 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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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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Prose
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Bubbles Tim
Wenzell |
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Opus
2002 Lynn E.
deRosa |
Partition Richard Meyers
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Bubbles Tim Wenzell
A rose out of somebody's garden Rochelle Mass
Prisoners' Music Crispin Oduobuk
Blurry Blurry World Jerry Vilhotti
Just Visiting Karl Beesley
Authority's Witness Yvonne Chism-Peace
The Yellow Coat Pat Taub
Just Don't Call Me "The Duke" Tom Reynolds
The Flight John Matsis
by Tim Wenzell
n Saturday mornings Penny the surprise lady came to the grass in front of the swings in a station wagon filled with crafts. She would park beneath the heavy tree, sit along the edge of the sandbox, and wait almost an hour for the sun to blaze through the leaves. I arrived by nine, along with a stream of kids from five to twelve years old, kids filtering down from Newportville Road and Hazel Avenue and Vandegriff Lane by way of the green bridge. Nine o'clock was what Penny wished, and at five past nine she would get up from her spot on the wood, unhitch the gate of her wagon, and slide out boxes of construction paper and scissors and tin sheets into which we would hammer patterns of frogs and vicious dinosaurs and trees bearing large round fruits.
And then we would play whisper down the lane, or sloppy games of baseball or freeze tag, or go on long scavenger hunts searching for things deep in our mothers' dresser drawers and at the bottoms of boxes in our basements, and we would always come back with our paper bags filled, and we would always give Penny reasons to smile.
Of all the things out of the back of her wagon, though, Penny's bubbles still, forty-five years later, return to me in my sleep. It is as if someone breathes into my unconscious and releases them, some phantom who stands on the edge of something dark and deep, someone with a secret to keep. Like apparitions, the bubbles float through my dreams, always out of reach, rising and near invisible, relics from those mornings in the sun when patterns would be indelibly hammered. But bubbles also come back with dreams of my father as he is leaving in the middle of the night with a gentle closing of the door; they float over his hushed footsteps, down the gravel walk and into oblivion.
Sometimes I am trapped in one of my bubbles—not floating or carefree like the bubbles out of Penny's magic wand. Instead my dream bubbles are earthbound and thick as a windshield, and I find myself, more than wishing to escape, wishing simply be free of the ground.
My father was laid off from his job as an astrophysicist during the week I turned two, and from that point on, he couldn't find anything remotely steady. They didn't need anybody to look at the stars where we had settled, mainly because they had to tear the observatory down on account of the bright lights coming out of the newly built subdivisions. So he worked for a while at the Shop-Rite bagging groceries by day, but that left him angry and drunk by night. He cursed his way out of his job during an afternoon of long check-out lines by laying into a bad-mooded manager, and he found himself drunk off beer and Scotch in the early morning hours as he stumbled through our door. He soured on all work after that one, and it took him months to even venture near a Help Wanted section of the Evening Bulletin. He never worked two straight months again and could never get himself to look skyward.
My mother told me stories of the house we once lived in before my memory, a bi-level green house over in Fergusonville set back on a quarter mile of cut grass. The house blended like foliage into a backdrop of lush woods and in her memory she could still smell the cedar of its sturdy walls; she could still feel the deep splinters in the tips of her fingers from lifting heavy windows and letting in the spring air; she could still hear the happy sounds as I called out, for more milk or a lost crayon perhaps, from the freshly painted nursery. Back when we had money, she said; back when my father, filled with facial hair and the promises of a long career discovering constellations, kissed her and held her on clean sheets and a queen-sized bed, she said. Back, she said, when the world was a happy blue.
As long as I can remember, though, we were piss poor, living in a two-room shack at the dead end of Hazel Avenue and subsisting on the handouts of Mrs. Butterworth and the Helmuth family. Canned goods mostly—assorted soups and creamed corn and sometimes gravies which we would pour over bread and fashion as our dinner. On lucky days Mrs. Butterworth would bring McDonald's food for us, and the smell of hamburgers and french fries would settle into the shack for a good three days afterward. I believe we survived many nights by lingering smell alone, as my mother, in her careful acts of conservation, waited for just the desperate moment before she would take the can opener to the soups.
Never in all her years did she mention my father leaving. She never cried or carried on, never took to alcohol or God. All she did was go on, trying to make me presentable for St. Thomas Aquinas School in my soiled shirts and fitting the newspapers snugly into the bottoms of my rotting shoes. She would take tiger lilies and honeysuckle from the roadsides and rub me with the fragrances before I went off because she didn't want me wallowing in shame in the back row, and because the flowery smells reminded her of the soap she used to be able to buy when the world was a happy blue.
