textfiles/magazines/HELTERSKELTER/hs6.txt

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Editors note: 
	I'm kinda excited about this issue.  I've got some burroughs, some 
fiction, some other shit, it doesn't get any better than this, at least not 
until #7 comes out.  hahaha whatever.  anyway, keep sending me stuff people.  
I love it.  I hope everyone likes the pictures and everything and the slick 
little things I can do with my dtp program.  It's getting more and more fun to 
play with.  If you missed some of the earlier issues and you have internet 
access you can grab the text from ftp.etext.org in pub/Zines/HelterSkelter/ or 
from my bbs, Omniverse, at (301)718-0225.  I love trades (be sure to mark 
trade on the zine somewhere, otherwise you'll only get the issue you were 
reviewed in [if I review your zine] and not the one you wanted to trade for.  
if you write  trade somewhere, you'll most likely get both).  Back issues are 
available, but not always in stock.  It make take a week or to for me to get 
around to copying things,  so if you want a specific issue, it may take a 
little while.  Of course, for $5 you could just subscribe for the next 6 
issues or get the entire Helter Skelter catalog, 1-6.  Just use the handy 
dandy cut out coupon later in the issue for ordering.  ok, say you want to 
reach me.  the usuall way is normal mail: 
Helter Skelter 
c/o Derek Teslik 
3519 Woodbine St. 
Chevy Chase, MD 20815 
but the quickest, cheapest, and fastest way is through e-mail, use my netcom 
address first: 
dteslik@ix.netcom.com 
but if there seems to be any problems with that, you can always try these two: 
derek.teslik@sbaonline.gov 
or 
dhorse@cult.empire.org 
 
Anyway, enjoy the issue, mail me stuff to review, and have a good 
spring/summer 
(whenever you get this) 
 
 
(issue finished 3:53 am 3/5/95.  ahhh...a go, and interviews.  Just send $1 to: Melt 
Away...  
P.O. Box 081431 Racine, WI  
53408-1431 
--- 
Monty Python zine out now. $1 Us and Canada. $2 elsewhere. The cheese shop has 
actually ordered a block or two of cheddar for the occasion. Siue, box 75, 240 
Jarvis St., Toronto, On, M5B 2L1, Canada. First 20 get neat postcard. 
--- 
"ACK! A new Humor / Music zine.  News, reviews, interviews, etc.  Send a stamp 
(American or Canadian) or a buck to:  ACK!, Box 115, #105 - 10277 135th 
Street, Surrey, BC,  V3T 4C3 CANADA" 
--- 
Hell Bound MEGAzine, a total experience within the pages of a all for fun, fun 
for all zine.  Interviews with NOFX, Rancid, Face to Face, Fugazi, and Teen 
Generate. Reviews and all kinds of stuff. $2 Post paid to:1001 Cooper Pt. Rd. 
Sw., Suite 140-194, Olympia, WA, 98502. 
-- 
Outback Records presents the release of the Eternity east coast hardcore 
compilation featuring Ressurection, Battery, SOulow, Lifetime, Ashes, 
Dayspring, Damnation, and Trial by Jury. CD is $10 ppd US and $12 world. Also 
don't forge Outback Magazine is now a bi-monthly publication featuring the 
best in hardcore and more...send $2 US/ $3 world for the latest issue and 
info. Send SASE for other info. and catalog to 5255 Crane Rd., W. Melbourne, 
FL. 32904 or fax at #(407)728-4161. 
--- 
"COME PLAY AT THE MONK- Blue Monk is a coffeehouse and ice cream shack that 
doubles as a punk venue. We want your band. We want your zines. We want your 
love. Contact: Carl Hirsch (614)772-1204 17 E. Main St Chillicothe Oh 45601" 
--- 
Hey all you hip cats, this is just another reminder to get your fluxx fix 
every saturday night from INFLUXX, the radio show that brings you only the 
best ambient grooves and wierded out poetry and caller participation you can 
get.  Remember, 1150 AM WMET, every saturday night at 11.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Letters+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
I haven't gotten any letters that wre THAT interesting (interesting enough to 
print) but I posted the "punk jazz" article to alt.punk on the internet, and 
here's a response I got.  It basically sums up what I was trying to say: 
 
