Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2019 - ESSAYS

The Labels We Give Ourselves

by Jamie Gogocha

Once upon a time, a girl woke up, looked in the mirror, and
realized she was a woman. She was in her mid-30s, and never
felt like she had earned the title Woman. She began using “gal”
in the places where Girl or Woman would be used. While she
didn’t feel like Woman, she recognized that he was beyond the
days where she could refer to herself as Girl.

The thing about it is quite simple. She isn’t a mother. For
most of her life, she had felt pretty sure she didn’t want chil-
dren. As her mid-threes crept up, she found herself stopping
to look at the baby clothes at Walmart or Target, watching
the children in the library, and talking about certain situa-
tions with her husband. What would happen if little Sylvanas
was bullied at school? Should we homeschool? How would we
handle it if she wanted to wear a midriff halter top and fishnets
go to out with her friends? We’ve seen it.

She and her husband have been going back and forth on
the issue for much of their eleven year marriage. While they
both agree that it would be lovely to have a baby, they can’t
shake the feeling they should be sure—which they’re not. The
husband has lofty plans about teaching their little one about
land navigation, self-defense, and other things he learned along

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the way in the military. However, they both feel a prickly sense
of unease about introducing a baby into their situation. They
both have mental health issues they struggle with. Their mon-
sters still get the upper hand in the daily epic battle that two
broken souls have been fighting for years.

The husband is happy with their status quo. She is too.
Right now, they’re free to come and go as they please, with
only their rescue cats to worry about, and can eat like college
students in a dorm if they want to. But there is also that faint,
nagging feeling that she’s fallen short of the requirements that
would grant her the title Woman. Then there are the “whens”
and “why don’t yous” from presumably well-meaning people.
Notice I didn’t specify friends and family. Strangers and ac-
quaintances also offer up their thoughts on the subject. And
let’s not forget “Who’s going to look after you when you’re old?”
So now she has the pressure of planning their golden years on
top of the pressure to procreate.

This is something she finds herself thinking about more
and more. She thinks about the good things—having a little
person that is a combination of her and the love of her life,
all of the firsts, and watching what he or she will become.
She thinks, no, worries, about the uncertainty. What kind of
mother would she be when she battles the Depression Monster
each day? Not a natural child person, what kind of mother
would she be, period? Since she’s a bit older, what if pregnancy
is too great a risk? Would she be more prone to post-partum
depression? What if she can’t handle the baby? Worse yet, what
if she wants nothing to do with her son or daughter? Does she
really want to take that gamble?

Hollywood gossip and the smattering of “real people”
news tells her she still has time. Not much, but some. While
armed with that knowledge, she is still uncomfortable with

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the inner conflict. She’s uncomfortable with the questions. In-
cidentally, she’s so uncomfortable with the whole thing that
she’s writing this essay in third-person. Am I a blemish on the
record of my gender? Should I be thinking these things? What
if someone sees this?

Somewhere in all this doubt, and the fear of the looming
shadow of regret, I realized that I am, indeed, a woman though
I don’t have children. Mother and Woman are not necessarily
synonymous. I’m a grown-up who has a fairly good grasp on
who I am and where I want to go. At the risk of sounding trite,
I have people— my husband, my sister and other family, and
my ladies, my closest friends, who I want to be with en route to
my destination. And if I spend my energy rescuing abandoned
special needs kitties, then that’s not such a horrible thing.

Once upon a time, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and
realized I’m a woman.

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Random Selection

by Jeffrey Kass

Beep, beep… Beep, beep… Beep, beep…
“Sir, please step over here to my right. You’ve been ran-

domly selected for additional security screening.”
The first time I had been asked to go through a random

screening at St. Louis Lambert International Airport after the
metal detector went off, I wasn’t at all mad. It wasn’t much later
than a year after 9/11 and I thought if this is what they need
to do to keep us safe, I’m willing to play along. I was headed
to a court hearing in Miami and was more focused on my trip
anyway.

“Are you okay with us doing the screening here, or would
you prefer a private room?” the male private screener politely
but stoically asked me before touching me. The screener was no
taller than five-foot four, chubby, and wore thick, almost coke-
bottle type glasses. Buzz-cut, military-style, straight dirty blond
hair. Didn’t crack a smile, although I doubt that would’ve made
things better. His employee tag said “W. Mueller.” It was two in
the afternoon and he was visibly sweating from the overheated
airport security area. The last thing I wanted was a private room
with a short sweating German guy named Mueller. Jeffrey the
Jew and Mueller the German Groper. No thanks.

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“I’m okay doing it right here,” I responded in a let’s get this
fucking over with tone.

“Okay. I’m going to be touching you on the insides of your
thighs and on your buttocks,” Mueller warned before he began.

Mueller’s blue plastic-glove covered hands slid up and
down my inner thighs, grazing my scrotum, down my legs,
back up my calves, and up the sides of my ass. Then he slid
them just inside the waist of my jeans, around the circumfer-
ence of my body. I didn’t know whether to be thankful some
people were willing to feel up other men for their career as
a sacrifice to our country, or to be grossed out by the whole
thing. It dawned on me then that strippers also feel up others
for their career, but obviously not for the sake of national secu-
rity. Would be kind of cool if strippers gave you the TSA-style
play by play. “Ready? I’m going to turn around, and then grind
my ass into your groin area. . .”

“Okay, all set,” Mueller said, satisfied after he was finished
violating my dignity. “You can grab your backpack.”

I still was sorta glad our country was taking steps to pro-
tect us, but the Mueller rubdown wasn’t exactly a fun start to
my day. I wanted a shower but that still isn’t a post-screening
option at any airport I’ve ever been to. Maybe they have that
in Dubai or something.

Back in 2002, I was what is referred to as an “ultra-Or-
thodox” Jew. I’ve never been into pigeonhole labels since not
everyone in every group is the same, but my status as a re-
ligious Jew essentially meant that except for work, I wore a
yarmulke—a Jewish skullcap—everywhere I went. Orthodox
Jews believe it is mandatory to wear a covering on our head
to remind us that our creator is spiritually above us. Yarmulke,
while an English word now, is really a contraction of two He-
brew words, yari and malka. Yari, meaning fear or awe and

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malka, meaning king or queen. In other words, the yarmulke
head covering literally means “in awe of the king.”

When I was selected for my first random security screening
by Herr Mueller, I was wearing a black felt yarmulke on my
head, the type and color many ultra-Orthodox Jews typically
wear. I wasn’t naïve about how some people feel about us Jews,
but it never dawned on me anyone was scared we might take
down a plane. I have my own complaints about the Orthodox
community I decided to leave in 2007. Terrorism just wasn’t
one of them. Anyway, I didn’t connect the random screening
with the black thing on my head at that time. I’ve won contests
with worse odds than being chosen by TSA, so I accepted my lot.

Two months later, on my way to Pittsburgh for another
work trip, the magical St. Louis airport screening buzzer went
off again as I stepped through, metal free. What are the chances,
I thought? Randomly selected two trips in a row? Should I
start playing the lottery? Maybe the frequency of these types of
screenings had increased with the ever-common government
orange alerts. Orange meant the threat of a terrorist attack was
high and it seemed these were almost daily occurrences then.
They probably still are, but I think we’ve just become numb
to the dangers of the world or, worse, we’ve learned to accept
the new reality.

This time, the designated feeler-upper was Jesus Martinez.
Definitely a step up from Mueller. Not that I dreamt of being
touched by nice-looking men in airport security lines, or any-
where for that matter, but Jesus was handsome. At least com-
pared to Mueller. He was well groomed. About five-foot nine,
with straight black hair. A friendly smile. Muscular arms. And
the bonus? Definitely no grandparents who gassed my relatives
in Auschwitz. I didn’t really know a lot of Hispanic people back
then so his first name stood out. Jesus. I never understood why

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people from Latin American countries name their kids after
their god. I certainly didn’t know any white guys growing up
in Ohio named Jesus. The closest we ever got was Chris.

Speaking of Jesus, that reminds me of this Christian guy
Bill from college. Bill lived in a fraternity house next to mine
at Ohio State. It was a fraternity for people majoring in ag-
ricultural related subjects. I didn’t really know much about
him except I knew he was from Marietta, Ohio and we would
sometimes exchange a passing hello here or there when we saw
each other leaving for class. He was majoring in animal hus-
bandry, which actually sounded disgusting in a bestiality kind
of way, but I later learned it was just a farm animal breeding
program.

It wasn’t until the spring quarter of our junior year that
Bill and I actually had a class together, which wasn’t weird since
Ohio State had fifty thousand undergrads. We were taking
Women’s Studies 201. I only remember because Bill couldn’t
stand the class. All this talk about equal pay, homosexuality,
female empowerment and the like got under his skin. He in-
cessantly fought our teacher Janet on just about every subject.
“Marriage is between a man and a woman,” he once admon-
ished our lesbian professor in front of the entire class. I had
the pleasure of listening to his kvetching about these topics on
our walk back from class two times a week. Occasionally, he
would throw in an extra jab at other minorities. A joke here
or there about black folks. Asian jokes. Even a Jewish joke
once, although he quickly remembered his audience—me—
and punched my arm. “You know I’m just kidding, Jeff, right?”
Yes. Hilarious.

