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“It’s okay,” said Rusty, grabbing the box on with purple ink. Thank you so much, Ra-
and giving it to Rachel. “It’s for you, sweetie. chel, for helping me remember. I hope you
I think Aunt Gracie made it yesterday. I was are as lucky as me.
here on the weekend and didn’t see it. She
didn’t say anything about it. I don’t even She folded the note and put it in the box,
know what it is.” slipping the top back on. She hugged her
mom and surprised Rusty when she hugged
“Honey,” Julie said, turning to Rachel. him, too.
“Miss Gracie passed away last light.”
“I’m going back upstairs to my room,” she
“I know.” said, gabbing her box. She went inside and
Julie cried a little.
“I’m so sorry, honey. You heard us talking?”
Rusty stood up to go and looked at Julie.
She shook her head. “No. I just know. “I don’t know what just happened here,” he
From last night.” said, “but I think it was pretty special.”
Rachel took the note off the top of the Julie nodded, watching the fence while
small box. She shimmied the top off, and Rusty walked away, wishing for a cigarette
it was filled with photos. All of Gracie and by the fence.
Gloria. On the top was a folded scrap, written
About the Author
Dennis Mitton is a Seattle ex-pat living in the southern US. He has written for the Dead Mule
School of Southern Literature and maintains an active website. His book “Can I Fix My Brain”
about living with brain injury will be published in 2021. Follow him on Twitter at @dennis_mitton.
99
BLACK HOLES
by Jaclyn Reed
Jessica sat on the small kitchen table with in the atmosphere where the sun’s nails
her feet on the head chair and stared out caught and dragged the clouds in its desper-
the window, a cigarette pinched between ation. Jessica puffed her cigarette and blew
her thumb and middle finger. Bits of ash fell the smoke through the screen, watching it
onto her dark-wash skinny jeans and along disperse and fade away like the light.
the front of her black tank top. The sun
went down behind the buildings, clutching “I thought you were working tonight,”
to this side of the globe, leaving claw marks Kelly said.
across the sky. They began deep, scratched
into the atmosphere - yellow bleeding into “I quit.” Jessica put her cigarette out in
orange - and surfaced into pink and purple the potted fern on the window sill.
that scattered in wild patterns like bruises
on pale skin. Kelly grabbed the pot and cradled it
to her chest. Her left eyebrow twitched.
“It’s like the sun doesn’t want to go “That’s the third job this month, Jess.”
down,” Jessica said to Kelly when the front
door opened. “Like it’s fighting the shorter “The manager was a creep.”
days.”
“That’s what you said about the last one.
Kelly set her backpack on the couch and I can’t afford the rent by myself again.”
made her way to the window. “I don’t think
the sun cares about where it’s hitting Earth.” “I’ll get the money.” Jessica didn’t look at
She was unusually cranky after pulling a Kelly. The couple next door moaned loudly.
double in the ER, but her rationality, her Their bed bucked against the wall.
grounded perspective, was one reason
Jessica liked her. Kelly’s mind was so much “Are you high?”
clearer than her own. She thought it was a
good influence, something she should as- “I wish.”
pire to be.
“Really? You wish you could go back to
A white trail cut through some of the failing out of nursing school and spending
colors from a passing jet, and while she all your money on drugs?”
knew Kelly saw condensed air and chemical
reactions, Jessica saw a gash in skin, a tear “Obviously I don’t miss that part.”
Kelly sighed and went to Jessica’s room.
She emerged a moment later with Jessica’s
satchel and her red vest with the corner
store’s logo stitched across the back. She
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threw them on the table. “Go down there. put her through, for all the times she stuck
Tell them you’re sorry. Tell them you’re by her. At the very least, she could get the
insane and didn’t mean to quit. Beg for damn rent money.
your job back. Don’t come home without
the rent.” Kelly went into her room and A block away from the corner store, Jes-
slammed the door. sica stopped in front of his building. She
looked up towards his window with the
Jess stared a while longer at the shifting leaky air conditioner. For three months she
colors before grabbing her army-green was able to walk by that apartment com-
bomber jacket from the chair and slinging plex, never stopping, never wondering, but
the bag over her shoulder. She shoved the not tonight. Tonight she weighed the con-
vest deep inside beneath her wallet and sequences of not coming home with the
pack of cigarettes. On her way out, she money against the humiliation of begging
took her keys off the hook by the door and for her job back against her own impulse
slipped on her faux leather boots with the control.
undone laces tucked under the tongues.
She took the dusty corner staircase one step Several minutes passed before she con-
at a time to the street. Buildings blocked vinced herself to climb the splinted concrete
the colorful scratches. What she could see stoop and ring his bell. The speaker cracked.
of the sky turned into navy blue and black.
Between skyscrapers, stripes of golden light “What?” he said through the static.
caught the rock flecks in the cement. The
city glistened, but no one else seemed to “It’s me, Ken. Open up.”
notice as they ducked into apartment build-
ings and townhomes to escape the growing The door buzzed and clicked. A familiar
darkness. junkie slumped in the corner of the foyer. In
his sleep, he scratched at the fresh, bleeding
She couldn’t blame Kelly for being needle marks on his arm.
pissed, as much as she wanted to. Jessica
was much more put together on drugs, or Jessica took the elevator to the fifth
at least that’s what she told herself these floor. The doors screeched as they slid
days. She blocked out the nights slumped apart. The same florescent light flickered
in the alleys, the sex in club bathrooms with halfway down the hall on the way to Ken’s
strangers, the people who abandoned her. apartment. One door had had its number
She told herself it was a fun time, free of replaced; it was a shinier brass than the rest.
responsibility, but she knew that wasn’t Ken’s neighbor’s door was fractured along
true. While she blocked out some things the wall from where the police had kicked
and didn’t remember others, she couldn’t it in six months ago. Duct tape held together
forget Kelly sitting with her on the bath- the pieces of wood.
room floor while she dry-heaved and cried,
while the cocain worked its way out of her Ken waited by the door, his scrawny
system, while her body shook and sweated face peeking between the crack. He hadn’t
and begged for relief. As much as Jessica shaved his neck beard in at least a week.
wanted to be pissed off at Kelly, she knew The patches of short curly reddish hairs
she couldn’t repay her for all the pain she speckled his jawline and cheeks. He smiled
with yellowed teeth, a black spot between
two towards the front, and opened the
door wider for her to sneak through. The
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apartment hadn’t changed, either. He may “Tell you what, I’ll give you a taste for free
have vacuumed recently, but the carpet was - since you’re an old friend. You like it, you
still stained in places and the fabric matted buy some when you come back.”
together around the couch and along the
walls. Either he hadn’t cleaned the litter box “You that confident?”
in a long time or his tomcat stopped using
it; the ammonia burned her nose and made “Best shit I’ve had.” Ken pulled a dime bag
the air sticky. out of a plastic tin next to the couch. It dan-
gled between his fingers, half-full of white
“Never thought I’d see you again,” Ken powder, a sharpied blue checkmark on the
said, closing the door. He walked around front.
her and slumped onto the couch with a torn
back. The glass coffee table in front of him “I quit,” she finally said, shoving her hands
was the cleanest thing in the place. Small deep into her pockets, fingering the small
baggies and individually packaged syringes baggies stashed there.
lined it next to a scale speckled with white
powder. “Why? Cause that bitchy roommate told
you to?”
Jessica focused on a crack in the plaster
on the far side of the room. “I need my job “She isn’t bitchy.”
back,” she told him and sighed. “I was in-
sane for quitting.” He just stared. “Please.” “Anybody who tells you what to do is
bitchy.” He smiled. “One taste won’t kill you.”
“I take it you’ll need an advance?”
She watched the bag swaying in his hand
“You know I’m good for it.” She looked at for a long while before snatching it, shoving
him, tried to read the sagging skin around it in her satchel and heading out the door.
his eyes. Down the hall. Down the elevator. Past the
junkie. Onto the street where the lights
Ken waited. He picked his teeth. Then he created phantom halos around everything.
smiled again. “All right. Lucky for you one Under a navy sky washed out by those lights.
of my boys just dropped out. You can have
his spot.” Some people don’t think you can be
alone in a city, but a city is the best place
“Where’s it at?” to be alone. So many fake people and rich
people and poor people, and not one of
“38th and Washington. Definitely a lot of them gives a shit about anyone but them-
people in need down there.” selves. They use whoever they can to get
whatever they want, and when a person’s
“I’ll take it.” usefulness runs out, they’re as good as dead.
There’s no sorrow, no acknowledgement of
Ken gestured to the table and wrote the time spent together. Only silence. Jes-
down the supplies Jessica shoved into her sica knew this all too well, was one of the
pockets, roughly twenty baggies and ten people who used and tossed others aside,
needles. and now in these familiar back streets, she
could not have been more alone if she were
“You still using?” he said as he tallied the the only person left on Earth. Those who
cost. When she didn’t answer, he added, “I passed her on her stroll towards 38th Street
got some new stuff. Real good.” were no more than ghosts, shifting shadows,
“I don’t have money,” she said.
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tricks played by the dying light. The further “I need a needle,” the guy said.
she wandered, the less apparitions she saw,
but she felt them watching her, waiting for “Five bucks.” Jess shoved the bills down.
her.
He stopped bouncing, leaned down a
Washington and 38th met at a small good six inches to get in her face. “Last guy
alleyway between two tall buildings that charged two.”
always had “for lease” signs up. Both were
dark except for a few dimly lit windows high “Things change,” she said as though she
above. Jessica stopped and leaned on one really believed it. She swallowed too loudly,
of the walls, dug the pepper spray out of her but kept her eyebrows pressing down on
bag and slipped it into her back pocket, lit the rest of her face. As much as she wanted
a cigarette and inhaled the smoke. It didn’t to, she didn’t step back.
stop her hands from shaking or her heart
from pounding. She didn’t remember it After a long moment, the bouncing began
being this dark. again. He scoffed and grumbled as he walked
away.
When the cigarette was gone, she
dropped it and stomped the filter with the As quickly as they emerged, her cus-
toe of her boot. Only then did they emerge tomers disappeared. She lit another men-
from dark corners, behind dumpsters, and thol and leaned back on the cool brick. Far
a parking lot a block over. The desperate away sirens cried, cars sped, people slept
ones came first. They flocked around Jes- and walked and lived, but here people
sica like pigeons begging for crumbs. They’d dreamed, they sank, they floated. They
take rice if they thought it would cure the came in uneven intervals, most not saying
pain radiating through them. They’d let the anything as they exchanged their livelihood
rice puff up in their bellies, let their insides for their lives.
burst, if it meant getting well one last time.
Jessica took their rent, groceries, child’s Jess smoked two more cigarettes, thought
new clothes, husband’s bonus. She shoved over what she’d tell Kelly when she got home.
the crumpled bills deep in her front jean She wouldn’t tell her the truth. She’d say the
pockets. corner store manager was understanding
and gave her last week’s paycheck in cash.
The scared ones came slower, waiting What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
a minute or two after the last person left
to approach her. It was the singular ones Only when Jessica was certain 38th and
that made her uncomfortable. They got Washington was satisfied did she wander
right up on her, towered over her five-foot- back the way she had come, her hands deep
nothing frame and shook like yippy lap dogs. in her pockets, hanging onto the cash and
One man must have only been twenty. He the two needles left.
kept his grey hood up over his face, and in
the shadow cast by it, his bloodshot eyes A shock spread from one side of her face
glowed. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve to the other, down her neck, through her
and bounced as Jessica thumbed through belly, and into her feet. She was walking,
the dollar bills and dug in her pocket for a then she was on the ground. Hitting the
bag. concrete sent another shock from the other
side of her face, down her neck, through her
belly, and into her feet. It took a moment
for her to feel the blood dripping over her
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eyebrow and falling down the side of her bit of love to put in the hole so deep drugs
nose, and even longer for the halos and black couldn’t fill it. The memories were scattered,
spots to leave her vision. Something clanged surfacing like bloated corpses in a river,
on the ground; she felt it vibrate under her peeking out of the water just enough to
cheek. She noticed the smell of him first: a make out the recognizable shapes. The im-
potent mixture of weed and mold doused ages were fuzzy, but the feelings were clear.
in Axe body spray. Jessica felt his hands next, The rough skin of their hands, the biting, the
pulling her arms away and trying to unravel scratching, the way this junkie pawed at her
the satchel from around her shoulders. Her to get what he wanted like everyone else,
ears rang. The world spun. She pulled away like the whole damn world clawing at one
from him, found the strength to kick her foot another just to get a fix, just to make the day
and hit him dead in the leg. It distracted him last a little longer, just to bring on the deep
long enough for her to pull the pepper spray sleep, the sweet relief, the escape.
from her back pocket.
Jessica reached into her satchel for her
Jessica pointed and shot, barely able to smokes, but pulled out the small bag with
make out his frame in the darkness and the the blue checkmark. She palmed it, rubbed
dizziness, but she heard him scream. She the finely ground powder between the
felt the tip of his sneaker crash into her plastic. No matter what, she couldn’t get
stomach. away from that life, not completely. She
lived with Kelly, a stable, good influence, in
The man took off in some direction and a nice-enough apartment. Sure, she didn’t
left Jessica coughing and groaning on the finish school, but she got away from her al-
concrete. The ground was cold. She rubbed coholic mother and her abusive ex. She tried.
the spot on her back where she fell on the But now she saw that it didn’t matter where
satchel; it ached when she sat up. Jessica she went or what she did because people
noticed the metal trash can lid lying next to were shit everywhere. They were shit in the
her. The side was dented. It felt like her skull alleys and shit in the classrooms and shit in
was, too. She put her hand up to the cut. the corner stores. And there was only one
Despite being high through most of her two way to live in the shit without drowning in it.
years in nursing school, she remembered
the basics. Blunt force trauma rarely caused The cracking of a broken seal rose goose-
deep cuts. She knew the scalp bled more bumps on her skin. She sucked the tip of her
than other parts of the body. She dug out pointer finger and dipped it in the powder,
the red vest, wiped the blood off her nose rubbed the white stuff over her gums. She
and cheek, and pressed it against the cut. felt sixteen again, taking a shot for the first
time, feeling it go straight to her head. The
At least he didn’t take anything. That’s thumping stopped where he hit her. She
all she could think. At least he didn’t take pulled the vest away from the cut, no longer
the money. able to feel the blood pulling on her skin as
it dried. She poured a tiny hill on her palm
She managed to pull herself up against and dipped her nose into her hand. She
a wall and lean back. The wind cooled her breathed deeply.
tears. He hadn’t taken anything, but the vio-
lation was familiar. Jessica was back in those Kelly lay curled on the couch in a spotted
bathrooms, back on those beds, spreading blue and gold blanket she and her mom
her legs for a hit, for a bit of attention, for a
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made with ties around the border. She Kelly went through the bag, pulling out
looked up when the door opened, watched the vest, examining the blood, and tossing
Jessica shuffle across the kitchen and into it aside with her cigarettes and wallet.
her room. Jessica didn’t turn on the light. “What’s this shit?” In Kelly’s outstretched
She kicked off her boots, nearly tripping hand the dime bag waved and weaved. The
over the satchel she’d dropped in front of check mark looked more like a question.
her, and shugged the bomber jacket onto “Three months meant nothing? Not a damn
the floor before falling into bed. The sheets thing?”
were white and cold, like an igloo. Above her,
the Northern Lights waved across the ceiling. “I got the money,” Jess said. She turned
over and hugged herself against the chill.
