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Pam

by John Delin

saw Pammie in a class play in 1953, at Split Rock School, Syosset, Long Island, New York.  It was her second grade class performing "Goldilocks and the 3 Bears."  I believe she was Goldilocks.

And, also in 1953, she must have been watching as I, 10 years old, came to bat against the Robins, her brother's team.  I faced pitcher Rocco Serena, aged 12, on Syosset's first Little League opening day.  Her brother Robin was playing first base.  To me, Rocco looked like a mean grown-up as I swung in vain at three straight pitches.  I'm sure Pam cheered at that!  Years later, Pam showed me old copies of the Syosset Advance.  One had a 1955 record that showed me fourth in batting at .435.  That made me very happy.  It made her happy to make other people happy.

Pammie and I loved the Syosset of our childhood.   It was a place where one could escape from often difficult life in the home and just hang out all day with other children or alone, leave in the morning and not come home until evening.  Later, as shy teenagers, we couldn't wait to leave Syosset and were drawn to, and became part of the Beat/Hippie/Peace generation and the counter-culture of the 1960's.  But we never forgot Syosset.

In 2000, Pammie suggested we do a web site with old pictures and memorabilia of this small town where we grew up.  After nearly six years, Syosset Scrapbook  is rich and personal history and contains over 1500 images, many from Pam's collection (she saved everything).  Do a Google search on  "Syosset":  Syosset Scrapbook ranks only behind the School District, the local newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce.   She particularly loved our Guestbook, as people, many now scattered all over the country and world, posted their praise of Scrapbook and often reconnected with each other because of it.  

As a rule, she had the ideas and I helped implement them.  John:  "We can't do that.  It's a great idea but impossible."   Pam:  "Yes we can.  You always say that.  I'm sure we will figure it out."  She was usually right.  We made no money and reported to no one.  I continue Syosset Scrapbook in her memory. 

Pam was a writer, poet and editor.  I wrote imagist poetry in the 60's and later wrote occasional fiction and features.   In 2000, she suggested that she and I do a revival, on the web, of ken*, Syosset High School's literary magazine.  Her husband John suggested the title ken*again.  Syosset alumni contributors were rare so we soon went worldwide.  Our standards were simple:  we published what we liked.  ken*again continues in her memory; I publish what I like and what I think she would have liked.

From time to time, I  persuaded her to use her own work in ken*again.  We archived past issues and some of Pam's fine work is available here including her magnificent novella, Blue Balloons.

In 2002, she was stricken with a return (after eight years) of leiomyosarcoma, a rare and deadly cancer.  Even though she subsequently endured major surgeries, radiation treatments and heavy pain medications, she went on with her life with no complaints despite constant pain.  Over the next few years, we continued our web projects as if nothing were wrong.  I often accompanied her to some of our favorite places:  craft shops, discount stores, Home Depot, Costco, yard and estate sales and postcard shows.  She had a keen eye for cool things.  In one estate sale attic, she found two Norwegian sweaters for me, worth hundreds of dollars, which I bought for five dollars each.  Pam and I believed that "being in denial" was very helpful so we rarely spoke of the future.   

Two weeks before her death, she wistfully told me, "We had fun."  I replied, "Yes we did, but we are still here."  Then Pam said, "You are a strange person."  My first reaction was to ask, "How am I strange?"  But after that loaded question, she just smiled.  I added, "Well, I take that as a compliment."  She smiled again.

A few days after that, my wife Janis and I visited her.  Janis had never seen her wonderful and unique home in WoHo (a name coined by Pam for Montclair, New Jersey).  She gave Janis a tour of the house.  We then took Pam for a drive.  When I said goodbye to her, still denying reality, I told her I would see her soon.

The last time I saw her was in her hospital room on February 2nd and she was in a deep sleep, her family with her.  Time and illness could not diminish her intellect, youthful appearance and beauty.

There is only the present, the past is gone and the future is unknown.   And memories of her, her achievements and her gifts to others exist in the present.  In that sense, Pam is still here with us.

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Lark Beltran Robert L. Harrison Geoff Slavin Aurora Antonovic Scott Malby Matt Finney

Kelley Jean White Thomas D. Reynolds EP Allan Mark DeCarteret Rebecca Lu Kiernan Elisabeth Blair

Morgan Lynn Ernest Williamson III Alice Folkart Amy Ashton Handy J. D. Nelson Angelo Giambra

 

  