After our last class of the quarter, I decided to challenge
my small-minded friend.

“Can I ask you a question, Bill?”

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“Sure, what’s up,” he responded, visibly happy he was fi-
nally done with the class.

“I want to get something straight. You worship a dark-
skinned Jewish guy, but you don’t care much for dark-skinned
people or Jews, do you? How do you reconcile that?”

Bill had a confused look on his face. “What the fuck are
you talking about?”

“Well, I assume you know that Jesus wasn’t from Norway
or Sweden or Germany. He was from the Middle East. And
I assume that, unlike Michelangelo, you know what people
from the Middle East look like. On top of that, Jesus was
Jewish. Let me lay it out there nice and easy for you. Jesus was
a dark-skinned Jew.”

Bill just looked at me with piercing eyes, said a quick
“you’re an asshole,” and walked away. I moved that summer and
never ran into him again the following year.

Jesus Martinez’s airport pat down wasn’t only a step up
from Mueller’s because he was easier on the eyes. He also man-
aged to spare “accidentally” grazing my balls. Plus, Martinez
understood how unpleasant it was. “Hey man, sorry about this.
Just have to be safe. Have a good day.” The entire experience
was so much less invasive than Mueller’s that I forgot I had just
been chosen for random screenings two trips in a row. That
was until my very next work trip three weeks later.

I made it through St. Louis’ airport screening on my next
trip to Little Rock without incident, but my return the next
evening didn’t go quite as smoothly. Maybe it was foolish of
me to wear my yarmulke in Arkansas, but I calmly stepped
through the metal detector at Adams Field. You guessed it.
Randomly selected again.

Adams Field was originally named after a famous captain
in the Arkansas National Guard who was killed in the line of

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duty in the 1930s. It was later named Clinton Airport after
Bill and Hillary in 2012. Had it already been named Clinton
Airport when I visited, I guess I could’ve expected to be felt up
in honor of Bill, but back in 2003 I had no such worry. This
time a female TSA agent stopped me. “Excuse me, sir,” she
loudly said in a thick southern accent. “Ya’ll gonna need to step
over here,” as she shooed me to the left of her. Then she took
out her walkie-talkie. “We have a male random in line two.”
There was that word again. Random. For some reason, I didn’t
feel like I had won anything despite being searched three trips
in a row. Plus, couldn’t she just do it? Why did I have to wait
for a man? Couldn’t they just ask my sexual preference first?

This time the name badge on my would-be groper was, no
joke, “Lt. R. Lee.” I mean are you fucking kidding me. First
I get groped by SS guard Mueller and now, while in the deep
south, Robert E. Lee? Maybe his first name was Ralph or Riley
or even Roger and I was just overreacting. “Okay, son,” Lieu-
tenant Lee started. Lee was in his sixties. Tall, maybe six-foot
three, thin, a full head of straight gray hair and a thick gray
mustache with no other facial hair.

Of the next ten work trips, I got randomly searched on
nine of them. Nine random searches on ten trips over two
years. I almost wanted to put a mini plastic gun under my yar-
mulke as a joke. Or maybe have a custom yarmulke made with
a picture of a bomb. Or what about wearing an I ♥ Osama
sweatshirt? “Aha!!! I knew it! Those dangerous Jews!” I could
hear TSA now. Alas, I remember my criminal law professor
telling me years ago that there are two groups of people who
don’t have a sense of humor. Police officers and airport security.
Go figure.

I decided to leave the world of Orthodox Judaism when I
got divorced in 2007 and something miraculous happened at

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the same time. Since I stopped walking through airport security
lines with a yarmulke, my balls and thighs have been rubbed
down a grand total of zero times in thirteen years. Oh and the
other thing that hasn’t happened in those same thirteen years?
Not one Orthodox Jew has taken down an airplane. Wild.

Jeffrey Kass is an author and lawyer in Denver, Colorado. His
writing, in what he calls the traumedy genre, has won multiple
writing awards over the past several years. In 2018, he was
nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize for his story, Stay-
cation. In 2019, Adelaide Books published Jeffrey’s first book,
Oreos & A Pack of Marlboro Lights, which is available in some
independent books stores and on Amazon and many other
online retailers. Oreos is a collection of true traumedy sto-
ries addressing issues of race, religion, relationships and other
relatable topics. It was one of Adelaide Books’ best sellers in
2019 and it has received rave reviews by buyers on Amazon.
“You’ll Laugh, Cry and Smile at These Poignant Life Stories.”
“A wonderful, honest and enlightening read.” “Must Read –
Reflection on the world we live in.” “Real Life. Loved it.” In
his legal career, Jeffrey has been recognized by the National
Law Journal as one of the top 50 lawyers in his field and has
been named a SuperLawyer many years. Jeffrey is active civi-
cally, serving on multiple charitable boards that address racial
inequities, children’s issues and education. Above all, Jeffrey
is the proud parent of three teenagers with whom he enjoys a
myriad of activities.

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Soviet Stamps and Regrets…

by Aysel Basci

In May 1992, five months after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
my plane finally landed at Moscow airport. My first flight to
Moscow had been a long one, and I was quite nervous. After
going through passport control and customs, I found myself
in the arrival area among a large sea of people. In Washington,
I had been cautioned about the high crime rate in Moscow
at the time, and I was specifically advised not to take a taxi,
unless it had a proper taxi sign. However, no one had warned
me about the large crowd I might find at the airport, so I was
a little surprised. There was not an inch of unoccupied space
in the arrival area. Compounding this uncomfortable situation
was the fact that the people there were quite disorderly and
moving in all directions. I did not know how to find an exit
door, nor did I know how I would make my way through the
crowd to such an exit. I desperately looked for signs in English
but could not see any. In the end, my suitcase and I fought our
way through the dense crowd, hoping to find an exit. I started
gently pushing people blocking my way saying, “Excuse me,
excuse me.” After a few minutes and very little progress, I
stopped to see if there was an alternative. There was none.

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In my head, I started seriously questioning the wisdom
of being there. Not that I had much say on the matter. I was
on a business trip. At the international organization where
I worked, by tradition, our business trips are called missions,
and the mission at hand was quite important – it needed to
be accomplished rather urgently. That’s why I was in Moscow.
I knew this trip was going to be difficult, and I had mentally
prepared myself for it. However, I did not expect the difficul-
ties to begin at the airport. There I was, struggling to get out of
the arrival area and to find a taxi which would take me safely
to my hotel.

After catching my breath for a few minutes, I concluded
there was no other way: I needed to push my way through the
crowd as if I really meant it. That’s what I did. About ten min-
utes later, I was finally outside. Much to my dismay, the out-
side was just as crowded as the inside. The moment I stepped
outside the exit door a disheveled, sweat-soaked man wearing
a singlet, grabbed my suitcase and said, “Taxi Madam?” I tried
desperately to get my suitcase back from him, but he was al-
ready walking away with it. I asked him in English “Are you
an official taxi?” I doubt he understood my question because
he responded in Russian. I only made out of the word “taxi.” I
had no other choice but to follow him.

By now, I was beginning to get really worried. Crazy
thoughts started swirling through my mind. Will I ever see
my husband and daughter again, or will I become a simple
crime statistic in Moscow? Then, I remembered an expression
I had heard from my elders many times as I was growing up,
“Fear does not help prolong life.” The moral of the expression
is that I could not just worry about my fate; I had to do some-
thing about it. I quickened my steps and caught up with the
man. I began communicating in an impromptu, made-up sign

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language using hand gestures. I asked if there was a taxi sign
on his car. After some initial difficulty, he understood my ques-
tion. He said “Yes Madam.” He briefly put my suitcase down,
and made a taxi sign using his hands (just like I had done). It
was not a good situation, but I figured there was no harm in
walking up to the man’s car and checking it out.

After a 5-10 minutes’ walk through a place which looked
like a parking lot, but did not have any signs or proper rows,
just a bunch of vehicles parked at random, the disorderly man
wearing a singlet stopped next to a car and started to open the
trunk, presumably to place my suitcase in it. I was somewhat
relieved when I saw a big taxi sign on his car. Now I had no
excuse to refuse to go with him. I sat in the back of the car and
asked him to take me to Hotel Metropol in Moscow. He got
in the driver’s seat and started to drive.

As soon as the driver sat in his seat and started to drive,
a strong smell of alcohol wafted through the back of the taxi,
and I became even more worried and uncomfortable. I could
not tell if the smell was coming from the taxi driver’s breath or
whether there was an open bottle of alcohol somewhere in the
vehicle. Perhaps some alcohol had spilled in the car previously
and the stain had not been properly cleaned up. It was hard to
tell, but the smell was so strong, I had to literally cover my nose
with my hand to block it. I must confess, my sense of smell is
more developed than that of most people. Nonetheless, I was
stuck with a strong unpleasant smell, a disorderly man in a
singlet for a taxi driver, and a terrible concern about how my
ride would end. Then, more scary thoughts started crossing
my mind.

