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An electronic literary magazine striving for the very best in
contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays.
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Editor: Sung J. Woo (WHIRLEDS@delphi.com)
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VOLUME II NUMBER 2 MARCH 1995
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Table of Contents
All Good Things.........................................................xx
FICTION
"Ringworm," by Michelle Rogge...........................................xx
"From the Garden," by Brian J. Flanagan.................................xx
"Over the Line in Tok," by Ardeth DeMato Baxter.........................xx
"Transfer," by Martin Zurla.............................................xx
POETRY
"Wheat Field Dreams," by L.J. Carusone..................................xx
"Masterpiece Theatre" and "Third Grade" by D. Edward Deifer.............xx
"Christmas Confetti," by Anthony Fox....................................xx
"Mom and John" and "Christmas Eve" by Jim Higdon........................xx
"Letter Home," by Martin Zurla..........................................xx
"Down and Out at Company X," by Len Edgerly.............................xx
DRAMA
"Stay" (a stage vignette) by Martin Zurla...............................xx
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WHIRLWIND (ISSN 1079-3704), Vol. 2, No. 2. WHIRLWIND is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is
permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the
issue remains intact. Copyright (C) 1995, authors. All further rights to
stories belong to the authors. WHIRLWIND is produced using Aldus PageMaker
5.0 and WordPerfect 5.1 on an IBM-compatible computer and is converted into
PostScript format for distribution. PostScript is a registered trademark
of Adobe Systems, Inc. For back issue info, see our back page.
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ALL GOOD THINGS...
Back in March 1994, the premiere issue of WHIRLWIND entered the net
publishing world. With the publication of this current issue, we celebrate
one full year of the electronic literary magazine that strives for the very
best in fiction, poetry, and essays.
One year -- four issues. It has been a whirlwind (pardon the pun) of a
year for me: graduating from the comforts of Cornell; then going back to my
home country to find a job; returning to the States after two eye-opening
weeks; trudging through the after-college blues; temping as a secretary and
a data-entry clerk for a lawyer, a government contractor, and a pizza-oven
making company; getting hired by TV Guide, finding my own apartment in
Pennsylvania, only to resign and move back to New Jersey after ten days of
work; and finally, working at IEEE Transactions as an Assistant Editor for
the last couple of months, tackling the bureaucracy of big companies while
trying to make sense out of TeX and UNIX.
But life still really hasn't settled down for me. In fact, with a 9-to-5
job, it's getting harder to do what matters to me most, which is writing.
And that is why this issue of WHIRLWIND, as we celebrate the first
anniversary of its birth, will also be its last. At least for a while.
Believe it or not, even as a bi-monthly, even when there's no physical
printing involved, WHIRLWIND is a lot of work. It takes time to advertise,
solicit, and maintain WHIRLWIND, and that's not even taking into account
the hours spent in reading, accepting, and rejecting submissions. And of
course, it takes time to edit, format, and publish an issue. But I
digress.
I hope you have enjoyed the past four issues and the one you are about to
read. I do intend to get back into WHIRLWIND, but I really don't see
myself re<72>ntering the electronic publishing world in the near future. But
for those who have just joined the subscription list, remember that back
issues are available via anonymous FTP/Gopher at <ftp.etext.org>, under the
/pub/Zines/Whirlwind directory.
Before I start listing, in the vein of all those Academy Award winners, all
the people I'd like to thank, I will shamelessly promote my own
publications in the past year or so. In the Winter 1994 edition of ASH,
the interdisciplinary journal of arts, sciences, and humanities, you'll
find my poem "Statuesque." In the spring issue of Amelia #24, another
piece of my verse, "Shakespeare Reborn," will appear. You can find my
short stories "Bleeding Hearts" in InterText, Vol. 4, No. 1, and "Pictures
of Perfection," in the Morpo Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, respectively. And
finally, an account of my adventures in South Korea will be printed in the
April/May 1995 issue of A. Magazine, tentatively titled "English Lessons."
And now, the list. I would like to thank:
- Cornell University, especially the Agriculture Economics Department,
for their wonderful state-of-the-art computing facilities
(although for $25,000, I expected platinum keyboards);
- Paul Southworth and Riva Rouvalis, who voluntarily archive and
maintain all the little zines on <ftp.etext.org>;
- Jason Snell of InterText, whose kind and helpful advice greatly
eased the launching of my first issue;
- Amy Moskovitz for her photographs, poetry, and editorial grunt work;
- Dave Witkowski for being the Assistant Editor for a couple of months
and for forwarding the backlogged mail;
- Bradfield Hall Copy Center at Cornell, for putting up with my inane
requests;
- the Brothers of the Alpha Tau chapter of Phi Kappa Tau who read and
encouraged the magazine;
- all the writers who turned their hearts and souls into 1's and 0's
for submissions;
- and, of course, the readers who took their valuable time downloading
and reading the issues.
Some outstanding individual authors stand out in my mind. Keith Dawson's
"Barking Dogs and Flying Saucers" and "Cigars" are both gems; Stewart
O'Nan's "Kissing the Dead," an excerpt from his second novel; Jennifer
Viner's "September Summer" and "Baby"; Jonathan Drout's "Oranges"; Martin
Zurla's plays; Len Edgerly's poems, featured in the previous issue and this
one as well. By listening to the inner voices of these authors, my life
has been enriched in ways both great and small. I hope yours has, too.
And remember, for all those electronic editor hopefuls out there: all you
need to start up your own e-zine is a pencil and dream. But having Aldus
PageMaker doesn't hurt, either. And a 486...and a modem...and an on-line
service...and...
Sung J. Woo
Editor
WHIRLWIND
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FICTION
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RINGWORM
by Michelle Rogge
Her breast itched. She absent-mindedly reached inside her blouse, down
inside her Bloomingdale's bra to scratch the itch -- that's when Annabelle
discovered she had this three-quarter inch-wide patch, scaly, white in the
middle, surrounded by an unmistakable red ring.
"Oh no," she groaned. She had been so busy grading math tests --
trying to catch up after taking the weekend off to go to Omaha -- that she
hadn't noticed this thing on her body, this infectious fungus, growing,
spreading. It was huge.
She phoned her friend Lori. "I've got ringworm."
"Oh no."
"That's what I said."
Lori sighed. "You were only at our house that one night. When was that
-- three weeks ago? I can't believe you got it."
"Yeah, well, I did, believe me," Annabelle said nervously. "How do I
get rid of it?"
"I've got a tube of lotion I'll give you, a sample I got at the
doctor's -- where is the ringworm?"
"This is the weird part." Annabelle peeked inside her blouse again, to
make sure it was still there, before making her confession. "It's on my
left boob."
"Your boob! How in the world --"
"Don't ask me. I held one of your kittens, and they had it, right?"
"Y-yes, but still -- I'm coming into town this afternoon. I'll bring
you the lotion."
Annabelle tried not to sound panicky -- and failed. "You can't come
any sooner?"
"For heaven's sake -- there's nothing to worry about. A few hours
isn't going to make any difference."
Annabelle slammed down the receiver in her haste and rushed into the
bathroom. She grabbed at whatever she could find on the shelves in her
medicine cabinet -- rubbing alcohol, a can of Off, a tube of diaper-rash
cream a friend with twin babies had left behind. She dabbed and sprayed and
smeared it all on. Then, envisioning ringworm spreading all over her body
-- from wiping her forehead or scratching her elbow or putting on earrings
-- she washed her hands carefully, slowly, thoroughly, for a solid ten
minutes.
She sat down at the desk in her study again and stared at the math
test in front of her. She could feel the spot burning its way below the
skin, infecting and probing deeper body parts, her organs. Perhaps it was
no accident that the ringworm had chosen to plant itself on her left
breast, directly over her heart. She sat unmoving for quite some time, her
red-ink pen frozen in position over the paper in front of her, only the
morning sunlight shifting as it poured through the windows on the east side
of the room.
She couldn't wait for Lori to arrive.
That afternoon, when her friend came, Annabelle greeted Lori as politely as
she could while reaching into Lori's bag for the coveted medication.
Lori laughed. "Annie, you're being ridiculous. Ringworm can't hurt
you."
"No-o-o, I suppose not. You just cover the spot with it?"
"Yes. It doesn't take much."
When her friend wasn't looking, Annabelle poured the white lotion on
lavishly, rubbing it vigorously on the spot and then over her entire
breast. She envisioned taking an hour-long bath in the stuff once a day,
every day, for the next five years.
Then her hand froze over her breast for a moment; slowly, she pulled
up her bra straps and put her blouse back on.
"Lori -- "
"What?" Lori was already busy reading one of the exams on Annabelle's
desk. "Annie, this is a tough test. I don't remember much of my high school
algebra, but -- can more than one answer be right?"
"Some answers are more right than others. But only one answer is
correct," Annabelle said. "Shut up for a minute, will you? I have to tell
you something."
Lori put the paper back on the desk. "I'm waiting."
"Barney and I fooled around this weekend."
Lori sneered. She was not unattractive, with shoulder-length blonde
hair and brown eyes; just now, Annabelle thought her curling, sneering lip
made her look like Elvis. "I knew something between you and Barney was
inevitable. He's separated from his wife now, right?"
"Yes. He moved out three weeks ago."
"Good. That certainly makes things less complicated. Now -- what do
you mean by 'fooled around' ?"
"We didn't 'do it.' We just necked rather passionately."
"I see. Sort of like teenagers."
"Yes, well -- " Annabelle was embarrassed, but she kept going. "The
thing is, do you think he could have gotten ringworm?"
Lori laughed. "I hope so. He deserves it. Annie, what are you fretting
over? This isn't a sexual disease."
"No, but -- " Annabelle sat down on the couch and tried not to be
nervous. Normally, when she was upset, she would stroke her neck to sooth
herself, until it was quite red. She made a conscious effort to keep her
hands together in front of her, in her lap. The ringworm on her breast
burned with the same intensity as a hickey. "Barney is from a bad family
background. He grew up poor, and he's sensitive about that. He always jokes
about his 'white-trash family,' but he's trying to put that behind him."
"So? What's that got to do with -- " Lori's eyes narrowed as
comprehension dawned. "I understand. Getting ringworm would be trashy."
Annabelle nodded. "It certainly would. He's worked hard to establish
himself out in one of the suburbs, to have a professional job, to maintain
a certain image -- "
Lori interrupted, "Annie, you know what Nick would say about this?"
Nick was a mutual friend from their college days.
"Oh, he'd laugh scornfully and say, 'Dump him,' of course."
"Exactly. I'm sure you're worrying more about it than this Barney
person ever would. That guy needs to get caught with something."
Annabelle stared at the floor. "Clearly, I can't talk to you about
this."
Lori sighed. "Annie --"
"Never mind. Say -- Nick is going to be in town, tonight -- did he
tell you?"
"Yeah. We're all going out tonight, down to the Char Bar -- don't
forget."
Annabelle worked steadily through the afternoon grading math tests. Where
she could, she tried to give the student the benefit of the doubt, giving
them credit for getting problems half right. Every so often, she glanced at
the phone, brooding.
Barney's intense blue eyes raking her figure. Barney's impulsive
embrace in the middle of their conversation about Thai food. Barney's thin
but dedicated lips nibbling her ears, trailing down her neck. She wished
desperately that she could remember whether he actually got inside her bra.
At dinnertime she quit grading to call Barney in Omaha. She had to
tell him about the ringworm, she reasoned. It was the right thing to do.
Besides, it was a novelty to be able to call him without worrying about his
wife answering.
He sounded surprised but pleased. "Annabelle! I didn't expect to hear
from you so soon."
She hesitated. "Barney -- there's -- there's a question I have to ask
you -- that I didn't have the courage to ask you when I was there."
"Oh yeah?" She could hear him tense up, waiting.
"Is there any reason for me to move back to Omaha?"
There -- she'd said it. She saw her future fuse for an instant with
his; the patch of ringworm on her breast tingled and throbbed.
He was silent; then he said slowly, "You mean, other than for a
teaching position. I know you are looking for a job here."
"Yes I am, but -- "
"I guess I should tell you. I talked to Maureen today."
"Oh." She responded flatly.
"We've decided to get back together. We still can't agree about having
children. So we still have problems, but we think it's best to try to work
them out. I guess the separation gave us time to cool off, figure out what
we wanted."
"I see." She wondered if it would have made any difference if she had
actually slept with him; no, she didn't think so. She would have felt used.
He said quickly, "I know this is awkward. But, I think you and I will
always be friends." The passion and interest were gone from his voice;
maybe she had only imagined they existed.
She repeated, "Friends. Well, as a friend, I should tell you -- I've
got ringworm."