“So?” Kelly stood in the doorway, blanket
wrapped around her shoulders. Jessica heard Kelly’s footsteps leave and
return.
Jessica didn’t answer. Her eyes fell below
her lower lids, held down by tiny fish hooks “Sit up,” Kelly said.
and weights. Behind them, the Northern
Lights turned into the Milky Way. There Jessica groaned, but didn’t fight against
were shooting stars and bright suns that Kelly pulling her up. She kept her eyes closed
burst into supernovas and collapsed into while Kelly used a damp rag to clean off the
black holes. She smiled and made a wish. blood and a hydrogen-peroxide-soaked
cotton ball to dab the cut. “Damnit, Jess,”
Kelly turned on the small lamp by the door. Kelly whispered periodically. She place two
“Holy shit, what happened to your head?” butterfly closures over the cut, then laid Jess
back down, undid the button of Jessica’s
Jessica felt hands on her. Clouds over- jeans, and pulled them off before tucking
took the starry sky. She hit Kelly away. “Shh. her back under the covers.
Shh,” she said. “Stop it.”
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Kelly said.
Silence set in, and like frightened forest
creatures, the stars and planets emerged The lamp shut off. The door closed. The
from behind the clouds and danced for her TV turned off in the living room. The toilet
again. flushed. Another door shut.
“Goddamnit, Jess. Are you high?” Constellations were hard to find, but
Jessica tried. She named the Zodiac and
“I got my job back,” Jessica said. She counted the gods. Stars leapt from her eyes
opened her eyes then, flinching against the and shot around the room. They burst. They
sudden artificial light, and pointed at her collapsed. She made a wish.
satchel on the floor. “Money’s in there.”
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About the Author
Jaclyn J. Reed received her MFA in Writing from Carlow University/Trinity College, Dublin
and her BA in English from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in Prime
Number Magazine, The Write Launch, and Open Minds Quarterly, among others. She lives in
Hershey, Pennsylvania and works for a creative consulting firm.
106
USELESS FELLOW
by Balu Swami
Wayne was still a farm boy even though Gopi was a Brahmin boy. He was a
he had left the farm over a decade ago. He Brahmin boy growing up in Brahma Nagar
was still the innocent who saw only the attending a Brahmin school, Shankara-
best in people. Although he was built like a charya Vidyalaya, where all his fellow stu-
rock, he never threw his weight around. He dents were Brahmin boys just like him until
kept his cool even when people made fun the state took notice of the exclusivity and
of his farm boy ways. He would not have forced the school to admit under-privileged,
left the farm were it not for Nancy. She non-Brahmin kids from the local slums. Al-
was his girlfriend since their middle school though some Brahmin boys welcomed the
days. Everyone in the boonie town expect- presence of the kids from the slums and
ed the two to get married soon after high tried to help them with school work, Gopi
school. But then Nancy got weird in junior was among the majority of boys who were
high. She stopped eating meat. She had her disdainful. He called the slow-learning kids
mom drive her miles out of town looking for stupid and became all the more convinced
vegan co-ops. Then she became enchanted of his superior Brahmin intellect. He carried
with Hindu mysticism and soon going to In- that attitude everywhere - the technology
dia became her obsession. She told Wayne school he went to in his home state, the
boonie life was not for her and urged him graduate school he went to in America and
to go to college and explore the world. So the work places where he rose up the ranks
that is what he did. He moved to a college as an accomplished techie. The only change
town in a different part of the state and met he allowed was to stop calling people
“other” people - other races, other national- “stupid” after his student advisor told him
ities, other gender identities. He struggled it was considered a mean thing to say that
through the first two years of college and about someone in America. Instead he took
found his footing in the junior year when he to calling people “useless” - that “useless
found a job in the computer lab. He got re- fellow’” or this “useless woman”.
ally good at hardware assembly and learnt
all the packaged applications he could get Wayne reminded Gopi of the slow-
access to. In spite of his interest in comput- learning kids from the slums. In spite of his
ers, he struggled in programming classes best efforts not to show annoyance, Gopi
and barely managed to graduate from col- let his arrogance get the better of him in his
lege. Soon after graduation, he found a job dealings with Wayne. Wayne, on the other
in the city and met Gopi, his boss. hand, just laughed off the slights and never
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
failed to acknowledge Gopi’s superior intel- engine caught fire. He jumped out of the car
lect. yelling “get out of the car”, “get out of the
car” and ran away from the car. He could
Gopi constantly referred to Wayne as see Parvathi struggling to get the two kids
a “useless fellow” when he talked to his from the back seat, but he didn’t dare go
wife, Parvathi, about his day at work. He near the car to help her. His mind started
had married her on a short visit home right racing: “I’m going to lose my wife and kids
after he had found his first job in America. tonight. What’s going to happen to me? I
He had known no other woman in his life. need my family. I need a family. I’m only 45.
He was briefly infatuated with his advi- Hope Amma can find another bride for me.
sor’s teenage daughter and imagining her All is not lost. I can still start another family.”
in a Kanjeevaram sari excited him. But that
ended when he heard her making fun of his Flames were shooting up and smoke was
name - Go pee! filling the air while Parvathi was still trying
to get the younger child out of the car. Out
That evening, Gopi was more excitable of nowhere, this big-ass pickup truck raced
than normal. The Diwali celebration was at up to the burning car and screeched to a
a friend’s house some 50 miles away. Snow halt right next to Parvathi. The driver, a
was in the forecast. He wanted to get going. giant of a man in heavy jacket, jumped
The more he ordered Parvathi and the kids out of the truck, reached into the burning
to hurry up, the longer they took. So by the car, pulled out the child stuck in the back
time they hit the road, he was hopping mad. seat and hustled Parvathi and the kids to
He was mad at his wife, his kids, other drivers where Gopi was standing looking helpless.
on the road, the side mirror, and the weird He pulled his truck away from the burning
engine noise that he imagined he heard. car and loaded the family into the cab of
the truck. As he was doing that, they could
It was past midnight when they left the hear the fire trucks at a distance. Gopi
party and headed home. Light snow was started to say “thank you so much, sir” to
falling and he wanted to get home before it the good samaritan and froze mid-sentence.
started coming down hard. Then he heard it. The good samaritan exclaimed “Gopi!” and
This time there was no mistaking the sound: Gopi managed to say “Wayne, you saved my
the engine was definitely running rough. family.” Parvathi glared at her husband and
When they were about 10 miles from home, the glare conveyed so many thoughts, none
there was an explosive sound from under more pointed than “Useless fellow?”
the hood. Just as he was pulling over, the
About the Author
Balu Swami is a new writer. He has lived on two continents,
three countries and multiple cities. He currently lives in
the US. His works (poetry and prose) have appeared in
“Ink Pantry” and “Flash Fiction North.”
108
FALCONS
OF KILLDARY
by Chris Nelson
As she walks out of the Pembroke Funeral she says, knowing that the only time her
Parlor beside her husband, a flash of light husband goes outside is to mow the front
near the summit of Killdary Mountain caus- yard – the back and sides of the house are
es Anne to stop at the top of the marble encased in the woods that spread off of Kill-
steps, assuming that what she’s seeing is dary like lichen.
an airplane or bird yet somehow knowing
it isn’t. David stops a few steps ahead and “Well, it’s the weather for it, I guess.”
turns at the waist, reminding Anne of a boy
who just realized that the dog he was walk- “It shouldn’t be,” she says. Funerals in
ing is no longer under his feet. early March should be cold. The sky slate,
the air a scouring pad on the lungs, the
“Anne?” he asks. “You okay?” ground frozen, maybe even some light rain
as a physical token of grief. They should be
“A hang glider.” swathed in fog at least, huddling together
for warmth and comfort, hidden. “Not for
David walks back with his hands in his another month or so at least.”
pockets. His face is illegible, his eyes ob-
scured behind sunglasses a size too small. While the receiving had been open to the
They’d fit when he’d first gotten them, but public, Anne had requested that the cere-
over the past year David had finally begun mony itself be private, held at the gravesite
to match her in the slow deterioration of by the prison chaplain who had seen Mark
middle age. His jaws are no longer the sharp through his conversion to a religion he’d
ridges they’d been at forty, and the cleft been raised to doubt and attended by no
of his chin is almost completely rounded, more than herself and David. Mark’s ex-girl-
swollen into a soft bulb of flesh. friend Theresa had chosen to separate her-
self and the child she and Mark had created
“I thought they’d torn down the ramp together – no matter what the court certi-
after the crash.” fied, the little girl who was still Anne’s only
grandchild – from not only Mark but Anne
“No. Just put up ‘No Jumping’ signs. You and David, too, vanishing so thoroughly that
can see the ramp from the house, David,”
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despite Anne’s best efforts she hadn’t even She turns in her seat. David sits across
been able to extend the invitation through the compartment from her, bent forward
a lawyer. with his elbows on his knees.
She’d fought, though, fought with every “What are you thinking?” he asks,
tooth and claw she had for the right to see sounding like a high school principal, au-
April, through phone calls and letters and thoritative but with practiced concern like
checks for child support that went unan- she’s a cracked vase that’s been put back to-
swered and uncashed, the awful consulta- gether – functional only so long as the phar-
tions with the lawyers where they explained maceutical glue holds her broken pieces in
that in North Carolina grandparents have no place.
rights for visitation without at least partial
custody. Anne had even considered filing “Nothing. Just thinking,” she says. “You?”
the paperwork for a hearing before David
put a stop to it by rightly arguing that April They’re stopped at the end of the
had been through enough without another driveway waiting for a break in traffic. Anne
slog through the legal system. But despite looks for the hang glider, but the limo is
everything she’d never given up. Never. facing Killdary and her perspective is limited
to one of two essentially similar stretches
David rests a hand in the small of her of Wilkesboro Boulevard. Gas stations, the
back and applies just enough pressure to let school bus garage, and the entrance to their
her know they’ve left the limousine waiting neighborhood heading towards town; gas
too long, that it’s time to go to the cemetery. stations, a grocery store, and the cemetery
Around them, Jason and Sharon McAllister in the direction of Lord’s Creek.
shake hands with Linda Maynard while cars
start, the handful of other friends that had David turns to the window, and for a
remained to the end of the receiving busy second he seems to deflate. His shoulders
making their escapes down the hill and into sag, his spine bows like a tree in a storm.
the flow of traffic. She almost reaches out to him, but the mo-
ment passes. “I just want this over with,” he
When Mark was a boy Anne and he says as he turns back to face her, his voice
would watch the launches together from once again the calm timbre of forbearance,
behind their house, Mark’s hand in hers and his eyes still hidden.
his eyes wide, amazed that the vivid kites
had people attached, people who could fly That day the police arrived at the door,
without the aid or security of an airplane. confirming the fear Anne had felt since
Of course, there had been more of them seeing the previous day’s paper, she’d
then, in the craze of the early 1980s when wanted David to do what he always had in
it seemed like every week brought a new the past – stay strong and take care of the
crop of amateur stuntmen to the moun- problem with the same austerity that had
tain, a trend that had slowly died over the once served him so well at work. The day
course of the decade until there were only Mark broke his arm while she was trying
a handful each year. It’s been nearly three to teach him to ride his bike it had been
years since the crash, three years of empty David who rushed home from the bank to
sky. drive them to the hospital while she sobbed
in the backseat, David telling Mark on the
“Anne?” way about how the bone would grow back
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stronger, turning the situation into a lesson were too many characters, too much going
about overcoming hardship in the same on; it was like standing in a room amid a tor-
voice he used when Mark brought home a “C” rent of echoing voices, all dimly menacing.
on his report card or missed the game win-
ning shot. When she had the wreck driving It was the first book she’d read since
them home from some party or another, one coming back to the club, and a part of her
where she’d had only slightly less to drink wished that she’d waited until after they
than he, it was David who had smoothed it were finished with Faulkner. But David
over with the cop with a business card and and the counselor were right. It was time
a handshake, David who had called their in- to begin socializing again, to return to the
surance company and lawyer, David who had clubs and her volunteer work. After all, hers
worked things out with the other driver so wasn’t the only child who had run into dif-
they hadn’t even gone to court. ficulties. Peggy Frey’s daughter had been
expected to graduate as valedictorian of
But David couldn’t fix what Mark had Mark’s class before getting pregnant, and
done, what Mark had become – a killer – now she cut hair for a living when she wasn’t
any more than she could understand it. And down in Asheville doing God-knows-what.
now that there’s no chance for redemption, Yet that hadn’t stopped Peggy from being
Anne wants nothing more than for David to elected to the Friends of the Library board.
be what he’s never been, to tell her what
he’s feeling instead of thinking. She wants Still, Anne couldn’t escape the lethargy
to tell him that she feels cheated by the that set in whenever she thought about
weather, the hang glider, by so much more. fighting through another few pages of in-
She wants to say that she understands why comprehensible Mississippians, so instead
Theresa would want nothing to do with she gazed at the trees growing up the face
Mark but not why Theresa would punish of Killdary. It was something she found her-
them by keeping April away. She wants to self doing more and more often, just looking
ask if he feels the bank cheated him when at nothing in particular and letting thoughts
they sentenced him to wait out retirement come in and out of her mind like neighbors
as a meager branch manager after the waving hello as they walked around the
subprime market collapsed. She wants to block. She watched the sun make its way
know why he hasn’t cried in front of her above the side, and from where she sat it
since they received the phone call from the appeared almost like God’s face peeking
warden telling them Mark was dead for no over the mountain’s shoulder. Mark was
other reason than he’d been at the wrong supposed to call as soon as the phone be-
table in the cafeteria when a fight broke out. came free, but Anne had learned while he
was still in the treatment ward at Morrison
The crash happened on a Saturday in that it could sometimes take hours, a trend
June. Anne was waiting on the veranda for that had continued now that he was in
Mark to call, sipping coffee with her copy Marion.
of As I Lay Dying in her lap. She’d meant to
open the book immediately, to make good “Anne?”
progress that morning so she wouldn’t
make a fool of herself when the Book Club Anne sat up and turned, causing the
met on Tuesday, but the truth was she’d book to slide off her lap and land on the
been having trouble getting into it. There concrete with a noise that seemed much
louder than she thought it should. “Yes?”
