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An electronic literary magazine striving for the very best in
contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays.
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Editor: Sung J. Woo (sw17@cornell.edu)
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VOLUME I NUMBER 1 MARCH 1,
1994
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Table of Contents
Welcome...............................................................xx
_Fiction_
"Barking Dogs and Flying Saucers," by Keith Dawson....................xx
"Eat Lunch with the Homeless," by E. Jay O'Connell....................xx
"SaveWay," by Jim Esch................................................xx
Excerpt from _Kissing the Dead_ by Stewart O'Nan......................xx
_Poetry_
"The Side Show," by Daniel Sendecki...................................xx
"While Walking," by Andrea Krackow....................................xx
"The High Cost of Living," by Nancy Bent..............................xx
"If I Were a Lover," by Jim Chaffee...................................xx
"Cinderella Rewritten," by Rachel L. Miller...........................xx
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Whirlwind cannot continue without submissions from established and amateur
writers on the net. If you or anyone you know is looking to publish
contemporary fiction, poetry, or essays, please don't hesistate to get a
copy of the work to us. Mail submissions to: sw17@cornell.edu.
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Whirlwind Vol. 1, No. 1. Whirlwind is published electronically on a
bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as
the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact.
Copyright (c) 1994, authors. All further rights to stories belong to the
authors. Whirlwind is produced using Aldus Pagemaker 5.0 and T/Maker
WriteNow 2.2 software on Apple Macintosh computers and is converted into
PostScript format for distribution. PostScript is a registered trademark
of Adobe Systems, Inc. For back issue and other information, see our back
page. Please send any questions/comments to sw17@cornell.edu.
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March 1, 1994
Welcome to the first issue of Whirlwind. Why I suddenly decided
to start this magazine is a mystery to me. I'm currently a senior
at Cornell University studying English -- this is my last
semester, when I should be attending bars instead of classes,
concentrating on doing nothing of substance.
But instead of just loafing around, I thought that the net needed
a magazine like mine, one that specializes in contemporary
fiction, poetry, and essays. I believe every single work that
went into this first issue is a good read. That is the single
most important rule that I believe all works of fiction or poetry
must abide by -- that first and foremost, they must be fun and
entertaining.
Putting this magazine together has taken far more time than I
thought, but I think it has been worth it. I would like to thank
Jason Snell of InterText, who gave me sage advice and a ton of
useful information. I would also like to thank Amy Moskovitz for
her photographs -- if you have access to a PostScript printer, I
highly recommend you download and print out that version. I wish
I could include her work in this ASCII format, but of course that
is not possible. It goes without saying that her pictures look
far better on paper, but they have nonetheless managed to make
this magazine visually beautiful.
Sung J. Woo
Editor
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FICTION
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BARKING DOGS AND FLYING SAUCERS
BY KEITH DAWSON
It is 1979. Jeremy is fifteen, and he rides the subway home from
school every day. He rides from his school at 86th Street and
Lexington back to Brooklyn. It is an icy day that winter. He wears a
blue snorkel parka. While waiting for the train, he leans against the
wall. In the process, he ruins a drawing someone has made in chalk in
an empty ad space.
He makes a mess of the back of his jacket. This will cause his mother
to complain. Worse, he's just obliterated a delicate white outlined
picture of a barking dog. Above the dog was a flying saucer. The dog
was barking at the flying saucer, Jeremy thinks. It is hard to tell.
A strange blocky stick figure stood by the dog, listening to the
saucer. Now it is a tangled mishmash of chalk on a black background.
The barking dog is more of a lopsided polygon.
He thinks nothing more about the ravaged chalk drawing until the next
day, when he and his cleaned jacket get off the train at that same
stop. He looks across the tracks at the downtown side, and sees a man
standing in front of the former chalk drawing.
