nod after Coach's questions, but Coach just jerked his helmet around by the facemask. The other groups of guys stopped now and looked over. We all felt some of Whatley's shame, but what could we do? Then Coach let the facemask go, and stood there, eyes burning into Whatley's forehead, panting. It had been ugly, but at least, we thought, it was over.

But Coach just stood there staring at Whatley, whose own breath was coming in big chops and gulps.

And Coach was trembling all over, but he very calmly said, "Campbell. Give me your helmet, CampbelL" I didn't understand, at first, and kind of looked at Coach funny.

"CAMPBELL!" he screamed. "YOUR HELMET, CAMPBELL! GIVE ME YOUR DAMN HELMET! NOW!" I pulled it off quickly, burning my ears, and held it out from me, where Coach snatched it with one powerful swipe.

"It seems," Coach said, still shaking, putting on the helmet with an evil grin, "Whatley here needs a lesson on being a real football player. Don't you, Whatley?"

Whatley managed a tearful nod.

"Now, Whatley. GET ON THE DAMN BOARD!" Coach pulled the helmet down, and it barely made it below his ears. As tight as Whatley's helmet was on him, there was absolutely no room for Coach's head in mine. Coach handed me his whistle and took his place in front of Whatley, and we all kind of watched in shock, like watching a dream .

Coach got in his stance, extending a massive hairy arm down to the sand . His' neglected chinstrap brushed the top of The Board. The short-sleeve buttoned white shirt and black pants he wore to practice every day always before seemed to kind of make him look fat, but in that stance we could all see how powerful he was.

Whatley dug into his stance, too, and Coach craned his neck around at me, eyes bulging, and said, "Well, Campbell?"

I guess I still looked puzzled. "BLOW THE DAMN

WHISTLE!" I blew. Coach exploded ferociously out of his stance, and I guess Whatley was already backing up out of his, because he slipped and his left foot caught in the deep sand under The Board. Coach hit him perfectly, with the incredible force of something immense and strong and angry. And he blew Whatley down hard, sideways.

And not one of us who was there can forget the horrible, sickening wet snap of Whatley's leg, or the sight of a lump sticking out under his dirty, white sock, reddening by the second. And I'll never forget what it was like to hear someone my age scream. And I'll never forget how I felt like screaming myself, while the guys just stood there, stupid, whispering "Oh, Jesus." Two of the backs finally took off across the practice fields toward school to get help. And I finally bent down and took Whatley's hand and let him squeeze the hell out of it and scream his fear out until they got back.

A couple of other guys pulled off his helmet and squatted by his head, not saying anything, just looking at the ground. And Magruder just stayed there on his hands and knees, over his Board, my helmet ridiculously cocked on his head, dripping sweat into the cold sand. And he stayed there, unquestioned and unanswering, just dripping, squeezing handfuls of sand, even after the ambulance came and got Whatley and the headmaster had sent us all home in the darkening afternoon .

Well, anyway, you know what happened after that.

Our folks got together and decided we shouldn't be punished for something Magruder did. And my dad and Butch Miller's dad stepped in for the last game, but it wasn't the same, we weren't the same. So we went out and grimly, silently lost the state championship to Cardinal Newman.

And now there's talk - talk, mind you - of Hampton dropping football altogether.

Man, oh man.

But if they do, no matter what anybody says , remember it wasn't Whatley's fault. And it wasn't my fault, either.

SHAMAN SONG terrified by dark th oughts holding conference in my head I scream

my eyes fall out my head drops off somewhere out there beyond the darkness the sky re-arranges itself moonrIg ht pierces the dark I find my eyes, my head

put eyes back in

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Deep Breakfast

Melanie Bagby

BEYOND

THE

YELLOW

LINE Michael McCloud

Vincent, his lip quivering, never imagined how tightly a petite four year old could squeeze her mother's hand as he leaped in front of the oncoming L train to Rockaway Parkway.

CYCLOPS

Marshall Thurman

Tree Protrusion

Charlie Pate

Copyright 1989 by the University of Tennessee. All dghts reserved by the individual contributors. Phoenix is prepared camera-ready by student staff members and is published twice a year. Works of art, fiction, non-fiction and poetry are accepted throughout the academic year. Send submissions to P~oonix, Room 5, C()mmunic;:ations Building, .134$ Circle Eark DtWej Knoxville t TN 37996..Q~14 .

EDITOR Laura Atkinson

MANAGING

EDIT()R~

Karla, Balent

NON-FICTION EDITOR Amy Britnell

CREATIVE DESIGNERS Kristen C~pehatt Jennifer Simpson

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ART EDITOR

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Richard 'Greene

, POETRY EDITOR', "Ann' Kidd . '

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FICTION EDITOR Michael Mayes

SUPPORTING 'S !AFF

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Stephanie Elliot Maria W~ Foster Robert Garrison Mika Graham Alicia Hatley

Vita Jacobs Robert Malcolni Shawn P. Murphy Jennifer Patek , David Spisak Jill M. Watkins Holly Welch

FACULTY ADVISORS Jane Pope

Eric Smith

, T,he front coYer f~atur~s ~palnting by D; hen Durham en~ titled "Cheetah Runl" ~