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
“Were you asleep?” David took a few direct that some nervous impulse told her
steps towards her but stopped before he to duck. It passed with the sound of a flag
was within reach. In his hand was a file caught in a gale, so close that she saw the
folder with the white edges of someone’s pilot’s bearded face just before it vanished
loan application peeking out. He’d been beyond the roof of the house. It was an
working a lot more ever since the bank image she would remember, how the man
had moved him to mortgage acquisition, had appeared to be not much older than
spending hours sequestered in the study if Mark, his mouth hanging open in what she
he wasn’t downtown. only could imagine was an expression of
pure rapture at finding himself so free and
It was an opportunity; Anne understood unencumbered.
that. David had survived the merger while
simultaneously dealing with Mark’s trial, A moment later the glider returned, now
and if the branch turned a profit in this so high the pilot was no more than a pill
venture it would mean a promotion to the of onyx suspended underneath, and began
regional headquarters in Winston-Salem ascending directly above her in increasingly
at least, possibly even a position at the big wide circles, climbing like it was trying to
headquarters in Charlotte. He’d explained escape the cage of earth and reach the sun.
it all – the oak paneled office with a view of Anne concentrated on the outline, the blue
the city, the ability to pay off all of Mark’s of the wedge only a shade or two deeper
legal expenses at once, a retirement home than that of the sky. She was the vortex,
on the Outer Banks. the glider a junebug or child’s toy airplane
that she held by a string, although it was
“No. Just waiting for Mark to call.” uncertain whether she was the anchor or if
the glider was going to lift her into the soft
“Well,” he said. “I’ve got to run to the of- cradle of the atmosphere.
fice real quick. I’ll have the cell if you need
me.” The harder she concentrated the more
it became apparent that she was the one
“What about Mark?” affected. She lost sight of the house, the
mountain, everything save the glider and
He exhaled in a way that if he had been its aeriform canvas until even that was
five years old Anne would’ve called a huff. gone and she’d relinquished herself fully, al-
“I’ve waited long enough,” he said. “Besides, lowing every thought or idea and even her
I just need to run in for a few things I forgot own skin to fall away, leaving her blissfully
to bring home yesterday.” adrift for the first time in years. Her only
perception was that the moment was the
She nodded. Arguing wouldn’t make any closest to heaven she would ever be and
difference. “Be safe,” she called as he slid she basked in the warm, spreading radiance
the door closed behind him, the sun’s re- of being caught between planes, a nether-
flection changing the glass from transparent world without time.
into a solid rectangle of white.
When the glider finally broke the cir-
When Anne turned back towards Kill- cuit and disappeared around the corner of
dary the hang glider was already in flight, the house Anne found herself blinking as if
hovering first like a blemish on the face of she were at the theater in the moment the
the sun then swooping towards her, a falcon
with flared wings diving to strafe, its path so
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curtain falls and the houselights suddenly woke it was to the plastic chirping of the
flip on, dizzy and disoriented by a sky once phone’s handset on the table beside her.
again populated only by clouds and the
blue space between. She waited for it to The caller ID read UNAVAILABLE. Anne
return as long as she could, the stiffness in pressed Talk and waited with the phone by
her neck and the growing shadows of after- her side until she knew enough time had
noon seeping back into her consciousness passed for her to lift her arm and accept the
until eventually she gathered everything, call without having to hear any more than
including the Faulkner still lying face-down one or two disjointed words from the cold,
on the concrete, and went inside. mechanized recording. Then there was
the requisite thirty seconds of soft hissing
She was still giddy, but she ate a small broken by sporadic clicks before they were
lunch and took her second pill of the day connected. The process had become rote,
anyway, for no other reason than her doctor no more than punching in her PIN at the
had directed her to when he wrote out the checkout line.
prescription. She thought about going back
out to see if she could catch sight of the “Hey.” She sat up and placed her feet on
glider before it landed at the high school the pale hardwood, realizing as she did that
on the northeast side of Killdary. The she was still alone in the house. There was
school’s football field had always been the no sound, no creaking of joists or footsteps
preferred landing strip, the only clear and across the ceiling, nothing but the white
level piece of ground nearby that wasn’t a hum from the air conditioning. It was a fact
fairway on the public golf course, and Anne she accepted – David would miss Mark’s call.
remembered how, in the days gliders had
sprung off the ramp in such large numbers “Mom?” Mark’s voice reached through
they seemed to be discarded products of the static and distant clamor, the muted
the mountain itself, she would sometimes rumblings of men’s voices and occasional
take Mark over to the stadium to sit in the loud buzz of what sounded like the score-
concrete bleachers and watch them land board at Mark’s basketball games in high
one by one – Mark clapping each time one school. “Did I wake you up?”
touched down like the pilot had performed
the greatest magic in the world just for him. “No. Well, yes. I must’ve dozed off waiting
If she wasn’t waiting for the phone she for your father to get home.”
might’ve driven over to the school for old
times’ sake, but instead she lay down on the Anne rubbed her free hand across her
living room couch where a diamond of sun- face to finish the process of waking. Mark
light poured through the western window, never had much time to talk, though
contenting herself with the idea. whether or not it was due to crowds waiting
in line behind him or whatever introspec-
She meant to try again at working her tion, as he liked to call it, that caused him to
way through the Faulkner while keeping prohibit them from visiting she wasn’t sure.
an ear open for the low whine of David’s “How are you?” she asked.
Explorer, but the combination of sun, med-
icine, and the lingering afterglow of her “Better than in a long time.”
morning lulled her to sleep, and when she
There was something different about his
voice, some familiar levity that Anne hadn’t
heard before in his calls home. It took her a
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minute to place it, but once she did there juvenile imitation of now-forgotten gliders
was the same beatific expansion in her above him, the boy who was and would al-
chest she’d felt watching the hang glider. It ways be the person she conjured when she
was Mark’s voice, the Mark she’d raised, the thought the words my son.
voice that summoned memories of them to-
gether in the mornings when Mark was just “Honey, I’ve got to tell you about the
a child and David had left for work, when hang glider I saw this morning—”
they’d lived in a world where their futures
were fixedly interwoven and limited only by “Mom, there’ve been hundreds of hang
the maximum amount of magnificence al- gliders flying off that mountain,” Mark in-
located for any two humans. It was a voice terrupted. “I’m sorry. I just don’t have much
that, just like his eyes, exuded potency, vi- time and I need to tell you what I did yes-
tality, so different from the monotone he’d terday.”
spoken in since he first went to Morrison.
“Okay,” she said. It was a delay, not a re-
“You sound good.” The words sounded jection. Mark had only started sharing these
too weak in her ears, too much like a simple things with her again recently, and, besides,
platitude. “You sound like yourself, honey,” there was always the possibility that the
she tried again. It still wasn’t right, wasn’t news he had was another tile in the day’s
enough, but before she could try a third mosaic, news that would only enhance her
time Mark broke in. understanding of this recovery. “What was
that?”
“I’ve been doing so much reflecting, so
much thinking,” he said, his speech be- “I signed the papers for Theresa’s law-
ginning to rush headlong. “The chaplain yers.”
here says I’ve really been making progress,
Mom. I’m on Step Eight, making a list of the “For April?”
people I hurt and how I can try and make it
up to them.” “Those are the only papers she’s sent me,
Mom,” he said.
“I can’t tell you how—”
And just that quickly it was gone, like
Anne caught herself before she said she’d swallowed an ice cube, a frozen rock
something trite. She wished that he could in her throat that spread throughout her
see her. Words just weren’t adequate. Be- body as it melted. The doctor had told her
cause it wasn’t what Mark was saying that Xanax would “take the edge away” from
mattered – personally, she was skeptical of her black thoughts, but it was more like a
twelve-step programs and their sermon- speed bump than brakes, slowing the pain
izing, though if they helped Mark she was to lessen the impact but not stopping it al-
willing to go along – it was the emotion con- together. But in this case it wasn’t even a
veyed, and she wanted to reflect that emo- speed bump, more like the difference be-
tion so that somewhere in the middle their tween being shot in the face and slowly
echoes would combine and reconcile the pressed to death.
awful man Mark had been after high school
with the boy who had so often run around “Why?” she asked, thinking Yesterday. Al-
the veranda with his arms outstretched in ready done, then, no taking it back.
“What else could I do?” he asked. “I killed
her mother—”
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“That wasn’t you, though, not really. the living room in a rush as if to protect the
Those drugs …” Anne trailed off, fighting house from any more contamination. It was
images she’d purposefully forgotten since a futile gesture, but there had to be some
the trial, the pictures the police had made, solace in holding tangible evidence that
blown-up and pasted on poster board by through everything she hadn’t given up the
the District Attorney so that everyone in expectation that one day she’d be able to fit
the courtroom would see the annular pat- a new picture into the frame above the one
tern of blood on the wall, the gaping red of the two-year-old child now four years ob-
mouth spread across Helen Coffey’s chest, solete so that one would never know there
and know what her son had done. had been a gap in the first place.
“It was me,” Mark said, the words un- “What the fuck is there to give up? You
ceasing but without heat. “I walked straight act like one day this will somehow just go
up on that porch and shot the first thing I away and I’ll be working for Dad at the
saw over five feet tall. I can’t take that shit bank.” He paused to breathe. “I can’t take
back and only God can forgive me now. I can that shit, I just can’t. That’s why I don’t want
at least give Theresa this.” you to visit. This is hard enough without you
trying to make it better …”
“But you’re her father.”
Mark kept talking, but it wasn’t him she
Anne realized she was crying, the living heard anymore. It was David, using the
room dissolving into an unpatterned whorl same voice he’d used in the past in regards
of tan and white. Where was David? How to Mark’s decision not take the scholarship
could the day’s promise abandon her? from Newberry and later when he’d ordered
their lawyers not to prepare for an appeal,
“Why do you have to be so melodramatic?” only less polished. When had Mark ever
he asked. sounded like his father? Where was the son
she knew, the one she’d talked to earlier?
She sat up. Since when did he use the
word “melodramatic?” “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve “I didn’t expect you to. That’s the point.”
spent staring at those papers?” He coughed He sighed. “Look, there are people waiting.
out a laugh. “Her father? Shit. I haven’t seen I love you.”
her in three years. How can I pretend to be
her father?” Anne opened her mouth – to say what
she wasn’t sure – but the leaden thump
“But what about me?” of the receiver ended the call before she
found out. She spent the rest of the after-
“It ain’t about you.” Mark’s voice was noon watching the patch of sunlight from
nearly a hiss. “Theresa wants shut of us, all the window behind her crawl across the
of us … that means you, too.” floor as all the things that had happened
passed through her head indiscriminately
“You didn’t have to give up.” until they became a single, solid knot of
displaced words and images.
Anne found herself upstairs in the bed-
room, grabbing the most recent picture of The patch of sunlight had just begun
April she had from where it sat framed on its climb up the far wall when David came
top of the oak dresser alongside Mark’s se-
nior portrait and carrying it back down to
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through the door, telling a convoluted story “I know you meant a lot to him,” she says,
about traffic. Anne listened, nodding appro- taking her position beside David on the near
priately when the story seemed to call for it. side of the coffin.
The Rev. Johannsen is waiting for them Johannsen only nods and places a hand
when the limo pulls up to the gravesite, briefly on David’s shoulder as he makes his
standing at the head of the rectangular pit way around the periphery and looks to the
with a Bible held in both hands against the funeral director.
slope of his paunchy stomach. He walks over
once Anne and David have been helped out “Heavenly Father,” he commences in a
by the funeral director and shakes both of different voice than he used with Anne be-
their hands with a bowed head. fore, one so strong and commanding that it
seems to be channeling through him. “We
“Again, I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says, have gathered here to mark the end of one
repeating the only words that passed be- life and the beginning of a new, for this man
tween them when they’d met him at Pem- we are committing to this ground now walks
broke an hour before. “I can’t tell you how alongside You in Your Heavenly Kingdom …”
special a young man Mark was, how much
hope we had for him.” At first, Anne follows along with her eyes
clinched tight against the brightness, but as
Anne thinks about telling him that it the cleric continues his litany of imagined
isn’t his place to tell her anything about rewards her mind begins to wander. She
her son or hope or any of the rest, but she opens her eyes to see Killdary rising in the
decides against it when she sees that his distance, and she spots the hang glider
eyes are swollen and pinker than the rest coasting in front, the red of its wings a sharp
of his face. She’d wanted to hate him, too, contrast to the grey barrenness of the trees
if for no other reason than he’d seen more spreading below and behind it, the white
of Mark over the past few years than she expanses of cumulus mottled with blue be-
had, but when he’d walked into the funeral yond. A breeze sweeps in from the north,
home he had been so opposite of the car- brushing against the back of her neck as the
icature of an English rector she’d expected, minister crescendos to a benediction.
a staunch, dour-faced man with sprigs of
white hair sprouting haphazardly from his She feels David shift beside her, and
scalp spitting Hellfire from rafters, that she when she looks up their eyes meet for just
couldn’t. Instead, Johannsen reminded her a second. His face contracts in a way that
of a farmer or country doctor. And now, as suggests the puckered, browning peal of
he places one pudgy hand on her elbow to an overripe orange. It’s an expression Anne
lead her to the grave she has trouble seeing can’t discern before he nods and resumes
him as anything other than a lonely old man his stiff-shouldered pose, his hands still
wearing a clerical collar over an ordinary clasped together at his midsection. She too
rib stitched shirt – short and balding with looks away, pressing the image of the en-
a round Nordic face and lips so pale they tire gathering to memory – from Johannsen
practically blend into his pink skin, a voice and his convert being lowered slowly into
so soft she has to strain to hear him above the ground to the husband at her side to
the grinding of the mechanical winch set- the hang glider floating above the maze of
tling the coffin into place. streets and mountains and rows of white
marble.