The young man is dressed in a bomber jacket and dirty ripped
jeans. He has short cropped hair, not quite a buzz cut but close
to it. There is an earring in his left ear. His jacket, years
old, is black leather, covered with stains from markers and spray
paints. It bulges slightly under his arms and in the small of his
back. The man looks almost twenty.
He runs his fingers through his hair as he surveys the damaged
piece.
Jeremy watches as the young man looks around quickly, then pulls a
large piece of white chalk out of his sleeve pocket and tries to
reconstruct the drawing. He reconnects some of the lines, bringing
the dog back to life. There is nothing he can do for the saucer. He
shakes his head and walks away slowly. The artist turns to look down
the platform for the next train, and as he does he catches Jeremy
watching him. The artist smiles back brightly. Jeremy feels ashamed.
Autumn, 1986. Jeremy is grown and the artist is famous. Those simple
drawings of vocal dogs and radiant saucers are pop icons. The
artist's graffiti is coveted modern art, prized for its urban chic. A
review called it "the rebirth of the urban primitive." One day in
Barnes and Noble, Jeremy leafs through a book on graffiti art. He
sees a picture of the artist's subway work from the late seventies, a
black and white chalk drawing like the one he rubbed out by mistake.
The photo's caption says the drawing has been destroyed, like those
Old Master paintings blown to bits by bombings during World War Two.
Jeremy remembers seeing slides of demolished frescoes and paintings
in his college classes. They were in black and white. Soon, no one
will be left alive who remembers the colors. He feels a brush with
history, a touch of greatness.
The artist tries to hide his illness, but it is impossible. Whispers
start as soon as he begins missing appearances, losing weight,
coughing in public. The rumors create a speculative frenzy in his
work, because the works of a dead artist command more than those of a
live one. Word of the artist's illness percolates through the art
world for months before it ever reaches Jeremy.
At twenty-two, he is an aspiring writer working for a publishing
company. During the day, he reads manuscripts and throws them back
into the refuse pile. At night he writes madly, dozens of stories and
fragments of novels. He is still just learning.
He goes to a party thrown by his company for one of their books.
Jeremy hasn't worked on the book, but it is policy that all editorial
assistants go to the parties. The company wants rooms to be filled
with lots of young people and their friends. It makes parties more
attractive to the important people the company wants to court. The
young people, including Jeremy, fawn on the hordes of famous old
writers, the occasional rock star and government official. It is part
of their job. Jeremy enjoys these parties.
This one is for a collaboration between a writer and an illustrator.
It is a book of cartoon drawings with a running text called Pete's
Bar. Jeremy thinks it is a good looking book. He gave it to some of
his friends as Christmas gifts. They like it, too.
He is introduced to the illustrator by his boss, Paul, a fortyish man
with a beard and a long ponytail. Jeremy doesn't like Paul much, but
they get along on the job. Paul doesn't publish a lot of books, which
makes Jeremy's life a lot easier. Jeremy and the illustrator, who is
in his late thirties, strike up a conversation and Jeremy tells him
the story of his encounter with the artist.
"He has AIDS, you know," the illustrator says.
Jeremy winces and says that he didn't know that. The illustrator
tells him that it is well-known among artists, that he heard from a
friend-of-a-friend who knows him well. Jeremy feels like he has just
stepped in dogshit. Like a beautiful woman has slapped him in the
face for making an indecent proposal. Like he did when he was nine
years old and he wet his pants on the roller coaster at Great
Adventure.
Thanksgiving weekend, 1988. Jeremy and his girlfriend have spent the
weekend visiting her relatives in eastern Pennsylvania. He's dropped
her off at her apartment on the West side and is driving alone down a
deserted Broadway toward the Budget rental car place under the
Brooklyn Bridge. It is about four in the afternoon on Saturday.
He stops at a traffic light a few blocks south of Canal Street. There
is no one else around. No other cars, no shoppers or pedestrians. He
lets his attention wander and looks up at the spires of the Woolworth
Building coming up on his right. It has always been one of his
favorite buildings. He admires the work on the cornices, the
elaborate stonework set beneath and between each window.