In Washington, I had been told to take a lot of cash with
me, in US dollars, and especially single dollar bills. This was
because the vendors in Moscow were unlikely to give me

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change back if I were to give them 20- or 50-dollar bills for
even the smallest purchases. I had followed this advice, and
instead of carrying unsigned Thomas Cook Travelers Checks,
which I normally used back then when travelling on business,
I had US dollar bills with me. I was going to be in Moscow for
three weeks, a fairly long time, so I needed quite a bit of cash
– although later I would discover everything in Moscow was
dirt-cheap at the time. It occurred to me that the taxi driver
would certainly know I was carrying cash. As my paranoia
tipped the scales of reason, I imagined the taxi driver making a
detour to some dark and lonely place, strangling me, taking my
money, and dumping my body into some ditch. Who would
find me there, and who would bother to identify the body?

This thought distressed me deeply, and I started to re-
gret coming to Moscow, although I had not been given much
choice. Because of my technical expertise, I was one of the first
staff members in my organization to travel to Moscow after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it was my job to collect
information from various government agencies, including the
Vneshekconombank (Russia’s Central Bank at the time) and
help establish the level, and the composition, of the newly
formed Russian Federation’s public debt so the desperately
needed debt reorganization and debt relief negotiations could
be started with external creditors. A lot of work needed to be
done to accomplish this difficult objective. I was prepared for
the hard work, but not for this daunting ride from the air-
port to my hotel in a black taxi with an alcohol-ridden driver
wearing a sweaty singlet. I had been caught by surprise and
deeply regretted that I had not asked my counterparts in the
government to arrange for me to be picked up from the air-
port; I had not foreseen the need. As I sat panic-stricken in the
back of the taxi, many bad scenarios began playing through my

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imagination. The more I thought about the possibilities, the
more scared and nervous I became.

After about 30 minutes’ drive, we made it to the out-
skirts of Moscow. I began watching the city’s streets and huge
boulevards with amazement. I could not believe I was there,
in the very country I had read so much about as a teenager.
This was the country of Pushkin, Gorky, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
Turgenev, and so many more of my old friends. Yes, yes, they
were my friends. In fact, they had been my only friends as I
was growing up. For years, they had kept me good company
in a small library in Nicosia, my hometown. Their stories had
captivated my imagination and drawn me into other worlds.
And now, I was in their country, in one of their beloved cities,
breathing the same air as they had done years ago. Soon after,
my excitement over being in Moscow took over and made me
forget my worries about being murdered and my body being
dumped in a remote ditch where nobody could find me – well,
at least, not for a long time.

My ordeal with the taxi driver, however, was not entirely
over yet. He was driving very fast, certainly too fast for com-
fort, and to make matters worse, there were many huge pot-
holes on the roads which needed to be avoided, or else the
consequences would have been catastrophic. My taxi driver
would be speeding along until we came close to a pothole,
and just inches before we reached it, as I was getting ready to
jump out of my skin, he would press the brakes hard to stop
in time and avoid rolling into it. He would then make a slight
left or right detour to avoid the pothole and immediately start
speeding again until we reached another pothole. Eventually,
we arrived at Hotel Metropol and I got out of the taxi, a bit
shaken but glad my “ride from hell” was finally over. I paid the
taxi driver and checked into the hotel.

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The next morning when I went down to the lobby I was
pleasantly surprised. My colleague, Mary, with whom I was
going to work on this mission and who had arrived in Moscow
a day earlier than I, was waiting for me in the lobby with our
assigned local interpreter, Boris, from the Moscow Institute
of Economics. Boris had brought with him two bunches of
wild lilies of the valley, one for me and one for Mary. He in-
troduced himself and presented the flowers to us in the most
polite manner. That was quite a nice touch and it brightened
our morning.

The three of us had breakfast together at the hotel, and
agreed on a detailed work plan for completing our mission
within the allocated timeframe. Boris was going to work with
us closely throughout our stay, and he would assist us in every
way possible, especially in setting up the necessary appoint-
ments with the various branches of government and in se-
curing and translating the large number of documents and
electronic files we needed to access and review. Mary and I
instantly felt comfortable with Boris and knew he would be
very helpful to our mission. We were not wrong. Three weeks
later, when we were leaving Moscow, there was no question in
our minds that without Boris we would not have completed
our work.

During the next three weeks, besides a lot of grueling
work, we also shared some good times. Economically, this was
a very bad time for the Russians. With the recent collapse
of the Soviet Union, the newly established Russian Federa-
tion was buckling under very heavy external debts inherited
from the Soviets. The Muscovites, like most other Russians,
were living under austere conditions, and there was a shortage
of practically all consumer goods, especially food. The situa-
tion was so bad, many Muscovites had started gardening and

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growing their own vegetables in their backyards or dachas in
the suburbs. Because of the limited supply of food most of the
restaurants in Moscow were closed. Those that did manage to
open insisted on being paid in US dollars or Deutsche marks.
For our lunches and dinners, Boris made a list of restaurants
that might be open and called them ahead of time, assuring
them there would be three customers coming and that we
would pay in US dollars. With this guarantee, we were able
to go to a few select restaurants, featuring mostly Georgian
cuisine. Most of the time, we were the only clients in these
restaurants, which was quite disheartening.

Three weeks went by quickly. It was our last weekend in
Moscow. Having completed our work and wrapped things up
on a Friday, we had the whole of Saturday and Sunday for
ourselves before I flew back to the US. Boris had become our
good friend, and offered to take Mary and me shopping for
souvenirs, and perhaps some small presents for our families.
We accepted his offer and met him on the Saturday morning.
Together, we visited several shopping venues and bought a few
typical Russian souvenirs (nesting Matryoshka dolls, painted
Easter eggs, and so on).

For me, the most memorable part of the day was our
visit to a flea market later that afternoon. I still remember that
market and how, quite unexpectedly, it became memorable for
all the wrong reasons.

At the flea market, we were casually looking around for
interesting gifts to take back to the US. I never liked buying
gifts during business trips, and it was difficult to find appro-
priate gifts for my husband and daughter because they usually
did not like what I bought for them. I had pretty much given
up buying personal gifts, and instead, bought small souvenirs
that could be displayed in our home – objects to remind me

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of the countries I had visited. In any case, more often than not,
I was too busy working and did not have time for shopping.
That day at the flea market, I was simply trying to enjoy the
outdoors and the beautiful spring weather and browse through
the interesting items on sale, many of which could not be
found in the US.

After looking around for a while and soaking in the vi-
brant buzz of the market, I saw a boy – a seller, about 12-13
years old. He was sitting on the ground and had only a few
items for sale: an album full of stamps and a few small posters,
all in Russian. The boy had spread a small black-and-white
checkered tablecloth next to him on the ground, and was dis-
playing these items on it. I did not care for the posters, but the
stamp album caught my attention. It was carefully preserved
in a plastic bag and seemed to be in very good shape. The boy
had removed a few of the stamps from the album and placed
them on top of it, so they could be better seen and inspected
by potential buyers.

I stopped and looked at the few stamps placed outside
the album. They were interesting to me because they were all
related to space and space exploration, and my husband is an
avid collector of such stamps. He too keeps his stamps in an
album. While looking at those stamps, I remembered how
my husband had told me it was difficult to find interesting
space-related stamps which were worth collecting. Almost all
of my husband’s stamps were related to NASA’s space explora-
tion projects and they had been issued by the US government
to honor various achievements and milestones of those pro-
grams. The stamps I was looking at in Moscow were related to
the Soviet space program, and they all looked intriguing.

The boy immediately began telling us about the stamps
and removed the album from its protective plastic cover so I

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could inspect the pages more closely. The pages were full of
beautiful, well-preserved stamps from the late 1950s to the
present day, commemorating various achievements of the
Soviet space program. The boy was speaking in Russian, and
Boris was translating. We learned that the album belonged to
the boy’s father, who until recently had worked in the space
industry but had lost his job after the Soviet Union collapsed.
The boy also told us his father valued the album a great deal
and was selling it only out of great necessity.

After inspecting the album more closely, I could tell it
must have taken years to collect the stamps, which had been
kept meticulously in chronological order, according to their
issue date. They all conveyed interesting messages about the
various Soviet space exploration programs. After admiring the
album for a few minutes, I knew it would make a good gift for
my husband. I told Boris I wanted to buy the album. He said
“Okay,” and asked Mary and me to walk away and leave the
bargaining to him, so we went off to look at other merchandise
at the flea market.

