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ken*again, the literary magazine                ken*again is a quarterly, nonprofit e-zine presenting a hearty,eclectic mix of prose, poetry, art and photography: accessible, obscure, soothing, disturbing. Wrap your mind around a good read.

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Donald Ryburn Fred Johnston Rochelle Mass Sam Silva Priscilla Barton Nicole Lawler Walt McDonald Janet I. Buck Michael Ladanyi William C. Houze Rochelle Hope Mehr Raleigh D. Meadow      Perfect Beauty by Donald Ryburn "...perfect beauty has nothing to say."                                         Carlos Pellicer She became a quetzal,  Mute, beautiful, alive,  She refused the tomb of time,  As I, with the tongue of ten salamanders,  Imprisoned within stone,  Wait some nebulous magic,  To set me free, In this room shredded by hope,  I listen to myself,  As I count fifteen Septembers, She was so immaculate, Her red feathers flamed down, Art nouveau curves, Spoke a language of truth,  In an ancient April wind. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         On Hearing a Bach Cantata in St. Ann's Church, Dublin by Fred Johnston Even as they tune and place themselves, Conductor and soprano breaking The waves of formal black, The fat loaves on their shelves Draw the eye back: To the Poor of St Ann's Parish For Ever Thirteen Pounds Per Annum To Be Distributed In Bread At Five Shillings Each Week - The bread gleams, loaves of light - Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn I have to God’s heart and mind . . . . If the loaves could sing, They’d choir the break of new grain The moulding and kneading: The rising, like a meld of voices, Unearthly under the roof of the mouth.   The Watchers by Fred Johnston Three young girls lean on a fence Eye the distance that has no end, Each thin and unfinished Like a drawing of themselves – Heat draws up the scent of tar, A good weather day in sodden bad, But the roadway’s hard with traffic And too sudden, so they stay – The smallest tries to climb To the head-height of the tallest girl, The sailing wind of our hot car Throws out their hair – The road is between them And the indescribable miles, A threshold of skippy pebbles Every car tyre flicks and rolls – One is climbing to be taller than herself: The weather’s humming from The West, where rain and bombs are born, And when we’re long gone, The first plump drops will make them squint, And someone will shout Out of the brick cottage, And they’ll go in.   Quaker Cemetery, Bluestone by Fred Johnston Bent between the burnt-out car And a spare dump acre, A sign angles at the wet earth, implies Here it is - dig. There’s so much wrecked or put away In the wee apple parishes Where half a shout carries on Like Boxing Day guns in the washed air. The Orange Halls Are dolls’ houses and kept tidy In a landscape of haphazard - The sign surprises you: you go back Slugged in grass mud to the laces, To be sure you saw what you saw. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page     Celebrating Humus by Rochelle Mass In Acre, by the sea, Yusuf makes it coarse with cracked kernels crispy as pecans. A man called Kobi serves it to me smooth as velvet in the last row of the Tiberias souk. On the highway, near the number 80 Army Camp they fill the center with tehini, lace it with olive oil. The Ahmed brothers, in Afula, run a place with a kosher stamp, a Rabbi sits at a table near the kitchen inspecting what goes in and out. The brothers pile whole buds in the center, add bits of parsley big enough so I recognize the shape of the leaf. Just past the memorial to fallen fighters, at the Golani junction I ask for hot fava beans to fill the middle , with paprika sprinkled over the steam till the surface glows. On Yermiyahu street in Tel Aviv, my serving arrives ashkarah style with a full radish, green onion stalk, an egg boiled brown. No matter the recipe or the service, humus is to be wiped. I tear pita quickly, twist firmly into the taupe mass, reach for cracked syrian olives and diced salads that parade the humus till the table swoons in peppery sharpness till pickled aromas challenge the minted tea till my celebration ends. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Calling Out To You by Sam Silva From my Summer hill I taste your absence ...gone for awhile, the ease and the thrill, the form and the substance, the frown and the smile. A schizophrenic with his pill waiting for love to wing her way home with madness, with visions that burn in afternoon or lie awake while the night is still and yearn the way that sweet light reflects from the Moon. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         So Much More To Carry by Priscilla Barton It begins as a thought and builds upon itself, becomes a sand painting etched for a desert moon. It made no difference that I had never put my fingers to your mouth, or sat beside you while the whiskey said I wasn't real. I had already taken form in the bend of your elbow, made myself at home in your palms, rested quiet behind your eyelids. I was always able to dream-kiss, rouse you from uneasy sleep, leave my salt on your tongue. This pull is all that has ever held me to the worn edges of possibility, all that has ever turned air into substance. What to call these things that never happen, what name to give this tight and hard nothingness? You were so real in the telling; how impossible to believe we were both ghosts. All things considered or imagined become real and shape themselves into stones forever carried.   The Beginning by Priscilla Barton The subtleties outweigh reason, applaud my efforts, and dismiss me with a flick of their wrists. I become lost in the inference of touch; the possibility of falling into mahogany eyes; the static movement of small hairs on my arms, standing at attention, primal and insistent, taking my breath, and leaving me wide open to elements just beneath my skin. He offers a casual smile, and I pinwheel through centuries and past lives, back to the cave, circling the fire, naked and hungry for sounds that transcend language. Somewhere between a civilized introduction and the formality of strangers, a river of saliva tries to drown my tongue. I watch his mouth ladle my name like warm cider, and I am jealous of my name. He brushes the hair from his forehead with the stroke of two fingers, and my heart wails. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Your Silence by Nicole Lawler Your silence.. Violent nothingness A tap meant to flow, becomes slow to a drop, then it stops Like a girl, arms outstretched clutching at a flat wide wall Waiting for a hug Like strangling water with my hands A one-sided conversation with a ghost Apparition of love, slips like a glove From a whore, to the floor Unrequited affection crushes like rejection You are unmoved like blood Trickling down a groove in the cement Deep lament, ill-consent What is meant? By your violent silent nothing The empty room – air flows between us Where nothing else passes My invisible convulsions, feed self-revulsions Your disease, my unease Is your violent silence Creamy tones of cruel silence Sharp sounds – emptiness quietens. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page     Leaving the Middle Years by Walt McDonald Glossy brochures of waves come back to haunt us, torsos tanned and rippling on the beach, young as our own when we were sweethearts alone, before children.  Our children have flown to Tahiti, posed with each other at Cancun, Maui, the bold, romantic heat working its magic on skin in bikinis, bronze bodies smooth as brochures, waves forever rolling on beaches of vanishing sand.   Wayfaring Strangers by  Walt McDonald A church tower bongs and swallows scatter.  Birds don't believe they're safe, saved by bells from shotguns.  They're pilgrims passing through, frost on the roofs at dawn, burned off by noon.  Our barns and towers offer hope but they don't know it, or if they know, don't care.  They take whatever geese left in our fields, and leave.  They'll hatch eggs somewhere else, following instinct and habit as far north as swallows go.   Let summer come, let fall turn bugs to berries there, let winter freeze-- they'll stop by again for worms and locusts, pecking our grain a month or two at most, no greater home for some migrating birds than Mexico.    The Elephants' Graveyard by Walt McDonald I believe in the rich and hidden mines of the imagination, all of it jumbled together and waiting to be found.  