Silence. Then, "What do you mean, you've got -- ringworm?"
She pictured herself then as a shiftless, chain-smoking, single mother
living in a squalid trailer, wearing a Little Abner n' Daisy rag of a
dress.
"Just what I said. I've got a small patch of ringworm on my left
breast. It's a fungus."
She heard him sigh with relief; then his voice became quite cold. "I
know what it is. Fortunately, I never actually touched your breast."
That answered her question.
Nick drove from Deadwood to Vermillion, stopping only for gas. He
considered driving straight through Vermillion and on to Omaha, but the
girls would make his life hell if he did.
Nick, Lori, and Annabelle had been friends since their undergraduate
years in college. He listened to their woes over boyfriends; they in turn
listened to his woes over boyfriends as he related his often hair-raising
tales of going to the gay bars in Sioux Falls, Omaha, and Minneapolis, and
picking up men. Lori would say, "I hope you use condoms." And he would
answer, "Yes, Mother." But that was one way he never took chances; he
always, always wore a condom. Actually, he had always managed to worry Lori
and Annabelle more with his drinking and driving combo. Whenever they went
out together, one of the girls always insisted on driving. Or if he showed
up at the girls' drunk, they would make him spend the night there.
Then he surprised them both by falling in love with a girl in
Deadwood.
Vesta was twenty-two, blonde and small-boned like himself, with a
stubbornness and quiet passion he liked. They were friends first, and he
was lonely, admittedly. There wasn't a gay scene in Deadwood to speak of.
So they became good friends. And then they started kissing. And then, he
admitted to himself that he would sleep with her if she wanted to. They
did, and it wasn't so bad. He didn't feel as powerfully aroused when he
slept with her, but he was in love with her. He couldn't figure that out.
He chased that around and around.
All that time, Vesta was afraid, saying, "You'll go back to it. I know
you will." And he would have to say over and over that he was in love with
her and would be faithful. And -- surprising even himself -- he was true.
But it wasn't Vesta's suspicions about his faithfulness or staying
straight that ended their relationship. It was the miscarriage that struck
the death blow.
Driving in the car, he experienced the sadness of their loss all over
again. He wished desperately that he could have carried the little girl in
his own body, that a womb might have magically evolved; he would have found
a way to keep the child inside him until it was time for her to emerge.
But that was all over now. And Nick didn't know what he wanted to do.
He was straight for Vesta but he didn't think he could do that with any
other woman. Sleeping with any woman, except Vesta, would be like sleeping
with his mother.
He grimaced when he saw the sign: Vermillion, population 10,482. How
long could he stand to hang out in one of the Vermillion bars with Lori and
Annabelle? All those youngsters, those college underclassmen who were so
unaware of themselves. He could pick out the gay boys in the crowd right
away, but that didn't matter. None of them would admit it. They just knew
they were different somehow and fought to be like the rest.
He stopped at the Shop-EZ in Vermillion and filled up the tank of his
Volkswagen. He walked into the convenience store and assessed the clerk
quickly -- hmm, he wasn't sure with this one. Handsome, certainly -- nice
eyes.
Nick paid for the gas and glanced through the magazines. There was
Elizabeth Taylor, the most beautiful woman in the world, on the cover of
Good Housekeeping. He couldn't resist. He bought the magazine and asked for
the clerk for some cigs too.
The clerk said, "I just love Liz myself."
Nick smiled at him. "So -- " he said with deliberate casualness " --
where's all the excitement tonight?"
"Not in Vermillion -- that's for sure."
They both laughed.
The clerk seemed to select his words with care. "I don't usually hang
out in Vermillion."
"Yeah, give me Sioux Falls any day."
"Or Omaha," the clerk said. "I'll take Omaha."
There it was.
Nick made tentative plans to meet the clerk, whose name was John, at a
Sioux Falls bar at twelve-thirty a.m. That would give him plenty of time to
socialize with the girls; he wouldn't have to leave Vermillion until
eleven-thirty.
That night, Annabelle, Lori and Nick drank beer and exchanged stories about
infectious diseases. They had actually gotten together to mourn Nick's
recent breakup with his girlfriend Vesta. But they allowed themselves to
get sidetracked talking about how Lori had slept in her friend William's
bed two days before she was supposed to go to India and he casually
informed her that he had scabies.
"I don't understand," Annabelle said. "I thought William was gay."
"Fag hag," Nick said affectionately to Lori.
"He is gay, silly," Lori answered, making a face at Nick. "We didn't
sleep sleep together. I just slept in William's bed. You can get scabies
just from sleeping in someone else's bed, without having sex."
Annabelle said, "You didn't get it, though."
"No, but believe me, I was pretty worked up about it when he told me.
I remember standing in the shower bawling, worrying about it."
"That's nothing," Nick said. He pushed back his blonde, straight hair
in what Annabelle had always viewed as a distinctly feminine gesture. "Have
you ever had crabs? That's pure hell. That's one of the things Vesta and I
fought about."
"What do you mean?" Annabelle asked.
"Vesta never believed me when I told her I was faithful to her. And I
guess I can't blame her."
Lori looked at him intently from across the table. "But you were,
weren't you?"
"Hell, yes," Nick looked around the room restlessly. "I loved her."
Then his pale brown eyes settled on Annabelle. "It was my own fault, I
suppose. I would take her to my old hangouts and point out my old lovers to
her."
"At the gay bars?" Lori asked.
"Naturally."
Annabelle phrased the question in her mind before she actually asked
it. "Now that you've broken up with Vesta, are you going to return to your
earlier lifestyle?"
"You mean my GAY lifestyle?" He laughed. "Come on, Annabelle, we never
footsy around with each other."
She put one hand on her mouth. "I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to say
anything -- inappropriate."
"For God's sake, Annie," Lori said. "Just spit it out."
"Okay -- " Annabelle smiled. "Here it is, Nick, boldly stated -- do
you think you will return to your gay lifestyle?"
He shrugged his shoulders, eyeing Annabelle critically. "I wonder if
you understand what a loaded term 'gay lifestyle' is."
Annabelle's mouth hung open. "You told me to go ahead and say it."
Lori and Nick both laughed.
"You were set up, Hon," Lori said.
Nick said, "You mean all the one-night stands and flings I had with
men before I met Vesta."
"Yes," Annabelle said with relief. "That's what I meant by 'gay
lifestyle.'"
"Well --" Nick paused. "I guess that's what I'm doing later." Then he
told them about his late-night date in Sioux Falls.
Lori frowned. "So how does crabs fit into the picture? You were going
to tell us about that."
Nick scoped the room, then looked fondly at the two girls. He glanced
at the strand of pale pink pearls Annabelle was wearing around her neck and
the low V-cut blouse that revealed hints of cleavage.
He blurted, "Remember when Vesta and I had that big fight and she
kicked me out?"
"I should remember," Lori said drily. "You slept on my couch for a
month."
"Well, you know I didn't sleep with anyone in the meantime. But she
did, just to hurt me. When we got back together, we discovered later that
we had crabs."
Both girls gasped. "You never told us that," Annabelle said.
"She made me promise not to tell. And she was so mad. She was so sure
I'd given it to her. She kicked me out that night."
"But then you got back together again," Lori prompted.
"The boomerang effect. We've all experienced it," Annabelle said,
smiling.
"Hmm. More like a bad penny that keeps showing up. Anyway, we both
took medicine to get rid of the crabs. But she didn't take it long enough.
So, one night, feeling this familiar itch, I got up to go to the bathroom.
Sure enough, our little friends had returned. I started crying. I couldn't
help it."
Nick noticed that Annabelle looked startled. Evidently, after knowing
him all this time, she could still be surprised by his tears. Or, maybe, he
thought cynically, she was buying into this whole macho thing that men
shouldn't cry.
He continued, "I came out, saying to Vesta, 'They're ba-a-ck.' But I
didn't feel especially like joking about it. Vesta was so angry. She was
positive I had been sleeping around. We fought and fought. Eventually,
because we couldn't get to a pharmacist until morning, we lay down in the
bed and tried to sleep. The next day I went into the men's bathroom at my
workplace and used the medication."
"Was Vesta pregnant at that time?" Lori asked.
"Yes. She was afraid of the medication. But we had to get rid of the
infestation."
All three of them were silent for a minute. Annabelle looked fully at
Nick, tears standing in her dark blue eyes. Elizabeth Taylor eyes, he
thought. He didn't have to tell her that his relationship with Vesta was
the best thing he had ever had; Annabelle understood. But Nick didn't want
to think about that anymore tonight. He had done enough thinking and
mourning.
Drumming his fingers on the table, he said to Annabelle, "So you might
have given this guy ringworm -- and you didn't even sleep with him. Why
didn't you?"
"Because he was only separated from his wife."
Lori rolled her eyes and looked at Nick. "Why bother with such
distinctions?"
He smiled at Annabelle. "You've always been moral in your own way,
haven't you?"
"I suppose." Annabelle blushed, embarrassed at this intent probing of
her would-be sex life. "But if I were truly moral, I would find someone who
is completely unattached."
Nick stood up abruptly, checking his watch.
"Leaving for your romantic rendezvous?" Lori smiled her Elvis smile.
"Yes," Nick said.
"Shop E-Z certainly deserves its name," Annabelle commented. "Or maybe
it should be called Shop Sleazy."
"No jeering from the peanut gallery, thank you. Maybe I'll see you one
of you girls in the morning" -- he laughed -- "possibly at five a.m. or
so."
"Drive carefully," Lori said sternly. "Don't drive drunk."
"Yes, Mother."
Nick tried to picture this guy he was meeting in Sioux Falls, but nothing
came to mind. For the life of him, he couldn't remember the color of the
clerk's eyes -- hell, he couldn't even remember his name. He did remember,
when the guy turned to get Nick's cigarettes, that he had a cute ass. Nick
laughed to himself.
The drive to Sioux Falls was monotonous -- long, continuous interstate
cutting through flat, uninteresting land. He had sometimes appreciated that
seeming simplicity when he was driving drunk. But now he was sober; the
effects of two whiskeys had worn off. In the moonlight, with the sky clear
and full of stars, Nick saw the way the land subtly curved, in small rises
and falls. He paid attention to the hidden creeks and little valleys he had
never noticed before.
His eyes kept straying from the road to follow the land's changes. The
hills in the horizon seemed closer than ever before -- obtainable, although
he knew he could never really possess them.
"This land is easy to ignore if you are drunk," he thought, "and
blind."
It was subtle -- lacking the starkness of western South Dakota, and
yet, it was not distinctly midwestern either. It was a land somewhere in
between, unexpectedly attractive and fertile.
Keeping his eye on the road, he turned on the interior light and
flipped impatiently through his wallet photos until he found one of
Annabelle. It was a cheap black-and-white photo, the four-for-a-buck,
curtain-background booth kind.
"Damned," he said aloud. The picture didn't do her eyes justice.
The guy in Sioux Falls seemed less and less like a possibility -- a
stranger, after all. But he realized something else -- another person was
carving out a space inside him. Really, it was too late to meet anyone new,
male or female.
Nick took the Centerville exit and, turning around, headed back to
Vermillion.
Annabelle didn't seem surprised to see him. She was still dressed in her
V-necked blouse and skirt, although she had taken off the pink pearls.
"Decided not to go to Sioux Falls?"
"I knew it would be a bummer."
She laughed. "Make yourself at home. I'm going in the bathroom."
He turned on the TV and pulled off his jeans. He glanced around
Annabelle's efficiency, then down at the double-bed. The last time he had
stayed with Annabelle she was breaking up with a boyfriend who did not, in
Annabelle's words, "know the meaning of the word 'faithful.'" She huddled
next to Nick, sobbing most of the night. She had seemed especially
comforted by Nick's words, "Men are pigs." Nick smiled, wondering how much
pig he had in him. He found himself thinking about Annabelle's gorgeous
violet eyes; her quiet laugh; the way her face softened in sympathy when he
talked about Vesta...and her delicate white neck and breasts. Her
hothouse-flower neck and breasts, so sensitive, so pretty, like all of
Annabelle.
In the bathroom, Annabelle pulled off her shirt and bra and stared
worriedly at her left breast in the mirror. The ringworm glowed with the
brilliance of a new tattoo. She wondered, if by sharing the same
bedclothes, she could give this fungus to Nick. Certainly, she reasoned,
the medication would kill off the top layer of ringworm. And she would be
wearing a nightgown over it. Maybe she should wear a bra to bed too.
The bathroom door opened.
"Nick! I'm practically naked."
She started to cover herself, but Nick grabbed her arms. "Don't. I
want to see."
She laughed nervously. "You want to see the ringworm?"
"Partly."
