Adelaide Literary Magazine No.23

Mrs. Wright took a labored, shivery breath. “Chill, Miss, it’s okay! I can retake it in August!”
“I’m sorry, that was inappropriate. I’m just
so...I just can’t believe…” She laced her fingers “Yes, but you won’t have been doing any of the
together, gnawed a loose sliver of skin on her prep work for two months. You’re far less likely
bottom lip. “What were you doing during the to pass if you take it in August.”
ELA exam? Why weren’t you there?”
“I’m gonna study on my own, and my mom
“I had a really good reason.” Her lips curled signed me up for a prep class outside of
into a smile. Her eyes were now fixed on Mrs. school.”
Wright’s. Sparkling.
In August it didn’t count, because it wouldn’t
Nahima opened her tapestry bag and pulled be Mrs. Wright’s hard work that helped her
out a slim paperback. “Look at this,” she said. pass. If Nahima could pass on her own, if she
didn’t need her, then what the hell had Mrs.
Mrs. Wright took the book. It was sleek and Wright been doing all this time? Getting pneu-
blue and decorated with a photograph of Gem- monia, dragging ass into school at 7 AM, stick-
ini Delgado looking terrified. Written in Ameri- ing out the year through her treatment…she
can Typewriter Font: FAFSAphobia, poems by felt nauseas.
Nahima Dorian, photography by Gemini Delga-
do. “I had to go to a publishing party for the She sighed, clasped hands pressed toward her
book. They was willing to work around my ex- forehead. Her dry lips parted. She wanted to
am schedule, but I messed up the date, and by say, I could be dead by August, but she still
the time I realized they couldn’t fix it.” hadn’t told Nahima about the cancer. She
wanted to say, look at what I did for you, I de-
Mrs. Wright’s vision blurred into snowflakes serve catharsis, I deserve your passing score.
and static. One part of her mind wanted her to She could not, in good conscience, say such a
shove a fist in the air and scream victory— thing.
Nahima published a book of poetry, who the
hell did Regents Board think it was calling her So she just said, “oh. Okay. Good luck. Congrat-
incompetent? Somehow, though, that river of ulations on the book.” And shut her eyes.
pride dried up before it got to her mouth. She
could not speak over the rattle of her pneumo- “Thanks Miss,” chirped Nahima. “You can keep
nia-scarred lungs, over the creak of bones too the book. Read it over the summer if you got
chemo-fragile to hold her body up. time, I want to know what you think of the final
product!”
She looked at Nahima with her mouth hanging
open. Ran her fingers through her thinning hair With that, she strode out of the classroom,
and said, “I just can’t believe you did this to braids bouncing and back straight.
me.”
Mrs. Wright opened the book to the acknowl-
Nahima’s eyes narrowed. “Did what to you? edgement page. For Tazhane, it said. Of course.
You ain’t going to congratulate me?” Tazhane was Gemini’s girlfriend and Nahima’s
best friend. She hadn’t expected to see her
“Nahima, you skipped the Regents exam! You own name, but its absence made her boiled
know you can’t graduate without it, so why eyes burn.
would you do something so stupid?!” Mrs.
Wright’s voice was thin and shouty. She had to She stood up, her muscles snapping and
clutch the desk to keep from falling off it. screeching, and walked to the principal’s office
to inform him that he would have to find some-
one to take her place next year.

About the Author:

Anna Lindwasser is a freelance writer and edu-
cator living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work
has appeared in Black Heart Magazine, Verdad
Magazine, Whiskey Island, The Charles Carter,
and on Ranker.com. You can find out more
about what she's up to at annalindwasser.com.

BROTHERS

by Jeremy Ford

I wasn’t sure my brother understood what hap- job, not about our father abandoning her, nev-
pened. I knew he didn’t understand what it all er about Jacob.
meant. You see, Jacob’s didn’t process things
the way you or I would. They’d told us he was When I got to high school, I took a part-
on the spectrum. Which meant little to me. I time job at a mechanic shop to help with the
knew my brother better than anyone—well, bills. My mother and I worked out our sched-
except maybe my mother—surely better than ules so one of us was always home with Jacob.
any doctor or psychiatrist. Now that I had graduated, I was ready for a
better job, with better pay, benefits and all
Jacob did have a tough time expressing that. My mother would have less to worry
himself; that I will admit. He’d holler if you did- about. She could stay home with Jacob and
n’t come home at the exact time he expected. things would get better. It’d be my way of pay-
He’d repeat words and phrases as if the rhythm ing her back for everything she’d done. Jacob
felt good on his tongue. And more often than would be better off too.
not, his responses had no relation to the ques-
tion you asked him. Jacob was a smart kid It happened two weeks after graduation.
though. He was good with numbers and things Jacob and I were driving to town to pick up a
like that. It was the big abstract ideas that gave bag of red potatoes for my mother. She was
him trouble. The hardest thing was he could making pork chops for dinner. We were on a
never tell you he loved you. road I’d taken every day of my life. A road on
which I sensed the approaching bends before
It was just the two of us and our mother at the headlights revealed them. Even in the dark,
home. Our father ran out on us when I was six I knew the trees and distance to the ditches. So
and Jacob four. My mother worked hard to I had no worry when I took my eyes off the
support us. She was a waitress at a steakhouse, road to find my can of dip. But the truck drifted
had been since before I was born. Needless to to the shoulder and when I looked up it was
say we didn’t have much money. She never too late. I heard this terrible explosion,
complained though. I’m sure her feet had to slammed the brakes, and watched through the
hurt from pacing back and forth across the windshield as a man helicoptered in the air and
restaurant, and it was obvious when her back landed in the grass. He laid there motionless,
started giving her problems. Still, she never his arms and legs splayed like disjointed vines,
said a word. Not about money, not about her

two streaks of blood running from his nostrils In all the confusion, I’d forgotten why we
onto his shirt. were driving to town in the first place. But
here’s the thing: Mr. Mason, the grocer who
The first thing that struck me, after the ini- presided over his store at all hours, had known
tial shock, was that I’d go to prison if I called us since we were kids, and I was certain the
the cops or waited for them to show up. Jacob guilt had spread its pale gray color across my
wouldn’t have handled that too well. Equally face. I couldn’t show myself to him. Facing my
problematic, all the plans I had for the future mother was going to be enough. Until then,
would dissipate like steam off boiling water. It what I needed was time to think, time to calm
was wrong to flee but I believed I did it for the myself. More importantly, time to explain this
right reasons. Besides, there was nothing I to Jacob.
could do for the guy at this point. I knew a
dead body when I saw one. I’d ruined his fami- “Forget about the potatoes,” I said.
ly—my God, I’d ruined his family. If I turned
myself in, I’d ruin my own, too. “Mama said we need potatoes.”

I drove another mile before I pulled into a “She can cook without potatoes.”
vacant lot and got out to check the damage.
Jacob followed behind me. He held his hands “But we need potatoes.”
clasped above his waist. He shifted back and
forth on the balls of his feet. He had this still The clock on the dashboard showed 8:15.
expression as if nothing had happened. Mr. Mason’s store stayed open til nine.
“Store’s closed,” I said.
My entire body shook when I saw the dent
and the cracked headlight. I checked for blood “Mr. Mason closes at nine.” My brother
spatter. Somebody was going to find that body, never forgot a time or a number.
and if they matched the blood on the shirt to
the blood on the truck—suddenly I saw it “He’s out of town.”
again, lying in the grass, bloody and lifeless. But
what was I supposed to do? What would you Jacob seemed to accept that for the mo-
do if you were about to go from being a savior ment. He turned his head and looked out the
to a failure in your own family? That everything window. I reached in the center console for my
your mother worked for would be for nothing? dip, this time keeping my eyes focused on the
That you’d be worthless? I thought all I had to road. Looking through the windshield, the pine
do was make it to Monday without questions trees stood like ghostly giants against the black
being asked. I could take the truck to the shop sky. I rolled down the windows. The hot air was
and fix it up myself. Jacob and I got in and I hot and dense as mercury. I stuffed the pinch
whipped it onto the road toward our house. of tobacco in my lip, and the scent of winter-
green brought a sliver of comfort.
“Where we going?” Jacob asked. I was a
little concerned, but at the same time grateful, Three miles up the road we came to the
that this had thus far been his only reaction. intersection that forked into two roads both
going north. Colonial Road was a straight shot
“What do you mean?” home while Highway 21 curved a little east
before rounding toward our house. We’d taken
“We need potatoes.” Colonial Road into town because it was faster,
but I took the highway home. I couldn't pass it
“What?” again, lying there like a dead coyote. Plus, I
thought it’d give me more time to explain
“Mama said we need potatoes.” things to my brother. He’d still shown no signs
of witnessing the wreck or the body, and I wor-
ried whatever thoughts he was having on the

matter would suddenly burst through him at were brothers, and because of this, he couldn’t
the worst of moments. do without me and I couldn’t do without him.
This is what I came up with:
We drove a few minutes in silence. I had to
say something. Finally, “I don’t want you to “Do you remember when we were kids and
worry about what happened, Jacob. Everything the barn caught fire?”
will be all right. We just can’t say anything
about it. It was an accident.” “The barn.”

“Accident?” “Yes, the barn. Do you remember the fire?”

“Yes, an accident. An accident is when you “The barn. It was big fire.”
didn’t mean to do something.”
“It was a very big fire. Mom was outside
“He flew like the birds.” And there it was. screaming and you were in the there. Do you
The words stabbed through my chest like remember? How I ran in and pulled you out?”
shrapnel.
“Yeah, it was big fire,” Jacob said.
“What?”
“I got you out. And do you know why I got
“He flew like the birds,” Jacob said. you out?” I paused. “Because we are family. I
got you out because we are family and I love
“You can’t say that.” you.”

“But he did. He flew like the birds.” I wondered what Jacob thought when he
heard those words—“love” and “family.” He
“You can’t say that. Do you want me to go said them sometimes but never directed at
to jail?” anyone. I figured he just repeated the words
because he heard them. People say things even
“Jail?” when they don’t know what they mean.

“Yes, jail. Remember how I told you about “It was big fire,” Jacob said.
jail? Remember? That place next to the court-
house where they put the bad people.” “Yes, but I got you out because I love you.
That’s why we can’t say anything. We can’t say
“No jail,” Jacob said. He seemed to think for anything because we are family.”
a second. “Jail is for bad people.”
“Family.”
“That’s why you can’t say that. What if I
had to go to jail and you never saw me any- “Yes. Do you know what family is?”
more? Do you want that?”
He looked out the window and shifted in
“No,” Jacob said. “No jail.” the seat. “Family,” he said again.

In order to keep Jacob quiet about all this, We were ten minutes from the house. The
it wasn’t enough to tell him so. He wouldn’t engine rumbled. The smell of burning gasoline
understand it that way. I needed to convince billowed out the old muffler. I checked my
him why his silence was necessary. Not that it speed.
was his fault for expressing himself, or that I
wanted to trick him, or even thought I could. “He’s probably fine anyway,” I said under
The hardest mind to trick is one that is all rea- my breath, as if my mind was trying to alter the
son and little emotion, one diligent in detail, facts. “We weren’t even going that fast.”
more honest than beguiling. I could’ve easily
convinced a friend of mine, but with Jacob, I “Forty-three miles an hour,” Jacob said.
needed to show him the necessity of it: that we
“Forty-three miles an hour?”

“Forty-three miles an hour. The clock, the ed with patches of yellow lilies, and held a
clock said forty-three miles an hour.” He meant wooden spoon in one hand.
the speedometer, of course.
“Y’all get the potatoes?” she asked.
“How do you know what it said?”
I had no answer. A harmless question can
“I saw it. Forty-three miles an hour.” have so much intensity behind it depending on
the situation. I put my hands in my pockets like
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t see it. You didn’t a man awaiting his sentence.
see anything. And you can’t say ‘forty-three
miles an hour’ either.” “Miles?”

For a moment I thought about pulling over “No,” I was somehow able to mumble “We
to make sure Jacob understood what I was couldn’t. The store was closed. Mr. Mason
telling him. But we had to be home soon. We’d must be out of town.”
been gone for over an hour, and my mother
tended to worry. I’m not sure stopping “Out of town?” my mother asked. “I just
would’ve done any good, anyway. saw him yesterday.”

Looking back, there was probably some Outwardly I shrugged my shoulders; inside I
excuse: we got a flat tire, the engine died, we was in complete distress. Jacob stood next to
hit a deer, which would’ve explained the dent me with his hands together, rocking back and
and the cracked headlight, but none of that forth on the balls of his feet. My mother looked
occurred to me then. We drove down the little from me to Jacob then back at me. I thought
dirt path that led to our property and parked in right then mother’s intuition would kick in and
the yard. The front porch light and the kitchen tell her I was hiding something, that some mis-
light was all that lit the house. I was nervous. I truth underlined every word I said. But she just
didn’t know what was about to happen, how I turned back to the stove. “I can make rice with
would react standing before my mother stuck pork chops,” she said. “Is that all right with
in a lie, hoping neither Jacob nor myself re- y’all?”
vealed the truth. I sat in the truck and tried to
calm the tremble in my hands, but it was no No answer.
use. I rolled up the windows and got out. I
could almost see my mother moving around She removed the lid from the pot. The pork
the kitchen. The thought hit me that a mother smell, with onions, garlic, and thyme, rose in
can always tell when something is wrong with the steam as she stirred the contents with the
her sons, and my hands began to tremble more wooden spoon. She put the lid back on and
than ever, my spine itching to join them. stooped to grab a smaller pot from the cup-
board beside the sink. As I watched her strug-
Jacob walked a little in front of me. His gle to bend down, I had a strange sense that
short legs made quick little steps toward the this was my last opportunity to do something
house. Our feet crunched the ankle-high grass. for my mother, however simple it was. “Let me
The air clung like a leech. Sweat formed along get that,” I said. “I got it,” she said, and the
my hairline. I took the tobacco from my lip, opportunity was gone.
tossed it to the grass, and opened the door.
I didn’t know what I feared more: jail, or my
My mother was standing in front of the mother’s reaction when she inevitably heard
stove, her back hunched across her shoulders, the news. Even though Jacob and I were the
her frame thin as a pencil. Her wrinkles had only ones who knew anything, I started to real-
become more defined in recent years. She ize that at some point the truth would crash
wore a white dress down to her shins, decorat- down upon us. My mother wouldn’t get upset;
at least she wouldn’t show it. But the disap-

