Phoenix - Spring 1990

EDITOR Laura Atkinson MANAGING EDITOR Karla Balent GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Jennifer Simpson Kristen Capehart

This year the PHOENIX staff has tried some new ideas and made some changes, and we hope our readers and contributors have appreciated our desire to be progressive and to put together the best magazine we can.

The staff would like to thank: Jane Pope and Eric Smith, for their advice and encouragement; Linda Graham and Karen Cole, for taking care of what we need before we realize we need it; Debbie Tappan and Betty Allen, for smiling no matter how many times we ask for help; Brandon White and Marshall Ramsey, for sharing their space and their humor; and all the UT students, faculty and staff who submit to the magazine, for offering us their hard work and support.

ART EDITOR Richard Greene FICTION EDITOR Michael Mayes NON-FICTION EDITOR Amy Britnell POETRY EDITOR AnnKidd SUPPORTING STAFF Eddie Bridges Kellie Carter Mika Graham Joel Pendergrass Holly Welch FACULTY ADVISORS Jane Pope Eric Smith

The PHOENIX is proud to announce the Spring and Fall 1989 issues have won the Silver Crown Award from the Columbia Scholasti,e Press Association and the Fall 1989 issue has won a Gold Addy from the Knoxville Ad Club.

t/) SPHIHG 1990

~

ART UNTITLED, Shelley Williams ......... ......... ........ .......... ... ....... .... ... .. ... .. ....... 2 PROGRESSION ... WHY?, Brad Wells ..................................................... 4 UNTITLED, Daphne Hill ............................................................ .............. . 5 UNTITLED, Alicia Dyer .................................................... .. ...... ........ .. ...... 6 UNTITLED, Kimberly lies ......................................... ~ ............................... 7 LAN DSCAPE, Scott Betz .. .......... .............. ........................ ... .................. 11 UNTITLED, Ben Haase .. ....... ........ ..... ....... .......... .............. .... .......... ....... 13 UNTITLED, Robert Fuhrig .................................................... ................. 14 UNTITLED, John Kontrick ................ ;.................................................... 15 DINOSAUROMACHY #6 and #10, Kevin Haran .................................... 16 UNTITLED, Jay Rubenstein ...... ...... .......................... ...... ............ ...... .. .. . 18 MEDUSA, Susan Wood Reider .................................................. ...... ...... 20 BITCHING OUT A YUPPIE, Brad Wells .................................. .. .............. 22 SHRINKING UMBILICAL, Brad Wells .................................................... 25 UNTITLED, John Atkerson ........................ ...... ................ .. ..................... 26 UNTITLED, Richard Gere .................... .. ............................... .... .. .......... .. 28 UNTITLED, Jeannie Romines ................................................................ 30 PORTRAIT, Jason Terry ................................................................ ......... 31 UNTITLED, Mike Biddle .................................. .... ............................ ....... 34 RHOSILI BEACH, WALES, Jeanne McCullough .................................... 35 MOSES, Cheryl Turner ............................ .... ............ .... .......... ...... ........... 38 UNTITLED, Robb Taylor ........................................................................ 39

POETRY HOME TO DIE, Paula D. Helt ...... .... ............ ...................... .... ........ ........... 3 POEMS, Dane L. Duggan ............ ... .... .. ............. ..... ... .. ..... ............ .... ........ 5 1-40 EAST AT 7 A.M.-DECEMBER 22,1986, Ersa Patterson ................... 6 LATIN JULY, J.E. Knowles ..................................................................... 12 THE UNCOCOON, Toby Koosman ........................................................ 14 MUNDANE, Bridgette Kohnhorst ...... .... ...................... ............ .............. 15 SMALL TOWN TO NOWHERE, Carlos A. Kinsey ................................... 19 PAUSE, McCoy Jeffries .................................................. ....................... 27 NATURE (AS I SEE IT), Scott C. Holstad ................................................ 29 FLOWER POWERLESS, B. Cumming .... ........ ................ .... ...... ...... ........ 35 FOREIGN COUNTRIES, Holly Beth Brown ............................................ 36 I STEPPED ON A SOFT PIECE OF PLANET, Chris Birdwell .. .......... ....... 37 JENNIFER, Leslie Wilson ...................................................................... 38 PASSOVER, Marilyn Kallet ........ .. .... ...... .... .. .......................................... 40

FICTION PROGRESS, Alicia Mischa Renfroe ....................................................... 23 HALLOWEEN TALE, Marinelle Ringer ................................................... 32

NON-FICTION GALLERY 1010 THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE, Amy Britnell ...... ........... 8 UNTITLED, Scott Amis .............................. ............ .... ...... .. .... ................ 39

Untitled

Shelley Williams

Progression . . . Why?