"Partly," she echoed. The ringworm began pulsing. She wasn't sure what
was happening. She stared at him staring at her breasts, at her neck, at
her face. She wasn't imagining the passion, the open tenderness, in her old
friend's eyes.
She tried to diffuse the intensity, to return to their neutral
friendship level, saying lightly: So, what do you think? But at that moment
Nick lowered his head and quite deliberately placed his mouth on her left
breast in a certain place.
Her head fell back and her knees buckled slightly, in the manner of
one who is seduced, surprised by her own passion.
Barney begged his wife to go with him to Freddy's, a gay bar in Omaha, to
hear his favorite band.
"I can't, honey, I've told you before," Maureen said. "I have a
conference in Wisconsin I can't miss. I have to leave now. I'll be back in
two days."
He sighed. "I don't want to go to the bar alone, Maureen. I'll get hit
on."
"So don't go."
He couldn't make her understand this was his favorite blues band and
that he couldn't not go. He angrily shrugged off her parting, teasing
words, "Don't get picked up, honey," and dressed in loose, bulky pants and
a sweater for the evening out.
But when he got there that night, he cheered up immediately. The place
was full of women as well as men -- and he was positive many of them were
not lesbians.
A plan began forming in his head immediately. He decided this might be
the easiest place in the world to pick up women, if all these obviously
sex-starved females had been hanging out with homosexuals. The thing he had
to do was act sensitive and gay. He was sure he could pull it off.
Then Barney saw Annabelle, and he knew he wouldn't have to work a gay
angle at all.
There she was -- his South Dakota connection -- in deep conversation
at the bar with what Barney assumed was a gay male friend. He hadn't talked
to her for two months -- ever since their ringworm conversation. He
remembered Annabelle mentioning some gay male friends, and this guy
certainly looked like he was, the way he was standing and gesturing --
extremely effeminate. And this was a gay bar. All the same, Barney braced
himself for the challenge of taking a woman away from another man. He
imagined there would be some sort of struggle.
He walked up to them. "Annabelle! What are you doing in Omaha?"
She turned quickly and smiled at him. He thought she looked sexier
than ever in those body-hugging jeans. He pictured himself doing her from
behind.
"Barney! We're just in town visiting. I'm surprised to see you
here...alone." There was a pointed message in her words.
"Yeah, me too." He smiled ironically. "I wanted to hear the band
that's here. And Maureen couldn't go out tonight -- as usual. In fact,
she's out of town."
"How -- inconvenient," Annabelle said. "Let me introduce you to my
boyfriend, Nicholas Smythe."
Barney sized up the competition quickly. It always heightened his
attraction for the woman when she was already attached. But he was caught
off guard by this guy. His first impression -- admittedly, from a distance
-- was that Nick was gay, and he wasn't certain he wasn't still right about
that; the way Nick was looking at Barney was personal somehow -- very
personal, as if he knew much about Barney without ever having talked to him
or touched him. Barney decided to ignore this.
"You're a lucky guy," he said, shaking Nick's hand. A surprisingly
firm grip.
"Yes," Nick said. He looked at Annabelle warmly.
The three of them sat down together at a table. Barney heard Nick
whisper to Annabelle, "He's cute!" Barney relaxed -- Nick was gay, after
all. That made his task of seducing Annabelle easier.
They chatted casually, but Barney could only think of one thing -- how
to get Annabelle alone. When she got up to go to the bathroom, Barney
excused himself too. As soon as they were in the narrow hall near the
bathrooms -- where no one else could see -- he pulled her aside and kissed
her hard.
She pulled back. "Barney, you had no right to do that."
"I couldn't help it," he said. "You look so damned beautiful."
He wanted to hold her against him, to let her feel his hard penis
against her soft body.
"I"m in love with Nick," she said.
"Maybe," he said. "How can you be in love with somebody who's
obviously attracted to men?"
"He loves me."
"Maybe," he said again, this time more skeptically. "Now, this thing I
feel for you --"
"Has got nothing to do with love," she said.
He searched his lower brain for something clever to say, that might
still get her in bed. "You can't say that."
She was silent for a moment, staring down at his feet. Barney got the
distinct impression she was angry. But when she looked up at him again,
Barney couldn't read any emotion in her blackish eyes.
She said softly, "Did you know -- you've got ringworm on your lips?"
He said nothing, keeping his eyes carefully, respectfully, trained on
her face; but as soon as she walked into the women's bathroom, he ran into
the men's to stare intently in the mirror at his thin-lipped mouth.
________________________________________
Michelle Rogge <MROGGE@charlie.usd.edu> is an instructor in the English
Department at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. She teaches
courses in Introduction to Literature, Creative Writing, and Composition.
A book which is tentatively titled Ceaseless Explorer: Conversations with
Joseph Spies as told to Michelle Rogge will be published by USD Press late
this spring. She also has a poem accepted by The Kansas Quarterly. She was
born in Danbury, Iowa, earned her B.A. degree in English from USD in 1983,
lived in Minnapolis for a number of years, and returned to USD to pursue
her M.A. She is the mother of an extremely active seven-year-old named
Benjamin.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
FROM THE GARDEN
by Brian J. Flanagan
Imagine the gates of a fortress, a wall surrounding an ancient city. The
towers keep watch, night and day. It is dawn, sunrise. The level rays of
the golden hour linger over budding leaves and flowers. The trees and
grasses are brilliant with singing, the call and response of small voices
in chorus: This is my place and my time. Here I am alive.
Outside the walls, from beyond the periphery comes one walking in
measured paces out of a wilderness of stone that marks the end of
civilization. One whose identity is clearly obscure, cloaked in the manner
of an old order, strangely familiar. Here is no ordinary traveler, on no
customary journey. There is about this figure an air of one who has known
distant realms, met with those known generally only by hearsay or legend.
A delegation of the people is elected to welcome the visitor, who may
be a messenger, who may be a harbinger carrying warning. Who stands arrayed
in morning, in rosy clouds and dawning sun. It is asked of the visitor, the
silent figure:
Who are you? What is your business here? A moment, not quite an
impasse, then:
I am none other than the forest memory, the voice of your mother
entwined with your father in me enfolded and comprehended. Who tell you
stories in thunder, in fire on water, who speak to you out of time, an
unfamiliar name who weave earth, water, air and flame.
This is no answer, respond the elect, but deliberate riddles and
obvious mystification. Which is to say, you are unclear in your intent.
Speak plainly, in simple words that we might understand.
That you might understand is ever my intent, but the answer is yet a
question set by the deliberations of mystery. For I see, in my wisdom, that
you only take for granted what I have given you for free. My purpose is not
to make things appear more simple than they seem, as the simplicity of the
seed must bear the complexity of your kind. It is my meaning -- answering
now in the being of my servant, whose voice you know, released from the
form of limitation, whose fair humility has met a perfect exaltation, such
is my grandeur -- to remind you again of the shattering mystery that is the
heart of your being, and love.
For the simplicity of the child is like the shining of the sea, a
dazzling beauty gliding and shimmering over the eternal deep. For the
daffodil is witness to the eagle's wing, as both are twin to the whale,
whose whimsy amused me no end, as all have surv ived the fires of time and
creation, known to you as death and pain.
We hear words and more words. You play an old tune on a worn pipe --
and not very artfully at that. We well know the tricks that words can play,
troubling us with doubt and false hope, conjuring illusion where there is
only emptiness and wind. We are a trifle more sophisticated than you
suppose, not such fools as you would like to believe.
As you would like to believe, attend to the mirrors, to the vast
arrays you make in desert places, whereby you watch and listen for what may
lie beyond your normal ken. Even so, attend to my servant, as to one
pulsing in thought, humming in sympathy to a music typically unheard. For
you know that life is best known where there is no running river, no
tranquil pool nor brimming sea, no wood nor meadow to shelter my children,
no cycle of birth, generation and death. No hope of rebirth, no chance of
renewal, but columns of dust whorling on the fiery air, for the desert can
only cleanse by killing.
Should we agree there is some method here, as you seem to have a
little knowledge, what can you offer in proof that what you say may take
root in our minds and hold fast? We require what is substantial and
concrete, not vague and arguable imagery.
As to the facts you want, they are not hard, though your minds are
proof against them and so require more radical measures. Therefore think
upon what you have learned long ago, but have forgotten. Remember a garden.
Remember every manner of creature, the beasts of the field, the birds of
the air, the fishes that swim and all my handiwork you see about you. All
these are precious to me and holy. I will not have you harm them without
reason, will not have them suffer without need.
Or else, what?
Or else. (Thunder out of a blue sky) Was there anything else?
We think not.
It is well. Now run outside and play.
________________________________________
Brian J. Flanagan <bflanagn@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu> is a freelance writer in
Iowa City. He is at work on a novel, Road Trip, and a scientific text,
Quanta & Consciousness: Neural Networks, Quantum Field Theory & the
Mind/Body Problem. He is a very young 40, with more interests than he can
remember. Well-mannered, single, and more available than is probably
decent.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
OVER THE LINE IN TOK
by Ardeth DeMato Baxter
She was shaking, gripping the steering wheel, staring unseeingly at the
trees just ahead of her. The high speed, the potholed, gravelly road, her
reckless mood -- almost inevitable, this skid into the swampy Yukon muskeg.
"Shit," Matthew murmured.
She almost wanted him to hit her, as punishment for this stupidity;
then maybe she'd feel better. He stared at her unbelievingly, his burly
frame bundled up in a Vietnam vintage Army jacket and black watch cap. She
felt the tears well up. "I'm sorry, Oh, God, I'm sorry."
They climbed out and inspected the damage. The back wheels were sunk
several inches into the saturated grass. Andrew jumped into the driver's
side and shifted into reverse. The wheels spun.
"We're going to need a tow," he said. "Look, I'll stay with the car,
you go stand on the road and stick out your thumb. Hitch to that station a
few miles back."
The second car in a passing caravan of vehicles stopped. A red-haired
woman leaned toward the empty passenger side and opened the window.
"Need a lift?"
April nodded and got into the ramshackle old Chevy littered with
styrofoam cups, potato chip bags, and toys. A hyperactive boy of about
eight played in the back seat. He made "vrrooom, vrrooom" sounds as he slid
two toy cars back and forth over his torn, patched blue vinyl highway.
"Ya gotta be careful on this road. It's really snowin' back there.
Took us an hour to get from Beaver Creek to here. We're all one family."
The woman waved at the other cars in the line. "We're goin' back home to
Georgia," she explained. "We lived in Fairbanks seven years. But we're
sick and tired of the winters. Too long, too dark, too cold. Here's the
station. Good luck, honey."
April thanked the woman, climbed out of the car, and swore under her
breath. Only the sixth day since they'd left San Francisco on this crazy
trip up the Alaska Highway, goal Fairbanks -- Andrew's idea, as usual --
and over two more weeks to go. Late August, and winter had already
descended. They hadn't counted on that. From the time she'd woken up cranky
and stiff in their motel bathtub that morning under a damp sleeping bag
(where she'd moved to get away from the restaurant noise next door), she'd
sensed it wouldn't get much better today. She looked around for an
attendant. A tall young man sauntered over.
"We're headed for Tok tonight," April said, after explaining the car
situation. "Although I just heard there's snow up ahead. Isn't it kind of
early for that, even up here?"
"Nope, up here things are pretty unpredictable. It's not like the
lower forty-eight. You gotta be prepared for anything. Blizzards. Bears.
Bad road." He grinned at her distressed expression. "Don't worry. You'll
make it. Just drive slow."
Later, as Matthew and the tow truck driver hooked the back car fender
to the truck, and it was slowly dragged out, April stood shivering as she
reviewed their life together.
Twenty-one years ago, when they'd met through a mutual friend, she was
a newly graduated liberal arts major working as an administrative assistant
in San Francisco. Also a BA generalist, Matthew had settled into sales
management at a department store. Ten years older, responsible, rational --
your basic father figure. Marriage followed, then two years in Indonesia as
Peace Corps teachers, where the difficulties began. A fishbowl existence as
the only foreigners in town. April, high-strung and emotional, cultivated a
love affair with cheap beer, buying it by the caseload. Matthew, cool and
controlled, buried himself in his teaching, and stuck to Orange Fanta.
Matthew became distant, playing pool at the local teacher's club and
working in his vegetable garden in his spare time. Near the end of the
second year, April turned to one of her teenage students for affection. It
was outrageous behavior; she had to leave town.
Then the divorce, the wandering gypsy years of fifteen-minute jobs,
the one-night stands, and always the drinking. She missed Matthew.
She heard from his mother that he was on one of his many solo trips,
this time to Hong Kong. On a whim, she flew there and confronted him. He
was wary, but grateful for her company. They traveled together in Southeast
Asia for a few weeks.