From: "Lydia A. Bartholow" <lydiab@alpha.pr1.k12.co.us> 
 
cripes 
i couldn't agree more about jazz...so many shitheads today who think they can 
only be punk if they listen to super underground shit or the DK's its become 
this huge orthodox type thing, which in my opinion is exaclty what punk shant 
be and all these punks who claim to be the first ones....when punk has been  
going on for millions of years, it just wasn't called punk no one understands 
that when jazz was being developed it was completely underground and punk rock 
there just ain't enough beauty in the skene anymore and i guess i feel  that 
jazz could bring unity back in... lets get this shit flowing... 
 
ema 
 
anarchist/socialist/progressive 
authority questioned - revolutions started - government overthrows planned 
 
anyway, I print letters, so if you want to continue discussion on any point 
brought up, e-mail a response to me (dteslik@ix.netcom.com) or just mail them 
normally.  It would be cool to have some sort of continuing debate on some of 
this stuff. 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Feature+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
As I'm sure all of you already know, the debate over signing to a major label 
has raged here for a very long time, as well it should. However, it has 
unfortunately become redundant in many cases. The following post is an 
attempt to point out the larger picture, a very important perspective  
that has not been voiced her or, at least, one that I have not come across.  
 
The arguments most frequently presented focus on two primary effects of 
signing to a major label: 1) the band compromises its artistic integrity by 
ceding control to people outside the band, e.g the label bureaucrats, and 2) 
the band is making profits for an evil corporation. And both of these are 
true. They are also well recognized and documented and, therefore not worth 
repeating over and over. Other elitist concerns enter the discourse, the basic 
thrust of which is "I don't want to share my favorite bands with frat-boys," 
which is also valid, but less important. 
 
Bands who choose to sign, as well as their apologists within the scene, 
respond by claiming that 1) their particular contract grants full artistic 
control and 2) that they get distribution and tour support, etc. that they 
need in return from the label. (I think Fugazi pretty much proves this point 
wrong but that's another story). These arguments aside, there is a larger 
picture which has been overlooked which has to do with precisely to whom the 
bands are "selling-out" their fans. 
 
Bands who sign to major labels (and this also includes "independent" labels 
who behave as major labels by playing the same game, Epitaph records for 
example) create advertising  markets. That is, they sell-out their fans to 
advertisers. The band becomes an audience getter, in other words. This is best 
demonstrated by giving an example. 
 
Take Green Day, a band who sold out their fans to the mega-corporation Time-
Warner. Their hit single "Basket Case," as well as succeeding releases, was 
used as a marketing tool to grab the same audience being called "generation 
Xers" and other meaningless names. So here's roughly how it works. MTV makes 
darlings out of them by making them a "buzz clip," which basically means MTV 
says they are one of the coolest new bands now and you should love them. It 
also means that they play the video over and over until you agree. Now MTV has 
an audience that is tuning in to see Green Day (and other "punk" bands like 
Offspring, now Rancid, Bad Religion, etc.) that would not normally have 
watched MTV before "punk" was co-opted by the majors. These people added 
together with the Green Day fans deliberately created by the network form a 
marketable group which MTV then sells to advertisers since, according to Green 
Day's press kit, "Green Day is voicing the feelings of every kid just out of 
high school, bored with the present and dreading the future." The same type of 
market creation has occured on radio though the medium is less significant. 
Just think of the number of "modern rock" or "alternative" stations that have 
sprung up since the Nirvana bandwagon has given them someting to play. Just 
think of how many products are sold between "Basket Case" and  "Smells like 
Teen Spirit" whether on radio or on MTV. Of course, this has longer tentacles 
and includes such industry greasers as talk shows and the like. 
	Although "Basket Case," to continue the example, is not a jingle, per 
se, it doesn't need to be; it is far more insidious and effective. Bands who 
play this game have not only sold out their fans but they have betrayed the 
core beliefs of "punk." I don't want to enter into another hotly debated 
topic/thread (what is "punk"), but I think that it is fairly obvious that punk 
is way more than a sound and that the concept of a major-label punk band is 
oxymoronic.  
 
Thanks for listening. If you have any comments or whould like further 
clarification or whatever, feel free to write me direct. Response guaranteed. 
 