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Pamela by Lark Beltran Gentled she was into larger night, passing transition's aisle. Consciousness narrowed to pinpoint ray fixed on a loved one's smile, Swallowed she was into Mystery Isle— What twilight, then what dawn! Grief and upheaval wrack those behind barred from celestial lawn. Treasure bestowed, too soon withdrawn ... Someday we fathom why. Though gentled she was into larger night, there is no last goodbye.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       To Pam by Robert L. Harrison School day friends must never leave us except for a better place. Where smiles are bookmarks and the hallways are filled with eternity for all of us.     Hello Jack by Robert L. Harrison Jack are you still on the road in search of neon signs that burn brightly in the night. Did you hear about the old gang breaking up and joining you? You can find them hitchhiking up, having pillow fights  and waiting for Allen to stop chanting to the unknown gods. Beware of the new roads Jack,  for they take you nowhere. I know you hear me because your beer ran out long ago and sober hippies always listen and never talk. See you when the  politicians run out of lines, when the speed limit ends and your imagination runs out of brakes.     When He Smiled by Robert L. Harrison His new dentures were done and now he could smile again. So he smiled at his dentist first then his wife,  his kids, his friends and even his relatives. He smiled at everyone,  at the Malls,  at work even at his boss. But no one ever  smiled back,  not even a grin or raised lip. So he took the  dentures back out and now everyone smiles back at him.     Getting Started by Robert L. Harrison The car windows were frozen and not even the words of Howard Stern on the radio could  melt them. So I chipped and scraped  and fought the good fight with the de-icer,  while mumbling to myself the names of some forgotten saints  in the cold. Now patches of clean glass  reflect the morning sun but my car keys  Were lost In the drifts of whiteness. So I sit in my cleaned tomb pretending to drive as if I were seven years old again.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       April Fools by Geoff Slavin "Preparedness," they called it. "You can't trust the Terrorists," everybody knew. So one day while whistles screamed, jets roared overhead, TV's blared, headlines blood-red,     we all herded into big old brick buildings,     like mid-century high schools.     The kids one door, the adults another. Everyone was excited: At last something was happening—      though who knew what, for certain. Would we come out alive? --- "SURE!" --- Look at our mighty Defense. And our offense is awesome. For years hadn't we poured out the best of our lifeblood for this very day. Hours (or was it days?) we milled about, the kids shouting and running: War games, gas masks, bio-drills. After all, it was the day all were after. Some of course, were afraid, annihilation's no joke. There were speeches urging calm; "Protect democracy" activities; Some met in Room 101, To show us how to identify the enemy— Who look and act "just like us;" while in the caff, Group leaders in pom-poms Waved flags and led sacred songs. My wife and I were frantic— Where's our son? How did we get here? We searched narrow unused corridors looking for doors. Beside forgotten stairwells, armed soldiers with brutish faces snickered and smoked cigarettes, flags, limp as rags, draped from their lapels. I grew angry as the days passed. "There's no war," I said to those we met. "They just want to see     if they can do this to us. And they can." Faces glowed with pride—"We'll kick butt." "There'll be letters to the newspapers,"     I said. "Lots of them.  And I'm going to write them all." "There's no war!" I shouted. "They just want to see if they can do this. And they can." No one heard. They jostled, craning their necks to peer out the windows: Who would be the first to spot     the rainbow     mushroom cloud? "No war!" I yelled, till my throat was sore. "They just wanted to see if they could do this to us. And they can." At last, some all-clear buzzers sounded,                             somewhere, faintly. The doors were thrown open,     the gates pulled back by soldiers, the wilted flags crushed into dust beneath their boots. People wandered out,     a little dazed,     disappointed by the sunshine. I was there, waiting. "No war," I announced. "They just wanted     to know if they could do this to us. And they can." April Fool!   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       What He Wants by Aurora Antonovic a cobalt blue shirt with narrow stripes to bring out his eyes softly faded denims with whiskered creases in the front and soft puckers down the sides maroon boots with mustard-coloured laces a slight wedge to the heel shone to waxy perfection a new image created by a new look to go with the new life showcased in the back of the Sear’s catalogue page 373     Quest by Aurora Antonovic for Jason Sanford Brown the red planet is ruling the sky right now creating the perfect moment for space sailing: here a sphere, there a megacosm a galaxy of binary meter, cosmic analects, blazing ellipsis zero in with a parabolic reflector, decoct the cosmos, break down the galaxy, reveal the stars write your verse with a celestial-tipped pen, leave your fiery mark for all the world to see     Houseguest by Aurora Antonovic Since when does he use towels with satin butterflies appliquéd on them? Pink perfumed soap shaped like hearts rest in a crystal dish on the counter, in the adjoining guest room are vases of my favourite flower, a bedspread in royal aubergine chenille that wasn’t here last time a basket of books—Shelley, Keats, Browning, from one who does not read poetry boxes of bon bons bottles of water so I don’t have to get up for a drink during the night Better than a five star hotel is my friend’s kindness to me which makes me never want to leave, but rather cocoon under the wine coloured goodness he’s laid out for me   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Dreaming by Scott Malby What am I looking for? A definition—life. An intuition—death. Be still.  Too short. Imperfect harmony. In blooms and trees untold inexpressions of an expressible sadness like alter egos of lost children. Unfair.  Sad.  Grieving. When a sonnet is a Neandertal with a grudge, and a lyric pure fantasy, what can be said? Life grazes on perihelions of ice. It crashes through permafrost. In attempting to encompass it all art risks sounding like a player piano playing the same song over and over again, until we too kiss the last tango goodbye. Frank O' Hara is gone and so is Pollock and Auden and Yeats. We've got to get back to the beginning. Start over again trolling the darkness for light until it comes in our nets throw in the face of the inexplicable drinking our breath, seeking its sustenance inside our depths even as it sweeps us up in the purity of its flow, witness to the ritual metaphors of life all love embraces, awakening revelations that life is a dream we need healing from.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Jack-O-Lanterns by Matt Finney After Six Years I still remember The Smell Of That wicker basket And I remember how Amazed I was When you Fit his Ten pound Body into It And to this Day Every time I see A Jack-O-Lantern I remember our shadows Walking Down That collapsing porch.     Cries For Help by Matt Finney I've Sent Out four Birds this Week with "Help me" Written on the Inside Of their Wings But they all came back With "Return to sender" As a reply And to think I was counting on this world for Something.     On Me by Matt Finney When I was Younger I'd flip my tricycle Over And spin its Tires Around and around As if I was Running from Something And I was I just didn't know it at the time But now that I'm older And all eyes Are on me to make Beauty Out of madness I finally know What All the Running was About.     Steps by Matt Finney The stepping stones Are Wet with dew And the moon passes through The Warm Night I try to smile At them But I can only think Of the steps I never took And never will.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Leaning by Kelley Jean White Thick wind. Waiting with us this morning.  Dark bus stop. Stroller and two shopping bags. Need a scarf.  Need a rope to tie us to the morning standing up.  Six am drop off. Day care.  Two hours ride to Bryn Mawr and $30 pay for scrubbing floor wax. Wind to hold me up. Hands too broke to lift a rag.  Half century these bones.  Broke knees.  Clear plastic bonnet wrapped around my head keep my hair dry.  Eyes be dry ‘cept that wind sting.  Too heavy feet in too heavy shoes.  Too late. Wind’s got the only arms holds me now.  Talk to it. Might hear me.  Damn thin wind blowing on that lady’s house.     Letting go by Kelley Jean White why doesn’t God stand where we can see her and run behind us yelling —don’t fall—don’t fall— while we hurry off with precarious balance and scream—look both ways— when we don’t? I’ve said it.  I can hear her say it.  “I’m your mother. I’ve fulfilled my obligation. What you do now is your own decision.” (—o choose me—choose me come home—I’ll cook your favorite macaroni- and-cheese-out-of-a-box play your favorite board games even candy land and chutes and ladders only come home stay–when you go out I don’t know what you do- - - -)   Lethe by Kelley Jean White I keep forgetting. Today I must have left my reading glasses at the office.  I have forgotten where I keep the spare pair as well.  My daughter pulled a neatly knotted bundle out of the desk drawer.  This, I remember; it is that string that held my father’s glasses.  He would bend over the table tying flies, the glasses fallen during the intricate work, lean into the little cone of light from the tiny lamp, the tip of his tongue held between his teeth in concentration. That is my face in intensity too.  I took the string from his dresser because I thought it might be useful.  It would be. It will.  But just now I need to keep forgetting.     Lombard by Kelley Jean White Someone took the prophet’s stones. I saw the greasy marks where they fell fingers splayed beneath a heavy load— that wind that mumbled truth, chanced warning.  They left the rusted nails that pierced crossed boards, let stand the angry pictures cut from newsprint, the barbed wire thorns and twisted coils of rubber, his three feathered wings, his snail shell, and the knife.     Loser by Kelley Jean White I lost my place in the book Lost my extra set of keys Lost you, kept my anger, no idea that you’d leave. Why couldn’t I lose my debts. Why couldn’t I lose weight. Why couldn’t I lose this bitter sadness over misplacing you again.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Shale Universe by Thomas D. Reynolds each layer of shale betrays another above this world, is there another?     Elegy by Thomas D. Reynolds your death a perpetual series of missed appointments everywhere I go you've just left     Exit by Thomas D. Reynolds "Despite theories of a single event which caused their extinction, a natural disaster or cataclysm, it seems probable that dinosaurs disappeared from the Cretaceous world over a long period of time, one by one." till finally there was only one the smallest perhaps of all only the size of a small bird unnoticed among the rocks frightened or perhaps relieved its position never more paramount or inevitably more trivial each decision instantly momentous no matter how slight crossing the open valley or hunting for food in ravines lingering for that last morsel when instinct said go and always that feeling of aloneness yearning for another     My Father as Fossil by Thomas D. Reynolds my father lives in my body imbedded in stone even gestures of my hand echo his     Prey by Thomas D. Reynolds "A dinosaur, like other reptiles, had no limits on its growth. Although the growth rate slowed with age, the dinosaur just got bigger and bigger until it died." its bones never rested perhaps the cracking of joints woke it from sleep cartilage giving way to bone every footprint in the dirt larger than the last even its last one the shadow behind it the slow gray creature one step behind loomed even larger closing in on its prey the dinosaur could never get ahead always losing ground pursued by its own shadow     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Over the snickering cat sills by EP Allan The old man sits in the December sun’s chair staring out at the wind tossed summer scrapings burling over the grey soggy fields                                   how the coffee cradled in the loose folds of his wrinkled veined fingers                                         feels good to him the white porcelain sides radiating the remembered youth                                        of trees when the world was green & the failure of teeth                                      & irritable paste clogged bowels wasn’t even a possible thought in the bright dew decked berry bristling fields                                       how he sits hunched in his old man rocker with the high curved back                       the curious beak of his nose                      teased by the fairy wisped steam curling idyllic from the coffee’s milky surface each slow thought a tumbling lump of pain                        moving out beyond the upholstered horror of the living room through the hungry steak knife kitchen                where the severed fingers of inept old man cooks strew the counter so heavily that even to ask for a bandaide is a faux pas of face slapping duel proportions                              & out into the waiting snow fields where the moon rides the back of flatulent cows            hoping to elope with expensive utensils over the snickering cat sills & out into the either of sleep     The Theater is Closed by EP Allan The theater curtain with its tarnished rose border wreathed around a porcine cherub of dubious diapered joy has fallen in silence                                  the seats kissed by buttocks                               wallets                                          & tube rolled programs with pink & white faces staring at the horror of dull red theater upholstery                                are folded up in frost & night                           the floorboards too are silent listening to the dust tinkle down over their once tintinnabulating toe tapped slats It is closed                  performance over Aristotelian catharsis flamed the stage bloody                            the revolutions which carried triumphant despots to the counting houses where little withered ladies with electric knitting needles wove the hemp                measured the noose & severed the cords of the hero’s strutting histrionics                                  have ended the audience having donkey guffawed themselves silly                          lubbered wet snotty tears & flatulated in all the appropriate places            have gone back to their lives of toil & shaved hamburgers while the December wind scrapes the brittle                  dead husks                                   which wait for April’s green encore to thespiate life once again     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       re:  play by Mark DeCarteret is this now or are they showing us before again?     over (come) by Mark DeCarteret so far we have blown without having found that one note or the stones which we gathered would help us get a read for our hearts & though the sound of our bodies seems to have more in common with silence that hushed report of time we have not once been alone or not near what we'd hoped to fall under     magic Jesus by Mark DeCarteret can't imagine how anyone would keep going without almost nothing to do never eating or sleeping not to mention the bit about having to love one another turn the other cheek etc. when so much of it appears to be outside our capability— a trick of the eye like w/that guy you bring back as someone nearly the same after having caved in on himself again & again     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Rummy Park 38 (Jigsaw) by Rebecca Lu Kiernan You are an accidental angel Caught in gold cathedral light, Lily ringed holy candle glow Painted in the silver sun glitter On ocean waves, Platinum sheet lightning On unbreakable lakes. You are magic, Sawing my doubts in half And halves again. When you are Inside me like this Forgive me if I close my eyes Against your luminous affection. Just, It worries me To look at such a miracle As lions watch Behind serrated palm leaves And crocodiles cruise The billabong bottom Puzzling to separate The dreamer from the dream     Rummy Park 39 (Calla lily Dream) by Rebecca Lu Kiernan Everyone at the gallery comments On the new copper highlights in my raven hair, Wispy shag cut, barrettes of dragonflies, Calla lilies. I wear it as you see it in the dream As I stand with my hands on my hips In the glow of your cautious revelation And the indiscreet Florida sun Miles, maybe light years Beyond the one I used to be Before the tigers of your nights Surrendered unblinkingly to me.     Rummy Park 40 (Incognito) by Rebecca Lu Kiernan I will camouflage myself Inside the complexities of winter light That plays against the sodium wind. I'll make such a complication of my Whereabouts, Spreading rumors to throw you off, Wearing Annie Hall hats And Jackie O. sunglasses And bulky Russian trench coats. I'll wipe my fingerprints Off Brandy glasses and coffee cups And you will never find me Unless you understand The smartest place to keep a secret Is in the opponent's hiding place Beneath his sweaty hands.   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       S'butterfly by Elisabeth Blair “S’butterfly is charming 120 years old, or at least older than me, it makes you wonder why the pretty thing was saved, being so out of date, and delicate. I have that answer, any way,” pressing her hands together, “it’s because we like to think decay is all in the mind. – But look at the city”     Instruction is Inclusion by Elisabeth Blair Instruction is inclusion in the game “Don’t stick your fingers inside the cage; don’t touch the bird…” means “you are one of many, many millions, smoothed out in normal expectation with a slice of bread for your sandwich.  Go play.” Instruction is inclusion in the game Subtlety is included: “We have rules.” You can damn the game, but then you need a job   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       lip venom (in four parts)  by Morgan Lynn I Lip I just put on lip venom: lip venom lip venom lip sin/tax pen pay for your thick ink in kind an eye for an I one mask and a dilapidation lip:  a thing of thin tissue two of them together and separate a thin line between black line in purple the purple of the lip always there always blood, blood the thing in tissue that makes it tissue that makes it purple with the threat of black line are lips tissue, or muscle?   II Finger             the rain will not                        get caught                                    in my hair,                                                no ma’am. it will run right down my legs going everywhere such little little rainfingers like those children that weave rugs (where?) like grass under bird feet (what?) is smaller and thinner than rainfingers, what? sometimes the self leaves the body in order to stand in front of it and sometimes behind it either way, touched or touched-too-much, there are tears, those other littlelittle fingers   III Eft venom venom, what eschews oozes spits fights with venom? Amazonian tree frogs, I’m sure,                        snakes, all things antideluvian? [ eft:  the terrestrial form of a primarily aquatic newt ] language being the way of the human mind we are a little limited when it comes to the depths of the ocean where the things reside we cannot talk to with our eyes or smell with our tongues breath and air being necessary to all the five senses we are a little compromised when it comes to knowing (videre) the beings that reside under the sea            language the mouth and breath shapes and the ear hears that efty efty newt he’s here only a short while growing something necessary to take him back to the sea             unlike the jellyfish who likes her new legs being an extension of her brain the human being = legs + brain =            vertebrae                       vert vert vert                                   newty efty: green and new and true   IV Jellyfish “the cranium and backbone lying face down looks like a crustacean,” she said, and spinal  fluid is seawater formed up the brain drinks seawater/saline breathes it like a fish lives on it floats in it like a legless jellyfish—maybe the brain was a jellyfish who lost all its legs but two who walked and walked until they turned hard, until the juice turned to bone hardened by the earth itself formed into long hard shapes capable of breaking—maybe the newly sea-less creature saw trees and wanted to stand like them, wanted to swim in the wind   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Jazz Displacement by Ernest Williamson III tailored liaisons jogging along your way so crass I see jazz Coltrane teaching philosophy again but he's dead I heard somebody say I love really good news in good sounds trumpets pullin' my vibe to strangers makes me stand atop waffling bar stools whistlin' Ellington's big band joustin' hisses abound such a shame to be tap dancin' in these clouds way up here lookin' way way down here     A Bird's Eye View of Man by Ernest Williamson III branded by the sun a litter of potential good sustained lying spliced and red bleeding for the sake of bleeding their praise is the unisex of finality burning smelt lifting sulfuric vapors to my nose pinching my putrid breath annulled is the finch in taxonomies foolish separations I'd rather watch the movement of the coffee black meddling with cream revealing my delight and your envy man is a big horn gifted but loud slurs in one hemisphere and compassion in the other     Poetic Rant #3 by Ernest Williamson III spaces allocated in cruciform words are spaces in tight rooms where walls feed upon their shadows I the subject of your predicated problems your heightened level of morbid probity lest you the pronoun viscerally named speciously contained tight too as the wrinkles of the child feeding his mute father words of precious writing people.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Night Ride by Alice Folkart Gray dreams, cream-in-my tea dreams, salt-in-my soup dreams, cuddle-the-cat dreams. It's so cold. Night mares. Night mares need good riders with stinging whips and boots to make them go fast straight ahead and win. Night mares want more than oats, prance and paw, snort fire bolts, race in my head. The jockey's dead. RUNAWAY! A herd of night mares runs dark fields of fretful sleep, hooves rooting and ringing. Awake! I do, chaff still clinging to my gown, I am unharmed, but still shaking, hoping for sun and day, light and warmth to drive them away.     Desert Guide by Alice Folkart How did we get so lost out there? An arthritic cactus pointed the way, the tip-tilted moon full lit the path. Sharp-honed silhouettes, coyotes, sliced in and out between bulbous buttocks, boulders pink and innocent at noon, but sprawled lasciviously in the cheesy blue-green glow of moon. A hollow-eyed man on a motorcycle, squinting against the wind, dry lips, cold heart, craving a smoke, disappears into that double yellow line. He knows the way.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Nick's Eulogy for Jay by Amy Ashton Handy Today’s lesson began with The Great Gatsby, for me.| For Rachel it began with her birth into purple tracked arms—              a fast learner she found               Rachel was a thing              that took care of itself. Now, slouched at her desk, small in her armor—black leather jacket, cold silver chains, camouflage print pants— Rachel says:  “I ain’t writing this.” Around her the others scribble fictional bitterness. Realizing, I crouch beside her desk, cautiously pry beneath the edge:  “Hey.” What she doesn’t say is              It wasn’t long ago that I buried my mom              and grieved for her, alone. Arms crossed, avoiding my gaze, she smirks.  Hard. Except her eyes begin to leak, and find mine. “But it’s a mad good book,” she says, (apologetic shrug) pretending she can’t feel             the stream down her defiant face             splashing, shattering against the shell of leather             eventually leaving wet patches on her tee shirt like bullet wounds. At this sight I would say             I will be your mother.             I will unwrap you and become shelter--             the place where you can grow             curling warm in my fluid devotion and I will never leave. My fingertips look alien on the boundary of the desk between us. With nothing better to give I say “I’m sorry.”     Dirt Journey by Amy Ashton Handy Muddy footprints in the hall, a reminder of progression. I am washed away cell by cell, molecules of me— a spiral on the dirt journey. A reminder of progression: dust is mostly made of human skin— a spiral on the dirt journey. Touching hands we shed small parts of ourselves. Dust is mostly made of human skin, cached in corners, swept out doors. Touching hands we shed small parts of ourselves, trading loss for growth. Cached in corners, swept out doors no particle reserved, trading loss for growth as our elements co-mingle, sifted. No particle reserved— elephants, chickens, children, dragonflies, as our elements co-mingle, sifted, shape shifted, yet the essence is unchanged. Elephants, chickens, children, dragonflies, we are dressing the earth in a rich new coat, shape shifted, yet the essence is unchanged. Parts unified as soil, black under the sun, we are dressing the earth in a rich new coat, worn to the end of our story. Parts unified as soil, black under the sun, we are buried in the pockets, carried, worn to the end of our story— a spiral on the dirt journey— we are buried in the pockets, carried on soles leaving footprints in the hall.     High Stakes Wager by Amy Ashton Handy I once put a snapping turtle’s head in my mouth on a dare. It was the Anderson kid who laid the bet down, his Darth Vader action figure against my Han Solo that I wouldn’t do it. But I did. Fearfully. Not afraid because I didn’t want to lose my tongue— there was no such risk. She was well dead when we picked her up, before we pried her shell apart to find her, a shriveled sack of flesh, strangely human with her four limbs. Not afraid because her eyes were beady and staring with a set of yellow and red stripes like parentheses around them. Not even afraid of the flavor I’d find— I imagined she’d taste like mossy water and she did. Fearful because I had seen her sisters sunning on logs zipping into the water when I splashed by. They were blinks of life, deceptively still, then gone in a flash to the depths of the pond. We didn’t know how deep it was but we guessed about a mile. Struck by true fear because when I threw her corpse into that pond I imagined she’d sink slowly, shell-less, to the bottom, one dark mile down.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       The Rabbit Blinked by J. D. Nelson I'm the nacho-lord of the bingo hags— Trains again, Larky! Key into the daw-daw, sleepy! I move like a ghost-coyote. I'm pepper'd. I'm a moving dot— the red clay cave awaits!     only an hr & a half by J. D. Nelson Jalapeño poppers & raspberry-pepper jelly for the dippin'— I'm still flying! A metal pail, about the size of a one-pound coffee can, filled with cream cheese— the same old dream, again and again—my tie— my TIME, I should say. Pocket words for the birds, to the brink, blinking— lightning bugs shiver in the corner, sticky with red jelly— muh lips is burnin'!     Jazz & Russian Astronomy by J. D. Nelson I crept up w/ the ghost wax. The Venus People wiped & wiped until the sandy beaches were finally in focus. I stood in line for tickets to see the fike-fike warbler.     toothpaste & kitchen matches by J. D. Nelson busy, cap'n. busy like chicago streets. (the music of the desert in my head) I found a twenty in an old coat & I'd like to buy you breakfast.     Gelatin Monkey Brush by J. D. Nelson We're "LIVE" with Ol' Lemon Lips: The robust CON CRETE?  Minty lions are growling. The CLOWNS came marching IN ON ME, slicing my pillows with BOX-cutters! They're trying to get me to paint my FACE.     Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       Inaudible by Angelo Giambra Your memory is like a song barely heard from another room, wordless voices, so thin the faintest sound sends them scurrying back to nothingness.