One morning on the stoop I heard her telling Mrs. Butterworth that she didn't blame my father for leaving, and that if she were a man and the head of a household, well she might have done the same thing. Terrible to be without a job for so long, she said, with so many millions of stars yet to be catalogued. Terrible to be hopeless and so justly angry at the world, she said. Terrible to be terrible at everything but gazing through a telescope, she said.
We waited along the edge of the sandbox for almost two hours on the morning that Penny stopped coming. The day had started gray with a threat of rain, and in those ticking moments, moving the sand into mountains with our feet, we simply figured that Penny had seen the sky and stayed home. We wondered from where she came, why she had just shown up in her wagon beneath the tree one morning, and then every Saturday morning of the summer thereafter. Never had I seen so many of us congregated in one place, so many kids excited about the long, fruitful day about to unfold because of one loving, caring woman. Penny expected us, too, all of us from Newportville and Hazel and Van Degriff, just as she opened the magnet of her magical gate. She gave us the games and creations to fill our days, and I'm sure all of us, each in our beds at night, silently asked the same things: what makes you do all of this for us, lady? who are you anyway? I thought perhaps that she had arrived in her wagon from the stars, because when I looked at the sky at night, I thought not of my father but of Penny and the coming day.
Saturdays emptied. Penny never came back, and as the weather turned cold, the kids, like animals drawn into hibernation, buried themselves away. They disappeared back across the green bridge, back down those long tree-lined roads, hidden behind living room curtains in front of television sets or under earphones filled with loud guitar solos or in the back seats of smoky automobiles—scattered like pores on the wind, never to return.
I think that my father is still alive somewhere out on the coast. I don't know why I think of the coast. Perhaps, from all the little bits of conversation I recall from my mother so long ago, the coast would seem to fit him best, in some dark mountainous space where he could finally ruminate on his own sky. He must be in his late seventies by now, his face battered by the sea to well over a hundred, his spirit long since submerged in the depths of suffering and alcohol and a longing for the family he left behind and the suns too late to discover. Sometimes I think about meeting him—on his death bed surrounded by many glowing candles—and what I might say. My mother, dead now almost ten years, would like to have seen him dying, too. She might have been angry for the first few seconds, but the anger wouldn't have lasted, I know that. She would have crumpled to the ground in pity, taken his aged hand and passed her forgiveness through him and told him that the world was a cruel place for ones like him, ones who just couldn't find the proper road. Go on and die in peace, she might have said. And I might have lit another candle and whispered much the same thing.
I'm at the bottom of my bottle now. I can begin to taste the backwash and the liquid no longer burns my throat. A stiff breeze has come up, and I'll need to find a place where the wind doesn't come barreling down the brick quite so harsh. Maybe over on Midvale, maybe down one of the stairwells of those doctors' offices inhabited only by day. I can tire easily there. I can sleep a few hours there before the light comes back.
Whiskey always makes me dream. Some of the hard stuff, like that Jameson's I put down four nights ago, gives me terrible dreams where I wind up pissing my pants. There's nothing worse than waking to cold wet urine all down your legs, with the certainty that the smell will rise as the sun bakes you dry. People don't like it when you stink like that. I think I'll keep off the Irish whiskey for a while, at least if I can help it. But I'll dream tonight, no doubt about that. I've thought long and hard about my past again, and with nearly a bottle in me, that's a sure sign that some dreams will visit.
If I could put something certain in my mind just as I drift off, then maybe I could break out of my bubble this time, crack right through it with several angry jabs of my fists. I could kick and scream and will myself free, burst that blasted bubble into a million molecules of soapy water. Or I could spread myself thinner and thinner across its transparent walls so that I would float clear off the ground. Up over the walk, hovering over that beautiful green house in the woods, absorbed by the sound of crickets and by my mother's happy song seeping through the screens as she waits for my father to come home from a long day's work. I've seen bubbles hover like that, the ones out of Penny's wand. The air catches them from opposite directions as they hang transfixed upon the pull of the world, tumbling over and over, reflecting ground and sky, ground and sky, but not going anywhere at all. They hang silently in the trees, magically hushing the birds, magically hushing the children far below, children like me who wait for a sudden burst of wind to push them onward, upward, into the happy blue to find some undiscovered star.
A rose outside of somebody's garden
by Rochelle Mass
anny had a straw hat with a wide brim, just like my Grandfather Moses when the days were bright in the Winnipeg Sun. There are pictures of him in that hat—once under a leafy oak and another time with the neighbor’s dog. He looked so handsome in the summer, but when the snows came he pulled his plaid scarf up to his ears and held the collar together.