A few minutes later, Boris caught up with us with the
album. He handed the album to me and said he had bought it
for 20 US dollars. I was quite surprised to hear how little Boris
had paid for the album. I had been prepared to pay much more
– at least three or four times more. I turned and looked at the
boy, the seller, in the distance. He seemed sad, almost in tears. I
paid Boris the 20 US dollars and we started to leave the market.
But, I could not. I felt uncomfortable, almost guilty. I wanted
to do something to correct the wrong that had been done.

I told Boris I wanted to go back and pay more for the
beautiful album. Realizing I was serious, he said, “Okay, let’s
go.” We went back to find the boy. We looked all around, but
he had vanished. It had only been five minutes since I had seen

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him looking so sad. But now, he was gone. I left the flea market
that day with a great deal of regret for paying so little for the
stamp album, and to this day, whenever I look at that album I
remember the tear-streaked face of the boy at the flea market.

I left Moscow the next afternoon. After I was seated in
the plane, I thought how pleasant my trip had turned out after
all. We had managed to accomplish our business objective, and
despite the existing local economic difficulties, had enjoyed a
comfortable stay in Moscow. But still, I was full of regrets; I
was feeling guilty, and it all revolved around one sad boy in a
flea market, who had sold his father’s most prized possession
for a song. However, I did learn an important lesson from that
incident: when it comes to making decisions in life, it is always
better to be guided by a generous outcome.

Aysel K. Basci is a new writer working in nonfiction. She was
born and raised in Nicosia, Cyprus and moved to the United
States at age 19. She holds a BS from American University and
an MS from George Washington University. Before retiring
from the World Bank, Aysel traveled and worked extensively
in the poorest regions of the world including Sub-Saharan Af-
rica, Central America and South Asia. Her writing recently
appeared in the Adelaide and Entropy literary magazines and
in the Bosphorus Review of Books.

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Free or Safe

by Sloane Keay Davidson

Free or Safe

Currently, one of the biggest debates occurring in the United
States is that of sanctuary cities. “While there is no official legal
definition of ‘sanctuary city,’ the term refers to towns, cities, or
counties that protect undocumented immigrants by refusing
to cooperate completely with federal detention requests, often
with a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy” (procon.org). As of 2017,
President Trump is taking action by pulling funds for sanc-
tuary cities, which is cause for much contention among people,
both for citizens and undocumented individuals (Schallhorn).
There are people who support sanctuary cities and those who
disagree with the policy. This essay will enlighten individuals
as to the beginnings of sanctuary cities, the reasons for their
establishment, and their continued existence in America.

The sources cited to support this paper fulfill the criteria
for ethos because the authors/writers are professors at univer-
sities, one is a lawyer; there are journalists and some references
are based on consensus. With the utilization of the rhetorician’s
stasis theory, I will address the facts of the issue; the definition
or nature of the problem and its influencers, or influencing

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factors; the beneficial and detrimental qualities of the topic
and its costs to the country; and finally, the discovery of a
policy that can be established and universally agreed on. In an
attempt to achieve stasis, a consensus on sanctuary cities will
be attempted via research of diverse information and personal
encounters that inevitably affect media consumers globally.
The sanctuary city political debate is vast and convoluted de-
pending on the source of information; therefore, how can we
know what is true, or relevant? Are sanctuary cities beneficial in
today’s society, or should they be eradicated due to illegal sup-
port of undocumented immigrants that pose a criminal threat
to America? Are we choosing between American freedom and
safety by providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants?

The form of rhetoric causes the greatest shift in our view(s)
on sanctuary cities. The rhetorical sources of media and televised
news increasingly affects our perspective on sanctuary policy.
Choosing only one source of rhetoric causes myopia, which is
the preeminent blame for biased perspectives on the debate. In
my research via online databases and credible sources, the data
and statistics support sanctuary policy; on the other hand, the
president, who highly influences and persuades the public, is
furiously against sanctuaries for seemingly understandable and
logical reasons. With two opposing and reputable sources, it
is difficult to determine the truth. However, stasis theory does
not seek truth, rather it is based on a consensus that opposing
parties can agree to, which is also the purpose for this rhetoric.

Fact: Establishment and History of Sanctuary cities:

The first originally deemed sanctuary city began in Berkeley,
California, to protect refugees. In 1971, it passed a resolution
that protected sailors who resisted the Vietnam War (Schall-
horn). Eight years later in 1979, the motion affected many

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other cities including San Francisco and Los Angelos (Garcia).
By the 1980s, the sanctuary movement exploded in the United
States due to the “protests against federal immigration policies
that denied asylum to refugees from El Salvador and Guate-
mala” (Baker). Efforts by churches and religious organizations
resulted in a declaration of specified cities as safe havens. The
havens offered protection to Central Americans fleeing violence
and the civil war “amid reluctance by the federal government
to grant them refugee status” (Pearson). As these specified cities
expanded and were incorporated across the States, the policies
became well-established and renown. The policies, according to
Schallhorn, “overall limit how much local law enforcement of-
ficials can comply with federal immigration authorities.” These
cities forbid officials from inquiring into immigration status of
individuals residing in the protected designated areas.

San Francisco is a sanctuary city that receives frequent cov-
erage by the news and media regarding their policy which was
officially established in 1989. Prior to the legislation’s establish-
ment, San Francisco led the way for future sanctuary cities “by
passing a city ordinance in 1985 that specifically forbade city
police or civil magistrates from assisting federal immigration of-
ficers” (Baker). The legislation is known as the City and County
of Refuge ordinance. As it is written, the policy specifically
“prohibits city employees from helping federal immigration en-
forcement efforts unless compelled by court order or state law”
(Pearson). San Francisco is one among many cities, counties and
states across the United States that has “laws, policies or regu-
lations that prevent employees from cooperating with federal
immigration enforcement efforts” (Pearson). Details regarding
the policy have changed over the years and they also change de-
pending on the city, “but most major cities in the United States
have some form of sanctuary policy, including Chicago, San

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Diego, New York, Philadelphia, and Houston” (Garcia). As the
cities have spanned from one end of the country to the other,
so have the policies expanded and adjusted to accommodate
immigrants. Today, “more than 200 state and local jurisdictions
have policies that call for not honoring U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement detention requests” (Pearson). With ad-
justment and expansion via the 1980s movement, the known
policy for sanctuary cities prohibits local police from stopping
or arresting individuals based on national origin or immigra-
tion status, and it has barred assistance to federal immigration
authorities unless legally required (Schallhorn).

The problems of opposition to the federal government
have persisted since the earliest ideologies, concerning Amer-
ican sanctuaries, were postulated. The people and communities
supporting these sanctuaries are known for pushing against
the federal government, so that the designated areas can pro-
tect illegal immigrants from deportation and assist them in
the transition from immigrant to citizen. However, sanctuary
cities didn’t begin with the protection of illegal immigrants
and war refugees. The first refugees to find sanctuary in 1790s
America were fugitive slaves:

Petitions to the first meetings of Congress…
praised sanctuary cities and even sought federal pro-
tection for refugees. Slaveholders complained about
it to no end, petitioning state and federal govern-
ments alike for stricter laws. The problem, claimed
slaveholders, was that existing federal law [also
known as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793] was insuf-
ficient to guarantee slaveholders their rights (Baker).

Eventually, slavery was abolished. Nevertheless, aboli-
tion did not eliminate the people’s desire for sanctuary cities

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in America nor did it destroy the problems associated with
sanctuary cities. The ideals and issues merely shifted to a new
type of refugee that needed a safe haven from war and the
foreign countries’ harmful borders. These refugees immigrate
to America seeking safety and citizenship in a free country. To
assist in their transition from illegal status to American citizen-
ship, sanctuary cities claim to provide educational tools and
safety from federal detention and deportation (Collingwood).
Though the subjects who call for sanctuary have changed, the
reasons for sanctuary legislation establishment has remained
the same: to provide a safe haven to any and every refugee.

Fact: Recent Events

Due to Trump’s persistent ill-regard of sanctuary cities and
other recent events covered by the media, the emphasis on
America’s sanctuary cities and their protected refugees has
caused the debate to elevate problematically. In July 2015, a
32 year old girl named Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal
immigrant with a criminal record (Schallhorn). The primary
cause for concern was the recent “verdict in the Kate Steinle
murder case [which] is a slap in the face to every law-abiding
American citizen” (Kerns). If the crime was committed by
an American citizen, the issue probably would not sustain so
much media coverage and concern. In America, the ideal is to
care for our own people and country; this idea is supported by
mantras like “no student/man left behind.” Mantras like these
tend to establish a form of community and accountability
among American citizens, whether wanted and fulfilled or
not. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, are not America’s
responsibility, because they are in our country illegally and we
are not obligated to provide safety to them. Nonetheless, some
cities choose to reach beyond their borders to assist refugees

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despite the consequences that may arise. In this case, the killer
walks away scot-free despite him being previously convicted
seven times (Kerns).