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The Entitlement Program   Pavelle Wesser A Journey to the Light   Russell Ainslie The Leap   Richard Meyers The Bigger Picture  Paul García

The Speed of Scrutiny   T. R. Healy Honor of a Woman   Dipita Kwa Exactly What Time Is   Joel Van Noord Private Dreams   Saro Bedian

 

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The Entitlement Program                                        

 by Pavelle Wesser

rista cursed softly at the city’s lack of parking.  No wonder she rarely ventured beyond the suburb in which she lived.  It was Lou who had suggested she set up this appointment, and she had complied.  After all these years of marriage, part of her still remained in awe of him.  She circled the block yet another time before deciding to park in a narrow alleyway.  It was a tight squeeze and highly illegal, but what of it.  She of all people was entitled to a parking space.  Grabbing her pink patent leather purse, she exited her luxury vehicle.

The heels of her new pumps clicked decisively on the sidewalk as she approached a glass-plated building that reflected the afternoon sunlight.  Krista reveled that she had reached the point where luxuries such as this were effortlessly hers.  She clicked up the building’s steps and paused a moment to stare at the logo of the bleeding heart on the double front doors.  Something about it struck as repulsive; for one thing its deep red color gave it the appearance of real blood.  She shrugged and pushed through the doors.  The cool air ruffled her hair as she crossed the marble foyer and approached the receptionist.

“I’m here for the entitlement program,” she said curtly, pursing her lips together.

The receptionist said graciously:  “They’re expecting you on the first floor.”

The elevator that took her up opened into an oval office.  Krista was so preoccupied staring at the glass walls which reflected a bluish hue from the overhead light that she failed to notice the man sitting opposite the long conference table.

“Hello,” he said, startling her, “I’m Boris, please have a seat at the other end.”

“Aren’t I entitled to sit wherever I want?” Krista asked.

“Naturally,” Boris smiled.  “Let’s start over.  Please sit where you wish.”

Krista sat at the original seat Boris had offered her and smoothed her skirt:

“So how does this work?”

Boris folded his hands:  “You’re entitled to complain for as long as you want, and I listen.  How’s that.”

“I can’t wait,” Krista sucked in her breath before embarking on her tirade:

“I realize that Lou has achieved ungrounded success but just because we’re filthy dirty rich it doesn’t mean happiness is ours, or at least mine.  For one, Lou is so busy he’s ceased completely to have relations with me.  I think he’s getting it from his secretary, the whore.  I’m so disgusted, I’ve started sleeping in the guest room.  I told Lou that it’s because I like to keep the temperature low and it would make his teeth chatter.  It’s true, you know.  I suffer from perimenopause, and at night I sweat something terrible.  Sometimes it’s just my legs, and I wake up thinking I’ve peed in the bed.  But that’s ridiculous, I tell myself, because the last time I did that I was five, and now I’m pushing fifty…”

The phone beside Boris rang sharply:  “Do excuse me,” he said.

“Can’t you turn that thing off?”

“Yes, I will ask her,” he said into the phone, “It could be hers.”  He hung up.

“What’s wrong?”

“The car parked in the alleyway, license plate number JDL 222.  Is that yours?”

“Yeah, it’s mine.  What about it?”

“It’s blocking the path the trucks pass through.”

“Well, I’m not moving it.  I’m entitled to park wherever I want, and I am not through complaining.”

Boris sighed:  “As you wish.”

Krista sneered:  “You only wish you could afford a car like mine, Boris?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’ll never be yours.  Hours heaped upon hours of listening to people complain will never buy you my vehicle.”

“Pardon?”

“$75,000—that’s the Kelly Blue Book value of our car brand new.  And we paid cash.  You better believe my husband makes big bucks.”

“I don’t think I…”

“What, hear me?  Are you damn deaf, Boris, because all you’ve been driveling in response to me is ‘what?’ ‘pardon?’”

“No, I am not deaf,” Boris responded.

“Then maybe we’re sitting too far apart from each other on this here conference table, Mister.  Why do two people in a private meeting need such a large table anyway?”

“It’s for group bitch sessions.”  Boris was apologetic.

Krista got up, walked around the oval table and sat on Boris’ lap.

“I’m afraid this is against the rules,” he said.

“I’m entitled to do whatever I want.  I need things, Boris.  It’s why I complain.  It’s a response for deeper needs that aren’t being satisfied.”

“I’ll have to ask you to get off now.”

Krista stayed perched on his lap.  She placed her head in her hands and started sobbing:  “It’s just not fair.  All this money was supposed to make me happy.  But I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.”  She lifted her tear-streaked face, reached out to touch Boris’s cheek with trembling fingers.

“Uh, Ma’am.  This sector of the entitlement program does not offer the thumb-sucking services you appear to require.  I would refer you to the second floor.  In any case, it’s my lunch break now.”

“My needs should be more important to you than lunch.”

“I’m entitled,” said Boris, pushing her off his lap.

* * *

She sat in the circular office on the second floor.  She believed the woman’s name she sobbed to was Sheena though she hadn’t paid particular attention to the introduction.

“And I went to the club,” Krista wept, “the one we paid a hundred grand a year to belong to, I mean we had to have referrals up the wazoo to get in there.  Anyway, these two ladies were having a conversation about someone they knew who’d had a heart attack.  I kept trying to join in but they closed me out.  They left me there on the cold, hard sidewalk and took off together for a round of tennis.  I went home and I said,

‘Lou, after all the hard work and time you’ve put into your career there are still people out there who won’t accept us, who don’t respect us,’ and Lou said ‘I have to call my secretary now,’ and he left the room.  I know he’s doing things with her, but I’m getting old and flabby and…”

Sheena nodded in understanding and picked up her desk-side phone:

“I’m not sure,” she said into it, “but I’ll ask her.”

Krista lifted her tear-streaked face.  “Oh, what is it now?”

Sheena smiled reassuringly:  “Would that be your vehicle parked in the alleyway two doors down, license plate number JDL 222?”

“Why, yes, it would be,” Krista replied stiffly.

“I will ask you to please re-park it in a legal spot.”

“I most certainly will not.  How dare you interrupt my session with this crap.”

“I just wanted to apprise you…”

“See my purse,” Krista pointed, “Don’t think for a minute that it’s vinyl.  Pink may be a tacky color to some but it’s patent leather all the way.  Got it at the national handbag show held only once a year at the Jacob Javits.  Cost $1200 not including the matching wallet.  I don’t care how much sex your boyfriend has with you, young lady, he will never buy you a purse like this— Never—Do you understand?”

Sheena opened her mouth, closed it.

“Did you want to say something?” Krista snapped.

“I’ll summon the thumb,” Sheena said.

“The what?”

Sheena pressed a button and a thumb attached to a spring descended from the ceiling.  It stopped when it was face-level with Krista.

“That’s positively disgusting.” Krista remarked.

“Suck it.”  Sheena commanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s been sterilized.”

“Well not enough for me.  I could never trust that thing.”

“Why?  I’ve sucked it.  So have many others.  Now you can, too.  You’ll like it.”

“You make me sick.  Women pushing fifty do not suck thumbs.”

“Well, you came here for the thumb-sucking program, didn’t you?”

“I most certainly did not.  I came for the entitlement program.”

“Well, you flunked out.  Didn’t Boris explain that to you?  You’ve been reduced to thumb sucking.”

“I will never.”

“Don’t be so sure.  Boris told me you had deep needs that weren’t being satisfied.”

“Why, you slut!”

“I would reconsider this opportunity if I were you.” Sheena leered.

“I will not.  I never want to look at anything so positively disgusting again, and I’m done here.”  Krista stood up.

“I just want to alert you…” Sheena was saying, but the glass elevator doors had closed thankfully behind Krista, who felt frail and drained beyond her ability to cope.  She rested her body against the glass wall.

“And have you enjoyed your hour of entitlement?” the receptionist smiled as Krista left.

“Absolutely not,” Krista growled, “it’s been the worst hour of my life.”

“Oh, not yet,” the receptionist laughed, but Krista had already exited the building.

* * *

She kicked debris out of her way as she walked gingerly through the alleyway toward her luxury vehicle.  It fit so narrowly within the alley that she would barely have room to squeeze through.  She stood behind it, fishing for the keys in her pink patent leather purse.  The loud roar of an engine startled her and she whipped her head around, acknowledging in horror that she wouldn’t have time to move out of the oncoming truck’s way.  She put up her hand as a supplication for it to stop and in doing so dropped the car keys she’d just procured into the squalid filth of the alley.  She glanced down and noted her new pumps covered in nameless slime.  She looked up and had a split second to register the logo of the entitlement program soldered onto the hood of the approaching truck.

She opened her mouth in a primal scream that never emerged as the truck crushed her against the rear of her new luxury sedan valued at $75,000 in Kelly’s reliable blue book.  She heard her bones splinter under its enormous weight and her vital organs squash like ripe pumpkins.  And then, in an unfortunate finale, the truck’s hood collided with her skull and crushed her mind’s matter into the blood red of the bleeding heart.  In that last fleeting moment, Krista understood that her sense of entitlement, like a phantom floating through her life, had taken full possession of her senses and ultimately killed her.  In that very same instant, it is worth noting, her husband Lou hugged his secretary back at his office and sighed.  He breathed a word of thanks to the Heavens that he had been granted a new life with the woman he loved.  After many years of hardship, he reasoned, he was duly entitled.

 

 

                                                                                                        
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A Journey to the Light                                         

by Russell Ainslie  

                                                                       

he child was cold.  Even with the filthy piece of rag that used to be a cherished blanket wrapped around him, the bitterness of the weather penetrated to the very marrow of the child’s bones.  The smooth hardness that surrounded him collected the cold and radiated it outwards, like a perverse sun.  But the darkness was worse—worse than anything.  Anything except…no, the child could not think of that: not now—it would be too dangerous; he had been told, and he understood.  Oh, yes, he understood.  Noise was fatal and now the child knew exactly what that meant.

How long had the child been enveloped in this frigid darkness?  It seemed forever, and yet timeless.  Time has no meaning when the blackness is all-pervading—this was another bitter truth the child had learnt since the day when the fires raged and the sickening, hollow sound of many boots marching on frozen ground rang through the small village, drowning out all other sounds.