Danny looked different. Taller and thinner than my Grandfather, Danny tilted his hat to the side and whistled. This was our first date. I wore a purple dress, a nice color for summer, since it lightened up in the sun. Danny tipped his hat and suddenly hung over the door of the phone booth by the drugstore. People looked at him, then at me.
I couldn’t understand why he was jumping around like Al Jolson. All that was missing was a cane so he could twirl it, lean on it. I bit my lip, then all of a sudden my elbows started to itch. That’s what happens when I’m nervous. Then Danny leaned into a rose garden, into somebody’s front yard. Before I knew it, he had snapped off a pink one and was bowing in front of me.
I was so busy scratching my elbows I couldn’t respond. Mammy, I’d walk a hundred miles he sang, puffing it out then pulled off his hat so fast he almost swept the pavement. For one of your smiles he continued. I took the rose from him and he burst into April showers bring flowers that bloom in May. I’d never been out with a guy who sang in public, skipped along the street.
My Grandfather had a great voice, but he only sang in the synagogue, or around the family table on Friday night. Danny was holding his hands up on either side of his face purring Mammy, Mammy I’d walk a hundred miles. Suddenly he grabbed my arm, kissed me full on the lips and began warbling Swannee dragging out the e-e-s. Before I knew it I held the rose up to him and sang how I love you, how I love you and tried hard to keep up with his two-step shuffle. I’d never done anything like that before but then no guy had ever picked me a rose out of somebody’s garden and sung to me just like Jolson.
by Crispin Oduobuk
he ancient bell at the old courthouse has a way of tolling at the oddest times. It’s sporadic to the point of mimicking insanity. Ima is not just discovering this. It’s merely something that’s come up now because as she rounds the potholed corner into the premises, the bell begins to toll and a glance at her ersatz designer’s wristwatch shows that there is yet fifteen minutes to the top of the hour.
“They should fix that thing,” she mutters, flicking a stray strand of hair off her face.
“They can’t,” a rich, smooth voice says from the back.
Ima slows down and looks behind her. She can’t be sure but the voice could have been that of an approaching middle-aged man in a rather shabby three-piece suit and a badly knotted tie. So my words carried that far? She takes in all of him but it’s his eyes, twinkling with childlike glee, that really draw her. More out of instinct than a desire to be seen as polite, she offers him a half-smile.
“And why is that?” she queries, coming to a stop as he walks up to her. Around the old courthouse, folks have a way of butting in on any and everyone.
“Prisoners’ Music,” he says, his somewhat dirty appearance now contrasting with his delightfully modulated voice and near-perfect speech pattern. “They can’t fix the bell because it’s Prisoners’ Music and it’s always been that way.” Sticking out his right hand, he adds, “Hello, I’m Enasni Nam, attorney-at-law.”
Thinking he would have made a terrific TV anchor, Ima shakes Mr. Nam’s hand and introduces herself, careful to add the attorney-at-law appellation too. It’s all rather quaint and to her that’s cool-ish.
“Why ‘Prisoners’ Music’ when there’s no prison near here?” Ima is smiling fully now having decided that she likes Mr. Nam, despite the slightly foul odour she can perceive from him.
“I don’t know,” he says, thick, greying eyebrows arcing upwards to allow the gleeful eyes to shine even more. He motions for them to move over to one of the outside benches.
“Maybe there used to be a prison here,” he’s saying. Or maybe we are the prisoners for whom the bell tolls.”
Like old poetry! Now Ima is laughing and wondering if it would be impolite to ask if he practices here. Perhaps he can read her mind because he’s suddenly going all old-time ballistic on the subject.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a lawyer’s garb? You should be home making babies.”
Ima is all haw-haw. It’s corny and I’ve had it run past me a good few times. But why should I care? It sounded different coming from him. “I’ve heard that before. Still, thanks. From you, I’ll take it as a compliment. Are you a regular here?”
“No. Are you?” Those twinkling eyes again.
“Yes, my office is near here.”
“It is? Then, how come you’re still alive? Hoo-hoo-hoo!”
Laughing along, Ima wonders whether she’s being too eager. “Regulars to the old courthouse die early, is that what you mean?”
Mr. Nam laughs again. “No, but it could have been. Doesn’t regularity kill all of us a little bit?”
“Well, if you put it that way I guess you have a point.”
“Forgive me my dear, but it’s not really my point. It’s a law of nature.”
Cool. A lawyer representing nature. Ha! “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You are a barrister. Forget following: interpret. Isn’t it obvious that too much of the same thing eventually kills interest?”
“Well I guess it should be, but I can’t seem to grasp the connection.”
“Focus: Death of Interest eventually translates to death in actuality.”
“Uh? Well, maybe so. But don’t we all die in the end regardless of whether we lose interest or not?”
“Good point. Now you’ve seen it.”
“Have I? Seen what?”