He looks back at the traffic light, and it is flashing DONT WALK for
the opposite traffic. Someone is walking past his car, carrying a
large canvas covered in a plastic tarp. Jeremy knows the face. It is
a little more pinched, perhaps, but he recognizes the person he saw
that day in the train station nine years before. The face has been
featured in magazines countless times since then. The light is now
green for Jeremy, but the artist hasn't made it across the street. As
he passes Jeremy's car, he looks right at Jeremy behind the wheel.
Jeremy starts and waves at him. The artist, perhaps realizing he has
been recognized, nods his head and smiles without breaking stride.
Then he turns his head away.
Jeremy follows the artist with his eyes and drives away very
slowly.
Two days later Jeremy finds himself in a gallery in SoHo, inquiring
about the artist's work. He is the only customer. The woman working
there is dressed in a smart green dress and black stockings. She is
about thirty. Jeremy finds her attractive. She is cold to him. She
quotes him a price range and he blanches. Of course he does not have
several thousand dollars to spend on a painting, he works in
publishing. He gets paid fifteen thousand dollars a year. She watches
for his reaction and when he says thank you and walks away, she
follows him.
"We do have a few items that you might be interested in," she says.
She shows him a room where several tiny framed objects hang on the
walls. It is the room of the small things, he thinks.
"Everything you see here is under a thousand," she says. That is
still much more than he wanted to spend. But he looks anyway.
The items that hang in this room are not what he expected. The
artist's work is more varied than he thought. Jeremy knows nothing
about art. He knows the artist because of what he saw with his own
eyes, the famous barking dog drawings of the 1970s. And from the
magazine articles he's read over the years. He never would have read
them, of course, if he hadn't felt some connection with the man who
was growing steadily in stature. Barking dogs were everywhere.
But here there were few dogs or flying saucers. There were a few
pencil drawings, some of them strikingly realistic. Faces of people
drawn in a careful detail, rendered delicate and lifelike, not
abstract at all. As he moves around the room, he is at turns shocked
and delighted by what he sees. Here is a cityscape in watercolor. It
is as fuzzy and warm as the stick figure graffiti is stark. On
another wall is a pastel sketch of several men sitting at a table.
There is a crystal vase on the table. Jeremy is impressed with the
way the artist has drawn clear glass using colored chalk.
One piece catches his eye. It is a tiny collage of drawings, shapes
and colors without form to the untrained eye. It is centered around
orange, red and yellow plastic cut-outs. Behind and around them are
what look like fragments of newsprint. The background has been filled
in with tiny detailed drawings in colored pencil. Jeremy can't tell.
He looks at it for a good long minute, unable to make sense of it,
unable to turn away.
He buys it for eight hundred dollars. It just fits under the limit on
his Visa card.
It also fits on the wall above his kitchen table. Jeremy moves the
television across the room to clear a space for the piece. Now,
whenever he eats, he stares into the orange and yellow shapes.
He does his writing at the kitchen table. Most nights he drags out
the laptop he bought second hand and types for about an hour after
dinner. For the first weeks since buying the art, his writing is
uneffected. Then he begins to run dry. There are no more stories. New
ideas vanish from his head quicker than he can think of them. His
eyes tend to wander from the keyboard to the collage above his
table.
Jeremy writes in his journal when he has no stories. It is better to
keep in practice by writing something, anything, than to write
nothing at all. Now is a good time for that, he thinks. He starts by
writing about the art work above his kitchen table. He describes it,
and some of the others that he saw in the gallery. He writes about
the Pete's Bar party and the illustrator. And finally, he writes a
long entry about his encounters -- both of them -- with the artist.
It takes him several hours and when he is finished he is very tired.
The next night is not a writing night. Instead, he spends it with his
girlfriend at her apartment. When he returns the night after to the
Idea Factory (what he calls his kitchen table) he is still blank. He
stares up at the artwork and thinks about the artist. He owns a piece
of him now. He, Jeremy, possesses a piece of the artist's work. But
only the artist knows what the work means. Jeremy certainly doesn't.
