2016 Cotton Alley Writers' Review

C MPETITION

COTTON ALLEY WRITERS’ REVIEW 2016 SHORT STORY & POETRY

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 4 10 19 31 43

48 49 50 51 52

54 55 56 59 60 61 68 69 70 71 72

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Letter from the Executive Directer

ADULT SHORT STORY

Persistence of Borglum by Bob Jolly The Russian Bear by Charles Kaska Jacksonboro by Benjamin D. Robertson Spring in Charleston by Jay Johnson | Honorable Mention Mango Tango by Tiffany Cutrone | Honorable Mention

ADULT POETRY

Blue Panes by Kimberly Simms Dream Sequence by Joy Colter Chartreuse and Plum by Bailey V. Oedewaldt Awash by Joy Colter | Honorable Mention Changing of the Guard at Greenbriar by Barbara Guidry | Honorable Mention

YOUTH SHORT STORY

Drive by Grace Riginos Passed By by Jaden Lemmonds We’re Goin’ Someplace Free by Mallory Dover Bricks and Mortar by Rachel Stevens | Honorable Mention Second Grade Worries by Chloe Powell | Honorable Mention Colors by Jaden Lemmonds | Honorable Mention

YOUTH POETRY

Summer by Charlotte Pollack The Undersea Orchestra by Mackenzie Bocholis Boulevard by Rachel Stevens Rainy Revelations by Charlotte Pollack | Honorable Mention Summer Vacation by Carly Kennedy | Honorable Mention

Thank you Perihelion Book Club for underwriting the awards.

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

In 2016, the Arts Council of York County hosted the 13th Annual Literary Competition;

open to artists in the southeast United States, and the 5th Annual Youth Literary Competition, open to students enrolled in a K-12 program in York County, South Carolina. Both competitions accept entries in two categories: short story and poetry. Local literary professionals and members of the Perihelion Book Club judge the submissions and choose winners in each category. Winners were announced at a public reception in October 2016.

“It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power.” –Raymond Carver It takes creativity and skill to produce the poetry and short stories. We are very fortunate to live in a community where talent is abundant. The competition is replete with artists on many levels including those who dedicate their days to crafting engaging tales of mystery, intrigue, and the whirling spin of daily life to those who have incorporated writing into their greater body of artistic work. Many thanks to each author who shared their soul and talent with us and with the community. A special thanks to our staff for organizing the portal to share this talent with others.

We are excited to introduce the Cotton Alley Writers’ Review, our online publication that highlights the winners of the Arts Council of York County’s annual Literary Competition. We hope you will find the short stories and poetry as engaging as our jurors did.

Please enjoy!

Debra Heintz Executive Director, Arts Council of York County

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C MPETITION

ADULT SHORT STORY 4

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Persistence of Borglum

by Bob Jolly

June, 1948

Something dares Billy. At the same time something impedes, something ghostly. He

stands at the foot of a huge pile of blasted off pieces of rock, the blown away residue of a monumental sculpture. He looks up and feels strange. Some invisible, forbidding power seems to govern the massive obstacle, defies trespass. Billy can’t spell it out. It’s there though, luring and opposing at the same time. To climb it is to violate some kind of sanctity, to fail in fear is to surrender to cowardice. Finally, the primal urge to explore trumps all resistance. He continues to look up, steps forward.

Large, jagged stones are piled high, over a hundred feet high, against the sheer side of

Stone Mountain, a massive, granite outcropping thirty or so miles east of Atlanta. Some rocks are the size of a small car. Some are as small as a basketball. Some are smashed into gravel. Some lie flat; some have fallen into upright positions. For many people this stack of debris, thrown with force from the mountain’s side stands as a symbol of misguided art and silly dispute. To young boys, a challenge. “Let’s climb it,” says thirteen year old Billy Everett. “Look at old Robert E. Lee. Betcha he’s a mile high.”

Twelve year old Raymond Cooper says, “Aw, it ain’t. Really? What if one of them

rocks comes loose? It’d kill ya.” Raymond senses a sinister spirit hanging over the place, something intimidating, something other than the threatening, knife edged stone. The palpable dread hanging over the spot, unrecognizable to the two youths, is the left behind spirit of the temperamental sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who, in 1925, in aesthetic rancor, broke contract with The United Daughters of the Confederacy. He stomped off in a huff to sculpt gigantic presidential heads at Mount Rushmore, leaving behind not only a scarred mountainside but also a menacing presence in rock form.

A partially completed sculpture of Robert E. Lee and other southern dignitaries is there

yet, heroic in scale and projecting out in relief from the steep mountainside. Below is the rubble, heaped high and wide, a huge stack of granite fragments cut and exploded away during the abortive sculptural process. Raymond, strains his neck back and looks up at the unfinished general. Lee stands out, his head and upper body all that is finished of a composition originally intended to glorify Confederate leaders. “He sure is big,” Raymond says.

“Yeah,” Billy responds. Then looks at the huge pile of blasted away bits of

Perisistence of Borglum

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sharp-edged granite standing between the two boys and the general. Emotions are mixed.

The lure of the rock pile, the adventure in climbing it, wars against the overarching threat that harks inaudibly, but palpably, about the violation of sanctity. Not the rocks themselves. “I ain’t scared of them.” Like it’s some hovering and hostile force defying climbers to intrude into the holy space of thwarted art. But Billy knew nothing of art or of Borglum. “Come on, let’s go. They ain’t gonna come loose.”

Raymond is hesitant, “Mrs. Treadaway says you could put a dinning room table on Lee’s

shoulder and fourteen people could sit around it,”

“Man! That’s big! Come on,” Billy says, “If we climb to the top we’ll be right under

him.” Bravado urges Billy forward, while at the same time there is that something, something mysterious, that wants to hold him back. Billy steps forward and puts one foot up on a smaller rock that looks like a step. Then stops. Looks up again. Cautious. Listens for what others have claimed; that the demonic afterlife of Borglum moans when the wind whips through the air pockets in the huge rock pile; that Gutzon left something of his disgruntled self there. The sculptor had petitioned the southern lady patrons to allow him to change the original plan and include a platoon of rebel soldiers following the commander. The UDC refused. The proud sculptor quit and went to South Dakota, leaving behind an aura of anger that still hangs menacingly over the massive heap. The audacity of philistine women, defying the inspired scheme of a divine artist! But threat notwithstanding, young heirs of still alive rebel pride must conquer the pile, get close to Robert E. Lee. Billy steps cautiously to another stair-like rock.

Turns to Raymond. “Come on! We can do it.”

“I don’t know ‘bout this,” Raymond responds, slowly stepping toward the base of the pile.

“Mamma’d get on to me if…,”

“Aw, she ain’t gonna know. Come on. See that one that looks like a step? Step

up. Come on…foller me.” Billy jumps over a bed of smaller stones to a flat rock, which juts out several inches. He mounts a more rounded boulder, shaped something like an oversized shell of a giant tortoise. Balanced there he looks up at the challenge that lies ahead. There are several more tortoise-sized rocks that had fallen accidentally into a kind of staircase, going up maybe eight or nine feet. Their surfaces are smoother than most and require greater caution in the climb. They lead up to a flatter rock that functions something like a landing. From there, Billy looks back at Raymond, who had stepped up only a couple of feet. “Come on, man!” Billy says and waits for his companion to climb slowly to the landing. Raymond ascends cautiously, securing each step along the way, exasperating Billy. “Hurry up, man!”

“I don’t know ‘bout this,” Raymond says again. “Look’a yonder. How we gonna

git round that big thing?” He is referring to a huge rock that looks to him the size of Patsy

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by Bob Jolly

Brandon’s two-room playhouse, situated by a water oak in her family’s backyard. That particular chunk of granite is flat and smooth on the top, but irregular and sharp on the side. It sticks out above their position, overhanging about four feet.

Billy proceeds. “Just bend down, look…see? We can crawl under it.” Getting under the

rock ledge, Billy slips on some smaller rocks but manages to steady himself, maneuvers around the overhang to a secure piece of rock off to one side and slightly above them.

Raymond gets down on all fours and makes his way toward his leader’s position. Just a

few feet short of the goal he begins to slip. As he does, he puts his foot down without looking. It lands where two stones lay side by side. The pressure of his weight causes the stones to separate.

He loses his footing and falls to his side, in the process scraping his knee on the sharp edge of an adjacent boulder. “Ow!” Raymond sits down, pulls up his pants leg to look at the wound, which is only a minor scrape. It stings a little when he rolls the pants leg back over it. He looks up to see Billy continuing the climb. “Wait up, man! Wow! Look at all them big’uns! How we gon git over those?”

Billy steps down, takes Raymond’s hand and helps his friend regain stability. “I’ll show

you. See? We can go around them. They ain’t all big.”

The boys look up. General Lee looms, high above, still distant. Another ninety or so feet

to go. “Reckon we can make it to the top?” Raymond says. “I still ain’t sure we oughta do this.”

“We’ll make it,” Billy replies, as he grips into a boulder’s half channel, one the sculptor had

drilled into the granite to load a charge of dynamite. From his hold in the rock he swings around to a flatter stone, grounds his feet to it, pushes up from the channel until he is able to throw his upper body onto the granite surface. “Come on. I’ll help ya.”

To Billy the huge pile of rock represents a challenge, but more than a challenge to physical

prowess, it effuses a kind of mystical call to discovery, an unnamed, unnamable, impulse, to which he responds viscerally. He had heard a bit about Gutzon Borglum, a smattering that hung back in his subconscious, far back, but really had no idea about art, especially gigantic sculpture. He’d heard of Robert E. Lee. All southern boys had, knew Lee was a soldier, knew he was brave, but didn’t know why his image clung high up to the steep side of Stone Mountain. He simply sees the discarded hunks of granite piled high as an irresistible call. And, since they lead up to the general, it is as if Billy is making homage to heroism.

The difficult maneuvers, the cuts, the slips, the falls, the overall sense of hardness and

sharpness with which the stone impresses onto the senses, are all obstacles to be confronted by a brave young boy who will, in imagination, take his place among the great. So he dreams while climbing, absorbing a kind of spirit, a high spirit of perilous undertaking, a daring business.

There upon is the invisible residue of Borglum’s vindictive soul projected from far away and long Perisistence of Borglum

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reviling the culture that had thwarted his creative program, an absent Pied Piper, calling youths to risk grave injury. Raymond takes a step up to another level and looks up at Billy, who is always six or eight feet ahead of him. Then he looks up at the huge mountainside, at the unfinished sculpture. “Man! That’s straight up. Wonder how they carved all that stuff.”

“I don’t know,” Billy calls back. “Wish I could get up to Lee’s shoulder.”

“Why you wanna do that?” Raymond says.

“Just cause. I’d jump off.”

“You crazy? You’d kill yourself. Anyway, you wouldn’t really.”

“Would too. I’d flip over like a cat and land on my feet.” Billy feels safe in this claim,

since he knows it wouldn’t have to be backed up with action. That side of the mountain is almost straight up. Occasionally, the wind blows through openings in the pile of rocks with a moaning sound; Gutzon’s defiant spirit. Billy continues his climb. The top of the rock pile is still fifty or sixty feet away. Borglum keeps calling, luring. Some of the bigger rocks seem wobbly, so Billy leads Raymond to another route. Soon they come to a massive boulder that looks secure to both boys. It sits atop two smaller, rounded rocks, which, as a pair, seem to stabilize the bigger one resting on them. Out from its faceted side several rough-edged projections offer Billy something akin to handles, by which he swings himself over a gap, intending to land on what appears to be a flat surface. He learns, however, that the rock is not as secure as he thought. As he swings it teeters. He falls short of the flat surface, up against the roughened side of another boulder, and then drops to the floor of a small gorge. He looks up just in time to see the huge rock, the one he thought was secure, begin to fall, sliding off its rounded supports, tumbling its massive size and weight straight toward Raymond, who is looking down at his feet with each step in the climb.

“Look out!” Billy calls. Raymond looks up to see rumbling toward him a large hunk of granite, big as Mr. Nowell’s bull. Raymond ducks under the boulder in front of him. The big stone tumbles over his protection. Then both boys stand and watch the huge rock continue its descent until it finds a deep crevice and stops in its new place.

“Man alive!” Raymond cries. His hands are shaking. His legs feel weak. His

heart pounds. He breathes in gasps. “Billy! You all right? We better stop. We could get killed.”

Billy climbs out of the shallow gap in the stones and finds secure footing. “I’m okay.

You?”

“Yeah, but that was close. Too close. Come on. Let’s go back down.”

“Naw, don’t do that. We just have to be more careful. We come too far to quit.

Come on. Look, we almost to the top,” Billy says. He climbs up to another boulder and looks back at his hesitant companion. “Come on. We can do it.” Raymond yields and follows.

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by Bob Jolly

At times, the boys can maneuver straight up, but at others they have to negotiate around large pieces of stone or groups of stones by moving laterally till they reach a spot of stable footing and then continue to climb. Soon Billy is presented with another obstacle, a massive boulder that juts out over his route. But it has those concavities like he had seen earlier, left by Borglum’s drills.

These work well as handles. He holds to two of them and swings his legs to the side where a flattened facet serves as a step. He pushes with his arms until he can stand, then steps to the top of the rock, where he sits and calls out directions to Raymond for maneuvering around the huge stone. “Just grab holt a one of these,” he says, reaching down with his foot and sticking the toe of his shoe in one of the channels. “You can pull up by ‘em…Not on the loose ones, dope, they’ll just fall on you.”

“I still don’t know ‘bout this. Look how high we are.”

“Come on, chicken! Look up there.” He points to Lee. “It won’t be long. We’ll be right

under him.” At times Billy finds places on the pile where he can almost run up. Raymond struggles to catch him. He looks carefully at each rock to determine if it is safe to step on.

Progress is deliberate work, slow going, testing for secure footing, hoping the larger boulders above will not dislodge and squash him. While going up ever so methodically he hears Billy calling out above, “Hey, look at this. Hurry up. I found a cave, a kinda cave. Come on! Quick!” Raymond eventually reaches Billy’s place, high atop the pile. “Looka here,” Billy says.

What Billy finds is a huge piece of granite that is flat on the bottom, resting on two narrow

flat pieces that are standing on their sides, leaving a space of about four feet between them. These make the walls of the “cave” while the large one forms the roof. “Hey! Come on. Let’s go in.” He gets down on all fours and crawls into the enclosure.

“What if it fell in?” Raymond says. “You’d be smashed to bits.”

“It ain’t gonna fall. Look at them sides. They’re stronger than a house. Come on in. This

is great. It’s like a hideout, our hideout.” Raymond gets on his knees and looks in. It is neat, he has to admit. It is like a real room. At the end are two large stones standing upright, with a space of about two inches between them, forming a kind of back wall. He crawls in slowly and sits beside Billy. They look down, far down, to where they had started. Billy is enraptured. “Boy!” he says. “We’re high up. Look at them cars. They look like toys.” This is great. Our own special place. Let’s don’t tell nobody ‘bout it.”

“Okay. Hey, look, you can see between those back rocks. Look up there. You can really

see old Lee good. Looks like he could drop right on us.”

The two boys stay in the cave for over a half-hour, looking up at Lee mostly, making with

imaginative talk about leading men into battle, and how to kill a Yankee.

Perisistence of Borglum

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That was fun, there was an immense sense of accomplishment, but still, both boys quietly held to the unholy nature of their escapade, sensing that, though they had achieved something remarkable, they had cut across acceptable modes of behavior. Billy looks up at Lee. Wonders. Looks down. Looks back up. Then speaks, “Man! This is great! It’s almost like Lee is in here with us.” He looks way out, sees the cars following the curve in Highway 78. “Look how little them cars look.”

Raymond looks down at all the rock fragments they had just mounted. Then looks up

at the massive head of Lee looming as if he might break loose and fall on their cave in the rocks.

“Don’t the world look little from here?” he says.

Once again, the moan of a Borglum wind whips through the back opening. Raymond

shivers. Billy turns, looks up at Lee, wonders. Shivers too. “Wonder why it ain’t finished,” he says.

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by Bob Jolly

2

nd

The Russian Bear

by Charles Kaska

The bear was an ordinary bear, not large by local standards, average but clever. So far it

had eluded both the Squire’s hounds and the men who cared for the estate. It had raided his stock pens and his storehouse and had made a quiet getaway. You would not even know it had been there except for tracks about the size of the big man’s boot print and of course the absence of the stock and/or provisions. Georgi Kafka was musing about the situation as he stood ramrod straight observing the peasant. His heavy dark clothes blended with the wet bark of the trees behind and to the sides of him. When the peasant bent to pick up the wood he had tossed into a careless pile Georgi stepped forward and was almost close enough to touch him when he straightened with the purloined fuel cradled in his arms. The man’s eyes fixed on the two short barrels of the gun cradled in the crease of Georgi’s left arm. The wood left his arms so quickly and completely that it seemed to flow to the ground like water from a pitcher. He dropped to his knees in the wet, track marked snow and clasped his hands in entreaty as his eyes met Georgi’s for the first time, “Please, your honor, please.”