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About the Author
Chris Nelson is originally from Western North Carolina. He received his MFA from North
Carolina State University. Following a decade in the Midwest, he again lives in Western North
Carolina with his cat, Suki.
117
NONFICTION
GREAT
EXPECTATIONS:
A BIRTH STORY
by Tom Sibley
“She could be here by tomorrow morning.” Many of these expectations came from
my wife Rachel beamed. our twelve week birth class, which focused
on keeping the birth as natural as humanly
I was equally as excited, “I just can’t wait possible. The class instilled confidence that
to meet her.” Somehow under the impres- a woman’s body was made to give birth and
sion that my newborn daughter and I were most medical intervention was due to im-
going to shake hands, grab a cup of coffee, patience and was ultimately unnecessary.
and get to know each other. The class also encouraged the birth partner,
in this case me, to keep a close eye on the
We were in the car on our way to the nurses and doctors, they can be shifty and
hospital for an induction. Our daughter was may try to pump Rachel full of drugs and cut
now two weeks overdue and our midwives her open at the drop of a hat. I needed to
suggested we not wait much longer. We prepare myself to intervene and demand to
envisioned the birth to be a candle lit af- know just what the hell they were trying to
fair, with a birthing tub, little to no medical do to my wife. The class provided pointers
intervention, as drug free as a crisp early for much of the doublespeak I could expect
spring morning, a young lady with dread- from these monsters. “You think a C-section
locks gently strumming an acoustic guitar, would be best?! I bet!! So you can line your
perhaps some Martha Graham choreog- pockets before your tee time?! Why don’t
raphy in between contractions, and to catch you C-section yourself right out the door,
our child as she spilled forth from her moth- bub!” I’d yell while kicking the conniving
er’s womb. The three of us would then be obstetrician in the ass. This was something
naked, perhaps in a warm cave-like setting, I was fully prepared to do, I just needed to
maintaining skin to skin contact for no less have a complete shift in personality and
than 72 hours.
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
temperament before our daughter was give me one. They simply told me I needed
born. to keep my mask on for the duration of my
stay. By this point in the pandemic, a mask
One of the great miracles of birth is how felt like a natural extension of my face and
miraculously naive first time parents can it’s best to go with the flow if you’re not the
be with their birth plans. Our induction one having a baby come out of you.
was scheduled for eight o’clock in the eve-
ning, the day after Thanksgiving, during a I was allowed to keep our car tempo-
pandemic. When we arrived It felt like we rarily parked in front of the hospital so we
entered a restaurant an hour after closing could unload our luggage and it looked as
and asked to see the wine list. After having if we had packed for a long weekend in the
our temperatures taken and answering a mountains. I struggle to pack a lunch so
slew of rote COVID-19 related questions, in- packing for the birth of a child was almost
cluding if we’ve recently had diarrhea which untenable. I asked the security desk if there
is always a coin toss, we made our way to was perhaps a luggage rack and my inquiry
the Labor and Delivery unit. Rachel was was met with a definitive and singular “No.”
only permitted to have one person with her I returned to the same security desk after
due to pandemic restrictions. I was relieved getting the luggage to our room and asked
she chose me. where I could park the car. Like any hospital
in a densely populated urban area, parking
We were shown to our room and Rachel was a multi-phased operation and if each
was told to put on her gown so they could directive wasn’t followed to the letter, my
strap two monitors around her big pregnant car would almost certainly be towed. I was
belly. One monitored the baby’s heart rate, given a piece of paper to hang from my
the other monitored contractions, and both rearview mirror, a piece of paper to place
insured Rachel wouldn’t know a moment’s from my dash, several stickers I was advised
comfort while wearing them. There is a to keep safe in my wallet, a wristband that
stage of active labor referred to as “loss of granted me access to nothing, a map with
modesty” in which the woman no longer crudely scrawled directions, and I was ad-
cares who sees or touches her body as long vised to park on the final level of the under-
as the baby is on his or her way out. Ra- ground garage which was warmed by the
chel, in an inspired turn, reached that stage Earth’s core. For all this, I paid a shockingly
as soon as she set foot in the hospital and reasonable five dollars which I was repeat-
went naked under her gown for the dura- edly told was nonrefundable.
tion. She had all the modesty of a nudist
resort activities director. Rachel began a course of medication
around 10pm that would help her dilate and
The nurses would ask, “Are you sure you it would take up to twelve hours to make
don’t want to put on some underwear?” any meaningful progress. Due to monitors
strapped around her abdomen, she had to
“Nope.” Rachel would respond with her be sitting in an upright position which made
backside proudly displayed, finding under- sleep or meaningful rest very difficult. The
wear to be inefficient for the task ahead. monitors would make arrhythmic beeps
They also had her take a rapid COVID test. throughout the night and nurses would reg-
I asked if I should take a test but they told ularly come to our room to check on them
me since I wasn’t a patient they couldn’t
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while asking Rachel any number of ques- Holding myself up on the barcalounger, I did
tions. Each time before exiting, they would my best to gently say encouraging things
strongly encourage her to “really try and get like, “You’re doing great, sweetie. I’m so
some rest.” This was a recurring theme of proud of you.” But it ended up sounding
our stay at the hospital. It would be as if you more like, “Jus…. great. Yup….. doing it.”
were trying to sleep and I, along with sev-
eral other individuals I made no attempt to What quickly becomes clear to any hus-
coordinate with, entered your room every band or birth partner is that you are the
fifteen minutes to gently tickle you and in- least useful person in the room and perhaps
quire about your bowel movements. As our the least useful person in the entire hos-
parting shot, we’d wonder aloud why you pital. Everyone serves a direct and dire func-
weren’t sleeping. tion while you are puttering around looking
terrified. I was also perpetually in the way.
My sleep station was a fold out bar- Nurses and midwives would often come
calounger in the corner of the room. The towards me and say, “Can I just scoot past
mattress seemed to be made of pipes and you?” or “Mind if I just try and get around
sand while the sheets were purely orna- you?” or “Actually, could you just stand over
mental. I remember reading that fast food there.” and more than one “And you are?”
restaurants made their seating purposely One might assume I was providing invalu-
uncomfortable to discourage loitering and able emotional support but “Just breathe,
I wondered if hospitals were employing the honey!” pales in comparison to medical
same tactic. No one should be too comfort- expertise.
able for the birth of their first child and ev-
eryone loves to linger at the hospital. The The results of Rachel’s vaginal exam were
nurses and doctors were also urging me to not as we had hoped and her cervix had di-
get some sleep. My right leg heeded the ad- lated to what could have ambitiously been
vice and went numb shortly after laying on called one centimeter. At this moment, we
the mattress. realized that we were in for a long, arduous
haul. The next suggested course of action
The following morning we were bleary was... the balloon. They would put an un-
eyed but excited to hear just how much her inflated balloon inside her, fill it with saline
cervix had dilated overnight. When the mid- solution, and leave it for at least twelve
wife came to do the examination, we were hours to help stimulate dilation. After it
taking bets and wondering if the baby might was fully explained, I prayed the midwife
effortlessly fall out any minute of her own would crack a smile and say, “Just kidding!
accord. This was one of many vaginal exam- Can you imagine?! Yikes! A balloon?! Well,
ines I had the pleasure of witnessing. Turns it is a birthday! But seriously, folks..” And
out, I have a delicate constitution when it we’d all share a hearty laugh. But this was
comes to medical professionals examining apparently our best option if we wanted to
my wife’s vagina. Although Rachel could grit stay on a more natural path and Rachel told
and bear it like she was receiving triage on them to proceed. This marked the begin-
a battlefield, I became lightheaded and felt ning of an unpleasant shift in energy. To no
faint. I kept these feelings to myself because one’s surprise, having a balloon full of water
a squeamish husband is an unwelcomed inside your vagina is extremely painful and
and utterly useless presence during labor. Rachel had all but stopped talking, any
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movement brought her great discomfort. things I could have done in that moment
I did what any supportive husband would was let my limp body collapse onto my in-
do, I sat sentry and watched a marathon firmed wife, so I sat down and put my head
of a television show I particularly enjoy. It in my hands. I was worried I had done so in
wasn’t much, but it was honest work. too dramatic a fashion but no one noticed,
which is one of the benefits of being useless
Hours passed, very quiet and very pow- in high stakes situations.
erless. I would help Rachel to and from the
bathroom and then she’d do her best to Then the midwife said, “There’s meco-
find any position that would provide the nium in your amniotic fluid. The baby might
slightest relief. Over the nine months of be in distress.” Thanks to twelve weeks
pregnancy, we’d often talk about our birth of birth classes, I knew that meconium
plan but always acknowledged we had no was essentially the baby’s first poop but I
idea what would happen. Our way of telling was previously unaware that babies had
the universe, “This is how we want things to the ability to defecate in the womb. Also
go but of course we know we don’t control hearing the words “baby” and “distress” in
the future. Now that we’ve clearly hum- the same sentence was disconcerting to say
bled ourselves unto you, dear Universe, we the least. This was when real fear made its
have every expectation it will go exactly as entrance onto the scene. The kind of fear
we planned.” And here we found ourselves, that can storyboard unspeakable horrors
after a relatively uneventful pregnancy, in your imagination at a moment’s notice.
minus a global pandemic, with absolutely No matter how hard I’d try to stay present,
nothing going as planned. My only solace the worst conceivable scenarios flooded my
was figuring out how to get more than one mind. It’s also the kind of fear that puts an
free meal at a time delivered to the room. objectively dumb look on my face. I want to
This was accomplished through a series of look like I should be holding a sword, ready
very performance heavy phone calls to the to do battle against an unbeatable foe. In-
cafeteria. stead I look like a child with cheese dust all
over my face and hands, pretending not to
After fourteen hours of the balloon, the understand his mother’s question, “Who
midwife came to remove it and check on ate all the Doritos?”
dilation. It was two o’clock in the morning
and Rachel and I were in varying states of Rachel asked, “How much more have I
consciousness but ready for some good dilated?”
news. I held Rachel’s hand as two nurses as-
sisted the midwife in removing the balloon “Almost two centimeters.”
and checking Rachel’s progress. While the
midwife was checking her cervix, she was Well, shit.
able to move the baby’s head and we found
out Rachel’s water had already broken and The midwife began laying out our op-
the baby’s head was blocking it’s release. tions with an urgency we had yet to hear,
When she moved the head, amniotic fluid making clear our situation was no longer
poured out. I could hear the gush, I glanced typical. To her credit, she was being very
at the source of the noise, and then I began sensitive to our birth plan and did not
to pass out. One of the least productive want us to feel obligated to stray from it.
Rachel, in another inspiring turn, took on
an attitude which could best be described
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as not-fucking-around and was ready for my wife’s lower back. His bedside manner
medical interventions well outside our plan. was not cuddly but extremely capable. He
She requested a drug called Pitocin which wasn’t in the room to tend to our fears and
induces very heavy contractions and she insecurities, he was there to insure Rachel
also requested an epidural, the big kahuna couldn’t feel anything from the waste down.
of pain relief in labor. She had sacrificed I could’ve kissed him on the mouth for it.
herself on the altar of natural birth for long
enough and no longer wanted to be in so We started to feel some momentum.
much pain. We had gone outside of our plan, she was
taking some intense drugs, it was time for
Right away, Pitocin was flooding into big contractions and ample dilation. Instead
her IV. When we first arrived at the hospital, of relying on the body’s natural functions,
they asked to put a hep lock into Rachel’s we were relying on modern medicine to
arm, which is like a pre-IV that’s already take us home. It might not have been what
in the vein. This was not in our birth plan we originally wanted but we felt results
and we wanted to keep the fat cats at Big were now guaranteed. Then, nothing. Like
Pharma as far from this birth as possible. most significant life events, along with the
The nurse strongly encouraged the hep lock anticipation is an incredible amount of sit-
and we told her no dice. She went and got ting around.
the midwife to speak to us and we finally ac-
quiesced. We thought it would be a simple Rachel started getting cold and asked for
inconspicuous tube in her arm, but it turned one of the several flannels I had packed for
out to be the three car garage of hep locks. our weekend getaway. She started to shiver
It looked like it could not only provide safe and asked for another blanket. Nurses came
passage for several intravenous drugs but into the room more frequently to take her
also charge an iPhone. We rolled our eyes at temperature because she was developing
what we saw as overkill and less than forty a fever. They were worried about infec-
eight hours later, it would have several life tion so they took a blood and urine sample,
saving IV drips attached to it. confirming that she did have an infection.
This meant the baby probably had a fever
Next came the anesthesiologist for the as well. Not great. And to add another ray
epidural, a man a few words with the ef- of sunshine to our already sunny day, the
ficiency of a German radiator and arms as baby’s heart rate was significantly higher
hairy as Robin Williams’. My wife and I enjoy than it should be. Rachel was put on oxygen
a brief amount of small talk before having and they placed ice packs under her arms
anything injected into our spines but this to help bring the fever down. She was too
anesthesiologist was having none of it. After sick to speak and too weak to move which
several unsuccessful attempts at engage- is not exactly the most conducive state for
ment while he was assembling a needle child birth. It was a moment that made me
that would have looked more at home on grateful for the pandemic because I was the
the deck of a spaceship, he looked at me only person there to see her in that state.
and ordered, “You don’t see this.” His way Had I seen the fear that I felt in the eyes
of warmly letting me know to stand some- of a family member or friend, I might have
where else, specifically not near him. I hap- broken down. A hysterical husband would
pily obliged as he injected the needle into have been of little benefit to the situation
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we found ourselves in and I’m also a very For the first time in almost forty eight
ugly crier. Blotchy faced, lip quivering, snots, hours, Rachel and I felt something akin to
you get the picture. relief with a suggestion of hope. Rachel
joked, “Did you hear that amniotic flush
I studied the behavior of the nurses and bullshit? No way I was doing that.” I never
midwife every time they entered the room. loved her more.