He doesn't even know what the colors and shapes represent. He can't
decipher the code. That satisfies him, somehow. I can rip it to
pieces, or set fire to it, he thinks. It's mine to do with as I
wish.
He wonders if the artist meant to create a thing of mystery by
draping it in obscure images and hazy shapes. The artist will
probably die soon, Jeremy thinks.
December. Jeremy still can't concentrate on his writing. When he
reads over some of his journal, an idea strikes him. He prints out
what he wrote about the artist. It works just as well as a story. He
makes a single paper copy, puts it in an envelope, and seals it. He
stops for a moment, unsure, because he thinks that what he wrote was
very good. Then he screws up his courage and deletes the entire file
from his computer. All that is left is what he holds in hand.
It takes Jeremy another week to get up the nerve to go see the
artist. He is listed in a two-year-old Manhattan phone book Jeremy
keeps in the bedroom. Jeremy goes to his apartment without calling
first. The artist lives in a very sedate brownstone downtown. It is a
quiet block, lined with trees. Pleasant noise drifts down the street
from the elementary school on the corner. It is a clear, bright
winter day.
Jeremy finds the artist's name on the buzzer and hesitates for just a
second before pressing. The artist lives on the second floor. There
is no intercom. He is buzzed in. He hurries up the stairs, carrying
the packet under his arm. He rings the bell at the artist's door and
hears a voice from inside the apartment. "Come on in," it says.
Jeremy opens the door and steps inside.
Brilliant southern sunlight fills the studio's large front room. Each
wall is covered with art, large and small. A large purple painting
hangs across from the door, the first thing any visitor sees when
they enter the home. It is easily eight feet high and ten feet long.
Jeremy has never seen anything so big outside of a museum. It is a
red and purple variation of the tiny work that hangs in his own
kitchen. Like his own, it is part painting, part sketch and part
collage. This is twenty times larger than his own. From across the
room, he notices an old motif: unlike his piece, this one features
barking dogs and flying saucers and dancing stick figures. Jeremy is
impressed with its size. And with its warmth.
He steps further into the studio and notices the artist spread out on
the floor with his materials. He is squatting on his haunches over a
large white canvas. Most of it is empty. Jeremy can't see what he is
doing to it. The artist is wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with
the sleeves rolled up. He wears white canvas sneakers. All of his
clothes are stained with color. The canvas is spread out in a room
right off the main foyer. That room's walls are empty except for two
or three sheets of drawing paper tacked up where the artist can see
them.
He looks up at Jeremy. The artist has very little hair. Jeremy can
see the boniness of his arms and hands, the thinness of his face. His
frame carries the sweatshirt like a coat hanger. The man must weigh
120 pounds, Jeremy thinks.
The artist was expecting someone else.
"Who are you?" he asks. "If you're here to sell me something, don't
waste your breath."
Jeremy doesn't know what to say. He hasn't rehearsed this part, and
of course the artist doesn't know who he is. Instead he proffers the
packet. "I've brought you something. This is for you," he says. The
artist sits up, cross-legged on the floor.
"Do you want me to sign for it?"
Jeremy is embarrassed, he doesn't know what to say or how to act. So
he apologizes. He's sorry for interrupting, he says. He's sorry for
what happened in 1979, he's sorry that he ruined the drawing in the
86th Street station. Uncontrollable apologies fall out of his mouth.
He's sorry for something else too, something much worse, but he knows
enough not to say it to the artist.
He tells the artist about their two previous encounters. Jeremy opens
the manila envelope he carried and hands the artist a folder. Inside,
Jeremy tells him, is a story he wrote.
"Creativity straight out of my head," Jeremy says. The artist looks
at it without seeing it.
"It's yours," Jeremy says. "You can do anything you want with it,
it's the only copy." He pauses for a moment. "If you destroy it, then
we'd be even."