“You know who I am then?” “Oh yes, your honor. Everyone knows who you are and

we all respect you.” “Is this the way you show respect, by stealing from my employer?” Georgi was already impatient with this fool for trying to flatter him. “And don’t call me your honor.”

“No your honor, of course not.” A smile began to form on Georgi’s face but he stopped it. It was important that he be feared, not “respected.” Respect {with an ample dose of fear) and the title “your honor” were rightfully accorded only to his employer Squire Demetri Markovich.”But please sir, a few sticks of wood. How could it hurt? It is a vast forest. My wife is sick. My children go to bed hungry at night and now I have run out of wood because the winter has been so long.”

“How could it hurt? I’ll tell you how it could hurt. You are a thief, a poor, cold, hungry thief but a thief nevertheless. If I let you take one stick what do I say to the next thief I catch, take two?

Pretty soon there will be no more ‘vast forest’ as you call it. Now get out of here.” Georgi pointed the shotgun towards the ground. “If I catch you again I’m going to shoot you in both your feet so you’ll think before coming on somebody else’s property.” “Yes sir, thank you sir. God bless you sir.”

Georgi watched the peasant lope away until he disappeared over a rise. He looked down at the wood and nudged it back into a pile. He knew the man would be back for it after dark.

“That bear is making a fool out of me and robbing me blind.You have got to get him now

before he does any more damage”, ordered the squire to his gamekeeper.

The Russian Bear

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“Yes sir; I will get on iimmediately.” Georgi had been in the Squire’s employ about ten years ever since his mid teens when his father was killed. Sgt. Kafka was a conscripted soldier but a war hero to many who knew him. He was not killed on the battlefield; he was shot to death in the front yard of his house. He had completed his term of conscription and even extended it voluntarily “to assist the mother country in time of dire need” as he put it. He had been home less than a week when a staff car pulled up suddenly in the yard making a large dust cloud. A young lieutenant about the Sergeant’s age sat in the backseat smoking a cigarette which he held between two fingers of his left hand. “You’ve been called up again Sgt. we’re having trouble at the western border with Prussia and we need experienced men.” The Sgt.’s response made to lieutenant’s mouth drop open “I’ve done my time and then some. I’ve served the mother country honorably. I’m not getting involved in another one of Russia’s crazy wars.” It was the phrase ‘Russia’s crazy wars’ more than the insubordination that shocked the lieutenant. Angry words were exchanged. Sgt. Kafka stood his ground which enraged and humiliated the lieutenant in the presence of the corporal who was his chauffeur. He unsnapped the cover of his holster, drew his Makarov and placed one round in the center of an imagined triangle defined by the nipples and the breastbone of the war hero. The Sgt. sank to his knees and fell face down, his head just outside the tire track of the car.

The lieutenant shook his head in disgust, “Such a waste”, flicked the butt of his cigarette in the direction of the corpse and ordered his corporal to drive on.

Georgi’s mother died a year later a few days before the anniversary of her husband’s

death. The relatives said she had finally succumbed to the tuberculosis that had stalked her since childhood. But Georgi who had witnessed both deaths -- the quick one and the slow one -- knew differently. A broken heart is visible only to those closest to the deceased. Georgi loved his mother very much. He arrived at the Squire’s house on his 15th birthday looking for work as a gardener.

After some preliminary questions from the head gardener he was introduced to the squire and showed proper humbleness by doffing his cap and looking at his shoes as he answered the squire’s questions in a few words spoken in monotone. “A good boy, an intelligent boy” was the squire’s conclusion and he was hired. His salary was only a few kopecks a week but he had a place to sleep out of the rain and food every day -- maybe not three meals, sometimes not even two -- but something to eat every day, usually scraps from the Squire’s table which all the courtyard workers considered haute cuisine. On one of the plates was a piece of gristle which had obviously had been chewed and found not worthy of swallowing. When young Georgi passed it up one of the older men chided him, “prideful boy, foolish boy!” as he cut it into bite-size pieces which he swallowed after a few perfunctory chews.

Georgi had no father and the squire had no son. He noted with appropriate sadness that

his “dear wife” had died giving birth to their youngest daughter “who sadly also passed on and

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by Charles Kaska

resides with her mother in heaven.” Their two older daughters were “happily married to men of substance and position”, he reported with pride. Georgi listened in silence but with the right facial expressions to indicate that he understood. He was aware of the privilege that was being bestowed upon him by being made privy to these revelations. They were not what was communicated to “the hired help.” For his part the squire was impressed with the boy’s industry and with his initiative. Georgi made a rat trap using a barrel with water in it and a floating piece of wood baited just to the side of its mid section with a wedge of moldy cheese. The rat would jump on the float in the center; when he approached the cheese the float would tip sending him into the water and come back up barring his escape. The barrel was placed in the granary and yielded a dozen drowned rats one morning. Till that moment the men had informed the squire that nothing could be done: “Rats have always been with us and always will be your honor. It is God’s will.”

Their relationship grew partly because of the father-son bond that remained unspoken but

largely because of the squire’s growing awareness that this boy, this soon-to-be young man, was someone who looked after his interests. When Georgi was 18 he was promoted to gamekeeper and given the sawed-off shotgun which was as much ceremonial as practical. The present gun was created (if that is the proper word) by one of the squire’s many uncles and was in the family when he was born. It’d been crafted in Austria in the early part of the century as a fine hunting weapon. But in the ensuing years through carelessness and mistreatment it had become blemished and scared. When it was considered no longer worthy to be carried by a gentleman its long barrels were cut off and in that act it became a man killer. Georgi began frequenting the local tavern where the men bought him drinks in some vague (and probably vain) hope of receiving favorable treatment should they ever find themselves at odds with the squire. They also kidded him gently and respectfully about his presumed close relationship with the nobleman.

Georgi responded with some kidding of his own: “Yes, it is true. We are very close. Why he even calls me ‘Georgi’ and I call him... here he paused ‘sir’!” The men roared and nodded their heads approvingly

These thoughts intruded intermittently as he thought about the bear. The hounds couldn’t

catch it; they couldn’t even find it. None of the men had seen it. How does one hunt down something that no one has seen? As he sat by himself in the doorway of the storehouse the answer came to him: he would not hunt the bear; he would let the bear come to him -- and he would trap it. Georgi was good at making traps. After all it was his trap that had brought the rats under control. But the bear? The bear was too clever to be caught in conventional leg hold traps. His left paw print indicated that he had had an encounter with one and torn off his claw and the digit that held it in order to escape. He would not make that mistake again. Nor would he step unwarily on the light branches covering a pit. A baited box? Georgi smiled, No Malinki, as he had come The Russian Bear

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to think of him, would not deliver himself boxed up for a piece of meat. Malinki, where on earth did that name come from? The answer came to him dimly at first then more clearly. Many years ago while walking in the village with his mother he had seen another little boy cradling a large teddy bear as he walked along with his mother. “Look mother! Miska”, cried Georgi. The little boy, who was obviously of higher status, turned toward them with an annoyed expression on his face and replied, “It’s not a miska; it’s my Malinki. Then mother and son walked away quickly with their heads held high. Georgi experienced the sick feeling of humiliation for the first time and from that day forward had always wanted a Malinki of his own. He returned from his reverie and thought “meat is good bait but so is fruit.” He mused about the time he saw a family of raccoons staggering drunk after eating mulberries that had fallen to the ground and fermented. Then he knew how he would trap the bear: he would use honey laced with vodka and get the bear so drunk that it would be unable to fight back. Then the men could lasso him, bind him and deliver him to the squire to do with him what he wanted. Georgi envisioned a pistol shot in the ear canal and a bear rug in front of the Squire’s fireplace. But he was getting ahead of himself.

“How much honey, what did you say, 20 pounds? And how many gallons of vodka? That’s

going to cost a lot.” “Yes, your honor it will (Georgi always referred to the squire as ‘your honor’ when he wanted something he was not sure the squire was willing to give) but consider the cost of your losses so far not to mention your prestige.” “My prestige?” “Yes sir, it pains me to tell you that there has been talk in town.” “Talk?” “Yes, some are saying that... that the bear has made a fool of you.”

The old man’s face reddened, “Get the supplies you need immediately and have them

charged to my account. Fool indeed! We must be ready when he comes again.” All was made ready as the master had ordered. Georgi located the barrel containing the honey laced with 2 gallons of vodka near the storehouse and tied it in such a way that the bear could neither knock it over nor drag it away. He affixed a bell on a flexible metal band to the barrel and went to bed.

He wanted to stay in the storehouse but he knew the bear would smell him and stay away. He did however leave the window closest to his pallet open to listen for the bell. His diligence was rewarded sometime after the clock in the manor house struck midnight. His heart beat rapidly as he rose from his bed to peer over the sill and his breathing quickened when he saw the massive hunched shoulders. Most of the body was obscured by the barrel and the head was down in it.

Georgi thought he heard slurping but he could not be sure because the night breeze rustled the few leaves that still clung to the trees. He wondered, “Will he ever come up for air?” Then the bear showed its head. Even in a partial moon it glistened from the muzzle to the ears with the intoxicating brew. Malinki stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air. “My God he is magnificent”, thought the trapper. Just then the bear sat back on his haunches and appeared to lose his

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by Charles Kaska

balance. “Is he? No it can’t be. It’s too soon.” For an instant Georgi although still looking was not seeing and when he did refocus the bear’s head was back in the barrel. Georgi smiled with self approbation and felt confident enough to step away from the window and fetch a stool to watch the show more comfortably. The other men drifted in the oblivion of sleep and Georgi allowed his chin to rest on the backs of his hands which themselves rested on the sill.

When he awoke there was already some light in the sky and he could see the bear and the

barrel clearly. It was better than he could ever have hoped. Malinki was not staggering around drunk; he was fast asleep. Amazingly, absurdly one of his front legs was still hooked on to the lip of the barrel as if he were trying to hold on. The men were beginning to stir in their blankets.

Georgi left the house quietly and approached the bear without a gun. It would be useless at this range. The bear’s breathing was deep and regular and he snored every so often. Without thinking Georgi grabbed the paw with his two hands as if he were shaking it and lifted it out of the barrel.

The bear settled into a more natural position and no longer snored. “Hello Malinki. I’ve got you now.”

When he heard the news the squire did not wait to change and came running to meet the

monster and his nightgown. “My boy you have really done it this time. Never have I...,”he paused then continued while looking Georgi straight in the eye, “I will have something for you that will show the extent of my gratitude.” Georgi heard the words but they did not register because his attention was focused on the four meter chain that trailed behind his honor. Attached to the last link of the chain was a heavy steel ring whose circumference was larger than even the largest coins of the realm. Georgi had seen the type of ring before. It was split and one end was pointed, notched and spring-loaded. Once pierced through a bull’s nose it could not be removed and the otherwise contrary beast became manageable. “I thought you wanted him shot and made into a rug.” “I thought better of it. Many households have bear rugs but how many have a live bear to entertain people? Especially one such as this that has caused me so much grief. Let’s get him fixed and secured before he wakes up.”

Chained and put on display for entertainment? Georgi had seen two bears like that when

he was younger. One was in a circus and danced on his hind legs while wearing a tutu. The other was owned by a man who played the accordion while his bear swayed to the music and waved his front paws. Georgi felt sick to his stomach both times. He hated to see wild things chained or caged. He felt that way even about birds. When the animal had been trained to do something unnatural like dance or in the case of crows whose tongues were split so they could imitate human sounds his disgust became nausea. The bear continued to sleep peacefully. As he positioned the snap ring to the side of the left nostril he could feel it exhale against his hand. He sturdied the right side of its head with his left hand and pushed the pointed end of the ring in.

The Russian Bear

15

It snapped shut. Blood at first squirted then flowed from the wound and the bear roared. But it did not strike out and Georgi moved quickly out of striking distance. The other end of the chain had been wrapped around a medium-size cedar and fastened with lag screws. The bear was now secure as the squire had ordered.

The sun was up and the day was more light than dark. His work done Georgi indulged

himself in sitting at a respectful distance and watching Malinki awake, not awake, after all he was not sleeping a bear sleep; he had been unconscious and was regaining consciousness. He had stopped bleeding and dried reddish brown blood covered his muzzle which only a short while before had been covered with honey. His body remained motionless but he raised his head and in doing so yanked on the chain. Fresh blood streamed out of his nozzles and he roared, not loudly, more like a groan. Georgi was fascinated. “Will the chain really hold him? He could rip his nose open and be free. He had torn his toe off; why not his nose.” Malinki was now up on all fours but unsteadily so. He staggered forward till the chain stopped him. It pulled his head back toward the direction from which he’d come and he roared his low roar. He turned and faced the direction of the pull and began to back away. The chain was in full tension. The brown earth was covered with dark red polka dots. Malinki walked back-and-forth in a semi circle as if he were a pendulum always with maximum tension on the chain. He did this all morning and was still doing it when Georgi returned from an early lunch. (He never did get to eat breakfast.) Malinki sat down on his haunches and then lay on his belly with paws outstretched and his head resting on the paws. He reminded Georgi of a household dog at rest.

Using the cedar tree to which the chain was fastened as a center the men have scribed a

crude circle approximately 15 meters in diameter to mark the safe distance from which to view the bear. Georgi was sitting just outside the perimeter as he observed the bear who appeared to be sleeping. He watched the chest rise and fall for several minutes. Then he did something that he did not understand and would never be able to explain. He got up slowly and calmly and walked into the “circle of death” as the men called it. He got so close that he could smell the ammonia of the bear’s sweat. He stared at the head which looked enormous close-up and was suddenly shocked as if he had been slapped in the face. Malinki was crying. The tears came slowly but steadily from both eyes and made tiny pathways through the dried blood as they meandered to the ground. Malinki opened his eyes. Georgi stood up from the crouch which he had assumed in order to get a closer look and began backing away. He knew he should not look the bear in the eye because it signaled a challenge but he could not bring himself to break eye contact. Malinki stood up and began to walk toward him, not quickly, at the same pace that Georgi was backing away.

Malinki reached the end of his tether at about the same time Georgi almost tripped over a stone that had been unearthed in the course of scribing the circle. He was safe.

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by Charles Kaska

Georgi stood looking at the bear and the bear at him and realized he was trembling. Well,

why shouldn’t he be? Had he not been eye to eye with the bear inside the circle of death? Yet he didn’t feel afraid. What was it that made him tremble? After a few moments he broke eye contact and walked away. He picked at his supper later that evening and couldn’t find the same excitement in himself that he observed in the other men. “ Nesti! Nesti!” It seemed like every other word out of their mouths was “Nesti.”. “Why can’t they say Malinki?” He went to bed early and woke before midnight. As he lay on his pallet with open eyes he absentmindedly fingered the little gauze bag that hung on a string around his neck. It once held tobacco and now contained four small gold coins the squire had given him that afternoon: “You’ll be taking a wife soon my boy and this will help you start a household.” He recognized that they were gold but had no idea their value because; except for the few kopecks he was given each Saturday afternoon he never handled money.

Georgi had long since stopped trembling. A new emotion now troubled him, threatened

to smother him: shame. He didn’t feel the shame in just his head or even in his heart although it certainly resided in those places. He experienced it in his body and his muscles and in his bones.

“What do I have to be ashamed about? I did what the master asked. The bear will not be stealing any more; he won’t be doing anything anymore. My master is pleased and he has rewarded me generously.” It was the phrase “... won’t be doing anything anymore” that kept coming back to him.

He couldn’t shake it even when he took the coins in his hand and rubbed them together. Then he became aware that tears were running down his cheeks. Just before dawn he realized what he had to do and his agony was replaced by a sense of calm. He would release the bear but how?

He couldn’t just unfasten the chain from the tree and shoo it into the forest. With four meters of chain hanging from its nose it would be tangled in no time and become food for the wolves.