Concerning the verdict, Pearson reports that “San Fran-
cisco authorities released suspect Juan Francisco Lopez-San-
chez in April after dropping the drug charges…[because] the
city...doesn’t honor such immigration detention requests under
its 26-year-old sanctuary law.” American citizens and president
Trump view this scenario with shame and disgrace. These in-
cidences beget questions to public safety in America; illegal
immigrant criminals cannot be incarcerated because they are
protected by sanctuary law. Kerns asserts that the illegal immi-
grant offender was later acquitted under the name, Jose Ines
Garcia Zarate, which is different than the name provided in
earlier reports, like the earlier statement from Pearson. The
media coverage provokes fear and foreboding for America and
its citizens, but Garcia proves via statistics that the incarcer-
ation rate for young, foreign-born males is 1.7 percent less
than the percentage for native born. Therefore, the president
and the media’s emphasis on sanctuary cities highlights their
infractions and elevates a long-standing debate. Of course,
this does not diminish the fear nor does it justify the release
of criminals protected under sanctuary policy. According to
FAIR, sanctuary law:

Prohibit[s] local officials from inquiring, acting
on, or reporting an individual’s immigration status—
even when there is reasonable suspicion that an in-
dividual is in the country illegally. Many sanctuary
policies restrict law enforcement agencies from coop-
erating with federal immigration officials, including
prohibiting their compliance with immigration de-
tainers.

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Under this policy, the federal government cannot deport
a refugee, or an illegal immigrant. They are required to re-
lease the refugee from custody, whether they are a criminal or
not. To combat the issue, President Trump signed an executive
order in January 2017, which a federal judge blocked a few
months later (Schallhorn). Then, the US Justice Department
stepped in “threatening 23 so-called sanctuary cities, including
New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, with subpoenas if they
fail to provide documents to show whether local law enforce-
ment officers are sharing information with federal immigration
authorities” (Johnson). Threatening to withhold federal money
from these cities unless they cooperate with the federal govern-
ment is the way the president and the government decided to
resolve the illegal, criminal activity that sanctuary cities cannot
seem to account for. The cities are in a position of helping
and protecting refugees, which makes it difficult for them to
punish the people they claim to protect.

Definition: What is the nature of the sanctuary city problem?

The problem concerning sanctuary cities can be found in its cur-
rent policy which limits, and possibly ceases, any and all chan-
nels of communication between the sanctuary cities and the
federal government. Without free and open channels of com-
munication, there will continue to be a lack of understanding
and willingness. Therefore, an agreeable solution will be difficult
to achieve. With limited understanding of sanctuary cities, and
rather than attempting to solve the underlying problem of open
communication, we are left to mull over the current debate.

According to Garcia, “the current debate asks whether
sanctuary cities offer refuge to hard working undocumented
communities or to hardened undocumented criminals.” Garcia
surmises that sanctuary cities provide greater protection to

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both the undocumented immigrants and American citizens
due to the reformation process that immigrants undergo in the
cities. She posits that we should no longer collectively blame
the immigrant community, rather we should assist them in
their attempts to reform these individuals. Another credible
source, Collingwood, recognizes the criminalized association
with sanctuary cities since their establishment, however, they
found that there is “no statistically discernible difference in
violent crime rate, rape, or property crime across the cities.
Our findings provide evidence that sanctuary policies have no
effect on crime rates, despite narratives to the contrary.” These
sources favor and support sanctuary cities and find no problem
in its existence, rather the problem is in casting blame on the
cities. Yet, the same amount of credible sources cast the debate
aside and view the entire refugee support system as a problem,
a problem that threatens their safety.

Trump and other government officials regard sanctuary
policy as a hindrance to American citizens, federal funding, and
safety. “‘I continue to urge all jurisdictions under review to re-
consider policies that place the safety of their communities and
their residents at risk,’ Sessions said…’Protecting criminal aliens
from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and
undermines the rule of law’” (Johnson). Without statistics or
data to support Sessions’ claim, all we are afforded is a govern-
ment official’s word, which, due to his position, is deemed reli-
able. FAIR recognizes and identifies the sanctuary policies’ threat
to public safety and national security, its high cost to the gov-
ernment, and its unfairness to legal immigrants. To summarize:

Sanctuary policies create an environment where
terrorists and other criminal aliens can go undetected
and uninterrupted…Roughly 2.1 million criminal
aliens are living in the U.S., over 1.9 million of which

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are removable… [Concerning cost] Illegal immigra-
tion is a huge burden to state and local governments,
costing taxpayers an estimated $113 billion in 2013…
Besides giving future prospective immigrants little in-
centive to follow the law, sanctuary policies are an
affront to those who do it the right way.

Based on the findings, sanctuary policy creates more harm
that good to the country and its citizens. However, we also
cannot dismiss the previous statistics, nor can we neglect the
idea that the problem may lie in a lack of willingness and com-
munication between two opposing parties: the federal govern-
ment and the leaders of sanctuary cities.

Quality: Weighing the pros and cons

Many of the benefits and detriments concerning the sanctuary
policy are found within its definition (above); however, the
quality of sanctuary policy is reflected in its direct affect on
both parties: American citizens and undocumented individ-
uals. Both parties have good reasons for their stance. Both per-
sons are also influenced by internal factors (e.g., psychological
and behavioral) and external factors (e.g., the media and other
influencers in the world). It is beneficial to objectively view
the entire quality of the debate to determine a productive and
effective policy to incorporate in the future.

The benefits to a sanctuary city aid the refugee more than the
citizens of a country. The proven safety provisions and legal pro-
tection for refugees is guaranteed under the Tenth Amendment
of the US Constitution (e.g., separates federal and state powers).
Procon claims that “sanctuary cities are safer because they en-
courage good relationships between undocumented immigrants
and law enforcement.” Fostering a beneficial relationship enacts

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trust between individuals and the government officials. Johnson
supports this claim by stating that “last month…Los Angeles
police were able to apprehend a suspect accused of shooting
a police officer within minutes because of cooperation from
the immigrant community. Local officials have argued that tar-
geting immigrants only discourages their cooperation with po-
lice.” Without the assistance of the undocumented individuals,
the amount of money, time, and resources to find and convict a
felon is an immense burden to the American government. Open,
trustworthy communication reduces the costs concerning im-
migrant felons hiding behind sanctuary policy. However, trust
must first be established. The result will benefit both parties and
persons involved; trust via open communication benefits both
the American citizens and the illegal immigrants.

The detriments of sanctuary policy derive from a lack of
communication and trust between the two qualitative perspec-
tive that remain in opposition. The predominant assertion is
that sanctuary cities threaten US citizen safety, because they
harbor criminals like Lopez-Sanchez. Other detriments that
Procon lists are that sanctuary policies defy federal laws con-
cerning the rules for obtaining federal grant money, and they
“prevent local and state police officers from doing their jobs.”
It is difficult to keep criminals off the street when sanctuary
cities are harboring and supporting them financially. The big-
gest complaint from American citizens is that these cities are
using US tax dollars to fund these cities. One perception is that
American citizens are paying for crime to occur, and in paying
for it, the federal government is thereby limited on money
and resources to dissolve the crime that they inadvertently and
unintentionally fund. Getting rid of illegal immigrants and
sanctuary cities altogether is an excessive and unreasonable
cost to the American government and its citizens, instead of

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transitioning the focus to building trust with the sanctuary
community. As a result, these detrimental issues are prevent-
able with new policies created and instated.

Measuring both the benefits and the detriments to all per-
sons and parties involved determines the quality of the policy.
Concerning sanctuary cities, the federal government views it
as a bad policy due to the financial burden; whereas the state,
local officials, and refugees benefit from its existence and pro-
tection. The question is: how can we bridge the gap between
the federal government and state officials when the Constitu-
tion prevents us from collaborating on a serious issue that is
affecting every state with a sanctuary city?

Policy: Possible solutions

We may consider that effective communication between federal
and state officials can occur without a Constitutional law being
broken or compromised. Our American forefathers believed
in the amending of the Constitution every twenty years, or as
needed according to the time period, the culture, and the coun-
try’s people (Stephanopoulos). In either case, perception needs
to change; and open, trustworthy communication should follow.

Parties that need to be involved in affecting change include
the federal government, state officials, the president, and other
influencers in the world. State and local lawmakers can address
sanctuary issues by enacting legislations to prohibit sanctuary
policies, restricting funding to jurisdictions that ignore the law,
granting victims of sanctuary policies a voice by allowing them
to sue the responsible entity, and requiring and encouraging
state and local cooperation with federal authorities (Fair). Co-
operation calls for communication, and communication be-
gins with the perception of the individual and/or community.
Perception and communication can affect any outcome in a

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positive and/or a negative way; and if a resulting response of the
parties involved is based on emotion, irrationality occurs which
increases the problems surrounding sanctuary cities.

Leading the way to solving sanctuary policy is the govern-
ment and the president who implement policies and can change
legislation. The US Justice Department may be involved in the
jurisdictional, sanctuary solutions, but their threats do not cause
beneficial change (Johnson). President Trump’s xenophobic ap-
proach to the sanctuary debate also causes more problems, like
bias and irrational responses, than it does solutions (Baker).
Considering his position as president, people are, consciously
or unconsciously, influenced by him. People consider him a
reliable source because of his position as the elected leader of the
free world. However, his emotional response does not benefit
the country or provide effective solutions to the problem.