Down there are regions we haven't touched for years except in hopes or nightmares--remnants of all we've taken in--our lost city of Atlantis, the elephants' graveyard, the forgotten bone yards of our lives.  Sometimes, after lights out, I dream of friends missing in action, glimpses that flicker up.  Old soldiers know our wars can't be caught on tape, the actual never captured, not even by facts.  Carol and I raised babies in Colorado, green slopes and snow, the garden of Eden.  After I flew home from Vietnam, we left it for the strangeness of flat, west Texas plains where we'd grown up--those hauntingly wide horizons, the splendor of it all.  Solomon taught us it's all been told before.  Facts alone are drilling for oil with a cork screw, like digging for coal with a plastic spoon, searching for Amelia Ehrhart's plane or Noah's ark by reading maps.  Down there, under the heat and pressure of living are images we need for making poems-- some already diamonds, most of them coal waiting to stoke the furnace, gushers of oil that would drive us longer than we could write.  Now, when grandkids mount me like a family camel, tugging my beard and squealing, I know what matters most, and play  before their parents waltz them off to bed.  Each day's a metaphor--the cradle and the tomb, stiff knees, the gold and silver in her hair.    No Matter Where They're From by Walt McDonald   My family battered catfish enough for in-laws, for grandchildren's children not yet born.  Hired hands on tractors were family, and cowboys gaunt after roundup, no neighbors strangers.  Aunt Martha said no matter where they're from, they're kin.  I couldn't count the pounds of beans, potato salad aunts lifted from ice chests to tables spread with butcher paper.  If it rained, games were dominoes and gossip, not hide-and-seek on plains without a tree.  Nobody's secret was safe, no place to hide.  And so when Uncle Oscar's daughter came back after decades, she brought not one but ten little secrets, cousins that looked like us, but in ties and taffeta.  They kept to themselves, a receiving line we entered and tried to mingle, but left tongue-tied and baffled like neighbors after Babel.  We glanced around as if to ask, Is this the Balkans?  Belfast?  Aunts offered plates heaped with feasts, but not one ate, as if nothing was here but mayonnaise, dead fish, botulism.  We turned to each other, I confess, and the noise went on, all gossip and laughter louder.  Oscar's daughter listened to him politely for a while, and then they left in several sleek, expensive cars, a fleet of tires like a tank corps making clouds of dust to the highway, then nothing but dark glass shimmering toward town, back to condos and parties at their country club, leaving nothing behind but family and dust our roads knocked off their tires.  Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Dinner for One by Janet I. Buck You pay some kid to groom the yard. The grass is cut. The weeds are pulled. You miss his footprints on the rug. Yawning tulips, fuchsia needles, crocus spirals shape a curse. I watch you walk the dog at noon, retrieve your mail while orange suns come and go without your eyes. Every trick of blossoming reminds you of comparisons. Brumes of thin white gauze roll linen scraps on wet paint blue. Color is sassing the earth with a brush, but the mouth of a rose has lost its cheery palimpsest. House For Rent & Truck For Sale sit spiked in dirt - their hieroglyphs another tampon waving grief like single placemats at a bar. The hose is a cobra writhing along, choking your ankles with memory's noose. Vapor trails behind a plane remind you of the earthly journey slipping into vacancy. His garden tools still hang on nails as cobwebs trace the gutter beams. Smoke rings from a barbecue - gray meringue around a bomb.   Fountains for Lenor Madruga Chappell by Janet I. Buck I understand what water does- when whiskey and wine, when little white pills have failed. When prayer hangs mute like silent harps. When bands of strength crush in crackers under foot. Its soft, soft jellyfish won't sting. Here, we are free of agony's foam, of quicksand, mud and unmet wish, as lucky toes walk by our eyes. Free of our minikin scars. Free of the waiting fall. Free of the lurch of our will. A little chlorine in our hair, a little salt from ocean depths rinses the wound, lightens the judgment required to walk. Suspend us from the cliff, we stretch -- like wombs oblige a pregnancy. A question mark just straightens out in tall black exclamation rods of a joy we'd never have known if fate had left us with two good legs. Our hair in the waves, recalling the color of brown when the rest of the world is going to gray and a grave. Stroke, flip, tuck, turn- we should have been fish but we're women instead, saddled with stares and the art of their grief sculpting our bodies at whim. We drag the sea with what is left -- find ourselves between the claws of coral reefs -- among the infinite ruins.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Cold and Thick by Michael Ladanyi The thin sky painted to the kitchen window is bronze, this old house is creaking with leaning passions walled in plaster, tears, screams, laughter and naked sighs. White years of our daughters framed and hanging behind and above the t.v. whisper to one another in blushed innocence, only small wounds rising to the surface of their glass covered smiles. The news flickers as priest repent through viaticum withered lips and young choirboys cringe in shallow corners, their private flesh twisted, Mother Mary on their dry tongues like the death of a child. The inside of me is dancing crooked above this paper, sickly raging. I remember that my mother named me after the first Michael. My Adam's hand is extended, the plastered air between it and what I reach for, cold and thick.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         To the Spirit of Edna St.Vincent Millay by William C. Houze The strong morning sun forces me to seek shade In the children's area outside the Camden library- A nook contrived by village Selectmen, I guess, To convey to visitor’s a sense of childhood reverie. Sitting there, smoking a forbidden cigarette, I wait for the library to open, reading the titles Of children’s books cast, unbelievably to me, In Dragon cement, so many small tombstones I think, turning to watch healthy young mothers Returning last night’s re-wound family videos. Surrounding me is the perfect tourist’s tableaux: The famous harbor full of quaint sailing craft, The moon pulling the sea not too far in or too far out, The noise of Route 1 reassuringly clogged with new Forest green Subarus topped with new yellow kayaks, The small galleries hawking Maine seascape kitsch, Pacifying scoops of Ben & Jerry’s for every crying child. And then, after a gray-haired librarian unlocks the door, And as I smile and say good morning to her as I enter, I think about the small statue overlooking the harbor, The one of a woman who made a point of scandalizing locals With her frank language, her open sexual appetites, Her bohemian ideas, and her raw lust for life. And before I sign on to the Internet to check my email, I am transported back to my rental cottage on Pitcher Pond, Where, lying nude on our bad and stained mattress, My wife and I can hear the high-pitched skittering cries Of a pair of golden eagles daily announcing, From their lookouts high-up in the big white pines, The same elemental hunger she expressed in her poems- A longing for what lies beyond what is now or might be, For vistas not possible from atop her tower on Mount Battie. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Hope by Rochelle Hope Mehr We cope as we can And trust as we must In the garden Glimmers a light      Refracted Torsioned Abiding in the night. Refractory light! Unrepentant sight! I strain to see you Climbing the wisteria. I twist my insides-- --Tight.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         a walk as Autumn falls by Raleigh D. Meadow The low gray-primer sky makes good its threat, a thickening rhythm sets in, spattering October, its masterful watercolor running and smearing the ground. The pa-ta-ka-tap beat, over umbrella and leaves, resembles chalk click-clacking across a blackboard, as if nature herself were being disciplined by One in authority, and forced to write upon my heart 1000 times... " I will put Raleigh in a melancholy mood. " And just that quick, in an afternoon shower, the landscape becomes a paisley puddle, with winter winking through the trees, and I for my part, end the walk an older man, stooping beneath the weight of winter's swiftness. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page