Reading deeply into every glance at the
monitor, every nod when Rachel answered Within moments, the obstetrician was
one of their questions, every exit from our in our room laying out our course of ac-
room. I have no experience in the field of tion. The obstetrician was a tall, radiant,
behavioral analysis but you would have red headed woman with the confidence
thought I had a degree in how individuals of a samurai sword and the last thing she
hold back catastrophic information. By this said to us was “I will have your baby in your
point, the darkest sides of my imagination arms in thirty minutes.” She may as well
had free reign and I was almost dizzy with have put on sunglasses and climbed onto a
powerlessness and fear. It briefly flashed motorcycle. I had to hold myself back from
through my mind that if Rachel and the baby chasing her down for her autograph. Imme-
die and I somehow manage to not commit diately things started moving very fast. First,
suicide, I’ll move back to New Jersey and Rachel had to sign paperwork confirming
become a hermit. Who could imagine a she wanted the C-section and there was
worse fate than living in New Jersey? something that felt so vulgar about having
a woman in Rachel’s state sign paperwork.
Hours passed and with no progress in “I know you’re terrified. Life’s crazy, right?!
dilation and Rachel was still running a fever. Anyway, sign here, initial here, last four of
We had finally reached the get-this-fuck- your social there... do you happen to have
ing-baby-out-safe stage of labor. Again the the phone number of your previous em-
midwife laid out our options, the first was a ployer?”
C-section and the second was some sort of
amniotic flush to clean out the meconium Then the nurse brought an empty cart
which would buy us time for a natural birth. into the room and said to me, “Put all of
To me, the C-Section sounded like dinner at your and Rachel’s stuff on here in the next
a fine restaurant with loved ones and the five minutes. You won’t be coming back to
amniotic flush sounded like hanging out this room.” It felt like we were being evac-
behind a Chik-fil-AI with militia members. uated before an enemy attack. Rachel is an
I knew Rachel wanted to avoid a C-section extremely organized person and this was
at all costs but the whole vibe felt like we perhaps the most helpless she felt during
were approaching mortal consequences. I our entire stay at the hospital, watching
was ready to ask the midwife to leave the my abysmal packing skills only made worse
room and I planned on begging Rachel to by the rushed nature of our circumstances.
consider a C-section but she beat me to it. Shoes on top of jackets, larger luggage on
“C-section,” Rachel interrupted the midwife, top of smaller luggage, loose toiletries, it
“I’m done. I just want the baby out safe.” was her nightmare. She did her best to give
me frequent suggestions while the nurses
“Alright, I think that would be best as were preparing her for surgery. I would
well.”, the midwife agreed, “I’ll get the ob- have preferred a dramatic goodbye with
stetrician.”
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Rachel where I held her hand, pledged my sternum so we wouldn’t be able to see the
undying love, and wiped tears from her face. profoundly invasive surgery that was about
But my last words to her before surgery to take place. She was on her back with her
were a confused, “Wait.. ok, I’ll see you in a arms stretched out and strapped down on
bit.” What it lacked in elegance, it made up either side of her. Thanks to fourteen years
for with informality. of catholic school, my mind made a brief
and lazy comparison to childbirth being like
I was asked to leave the room with my a crucifixion that even a freshman Womens’
luggage cart that looked like a prop from Studies major would have found exhausting.
The Grapes of Wrath and was ushered into The man-of-few-words anesthesiologist
the recovery room. I was told not to leave with the hairy arms was stationed behind
the room and they would come grab me Rachel to monitor her anestesia levels on
when it was time. I was alone and this gave a computer or he was just there to hang
me the opportunity to pace a groove into out and check his email. He pointed to a
the floor and have several crying fits. Even stool right next to Rachel and warmly said,
though I once went on a carnival ride that “You sit there.” Her body was shaking due
was operated by a drunk man with one arm, to her high fever and the adrenaline of the
this was the most scared I had ever been moment. They told her that it was normal
in my life. From the recovery room, I was but it worried her. She assumed it would be
able to watch the doctors and nurses scrub hard to perform a C-section if her body was
in and wash their hands before the surgery. doing The Earthquake but they didn’t seem
It was a comforting juxtaposition because I to mind.
was embarking on the biggest event of my
life and they were just heading into work. Rachel and I said we loved one another
Performing a C-section is just something and they began the operation. The feeling
to tick off the to-do list. They were asking of uselessness left me and I held Rachel’s
each other about their Thanksgivings and hand and told her how well she was doing
catching up on the daily trivialities of hos- and that I was so proud of her. She was
pital life. It was like music to my ears. Only scared and I got to be the one to tell her
thing out of place for them was the hyster- it was going to be okay. It was one of the
ical about-to-be father ogling them as they only times in my life I felt like a grown up.
washed their hands. Not because I was confident everything was
going to be okay — I was shitting my pants
After what felt like several hours but — but because I intrinsically knew it was
was only about fifteen minutes, I was cor- my duty, as a grown up, to tell her it was
dially invited into the operating room. It going to be okay. There was no mother or
was a hive of activity that included a natal mother-in-law or wise old uncle to comfort
intensive care unit on stand by to suck the her, there was just me. For a brief moment,
meconium out of our daughter’s lungs I wasn’t useless. Then Rachel told me to get
in case she wasn’t breathing. It would be my elbow off one of her IV tubes and I was
like if you boarded a plane and the pilot right back.
handed you a parachute, it would be some-
what comforting but you kinda wish the The longest part of a C-section is not
flight just goes smoothly. They had set up a getting the baby out, that part is almost
curtain that started at the base of Rachel’s freakishly quick, it’s putting the mother
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back together that takes a while. Before that worried because she was crying loudly
we knew it a nurse came from behind the which was a good sign.
curtain, which made me feel like we were
backstage at a very experimental theatre Rachel put her hand on mine and said,
piece, and asked me, “Would you like to see “Go be with her, I don’t want her to be alone.”
the baby’s head come out?” I didn’t want to
leave Rachel’s side and I thought we should I walked over to the table and there was
see the baby together for the first time in- my daughter kicking her legs in a stationary
stead of me peeking over the curtain like march that appeared very urgent to her. My
a nosy neighbor. The nurse asked for my heart didn’t suddenly explode and I didn’t
phone and took pictures of our daughter’s immediately feel like a proud father, I just
initial entrance and then there was a big knew nothing was ever going to be the
joyous commotion as the baby was all the same and that was okay.
way out. I immediately forgot about my
first-look solidarity with Rachel and jumped “Rachel, she’s good,” I yelled across the
to my feet to see over the curtain. We had operating room, “She’s perfect!”
been warned that the baby might come out
covered in what looked like green mud. But I asked the nurse if I could cut the cord.
it wouldn’t be mud, it would be her feces In a lapse of understanding basic human
and we shouldn’t freak out. I thought I was anatomy, I didn’t realize that since the
about to see some kind of swamp monster baby was already well across the room, un-
grabbing at the obstetrician’s throat but in- less Rachel had some kind of world record
stead it was a big beautiful baby that wasn’t umbilical cord, it had already been cut. The
covered in shit. All I could think was this nurse could tell I didn’t know that but kindly
is who’s been growing next to me on the said, “Of course you can, Dad.” She handed
couch for the last nine months. me the scissors and I cut a bit of the excess
cord, completely unaware the cutting was
The NICU team whisked our little non- a symbolic indulgence provided by a good
swamp monster over to a table to make hearted medical professional.
sure her lungs were clear but no one was all
“This was in our birth plan,” I told the
nurse, “At least one thing went as expected.”
About the Author
Tom Sibley: Writer reluctantly living in Los Angeles, CA.
Work has been featured on Gothamist and MTV.com
128
PUNCH YOU IN
THE EYE
by Rachael Wesley
Have you ever been bullied? If you attended their wits, brains, and/or newly begotten
high school, there’s a chance that you have brawn, whatever means necessary, for their
been. Movies have us programmed to think own self-preservation. In Back to the Future,
that bullying only happens to nerds at the George McFly knocks his bully out with a
hands of the jocks, but they have that wrong. single punch to the face. His fist encapsu-
In real life, no one is immune. Any one per- lates all this newfound power after he wit-
son from the proverbial and stereotypical nesses Biff sexually assaulting the object of
teenage clusters of “try hards” emulating his affection in the front seat of a car. Many
some sort of identity, the nerds, the prep- of these movies end in a similar manner.
pies, the stoners, the jocks and cheerleaders, The nerd is victorious, the girl in his arms
and the goths, could be attacked at any time. and the bully to never bother them again.
An infiltration could come from within a
core group, Mean Girls style, in an attempt- These movie tropes had to come from
ed usurping, but, more commonly, bullying somewhere. Part imagination, yet completely
occurrences happened across groups. predicated on real life, albeit an exaggerated
nonfiction. I could use real-life events to spin
Movies do accurately portray how brutal a fictitious story on how I was able to stand
bullying is. Bullies will torment your life. You up to my bully and take victory laps around
will be viscously made fun of so that your his prone figure with my hands held high, my
bully can increase their own popularity and entire class clapping and cheering around us.
feel better about their life. Teen insecuri- Instead, I will tell you the true David versus
ties are a strong weapon, exacerbated by Goliath story in how these events went down
hormones which can incite soul punching and we can learn how these works of fiction
verbal insults and humiliating physical ac- may have been inspired.
tions more strongly than a twelve pack of
beer will in an arguing couple. I was a teen. I attended high school. I was
bullied.
In the latter half of these movies, the
victim strikes back against their bully using My bully’s name is Jason W. He was a
2000 graduate of Pittston Area High School,
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just as I was. My last name also begins with I completed this fashionable look with a
a W and so we were always placed in the bobbed haircut that included a set of thick
same homeroom together, from freshman straight bangs and a metal mouth of braces.
to senior year. I was like Josie Grosie from the beginning
scenes of the movie Never Been Kissed,
Luckily for me, the bullying did not begin looking as awkward on the outside as I felt
as a high school freshman. That would have on the inside yet encased in a costume of
broken me. I began 9th grade at the local discomfort that I thought my peers would
public high school fresh out of nine years find acceptable.
of private Catholic schooling. I was eager
to make new friends. Because I am an ex- Fortunately, for me, I was accepted. This
trovert, I wanted to have a gigantic throng was the mid-90s and everyone’s fashion
of buddies, but, because I was a hormonal sense and aesthetics looked just as ridicu-
teen, I wanted my new gaggle of friends to lous as mine. Some were better at pulling
be comprised of all the popular girls and hot it off. People like my cousin would be beau-
guys. tiful in anything, even with that telltale sign
of pancake makeup at the neck and the
I was also horribly, horribly insecure. I over-the-knee socks meet short, kilted skirt
had a sister-like cousin who was a grade that Clueless had made fashionable. But
ahead of me. She was beautiful and popular there were plenty of other teen girls who
and a cheerleader. As a fourteen-year-old looked just as ridiculous as me.
who wanted to desperately fit in at my new
school I thought the best way to do this was Freshmen year went bully free. No one
to imitate my cousin. Though I felt more threw mean words or unkind thoughts my
comfortable encasing my short, curvy, and way and I was able to spend those nine
slightly overweight five-foot frame in bright months slowly befriending my own little
polyester shirts, peasant blouses, and long clique of girlfriends. We were a tight knit
colorful skirts, I chose the more fashion- group of five who were in the second tier
able clothes for the sake of popularity. I of popularity. We were on the precipice of
dressed like just like her, in plaid skirts and ascending to that top tier as we frequently
pants, shiny button-down blouses, and high hung out with the most admired teen girls
heeled Mary Jane shoes, buying my clothes and boys within our class. We were some-
from the trendy or classically preppy stores times invited to their parties, and eventually
like Express, The Gap, and The Limited. were given admittance to their lunch table
and smaller gatherings, but in ninth and
I also covered myself in makeup, hiding tenth grades this was less common.
my lack of self-confidence in pounds of
pancake foundation so that my mask was In the fall of 1997, my sophomore year
obviously visible by the makeup line where of high school, we five had been invited
head meets neck. I learned from and copied to a Friday night party in the coal banks.
my cousin’s daily routine of eyeliner on top Cindy had invited the four of us to sleep at
and bottom lids, three or four shades of her house. Her mom was a sound sleeper
eyeshadow, mascara, blush, lipstick, AND and wouldn’t notice if we got in late. Even
lipliner. It was the 90s, so my naturally thick more importantly, Cindy’s central Pittston
eyebrows were plucked down to a thin line, location would allow us to walk to the coal
a slender worm instead of bushy caterpillar. banks from her house.
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Pittston was located deep in the vein of not like his slug-like tongue slimy within my
the booming anthracite industry of North- mouth or the rough way he had grabbed me.
eastern Pennsylvania. The coal mined from Stunned, I froze for three seconds and then
within this small city made for a thriving pushed him in the chest as I pulled away.
economy and a hub of business activity
for over a century. Then, in 1959, the Knox I wasn’t given a chance to voice my dis-
Mine disaster happened. When you mine pleasure. Someone shouted “police” and
under one of the largest rivers in the state, we all dispersed, running away as fast as our
you are just digging for trouble. A gigantic legs would take us. I arrived back at Cindy’s
hole formed on the bed of the Susquehanna with a heart racing from the late evening ex-
River and water poured into the mine for ertion and my once white shoes now almost
three days. completely black.