pointment—that’s what would hurt. There’d years, with no other intention, no other moti-
be the disappointment in myself, too—that vation than to be there for Jacob and me, to
feeling of failure, as if I was of no more value give us a better life than the one she’d been
than the father who ran out on us. That’s when given. I felt like I’d just crushed an injured bird
Jacob said, “He flew like the birds,” and every- in my palm while trying to nurse it back to
thing from the lines in my forehead, to the health. But what was I supposed to do? I was
wrinkles over my knees, even the knuckles bur- going to break down at any second, with my
ied in my pocket, locked up like a jammed body shattering like a thin pane of glass, and
door. I stood there a prisoner of my own guilt, everything inside me spilling out onto the floor.
not knowing what to say and so not saying any-
thing. I took a step toward Jacob and very softly
and sadly said, “Come on, let’s go to bed.” He
To my surprise, my mother didn’t react. She followed me down the hall. I watched him en-
put two cups of rice in a colander and washed ter his room before I went into my own.
it, then put the rice in the smaller pot with wa-
ter and ignited the burner. That night I laid in bed restless. Sleep felt as
far away as childhood. I stared at the posters
“Are y’all okay with rice?” she asked again. on the wall of Billy Cannon and Ricky Jackson. I
watched the window blinds hang still, with the
“I’m really not that hungry,” I said. The moon’s light touching the outside. I feared that
words came out of desperation, the way acts of if I closed my eyes I’d witness it all again, not as
courage come to those who run into burning a memory, but as a recurring horror in vivid
buildings. detail—the sound when the truck hit, the body
in the grass, the shirt looking as though it’d
“What do you mean you aren’t hungry?” been dabbed in a bucket of squashed cherries.
The innocent man stripped of his life by the no
“I’m kind of tired. I’m sure Jacob is tired, longer innocent eighteen-year-old. Then I
too. We might just go to bed.” thought about Jacob asleep in his bed. In a way
I envied him. I envied him for his innocence. I
“Jacob?” My mother looked at him. “Are wanted to go back to when we were kids and
you tired?” the future unknown, back when I was innocent
too.
Jacob stood there rocking on the balls of his
feet. He was looking off to a high corner of the I heard my mother put away the pots in the
room. “He flew like the birds,” he said. kitchen, then the floorboards creak as she
walked past my room toward hers. I consid-
“Why does he keep saying that?” my moth- ered going and telling her everything. Just to
er asked. She had this look of confusion on her get rid of it all. But I didn’t. I laid in bed and
face. stared at the ceiling, laid there a long time,
long after the house went as quiet as if it were
“I don’t know. He must’ve heard it some- abandoned.
where. I think he’s just tired.”
As the night went on, I knew there was no
My mother’s eyebrows turned toward her way this would stay hidden forever. It wanted
nose. “What am I supposed to do with these to pour out of me like a cloud unloading its
pork chops?” burden of rain. I wasn’t going to say anything if
I could help it—I didn’t want to confront the
“We can eat them for lunch tomorrow,” I consequences—but it was coming. Now my
said. only hope, my only request, was for Jacob to
understand what he meant to me, and for him
She sighed and returned to the stove. “Y’all
go on to bed then.” Her tone failed to hide her
displeasure. All she wanted to do was cook for
us, the way she’d done for eighteen or so

to realize what I meant to him. That’s all any- “My God,” my mother said, turning to the
body ever wants, really: to mean something. It television. Things like this didn’t happen often
was almost four o’clock when I fell asleep. in our town, so it was big news. She raised the
volume.
My alarm buzzed three hours later. I put on
jeans, a t-shirt, and a pair of boots and walked The newscast cut to a live shot of a reporter
across the hall, as I did every morning at seven, standing across the road from an area blocked
to wake Jacob for breakfast. His eyes blinked by yellow caution tape. Several police officers
open. He rolled over and sat up. He seemed to moved around behind her. What I saw next
move in slow motion. He looked fragile, almost gave me a chill cold enough to burn. Standing
helpless. There was nothing to say to him. I just next to her, with his gray hair and flannel shirt,
watched him and tried to appreciate who he was Thomas Mason, the grocer.
was. He put on a pair of pants then looked in
the drawer of the bedside table. He put on a I knew what was to follow, but I had no
shirt and opened the closet. choice but to stand there and wait for my life
to change. Out of the corner of my eye I saw
“What are you looking for, Jacob?” the color leave my mother’s face and the skin
go taught around her cheeks. Her eyes stayed
He mumbled something then stood in front fixed on the television.
of the mirror.
Mr. Mason told the reporter he had come
“You ready?” I asked, feeling as though I across the body after leaving his store the pre-
was asking myself the same question. vious night. He said he spotted it in the grass
on his way home, and that he didn’t know
We walked down the hall to the kitchen. what it was, but because it looked odd, he
My mother was already there. She laid several pulled over. While he spoke, the horrible imag-
strips of bacon in a pan then buttered some es of that poor lifeless figure swarmed me like
toast. She had the small portable television on insufferable wasps. My hands trembled violent-
the counter tuned to the local news. ly. My muscles clenched. My shoulders felt as if
they were crushing the sides of my neck. When
“Y’all sleep okay?” she asked. he finished, my mother shut off the television
and faced me.
“Fine,” I said as Jacob followed in behind
me. “I thought you said Mr. Mason’s store was
closed?”
The news anchor finished one story. The
way he started the next petrified every bone in There was a long pause in which the only
me. He said a man’s body had been found on sound was the bacon cracking in the pan.
the grassy shoulder of Colonial Road. Gary
Patterson was the man’s name. His picture “Miles?” my mother said.
popped in the corner of the screen.
I said nothing. Any words that may have
I stared at the television, seeing for the first come to me froze deep in my throat.
time the brown eyes, small mouth, cropped
hair, and broad cheeks of the man I’d killed. “Miles?” She turned to Jacob.
The details of his face didn’t matter, but seeing
them made me feel like I knew him, like we “He flew like the birds,” Jacob said.
were somehow connected for the rest of eter-
nity, my children and his children, our grand- “Why does he keep saying that?” My moth-
children and so on. er’s voice rose. She now looked worried and
anxious. She was putting things together.

“Birds,” Jacob said. “He flew like the birds.” toast, and the three of us sat at the table and
He held his hands together like a man praying. ate as if nothing had happened. We talked
“The truck said forty-three miles an hour.” about the summer, about the places we’d go
and the things we’d do together.
“Miles?” My mother nearly shouted.
“Miles, please.” END

I still said nothing. About the Author:

“Miles?” Jeremy S. Ford’s flash fiction has appeared
online in the Akashic Books series Mondays Are
My mother wasn’t going to accuse me of Murder. His nonfiction has appeared in Bird-
anything. It wasn’t her way. She would wait for watching Magazine and Nola Defender. He
me to say it. I looked at her and then at Jacob. I lives in New Orleans and is currently working
thought about all the things Jacob and I regu- on a novel.
larly did together. Sundays at the Pancake
House. Breakfast at the kitchen table. Friday
night football games. They all seemed like dis-
tant memories now, memories belonging to a
previous lifetime. But there was something in
those memories. Something I hadn’t consid-
ered. It was the little details. The way Jacob
acted when you were there, and the way he
reacted when you weren’t there when you
were supposed to be. I knew then that though
Jacob may never be able to tell me or my
mother that he loved us, he felt it, and in his
own way knew what it was. He’d always under-
stood; it was me who didn’t. He just had a
different way of showing it.

At that point there was but one thing left to
do. I sat down at the table and told my mother
everything. I even told her how I tried to keep
Jacob quiet about it. I don’t remember exactly
what I said or how I said it. The words leaked
across my tongue as if I had memorized them
for a speech.

Jacob came and sat across from me. He
held his hands together as he moved back and
forth in the chair. His face was still and his
mouth hung open. His eyes were soft and deep
in his cheeks.

My mother looked at us with this sympa-
thetic glare in her eyes. Mothers know how to
handle certain things. They know what to say
and when to say it. And they know when to say
nothing. She finished making breakfast and
brought over three plates of bacon, eggs, and

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

by Miles Ryan Fisher

The frail boy cried such big tears in his tiny uni- At first I wasn’t so sure why he was crying.
form. Even though our game had just ended in a loss,
the players were all smiles during it, running
At first I didn’t even notice. Our game had the bases and playing the field. He didn’t make
just ended in a very anticlimactic ending, and the final out so there was no reason to think
after addressing the team, I tended to the the little guy believed the loss was his fault.
baseball equipment, picking up what was al- And let’s say he did make that final out. I
ways scattered here, always scattered there. I would’ve patted him on the back and smiled,
was on one knee, shoving my bat, the wood telling him, “Oh buddy, we needed more runs
one I used to hit the kids infield practice, into than just you!” And he would’ve understood.
my baseball bag when I heard something slight, And he would’ve been okay.
something soft that sounded like it came from
off in the distance. I looked up and dropped my “Is this about …,” I asked his mom and ges-
bag, my bat only halfway in. tured toward the ball field. She nodded, her
lips pressed together. I laid a hand on her
I walked a few steps up to the chain link shoulder and mouthed the words, Let me talk
fence, the one that protected us from errant to him.
baseballs flying into our dugout. The boy stood
there, his fingers curled around those chain “I’ll wait for you over there, Evan,” she said
links, clinging to them. to her little boy while motioning toward the
bleachers.
I looked to the boy’s mom, and she turned
to me, keeping a hand on her little boy’s back Evan. That name simply sounded like the
as it pitched up and down. The softness in her name of a boy who had trouble just lifting the
eyes didn’t appeal for help; rather it bespoke bat he was expected to swing. It reminded me
the consoling words she was probably offering of a book a friend gave me to read a few years
to her son. But she was his mother. She was before. In the book, a feeble boy named Owen
mom. She was the place he ran to when the struck a ball so hard that the ball ended up
world grew scary. killing some unfortunate spectator who wasn’t
paying attention. But that was a book. While
She was only able to hold him, though. She this—this was real life. A place where the boy’s
was only able to take him in and hide his eyes name was Evan, and Evan wasn’t able to hit a
from what frightened him. That’s why I walked ball hard enough to kill somebody. Because he
over. Because I was the one who could protect couldn’t even hit the ball at all.
him. I was the one who could erase his fear.

“Hey buddy,” I said to my whimpering ball- something more than that. I could see some-
player, his shaggy blonde hair falling from be- thing more than that. Something that the little
neath the sides of his cap. I hunched over, my boy himself couldn’t see.
hands planted just above my knees. “So what’s
up?” I asked with some lightness to it, a little I peered into the fat, black rims of Evan’s
‘it’s okay the sun is shining and you’re in the glasses to see the reflection of what threat-
hands of a coach who truly cares.’ But Evan ened him. For I’d learned to see things years
didn’t realize how rare that can be. All Evan ago, a time long before this little player was
knew was— born. Because when I was younger, what
threatened to come for him … had come for
“I …,” he sniffled, “I keep striking out.” me.

Striking out. Ah, yes. The most humiliating, ***
most degrading part of such a lovable game.
Swinging and completely missing the ball was “Again, Grant!” ordered Stein to his second
bad enough. Watching the ball cross the plate baseman. The high school varsity coach
and not trying to do anything about it was even slammed another ground ball across the gym
worse. But then being forced to walk in what floor right at the little second baseman, so
felt like slow motion back to the dugout was an small that every jersey he’d ever worn was the
experience that distorted this lovable game. exact same number—number one—because it
And this little boy, my last-in-the-lineup right was always guaranteed to be the smallest jer-
fielder, was starting to feel the fangs of a game sey. And in Grant’s case, also the dirtiest one
that was supposedly made for children. after the every game.

How foolish of me not to have realized. Stein’s ground ball skipped across the hard-
Many of my players struck out. Okay, all of my wood floor, and Grant shuffled a few steps to
players struck out at one time or another. But his left, staying low to the ground. He opened
Evan, he must’ve struck out every time. Didn’t his glove wide, held it out in front of his body
even put the ball in play? Not once? I could’ve as he squatted down, keeping his throwing
sworn I saw him on first base at one point in hand above it. He took in the ball, and without
the game. Maybe I hadn’t though. I wasn’t breaking his motion, he transferred it to his
keeping precise track. Not while I was responsi- throwing hand and tossed it across the gym.
ble for corralling twelve ten-year-olds. Specific
details are less important. Individual at-bats “No!” Stein shouted. “Like this!” He held
are less important. A single play in the field is out his hands, spreading them open with both
less important. Making sure all the players are palms facing up to show just how he wanted
in their proper positions and know how many Grant to field a ground ball. He slammed an-
outs there are and remember when their turn other grounder at the Grant, and once again
is in the batting order—those things are what’s Grant fielded it just as routinely as he’d fielded
important. the previous three.

And then I had the one player whose face “You shit! You little piece of shit!” Stein
swelled with tears. It was a different player, a yelled. “Keep doing it that way, Grant, and I’ll
different reason, but it happened every game. sit your ass on the bench!”
When I saw the tears crop up, those things that
were important suddenly became unimportant ‘But your way is the wrong way,’ Grant
and that one player—that little boy—became thought. ‘I learned it one way—the correct
what’s most important. Because when he way—and practiced it so much that the proper
cried, I looked into his eyes and saw his pain,
his fears. But within those tears there was

techniques are ingrained in me. Glove down. throw made by Lentz. A grounder completely
Top hand. Bring the ball in with both hands missed by Rudolf. Then one Johnson brother.
while transferring it to your throwing hand. Then the other Johnson brother. Followed by
Step and throw. You’re teaching me the wrong Recker. The number of players dwindled, and
way.’ those that remained in the competition looked
side by side to see who were left in the line.
“Now do it again!” Stein ordered. “No, The backup second baseman, Drover, fell. Then
wait. Step aside and let Drover go. I don’t McCallister. And Ricci.
want to see your face for a while.”
“Down to five,” Stein said after Dubek jug-
Grant couldn’t understand it. He’d worked gled a ball he usually fielded.
so hard for so many years developing the prop-
er technique, chucking rubber balls against a Stein then hammered the next ground ball
wall so he could practice his fielding when they harder than the rest. The ball skipped along the
bounced back to him. Over and over. While floor on its way to the gym wall until a glove
other boys his age were out socializing. Over flashed in its path, snagging it. Grant took the
and over. While other boys his age were out ball from his mitt and tossed it to Coach Bryan
dating girls. Over and over. While other boys in such a perfunctory manner it made the play
his age were doing anything but what he was look far more routine than it actually was.
doing, he’d stand there in the cold, in the rain,
in order to get it right. “Well at least you know how to backhand a
ball,” was all Stein offered.
“Okay boys,” Stein said, “let’s finish off
these winter workouts with a little competition Stein continued through the line. Whitey
to see who the best fielder is. Everyone form a gone. Then again through the line. And then
line. I’m going to hit a grounder, you’ve got to again. Gallagher gone, Hamilton gone. Until all
field it cleanly and make an accurate throw that was left was Grant standing a head lower
over to Coach Bryan. If you screw any part of than the team’s third baseman: his best friend
that up, you’re out. Now who’s first? McCallis- Jackson Bradley, who everyone called J.B.
ter, step up. Show them how it’s done.”
“Alright, let’s take a vote” Stein said. “Who
Grant watched McCallister clap at the first do you think’s going to win?”
ground ball, the ball popping up into the air.
McCallister reached out and snatched the ball The same name echoed through the gym.
before it hit the ground. He threw it to Coach
Bryan and got back in line. “Nobody thinks J.B. is going to win?” Stein
asked.
“Dude, you’re out,” Whitey, the team’s first
baseman, said to McCallister. “He’s out, Coach. “Alright, I’ll take J.B.,” Whitey said. “My
He didn’t field it clean.” bad, G-Man.”