 

 

   

• The Million-Dollar Bash   Richard Meyers

• The Disappearance of Captain America   Peter Banks

• The Mail Truck   Laura Loomis

• Love With A Stranger   Radha Krishna Ramsumair

• Off-Shore Promises   Rochelle Mass

• Free Ride   Christina G. Petersen

• The Landscape   Nathan Leslie

• Dear Martha   Jack Swenson

 

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The Million-Dollar Bash                                              

by Richard Meyers

"We'll take our potatoes down to be mashed.
  We'll take it all down to that million-dollar bash.
   Ouh Babe, ouwie.  It's that million-dollar bash."
                                                                                             -Bob Dylan

unsie dove swan-like into his bungee jump, freefalling into the elastic snap that sent him whirling high above the Russian River.  The arc of the swing back curved wide and frenziedly and Bunsie went crashing into a madrone tree where he hung upside down until sometime before noon when he managed to crawl out.  Untangled, he flopped into a mud puddle, saw the moon, said, "Say it's only a paper moon" four times and walked away, leaving his bungee jump equipment behind.  

He got together with Charles Lindbergh after that and Charles told him to dive farther next time.  "Like you were falling into the next century," he said, "and fly into your own legend."  Bunsie disagreed, saying, "No, it's better to fly backwards in time.  Back to Babylon or Egypt."  The thing was to rediscover the ancients.  Along came Saint-Exupery, a master of the theory of flight, who told the two of them to stop arguing and "Get yourselves down to the bash."  The three were joined by H.G.Wells, an authority on time travel, who explained that neither past nor future travel was all that it was cracked up to be.  "The present is what really matters.  So forget your worries and come on down to that Million-Dollar bash."  Lindbergh, being dead, wasn't crazy about the present.  Bunsie had ambitions for his place in ancient kingdoms.  The present in his opinion had no future. Bunsie was confused; he really didn't know what to think.  He said goodbye to Charles and H.G. and walked down the valley path towards the river.  He ran into Rasputin near the bend warmly engaged in conversation with St. Teresa of Avila who was picking blackberries for the bash.  Attila the Hun was bemusedly running about catching butterflies.  Serenity was pervasive and magic was afoot.

The grand approach to the Bash Fairgrounds was strewn with flags and banners.  Bright-colored tents speckled with wind chimes and holograms straddled the sides of the dandelion path.  Crowds of people, revelers and dreamers of all varieties, poured into the fairgrounds.  Near the entrance, a gateway of velvet and silk curtains, stood a tent gleaming with sequins and soda pop bottle tops from around the world.  Above the opening, a sign garlanded with beads and flowers read:  "Welcome to the Forgiveness Center."  It was a mandatory stop before entering the Bash for any among the throngs that carried anger in their hearts or any kind of will for grudges, rivalries, vengeance.  Here was the place and time to unload hatred, all forms of it.

Bunsie recognized many familiar persons inside the tent.  Sherlock Holmes was inside shaking hands with Professor Moriarity and Grant and Robert E. Lee were having a tearful hug.  Likewise, Cardinal Richelieu was kissing the Four Musketeers one after another.  Jean Valjean from Les Miserables was embracing what's his name.  All of the Montagues and Capulets were dancing together.  A circle of celebrants watched the dancing of others like themselves who were once enemies and now best of friends.  There was Peter and Captain Hook, Charlie Chaplin and Max Swain, Cain and Abel, Rama and Ravenna, Jekyll and Hyde, the lawyer representing Kauravas and his opponent on the side of the Pandava brothers now embracing.  Behind the Forgiveness Center was the Lost and Found tent where the Beatles were seen reuniting and the Prodigal son met Ishmael, Stanley found Livingstone, Martin found Lewis.  All were forgiven, nobody was judged, the lost were found at that Million-Dollar Bash.

The air was balmy with the scent of leaves and pines.  Bunsie's heart was speechless as he walked in awe along the splendid carnival attractions.  The night sky came down that night, in flakes, as he walked in such light-hearted delight that he heard the benign sighs of when the universe began.  He felt an unusual happiness like he had stars in his blood.  All those attending the Bash seemed like kindred souls bursting like flowers, for wonder ran without a seam from river to sky to mountain to the multitudes that experienced what some referred to as "bash bliss." 

The crowd walked the fair grounds in a trance.  No one could say for sure whether it was the rides or novelty booths or entertainment that accounted for their extraordinary pleasure.  Other fairs had these amusements.  The gathering at the Bash was imbued with a sweet and glowing compassion that everyone ached to express to one another.  Words were not enough and many tried to use them to grasp at a description.  What exactly was it, that peculiar and elusive feeling that made the Million-Dollar Bash such a miracle of rare joy?  Bunsie ran into Jim Morrison and Jimmie just looked ecstatic. Will Blake was doing cartwheels in the Garden of Enchantments while Dante applauded, shouting, "Paradiso" and Quixote shook his head, saying, "This must be El Dorado."  Nietzsche and Kierkegaard watched but had no comment.  Wordsworth called the Bash "pleasure indefinitely prolonged " while Coleridge said that its bliss was "measureless to man."  Rudolph Steiner kept talking about "sensation's superdome."

Will Rogers kept twirling his rope and smiling.  T.E. Lawrence and DeSade wanted more.  Joseph Campbell said: "Follow that bliss."  Einstein kept fondling a big, dumb blonde.  Whitman said "Celebrate."  Svengali said "Sleep."  Stan Laurel said "What?"  Moses said "Go Down."  Jesus said "Come in."  That made sense to Bunsie who entered the tent named Perfumed Sleep.  And on a bed made of ostrich feathers and the wings of doves he lay down for a long and deep sleep.  He woke up refreshed and excited to enjoy the day.  It would be a day for fantasies to be grasped, dreams realized, and prophecies to be fulfilled.

It was a glorious day of joy and wonder at that Million-Dollar Bash.

 

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The Disappearance of Captain America                           

 by Peter Banks
                                                                                                        

hen the world was much simpler, when the only worry he had was being on time for dinner, Bradley Janikowski was obsessed with pinball.  It was not any pinball game that he poured his allowance into.  More precisely, it was the Captain America pinball machine down at the drugstore.  The times were not pinball times, mind you, they were the beginning of more complex games:  Pacman, Space Invaders, Asteroid, Galaga, and Gauntlet.  But Bradley could not find joy in them.  He preferred the hard metal of the ball, the control of the flippers, the extravagant sounds that showered his eardrums as he played.

Almost everyday after school, unless his mother’s castigation of his pinball obsession cornered him into doing something productive like raking leaves, Bradley made the half-mile jaunt down MacArthur Boulevard toward the drugstore.  Much as the postal service, he braved the elements to reach his destination.  Sometimes, he would arrive at the drugstore soaked, severely parched or on the verge of frostbite, depending on the season.  Whatever his physical condition, Bradley was greeted with the appropriate remedy: warm cider, sparkling lemonade, hot chocolate.  And as soon as he recovered, he exchanged a dollar bill for quarters with the proprietor Mr. Saunders.  Sometimes without so much as a word, the transfer was made, the operation firmly engrained in the routine of both lives.