The wolves. He hadn’t thought about the wolves in a long time. They held a fascination for

him ever since he was a little boy sitting with his mother in the back of his father’s sled and four began following them. The horses were in canter and the pack loped several meters behind. Their legs were long and propelled them forward without visible effort. The leader was close enough so that Georgi could see the yellow of his eyes when they reflected the full moon. His father explained calmly the wolves were after the horses, not the people; they were afraid of people. But Georgi thought differently. Maybe that held for his father and even for his mother but he was much smaller than they, the smallest of all, and therefore easy prey. The horses were now in a trot and Georgi’s attention was drawn to the hiss of the runners as they slid over the hard packed frozen ground. “Light some straw and throw it on the road; that will make them think twice”, ordered the father. The boy and his mother did as they were told being careful not to let even one spark fall on the straw upon which they were sitting. It worked, at least for a minute, which The Russian Bear

17

allowed the father to put some distance between the wagon and the wolves. The pack was now strung out and looked less menacing. The last wolf could not be seen but the leader was closing the distance relentlessly. His long tongue was out, his teeth showed clearly and Georgi could hear his panting in the clear stillness of the night. The horses were breathing heavily too and their condensed breath blew back like miniature clouds around his father’s head. Then the lights of the village appeared and the dread lifted off Georgi’s shoulders. “Father! We are going to be all right.” “Of course we are going to be all right. We never were in any danger. It’s just the horses that interest them. Look! Here comes old Ivanovich out to pick up a late-night load of wood with his team. Better warn him what he’s heading toward.” Georgi turned around and the wolves were gone: no eyes, no tongue, no teeth, not even a print in the snow.

“No, the wolves will not get him”, he said aloud. The man sleeping next to him stirred in

response to this declaration but the others just continued snoring. It was clear now: the ring and the chain had to be removed before the bear was returned to his home and there was only one way to accomplish that. He needed to be put under again. Georgi smiled at the phrase and pictured himself as a doctor in a white gown and mask pouring either onto a piece of cotton placed over the patient’s nose and mouth. But there would be no either here; just good old vodka and the honey to hold it. It worked once, it could work again.

After breakfast Georgi made a trip to town. None of the men questioned him because of

his standing with the squire. He went to the same general store where he had made his original purchases and placed the same order. The shopkeeper was curious, “Another bear?” “Yes, another bear”, smiled Georgi. He wanted to pay for the provisions with his own money because it seemed like the right thing to do given the planned outcome but he thought better of it. The shopkeeper would talk and word would get back to the manor house before he could put the plan into effect.

No, better charge this one to the squire too and not arouse any more curiosity than the second purchase had already done. He worked out more of the details while riding back to the estate and by nightfall all was ready.

Georgi placed the mix in a wide shallow tub so that Malinki, encumbered by the chain,

could get at it with minimal effort and pushed the tub inside the circle with a long sapling.

The bear which are taken minimal food and only slightly more water over the last two days approached, sniffed, tasted and obviously approved the offering. Rather than sticking his head in he used his paws to bring the ambrosia to his mouth and for the first time since his capture was truly animated. The process continued until he could scoop no more from the tub. Only then did he use his tongue to get the remainder. Georgi was made anxious by the clanging of the chain on the metal pan but he had no choice except to wait. Then Malinki lifted the tub with his paws in an attempt to pour what left of it of its contents into his mouth and fell over backwards with the tub

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by Charles Kaska

over his face. He was out.

Georgi brought round the old plow horse which was semi-retired and used only

occasionally to haul dead animals away for burial. She balked at the sight of the bear but was calmed by several mouthfuls alfalfa which Georgi produced from inside his shirt. To her was attached to travois consisting of two stout saplings between which had been fastened a piece of heavy canvas. The setup looked like a hammock however its purpose was not for resting but for traveling. He got the straps of the hauling harness around the bear with considerable effort and pulled it onto the travois using a winch which till that moment had only pulled carcasses.

Malinki looked comical lying on his back with his paws flopping in response to the movement as Georgi led the old mare away from the compound. They walked slowly together for more than an hour till they reached the end of the trail deep in the forest not far from where Georgi had confronted the peasant a few days earlier. Getting the bear off the travois was easier than getting him on because gravity, formerly an adversary was now an ally. He grabbed the two hind legs and the mare sensing that she was about to be relieved of her burden moved forward. Malinki was on the ground and immediately rolled on his side. Georgi set to work with the first of three small triangular files and after about ninety minutes was able to separate the snap ring enough to get it off. There was some blood but nothing like when it was first put in place. Georgi caressed Malinki’s head with the palm of his hand the way a woman might smooth the young boy’s hair.

“Dream on my friend, when you awake, you will awake a free man”.

He rode the mare bare back to the train station, dismounted and tied her securely to

the hitching post using a long lead. He removed several handfuls of alfalfa from inside his shirt and placed it at her feet. She lowered her head and began chewing. He left the four meter chain with the bloody snap ring folded over the post. There was no one at the station because no train stopped there unless the semaphore was down. Georgi felt more than heard the distant rumbling of the train. He pulled the lever and the semaphore came down.

The Russian Bear by Charles Kaska

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3

rd

Jacksonboro

by Benjamin D. Robertson Jacksonboro Recorded by Megan Aguilar, Annalist of the Fort Sumter Irregulars, on July 16 Year 5. Revised August 3, Year 7.

Prologue

We don’t travel the highways in the old fashion without significant need. Even with the

streets we hold swept of the worst debris and the dead, with our reach advanced all the way to Calhoun and the western bridges under permanent guard, we lack the numbers or the fuel to make regular forays across. West Ashley is a tangle of rising trees and underbrush gone totally wild. The pavement out there is already falling to water and roots, crumbling apart and paling in the sun. Give it a few more years and there won’t be roads anymore, just paths through forests already well on their way to conquering the old suburbs. Without some care we’ll lose even those one day.

We risked an overland journey for the promise of peace. The Colony contributed our

delegation’s vehicles, an RV fortified with all of Gerald’s fiendish inventiveness and two bikes for outrider duty. We crossed at the Cannon bridge, and the Fort gunners boomed a salute out over the harbor when they saw our banner flying from the winnebago’s roof: the moon and palmetto on midnight blue, with the scrolls ‘Landing’ and ‘Marion’ embroidered at opposite corners.

Commander Naoroji muttered about the waste of powder. This was a joint venture, Battery Colony and Fort Sumter together, but the Consul does not recognize our civil government. In hopes of peace we played to his expectations, and flew Naoroji’s personal standard. Her, at least, he respects.

Our scarce traffic on the old highway was still enough to clear most of the ghouls from

the ruins to either side. The outriders handled our few contacts. Private Hammond and Sergeant Lafayette were both Fort originals, with us since the First Day, and two of our best at close work.

They dispatched our uninvited guests with blades, quietly and efficiently. We made good time, all things considered.

When the suburban ruins fell away in our wake the full forest replaced them. The trees

had not yet swallowed the highway, but they’d taken nearly everything else. The road was a narrow corridor walled by green and black, still and sweltering in summer’s heat, buzzing with cicada song. The overcast sky was a sheet of raw cotton. The forest yields only to water now.

20

The highway bridges creeks and rivers gilded by grassy tidal marshes. After the forest gloom those wetlands are a relief of open skies and breathing wind.

We met a traveler at the first bridge, over Rantowles Creek. He sat beside a dead campfire

at the bridge’s apex, a hunched old man with a long beard. A flock of blackbirds gathered at his feet, attacking seeds he scattered for them on the asphalt. All but two fluttered away at the first clear sound of our engines. He wore a hooded poncho that he might have woven himself. I’d not seen anyone so old in years.

He answered our hails with a wave of his hand. The Commander, Lafayette, Councilman

Marcus Alfred of the Colony and yours truly went out to meet him. His birds strutted across his shoulders and eyed us unblinkingly. When he finally looked up at us from under his hood, it was with only one good eye. He offered to tell us our futures. He had a bag of human knuckle-bones shaved into dice.

“What do you want in exchange, grandfather?” asked the commander.

“What would you give to know your destiny?” grinned the old man from behind white

beard and yellow, crooked teeth.

“We make our own,” she said. “It can’t be known until it is.”

“That is a warrior’s answer,” he said. “You’ll do well in this world, young lady.”

We returned to the RV. Our little convoy swerved around the old man’s campsite. His birds

swiveled their heads to track us as we passed south down the highway.

The Summit The miles stretched. We played cards in the RV to pass the time and avoid talking too seriously.

There were reservation in that cab, clutched tight in the chests of hardened men and women. The debate over this endeavor, held at the common hall overlooking the new docks at Battery Point, only ended the previous evening. Contending arguments were heated. Roughly a quarter of our people, both the Colonists and the Irregulars, are refugees from the Consul’s territory. No one in either camp trusts a word out of Beaufort. If it were just our people asked to this conference, we would not have accepted. Only the words of distant friends gave the plan its majority vote.

As the highway neared the bridge over the Edisto its state improved. The cracks and

potholes, weeds and brush decreased, though nowhere was the highway as it was on the First Day. We passed places where relatively fresh tar eased those aching fractures in the road, like scar tissue spread over old wounds. Beaufort values the highways, and makes more use of them than anyone else. They’re the

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They’re the only group we’ve heard of with the warm bodies to make real efforts at maintenance.

They’d even refurbished some of the old roadsigns. Both their banners hung from the border sign for Colleton County at the start of their claimed territory, the Jacksonboro Bridge over the Edisto: the red and gold beside the red white and blue.

Jacksonboro was a nowhere place before the First Day, an intersection of state and federal

highways. The surrounding towns were miniscule. Few people alive meant few people around to die and turn when the end began. The worst they saw here, at the start, was probably the darkness. For a few moments the world was struck deaf and blind. Every group we’ve talked to experienced it, that First Day. The people here must have watched in awe and horror as the proof spread across all those systems now long dead, the televisions and the radios and the world-voice of the internet, that the darkness preceded something worse. Everywhere, as far as we know, the recently dead with their brains intact lunged from morgue slabs and hospital beds to assail living, and make us into them. I’m not sure whether I’d rather have gone through that than watch Charleston’s fiery death with my own eyes.

From what we knew of Beaufort’s doings, anyone living free that far out in their territory

either remained as outlaws or were ‘evacuated’ to secure farmland nearer the heart of power years before. We saw not one of the dead within a dozen miles of the bridge. The conference site was swept and manicured in advance. The usual chest high grass was all scythed down. Someone had even applied a fresh coat of paint to the sign for Flo’s Diner.

The diner died well before the First Day from the looks of things. Modern demolition is

nowhere near so precise. Flo’s was stripped to its floor and foundation, and those survived the end of the world pretty well. Its black and white checkered tiling was only lightly bleached by sunlight.

The Beauforters even picked the space clean of weeds. Torches to keep the mosquito swarms at bay leaned at the foundation’s corners, unlit and ready for service. The ruin of a gas station sagged on the opposite side of the highway, blackened and shattered. A tiny old church already well on its way into decomposition stood beside Flo’s. Its roof still held, and the debris outside its doors showed recent efforts at clearing out the interior.

We were not the first to arrive, though we showed up a day in advance. Pastor Enrico

Anjelo and his people were there to greet us. Their transport was pick-up trucks and tow carriages, their arms were hunting rifles put to new purpose and National Guard weapons put to old ones, along with the usual motley of clubs and long knives. The Fort offered a few times to send instructors to drill them in some of our hand to hand techniques, and how make the equipment for them, but they had faith in their guns. And in their preacher, of course.

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by Benjamin D. Robertson

The Saint of Walterboro required a wheelchair by then. His face was shaggy with beard,

the green velvet stole hung across his shoulders stained and bleached from travel and wear. The gold cross dangling from his cord necklace was bright against his black coat. His nickname ceased to be one for his people long ago. They treated him with a reverence we Irregulars reserved for the memories of our dead. He was happy to see us, glad we’d agreed to take part in the peace summit despite his old reservations about us.

He and his folk are earnest true believers after years of testing their faith against the

harrowing new world. Walterboro will never be quite comfortable with us pagan weirdos of Charleston. I don’t hold it against them. Their faith brought them through, and they weren’t there to watch the Holy City burn. They never had to give the second death to all those miserable ghouls who once suffocated and charred, begging for salvation in some of this continent’s oldest houses of worship. We didn’t talk with the Walterboro people about spiritual things if we could help it. It was a peace summit after all.

Our Irregulars joined Anjelo’s people on watch. The rest of our delegations got convivial.

They make good beer in Walterboro by the day’s standards. They shared that and we shared some of the better treats from haggling with the last Blue Ship to put in at the Colony. Anjelo did not approve of the hash brownies, but the eyes of some his people lit up at the first sign of anything made from real, new chocolate. The old man held a service in the church at sunset, from which our party politely excused ourselves. Eddie Wheeler of the Fort band added his fiddle to the harmonica and jug the Walterboro people brought. It got to be a pretty good time. All that day and night, none of the dead troubled our pickets.

The next group arrived an hour after dawn, the smallest and surest. The woman we know

as Sojourn, captain of the Blue Ship West Wind, arrived in a bicycle rickshaw of all things with two companions, one pumping the pedals, the other taking notes beside her. All masked, like everyone we’ve yet met from the Blue Ships. She was tall and dark, wrapped in a spotless lavender sari. A domino half-mask obscured but did not hide her face. It was wood, painted pitch black and coated with shiny lacquer, like all the masks of Blue Ship captains of which I have records.

Her companions wore a snarling green dragon mask and a blank matte grey oval interrupted only by eye- and mouth-holes, respectively. Dragon mask was the cyclist, a big man in a ballistic vest, festooned with old world combat webbing. His battle rifle had an actual under-slung grenade launcher. Grey mask wore shirtsleeves and slacks. If not for the mask he would have looked right at home in an old world office building, among the cubicle mice.

Sojourn and Naoroji were friends, bonded by a skirmish with the dead on Sullivan’s

Jacksonboro

23

Island. According to her that personal tie was the only reason Sojourn argued with her fellow captains that she take the risk of attending the summit. The first interaction between one of their vessels and Beaufort was an attempt by the latter to seize the ship and imprison the crew. The relationship only deteriorated from there.

“This is our last chance to bridge the divide,” she told Pastor Anjelo in the softly

Frenchinfluenced accent the Blue Ship spokespeople have. “I am here to offer an open palm to the Consul. It will not be offered again.”

Speak of the devil, and so on. Our pickets reported first sound of the approaching

Beauforters by coded hunting calls. Give him credit, the Consul knew how to make an entrance.

They arrived in three vehicles, two forest green humvees and a big black SUV as glossy and clean as a beetle’s back. They must have waxed it before setting out for this summit. A pair of flags flew from its windows, the old American national one and the Marine Corps banner. The Consul always insisted he’d inherited the authority of both. They did not wait for our pickets to wave them through before rumbling up to the roadside by Flo’s. Uniformed, armored men stood their posts behind the swiveling machine weapons atop the humvees. They panned the muzzles of those death dealers over our vehicles and people until the SUV’s doors opened to issue the strains of recorded classical music and a curt order for the soldiers to stand down.

The Consul’s boots crunched roadside gravel. His dress uniform was freshly pressed and

immaculately laundered. The previous day’s overcast lingered, but what light there was glittered on his chestful of medals. He wore a saber and pistol on either side of his hips. His gloves were starched white. His soldiers wore field uniforms, with ballistic vests and well-maintained old world military rifles. Nothing ornamental about their equipment. Their humvee radios squawked and hissed like living things. The Consul had two ‘assistants’ with him, svelte young women in cocktail dresses who served as his silent secretaries and personal aides. They wore their hair long and loose, and their pretty faces were further embellished with lipstick and eye-shadow. I envied them their luxuries a little bit, but not their jobs or coworkers.

Consul Frederick Allen Jameson was a big man, tall and powerfully built, with just the

hint of a belly beneath his uniform. When he removed his cap his hair was thinning, the sides cropped close. He had the cleanest shave I’d seen in a very long time. Even his soldiers looked like they’d gotten a professional haircut in the last week. The sheer crispness with which he and his people presented themselves was intimidating, quite apart from all their fully functional military gear. Only Sojourn and her people approached the same standard. We Fort Sumter Irregulars live

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by Benjamin D. Robertson

up to our name by comparison.

Naoroji, Councilman Alfred, Pastor Anjelo and Sojourn all emerged to greet the Consul

with something like formality. Lots of forced smiling and general platitudes all around. Pastor Anjelo did his best to smooth the rough edges of the introductions. Sojourn’s domino mask did little to hide her contempt for the Consul.

That first interaction between Naoroji and Jameson is worth consideration. He stood more

than a head taller, he had more than fifty pounds on her. She wore the armor Manuel made for her, rest him, from an old police riot suit, the padding dyed midnight blue, the chest emblazoned with the palmetto and moon. There was no mistaking the way he looked at her when they shook hands. More than respect in that gaze and that fleeting touch, however one-sided.

“We’re short an interested party,” said the Consul after those first introductions. “Where is

Addison? He’s the reason this is happening at all.”