Jeremy leaves the artist's apartment feeling drained and stupid. He
drags himself home, but he feels worse than when he started out. The
thought of the encounter, what he had done, makes him wince. The
reaction reminds him of the summer he spent putting pink insulation
into a house. It was weeks before he stopped pulling invisible
slivers of fiberglass from his forearms. It is almost that long
before he sits down to write again.
The letter from the lawyer arrives a year later with a package too
large for a single deliveryman. After he signs for the letter two men
carry a sealed and insured box up to his apartment.
The letter tells him what is in the box, and his stomach flutters.
The artist remembered him in his will. Inside the box is the purple
painting. Jeremy opens it and slides the heavy canvas and its frame
out of the wooden box. It is not the same.
He draws a heavy breath. The artist has cut up strips of paper and
added them to the center of the purple collage. He's cut them into
shapes. Dogs and saucers. Jeremy's story, given up for gone, is part
of the collage.
____________________
Keith Dawson <kdawson@panix.com> is a writer and father of a sparkling
daughter.
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EAT LUNCH WITH THE HOMELESS
BY E. JAY O'CONNELL
Chinatown.
I emerge from the subway skirting pools of greenish fluid, slipping
past boarded peep show arcades with names like The Pussycat, and The
Over 21. Ranks of ducks sweating fiery orange grease hang upside down
in shop windows, glaring at me through death-filmed eyes. A cat washs
itself sitting on a counter inside, beside a fan of faded Penthouse
Magazines crawling with Ideograms. An Asian beauty sucking her
forefinger, her nipples round and brown like pennies.
In front of me, a business suited drone skips over the splinted leg
of a darkhaired girl sitting on the sidewalk. She's practically
blocking the way. She has a cardboard sign that reads 'HUNGRY, please
help.'
"Can you help me out mister?"
My rule is, if I don't have change, I keep moving. I hand her 50
cents, change from my breakfast coffee, and turn to leave.
"What are you reading?"
I look back at her, puzzled. There's a paperback in my hand, the
latest Doug Adams.
"I mean, I like to know what people are reading," She speaks quickly.
"When you're on the streets, you got a lot of time on your hands. It
helps to have something to read, get your mind off yourself." She
takes the book from my hand.
"It's fantasy."
She furrows her brow and reads the back cover blurb. She is of
indeterminate age, neither young nor old. Her eyes are distrubing,
one of them pointing slightly askew. She's wearing a dirty white
tee-shirt and jeans, and her long brown hair is pulled back in a
single ponytail.
"It's escapism, really," I say. "We all need to escape."
"Yeah, what do you need to escape from?"
"I'm not crazy about my job."
"Better than this boy." She gestures about herself, as if this were
her office. "It's not listed on your everyday list of hard jobs, but
let me tell you, its rough. I try to make, ten, twenty bucks a day,
so I can get something to eat.
"Where do you sleep?"
"Oh, with friends, the shelter..." She trails off. I turn to leave.
"Could you buy me a soda?"
I squint at her. "You mean, buy you one, and bring it back here?"
"No, I mean, we go get one."
I've got a lunch hour by myself to kill. "Okay."
We walk upstairs to the restaurant. Her splinted leg doesn't seem to
give her any trouble at all.
The restaurant is actually six restaurants sharing a common dining
area, rows of battered tables and plastic chairs sandwiched between
the stalls. Above each stall cardboard placards crawl with ideograms,
with the occasional scrawled English afterthrough. I contemplate
purchasing the ominous sounding "Five delights," but I'm sure the
term delight doesn't translate across cultures. A single six foot
tower air conditioner struggles valiantly against the burning heat of
dozens of woks, deep fryers, and the press of bodies. The clientele
is about half Asian, half Caucasian. I stand looking up at a menu
board, realizing that I can't eat with her watching me. Even if I do
buy her a soda.
"Let me buy you a rice plate."