It was a clear mid-October Friday afternoon, and the bell that released Bradley from Mrs. Hanover's fifth grade class rang sweetly in his ears.  His legs, chipper with excitement, carried him swiftly out the front door of the school, across the kickball field, down the slope by the swing set, towards the open road.  Rarely was Bradley accompanied.  There were classmates who were fond of other games at the drugstore, but they usually waited until Bradley had begun his journey before beginning theirs.  It was a sad fact that Bradley was considered a nerd.  A geek to put it more precisely.  In part, his relegation to second-tier elementary school status was because of his affinity for pinball.

“Why don’t you have a pocket protector, nerd,” or, “this isn’t the 1950s nerd,” were common epithets spit at him.  Bradley was one of the few to put money into the machine.  Most of the others were grizzled men who came in during school hours to pass the time.

The affair with pinball had begun when Bradley was four.  His father, a sentimental gentleman played the game when the two would go in the drugstore on regular errands.  Bradley could always remember the look in his father’s eyes, the gleam that he could tell reminded Dad of his childhood.  Once he had begun his solo jaunts, whenever Bradley got home from the drugstore, he would always report his high score of the day to his father.  The Janikowski men would discuss technique over dinner, when to use a little hip to get the extra points, how to save a seemingly errant ball.

Bradley enjoyed the solitary walk, avoiding cracks because of the old adage about mother’s backs.  His backpack flopped around, its few contents unable to weigh it down.  His blondish hair sprouted like a dandelion in all directions.  There was an a unique air of happiness about Bradley that day because he believed firmly that he would move to the top of the leader board, surpassing the mysterious GDF who had held the championship for almost a year.  Bradley had never met GDF, but hoped to one day express admiration for his skills, or perhaps engage in a battle of flipper power.

Cars sputtered by, the exhaust from their tail pipes floated lazily in the air, thinned into grayish invisibility.  A few nannies pushed young children in strollers.  The homes that lined MacArthur Boulevard stood proudly, their porches equipped with the treats of upper middle class life-porch swings and cords of fireplace wood.  The front lawns faded from green to brownish patches.

Bradley arrived at the drugstore surprisingly refreshed, his index fingers pulsing.  The two front windows were decorated for Fall, with particular reverence for Halloween.  Cardboard pumpkins, witches, and ghosts.  The inside was rather bland, a worn red carpet lined the floor.  The merchandise was carefully placed in order of significance to the older locals, with things like the pharmacy and make-up closest to the front door, while candy and soda were located closer to the back.

Bradley opened the door, stepped through the entrance, waived at Mr. Saunders who sat behind the counter reading a tabloid magazine that declared the undeniable existence of a two-headed, three breasted woman, and walked toward the back of the store to get a soda.  He passed down the aisle that held feminine products, and as he glanced in their direction, he felt himself blush. He quickly slipped into the paper products aisle and felt the blood drain from his face.

The refrigerator that held drinks hummed noisily, consuming the silence that would otherwise have been there. Bradley opened it and removed a cola from the top shelf.  He walked back toward the front of the drugstore, remembering to avoid the aisle with the feminine products.

“Say there Bradley, how’s school today?”

“Good, Mr. Saunders.”

“You learn a lot of stuff?”

“Um, yeah, I guess.”

“Good, you’ll grow up to be a lawyer or doctor or something.  If not, play football.  Those guys make lots of money.”

“I’ll try, Mr. Saunders.”

They exchanged money.  Bradley turned from Mr. Saunders, and stepped over to his machine, now pushed to the corner, overshadowed by Q-Bert and Galaga.  The thin layer of dust that made its home on the glass cover of Captain America jumped in the air as Bradley put the quarter in the slot-blam, slam, brrrrring.  He stretched his neck, tilting his head from side to side, as though he was about to participate in some rigorous athletic event.  The giant Captain America that blistered the back portion of the game lit up brightly, and uttered some unintelligible words of encouragement.  Bradley pulled the plunger back and then let go.  So the game began.

The whirring and excitement of the game was only beginning to reach its height when two of Bradley's classmates walked through the front door.  Bryce, a mean looking, scabby faced bully was in front, and wore an expression of glee at the site of Bradley at the Captain America machine.  Stewart, the trailer, the rat faced tagger-on who followed Bryce’s shadow much as a dog follows a bone, slunk behind.  Their main game was Galaga, and after school, and after they were done stealing candy from the supermarket down the block, they made their way to the drugstore.  Both boys were concocted from one- half drunken father and one- half uncaring mother but were surprisingly unrelated.  Together they roamed the streets of the neighborhood searching for activities to pass the time, particularly those that involved the destruction of property and/or feelings.

“Hey nerd,” Bryce spat at Bradley’s back.  His gap-toothed smile added a depth of repugnance that rivaled Beelzebub.  Bryce scratched at his dandruffy head.

“Yeah, nerd,” echoed Stewart robotically just as a finger shot up his nose.

Bradley’s eyes did not lift from the lights of his machine.  He was engrossed so thoroughly that the personal attacks being leveled behind his back did not have an effect.  When he played the Captain America game, he felt himself transformed into a comrade, a kindred spirit of the red, white, and blue clad character, above the pettiness of mere mortals.  His heart was lifted from the drudgery of lowest-tier elementary school status to the heights of legendary super herodom.  He imagined himself alongside Captain America on his motorcycle racing towards action, ready to rid the world of evil, the wind tousling his hair.

“Hey nerd,” Bryce repeated, “I’m talking to you.”

Still no response.

“Don’t make us kick your ass, nerd.”

Nothing.

Mr. Saunders raised his head from an article about a four-year-old who had hit puberty to consider whether he should jump in to the fracas in defense of one of his most loyal customers.  His eyes considered the three boys and went back to the pubic hair of four-year-olds.

Bradley was just near the ten million mark, an impressive feat on that particular pinball game, when Stewart, the follower, crooned,

“Good luck playing that game, nerd, because it’s going to be gone by next week.”

The ball hit the back alley and the game was over.  Final score, nine million eight hundred ninety five thousand, four hundred twenty three.  Bradley turned slowly, the might of the words echoed in his head.  He faced the two bullies and reconsidered the truth.  Their regular statements were creamed with the thickness of lies.  The web of fibs that they had spun throughout the years made it virtually impossible to determine what was true and what was not.

“You guys are lying,” he said.  Tears began to well, reality rushed back with unbearable fury.  The dream had evaporated

“Nope, it’s truth,” Bryce cackled.

“Honest to God truth,” Stewart echoed.

“Bullshit.”

The bullies laughed demonically.  Mr. Saunders raised his eyes again, realizing that he had forgotten to tell Bradley of the impending change.

“Mr. Saunders,” the tears began to roll down Bradley’s cheeks, parting ways, only to tumble to the rough carpeting on the floor, “is it true?”

