Silent
Dancer
by William C. Burns, Jr.
She
dances
but not in plain sight
She dances
in the shadow box
of her silence
Silently she dances
a flickering candle
sensual steam over a cup of tea
a leaf beyond the windows of her eyes
She dances
alone
The Night Mistress
by William C. Burns, Jr.
The
night is my mistress
She takes on her aspect
in the twilight
Her perfume is the jonquil
the lilac and lavender
the rose
and the smell of burning leaves
Stagnate in a day's resolve
I reach the ascending moon
and embrace her in all her changes
She pours herself into my cupped hands
I drink her deep
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Untitled
by Penelope Talbert
i've
been left flapping in the wind
with cavernous creases at the joints
i ask for forgiveness but cannot wait
for complex answers that require
further inquiry
i have two beds
occupied
while i gather up the strength to conquer
steep, lint ridden stairs
leading to nowhere and everywhere
and the wind
a nooner
by Penelope Talbert
the
shadow we cast
dances in midafternoon sun
while the world pushes paper
and water cooler gossips
warm lovely sweat falls from
your brow
trickling over the favorite part of
my porcelain shoulder
david the self righteous bastard
by Penelope Talbert
self righteous bastard flies in the face of convention
and preaches his high and mighty ways
to unconcerned onlookers that have seen him sin
far too often
i stand in the front and watch his eyes
shift and his torso shake as he stretches his arms
towards his god
but they are my heavens and they couldn't possibly be
filled with so much bullshit
he worships his space junk and i watch
in disbelief and some follow and some raise their haggard eyes
searching for his meaning which means
nothing
he deserves this bullet, this tragedy, this existence
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Tower of
Babylon
by Geoff Slavin
It was only a studio floor moonshot,
rushing up the scales like an ancient cannonball.
Thrusting at the swollen Skull's pickerel smile
-- twice the size of a man's --
they died beyond reach,
their meek breath scented,
their eye-sockets round.
Now a rainbow of scorched flashiness spans the state.
Descending powders char the mangrove isles.
Immortality, a shapeless bird,
plays in the air nearby,
-- blue and white,
-- helpless and mild.
O, Pentagon of Judgment! (and unseen hysterical birds)
Lion, lamb, beast, and dove
are sold.
The skinned eagle shifts his hold
on the epitaph.
Below, gardens die.
So the body dies.
In Florida, serpent evenings die.
Sunlit evenings...
The survivors search the sands
for bone fragments
out among the enormous turtles.
My Self as Steam
by Geoff Slavin
Bad weather mornings,
jagged like a headache.
Myself inside myself inside a self
stretching, fragile as rotten lace
across the toilet waters we call today.
Good weather evenings:
the neighbors stroll their lapdogs in the park.
Across the valley, lights twinkle
-- as if gaily.
Clouds redden
-- as if beautiful.
Vaporous memories arise
-- as if bidden
to disappear in the night.
The time for which I yearn
is no time
but the present.
The yearning,
nothing
but my presence.
Girls in Indigo Jeans
by Geoff Slavin
Midnight in the city,
and the girls got all the poems
tucked
in their indigo jeans.
Forbidden myths,
forgotten nights,
Poems, smooth as beaches
in the tropical dawn.
Smooth as their shoulders in pastels.
STORMS! COOL FRUIT!
The smell of their suntanned skin.
(madness lies here)
Drink with me
from the cup
of midnight fantasy.