We would be partying within the culm The torture started shortly after that
banks, the leftover dirt, slate, and unwanted party.
detritus from the usable coal dumped in gi-
gantic piles of filth mountains, from that very It began in homeroom. He sat three
mine. When the Knox Mine disaster hap- people behind me. He would call insults up
pened the coal mining industry in the area to me as we sat there for the twenty-minute
disappeared, as did the booming economy attendance class that began our day.
and all its commerce. Forty years later, home-
town teens had nothing better to do than “You’re so ugly.”
hang out in valleys of coal dust and drink
cheap beer and chain smoke Marlboros. “You’re fat. You have a gigantic ass”
My clique of friends arrived at the Wow, you have a bigger nose than Big Bird.”
party after dark, fashionably late, but not
on purpose. We were not aware that the Each slur was said within ear range of
Keystone Light consumption had started the Ws, Ys, and Zs of our sophomore class.
when the sun was still up. I was as sober His ugly opinions of my face and my body
as a nun when a drunken Jason, then only shared not just with me, but our contem-
the nasally voiced boy from my homeroom poraries, and so these ideas now not only
and not yet my tormenter, approached me. belonged within him but were perhaps al-
He was close to a foot taller than me, with lowed to give birth within others.
ears that stuck out and a flattened nose that
gave the rest of his face a squished appear- I pretended to ignore the insults as he
ance, resembling a never-once-dead mon- lobbed them my way, either with a straight
ster of Frankenstein. face and a feigned nonchalance of not
hearing his denigrations or loud and con-
He bent down and stuck his tongue trived laughter meant for someone else. In-
down my throat as he groped my chest. side, it was anything but relaxed. My brain
“You have big boobies,” he slurred. absorbed his insults and magnified all my
insecurities. Everyone must think that I was
As glaring of a sexual assault that this ugly and fat and that my nose longer than
was, teenagers in the mid-nineties were Pinocchio’s. Jason said it out loud, but ev-
quite unaware of the many nuances that eryone else had to have been thinking it. I
make a sexual offense. I did know that I did started to believe it. I would never, ever, no
matter how I dressed, applied my makeup,
or cut my hair, be as pretty as my cousin. I
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was ugly. Fat. Disgusting. My nose, thighs, what kind of attack he had planned, or what
hips, and butt all competed against one an- he would do if we passed one another in
other over which was the largest. the hall. Would it be a fake punch to the
face or a more aggressive and classic act
Ignoring Jason led to more hostile bul- of knocking my books on the ground? The
lying tactics. His most aggressive attack bullying didn’t happen every day and so the
came late one morning, at the beginning of guessing game of would he bother me today
our lunch period. I had just walked into the caused a constant heavy chest of waiting for
lunchroom with a few of my friends only to it to happen.
be immediately separated from them by a
forceful hand that grabbed me from behind. My after-school life suffered because of
this as well. I would arrive home and lock
Jason. myself in the bathroom, crying and refusing
to come out. It wasn’t just teen hormones
He was behind me, his arm across my that would cause me to snap at my mom,
chest and gripping me by the opposite but teen misery. I put even more time and
shoulder, holding tightly so that I couldn’t effort into choosing my school outfits, put-
move. With his free hand he slapped my butt ting my mask on, fixing my hair into Velcro
repeatedly. As he struck me, he shouted out rollers so that my haircut, layers to emulate
to the group that had gathered around us, Rachel Greene from Friends, fell perfectly. If
“Look at this fat ass. Your ass is fucking huge. I could look prettier, maybe he would leave
Have you ever seen such a fat ass?” me alone. The prettiest girls never got bul-
lied from outside their group. That harass-
I was frozen. Horrified. After several ment only came from within.
rounds of this indignity I broke free of
his grasp and escaped, in tears, from the This did not work. The agony continued
lunchroom. I refused to enter it for weeks, through to the end of sophomore year.
choosing to eat my bagged lunch in the Summer came. I lost a bunch of weight.
dimply lit lobby outside. My friends sat with When we entered eleventh grade, I had a lot
me. more confidence. I wore less makeup. My
group of friends had expanded. As a high
Why did he bully me and bully me so ag- schooler, it was all about your appearance.
gressively? Was it because we were from a To me, nothing was more important than
shitty town with nothing to do? Because I being physically attractive to the opposite
had pushed him away from me in the coal sex. Bullies thought the same way. Jason
banks? Was he trying to make himself more branched out to other victims. He couldn’t
powerful? Look cool? Was he just that big make fun of my fat ass anymore.
of an asshole?
Fall and winter passed without much in-
It was all those things. Life, including cident. Then, a rainy morning in early spring,
bullying, is complicated. And it complicated I heard that nasally voice echoing down the
my life. He made it so that I feared going to long hallway where most upperclassmen
school every day. My heart would pound as classes were held.
I entered homeroom, hiding my fear behind
a big smile and fake laughs at things friends “Here comes someone waddling down
and classmates said. You don’t bother me. the hall.”
But he did. I was filled with dread every time
I stepped into the lunchroom, wondering It was me who was waddling.
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There was a reason for this. It was the It was the most innocuous affront he had
same reason for my summertime weight ever directed at me, but, at the same time,
loss. the cruelest. Yes, I was waddling, but I had
just had both of my knees fucking broken
I have multiple epiphyseal dysplasia. and I was in a lot of fucking pain. The fury of
Danny DeVito suffers from the same ail- a year’s past of bullying combined with my
ment. It is a genetic condition-thanks Dad- pain and I was overcome with the rage and
that affects the ends of your long bones. the need for retribution.
It can cause deformities in your legs, hips,
back and/or arms as one grows. I am for- My next class was just a few doors down
tunate and only my legs have taken on the and I hurried inside. The only person in the
brunt of multiple epiphyseal dysplasia. room was my Physics teacher. I slammed my
heavy Science book on the table as I huffed,
I was diagnosed at age five, when my “I’m so angry I could punch him.”
growing legs started to grow into each
other. My knock kneedness became more Mr. Skechus shrugged. “Well, why don’t
and more obvious as I grew, but my doc- you?”
tors advised against corrective surgery until
I finished growing. At fifteen, and five feet I looked at him. Mr. Skechus wore a bushy
tall, I made the decision to have double re- gray moustache and a perpetually amused
constructive surgery. expression that matched his acerbic sense
of humor. Tanya would end up marrying his
The operation took place the day after son, Teddy, fifteen years later. They shared
my sixteenth birthday. May 27, 1998. Both a similar wit. I couldn’t tell if Mr. Skechus
femur bones were broken, and titanium was serious or not, but I took his question
rods were hammered down the entire as permission.
length of each long bone to hold my newly
straightened legs in place. I spent a week in The adrenaline coursing through my
the hospital, connected to a morphine drip body was fierce. I was riled up and no
that I only used once because I didn’t like longer felt any pain. I marched, not wad-
getting high-yet. Between the anesthesia, dled, out into the hallway to meet Jason
pain pills, and trauma from the surgery, I three doors down. He stood like an overlord
didn’t have an appetite for weeks. in the doorway of his next class, observing
the action in the hallway and occasionally
The summer was spent in wheelchair calling out a greeting or insult, depending
as I attended physical therapy three times on whom he laid eyes on. His hands were
a week learning how to walk again. Junior in the pockets of his letterman jacket, which
year began three months post op and I still he wore more than necessary so that he
walked with a noticeable limp that disap- could proclaim to the world that he was a
peared with time. The limp, my waddle, member of the football team.
came back in inclement weather. Rain, snow,
any kind of front that moved in caused an I stood defiantly before him, standing
ache in my knees that made it painful to up straight and proud with my head tilted
walk. up so that I could stare him in the eye. He
looked down on me with narrowed eyes.
“Here comes someone waddling down
the hall.” “What do you want?” He sneered.
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“What did you say to me?” I challenged Physics preceded our junior class lunch-
him. time and throughout that entire period of
science I wavered between feelings of pride
He let out a scoffed laugh. “Ha! You can’t in having finally stood up to Jason and ner-
even walk right!” vousness that I was going to be suspended
for my violent outburst. Pittston Area wasn’t
I didn’t have time to think about what to a very large school, and my actions took
do next. My body took control over my brain place in front of dozens of students and
as I brought my hand back and involuntarily plenty of faculty. My actions were bound
curled it into a clenched fist. Using all the to be reported to the principal. I waited for
skills I had recently learned by following the classroom phone to ring, but the call to
along to Billy Blanks’ kickboxing videos and the front office never came. I like to imagine
evoking all the mental anguish this piece of that the school staff had been waiting for
shit had caused me into my right fist, my the day for someone to give it to Jason and
hand shot up and forward with all my might. that they all quietly pumped their fists in
I hit my target square on, or almost square exultation at me.
on. My hand made contact with his face and
his head rolled backward on his neck. Word had no problem in getting around.
Forty-five minutes later I made my way to
His head recovered quickly, back upright the lunchroom and my arrival was greeted
on his neck in a few seconds, but his face with a thunder of applause. Friends, foot-
betrayed his disbelief. Eyes wide in shock ballers, and peers made their way to me,
and jaw slack, he looked at me, his sneer clapping me on the back and grabbing me
replaced by an open-mouthed look of sur- proudly at the shoulder.
prise. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Rachael, I can’t believe you did that!”
Once again, my brain had no time to said in a completely different tone than
think about my actions. Possessed by the Jason had muttered that sentence.
ghost of Bruce Lee, I punched him again.
And again, my fist hit its target and his head “You are fucking awesome!”
rolled backward. Fool me once, shame on
you, but fool me twice, shame on me. Yes, “Way to go!”
shame on you, Jason. The “athlete”, with
over a foot of height and pounds of muscle My classmates may also had been ea-
on me, had just been punched twice by a gerly anticipating the day that Jason was
diminutive and essentially handicapped girl. stood up to. Who would have thought it
would have been me?
“Don’t you ever fucking talk to me again!”
I shouted at him. Though she be but little she is fierce. I am
strong, and not just in the physical sense. I
My heart was racing, and I could feel tolerated Jason’s mental abuse for months,
it pounding the blood throughout my going to school and making it through each
body. I was warm and breathing heavy and day no matter how much I hurt on the in-
couldn’t really make out what was hap- side. He made my life suck, but I persevered.
pening around me. I stormed off before he This takes courage.
could reply, making my way back to Physics
class, where Mr. Skechus began class as if Violence is not to be condoned, but
nothing had happened. sometimes it may be the only option left to
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bring about change. My self-preservation He never bothered me again, nor did I
was on the line and someone like Jason see him after we graduated. Twenty years
would never have stopped his bullying ti- later, on the rare occasion that my mind
rade through words and reason. The bul- takes me back to high school, I wonder
lying would have continued in some form if about him. Where is he? What does he do?
I had not taken action that day. Is he a middle-aged bully? One thing that I
don’t question is that he’s gone downhill
Jason took my words to heart. We still since. High school was his peak. After all,
had the rest of junior and all senior year isn’t that what the movies teach us about
to get through. Twelve months of sitting in bullies?
the same homeroom and socializing in the
same circles without a word ever coming
my way.
About the Author
Rachael Wesley: I am an unpublished author who is
looking to change that. I live in Denver and am a writer
and a high school intervention teacher. I find life to be
the most fulfilling when I can spend time with my loved
ones, traveling, and seeing live music. The pandemic has
drastically changed this, and I currently find my sanity with
outdoor activity and escaping with reading and writing.
135
THE DOMESTIC SIDE
OF IMPERIALISM
by Mariana Graciano
Fantasmas In March 2020, with the breakout of Covid
in New York, we left our tiny apartment
The night before the election my 3 –al- in Brooklyn and moved to the house we
most 4–year old son, Camilo, woke up had just bought a couple of months be-
with nightmares at 3 am. “Tengo miedo de fore in Upstate NY. The house is located
ghost,” he told me as I was snuggling him near the Catskill Mountains, surrounded
back in his bed. His sister, Nia (2), was still by woods, lakes and farms. My husband
–luckily– sound asleep in her crib. I hugged and I were able to buy it after a long and
him, kissed him, combed his curls with my exhausting back and forth with banks, real
fingers and whispered in his ear: “los fan- estate agents, accountants, and lenders. It
tasmas no existen.” I then remembered we was a stressful process throughout which I
had just watched The Nightmare Before learned what “systemic racism” is. We did
Christmas over the weekend. I went back everything electronically or over the phone.
to my room. My husband –I could tell by It wasn’t until the final signing that we all
the noise of his deep breaths– was also met in person, but my husband’s name is
profoundly asleep. I tossed and turned in Jamil Hoskins and any person in the States
bed for a while, first regretting the select- can tell his race just by reading his name
ed movie to celebrate Halloween but then on a file and/or hearing his voice over the
feeling his anxiety as a mirror of mine, our phone. The same is true about me, my
fears about the coming election. name and the way I speak.
Cars Here in Germantown –as in most of the
country– you have to drive everywhere.
The day went by quickly; no ghost was re- That was probably the major thing that
ported at school or during naptime. On caught my attention when I first visited my
Tuesday afternoon we all (my husband, my husband’s hometown, Davenport, Iowa, ten
daughter, and I) went to pick up Camilo years ago. We had to drive to go anywhere.
and head to the store to buy some food. No sidewalks, no subway, nothing. One
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afternoon, as we were driving to the movie them decide to remove the guns? Why have
theater with his mom, she started telling us they reversed that decision?
what she remembered of her teenage years,
how certain movie theaters in Iowa were for We get some groceries to cook dinner
white people only. Same with public trans- and drive back listening to the news on the
portation, schools and so on. I knew those radio. We watch a beautiful sunset over the
things had happened in this country but I mountains, blues and oranges in the skyline;
didn’t realize how recent, how deep and yellow, brown and crispy foliage, a deep
how fresh the experience of segregation ocher landscape on the side of the road
was and is. but our anxiety is rising. “I’m absolutely not
prepared for the worst,” I say to Jamil. “At
Now we are driving to the store with least this time I feel like I did something,”
our two little Black and Latino kids. As we he replies calmly. And he did. He regis-
pass by some farms with Trump 2020 signs, tered to vote in Iowa –a swing state, I have
we start talking about family separation learned over the years– and decided to fly
and what’s happening at the border at this there –in the middle of the pandemic– to
very moment. Five hundred and forty five vote in person. Not only that, he convinced
children, who were separated from their his cousin Mike to go vote with him too.
families at the border under the “zero tol- “What’s the point of voting?” was Mike’s
erance” policy, have not yet been reunited argument. “What’s the difference between
with their families. The Trump administra- two privileged old white men? There’s no
tion even dared to argue that those par- real choice.” And even though in a way he
ents “don’t want” their children. “I heard was right, my husband just asked him to re-
that more than 60 kids are under 5 years member that one or two generations ago
old,” my husband adds to the equation. My their families didn’t even have the right to
stomach flips. What kind of person would vote. Some of them were picking cotton in
vote to re-elect this president after hearing Mississippi; others were chased by the Ku
that? That simple piece of information. 545 Klux Klan; many of them are still in jail.