“That death is to be welcomed as it is inevitable.”
“Really? I’m sure I don’t agree with that.”
“Why?”
“Well, simply because inevitable or not, death is not pleasant.”
“Who told you that? Did you ever hear any dead person complain?”
Ima replays that in her head and confirms that she heard what she thought she heard.
“Oh come on, be serious!” Now she lets her laughter congeal into a tolerant smile.
“Even if they wanted to, the dead can’t complain for obvious reasons.”
“Hoo-hoo-hoo! Now you see what I mean.”
“But what do you mean? I’m sure we don’t see the same thing.”
“Then let me tell you: the dead do not complain because death is peaceful.”
“Peaceful? Sometimes it’s definitely not. What about accidents and all that? Because they never come back to complain doesn’t mean the dead love being dead. I sure don’t agree with that peaceful dead notion. In any case, can we change the subject, please?”
“Scared, are we? Very well, tell me what you think of mothers.”
“Uh, mothers?”
“Mothers. You said to change the subject.”
“Okay. Mothers are about the greatest people on earth. I can’t wait to become one.”
“So, what is stopping you?”
“Mr. Nam! You do know that it takes two to tango, don’t you?”
“Are you saying that you are still ‘one,’ a pretty thing like you?”
“Thanks again, and yes, I’m still ‘one’. But all hope is not lost yet.” Ima has a fleeting thought that Frederick may already be getting upset—she knows she’s late. But Mr. Nam has not begun boring her yet.
“Hope is never lost, we merely throw it away. Anytime you want it you can find it.”
“Hey, that is so true. Strange I never thought of it that way.”
“That’s because the way of the world is to avoid the obvious, believing it’s worthless else it won’t be so easy to see.”
“That’s rich.”
“And it’s true. Take whatever situation in life that you would: poverty, pain, being unmarried—whatever! The solution to all these are so obvious but the way of the world…” Mr. Nam sails a hand wearily into the air.
“Is to avoid the obvious, according to you,” Ima says, trying to mentally blot out images of Mr. Nam’s dirty fingernails fluttering effeminately in the air. “Since you’re obviously referring to my unmarried state, what is the solution to that?”
“The same as that to all other problems.”
“Which is?”
“It’s in your power to proclaim precisely what you want and it will be.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” Ima doesn’t mean to be rude, but really! “How can that be? Mr. Nam! I’m sure you’re not serious!”
“You see, your first reaction is to laugh, just like a first-time comer to this world.”
“But, but, that’s because what you’re saying cannot just be.”
“Very well, if you say so. But let me ask you a question. Who created all things?”
“Eh, God?”
“With what did He create?”
“Eh... words, just words.”
“And is Man a creation of God in His image or not?
“Okay, now I follow.”
“No, no my dear, don’t follow: interpret.”
Ima is laughing again. “You said that before.”
“Good! It means you’ve been listening. Now listen some more. When you become a mother, tell your children important things early; don’t say they’re too young to understand. This is very important.”
“Okay, but sometimes it’s not good to tell children certain things when—”
“The way of the world! Always avoiding the obvious! See, my mother didn’t tell me in time that she had no idea who fathered me and see what it has done to me.”
Suddenly alarm bells are ringing in Ima’s head. Did they teach her enough in psychology class for her to handle this? “I don’t understand. You mean you never knew your father?”
“No, I never did! And because my mother lived and died a prostitute, it hasn’t been possible to narrow it down to even a few possibilities. And that’s why I’ve come to sue her.”
Now Ima is really beginning to feel nervous. A prostituting mother is not a problem you try to deal with on the strength of Psych 101. She seeks refuge by staring boldly at her watch She has spent about twenty minutes with Mr. Nam. That’s enough time for a one-off encounter. At least she fervently hopes her association with Mr. Nam will be a one-off thing. She would never want to spend time with him again. She quickly makes polite noises and escapes to Frederick’s office.
“I’ve been staring out the window wondering if I’ll be the first groom-to-be to lose his bride to a mad man,” Frederick says to her as she comes through the door.
“He’s mad?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard about Enasni Nam, the former star lawyer that went mad when his wife ran away with a younger man?”
“I’ve never! But, but, he looks and sounds normal except for... oh, poor man.”
“That’s Enasni for you. I bet he told you he didn’t know his father because his mother lived and died a prostitute and that he’s come to sue her. Don’t mind him. It’s what even got him disbarred. His mother used to be a very popular teacher while his father was an influential District Officer. They both died a long time ago.”
Ima is still speechless as the ancient bell begins to toll again. From the recesses of her mind, that melodious voice comes purring through, “Prisoners’ Music.” She sighs. Twenty minutes talking to a madman and she didn’t even know it. But some of the things he said, she wonders....