Saunders folded the paper carefully, his eyes avoided Bradley’s.  He set the paper down on the counter.  His dry, wrinkled face was beset with an unconscious smirk.  The older, graying eyes saddened.

“Son, come here a second.” Saunders motioned with both of his arthritic hands for Bradley to move toward him.  The boy stepped forward, past the grinning imps, over to the graying man behind his graying counter.

“You know, I thought I’d told you that I was getting rid of that thing,” Saunders lied.

Bradley shook his head.  He closed his eyes and more tears came, they streaked his ruddy cheeks.  His body rocked back and forth, as though he were the Titanic just having struck its fate, headed to the bottom of the ocean.

“Listen, I’m really sorry.  It’s just that, you know, that Captain America thing isn’t much of a money-maker. These new video games, see, they’re just better.  The kids love 'em and they bring in a bit more money.”  Saunders felt himself flush as he mentioned greed as the reason for the change.

“Please know, that Donkey Kong will never in any way, shape or form replace what that pinball game means.  This is purely financial.  Maybe when you’re older you’ll understand.  Pinball will live on in our memories as one of the truly pure games of our time.  And future generations must be taught the importance of these machines. Just not at my store. ”  Saunders was surprised by his own ridiculous sentimentality, his spur of the moment eulogy delivered to three little kids, only one of whom gave a rat’s ass about what he said.

Bradley had not heard anything Saunders had said, though.  His mind was too busy trying to understand the world.  Bradley did not care about pinball’s historic value or sharing with future generations.  He only cared about the present.  The near future, perhaps.  The tears that clouded his eyes did not prevent him from turning from Saunders and the two jackals and running from the store.  The door crashed hard against its frame, causing several cardboard pumpkins to fall from the window.

Outside in the orange glow of fading afternoon, Bradley stumbled along.  MacArthur Boulevard was filled with honks, engines racing, squeaking brakes.  Drivers stared into space, their minds in neutral.  The air was mild, with a swirl of clipped grass and apple cider, fireplaces and pumpkins.

Bradley felt his mind moving, the contemplation of loss too difficult to bear.  So many lessons to learn.  He crossed MacArthur where Nebraska again picks up, head down, without noticing the car turning left.  The driver, a twenty-something, long hair, a joint dangling from the corner of his mouth, attention focused on afternoon radio, prank calls and fart jokes being the main discussion of the day, failed to notice the young boy.

The car jolted Bradley.  His neck snapped, and as the feeling drained out of his fingers and toes, he realized that there is no game in the world that is as important as looking both ways before crossing the street.

 

 

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The Mail Truck                                                                                  

 by Laura Loomis

 

don’t know why they insist I have to talk to a psychiatrist.  It had nothing to do with being crazy.  It was the only reasonable thing for me to do.  It’s just that no one else would be reasonable about it.  I’m hoping you will, Doc.

It started with the letter to Julia.  I’d written the most venomous, self-righteous, so-long-you-miserable-cheater letter to her, and I dropped it in the mailbox.  I think I even used a public mailbox instead of my own so I couldn’t change my mind and take the letter back.

But the instant I let go – I remember, it was the exact moment the letter left my hand – I thought:  wait a minute, what if I’ve got it all wrong?  What if that guy really was an old college friend like she said, and they were just changing out of their clothes because they got wet in a freak summer shower?  I mean, I didn’t see any rain on the way over to Julia’s apartment, but you know how sometimes it can just rain in one spot and be sunny down the block?  You’re looking skeptical, Doc, but can you agree that I at least owed it to her to look at the possibility?

And really, Julia is the best thing that ever happened to me.  She’s the kind of girl that I could send forty-six bouquets from every florist shop in town, and instead of taking out a restraining order like my last girlfriend, she hired a Mariachi band to sing outside my window all night.  I don’t actually like Mariachi music, but I think she just forgot.

Anyway, so I tried to reach in and pull the letter out.  But the way they design those mailboxes, you can’t really get in.  All I managed to do was pinch my arm.  I suppose that’s to prevent theft and all, but what do you do in the case of a genuine emergency like this?

When the postman got there, I guess he thought I was some kind of thief or vandal or something.  And I tried to explain that I just needed the letter to Julia Hibley from Donald Peterman.  It was my letter, after all.  I even offered to show ID.  Don’t you think I was being reasonable?  And he wouldn’t listen.  He said it was property of the U.S. Postal Service, and that’s all there was to it.

What’s that, Doc?  Why didn’t I just tell Julia to disregard the letter?  I could have, I suppose.  But really, who could resist that kind of temptation:  "Don’t open the letter I just sent you."  That would get her so curious that nothing could keep her from reading it.  And even if I told her I didn’t feel that way anymore, just the accusation of cheating would have been enough to make her end it.  Julia’s rather touchy, you see.

And that grumpy postman should never have left the keys in the mail truck.  It was like an invitation.  He’d just finished emptying the mailbox into a bag and loading it onto the truck.  I was one step closer to the driver’s side.  It was like fate, or what do they call it, kismet?

I know it’s illegal and everything.  See, I’m not crazy:  I know right from wrong.  And I’m sorry for all the inconvenience I’ve caused.  But can you see it from my point of view?  Getting the letter back was the only way.

You know, a mail truck isn’t the best choice for a getaway vehicle.  It’s slow, it’s conspicuous, and the steering wheel’s on the wrong side.  He chased me three blocks on foot before he grabbed his side and stopped.  His face was red as a stop sign and he looked like he was gasping for breath.  I felt kind of bad for him.  But I knew he’d call the police, and I had to hide until I could find the letter.  I drove past the post office, and inspiration hit.  The fleet of trucks there was the perfect camouflage.

I thought I knew which bag the letter was in.  But now they all looked alike, and they’d gotten jostled around when I took a couple of corners.  I dumped out a mail bag and started digging through the letters.  I swear, a good two-thirds were credit card offers promising extra-low interest for the first thirty seconds, followed by a gazillion percent interest for the rest of your life.  I’m sorry, you can’t convince me that anybody was harmed by not receiving those.  That and grocery fliers, catalogs, and "You may have already won a million dollars" sweepstakes nonsense.  Pretty soon my fingers were covered with ink and smelled like a newspaper.

Then I thought I saw it.  I ripped the envelope open and started to read:  "Dear Jules, your pestilent presence is no longer welcome in my life.  For all I care, you can go do the horizontal weasel dance with the entire basketball team, instead of just one of the players."

I was totally confused.  That wasn’t what I wrote!  And who says "pestilent?"  I looked at the letter again, and it was actually from Donna Peterson to Jules Hadley.  Isn’t that weird, the names being so similar?  Even the handwriting looked like mine.  I know it’s a federal offense to open other people’s mail, but honestly, it was an accident.

I have to admit, I sort of got interested in all the mail as I went through it.  There were postcards from the Carribean, Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendars, and an issue of Psychology Today with an article on how to tell when someone’s lying.  I had to sit down and read that.  But then I got hungry, so I opened a package from the Fruit of the Month Club, which turned out to be kiwi.  Surprisingly fresh, considering it was being mailed third class. That just whetted my appetite, so I opened a package from Hickory Farms, which had some pretty good sausage. Salty, though.  By then I figured I was in so much trouble, I might as well dig in, and I was not going to leave that truck until I found my letter to Julia.