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A Place
Called
by Jerry Vilhotti
When Johnny moved into the new house in a town
called Burywater, a hundred miles north of his beloved Bronx, since it was
periodically buried by waters of hate and jealousy and across from the swamps
that were adjacent to dead cornfields from which grew radio towers with their
red blinking lights where he would play
baseball doing his thing on one leg since the Burywater doctor had taken growth
cells from the leg when he was trying to find the little stream of water
running inside Johnny's knee, where the nurse with her smile of death would
play jokes on her elderly patients who would die soon and the boy called Arnold
who was burned in a Burywater woods by so-called friends who wanted the little
"kike" to suffer like their Christ had done on His wooden cross
and after a week of he and the boy full of bandages, whose eyes were wisps of
black smoke, exchanging comic books, long silences and their names would die and
when he told the nurse he wanted to go to that better place the nurse said
little Arnold had gone to she told him he had died and gone back to
Palestine he had felt coldness and as he became older and his parents closer to
old age, the darker became darker still for only one light would shine to the
outside while his mother wore her sweater constantly to ward off
the dampness of the swamps as he, an eight year old with a leg that
continued to hurt if coldness or a touch happened on it, sat by the wall
near the stove where small bits of heat gushed up from beneath the floor from
smoldering coals that were half buried by ash white waste and in a very big way
this mother resented his surviving her old body that was not supposed to bear
anymore fruit according to another high priest doctor who did not want to
see anymore of these kinds of people coming into his world so saying
her miscarriage, four years before Johnny's birth, had forever imposed the
verdict of "no more babies" and she wondered if she would not
have joined the good doctor, who often witnessed children dying of hunger
confirming the wish to suffer the little children, if Johnny were naked and
freezing to throw with him chunks of spat-on wood to the direction of frostbite
and she told Johnny to go down into the bowels of the cellar and put more coals
into the furnace which he would do--yelling up to her it would take a long long
time for warmth to climb up the steep stairs to enter bones and all
the cold cold rooms and then be able to replace all the swirls of black
smoke spewing forth from factory stacks that hovered over the place
called Burywater ....
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Gravity
by Jack Swenson
I was talking about Doc, and it must have been something I said or something in
my tone of voice because Kat asked me if Doc was an alcoholic. No, I said. He's
just crazy. When he drinks, he gets pretty wild.
Kat, who was sitting next to me in the passenger seat, gave me a sidelong look,
and I shrugged, but I didn't elaborate. You'll see for yourself in a couple of
hours, I said.
Doc was impressed with Kat. After we arrived, he took her on a tour of his
house, a small but elegant home perched on a hillside east of Western Avenue and
north of Griffith Park. Kat leaned over the rail of the deck and looked down
into the canyon. Wow, she said. Doc said he didn't know which gave him more
sleepless nights, worry about mud slides or fire.
I went into the kitchen to fix myself a drink, and when I came back into the
living room, Doc and Kat were sitting on the couch, and Doc had taken Kat's
blouse and bra off. Kat had a weak little smile on her face. She looked
paralyzed. I shrugged and sat down.
Doc took Kat downstairs to one of the bedrooms. Kat made noise when she was
having sex, and her Oh Oh Ohs wound up the stairwell like an aria.
The next day we went to the races. Kat had never been to the track, but she knew
about horses. Her grandfather had a cattle ranch on property leased from
Stanford. She grew up riding horses, she said. Kat bet horses according to the
way they looked. Conformation was the term she used.
Doc had called a friend from work and asked her to go with us. Mert was one of
the pool secretaries for the staff of medical administrators who worked for the
County of Los Angeles. She was one of the women in what Doc referred to as his
"stable," friends he took to lunch or saw occasionally on weekends
when his wife was out of town. Mert didn't know anything about horses or horse
racing; she picked horses based on the colors of the jockeys' silks.
Neither Kat nor Mert cashed a ticket. I didn't do much better, having a winning
pick in only one race. Doc made something out of nothing, which was his
specialty, in the seventh race. When he told me which horse he was going to bet
on, I asked why, and he said why not? Doc always did well betting on horses that
had little or nothing going for them. There was no reason not to bet on them
either, he said. Doc's pick, which went to the post at odds of seven to one, won
easily, by six lengths.
Doc said Good News II was a lock in the feature race, and I agreed. We both bet
twenty dollars on the horse. Good News II had a clear lead in the stretch, then
staggered as if shot fifty yards from home. It wobbled across the finish line in
third place and collapsed. We read in the newspaper the next day that the horse
had a heart attack. That was something, Doc said; a horse dies on the track and
still manages to finish the race. He had never seen anything like that before,
Doc said.
We had dinner at a restaurant in the hills not far from Doc's house. The food
was Asian. Everything we ordered tasted like a corn dog or peanut butter. The
drinks were served with little umbrellas in them. After we ordered, Kat got up
to go to the ladies room. While she was gone, Mert grilled me about her.
I met her a few months ago, I said.
She
was a student in one of the classes that I taught last semester.
Yes, she was married. (Mert had noticed the ring.)
Did her husband know about me? Probably. They had an "open marriage,"
whatever that was.
To this, Mert's reply was Ha Ha.