They must have had eyes on us, waiting for that moment. Consul Jameson was not the

only one who knew how to make an entrance.

The Addison Family’s delegation was never announced by our pickets. The land to

either side of the highway was forest and swamp gone entirely wild, and the Addisons moved through such landscapes like ghosts. They emerged from the woods minutes after the Beaufort vehicles drew to a stop, weapons stowed and hands at their sides to show their pacific intent.

They slipped right through our guard, ragged men and women in old hunting camouflage and rough homespun with all their bare skin caked in layers of mud, rifles and bows bouncing at rest on their backs. The Addisons are trophy takers. They had yellowed teeth and bleached bones on strings around their necks, and tally marks painted on their weapons or engraved on the sheathes of their knives.

The patriarch actually arrived on horseback, a big mottled beast that shouldered its way

out of the underbrush and onto the highway. Very little could still scare me that late in the game, but Mr. Addison remained absolutely intimidating. He was armed, clothed and caked in mud like the rest of his people with the exception of one article that could not help but dominate any environment he entered. A hockey mask hid his face, its original straps replaced with leather years ago. A full rack of buck antlers rose on either side of the mask, polished pale and hung with tokens that swayed with his horse’s movements. The Beauforters went from relaxed superiority to hands on weapons the moment those people emerged, same as the rest of us, but the marines stayed at that pitch as the Addison delegation emerged into full view. They respected Naoroji.

They feared Addison.

He dismounted with a rattle of trophies. He walked with a limp to meet the other

representatives. He had not removed that mask in mixed company in the time since we Jacksonboro

25

Charlestonians learned he existed.

With all the delegations gathered the Jacksonboro Summit began in short order, on the

morning of July 11 Year 5. The Beauforters pulled a folding table from the back of their SUV and set it up on the tiled floor of Flo’s. Folding chairs followed. Naoroji, Alfred, Jameson, Anjelo, Addison and Sojourn each took a place. They inaugurated the meeting with a toast, drinking wine brought by Sojourn’s small party, and broke bread fresh from a portable stove brought from Walterboro. Talks began around 10 AM, to judge from the light.

Things stayed civil a while. Jameson talked fixed borders, reciprocal rights, modus vivendi.

Anjelo got into all that, it made sense to him. He wanted the settlement made there to last, an end to violence between the living while the dead walk the earth. His people had not spent much time on the receiving end of the Consul’s guns. The groups between them and Beaufort’s frontier were already gone, destroyed or absorbed into the Addisons or our Colony.

Sojourn’s position was simple. She was willing to sponsor a trade mission from her people

to Beaufort as part of a long-term peace deal, the first since their disagreeable first contact.

Otherwise she said little but watched very carefully.

The Colony council back at the Battery voted Marcus Alfred their spokesperson here for

his determination and his past. He was no Fort Sumter original but a refugee, part of the shreds of a survivor group driven north by a Beaufort patrol who took shelter with us in Year 4. He would take no guff from the Consul, and could represent all the nameless destroyed or homogenized groups who’d suffered at the pointy end of Beaufort’s regime.

Naoroji and Addison held their peace. Naoroji said on the drive out that she was there

solely because the Beaufort people would not respect a Colony councilor otherwise. Addison, I think, was half reading the group dynamic, and half just trying to get inside Jameson’s head.

He sat with burly arms folded across his chest, tokens swaying in the breeze. They were about to break for lunch when he finally piped up.

“Enough,” he said, cutting through a discussion of how to manage access to the

lowcountry watersheds. “You came here because we hurt you in March, Fred. Cut the crap and talk.” The Consul did not quite flinch at the use of his given name with no honorifics, but his genial smile skipped a beat.

“You ambushed a patrol of United States Marines,” said Consul Jameson. “You and your

insurgents,” he sneered the last word, “murdered good men and women who put their lives on the line for this country. You destroyed government property. I only came here because respectable men said you’d behave yourself.”

Addison waited a moment, till Jameson’s last words died on the still summer air. “Wanted

to make sure you all heard that,” said the man with the antlers as he slowly turned his head,

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by Benjamin D. Robertson

scanning the rest of the representatives. “Mull it over. Turn it around in your heads.”

Even from my vantage on the roof of our RV I could tell when his gaze settled on Jameson.

“There’s no country anymore,” he said. “There’s no Marine Corps either. All that’s dead and

you know it, Fred. Otherwise someone would’ve busted you back to private by now for this pretend Roman schtick you’re pulling.”

The two men looked daggers at each other while Anjelo tried to melt the rapidly rising ice.

The representatives skipped lunch. We don’t know what rank Jameson had before the First Day, our library lacks any first-hand accounts of what that was like at Parris Island and Beaufort as of this writing. All we’re sure of is that Jameson was the man in charge when the dust settled and the fires died out. Most of his troops practically worshiped him. We rarely got the chance to talk to the civilian populace.

Anjelo was trying to guide the talks back to mutual benefits and peace between the living.

“Every party at this table has needs others can meet. Everyone wants something from the rest. If we--”

Jameson cut through, speaking over the old man. “What I want,” he said, “is unity. One

flag again. One government. Otherwise we’ll waste our strength against each other till the dead pick us off, one by one. For that I need this man,” he shot a fresh look at Addison, “and his family to cease hostile action. If this crisis period is ever going end we have to put a stop to vigilante operations.”

Alfred still hadn’t said much, but at this he raised his left hand. Two fingers were missing,

the stumps pale and shiny with scar tissue. “I know about hostile action,” he said. “My group met your people on the road, Consul. We were fleeing, our sanctuary was overrun. They stopped our cars on the highway, demanded our water and gas. When we refused they opened fire. There were a dozen of us then. Three of us made it to Battery Point. We are not here to sanction the Addisons.

We are here to stop you before skirmishes become war.”

Jameson was winding up for a retort when Naoroji broke her silence at last. “You are right,

Consul. If we waste our strength fighting each other, the dead will drag us all down one day. That is our world now. For the sake of peace, Mr. Addison and his people must stop harassing you.”

Trophies rattled as Addison swung his head to watch her, but Naoroji powered on.

must also cease giving him cause to fight. His people include more refugees from altercations like what the honorable councilman just described than any other party to this summit. Borders are fine ideas, but we need assurances that the largest group with the best toys is done taking at gunpoint what the rest of us have learned to bargain for. If this era is ever to end, we have to learn to live as neighbors, not competing camps.”

Frederick Allen Jameson, Consul of Beaufort, was a cool customer. As sentiment around

Jacksonboro

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the table failed to acknowledge his supremacy or support his push against Addison he did not throw a tantrum or lash out further. With a little more verbal massage of the mood from Pastor Anjelo he actually turned conciliatory.

“Since all this began,” he said, gesturing to encompass the old church, the ruined gas

station, the slowly advancing forest, the several distinct tribes of the lowcountry gathered there, “We have all done what we had to in order to survive. We have all bled, and we have all done things we’ll always regret.” He nodded to the councilman. “My people should not have attacked yours, Mr. Alfred. They should have found another way. We did not have open hands then. They were clasped too tight to our weapons. You are right, all of you. Peace must be mutual, and more than lines on a map.”

Old Pastor Anjelo fairly beamed as he looked at the other delegates. All of a sudden talk

got productive. They started to work out trades that could meet everyone’s needs: military and medical materials from Beaufort, building materials and sea goods from the Colony, seed and crops from Walterboro and livestock from the Addisons. There was even talk of permanent delegations to each other, something like ambassadorships. As the afternoon deepened it felt like they’d started hammering together a real framework for peace. Only Addison was reticent when they finally broke off talks for dinner. The plan was to camp there on the highway together, members from each delegation sharing the night watches. All parties had supplies enough to camp out through the week till the final deal was struck. It was supposed to be my job to write up the final document, then make hand copies to go home with each signatory.

Dinner was good. The clouds finally passed, so we had a sunset. The Addisons brought

in a whole alligator they caught in the Edisto, a real monster longer than three people together.

Its tail made fine barbecue. There was maybe a half hour before sunset. The delegations were mingling, sharing each other’s fires and party favors. The Walterboro beer helped a lot. I spent most of that on the RV roof watching the fun. Even after that whole first year crammed in Fort Sumter with a hundred-odd people, a third of them kids, I’m still not much good at crowds or parties. I had a good view when Sojourn put a hand to her left ear. An earpiece of some sort, Sojourn put a hand to her left ear. An earpiece of some sort, well hidden by her hair and the hood of her sari. She was yards away, but I saw the flash of white as her eyes went wide behind her mask. She mouthed ‘No,’ just before the first echo of gunfire reached us down the corridor of the highway, from the direction of the Jacksonboro Bridge.

The Massacre

The Beauforters reacted as though they’d rehearsed all this. They probably had. The

marines turned over tables as they rushed for their vehicles. Jameson’s silent aides were already

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by Benjamin D. Robertson

back in the black SUV. The rest of us scattered for cover, unsure for the moment what had begun.

Even the slowest among us figured it out when the first chop-thump of helicopter blades sounded overhead, closing fast.

An attack helicopter. Who knew they still had the parts to get one of those in the air? Who

knew they still had the fuel for it? When it finally swooped into view to the southwest, over the highway, its cannon was already cycling up. Asphalt exploded in billows as its first shots raked the campsites on the road.

I had to pull Erica from her seat in the RV, where she was trying to get the beast rolling.

If the humvee’s guns didn’t get us, the helicopter’s surely would. We were out the door, sprinting for the trees, when the rockets streaked in from on high. The RV went up in a pillar of flame and smoke, those big greedy fuel tanks cooking off in a heartbeat. The hair at the back of my head may never grow back properly. Naoroji’s banner fell in smoking tatters to the ground.

Hurting, singed, Erica and I took cover and sought our friends. The humvees opened

up on the rest of our vehicles. Mr. Addison’s horse screamed horribly as it died. Other voices followed. Madness, panic, terror. This was no battle with the dead. This was the monster tools of the old world revived to finish us off.

Even then, with absolute surprise on their side and unquestionable material superiority,

the Beauforters did not have it all their way. I saw precise rifle fire from the woods pick off the men behind the humvee guns. One fell back and lay still, brain ruined, peace received. The other took it in the face, but not the brainpan. He lurched to his feet seconds after he hit the asphalt behind his vehicle, jaws snapping, weapons forgotten as his cooling flesh clawed towards his former comrades. The unquiet dead are no one’s friends but their own.

There were shouts from the direction of the bridge by then, the sound of boots thudding

on the highway. They’d come up the Edisto, in secret, at least a dozen of Jameson’s marines. They’d cut our route home.

More than just Beauforters were dead and rising. A few from Walterboro, a few from the

Colony, and Private Hammond of the Irregulars struggled back to their feet with greater or lesser difficulty depending on how badly death mangled them, ready to tear living flesh and spill hot blood. From either side of the highway, behind trees and underbrush, the delegations’ survivors fought back with rifles, pistols and bows against machine guns and the helicopter’s terrible cannon. Whole trees fell as incoming fire sawed them through. The smell of blood, gunpowder and burning gasoline was overpowering.

I was back among the Charleston delegation, pistol ready though I’m no great shot,

shaking, blood running down the back of my neck. Naoroji slumped against against a tree trunk, bleeding freely through her armor from a hole in her side. She was pale, sweating, but still giving Jacksonboro

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orders, still holding steady. She was accepted as the first commander of the Irregulars for a reason.

A lull in the firing opened. We could hear shouts from the road. I dared a glance through the brush.

Mr. Addison had rushed from cover behind the two humvees, straight for Jameson’s idling

vehicle. He clutched a fire ax in both hands. He’d already drawn blood, and the weapon’s edge flashed like fire in the dying day’s light. He’d abandoned his mask. There was nothing remarkable about his face, a weak chin and stubbly beard, a long nose. His features were contorted with rage.

The head of his axe sent spiderweb cracks across the SUV’s windshield. The shouting was him.

“Freddie, you fucking coward! Come out and face me! Come out and fight you piece of shit!”

I didn’t watch any further. Sergeant Lafayette had grabbed my shoulder to get my

attention. He motioned to Naoroji, and Councilman Alfred crouching nearby. “Get them out of here,” he said. “Go, now. Get them out. We’ll cover you.”

I protested. He had to come with us. He was an original, I could not imagine home

without him. He pressed his machete into my hand, the one he’d used at the Landing to carve our home from the city of the dead. “They have to live, and our people have to learn what happened.

Go. Now!”

He was ranking Irregular on the scene, absent Naoroji. I am a soldier. I followed orders.

The Addisons got us out. Naoroji and Alfred, and the rest of the Colony survivors. A

young woman who clutched the antlered mask like a holy thing, with Mr. Addison’s nose and hard, ice-cold eyes, led us north through the forest. There were Walterboro people with us at first, but they turned back as soon as they were sure their pastor wasn’t with us. We didn’t see them again. Sojourn’s people never joined us, but we’ve since learned they made it to the coast. Sergeant Kevin Lafayette and the rest of the Irregular contingent stayed behind. They covered our flight with their lives.

The helicopter swooped overhead after nightfall. No searchlight. Its instruments could see

our ourbody heat. An Addison man slung a massive rifle from his back. .50 caliber, anti-materiel. body heat. An Addison man slung a massive rifle from his back. .50 caliber, anti-materiel. The one his people used last spring to wreck some of Jameson’s humvees, presumably. He needed one shot.

The helicopter screamed and spurted fire as it died, spinning away from us into the forest. The crash was titanic. The fireball reached towards heaven. It was a grimly satisfying sight. We stopped to rest at the ruins of an antique stone church. A plaque noted it as a historic site, but its text was worn away. We risked a fire only to cauterize Naoroji’s wound. I write this atop the east wall at Fort Sumter, looking out over the sea. The sails of a Blue Ship are on the horizon, headed south.

Sojourn will carry the word to her people. From now on, all hands are turned against Beaufort.

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by Benjamin D. Robertson

Addendum Added August 3, Year 7.

Alicia Montclaire is a new arrival at the Battery Colony. She was one of Jameson’s aides at

Jacksonboro. She told me a tale I’ve wanted to get in the annals for a long time now.

“Days after the massacre, we were back in Beaufort. Freddie, the first Consul, was fast

asleep. He always passed out quick when he finished with us. I was dosing, but just awake enough to hear the window open. A man climbed in through it, stripped to his underwear, wet with mud and seawater. He carried a knife in his teeth. I was too scared to make a sound. He walked to the bed, raised the knife, and stabbed Freddie through the throat. His eyes shot open. He frothed and choked on his own blood. The man leaned in over us, looked the Consul in the eyes for a few seconds, then raised the knife again. He rammed it in through Freddie’s eye, straight to the brain. He said to us, “Now you can scream,” and just stepped back, empty-handed. We were both awake by then. We screamed plenty. They beat him bad when they busted through the door, but he didn’t fight back.

They took him to Fremont.

Kevin Lafayette joined Pastor Anjelo and Mr. Addison outside Fort Fremont, opposite

Parris Island, on July 14 Year 5. The Beauforters tied and nailed all three to crosses planted on the shore, broke their legs with hammers, and left them to asphyxiate as their their own sagging body weight compressed their lungs. After they died, and turned, their snarling corpses were left hanging to struggle against the nails and ropes, along with at least three others set up much earlier. Lieutenant Annie of the Rangers, our den mother and best shot, approached in canoe by night. At two hundred yards, via bolt action rifle, she granted Sergeant Kevin Lafayette, Pastor Enrico Anjelo and the man we knew only as Mr. Addison final rest. She escaped to tell the tale.

They’d carved the word ‘assassin’ on Lafayette’s forehead before he died. In recognition of his deed we now know him by the name Sicarius, once applied by other consuls to other assassins, long ago and far away. There is a new Consul of Beaufort. May he meet a worse fate.

Jacksonboro by Benjamin D. Robertson

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HM

Spring in Charleston

by Jay Johnson

A springtime morning in Charleston is arguably the most serene place on the planet. The humidity of the April air, the crispness of the cool breeze giving way a hint to the warmer day that will soon arrive. A bright yellow sun peaking its way through the canopy overhead. Trees gently waving allowing rays of sun to reach the ground and the scent of plough mud in the air indicating the low tide. A freshly blooming magnolia nearby topping my senses with a sweet perfume mixed with a smell that reminds me of my work in the beer industry; a staleness smell of a Bourbon street Friday morning with its spilled beers evaporating in the morning air. Some kid must have vomited on the street last night! I hear the familiar sound of the nearing rickshaw as the driver peddles with his load of tourists. The whizzing of his coast as he passes my porch. Typically, on a Friday morning, there will also be the familiar sound of a horse drawn carriage as the formidable giants clops its way past, but not yet this morning.