Brad Wells

White paper, color of onion peel, Uncurls to shiver with ripples.

One comer quietly leans away Pulled by a soft gravity, before

The rest of itself settles there.

A mixture of silences blend

Into a blond moment, no More remote than now; time's

Untitled Daphne Hill

Shallowest sculpture, opening in the Olive light of April, near that farthest

Tree, shaking its leaves, Like thin veined secrets.

Dane L. Duggan

I~40

East at 7 a.tn.~ Decetnber 22, 1986

*Pastiche

of

William

Carlos

Williams'

"The

Locust

Untitled

Tree

in

Flower,"

Alicia Dyer

UT

g

a

e the student perspective

r

y

art students are discovering some of the real ities of the professional art world through Gallery 1010, a space run by the University of Tennessee's Student Art League that will provide talented artists with long overdue exposure.

Until recently, many student artists have been frustrated with UT's lack of viable gallery space for the exhibition of their work. Although the Ewing Gallery in the Art and Architecture building has provided them a minimal amount of exposure, with shows like the art department's annual student competition, it gradually has evolved into a showcase for professional artists. While students have been able to walk through Ewing and take a look at what's happening in the art world beyond the university, they weren't able to experience a part of that real world until the advent of Gallery 1010.

"It's a totally new perspective on what the students are accomptishing," said Don Kurka, head of the art department.

"It's . a wonderful format for them to display their abilities, skills, talents.

I think that is the real payoff on having a gallery. There's a showcase for the talent that exists.

non-fiction " The gallery gives students the opportunity to do everything that it takes to put a show together - all those details behind the scenes," Kurka said. '.' That's a thing that you need to know how to do if you're going to be an artist. So it's a learning experience in itself."

Gallery 1010, located on the third floor of the Candy Factory, is a small, intimate space with stark white walls, hardwood floors, and wi ndows overlooki ng downtown Knoxvi lie and the Knoxvi lie Museum of Art. The gallery opened in January with a group show featuring the work of 30 artists in various mediums.

Bev Brecht, gallery committee president, said, "This is a real turning point, I think, for the art students to really learn something.

"Making something is one dimension of the creative process, and it's sti II you - it's very personal," Brecht said.

"Then the next step is when the class critiques it - other students, faculty.

This gallery is another step, getting your work out there where people don't know you. Not your friends, but strangers looking at your work.

"It's a weird kind of experience because you feel very vu Inerable and naked in a way. There are some very intimate thoughts and feelings that are just out there to be evaluated, judged, approved of by a complete and total stranger. It's good objective feedback the students get that they just can't get any other way," she said.

That objective feedback, while valuable, also can be painful for a young artist unaccustomed to the sometimes blatant criticism found outside a university environment. Gallery 1010 presents one of the most unnerving realities of being an artist - public rejection or approval.

"In a university setting, you get caught up in this microcosm that has nothing to do with the real world, really," Brecht said. "It's just so unique in that closed kind of environment. You need to learn the process, but you have no way to learn the practical reality of what it's really like. You might not realize something about yourself unless you have a chance to experience this, and it's nice because it's not the real world.

"It's sort of what it's like, but it's not like you have the rent to pay and if this stuff doesn't sell, you're out on the street.

You don't have your whole survival on the line," she said. "Maybe it isn't even ,what you want to do, and you haven't realized that yet because it's just so much fun to make art."

Remo Melton, a graduate student in ceramics, said, "You just have to think that it (criticism) is just one person's opinion. I guess that's the best way to cope with it." His work was part of the gallery's first show.