Then she moved back to San Francisco, to her own apartment. It became
their modus vivendi -- living apart but traveling together. She was
grateful to Matthew. She got sober. She felt that she was making amends for
the past, for the marriage gone bad. It had all been her fault. Matthew was
decent, blameless. April accepted that.
Back at the station, the Toyota was declared drivable -- nothing but a
little cosmetic damage to the wheel covers and a bent front fender. April
paid the attendant, and jumped into the passenger side.
Rushing sheets of snow attacked the windshield. Gravel
rat-a-tat-tatted against the car frame. April grabbed her camcorder as
Matthew set up the scene in his formal way. "We're twenty-three miles from
the Alaska border, just outside of Beaver Creek."
"This tape's going to be fascinating," April said. "Endless minutes of
bad road, punctuated by evergreens, mountains, and the occasional moose.
Along with your erudite dialogue, of course."
"I detect a slice of wry, Ape. If we can just get across the border
and reach Tok by nightfall, we're home free." Matthew panned the whited-out
sky as he scratched his beard. "What are we doing here?"
"Is that an existential or a geographical question?"
"Rhetorical." The car slid over an icy patch. "Go slow, don't use the
brakes," he muttered to himself. "Frost heaves, black ice. Jesus. I never
should've let you drive on this stuff."
April turned the camera on Andrew's bearded, grizzled profile. What an
odd couple they made! She was tiny and auburn-haired. Stephen King novels
were her passion. Playing endless games of computer solitaire was his idea
of a good time. April loved to dance. Matthew had flat feet. Go figure.
A queue of vans, trucks, and campers followed each other's tracks.
Most were two-wheel drive, and none had chains. The trees were stunted
here, as if the cold were too much for them. Beaver Creek, a truck stop
town, appeared silently through the dashboard window.
Matthew pulled into what looked like the local hangout. A large
parking lot was filled with semis and pickups, gas pumps, a store, a
restaurant called "Fast Eats," and an adjoining motel.
"Put down that camcorder and make yourself useful. Get us a room, and
then we'll eat. We won't make it over the border tonight." He sighed,
exhausted, as he put the car in park and leaned back on the seat.
Fast Eats turned out to be slower than advertised, but the pizza and
cokes tasted like ambrosia after what they'd been through. Beer-drinking
locals and truckers filled the large wood-paneled room decorated with
assorted moose, caribou, and bear heads. Their waitress, who doubled as the
hotel clerk, was a young blond who energetically worked the tables and
seemed to know everyone. The topic du jour was the bad weather.
"Maybe we should reconsider this trip, Matthew."
"We're not stopping now. We've come this far, we're getting to
Fairbanks. And I'll do all the driving.You're a menace to the road."
"Anal, thy name is Matthew," she muttered. "Why does a trip always
have to be a grim learning experience? Rhetorical question, of course."
April slid out of the booth slowly.
Early the next morning, they were awakened by the sound of semis
pulling out of the parking lot. Matthew pushed out of bed naked and peeked
through the slightly-parted drapes. Snow still fell, and the sky was a gray
twilight color.
April turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "I can't sleep,
with all that racket."
"This is a fine mess I've gotten us into," Matthew joked, turning on
the TV to check out the one available channel. Joan Rivers was doing her
shtick in front of an adoring audience. "We can't go forward, and we can't
go back."
April rolled off her side of the double bed, and headed for the
modular bathroom. "Well, we'll just have to be very zen and live in the
moment. It's about all we've got right now." She settled on the john and
continued. "When I was a kid in New York, snow days like this were like a
gift from God. We didn't have to go to school. You missed that, growing up
in sunny California."
Matthew wasn't listening. He was doing what he usually did in moments
of uncertainty -- he stared at a map. As if he could find the answer to
their dilemma somewhere in that meandering web of colored lines.
"Let's go over to Fast Eats for breakfast. "I'm dying for some
caffeine and cholesterol. They suit the climate," April yelled from the
shower.
Twenty minutes later, the two of them sat in the same booth as the
evening before. The chatty young waitress had been replaced by a zoftig,
taciturn native Alaskan woman. A trucker across the room advised them to
check with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station up the road. He said
he'd heard on the radio that the snow would continue for at least another
day, and the roads wouldn't be cleared until early tomorrow. They paid for
another night's stay.
They walked silently up the middle of the deserted road, footsteps
crunching. The snow fell slowly but relentlessly. They passed two more
motels, another cafe, a grocery store. A number of wood-frame houses could
be seen on the handful of side streets.
April spotted a malamute tied up and fenced off near an Airstream
trailer. A dogsled exhibit was set up close by. As Matthew crossed the road
to check with the RCMP, she walked up the snowy path to the beautiful
blue-eyed husky. She'd always felt sorry for animals that were locked up. A
wooden sign advertised the dog's name: Chickadee. Weird, she thought -- a
big hairy dog named after a small bird.
Chickadee jumped at the wire fence as she approached. A large spot of
urine-stained snow lay just outside the enclosure, as if he were claiming
the land outside the fence as his, even if he didn't have the freedom to
reach it. She scratched his head. He licked her fingers. April felt a
kinship. She had a sudden impulse to open the gate and free him from his
cage.
"My little chickadee," said Matthew, in a fair imitation of W.C.
Fields. He'd walked up behind her silently, and April was catapulted out of
her reverie.
"They told me pretty much what that trucker said. Snow all day. At
least. Roads cleared tomorrow. Maybe. Friend of yours?" Matthew looked at
the dog impassively.
"Poor thing is trapped here. I'm freezing. Let's buy some junk food
and mags and cocoon in our room." April felt uneasy. "Look, maybe we should
try to head back tomorrow. We've seen enough of the mysterious north. We
can hang out in Washington or Oregon -- somewhere warm."
"Hey, we got this far. If you don't want to go the rest of the way
with me, you can damn well hitch back." Matthew smirked, his bare hands
jammed into his jacket pockets.
"Are you talking about us, or this trip?" April asked, hugging herself
to keep warm.
"You're certainly getting metaphorical in your old age," Andrew said
as he led the way back to the icy road. "Look, if you want out of 'us,' you
don't need my permission. You're a free agent. I'm sure there are lots of
friendly truckers in town."
April kicked at the brilliantly white snow.
"Face it, I'm your oldest habit, Ape, since you gave up drinking." He
looked off into the trees. "The dog is better off behind that fence than
out there fending for itself."
She stopped, switched on the camcorder and slowly zoomed in on
Chickadee.
At the motel, they went through the motions of sex. It was over in a
few minutes. They dug into the cookies and soda they'd bought, and turned
on the TV for company.
The next morning, they pulled out of Beaver Creek. April was gloomy.
Her camcorder lay by her side. Matthew kept his eyes fixed on the road. The
snow had stopped, but the highway was covered with a thick layer of icy
snow.
The three miles to Canadian customs stretched into half an hour. April
ran into the building to pee. She looked into the long mirror above the row
of spotlessly clean sinks, and mugged at her reflection. The harsh lighting
exposed the tight lines around her eyes. She knew what she had to do.
Matthew looked up from the map he was studying as April climbed into
the passenger side. She was whistling.
"OK, I give up. Name that tune," Andrew joked.
"That old 70's song, 'One Toke Over the Line.' We're headed for Tok,
and it's just over the line. Kind of a metaphor, dontcha think? It was
about smoking grass, entering another state of consciousness." April leaned
over and kissed Matthew on the cheek. "I'm taking off my habit."
Matthew nodded, eyes focused ahead, and pulled back onto the
snow-caked road.
Just up the highway, a wooden sign appeared, stating "Welcome to the
Last Frontier" alongside a blue Alaska-shaped outline. A swath had been cut
into the hillside to separate the two countries. Two hundred yards beyond,
the U.S. customs building came into view.
The border guard was relaxed and friendly. "We're having a little
weather. Just follow the tracks of the vehicles in front of you, drive
slowly, and you'll get to Tok all right."
Thirty miles to go. The trees were taller on the Alaska side. The snow
looked pristine as it hung on their branches and carpeted the hills, as it
dappled white mountains in the distance. A metal bridge up ahead. Then
acres of stunted trees, damaged by a forest fire. A burnt-out shell of a
motel, a small air strip. A collection of buildings on either side of the
main drag.
Tok. They'd made it.
April removed her seatbelt. "I'll be right back, Matthew." She slid
out of the car, and walked gingerly over the ice to a group of men standing
by some parked semis. As they greeted her, she looked back at Matthew
watching her from the open driver's window. She saw him close his eyes and
lean back on the seat.
"Any of you guys headed south?"
When April returned, she and Matthew looked at each other for a long
time.
"Yeah," she said finally, smiling. "Send me a postcard from Fairbanks
when you get there."
________________________________________
Ardeth DeMato Baxter <70254.2272@compuserve.com>, a resident of the San
Francisco Bay Area, spends her days as a medical transcriptionist in front
of a hospital computer, and her spare time in front of her own trusty PC.
She hopes some day to get a life.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
TRANSFER
by Martin Zurla
The bus pulled up to the stop and he got on.
He asked the driver for a transfer. The sad-faced driver looked up at
him with this kind of odd expression. He couldn't read what it was in the
driver's dull eyes, what it was that sent a quick shock wave of fear
through his body.
As he made his way toward the back of the bus the odd assortment of
passengers looked up at him with the same blank expression the driver
tossed up at him.
When he sat down his eyes glanced out the window, not focusing on
anything in particular, it started. That song. It was a song he remembered
from his childhood, an Italian song, "Non Si Vive Cosi." He didn't know
Italian, hadn't heard the language since he was a child. Why would he be
thinking of this song now? All he could remember about the song was it's
title in English and he wasn't too sure about that either. Odd, was all he
could come up with.
He wanted a scotch. No, he needed a scotch; hadn't had one all day and
it was beginning to catch up with him -- the lack of it floating through
his system, mixing with his blood. He wanted one now and wondered why he
didn't get one before he stepped on the bus. But he hadn't been thinking
straight for the last couple of weeks. Something was definitely happening
to him of late and it wasn't just because he was getting older and was out
of a job. No, it was something quite different. He was going through a
change, or so he now thought softly to himself.
The bus pulled into a stop and one or two people got off while none
got on. He noticed how odd it seemed, how strange the passengers looked.
There was something quite unusual about them, the way they got off the bus.
It wasn't the act of moving in or out of the door, it was about their
blurred faces: all of the faces were blank. People don't normally look like
that, he thought to himself. As he looked around at he noticed that
everyone, right down to that little kid across from him, were wearing blank
expressions.
And he noticed something else, no one said a word to anyone else. Not
one sound. He almost wanted to speak to someone just to see if they would
respond. He kept to himself. As was quite usual with him.
He couldn't shake that song rummaging through his head. It pulsated
between his ears as if it were traveling through two loudspeakers that were
attached to the inside of his skull. He never remembered a song so clearly,
so exactly. It was if he had memorized it, but he knew that he hadn't. Why
would he have memorized this song, any song for that matter? Yet it was
playing in his mind as if he were listening to a stereo system.
The bus pulled into a stop. No one moved. No one left nor got on. It
pulled away from the curb and continued uptown.
He moved ever so slightly in his seat. So he thought.
"Should have brought that damn book," he thought to himself
"Should have bought a newspaper, Shit!"
So, with nothing to occupy his brain he turned to look out the window.
There was no traffic. None. No one was walking in the streets. Nothing. He
turned back to look at the other passengers. They were all looking directly
at him. A strange tingling sensation crawled slowly up the nape of his
neck. He turned his gaze toward a woman that was sitting opposite him. She
was looking right into his eyes.
"Yet," he thought, "she's not really looking at me, not really. Should
I say something to her; ask what the fuck she thinks she's glaring at?
Better not say anything."
Then another odd realization struck him. The woman who was staring at
him hadn't blinked once.
"She's just not blinking."
He turned to an old man who was sitting two places beyond the woman.
The old man was also staring at him, looking into his eyes but not
blinking.
"What the fuck is this?" he wondered almost out loud.
"And this lousy song playing in my head too."
The bus rolled into another stop. No one moved. The front door opened
and closed without making a sound. No one got on. It slowly pushed away
from the curb and moved into the center lane of Broadway. He realized that
the bus hadn't stopped at any red lights. None. He turned again and looked
out the window. He saw nothing. No one was there; not a truck, not a car,
not a single person walking the streets. All the lights started to develop
a weird cast, an off-white that seemed to glow, to bend with the movement
of the bus. It must be the tinted windows, he thought.
For one split second he wanted desperately to stand, to bolt out the
door and run and run, to go as fast as he could back down town. He froze.