Take care, David Tritelli (Robitusin@aol.com)  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Feature+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Anyone but me....I've got to think about my own life" 
 
	Well, I've got some news for you buddy, everything you see, the 
existance of the world, the congress of this country, freedom fighters in 
Mexico, everything, everyone, it's all YOUR life.  Anything and everything 
around you, this magazine, your friends, and whatever you're sitting on right 
now are figments of your imagination, or at least reflections of your 
perception of reality.  That perception is different for everyone, and for 
most people it is relatively the same, but the world as you know it all has to 
do with both your knowing it and how you know it.  As such, there are two 
basic ways to change it: changing what you see, hear, and know by working 
within the framework of reality as you see it or trying to escape that 
reality, wether through mind altering drugs or through flat out insanity.  The 
easier, more dangerous, and to some most attractive choice is the latter.  It 
certainly is the path most traveled by those who are disgusted with life as 
they see it and want a way to escape, because that's just what it is, an 
escape.  The former, however, is the most fruitful in the long run, as both 
drugs and insanity are usually termprary escapes, and they both have some 
pain-in-the-ass long term effects if you happen to change your maind and 
return to reality.  Working within your reality is the only legitimate way to 
make things happen.   
	In other words, don't just ignore shit going down around you, or try 
and make it go away.  It won't.   
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Feature+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Ugly Spirit 
 
	It was completely dark in the native-American sweat-lodge, save 
thirteen red hot coals in the center of the sealed tent.  The temperature 
approached one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit.  William Seward 
Burroughs, thin and wrinkled at the age of seventy-nine, remaining seated near 
the entrance flap of the small hut, felt drained and uncomfortable.  A shaman 
took each of the hot stones in his hands, one by one, and with each circled 
first the tent and then Burroughs with the stones in an effort to rid the 
writer of what he has become accustomed to calling "the ugly spirit."  He 
believes much of his writing has been an attempt to deal with this spirit in 
any way possible.  After the ceremony the shaman remarked that Bill's was the 
toughest case he had ever  handled, and for a second he thought he was going 
to lose. 
	Most people who know anything about Burrough's relationship with the 
"ugly spirit" agree it began on September 6th, 1951.  Bill was living in 
Mexico City with his wife Joan and two children.  Both he and Joan drank 
heavily, and often used narcotics such as Benzedrine and heroin.  On the 
afternoon of the 6th, Bill was walking through the streets of the city to have 
a knife sharpened.  "I was walking down the street and suddenly I found tears 
streaming down my face.  So I said 'What the Hell is the matter?  What the 
hell is the matter with you?'"  He was overcome with a profound sense of 
depression and it became difficult for him to breathe.  At the time there was 
no explanation for his breakdown.  He composed himself and returned to his 
apartment, where he and Joan began their afternoon drinking.  Later that night 
they went to a friend's apartment with the intention of selling a gun -- they 
were low on cash.  The buyer was late in arriving, and everyone at the 
apartment, with nothing to do but wait, just kept drinking.  Bill, very drunk, 
pulled out the gun and said to Joan "It's about time for our William Tell act.  
Put a glass on your head."  They had no William Tell act, but Joan, also 
drunk, complied.  Bill fired the gun, and Joan fell over in her chair.  The 
glass was unharmed, rolling on the floor.  She died instantly of a gunshot 
wound to the head. 
	From that day on Burroughs fought a war against control in every sense.  
He felt controlled by this entity, the ugly spirit, and needed a way out.  His 
escape route was his writing.  From his earliest, biographical works Junky and 
Queer to his masterpiece Naked Lunch to his later, more introspective works 
such as Cities of the Red Night and The Western Lands there is a continuing, 
everpresent attitude of both anger towards those who control others and 
disgust towards those who allow themselves to be controlled. 
 