CHILDREN still separated from their families.
Breathe
Our kids start singing “Baby Shark” in
the back and we need to change the sub- We arrive home. We decide to prepare lasa-
ject. I don’t say anything else for a while but gna, our favorite comfort food and hoping to
when we are parking at Walmart another lift our spirits we play Aretha Franklin loudly
piece of information comes to my mind: while cooking. Camilo and Nia start jumping
Walmart announced Friday that they would and dancing in the living room. After dinner,
be reversing their decision to remove guns we set the kids up with cartoons on the
and ammunition from their sales floors in iPad at the kitchen table, then my husband
anticipation of civil unrest in the lead-up and I take over the couch and the TV in the
to Election Day. There is just so much to living room. The map on the screen is not
process in that single sentence. Since when looking good: 11 Electoral College votes for
does Walmart sell guns and ammunition? Trump vs. 8 for Biden. A heavy grey rock of
Are there guns available in this store that anguish arises within me and settles on my
we regularly come to with our kids, where diaphragm, making it difficult to breathe. I
we get their toys for Christmas? What made try to breathe more consciously, deeper.
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I’m currently finishing a book that I’ve years ago, election night on November
been writing for the last three years about 2016: I was 38 weeks pregnant with my
my family history and their/our relationship first son. I saw Rachel Maddow’s face de-
with breathing. My great grandmother died composed on camera, mirroring my face,
of asthma, my grandma of COPD (Chronic watching the map turning red and red and
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), my father of red. How many people had voted for the
lung cancer and I was diagnosed with allergic most misogynistic, racist, egotistical, in-
rhinitis when I was five. With the pandemic competent candidate in history? Before
my need to understand respiratory diseases even taking office, he had already insulted
has, of course, increased. Breathing is what every aspect of my identity as a woman,
makes us alive –it’s how prana travels though an immigrant, dark skin, working class hu-
the body, our life energy– and yet breathing man being. What hurt the most then (and
is also what makes us vulnerable, what con- still does) is realizing how many millions
nects us with everything and everyone at all of people agree with him, how many mil-
times, uncontrollably. Our bodies are always lions of people felt and feel represented
open and in need of air. That which is out- by him.
side of us –the context– enters, comes inside,
touches all our internal organs, transforms That night four years ago, we –like many
our chemistry, and then exits us to move on others– decided to stop watching and lis-
to the next one. tening to the news. We felt betrayed by
all these news anchors and commenters
During the lockdowns of major cities in whom we trusted daily to inform us.
across the country, George Floyd was killed. Looking at the media on election night 2020
On June 7th we took our children to their the same feeling comes back. NBC, NPR,
first march to demand justice. With masks ABC News, they are all showing different
and social distance we wrote together with numbers, different projections, different
chalk on the street: “We want to breathe.” I explanations of what is supposed to be hap-
realized just then that Black history also has pening. We go to bed sad and disappointed.
to do with lack of air, suppressed human We wake up on Wednesday also angry. On
rights, and suffocation. Asphyxia could be both sides of the spectrum neither FOX nor
inherited, imposed or learned. The expe- CNN have a clue of what’s going on. There’s
rience of shortness of breath is reaching such a deep fracture, a deep disconnection
my children from both sides of the family. from reality, an inability to see and under-
How can I teach my kids to breathe better? stand what is happening on the other side
Something neither Jamil nor I learned how of your window.
to do, nobody taught us. Perhaps that is
the question I am trying to answer with the Reparations
book I’m writing. Seeing the mostly red map
of the US on TV on election night makes me On Wednesday morning even though
wonder if that’s even possible here. Biden has the lead, the map still looks so
red. I drop off Camilo at school and come
Flashback back home. Nia is drawing with crayons in
the living room. I start talking and crying
Nia climbs on the couch and snuggles into with my husband in the laundry room. “It’s
my abdomen like a baby. Flashback to four so fucking close,” I say. I just can’t believe
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the support that Trump and what he stands Ghostly Matters
for have. “The American culture is deeply
racist,” I say. “Yes, it always has been and I was born during the democratic transition
still is. The only difference is that they are in Argentina, the early eighties. My parents
not hiding it anymore,” he says. I know he is and grandparents’ generations grew up
right but I just don’t want our kids to grow experiencing the rise and the fall of many
up in this context, surrounded by people dictatorships. Mi papá –a salesman most
who look at them as second-class citizens. of his life– y mi abuelo –a shoemaker, milk-
Scanning the news on my phone, I see an man and tram guard– were fervent Per-
interview in the New York Times with Car- onists. Growing up, the memories of the
ey Georgas, an outnumbered Democrat in desaparecidos haunted not only every rally,
Republican-dominated Texas: “I was hoping demonstration or protest that I ever attend-
that this would be a chance for some heal- ed but also every high school event, every
ing, if there would be somewhat of a repu- 24 de marzo. In high school we had to learn
diation of Trump,” he says. “But I don’t see how to march safely, how to look after each
where the healing is going to come from other, how to make a list of attendees, safe
now.” Neither do I. I realized then that that places to meet, emergency contacts and
was my only hope. People would come to- to always have our IDs at hand. We grew
gether, exercise their right to vote like no up knowing that on September 16th 1976 a
other time in history and send Oogie Boo- group of high school students –looking just
gie home to his tower. like us, all under 18 years old– had been
kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered
My husband seems calm and centered. by the military only because they took over
I tell him I don’t understand, I feel so sad, the street demanding lower bus fares. Dis-
worried, fearful. I think he is at peace be- agreeing with the dictatorial status quo
cause he voted. I didn’t, I couldn’t. I moved was a crime, gathering in the streets was a
to New York from Buenos Aires in 2010. I crime, expressing an altruistic opinion was
barely got my green card last year, after punished with torture and death. Silencing
many years of waiting and paperwork. Now their voices was not enough; their bodies
I have to wait another year to start the pro- also had to be vanished, disappeared.
cess for citizenship. Hopefully I will be able
to vote in the next presidential election but I wrote my doctoral dissertation about
what if that is too late? My vote also falls symbolic forms of reparations after the
through the cracks of this gnawed system. dictatorship in Argentina. I do believe that
I’ve been living here for ten years, I have healing is possible both collectively and
two children born in the US, I work and individually through symbolic reparations.
pay my taxes here. My kids, my home, my When I tell my husband that I want to leave,
world, is here. I, like any other mother in that we should take the kids to Argentina,
the world, should have the right to choose and start a new life on the other side of the
what I think is best for their future. I am Equator, he tells me that it’s naive to think
seeing the country turning red, I see police that we won’t experience racism there.
brutality targeting individuals that look just “Here is too extreme,” I say. “There you had
like they will look in ten more years and I one dictatorship after another one,” he
can’t protect them. I feel invisible, useless, says. “Yes, all sponsored by the US with CIA
impotent. training included.”
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There’s a quote –more like half a sen- I put my phone away and go get the kids
tence– that usually comes to my mind in ready.
times of unrest since I moved to the US:
“el gran enemigo del género humano: los Camilo goes to preK from 8am to 3pm.
Estados Unidos de Norteamérica.” I read it Nia’s daycare is closed so she is at home
many years ago, it belongs to el Che Gue- with us. I have to use the time when my
vara, I believe that’s how he closed one of husband is taking care of Nia to work, but I
his speeches. He calls the United States can’t. I tell them I need to go for a walk or a
“the great enemy of the human race.” I re- run or something in between. I’m trying to
ally need to see the American people prove shake off this sadness, to detox. I warm up
him wrong. walking up the hills for a few minutes and
then start running just when Gustavo Cerati
Tongues comes up in my playlist: “todo está pasando
aquí y ahora,” he sings in my ears.
I then start taking notes in my notebook. I
have the need to write about how I’m feel- Red Choices
ing. I need to express my voice somehow
and I make the conscious decision to start We leave the house a little later on Friday
writing this text in English. To voice my to pick up Camilo at 4.30pm. He’s trying out
opinion and be heard, I have to speak the the afterschool program. Nia and Jamil wait
language of the Empire. in the car and I walk to the gym entrance to
ring the bell. One of the teachers sees me
Aquí y ahora and gets Camilo ready. He walks towards
the door with his jacket, mask and back-
I drink my coffee quietly in the kitchen, the pack on. He’s usually pretty happy when I
kids are still asleep. Through the window pick him up. He immediately starts talking
I see my husband in the woods. He has a in Spanish, telling me all the fun things they
small fire going, burning some dry branch- did in the school, showing me his drawings,
es and leaves. The sun is rising behind the etc. But this time is different. He is serious,
mountains. I know he’s mentally processing chin down. He puts one foot out the door
something. He goes into a meditative state and stops. “No!” He says and starts walk-
when burning old stuff. It’s his cleansing ing back inside. I call him calmly at first. He
process. All dead matter is given to the fire. walks back again. Two more teachers show
I read the news on my phone. It’s Thursday up trying to encourage him to walk to the
morning and the numbers are still the same door. I promise snacks and TV time when
since last time I checked before I went to we get home. Nothing. He is not interested.
bed: Biden 253, Trump 214. “This is a dark Because of COVID, parents are not allowed
and dangerous moment for American de- inside the school so I’m kneeling in the foy-
mocracy,” says the New York Times. Trump er holding the door open. Finally one teach-
supporters are staging protests in Arizona, er gives me permission to walk in. Camilo
Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. They starts running down the hall. I reach him in
want to stop the counting. The dark, heavy a corner and try to pick him up. He’s tall and
rock of misery shows up again in my stom- heavy. He fights back kicking and refusing
ach. I wish I could throw it in the fire too. to walk out with me. Now I’m mad too and
uncomfortable. Not only because of his tan-
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trum but also because there are three other Israel with her husband. This time she is 38
adults watching it, like passive witnesses. I weeks pregnant with her first baby. I rush
feel self-conscious because I’m raising my to turn the TV on and call Jamil back in the
voice in Spanish and that’s always tough, house. “47 years in Washington and he is
especially in public places. I feel observed, the candidate of change,” says the anchor
judged. Jamil comes to the rescue. With- on ABC news. That is the sad truth. I feel re-
out even trying to come closer to him, from lieved, excited about Kamala Harris but still
the sidewalk he says: “Camilo, stop it. Now” hurt. I think about Jamil’s family, I think of
with a very firm, calm and heavy tone that I Fede’s baby, and I think of mine, of us. The
can’t seem to find within me. plague still exists. We are not celebrating.
We are just quietly watching the news,
When we get home, we talk to him, ex- making something to eat. We sit at the
plain that that was very bad and leave him table to have lunch with the kids. I ask Jamil
in his “time-out chair.” No TV, no books, no how is he feeling, what is he thinking? “I’m
snacks. I look into his backpack and find a thinking of equanimity, you know... what I
note from the teacher informing us that learned in those meditations. Don’t go too
they are learning some kind of behavioral high or too low,” he says and draws a line
code. “Pre-K is learning about green and in the air with the palm of his hand steady
red choices,” reads the flyer. “Take every- like a horizon.
thing” is red. “Share” is green. Mean words,
yelling and talking over people are obvi- After lunch I put the kids down for a nap.
ously red choices... The message that we Jamil goes outside to check on those fires.
should re-enforce at home is clear: use your When I grab my phone again, I watch the
words, calm your body. Use your words. But two minutes video of Van Jones on CNN. So
what if his words are in Spanish? What if the honest, so moving. I cry with him, my heart,
people around him don’t understand what my body in complete empathy.
he wants or needs? Use your words, son.
I’m trying too. The Domestic Side of Imperialism
Equanimity We have been quarantining since January
1st after one of the two friends we spent
I wake up at 6am on Saturday to practice yoga New Years Eve tested positive for Covid.
before the kids wake up. I see Jamil outside. The isolation is unbearable at this point.
I can tell he has been up for a while because It’s been almost ten months since the lock-
he now has four different fires going. He is down in New York. Camilo’s school has
standing in front of the tallest, rising taller been closed since December 2nd. Freezing
than him, like a deity. For a moment I also temperatures, short and gray days, and the
stare at them, looking through my bedroom travel ban to fly home –where we usually
window. I’m trying to guess what he is pro- spend this time of the year– has taken a toll
cessing. I go to the kitchen and make some on all of us. I feel homesick at a new level:
breakfast. I check my phone. The numbers I’m sick of being home and I’m longing for
and the map still look the same. the summer we are missing in Argentina.
At 11.29AM I get a whatsApp from my I force myself to stay outside during the
dear friend Federica: “Biden, Biden, presi- day, even if that means walking in circles
dente!” She is an Italian journalist living in around the backyard for an hour. The ground
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
is frozen and my steps make a crunchy en- wrote Ernesto Semán a few hours after the
joyable noise. “Golpe en Washigton,” my attack for the Washington Post. I had a sim-
friend Tory texts me from California at ilar thought while watching the events in DC.
3.12pm on January 6th 2021 and I rush to For decades the United States orchestrated
come back in the house. Jamil is in the living right-wing dictatorships in Latin America.
room listening to news on the radio and My generation and the ones before me
trying to turn the TV on at the same time. have an imprinted memory of the attack
We are speechless. The kids hear the TV is on La Moneda in 1973, the coup d’état in
on at an unusual time and they also want Chile that deposed the democratic socialist
to sit in front of the screen. Nia jumps to government of President Salvador Allende.
my lap and Camilo asks confused “¿qué está
pasando, mamá?,” a few times. He doesn’t Luke Mogelson from The New Yorker
understand what is happening and I don’t reports hearing one of the insurrectionist
know what to say. Around the silhouette shouting: “Donald Trump is the emperor
of my daughter’s back, I see Confederate of the United State”, inside the Capitol. He
flags, Trump 2020 signs and a violent mob is not completely wrong. Underneath this
breaching the US Capitol. republic, underneath this democracy, lays a
cruel right-wing Empire that has been ruling
In 2014 –PreKids times, as we call it– the world according to the most basic in-
Jamil and I visited Washington DC for the dividualistic principle: defend private prop-
spring break. We have pictures together erty by all means. Plus an emperor is never
in some of the places they are showing on democratically elected.