I liked Mert. She was prickly and smart, and I enjoyed talking with her. She was
an attractive woman. Her hair was an unusual shade of red, very dark. I was
hoping that she would stay when we got back to Doc's house, but she said no. I
followed her outside and tried to talk her into coming back inside, but she
wouldn't.
Okay, I
said, but why are you mad at me? I'm not, Mert said.
I woke up on the sofa in Doc's living room about an hour later. I went into the
kitchen and fixed myself another drink and then went downstairs. This time Doc
and Kat were in the guest bedroom. Kat was lying on her back with her legs
spread. Doc was on top of her, moving slowly. I sat down and watched. Doc was
humming the Campbell Soup song. Mm, mm, good. Kat was giggling.
When Doc stopped, I applauded. Doc sat up. Where's Mert, he asked? I told him.
Too bad, Doc said.
When I got up Sunday morning, Doc was sitting at a table in the kitchen working
the Times crossword puzzle. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of baggy boxer
shorts. He hadn't shaved or combed his hair, and he looked pretty awful.
Do
I look as bad as you do, I asked?
Doc
got up and took two cans of beer out of the refrigerator. Here, he said, handing
me one of the beers. This will fix you up.
By
the time Kat got up and joined us, we were working on our third beer.
You look perky this morning, Doc said. She did, too. Fresh as a daisy. Her hair
was washed, and she was wearing clean clothes. Doc asked Kat if she wanted a
beer, and she said no, just coffee.
Doc's wife was due back from the valley, where she had been visiting her mother
for the weekend, sometime that afternoon. Kat and I left shortly before twelve
o'clock. On I-5, we got stopped by a cop somewhere between Buttonwillow and Lost
Hills, but the cop let me off without giving me a ticket. The cop said he had a
red 2002 just like mine once. Nice car, he said.
One day the next week I called Doc at work. I didn't want to call him at home
and risk having to talk to Holly. Doc said that after we had left, he had gone
over to Mert's to try to patch things up, but she wasn't home, so he had spent
the evening drinking with two of his work buddies. When he got home, he had
fallen down the stairs. He had a bump the size of a baseball on his forehead, he
said. He told his wife that he had tripped over a laundry basket that she had
left in the hallway.
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Left Alone
by Jenine Boisits
Just one glass of wine was all I needed. But the cupboard was bare. Nighttime
had always been the worst time for me. It was the time when the demons in my
mind beckoned relentlessly. I approached my baby's crib and watched him sleep
for a long time. Joshua was only 2 months old. I had been sober since I found
out I was pregnant, but the days and nights were getting harder and harder to
get through.
I touched his foot, grateful he was sound asleep. It had been a long three
hours of crying. I went to the wicker rocker and sat heavily down. It was
strange to sit there without the baby. I sat in this chair quite a bit trying to
calm his crying fits. Today was an especially bad one. I was exhausted and fed
up. A glass of cold wine would do the trick. I watched him through the slats in
the crib and knew it was only a matter of time before I caved in. I had thought
about buying just a small bottle this afternoon while running my errands with
Joshua in tow. I didn't do it and I felt proud then. Now I just felt desperate.
It was bitterly cold outside, he was finally asleep after three hours of crying,
and I was worn to the bone. I wanted to run around the block in the snow and buy
a bottle. Not asking for much, really. And hell, I had been good for almost a
full year!
Wearily, I lifted my heavy bulk up out of the chair. My stomach was still so big
and I hadn't felt like myself in quite some time. I had no husband and no nearby
family. But I had Joshua, and I was grateful for that. I wanted a drink, though,
and I wanted it badly. I approached the crib and leaned into it, my heart heavy
with fear. I could smell the formula on his cheek as I leaned in to kiss his
forehead. My eyes were blurred with tears, for I knew I would get that bottle
tonight. I touched his balled up fist and kissed his face again. He was truly an
angel in blue feetie pajamas.
I went to the tiny working kitchen and leaned over the sink. I splashed water on
my face. I pulled back my uncombed hair, wrapped the blonde waves into a
ponytail. It was 7 p.m. and the stores would close in another hour. I had to
make a decision soon. My heart seemed to skip a beat as I thought of what I was
about to do. It didn't mean that I loved him any less. I loved his tiny toes,
the red circular birthmark on his thigh. I loved the missing patch of strawberry
blonde hair on the back of his head. His hair, the same color as mine. All he
would do is sleep, anyway. I knew that now, because I would put him in and he
would
sleep for a few hours after a long crying bout. More than enough time for me to
run out of the apartment and drive down to the liquor store. He'd be fine.