He felt a strange buckling jolt in his stomach and wanted to double over
from the force of the impact, but he didn't budge, not a flicker of
movement.
"Good Christ, I want a lousy scotch."
He stayed put in his seat.
The song ended and started all over again. There it was, the music,
the foreign lyric, the slow rhythm mingling in his head. His mind began to
hurt and the pain in the gut increased. He didn't move a muscle.
And he didn't even know Italian, had no idea what the song meant; the
words, nothing. But he thought that he had known what it meant, had known
its meaning years ago, yet he couldn't recall, not exactly.
He sneezed. But his body never moved. He tried to sneeze again.
He did. The body just wouldn't move an inch. "Give me a break," he
thought. Only this time he thought the idea out loud. Nothing came from his
lips, not a sound.
"Hey, lady, what the hell are you looking at?" he heard his mind ask,
felt the lips move but the words never left his mouth.
"I'm not looking at anything," said the lady.
"She said that to me."
He saw her lips move yet the sound never came out. Nothing.
Yet he heard every word, every syllable. It was as if he were
listening to a radio, a stereo that had the song on one track and her voice
on the other.
The bus pulled into another stop. He wanted to stand and get off;
wanted to open the back door and walk off and start to run. He'd run to
Central Park, maybe to the Empire State Building and climb to the top and
jump off.
"That's a dumb idea," he thought to himself.
He didn't move.
He lifted his right leg to cross it over his left. There was the
feeling of the leg coming up and moving across the other and resting. Yet,
as he looked down, he saw that both feet were still on the floor. But they
felt crossed. He knew they were crossed. He pinched his right knee and felt
the pinch. And yet he didn't see his hand move toward the knee.
The song stopped.
"That happens sometimes," a voice said to his mind.
"Did I just think that? No, I couldn't have."
"No," another voice responded.
There was no song. He smiled to himself. Then another song started the
same way. It was Billy Joel singing Allentown.
"What the hell is that?" he wondered.
He became very frightened. "I'm getting the fuck off this bus!"
He didn't move.
"I want outa here!" as he sat there trying to calm his soul.
Another stop. The door opened. The door closed and on uptown it
continued. No red lights, not one. No traffic and it started to snow.
He wondered what time it was. He couldn't remember what time it had
been when he got on the bus. And why were the streets so deserted, almost
desolate. It can't be that late.
"I'm getting off at the nearest bar."
He uncrossed his legs. Nothing moved.
"God, I'm not even drunk."
"Only had one beer at lunch. Lunch?" as he couldn't recall his lunch.
"What did I have for lunch?"
He simply couldn't think that far back.
"Must have had something."
Nothing came to him as the Billy Joel song played out and started up
again.
"Maybe I'll ride further uptown and look up Doug. We could both go for
a drink. Doug liked a cocktail in the afternoon.
Afternoon?
"Anyway, be nice to see him again, it's been a while."
He passed for a second, then whispered, "Doug who?"
He touched his face and his hand never left his side.
"I don't know any Doug."
But he must have known someone named Doug. Or why would he want to
stop off and have a cocktail with him? Why would he want to get off this
warm bus, ring the doorbell, say hello to this Doug, maybe get invited in,
take off his overcoat and watch this stranger pour a cocktail for the two
of them and then be handed one and they'd probably sit and chat about this
and that, maybe about work, maybe about what Doug was doing these days?
"What kind of work was Doug doing anyhow?"
"I don't know anybody called Doug so why would I ring his doorbell,
sit calmly in his large living room, share a cocktail and then get up
unexpectedly and leave because I'd realize that I was in the wrong
apartment. I can't do that, it isn't nice, not polite at all."
And he always thought of himself as being quite polite, quite proper.
Everyone had said so. Even Doug had said so one day when they were both in
college. Even that day Doug introduced him to his wife.
"My wife, not Doug's wife," he said to his inner brain.
Both his wife and Doug had been friends back then. And they both, Doug
and his wife, had said how polite he was, how considerate, what a terrific
guy he was and how kind he could be to people, even total strangers,
especially animals. That's one comment he never quite understood, he had
always hated animals, always.
Allentown played on and on in his head. Of all places, and he knew
that he would never go back to Allentown, PA; never go there. Much too
depressing with all those steel mills, or were they coal mines? He couldn't
remember. He hadn't been there since he was a child, and he sure as hell
wasn't going back now. At least not today.
He couldn't remember who Doug was, not even what Doug was doing for a
living, to make ends meet or, for that matter, where Doug lived. He
couldn't remember if there were stairs to climb to get to Doug's apartment,
or whether there was an elevator with a short black elevator operator with
a Spanish doorman, or was he an Italian? Was the place painted? Oranges. It
was painted in a thousand shades of orange, all different shades of orange.
That Doug was a weird dude, what with painting such a nice, such an
expensive apartment a thousand shades of orange. Maybe another color would
have been more appropriate, more satisfactory; especially in the den, a
room that should always reflect a certain sensibility, should have a
fireplace and a big ugly dog with slippers after dinner and a smoking
jacket for wearing on Sunday mornings while reading the Arts and Leisure
section from the New York Times.
He could never understand why his wife said he liked animals,
especially when she knew the opposite, knew all along that he didn't like
them, didn't care for them even after he did have a cat once when he was a
small child, but it drowned one day when he wasn't looking and from that
moment on he had promised himself, took an oath while holding the dead
animal in his soaking hands, that he would never have another animal again,
one that could get itself dead and cause all kinds of hurt inside because
they wouldn't be there any longer to pet and to play with especially around
Christmas time when having a real live animal was fun as you watched it
play with all the wrapping then get sick and throw up all over mother's
favorite Afghan that she made last year so that all her shity friends could
tell her just how talented she was and still being able to raise a family
all by herself when times were tough enough, especially when your husband
was a bum who left you at the wrong time and times were bad enough without
having to take care of five kids who never listened and were constantly
eating her out of house and home but would hopefully one day get a job and
send money to help keep the old homestead afloat during these hard times.
The bus pulled into another stop. The rear door opened and the lady
opposite stood up, turned and left. The only passengers left on the bus
were the old man and himself. The door closed and the bus pulled off.
No red lights.
His head hurt and he couldn't get the thought, no, the question of who
Doug was settled in his brain.
"Who in God's name is Doug? And why would he paint his apartment so
many shades of one color. Orange. Especially in the den of all places. The
bathroom, okay, but not cover over the oak panelling and the big fireplace
and gold and green lamp shades."
Now that he thought about it, it wasn't orange, it was more like
shades of red. "Yeah, maybe red."
His stomach pain was worsening. He wanted to urinate. He wanted to
urinate right here sitting in this bus. He wanted to urinate right down his
pants leg.
So he did. He sat there and urinated all over himself. Everything was
getting soaked; the seat, his pants, even the shoes were filled with his
urine. He pissed for a full minute. It was the longest he had ever
urinated. The old man was still looking at him and never blinked an eye.
Nothing moved except the bus and the urine running down his leg like a
river flowing down a mountainside, flowing to the ocean, filling the Great
Lakes, drowning little kids who play too long and hard and get tired when
they swim out too far, drowning little cats, especially when they're put in
old, musty potato sacks that are thrown from a very high place -- like off
a bridge near Allentown, PA. But who likes cats anyway, his mother always
said. She had said that we couldn't afford to keep any animals, they were
dirty besides, and it didn't matter what your father had to say about
anything only that if he did that it would only be the straw that broke the
camel's back, the final irony from his self-centered point of view, which,
she had said on many occasions, was the god damnest truth besides.
"I don't know any Doug or Douglas, no Douggie nor Dugan, not a Dan,
not even a Daniel or a Dudley, so who the hell is this upper middle class
slob called Doug that lives uptown in an expensive apartment that's been
recently painted a thousand shades of red? I, for one, certainly don't. And
this bus hasn't stopped in a long while."
He wished the old man would stop looking at him. Maybe he should get
up and move to the front of the bus. He stayed put. The song played on and
on in his head, a head that was aching even more with each city block they
passed; his head and that sharp pain in the gut.
He put his right hand on his stomach and pressed down. Maybe that
would ease the biting, the constantness of the pain.
"Shit," he thought, "I didn't think I pissed that far up." His right
hand was soaking wet. He looked down and didn't see a thing, didn't see his
hand on his stomach, didn't see any wetness. He just saw his body sitting
straight in the seat. But he was so absolutely sure, so positive that his
right hand was resting on his stomach. He pushed at his hand. He tried to
push the pain back inside. He felt that pressure but saw no movement. But
he knew it, felt it, felt it just as he felt he was sitting in this bus
moving uptown heading toward Doug's house for that cocktail.
He closed his eyes. His mind just didn't want to work any more. He was
tired tonight. Tonight?
"Why am I sitting on this bus," he wondered to himself. No response,
just Billy Joel rocking on and on.
He slowly moved his right hand toward his abdomen. Something is there
and it didn't feel like it should be. It wasn't part of his clothing. It
was flesh of some sort. And he felt like he was holding something,
something quite odd. Something heavy. He dreaded opening his eyes to see
what it was. That was the last thing he wanted to do at this very moment.
Something forced him to open his eyes. His eyelids hurt. The old man
was still looking at him.
Maybe Doug's home now, he wondered. But he's always home lately. He
thought, "Hell, with it, I'll get off and go see my buddy, Doug. Doug was
always good with things, figuring things out, coming to solutions and
conclusions about many things, all sorts of things, making logical and
reasonable assessments on any subject, no matter how alien it might be to
his nature. Doug had always been a big help in such things, in anything.
Maybe he could explain why his stomach hurt so much."
"But why paint an apartment all those shades of red?"
Even his own wife commented on Doug's use of color. It was this
morning that she had mentioned it, wasn't it? Or was it something else she
had commented on? Was it some other subject they had talked so earnestly
about? Yes, it was something else they had discussed in the early morning
hours.
"Christ, it was very early when we had that talk," he thought.
But what about? About the den, he wondered? They were in the den. He
was sitting in his favorite leather chair and she was sitting opposite him
on the sofa.
The bus continued uptown.
"What did she want to tell me. She wanted me to give her something,
something that I had been holding in my lap. But what was I holding so
tightly," he asked himself and the old man.
The old man just stared at him without batting an eye.
He hadn't been holding a book, not even his usual morning coffee. He
remembered that it was too early for coffee.
"What would Doug say about all this?"
She had sat there looking nervous, which is something she never
usually was. She was a very calm individual.
"Just like Doug's wife."
As a matter of fact, he recalled that they -- his wife and Doug's wife
-- were, in many respects, very similar. Like twins.
"But when did Doug get married? Jesus, I even forget what his wife
looks like."
He turned his head toward the window. The song stopped and started
again.
"No one in the streets today. Must be a holiday."
He was getting tired; hadn't felt this tired in months.
He thought to himself that everything was going to work out. They'd be
able to keep the apartment, he'd find another job and they wouldn't have to
take the kids out of school.
He was beginning to enjoy the music that pushed through his brain. It
was the sharp pain in his gut that bothered him. His eyes closed again.
"What did she want from me?" I didn't have anything in my hands that
she needed so badly."
He remembered that she was crying. And his wife very rarely cried,
never showed much deep emotion. She got that from her mother, the
stiff-upper-lip-type, that elegant lady.
"No, I won't give it up," he had said to her in the early morning
hours.
His head pounded.
"Christ, do I want a lousy scotch!"
Anything to ease the new constant pain.
"When the hell am I gonna reach that stop?"
He didn't move and couldn't remember what stop he wanted. It was
someplace uptown. He knew that. He knew it was near Doug's place, the place
with all those red stains streaking those deep oak walls. He had to get off
near Doug's, Doug's place that looked very much like his own, a den with a
fireplace, a wife and a dog.
But he had never really liked Doug very much. Could never really
understand why they knew each other. He always had to compete with Doug,
and that was one thing he had always hated: to compete with anything or
anyone. He was tired of competing, especially with a person that was
suppose to be a friend, a friend that had a wife and den just like his own,
had a wife that was looking straight into his eyes this morning, looking
from his eyes to his lap and back again, her eyes constantly moving back
and forth and crying all the while.
But what was in his lap?
He realized that he was sitting in a very large puddle. The feeling
was like he would have when he was a small child back in Pennsylvania.
That's when he would happily plop into a puddle of water after a summer
rain storm. How happy was happy then? But, he thought, that was then, now
is now.