*** 
 
	The grandson of the inventor of the adding machine, Burroughs was born 
in St. Louis and lived there until the age of fifteen.  He was sent to the Los 
Alamos Ranch School, a boarding school that was destroyed during the second 
world war; Los Alamos was the sight of the initial tests of the H-bomb.  After 
graduating from Harvard he rambled throughout Europe and the U S, living 
mainly off of a two hundred dollar a month allowance from his parents, a 
graduation present.  He eventually found himself in New York, near Columbia 
University, where he met the circle of friends that would evolve into the core 
group of the beat generation, most notably Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.  
It was in New York that Burroughs was introduced to junk (heroin).  It was 
also there that Ginsberg and Kerouac introduced him to Joan Vollmer, his 
future wife.  He and Joan took to each other  immediately.  Together they 
traveled around the south-eastern United States, settling briefly in Louisiana 
and Texas, in an effort to both find and acceptable home and avoid the law 
(both Bill and Joan used narcotics heavily).  They ended up in Mexico city in 
1951, and it was there that Burroughs lost Joan and acquired his need to 
write. 
	Bill drifted out of Mexico city, released from the seedy Mexican prison 
thanks to an expensive and unscrupulous lawyer, and drifted into the 
international city of Tangier.  Tangier in those days was governed by a nine-
country consortium, and there was no central, coordinated authority; drugs and 
sex were both cheap and available.  Bill had finally found the freedom he 
desired.  For the next 5 years, in a marijuana and junk haze, Burroughs 
produced the bulk of writing from which came Naked Lunch.  The finished book 
was pieced together from various material from that period in his life and the 
remaining writings would find their way into later books (Burroughs encourages 
his readers to view all his work as one long book, and with the reoccurring 
characters and non-linear plot structures that can be found in his work it is 
not difficult.).  Bill frequently entertained visitors in Tangier, mainly beat 
generation colleagues or expatriate literary figures.  Most were impressed by 
the quality of the work he was turning out, but all were disgusted by his 
organization.  Pieces of the Naked Lunch manuscript were littered all over his 
apartment collecting dust and footprints.  (Maurice Girodias, who eventually 
published the book, was disgusted with the first draft of the manuscript: "The 
ends of the pages were all eaten away by rats or something...The prose was 
transformed into verse, edited by the rats of the Paris sewers.")   Bill's old 
friend Jack Kerouac took on the Herculean task of turning the avalanche of 
paper into something publishable.  He succeeded with the help of Allen 
Ginsberg and in 1959 Naked Lunch was published by the Olympia Press in Paris.  
The book received little attention until it was published three years later in 
the United States, at which point it was heralded for its "strange genius" and 
Burroughs himself was praised as a "writer of rare power."  His future as a 
writer was assured. 
	Bill continued writing and continued moving.  In Paris he met and 
befriended painter and writer Brion Gysin, who would become a dear friend and 
artistic collaborator of Bill's until Gysin's death in 1986.  Together the two 
studied the avant garde, including techniques of applying the collage theory 
to literature by literally cutting apart and re-arranging texts and examining 
the results.  Bill was pleased with the outcome of these experiments and 
incorporated them into his writing. 
	Burroughs eventually returned to the United States -- first to New York 
and later to Lawrence, Kansas, where he currently resides.  New York was great 
to him.  He was frequently the guest of honor at social dinners and mingled 
frequently with the culturally elite.  In the late seventies, however, 
Burroughs became the darling of the fledgling punk movement.  His apartment 
was two blocks from CBGB's and junkies and punks would fill his apartment on a 
regular basis.  Heroin was too available and too attractive to Bill in New 
York.  In the interest of his health and his writing, which was also affected 
by this relapse onto junk, Bill decided to move to Kansas, and has remained 
there ever since, painting, writing, and shooting. 
 
*** 
 
	Barry Miles captures the amazing horror of Burroughs life and writings 
in William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible (1992, Hyperion).  Miles has known 
Burroughs for thirty years, and the information in this book has been acquired 
through interviews with Bill himself and with Gysin.  The real power of El 
Hombre Invisible, however, comes not from the technical details of Burrough's 
life (this book is not as in depth as others on Burroughs with regard to 
facts) but from the literary analysis that is interwoven with Miles' 
narrative.  The reader wanders through the book following the progression of 
Bill's life and writing, greeted along the way by alternately lovely and 
horrifying chunks of Burroughsian prose: 
 
		Gentle reader, The Word will leap on you with 
		leopard man iron claws, it will cut off fingers 
		and toes like an opportunist land crab, it will
		coil round your thighs like a bushmaster and 
		inject a shot glass of rancid ectoplasm. 