"Any time we make our art, we're open to criticism," Melton said. "It's a very scary thing to put your work up on a wall. I think it takes a lot of guts to take something you've made, good or bad, and put it out for people to view."

~

"1010 offers a chance for students to see their things on the wall, so that their work becomes more real to them. It helps people to begin to believe in themselves as artists. " Melton's studio is filled with what he describes as non-functional teapots, fashioned in three-legged animal forms.

The ceramic creatures are perpetually in mid-step, which Melton calls representative of the transitory nature of life.

"I make art for self-satisfaction," Melton said. "I'm making it to get it right.

That's a quote from a guy out West - somebody said, 'What's your goal?' and he said, 'To make it to get it right.' There is no perfect piece. Not for the artist, there isn't."

Ideally, Gallery 1010 will instill "make it to get it right" standards among more student artists. The gallery and a viewing public give students a tangible reason to work for perfection that goes beyond the good' grades that are given so much emphasis in an academic environment.

"The gallery demands that students finish their work in a professional manner," 路Melton said. "If you look at the art in the gallery, you'll see that it is very much student work. It's very naive, very young art. Very green. It's extremely good that we have the gallery and the chance to get out there and show."

I'

I

For William Franks, a senior in painting, the gallery's biggest advantage is the expanded sense of identity that can resu It from seei ng one's artwork as part of a show.

Franks said, "1010 offers a chance for students to see their things on the wall, so that their work becomes more real to them. It helps people to begin to believe in themselves as artists."

No classroom critiques, portfolio reviews, or menacing pass/fail standards come attached to the work shown in Gallery 1010. In fact, Brecht emphasized that two-week gallery sti nts are open to anyone affiliated with the university, from artists to engineers. This indulgent atmosphere encourages creative growth and experimentation, another of Gallery 1010's advantages.

Franks said, "It's the only place you can make a statement. It might be a wad of bread in the middle of the floor, but to you it means something, and it's okay there. It's like a safe place."

Unfortunately, the opportunities that accompany Gallery 1010 will mean very little without time and interest from the students, and financial support from the community. The problems are cropping up alongside the advantages.

Students are responsible for finding the time to staff their own shows, which means balancing the gallery against classes and projects. Although hiring a graduate teaching assistant would relieve

that problem, Kurka asserts that sending someone from the art department to hel p out would be antithetical to the original concept of Gallery 1010: an effort run for the students by the students.

Kurka is adamant that the students who will benefit from Gallery 1010 are the ones who wi II keep the gallery al ive.

Although Kurka agreed to nurse the fledgling venture through the first six months, he will leave Gallery 1010 to sink or swim from that point onward. It's the student's responsibility, he said, to hang shows, staff the gallery, rally community support and make sure the $200 monthly rent is paid.

"I'm highly optimistic about the students' ability to put together exciting and outstanding exhibits," Kurka said.

"I'm very uncertain about whether they can fi nd money to fi nance them."

It's a worthwhile effort. Aside from the fact that the gallery is a valuable hands-on learning experience for the students, it allows the community outside the university to tap into the diverse range of talent and creative resources found here. In the four months since its opening, Gallery 1010 has hung worthwhile shows with fresh attitudes and perspectives that are hard to find in a stagnant university environment.

Amy Britnell

"I'm highly optimistic about the students' ability to put together exciting and outstanding exhibits. I'm very uncertain about whether they can find money to finance them."

The Uncocoon Untitled It is impossible to fathom that the old were young.

Robert Fuhrig They tell us, the butterfly instructors of all schools, how a worm gets wings, but not how lovers become couples; enthusiasms, professions; how the beautiful is made ugly is not described, as though it is not the subject of any science.

It's the flesh that's alienated before the mind.

You look as good, you feel as ever next to me like a stream that breaks humiliating heat, But you are locked out; The field you plowed before is fallow now and I, who was young last night, am instantly old.

Youth to age is not gradual after all, I know the occasion and the day my vigor was punched through like maidenhead.

The gods have bodies in perpetual motion.

We are each wound up once; at birth, let go.