Blurry Blurry World
by Jerry Vilhotti
She resented her last born Johnny for being another mouth to feed during the dying of hunger days of the Great Depression. At least his father was working on the bridge for the Work Project Authority spanning the great Hudson River that his father told him was a million of his bodies long but not knowing the meaning of numbers he did not fully understand its length and only when the father emphasized the length with his booming voice made the boy see a long long bridge nearly reaching the sky.
Tom, the boy's older brother, was not around to pinch him while making his Lon Chaney scary faces before attempting to throw him down the steep flight of stairs just outside their apartment. He most likely was watching the Lone Ranger and Tonto freeing the Southwest of bad guys with dark stains on their souls; making the country safe for corporations to conduct end runs full of money. Even if Tom were only successful in dishing out his older brother Leny One N and his brother-cousin Flap D five pairs of shoes to shine by having emphasized his polio leg with an even greater limp, he would have had enough money to quit work and creep into the darkness to see the world being made a better place while devouring his popcorn and candy bars.
Since Leny One N was not home, Johnny could fully relax and not be conned into fighting one of the big kids from around the corner; promoted by Leny to make sure he would reap in much moneys as most of the bettors would not bet on the smiling kid with blond curly hair; thinking he would be destroyed within seconds but Johnny managed to win all frightened up inside.
Only his fourteen year old sister Alice was home making gloves for five fingers; work taken home by the mother for a bit more extra money. Alice always listened to Martin Block's "The Make Believe Ballroom Time" that would play songs that Johnny would remember for the rest of his life. If it weren't for Alice, Johnny might not have survived his other siblings who thought he had crash landed among them just to steal away their parents' love and all the food. His brothers and sisters were of the kind that would have as a meaning that if something better came along a promise made to a friend or a relative could be broken but if it hadn't been for Alice who thought he came among them the day before Christ was born to be her little doll, he might have discovered he could not fly as his brothers and oldest sister Tina would have thrown him out of their fifth floor apartment window as they did his sea shell, that carried the song of the ocean inside it, he had found on the sands of Orchard beach shattering it to fragments saying it was only a "fucking sea shell" knowing Alice would have ratted them out and they would have all been killed and eaten by their father who told everybody including strangers Johnny was his favorite.
Johnny noticed a door of the little cabinet was agar making become visible a bottle of strega that was three-fourths filled. While songs like "Tangerine", "Amapola", "Donkey Serenade", "Green Eyes" and "Serenade in the Night" played in the background, he began sipping the good tasting home made stuff that was ninety proof. When he got off the kitchen chair to try and begin a walk his legs were no longer fully with him as he staggered into the parlor where the radio, as tall as he, was shimmering and Alice was just an amazing blur swaying her head to the music.
"Johnny—you all right!" he heard Alice say from a great distance away.
He lay on the couch and pointed to the empty bottle that was standing on its head, fully drained.
"You're going to die! For Christ's Sake what the hell were you doing?" Only for the fact she liked him a lot was the reason she told her mother and father immediately as they came in as to what had happened.
His father brought him quickly to the Fordham Hospital and that's where the bad thing was taken away from his stomach and he did not die that very day. He did not die.
.
Just Visiting
by
Karl Beesley
The clammy, deteriorating squat where he took himself for his shot was looking and feeling more like home. The gutted mattress, with its stuffing slowly spreading over the length and breadth of the room. The missing floorboards that meant a fall to the ground floor if you were unlucky enough to step that way in the dark. The holes in the plaster that let the cold air in during winter. All of it. Home.
Andrew found himself falling slowly to sleep as the drug blanketed him with its spell. That meant it was good gear. Usually, he felt normal with each hit and sometimes lapsed into a mild stupor.
He woke with a start. He was in a room that was nothing like the room in which he went to sleep. Everything looked foreign and new. The floors shone with a newness he had only ever seen in magazines. The paintwork was like nothing he had ever viewed anywhere, ever. He felt normal for a change. Normal in the sense of the normal that ordinary people know. He had no desire for heroin. He had no symptoms of a high and no telltale signs that he needed one. Curiosity started to move him toward the opening that led him to the outside of this New World.
He saw a busy, tidy city. Human-like creatures wandered around, going about whatever it was they did with a calm sense of purpose. Andrew was gobsmacked. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going on. One minute he was a tortured drug addict and the next he was fine. Venturing into the neatly treed neighbourhood and viewing his surroundings, Andrew felt better than he had for years.
He was twenty-one years old. He had been using heroin since he was fifteen, so six years of feeling like a Martian Leper amongst his own people had stamped him with an indelible mark of shame. He felt no such feeling here. He stopped one of the passers-by and sought an answer to why he was there.