	Miles also tracks not only what Burroughs writes but also why he 
writes.  He chronicles the battle against the "Ugly Spirit" from its 
beginnings to what may be its end:  the native American exorcism that closes 
the book.  He also notes that without Joan's death Burroughs would most likely 
not have become a writer.  Bill's first book, Junky, was drafted before the 
incident in Mexico City, and although that original draft has been lost the 
published version shows a different style than his other works, that of the 
simple prose narrative.  The genius of Burroughs' other works is absent from 
the well written but rather ordinary Junky.  "...The death of Joan brought me 
into contact with the invader, the Ugly spirit and maneuvered me into a 
lifelong struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out." 
	In capturing the spirit and cause of Burroughs' work, El Hombre 
Invisible is successful.  The reader is left with a complete picture of Bill's 
literary efforts (as well as his graphic and artistic ones) and is tempted by 
the textual offerings to investigate further into his work.  Burroughs' 
writing is like Pringles potato chips:  once you start reading him you can't 
stop.  The Word grabs you and captivates you, and Miles does a great job of 
baiting the reader into wanting more. 
	Miles' book, however, is somewhat lacking when it comes to chronicling 
the details of Burroughs' life and that of his friends.  If one is searching 
for a comprehensive book on Burroughs or the beat generation he would do well 
to look elsewhere (Literary Outlaw by Ted Morgan is suggested).  Many non-
vital but very interesting facets of Burroughs' life are left out, including 
his forays into mysticism with Brion Gysin while they were staying together in 
Paris.  Similarly many colorful characters are ignored or glossed over for 
brevity's sake.  Burroughs' writing, however, is given more prominence by 
Miles than it ever reaches in Morgan's book.   
	El Hombre Invisible is a wonderful introduction to the life and 
writings of one of the founders of the Beat Generation.  Along with Allen 
Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Bill Burroughs paved the way for the hippie 
subculture of the sixties and the punk movement of the late seventies.  
Through his literature, Burroughs conveys the horror and desperation of his 
life.  El Hombre Invisible is best seen not as a detailed history of that life 
but as an introduction to Burroughs' writing, providing context and causes for 
his  words.  
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++MUSIC REVIEW++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Oliver Brown and his extra-ordinary ukeleles <20> Vaya Con Queso 7"($4 to 319 
Lincoln St, Bungalow A, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060) 
	Rather interesting stuff.  And the name describes it all.  A man and 
his ukeleles.  Sort of happy folky acoustic stuff (of course, you say, you 
can't have an electric ukelele, you say.  Well, keep reading.).  Very 60's 
hippieish music.   
 
Gwen Mars 7" (Cosmic Dick b/w Shrink) (Dragster Records [213-883-9666]) 
	This is a smashing pumpkins rip off band.  nothing else to say.  pretty 
bad, avoid this if you can. That is, unless you like the smashing pumpkins. 
 
Dust Black Polish - Jane (Uranium Records, 110-64 queens blvd No. 452, Forest 
Hills, NY 11375) 
	A girl fronted new york band, they remind me of concrete blonde and 
10,000 maniacs, more of the latter. They have a very dark sound, and pretty 
catchy.  Not bad, but nothing worth killing someone for. 
 
Johnny Tacoma & The Electric Uke (I need medical attention records and tapes, 
601 3rd st, #82 Providence, RI, 02906) 
	Now this was the only thing i was sent that I'll keep playing after 
writing this.  From what I understand, this guy is playing an electric 
ukelele.  it sounds like really folkish stuff, but not like Oliver Brown, this 
is the old anarchist type of folk song, IWW influenced, angry, protest driven, 
sung buy a guy with a voive like the violent femmes, and intersperced with 
feedback remenecent of early experimental Velvet Underground. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++Zine Reviews++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ack # 1.1(Box 115, #105 10277 - 135th st, Surrey, BC V3T 4C3, Canada/$1/full 
size/8 pages) Nothing special.  Stuff on pyramid schemes, testing christians, 
craig charles, and reviews. 
 
Daze #2 (1525 W. Bradley Ave. #201, Peoria, IL 61606/$1.50/ Half Size/24 
pages) I've never been much on collage zines.  They never did much for me, but 
this one hit me.  Not much else to say, except that this baby is jam packed 
with love, dense but readable, the sort of thing you could pour over for an 
hour or two.  
 
Jigsaw #2(Drillpress, 8201 Hwy. 2715 #31-D, Ft Smith, AR 72903/Free/full 
size/1 page) A nice one-pager from the girl who used to do clamp eleven.  She 
also does DRiLLPRESS distro so send 2 stamps and you can get the catalog too. 
 