Toby Koosman

undane On the beach their golaens bodies Boil in oil

Permed, dyed, and fried Ah, they think they're alive Tanned They hope to find themselves a strong man Bruised and used They yearn for mor~ But it's all right They're not whores

Bridgette Kohnhorst

Untitled John Kontrick

Tears separate tired eyes from mine that are strong and black as coal.

Sad lonely nights make me think of leaving you to rot in this stinking town, but I think of the kids as you squeeze my arm and we watch another hour of "Jeopardy" on

T.V.

Carlos A. Kinsey

fiction A Udie looked out over the murky green water, shaking his head as he kicked at a few loose grains of gravel and watched them tumble helplessly end over end. The gravel barely caused the dark green water to ripple, not even making a splash. The water was half way up to the expected flood lines now. In his thirty years living on the river, he had never seen the water cover the faded, half-rotten boat dock. The bright green river bottom grass now carpeted the bottom of the man-made lake. He turned slowly, not casting a backward glance and walked up the hill toward the house to finish the job at hand. He -hurried now, not even stopping to pick up some shiny stones for Helen to play with like he usually did.

When he returned to the house, he was greeted by Helen, blonde curls flying, as she chattered her four-year-old nonsense. He swung her up to his shoulders as she squealed with delight.

"Where's the water got to, Paw? It won't get us will it?"

"No, course it won't get us, Helen. Why it ain't even up to the point yet," he answered.

"Will we take Mouse and Toban and Nee Teat when we go out?"

"Yep, I reckon they wouldn't be much happy without you to tend to 'em."

"Ain't no varmit in the holler be left behind twixt the two of you," Alice interrupted in a motherly fashion, pushing stray wisps of black hair out of her dark eyes.

"Now AI," Audie whispered as he put Helen on the floor, "let the youngun alone.

Got to have some life to get a hold of in times like these. Ain't right to take that from her."

He seated himself at the table.

,progress " Ain't right to put people out to live amongst foreigners for nonsense such as this.

Puttin' water where the good Lord didn't see fit to hisself." Alice dropped the tin plate before him.

"We ain't got no choice, AI, ain't got no choice a'talI. Maybe I can get work and we won't have to go North. I talked to your brother Ernest the other day up at th~ head of the holler. He said maybe I could get work with him a buildin' them new fandangled dams they's puttin' up."

.~

"Just soon go North. Don't want no man a mine a workin' on the Devil's project. Look what's come of Ernest since he took up with 'em. Got that sore all festered up on his arm all on account of them fool shots. And they work him from sun up to sun down. He ain't been pert a'tall. Be the goin' of him yet. Don't want you a workin' and gettin' down too." The silver clattered beside his plate.

"I reckon you're right AI. Ain't natural a puttin' good land under water just to make a little light burn. We've lived by oil for years.

in't got much call for this here progress.

We'll finish up the packin' and head out first of the week. That give you enough time to get ready to move?" He looked up expectantly for his food.

"Got to finish fillin' up them boxes with the winter clothes and quilts and such. Need to figure out what furniture we need to take.

Ain't got room for it all. Don't know how we'll get it all together." She slung fried corn on his plate, spreading milky yellow kernels on the clean table cloth, dropping a few on his lap.

"Reckon we be leavin' what we don't take with your kin over in the valley?" Audie asked, gingerly picking at the corn.

"Etta'll be glad to take care of our belongings 'til we can get back for them. " Alice dropped the fried meat on his plate with a thud.

"This be all we're havin' for supper, AI?" "Ain't got no more. No sense in gettin' groceries and us a leavin'.

"Reckon you're right."

"Pa, Pal They's a man a goin' up the holler. " Ruthie yelled, brown eyes with fright, as she ran in dragging Helen.

"Girls, settle yourselves. Ruthie, '\ braid your hair back up, you look like you've gone mad. Pa'll talk to him. Now hush up and go in the back room and finish with your packin' and such."

Audie walked over to the small window and watched the distant figure stumble' up the path over the sharp stones. The man stopped halfway up the hill to mop' his brow with a handkerchief.

"Ai, come look here. That man can't even make it up the hill without a stoppin' to get his breath. " Audie laughed, his blue eyes crinkling pleasantly at the corners.