The empirical support on each side is daunting and relent-
less, which can cause more perplexing problems than solutions,
especially when the response is predominantly emotion-based.
Pearson concludes that “given the complexities of the issue
and decades of difficulty reaching any consensus on the issue,
it’s far less certain the incident will result in any widespread
changes.” This may be true. Since the debate is overrun by so
many differing views, data, and empirical information that
supports both sides, the debate seems entirely lost and con-
voluted. The dialectic is ineffectively controversial rather than
it remaining a healthy debate on which two parties, political
or otherwise, can freely–without judgement–take a stance.
Whether it occurs at the state or federal level, sanctuary policy,
like the Constitution, needs amending; and the best means
to affect change begins with individual perception and open
communication between opposing parties. Fear, threats, and
oppression should not be factors in the sanctuary modification

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effort, because they limit, and can ultimately destroy, commu-
nication that arrives at a beneficial and effective consensus. The
sanctuary policy consensus must thereby be based on factors
that founded this country: freedom that fuels trust, and com-
munication that supports the safety of the American people.

Bibliography

Baker, H. Robert. “A Brief History of Sanctuary Cities.” Tropics
of Meta, 25 July 2017, tropicsofmeta.com/2017/02/02/a-
brief-history-of-sanctuary-cities/.

Collingwood, Loren, et al. “The Politics of Refuge: Sanctuary
Cities, Crime, and Undocumented Immigration.” Colling-
woodresearch. March 15, 2017. Accessed April 22, 2018.
www.collingwoodresearch.com/uploads/8/3/6/0/8360930/
shelter_nopols_blind_final_rev_313.pdf.

Garcia, Angela S. “The Sanctuary Cities Debate.” The Univer-
sity of Chicago School of Social Service Administration
Magazine. Winter 2016. Accessed April 15, 2018. www.
ssa.uchicago.edu/ssa_magazine/sanctuary-cities-debate.

Johnson, Kevin, and Gregory Korte. “DOJ Threatens ‘sanc-
tuary Cities’ with Subpoenas, Escalating Trump’s Immi-
gration Enforcement Campaign.” USA Today. January
24, 2018. Accessed April 22, 2018. https://www.usa-
today.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/24/justice-de-
partment-threatens-sanctuary-cities-subpoenas-escalat-
ing-trumps-immigration-enforcement-ca/1061225001/.

Kerns, Jen. “Sanctuary City Policies Are Ruining California
- Here’s Why I Left.” TheHill. December 12, 2017. Ac-
cessed April 22, 2018. http://thehill.com/opinion/crim-
inal-justice/362940-sanctuary-city-policies-are-ruin-
ing-california-heres-why-i-left.

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Pearson, Michael. “What’s a ‘sanctuary City,’ and Why Should
You Care?” CNN. July 08, 2015. Accessed April 16, 2018.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/us/san-francisco-kill-
ing-sanctuary-cities/index.html.

ProCon.org. “Sanctuary Cities: Top 3 Pros and Cons.” ProCon.
org. 8 Dec. 2016, 1:47 p.m. Accessed April 8, 2018. www.
procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005333.

Fair. ””Sanctuary” Policy Is Bad Public Policy.” Federation for
American Immigration Reform. June 01, 2016. Accessed
April 22, 2018. https://fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigra-
tion/sanctuary-policy-bad-public-policy.

Schallhorn, Kaitlyn. “Sanctuary Cities: What Are They?” Fox
News. March 22, 2018. Accessed April 22, 2018. http://
www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/22/sanctuary-cit-
ies-what-are.html.

Stephanopoulos, Nicholas. “What Jefferson Said.” The New
Republic, 1 Dec. 2008, newrepublic.com/article/63773/
what-jefferson-said.

Sloane Keay D. is a writer who wears many different hats. She
writes fiction, nonfiction, and lyrics to her own songs. She has
a background in freelance writing and editing. Currently, she
attends Kennesaw State University in Georgia, where she is
completing her Bachelor’s degree in English. On campus she
is an SI (Supplemental Instruction) Leader for the chemistry
department and a Zumba instructor. Outside of school, she
enjoys philosophy, horseback riding, singing, dancing, weight
lifting, and spending time with her mom, her younger brother
and his staffy/lab mix Samson. Her favorite and most influen-
tial authors are Annie Dillard and Francine Rivers.

132

Hell-Hole Room

by Allen Long

In 2013, I joined Malmed Memorial, an inner-city hospital
in the San Francisco Bay Area, as a certified nursing assistant
(CNA). One of my first assignments was to sit in what I call a
“hell-hole” room, a chamber in which a single assistant nurse
oversees the care and control of four patients—almost always
the four most difficult people on the unit, such as mentally ill
and violent patients who lack sedation and restraints. These
areas present a danger to both patients and nurses. Two of our
senior nurses had asked our nursing manager, Rose Oni, to
eliminate these rooms, and she seemed sympathetic, but our
nursing director, Victor Chukwu, created these spaces to save
money on assistant nurse labor costs, and he refused to budge
on the issue.

When I entered the room, a team of doctors and a nurse
stood by the bed of a patient named Mr. Stevens, who wore a
serious-looking oxygen mask and slept deeply.

The lead doctor said, “Allen, we need you to watch this
patient carefully. First, do not let him take off his oxygen mask
or even knock it askew because he will desat quickly (lose the
high oxygen saturation in his blood required for stable health).
Second, Mr. Stevens has a broken bone in his back. Do not

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under any circumstances let him thrash in bed or try to sit up
because he could permanently paralyze himself. Right now,
he’s heavily sedated, but we’re letting the sedative wear off. The
instant he stirs, notify his nurse. She’ll have to put him in a
back brace before he can sit up.”

I nodded my understanding.
As soon as the nurse and medical team left, I took stock
of my other three patients. Patient 2: Mr. Anderson, an elderly
man withdrawing from alcohol. Delirious, he’d broken his left
collar bone in a drunken fall at home.
Patient 3: a mentally ill man in sheriff’s custody who alter-
nated curses, screams, and a nonsense song about selling fruits
and candies. Two deputies had handcuffed him by his wrists
and ankles to his bed and stood watch.
Patient 4: Mr. Schneider, a confused elderly man with a
tumor the size of a small watermelon on the right side of his
neck. Disoriented and unsteady on his feet, he needed help
walking to the bathroom so he wouldn’t fall.
The instant I finished this quick inventory, Mr. Anderson,
the delirious patient with the broken collar bone, leapt out of
his bed and barreled unsteadily across the room toward the
door.
“Mr. Anderson,” I said. “Your doctors want you to stay in
bed. Can you come back, please?”
“I have to pick up my kids from school,” he said.
Given his advanced age, it was unlikely he had young
children.
As he shot out into the hall, I followed, stress level sky-
rocketing. As much as I wanted to watch Mr. Stevens, I be-
lieved Mr. Anderson was in more imminent danger—he could
fall, re-break his collar bone, hit his head, or sustain other se-
rious injuries, while Mr. Stevens remained in a deep sleep. Also,

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hopefully, Mr. Schneider wouldn’t get up to use the bathroom
while we were gone. If any harm came to these patients while
I chased Mr. Anderson, I could potentially lose my license.
On the other hand, if I let Mr. Anderson run out of the room
without me and he fell and injured himself, I also might lose
my license.

Every time I tried to steer Mr. Anderson back to his room,
he swung a fist at my face. At one point, I dragged him out of
an elevator car whose door opened as we passed.

“Let go of me, you son of a bitch! I have to pick up my
kids from school! I can’t leave them on the street!”

For his own safety, I tried to manipulate Mr. Anderson
using his own delusion. “Mr. Anderson, don’t you remember,
there’s no school today. Your kids are at home with your wife.”

“Bullshit!” he shouted.
“Oh, I remember now. Your wife called and said she’d pick
up the kids today so you can rest in bed and get better.”
“Lies!” he bellowed. “Mendacity!”
As the minutes passed with me trailing him to prevent or
break his fall, I felt increasingly anxious about Mr. Stevens and
Mr. Schneider. It was only a matter of time before one or both
of them injured themselves from lack of supervision.
Just then, we met charge nurse Carmen Sanchez in the hall.
I quickly explained my predicament and asked for her help.
“You stay with Mr. Anderson,” she said. She made no
comment about how she was going to protect the other two
patients in my room who weren’t handcuffed from harming
themselves. Carmen lived in fear of Victor, and her sole mis-
sion was to avoid his wrath.
I followed Mr. Anderson all over the floor and wrestled
him away from open elevator doors for hours. When he finally
tired and returned to his bed, I saw that Mr. Stevens had been

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removed to the Step Down Unit or SDU. At Malmed, the
most acutely ill and injured patients reside in the Intensive
Care Unit or ICU. When their conditions stabilize, they’re
moved to the SDU. Mr. Steven’s transfer meant that either his
condition had worsened, or his doctors had placed him there
for more careful monitoring. I fervently hoped he hadn’t taken
a turn for the worse on my watch.