"You are here because you were able to will yourself here," came the alien's reply.
"I don't understand,” said Andrew, not knowing what to make of the statement.
"You have somehow acquired the ability to transport yourself into our material dimension".
"Where am I?" protested Andrew.
"You are on a planet called Visdrak. You have found the ability to get here via the configuration of your mind".
"How come I don't feel like using?"
"Using what?"
"Hammer, smack; you know, heroin"
"Drugs are a form of mind and mood alteration. I suggest that the effects of the drug were offset by your transportation to our dimension".
Andrew didn't understand the weight of the statement made by his newfound acquaintance. "I don't get it, you mean all of my people could just will themselves here?"
"Not quite, you need to be more advanced than your species, you must have had something special in your drug to make the change that sent you here. To my awareness, none of your kind have come here before".
Andrew contemplated the idea that he alone had accomplished what no other had achieved. "I never saw myself as a pioneer before now. I must say, it feels good"
The visitor considered his native host with interest. "Can I be permanently released from my addiction?"
"Easily," responded his host, I'll take you to a hospital and you can discuss it with experts in the field".
The pair walked for a while and then caught a transporter. The conveyance resembled a tramcar and in a short space of time they were in the admissions area of a large hospital. The building was similar in appearance to an Earth hospital. Its layout was familiar but at the same time it projected a much more advanced visage than anything Andrew had witnessed on his home planet.
A receptionist regarded the newcomers with interest. Andrew didn't look any different from these beings except for the mode of dress in which he had arrived. Those of this world affected a manner of dress that was largely uniform. The fabrics were lighter in consistency and the colours tended to be pale pastel hints of colour, rendering Andrew's apparel loud in comparison.
"How can I help you?" said the being behind the satin sheened counter.
"We've come to get this fellow cured of heroin addiction," volunteered the host.
"That will require an admission"
"Is that O.K. with you?" the host queried.
"No problem with me," stated Andrew, "the sooner I ditch the habit the better."
The Earthling was taken to a ward and assigned one of the many vacant beds.
"There aren't many people here," he said.
"That's because not many diseases or conditions are left to be dealt with," replied the receptionist.
Andrew took his place in the bed. The ward was a pleasant colour, a muted pastel yellow. Andrew felt his cares slip away as he lay on the bed waiting for the doctor to appear. His companions took their leave of him and he drifted of into a mild doze.
The surgeon operated on Andrew and waited for him to come out of the state of suspended animation that these beings used to render the patient unconscious.
Andrew awoke in the squat. He felt wonderfully refreshed and noted that he was back on Earth with a sense of disappointment. It was all just a dream after all. He picked himself up off the mattress and threaded his way down the neglected stairs and into the alleyway below.
If only the dream was a reality, wouldn't that have been something! He lazily strolled his way down the street and looked for somewhere to spend his last ten dollars for something to eat. Surely he would need a hit of smack soon.
He wasn't stoned. He wasn't hanging out for a hit. They were usually the only two states of being he knew.
Further down the street he approached the charity house run by the Hare Krishna devotees. He walked in and received a bowl of rice with some vegetables and tofu. When was he going to start craving the heroin? Was he going to be able to keep this food down? Gingerly he probed his lunch with a fork. In no time at all he was tucking in to the fare.
Later in the afternoon he visited the library. That night he made his way back to the squat and fell asleep on the mattress. He awoke the next morning with the rising sun. He still felt no craving for drugs of any kind.
Authority's Witness
by
Yvonne Chism-Peace
e was a fat soft boy. Unlike the rest of the class. Unlike the entire school except for his older thinner brother. The two were slow-witted and had been so since the day they entered school. Often the fat boy came unprepared. Often at the chalkboard he stood bewildered. Often at his desk with the social studies book staring back at him, he fixed his gaze until hypnotized. When he heard his name called, his neck would jerk like a thick pale rubber band.
His father said he was lazy. Then his father said he was semi-autistic. Then his father said he knew ³stuff².
And the fat boy did. His sixth grade teacher had seen him pouring over carpentry and kite-making books at snack time.
About halfway through the second half of the school year, he began to perk up. The class was studying the continent of Asia; the fat boy's mother was from one of the islands over there. He brought National Geographic books on China to share with the class. He did several fine paper cuts in art. His geometry work at the board was a little better. While he had not improved greatly on tests, spelling and oral reading were definitely his strong points.
The sixth grade teacher had not noticed any particular anxiety during the final social studies exam. The room was quiet. No requests to go to the bathroom. No excessive fidgeting or rustling of paper. At her desk the teacher had almost fallen asleep. Then someone murmured loudly. Looking up, the teacher saw a girl staring at the fat boy. He was reading his social studies notes. Not sneakily, but openly as if they were Scholastic news. The sixth grade teacher felt sorry for him. But it was too late. The entire class was a witness.