Events had happened with dazzling speed.  One minute, it seemed, life was as it had always been—hard but good.  Work to do, friends to play with, a loving family and a warm fire to come home to; but the next, Chaos reigned.  Life would never be the same again, if indeed it could be preserved at all.  The village was no more, a flaming ruin where people screamed and died, where men in grey uniforms fired guns indiscriminately into the tangled mass of people, blank looks on their faces and blood on their hands.  It was there, standing in the ruins, that his mother’s friend had snatched him up and bundled him into the blackness with desperate entreaties for him to be quiet, for God’s mercy keep quiet.

The bumps and bruises of constant motion had imprinted itself onto the child’s skin, marking it in ways that could be felt if not seen.  The pain had numbed somewhat after an impenetrable amount of time had passed, but not totally abated—each fresh jolt of the cart set his nerves afire and he had to bite his lip until it bled to keep from moaning aloud every time the cart rumbled over a pothole in the road.  What the child longed for most of all, apart from wishing the men in uniforms had never come to his village at all, was the chance to get out of his confinement, to stretch his legs and feel the sun, however pale and weak it was at this time of year, shining on his face.  To turn that small, delicate face up to the sun and dream of better times.  A small tear trickled from his eye and rolled down through the grime on his face, leaving a partially clean track behind, a track which was invisible in the dark.

Suddenly, the child heard voices, and the cart drew to a halt, with bone-shuddering abruptness.  A ball of fear cramped the child’s stomach as the sound of boots came running up to the cart, and a voice in a harsh foreign language shouted a terse command at the people riding up front.  Familiar voices answered back, sounding desperate and horribly tired.  There was a sound of a struggle and the box was rocked backwards, then a single shot rang out and a woman screamed.  The child could not understand what the voices were saying as his box muffled them too much, but he suddenly understood he was going to see the sun once more, after all.

 

 

                                                                                                        
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The Leap                                                  

by Richard Meyers                                                                          

want to make the leap.  I want to be catapulted into the evolution.  I must be one with the power of the new creation.  Then I might complete the transmutation from human to divine.  It is time to realize the shining of the Indigo Light in which I may read the lost sacred texts of the mystery schools and unfold the scrolls of the Essenes.  I am weary of stumbling over the obscure pages of the Akashik Chronicles never accessing the whole truth.  These old wizard strategies for slipping between parallel realities must end.  Those promises abandoned me years ago.  I made choices I believed in, but they failed to create the complete shift that would shape the outcome of a truly new reality.

I traveled far in hopes of the great change.  I went to the forgotten libraries of Peru and Tibet.  I returned with secret knowledge that I thought along with the technology of mass prayer might alter the dark conclusions of recent history.  Some say our prayer gatherings turned Clinton’s planes back from the planned carpet bombings of Bosnia.  We may have saved the life of the Dalai Llama, but we were ineffectual in preventing the starvation in Sudan and Ethiopia and the genocides in Cambodia and later in Rwanda.

Once again the light surrounding my life is divided; my fingers of godly feeling cannot hold against my thoughts still lingering in clouds of duality.  My emotions feel unguided.  There is always the interruption, waves of refracted illuminations that break the unity in thought that should drive feelings in the direction of unbendable light.  My eyelids were once rosy blinds through which revelation glowed.  Now I open my eyes to glossy hospital walls where brothers lie failing to have made peace with one another.  So often individuals in their lifetimes repeatedly sing the dirge of estrangement and disharmony.  So how can we expect an outcome of accord and fulfillment collectively?

In the mornings the newspaper arrives on the lawn covered in blood.  I unfold it and out falls monster teeth and hate bites and well-sharpened deceits, then the depleted uranium and bird flu viruses and abruptly come the flashes of unprecedented disasters like tsunamis and hosts of hurricanes and earthquakes and some very unnatural occurrences caused by unheeded global warnings.  The planet is burning from the inside, sending waves of calamity against our feverish and fragile lives.  The earth has surely lost its glue.  Great enterprises of pitch and moment, like the bard wrote, have gone awry and ordinary truth has lost the name of action.

Geologically the earth is shifting, the magnetic field changing direction, the weather altered.  Psychic energy is accelerating towards a cycle of unprecedented consciousness.  Surely a Shift of the Ages is at hand.  Apocalypse, now is upon us!  Just unfolding the pages of the entertainment section I find crack pipes and tattoo parlors and festivals of the fantastic and occult followed by numerical records of the number of deaths in battles all over the world, conflicts unparalleled in scope, predictions of doom far darker than those of Nostradamus and Cayce.  By nightfall while the troubled world prepares for sleep my front lawn is strewn red in blood.

But my house is so quiet, sunken in sleep.  The neighbors awake numb from the “shock and awe” of an existence flung headlong into cataclysmic upheaval.  Are there new beings of unique intelligence being born in this tired world, those perhaps superhuman, charged with energy of cosmic light, somehow altered in DNA structure, children of a new order prepared to channel the message of ascendant masters?  Is the vibration I feel stirring a sign of the prophesied Great Dawn or is it only the termites of futility picking at the foundations?  The old woman in her rocking chair next door reads the secret book of Enoch and tells her housekeeper, a student of mystic Tibetan texts, that no deliverance is in sight.  “Not since 325 A.D.,” she says, “When Emperor Constantine began suppressing the anti-church texts of wisdom at the Council at Nicea.  Someday soon we will enter the kingdom of knowledge and the eye will be made single.  And until that day, we are just waiting, all of us.”

Everyone is waiting for the bliss of the Great Shift.  I am ready for the leap.  I am ready to be shot into the transcendent orbit when I will be the high-order initiate in the Ultramillenium mystery sciences.  I am waiting to gaze into the Seven Mirrors that hold the image of multiple and parallel moments that wipe out refractions of judgment, self-evaluation and individual identity.  I am waiting for the messiah of compassion to waltz into the human experience so we learn to dance in the reflections of the mirrors of divinity.  Yes, we had a glimpse into the possibility of the mirrors in that era of first awakening referred to as the 60’s, but we couldn’t sustain that partial joyful unveiling of our natures against the needs for terrestrial gravity.  Many sweet souls of that period were arrested in their development; some shocked into inertia from the onslaught of harsh political divergence or not prepared for the acceleration of thought and emotion needed to move into the new paradigm.

Time has come to be lifted out of this wilderness of mirrors.  I want the inevitable cataclysm now.  I’ve had enough of being suspended in the dull, impalpable ethers of promised change.  It’s time to open that door at the end of the corridor of this incarnation.  Preparations have been made for the next embodiment: mantras and chantings on four continents, myriad healings, channeling, past life regressions, shamanic journeys, astral voyages and lucid dreaming, trance ceremonies and cosmic visualized and telekinetic transporting—all of these, I’ve practiced all of these devotedly.  I have grown weary of lessons for enlightenment.  Emotionally, I’ve made enough leaps of faith and have had enough arms trying to hold me in relationship, enough romantic flights followed by disenchantments.  It is the eve of the last White Upheaval.  It is getting close; I am getting closer.  Soon I will watch a darkness cover everything, corrupt governments with their wars after war, poverty and incessant disease, eclipsing, at last, the limbo of not knowing what the body and mind really want, the neurological impasse between hope and despair and endless contradictions and disappointments.  Any of us growing older are tired of breathing the fetid air of our self-absorbed and lonely egos.  Let us out of this slow stagnation!  A compromised state of maintaining fictions for the paltry purpose of simply surviving, neither here nor there, is not what the gods and their furies want.  The coming wave of ultimate light will claim its white territory wiping away old plans and promises and harbingers of the Dawn will appear like Jesus’ faithful, so many bunches of grapes on the vines, to witness the radiance.  Waiting, all of us, for the rebirth I’ve heard that await people at the end of a near death tunnel, I will lay myself down, open and expectant, as a worshiper waiting for daylight to deliver the next page in the book of my existence.  Oh Lord, reveal to me now.

—A chapter from the diary of Damian Willsmith, inmate in the Institute
For Apocryphal Neurosis for Transitional Cosmic Research, subject
Ascension Park, Illinois in May of the year 2013, subject no. 108.

 

 

                                                                                                        
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 The Bigger Picture                                

by Paul García 

know you are asleep, but I am going to review a few things for you.

Using existing primate species, we first seeded this planet five million years ago.

When Albert Einstein's equation explained the interchangeability of matter and energy, you learned that there might be a source of energy in the nucleus.  Every schoolchild came to know E=mc², that the energy held in matter is equal to its mass times the speed of light squared.

In order to break a nucleus into its constituent parts you needed force enough to crush the atom, to break its electromagnetic bond, which would result in the release of energy derived from the nucleus’ lost mass.

The exigencies of war led you into nuclear physics.  We watched more closely.  You began to notice.  UFOs, you called us.

That the mass of a nucleus is smaller than its components was a puzzle and a temptation to inquiring minds.  “How can the sum of the parts be less than the whole?  Where was the extra mass?”  The dynamics of radioactivity showed that uranium breaks down into simpler elements.  Some of the mass was released as energy, which you might be able to access.

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made clear nuclear fission’s force.

Electric plants spread, but their waste had no use.  Hydrogen fusion would be more efficient than fission.  Recognizing that your sun’s nuclear fire burned hydrogen, so plentiful on Earth, you worked out the reaction’s details.  The fusion of hydrogen protons into helium is the source of the Sun’s radiation.  At its core, at temperatures millions of degrees Centigrade and pressures billions of times beyond those known on your world, hydrogen turns into helium, unleashing a steady stream of energy.

Could such a process be accomplished on Earth?

Detonation of the hydrogen bomb told you what devastating power is released when you achieve the temperature and pressure necessary to fuse hydrogen atoms.  The bomb at the Sun’s core burns millions of tons of hydrogen every second but the weight of gas covering it prevents its explosion.

To replicate the sun’s energy!  Star power from the universe’s most abundant element, harnessing fusion to generate electricity, became your goal.  The challenge was confinement of hydrogen so that the reaction did not destroy the reactor.  You tried to hold hydrogen plasma in reactors called tokamaks by using powerful doughnut shaped magnetic fields.  Then, you attempted inertial confinement by firing laser beams at tiny volumes of hydrogen.  Neither liberated as much energy as it took to start the reaction.  You weren’t able to break even.

Controlled fusion, never cost effective, is not yet as practical as fission for you.  So you devise primitive theory and continue studies in plasma physics, magnetic fusion, charged particle beams, laser fusion, and nonlinear dynamics.  Your turbulence simulations for fluids in tokamak systems look promising, as do the rotating plasma confinement schemes.

Achieving thermonuclear fusion in a controlled environment is a delicate balancing act.  In heating tokamaks by a neutral beam to achieve high plasma temperatures, you discovered that as you increased power, the particle and energy confinement times decreased.  However, with further increase in input power, the discharge made a dramatic transition to a good confined mode.  And you correctly attributed the improvement in confinement to the generation of shear flow in the tokamaks’ edge region, which created a transport barrier.  By simulating the edge region of the plasma, you have identified the cause of anomalous transport, which leads to poor confinement in the L mode phase; the perimeters are prone to short scale length convection because gravity arises from the toroidal curvature of the field lines.  The outside pressure gradient and gravity cause instability, but the interior pressure gradient reverses, stabilizing the plasma within the tokamak—

“Papa, you have to feed me breakfast.”

“Huh?  What?”

Daughter.  Knocking on my forehead.

“Papa, wake up.”

“What time is it?”

“I can’t tell time.”

Six thirty.  Funny dreams...

“Why’d you get up so early?”

“You woke me up.  Talking in your sleep.”

“About what?”

“Tomahawks.”

“Oh.  Why’d you knock on my head?”

She giggles.  “Cause you were already talking.  It’s rude to interrupt.”

“Okay.  I’ll make breakfast.”

 

 

                                                                                                         
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The Speed of Scrutiny                                                  

 by T. R. Healy

ou know what I always say?"

"Yeah, I know."

"What?"

"Catch all nail and no thumb."

"That's the only way to do it, Russ.  The only way to do anything, really."

Russ started to ask the mechanic to wish him luck but knew Gridley did not believe in luck, only in skill and hard work, so he kept quiet and made sure the camera was mounted on the rear shelf of the car.  Then he strapped himself into the seat, slipped on a white plastic helmet, and stretched back from the padded steering wheel until his arms were fully extended.

"Ready to earn your paycheck today?"  Gridley asked after slightly reducing the air pressure in the right front tire.

He frowned.  "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Let's get it done then."