Carmen hadn’t assigned an assistant nurse to sit in my
room in my absence. Good thing “patient safety” was the hos-
pital’s primary concern. Maybe when the executives muttered
their patient safety mantra, they believed an invisible force
field magically enveloped the facility, protecting all unattended
high-fall-risk patients from harm.

I assisted Mr. Schneider to the bathroom. As soon as I got
him back to bed, a deputy sheriff handed a hot cup of coffee to
his prisoner. Despite his handcuffs, the patient threw the hot
coffee all over Mr. Schneider, who shrieked.

Just then, Mr. Anderson bolted with a wobbly gait out
of the door again. I followed. While I chased Mr. Anderson, I
flagged down an assistant nurse and asked her to please check
Mr. Schneider for burns and help him get clean and dry. Then
I pursued Mr. Anderson for the rest of my shift.

As I surveyed my hell-hole room shortly before I punched
out, Mr. Anderson having tired and returned to his bed, I was
joined by Jack (short for Jaqueline), a beloved senior nurse on
our unit who emanated warmth and compassion that caused
most of us to love and trust her. She’d seen me chasing Mr.
Anderson all over our unit, and she knew that I’d been in an
untenable situation in the hell-hole room all day.

We discussed how much we hated hell-hole rooms, and
Jack told me she’d lost two bitter arguments with Victor

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Chukwu about eliminating them. As a result, she was thinking
about reporting Victor and the hell-hole rooms to the Cali-
fornia Department of Public Health, an action I was also con-
sidering, especially since one could complain anonymously.

Moved by this moment of solidarity, I patted Jack’s
shoulder.

As soon as I touched her, she slid her arm around my
shoulders, and I did the same with her. I don’t have any child-
hood memories of feeling comforted while snuggled in my
mother’s arms. A psychologist has suggested this never hap-
pened, which is why I have trouble feeling safe and calm when
stressed. So Jack’s touch felt wonderful. We held the sideways
hug just long enough to reassure ourselves that we were fellow
good guys fighting the forces of evil.

Allen Long is the author of Less than Human: A Memoir
(Black Rose Writing, 2016). “Hell-Hole Room” is an excerpt
from his forthcoming memoir, Praying for Restraint: Frequent
Flying with an Inner-City Hospital CNA. Allen has placed
over twenty memoirs and short stories in literary magazines,
and he has served as an assistant editor at Narrative Magazine
since 2007.

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Living with Guns

by David Berner

I grew up in a house full of guns. It was Western Pennsylvania,
the home of the deer hunter, the place where the movie of
the same name was filmed. My father owned three rifles and
two shotguns. For years, he hunted deer and pheasant on the
weekends. He kept a handgun in the drawer of his nightstand.
He kept another in his car under the front seat. “I need it for
protection,” he told me. My father was an insurance agent in
the days when agents carried cash.

I think of this as I open my email this morning over coffee.
In my inbox is a letter from Nicole Hockley, the mother of a
murdered young boy. Her son Dylan was shot dead at Sandy
Hook Elementary School in December 14, 2012. His mother
and the mothers of many who had children at that school on
that terrible day continue to campaign to remind Congress of
what it has forgotten. There are tears soaking this email, not
dried, but instead salty and wet like the tears on that day many
years ago.

This is not Nicole’s first email. She sends them frequently
to the many who have somewhere on the Internet or through
social media offered support. I have done this, but I don’t re-
member where or how. And every time I see her emails, I am

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ashamed. I drink my coffee and read my emails and consider
my wristwatch so I don’t miss my train to the city, and at the
same time mothers and fathers weep.

When I was around Dylan’s age, maybe a boy of 7 or 8,
my father offered stern words about the lock on a tall glass-
door cabinet in the basement. Do not touch this, he said. The
cabinet held four weapons—two shotguns, two deer rifles. My
father was a deer hunter. In my neck of the woods, the first
day of the hunting season was a holiday. The boys in my high
school did not attend classes that day and instead were out in
the forests, pulling triggers. The school principal considered
it an excused absence. Guns were a necessity in the world of
the sportsman; no one thought differently. And with that be-
lief, all guns appear necessary. My sister kept a handgun at
her weekend cabin in the Allegheny Mountains. She said she
needed it to be safe sleeping so deep in the Pennsylvania woods.

For whatever reason — even though I was raised with
shotgun shells in a kitchen drawer and my father’s rifle cabinet
of steely firearms standing next to my wooden toy chest — I
never was interested, for whatever reason, in firing a weapon.
I wanted to play guitar. I liked books. I played baseball. As a
boy, I would dress in a cowboy hat and play with a plastic gun,
as it was the glory days of the TV Western and guns were all
around me.

Although guns were omnipresent in those days, diversity
was not. I came of age in a neighborhood of Irish Catholics
and German immigrants. My high school had a graduating
class of 900. There were no more than three African American
students, if I remember correctly. No Latinos and certainly, no
Muslims. Not in that neighborhood. Not then. My family and
everyone around me were lily white. My father knew one Jew
and he lived in another part of town.

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When I was 12 years old, Dad unlocked his rifle cabinet
and lifted his most prized possession from its stand — a Win-
chester Model 70 with a big scope. It had been his father’s rifle.
He loaded the chamber and handed it to me. “I think it’s time
you knew about this,” he said. Dad marched me to our front
yard and the small hill that looked out over a patch of woods.
“I want you to know what it’s like,” he said. Dad showed me
how to tuck the butt of the rifle against my shoulder, how to
square up the target in the scope, how to pull the trigger with
a slow, squeezing motion. “Aim at the highest branch,” he said,
pointing toward a tall maple on the other side of the road. “Hit
that.”

I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want that rifle in my hands.
Focusing my eye on the target, and with my father at my
side, I pulled the trigger. The sound was sharp and violent, the
butt snapping back and nearly knocking me to the ground.
My father was silent or a moment and then he asked,
“So, what do you think?” I don’t remember what I said or if I
said anything, but I knew at that moment I would never fire
another weapon. I’m certain now that Dad knew that, too. He
never asked again if I wanted to shoot a gun.
We are forever debating whether people or the gun or a
combination of both is the problem. We are forever wondering
how the violence can go on. We wonder what is wrong with us
and who in the world is paying attention to what is happening?
Don’t blame guns, so many say. Ban them, others say. People
kill, not guns, many say. There are too many guns, we need to
get them off the streets, others say. Blame mental illness. Blame
the white supremacists.
Years after my introduction to the rifle, a college friend
back from a weekend of deer hunting arrived at the off-campus
trailer where we were living. He had a dead buck strapped

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down in the back of his pickup. I remember looking in the
animal’s eyes and feeling sick. My friend, on the other hand,
was quite proud. If I recall correctly, he hung the deer from
a nearby tree yard to let the blood drain. I had no ill will to-
ward my friend. How could I? Many of my friends and family
members were hunters. I truly hated what they did, but I did
not hate them. And that night, while in my bed and the dead
deer just outside my window, I realized that I didn’t hate guns
either. I hated killing.

I don’t know what the answers are to violence in America.
I have no doubt, however, that those who glorify hate and
intolerance or fail to speak against it in any way they know
how, are partly responsible for loading the weapons. And I am
certain that those who pull the triggers, in some misguided
allegiance, believe that killing is part of the answer to whatever
they think threatens them. With a gun in their hands, they are
powerful. Guns can do that for some. Still, hate is the match
to the gasoline, and that is a deeper, more complicated matter.

I don’t own a gun. Never have. My sons were never raised
with guns. Neither has a gun today. Both went to schools and
colleges with all kinds of people and have friends of every color
and religion and sexuality. When my father passed away years
ago, we gifted his rifles to my cousin. When my sister died, I
turned her handgun over to the police. Unlike the way I grew
up, no one in my family today is living with guns, and I’m
certain they are not living with hate.

David W. Berner is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster,
author, and associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.

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His first book, Accidental Lessons (Strategic Publishing)
was awarded the 2011 Royal Dragonfly Grand Prize for Liter-
ature. His memoir, October Song, won the Royal Dragonfly
Award in 2017. His second memoir, Any Road Will Take You
There (Dream of Things Publishing) won the 2013 Book of
the Year Award from the Chicago Writer’s Association for Indie
nonfiction and was short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize.
The Chicago Book Review named his collection of essays,
There’s a Hamster in the Dashboard, a “Book of the Year” in
2015. David has been published in a number of literary maga-
zines, online journals, and in Clef Notes Chicagoland Journal
for the Arts. He also writes a blog on the creative process at
www.constantstory.com and another on his regular walks with
his dog at www.walkswithsam.com.