“I said, ‘no drops,’” Stein said. “He didn’t Grant smiled. “It’s all good.” He meant it,
drop that.” too. Whitey was the first baseman who’d
played alongside him ever since they were
“That’s some bullshit,” Whitey said. learning where to throw the ball on the dia-
mond. He’d been one of Grant’s closest team-
“What’d you say, Whitey?” mates, which was why Whitey took it upon
himself to step outside the others and into
“Nothin’.” J.B.’s corner.

Stein hit grounder after grounder to player J.B. and Grant rotated through ground
after player. One by one they got eliminated. A balls. One after the other. Flawless. Almost as
grounder dropped by Wrightstone. A bad though they’d go through the night and into
the morning without a hiccup.

“This shit’s gonna go on forever,” Whitey His mom stopped stirring the sauce and laid
said. “Just miss one, J.B. You ain’t gonna win.” the wooden spoon against the edge of the pan.
“You mean how Mr. Stein’s treating you.”
“But you picked me to win,” J.B. said.
“I don’t know why, Mom. I don’t know why
“More like I picked you in order to lose.” he doesn’t like me.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” “Have you talked to him about it?”

“Life don’t,” Whitey said. “When he hates me so much?” Grant said.
“I was one of his best students a couple years
The chatter faded in Grant’s ears as he ago, and I thought it was gonna be so great to
crouched down, ready for the next grounder. have him as a coach now. I’m doing everything
But this one shot off Stein’s bat—a hard one I can, but he just wants to berate at me. I hate
hopper. Grant got in front of it and felt it sock it. I just … fucking hate it.”
him in the chest with a thump. The ball
dropped right in front of him, and he picked it His mom frowned. “You know, I really think
up off the hardwood floor and threw it across I should speak with the principal about this.”
the gym.
“Then he definitely won’t play me. And you
“Alright J.B.,” Stein said, “you field this one, can’t make him.”
you win,”
His mom bit her bottom lip, and Grant
“No way! That don’t count!” Whitey pro- could see how difficult it was for her to watch
tested. “That was so hard G-man he couldn’t this and know that he was right—there was not
do nothin’ but knock it down.” a thing she could do about it.

But Stein didn’t reply. Instead, he hit a The winter wore on, and Grant continued
ground ball that bounced a couple soft, routine practicing, continued preparing for the spring
times. J.B. bent his knees and lowered his whether that meant swinging a bat in weather
glove, not needing to lower it much. He caught that stung his hands, throwing a ball in snow
it and fired a perfect throw across the gym that nipped his neck, or jogging several miles
right into Coach Bryan’s chest. into wind that burned his face. He refused to
let a few abusive winter practices prevent him
“Oh now that’s some bullshit,” Whitey said. from doing as he’d always done. He loved the
sport—he loved being good at the sport —for
“That you’ll have to swallow,” J.B. said. way too long. So he battled through the ele-
ments to make himself as good a player as he
“I’m callin’ for a re-do.” could be once springtime arrived. And all the
while he hoped that maybe, just maybe, the
Grant watched them go back and forth until winter practices were some sort of inexplicable
he felt the hair on his neck prickle. He turned aberration.
and saw Stein standing right behind him.

“I knew you wouldn’t win,” Stein said and
walked away.

“How’d practice go, honey?” When March arrived, the team started with
a round of tryouts even though many of them
Grant heard his mom before he could see already knew they’d make the team. Grant was
her. He dumped his baseball bag and backpack one of these players. Still, he went through the
in the front hallway and walked into the kitch- tryouts as if they were true practices, and he
en. “Just like the others,” he said. did so without considering the possibility that

Stein might cut him from the team, not be- graceful. Then went to the back of the line at
cause he wasn’t talented enough to be on it, second base. But suddenly, after years of this
but because Stein simply didn’t want him to be methodical system, his quiet, diligent approach
on it. Perhaps he was young. Perhaps a little wasn’t the model example anymore. No, for
naïve. But either way, it didn’t occur to Grant Stein the little second baseman with sure
that someone could harbor such unprovoked hands appeared more like a disobedient player
desire to harm. So when Grant made the team, who’d strayed too far from where he was sup-
he did so unaware of exactly where it would posed to be.
lead him.
“You … go again!” Stein shouted.
The day following the last round of tryouts,
practice assumed a much more formal, more Grant turned and saw another ground ball
serious tone. It was time to unify. It was time already coming at him. He stepped up quick,
to prepare for the competition that was pre- crouched, and fielded it.
paring for you.
“Wait! You wait right there!” Stein bound-
“Everybody out to your positions,” Stein ed toward Grant, metal bat in hand. He thrust
ordered. “We’ll start off with some fielding, his snout into Grant’s face so that when he
then go into hitting.” barked, saliva sprayed onto the boy. Stein
pointed the barrel of the bat so that it was just
The players jogged out to their positions, inches from Grant’s hairless chin. “You listen
Grant stopping right at the second base spot to me you little shit. I’M the coach. You lis-
where he’d be the first to go. Just as Whitey ten—to ME. And if I tell you to do something,
did for first base. And Dubek for shortstop, and you better fucking do it. When I tell you to
J.B. for third base. They already knew they field a ball like this, I better see you field it—
were going to be in the starting lineup, so they Like. This.”
naturally went first, the backup players falling
in line behind them. As Grant turned toward Grant stood still. He didn’t say that the way
home plate, he noticed not one but two play- Stein was instructing players to field was
ers following him out to second. Originally wrong. He didn’t point out that aside from
Drover was the only other player who played McCallister, all the other fielders were also
second base. But now there was another play- ignoring his instructions. He didn’t ask why he
er. McCallister. The team’s six-foot-three was being singled out. He didn’t even wipe the
starting pitcher who, for the past two years, spit that wet his face. Instead, he just stared
played outfield in the games he didn’t pitch. into the gaping black hole of Stein’s mouth, a
But this year something must have triggered an hole surrounded by a set of teeth that ap-
urge to play infield. Maybe he felt bored with peared to grow sharper with each incisive re-
playing the outfield. Maybe he believed he was mark. He just kept staring and staring, word-
the best second baseman. Or maybe Stein told less, watching the hair on Stein’s unshaven face
him to shift from the outfield to second base. begin to bristle as the pupils in his eyes began
Whatever the reason, Grant wasn’t concerned to dilate.
about the added competition because he knew
he was the team’s best fielder. Grant’s teammates saw what was going on,
but none of them intervened. Not even Whitey
Stein hit fly balls to the outfield before or J.B. As these attacks continued and the sea-
pounding grounders to the infielders, working son neared, they’d repeat the same things to
his way across the baseball diamond. Third. him. “Man, I don’t know why Stein’s being such
Then short. Then second. Then first. As always, a dick to you.” “Coach Stein’s an asshole. A real
Grant scooped up the ground ball and made asshole.” “We got your back. You know that,
the play with a motion more mechanical than right?” But saying such things soothed Grant

only so much. Because Grant knew that just Stein hit a ground ball and McCallister
like his mom, his teammates were powerless as spread his palms to receive it. The exact way
well. Stein wanted his fielders to field. The exact
wrong way fielders should field. McCallister
He pressed on, however, carrying his work swung his hands to together, clapping at the
ethic through every practice. He avoided eye ball. It deflected off his glove and rolled away
contact with Stein for as much of each practice from him. He scuffled after it, picking it up and
as he could and spilled his heart onto the field, firing it in frustration to first.
making every play, hitting every pitch, and div-
ing headfirst into every base. During scrimmag- “Just like that, Grant! You see how
es he played the same way, starting at second McCallister fielded that ball? Like THIS?” Stein
base and batting leadoff in the lineup. And in held his palms open. “That’s what YOU should
spite of how Stein continued threatening him, be doing. Watch McCallister and learn.”
he thought that because he started in the
scrimmages everything was, everything would ‘But he didn’t even field the ball,’ Grant
be, alright. But perhaps that was simply what thought. ‘He bobbled it. He bobbled it and got
he wanted to believe. praised while I made the play and got berated.’
Grant felt something sweep through the air,
The first game of the season finally arrived, something that made him quiver and made his
and as the team took the field, Whitey smiled stomach tighten more than it normally did be-
as he tossed a warm-up grounder over to fore a game.
Grant, who stood at second base. And even
though Grant’s stomach felt tight with game- “Bring it in boys!” Stein shouted. “And lis-
time nerves, he smiled back. ten up. Here’s the lineup:

However nervous he was, Grant came Ricci in center leading off
through in backing up McCallister on the
mound by fielding everything that came his (Grant’s stomach felt a sharp pang)
way. He added a couple of hits and stole a cou-
ple of bases, scoring the team’s only runs. Alt- Dubek at short batting second
hough they ended up losing a close game,
Grant played well that day. He played as well Whitey at first batting third
as anyone on the field, and yet it still wouldn’t
seem to matter. J.B. at third batting cleanup

Two days later, the team was poised for McCallister at second batting fifth …
their second game of the season. Grant took
the field for warm-ups and scooped up a prac- McCallister at second batting fifth …
tice grounder, inhaling it as if he were a vacu-
um, and threw to first. McCallister at second …

“Jesus fucking Christ, Grant!” Stein yelled. McCallister at second …
“How many times do we have to go over this!
Field the damn ball like …” McCallister at second …

‘I did field it,’ Grant thought. ‘I fielded it just Grant’s stomach wrenched. He felt it push
like I field everything. I never miss—’ up through his esophagus and clench his
throat, rendering him speechless. He stared
“Actually—fuck you, Grant. McCallister, into the distance where the treetops met the
you’re up.” sky as twilight started to set in.

“Grant!” Stein growled. “GRANT!” Stein
barked louder, his eyes beginning to dilate
again. “Stop standing there and sit your ass on
the bench.”

But Grant didn’t walk to the bench. He “But I always strike out. I didn’t even hit the
simply stood there, wandering in the wilder- ball.” By this he meant he hasn’t touched the
ness of his own thoughts where there was no- ball. So not only has he not hit a ball fair, he
body to protect him. It was as if he’d awakened also hasn’t even hit one foul.
on a mountainside with no life in sight. No
smoke steadily streaming from a chimney in “Okay. That’s okay. You know why?” He
the distance. No sound of voices echoing turned to me, and even though we were on the
through the skies above. No path, even, to same level, it seemed as if he still managed to
show him that somebody had at least been be peering upward. “Because every time you
there before. Just a thickness of trees hovering get up to bat is a new opportunity to not strike
over him and steep ground tilting beneath his out. It’s a new opportunity to hit the ball. And
feet. And once he felt the growls and heard the you know what? The at-bat after that is a new
barks, it was then that he realized just where opportunity, too. And the at-bat after that and
he was. the at-bat after that, they’re all new opportuni-
ties to try and hit the ball. But if you go up
They didn’t attack right away. No, they there thinking about how you struck out in
skulked Grant as he hurried through the woods your last at-bat, how do you think you’ll do?
and gasped for air, choking on his own chest. You think you’ll end up hitting the ball?”
His senses spiraled and his feet tangled, send-
ing him tumbling. He laid there for a moment, He shook his head.
his hands and his face skinned. He pressed his
palms to the ground, pushing himself to his “Exactly. Because you’re too busy thinking
knees. When he looked up he saw several sets about how you struck out instead of thinking
of eyes staring at him. He smelled the bile on about your new at-bat and how it’s a new
their breaths. They circled him. Slowly … slow- chance.” I leaned toward him. “If I tell you a
ly. And when they lunged at him, when they secret, promise not to tell anyone?”
finally decided it was time for their feast,
Grant’s final thoughts were of the courage he He nodded.
lacked—and how much stronger he wished he
were. “Sometimes,” I leaned even closer, lower-
ing my voice, “sometimes even I strike out. And
*** I’m your coach! And when I strike out would
you want me thinking about that in my next at-
I … I keep striking out. bat or would you want me to be thinking about
how I’m going to hit the ball?”
“Striking out,” I echoed. I looked at Evan,
vulnerable as he was. Such a fragile, little boy. “Hit the ball.”
“Hey come on, let’s sit down.” I summoned
him with my hand, come along, come along, “I hope you would!” I smiled and patted
and nodded toward the aluminum bench in our him on the shoulder.
dugout. Evan followed without a word. He sat
down, sucking air into his throat that was The tears in Evan’s eyes began to
clogged from his tears. I sat beside him and clear, and I could see what threatened him
hunched over so that my words were on his retreating. So I continued moving toward it.
level. “Everyone strikes out, you know that
buddy?” “You know who Ryan Howard is?” I asked.
Evan nodded. Of course he knew who Ryan
Howard was. Ryan Howard was one of the big-
gest names in professional baseball. Almost as
large as the home runs he could hit. “Well
would you believe that last season he struck
out over 200 times? 200 times! I don’t think

you’ve even had 200 at-bats in your entire life. “Okay. See you at practice.”
He struck out more times in one season than
you’ve ever been up to bat!” “You got it.”