Motorbooty #7 (PO Box 02007, Detroit, MI 48202/$3.50/ Full Size/ too many 
pages for me to count) hilarious (from the table of contents: "Who put the 
'hernt' in the 'hernt dedernt de dernt'" and "Ering go Braghless: The Wymmin 
of the I.R.A." and no those aren't really articles.  Aside from the jokes 
there's a great interview with the last poets, a black nationalist recording 
group who set the foundation for rap (and Hendrix gets a mention in the 
article too.  Jalal Nuriddin, one of the Last Poets recorded "Doriella du 
Fontaine" with hendrix under the name Lightnin' Rod, and they talk about that 
a bit).  This is one to look for 
 
Pawholes #5 A "Do-Me Feminist" reader. (PO Box 81202, Pittsburgh, PA, 
15217/$3/Full Size/ 56 pages)  More quality stuff.  This is a really slick 
one, worth the $3.  Interviews w/ Azalia Snail, stock car driver Mitzi 
Shaulis, Mudwimin, No Safety, and articles on revenge, and breasts. (internet: 
deborah@english-server.hss.cmu.edu) 

Pondering Hedgehog #4 and #5 (PO Box 358, Glen Echo, MD 20812-0358/$.50/half 
size/20 pages)  Personal zine, in color this time.  There's some reall cool 
stuff in here, but sometimes when I read this zine I just get the feeling 
things were thrown together a bit to hastily.  With a bit of focus, PH could 
get to the next level.   
 
Surplus attack 13 #1(9401 Corsica Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814/ $1/Full size/10 
pages) a silly little zine a kid at my school put together.  He wanted me to 
review it.  It's basically a bunch of poetry and some reviews and christian 
propaganda. 
 
Sacchrine #2(PO Box 65083 Nepean, ON, K2G 5Y3, Canada/ $.50/full size/12 
pages) Cool stuff in here, nothing that quite stands out, but a nice solid 
zine in the, well, gold old personal/punk vein.   
 
The Ugly Review #2 (PO Box 4853, Richmond, VA 23220/Free /Oversized/12 pages) 
Another installment of this consistently good poetry zine.  Only two issues so 
far, but both have been great.  this is just a bunch of poetry with artsy 
layout, but the difference between this and most lit zines is that this is 
GOOD POETRY.  hard stuff to find these days.  Send them some stamps. 
 
Velvet Insane #1  (16420 5th Avenue N, Plymouth MN 55447/ $1/ half size/ 28 
pages)  A nice, if a tad run of the mill, personal zine.  Our host is becky 
(internet: brews002@gold.tc.umn.edu), a 13 year old girl who writes poetry, 
likes black olives, and has an 8 year old brother.  Nothing groundbreaking 
here, but a good solid zine with mucho potential, if becky keeps churning it 
out for a while. 

What Now #1 (303 Nicholas Ave. Staten Island, New York 10302/?price?/full 
size/50 pages) A bunch of reviews.  and when you turn the page, more reviews.  
mostly new york bands, zines, etc.  blah 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++FICTION++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This'll be an experiment.  I'll print some of the stuff I've written, and if 
you all want to see more, just let me know and I'll put more in here. 

					Maenad 
 
	Samantha groaned and rolled onto her face to shield her eyes from the 
light.  Why do my windows have to be so fucking big?  Her apartment was 
beautiful in the morning, objectively at least.  A warm blend of light-colored 
furniture and shiny hardwood floors, the three room complex was littered with 
white socks and empty CD cases, cases that just happened to reflect the first 
rays of the rising sun into Samantha's groggy eyes. 
	She thought back to the previous night, hoping to recall wild partying 
or a night out on the town.  She couldn't remember a thing.  Nothing that she 
had hoped to at least.  She did stumble upon memories of David Letterman and a 
small pizza, alone, memories that seemed all too familiar.  At 8:03 on the 
morning of March 6th, Samantha Lee made a pact with herself.  Tonight, she 
promised, I will take this city by storm. 
 
						*** 
 
	Things had been easier in kindergarten. During recess Samantha would 
sit on a hill with Jack Corso, idly chatting about the universe and grass and 
such.   
	"How big's the world, dya think?" 
	"Real big.  Two billion miles maybe" 
	"Yeah" 
	The kissy boys would chase the kissy girls while another band of 
children played angels on the jungle gym, but the two of them just talked and 
talked about nothing and everything while the sun shone bright upon their 
young faces.  
 