Then I tried to find something to drink, so I opened this package that was shaped kind of like a bottle.  And it turned out to be some fancy rum, the really strong kind.  I took a swig, and it burned all the way down.  It was like my breath was on fire.  I started humming "Puff, the Magic Dragon."  Guess I don’t hold my liquor too well.

That’s probably what made me open the package from Frederick’s of Hollywood.  Ordinarily other people’s gifts would be none of my business, and I had to hurry up and find my letter before they caught me.  But my brain was sort of floating by then, and I don’t know, it suddenly seemed like a good idea.  So I opened it, and it was a monogrammed gold lighter and a pink feather boa.  And guess what – there was a birthday card in the package, from a guy to another guy!  I guess that’s when someone outside of the truck must have heard me laughing.

So the next thing I knew, there were people pounding on the sides of the truck, demanding that I open up.  And suddenly I was completely sober, and I knew I couldn’t let them stop me before I destroyed the letter.  I’d come this far – I’d committed federal crimes, for heaven’s sake – and I couldn’t just let it all be for nothing.

That’s when I poured the rum all over the stacks of mail and set fire to it with the lighter.  It lit up really fast, sort of a bluish flame, then bright orange.  I bailed out of the truck just before it went up in a huge fireball.  Burning letters were flying all over the place, like little rockets.  I hollered, "Air mail!"  I must have seemed like a crazy man, with that boozy smell all around and a flaming feather boa trailing behind me.  I remember the way I laughed, the feeling of absolute triumph as they dragged me away.  I’m sorry for all those people who didn’t get their mail.  But who knows, Donna Peterson and Jules Hadley might just thank me.

So that’s what happened.  I was just doing what had to be done when no one else would be reasonable.  I might have to go to jail, but I don’t belong in a mental hospital.

Do you think Julia will come visit me?

.

 

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Love With A Stranger                                                       

by Radha Krishna Ramsumair

 

e had always defined love according to his interpretation, a definition which consisted of a great deal of indifference, tainted, as he saw it, with a little caring, and yet now, defying his interpretation, he felt helpless by this needing for her.

He was no longer his own island.

Living together, all appeared normal, but he was racked by her continual disappearances, for often, in the middle of a conversation, one in which she had no interest, she would gradually fade out and disappear, only to re-appear in a part of the house where she had things of interest to her.  He realised, after a while, that when she lost interest in what he was saying, her mind took her to where she wished to be.  He was consumed by the fear that one day her mind would take her out of the house to the place from whence she came, into a maze from which she could not return or he follow.  Lost forever.

She never gave any indication of pregnancy.  He would return from work to find her nursing an infant, and he would register no surprise, accepting, quite stoically, this new addition to his family.

Yet, despite the ever growing presence of children, both in stature and numbers, he never felt intruded upon.  They existed peripheral to his world.  He was living in a world of shadow, which he accepted as normal.  He began to be irked by the people he met as a consequence of his work.  Their solidity began to irritate him.  Their sweatiness, their palpable skin, the sound of their laboured breathing, the oiliness of their hair.  Their very nature was now anathema to him.  He was now viewing the world in relationship to that which he had with her and his children.  Their ethereal qualities he now wished the world to possess.  He now became impatient to leave the outside world, as he now looked upon it, to immerse himself in the shadow world of his domesticity.

The years passed by with little notice.  He aged gradually, but they did not seem to.  The children grew in size, but did not seem to age.  Their absences from his sight grew longer.  But he did not know whether this was as a result of their nature, for sometimes they could turn to the side and could no longer be seen, or he would see them approaching and they would fade into a breeze before they reached him, and he would feel the embrace of a mild zephyr.

He retired from work, and simultaneously from the world of men.  But for the necessary commercial activities, he stopped visiting the world outside and no one ever visited him.  Even family stopped visiting.

"He is so strange," they said, "Always talking to himself, but the way he directs his speech, you could swear that there was someone there.  It’s creepy."

And so, in his twilight years, he achieved his ambition to be alienated from the world of men.  He was never lonely, for they conferred companionship, although he could never tell when they would appear.  Some of his children disappeared permanently, although he could not tell which ones they were.  Actually, there were three of them who had left, never to return.  One, a young girl, saw the regal branches of a spreading Samaan tree and climbed up.  She never set foot on earth again.  Another daughter, fell in love with a young man, and this act of love made her evanescent nature fall away like a discarded cape.  Fluttering, it fell to the ground, and she now lived a different death. A son made a journey into the green hills, fell in love with the bosoms of the mountains and there he remained, living among the hills to this very day.

He did not know when his wife died.  He did not know if she had died because he did not know if she could.  He just felt her absence, and the sudden appearance of all his children, and their just as sudden disappearance.  His emptiness was now of a different nature. He did not feel unhappy.  There was no sorrow at the loss of something he never truly had.  He was just happy for the years given to him.

 

 

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Off-Shore Promises                                                                   

by Rochelle Mass

                                                                                                                                              

he waitress brought his salad.  He folded the paper he was reading, keeping the baseball scores face up near his napkin.  Spinach filled his plate.  As soon as the waitress turned away,  Harold began picking at the spinach.  Out of habit, or rather Edna's, he searched for the crab.

"Make sure you get what you ordered," Edna always told him.

He used to take what they gave him.  He never called back a waitress because the steak was too rare or the whipped cream sour.  He'd gulp it down quickly as though suffering his part in the error, as though he had caused the rareness or the sourness.  He ate too much, Edna would say as he opened a menu.  "Red meat and rich cakes aren't for you.  When will you learn?" she'd scold, pushing her small nose towards him till her musky perfume hovered over his plate.

Today he was 'lunching' on his own.  Edna was 'bridging' with the girls, but her harping, 'give your raging cholesterol a break, Harold!' was as clear as if she was umpiring a summer's game.  So, he'd ordered spinach and crab salad.  He hated spinach. It was too flat, too green . The old Popeye stories he'd pushed on his eldest son hadn't fooled either of them.  The left side of the menu with the Bacon and Tomato sandwiches, the Grilled Burgers or worse, Ribs for the Businessman, was stained by hungry diners before him.  All that read loud and clear were the salads.

Spinach and crab titled 'Off-Shore Promises' was third on the list after 'Mandarin Cabbage' and 'Hawaiian Melody.'  He'd heard from Edna that the Oval Platter had gotten a new chef who'd come with a crisp recommendation from a fancy gourmet school in Europe.  Why don't they list garlic toast or french fries?  Sometimes that's really what it was but the exotic names masqueraded what he knew and loved.  The spinach fins loomed with an arrogance that plain head lettuce torn into bits would never dare.  Now they reminded him of his son Murray's Volkswagen mutation.  Alone with only the baseball scores to witness his disregard for the chef's training, Harold waded into the belly of the heap to see if  'he'd gotten what he'd ordered.'  Edna would have been proud.

"You may like the Oval," she'd say leaning into the mirror of her dressing table, "you may think it's the best, but their prices..." smearing lipstick around her open mouth and staring down the lines of fifty-one years that ruffled the open form.  "Umm...mmm."  She'd pulled in air as she dedicated her upper lip to its partner, "you may think that of the Oval, but they charge the price of pheasant."