The Yellow Coat
by Pat Taub
Mother was at her loveliest during the days of the yellow coat. These were the years that spanned her mid 30’s to early 40’s. She was by far the beauty among mother and dad’s friends. She knew this and loved to flirt with all the men. Mother was especially confident when she wore the yellow coat. Her dark exotic looks contrasted dramatically with the coat’s bold yellow color.
As a dreamy pre-adolescent the transformative powers of the yellow coat held me at bay. I was memorized at how a single piece of clothing could change my mother’s state of mind. It didn’t seem to matter that she had spent the day rushing about the house, her nerves frazzled by her many chores.
When party time came, mother put on a cocktail dress, and, if it was an occasion for the yellow coat, magic was at hand. Wearing her favorite dress coat bestowed almost instant relaxation, grace, and happiness to mother. All her cares seemed to dissolve with each movement into the coat. One arm, than another, then the buttoning of the four red buttons, each inscribed with a design that favored a Chinese character.
Dad sensed the special powers of the yellow coat and liked to be part of them. He would fondly call up the stairs to mother, “Come on Jane or we’ll be late. I have your yellow coat.” Mother’s high heels would carefully mark the steps, meeting dad’s mischievous smile as he held the coat out for her, allowing it’s red silk lining to glisten in the hall light. In retrospect I suspect dad knew there was a good chance he’d have sex with mother on the nights she wore the yellow coat.
Now it’s some 40 years later and mother is dying. She can only walk the small circumference of her apartment, and has to be oxygen assisted in this, as in all her endeavors. “Walks” are a euphemism for someone pushing mother in her wheelchair. In her considerable pride, she resists these walks, fearful she’ll be seen by someone she knows. But tonight as I look out her apartment window towards the river, I report back to her hardly anyone is out-just one couple and a woman and a small boy picking late summer flowers.
Eventually mother yields to my tender cajoling and to the September night. She’s always been partial to those late September evenings that carry the promise of fall, one of her favorite seasons. As I remove her wheelchair from the hall closet, mother calls from her bedroom: “I’ll need a coat; the weather channel said it’s going down to 50 tonight.”
“No problem. I’ll look for a coat. What about the closet in the den?”
“Yes, there ought to be some coats in there, although I can’t remember.”
I move towards mother’s tiny antique-filled den, enter it, open the double closet doors, and rummage past cartons of Christmas decorations, out-of-season clothes, and worn suitcases, when I see the yellow coat.
I excitedly skip from the den into the living room with my discovery of the yellow coat.
“Mother, look what I found! Can you believe it? Your yellow coat! It still looks wonderful. You can wear this as we walk along the river.”
In this last chapter of her life, mother has been excruciatingly private about revealing her feelings, but her eyes are moist with suppressed tears as she stares at the yellow coat.
“Oh Jill, where did you find this? I had forgotten all about my yellow coat.”
She struggles to control herself, to correct the emotions that cause her speech to quiver, and to bring on tears. After a few seconds, mother regains her composure, but offers an uncharacteristic disclosure, “I think the happiest days of my life were when your father and I were the ages we were when I wore this coat.”
I seize on the opening, “Mother, you were so beautiful then. I was spellbound by the way you looked in the yellow coat. I was so proud of you. I thought I had the most beautiful mother in the world.”
Now it’s my turn to feel the rush of sadness, but I take mother’s lead, wanting to protect her from feeling defenseless by an outburst of feelings on my part. I purse my lips together so I won’t cry. I manage a composed moment as I help mother on with her yellow coat.
“Come on Mother, try it on. It’s the perfect coat for tonight.”
She rises slowly from the cane rocker, letting me assist her. She has trouble getting her arms in the armholes. It takes a few tries. Her hands are too arthritic to push the buttons through the buttonholes. I do this for her. Then I help her into the wheelchair, placing the small portable oxygen container on her lap, straightening the coat over her thin legs so she’ll be warm. I take my position behind the chair; hands planted firmly on the handles as we start down the hall towards the elevator.
I stop mid way to the elevator, lean over the chair to kiss the top of mother’s head, whispering into her ear, “You look beautiful tonight.”
She smiles bravely while tears trickle down her cheeks.