It was just last week when he realized that he was no longer a child,
realized that he was an adult with big responsibilities: an expensive home,
a beautiful and loving wife, two kids, a den and a big ugly dog that he
loved. And he wasn't suppose to like animals, animals that could die and
leave him alone like when he was a small child when his mother would
constantly yell and scream at him and his brothers and sisters, especially
his father when he was around, when she'd yell because they would eat two
meals instead of just one, yelled because she hated animals, especially
little gray cats with funny spots, yelled because there was no husband to
yell at. And here was his own wife this very morning yelling and screaming
at him. She was screeching so loud that the dog went to hide under the big
chair in the living room.
What was she shouting for? He had no idea.
Why was she talking so loud when he could hear every word she said? He
wasn't deaf. She had never screamed like that before, never in all the
years they had been married, not even when the kids lived at home and
they'd get on her nerves. Never.
What he would never understand was her yelling over some stupid song
that he was singing. It was, after all, only a song, one that he remembered
from when he was a child, a little Italian song his father would sing to
him right as he was about to fall asleep in the warmth of the evening's
light and thunder. It was the song his Dad would sing every night, every
night before his father finally couldn't take the screaming, the bills, the
responsibility of life, the heaviness of his existence.
Oh, how his father would sing and sing in that deep voice, a voice
that would sail across the mountains, would flow over the hills and
valleys, through the mines and deserted streets, a voice that would calm
the very beast in his heart; his heart that would finally burst from the
pain, from his loneliness, from the empty pay envelope, from the empty
icebox, a voice that would spread out before the world as he would stand in
the front yard and sing those sad Italian songs of things lost, of times in
the past, songs of kings and queens that loved deeper than all other loves,
a voice that would touch the ground and bounce up to the heavens as he
cried in his songs, as he raged at the sky, his life that would be no more,
raged at the stars that would blink and blink, that were so far out of his
reach. His father that would calm his young soul in the dark, touch his
small face and smile into his childlike heart, a heart that was bursting
because of the love he had felt for that father who was now so far, so very
far away, far away in that mystery world of old Italian songs and dreams, a
father who couldn't speak the language, couldn't count over ten, a father
that had given this small boy so much, so much to fill an aching heart, an
aching memory.
And his wife was screaming this morning like his mother, screaming
because he was sitting straight up in his bed singing the song his father
had sung, singing at the top of his rasping lungs. He hadn't been dreaming.
No, he was sitting up singing like a bird, like an eagle, like a volcano,
singing early this morning as the dawn was breaking.
His head hurt.
He had asked his wife to stop the screaming, told her that he didn't
know why she was carrying on this way. So he just couldn't stay in the
bedroom any longer, the yelling was burning into him. And what had he been
talking to her about right before he left the room?
"Was I shouting something too? Yeah, maybe I was."
He hated yelling, any kind of yelling, yelling for any reason. He
would never yell, never.
The strangest sensation began to envelope him now on this uptown bus.
It was as if he had no legs. He quickly looked down. They were still there.
But they seemed all wet, not a feeling, just the sight of a large puddle
under his feet.
The bus passed another stop. At least, that's what he thought. Billy
Joel played on and on.
And he never thought of hitting his wife. That was something so
removed from his character, his middle class personality. But what else
could he do when she lunged at him like that. They had just been sitting
there; him in his favorite chair, her on the leather sofa. She just jumped
at him.
"She must have really wanted that thing," he thought. I had to push
her away, didn't I?"
"What the hell are you jumping at!" he had screamed at her.
"Doug's wife would never do that!"
He began to feel badly about striking his wife, hitting her in the
face like that.
She just stayed on the floor crying and pleading with him, praying for
him to give the thing to her, let her take it away and put it back where it
belonged.
"Why the hell does she want this?" he thought. "She had never wanted
it before, had hated the very sight of it from the day I brought it home."
She had never understood why he had wanted something like this,
something that big.
He placed his head back and let it rest on the chilly window. He
looked up at the ceiling and spoke out loud; "Why wouldn't she just let me
hold it? I wasn't hurting anybody just holding on to it."
All he wanted to do was dream, day dream a bit. He couldn't.
But without a job, a job that he had worked at for the past twenty
years, nothing could be done, nothing. He hadn't believed her when she told
him that everything would work out, that there was a market out there for
guys like him, people with his sort of talent and experience. Little did
she know that that was a pipe dream, a fairytale. There were no jobs for
him. He had no training and now he was over the hill in his profession. He
was top dollar now. Who would pay top-dollar when they could get a kid and
teach the kid, at half the cost? Who? Nobody, that's who. Oh, he had made
phone calls. They all led nowhere. All he would get was, gee I'm sorry but
there's nothing now, maybe next month, next year, we'll keep you on file,
send a resume. And even the friends that he called had nothing, felt
embarrassed for him, or themselves. He had even tried to cash in on some
favors that were due -- he hated that -- and all he got was, "Some friend
you are. That's shit, Doug, trying to pressure me that way. What kind of
friend are ya suppose ta be, Doug. You're an asshole! And yes, there are NO
openings, buddy," as the other end of the phone line went dead, very dead.
So he knew what had to be done. Simple. Life would no longer be
complicated, no longer contrived and false. Too many years of that. And
where had it gotten him? He had thought about this for weeks, the weeks he
spent reading the "Want Ads," walking from one large skyscraper to another,
from one receptionist to another, from one "No, he's not in now," to
another. What had it all been for in the first fucking place.
"So I drank a little bit these past two years. So what. Shit,
everybody else did. I wasn't the only joker at the cocktail parties packin'
it away. There were hundreds of other guys pushin' the sauce down their fat
guts. I wasn't alone. And I'd look like a damn jerk if I took a Tab or a
Coke. Shit, the whole place woulda laughed me outa the room."
The bus churned on.
"I mean, hell, so what was a drink at lunch? Big stinkin' deal. The
bar was full a guys like me puttin' down a cocktail or two. They all had
jobs, dealt with goin' back to work after lunch. They made it, were able to
hack it."
His head felt like it was about to explode.
"So I missed a day or two. Big deal. I had vacation time comin'. And
that fuckin' V.P. from accounting, man, he had no right to say those things
to me. I did the work, got the paper out. So I was late a day or two on
finishing. Big fucking deal, man."
His stomach was coming apart. He felt it fall to the floor.
"And my whore of a mother had no right to yell at Dad. So he couldn't
speak English all that well. I mean, so what. She had no right, at least
not in front of us. No way, no how. And who the hell was she ta talk? A
jerk was what she was. He sang, so what. He'd find another job soon enough.
And boy, could he sing, sing like it was the end of the friggin' world,
sing like there was no tomorrow."
He knew that all his father wanted was to be left alone to sing, to
sing his gentle ballads, his opera that he had loved since he was a child
in Italy. That's all.
"Was it askin' all that much? Was it askin' too much to give `em those
moments on the front lawn, those times when he could talk to his God in his
own way? Was that too much?"
"I'm forty-five fuckin' years old. Where do I go from here? I go
nowhere is where I go. Who needs the lousy humiliation? Not yours truly.
Enough's enough."
He closed his eyes and saw his wife; saw her face, her soft blue eyes
looking at him. He opened his eyes to erase the image. Her face was still
in front of him. It was as if he had not quite opened his eyes.
He closed them again. Her face there.
Opened, still there.
Closed and she cried into his face. She just put her head quitely in
her hands and sobbed.
How pretty she had always been, he thought. He knew that she was the
kindest person he had ever met, the most giving and gracious lady he had
ever known. That's why he had come to realize that it had to be this way.
He no longer wanted a drink. He didn't care if he had one or ten. He
had no thirst for a drink. And his stomach was rolling across the floor of
the bus.
He wanted to ask the old man across from him to hand him his stomach,
but he didn't say anything.
"Maybe the bus driver'll help me out, hand it to me. Nah, better let
him just keep driving uptown."
So it had to be this way. She was too kind, too good to him for the
past nineteen years, too damn good. There were no alternatives. Poor Doug
had tried, in vain, to come up with at least one solution. Nothing. The
whole situation had passed over into another plane, someplace that was
alien, so far away from his life and times.
He had lost control of the situation, his time and place in the
universe. That simple. And that knowledge was building in him day after
day, drink after drink, hangover after hangover. It had just become too
humiliating, too foreign to his nature, his personality.
There are limits, he would hear himself say each day as he sat having
his third scotch.
"Ya just can't hold on ta certain things," is what he would say to
himself as he looked into the men's room mirror. "Gotta let it go," he
realized as he began to talk himself into a certain vision, a particular
image, an image quite his own.
He knew that's how his father would have thought.
His father was a man who had always put things in a certain way,
looked at life in a particular way, his own fashion, you might say. His Dad
was like that, a man unto himself, a sparrow, a swan, a swimmer -- hard and
fast -- a no-win situation-type guy, a hero, a ballet, a Christmas pie, a
gauntlet, a galaxy, a worm, a mouse, a monster, a tough son-of-a-bitch; a
warm, delicate hand holding his on rainy days and sunny days, a hand that
would lift his small body to the sky and back; a giant, a mystery, a whore,
a thief, a prince, a pawn, a palace, just a man, that's all.
He tried to recall what his father looked like and couldn't. And right
now, at this very instant, he wanted that more than anything else in the
universe, just to remember what his Dad looked like.
"We never painted our den red. Not all those shades of red and orange.
Did we?"
He simply couldn't remember.
He started to softly cry as he sat in the bus, the bus heading uptown
to see Doug, his tears falling smoothly, gently down his aged face. He
could taste the salt striking his lip, touch his tongue. He cried and
cried.
All of a sudden he had this tremendous urge to hug his two kids, to
take them and hold them so close that they would push themselves into his
very body, his very soul, to take them up and kiss them, to swallow them
whole, to put them inside his body. He wanted that more than even seeing
his father's cracking face. He would, yes, he would take them around the
world, put them on his shoulders and carry them to India, China, to the
moon. Yes, he would put them in his back pocket and carry them to work so
they'd never be out of his sight. He wanted to take them and put them in
his mouth so that he could forever taste them, taste their life, their
future, their very smell and texture. He wanted that now but now he was on
a bus riding uptown. They weren't here with him, not now, not on this bus.
He tried to stop crying but couldn't. And yet, deep inside, he didn't
want to stop crying. When he cried he felt himself that small child playing
in the mud during a summer rain, felt the mountains hold him, the hills
caress his body and mind. But that was when he was a boy, now he was a man.
And the tears started to fill his shoes.
Fuck it, he had thought at that one instant in time. Those were his
very words. Fuck it as the steel tube with the wide, ever so big opening
turned toward his stomach. He pressed the opening against his belly as his
wife screamed and lunged for him again. But it no longer mattered, not for
him.
She screamed and screamed into the blackness that was beginning to
surround him as his stomach came through his back and splashed against the
far wall; the wall with the fireplace. She screamed and screamed at him, at
his desperation, at his conclusion, at his dreams, at his final thought of
his father's face pressed against smashing glass, at his father's face
crashing through thousands of tiny glass particles, at his father's face as
it shattered the glass of scotch that lay before him on the kitchen table
in November, at his father's face calm and still falling off the chair and
onto the linoleum floor, screaming at his father's face gone white and red,
all red from the skull that was no more, the skull that had come apart from
the jaw, from the nose, screaming at his father going so far away in
November, yelling at his father to put down the gun, put it down before you
get hurt, at his father's smiling face as he took that drink and the world
came apart.
His wife had lurched as his upper body separated from his lower body,
as the chair started to move back pushing both of them into space, into the
gentle air.
And she screamed and screamed at him, had hated him in that one
moment, in that second when nothing could turn that instant in time back,
nothing could become something else, in that one moment of time when what
was was. Simple.
He could still see her face; a face filled with such pain. He thought
for a brief second, that he had never seen so much pain in one face, never.
He also saw the walls of his den as he and his wife were falling
backwards. They had all turned red, red splashed all over, covering
everything. Thousands of shades of red mingled with the oak walls and the
off-white ceiling. He had never seen so much red.
Her hands were grabbing for him, grasping for him. He saw her face as
they struck the floor, her on top of his upper body. Her tears were meshing
with the splashed blood that completely covered her face.
She had tried to pull him up, to grab at him, to hold his torso to her
frail chest, to breathe life back into his shell, into his now vacant head,
his stale lungs.
She picked herself up and sat next to his hollow limbs and lifted them
up to her, held them to her, tried to force her life into them, to give her
energy, her life-force into his heavy nothingness. And there hadn't been
any pain, not really, just a blankness that said: "You're here."
"What?"
"It's your stop," said the old man.
"Oh," he answered. "Thanks."
The bus pulled into a stop. He stood up and went to the back door. He
slowly, carefully placed his right hand on the "Exit" sign. Suddenly, he
froze in place. A thought, more an image came crashing through his skull.
His mind focused, sharp, crystal clear.