I found myself walking to the front door where my rubber boots sat on the mat. I
picked them up and walked slowly back to the baby's room. I tugged on the boots
and thought again about waking Joshua. I knew he would not fall back asleep for
a very long time, he hated being disturbed after eating. He would be cranky and
he would cry and he would drive me nuts. It was so quiet now. The apartment
seemed to ring with peace and solitude, only the outside screamed of the turmoil
I felt. The wind whipped around the windows. Yet, I had to go out there. It would
take moments really, and the baby would never even know. Here I was, the mother
who wouldn't even put generic diapers on her newborn because they weren't good
enough; here I was, Miss Perfect, running out to the store for a bottle of
booze. Leaving her baby alone. What if he cried? Or his blanket got kicked off?
What if he woke up and no one was there to hold him if he got scared of the
screaming wind?
I found my old woolen coat and grabbed my keys. I ran down the stairs, two at a
time, not even realizing I was holding my breath. The door to the outside was
within reach, and I went for it. In my mind's eye I saw a bottle of Chardonnay
dangling in front of my nose like a carrot for a horse. Minutes, really, that's
all it would take till I was back in my warm apartment.
The car's windshield was frosty and the locks on the door seemed frozen. The
keys were not cooperating, they were not opening the door to my beat-up Nova. I
was hoping Mrs. Benson wouldn't be looking out her window. Her beady little eyes
taking in every little detail. Oh, where is that young Janey going without her
baby? Mrs. Benson's piercing stare was the last thing I needed to see. The door
finally flung open and I jumped in and slammed the door. I tried not to notice
the empty baby seat. His pacifier lay there, along with a teddy bear he couldn't
even hold yet.
The car's engine wouldn't turn over. The car coughed and sputtered. My heart
raced, and I seriously considered running back in the house. But in my mind, the
horrible deed was already done. I looked at my watch frantically. It had been
five minutes already! I should have been at Bob's World of Liquors by this time.
I got out and started scraping the windshield. I forced myself to look up into
the windows of the apartment. Would I see the baby looking out the window
shaking his tiny balled up fist at me with shame? Or would it be Mrs. Benson
tut-tutting her dentures?
It started to snow as I headed away from the curb. I felt light-headed thinking
I was halfway there. Halfway there. Nothing could stop me now. A fool's errand I
was on. A drunken fool, a pathetic creature with a monkey on her back. Still, I
pressed on, straining to see through the ice still clinging to the windshield.
Such a dark night, no stars, no moon, just wind and fat flakes. I was crying and
didn't realize it until a salty tear slid into my mouth.
Just a few more blocks, one sweep down Maple, another down Oak. Halfway down
Oak, I noticed something peculiar but couldn't pinpoint it; it didn't register
until I was directly in front of the lone store. No lights on. The store was
pitch black. There was only the red neon sign in the front window flashing
"BOB'S WORLD OF LIQUORS-Best prices in town." Frantically I glanced at
my watch to see if it was after 8 p.m. My watch read only 7:30 p.m. I parked the
car at an angle and jumped out to read the HOURS sign. There was a note attached
at the bottom in red marker scrawl. "Closed due to family emergency."
My heart leapt into my throat. Was this a damned omen, or what? I was now crying
openly. Just one bottle of wine, one bottle, that's all. Machine-like, I started
the car and began to drive once more, but not in the direction of home. To
another liquor store ten minutes away. Oh, I knew of all the liquor stores in a
thirty-mile radius. I would make it to Spirit Liquors in no time. Hey, I was out
already, and Josh was sleeping peacefully. I just knew it. Motherly instinct.
Stopped at the intersection, I noticed the knuckles on my hands were white from
gripping the steering wheel. I forced myself to concentrate on the windshield
wipers slapping the flakes away. A glass or two and I would feel one hundred
percent less stressed, but now my heart would not stop pounding. The thought
never occurred to me to go back home. When the light changed, I pressed on the
gas pedal and cursed the old lady in the Volkswagen in front of me. It is only a
little flurry, for God's sake. I was yelling into the rear view mirror hoping
she could see my furious face and speed up out of fear. She didn't. I sped
around her, the pavement wet and slick under the Nova's bald tires. It was a
little scary for a moment there, the car fishtailed a bit, but we made it. I
caught a glimpse of the old lady's frightened face as I sped past her.