Fresh black coffee on my balcony overlooking Morris Street, the Charleston Weekly paper sitting idle waiting on another tour by my bloodshot eyes through my newly acquired reading glasses. I enjoy the serenity and calmness reflecting on the last 24 hours and the upcoming day. A visit to see Mom a call after lunch, and call Chuck…he’s going to be pissed.

Last night was Thursday, college kids were celebrating the end of their semester with a long night of partying, booze and music. Sometimes I join the flow of students from King street to the surrounding homes around 2:00 am as the bars close and they meander, holler and curse their way back to their houses. We don’t spend our evenings at the same places, but we inevitably cross paths as the crowd heads west on Morris St back home. Many times I have enjoyed the banter between a drunk 22-year-old and myself. These kids are almost all the same. Metrosexual mamma’s boys who are quite a way from becoming men, yet they seem to think they are as man as they will ever need to be. Unfortunately for the college girls, that’s about all their choices are in men here and in other towns I presume as well. I see my daughters in these young girls and hope my girls are smart enough to see through the artificial bravado of these guys. I have been told by my neighbors, the kids will eventually unnerve me, but as of today, their youth and enthusiasm is refreshing, even if a bit annoying with their naïve expectation of what real life looks like

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My house is a three story, 2000 square foot Charleston style condominium that was purchased by my mother 10 years ago. Narrow and long, built after the devastation of Hurricane Hugo, a sound structure of steel with tan stucco designed within the strict requirements of the Charleston Architectural Review Board. A garage below, running the entire distance of the house, deep enough for two cars single file, quite the commodity downtown. The first floor above the garage has a kitchen and entertainment area, open with a bar looking into the living area, through the windows out to the porch. The two floors above containing bedrooms with the top floor being my master suite. An elevator that I have yet to use too often. Perhaps it’s the desire to still climb steps for exercise or that it’s an exceptionally small elevator and with my tall frame, my fear of tight places always creeps up on me when I ride it. A complex with 8 units, mostly full time residents from all over the world, however, a few wealthy northerners have purchased theirs as a second home for their entitled children that call College of Charleston home.

With my Mother’s new home compete she recently moved to Daniel Island. The plan had been in place for several years. I would move to Charleston and purchase the condo from her fulfilling a decades old dream of living in one of the most desirable places in the world. Three blocks from the upper King Street area with its eclectic shops and fabulous restaurants, walking distance to everything but far enough from Market Street that there was not a constant march of tourists.

Each establishment down here has their own unique attraction and the purveyors are quite aware that the allure of Charleston is not only the atmosphere and history, but the sincere manners that unique but only the purest of South Carolina residents can duplicate. I have long been a regular to this part of the city and now being a full time resident has made things come full circle.

As I South Carolina native and an only child, I spent my formative years in Columbia with its oppressive heat and humidity surrounded by a family full of maternal influence. A dedicated independent mother, a step mother, many aunts, grandmothers, step grandmothers and a few masculine influences smattered around but not nearly as guiding as the women in my life.

College and a post graduate life in Rock Hill after barely surviving Winthrop. I have now become a Charleston resident and look forward to the next phase of my life. Being 44 years old, I have spent many successful years with nationwide travel, visiting cities from every corner of North America, and have never wavered that being here at this point in my life is where I want to be.

The original plan was to have my daughters graduate high school and then move down with my wife. However, often times, a marriage doesn’t survive the time it takes to arrive at a planned destination so I have been a divorced dad for several years. Only recently moving down because Spring in Charleston

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the obligation and desire to be the most important role model for my two daughters had me living in Rock Hill, a 2-bedroom apartment my girls affectionately referred to as the ghetto as my former wife and children remained in our home. With Ava’s recently graduation from High School, there was no longer the need to be in Rock Hill. Sara starting her second year at Clemson, Ava on her way to Duke, they both have developed into exactly the strong willed independent women that I had hoped for and now it is their time to embrace their own next steps as I do the same.

My divorce was my own doing, my own dissatisfaction with feeling loved because I was needed rather than needed because I was loved. A college sweetheart that provided me two beautiful daughters 25 years of being together, a long separation, and finally a divorce. April is an amazing woman, the purest of souls and the kindest of spirits. Beautiful and tall. Long brown hair and a dark complexion thanks to her partial French heritage. Her life centered around children. Even before raising our daughters, she was a passionate interventionist that worked with disabled young children. After the girls became older and she went back to work, she again was still motivated by children, taking a job in a preschool classroom. I am sure that she would have preferred to have more than 2 children, an entire brood in fact, however, I was adamant that 2 was all I wanted.

Our marriage was better than most marriages and was certainly something that could have been saved if I had desired that to be the case. I take responsibility for leaving their mother, but also pride in how I remained an influence to my daughters and how I never neglected to honor my obligations to their mother, even if the biggest obligation, “till death do us part” was not one of them. We have remained close after the divorce and continue to have a special bond because we have a genuine appreciation of the other, albeit while also maintaining our independence from each other.

Yesterday was a familiar scene for a Spring Thursday in Charleston. The tourists walking the streets all afternoon, mostly couples, a few families with smaller children, and of course the smattering of business men and women as they wrapped up their work day. It seems the crowds are largest this time of year and the streets are filled with the most people. It is quite easy to tell that no one has a poor time here, with so much to see and do, Charleston has rightly earned its place so high on the list of top tourist destinations. Of course you still see the families who have brought small children, their exhaustion after a warm spring day pushing strollers, carrying kids that have given up on the walking bringing the entire family to their wits end. I can’t help but

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by Jay Johnson

chuckle to myself a bit when I see them, remembering my despondence after a day like that when Sara and Ava were that age. I do not miss those days at all!

Last night was full of the bar conversation with strangers and acquaintances that usually fill most of my nights out. Invariably, I get to sit next to an interesting couple or businessman that are in town for the week. Sometimes a fellow local who is out, however, like most locals, the tourist areas are not the most favorite place to drink with the premium on drinks.

Flying back into town yesterday afternoon from my normal connection in Charlotte, a quick change from the boots and collared shirt. My black jeans, black dress shoes and a long sleeve blue and white dress shirt, untucked to allow the air flow while also accommodating for an evening that would cool down after the sun crept past the rooftop. “Closed for Business”, a King Street bar with several varieties of beer on rotating taps was my first stop. I enjoy going here because I have been to many of the breweries where these beers originate. Whether it is the Dales Pale Ale from Oskar Blues in Colorado, or the All Day IPA from Founders in Michigan, a Dogfish Head from Delaware or any other brewery I can often tell anyone within earshot about the brewery and the brewer first hand. I have been told that I may have the coolest job on earth and other than consistently butting heads with my German counterparts with their infinite ability expecting they are always right and the “Americans” are wrong it is indeed an excellent job.

Closed For Business, along with its nice selection of craft beers also has exceptional hamburgers and sandwiches. Hamburgers that you can taste the freshness of the meet, cooked to order, the lettuce crispness and tomatoes with the perfect acidity all placed on a soft bun that is quite a bit more expansive than the type of bun in an 8 pack of hamburger buns! Washing it down with a session IPA that still gives the citrus flavor of the hops as all IPA’s with, but a lower alcohol content so that one doesn’t stumble their way out of the bar after 3 beers. Having planned a full night ahead, something with a lower alcohol content was the correct choice.

Chuck, one of my fellow locals, a northerner, from Pittsburg I think. Chuck had moved to Charleston for school about 15 years ago, was enrolled for a while, but didn’t finish is sitting at the bar. Seeing each other, a quick smile, handshake, pleasantries and an empty place beside him, I sit down. Chuck has spent the last 10 years in the restaurant business. Not in the restaurant business as an owner, but as a bar back, bartender and server. I don’t believe he has the ambition or work ethic to run a restaurant on his own one day, but of course that is his desire. Chuck and I met a while back and quickly hit it off. He and I have fished together on my boat several times and for a Spring in Charleston

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northerner, he has quite the skillset for red drum and trout fishing. I have enjoyed the banter and friendship a great deal from him during the last year of us knowing each other.

Having a few beers with Chuck is always a bit refreshing. He has never been married, no children and has a laze fair attitude that is bit admirable. A gangly guy of 40 or so, a few tattoos, a whisker covered face weathered by too much surfing, fishing and drinking, long hair in a ponytail with three rubber bands holding the mass of hair down to the upper half of his back. Probably not someone that I would see at the Historical Society Gala, but a good guy nonetheless and the genuine characteristics of his personality are refreshing. To see someone who truly lives day to day, taking in what the day has in store is intriguing, but his lack of any real plan or money does make me wonder how in the hell he will ever be anything more than what he is right now.

Invariably, there will be a story of an obnoxious tourist who complained that their salad had too much lettuce or a pretentious over educated, underemployed woman who complained there was too much condensation on the outside of her glass. Either way, the conversation is good, we laugh at his run ins with tourists and his interactions with them. I remind him, that he too was as he puts it “one of them Yankees that comes down here expecting everyone to be slow and stupid”.

Each time, he reminds me he’s been here 15 years and he’s a local now. He even goes as far to remind me that he has been a Charleston resident longer than I have. Although true, my lifelong South Carolina native status, always trumping him in the end, reminding him that he started as a Yankee and will always be one by my standards.

We’ve agreed to go fishing this Saturday mid-morning, the tides will be right with the sunrise and there should be good trout fishing up the Ashley river. Both of us were looking forward to that trip since it had been a few weeks since I was able to match my schedule, Chuck’s social calendar, the tides and the sunrise to accommodate the effort and expense of a 6-hour fishing trip.

After an hour or so with Chuck, a few beers, a burger, some small talk with other patrons, I closed the tab, picked up Chucks, he’s buying bait for Saturday. I left out of Closed For Business, down to Halls, a short stroll south on King. Halls Chophouse is one of the most recognized places in Charleston. Often being mentioned as one of the top restaurants in the nation with excellent steaks, blackened on the outside and cooked as ordered, large portions of family style vegetables that are cooked like my Granny cooked them. Fatback and butter with just the right amount of salt! I believe it’s been I business about 10 years, started by a family that had long been in the hospitality business. It is by far one of the most hospitable places in town where the ownership and staff make a point to speak with every person in the restaurant no matter the size of the

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by Jay Johnson

crowd. Tommy, one of the owners, will make a point to personally great everyone, open doors for you and welcome you in as if you were entering their home. Speaking with each table throughout the night, even if only for a brief minute, everyone who comes in is made to feel like they were invited specifically and the genuine gratitude for their patronage is what makes Hall’s so highly rated.

For me, I get an open door held for me, a handshake, a “Good to see you again Jay” from Tommy and I make my way to a place at the bar, greet Edward and order a drink. Being primarily a restaurant, their bar space can be a bit crowded and with its reputation, it is often difficult to come in and sit down immediately. Any dinner reservation on a weekend evening often requires a several weeks wait. Thursday was no different. Still early in the evening, about 8 by now, you could see there was a much larger proportion of men to women, as it normally is. I am not sure how those demographics seem to continually play out in Halls because the city itself is about 5 to 1 women to men in the 25-40 range. Perhaps it’s the reputation and the fact that the most beautiful women seemingly always pass through the doors. There was a group of middle aged men staking rights to the freestanding bar in the middle, all dressed in work attire, collared shirts, slacks, and a few ties. I later discovered they were there for a work meeting and had about 20 guys in town with them. Something in the food distribution business. Their gawks at the women nearby and their best efforts to draw conversation from three ladies that were sitting close was fun to watch. I enjoyed seeing their futility with the ladies, their whispers to each other while huddled like a presnap Hail Marry play call, followed by chuckles as if they were a group of 5th graders commenting on their classmate Sally’s new growing bust! I was sure they were admiring the three ladies and complimenting them in the way only a group of mid 40-year-old guys can do!

I stood for a bit while making small talk with Susie and Dave, a married couple of about 50 that were down from Cleveland I believe. She was a friendly lady, brown hair, neatly manicured French nails, wearing a low cut top that continued to try to distract my eyes. She seemed to be the one with the most personality, or perhaps it was that I am usually more interested in what the ladies have to say than their husbands but never in a threatening or intimidating fashion.

Dave was a shorter man, balding, a bit out of shape and was in the tire business. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, even if he was a bit more into letting me know all about the tire business than I needed. I refrained from saying something to the effect “I buy tires when the ones I have need to be replaced”. When in reality, most people wouldn’t think much differently than what I thought. I inquired about how he goes to market with his tires, what the differences are between the ratings, all kinds of useless information that I knew he would be excited to tell me about, Spring in Charleston

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however, I really could not have cared less. But it is always nice to make someone feel good about what they do, especially when they are passionate about their vocation. Plus, it’s a good trait to possess when you meet someone you have very little in common with and they may not have the bubbliest personality. Dave and Sue were down for a long weekend and we spent about 20 minutes getting to know each other and them peppering me about Charleston. My accent and my casual mannerism along with my knowledge of the area quickly identified me as a local…at least to them. I don’t believe I have been here long enough for the most local of the locals to anoint me but for a visiting couple from Cleveland, I was as local as they needed.

Dave and Susie had recently arrived, we bantered about all there was to do and I gave them my recommendations of what they may enjoy. Of course I told them of my long family heritage in South Carolina and how I have heritage from French Huguenot Refugees helping establish Charleston in the late 1600’s.

Once a seat opened up, I excused myself from my new friends, shook hands with Dave and Susie, thanked them for their conversation, wished them well on their trip and made my way to my seat a few feet away.

Sitting down in the tall leather bar chair, it felt nice to take the load off my legs. One thing about Charleston is that the walking will eventually have you appreciating a seat. My nearly empty Kettle One and tonic placed down in front at the bar, with just a bit of ice left. I gauge the melting of my ice as a pacing method for my intake. If there is too much ice in the glass, I have drunk too fast. I was pleased that my ice to drink ratio was at a good pace, made eye contact with Edward, and lifted my glass with a smile. He acknowledged the nearly empty glass and began making another one.

When a seat opens at the bar, you take it, that is the best protocol. Typically, seats are hard to come by and you seldom have the option of picking the seat with the most attractive of neighbors to your right or left. Once seated, I am usually there long enough to see multiple folks come and go so I am never too excited or disappointed with my initial bar mates, experience has taught me my tenure will more than likely outlast theirs and a new seatmate will soon arrive.

On this night, I would consider to have had pretty good luck. To my right, a couple fellas that I quickly acknowledged and said hello, but the primary attention of my focus was to my left.

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by Jay Johnson

Seated to my left, and seemingly involved in conversation with someone to her left was a petite blonde with a red fitted dress. Her hair was just past her shoulders, more straight than wavy, more blonde than auburn, a tinge of that color that would qualify as strawberry blonde. The dress, more pastel than primary red, was just short of her knees, sat on the edges of her shoulders and had a small string around the waist. I could not see the front but I assumed it probably wrapped around the front with a revealing bust line. Her skin was tan, but tan in a way that a fair skin woman tans.

More of a pinkish, beige tan, rather than the caramel tan of a darker complexion. Looking down, her legs were nice, toned and smooth, her legs crossed and one foot pressing against the rail at the bottom of the bar accentuating her calf muscle. As one who always makes a complimentary comment to a woman wearing a nice pair of shoes, I looked down to see a pair of black open toe shoes with 5 or 6 small thin straps across the top of her foot to her ankle, finished with a strap from the back to the front above her ankle. The heels were pronounced and I imagined she was not doing much walking in them with the uneven streets and cobblestone that would have brought her here by walking.

I took her in as she was facing away so I had yet to see her face but assumed the dark haired guy that was speaking with her was her date. He may have been almost 6 feet tall, had on a suit with a white shirt, no tie and was seemingly confident, bordering on arrogant. It was quite easy to his side of the conversation and it was not long before I could tell they were not together because it was obvious this guy was doing his best to impress this woman.

“I have a degree from Georgetown”, “I live in Martha’s Vineyard”, I work for” whomever he said.

“I’m staying at a house south of Broad St”. “I….”, “I….”, I….” was how he started every sentence as if he was on a job interview extolling his qualifications. In job interviews, and conversations with new woman in a bar that is not the best strategy. From my experience, only the most pretentious, selfish, shallow woman appreciate hearing about how obviously well off a suitor is.

I never heard her respond much and I could see in the man’s facial reactions that she was not indicating a very high level of interest in his efforts. A few more minutes of eavesdropping, smiling to myself, some brief interaction with the guys on my right, I hear my strawberry blonde say “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom”.

Hearing her comment, I turn to see her gathering her purse so I stand up in anticipation to allow my chair out to give her space out of the bar. Standing when she turns, it is not uncommon to see someone turn around, their head fixed at an angle preparing to see someone in the 6-foot range Spring in Charleston

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only to have to adjust and look up to make eye contact with me at 6 foot 5. I always enjoy that moment when their head turns, their eyes fixed and then the head tilt up making eye contact. I always smile with a “You didn’t expect this when you turned around” look in my face.