Evan gave a little laugh. By the time I finished packing up, twilight
filtered onto an empty baseball field. All the
“And you know what? He strikes out in parents, all the players, everybody had left for
front of thousands and thousands of people. their warm homes and soft beds. I strolled out
When we strike out, it’s only in front of a few to second base and roamed the area I would’ve
people. Just moms and dads who are here patrolled had I played in the game myself. I
rooting for us. Not thousands of people like thought about Evan, how small and innocent
Ryan Howard. So we’re pretty lucky that we’re he was. He was such a fragile little thing. A
not Ryan Howard, right!” sheep who knew only what he’d been taught.
How could someone ever consider treating him
A small smile formed on his face, and his in a way that didn’t seek to erase his vulnera-
eyes grew brighter even though the sun was bility? How could someone take a creature so
falling and dusk was settling in. tiny, so harmless and instill it with fear? And
threaten it and intimidate it? To take its poten-
“So just keep practicing as much as you can, tial to be something good and devour it until
and the more you practice, the more you’ll there was nothing left to consume?
start making contact with the ball, okay?”
I looked above the trees and into the gray
He nodded. sky. They were still out there, those wolves
waiting for the opportunity to attack him. And
“And next game, every time you get up to as much as I wanted to forever be Evan’s
bat it’s a new opportunity to hit the ball, coach, I couldn’t. I couldn’t forever be there to
right?” shepherd him. I gave the dirt beneath me a few
light kicks as I looked to it and bit my lip. A rage
He nodded. rose inside me that I could no longer suppress
now that Evan was heading safely for home. I
“Give me a high-five?” lifted my head, and my heart grew adamant.
All I could think about was how a wolf like Stein
His delicate hand slapped my rough one, would one day come after that poor boy. That
calloused over from throwing thousands of he would one day be a reflection in that boy’s
batting practice pitches and hitting hundreds of glasses.
ground balls. I rubbed his shoulder and gave
him a pat on the back as I rose to my feet. “See I looked into the twilight that grew darker
you at practice tomorrow?” and the forest that grew thicker. I felt an over-
whelming urge to travel into the night, deep
“Yeah coach.” into those woods. I wanted to search for the
wolves that threatened him. And I wanted to
“Alright, buddy. Sounds good.” show them what happens when a sheep … has
become a shepherd.
He hopped off the bench, hoisted an over-
sized baseball bag over his shoulder, and head-
ed toward his mom, who’d been sitting on the
bleachers, her hands tucked under her thighs. I
returned to packing up all the equipment. The
baseballs. The helmets. The catcher’s gear.
Then Evan reappeared.

“Coach Grant, do you need any help?”

I smiled. I needed more help than he had to
offer. “Oh I’m good, buddy.”

About the Author:

Miles Ryan Fisher grew up in the suburbs of
Philadelphia and currently lives in Washington,
D.C. In his free time, he enjoys playing in an
adult baseball league and coaching little
league.

ALL SHOOK UP

by JW Burns

No one except Katherine Duff noticed when “Inherit the electromagnetic radiance.” His
the room began to vibrate. index finger brushed her tit.

The papers were neatly stacked in the cen- “Void in the hallow sphere.” Katherine
ter of the table, stamped, initialed, factored, patted his bottom.
weighed, sealed and hyperlinked. Now the
room was a testament to black coffee without They were traveling from Key West to Bos-
sugar or crosshatched space or a monkey with- ton in a slow, meandering way. Red was fire.
out hands. Not blood, though it's constantly associated
with blood. Granted, when blood is first viewed
“Well,” Fred patted his stomach, “I'm glad outside common boundaries, it's bright red,
that's over.” Put the leash around the polar not unlike turning leaves, but such hue decays
bear's neck. quickly. Blood pools dark crimson. Dries dull
brown. Later, flecks almost black. And rarely if
Katherine had stood and was gathering her ever is blood accompanied by a hothouse or-
belongings when she felt the floor tremble. ange rash.
Walls found their rigidity intolerable, wobbled.
Like eyelids the windows fluttered causing light Katherine first noticed the vibration when
to celebrate. Styrofoam cups displayed their she glanced in the direction of the open space,
impulsive nature by shuffling on the table's the mist seeming to scrub the exposed Permian
polished surface while a laptop wavered. outcropping. Then the earth under her feet
was trembling, the fire stirred, flaring, leaping,
“Hell and hoarse-tense yes,” Adam ripples flowing through the vegetation. Finally
stretched, his arms reaching to fill the coat a feverish lump streamed throughout her body,
falling into place. smooth on the ascent, thrilling on the de-
scent—then it wasn't a lump anymore but was
There had been another time. One late Oc- everywhere at once: calves, shoulders, nose,
tober morning when she and a friend had sternum, biceps, breasts, tummy, anus, heels,
stood in a clearing not far off the Blue Ridge etc.
Parkway. Horseshoed on three sides by oak
and hickory in full color, it was as if they were Now it was happening again. The same but
standing in the middle of a towering red/ different.
orange bonfire. Only the area to their east was
clear, abruptly dropping off into isoprene haze Every one else emptying the room as usual,
and mist. The world burned —but she was re- relieved, a bit disgruntled, maybe slashed by a
laxed, content, hugging her shoulders. thin omniscient blade. Katherine held in a fro-

zen shudder, the red from remembered leaves About the Author:
broadcasting the great distance it would take
to make the parts of her body move. The odor JW Burns enjoys living in Florida in spite of the
came full-blown with music from the Met and a sometimes oppressive political and natural
pock-nosed dwarf side saddle on a earless don- environment. His poetry and short fiction has
key trotting between the conference table and been published in several journals, most re-
a huge window which made up one wall. cently in The Danforth Review, Ginosko Literary
Quickly, vultures land on the backs of empty Journal, The Rialto and Menacing Hedge.
chairs, their goals pitch-perfect in the silent
room.

Katherine watched the window, hoped that
a hawk would emerge from the quizzical
clouds, soar, dive, disappear where fire was
pure as the sun, flowing from a volitive ventless
contraption in which you could fit three uni-
verses and a pregnant brontosaurus. Just as
before, the vibrations complete with attendant
visions passed leaving only an after-
detachment. She stood holding her briefcase
and purse listening to the A/C make cul-de-sac
cool.

On balance she hoped it wouldn't happen
again.

A TABLE SET FOR FIVE

by Jacqueline Rosenbaum

I think back to the map she drew, scanned and It’s been years, I think, since I’d seen her
emailed to me. Addressed to My Precious last. She was still living at that place in Glen
Daughter. Arrows that pointed my theoretical, Cove, nearer to us. A house I was forced to
my inevitable movement. X’s to indicate the visit. By who, I asked, By who? A judge, my
places I would recognize and use to re-route to father had said. I asked if twelve-year-olds
her new house. Gino’s Pizzeria, The Port Wash- could be sent to prison. My father said no, but
ington Train Station, an old family friend’s that not visiting might make my mother sad.
house whose back yard I haven’t been photo- And it wasn’t so much that I wanted to please
graphed in for quite some time. She sent the her, but that I didn’t want her to be sad, to cry
map to cover her bases, to make sure I wasn’t in that shaky, zombie-like way I recalled from
deterred from visiting by feeling intimidated by my early childhood, or for her sadness to quick-
traveling to a new place. I think a part of her ly become anger as it often did, from what I
truly believes that this is why I have let all this could remember, like that time I came home
time pass without visiting her. It is the same from school and found her crying outside but
part of her that cannot remember the years didn’t go to her because I didn’t think she had
she lost as an addict, a functioning alcoholic, seen me and then she came back inside and
her last years as a mother. purposely knocked over our very big, stone,
flower vase—something she definitely saw that
And I’m impressed by her spatial reasoning, I had seen. I wondered if the Glen Cove Home
the likeness that this journey holds to that would have a flower vase, what a mother’s
hand-drawn map, and I wonder how long it home looks like without a family. So, I had visit-
must have taken her to make, if she used a ed the house that day, and every Sunday after
ruler to make it or if her medication is just that, the suspense of the thing nearly killing
working very well right now. I wonder if she’s me, as I stood in doorways and crouched on
getting better. the stairs, anxiously waiting for her to fuck up.

They did studies about this, about how But then my brothers and I grew and
messy handwriting is common for those with sprouted longer legs and wider collarbones and
her conditions, that her instability in reality is the years filled those crevices with cellulite
reflected deeply in the things she puts out into until we became squishy, ignorant potato sacks
the world. The things she creates. I wonder if headed off to college. Where we learned we
that’s why my dreams are so vivid. I spent did not have to come home. That our father
years practicing my cursive, making sure each could come visit. And so she moved out of the
letter connected to the one before, the one Glen Cove Home to this place, this new place,
after. A linearity she could never mimic. and waited for my homecoming.

I didn’t tell my brothers or my father that I sleep in. New clothes in a range of sizes, just to
was coming, and as I approach the front door, I cover her bases. When I left for college, she
wonder if that was the right thing to do. I did- wanted me to visit during the holidays. She
n’t tell her either. It would be easier then, I had wanted me to go to synagogue for Yom Kippur.
decided, to turn around if I wanted to. I was Repent for my sins. For My Sins I wanted to say
coming because I wanted to know what she to her. For my sins? When I went away to Lon-
was up to. I didn’t believe that she was getting don she invited me over for tea upon my re-
better. Because I wanted to know if she might turn, and when I graduated college she asked if
ever get better, because knowing what her she could come. I told her No, I said to my
illness looked like felt more important now friends. Is that what you mean?
than punishing her for it.
Five years’ worth of visits, and I never said a
There are traces of her in each of us, word, if that’s what you mean. She left tam-
though we’ve tried hard to snuff those out over pons on my bed and I stuck them in my back-
the years. The youngest has her giraffe-ian pack. She wanted to take me shopping, and by
height, the middlest has her skinny face, her God she did. I stole every piece of jewelry that
fair skin. And she gave me, the eldest, her legs, sparkled. I took ankle socks and designer shoes
her dark curly hair, her eyes. Her giant feet. for the giant feet she gave me, a purple mini-
They weren’t gifts. We never asked for them. dress that I didn’t even try on first. Jeans that
How badly I wish not to see the world with her were two sizes too small for me. Her engage-
eyes. ment ring. Makeup I didn’t even know how to
use. Moisturizer tinted two tones too light and
Eyes that could see things that weren’t ac- sixty dollars a bottle. Lipstick I was too shy to
tually there. Drug addicts looking for money in wear. I stole the Bic lighters right out of her
the back yard. Kids stealing her things. Other purse.
mothers that judged her for being poorly
dressed. School nurses that did not believe she I wore stolen earrings to the Glen Cove
was worthy of having children. Ungrateful Home once. I was sixteen years old. My young-
daughters. Misbehaved sons. An unfaithful er brothers were twelve and nine. My father
husband. God. looked at me from the driver’s seat. Put his
hand on my head, pulled my hair back. I jerked
Eyes that saw too much, but of what I’ll away. “Those aren’t yours.” He said, as if he
never know. I wonder if eyes carry weight and weren’t sure. All night she pretended not to
pass it down with color. If I will ever see some- notice. My father didn’t say a word. It was a
thing for the first time and recognize it as hers. remarkable victory.
But I don’t want those eyes. I tell my friends
they’re blue, even though they’re green. I wasn’t wearing them now. I am twenty-
eight years old now. With an apartment of my
Friends that want to know when the last own, with dreams of a motherhood of my own.
time we spoke was. And I ask what they mean Those earrings are at my father’s house, safely
by that. She calls every week, I tell them, leaves tucked away. I think of them as an heirloom to
voicemails. Writes letters sent to my father’s her ungrateful daughter.
house addressed to My Precious Daughter that
are swiftly tucked away into a box I will never When I knock, I am not surprised when the
open. At the Glen Cove Home, she allowed me knocks ring hollow on the flimsy door. It is,
the peace of locking myself into one of the indeed, very similar to the last house. She an-
bedrooms and passed notes underneath the swers the door and brings me in for a hug, as if
door. As a teenager, she wanted to take me she knew I was coming. I allow her to hold me
shopping. Thought I must be growing. Left me but cannot move myself to hold her in return.
new clothes folded neatly on a bed I’d never She steps aside so that I may come in, and I do.

And I want to tell her that I know she’s sorry
and that I forgive her, and that I’m here to see
her even if she isn’t getting any better, and as I
step inside I see that the dinner table is set for
five, and I’m surprised at how much this makes
me feel.

About the Author:
Originally from Long Island, Jacqueline Rosen-
baum received her B.A. from Vassar College in
2016, and recently moved to Boston from New
York City to pursue her MFA in Fiction from
UMass Boston. She was granted Runner Up in
the 2018 Haunted Waters Press Fiction Open
for her story “Tennis Lessons,” which has since
been published in their annual literary journal
“From the Depths.”

THOSE LOVELY FAMILY
MOMENTS

by Wendy Thornton

Once when I was a single parent, I took my verse-cycle temperatures and wall-to-wall car-
daughter camping. At the time, I was deter- peting. Being the guilty parent I was, I pitied
mined to do all the fun things I did when I was my poor baby growing up without a father. I
married to her father. My very opinionated wanted her to be used to luxury. That’s why I
three-year-old, Jessica, and I went into a had moved in with my parents.
sporting goods store where I bought a domed
six-man tent with easy flexible poles, a Cole- But I also wanted her to experience adven-
man stove and lantern, a high intensity flash- ture, to love the great outdoors. I wanted her
light, a banana chair in my size and a miniature to know the thrill of seeing a giant blue heron
version in hers. We ran into a slight snag when fly across the marsh, and I wanted her to shine
I tried to buy my prima donna a pair of jeans to a flashlight around the edge of the swamp and
walk the nature trails. She had never worn any pick out the lights of alligator eyes. Just be-
article of clothing that didn’t have ruffles and cause we didn’t have a man around was no
lace. In the store, she shrieked, “Only boys reason for her to be denied these natural de-
wear jeans!” This was obviously refuted by my lights.
own apparel, a battered pair of Levi’s. We final-
ly compromised on rhinestone studded design- I took off from work for a week and we
er Calvin’s for Kids which cost more than the drove to the town my ex-husband lived in. I
tent. The giggling clerks in the store were de- stopped to introduce her to him. He’d been
lighted with her purchase. sending her birthday cards regularly, so I fig-
ured we owed him a visit. George worked at a
Jessica was unhappy about leaving the drive-through beverage Mart, where part of his
comfortable home of her grandparents, but pay was in beer. By the time we arrived, he’d
she was thrilled when I told her she would get already had more than his fair share. “Hey,” he
to meet the mysterious father she had never said to Jessica as we sat in the car, and he
really known. Jessica was a child of luxury. chucked her under the chin. “You’re beautiful.”
Hanging out with adults all the time, she was
also very precocious. She never knew the “Thank you,” I said acidly, claiming full cred-
Cracker house with the unvarnished wooden it. I’d left George two years earlier, on Jessica’s
floors where she was born. She didn’t remem- first birthday. That was the day he invited
ber my double shifts as a waitress or my crying friends over for her birthday party, went out to
over my paltry tips. She thought I had always get some firewood for our wood stove, and
worn suits and stockings to work, and she never came back all night. The following morn-
thought every house came equipped with re- ing, I packed my stuff and Jessica’s toys,