"Okay."
We order and sit to wait for our food.
"So you stay with friends?" I'm trying to figure just how homeless
she is.
"Yeah, I live with my boyfriend. I used to have a problem with
needles a while back, but I'm clean now. No AIDS, either, I know, I
had the test."
"Lucky."
"Yeah, real lucky. Now, if I could only get a job."
"What about Burger King, that kind of stuff?"
"I can't deal with the people at Burger King. I used to work there.
Buncha niggers, think they're, they're, I don't know, gods gift or
something."
I flinch at the word nigger. "I've worked at Burger King. I hated
it."
"Me and my last boyfriend worked there. Now there was a piece of
work. Cut his fucking arm off." She draws a line across her left
forearm. "Right there."
"He cut his arm off?"
"Yeah, Like I found this out after I broke up with him. I thought he
lost it in Nam. But no, he did it to himself, trying to commit
suicide."
"How did he manage it? An ax?" "No I think it was kitchen
knife."
"Did he just mess it up, and have it amputated?" My mind can't summon
up the picture of someone actually completely severing as substantial
a body part as an arm.
"No, no, he cut it right off, with a kitchen knife, I think. I know,
because he talked about the paramedics, looking for it so they could,
you know, graft it back on."
"Uh-huh." I remain unconvinced. Where did he put the arm after he cut
it off?
"Why are we talking about this?" She mock shudders, grins and holds
her face in her hands. "We're going to eat."
"Yeah, sorry."
"That's okay."
Our food arrives, and we're quiet for awhile as we begin to eat.
"How is it?" I ask. "Too hot?"
"No, its fine. I hate the stuff when its too hot. What's the point?
When you can't taste the cumin and coriander and saffron and stuff,
just the burn. I like a little burn, when its appropriate, but not
the super hot stuff."
"I think its the culture. You know, if you grow up with it--"
"--I fuckin did!" She interrupts.
"What?"
"My dad was Indian. We ate the stuff when I was kid."
I'm trying to figure it out. She's sort of dark skinned, but not
really Indian looking."Your mother was--"
"--From Connecticut. They met in church. Ain't that a bitch? He was a
Moslem."
"Your mother was a Moslem? In Connecticut?"
"No she was a , what do you call it, a congregationalist. My dad met
her in church--"
"--A mosque?--"
"--No, a church, a Christian church. He was there because he liked to
sing. He sung in the choir."
"I see."
"So my parents, they were real hung up on ideas about class and
economics. My mother, oh boy, she was fucking case, that one. Didn't
like it if I hung out with truck drivers. She'd say, no wonder I'm in
such trouble, sexually. What the fuck! Like a trucker is any more
horny than a businessman in a suit."
"Uh-huh."
She is bent over her food, shoveling it in. "I'm going to have to
have them wrap some of this up. I can't eat it all."
I nod and eat my curried chicken. "So you worked at Burger king,
where else?"
"At school, I used to do volunteer work at a radio station, BCN, but
after awhile I realized, whoa, I gotta get a real job, I can't just
be some stupid volunteer for my whole life. I gotta put a roof over
my head."
"You went to school?"
"Yeah, studied TV and Radio, but couldn't get anything going with
it." She sets down her fork and grabs at her crotch in an exaggerated
gesture. "Bullshit walks, this talks. I told myself, I'd rather
spread my legs as a job, then spread my legs for a job. Does that
make any sense?"
"More honest, I guess."
"Let me tell you, I did it too. You don't think I could afford heroin
on this do you? But I was lucky. Most of the guys were nice. Just a
business proposition, just a job."
I nod sagely as if this is the kind of thing I hear all the time.
Begging is a step up the ladder for her.
We talk about jobs, work. She can't temp, she says, because she's a
little dyslexic. Can't type fast enough. I can't get up the nerve to
ask her about the wandering eye. We talk about drugs. When I mention
my psychotic episode, she shows her first genuine interest in me,
asking focused, penetrating questions. Such as: "Did you think up
this stuff on the acid, and then believe it when you came down?" and,
"So you believed, you were like, the risen Christ, and the devil--"
I nod and smile "and the holy ghost and the Antichrist, all rolled
into one."