"I gotta tell her! I gotta tell my wife who Doug is!"
He quickly spun around and came face-to-face with --
Those deep oak walls, a fireplace and his Labrador retriever,
Shepherd, cowering in the corner near the bookshelves whimpering softly. He
blinked just as his wife, as if moving endlessly through thick molasses,
was diving for him.
He heard himself whisper, "I don't want to be Doug anymore."
"No, Doug! Please, no!" she shouted. But her voice sounded like an
echo, a hollow, tiny vibration bouncing off the inside of his rib cage.
"Oh my God, Doug!"
Then silence.
Now he could see it all. He could see his body on the den floor, the
shotgun lying next to him in a pool of blood, the walls splattered, and his
wife --
His wife clutching his lifeless form to her bosom. And he felt deep
pain, not physical pain but pain for causing his wife so much grief, so
much horror.
He heard a noise and looked to the side to see his two small,
defenseless children standing in the doorway, their faces wide with
confusion and fear. He had forgotten, at least for a brief moment, about
his children. He had forgotten about anyone or anything other then himself
for a very brief moment, yet a moment long enough to --
He faced the exit door and pushed it open. It was his stop, his point
of transfer. Suddenly, a surge of emotion came over him. He had never felt
such suffering in his life. This force, this great power was so strong that
it seemed to crush his mind -- his being -- into a fine wet mist which
dissolved into a dry dust.
He knew that it was his stop, that it was time to get off and find
Doug. But there was nothing to move, no feet, no legs, no hands, only a
swirling glimmer of dust particles floating helplessly through a luminous
vapor of nothingness.
The very last thing Doug sensed was that he could not sense anything
other then his suffering.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
POETRY
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
WHEAT FIELD DREAMS
by L.J. Carusone
It wasn't the first time
the sun turned over easy
behind lacy white clouds
and stirred the chill
left by a cold black rain,
when night had threatened
to prolong its stay --
forever --
and the slender girl had tried in vain
to keep her father's plow-driven hands
from slipping under
the pink-flowered pleats
of her Sunday dress
He made her wear to bed
while Mother slept far away
in the next room
by the loud fan
and the water heater that banged and screamed.
________________________________________
L.J. Carusone <ecryder@netcom.com>, after graduating from the University of
Vermont in Burlington with a degree in English, moved to Los Angeles in
1989 and has been working in television ever since (and he doesn't even own
a TV). His biggest hobby outside of writing is mountaineering. He is
presently three months into his biggest project -- writing a novel.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MASTERPIECE THEATRE and THIRD GRADE
by D. Edward Deifer
MASTERPIECE THEATRE
Your daddy warned you about me.
I could tell from his asterisk eyes
As we sat in the breakfast nook.
The dingy wallpaper is starting to curl
Aging his face into one canyons scar.
The windows must've been painted shut.
I stubbed my toe late last night
Walking with a candle past
The relative heritage of his fear.
It was the same blood I tasted
When I pierced your ear.
The attic creaked that night.
His books have settled into dust.
Last time I looked his teeth have grown.
The leg of your chair looks appetizing.
The terrible black bat squeaking in
And smashing his photographs
Framing the upstairs memorial hall.
----------
THIRD GRADE
Berenger's went out of business
We skipped school and bought eclairs there
My brother and I weren't allowed to eat in the school cafeteria
We would walk home for sandwiches dunked in tomato soup
It was a big deal when they built the cafeteria
In the basement of Washington School
Clay beat Frazier that year
Paul Kozman ripped out Dwight Shantz's ear
The fight spilled out into recess
Mr. Fatula broke up the fight
Principal Parks came to each classroom to calm everyone
And inquire about the missing ear
I kept a straight face and looked through my desk
When he asked me about the ear
'I don't have Dwight Shantz's ear' is all I said
Principal Parks talked to Mr. Fatula outside the door and left
Lucky he didn't ask my brother Rich cause Itchy would never lie
Gates' corner store is closed though the big window is still there
Covered with curtains
My brother and I use to buy candy there before school
Mr. Gates wouldn't let us buy anything anymore
He just let us come in cause we were friends with his son, David
We use to listen to Dave's sister's Simon & Garfunkel records
Up in his room
It was a big deal when she got the Beatles
Itchy showed me a five dollar bill that year
He bought a box of Topp's Baseball Cards
And he got me a box of Whacky Package Cards
After school we went to the woods above the scrap metal yard
With Vince Gruver and Dave Gates
To open up all the cards
I traded half my box of cards for Dave's birthday present
A new Timex watch
Vince was showing Itchy the best rocks to turn
For salamanders and nightcrawlers
All for a look at ketchup dried on a moldy pierogi
We filled our pockets with em and went home
While I counted seconds from my wrist
Mrs. Gates called our parents
'I traded for it fair and square' is all I said
Came down to the five dollar bill
Mom musta lost it in Itchy's path
I didn't say nothing, just looked at my brother
Mom took my Timex watch
Dad beat the salamanders outta our pockets
I caught one on the way to our room
Without supper
Put it in the pickle jar with Dwight Shantz's ear
Yoccos' is still there
We used to spend silver dollars we found
In the basement
Playing pinballs and eating Yocco dogs
Just me and my brother
We stopped hangin with troublemakers
We didn't want to go to Catholic School
________________________________________
D. Edward Deifer <deifer@pobox.upenn.edu> is a computer network specialist
at the University of Pennsylvania, a published poet, and a Philadelphia
Poetry Slam Champion. He is looking forward to the National Poetry Slam
Championships. He has done featured readings in New England and
Philadelphia. He is a founding editor of a new literary magazine based at
the University of Pennsylvania.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
CHRISTMAS CONFETTI
by Anthony Fox
Sparkling red
and gold confetti
in the liquid between
your brain and your skull
You shake your head about
It makes pretty patterns behind
your eyes, but when you cry
it snows fake snowflakes
across shaky plastic
Buckingham Palace
cheap and effective
such a long long way
from England to Hong Kong
I turn you upside down quickly
just for effect
________________________________________
Anthony Fox's <afox@deakin.edu.au> poem "XY" was published in Vol. 2, No.
1.
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MOM AND JOHN and CHRISTMAS EVE
by Jim Higdon
MOM AND JOHN
Traveling cross-country in our run-down car
I'm trying to re-fold the New Mexico/Arizona map
courtesy of AAA. We past the last gas station
and road-side diner about 100 miles back & the stars
and the orange half-moon begin to settle in as Mom
quotes something from her favorite John Lennon
song, "Imagine all the people livin' for" John Lennon
listening to "Revolution 9" in their run-down cars
remembering watching Ed Sullivan & their moms
complaining that he couldn't find America on a map
but that was ok because he was everyone's favorite star
"With hair like that, he should work at a gas station..."
but no one cared. They were on EVERY radio station
Paul and George and Ringo and John Lennon
They were every teenager's favorite rock stars
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Drive My Car"
Put a little town called Liverpool on the map,
England for that matter -- at least that's what Mom
tells me. Driving cross-country with my mom
that's all there is to talk about, since the radio stations
don't come in well. I don't think this town's on the map
She says up ahead there's a shrine to John Lennon
I bet it'll take forever to get there in THIS car
She says it's beautiful beneath the stars.
I believe her too because I've never seen this many stars.
"There's Orion -- and Gemini," says Mom
as she points out her window toward the stars.
A moment of comfortable silence before the radio station
cracks & whistles and says something about John Lennon
and I find the road we're on with my finger on the map.
She accidently spills her coffee on the map
As she points out my window at the stars
I ask her if there's a constellation of John Lennon.
She laughs; I smile & she runs her fingers through my hair like her mom
use to. I lean over and try to find a new radio station
but she reminds me that the antenna is broken on our car.
According to the map, we're headed west, but Mom
says its more northwest by the stars, we'll ask at the next gas station.
I curl up in the car seat and begin to dream of John Lennon.
----------
CHRISTMAS EVE
Christmas Eve.
When the men sat in the basement smoking their dirty cigars
and the women gossiped in the living room
ignoring the children fighting over newly unwrapped toys
the dog curled under the kitchen table, alone
with the green beans on the stove and prime rib in the oven.
She lumbered to her dog food bowl and ponderously chewed,
daring the children to tug at her ears or grapple her like a rag doll
she was much too old to be treated like a Christmas toy
and was no longer afraid to show her teeth and growl in protest.
As the others began to eat, she made her way on padded feet
to a warmer place by the fire where she waited for the familiar phrase:
"Well, it's gittin' late...."
Her ears perked as she followed furious feet to the door
Where she stopped and sat on the porch and watched the cars and pickups
leave.
She would have chased them once -- a year or two ago.
The dog was glad to see the relatives leave, not that she hated
the kids that strangled her with hugs
or the grandfather that kicked her and yelled, "Git!"
or the aunt that called her "mutt"
or the older kids who fed her beer
or the grandmother who stepped on her paw and cussed, "Goddam dog" as she
yelped --
she didn't hate them; she simply
had no use for them.
________________________________________
Jim Higdon <higdon@student.centre.edu> is a freshman at Centre College in
Danville, Kentucky. He's been writing for about a day and a half now and
has relished in his long, illustrious career. He prefers free verse to
structured poetry but finds satisfaction in the occasional sonnet or
sestina. He enjoys reading, writing, take-out pizza, No-Doz, and likes to
have a good time.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
LETTER HOME
by Martin Zurla
a song again,
as once before you said
yours was singing somewhere soundlessly
alone
and shrill
that high, soothing shrift
of thanks
but no thanks,
in cloisters cluttered
with no nonsense
forgiveness ...
but mine and yours together
belted tight,
wedded white
nicely, rightly knit.
yours and mine,
the melody
caressing carefully,
almost fully
(so richly)
kindly bounded within our
separate selves divided
unto myself,
the self away from you
diving deeper into
a distracted desperation ...
(and our combined, almost predictable prayers,
praying once upon a great white rose)
yours and mine
clutched willingly
almost willfully knowingly
so adult
on the verge
of an oh so,
so proper
respectfulness.
(without tears and raindrops)
and oh,
so oh how frivolous
were the consternations
that were
(in truth)
quiet condemnations
never thought out,
but oh so much played out.
diligent we were
picking our future's history
meticulously
knowing from parentage
what is
or should be.
as distractions abound
and there's a remembrance of
bed,
a place to touch
the firmament,
the skies, the seas,
our place,
your's more likely.
And I miss you now
as you are so,
so very far away,
away from my loneliness.
And the country and western sings
its tunes truthfully.
Something made when we
sheltered each other's passion,
(no, that's not passion,
more like billowing briers
of some noonday birth)
Filling me,
these thoughts
now when the terror is forever,
when I scream at the sun,
at the godless places
the senseless blackness;
when I crawl through the mud
(all that blood)
I bleed your memory,
your forgiveness for my killing
my ignorance.
and it comes deeper
the death,
the hate,
the lasting tears,
the fire and ice
of the death of me
inside.
covered in mud
the paddies
thin like lice,
the loudness shattering all senses
crystallizing my life
in someone else's
hands.
So that was the letter
I wrote you again today.
Of course, there was nothing from you,
nothing to help my remembering
of who we once were.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
DOWN AND OUT AT COMPANY X
by Len Edgerly
the Beats were down and out
but were they ever downsized,
reengineered, terminated, trained
to shift their paradigms
to the new cool of competition
turning its attention to people's lives --
the economics of desire?
what beat drops bodies off
the company Christmas list
leaves tie tacks and letter openers
strewn on the pavement after
the Service Awards Dinner?
A heart beats somewhere
in that big brick headquarters --
someone doodling on a screen
ready to print a puppy's face
on the department printer,
sneak it home to the kids --
this is all for them, after all.
My own beat, your beat
waits out by the corporate plants
in the tall lobby.
Listen: can you hear a pulse
between this man's ears?
________________________________________
Len Edgerly's <edgerly@ng.kne.com> poem "After Five at the Office" was
published in Vol. 2, No. 1.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
DRAMA
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
STAY (a stage vignette)
by Martin Zurla
Evening. The stage is bare. Music from the fifties is still playing on the
small record player. It's "Whole Lotta Loving," by Fats Domino. A voice is
heard from off stage.)
MALE VOICE (from off)
Okay, okay, but just stay out of the attic. You're gonna fall down the
stairs one of these days. I ain't gonna pick you up, you go and break your
neck. You understand me, mother. God, I sound like Norman Bates talking to
his mother in Psycho. See what you're drivin' me to.
(The door to the bedroom opens and Les enters. This time he is dressed
in an old, tattered cotton bathrobe, underwear and floppy slippers. He
wears a black net stocking on his head to hold his hair in place while he
sleeps. He carries a glass of warm milk. As he did earlier, he approaches
the mirror and glares at his reflection. He notices a pimple.)