clothes, cloth diapers, and crib, and left. I was- Inside, I got the claustrophobia I always get
n’t going to have Jessica live with the disap- from trailers no matter how lush they are, and
pointment that I’d experienced with her father. this one wasn’t what you would call lavishly
If he couldn’t show up for her first birthday, he appointed. I was shocked to find that Nancy
wouldn’t show up for anything in her life. was supporting a whole cadre of relatives. Not
That’s what happens when you marry an alco- only was she keeping her elderly grandmother
holic. but her alcoholic mother, who had abandoned
her when she was a baby, plus her younger
But Jessica was fascinated by him. She had brother, who couldn’t hold a job, and her older
been demanding we go see him every time she sister who came with two children. The trailer
got a card. Now she put on her best act for was like an Agatha Christie dream sequence
him, rolling her eyes and giggling. He gave her with people sidling in and out of thin sliding
a package of gum and some barbecue potato doors and everyone talking at once. There was
chips. “We’re going camping,” she said. no room for any of us to sit down. But they
were comfortable with each other, and Jessica
“Going out to the springs?” George asked was in her element. She loves people. I was the
me. This was where we had always gone, a only one who was uncomfortable.
wilderness camp in the middle of the scrub in
Ocala National Forest. “Look,” said Nancy after we talked for a
couple of hours. “It’s getting late. Why don’t
“Yes,” I said curtly. you set up your tent in the front yard and go
down to the Springs tomorrow?”
“Well, be careful out there. It’s hunting
season. Hey, you ought to stop by and see my The thought of setting up my tent in the
niece. She’d love to see the baby. And my tiny space they called the yard was not really
mother’s living with her.” appealing. But it was getting late, and I thought
it might be a good idea to try it out before I got
“I might do that,” I said. I remembered his to the woods. With Nancy’s help we set up our
niece, Nancy, fondly. She was a sweet, shy girl, domed abode, but flexible poles turned out to
half his age (just as I was when I met them) be a bit of a misnomer. No doubt they were
with twice his sense of responsibility. It didn’t flexible if you were Charles Atlas, but Nancy
surprise me to find that he had pawned off his and I had to struggle and pull to get the alumi-
80-year-old mother on her. Privately I fumed num tipped ends into their aluminum holes.
about our short visit. Three years, and the kid The fiberglass rods threatened to whip up and
gets a chuck under the chin, a package of gum, belt us in the face if either of us let go. Finally,
and some chips. Typical George. we had it all set up. I pulled the banana chairs
out of the car and set them up in the tent.
He gave me instructions on how to get to Then Jessica and I took everyone out to dinner.
the trailer park where Nancy lived. I was only
going to stop for a minute, to let Jessica meet When we got back to the trailer park, it was
her cousin and her paternal grandmother. The quite dark, and I told Jessica we had to go to
trailer park was a run-down depressing place bed. I read some stories to her by flashlight,
on the edge of town with trailers of all sizes but she was too keyed up to sleep. Finally, she
and shapes, from battered rentals to tiny silver went inside the trailer and watched television
Airstreams parked on minuscule lots. Nancy with her cousin while I fell asleep alone. I woke
came running out to hug me, and she picked in the middle the night to the most awful
Jessica up out of the car like a baby, holding sound I’d ever heard. It took me a moment to
her as if she would never let go. “I’m so glad to identify it, and during that moment, the
see you,” she said and led the way to her small thought of some wild creatures attacking
blue-and-white trailer.

passed through my mind. But the noise was “I don’t want to go,” Jessica screamed.
only from cats, dozens of cats, running through
the trailer park, clawing and snarling at each “Why don’t you camp and Jessica can stay
other, yelling as if they were dying. I was glad here with us?” said my ex-mother-in-law.
Jessica wasn’t in the tent. I went outside and
looked in the window of the trailer. There was “No, Jessica and I are going to do this to-
my little girl curled up on the couch with her gether. It’ll be fun.”
cousin, snoring away, with the air-conditioner
blowing and the television blaring. At least I Just in case I didn’t get it the first time, my
didn’t have to worry about her listening to cats little girl screamed, “I don’t want to go!” I
and neighbors fight. The cats jumped off the picked her up off the floor, and she began to
roof of Nancy’s trailer, sliding down the round- kick and scream and cry. I tried to gather up
ed walls of my tent as if it were a giant water- her special blanket and the toys she’d brought
park slide. I watched the walls shake, but inside but everything seemed to get away from
somehow the tent stayed up. At dawn, the cats me. The gang watched, but no one made any
all quieted down, and I slept for a couple of attempt to help. Jessica tried to push me away.
hours.
We finally got to the car and I promised to
Jessica came out about 9 a.m. and patted come back through town after the campout.
my cheek. “Wake up,” she said. “Nancy says Jessica kissed her relatives and cried as we
come to breakfast.” She left as I groaned, but I drove away. I turned on the radio and sang a
managed to stagger into the trailer where Jes- song she used to like.
sica now sat in front of the television watching
Saturday morning cartoons. For some reason “Stop that singing” she shrieked.
this enraged me, and I couldn’t eat. I had a cup
of coffee, took down the tent, and packed our We drove in silence for a while until her
gear into the car. sobs turned to sniffles. I tried to point out the
countryside we passed through, the lakes and
“Come camping with us, Nancy,” I said. live oaks, interesting little yards with pink fla-
mingo sculptures and limestone bordered gar-
“Are you kidding? It’s hot out there, and I dens. She turned the full brunt of her scorn my
hate the bugs,” Nancy answered with a shud- way for the entire trip.
der.
“You never let me talk to my daddy,” she
“We’ll swim, and I’ll bring insect repellent.” commented as I drove. I bit my tongue. Literal-
ly.
“No, thanks. There are bears in those
woods.” When we got off the main road and turned
onto the clay road that led to the springs, Jessi-
Observing Jessica looking at me wide-eyed, ca cheered up a little. The road was sandy and
I said, “Oh don’t be silly. We used to go camp- bumpy, like a roller coaster ride. I was afraid I’d
ing out there all the time, and I never saw a get stuck. When we reached the edge of the
bear.” lake she was almost cheerful. She even helped
me unload some of her toys from the car. I put
“Aren’t you scared to go by yourself?” Nan- a bathing suit on her and let her wade into the
cy asked. “There are snakes. You have to admit lake while I dragged the tent and supplies out
there are snakes. And crazy people in the of the vehicle. This time the tent was even
woods. And all kinds of weird noises. I’d be more of an ordeal. It was almost impossible for
terrified. Do you have a gun?” one person to set it up. The sun climbed into
the sky and I was so hot that I left the tent in a
“What? No, I don’t have a gun. Come on forlorn circle on the ground. There were no
Jessica,” I said to my goggle-eyed daughter. other campers nearby. The bugs—homicidal
“We’ve got to go.”

horse flies, and murderous mosquitoes— was good, because our flashlight died and the
swarmed around us. Coleman lantern was about as easy to light as
the stove had been. An owl hooted and Jessica
I sat in the banana chair, trying to recuper- shivered. Some little animal screeched in its
ate from the heat and the lack of sleep. Jessica death throes and I shuddered. As darkness fell
came over and dropped a giant glob of mud around us, the alligators began their chorus of
onto my face. “What are you doing?” I grunts and groans and fish began to thrash in
sputtered and she danced away laughing. the water. The spring-fed lake, which only
hours before had seemed like a peaceful para-
“I’m hungry,” she said. I open the bottled dise, began to assume the malevolent aspects
spring water and cleaned the mud off both of of the swamp it really was.
us. I peeled her an orange while I tried to light
the Coleman stove. The air filled with propane Something rustled in the bushes nearby.
but nothing happened. By now, the sun should “I’m scared, Mommy,” said Jessica plaintively.
have gone down but it seemed to linger only
because the horizon on the lake was long. I had “Don’t be scared. I’m right here,” I said.
to get that tent set up. I tried to get Jessica to
hold a side but that was a joke. She was tired “You can’t protect me,” she said.
and hot. “I don’t like that tent anyway,” she
said. I stared at her little white face in the fire-
light, and my resolve stiffened along with my
“If we don’t get it up we’ll have to sleep in voice. “Yes, I can, Jessica. I will never let any-
the car,” I snapped. thing happen to you,” I lied.

“So? I like to sleep in the car.” “You can’t help it,” Jessica said her voice
rising. “I want my daddy.”
Huh? With clenched teeth, I said,
“Mommy’s can’t sleep in the car. Mommy’s “You don’t even know your daddy,” I said
too big.” testily.

And my precious little toddler replied, “Well, I want him anyway,” she shouted in
“That’s Mommy’s problem.” her furious little voice. “I hate you!”

I weighed down one side of the tent with a I grabbed her up out of her little chair and
log and managed to get the aluminum ends on sat her in my lap. “That’s just too damn bad,
the other side into their little holes. With a Jessica. You’re stuck with me.” Height of ma-
groan of satisfaction, I pulled the tent up right turity.
into its igloo shape, and as I did, I heard a rip-
ping sound. I inspected the gaping hole in the After a while, she stopped crying, put her
tent. The sun was beginning to go down. “Why arms around my neck, and leaned her head
don’t you gather some sticks while mommy against my chest. I thought she had fallen
finishes the tent?” asleep. But all of a sudden, she leaned forward
and kissed me on the cheek.
“I’ll get dirty,” Jessica protested.
Oh guilt, what an emotion to bask in, an
Okay, so I should be drummed out of the emotion to motivate. All night I stayed up lis-
motherhood league because I said, “Jessica, if tening to the tiny breaths of my baby in that
we don’t get a fire going, snakes and alligators tent. I stoked the fire and kept the ferocious
will crawl around us. Is that what you want?” animals at bay. I paced noisily around the tent
in the dark, scaring away snakes and coons and
I listened guiltily to her sniffles as we gath- armadillos that rustled in the bushes outside
ered wood. Thanks to her skinny sticks, we the circle of light. As morning broke, I rigged up
soon had a nice fire going and I felt better. This a grill over the fire and cooked Jessica a huge

breakfast of sausage, eggs, soggy toast, and About the Author:
tangerines. When she awoke, her exhausted,
smoky, dirty mother was there to greet her Wendy Thornton is a freelance writer and edi-
with a picture-perfect meal fit for a princess. tor who has been published in Riverteeth,
Epiphany, MacGuffin and many other literary
As soon as she was content, I loaded every- journals and books. Her memoir, Dear Oprah
thing into the car and drove to the fish camp Or How I Beat Cancer and Learned to Love Day-
on the edge of the woods where I called to time TV, was published in July 2013 and is
make a reservation at a luxury hotel in Disney available on Amazon and Kindle. Her mystery,
World. We’ll go camping again when she’s old- Bear-Trapped: In a Trashy Hollywood Novel,
er, I thought to myself. was published in February 2015 and her latest
book, Sounding the Depths: Memories with
As we drove out of the woods, we saw a Music, was published in Dec. 2017. She has
mother bear lead her cub across the road in won many awards for her work. She was nomi-
front of our car. The bear looked at me as I nated for a Pushcart Prize, and has been Edi-
slowed to let her waddling baby pass. I knew tor’s Pick on Salon.com multiple times. She was
exactly how she felt. the organizer and first president of the Writers
Alliance (www.writersalliance.org). Her work is
published in England, Ireland, Germany, Aus-
tralia and India.

CONFETTI PINK AND
ASHY

by Brian Riley

Burbank, California, the November after Sep- dying down there - and you have to go say
tember 11 and Brice Cooper has come home goodbye. It’s your own little trifecta of mad-
early from work yet again. Watching his 3-year- ness.”
old son, Tyler, barreling towards him in a yel-
low plastic jeep, Brice tries to ignore the idea “So you think she’ll do a prescription?”
of anthrax floating in the air around them. Brice asks, wincing with the approach of the
jeep. Then crash. “Oof! Helllp, nine one one!”
He braces himself for impact.
“Hehhhp!” screams Tyler. “Ny-wah-
“Oof!” Brice pretends when hit with the wahhhn!” He reverses up the path.
vehicle. “Helllp, call nine one one!”
“She’s a therapist, Brice, because you’ve
“Hehhhp!” Tyler laughs. “Ny-wah-wahhhn!” made an appointment for therapy. Just give
her a chance. You spend so much time trying to
Hysterical, the toddler reverses up the control how you feel, who knows what’s really
path. going on in there. Her job is to try and help you
figure it out.”
Presiding over these antics from the porch,
Jaclyn, wife and Mommy, drags on a slim men- Brice groans with the weight of it all. “If I
thol. She takes notice of how her new Annie could just be more of a machine,” he says.
Lennox hairdo matches the sun-bleached white “Animatronic. Like that.”
of the patio set. Meanwhile, Felix the cat
weaves in and around Jaclyn’s feet, massaging “Oh she is going to have a field day with
itself with the ironed crisp cuffs of her peach you, baby, she really is.”
capris.
Here comes the jeep.
“Brice, just tell the woman what you’ve
been dealing with,” she says to her husband, “Well whatever the case, I’m asking her for
exhaling. “Tell her that you work in the mail- Valium,” he says, “at least for the flight.”
room at the studio, I’m sure she’s heard about Crash! “Maybe Xanax. Something to manage
the terrorist threats. And tell her you have to this nervous breakdown I’m having.”
fly to Florida after the Twin Towers, like, just
happened. Then say how your grandfather is “Hehhhp!”