Seeing her face for the first time I am sure she saw my pleasure in my smile and confident gleam toward her. Having only seen portions of her to this point, her face did not disappoint. Looking directly into her eyes as her head tilts up, us being less than 2 feet away, a deliberate greeting intentional, measured in pace and tone so that I caught her attention… “Hello ma’am, how are you this evening?”

Her already pleasant smile growing just a bit; perhaps because she liked my southern drawl, or she too was pleased with what she saw. Her lips parting to reveal perfect teeth, matching lipstick the color of her dress, her eyes light brown with a hint of hazel green in them. Her hair across her face a bit pushed back around her right ear. Her smile and a small bite on the edge of her own lip giving away any of her desire to conceal her initial pleasure with me.

“Well hey there, I am fine, thank you” she said “Can you tell me where the bathroom is” in an obvious southern accent. Not South Georgia squeaky, and not Mississippi Delta slow, but certainly enough to recognize she was not visiting from Wisconsin or Iowa. Reaching out my hand to touch her shoulder a bit, turning to my left and point toward the back. I tell her, “Right through there, down the hall”. “Thank you” as she turns to walk away, I say, “Let me know what you think of the art”. A quick “Uhhh, OK” back and a bit of an eye squint, her lips tightening, I could tell my comment was unexpected and she would most certainly make a point to see the art.

Sitting back down, my Kettle One ice ratio still maintaining a perfect pace, Edward sees me and my nearly empty glass with just a touch of ice left, and moves to reach for another glass for me.

I look over and see this woman’s drink is also nearing its end and debate ordering her another one while she is gone. Edward would most certainly know what she was having. Knowing that ordering for her was a bit presumptuous and it was a bourbon drink tinted from vermouth with a Maraschino cherry, almost certainly a Manhattan, I opted to pass. Quite the powerful libation for anyone, much less a petite woman. In the past, ordering the drink would have been a no brainer decision and I would have gladly had the drink waiting on the bar for her return, giddy that I had managed to keep her interest long enough for her to drink her free beverage. With additional experience and a sharp understanding of women, I passed and just watched guard over her seat so that she did not lose her spot. “Edward, hold off on my drink, let me finish this one first” I

40

by Jay Johnson

announced as Edward moved toward the glass. A quick smile and he was off to assist someone else.

Glancing back occasionally while she was gone I wanted to make sure to see her approaching return. After 3 or 4 glances for her return, see walks around the lit hallway into the open bar.

For the first I see her clearly with enough distance between so as to take her all in. Her lipstick fresh, her hair tucked behind her right ear, I can see her from the front and take her all in at a distance without giving away my wandering eyes. Standing about 5’6” with the heels, I can tell she is probably 5’2 or 3, her walk indicating presence that is rare in women, authoritative and intentional, there is no timidity in her confidence. I was correct about the skirt, wrap around with a low cut front. Her shape was fantastic, with her dress accentuating her slight curves and an appropriate amount of cleavage, well supported proportional to her body.

Quickly moving from her bust line, we make eye contact, my smile to her eliciting a return smile and a genuine look in her face saying “Wow, he is charming” or some other more nefarious thought but I assumed the most innocent. Standing as she approaches, pulling out her chair, she walks up, “Well thank you kind sir” with a chuckle indicating that the formality of the response was not intended to be as formal as it sounded.

“Welcome back” reaching out my hand as she approaches, “I’m Jay”. “Well hi, I am Diane”.

“Hello Diane, very nice meeting you… what do you think?”

Her facial expression showing that she was a bit perplexed by my question. I could tell she was contemplating a response that was tailored toward what she thought about me and my presence, but I quickly added “The Art?” “Oh, yes, very nice very similar to Jack Vettriano” was her response while her body relaxed a bit to keep from having to admit her thoughts of me. “Very good, nicely done” I said. “I am not sure of the artist, but I believe he is local to the area, and you are right, there is a bit of Vettriano in the painting.”

Guiding her return to the seat with my right hand barely touching her back, I slide her chair back with my left and allow her to sit down. Once she sits, down, I return to my seat and begin the normal introductory banter without saying anything about myself without her inquiring.

Spring in Charleston

41

Diane had been in town for two days already, her conference ending on Friday and then returning to Atlanta. She was a presenter for a healthcare conference here downtown on the Affordable Care Act here downtown and all its intricacies to an audience of health care administrators. I inquired on the topic, added a few general comments that indicated a bit of knowledge on the subject as we discussed the merits and downfalls of such an undertaking while also keeping the politics for and against the reform at a minimum.

As I continued to get to know her, our conversation flowed without the awkward silence that often occurs. Her previous suitor no match for the inclusion of her thoughts in conversation, made an awkward exit as Dian and I continued. We bantered about how I moved down recently, was native to South Carolina, her Arkansas roots and how she came to be an Atlanta resident. Little bits of our lives and funny anecdotes that elicited laughing or a chuckle. We spent a great deal of time looking directly at each other as we spoke, not only as respect to keep my eyes from lingering to her breasts but because I thoroughly enjoyed her conversation and personality. Throughout the evening her fingers twirled her hair in her left hand as her head was turned looking at me.

Never any words divulging anything other than genuine friendly conversation, she was classy and professional but her tells were apparent of her interest. I enjoyed the first introduction to Diane, obviously very intelligent, a hard worker and full of interesting information. As the conversation meandered through comical, historical, worldly or professional, her tells became more apparent; the hair twirls, the unconscious biting of her lip while I spoke, a gentle touch on my left arm as I said something witty, a gentle tilt of her head and a shrug of her shoulders when a bit of embarrassment came into the conversation. We entertained each other for at least two hours, she had another Manhattan and I finished two additional Kettle One’s.

Around 10:30, the crowd in full force, we had spoken to a few other patrons throughout the evening while maintaining our seats she indicated her early presentation was drawing her to think about getting back to her hotel. I motioned to Edward, combined the drinks and paid the tab.

“Of course, you have to be fresh and lively for such a riveting topic tomorrow” I said. “Yea, no kidding, I don’t think the Earth will continue to rotate without my round table discussion from 8-11” with a laugh was her response as I assisted her out of her chair. “Let me walk you out” as I place my hand on the small of her back with enough pressure so that she could sense my presence but not to push her through the bar.

A thank you and an open door as we exit to King St., people walking by, the burgeoning Thursday

42

by Jay Johnson

night has cooled a bit. “So, Diane, it was incredible to meet you, I think you are amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed the banter”. Before she could answer, with an intentional tone I followed with “You mentioned you are wrapping up at lunch tomorrow and are in town through the weekend, what do you have in mind for Saturday?”

“Well, thank you, I enjoyed meeting you as well, I am not sure, you have given me all kinds of fun tidbits of things I should check out and places to see” with a smile, head tilt and the unconscious lip bite as she answered.

A bright smile forming across my face with her response as I began, “I told to you earlier that my boat is in the harbor and there is nothing more that I would enjoy on Saturday than giving you a view of the peninsula from an angle that not many people are able to appreciate” Pausing a bit, her interest apparent but withholding a quick answer, “I don’t know…. but call me tomorrow afternoon for sure please” as she handed me her card.

“No problem Diane, think about it, it’s a great ride and I am certain you will enjoy yourself ” leading her to the waiting rickshaw. Placing my hand on her back again to guide her to her ten speed chariot, a bit of pressure to turn her toward me “Again, it was nice meeting you” I say, while looking at her face below me. I guide her toward me, her head tilting to my face, I lean to kiss her while my hand is moving to the back of her neck. A small adolescent kiss on the side of her mouth, lingering briefly, steady and confident, then releasing her from her tip toes to reach me and removing my hand from her neck Catching her breath. “Wow, Um, Yea…. Yes, call me tomorrow please” as a flush fills her face, her lip bite again. She pauses as we look directly at each other for a moment with no words.

Smiling and looking intently, I say “Good night Diane, I look forward to Saturday” as I watch the rickshaw driver pull away.

Chuck is going to be pissed when I tell him we won’t be fishing Saturday!

Spring in Charleston by Jay Johnson

43

HM

Mango Tango

by Tiffany Cutrone

Dainty feet shuffle underneath stall doors as ladies relieve their bladders in violent spurts.

I wait my turn. The ambiance can only be described as the misting of the unclaimed vegetables during their ritual watering at the grocery. Perhaps, I am a nice plump pepper that is ready to be sliced and diced-flush-my time has come. I shake with excitement. A larger woman with beautiful hips and lips that any woman would take in place of their own, comes out of the stall. My hand instinctively reaches for my lips as if to console them for my fallen devotion for them as I envy this woman’s. I can’t help but watch her as she re-enters the world. She walks over to the sink and gets a hearty serving of soap and lathers her hands with impeccable delicacy, there is great care in this formality. I can see it in her eyes as they watch her hands turn an unnatural white. I have the urge to join her, but that thought sprints away the moment she looks up at me. I am the roach that scurries when light hits it.

Inside the stall my bladder takes over and I revel in this moment, but even after I finish I

remain on my porcelain throne taking in the sounds and scene about me. Through the slit in the door I watch a few rounds of women washing their hands and checking their reflections. I hear spotty bladders, bladders of power, and twinkle bladders as I sit. I feel like a predator, but I know I am safe within these tight quarters that I have made my own. My bony knees and pasty legs are enjoying the airing out, so there is no need to rush.

The peaceful scenery is shattered in an instant as the bathroom is overrun by vicious girls

with chemical imbalances, a detail I include, not faulting them but rather the traumas of puberty.

All are startled by their grand and sudden entrance that causes the bathroom to constrict as if sucking in it’s last bit of air before going under water. I lean close to the door to see what comes next.

My view is perfect. I watch them put on powders and draw on makeup with shaky hands.

They will conquer these aesthetic enhancements in years to come, but their time is not here. They pucker and flaunt as they chatter about things I can’t understand. The bathroom belongs to them as people file by knowing the dangers of girls who have just found hormones. After they finish in front of the mirror they all pack into a stall together and all the doors rattle and shift as they constantly rearrange in their bathroom chamber. I can visualize the endless rearrangement of these young vipers as they struggle to make room for all their ripening bodies. I can hear them egging each other on as giggles travel through the air waves. I want so badly to be a part of this

44

right of womanly passage that I was always excluded from. Their voices sound rushed and their hand movements all the more. A squeaky voice breaks the rustling up with an eager cry, “I’ve got one!” The girls all hush as what I imagine is the ring leader of this pack scoffs, “ What do you want me to do with this? Do none of you seriously not have anything better?” They respond with silence. The girls are quiet in the stall for several moments before all letting out sounds of amazement and with that the lock is released and they all file out. I have an irrational fear as they pass by that I will be discovered, so I sink back as far as the porcelain will allow me. Right as they pass a girl, The girl raises her fist for a micro second and squeezes. I hear something give way under her death grip and she tosses it’s carcass over the back of her shoulder. With that they are gone.

I sit in awe of their life force, almost shaking from their brief presence in my life. I inhale

deeply, zip my pants and reach for the latch. No one is around to notice me. I devote little time to cleansing my hands while my eyes search wildly for the discarded object that the ring leader left. Nothing. I see nothing. This resolution is draining and there in the sink, just as I begin to feel frantic, sits a lone crayola. You, I think. My dripping hands reach for him, Mango Tango. Oh, what a delicious name. Cupping His fragmented self I walk him to the once over-run stall. I enter and pivot to close the door, sure to lock it behind me. Examining the walls encasing me I find the vibrant graffiti scrawled out for anyone to see. There, brilliant and volatile is the scribbling of a pubescent girl reading simply, ‘Janie is a slut’. Oh yes, crayola has found a way to sin in all it’s non-toxic might. Janie, I feel your shame. Janie,I know that this is a lie. Janie, even if it is not, I forgive you.My fingers trace these markings in the hopes to absorb all the hatred that exist within those simple words. Janie, Janie, Janie what are we going to do with you? Below I write my phone number. I look it over for a few moments before I burst out of the stall, hoping to leave no traceable evidence of me.

Teriyaki glazed chicken with a side of almonds and steamed broccoli littered with garlic.

My nostrils expand as the meal cools, it’s fragrance lining my airways. My television is on but the volume is turned all the way down. I do this to give myself the illusion of being in the presence of others much like the experience of going out to dinner alone and being cut off from the surrounding persons conversations, but still comforted by their relevance to you; to just be in the presence of others. These are what we desperate socialites do. We, who if only we were discovered by the world would be loved by all. I shiver at the thought, my time is coming. The stillness in my home is vibrating with the silent hum of the muted television that glows. I cut a hearty piece of chicken, careful to keep all other components of this meal separate, always. Lifting the still steaming piece of meat to my already salivating mouth, the ringer goes off, startling the chicken off my fork and forcing a yelp out of me. Dropping my fork it clatters and mixes my foods- a meal Mango Tango

45

l now ruined- my hands rush to the aid of my gaping mouth to silence it. The ring continues from an unknown number. My heart races. My thin fingers clamor and react.

“Hello.”- Silence. I repeat my words but punctuate it with a tone more questioning, “Hello?”

“Is this Janie?”

My immediate reaction is to tell them that they have the wrong number, but my mind interjects and flashes Mango Tango in urgency.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

This moment, my dear friends, introduces me to my new vice. As soon as I assumed this

identity the gates of vulgarity are unleashed upon me; sayings that I had never dreamed possible, verbal abuse oozed from the phone and into me until both she and I were exhausted. I am in love. And just like that, she left me with nothing but the dead air on the other end and the echo of her words to numb me much like a healthy dose of Novocaine administered by a trained hand.

There I sat for many minutes, my body trembling and basking in the sitcom’s radiant light being expelled from the tube. This light source felt all too exposing and I stood before it in one swift motion cutting it off. There I stood for many more moments in the darkness of the night unsure of what had happened.

Hoping to shake off the words that were meant for Janie, I rush to my room where I strip

myself of my thin dress. I leave it on the floor as if too foul to touch and could feel as my nipples begin to ripple under the cool breath of the room. I sprawled out upon my mattress and stare at the ceiling fan above. Its constant motion causing the slightest rhythmic undertones in the room, lulling me into a dreamy awareness where I replay the words forced into my being that evening over and over and over again. I was a firm believer in the notion that sin, whenever in moderation, brought one closer to God. I allowed my eyes to close so I could linger within the multitude of galaxies behind my lids where I begin to hear the voice from the phone and with it the image of a woman’s glazed lips and words reverberating within me. The image is jarring.

My sleep is anxious as the words of my invasive suitor keep drifting to mind. I sit on

the edge of my bed facing the window in waiting for the almost suburban views to be lit up by the approaching morning glow. The sound of cicadas screaming kept me company during the summer night.

The morning after I carried on with my daily routine of making breakfast and doing some

light stretches but, my mind is occupied by another who whispers nitty gritty to me. Oh Janie, I am baring your cross with diligence and releasing you of all your sins but just know that your burden is draining. I rush to the market hoping that the walk there will ease my mind.

The greeter seems to extend his neck unnaturally to address me and this extra effort does

not go unnoticed but, is also not appreciated. I hope to be out of here as quickly as possible.

46

by Tiffany Cutrone

Shoppers are busy bustling about smelling melons, sizing cucumbers, and admiring cutlets. The fluorescent lights give everyone the appearance of having a sheen coating as if they are replicas of a living breathing person that exist outside of this little grocery. I regret trying to escape my mind by entering into a world so uncanny. I can feel the eyes of others darting in my direction and I know in my being that they know. They know that I have been up all night relishing the vile utterances of another. They know that I am ‘Janie’. They look at me like the slut I have sworn to protect. I can feel my inner self bubbling. I am frozen like a child stricken with fear as these shoppers begin to encircle me, staring, saying nothing at first but rather waiting until I am on the brink of imploding before they let the onslaught ensue. They all take their turns shaming me. Their words pelt me, robbing me of my breath. I collapse into myself and sink into the floor, curling. I make myself tight and impenetrable, but I can see that the buffed floor is disappearing under the ever encroaching feet of these public shamers. I squeeze myself and eyes but it is not enough. While they abuse me I see her lips behind my lids and it calms me. Their voices fade into a deafening drone and on the other side of that I hear it. Her sweet sickness like honey thick and all consuming floods me. I want to see her, to know her.

“Miss.Miss” I open my eyes reluctantly and there a man who’s breath smells of a turkey sandwich, shakes my shoulder. I look around to reacquaint myself with my surroundings and I find women with bulging eyes staring at me.