He didn't know if she'd ever eaten pheasant, or more important paid the price of it, but that's what she had against the Oval.  She allowed herself to be taken to dinner there once a month to please him.

Harold liked the Oval.  Liked the wide seats that wrapped around his thickening waist.  Maybe Edna looked younger under the copper circles pocked with narrow lights and Mediterranean gems.  Yes, she looked younger there.

He burrowed into the salad, going deeper into the greens that smelled like moss.  He found crab, but they were slivers, not thick wedges that Edna would consider worthy of pheasant.  As though he was tearing the catcher's protection off a stout belly, he pushed aside the spinach defense to pierce cherry tomatoes.  Popping one, two, three into his dry mouth, he knew full well that molesting the salad's design in this way diminished any case he could make for returning it, claiming the crab was 'skimpy'.  That's how Edna'd put her case to a waitress.  'Skimpy', to Edna, meant that she wasn't getting her money's worth.  Here it really was skimpy but he was slipping toasted almonds in by the two's.  He didn't stand a chance.  Edna was busy dealing her cards, counting her suits, and sipping afternoon drinks while he scoured his platter for sufficient evidence.

Sprouts sprang out at him.  He'd never order sprouts - no taste, no color.  Edna never bought them.  Sprouts have a certain poison, like the green in potatoes, she explained.  Unless they're cooked, they're deadly.  Maybe she was exaggerating the matter.  But he wouldn`t take a chance on sprouts.

The new chef must be driving them all mad piling sprouts into the salads and trimming spinach like hedges when he should be hawking hamburger and onion rings.  That would be his answer to Edna.

In his search for truth, in his determination to prove the decency of the Oval, his fork worked deeper into the green pit, winding into asparagus.  Each grooved tip jutted through pepper rings that were sliced so fine they were twisted into an 'eight' and ringed twice around each spearhead.

"Everything alright, Sir?" she asked causing him to look up into a white and black stripped bib. "Everything alright, Sir?" she repeated pulling his stare back into his plate.  He looked down to see the baseball scores covered by a mat greener than any at the Golf Club.  "What's wrong with it?" She persisted, "I mean, is anything wrong, Sir?"  He tried to understand the mess his table was in.  Spinach rimmed his plate like a wreath for the death of a loved one.  Here and there were cherry tomatoes that had rolled out of his reach.  Sprouts pushed into his untouched coffee.  The crab bits were piled to the left of his place mat.

"Well, Sir," she added, breaking the silence.

"The crab is dry as match sticks," he poked his fork through it with authority, "look at it!"

"But, Sir," she interrupted, "You didn't have to.. you could have called me."

"I had to make sure," he bellowed into the black and white stripes running over her chest.  Wiping her nose with the edge of her little finger, she continued.  "Sir, you could have.."

"The Oval is losing it.  Get me the manager!  Spinach, okay.  But I won't stand for skimpy crab.  And the menu didn't say anything about asparagus circling around in some god-damn war dance.  And at the price of pheasant!  Get me the Chef!"

The waitress wiped her nose again, this time with an open hand.  She pulled at the bib with the other.

"So, will there be...?"  She hesitated, taking a last look at the mess he'd made of the 'Off-shore Promises'.  "I'll get the manager, and.."  He waived her off.  "Looks like pictures of Thailand in the rainy season," she said, rushing away.

Back to the spears.  Fork in one hand, knife in the other, Harold pushed aside each spoke aside to reveal a bed of sesame.  He brought the knife to his lips and licked seeds that had borrowed vinaigrette from the puddle in the hollow of the plate.  The sharpness reminded him that he hadn't eaten, the same signal that pulled him to candy bars, milk shakes and MacDonald’s when Edna was getting her hair done.  Now he moved the knife back to the spears - five on one side and four on the other. The pepper rings caught the heads like a circumciser's knife.  The spears were swollen and sullen, passive and indifferent.  With the red of the rings and the tease of his knife - well he was sure they could be aroused.

Edna once saw a man standing between big rocks at the beach.  He looked at her in a peculiar yet serene way.  She looked down and saw that his shorts were open and his penis was erect.

"My god," Edna screamed when she told him about it, "I almost fainted."

What's the world coming to?  Pushing the thickest spear of asparagus with his knife Harold wondered - circumcised or not?

 

 

 

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Free Ride                                                             

by Christina G.Petersen

 

he first time I drove, I almost hit a parked car.  I was thirteen, and understandably my technique had not matured yet.  Even though there was no reason to worry, because I would not be eligible for my license for another four years, my mother forbid my contemplation of the steering wheel until I was eighteen, or I learned what anti-lock brakes meant, whichever came first.

The car sat in the driveway, tempting, almost exotic in its need to be touched.  Its tires were low, dashboard dusty, fuzzy dice without sway for over four years.  On a trip to Hawaii, a woman in a lei and grass skirt swayed and entertained our family once, before the separation, and her eyes had a look of enchantment that mirrored the glow of morning sun off the windshield.  A '69 Beetle was hard to come by thirty years later, in drivable condition and willing to be used.  The beveled wheels, long loved and less than caressed by the Eastern potholes, just begged to be removed from their concrete prison.  A '69 Beetle in canary yellow was even harder to come by, due to the unwillingness of its drivers to sit inside a taxicab.  I loved the wholeness of the body, the long forgotten purr of the engine, the dent in the fender, the stylized tear in the back seat, the tiny bookmark shoved under the seat, a reminder of my fear of touching the machine.

I never got sick when I read in the car.  I could read a book from cover to cover without a gustatory whisper, provided the ride was long enough to accommodate my ability.  I read the entire eighth grade reading list in the back seat of the Bug the summer we drove across the country.  He said it would be fun, I remember the word as he said it, his moustached lips forming the sound, "phun," followed by the smile.  It was the summer of the Beard, that which began as a scraggly goatee and then grew into a full bristly tuft.  At first she condemned the Beard, laughing at it because she wanted him to end it, as she wanted him to end at all his attempts to be different from the neighbors.

He loved the Beard, stroked it when he drove, as he loved the Bug, stroking the road as he guided it expertly.  He tried to teach me the love of driving, back when I was thirteen, and I almost hit the Zimmerman's station wagon.  They both laughed when the "incident" occurred.  Only he laughed with the moustached smile on his face, a laugh that reached the eyes, so full and proud of my interest that it seemed to lighten up his whole body.  She laughed the way she always did, telling him that thirteen-year-olds could not drive, ridiculed him for his trust in me, and made his smile disappear, leaving only the husk blowing with the leaves.

I read every book that summer, traveled from London to New York, to San Francisco, to Beijing, while we traveled bodily from Delaware to Montana.  He wanted to experience the open road, she wanted to be able to laugh at him as she always had, to be able to tell her friends that the trip had been one of his "foibles."  She loved telling the pinched and battered women, her friends, all about his failings -- his failure to be promoted, his failure to win at golf, his failure to succeed in "that art thing," as she loved to call it.  She would laugh as she always did, that failure of a laugh, the laugh that started in the throat and ended there.  She knew nothing of the real laugh, the one I saw him release when the incident occurred.  The laugh that tingled up from his toes, gained strength in his belly, rumbled through his chest, and rushed forth from his mouth.  She wielded her laugh as a weapon, he gave his laugh as a gift.