Inside his pants pocket Brice counts out traces the creature’s path, watching for any
pills. dark spots that would indicate blood. The only
sign of the animal, though, is a low and husky
“Ny-wah-wahhhn!” mewling from behind the porch skirt. Going to
Leaning forward on her elbows, Jaclyn where the porch meets the house, he peers
smokes the menthol down to its filter. “Will through the small gap left where the lattice-
you just stick to what’s prescribed then, if she work ends. He sees the cat deep inside there,
does that for you?” crammed into the darkest corner, its butterball
With perfect comedic timing, as always, silhouette rising and falling with panicky
Felix the cat seems to mimic Jaclyn with a, breaths.
“Mrow?”
Looking to laugh with Brice over that funny “Hey there,” he coos in. “What’d you do
cat as they always do, she finds him instead that for? You big dummy.”
long lost in thought. Frightened and sad.
Oh, Bricey. The animal swells with a growl, pushing
“Yoo do, Dada!” Tyler demands, ramming Brice back the few feet he’d entered. Daylight
the yellow coupe into his father’s shins again sneaks in past him, illuminating the crawl space
and again. “Do ‘hehhhp!’ Do ‘ny-wah-wahhhn!’ enough for him to make out a carpet of twisted
Do ‘hehhhp!’” shapes surrounding the cat.
But Daddy’s counting out pills in his pants
pocket. “What’s you got in there?”
One-two-three pills.
One-two-three. Gradually his eyes adjust to the bent fingers
and bent limbs sprouting from the dirt.
Along one of the charming Burbank streets
that his East Coast family insists are used on “Hello?”
their favorite TV shows, Brice in his teal Ford
Escort runs over an animal. It must’ve been a Clearer now. Torsos in a tangle. Cracked
cat. Pulling over to the curb his eyes confirm open husks spitting out bones and dusty
that, yes, a small calico is running from the car springs of meat. A suitcase. Then two. A round
and across a tightly groomed front yard. metal canister, bread box in size, pumpkin or-
ange and dark spots of gore and ‘FLIGHT RE-
It scrambles underneath the next yard’s CORDER DO NOT OPEN’ printed on its side.
porch.
“Hey buddy?” says the homeowner to the
“Son of a bitch,” Brice sighs. Godammit. man slumped beside his porch in an alarming
Placing a pill beneath his tongue as he jogs daze. “Should I call for help? I can call nine one
across the street and then the lawns, Brice one.”

Partially consumed in the bulges of a giant
peach couch as if being swallowed by the thing,
Brice fidgets endlessly with his bottled water.
He’s challenged himself to not let any liquid
splash out. Losing for a third time, he finds the
warped triangle of wet spots more troubling
than he knows he typically would.

Well this shrink is probably reading into nections - and they’re all now synced into this
EVERYTHING. one big moment. A crescendo.”

Doctor Lyndsay sits facing him from a “I’m not sure I understand.”
wooden chair that is blockish in its design while
on her lap a yellow legal pad darkens continu- “Look at Florida,” he says. “With the flight
ally with wild and curly notes. schools being down there - where the terrorists
learned to fly. And now the anthrax - it’s being
“Okay, Brice,” she says, “now we’re on a mailed out of Florida. And now my grandfa-
roll. Let’s see if we can’t knock another one of ther, he’s dying, and where does he live?”
these down. What’s another trick you think
your brain has been playing on you?” “Okay, right,” the doctor says. Intrigued,
she fixes her hair, collecting any loose tendrils
“Wellp,” he says, “in our hallway this morn- back into their bun.
ing between the family room and the kitchen I
smelled my grandfather’s cigar.” “And it’s also where the president was
when the attacks were being carried out. A
“Did you.” school in Sarasota.”

“I don’t know - did I? At first I thought my “Wow, that’s right, too, isn’t it?”
wife was maybe trying out a new air freshener.
Jaclyn’s an atmosphere freak, if you know what “So what is it with Florida? These are real
I mean. She always has to manipulate the connections I’m making here, Doctor Lyndsay.
smells and sounds and temperature of a I’m just putting together real facts, very sys-
place.” tematically, like a machine.”

“An ‘atmosphere freak.’” Brice follows her eyes to the couch and the
frantic grid of water drops he’s splashed onto
“But no, there was nothing. Just Grampa’s its cushions.
cigar.” He smells it now. “It was very clear.
Right there, bam. From when I was a kid.” Godammit.

“And how long did it last, Brice?” He forces himself to calm down. Consider
what he’s said.
“Just while it happened. Just in the morn-
ing.” “Do me a favor and for now don’t overthink
Florida,” she tells him, returning to her notes.
“So you’re not smelling it currently,” Lynd- “Because then you’ll never go. There’s a har-
say confirms. “Actively. Smelling this cigar.” mony to life, Brice, and you’re one of the lucky
ones if you can see it. Though it doesn’t feel
“No, not at all,” he tells her with some very lucky, I’m sure.”
pause, “it was just a memory.”
Finishing the page of scribbles with a grand
The pen skates and slices across the pad. swoop and a dot, the doctor flips the pad shut
then gets up for her desk. Brice finds himself
“I guess I ought to come up with a cigar lazily surprised that she’s not connected to the
joke,” she says, not looking up. “Being a psychi- wooden chair with wires and motors.
atrist and what have you.”
He watches her remove from the desk’s top
Brice sits forward, pulling himself free of drawer a chunky block of prescription slips. He
the cushions. “It feels like I’m flying into the shifts in his seat, his insides instantly tightening
fire,” he says. It comes out as a surrender. He with the prospect of pills.
registers for the first time a framed Warhol-like
print of a cat over Doctor Lyndsay’s shoulder. “The Paxil we discussed, it’s an SSRI,” she
“It feels like my life has become a series of con-

instructs, writing, “with effects that you will A shrill whistle blares.
most likely not feel for weeks. Sometimes it
takes a month or more. For the interim, for the “Move that vehicle!” shouts an armed sol-
trip, I will give you something to keep you com- dier to a caravan, his neck purple and swollen.
pany. Something with more of an immediate “Move it move it!”
release. Do you drink, Brice?”
Another army man quickly joins him, rifle at
“Casually,” he says. the ready.

“Well I’m going to ask you to consider Gas masks sway at every soldier’s thigh.
changing that to ‘cautiously’.”
Zrip zrip!
“He’s a recovering alcoholic,” Brice tells
her. “My grandfather. He was a Brooklyn fire- “Hold on, hold on,” Brice says, popping his
man. But he has thirty years or so now. Sober, I cell phone from his belt.
mean.”
“Bricey?” It’s Bonnie, his uncle’s wife, born
The doctor hands him two slips. “All the again with Uncle Mac in a creek in North Flori-
more reason to think about abstaining alto- da, baptized and married after they both
gether. Really make this visit about him.” kicked the dope.
Showing Brice out she says, “Let's schedule a
time for when you get back - at which point we “Yer granddaddy’s wonderin’ what’s yer
can start connecting all those dots.” agenda, Bricey,” she says, her voice through
the cell phone tin-canned and distant. “We
On the Wednesday morning before Thanks- cleared out the spare room for you but it still
giving, Miami International is teeming with smells like a big ol’ cigar. And we don’t know if
security measures the likes of which Brice has Alligator Alley is the best road for you to take
never seen. today, Bricey, and that maybe Tamiami Trail
would be better for the day before the holi-
Exhausted from the red-eye flight, he slides day? Because you got a choice, you know.
down to the pavement with his back against You’ve always got a choice.”
the wall. Brice is short of breath but also afraid
of the air he has to breathe. In a slump he sits Voices in the background climbing over one
hypnotized, the yellow and black of the taxi- another towards her.
cabs like pendulums racing before him.
“There’ve been critters on the Alley, Brice,”
A bumblebee Grand Prix. she continues like from underwater. “Your un-
cle, he’s so awful, he says if you run one over,
“Sleep,” he says he needs, the other arriv- throw in the trunk and we’ll have it for dinner
ing passengers stepping over his legs with their instead of the turkey - oh, he’s just terrible. Be
Samsonites and carry-ons fishtailing behind careful now, Bricey, okay? And we’ll see you
them. real soon. And your Grampa, he tells you, ‘Hi.’”
Then in a whisper she says, “You do have an
An animal carrier passes by at eye level, the idea of what’s been happening down here,
cat inside the cage door panting and tranquil- right? They’ve hooked your granddaddy up to
ized. all sorts of machines.”

“Mrowww?” “Shh,” Brice pleads, nauseous. “I’m on my
way.”

He claps the phone shut and then pulls him-
self up the wall, getting to his feet like a come-
dian doing a routine. “I’m movin’, I’m movin’.”

He heads for the restrooms, his insides ing, he can’t yet tell. Flapping its wings in less
cramping with nerves, each soldier he passes than elegant stutters, the gangly white bird
eyeing him with caution. stays in place for an unnatural length of time.

Lightning pulses through the clouds, snap- Brice focuses on his heart rate, trying to
ping a bright silver sheet across the ocean’s align it with the beats of the bird’s weird wings.
black surface. The car lights up with it, a long
dark sedan. This will be the vehicle’s fourth “But are you coming or are you going?” he
drive-by, its stoic-faced driver staring at Brice says.
through mirrored aviator frames each time he
goes by. Then the crunch of tires on stones as the
black sedan returns. Brice turns to see the man
“Move along move along,” Brice mutters. inside staring him down once again.

But now he’s getting nervous. The car crawls to a stop.

Of course the LSD isn’t helping. The scis- Godammit.
sored square of cardstock he’d touched to his
tongue about forty minutes ago had caused Brice yanks his feet out of the sand and
him to swerve off Alligator Alley in his yellow trudges towards the vehicle. The driver re-
Hertz, skidding to a stop just inches shy of a mains void of expression as the young man
tree. It was Homeland Security, Brice just approaches, his mirrored lenses filling with
knew, forged of jet fuel and germ spores, they Brice as he leans into the passenger window.
rose from the swamp muck and trailed him
from there. Yes, him, the studio mailroom guy “Alright, is this about the cat?” Brice asks.
with all the recent interest in Florida. The punk
with all those strong feelings about the an- “Say it again?”
thrax. They just need the perfect moment to
pounce, knowing the out-of-towner can’t go But Brice doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything.
anywhere until that blotter levels off. There’s a gas mask flopped across the passen-
ger seat.
Trapped.
“Hey, you want to come in out of that
The sedan moves along, picking up speed as rain?” the man asks, sounding nothing like
it hits the bend in the narrow dirt road. Brice expected. The sentences are high
pitched. Each one comes out as a question.
Sighing with relief but still shaky, Brice “Come inside here with me?”
walks down to the water, lifting his face up
towards a faintly building drizzle. Closer to the Lightning moves again through the bellies
lapping waves the sand turns cool and doughy of the clouds and the man’s glasses flash white,
and Brice holds still to let it slowly devour his his eyebrows arching up with surprise. “Woo!”
feet.
Brice knows this is a cover. The glasses the
Turning his eyes to the sky Brice finds an driver is wearing are X-ray specs - as seen ad-
ibis hovering there in the gray. Coming or go- vertised in the back pages of comic books. But
these are the real McCoy. He’s seeing directly
into Brice Cooper, then, scanning and probing
him of his secrets.

“Look, I don’t know it is about Florida,”
Brice confesses.

“What what is?” says the man says, frown-
ing.

“My grandfather lives near here. Up north a skeletal and waxy mannequin slumped in the
little bit.” blinking blue glow of the VCR’s reset clock.

“He does?” But it’s just Grampa.

“Can you tell me why he’s sick?” “I’ll come back,” Brice whispers as he slides
into the bedroom. “I promise I’ll come right
“Well I don’t know. What’s he got?” back.”

“They’re saying that he has cancer.” Flicking on the light he finds the room and
everything in it shellacked with a coating of
“Oh no,” the man says, shaking his head shiny tobacco tar. Standing still in the doorway
and pouting. “You poor thing.” Brice can see this sheen coming for him. Thin
and syrupy hairs extend off the walls and furni-
Brice is distracted by tears he had no idea ture, reaching and grasping for him, connecting
he was letting out. They’ve been dropping from and tightening. He fears that in no time he will
his face and onto the passenger seat, outlining find himself woven into a gluey, amber cocoon.
the gas mask in dark, dime sized spots.
“Keep it movin’,” he says to himself, shak-
“C’monnn,” goes the man. “Come inside ing away the mischievous acid head. “Move
here with me, keep me company today?” along move along.”

Brice backs away from the window. After unpacking what he’ll need to get
through to the morning (toiletries, pajamas,
“Heyyy?” shaving kit full of meds) Brice plucks the alarm
clock off the nightstand. Ghostly, nearly invisi-
Hurrying to his rental car parked further ble wisps of tar stretch between the plastic and
down the unpaved road, Brice sees the tall wood, twirling like a mini tornado in the down-
grass beside it alive with the movement of ani- ward gust of the ceiling fan.
mals. Feral cats. They stalk him through the
blades. Pour towards him from out of a card- While Grampa’s staple AM station crackles
board box, empty cans and dishes strewn to life.
around it, its sides weathered and warping,
caving in from the needling rain. “...We had jumpers coming down first from
the eighty-third floor. Then the hundred and
Climbing into the Hertz, Brice presses him- third floor. That was a fall with a duration of
self panicked and winded against the steering ten to eleven seconds, with a descent speed of
wheel. In his hands the thing feels cold and one hundred and fifty miles per hour. This was
synthetic - its finger grips and control buttons free fall.”
useless and garish. Watching over the dash,
Brice keeps the dark car fixed in his sights. Brice pulls the clock’s plug to kill it, the cord
sticking briefly to his hands.
After some time, the sedan continues on,
its brake lights dragging behind it like the star- “Enough now, let go!”
dust tails of comets, long and fiery and billow-
ing with the waves of the incoming Florida tide. He rubs his palms together, quickly mes-
merized by their circular motion. In his daze he
Sneaking from the front door towards the hears sounds from inside the wall. The space
guestroom, Brice is alarmed by the sight of a behind the headboard. Scraping and scratching
behind the wood panels. He puts his ear to the
wall and against his head the wood is coarse
and sticky. Suddenly Papa’s house is a seashell
alive with whooshing echoes of wind.

And that scritch-scratchy sound. Louder the frail man in the gentlest of hugs. “I made it,
now. An animal in the wall. Tiny claws and Grampa, I made it.”
teeth. Nervous and high pitched squeaks.
The man caresses his grandson’s back with
A mouse. hands shaped of tissue paper and balsa wood
bones.
Brice pulls his ear away with an audible
pop! “That’s real good, Bricey,” the grandfather
coos. “That’s real, real good.”
From where he sits he can see into the liv-
ing room and his grandfather asleep in his re- Four AM and Grampa at the kitchen coun-
cliner in the soft strobe of the 12:00 12:00 ter, naked from his belly up, cigar clamped in
12:00. Then from behind the chair slinks an one hand, coffee mug in the other. Intravenous
electric blue silhouette. tubes and electric cords trail off his ancient
frame, dipping behind the counter as if con-
A cat. necting the old man to a pedestal.

“But of course,” Brice says. Brice imagines gears and axles inside his
grandfather grinding with age, never fully
The long-haired feline, a Persian, prowls in catching up to speed. When the old man takes
a figure eight around Grampa’s slippered feet. a sip of coffee Brice can almost hear the whir-
ring of mechanisms. Then with the puff of the
Brice sounds out with some smooches and cigar, pistons sound out, operating its smoke.
the cat stops and looks. Sits when it makes eye
contact with Brice. Opens its mouth to meow “It’s nice you came, Bricey,” Grampa
but nothing seems to come out. says. “Wish this wasn’t the reason you had to
come see me, though.”
“C’mere, you,” Brice says. “Keep me com-
pany in here.” “I don’t mind, Grampa.”