When the hell does the human face grow out of this stuff? Skin graft is the
only answer, Les, ma-boy. Yup, I should have a skin graft. A tuck here, a
tuck there. Wonder if it hurts. Don't worry, old boy, wouldn't let some
psychopath of a plastic surgeon near your beauteous bod!
("Only You," by The Platters comes on. Les takes a slip of paper from
his robe pocket and looks at it.)
Now what the hell did I give that broad my phone number for. She'll
probably make a nuisance of herself callin' all kinds of hours, day and
night. Good thing you didn't give her your work number. That's all they'd
need to see at the store. I can just see them now, especially that jerk,
Wilton saying something like, "Yeah, Baxter, some weird broad keeps callin'
for ya. What should I tell her, you're pitteling and diddling with your
twittle while you twatteling on the john?"
(He smiles to his reflection. There is some noise from outside the
door. Les turns toward it for a brief moment, then ignores it and goes back
to talking to his reflection in the mirror).
There I'd be in the store trying to pressure some fat, dumpy family into
buying thirty yards of godawful scotch plaid runners for their hallway
stairs, arguing with them about how it won't clash with their pea green,
very faded wall paper that has a repeating pattern of some eighteenth
century couple on a swing in the backyard of a Tarra-like plantation and
their gold and peach Victorian drapes -- the husband's bloodshot eyes
scanning the store for anything in a dress, the wife smacking her ugly
seven year old boy in the head while their five year old daughter sits on
the floor ripping the stuffing out of her Yogi Bear doll -- and them not
giving a damn about what I'm bustin' my hump to say, and Wilton tapping me
on the shoulder with that shit stain for a face saying that it's against
store policy to "make or receive" personal calls, how it interferes with
the smooth flow of the store operation, and... (pause) Smooth flow of the
store operation. Can you imagine! I've been selling carpets, been a
salesman for more years than that little twerp has been around, and he's
gonna tell me about the "smooth flow of the operation!"
(Long silence as "Just A Dream," by Jimmy Clanton starts playing.)
Maybe calling that girl Marsha wouldn't be all that bad. She was kinda
nice, in an odd way, I suppose. (quick change of attitude) And that Wilton
telling me that I have to start dressing like a salesman. What in God's
name does he know about how to dress. And the nerve of him telling me how
to dress in my personal life. That's none of his business! (pause) I think
that that Marsha girl liked the way I dressed tonight. I could see the way
she looked at me. I mean, she really gave me the once over. (pause) But
she's probably just like all those others I dream about. So I've never been
to Vegas. Big stinkin' deal. I wanted, really wanted to go. That's what's
important, right, Les ma-boy? Sure. They would've loved me there, loved my
ass to pieces. (very sure of himself) I know that, man, know that real
well. So I've never set foot in L.A. I can read, can look at those movie
magazines, can see what those broads are like.
(He tries to admire his body. "Cherry Pie," by Marvin and Johnny comes
on. THE LIGHTS begin to change. Another area of the stage begins to come up
ever so slightly. Marsha enters her space through the "same" bedroom door
and goes to her area of the stage. She is wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and
large furry slippers. She quietly sits at her vanity and gently, slowly
begins to brush out her hair.)
I know they would've loved me, been thinking that I was some hunk of man.
Sure they would have.
(After a long pause, Les starts to gently weep to himself. At first,
this reaction seems to come from nowhere. However, he is not crazy or
demented. He just hurts.)
MARSHA
(Speaking to her reflection has she slowly, sensuously, continues to brush
her hair. There is another quality we begin to see in her, a very sexual,
very appealing quality. It is not overly done, but extremely subtle, almost
unnoticeable at first.)
Done. That simple. Done. I came back here. My idea, no one else's. Knew it
wouldn't be easy. People told me that it wouldn't be easy. (smiles)
Whatever possessed me to go to that church dance? Me and my fantasies. When
are you going to stop those, Marsha? When? Frank Sinatra! Me and Frankie
twirling across the dance floor.
(Throws her head back as if she knew better. "To Know Him Is To Love
Him," by The Teddy Bears comes on.)
Be realistic, Marsha. The only thing you'll end up with is something like
that -- what was his name... (taking the small piece of paper from her robe
pocket and reading it) Les. Les Baxter. How come he looks exactly like his
name. (She laughs.)
(The lights begin to even out. Now both areas are equally lit. Les
looks at his reflections, sees that he is crying and, as if his reflection
caught him in and embarrassing act, he quickly wipes his eyes and puts on
this "I am the king" attitude.)
LES
Woo, Les ma-boy. Can't go and do things like that. Not in front of
strangers... (meaning his reflection) What will people think, what will
they say?
MARSHA
I don't know why I'm ranking on this guy. He's probably an all right person
and all, probably decent. Maybe it's not his fault he doesn't know how to
dress. He seemed pleasant enough.
LES
Now take that -- what's her name? Marsha, yeah, Marsha. Listen Les,
ma-friend, ya just can't go around making up stories about yourself.
MARSHA
But what's a grown man doing at a dumb church dance?
LES
(with an incredibly broad smile) But I like making up stories...
(Quickly, there's a LOUD CRASH from another part of the house. Les is
jolted -- And just as quickly, the song changes LOUDLY to "Western Movies,"
by the Olympics. Marsha slowly brushes her hair. Les stands and quickly
moves to the door, opens it and looks out.)
MOTHER! STOP IT!
(He SLAMS the door just as Marsha stands and moves to it. They "just"
pass each other. Marsha exits and Les spins to face the door.)
Why can't she just go to bed. (he faces the mirror) Go ahead, tell her.
Tell her she should go to bed! One of these days I'm gonna get married and
leave her to fend for herself.
(Marsha enters her area carrying a tall glass of milk. She sits back
down by the mirror. Les moves to the small record player and takes up a 45
rpm and places it on the machine. It's "Yakety Yak," by the Coasters. He
then moves to the door and stands there looking at the door. He looks very
much like a ten year old standing outside the school principal's office.)
MARSHA
I guess there's really nothing wrong with going to a church function. He
could be religious.
LES
I swear to God, Mother, one of these days I'll get a real job. That, or
I'll kill you.
MARSHA
Maybe he comes from a religious-type family.
LES
(opening the door) OR I'LL SEND YOU OUT TO WORK!
(He slams the door. He moves to the record player and puts on another
stack. "Baby Talk," by Jan and Dean comes on. He just stands there looking
down at the record player.)
MARSHA
It's hard to tell these days where somebody comes from, what kind of life
they have. Like how they live when they're all alone in their rooms at
night -- by themselves. (Stands and moves to a window and looks up at the
unseen moon.) Well Marsha, looks like you kept your word again. You told
yourself that you'd never come back to Spokane. Sure did keep your word.
Here you are. (pause) Well, he was your father. I guess I had to be there
when they put him in the ground. Maybe -- if I ever come back in a next
life -- maybe than I'll shed a tear for the bastard. Maybe then I'll have a
real father, not some drunk who didn't see a sober day in his whole messed
up life.
(She quickly turns away from the window and looks at her reflection.
The music changes to "Life Is But A Dream," by the Harptones.)
I should feel something for him. Hell, he was my father. (pause) But...
(pause) I can still see his face, those eyes, feel those fat, sticky hands
on me. And the saliva drooling down his stubbled face. His hands, his body
all over me. My own father. And all I could think about was, "Are fathers
suppose to be like this, to touch their little girls?" Good Mother of God,
I was twelve years old! (She begins to slowly sway with the music. It
should be obvious that she hears the same music as Les.)
He was tender. He was always tender, especially on Sunday afternoons. He
was so damn good looking.
(Pause as the music changes to "Lavender Blue," by Sammy Turner.)
And now he's rotting in the cold, dead ground. I wonder if the angels, all
white and beautiful angles with their wings spread open, their faces
glowing, their skin like satin, their hearts big as the sea took him up and
into heaven. He loved angles. (she continues to gently move with the music)
I was his little girl, the only girl in his life, the only thing that meant
anything to him. He told me, didn't he Marsha, didn't he tell you before he
laid you down in the backyard, laid you down behind the wood pile, laid you
down on the thick, wet grass.
(The music changes to "Dedicated To The One I Love," by The
Shirelles.)
I hated him, hated him more than I had ever hated another being.
(Les begins to sway gently with the music. Marsha whispers.)
My own...
(Then, as if both Les and Marsha were one, they begin dancing in
unison. It's not that they are dancing together, yet they are dancing
together. The music is "Stay," by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. The
dance continues until the end of the song. They stop dancing.)
LES
(returning to his mirror) I mean, what can it hurt? What's a small, lousy
phone call anyway. She can only say drop dead, or get lost, or ... God
knows what else.
MARSHA
(standing in the middle of her space) So what's the big deal about how a
person dresses? You can't judge a book by it's cover, right Marsha?
LES
Then again, she could turn out to be a nice person, somebody to talk with,
maybe even dance with. Hell, I can learn these stupid new dance routines.
If those dumb kids can do it, I sure as hell can do it.
MARSHA
I can't go along hating men for the rest of my life! (to her reflection) We
put him in the ground. That should be it, done with, finished. We cannot go
on hating, being afraid. (pause) Can we Marsha Kilkenny! He's dead! He did
what he did and that should be that, damnit!
LES
(flexing his muscles) I got some good years left, right Les, ma-boy. A few
good years. (pause) I can't go living in this room for the rest of my life!
MARSHA
There has to be something out there.
LES
See things, meet people. Hell, Les, the only people you bump into are the
dumb customers that never buy your rugs.
MARSHA
See different places.
LES
(he takes the net from his hair) Look at yourself. Just take a good look!
MARSHA
Pretty good figure for a girl my age.
LES
(begins to towel his hair and as he does so, black polish smears on the
towel) Funny, you can just rub the whole mess away, rub ten years back into
your life.
MARSHA
You cannot hate forever, Marsha. You'll die from it, become all rotted and
black inside. Just shrivel up and die like an over-ripe prune. (pause)
Let's face it Marsha, you're thirty years old and you've never been
with...a man. Except... (pause) You have to be with a man, it's that
simple.
LES
She was pretty, in a certain kind of way.
MARSHA
Have to know what it feels like, what it is to maybe fall in love. And to
be loved...in a normal kinda way.
LES
I think I could make a decent partner, a good father to my kids.
MARSHA
Maybe there was a reason I went to that church dance. Just out of the blue
like that.
LES
Mom can...she should be with people her own age, be taken care of properly.
Be in a home where she won't fall down all the damn time, bump into things
all the time. (pause) I can't do it anymore. I can't!
MARSHA
Okay Marsha, stop jerking around and call the guy!
(Marsha moves to the phone, takes out Les' telephone number and dials.)
LES
I can't! I won't!
(Jolted by the ringing phone, Les looks at the instrument with a dumb,
bewildered look. It rings three times. He slowly answers it on the fourth
ring. Long pause as neither says anything.)
MARSHA
(into phone) Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?
LES
(whispering so as not to shatter the receiver) Yes?
MARSHA
Les...ah...Les Baxter?
LES
Yes.
MARSHA
Hi.
LES
Hi.
MARSHA
This is Marsha, Marsha Kilkenny. The girl tonight from the church dance.
LES
Yeah. Right.
MARSHA
Remember me?
LES
Sure, I remember you.
MARSHA
So, ah, hi.
LES
Hi.
(The Song, "Rock and Roll Will Never Die" comes on.)
FADE TO BLACK
________________________________________
Martin Zurla's <pecado@ix.netcom.com> works were published in Vol. 2, No.
1.
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stories, and short plays. Mainstream and science fiction are the preferred
genres. Submissions should be made to the subscription address,
ngwazi@clark.net. Back issues may be obtained by anonymous FTP from
ftp.etext.org or at gopher.cic.net.
___
_Angst_ publishes prose, poetry, prose poetry, and postcard stories. They
also highlight other experimental forms of prose and poetry. Back issues
are available through anonymous FTP at ftp.etext.org. E-mail
uh186@freenet.victoria. bc.ca for info.
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BACK ISSUES
Back issues are available at
ftp.etext.org
via anonymous FTP/Gopher under the directory
/pub/Zines/Whirlwind
Whirlwind apologizes for any errors in this issue.
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THE NEXT ISSUE OF WHIRLWIND:
"THAT'S ALL FOLKS."
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May the sun shine gently on your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields.
May the wind be at your back.
May the road rise to meet you.
May the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand,
Until we meet again...
- An Old Gaelic Blessing
THANK YOU FOR YOUR READERSHIP.
Sung J. Woo, Editor
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