"Why, Little Helen can run up that hill without a stoppin' like that." Alice joined his laughter.

The man suddenly veered off the path into the weeds. He bent periodically, bobbing up and down like a fish on a line. A few minutes later, he came up to the house, his face red and arms full of black-eyed-susans.

"Good evening, Mister and Missus Evans.

May I come in?" He asked in a sugary smooth voice as he approached the open front door.

"Reckon we can talk out here just as well. " Audie stated in an uncharacteristically harsh voice as he rose grandly to his small fiveand-a-half foot height.

"Sir, might I offer the Missus some flowers to brighten the table?"

"Reckon the Missus'd know more 'bout that table than me. Don't believe I got your name, sir." Audie said, almost mockingly.

"Mister Elderidge Williams of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Missus Evans, might I offer you these flowers?"

"Ain't no need for 'em. Leavin' out first of the week," Alice said, thinking to herself ~hat M~ster Elderidge Williams must be awful dumb to get in among all them weeds full of chiggers just to pick an ugly flower. Alice eyed Mr. Williams' starched, dark blue suit, now soiled with dust and decorated with burrs.

Must not have too much sense a wearin' a fool outfit like that down in this holler.

"What you be wantin', Williams? I don't reckon you come plumb from that TVA Headquarters just to pick ' a bunch of weeds . We done got your check for the land. Paid twice that for it too. What you be wantin' now?"

"Well, Mr. Evans, it seems our water level will be much higher than what we originally an-

.'

ticipated. The cemetery on the hill in the left quarter will most definitely have to be exhumed."

"Reckon you be wantin' the bones of our dead too?" Audie asked, his voice steady and quiet.

"Mr. Evans, I know this is a difficult time for you and your family. But really, you must understand that this is completely out of my control. I am only a District Manager responsible for this area and I am only trying to carry out policy." Mr. Williams twisted his white "linen monogrammed handkerchief.

"Don't reckon I know your policy. We couldn't even get a straight answer from them fancy lawyers we went to talk to down in Knoxville. Don't reckon a body can do much with poor man's dollars," Audie stated, noticing that Mr. Williams' shiny black shoes were now scuffed and covered in layers of dust.

Audie looked quizzically over at Alice, who was smothering laughter in her apron. Halfhidden by the open door, Alice's black eyes danced at him, daring him to laugh in Mr. Williams' face.

"Mr. Evans, the Tennessee Valley Authority has more than compensated you for your land ... " "And for digging up folks long dead?"

Alice suddenly appeared around the door.

"Folks what spent nigh their whole life on this river? Folks that seen this river way past where you got your little red markers. Folks what seen this water back up by the Lord's doin', not some dam. Them's the folks up there.

They've lived and died on this river. Swum it, fished it, baptized in it. Ain't no compensatin' them, for your kind'll never see them, dead as they are in Heaven," Alice broke in, her eyes

glittering with rage now, the twinkle dying.

"Ma'am, as I stated before, that is entirely beyond my controL" "Control, control? You all be controllin' us. Movin' us off the land and takin' up our dead. Stringin' us along like one of Helen's little dollies on a string. Ain't no call for it. Ain't natural, floodin' good land this a way." Alice turned, tossing her long, dark braid, and walked into the house.

"What else you got to say?" Audie asked.

"I guess that is all, Mr. Evans. Again let me extend my sincerest apologies. " Mr. Williams turned and walked down the steep path toward the green water.

Audie resisted an overwhelming urge to shove Williams, Mr. Eldridge Williams, down, deep down into the murky green water, the confounded water that he was losing his home, his land, and even his kin layin' up on that hill for.

His father and mother came to fertile river a long time ago, to start their life and raise their family. When they died, Audie was just fifteen, buf he knew to put them on the hin overlooking the water that they had built their life on, just like he and Alice had tried. But now the water was rising, rising almost as if to drown out their life. The TVA. Progress. How he hated those words. Alice was right. He shouldn't work for the blood suckers, sucking them away from their home and stoppin' up the peaceful flow of the river with their newfangdangled dam. North, he figur~d they'd be lots of work to be had up there. No, he didn't want to work with his brother-in-law Ernest.