Uninterested, the cat cleans its ears. Sipping his coffee, the grandfather drifts
away. He puffs his cigar in deep contemplation.
And with the LSD still lingering, Brice knows Then remembering something, he smiles. Sud-
his eyes are playing tricks on him, the flashing denly realizing that his grandson is with him he
12:00 giving everything an illusion of move- says, “Hey, how’re you doin’, Bricey? Over
ment. He stares at his grandfather’s feet, un- there in beautiful downtown Burbank.”
sure if they’re moving or still. When he looks
back to the old man’s eyes he finds them open “It’s ok.”
and looking back.
“Huh, Bricey?”
Wink!
“I’m alright.”
Brice’s heart leaps into his throat.
“Yeah?”
“Bri-,” Papa says, having to wet his throat
to try again. “Bricey.” “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Brice doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Grampa squints through his cigar smoke at

“Bricey, that you?”

“It’s me.”

Brice gets up from the bed and goes to his
Grampa, the VCR light moving him along in
slow motion. Finally, he bends down and wraps

an infomercial playing on the muted TV as if Squinting at the television, he watches the last
trying to understand the plot. He gets a hoot of the ashtray debris getting pulled into a vacu-
out of a salesman dumping an ashtray over- um. “All I could think of was stretching a ladder
flowing with cigarette butts, sand and confetti up to them, helping them down out of those
onto a square of peach carpet. clouds.”

“Oh ho ho,” Papa says. “Now whatcha gon- “Right.”
na do? What a mess, huh, Bricey!”
“Like we used to do back in the day.”
Brice raises his eyebrows with surprise.
What’d he miss? “Back when you were a fireman, Grampa?”

“How’s that boy of yours?” Grampa asks. With his strength almost run out, the
“And that lovely wife. She’s a doll, Bricey, she grandfather’s back is caving in, slumping him
really is. She truly, truly is.” forward over the counter. The cords and tubes
go taut. Still, he beckons his cat over, luring it
“They’re doing great, Grampa.” Breathes. onto the counter with a cup of treats he has
“They’re doing really really great.” there.

“Oh, that’s gooood,” the grandfather says, “When I was a boy,” he continues, “and
his movements slowing down along with his then again when I grew up to be a real fireman
words. - a heroic act, but a silly one, was saving a cat
that might’ve found itself trapped up a tree.
Watching this happen, Brice wrestles back a The thing about these cats though, Bricey, is
sudden surge of tears. He takes a sip from his that they can get back down. I mean they got
coffee, hoping to catch the sound of his chok- up there for Godsakes. It’s the owner who goes
ing up inside of it. all dopey. They see their pet up there, their
little Snowball, and they think what, she’s gon-
Meanwhile Grampa’s coffee sloshes. Ashes na fall? But sure, it’s a scary thing, seeing your
flick off his cigar. A ring of smoke wobbles up- loved one up there, out of your reach, out on a
ward. “Oh brother,” he says. “I’m a real piece limb.
of work.”
“It sure was the way I felt when I saw those
“It’s okay, Grampa.” people stuck up there outside the Towers. Out
on the ledge. And knowing they couldn’t get
Taking some big breaths to build what he down. Then watching them come down any-
wants to say next, the old man raises his cigar way. Oof, now that. That was a sight. That was
and aims it at a kitschy plaque hung on the September eleventh.”
length of wall between him and his grandson.
Brice can make out an American flag waving in Without having taken a recent puff of his
the background and two smokestacks with cigar, the massive white cloud that pours from
windows towering in front. Grampa’s mouth is impossible, yet it comes. He
looks at Brice through the lifting smoke, a sad-
“That was the day, Bricey” his Grampa tells ness in his eyes.
him. “September the eleventh, that was the
day. Oof, what a morning, what a morning. Brice finds himself also partially blinded as
We’ll never recover. You saw like I did, those the tears come again. Looking down into his
people up there, the ones we all watched com- coffee he says, “I’ve been having to think that
ing out the windows. They were calling down they jumped down on purpose, Grampa. Those
for help, Bricey. Looking down and calling and people in September. That they made the deci-
waving for help, great big clouds of ashes sion to jump. It helps me to think of it that way.
above them. Ashes and office papers, storm That they called the final shot. Like it was their
clouds of ticker tape. Oh what a mess.”

one last big choice. I mean, even though they About the Author:
weren’t going to make it - they clearly knew
they would die - they were in control of how Brian Michael Riley is a writer of both fiction
they would go.” He wipes his eyes. “They were and non-fiction whose work has most recently
nobody’s dummies, those people that jumped. appeared in Edify Fiction, The Fix, Massacre
It was the most human decision any one of Magazine, Page & Spine, Every Day Fiction,
them ever had to make - and they made it. Deadman's Tome, and Gay Flash Fiction as well
They jumped so they wouldn’t fall.” as upcoming editions of Jitter Magazine, Stink-
waves and the literary journal Dissections. Also
With hardly any power left, the grandfa- an illustrator and multimedia artist, Brian lives
ther’s drinking and smoking has ceased alto- in the San Francisco Bay Area with his girlfriend
gether. Now all that’s left are a few chops of and their many, many pets.
the jaw, tired and dragging.

“That’s real good, Briceyyy,” Each syllable
an effort. “That’ real real gooood.”

His lower jaw drops. Head drops. A slow
hiss whistles out.

Brice sits for some seconds, waiting, not
sure if anything will happen next. The sudden
quiet that’s there in the kitchen is surprising,
proof of how much sound there had actually
just been.

“Ohhh,” Brice says, rising in pitch, the be-
ginning of a cry. “Oh Grampaaa.”

But no movement from the man, not an-
other sound.

Then very, very low from the television is
the vacuum salesman, not muted after all.

“...and here’s the best part,” Brice could
hear him say, “it puts you in control of the level
of your cleaning - EVERY SINGLE TIME!”

With a light thunk the grandfather’s hand
drops from the handle of his coffee mug and
onto the countertop. Startled by the sound, the
Persian jumps down from the counter with a
squeak. Then excited over the prospect of
weaving around Brice’s ankles, it crosses the
linoleum for them, meowing a few times with a
lilt, as if asking questions.

END

UNITY

by Kenneth Norris

White was at the top of the color chart, superi- Can we become one like the rainbow that
or to all. Dominant to all mankind on the uni- settles after the storm over the east right be-
verse. White ruled the nation from coast to low the sunset? Serval colors making a spec-
coast. White people were the Gods and the trum of unity. Love and happiness defined by
colored people were servants summoned to joy, no more sorrows. Tears of bliss falling
slavery. No dignity given, a life bound by shack- washing away the harmful sins of the dirty
les, tamed by the violent jolts of the slave mas- wicked world. Holes plugged blocking all the
ters whip. Human lifeform viewed as scum, treacherous harms that kill the good vibes.
animals were treated better.
Colors will become one and the love will
Compassion was only a word and love was flow like currents. The waves of the oceans will
just an image that had vanished before the soar creating the roughest tides that anyone
hands of time. Perfect glass mirrors shattered can stand. The sun will rise and bring joy and
into tiny fragments showing the horrible the moon will set and illuminate the night skies
bloody imagines of unmajestic times. Passages bringing the most upbeat tranquility one has
of freedom blocked by vicious horrific killings. ever seen. Green grasses will grow and create
Precious life given, then taken away easily as it pastures of endless destinations; destinations
was given. that take us to places we never knew existed.
White and Black no longer collided like derailed
Two colors co-existing in a world, oil and trains. Planes soaring high in the sky taking our
water mixing, blowing green smoke of hope visions worldwide.
that will never exist. Hate flows like currents of
the deepest river, embedding depths of unfor-
bidden territories. Scars of the endured pain
will never heal, memories flood brains like un-
realistic dreams.

Time passes just as the days do and yet still
the same cycles remain. Hate still engulfs souls,
like wild fires raging through the woods. Vi-
sions of unity crushed like lovebugs. The hope
for one world, one dream remains yet un-
solved. Challenges of stopping racism will nev-
er die as the eyes are yet still filled with rage.
The fire still burns spreading rapidly as HIV.

OSCAR WILDE IN BOCA

by Emanuele Pettener

A few years ago I went to Mass, here in Boca to tell "The Happy Prince". He told it in twenty
Raton, Florida, where I live. Mass began and minutes, in a wonderful way, so clear and per-
before the Gospel a distinguished lady went up suasive that he seemed Oscar Wilde himself.
to the altar: she was member of the associa- The flock of believers was enchanted, and the
tion "Citizens for Science and Ethics, Inc." and distinguished lady as well, all moved by the
she asked us to sign a petition to propose to inimitable beauty of Wilde's prose, by the
the State of Florida an amendment that priest's powerful voice, by the story of the
"protects marriage as a legal union only be- prince and the little swallow, in fact perfect to
tween a man and a woman and provides that exemplify the word of Christ. But what the
no other marriage considered as a marriage or flock of believers or the lady did not suspect
equivalent is recognized and considered valid. " was that Oscar Wilde was imprisoned, physical-
ly, economically, and morally destroyed, struck
I found it paradoxical that in a gathering of in his dearest affections and in fact led to an
people (at least 800) who were celebrating early death - by a homophobic law.
brotherhood and tolerance in the name of the
One who sternly rebuked others for throwing I'll remind you of the facts: in 1895, at the peak
stones, who suggested that we focus on our of his success (in London's theaters An Ideal
own plank instead of on others' specks, who Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest
said plainly that minorities (prostitutes, thieves were triumphing) Wilde brought Lord Queens-
and publicans) would enter the kingdom of berry to court for accusing him of "posing as a
Heaven long before the hypocrites - a lady for- sodomite", Queensberry counterattacked and
mulated the request that a homosexual be proved that the accusation was not groundless.
denied the same rights as a heterosexual. Homosexuality being illegal, Oscar Wilde was
sentenced to two years of forced labor,
Finally the Gospel started, precisely the beauti- stripped of his belongings, his name removed
ful page of Matthew where Jesus observes that from the theatrical placards and stigmatized.
anyone who will do good to the least (to the His wife sought a divorce and prevented him
most marginalized) of his brothers - a practical from seeing his children (for whom he had
good, to feed them if they are hungry, to give written “The Happy Prince”). When he got out
them something to drink if they are thirsty, to of jail, he was a broken man. He took refuge in
visit them if they are in prison - it will be as if Paris, where he died on November 30, 1900, at
he had done it to Him, and vice versa. age 46.

At this point, the priest, a robust young man of Now, more than one hundred years later, on a
Irish blood, without a preamble, said: "I want very hot morning in South Florida, a distin-
to tell you a story by Oscar Wilde", and began guished lady asks, during a celebration in the

name of Christ, that some are denied a right
because of the sexual, ethical, religious prefer-
ence of others.
And the priest (Irish, and perhaps gay) replies
in literature, comments on the magnificent
power of Christ's words with the magnificent
power of a homosexual’s words. He responds
with beauty to the timeless obtuseness of
those who claim the right to judge. As saying:
"Yes, go ahead, think of always being right, it
has always been so and always will be." A ges-
ture so elegant, bitter, dignified, so supremely
useless that I could not help but be moved,
recognizing, after more than a century, the
invincible greatness of Oscar Wilde.
Post scriptum: Mass was held in a church dedi-
cated to Saint Joan of Arc – according several
historians, a lesbian.

About the Author:

Emanuele Pettener was born in Venice, Italy,
and has lived in the United States since 2000.
He teaches Italian language and literature at
Florida Atlantic University. His collection of
short-stories A Season in Florida, translated by
Thomas de Angelis, has been published by Bor-
dighera Press (New York) in 2014.

THE SUICIDE OF MY
YOUTH

by Debra Basco

Drinking as early as 13 years old was already a The outside was lined with a bed of beautiful
pattern for me, drinking hard liquor was my colorful roses planted on green grass, cute
norm. The years are is so vivid in my mind as if home on the outside. I never asked what my
they were yesterday, it was September of 1963 mother did for a living, she would leave at 6
a new school year was on the horizon and I was pm and return most mornings about 3:30am,
entering seventh grade. This should have been my teenage brother and cousins who lived with
the beginning of something new for me, being us were my caretakers, problem was who was
a teenager and entering junior high school is taking care of them, so in reality I took care of
usually a milestone to look forward to. Instead myself. I began to steal out of necessity, I was
it was to become a new chapter to the un- a 7th grader and had become an expert in
written book of my hopelessness that had been opening school lockers and taking the things
my shadow since my adolescence. Up to this that parents usually buy for their children,
point the cycle of discontent was already a sweaters, money, pens, paper, pencils, and
feeling I had lived with my entire young life. I even P.E clothes, whatever I wanted or needed
no longer had any expectations that my life I took. From stores I walked out with my sham-
was ever going to be better. There was nothing poos, conditioner, make-up and even clothes.
in my environment that indicated to me that The sad part is that I had been stealing since I
my life was worth living. Things for me should was a little girl. I had to, there was no one tak-
have changed but they only became worse. I ing care of me.
was still a child and couldn’t find a way to
change the mental anguish I was experiencing. My mother wasn’t one to keep what she
did for employment away from home and I
My mother gave me birth at the young age would eventually come to know that she was a
of 21 and she didn’t stay long, by this time she waitress in a bar. She was blessed with an
already had two children under the age of 4. hour glass body, cat like slanted eyes, pouty
One day she just vanished and for twelve years beautiful lips with long black hair that floated
I was raised by my grandmother and like the down her back like an eternity waterfall. I as-
day she vanished my mother suddenly re- sumed that everyone loved her because night
appeared and took me to live with her. My new and day she had an entourage of followers,
home was located in Santa Ana across from a these people wouldn’t be considered the type
railroad track, it was a small cute two-bedroom you take to church, there were a few transves-
one bath white house with a scary basement. tites a lesbian couple, the majority though