In 2011, David was named the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Res-
idence at the Jack Kerouac Project. He lived and worked in Ker-
ouac’s historic home in Orlando, Florida for three months. In
2015, David was named the Writer-in-Residence at the Ernest
Hemingway Birthplace Home in Oak Park, IL.

David is also a radio journalist, reporting and anchor for
Chicago’s WBBM Newsradio and a regular contributor to the
CBS Radio Network. David’s audio documentaries have been
heard on public radio stations across America.

David grew up in Pittsburgh but now lives with his wife
outside Chicago where he plays guitar and cares for his dog, Sam.

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Rhapsody in Blue

by Juliana Nicewarner

Twelve

The first time I heard it I stood stock still in my living room
for seventeen minutes. I was twelve. I wrote all of my essays
on Russian composers. I was homeschooled.

I had about a hundred Pandora stations: half “U2 Radio,”
“The Cranberries Radio,” “Rolling Stones Radio,” etc.; half
“Rachmaninoff Radio,” “String Quartet Radio,” “Chopin
Radio,” etc. On this particular afternoon, I sat at our dining
room table that was now placed catty-cornered in our huge
newly rearranged multi-purpose room. I was scratching away
at a portrait of Ava Gardner for my art class. One line. Erase.
Bit of shading. Erase. Crumple paper. Toss in garbage. Lean
forward on hands. Huff in frustration.

I watched the evil pyracantha trees outside shed a few
berries every time the wind blew. Those stupid things were
gorgeous. And enormous. And I wanted to set them on fire.
To trim them you had to cover yourself in all of your most
stab-resistant clothing and crawl down to the base of the trees
through foot after foot of thorny branches. I swear to God, I’d
cut a branch off of one of those trees, and I could see it growing
back as I was putting the cut branch in the garbage.

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Being homeschooled on a little Southern ranchette means
you always have two options – you can either keep hacking
away at whatever project you’re doing inside (in the air con-
ditioning), or you can go hack away at one of the projects
outside.

I could tell it was one of those swelteringly humid days.
The kind where the wind blows hot almost-liquid air into your
face, effectively doubling your layer of sweat instead of evap-
orating it.

Pyracantha. Ava. Pyracantha. Ava.
Ava and air-conditioning won.
I flipped through the Pandora stations in procrastination
and protestation. “Classical Piano Radio.”
It started almost imperceptibly. A rolling trill coming into
my consciousness like a train – faintly in the distance, then
roaring by. The clarinet soared like a leaf blowing upwards in
the wind. That’s kind of nice. It happened again, a little more
forcefully. What a cool motif. I scribbled away at the page. Some
jazzy rhythms. A trumpet? Then the piano came in. Lazily. In
swung rhythm. Then it happened.
The whole orchestra entered, bursting in with a crash of
cymbals. Then the piano soloed again. Softly. Then building –
rapid fire chords, enormous leaps across the keyboard.
I couldn’t stand it. I looked up at the TV screen and saw
Gershwin’s name scrolling across the screen. The skyline of Los
Angeles was the cover of the album.
The music built again. The piano was like a driving force,
pulling the orchestra along faster rhythms, to higher heights.
The quick changes – solo piano, orchestra, solo piano, or-
chestra – made the tension almost unbearable.
I stood up and walked to the speakers, resting my head
on my arms near them. I closed my eyes. This was something

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I’d practiced with my mom my entire life. A beautiful song
would come on, and she would tell me to close my eyes and
describe what I saw. I would say butterflies. She would ask
what they were doing. Dancing, I would say. Over an open
field beneath a golden sun and bright blue sky on a summer
afternoon, I would say. That’s beautiful, she would say. Beau-
tiful. She taught me how to see beauty when I closed my eyes.
So I leaned my head near the speakers and closed my eyes to
see what I could see.

The piano rolled, and I was transported to a city street. A
streetcar whooshed by me, and I felt my dress fly along with
it. My hand held the cloche hat down on my head. I danced
around puddles in my heels. I was surrounded by hundreds
of people – smartly-dressed – and dozens of towering glass
windows looking into shops. I checked my sleek bob in one
of these windows, pulled on my gloves, and started down
Broadway.

The drums pounded, and there was shouting. I tilted my
heavily shadowed eyes and red lips up toward the sky – dozens
of men were balancing on beams hundreds of feet in the air,
building the great skyscrapers that were shooting up around me.

The clarinet fluttered wildly, and F. Scott Fitzgerald rushed
past me in a bright yellow car, Zelda hanging out of the side,
waving wildly to everyone she saw.

All the instruments simultaneously burst into an intensely
dissonant chord. A car horn blared in my ear, and I jumped
further up the sidewalk.

A marching beat came in under the orchestra, and Flap-
pers and their beaus talked gaily on all sides of me, heading for
speakeasies filled with socialites.

The music slowed, and I stopped short. I had reached
a great height and the night had descended since I arrived.

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Lyrical horns answered by a quiet piano. Below me the city
sprawled out, reaching endlessly into the dark, its long arm of
light sweeping across the landscape.

A musical strength swelled and erupted in jazz chords,
and I tilted my head up to the sky. I couldn’t tell where the
lights in the sky ended and the lights of the city began.

The last notes of the song faded away. I finally opened
my eyes.

Fifteen
There was a masquerade ball that my theatre group hosted. My
mom and I were brainstorming what I could go as. She had a
vintage shimmery blue-velvet dress with diamonds around the
middle. She suggested I go as “Rhapsody in Blue.” We went
to Hobby Lobby and bought a blank mask, some little rhine-
stones, and shiny sapphire blue paint. We spent a few hours
on it. No one understood what I was, but I felt like a queen. I
have the mask sitting on my bookshelf now.

Eighteen
It was my freshman year of college. I missed home. I turned it
on. I cried.

Nineteen
We had just finished watching La La Land. During that scene
where Ryan Gosling plays piano in his apartment like a boss,
he had leaned over to me with glistening eyes and said, “Are
you falling in love with him, too?”

He’d picked me up thirteen hours before the movie for
our first actual date. Over the past few weeks we’d spent dozens
of hours at the piano together. We’d sit in the concert hall at

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the nine-foot grand at midnight. We’d turn on the spotlight
and play for hours. I’d play Chopin. He’d play Billy Joel. When
he’d played “Vienna,” I cried. We’d go grab shitty burritos and
bring them back to the piano so we could keep playing.

At the end of the movie, we’d both sat in silence for a
full minute. Then we’d looked at each other with tears in our
eyes and started laughing. We’d gotten in the car, and started
talking about music. We’d spent time talking about instru-
mental music already. But when we’d each asked the other
what the best orchestral piece of all time was, we’d both said
“Rhapsody in Blue.” He’d turned it on. And now we were
driving up an enormous hill. It was midnight, and the lights
of Denver were spread out below us like a picnic blanket.

He put the car in park, and he said, “Now, if I were a
classier man, a richer man, this is the point in the evening when
I would pull out the bottle of champagne and a cheese tray.” His
voice was muffled as he stretched into the back of the car, rum-
maging around. “But I’m broke and have no class at all, so here
you go.” He crawled back into the front seat with an enormous
smile, a family size box of Cheezits, and sparkling apple juice.

We were at minute fifteen of the song. Almost to my fa-
vorite minute. I was staring out the window, feeling very fancy
as I sipped my sparkling apple juice.

“There’s something I should tell you.” I kept looking out
the window.

“What?”
I turned to look at him. “I’ve never k—” I stopped.
He leaned toward me and gently put his hand in my hair
and kissed me. It was minute sixteen of the song.
Minute sixteen is that minute people use in everything.
It’s the music for something grand, a moment of realization,
of celebration. It’s in a bunch of United Airline commercials.

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It’s that part in the new Great Gatsby movie when Leo Di-
Caprio turns around and raises a glass of champagne towards
the camera while fireworks explode behind him. I felt like Leo
– rich, full of life, exploding with energy.

The song became a point of connection for us. Any time
we’re at a piano and he wants to make me smile, he starts
rolling the first trill. When he’s excited about something, some-
times he’ll hum the ending section, miming cymbal crashes.
Whenever we drive up that hill, he plays it. I play it when we’re
in groups and I want him to know I love him. He smiles across
the room at me when he hears it.

Twenty-One

On my birthday, he gave me the sheet music for it. I cried.

Now

I thought I was done writing. Then he showed up today with an
old 33 he found at a thrift store. It’s by the Paris Philharmonic.
We put it on his Victrola and played it in the living room,
air-orchestrating every note. It had that beautiful dusty sound
only records have. Other people were listening to it like am-
bient noise. We were busy conducting our invisible orchestra.

It’s playing now while I write this essay. After all these
years of hearing it, there are still certain sections that take me
captive. I’m bound to the notes. I can’t do anything else when
I get to minute sixteen – the tension is too strong. I still have
to hear how it works out, still have to know what happens in
the end. There’s too many memories attached to that section
to do anything but relive them.

I’ve heard a hundred different versions of it. But only one
is the best – the first one I ever heard – the one by Leonard

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