He gave her the greatest gift one humid afternoon and she threw it back in his face, marked up but still usable.  She left that ridiculous dent in the fender when she drove the Bug for the first and last time.  I loved that sacrifice too.  He had given her the keys, a gift so generous only he and I had understood its significance.  She poked her finger in the key ring and twirled them around, laughing that terrible laugh.  She ricocheted out of the prison, cackling all the way -- the sunroof open, the windows obscenely absent as the clouds rolled to follow her, the wicked screech of rubber on death, all jolted the laughter right out of his eyes. 

He tried to work that day, hands covered in paint, sleeves rolled, chairs, benches, chests ready for adornment.  But the idea of such a dangerous toll being taken on the Bug, the sight of her malignant grin, the jerk of her neck as she shifted uncontrollably proved prophetic.  The mechanic said it would cost two hundred dollars to replace the fender.  She apologized a hundred, million times, the terrible laugh used as an excuse.  "The car just started rolling", she flipped her head, "I just couldn't stop it."  He forgave her immediately, it was not in his nature to hold it against her.  The sight of the imperfection only strengthened the dent in his esteem.  Where the full laugh had once been, the broken crack of his voice took over.  The laugh diminished slowly.  What had once began in the toes, started at the knees -- the boom quieted to a chuckle.

He depicted the Bug many times, rubbing the Beard, working outside for all the neighbors -- her world -- to see.  He would inspect the shadows, the curvature of the throttle, the gleam of its freshly kissed eyes.  The smile would come, breaking through the Beard, and end up on the paper.  He painted it in front of the giant sequoia that summer in Yosemite, naked except for its paper thin canary coat.  She laughed and went to the beauty hut, had her nails done, and told me to collect pine cones. I heard her tell strangers about him, denouncing him in the most rank of ways. "He just loves that car, even more than me.  When I put the littlest ding in it -- he never lets me drive it any way -- he refused to have it fixed.  Said it had to be original.  Well, we can't afford to have it fixed any way, since he hasn't had a promotion in six years.  If you ask me, original is just another word for broken down"

It was then I realized, amongst the giant trees at Yosemite, that she had no plan to enjoy him, or to understand him, but only to destroy him.  Every cackle, every death grin, was a blow at him.  The physical destruction of his wheels was just the beginning of the fatality.  I raced back to him, the Beard and the Bug resplendent amongst the pines.  From the look in his eyes, coal gray and wise, he knew her plan and flight was imminent.  He had driven this far to distance them from the neighborhood to try to recapture the reason for the existence of them.  Yet, he could not, in some way, understand why they existed at all.

We drove home, he jovial, trunk stashed with canvases, her laugh a bullet shot out of the open window.  I could just imagine her forming the condemning sentences, "There was no real reason for us to go, but you know Tom, always has to be different", and I could not stand for her laugh to deliver the final blow.  When we unpacked the Bug for the last time, he took me on his knee, eyes black with mood ring sadness.  He told me he loved me, showed me how to use the brakes, said he would always be there in spirit, taught me about the directionals, sadly whispered he had to leave, and let me hit the gas.  I almost hit the Zimmerman's station wagon, it would later be dubbed the "incident."

That was the last time I heard the Beard laugh, her squeal of disgust tempered an earth shattering joy at my almost total destruction of his freedom.  But, my first caress of the pedal jumpstarted his consciousness, and in a few days he was gone, a whisper of the laugh and a memory of the Beard the only reminders of his existence.  She denounced him quickly, tore the remaining canvases, and settled into an abandoned wives group, whose netty gossiping about who was next to join their ranks drove me to inspect the Bug.

***

I pass by the house at least five times each night before I finally return home, never quite wanting to enter.  I use the Bug to escape her self-imposed misery.  It had sat dormant for years after he left it to me, a clear tract in the settlement.  She was not to touch it until I was old enough to drive it, and then I had total control over it.  She happily let the Bug rot, entering its doors now would be like spelunking into long buried emotions.  I personalized it, pulled out the rusted cans of paint, hidden leftovers of his time.  Prying each one open was like bringing forth smells of old Saturday mornings.  While others were losing at golf, he created his own universe while she was limited by the neighborhood.

Whenever she sees me in the Bug around town, there is no joy in her eyes, the mouth is empty, no comment, no gasp, not even the laugh that drove him away.  She tells me, summoning wells of hatred I did not even know she still possessed, "What your father would do to you if he knew what you have done."  She finally grins, revealing teeth as rotten as her soul, thinking her battle finally won.  I only smile, like he taught me how, a smile that visibly puts her off balance.  "Don't worry, he would congratulate me."  I grin back and start the engine.

The sight of the Beard shakes her every time -- an acorn in a windy oak -- when she is confronted by his legacy.  The tattoos are permanent, faded canary-yellow covered by huge sequoias, massive pines, giant brushes.  She stares down at the Bug from her prison window to see, on the roof, on top of his freedom, the Beard, his face as he always wanted it, thumbing his nose at her, laughing the laugh that made life worthwhile.

She cannot touch him or me as long as we are together in that Bug.  I love that Bug.  I love the way people look at the pictures of my life on the outside, the way I can drive through problems with its over inflated tires, floating on air.

 

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The Landscape                                                            

by Nathan Leslie
                                                                           
       

ister Mary Thompson wears a blue and white checkerboard smock with intermittent sunflowers, a Timex, a plain platinum band, and her everyday habit.  Her eyes are weaker than they used to be, and she has taken to wearing bifocals.  This doesn’t stop her from painting, however:  nothing short of death will achieve that.

Her brush strokes are clean, wide, and true.  A rust-brown dominates her palette, and her figures look wooden and carved:  her paintings are popular amongst congregations throughout the state.  The one of Saint Joseph was featured in the local newspaper, and Mary’s mural of Saint Augustine’s life won accolades as far away as Ohio.  Though she often sells her paintings to local churches and institutions for a meager sum, to Sister Thompson, painting is simply a small portion of worship, inseparable from the whole.

Once a week her brother Gary visits her, each Friday afternoon.  This is her only direct contact with the outside world, and she looks forward to it with an unaffected sense of anticipation.  Normally Gary relates some worldly new or light family gossip, and tells her about his own week.  The moments that she spends with her brother are mostly devoted to listening and nodding.  It has been this way for forty years.  Rarely do they talk of growing up together in Appelfield, Wisconsin, or of anything unusual or controversial at all.

But this Friday Gary doesn’t arrive.  He hadn’t missed a visit since 1982, when he had a hernia operation, and before that there were several weeks when he had to attend to their father.  It didn’t take more than a week or two and the old man was no longer.  She did regret that.  This time she has no idea.  Even Sister Ellen Greene doesn’t know; nobody heard a peep from her brother.

A week passes and Gary is there right on time, on the other side of the barrier, shaking hands with her.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” he says. “I don’t have an excuse, you know.&n