He started the engine, released the emergency brake, moved into gear, and slowly drove over to a cluster of orange traffic cones lined up at the south end of the vacant asphalt lot.  A thousand feet away was an eight foot tall wooden barrier that was wide as a garage door.  It was a couple of feet thick, with a faded red circle painted in the center.  Anxiously he revved the engine until it was racing as fast as his pulse.  At the same time he kept a close eye on Gridley who stood to the right of him with a striped towel in his hand.  A minute passed, then a couple more, then Gridley raised the towel above his head and urgently whipped it across his chest.  At once, Russ pressed his foot down on the accelerator and headed toward the barrier, gradually gathering speed until he was moving along at thirty miles per hour.  His eyes were riveted on the faded red circle which soon filled the windshield.  Momentarily everything was still, as if he were enclosed in a huge red cloud, then he felt the car slam into the barrier.

His head snapped back against his seat, leaving him short of breath.  His eyes clamped shut, and his straps, binding as chains, dug into his shoulders and waist.  The familiar spasm of fear fluttered through his chest, then quickly disappeared when he realized he was still in one piece.

"You all right?"  Gridley asked as he hurried over to the side of the car.

Russ nodded, still a little dazed.

"You made a direct hit.  Smack in the middle of the circle."

"The car get very banged up?"

"Enough to show that it was in a pretty nasty little collision," he informed him.  "No one can say you didn't earn your money today."

He grinned weakly.

"Now come on," he urged.  "Let's get you out of this bucket before the gas tank springs a leak and goes up like a Roman candle."

Groggily he climbed out of the smashed car and removed his helmet and accompanied Gridley to the Quonset hut at the back of the lot so that a medic could check his vital signs to make sure he was all right.  As usual, his neck and shoulders were a little sore but otherwise he was fine.  Just another day at the office, he thought to himself, smiling.  A delivery driver for an auto parts store downtown, he earned some extra money two or three times a month test driving cars for an insurance company investigating claims relating to traffic accidents.  Often this involved colliding into a barrier at different speeds, prompting Gridley to describe him as "a human crash test dummy."  The greater the impact speed the more money he earned and the more aches and bruises he suffered.

"Any drives scheduled for next week?" he asked the mechanic when they reached the hut.

"Not, as of yet, but if there are, I'll let you know."

"You do that because I can always use some more sugar in my wallet."

He nodded.  "You're near the top of my call list, partner."

"I appreciate that," he said, starting to open the hut door.  "See you tomorrow then."

"Oh, I'm afraid I won't be able to make it out to Church Creek this Saturday."

"Really?"

"I have some in-laws flying in from Minneapolis tomorrow so I've got to be out at the airport bright and early to pick them up."

"Well, I'll see you there the following Saturday."

Gridley nodded half-heartedly, without committing himself one way or the other.

Russ was not surprised by the mechanic's apparent apathy, fewer and fewer volunteers were gathering at the Church Creek Bird Sanctuary on Saturday morning.  The first time they all got together there must have been close to forty-five of them while last Saturday there could not have been more than fifteen.  Before long, he suspected, scarcely anyone would be looking for Casey other than his mother.

***

Nearly three weeks ago, the seventeen-year-old was reported missing by his mother, Cloris, when he did not return home from an afternoon spent at the sanctuary.  He went there by himself, which he often did because he didn't like to be distracted when he was taking pictures of the great blue herons he so enjoyed photographing.  Right away, Cloris was afraid something had happened to him because he would have let her know if he was going to stay for dinner at some friend's house.  All she had was her son, having sole custody of him since her divorce eleven years ago, and knew he would not do anything to cause her to worry.  After notifying the police of his absence, she asked Russ and some other neighbors to go out with her to Church Creek to look for Casey.  As soon as they pulled into the main parking area, they spotted his battered Dodge pick-up and saw that the doors and trunk were unlocked.  Russ felt an immediate sense of relief, figuring the young man was still taking pictures, but after calling out his name for several minutes with the others and not receiving a response, he became as concerned as Cloris about her son's whereabouts.

They searched until it was dark then returned early the next day, a Saturday, and by that afternoon dozens of volunteers were combing the marsh for the young man.  Not a sign of him was discovered, however, not a footprint, not even one of the mint candy wrappers that were often falling out of his pockets.  It was as if he had slipped into some deep tunnel that immediately collapsed on itself.  The police, without any evidence of foul play, classified the disappearance as a missing-person case and were of little assistance.  His mother was beside herself she was so distressed, unable to comprehend what had happened to him.  Still, she refused to believe she would not find him and day after day returned to the marsh to call out his name until her throat was raw.

***

Bernie, a retired pharmacist, walked behind Russ as they slogged deeper into a far corner of the sanctuary.  They had paired off last Saturday and did not have any problems so they decided to team up again.  As before, Bernie quickly found a couple of fist-sized rocks which he smacked together every few minutes as he called out Casey's name in his high, whining voice.

Russ was impressed by the enthusiasm the older man exhibited and, after they waded across a thick patch of mud, remarked, "You act as if you really expect Casey to answer your call."

"Do I?"

"You sure do."

"It's an act all right," he sighed.  "If the kid's here, he's probably not alive, and I have my doubts if he is even here anymore.  But I figure if Cloris hears me yelling she'll assume I have as much hope as she does of finding her son."

"But you don't, do you?"

"Afraid not.  Why, do you?"

He shook his head, groping for a pine limb to maneuver around a deep pool.  "No, not really."

"Cloris eventually will come to that realization too," Bernie predicted.  "Maybe not for a couple more weeks but I figure by the end of the month she'll begin to accept that her son is not going to come home."

Russ was skeptical.  "It's difficult to say.  She still seems pretty confident she's going to see him again."

"I think she's putting on an act too."

"Not me," he said adamantly.  "I think she really believes she's going to find him otherwise she wouldn't continue to come out here.  And I'm concerned about her when she finally realizes the grim truth."

"So am I, Russ.  Everyone out here looking for Casey, or pretending to anyway, feels bad for her.  But she'll get over it."

"What makes you think that?"

"What's the alternative?"

He glanced up at the denim blue sky, the mist soaking his face.  "I just wish there was something I could do to make her feel better in some way."

"Remember, as bad as it feels, it's still her pain.  Not yours.  And it's up to her to come to grips with it."

Russ remained troubled but did not continue the discussion.  Instead, he picked up a couple of rocks and, accompanying his partner, banged them together and called out Casey's name.

***

The next week only a handful of volunteers showed up to help Cloris search for her son.  Russ was among them but not Bernie or Gridley.  As always, Cloris was very appreciative of those who had come and lamely tried to ascribe the absence of the others to the threat of inclement weather in the forecast.  Russ knew this was nonsense, the sky was pouring two weeks ago and there were well over twenty volunteers at the marsh.  The difference was people still shared her belief that Casey would be found but not any longer, not after four weeks.  Russ certainly didn't expect to find any trace of the young man but he came out this morning because of his concern for Cloris.  He hated the thought of her being out at the marsh all alone Saturday, even if then she might begin to realize the futility of continuing the search.  He didn't want her to think no one cared about her anymore.  He did, and always would, he suspected.

Because there were so few volunteers Cloris discouraged them from pairing up and, instead, suggested particular areas of the sanctuary for each person to investigate.  She figured some might be uncomfortable on their own so she reminded everyone to blow their whistles if they became tired or confused and needed some assistance.

"Blow until someone comes," she told them, blowing three long blasts on the tin whistle she wore around her neck.  "And I guarantee you someone will come."

She then urged Russ and the others to blow their whistles and they did, loudly, emphatically.  It sounded almost desperate, he thought, as if everyone knew they would never be doing it for discovering anything of significance.  The first Saturday the search was held, one of Cloris' neighbors brought along a carton of Crackerjack whistles so that the volunteers could signal one another when they found something that belonged to Casey.  Of course, no whistle was blown that Saturday, or any subsequent Saturdays, and the sound of them blaring away now made Russ uncomfortable and quickly he put his whistle back in his pocket.

As usual, the search concluded after a couple of hours, again without success, and everyone promised to return next Saturday then climbed into their cars and headed home.  Russ pulled away behind Cloris and, because they lived within a few blocks of one another, followed her home, wishing all the while there was something he could do to lift her spirits.  Something to make her realize that she had to move on and let go of any hope of finding her son.  By the time she turned into her driveway he thought of a way and rolled down his window and told her he wanted to show her something.

“What?"

"You'll see," he told her.  "Come on.  It'll only take a couple of minutes."

Reluctantly she got into his car.  "What's this all about, Russ?"

"You'll see," he said again, after reminding her to fasten her seat belt.

He turned up the volume on the radio as a Waylon Jennings song began to play,  then took off down the street, refusing to answer any of her questions about where they were going.  He paused at the corner, turned right, drove past the post office, and turned right again, ignoring the yield sign.  Half a block ahead rose the stone towers of the abandoned reservoir, and he swung past the archery field and headed toward the north face of the stone wall that surrounded the reservoir.  Slowly he picked up speed, the craggy wall becoming larger every moment.

"Where are you going?" Cloris demanded, suddenly alarmed.

Smiling, he pressed down on the accelerator pedal a little more and the car shuddered and skidded through some gravel, its tires squealing.  Then, without a dozen feet of the wall, he swerved away and bounced over a pile of leaves, nearly striking an elm tree.

"My God, have you lost your mind!  You could have killed us."

He shook his head.  "The point of life is living it, and you're not, and I wanted to make you aware of this because the way you're behaving now about your son is almost the same as crashing head-on into a stone wall."

She looked at him as if he were demented and angrily demanded that he stop the car and he did and she got out and slammed the door so hard he thought it was going to fall off its hinges.  He started to call her back but she stomped away, her eyes simmering, her breath a ragged scarf of smoke.

 

 

                                                                                                      
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Honor of a Woman                                        

 by Dipita Kwa

knelt on our bed—the one I shared with my sister Muto—and peeped through a crack on the termite-infested plank window.  I wasn’t surprised that my mother was still sitting on the verandah, waiting for Muto’s return.  Muto and Mama never stopped fighting.  There was something repulsive between the two of them that pulled them apart if not together for a fight.

I couldn’t understand what made my sister stay out this late almost every night—she was only eighteen, three years older than me.  It was past eleven; I could tell from the stillness that hung like sackcloth over the village of Mondoni.

I shrugged and went back under my sheets, covered my ears from mosquitoes, and thought about Papa.  Papa died when I was ten.  And Mama went away leaving us with Auntie Katty.  Auntie Katty was anywhere between sixty and seventy years old.  She was my father’s elder sister.  For four years she took care of us from the meager income she got from selling miondo.  I was happy because the frequent quarrels and fights between Muto and Mama ceased.  I re-lived those beautiful evenings when Mama was away and we used to sit around Auntie, cracking egusi under bright moonlight with the cold wind whistling across the leaves of the trees in the surrounding bush.  We would listen reverently to what she taught us as the Honor of a Woman.  Muto hardly ever went out.  She too seemed to love those evenings.  Then last year Mama came back and took us away to live in a rented two-roomed plank house while our father’s house, situated at the outskirts of the village, was shrouded with grass and almost collapsing from lack of use… 

“Where have you been?”  I heard my mother demand.  “Why are you coming back at this hour?”

I quietly crept back to the window.

I saw Muto try to push past Mama but was violently pulled back by her forearm.  She almost toppled over.  I held my breath and waited for the worst.

“I’m talking to you.  Stand here and tell me which devil you have been chasing around Mondoni all night while girls of your age are all in bed!”

 Muto pulled her arm free.

“What do you want from me?”  She snapped.

I recognized that vicious glare in her eyes that often announced her readiness to claw like an angry cat.

Mama sighed.  She looked as though cold water had just been poured on her flaming heart.  In fact I realized that she was probably getting old.  If it had been five years ago when she was forty-one, Mama would have welcomed her with a questioning slap.  Now instead, I heard her saying in a too subdued voice:  “My daughter, roving the neighborhood from one room and off-license to another like an evil spirit, will yield you nothing but dishonor and destruction…. Look, this world is fast becoming the proverbial calabash of diseases….”

“It’s my life!”  Muto shouted.  “Let me live it the way I want.  Maybe I should ask you this:  when it was your turn to change men the way you changed your underwear, with the outstanding result of giving birth to two bastards, whose advice did you heed to?  And if you hadn’t killed someone’s husband in your bed, would you have run back here to bore me with your hypocrisy?”

It was true that Ewolo had died on her bed last year, precipitating her return to Mondoni to avoid his widow’s wrath.  By reminding Mama of this, Muto had stepped on a dry branch.

I heard the slap fall hard and loud on her face, sending her staggering backward for balance.  Like the cat tattooed on her thigh, Muto recoiled quickly.  Before Mama knew, she was all over her, punching and clawing.  Her fingers soon found the top of Mama’s blouse and ripped it open.  The next second, her mouth found one of Mama’s breasts.  Like a hungry carnivore, Muto’s teeth sank into it and neatly bit off the nipple.