The rest of the way was a blur. Occasionally, I glanced at my watch. It was now
7:40 and I had been away from the baby for over twenty minutes. Over twenty
minutes…which meant by the time I got back it would be at least a half-hour. I
stepped on the gas.
I circled the front of the store looking for a parking space until I finally
decided to double park. Run in and run out. Simple. I threw the car in park and
darted into the store. There were a few people on line. I grabbed a bottle of
Sutter and walked, breathless to the counter.
"How's the wife doin' since the surgery, Dennis?" an old, slumped-over
looking guy asked the man behind the counter.
I wanted to scream. Can't Dennis bag the bottle of scotch while he answers this
guy? Does he have to lean over the counter and say something? There were two
people in front of me. There was suddenly a voice from behind me, directing a
question to Dennis. She was a young woman around my age. "Excuse me, but
could you tell me where I can find blackberry brandy?" She held a sleeping
baby in a blue bunting. Baby looked about 2 months old. I gasped in my
nervousness. The young woman with the long braids started to smile but then
looked puzzled. "Back of the store, hon, by the Vodka…see that
sign?" Braided lady looked at the sign and than back at me staring at her
baby. She smiled. I didn't smile back. I wanted to scream, "Hurry! Hurry!
Hurry! Let me pay for my wine and get out of here!"
Dennis finally bagged the man's purchases and helped the next straggly looking
fellow. An old parka, a stringy beard, yellowed teeth. He smelled, too. Stupid
drunk, I thought. Almost on cue, he turned and looked at me, his hands shaking
as he clutched his small brown bag. He smiled. Guess all us stupid drunks
recognize each other wherever we go…no matter what we look like.
The next thing I knew I was running for my car, forgetting my change of
eighty-seven cents. "Lady…" was all I heard. I felt so incredibly
relieved, yet so incredibly guilty. I looked at my watch. It was 7:55. Ten
minutes in that damn store, and now another ten minutes to get home again. If
all went well. I drove with one hand and debated whether or not to open the cap
and take a quick sip. Soothing, it would be. Very soothing. God, how I missed my
tiny safe apartment, my sleeping innocent baby. I felt like a worthless bum, not
even worthy to have a baby. But a part of me way down deep sure was glad I got
that bottle before the store closed.
I twisted the cap off at the intersection five minutes from my apartment. Five
minutes! I can do this, I thought. I bent over the seat of the car so no one
could see me and I took a big sip. It felt warm and soothing all the way down to
my toes. A horn suddenly blared behind me and I jumped, spilling wine all over
my coat. I stepped on the gas. I have to get home, have to get home. With wet
fingers, I turned on the radio. Need to hear some tunes to get my mind off my
journey. My hands were shaking.
I looked in my rear view mirror, and saw a blue and white police car. Had it
been following me? My heart skipped more than a few beats. Frantically, I
grabbed the bottle and shoved it under the passenger's seat. The siren went on;
he was so close behind me that the blue and red light seemed to be flashing
inside my car. I was too afraid to look back. I could barely breathe. After this
policeman pulled me over, I knew I would never see my son again. They would
arrest me for driving under the influence and for child abandonment. They would
take Joshua away and I would never see him again. Tears stung at my eyes as I
pulled over to the curb and waited. Unbelievably, the cruiser sped right past
me, chasing a man on a motorcycle.
I let out a deep breath and slowly pulled back out into traffic. My mind was an
absolute blank when I finally, an eternity later, arrived home. I reached for my
bag, the bottle of Chardonnay from under the seat and ran to the door, snow
swirling in circles at my feet. My heart was beating in my ears. The baby, I
could hear the baby…. he was crying! Screaming! Was Mrs. Benson knocking on my
door right now to tell me to quiet the baby down, she needed her rest…and why
wasn't I answering the door? Suddenly the door flung open in apartment 3B, the
apartment next to mine. Out stepped Mrs. Benson. I tried to slip the bottle
under my coat, but it was too late. Her beady little eyes saw it. She looked
back at my face. "THERE you are! Your baby has been screaming for some time
now…" I pushed passed her as I fumbled for my keys, not realizing that
they were already in my hand, not in my pocketbook. "You didn't go out and
leave that poor baby all ALONE…did you?" She clutched at her natty little
housecoat and looked at me as if I were a common criminal. The tops of my ears
to the bottom of my feet felt hot with shame. I was worse than a criminal, I was
a monster.