Not after what happened to him. Fool shots.

More of that progress, stickin' needles in a healthy man. Damming up good water. No

Shrinking Umbilical Brad Wells

Audie looked quizzically over at Alice, who was smothering laughter in her apron. Half-hidden by the open door, Alice's black eyes danced at him, daring him to laugh in Mr. William's face.

need for it a'tall.

Audie turned and entered the front room where Alice was clearing the half-empty dishes off of the table.

"Reckon we'll be leavin' a little later since I got to care after the dead. You reckon your sister Etta'll let us stay over in the valley with them for a day or two?"

"I reckon so," Alice said, slamming the dishes into the rinse water. "Where you be movin' your folks to?"

"I've been a studyin' on movin' them to that graveyard over by the forks of the road."

..

"They'd like that country," Alice said, placing her hand on Audie's shoulder.

Audie stood, shaking off the tentative offer of comfort and moved toward the door.

"I'm a gonna walk up to Ingram's store, see what's a happenin' to other folks."

Alicia Mischa Renfroe

John Atkerson Untitled

He had an abnormally slow heart-rate and I would lay my head often upon his breast as he slept, hypoglycemic, after a big meal. The steady thump squish and a dangerous pause in the cathedral of his great chest; I wondering what my father would think to see his son thus enraptured with a man doctors said would live to be a hundred years old.

A mythological beast slumbering beneath the guilty eye of a golden boy in the dripping heat of noon's upstairs apartment.

McCoy Jeffries

Untitled

Jeannie Romines

Portrait

Jason Terry

fiction

is approach was clean and perfect. Even drunk, he had a special grace. His legs were lean, more lovely than any woman's; his waist, too, was tapered, but firmer than anything feminine. His effect on people was extraordinary. I have seen his smile send shivers through the hips and shoulders of grocery clerks - both sexes.

Perhaps his nose was a little too broad at the tip or a trifle too long. But the eyes, his eyes were marvelous: that lucid blue. Nothing like my own hard, yellow-grey eyes. His were gentle, lazy, even soft. His mouth - with those wide, bow-shaped lips - could have seduced anyone from across a crowded barroom. His cheekbones were exquisite, as were his jaws, his chin. I could not count the times I have tried to sculpt them.

He thought he might be gay. He wasn't, but the thought of it nearly drove him mad. How could I, could anyone comprehend what he felt? Does it even matter anymore? The man is dead. Is it worthwhile, after all?

Dead at the age of twentysix - drunk so he didn't notice. I am told he did not feel a thing. I saw him stretched out naked in a crowd of technicians, nurses - his legs spread wide. I had never been in an Intensive Care Unit, could not have imagined the equipment: the electrodes planted on his body, the thick tubes running into and out of him - his groin, belly, mouth, that peculiar nose. It is impossible with oils or acrylics to reproduce the yellow-grey cast of dying human flesh.

I can hear ' him laughing. His laughter was always the same, always played across the same four notes. I know that I laugh differently. I have a different laugh for every joke, and the sound changes markedly when I laugh at something sad. Jerry's laughter

$)

always hit those same pitches - regardless of its source. I have tried to find those notes on a piano, a moog synthesizer. Neither has the range, the reach.

I can hear him laughing with women in bars. Laughing with whores upon him. I can hear him laughing as we entered the men's room, and an ugly little man dropped to his knees wanting to give Jerry head.

I let his parents think we had been lovers. Was it wrong? I had watched him die. We lived together, and Jerry had told his mother he was queer - just to hurt her. I let the hurting go on after him.

His father seemed too old to care.

It was an inconvenience: driving all the way from Iowa to view the corpse, to find some decent means of disposal.

He insisted that every item belonging to his son return with them. I've often w-Ondered what they made of the sex toys. I fancy his mother may have some of them mistakenly displayed on the mantel.

Perhaps I didn't do him such a bad turn~ Perhaps I shouldn't feel guilty at all.