I screamed and ran out in my torn nightie.  Mama was holding her breast with blood trickling down her fingers, and screaming in pain.

The neighborhood was now fully awake.

I thought I would faint as I saw Muto hastily swallow the piece of human flesh—our mother’s nipple—and race into the dark night, wiping her bloody mouth with the back of her hand.

The atmosphere calmed somehow after the wound was dressed and Mama given some drugs.  But she couldn’t stop mouthing curses:

“Bad luck will follow you all the miserable days of your life!” she shouted.

“Take those back!” one woman rebuked her.

“I won’t!  Muto will never see peace as long as she lives if I am the one who gave birth to her,”  She kept shrieking as she lay on her bed.  “Wherever she goes, it will hang on her head like a hive of wasps—”.  She went on speaking right into her sleep.

Three days after the fight, Auntie Katty was sitting on a low stool and leaning forward on her walking staff, shaking her head in an all-knowing fashion.  She said she had come to inquire about Mama’s health and if Muto had returned home.  Mama was now feeling better.  The wound had been stitched.  But Muto had not been seen.

“Come here, Penda, and sit down,” she said to me, shifting to create space for me on the stool.  “I want you to listen, and listen well.”

She then turned to face my mother.

“People say I speak too much.  And I won’t stop speaking.  I have been quiet for too long that I am afraid if I die today without emptying my mind, I too may not see peace in the other world.  After all, who has ever developed rotten teeth from giving advice?  My mouth is even too full at my age.”  She bit into a piece of kola nut she was holding and crunched.

“Endale, you are the cause of all your misfortunes,” she went on slowly.  “you thought youthfulness was like a cowry that never faded.  I will tell you again that you lived a dirty life that you never thought could rub onto your daughter.  When your mother complained and begged you to slow down, you beat her and dragged her about like a dog with a deadly disease.  You told her that a cripple like her couldn’t give birth to a beautiful girl like you.  You left the house and abandoned her to die in misery.  And the poor woman actually grieved to her death —”

 “Stop it, Katty, please,” my mother cried.

“I won’t stop!”

“I wish Muto had killed me!”  Mama muttered, covering her face with a pillow that was already wet with tears.

“Muto can’t kill you because you didn’t kill your mother.  She is merely repaying you the debt you owe.  And this is how the circle will go on and on; you owing your mother, Muto owing you, her daughter owing her, her granddaughter owing her daughter, and so on.

“Like others before you, you are caught in that vicious circle of woe—an endless chain of curses—”  She paused to reflect.  “Your mother died and was buried without you.  You gave my brother the worst days of a man’s life.  If Muto thinks today that she is a bastard, she has the right.  If after all those years of marriage to my brother you could still stand in public and tell him he wasn’t man enough to make a woman pregnant, I doubt what you want your daughters to feel.  Thank God I was there for them.  Now you are afraid your daughter is taking after you.  Who do you blame?”  She paused long enough to have another bite of the kola nut.

“However, I think you can help yourself break this spell.  That is why I came.  As soon as you are strong again, go to your mother’s grave and plead with her.  Tell her—tell God—you are sorry.”

After she left, my mother cried.

Every morning she would peep into our room to see if Muto had secretly returned.  And I would see the deep feeling of disappointment and gloom in her eyes when she saw that I was there alone.  Soon I began to feel that she didn’t care about me.  She spent herself worrying about Muto who had caused her so much pain.  When I complained to Auntie, she reminded me of the story of the prodigal son and advised me to cheer up.

“You are still a young woman,” she said, “soon you will know the mother’s love for her children even the one that is a thief.”  From then I tried to understand what my mother was going through.  Though I couldn’t really feel it, I tried my best to make her happy.  This was very hard indeed.

And it became worse when Malodi Steven was bitten to death by a green mamba that had caught in his trap.  Malodi was the man who paid our rents.  Though he was married, he kept hanging around my mother.  I hated him for cheating on his wife.  But he was the only one who succeeded in making Mama really laugh during these miserable two months after Muto’s disappearance.  His death plunged Mama into the worst of dark glooms that I had ever known her to be in.  This was the third man she had lost within five years.  She went for days without food and hardly spoke to anyone.  I thought of running away to live with Auntie.  But I didn’t want to increase her pain, so I stayed.

Then one Saturday morning, six weeks after Malodi’s death, she told me she had decided that Auntie should accompany us to my grandmother’s grave.  She needed to be cleansed.

* * *

 

The house was like I had expected; buried with climbers and filled with the stench of death.  Death!  Yes, that was what I instantly felt.  I went crawling around while Auntie and Mama cleared the grass from the graves in readiness for the cleansing ceremony.  I was at the corridor, opposite what had once been the children’s room, when I heard the groan.  At first I thought it was my mother.  But outside, I could hear Mama crying out,  “Turn away your face from my sins, strengthen me…”  Then I heard the groan a second time, clear but very feeble.  It was coming from our room.  One thought crossed my mind: there was a ghost in there.

But it was no ghost.  It was the ragged remains of my sister which must have been brought back lethally sick and abandoned here by a kind-hearted lover who hadn’t the courage to confront any member of our family.  There were molded pieces of bread around the urine-soaked clothes on which she laid —probably her only food during whatever number of days she had been here, and bus tickets to or from eleven towns of the coastal region of Cameroon.  She must have had a very heated schedule during those three months to make her now unable to walk or talk.

The next day we packed back to my father’s house—our real home—to nurse our sorrows.

The night Muto bid us her final goodbye—two days after our return home—Mama and I were sitting on the bed beside her.  I saw my mother wrestle in futility with the sobbing lump in her throat as she watched her source of pride now looking like a masquerader with sunken eyes on a fleshless skull.

I saw Muto’s lips twitch in an effort to speak.

Mama held her hand.

“I forgave you long ago,” she said hoarsely, somehow imagining what Muto might have wanted to say.  The tears now ran freely down our cheeks.

Muto withdrew her hand and stirred to face the wall.

A last spasm of cough gripped her.  Then quietness.

I stared out of the window.  Stars had dimmed and the moon was mournfully hiding behind a thick blanket of clouds.  Far away an owl hooted what my mind registered as the wasted honor of a woman.

 

 

                                                                                                        
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Exactly What Time Is                                

by Joel Van Noord 

o it’s like this now, Wren thought as he achingly bent over to grab his pale lunch.  He was sore but this was novel and interesting.  He was learning things about life and that was good.  It was bittersweet to be away from the explosive atmosphere of Berkeley, in the desert little was affected by Vietnam, Washington, race riots, or general chaos in the bay area.  He rose and stood for a moment, lifting his head to the sky and stretching his neck.  Then arching his shoulders as the knotted muscles stretched.  This was who he was now.  A laborer.  He lifted things and set them down at other locations.  He was a busy little fucking bee, a worker; sweating for the paycheck at the end of two weeks.  This was his third day at work and it was obvious he was different, first, he could tell he was the only one who cared about anything outside their immediate necessities—if this was a consequence of employment, he’d soon find out.

He was not Mormon or of Mexican decent.  He was a college educated man and they derided him for this.  They called him ‘college boy’ and he didn’t answer.  He didn’t talk to them.  It was a Wednesday and he walked past the two ambivalent groups of workers who clustered together on a wall they were constructing.  He sat next to Bryce, a loner like himself, and greeted him.  Bryce was distant and reluctant in answering.  He stole a glimpse from the corner of his eye with a minimal turn of his head.  Bryce bit into a chicken wing and looked ahead.  Wren looked to Bryce’s boots, they were caked in dirt.  Looking almost white in the sandstone earth at the edge of the Mojave Desert.  Wren looked at his own boots as he opened his pale.  They were still new.

“So why construction?”  Wren asked as Bryce stared distantly ahead.  Bryce didn’t turn his head but looked out of the corners of his eyes.  He was slow in answering and Wren watched the man who now looked perhaps eight years older, while observing Bryce at work Wren thought they were the same age.

“Why do you ask me that?”  Bryce asked, both annoyed and entertained. 

“Come on, man.  Let’s be honest.  There’s a reason we’re sitting here by ourselves and not with everyone else.  It’s cool.  I’m from California.  Got a psychology degree from Berkeley and now there’s nothing to do.  Construction’s an easy job to get and it pays.”

“That’s awesome.”  Bryce said sardonically, still reluctant.

“How long you been working?”  Wren asked, determined to spark a genuine conversation.

“Three months.”

“How’d you get to heart of the desert?”

“Took a job.  Thought it would last 9 months.  Lasted three.  They lost funding and I had a lease on an apartment.  Picked up construction.” Bryce said flatly.

“Huh.  What were you doing before?”

“Desert surveys.”

“What was that like?”

“Hot as fuck.  Walking around all day through desert mesas with a gaff to lift away rattles and poke through sage.”

“And now construction?”

“10,000 more a year.”

“Construction’s not that bad.”

“Fuck yeah it is.  Break your body…and for what?  So old fucks from California can come out and retire cheap, live like kings in the barren desert?  Then die.  Leave a dead and broken landscape behind.”

“I know what your fucking talking about man!”  Wren got overexcited as he felt they’d made a connection. “We gotta do something to stop them. They’re strangling the desert!”

Bryce laughed heartedly.  “You dumb kid, QUIT YOUR JOB FIRST.”  He said forcefully and laughed again. “Don’t be stupid.  Look at what we do.  Look around.”  

Bryce picked up his head and looked around, forcing Wren to do likewise.  There was a dark mountain range ahead of them.  Red cliffs were barely visible above the identical cul-de-sacs of burgeoning subdivisions.

“You spent all morning laying brick for a wall… a stupid fucking WALL… were you thinking about that while you were building it?  It’s a wall… these houses start at 200,000.  Those walls are to keep you out.”  Bryce said now with his head fully toward the younger man.

“I know man.  It’s fucked up.  We gotta get together and protest this shit, built up, not out, shit like that.  Build smart cities…”  there was a pause and Wren watched as Bryce sat there dubiously. 

“You know all this,” Wren began again, “so what do you want to do about it?” he asked.

“Me?.”  Bryce laughed.  “I don’t want to do anything now.  I’ve lost all faith.  I think… I almost know humanity’s fucked.  And there ain’t shit you can do about it… you go and start a fucking political party or something and I’ll vote for you and wear a pin… Other than that I’m going home tonight and drinking some beer and watching some football.”

Wren sat back and smirked at the man, he made no move to talk further and only kept the knowing smirk on his face, obstinately watching Bryce who continued to eat his meal.  A whistle then blew and the foreman clapped his hand once and made gestures to rally the workers.  Wren closed his pail and stood.  Walked slowly toward where the men were gathering, he looked back at Bryce who was slowly putting his thermos back in his tin. Then wiping his mouth and looking away from where the group was gathering in jovial spirits.  Wren turned his back to Bryce and walked faster to the group.

***

Jesus, I wrote that 23 freaking years ago.  I’m Wren, actually my real name is Henry, and I moved from that city about three months after that conversation took place.  I have no idea where that man is now, probably in the same house he lived in then, drinking piss poor beer and grumbling pessimistic comments under his breath.  I had completely forgotten it… it’s strange to read that piece of fiction I wrote so many years ago.  Who I thought I was back then and what I thought of the world.  I was never in the same league as that man.  While writing that, and working that short construction job, which I worked for the experience instead of necessity, I had 25,000 dollars in the bank.  I was top shelf-shit then and I am now. I wrote that piece probably in 73, though, when I was 22.  Feeling my way around the world with a nice chunk of money in the bank always there to fall back on. I have a son who’s probably going through something very similar now.  He’s going to come out of a top tier school, Stanford!  Debt free.  Thanks entirely to his old man, who the little runt scarcely thanks for his generosity.  The one time we talked about money he scoffed that I’d even consider not paying for the brat’s 4 plus years.  Since I drive a well earned BMW that costs as much as a year of his tuition.  I had idealistic dreams back then.  But most of those dreams shed like dead skin as I grew older, met my wife, had kids, got bill after bill; I guess all I really wanted to do was be self-employed, which I am, and not have anyone to boss me around.  I still had my wild and crazy days.  After I worked that construction job I took that summer and toured with the Dead.  Did acid once or twice too many times, sold dope and actually met my first wife, who is now a lawyer in San Jose.  After that I went to graduate school at the University of Washington, got into alpine climbing, and started my own business.  I now employ 150 people.

I’d have to say I don’t have the same priorities and inclinations for drastic change as I did in those rather revolutionary days, that’s obvious if you saw my house or knew what I did or basically knew anything about me; don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way today about the second Bush as I did about Nixon.  It’s just with age you realize exactly what time is, and you realize what is futile and what is not.  Hey, I even voted for Nader a few elections ago.  I’m still basically the same.  Really.