I finally swung the door open, and I dropped the bag and the bottle on the
floor. Mrs. Benson tried to follow me in, but I turned and pushed her back. Her
horrified beady eyes widened in shock. I slammed the door. I ran to the crib, my
arms outstretched. It had been almost an hour since I left my child. He was
crying, his face puffed red, his eyes closed tight. He was kicking his little
feet angrily as I picked him up, tears streaming down my own cheeks.
Instantly he seemed to melt into my arms. I hugged him into my heart and heard
myself saying over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"almost like a
lullaby. I kissed his face so much, he started to cry again. My guilt was
incredible. Was I still glad I ran out to the liquor store? I searched my heart
and was not quite sure. That scared me more than anything.
With Joshua in my arms, I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of
formula from the door. As I waited for the bottle to heat up on the stove, I
hummed "rock-a-bye-baby." He seemed much happier. I sat down with the
bottle on my favorite chair and watched him suck down the formula. His lashes,
those beautiful, long butterfly lashes were still wet with tears. My heart broke
a little more.
I felt safe again with Joshua. There wasn't a sound from Mrs. Benson, thank
goodness. I looked towards the front door. My bag was lying there with my keys.
My throat felt parched. The paper bag was next to it on the black and white
tiled floor. I noticed the paper bag looked a little wet-probably from the snow.
Horrified, I remembered how I had run into the apartment in my fervor to get
Joshua. Slowly, I got up, the baby still drinking his formula in my arms. I
crept towards the door, afraid of what I knew I was going to see. I got down on
my knees and with one hand I carefully lifted the bag. I could smell the wine
seeping through the bag. There was a puddle underneath the paper. Just a small
crack was all it took. In my quest to hurry to my son, I had dropped the bottle
on the floor. I started to cry, the tears coming slowly at first. I fell back
onto the tiled floor, Joshua still drinking his formula in my arms. I sat there
on the floor for a long time. I cried for myself, I cried for my baby, and I
cried for the broken bottle that was no longer there to soothe me.
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Hazel Sees Red
by Rob Coleman
I
Raymond Miller was a quiet one. He never done nothing to nobody. Ol' Miller
had a soda shop down on Main and Lincoln and everybody said he was a fool for
opening up a soda shop, but Raymond Miller knew what he was doing. A week after
his shop opened, the Woolworth's on Clancy burnt down and so the kids had to
find a new soda shop to go to, and so they came to Millers. I had known Raymond
for ten years and I always liked his approach to things. Never really gave a
damn and when you called him for a get-together, you got a "No," and
that was it. Now like I said, he was a quiet man, but hell if he didn't have the
most loudest wife in all of Watson, Mississippi.
Ol' Becky Miller sure is a wild one. She didn't care much about anything but
getting drunk and acting as stupid as a mule. She never done cared much about
Raymond either. Acted like she did, but we all knew the truth. Everyone in
Watson is told the stories and it's been so long since, that sometimes, I forget
what's true anymore. All these here talk shows make it seem like it's so much
more than it is, and they all still act as if it had just happened yesterday,
and I can tell you that we folk don't like them cameras much either. Damn cables
all on my front lawn and when you ask them to get off the grass they just babble
about their rights and how they are allowed to do what they want.
Boy, I'm telling ya, things in Watson just haven't been the same since July 6,
1972. I always wonder what the heck Becky was thinking, but there I go just
wasting my time again.
II
Hazel Buford, by far the craziest lady to ever live in Watson. She sure as hell
didn't like many people and the same goes the other way too. Somehow she got to
talking with Becky Miller one day and all of a sudden they were inseparable.
Hung around together at Harvey's saloon on Lincoln, getting drunk and who knows
what, and all this time Raymond Miller just sat at home waiting, waiting as long
as he had to for ol' Becky.
Well Becky and Hazel got into a whole lot of drinking one day, and so as the
story goes, Becky wasn't in good form and Hazel got into talking about the
butcher Marty, and how he started to get a little dirty with her one day down at
the meat market. She told ol' Becky that she hated Marty so much that she would
do anything to never have to so much as see him ever again.