were all drunks coming to my house for the that I had only cut the surface of my wrists, this
after parties. They became a constant fixture was the beginning of my self-mutilation. My
of my life, I woke up to go to school, but would cuts after that were not deep but deep enough
become discouraged when I would find my to feel the pain I needed to feel.
mother’s entourage sitting at our kitchen table
stinking drunk. No one noticed when I began I was in my mental instability when I found
taking their half empty bottle of Christian out my mother was pregnant, I had been in my
Brother’s Brandy. To escape the craziness, I own world for some time, now I found myself
began to ditch school and drink their left-over having outburst of anger, hate, and would run
liquor at home alone or with friends. This was away from home. There were many mother
my introduction to drinking as a teenager, I and daughter shouting matches of my yelling “I
than began to arrive to school drunk or hope your baby dies” during birth my baby
hungover or didn’t show up for weeks, sadly brother Christopher Immanuel was born a still
there were no adults in my life who cared. birth, I had not formed any bond with my
mother or the baby during her pregnancy. So
I arrived to a place where I came to accept many hateful words I had expressed during her
that my mother did not know how to be a pregnancy, I was thirteen years old and now I
mother to a teenage girl. She was selfish and had so much guilt, I believed that my baby
only cared about her boyfriend’s, friends and brother died because of me, and the ugly
herself. There was no room for me in her crazy words I had expressed. I It was a sad time for
life so I began to make my own choices, which me, I sat at his funeral looking at his white little
were not good ones, I stayed out late some- casket knowing that he was laying there be-
times until 3 am, it didn’t matter to me that I cause of me. My guilt and hate for myself
was going to get beat with an extension cord, drove me to my 2nd suicide attempt this time
it’s safe to say that by this time I was a teenage by taking pills and hoping that I would over-
alcoholic, I honesty hated drinking but it dose.
numbed my pain. Drinking certainly had an
effect on me, I began to feel detached from My 3rd attempt at suicide was in the fall of
any feelings, I felt that nothing could hurt me. 1965 I was in eighth grade and I was fourteen
I’m not sure when these suicide thoughts en- years old, we were now living in one of Santa
tered my mind, the behavior of my mother and Ana’s huge Victoria mansions with a high ceil-
her friends and their lifestyle of sex, booze, and ing, I became fixated on the wooden beam
simply not giving a shit, and my mental instabil- until I placed a chair under it and took a rope in
ity were not a good mixture for my soon to be an attempt to hang myself, not once but sever-
suicide fixation and attempts. al times, by tossing the rope over it, than place
it around my neck while standing on the chair
My first attempt at suicide was after Octo- ready to push it away from under me. My
ber 26th 1964, I had just turned thirteen, and mental state was so confused I wasn’t able to
my best friend had a ditching party while her comprehend what I was doing, I was filled with
parents were at work. It was in her restroom so many crazy thoughts. In my suicide
that I first saw the razor, picked it up and held attempts I knew deep down that what I was
it while sliding my finger against it. The sharp- doing was wrong, I wanted to live more than I
ness of the blade excited me and for the mo- wanted to die. I continued to have these
ment I forgot where I was as I slit my wrist, I thoughts through the rest of my teen years and
felt no pain as blood dripped to the palm of my at sixteen I found hope in a six-pound seven-
hand, I felt only a sensation of electricity pass ounce baby boy who I named Armando. A year
through my body. My two friends walked in, later his sister Valerie was born, there birth
saw the dripping blood placed my hands under game me hope for the future and a reason to
running water, once it cleared, we could see live.

About the Author:

Debra Basco resides in Anaheim Ca with her
husband, and writes in her spare time, her con-
centration is children's stories.

THE COFFEE PLANTATION

by Ana Lucia de Leon

By virtue of being children, we can sleep any- “I am going to take them to the field.” His
where and in the smallest of places. The shared raucous words are lost in the indigo dawn. The
beds have no room for star-sleepers or Shava- only reply a loud snore.
sana enthusiasts. Instead, we sleep on our
sides beyond the painful ants that perambulate While the house sleeps, he creeps out to
our sore muscles. Underneath a mass of blan- the hallway where more people snooze and
kets, our warm bodies fight the chill of dawn. snore to quietly make his way to the bathroom
As always, night gets too cold and day too hot (accessible only from the outside). He walks
without the help of thermal regulators. Where the rooms of the house he had built himself
one starts, and the other ends is lost to the despite of the diploma hung on a wall that pro-
mess of blankets, towels, limbs, and couch claims his profession is of a teacher. The house
cushions. Our room is stuffed. Four rough walls by the lake is overgrown; overflowing the side
and an uneven floor is a rather minimalistic of the mountain to the bottom. Originally
approach to the space. The scratchy texture of meant to be a humble two-bedroom, the
the walls is not a stylistic choice, but an issue house has extended in all directions. Each of its
that presents no real inconvenience (only occa- rooms and expansions built separately and to
sional broken skin). The faded pink paint is not, patch holes in different times.
by any stretch, adding to the interior design. In
fact, terms like Feng Shui and aesthetics have The dark old man has rough skin folded
never been spoken in this house. The curtains into a million wrinkles. He doesn’t mind the yet
abandoned long ago the fight to keep the out- -to be-warmed breeze, and just like every
side from coming in. In its place, rags of fabric morning, he showers with fresh lake water. Per
drape from naked wooden sticks that per- usual, the old man uses a bar soap to cleanse
formed as broomsticks in other lives. his bent body and thinning hair. The soap is of
a generic brand that advertises to be gentle on
Night is full of wild noises as the location is everything—even the china. After the shower,
voluntarily remote and hidden, and it has never he pats dry his body with the pants he wore
met the artificial sounds of machines and made yesterday and then slides them up to his
-up life. Outside, the forest extends for so long waste. In addition, a clean t-shirt full of holes
it makes us feel like we traveled space and and a green cap worn shapeless. Then, he
time to a divergent and remote planet. As the walks back into the house he never quite fin-
moon gives up the center stage for the sun to ished. Unpolished walls, chipped paint, and
shine, we exist in profound and sweet uncon- slick cement floor.
sciousness.
In the quiet morning, a high, brisk sound is
The internal clock of the old man in the out of place. One protest lost to the void of
next room marks five, and his eyes unbolt open morning. Another sound, louder this time cuts
tired of rest. through the fabric of dreams bringing us back

to the room with the pink walls. The blankets to suffocate us under the sun.
are violently pulled away from our bodies and
our extremities get stabbed by the halting I look down to my hands. They are dark-
night breeze. The sun had no time to warm the ened and strained by the wild dust. I look down
chill of darkness. We grump loudly while cover- to my blue basket, it is only half-way full of red
ing our faces with our hands. The question is dots. My pajamas, I notice, are just as filthy as
raised: Why?! Moaning and rebuttals interrupt my skin, but the plant that stands in front of
the peace of the awaking lake. me is still ripe with its blood. Around me, my
thirteen cousins work their way through more
“UP!” The old man pulls an arm. coffee plants and more plastic baskets. I smear
sweat forming on my forehead with the col-
“We have work.” The old man rattles us. lected soil in my fingernails. I know I look as
abandoned and tired as I feel, but I must go
“Coffee will not pick itself.” The old man back to work.
fires the lone lightbulb.
The old man is collecting the fruit in sacks
Full of arguments, we search for our shoes by the edge of the plantation. He pours the
while trying in vain to talk our way out of work, content of the baskets into one sack until it is
but the old man is not forgiving, not to a group taller and heavier than us. Suddenly, a lone girl
of fourteen half-asleep children, not to a mark wanders from the side of the wall and bites
in the calendar that declares holiday, not to the into a tortilla that vapors and spills beans. She
fact that Saturdays must be dedicated to active looks at us with a hint of amusement in her
sluggishness. The old man guides us through black eyes. Her hair is up un a messy wavy bun
the rooms and the beds of resting adults. They and just like the rest of us she still wears her
smile in their sleep for today they have been pajamas.
pardoned. The old man swears off the laziness
of our generation (even before we were de- “Breakfast is ready.” She announces.
clared entitled to it) and exclaims his own fa-
ther would have been up in the mountain We are only thirteen after all. Somehow
hunting hours ago. Still in pjs, we walk in a sin- she escaped our faith.
gle line like sacrifices to the gods of sleeping-in.
“We are not done.” The old man threatens
The evilness of coffee plants is rapidly con- with the same black eyes.
sented as we pick the red fruit. Taller than
most and pushed down by the scarlet orbs, We protest by stopping the motions of our
coffee plants scatter in what seems thousands hands. An old woman in a dress walks around
at the back of the house. We stand in front our the wall and stands next to the hairy girl. We
goliaths with a basket at our feet and with the wait.
only weapons that are our fragile fingers. We
pick and drop the coffee fruit for what seems “Come on!” she gestures with a smile.
like hours still half-asleep and in a slow hypno- “Time to eat.”
tizing rhythm. Soon the sun has scared away
the cold and our fingers a colored with soil.
Colorful baskets filled to the rim replace empty
baskets waiting to carry its dues. The old man
picks the coffee next to one and then another
while hushing words of urgency and killing “fire
worms” when one of us screams in fear. The
work is not hard but mundane and repetitive.
The pjs that covered us during the night begin

About the Author:

Luci de Leon grew up in Guatemala City. In-
spired by books, she decided to study English
Literature in a small town in Idaho. Most of her
time is spent in short fiction stories, but every
now and then, she will write about growing up
in Guatemala, and how the country that never
reads inspires her to keep writing.

THAT SATURDAY

by Dan Cardoza

I have a clear memory of moments, a moment, “Sure sweetie,” he says in best dad voice.
of a Saturday without direction, you afraid to
lose your way, me, fearing I wouldn’t get lost. “Thank you,” you say, and then look at your
shoes, still tied.
A late August pick-nick in the park is much
more than a vision. It’s still hot, cauterized. I When the vendor turns to his chore, you again
watch you navigate you’re way to the ham- enter your secret sanctuary. You begin working
burger booth. I stand a ghost in the crowd. In your tiny hands like a time-lapse jig-saw puzzle,
the distance, I sip coke. expecting them to remember the maze of your
journey, to and from our pick-nick table, now
You reach the stand, shuffle your way forward out of site.
through the valley of legs, adults and teens
overlook you, distracted in a hum and thrum of I feel sad we are both vulnerable. You, afraid of
conversation. Steadily, you nudge your way losing your way, me worrying I might not get
forward, never retreating. Being raised polite lost fast enough.
you wait for, ‘next?’ It doesn’t arrive.

Looking upward, you ask the attendant with As I observe, I think of flowing away in a
your inside voice, “Hot dog & soda, please?” He stream, away from the responsibility of being
doesn’t hear you. your father, paying the bills, the anxiety of cu-
bicles, away from getting older.
“I’ll have a hot dog and soda, please!” you po-
litely request again. I think about a stream that flows through a
delicious valley orchard of anonymity, pleas-
After he listens to your outside voice, he glanc- ure, as it rivers and wanders off course, like
es sideways, and then down at you, looks at Huckleberry’s Mississippi, then I imagine it
you like the puppet we saw at the puppet show swell, flood.
in March, not the ventriloquist.
I am aware how still my hand is on the coke
can, my other hand coffined in my pocket. I
feel like burning maps.

As the yarrow of summer blossoms into the
next yellow summer, so time passes. In re-
calling the moment, my thoughts too have pro-
gressed.

More alone each day, I imagine a path in the
teal wood, as it begins to inhale the beginning
of darkness. I recall a moment in my childhood
Cub Scout class, when Mrs. Hildreth declares,
“Boys, scatter bread crumbs behind you on
hikes, or mark trees along the pathway. This
will keep you from getting lost,” she says. Then
smiles, “I am only kidding about the bread-
crumbs, that’s only in fairy tales.”

She died years ago. I anticipate she found her
way?

You daughter, have children of your own now. I
see their courage. Of course, they use GPS, not
hand map .gifs.

We all seem ok where we are.

That Saturday is gone, years flow, days wash
days, our shared moment, now just another
day of the week, Saturday.

The End About the Author:

Dan has a MS Degree. He is the author of two
Chapbooks, Nature’s Front Door & Expectation
of Stars. Partial Credits: 101 Words, Amethyst,
UK., Chaleur Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, Cali-
fornia Quarterly, Curlew, UK., Dissections, En-
tropy, Esthetic Apostle, Foxglove, Friday Flash
Fiction, Frogmore, High Shelf Press, Oddball,
Poetry Northwest, The Quail Bell, Skylight 47,
Spelk, Spillwords, The Fiction Pool, Urban Arts,
Unstamatic, and Vita Brevis.

PARTY OFF

by Vern Fein

Why would a dark story come flying into my when George and I arrived, heard the sobs,
head at my grandson’s joyous birthday party? beat a quick path to his room to shut our ears.
Suddenly sad, my mind swept back to that
bleak Saturday afternoon, a cold but clear win- Finally, a knock on George’s door.
ter day.
Mrs: “Boys, come out to the party. Your
Visiting my best friend George in his tiny sister wants to share her cake.”
house, furniture, leftovers from an unfaithful
marriage, his mother abandoned with two kids We came right out, Mrs. putting a party hat
and not much to make it pretty. on each of our heads without asking, the same
ones she and Kitty had already donned. The
I remember bare, spare. An odd-shaped cake and ice cream were already served before
table, unmatched chairs, a plastic K-mart table- us, each plate with a red plastic fork.
cloth, bright party plates—cups and napkins
embarrassing the rest of the room. And Kitty, We ate; it was good. Made small talk. You
George’s thirteen year old sister, sobbing in the can’t remember small talk. We did not sing.
corner on her mothers’ s heavy breast.
As I stood at my grandson’s party, even as
No one came. Not one kid. The entire memory fades, I realized that all these years I
eighth grade class invited. Sometime later, had never thought about why it happened.
after the four of us ate some of the too large Then, I was only old enough to feel sad.
cake, small smiles came through the tears, the
repeated “Whys?” having faded away, Kitty Was it the poverty, the house, the wrong-
would tell us. She had been to a few of “their” side-of-the-tracks neighborhood, that Kitty was
parties, always lots of kids, presents, fun, bal- not pretty, had acne, was overweight, sweat
loons, ice cream, cake, games. stains, even then, under her party dress arms?

She wanted one for herself, too innocent to Now I am able to reflect, surmise in my old,
know that class extends from birth. Too shy, retirement, comfortable age, snap back to my
she asked her teacher to pass out the invites, own festivities—middle-class children, plates,
tried not to notice the lack of eye contact. cups, napkins, hats, favors, pizza, cake, ice
cream, games, lots of presents.
Wore her one pretty dress. Terribly poor,
but Mom splurged on plates, cups, napkins,
hats, party favors, ice cream and a huge cake,
decided not to make it herself after a lot of lost
sleep. Set for one o’clock. It was a bit past two

About the Author:

A retired teacher, Vern Fein has published over
seventy poems and short pieces on a variety of
sites, a few being: *82 Review, The Literary
Nest, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review,
VietNam War Poetry, Ibis Head Review, Spin-
drift, Former People, 500 Miles, and The Write
Launch, and has non-fiction pieces in Quail Bell,
The Write Place at the Write Time, and Ade-
laide, plus a short story in the the online maga-
zine Duende from Goddard College.