 

                                                                                                        

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Private Dreams                                   

by Saro Bedian

here once was an old and very wealthy man who had come about his wealth honestly and independently.  He used to be a machine head inspector.  One day, while still middle aged, he patented a way of inspecting many machine heads at one time.  This made him very rich, and he retired in his early fifties.  The old man lived alone at the edge of a small town in a large house in the woods, and had no neighbors.  Only leaving home to buy things to eat and watch go to the movies kept him quite content.  He enjoyed viewing foreign films with exotic scenery about far countries, although he’d never had the desire to travel.  Gourmet cooking was also a hobby and exotic foods a specialty of his.  With no family and very few acquaintances, there was very little to say about this old man.  He had never married and was not very social, so he spent almost his entire life alone.  He liked it this way.

Now, being alone all the time did not make the old man lonelier.  Instead, over the years he became more and more comfortable with his solitude and resentful of the necessity to socially interact.  One day, realizing there was no more milk in the refrigerator, he decided he did not want to go out to buy groceries anymore.  The old man sat in his study for a long time and thought to himself, then made a decision.  He called a local grocery delivery company, and had his food delivered directly to his home from then on.  The men from the company assured the old man that they could bring whatever he desired directly to the house, anytime he needed.  The old man was quite pleased with this and made an arrangement with them immediately.   Hanging up the phone, he rubbed his hands together and smiled in satisfaction.

Another day, he was sitting in front of his television thinking about what movie to watch that weekend.  All of a sudden, a deep and gnawing anxiety began gripping his stomach, slowly working its way up to his chest.  The old man sat and breathed deeply for several minutes, then tried to clear his head and think about what happened.  He soon realized that going out to the movies was what triggered the anxiety, and while he was thinking of a way to alleviate the situation, a commercial for a new company that sent movies in the mail came on television.  He decided that this would be much more convenient for his needs, so he called the company right away to sign up.  Feeling quite relieved, he began deciding what movies to have sent for the weekend.

At this point, the old man never left his house, and was quite happy being at home all day with his movies and his food.  At night, however, he could hear the noise of the cars from the road. This made him think of other people, and disrupted his state of mind.  The realization that he was not alone in the world caused him to lose his focus on his own life, and this was disturbing him.  He would find himself having strange thoughts and feelings.  Often he would think about people he did not even know; what they might be doing, what they thought about, and even what they may think about him.  During the day, the old man would live in his own created world, totally focused and at peace with himself.  And every night when the house was quiet, he could hear the cars and would think of the outside world and his focus and peace would be shattered.  "How can I get somewhere that I will never lose my focus and my peace?" the old man thought.  After many sleepless nights, he came to a conclusion.

He decided to hire a company to scour the Sahara Desert for a suitable oasis, isolated from caravans amidst the dunes.  There he decided he would set up a small shelter and irrigate crops.  Within a few weeks the company agents returned to him with the information he needed, and the old man began the preparations for the move.  He sold everything he had owned in his life that he would never need again, and gave the money to charity.  Then he made the travel preparations to the oasis, including the plane ticket, train ticket, and camel ride.  Finally, it was time to say goodbye to his old home.  He looked at the house he had lived in for so many years, and only thought of his hopes for peace and tranquility in the future.  He did not notice the hands wiping moisture of his face as he turned away.

After a long, hard journey, the old man finally made it to the oasis.  The crazy looking camel driver gave him a wave, turned with a yell, and kicked the camel back in the other direction.  "Ah!” said the old man, "now here is a place where I can find some peace and quiet."   Looking around, he saw nothing but sand dunes, and of course, his little water hole and palm tree.  There was a wooden shack nearby that the company men had built for him as a shelter, and the ground had already been fertilized with seed.  "Now I am ready to settle down and enjoy my twilight years", the old man said to himself.  And so he did.

Growing beans and drinking spring water month after month, the old man was quite content.  Never worrying about others, and never thinking of the past or the future, he was like a living dream of the present moment.  His beard grew long as all his movements became slow and steady.  Everything he did, he did it completely; he was awake and undistracted.  Every pleasure was his to rejoice in, and every pain he quietly held to himself.  He was not aware of the small itch in the back of his mind at first, but it grew, until one day he saw the first of the caravans.

They were a small group, traveling a few miles off, barely noticeable in the bright sun.  But as the day came to a close, the old man watched as their shadows lengthened behind them, and by the time they made camp at the oasis, he had already ran a few dozen yards off, watching them like an old hawk.  They sat by his spring, ate his beans, and spoke.  Hearing a strange language, and listening to the strange, mystical sounds coming from their musical instruments, there was no anger in the old man at the intrusion.  In fact, it took a long time for the amazement to wear off before the old man could finally pinpoint what he was feeling exactly, though it was obvious once he became aware of it.  He felt something then that he hadn't felt for years, in the depths of his heart, the beginnings of a desire to be among other people again.  But he sat, still as stone, and listened to their songs, until the night grew old, and he slept, and they were gone in the morning.

From that day forward the itch in the back of the old man's mind continued to grow until he was well aware of it, and the caravans continued to come as well.  At first he hid too far away to see the strange people very well.  Over time, the old man’s courage grew while he became comfortable with the new situation, and he eventually gave into his curiosity.  He timidly crept closer and closer until finally he was peering over the nearest sand dune next to his water hole, watching the people gathered there.  As he got nearer, he could see the people with much more detail and hear their music more clearly.  He could even smell the food they were preparing most of the time.  Everything he saw was new and exciting, and the old man sometimes thought of the movies he had watched and so loved that seemed so sterile and lifeless in comparison.  Some caravans were much larger than others; some came with animals in cages, some with dancing women, and some with only a few starved camels and dark, dangerous looking men.

At first, the old man did not even think of the break in his solitude.  He was too absorbed with the strangeness of these people and their ways.  The desert people were passing through more and more, and the old man loved their music more than anything he had ever experienced.  He was sleeping during the days and waking up at night, so as to hear the music more often.  In the end that was what brought him out to meet them.  The spirit of their music flowed through him and he was drawn to its sound.  Finally he came out from his hiding place, dancing and singing in a tongue he did not know how to speak.  His old, xenophobic self was dying, slowly being baked away in the desert sun.  It was replaced by a wild eyed, ancient creature that would sing under the stars with the desert people, and laugh as the women danced in the moonlight.

One night, there was the largest gathering he had ever seen at the little oasis.  The men were all loud and smiling broadly while women danced and served food.  The smell of salted meat, nuts and exotic fruit rose high into the desert sky.  After the feast, all the musicians began playing and everyone danced.  The old man danced with passion:  he was more alive then than he had ever been before.  Finally, the ancient creature did a spectacular leap into the air and fell on the ground.  The leader of the troop called for quiet and isolated the old man, praising his skill in song and dance.  He beseeched the others to bring him along as a friend and fellow.  Everyone agreed, and the old man, eyes shining, left with the group into the desert that night on his very own camel.

When he woke up, there was sand in his mouth and burns all over his body.  He had been lying out in the desert for a long time, and was fast approaching his death.  But he was happy.  The time spent with the caravans, he felt, was a perfect way to finish his long and mostly boring existence.  Thinking this, he heard the music of their flutes far off, and with a smile on his face, put his head down in the sand and closed his eyes.

 

 

                                         

                                                                                                                      
                                                    
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Remembering the Nam                

by R. T. Tracy   

                                                                       
Part One 

                                                                                                                                                                          

he statue, uniformed as a Vietnam era U.S. Army nurse, clutched in its outstretched hands a folded American flag.  Her facial features, finely sculpted, suggested a sensitive and courageous soul still in the early stages of life, firmly resolved to comfort the dying and save the wounded.

Across the square from the bronze nurse, on one of four wooden park benches, sprawled a gray haired man dressed in tattered Army fatigues, dirty and faded.  A torn plastic bag was at his feet.  Two brown paper bags, filled with canned goods, rested on the bench beside him.  His eyes, his thoughts, his whole person, were riveted upon the statue.

"Look at him," said Bill Douglas.  "He hasn't moved for hours.  He just sits there, as though he were in some sort of a trance."

"It's his anniversary," said Henry Sedgewick.  "And he seems to be getting older rapidly.  Besides, it's Christmas Eve."

"His anniversary?"

"Forty years ago tonight, on Christmas Eve in 1965, Susan Delancey was killed during a mortar attack at Cam Ranh Bay.  Read the inscription on her statue.  Luke considers that the most significant event of his life, and he still blames himself for it."

"Henry, I understand your feelings. You're probably the only friend he has.  And he has no family left at all.  You'll be doing him a favor.  He might freeze to death on that bench tonight."

Henry looked imploringly at his executive editor.  "But why me, Bill?  Why must I sign?  I'd prefer that he were free.  I don't want to see him in a nursing home.  Besides, he's the best writer I have."

"Your cooperation will help to give him a safe and comfortable home for the rest of his life."

"Yeah," muttered Sedgewick, "a home that he'll never escape from.  Ever.  It'll kill him, Bill.  You know that."

"I don't know that." Douglas looked at Henry with reproach.  He bent his head forward, fixing his naked eyes upon his editor while his glasses fell forward to the end of his nose.  Henry knew this to be a sign that his boss had arrived at a decision.  He looked away, out the large, half-moon window fronting the newspaper building and defining one quarter of Delancey square.

The editor stared at the larger than life bronze nurse.  He remembered Susan and Cam Ranh Bay from forty years ago, the warm Christmas weather of South Vietnam.  Behind her statue a harsh, northern winter sunset glowed blood red and purple.  A police car idled at the statue's base, its exhaust sending fumes and smoke up into the December evening sky.  The policemen eyed the man seated on the park bench.  Noticing Sedgewick standing in the newspaper's front window, the policeman at the wheel raised his hand in a greeting.  The editor, in response, waved.

***

"Y'know, he's been staring at that statue all afternoon now, since about 11 a.m.," said Henderson to his partner. "You would think he'd at least get up and stretch his legs."

"Yeah," replied his partner.  "He don't watch out, he'll be a statue too."

"Hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve, isn't it?"

"Sure is."

"Wonder what those guys in the paper office have to keep themselves warm, seeing it's Christmas Eve?"

"Plenty."

"Probably."

"No, plenty.  I know.  There was a party earlier this afternoon, before you got here.  People were bringing in food and booze.  Dozens of people bringing in gifts, like they was shepherds and magi or somethin'.  Most of them left empty handed.  They got plenty in there."

"Good.  Then maybe they can give this guy a Christmas Eve supper."

"They were trying to talk to him, before you came on.  They had some stuff with them.  He ignored them."

"Really?"

"They got plenty, but he don't want nothin'.  They brought it all back in with them.  They ain't been out since.  That was, maybe one or one thirty this afternoon."

"Hmph," said the driver, "well I'll be darned."

"How long we gotta keep this up, anyway?  The bum is a stiff.  We got two statues on the square now.  Maybe we should run him in.  It's supposed to go down to fifteen degrees tonight.  Let's run him in and go over to the diner to have our Christmas Eve dinner.  Unless a'course, those guys'll give us a fancy meal.  They got plenty in there.  May as well get a good meal out of this, whatever the reason we're here."

"We're here at the request of the editor," said the driver, pointing to one of the men in the newspaper office window.  "He's good pals with the chief.  We get pretty good press."

"We supposed to watch that bum all night?"

"‘Just keep an eye on him,' that's what the Chief said.  And we may have to bring him to the county hospital tonight, they haven't made up their minds yet."

"Wish they'd hurry up.  Just watching that guy is boring."

***

"His stories still seemed pretty good, didn't they?" observed Bill Douglas, the group's executive editor.  "That is, unless you were engaged in a heavy rewriting effort."

"I didn't touch his stories," replied Henry.  "They're as good as they were when he was in his twenties.  Better."

"Corporate was very upset when they learned about his homeless status," said Douglas.

"He's not on payroll.  He gets no benefits from us.  I paid him per diem, out of petty cash.  What they didn't know didn't hurt them."

"You were taking a heck of a chance, Henry.  It could have blown up in your face.  Donofrio asked me why we were hiring vagrant bums to write for us.  He and Liebenthal and Patuski were all upset.  They figured you should have told them what you were doing, and why."

"Wouldn't you have done the same if you were in my place?"

Bill Douglas thought of the solitary figure sitting alone on the bench.  "I don't know," he said.  "I'd like to believe I'd be as decent as you were, and as loyal to an old pal.  I really don't know.  But what are you going to do about this mess?"  He waved his hands around the newsroom of the weekly newspaper, indicating the clutter of glasses, plates, cups, bowls, and half eaten food that remained on the tops of tables, desks, chairs and on the floor.

"Don't worry, I have helpers.  A few couples come in on the day after Christmas each year to help me clean up.  I treat them to a December 26th dinner at Gil Clark's.  They actually look forward to a fun time.