Hazel went on telling this long story for a good bit, and I guess Becky started
to think all these bad things in her head, cause the next thing you know, the
two of them, completely drunk through all of this, sit back and plot to kill
this poor butcher Marty.
Oh I tell ya, Hazel was sure sneaky, and she was a lot smarter than I had
thought she was. Ol' Marty never done anything to Hazel except probably think
she was weird and that's not a crime because everyone thought she was. What
Marty had really did was he opened his mouth to someone that he was gonna bid at
the next town meeting to have Crazy Lady Hazel's land taken away due to back
taxes and such. You see with Hazel's land repossessed, you got a whole section of
property that can be sold real cheap, and Marty was a real dreamer. He had saved
up a good amount of money and was interested in Hazel's property. Hazel somehow
got word of this and she had to stop Marty, and soon.
Down at Harvey's saloon is where they met Curtis. He wasn't much older than
seventeen but boy was he getting into trouble. Hazel and Becky one night decided
to let him in on their little secret and I guess Curtis liked the sound of it
because the next thing you know, the three of them become inseparable. Curtis
probably didn't think they were serious about killing Marty. Must have just
thought of it as a hoot to be hanging out with these here older women. The three
stayed together a good amount and they finally one day came up with a plan.
Hazel figured
that they would get Marty to deliver some meat to Becky's and when he got there,
well you know, Marty would be no more. Hazel was going to do the actual job,
while Becky and Curtis would be cleanup. Hazel also decided that Marty should be
buried on her land, seeing how he has always been very fond of it.
III
So Hazel stood behind the front door waiting while Becky was upstairs I guess
counting her blessings. Meanwhile, Curtis was out in the woods behind Hazel's
digging a hole big enough for Marty who those days was probably eating as much
meat as he was selling. The house must of been pretty quiet because Hazel got a
little comfortable having this little time to herself. So when the front door
flew open without even a knock, she raised her butcher knife up high and she
came down with it and she raised it high and came down with it again, and she
chopped and she raised it, and she came down once again and then that was it.
Took less than a minute at best, but he sure as hell was dead, and Crazy Lady
Hazel was now a killer. By the time Becky came down, Hazel already had the body
covered
up and ready to go. All Becky had to do was help Hazel get the body into her car
parked in the garage, and then to drive off like she did every day at about that
time.
Hazel didn't tell Becky what really happened that day, but Becky sort of
realized as she sat home drunk putting two
and two together. Must of got pretty lonesome not speaking to anyone for a
couple of days because Becky filed a missing persons report. Hazel must of felt
guilty cause she didn't as much call Becky as she did come into town. She lived
on the northeast side of Lake Katahoonga and to get into town you got to walk a
distance and that was the way everybody wanted it. Hazel didn't live near the
townfolk, and the townfolk didn't live near Hazel. Oh well. Marty never did get
that land. Jim Burke made a higher bid and he's been living there ever since.
IV
Well, I don't know what happened at Becky's house during the few days that she
sat home thinking about two and two, but it must of been something big because
one day, as I sat on my front porch, no other than Becky Miller herself come
walking down the road completely naked. I don't know what she was thinking, but
she kept on walking all the way down to Lincoln, and then over to Main, and then
over to Second. By the time she got to Third, there were a whole load of police,
and almost everybody else who lived in Watson, just standing there waiting for
Becky. Trying to just get a glimpse of her.
One of them psycho-babble head shrinkers on the tube recently said that by
shedding her clothing, Becky was trying to tell the truth. She was trying to
shed away the layers of her lie. Aw hell, in my opinion, I just thought she went
plain loony.
Lil' Curtis sat on the curb in front of Henry's Hardware and he done stay as
quiet as a mouse. Curtis didn't need to say anything though because when Becky
got to the station, she started telling a whole bunch of stories and soon as you
know it, Curtis is sitting in juvenile detention, awaiting sentencing.
Now ol' Hazel wasn't going to go out that easy, no sir. She figured that she'd
go down to Lake Katahoonga and would try to catch a ride to the other side and
from there she could catch a bus out of town.