"Whenever I did it, I was careful to not believe in it too much." She
pushes her plate away, half eaten. "Like, I'd write the stuff down,
and look at it later--"
"--to see if it made any sense."
She's smiling too, now. "It usually didn't. Like the one time, I'm
driving over the golden gate bridge in San Francisco, and I think
this isn't real, this an hallucination, but I know it is real,
because I can feel it, I can feel the steering wheel in my hands."
"You were in San Francisco?"
"Yeah, I moved out there."
"Why did you come back?"
She smiles. "Stupidity. Stupidity."
"One thing I always wonder about is, if you are going to be homeless,
why not do it somewhere where the weather is nicer? I mean, if you
can manage it."
"Not so nice, in the summer, and fall."
"Too hot?"
"No, cold. That wet, down in your bones kind of cold, you know, when
you're kind of hungry, and its about fifty, and its misty. God, the
mist. I hated it. Mist all the time, everywhere, not rain, but mist.
Soaked you all the way through. You couldn't get dry."
"You work out there?"
"No. Nobody wanted to pay for the call to the east coast to check my
fucking references. Anyway, it was too easy to just be a hippy. I
crashed in Peoples' Park. Let me tell you, three generations of
hippys out there. Three generations out lying on the grass. I said,
what did I step into a fucking time machine? Is this 1968 or 1988?"
She paused. "Then the fucking niggers came and ruined it all."
I frown. I realize that I've been frowning every time she says the
word nigger, like some kind of Skinnerian exercise.
"So what's it like, in the shelter?"
"Welllllll..." She says, smiling sheepishly. "You want to know the
truth..." She flags down a busboy, and asks him to bring her a box
for her food. "My parents rent me a room in Shrewsbury. Its a hole,
though. I take the T into the city, so I can hang out with people."
She walks me back to work. She knows the names of a lot of the
beggers I pass everyday. Trite, but somehow, you don't think of them
as having names. She even throws some change in another beggar's
cup.
"The karmic wheel, you know?"
We say goodbye like old friends. "See you later." I get on the
elevator, to go back to the job I hate. I'd be fired at the end of
the week myself, but I didn't know that.
____________________
E. Jay O'Connell <ejo@world.std.com>is a 30 year old writer and
artist living in the Boston Area.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
SAVEWAY
BY JIM ESCH
The rain woke me, lying in a bed that was soft but now was hard. The
window was half open and the rain sound filtered through the screen
and dogged my late night thoughts. I can't quite describe how it felt
to be lying there, still and wet, with planes of light dancing on the
black wall, and the slow drip of the light rain spilling from the
leaves and scuttling through the spouting. I was caught between the
heat being cooled and dry being wet. I stared at the wall and the
reflected light show of street lamps and passing cars for I don't know
how long, and I was kind of hypnotized by the stillness that
accompanies late night when most are hidden in dreams locked in
rooms.