"Speaking of a fun time," said Douglas, "are you ready to call in the cops to help us take our friend to the county hospital?"

"Not tonight, please," said Henry.  "Not on Christmas Eve.  Bill, it's his fortieth anniversary.  The most traumatic event of his life happened forty years ago tonight.  That's probably what he's been thinking about all afternoon.  Leave the man alone, at least for tonight and tomorrow.  It's Christmas."

"Alright, I'll tell ya what.  Invite him to your after Christmas meal, along with the people who help you clean up.  I'll join you for coffee and dessert.  We'll have the police standing by outside if he resists. "
Sedgewick gave his boss a sharp look. "Is that a good idea, Bill?"

"Henry, it's a court order.  We have no choice.  He has no choice.  He must be placed in the county hospital for psychiatric evaluation before the end of the year, or he'll be arrested and thrown into the county jail.  Which would you prefer?"

The editor shrugged his shoulders.  "Alright," he said, "that's a good plan.  All of my helpers are familiar with Luke.  I'll brief them about our plans.  It'll work, I think."

Douglas stood up.  "It better," he said as he departed the building.

***

"What's the big deal about a bum?" said Murphy to his partner.  "Why do we gotta watch him, for Chrissake?  Who is he, a long lost buddy of the editor or somethin'?"

"It's a long story, and I don't know all of it anyway," said Henderson.  "I told you they may need us tonight to bring the guy to the County hospital.  You're right about his being an old pal of the editor.  They grew up together in this town, maybe fifty years ago.  They were both in Vietnam together."

‘No.  Yer foolin' me, right?  They was in the war together?  Henry Sedgewick and this, this bum, this vagrant, this homeless pile of trash.  They was serving together?

"Yeah, they were.  And so was the statue."

"Now I know yer foolin' me.  Statues ain't in wars."

"She was a Delancey, only daughter of Guy Delancey.  She was killed in battle on Christmas Eve."

"Ah," said the driver's partner, "that's why they built her a statue, huh?  She was from the family that owns this town."

"Not really.  The statue was Henry Sedgewick's idea.  The Delanceys opposed it.  They didn't want to call attention to themselves."

"Never do."

"Besides it was an unpopular war.  Most of the Delanceys dodged the draft.  But she was different.  Said she wanted to serve the country.  Volunteered for duty in the combat zone."

"My old man was in the Nam too.  He warned me never to volunteer."

"They all graduated together in the same class; Henry Sedgewick, Susan Delancey and Luke Smith, that's the bum's name.  Check it out in the school's yearbook.  The glorious class of 1960."

"That's forty-five years ago.  We're talkin' ancient history here."

"Well, check out the gray hair on that guy.  Vietnam veterans are starting to get old.  World War II and Korean War vets are even scarcer.  The war in Southeast Asia was over for more than twenty years before they built a statue to that Army nurse."

"Yer right.  Even old Henry Sedgewick is starting to look faded.  But not as old as that bum on the park bench.  He looks ancient, much older than Sedgewick."

"Yeah, that's true," said the driver.  "I guess he's had a rough life."  The two policemen looked over the prematurely old man on the bench.  They noticed the hair, thin and gray, the full gray beard, scraggly and soiled, the heavily wrinkled, blotched skin and the pink, bulbous nose.

"Hard to imagine him as a warrior," said the driver.  "He looks like a down and out Santa Claus who doesn't have anything to do on Christmas Eve because his reindeer kicked him out."

"Yeah, so he comes down to Newspaper Square to flirt with his big bronzed girlfriend."

The driver gave his partner a smiling look.  "You slay me, Murphy.  You're a regular comedian."

"You betcha," Murphy replied.  "Some day I'm gonna be on the stage."

"Don't hold your breath," said Henderson.

They laughed.  But the man on the park bench didn't hear them.  He continued to stare at the statue, as he had been staring all afternoon.

(to be continued)

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Robert L. Harrison Phil Nelson Ernest Williamson III

Katie Ross Durlabh Singh Brian Osborn

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Morning Glory

Robert L. Harrison

 

 

 

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Coconuts

Phil Nelson

 

 

 

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Buddhist of Tranquility

Ernest Williamson III

 

 

 

Man Between War and Peace

Ernest Williamson III

 

 

 

The Artist as Vase

Ernest Williamson III

 

 

 

The Recreation of Self

Ernest Williamson III

 

 

 

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Piano

Katie Ross

 

 

 

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Golden Temple

Durlabh Singh

 

 

 

Redd 1

Durlabh Singh

 

 

Redd 10

Durlabh Singh

 

 

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Moonshadows

Brian Osborn

 

 

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Jury Duty:  The Lipstick Case by Pamela Boslet Buskin                                                              have been mugged at knifepoint three times, so I never expected to be chosen for a jury—at least not for a criminal case and certainly not for a murder. “Did you report the muggings to the police?” the judge asked during the voir dire. “No,” I replied, embarrassed.  But maybe that’s why I was put on the jury. Soon after we were sworn in, I had a moment of panic.  We jurors were sitting awkwardly, silently, in the jury room—we were not allowed to discuss the trial until we were instructed to begin deliberations—when a neatly-dressed, elderly woman juror stood up and broke the silence. “I will SLEEP well tonight!” she announced jubilantly as she displayed some sort of literature.  “My CONSCIENCE will be CLEAR!”  And she began to preach as she walked around the room handing all the jurors a pamphlet entitled, “Jesus Is Coming Soon.  Where Will You Spend Eternity?” I envisioned spending it right there, trapped in a windowless room with 11 strangers, one of whom was bound and determined to Spread the Good Word to her captive audience.  Fortunately, her preaching ended with the distribution of the pamphlets.  But she was a nice woman and I was happy knowing that she would sleep well. The trial was fascinating.  Also frightening, tragic and sometimes tedious, with endless testimony about the precise dimensions of entry and exit wounds, the exact number of feet between buildings, and whether the jacket the alleged murderer had been wearing that night was black or just “dark..”  (During our deliberations, I put this jacket on and turned down the lights, to see how well it could be seen on a dark street.  Wearing it gave me a very strange feeling.) Even the daily ride to the courthouse in Newark was fascinating.  I’d drive my teal minivan to the bus stop in my quiet, suburban town and board a bus that within minutes transported me into another world, a world I hadn’t inhabited even when I was a hippie living in a $57 a month one-room tenement apartment in the East Village, sleeping on a bedbug-infested mattress on the floor just a few feet from the bathtub.  Even then, I knew I had a real bedroom in my parents’ house to return to, if I wanted to.  (I never did.)  But I don’t think most of the people who lived along that bus route had an alternate, safer, prettier world to escape to.  I’m sure Nigel didn’t. I thought about Nigel a lot.  Every day, the bus would pass a tiny scrap of weedy, littered land.  Scrawled in big letters on the crumbling brick walls of the surrounding buildings was the usual amount of graffiti, but this graffiti was not the usual obscenities or gang names.  And this was not just another vacant lot.  This garbage-filled property had been christened “The Nigel Playground,” written in large letters along one wall.  “Nigel '94.  We love you. RIP.”  Who was Nigel?  A gang member involved in a drug war?  An innocent child caught in the crossfire?  Somebody’s dad on his way home from work who was hit by a bus? “The Nigel Playground.”  What a sad memorial. I wondered if the people in the courtroom—the defendant, many of the witnesses and most of the spectators—lived lives a lot like Nigel's. I wondered about the woman who came every day, always alone, to observe the trial.  Some days, she blended in with the rest of the spectators.  But other days, she would arrive wearing outrageous outfits and wigs that were bright pink or purple or orange.  We jurors speculated on who she might be, and were surprised when she was called to the witness stand.  She had a beautiful, lyrical name, which contrasted sharply with her hard looks.  It was she who was to provide the defendant’s alibi.  She was also the mother of the defendant’s three “babies,” ages one, three and four.  My heart broke for the children.  They didn’t have a chance. I wondered about the victim.  As it was a murder case, he didn't testify, of course.  But we were shown pictures, lots of pictures of a handsome, muscular, dead 19-year-old with his glazed, staring eyes forever fixed on his terrible fate.  There were close-ups of the entry and exit wounds.  The wounds were so small and neat!  It didn’t seem as though something that made such a tiny hole could kill someone. I thought, too, of the victim’s younger brother, a witness for the State, who testified that he had run to his mortally-wounded brother as he lay on the sidewalk.  He described how he had frantically searched the dying man’s pockets for the car keys so he could drive him to the hospital.  (The defense attorney strongly implied that what he was actually looking for was something much more sinister, like drugs or a gun).  When the D.A. asked him a question about who else was on the street, the 16-year-old answered, “I don’t know.  I couldn’t see.  I had tears in my eyes.”  He responded this way several times; the first few times, I was moved.  Then I realized he said it only when the D.A. asked him a question he didn’t want to answer.  He never mentioned tears in his eyes when the prosecutor questioned him. And yet, his brother truly was dead. And, of course, I wondered most of all about the defendant.  He appeared even younger than the victim (though he wasn’t).  He was very small—only 5’1’’ and 120 pounds, according to the testimony.  His street name was Lipstick, which certainly didn’t sound too threatening.  He was always neat and nicely dressed.  He looked like he could be an Eagle Scout.  I found myself thinking—guiltily—that he looked so wholesome, so… innocent.  I was relieved to be jolted back to objectivity when, shortly after the trial began, I had Chinese food one night and the fortune in my fortune cookie read, “Judge not according to the appearance.”  A sign!  I kept that fortune with me throughout the trial. Sometimes, I found it difficult to understand the street dialect that many of the witnesses spoke.  It helped that I sat right behind the foreman, so I was very close to the witness stand.  But sometimes I felt that I was too close.  I hoped the witnesses and the spectators in the courtroom—blank-faced people I assumed were relatives and friends of the victim or the defendant—knew I didn’t want to be there any more than they did. I was especially concerned because the defense attorney implied that there was gang involvement in the murder, although every witness denied that “The Greedy Boys”—who were mentioned throughout the trial—were a gang.  Everyone claimed that they were just a bunch of guys who hung out together.  The name sounded amusing the first time I heard it, kind of cute.  The Greedy Boys.  It ceased to sound amusing as the trial went on.  And it wasn’t funny at all as I passed by various courtroom observers in the hallway or rode in the elevator with them.  The judge advised us again and again to avoid all contact with anyone actually involved in the trial, but we had no idea who was who. One day, during a break, I sat on a bench in the hallway we jurors had been advised to use.  A young woman sat next to me and asked to look at my newspaper.  As she glanced at the classifieds, she chatted about looking for an apartment.  Then she walked away with the paper.  Back in the courtroom, I discovered she was the next witness for the prosecution—a girlfriend of one of the Greedy Boys!  Good thing I’d let her borrow the newspaper. The trial entered its fourth week.  The lawyers were both competent:  the defense lawyer an attractive younger woman, obviously very smart (except for her rather bizarre decision to sing a few bars of a song—something like “look into your heart”—during her summation); the prosecutor a middle-aged man with a mellifluous voice, obviously a pro.  They both seemed to believe passionately in their case.  The judge was a kind, older man who treated everyone in the courtroom, from the jurors to the defendant to the intimidating-looking witness in handcuffs, with the utmost patience and dignity. At last, it was time for us to deliberate.  From the moment I was picked for the jury, I was anticipating this.  It was a sacred and profound duty.  I knew that whatever we decided would change forever the lives of many people.  Like the rest of the jury, I took this responsibility very seriously.  Even the youngest juror, a burly young man barely out of his teens, grasped the magnitude of our decision, although—at times to the other jurors’ amusement, at times to our annoyance—he fidgeted with everything within his reach.  As he contemplated his verdict, he folded a piece of paper into a hockey puck and shot it again and again across the table.  He tossed dozens of little pencils through an imaginary hoop.  He twisted a wire clothes hanger into a variety of creative shapes, eventually wearing it on his head.  I think it helped relieve some of the tension we all felt. But despite our efforts, and to everyone’s enormous frustration, after four days of deliberation the jury could not reach a unanimous decision.  The judge declared a mistrial.  Because I happen to know someone who works at the courthouse, I will be able to find out the ultimate conclusion of the case if there is a retrial. Whatever the outcome, there will be no winners.  The hopelessness of the lives of so many of the people involved in this trial was made clear to me by a response of one of the witnesses during the trial.  One of the attorneys asked him, “You say you were apprehensive about walking down the street that night.  Did you expect something to happen?” The witness stared at the attorney as if he had just landed from another planet.  “Of course I did,” the witness said.  “It’s the street.”  © 2000  by Pamela Boslet Buskin Return to Contents Return to Top of Page