“Miss are you alright? Is there anything I can help you find?”

This is the polite way for a grocer to tell you to leave. The whole lot of them stare but, they know what they did. I respond to him.

“No, I believe these floors could use a sweep and a buff though.”

I stand stiffly and look into the eyes of a man stuck in the tiny world of this market. I instinctively brush a bit of crumbs that had settled upon the front of his vest. I gather myself and walk coolly to the entrance where the doors whir and open. Before my eyes adjust the world is nothing but piercing white light and yet again her parted lips find me. I gasp.

My walk home is a blur and once I enter my home I lean my back against the door staring

into my space. I could do nothing but crave more from this unknown speaker. Eventually, I gave into it’s illimitable influence upon me and sat alone on my couch hoping that a few sobering breaths would help me regain some semblance of oversight in my life but, there I sat all day. I sat and sat and sat. I felt frail as the lights began to dissipate and I with it. The phone rang and rang and rang and I with it.

“Is this Janie?”

“Yes.” Oh yes, I thought.

Mango Tango by Tiffany Cutrone

47

C MPETITION

ADULT POETRY 48

1

st

Blue Panes

by Kimberly Simms “In the 1960’s the blue windows of the textile mill

were bricked over to improve night shift efficiency” – Lindy Lee, Mill Worker Indigo, cobalt, azure. Protection from the evil eye or wandering ghouls.

Cool icy streams. The color of heaven.

Jesus’ robes. Hyacinth blooms.

I always loved those windows, forty years those blue eyes met mine, a window to the soul. Mr. Stephenson sent the boys up on ladders, smashing laughing with each rain of blue tears.

Blue tick. Bluebird. Blueberry.

Shards settled in the grass and shone in the streaming sun like a thousand eyes.

Who knew mortar could be spread so fast? By day end we stood in the fluorescent lights, surrounded on all sides by endless brick.

But the debris called to us like jewels to crows.

We couldn’t help but pick up the shards, filling our aprons with textured glass then stringing our porches with their blue song.

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2

nd

Dream Sequence

by Joy Colter

“What happens to a dream deferred? -Langston Hughes But what about a dream reimagined?

Still your truth at its core but unlike before it’s been repackaged, reframed rebranded, renamed Perhaps it sits upon a shelf with other dreams much like itself to catch your eye or pass them by Does a reworked dream still qualify?

Changing in its scale and size from what you thought you’d recognize Or if you seed the dream to root, may someone else collect its fruit?

What of you once you see you’re not what you had dreamt to be?

Is there contentment or resentment being you: a dreamless reality?

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3

rd

Chartreuse and Plum

by Bailey V. Oedewaldt

You told your mother you think I’m the one You love me in chartreuse and plum You killed me, struck me dead and done The curls of your hair to my touch soft spun Your shoulders freckled in an infinite sum You told your mother you think I’m the one But you cut my heart when we’d hardly begun Left the nerves in my skin in an angry thrum You killed me, struck me dead and done The slope of your bones leaves my thoughts overrun The pulse in your neck beats a steady war drum You told your mother you think I’m the one The curve of your mouth in sleep leaves me undone But when your lips are damp they taste only of rum You killed me, struck me dead and I’m done The stretch of your skin is silken dun Pressed against mine leaving marks of plum You told your mother you think I’m the one You love me in chartreuse and plum

51

HM

Awash

by Joy Colter

Great big piles of feelings to be sorted for the wash of tears Dried, folded, put away Disbelief goes here – those emotions could be worn again if in a pinch Anger is more difficult to clean Those pains set in quite deep and often need a treatment soak The bargaining embedded in my prayers has the stench of sweat With some I catch a sour scent with my nose to the fabric But they still look neat enough that I can mix them with denial Depression’s full of funk clearly soiled. Laundering requires hot salty water and a bleaching agent for the smell and splotches Acceptance’s done and finished drying Perfumed by sweeter memories The cycles did the best they could Some stains will never go

52

HM

Changing of the Guard at Greenbriar

by Barbara Guidry

The beginning of Greenbriar in the 1960s was nothing very remarkable.

Families were built in tidy red brick houses along the road With prayers and tears, so many tears.

Tears of joy, happiness, success, fear, regret But mostly tears of sacrifice.

Neighbors cared for and looked out for each other.

Babies came, children grew up and eventually moved away Parents were left with empty homes and memories.

Memories of raising their children and growing our town Like little cogs helping to turn the wheel of our community.

Mill workers, business men & accountants, police and firemen Teachers, nurses, caregivers, soldiers Each helping to slowly steadily build And protect our city.

Still, people age like the bricks of their homes, Now watching and protecting each other from their windows.

One by one, as time goes by, we see them less and less Their grass goes uncut, nurses visit, ramps are built for wheelchairs.

Then cars, so many cars.

Farewell softly hums in the wind as we say our silent goodbyes.

But, after death springs life as young families appear, The sounds of children’s laughter take silence’s place in the empty houses.

And so new life begins again for our street, yet if you listen carefully You will hear echoes of the people who first built their lives here.

53

C MPETITION

YOUTH SHORT STORY 54

1

st

Drive

by Grace Riginos

The ignition started, the panic rising into her lungs. The heaving had finally paused as she

abruptly switched gears—and the driving began.”I have to get out,” she thought, “I cant be here, I cant see him, I can’t see her”. The miles sped past her as her feelings flung themselves out the window. How could she stay with a man who treated her like she was nothing? Someone who felt the need to lie and cheat his way out of things? She hit the pedal and sped away from that house. The cool California breeze grazed her mascara stained cheeks as her phone flashed. His name flashed. She turned her head and saw his repetitious words. “Im Sorry” the text screamed, “She didn’t mean anything, I love you and only you”. Lies. Sickly pure malicious words poisoned the screen of her phone. Her foot jammed the gas— 60 mph, 70,80 the meter kept speeding up, almost to the point where she thought her meter would burst (almost like her life). Someone was bound to catch her—but at this point, she didn’t care.

The ocean was in her view now. She parked the car, her headlights looming as the only

source of light in the charcoal night. 3:52 am. More texts. “Where are you?” “Hello?” 34 missed calls, 20 texts. She felt purely nothing; emptiness filled her from her toes to the top of her head, representing the empty beacon she held of her life. He could rot in hell for all she cared. She lit a Marlboro and slowly took a drag. The smoke bellowed out in front of her, engulfing her senses and filling her belly with an aching for SOMETHING other than this. The cigarette smacked her with an aura of sudden calmness. Time stood still, the only source of movement was the steady crashing of the charcoal waves. Her brain started to turn. A few months past everything had been perfect; she recounted the mornings of waking up to an unaccounted smile, impromptu coffee deliveries and bursting hydrangeas littered her as she was treated like the only woman in the world. Now she barely saw him- the first time he claimed it was just a mistake, so she returned.

The long nights he’d come home drunk and screaming. Forcefully shoving her into the coffee table, pricking her with words, and betraying her with infidelity. She always came back. She loved him through everything. “Leave him,” everyone urged. She always stayed. Through the blue and the black marks dotting her body and the sickly lies that fell from his lips. Somehow, even in this moment, she still found a desire to turn back around and act as if nothing happened. He was a drug to her. As bad as he was, she always came back.

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2

nd

Passed By

by Jaden Lemmonds

I roll onto my side, trying to find a comfortable position on the unyielding sidewalk. I

make an effort to block out the loud beeping of the cars passing not ten feet away and the inciting smell of the food trucks across the street. Thankfully, I’m good at this. I’ve had a lot of practice. I reposition my backpack beside the bench that is the barrier between me and the road and burrow down under the skimpy scrap of tarp that serves as my blanket, wishing that the chilly wind would die down a bit and take the slight drizzle with it. I’m almost asleep when a group of chattering tourists come down the street and stop at the corner, waiting for the crosswalk. I sigh inwardly. One of the disadvantages of sleeping by a crosswalk is all the people. It can be a blessing during rush hours because of all the business, but when you’re trying to sleep it can be a real pain. I’d been too tired to go anywhere else after walking all day. I hope they’ll pass quickly.

I open my eyes a fraction of an inch, not enough for them to notice, and keep my

breathing steady. Two kids, two teens and a woman I guess is their mother. My gaze passes quickly over the three youngest, a girl and two boys, and the mom. They’re all somewhat dressed like me, with blue jeans and a jacket, but the older girl has on a thick, white coat. The hood is lined with fluffy fur. She’s looking at me, but I can’t figure out what she’s thinking. Not that I really care, but I like it when someone who looks like they would be disinterested actually feels some degree of sympathy, however small.

The light changes and they move on, but I think I see the teen say something to the

woman and gesture slightly in my direction before they cross. I swallow hard. I try really hard not to feel bitter towards people like that, who see people like me and just keep walking. Her coat looked so warm...

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3

rd

We’re Goin’ Someplace Free

by Mallory Dover

I cried as I watched Mrs. Jackson whip Mama until she screamed. Mr. Jackson had gone

to war two years earlier and died in the battle of Petersburg. So now Mrs. Jackson was the person left to run the farm. I ran to Mama after Mrs. Jackson left and stammered, “Mama, are you fine?”

Mama muttered back, “Mary Jane, I’m fine. Now run along and do your chores before Mrs. Jackson gets back.”

After I head back to the big house, I see Ivy pick up Mama and carry her back to our

very small, dirt floor house. Ivy has been at the Jackson’s plantation for longer than we have. I then hear my little sister, Lucille, run in. There are tears running down her face, and I know that she was in our house when Ivy came in with Mama. “Mary Jane, what happened to Mama?” she sobbed and ran into my arms. “Oh Lucille, you didn’t know? I’m sorry you had to see Mama like that,” I replied. We just sat there and cried in each other’s arms, until Ivy got back to do her chores. When she saw us, tears started to run down her face and she told us Mama was alright.

We smiled and thanked the Lord.

That night I decided to make a plan for us to escape after Mama got well: me, Mama,

Lucas, Lucille and Ivy. Lucas heard me and woke up. I told him my plan. “That’ll never work.” He laughed quietly. “Yes, it will. It’s a great plan and I’m gonna escape!” I almost shouted back at him, “As soon as Mama recovers we’re leaving!” Mama woke up and looked straight at me. “Mary Jane, why are you yelling?” Mama asked in a tired voice. I wondered what in the world I was going to say. “Well, I was planning for us to run away once you got well. And then, Lucas started telling me my plan was horrible. So I yelled at him.” Mama took a long sigh and told me and Lucas to go back to bed.

The chilly spring breeze was cold on my face as we quietly walked along the row of houses

to get Ivy. “Wait, I dropped my sack,” Marie whispered. Marie is Lucas’s wife. Right after Mama got whipped she came to the Jackson’s plantation. She said whenever she first met Lucas they fell instantly in love, so they got married a month ago. Lucas insisted she come with us. Knock!

Knock! Lucas knocked on Ivy’s door. “Not so loud!” Mama whispered. The door creaked as Ivy opened it. “Just one more thing,” Ivy said, “Lucas come help me get the freedom quilt down.” Papa loved that freedom quilt. He used to say that we were going to escape with it someday. Papa never cared about himself, just others. I remember the day he died like it was yesterday. One day Papa went up to the overseer and asked if he could have some more food for Mama. She was going to We’re Goin’ Someplace Free

57

have Lucille at the time. After he asked for the food, the overseer replied, “Of course not! You’re just a no good slave!” Papa pleaded, “But sir, my wife is gonna have a baby.” “Well I don’t care!” he boomed back at Papa. Then he drew something from his pocket. Before Papa could move…

BANG! As soon as Mama heard that horrible sound, she rushed out of our house and went straight to Papa. “Oh, what have you done?” she sobbed to the overseer. “Talk to me like that again and you’ll be laying with him!” the overseer replied in a harsh tone. Mama never again said another word to the overseer. “Oh, James, James don’t be dead! Oh, please don’t be dead!” Mama cried. She checked for a heartbeat. Nothin’. Papa was dead and there was nothin’ we could do.

Papa was such a great man. I wish he could be here with us.

“Mama, where are we goin’?” Lucille asked. She was asleep when we left and she had just

woke up. “We’re going’ someplace free. Now go back to sleep,” Mama told her. After Lucas helped Ivy get the freedom quilt, we were on our way.

Mary Jane, wake up.” I hear Mama’s tender voice say. I open my eyes and on the tree above

me there was the prettiest red bird, I ever did see. Then I hear Lucas exclaim, “We’re free! We’re free! President Lincoln just freed the slaves!” I jumped up and ran straight past Mama, Lucille and Marie. I tell Lucas to hand me that. He was reading it off the newspaper he found last night. Me and Lucas have always been able to read. A nice lady, who believed slavery was wrong, taught us.

“It’s true, we really are free!” I shouted. Lucille stood up. “I hear horses,” she almost whispered. “I hear them too,” Marie added. “Hide quick!” Lucas snapped. We got in the bushed and hid. I could hear them getting closer and closer. Badoom, Badoom, Badoom! Finally I could see a covered wagon pulled by horses come right in front of me. I hear a little girl’s voice say, “Pa, can you stop the wagon for a minute?” So a man with a very long brown beard and was particularly tall, stopped the wagon and looked around and said “What is it, Anna?” Anna, who I guess is the little girl’s voice I heard, climbed out of the wagon and walked straight to me. She held out her hand and said, “Come on out, It’s alright. We won’t hurt you!” I hesitated. Then I stood up slowly and walked out of the bushes. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Mary Jane, what’s yours?” I answered.

“Anna,” she replied. Anna was so pretty, she had long, beautiful, blonde hair, a warm smile and rosy red cheeks. We were quiet for a minute then she walked back to the wagon and pulled out a piece of bread and gave it to me. “Thank you,” I beamed. “You’re welcome,” she giggled. “Anna,” a woman called. “Yes, Ma?” Anna replied. “We need to get going home,” Anna’s Ma said. “Where do you live?” I asked. “Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We were here in South Carolina visiting cousins,” Anna answered. “Who are you talking to?” her mama called out. Then a lady who had beautiful golden curls just like Anna’s stepped out of the wagon and introduced herself to me. “Good afternoon. My name is Grace Johnson. What’s yours?” she said. “Mary Jane. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.” I answered. She was holding a white bundle that started to move and I knew it

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by Mallory Dover

was a baby. “Well it’s nice to make your acquaintance as well. This is my husband Mark Johnson.

We were here visiting some cousins and are heading back home to Philadelphia. I guess you know you are free or you wouldn’t roaming the streets, right?” she stated. “Yes ma’am. We goin’ to Philadelphia as well,” I replied. “Who’s we?” she added. “Me, Mama, Lucas, he’s my brother, Marie, his wife, my little sister Lucille, and our friend, Ivy,” I explained. After that I told my family to come on out and they did. Then Ivy and Mama started talking to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson while me, Anna, and Lucille played and talked. Lucas and Marie were sitting on a log, talking when Mama told us to gather our things and get into the wagon. The Johnsons had offered to take us with them. So we got in the wagon and we’re goin’ someplace free!

We’re Goin’ Someplace Free by Mallory Dover

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HM

Bricks and Mortar

by Rachel Stevens

Even bricks and mortar couldn’t hold me together. They couldn’t hold in the emotions

that I felt inside, or dimiss the ever-returning anguish. I’ll bet that if you saw me, you’d feel the cheerless vibes that plague my reality. I’m just sad pile of bricks A wall of emotions.

Bashings and beating cover my body. They have dented not only my outer façade, but my

inner self as well. Plants grow through cracks in the mortar, wilting from lack of sunlight. Some of my bricks have fallen casualty to violent climates and irritable people, and now lie isolated on the cracked sidewalk. I can still hear their silent screams.

The land I stand on is no different than I. Pleasantry Boulevard is a desolate street, filled

with dingy tenements and even dingier people. The old diner a few blocks down has seen better days, now a setting for the unemployed folks to smoke their pipes over The New York Times. The local bodega’s neon lights flicker on and off, showcasing the 49-cent discount for frozen turkey.

Oh, and the bank! You won’t find a penny in there since its closing in 1981. It survived

thirty-four robberies since ‘67. Boarded-up lots litter the blocks indefinitely, and once in awhile you’ll see a family departing over an eviction notice. Pretty pleasant, right?

I still can’t imagine why I haven’t succumbed to a neglectful fate, like everything else

around me. But one day, I will be reduced to nothingness. I don’t know when that time will be, wether it be sooner or later. In some way, I yearn for that feeling of destruction to wash over me. I wish to be disembodied of my gloomy past.