I used to let him hit me up with cocaine, wouldn't have let anyone else do it. Wouldn't have done it on my own then. It's the only high I know of that you pay for first: a heavy sickness clouds in around you, 'til you're sure you'll vomit, then you soar with eagles.

Eagles, like the one on the sleeve of his

green leather jacket. Green leather.

That was Jerry. I let him put the needle in my vein.

I would have let Jerry do anything.

But I wouldn't drive him to her house that night. And 'I knew he was too drunk. He never wore a helmet. The left side of his skull was crushed, the top of his head was missing. I tried not to look, but I saw everything. The nurse's aid that spoke to me had death on her face, her voice; her hands. She was very young, petite, and rather pretty. I remember thinking that she should have been singing under Jerry, not telling me with that face, that voice, those hands that he was dying.

No one would have guessed it, but sex didn't mean much to Jerry. I really think he could have done without it, if we had let him. But he was like those women who are born beautiful: no one wanted him to speak. We only wanted to touch him, to have him touch us. We didn't want to think there was anything more to him than we could feel. There's a lot of compensation in not being that good-looking.

We both worked as bartenders at a ritzy black tavern here in Houston.

Pimps with huge rolls of money love to have white boys in tuxedos serve them drinks. I'll never forget the night one of them ordered Courvoisier. I told him we were out, offered .him another cognac. He insisted he didn't want no cognac, wanted COOR-VAH-SEE-AY! Courvoisier is cognac, I reminded him.

He reached across the counter~ grabbed my collar: "Cognac is for pussies; I want Coorvahseeay! " I called the manager, then slipped into the back room, let Jerry put the needle in my vein.

The whores, who would have done it with him for free, weren't bad. They used to come on to us every night. I went with one or two of them. But Jerry never did. He said it was too easy. We made lots of money: the whores took the businessmen, the pimps took the whores, and we took the pimps - for all that we were worth.

He should have been wearing this jacket that night - and a helmet. It was cold, raining hard. Halloween. He was angry and too drunk. I had never

seen him so angry, never quite that drunk. He should have taken my car and not the Yamaha. But I wouldn't let him.

He begged me to drive him over there, but it was across town, and across town in Houston is a bitch. You know? He fell to his knees, held his head between his fists, and yelled, "I'm so fucking alone!" I told him to take a cab if he had to screw her, and that did it.

He looked at me. I wish he hadn't looked at me first. I wish to fucking god he hadn't looked at me.

That night I imagined him riding in the rain, crying. Very possibly crying, I thought - and imagined him that way - although I'd never seen him cry.

I saw the confusion of lights, driving rain, the lashing of his wet shirt against his chest. I felt him take a wide curve on the freeway. It was suddenly black cold, and I shivered.

As I tried to sleep, I pictured every detail of their love-making. She was sickeningly beautiful. His approach was clean and -perfect. Odd. I was the only one to experience it.

The hospital phoned about four a.m. He had remained conscious long enough to tell them who he was, something else - but I was told that he felt nothing. Jerry, without the top of his head, rattling on to the police, the paramedics. Hilarious image, really.

It's the only thing I see clearly now, 'awake or sleeping. And I laugh every

time I see it, each time differently.

He felt nothing, and I should not feel guilty. It is simply that I cannot sculpt his face the way it was, or paint him as he lay dying. If I could just capture his laughter - the exact notes - even onc~ on a piano or a flute, I know I could rid myself of him.

I've inquired since and have been told that a great rush accompanies the finest crack in the skull. One feels one is soaring upward - soaring with eagles.

The brain itself is impervious to pain., And there is the anesthetizing terror of certain, violent death: one does not feel the shark's teeth, the claws of the leopard. We are simple creatures with a limited range of feeling.

Jerry never suffered.

And I would not feel guilty were it not for all the nuances, the vanished subtleties. Can you imagine how difficult it is to duplicate the smallest things? The way a man held his cigarette, the way he took a drink, the way he pushed a needle in a vein? I watch my hand reaching for a cigarette, a glass, a syringe; even its approach is unclean, imperfect.

I serve pimps their drinks, get laid by whpres for free: they all call me Jerry. Guess white boys look the same.

I tried not to look. but I saw everything.