						*** 
	These things got harder in High School.  Samantha had just finished her 
grape soda one Monday afternoon when Jack happened by.  He had a strange walk 
to him those days, and most likely still does.  It wasn't quite a swagger or a 
strut, just a groovy little stroll, his legs flowing from step to step, not 
quite in touch with the earth but floating a few inches above.  It was funny: 
they had been best friends so long ago, she happened to remember, but since 
second grade they had shared maybe a couple of words a week, and most of those 
in passing.  Here it was, the spring of their senior year, and they knew no 
more about each other than they had some ten years earlier.  They knew the 
little things, of course, those pointless events in peoples' lives that do 
little but make good stories (Samantha's brush with death at the beach when 
the giant wave had picked her up and thrown her on the ground and had nearly 
taken her unconscious body back into the ocean, Jack's debate team triumph, 
soiled only by his shirt, which had happened to be inside out). They knew the 
general situations of each other's lives (Samantha: good grades and a perfect 
family, Jack: average grades and divorced parents), but they no longer knew 
why the other laughed or smiled or kept on living.  So, all this and much more 
in mind on that warm March day, as soon as she had slurped the last of her 
grape soda through her straw, Samantha called out to Jack through the mellow 
din of the cafeteria. 
	"Hi." He turned to attention, a bit surprised. 
	"You got any time?"  She smiled and offered the chair next to her. 
	"Uhh, yeah, I guess..."  He took the seat and smiled back, but the look 
of surprise never left his face.   
	They talked for twenty minutes or so, rambling this way and that.  They 
talked about topics large and small, finite and infinite, but they never 
reached the depths and heights that they had at age five.  There's a certain 
profundity that exists only in early youth, when kids are learning to use 
words, and others haven't used their words against them.  When words begin to 
trap, the innocence is lost.  The words exchanged after that grape soda 
covered about as much ground as possible, but Samantha could never take them 
where she wanted to go most.  She wanted, most of all, to know where he was 
headed.  More than the name of the college, of course.  She knew that: he was 
going to the University of Rochester.  She wanted a crumpled piece of paper to 
carry in her purse with an address and a phone number.  She wanted a promise 
to write.  She wanted to know that she could have, at any time she wanted, 
what she had ignored for ten years. 
	Life isn't like that, she knew, and with her help the conversation 
skated lazily but skillfully around the issue of the future: 
	"Do you think the lacrosse team will beat Springfield?" 
	"I think so, but Jimmy's still hurt, and he usually scores a goal or 
two." 
	"Yeah..." 
	In the end Jack had mumbled something about his car's headlights and, 
pulling his baseball cap around so the brim faced backwards, he walked out 
towards the parking lot.  He had the same walk, but slower.  His feet seemed a 
lot more firmly planted on the ground. 
	Samantha bought another grape soda and sat down to think about things.  
This was a bad habit, thinking too much.  Thinkers become brooders and 
brooders never have a good time.  They just sit around and brood.  It's always 
best to just cut the whole thing off at the pass and not think too much.  In 
the end, you'll get more done.  Samantha hadn't thought of this, however, and 
as she savored her less-than-cold grape soda she realized that she could never 
pull a stunt like that again.  Although leaving the whole thing alone could 
mean loosing touch with him until some twenty-five-year reunion when they were 
both old and fat, the alternative, to try something like that again and this 
time get some promises, presented its own problems.  What if her friends 
started to give her weird looks?  What if he gave her weird looks?  What if he 
said no?  No way, it was a much better idea just to smile and maybe wave in 
passing every day, hug him good-bye on graduation day, and be done with it, at 
least for a while.  If he wanted to say something, if he wanted an address and 
a promise, she would give it without thinking.  But she wouldn't put herself 
through all of this awkwardness and nervousness to get back something she had 
hardly missed. 
	That was how she left it, and that was how it stayed.  On Tuesdays, 
Wednesdays, and Fridays, he usually walked through the cafeteria during third 
period while she had her morning can of grape soda.  She would wave and smile, 
sometimes muttering a "hello" under her breath, and he would wave back, or at 
least flash a smile.  His walk was back to the same old groovy stroll.  On 
graduation day, after a polite good-bye hug, she almost blurted out everything 
she had been trying not to think too much about for the last two months.  She 
didn't however, they had parted with a hug, and had seen each other once, from 
a distance, over the course of that summer. 
*** 
	That bright Saturday morning, as she struggled to get to sleep once 
more, Samantha knew, deep down, she would be stuck at home that night with 
Saturday Night Live and Moo-Shi Pork.  Clubs were boring, her friends from 
work were annoying, and she hadn't dated anyone in two months.  All that in 
mind, she rolled into a ball, pulled the sheets up above her head, and decided 
to sleep it all away.
-------------------End-Helter-Skelter-Digital-#6^----------------------------