Years later, I reconcile that very same feeling as people toss my isolated bricks to the side

and tear up my sidewalk. A large circular object is positioned in front of me, taunting me so very slightly. It smashes into my exterior, demolishing me just like I had wished. Only now, I wish the destruction would stop. I take back what I said. I don’t want to leave behind the memories that, while caused me much pain, had comforted me in times of doubt.

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But this time, bricks and mortar couldn’t hold me together.

HM

Second Grade Worries

by Chloe Powell

Once there was a boy named Sam and a girl named Sarah. In first grade Sarah and Sam

were playing football and Sarah got hit by the football and had a BIG blister on her head. Sarah didn’t want to be friends with Sam anymore. Then Sarah was at Mr. Stevens’ second grade open house. She was in Sam’s class and sat next to him. She didn’t want to sit next to him.

When school started Sarah and Sam were asked to do a project together about spiders.

Sarah liked spiders and so did Sam. Sarah’s friends were Lucy, Margret and Jessie. Sam’s friends were Mike, Gavin and Shawn. Sarah played with Margret on the playground they played tag. Sam played with Shawn on the playground they played soccer. Sarah and Sam did not play together.

Then it was time to go inside. Sarah and Sam worked a little bit on their project. The next

day Sarah and Sam had to finish their project. At recess Sarah decided to play with Sam, they slid on the slides. And as they talked together they were friends again. Sarah finished her project with Sam about spiders.

There was a project contest. Sarah and Sam won first place! Now Sarah and Sam are best

friends forever. Sarah will have an awesome second grade year.

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HM

Colors

by Jaden Lemmonds

“Your plane was delayed again?” Mom inquires over the phone.

I rub my eyes with my free hand.

“Looks like it,” I reply, trying to sound optimistic. “They think we’re going to be stuck

here for tonight at least.”

“Well, you stay with the group and be safe,” Mom emphasizes.

I promise I will, and we hang up.

“Hey, Will,” my friend Jesse calls, motioning for me to sit with him when he sees I’m

finished on the phone. I plop down beside him and pan the group. There are only about fifteen older teens and young twenty-somethings along with four older and more experienced missionaries. We’ve all planned for this trip to Ethiopia for months, and now we’re stuck at the Charlotte-Douglas Airport, waiting for our plane.

Alden, the one who headed this whole thing up, is having us set up camp on the blue

padded chairs while we wait. Our flight was supposed to depart early this morning, but it was cancelled. The flight we had arranged to take instead was delayed. Twice. So now it looks like we’re going to spend a night in the airport. No one brought pillows or blankets, but we can use our backpacks and most of us have jackets.

Alden and his brother, Wyatt, call the guys around in a circle on the floor for devotions. I

lean back against the seats and wait for them to start. Across the main aisle the women counselors, Hodie and Esther, are doing the same.

“So,” Alden, who is sitting across from me, begins, “it looks like we’re staying here

tonight.”

The whole group groans as one, but Alden grins.

“C’mon, guys, really, it’s not that bad. Now, what are some reasons why our flight was

delayed?”

“A glitch on the plane?” one boy offers.

“A storm?” another suggests.

Alden nods to both.

“Those are both legitimate problems, but think theologically.”

This time there’s a pause. People are starting to look to each other for answers when

Jesse, who’s sitting to my right, pipes up, “Satan…doesn’t want us to go on our mission trip?”

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Alden quickly points at him.

“Exactly. I believe that there’s some spiritual warfare going on here. God wants us to go

on this trip because we’ll be winning lives for Him, and that’s exactly the opposite of what the Devil wants. So what do we do?”

“We can pray,” I propose.

“That’s good, Will, but we have to do more than just pray. James 1:6 says, ‘But let him

ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.’ Yes, we can pray, but we also have to believe that God can accomplish all things according to His will. If we pray, but don’t expect anything to happen, it’s no good.”

Alden pauses, seemingly collecting his thoughts.

“When I was a kid, there was a lady at my church,” he says, “that prayed in every

situation. She literally spent four or five hours every morning praying. The Sunday after she died, the pastor addressed the congregation, and he said that if she had even a minor headache, she would pray about it and ask God to heal it because it was interfering with the work He had for her to do. She prayed in faith; there was no doubt in her mind whatsoever that her headache would be healed. We need to have that kind of faith. Let’s pray.”

He waves us closer. We gather around, arms on each other’s shoulders, as Alden prays,

“Dear Lord, we ask Your protection over us as we prepare to sleep here tonight. Please give the pilots and everyone who is trying to figure out what’s wrong right now wisdom. Get us to Ethiopia soon so we can have a full two weeks there, and please help the people to receive Your Word once we get to the village. Please bless these young people, who are giving their time to come and serve You. We thank You for Your Son Jesus, and for opening up enough chairs for our whole group to spread out tonight. Amen.”

“Amen,” we repeat before climbing back up onto the seats.

“Okay, guys, I can’t exactly call a lights-out here,” Alden says to the group, “but don’t

stay up late. We’re going to need energy these next couple weeks.”

I lay awake on my back for a long time, thinking about where we’re going. I’ve wanted

to go on an overseas mission trip for years, and I really felt like God was calling me to Ethiopia to visit orphans. I was inspired by the words of a Zimbabwean pastor who was martyred for being a Christian: The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I’m a disciple of His and I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still…

After reading some of his writings, I decided that I wanted to be a missionary. I got

involved in some local missionary work soon after and met Alden while volunteering at a local children’s home.

Colors

Most of us have been putting money towards this trip for a year and we even learned

63

some Amharic, the official language in Ethiopia. We’re going to visit kids whose parents died in a yellow fever epidemic that hit almost two years ago. Thankfully, the virus has passed, but the aftereffects were devastating.

With all these thoughts fighting for center stage, I pull my hood up and roll onto my side,

resting my head on my arms, and drift off to sleep…

“Will, c’mon, dude. It’s time to go. We’re leaving,” Jesse half shouts, shaking me to wake

me up. I sit up and shake my head to clear it.

“What?” I mumble groggily.

Jesse grins. “It’s time to get up. Our plane’s ready.”

“What time is it?” I ask, still not fully functioning.

“Five o’clock on this beautiful Wednesday morning,” Jesse says, making a voice like a

news reporter, which makes everyone within hearing laugh.

We make sure the girls are ready to go and all file onto the plane.

While in flight, a few of us are able to get a little more sleep, while those who have

window seats stare at the sea below. Some people are reading books, listening to music, or talking. We’re riding coach, boys on one side, girls on the other. Alden and Wyatt sit one on each end of the group; Alden in the front and his brother in the back, while Hodie and Esther do the same with the girls’ side. Our flight lasts sixteen and a half hours straight with no layovers. Once the sun goes down again, I manage to get some shut eye, but my dream is anything but peaceful.

We’re on the plane. Everything is the same, except that the plane is rocking from side to

side. I lean forward so I can see past the guy on my left and look out the window. What I see makes me jump and scramble back into the aisle. I toss my head from side to side, thinking I’m going crazy, because no one else is reacting. They’re all going about their business like nothing’s wrong, so I move back to the window to get a second look. I wasn’t wrong. Through the rain, I can see smoky maroon demons circling the plane, shoving up against its sides and messing with the wings. One spots me looking at it and shoots me an evil sneer before rushing at the window. fall backward again and hit the floor just as the glass shatters…

I sit stock-straight in my seat, gasping and terrified, and stretch to look out the window.

Nothing but rain.

“Whoa! Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Jesse says from the aisle. “I just

dropped my water bottle and it cracked. Dude, I was starting to think you could sleep through anything. Didn’t you feel all that turbulence?”

64

“Turbulence?” I inquire, still not fully settled in reality.

by Jaden Lemmonds

“Yeah, the plane was shaking like crazy. Alden says it was the wind,” he says, with a hint

of nervousness in his tone.

I try to make sense of my dream. It was probably just the turbulence mixed with Alden’s

talk of the Devil trying to stop us yesterday, but I can’t shake it. Even though I try to distract myself, it occupies my mind for the rest of the flight.

When we finally land in Addis Ababa, everyone has cabin fever and is ready to stretch

their legs, but we still have a two hour bus ride to take into the rural farming village where we’ll be staying. The airport is huge and modern; not at all like what I’d expected. We take a quick break to eat and change clothes, during which time the counselors have everyone change into the bright green t-shirts we made for our mission team.

“Everyone in,” Alden says, ushering us onto the narrow bus, which is in need of paint.

We take whatever seats we can find, but some of us still end up standing in the back.

There are several Ethiopians on the bus, and I wonder if we look odd to them. Their stares make me a little uncomfortable, but soon they all get off, leaving just us and the driver onboard.

We move along at about ten miles per hour for thirty minutes or so before the road starts

to deteriorate. Soon there really isn’t a road at all. People are losing their balance and falling into each other as the bus jostles us in every direction. I stare at my shoes and try not to get sick.

Finally, the bus grumbles to a stop. I look up, excited, but see nothing out the windows

other than the dusty terrain.

“What’s wrong?” Alden asks the driver in Amharic.

We all listen as the Ethiopian expresses the problem. I decipher that the bus is broken; it

looks like something went wrong with the engine. The driver claims that there had been nothing wrong with the bus this morning when he started it up—but there clearly is now. We aren’t going anywhere.

“Okay, guys,” Alden addresses the other counselors, “we have no way to contact help, so

we can all start walking back into Addis Ababa, or we can send a small group to go back while the others stay here. What do you think we should do?”

The four of them quickly agree to send Alden and Wyatt, along with the driver, back into

the city, since they’ll have a better chance of catching a ride.

“Make yourselves comfortable. We might be here a while,” Hodie tells us.

Jesse and I decide to step outside for some fresh air and the rest of the boys come with us.

We spend several minutes in a friendly silence. The majority of us, including me and Jesse, lean against the back of the bus while others sit on the ground. I was a little surprised to discover, in preparing for the trip, that Ethiopia isn’t sweltering hot, like I’d always believed. The temperature averages sixty degrees Fahrenheit at Addis Ababa. However, there is lots of wind Colors

65

and, since June is one of the wettest months of the year, the ground is slightly soggy. I look off to the horizon, where thunderclouds have begun to gather. Hopefully we can make it to the village before they catch us.

“Guys,” Jesse says slowly and everyone looks up, “you remember what Alden was saying

last night, about Satan not wanting us to get done what God wants us to?”

We all nod.

“Well, maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe Satan decided that delaying the plane

wasn’t enough. Maybe he’s still trying to stop us,” he says.

Nobody seems to be surprised by Jesse’s conclusion, maybe because that’s what we all

were thinking, only no one wanted to be the first to say it.

“What do you want us to do?” one of the other boys asks.

“We could pray,” Jesse suggests.

“That’s a good idea,” I chime in. “Why don’t you lead us?”

Jesse calls us into a huddle just like Alden does and prays. Afterward we break up into

groups of two and three to talk, but soon return to the bus.

“Hey guys,” Hodie says. “We saw you all huddled up. Can I ask what that was about?”

“We were just praying,” Jesse answers. “We thought maybe Satan was trying to

discourage us again, and I figured we could fight back.”

“That’s great, Jesse,” Hodie says, beaming. “We had a similar discussion while you guys

were outside.”

Esther jumps in, giving Jesse the highlights of the conversation. I half listen to them, but

mainly think about what we’re going to do when we actually get to the village. Alden told us that some of the bigger guys are going to build houses and other necessary buildings, while the others will help with the orphans, playing with them and encouraging them. Every night there will be a Bible study, where everyone will gather together as we present the Gospel in their language. We have with us several dozen Bibles, meticulously translated into Amharic, that we can pass out.

I’m reminded again of the words written by the Zimbabwean martyr: I will not flinch in

the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the presence of the adversary. I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won’t give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes. And when he does come for His own, He’ll have no problem recognizing me. My colors will be clear!

I realize that by praying to combat the Devil, we were not “hesitating in the presence of the adversary,” but fighting back with a power on our side that cannot lose.

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by Jaden Lemmonds

“Hey, look—Alden and Wyatt are back!” someone cries. Everyone cheers and we pour,

one by one, out of the bus to meet them, surprised they returned so quickly.

Alden and Wyatt, along with the driver and the mechanic they brought from Addis

Ababa, have the bus fixed within the next hour. Apparently the problem was relatively small, considering that they’d been expecting a huge problem with the engine. After a quick celebration we’re back on the road.

We continue to ride for another hour before it starts to rain.We can barely see ten feet

ahead of us in the downpour, which is why we almost drive straight into a stream that has overrun its banks and swollen into a river. The driver slams on the brakes and everyone lurches forward.

Alden directs a question to the driver, who shakes his head.

“There has to be a way we can get across,” Alden insists.

“Impossible,” the driver argues.

“Nothing is impossible with God,” Esther calls out. “But we can still wait and see if the

waters go down some.”

This seems to make the driver happy, and we get ready to wait it out, but before five

minutes have passed the driver says that he thinks we can make it across. Looking out the window, I see that the water level has gone back down to its original depth and width. Even the rain has been reduced to a steady drizzle, through which we can finally see the village not four hundred feet ahead of us.

Many guys lean out the windows to get a better look as the children from the village

come splashing through the mud to meet us. The slower adults follow, looking just as excited as the kids. The driver stops the bus right outside the village. The ground is wet, but the air is dry; even the drizzle has stopped. The girls immediately begin to interact with the children while the guys and I start to unload the supplies we brought. As I pass a box of Bibles to Jesse, I spot a flash of red in between a couple of the houses. I squint to get a better look.

Hanging between two of the hut-like buildings is a banner created by the Ethiopians to

welcome us. Staring at the beautiful, vivid, hand-painted colors, I am reminded of the grace of God and how He got us past all the obstacles the Devil threw in our way, and I know my colors are clear. Smiling to myself, I once again recount the words of the pastor, “I am a disciple of Jesus. I must give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes.”

I can’t help but utter aloud, “Amen.”

Colors by Jaden Lemmonds

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C MPETITION

YOUTH POETRY 68

1

st

Summer

by Charlotte Pollack

I find the soul of summer in the strangest places.

In blackened capers smoking in a pot while I flip the salmon cakes.

In the scent of sweat and sunscreen. Softball fields.

Mandma’s giant bathroom, scented with orchids, and a whole counter dedicated to a myriad of exotic perfumes.

There’s something eye catching about the way the sun eats up the sky over Lake Wylie. And I don’t know why I’ve been noticing my sister’s soft moans as she gleans abandoned bobby pins from her wet hair.

And how is it that s something that passes each year does not cease to intrigue me? The way I never grow tired of being swallowed by the heat of 5:15, and the pleasant surprise of watching watermelon melt, disintegrating between my fingers like an dice cube or a dream.

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2

nd

The Undersea Orchestra

by Mackenzie Bocholis The voice of the whales start up like a drum, Humming and moaning and starting the song.

The calling of dolphins gives rise to a melody, Squeaking and chittering, they dance as they sing.

The waves pound ashore and crash like cymbals, Spraying on rocks in the tempo and beat.

The glorious music how it threads through the water, Slips into the veins of the fish in the school; To choreograph a dance that likens to none other, A movement of beauty and wonder.

With jellyfish lighting and clamshell seating, as the oceans look on at the undersea stage: With awe and delight they watch the performance, Clapping and cheering as the music crescendos.

This wonderful display of talent and melody, Its name, the Undersea Orchestra.

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3

rd

Boulevard

by Rachel Stevens

The Old Diner a few blocks down Has seen better days, Now a setting for the unemployed To smoke their pipes over The New York Times.

The local bodega’s neon lights Flicker on and off Showcasing the 49-cent Discount for frozen turkey.

And you won’t find A penny in the bank, closed in ‘81.

Surviving thirty-four robberies since ‘67.

Vacant lots, boarded up, Litter every byway.

As common as rats in the back alleys.

More than enough You’ll see a fmaily departing Over an evection notice.

Stoplights, broken down For some twenty years Took thirty-seven people victim.

Not your typical boulevard.

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HM

Rainy Revelations

by Charlotte Pollack

As I sit here on the porch watching the rain come down I am reminded of how beautiful and how musical and how rhythmic humans are dancing from room to room with wet hair, bare feet stars and sky in our eyes, waiting to rise and to fall, tumbling from the roof in dark shetts, going where gravity leads, ever-crawling, every following, a slow dance of water and inevitability

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HM

Summer Vacation

by Carly Kennedy

The cool breeze through my hair.

Soft sand between my toes.

Not having a care in the world.

On a sweet, summer vacation.

Surf boarding on high waves and building sandcastles.

Collecting shells and discovering something new.

Taking long walks on the beach.

Breathing in fresh air.

On a sweet, summer vacation.

Hanging out with family and friends.

Trying something new.

Making jokes and having fun.

On a sweet, summer vacation.

A sweet, sweet, summer vacation!

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