TV now and those memories come hastily
to my mind. I remember a picnic under a Transitional Justice
cherry tree and walking up and down the
National Mall on a very hot day. I was struck It’s Wednesday again, two weeks after the
by the architecture and I remember feeling, coup attempt. Nia and I are sitting in front
every step of the way, completely intimi- of the TV, this time watching a solemn and
dated by those buildings and monuments. pristine Capitol ready for the Inauguration.
I remember vividly the sensation of being
insignificant climbing the stairs to see the Last night Biden paid tribute to the
Lincoln Memorial. The message was crystal 400,000 people who died during this pan-
clear: you are at the heart of The Empire demic. “It’s hard sometimes to remember,
and WE are unbreakable. but that’s how we heal. It’s important to
do that as a nation.” I agree with him on
On the news they keep repeating, “This that but at the same time I know there is no
is not what this country stands for, this is possible reparation or healing without jus-
not us, they are not patriots”. But this, to tice. That is the main lesson we learned in
my Argentinean eyes, is extremely Amer- Latin America and what people across the
ican: a mob of armed violent racist white country have been chanting in the streets
men chanting USA, USA; disregarding the like a mantra: no justice, no peace.
popular democratic vote, ready to kill
whomever disagrees with them. Bodies remember. Engraved in the DNA
of my children are the stories of our families.
“Los fascistas del Capitolio sí representan In the collective body of this society mem-
a Estados Unidos y América Latina lo sabe”, ories of past atrocities are also engraved.
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In my dissertation I argue that ghosts in Inauguration. Maybe it is the beginning of
literature always come to demand justice. the healing process but deep down nothing
The image of George Floyd or the name of has changed yet and transitions are slow,
Breonna Taylor said out loud, evoking her, too slow sometimes. Nevertheless of some
invoking her in each march, in each mural, things I am sure: In a few years my children
in each text, in each photo are also claims will be able to vote and choose who and
for restoration. how they want to be represented. I am also
sure that more than 400,000 ghosts will
We are watching Sonia Sotomayor, Ka- haunt Trump’s nights in the darkness of his
mala Harris, JLo, Amanda Gorman, so many despotic life.
firsts in this very emotionally charged
About the Author
Mariana Graciano (Argentina, 1982) studied Literature and Linguistics at Universidad de
Buenos Aires, completed an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University and
a doctorate at The Graduate Center (CUNY) in New York City, where she has been living
since 2010 teaching literature and writing workshops. Her first book of short stories La visita
(Demipage, 2013) earned her the recognition of Talento Fnac in Spain. Her nouvelle Pasajes
has two editions in Spanish and one in English (Passages). In 2018 she received the Artist-
in-Residence Award from the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). She is currently a participating
author in the PEN / Faulkner Writers in Schools program and a professor at Pace University.
143
HOW COVID
STRENGTHENED
MY RELATIONSHIP
by Sarah de Leon
I am at a weird, in-between stage in my re- exit. If we wanted to, we could back out at
lationship. My boyfriend hasn’t popped the any moment. But it would cause a whole
big question yet, but everyone knows it is scene and annoy everyone around us.
going to happen any day now. He is more
than just ‘a boyfriend’ but he is also not Before quarantine, a wave of doubts
quite my fiancé. began to flood my brain. Are we going to
get tired of each another? Are we still going
For lack of a better word, he is my beyoncé. to have time for our relationship as we get
older and have more responsibilities? What
At the beginning of last year, we had if we fall out of love?
checked off all the things a couple should
do before getting married. I am not going to go into detail about
our on-again-off-again love story. But I can
Talk about future goals: Check. tell you no one would blame either of us
for having a few lingering doubts given our
Celebrate every major holiday together: 10-year history.
Check.
Despite the part of me that was ques-
Meet the families, change the relationship tioning our longevity, I was looking forward
status on Facebook, move in together, have to a great March. We had welcomed a new
the ‘kids talk’, get all the drama out of the puppy to our little family that already in-
way: Check, check, check, check, and check. cluded a dog I got with another boyfriend.
(I’m good at getting guys to buy me pup-
Like hand sanitizer, I was about 99.99% pies, I guess). We were planning on moving
sure we’re working fine. into our very own apartment without any
Our relationship is a car with its turn signal
on as it speeds towards the engagement
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Revista Literária Adelaide
roommates. Both our careers were heading grumpy during the day and insanely active
in a positive direction. Our first anniversary at night. I would sometimes change from
was on March 22nd. carefree to agitated within the same hour.
He would take my moods as they came, but
The global pandemic put an asterisk on I could tell that my anxieties began to weigh
our perfect month. on him as much as they weighed on me.
We moved back to our shared hometown In a blink of an eye, we had become
to be closer to our families. We are fortunate a married couple glued to the hips. We
that his mother has an extra room we could shared meals, finances, and a single room/
stay in for the discounted price of $0.00 a office space that we rarely ever left. We
month. had both gained some quarantine weight
and started looking scrappy and unkempt.
As a freelancer in the entertainment We had two high maintenance dogs
industry, I am not what you would call ‘es- always competing for our attention. Most
sential’. I had a lot of time to get anxious afternoons were spent staring at screens in
about all the doubts that continued to total silence. The only thing missing from
creep into my subconscious. our marriage trial-run was a ring, and the
espresso machine I want from a wedding
It only took a couple of days for me to registry.
feel like we were thrown into a test run of
what married life would be like. We had I started to get sick on Easter Sunday. I
committed to one another through sickness suffered from terrible chills and high fevers
and in health until death by COVID do we for a couple of days before I was taken to
part. the ER. I was ushered into a tent outside of
the hospital where I waited to get tested
I figured everything would be fine. We for COVID.
had already been living together, right?
What could possibly change? As usual, I was We were only five minutes away from
a naïve fool. home and I figured he was going to pick me
up after I got discharged. But my beyonce
The beginning of quarantine was rough. decided to wait outside of the tent for 3 ½
hours as nurses drew blood and hooked me
First came the boredom. Before the up to an IV.
pandemic spread, we were already living a
quiet, sheltered life. But at least then it was I was going to be fine that night. I was
by choice. feeling awful, but I knew I could have had it
a lot worse. It did not even cross my mind
Then our depression kicked in around for a second that I might die. As my be-
the same time. For a while, there was an yonce stood outside in his mom’s pink wind-
air of sadness even though nothing had breaker, he confessed it was something that
happened to us. We were growing lethargic he thought about several times. Later, he
together as the days wore on. would hug me tight and say he would not
know what to do if he ever lost me.
Cabin fever hit and we both started to
break a little. ‘The Shining’ started making Our energy began to shift. I have since
more sense to me as the days dragged on recovered and things have gone back to our
with little to do. Drained of energy and
inspiration, I was turning nocturnal. I was
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
new sense of normal except now, we are a I know for a fact we will absolutely continue
little more grateful. The fear of potentially to get very annoyed with one another due to
losing me gave him a new outlook on our boredom and bad habits. I know fur babies
relationship. The memory of my giant pink and, eventually, human children will test
beyonce waiting for me in the middle of the our sanity for many years as we continue to
night reassures me we are going to be okay. balance budgets and build a life.
I no longer have doubts about whether I also know that time will keep taking
we are good for one another. We get to live away things we take for granted. Our
in the modern-day equivalent of a marriage carefree social lives, our youth, and our
bootcamp. Being “stuck” together helped health will not be around forever. I know
us learn how to stay together. I can feel our there will be plenty of times where it will
intimacy get stronger with every long day just be him and me in a room together with
that passes us by. nothing to do and nowhere to go.
He cooks, I clean. He is better at disci- This all used to scare me – so much so
plining the dogs and I am better at making that I broke up with him twice before we
plans. He is the morning person, I am the finally got back together again. But I have
night owl. We have perfected a routine that gotten a sneak peek of what the two of
works for both of us as we make the best us are capable of when we are strong. I
out of a globally bad situation. get why people say some of the strongest
bonds happen in the midst of adversity.
For the first time since we have known
one another, I finally feel like we are more I do not know what else this life will throw
than just high school sweethearts making our way, but I am not scared anymore. My
Shakespearian levels of mistakes. I guess doubts have been replaced by daydreams.
this is what growing up feels like.
About the Author
Sarah de Leon is a writer, producer, and talent manager
living in Eugene, Oregon with her boyfriend and two dogs.
To learn more about her, please visit www.sarahdeleon.com
146
YOU ARE MY
SUNSHINE
by Laura Gaddis
Evelyn and I rocked in the glider. With her requirement for her departure. The goal at
birth two months before we expected, we first was small: a few milliliters of milk. Then
had little more than a crib, mattress, and a ten, then twenty, then twenty-five, and
carseat. We had some clothes and diapers eventually the full bottle at thirty. The first
from the baby shower the month prior, but night she took thirty Jason and I had already
no one had given us preemie sizes. We had gone home for the day. When we returned
planned to buy a glider–the rite of passage in the morning, a nurse had left the empty
for new parents with dreams of feeding bottle on Evelyn’s isolette bed with a note
their babies, rocking their babies, and sing- saying I drank the whole bottle!
ing to their babies in comfort–but didn’t
think we’d need it yet. The nurses had given us extra bottles
and nipples as a parting gift to use until Ev-
Amazon will deliver a CHAIR? I had asked elyn graduated to the Dr. Brown’s bottles
Jason when he suggested we have it deliv- we had bought from Target.
ered to our third-floor apartment. Sure!
You can get anything from Amazon, he said. At home, her feeding schedule and my
From Evelyn’s bedside in the NICU, we put pumping schedule worked in tandem: I fed.
the oversized, overstuffed chair into our vir- She ate. I pumped. She slept. I labelled the
tual shopping cart. It arrived in two days and milk bag with the current date and the date
awaited Evelyn’s arrival four weeks later. three months out. One bag went into the
freezer and I took out another to thaw.
Her four-pound body laid on my legs. I
watched her take the bottle. Her mouth “Ok, baby, I have to put you down so I can
opened slightly, her eyes stayed closed, like pump,” I told her.
a fish blindly searching for the flakes that
float from the top of the water. The nipple She laid in her rocker with vibrations
of the bottle disappeared between her that were supposed to soothe her. I pulled
slender lips, and we rocked. her back-and-forth her a few times, until I
was confident she seemed peaceful. I sat on
She had found her suck reflex before the bed, only a few feet away from her, and
she was discharged from the hospital–a
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Adelaide Literary Magazine
began assembling the pumping equipment. “Please stop crying, baby…”
The tubes on the machine. The funnels that Her tones took on a curvature that bent
attached the tubes to my body. The bottles them up to the top of a scale; to the shrillest
to the ends of the funnels. of keys on the right end of a piano, and back
down. It reminded me of when I was young
Evelyn watched. and took piano lessons. The trill, the fast
flickering between two notes, my fingers
I hooked up the nursing bra, the kind flying as fast as they could go.
outfitted with two holes for the flanges I remembered a commercial for John-
to go through and from where the bottles son’s & Johnson’s baby wash with a mother
hung. I turned the dial. The whirring began. gently singing “You Are My Sunshine” as
she sat on the edge of the bathtub. I recog-
Evelyn began crying. nized the melody, the cheeriness it exuded.
But I had never learned the lyrics. I pulled
“Don’t cry, Evie,” I said. out my phone and searched.
Once I found them, I sang:
She didn’t stop.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
“Mommy’s right here.” You make me happy when skies are gray…
She wailed. High-pitched, arching notes My voice was dampened by tears, the
that reverberted her vocal cords and my grinding gears, Evelyn’s rhythmic wails.
fused, vertebrae-less spine.
You’ll never know, dear,
Jason was at his office at Wake Forest How much I love you,
University. The neighbors to the left of us Please don’t take my sunshine away.
and across the breezeway were strangers.
My co-workers were busy at the psychology I held my phone in my left hand, my
clinic twenty minutes away. My parents, right clutched the half-filled bottles. If they
who lived in Wisconsin, had gone home fell, which they hadn’t yet, but if they did, I
from their visit. Jason’s mother was back in would have just one more reason to cry.
Virginia. His aunt and grandmother had not
yet made it out from Maryland.
Evelyn and I were alone.
I couldn’t stop the machine. My breasts
were engorged; it couldn’t wait, not if I
wanted to prevent a third round of mastitis1.
The cords kept me bound to the mechanical
plastic evil necessity.
I couldn’t get to Evelyn.
1 Painful lines of red crossed my chest, the clogged milk ducts preventing the milk from being expressed. The
fluid that was so vital to Evelyn’s growth had nowhere to go. Neither did the pain. The first time I had mastitis, I
thought I had the flu: chills, fever, body aches. Jason called the doctor, who mercifully did not ask me to be seen
before prescribing the antibiotics. The second time I had it, the ache in my ankle bones gave it away. I pumped
through the infection, the pulling of my skin feeling like a ripping of flesh. I said if I get this one more time, I’m
done with pumping. A month later, I packed up my pump for good.
148
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Adelaide Literary Magazine is an independent international monthly publication, based in New York and Lisbon. Founded by Stevan V. Nikolic and Adelaide Franco Nikolic in 2015, the magazine’s aim is to publish quality poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography, as well as interviews, articles, and book reviews, written in English and Portuguese. We seek to publish outstanding literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and to promote the writers we publish, helping both new, emerging, and established authors reach a wider literary audience.
A Revista Literária Adelaide é uma publicação mensal internacional e independente, localizada em Nova Iorque e Lisboa. Fundada por Stevan V. Nikolic e Adelaide Franco Nikolic em 2015, o objectivo da revista é publicar poesia, ficção, não-ficção, arte e fotografia de qualidade assim como entrevistas, artigos e críticas literárias, escritas em inglês e português. Pretendemos publicar ficção, não-ficção e poesia excepcionais assim como promover os escritores que publicamos, ajudando os autores novos e emergentes a atingir uma audiência literária mais vasta. (http://adelaidemagazine.org)
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