Just Don't Call Me "The Duke"
by Tom Reynolds
n my midnight ruminations of late, I’ve been pondering something of a natural phenomenon that’s occurred right under my own roof; a singular happenstance, if you will, that has to do with the fact that my wife, Sandy, loves John Wayne movies. In particular, the ones in which he’s engaged in some kind of tumultuous relationship, usually with Maureen O’Hara. Movies like “McLintock!,” and her favorite of all time, “The Quiet Man,” in which the Duke utters the famous line, “Woman, where’s me tea!” (which he pronounces “tay,” this being set in Ireland, and all). She just loves all of that two-fisted rowdiness with a bit of romance thrown in for good measure. In real life, however, just let me try that “Woman, where’s me tea!” business, and I’d barely make it past the “Woman!—” part, never mind the “tay.” And therein lies the crux of the whole phenomenon, which I have fondly taken to calling the “Wayne/O’Hara-22.”
The whole imbroglio, you see, is one big catch-22. On the one hand, Sandy delights in watching the Duke drink, brawl and spar with Maureen, mentally adopting (I’ve no doubt) the Lady O’Hara’s spitfire persona as she looks on. However, just let me mention of a night that I’m off to the pub for a pint, and I’ve just secured a one week’s stay on the couch. And, if upon my return there’s a slight stagger to my step and a slur to my usually impeccable articulation, make it a month; if it’s past midnight, make it two. Throw in the most circumstantial evidence that I was even in the proximity of a “brawl,” make it three, with stitches to the head. In the shadow world of the W/O-22, life imitating art is simply not a viable proposition. In real life, Sandy is allowed to be Maureen; just don’t call me “The Duke.” And unless I can find my way into some parallel universe, it would appear that I’m destined forever to be W.C. Fields—without the gin.
Oh, I can understand it, though. While she’s indulging in her fantasies of the big guy and the fiery redhead, she knows only too well that in real life, especially now in our overwhelmingly politically correct and “sue-happy” society, that the cinematic antics of the Duke would never fly. The one time I summoned up the courage to actually breach the subject of the W/O-22 disparity, Sandy merely responded with a terse, “Remember Harry Trundlebaugh.” Now Harry Trundlebaugh was a man who lived in our neighborhood for ten years; a good enough sort, but given to a loose tongue with a sarcastic bent. Never mind a brawl; after an altercation in a supermarket parking lot with the wife of a local haberdasher, he was accused of casting aspersions and was summarily convicted, first in the court of local opinion, then five years later in civil court, from which he emerged quite scathed and virtually penniless, as well as having been divested of his right, apparently, to pontificate publicly. And to such sensitive issues Sandy is predisposed with an acuity that is quite simply beyond reproach.
Still, I’m not one to throw in the towel. I’m resolved that Sandy is always going to have a bit of the “Maureen” about her, and—truth be told—I like it. But I can’t escape the fact that the disparity remains, either. And not wanting to spend the rest of my life as the incarnation of an ersatz Harold Bissonette opposite Sandy’s Mary Kate Danaher, I came up with a plan that would solve the conundrum of the alter ego. All I had to do was come up with an alternative that landed somewhere between the Duke and W.C. It was genius, I thought, and it was foolproof.
So like a latter day General Patton, I waited and picked just the right moment to advance the troops, as it were: The long commercial break that always comes half-way through “Days of Our Lives.” This would give me just enough time, I reasoned, and Sandy would be in the right frame of mind, meaning not much “Maureen” would be going on at that juncture. Let’s face it, you’re going to have to look long and hard to find a “John Wayne” in the soaps (occasionally a Clooney or a Tommy Lee Jones will surface, maybe; but, let’s face it, never anyone even close to the Duke). So, taking a chance and affecting a cool Connery/Bond aloofness, I made my move.
“Darling,” I began; it was more William Powell than Connery, but still a good start. “I know that taking a ‘John Wayne’ attitude into the real world can be dangerous—” I paused here, regarding her subtle reaction to this carefully. I thought I had her, so I forged ahead. “But what would you think about a ‘Robert Mitchum?’” To which she responded with an icy stare, a look that said if I was thinking “Philip Marlowe,” she was going to counter with “V.I. Warshawski,” and I’ve seen that movie—Kathleen Turner kicks some butt in it. I was shooting too high. “Okay,” I said, reassessing on the fly (you have to think on your feet in this business), “What about Bogart?” After all, he was shorter than Mitchum; it might work. But Sandy just leveled her gaze at me and oh so quietly intoned, “Bogart? Am I going to have to teach you how to whistle,”—and the caesura here was unbearable—“Steve?”
Now, any diplomat worth his salt will tell you that compromise is a measure of success; compromise, in the final analysis, is a good thing. And that’s one of the things I’m going to think about as soon as I get a chance to continue with my late night meditations. But right at this moment, now that the W/O-22 is history and Sandy and I have agreed upon a suitable alter ego for me, I have a few “traits” I need to work on and polish up a bit. It may take some time, but after all, I want to get this right. And I’m absolutely adamant about