Hazel had brought her old Colt 45. with her, but with all the panicking and
confusion, she only thought to bring two bullets and somehow lost one of them
when she was rustling with her small bag of personals. The police must have been
one step ahead of her because when she got to the lake, Sheriff Atkins was
already there waiting. Hazel immediately shot the one shot she had at Sheriff
Atkins and was quickly taken down by his deputies. Hazel never got to the other
side of the lake but I'm sure that she would be happy to know that the one
bullet that she had fired did hit Sheriff Atkins and he still has a limp to this day. They buried Hazel right
where she lay and nobody ever goes near that part of the lake since. Seems to
always give me the heebie-jeebies.
So now I've been keeping this here all bottled up for all these years, and I
damn ain't sure what I had left out or what not, but I had to save up all this
time for a new typewriter. I done went and did a dumb thing by lending my old
one to Raymond Miller, and I know I ain't never gonna be able to get that
back...
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One for the Family
by Philip Loyd
Charlie
Easeman rolled over in bed when he smelled her perfume, her everyday touch
reminding him what time it was and that he was in need of a shave.
He felt her soft hair tickle the underside of his nose, and then her lips
lovingly upon his. There was no better way to be awakened; and as he did every
day, he smiled.
But
then he noticed how fresh her breath was--minty from mouthwash--and realized how
foul his must be, his mouth dry from a stopped-up nose and stale from cigarettes
the night before. Then he
remembered what day it was, and he wasn't smiling anymore.
"I don't fell well," he said, pulling away from her touch, rolling
back onto his front side and pulling the covers over his head.
That's what you said last year," said Anna.
"I didn't feel well then, either."
There was silence. He swallowed,
wide-eyed and looking away.
"I just don't understand why you're acting this way. If my parents didn't want you to come, they
wouldn't have
invited you."
"They didn't invite me;" he said, "they invited you."
"They
invited us."
"That's what I mean."
"What's the difference?"
"What's the difference?" he said, and now he was looking for a fight.
He was looking last night, the night before, and for some time, ever
since the first hint of the holidays--ever since last Thanksgiving.
If she wanted a fight...well, he'd give her one--just like last year.
"What's the difference?" he snapped, rolling over, gritting his
teeth--but then he saw her face. There
was no fight in her eyes whatsoever. He
took hold of her hand. She seemed
about to cry. "There's no
difference," he said, and he swallowed hard
"Yes, there is," she said, and she squeezed his hand. "Now, we're married."
She was right.
"Not
that your father approves," he said.
"I don't care what he thinks," she said, her inherent stubbornness
coming through loud and clear.
"Well, I do. It's just that,
well, I felt so uncomfortable last year--so out of place."
"We weren't married then; we were just living together. You know how my family is.
My mother was a virgin, for Christ's sake."
"It isn't just that--I don't care about that.
That's our business. It's
just that I feel so out place. Your
brother, your sister, your cousins--they all have children; they all have
families of their own. It's just
that I feel so alone."
"You have me; we have each other."
"I know--I know, baby. But you
have to spend time with your family, and then I'm left by myself.
When they play their games: the tetherball tournament; the volleyball
match; the father-son sack race. Do you understand how I feel?
How could you? I'm
sorry."
"I do," she said, and loved those two words.
"Baby, you know how much I love you."
"I know."
"Just come with me and I promise--no matter what happens this time--next
year will be different. You do
trust me, don't you?
"Of course," he said, and he did.
Why shouldn't he? She had
always taken good care of him.
"You do love me, don't you?"
"Of course I do."
"And I love you, more than anything in the world.
You know that."
"Yeah, baby--I know."
She had that look in her eyes, like the first time they made love, like the time
after their first big fight, like last year--like now. She kissed him lovingly, then clothes and sheets were tossed,
spread from dresser drawers and desktops alike. Within her arms, his fears vanished entirely.
She would take care of him, he knew.
They arrived at her father's some time around noon, as pitchers of tea were
brewing in the sun, just as the father-son sack race was about to begin.
* *
*
Charlie Easeman rolled over in bed, Anna's everyday touch reminding him what
time it was. But mornings weren't
so pleasant anymore, and never perfumed. Her
hand fell tiredly upon his face and he knew what that meant: she had been up all
night. He was so tired.
Then, he remembered what day it was.
He felt her soft hair tickle the underside of his nose.
He tried to go back to sleep, but knew that he had to get ready to go to
her father's.
There it was again, and he stumbled--half asleep--into his pajamas.
The baby was crying. Half-cocked
and cranky, Charlie was actually looking forward to this Thanksgiving Day.
There was no better way to be awakened; and as he did every day, he
smiled.
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