The nurse 's aid that spoke to me had death on her face ~ her voice~ her hands.

Marinelle Ringer

Untitled

Mike Biddle

My: mother is a count!')' small withJ:ilue sky ~nd large&ltrees, flowers, birds "and children.

There are distinct, predictable seas - cold, thent~e very ot and wet.

Rainstorms come and go all year.

Th~, ~ihabital]t~ .are.us~~ to it.

Deruges pass quIckly.

No one pays them any mind.

They barely disturb the smooth, "'refledlive sufÂŁ~e of tlie;'p ond. ~.

My father is a country large with&"igh II}0 .tains al1q everg' eens, deep, clear lakes and an intense sky.

T~es;,asons .~ii mild, ~.~:. . witnout a Wide temperafure range, but often a wild shadow of clouds race~ over the motUj.*tains, aRBsuddeffly: the storm appears, ~o violent the inhabitants fear but it. passes for 'bli&ir saf quickIy, and the sky is intense again. t

:.r

~

____r--

~~

~-----------~------------~

I ama count vast and desolate, with sand iiiand . bs, . ' scattered shru with;wa few in itants, ~natives who refuse to leave, despite knowing the land is n9t ' recePl lve to lite. .~

How can we exist on the same planet?

Ho~ ~ould I ~Âťve gro~p from t,heir seeds?

9.

#k

Holly Beth Brown

, ,

Sweat clings To my brow, my breasts, my belly Like a damp, secret baptism Darkness is a pI-ace Visited by the pale, uneven light filtering through the blinds on the window.

Smoke spirals from my cigarette and tangles with the shadow of a twisted, arched tree branch on a white, white wall I lie quietly and listen.

He is talking, I am thinking.

"Don't say it," I think fiercely, I don't want to know if he loves me.

I am not that strong.

"So, I hope you can understand," he is saying.

His voice is an elixir, it warms me.

"Jennifer holds the key to my heart."

Jennifer?

The way he speaks her name. . .

Softly, reverently, She is golden.

I could compete with a Linda, or a Michelle, or even a Jenny.

But not a Jennifer.

I am a butterfly Light and airy Sipping nectar and Kissing the sun.

I am not here.

"You'll be late for work," he says, Looking right through me at the clock on the dresser.

"You're right," I smile, but not too much, and watch the fading embers in the ashtray from the cigarette I stubbed out, viciously, helplessly, permanently.

Leslie Wilson

Moses

Cheryl Turner

Perhaps man is the creator of art in the fact that before there was art there was a need, i.e. before there was fire there was no fire and before man discovered the use of it there was no need for it. Once a need arose (discovered) then there was the need. This takes the first step beyond instinct as survival and becomes a rudimentary art.

Therefore everything man does, is, thinks, except for survival, becomes an art.

- Scott Amis

Untitled Robb Taylor

Passover

My father heads our table, his, cheeks flushed from the first cup of wine.

At sunset he left his wallet up$tairs with bags of quarters from the vending-machines.

He's making jokes and laughing with his mouth shut, giving us his bright side - boy, down, inventor.

Tonight by candlelight even the sullen teenagers are cheerful, my sister Elaine and 1, glowing with apples and walnuts soaked in wine.

Aunt Marilyn is alive, sitting across from me.

Her breasts are hers again, untouched by cancer.

The New York Grandma is beside her in a cotton housedress, two lines of berry lipstick pressed ort her fadedrnouth.

She's laughing, "0 y, stop it, Harryl" as my father teases her. Letting go of want and pogroms.

My mother is no longer a martyr.

Phatoah has set her free so she can recline, tasting her frothy matzoh路baIIs, delighting in all she has created.

This is Passover an invjtation to our freer selves to join us, a invitation to the poor to come and dine.

I

My father loved kids, especially poor ones, seeing himself starving back in Brooklyn.

He liked to buy ice cream for any hungry child he found,hanging around the stand.

The prayer book tells us, 'The dead shall live on earth ' in the good deeds they performed here, and in the memory of those who live after them."

That's it, no big party, though this evening circulating like sad music in the fragrant air all the Jews who ever lived are still alive,

Marilyn ,Kallet