But this numbness of thought was so clear that I might not call it
numb, except that I wasn't really thinking of any subject as a thing
to be thought about. I rolled over and tried to shift my hips so that
my back would find comfort on the hard mattress and I thought about
concrete action. Pumping gas wasn't good enough. Eight months of
pumping gas was too long. Every morning and some weekends even,
standing in the heat or the cold or the rain was too much anymore;
too much in the sense that it was too much the same and there was no
movement in this job and no satisfaction. Curling my body with the
sheets, I came upon the answer. That was it -- no satisfaction, no
movement. I was not who I wanted to be. My friends were not who I
wanted them to be. I wasn't living on a farm and I wasn't in a flat
and I wasn't in a clapboard house and I wasn't in a mansion
overlooking a valley. My world was one of aluminum-sided apartments
and brick facing and commercials for discount appliances, and it was
not what I tho
After graduation I chose Drexel because it was close to home and I
could stay in touch with my friends and then later move on and blaze
my own trail somewhere else. But Drexel didn't last and that waiter
job at Seafood Shanty didn't last and then the stock boy job at Super
Saver lasted too long because I made good money and didn't want to
move and made these friends out of acquaintances that were too easy
to forget to want to leave them. So I rented my own apartment and
bought records and had people over for drinks. Then, being laid off
in January and pushed into the street, I found this job jerking gas
and stuffing thick wads of money into my workman's pants. Summer
would end soon. What would be new at the station? Would anything
move? There's no fulfillment in a gas station. I remembered the
woman yesterday who spent the night here. I always thought that a
woman would be fulfilling, that the closeness of one body with
another was enough to keep one satisfied. She was older than me and
said I was g
But I remembered Mandy and how she might have been the one who'd
fulfill me like I thought I should be. She was the ideal woman, the
one that every man sees and knows for the first time: "This is the
one that I was meant to be with, who, when she is with me, will
complete me." Kind of like Brigham Young coming through the mountains
and saying that this was the place where the Mormons would stay and
build a big temple that no one was allowed to enter. And for a short
time in high school she focused my life. Every action arose from an
impulse stirred by her presence. And this was a happy time -- to live
in reflection of someone else, to be a shadow and want to be that
way.
Amanda. She became a friend and almost something else. But we had
reached a point where, after that point, the plot of our lives
diminished and drifted apart so that now I had lost the thread that
had connected me with her. I remember once in the hallway when we
shared a Pepsi and I was going to ask her; I almost asked her and I
was building up and she talked to me of Florida and the sun and it
was so right because her hair was gold and she was cuter than ever at
that moment in her light track shorts and rolled down socks and the
curve of her body within the loose cotton shirt. And it came to a
point where my blood was racing and my heart pumping so as to release
this emotion for her. Then I looked outside the window of the metal
door and her mother was waiting in a Scirocco out front and Amanda
walked over and saw her mother and said an affectionate good-bye and
waved. The Scirocco pulled away and from then on I was lost.
The rain had now stopped, but the trickle of the spout remained and
beside this brook I slept a comfortable sleep because I was thinking
how it used to be when I thought I could make it with her.
The next morning was sun-filled and pretty, so I got up early and made
my breakfast. The instant coffee was bitter and it burned my tongue. I
thought about leaving then, leaving and finding her. If I could find
her again, find out where she was, and what she had done with her life
and make one last pitch, then I could move on. Someone around had to
know what had happened to her. I searched my drawers for old phone
numbers, of friends I hadn't talked to in years, since a homecoming or
a chance meeting in a shopping center parking lot. I came up with some
numbers and later that afternoon made my calls. Some weren't home,
others had moved away, and some never answered or their lines had been
disconnected. But I did reach Phil, one of her best friends in high
school. Phil told me about his accounting job downtown and that he had
just married a Jewess from Jenkintown. He'd just bought a home in Bryn
Mawr along the road to the hospital, in a development of sandalwood
and solar panels. Phil was proud of himself
Then I asked about Mandy. He said she went to school at Georgetown
and he'd heard that she'd been engaged to a guy from Alexandria.
Well, engaged could mean anything I thought. But there wasn't much
time to spare.
I grappled with the options. Either stay here and pump gas in the
August humidity and then the fall and winter, or steal away to
Virginia and buy into a dream. Maybe she was waiting for me; even in
school there was a part of me that said she really cared and she
would come around. And I still believed that without us together
she'd be incomplete too. I wondered whether she ever repressed a
desire for me or whether she knew I loved her down to her bones.
Life continued at the station and nothing changed except the air got
colder. The night came on faster and it became chilly after dark, as
September rolled into October. But I'd been planning. The second
weekend in October was reserved for me and the Alexandria Holiday
Inn, for a room with a king-sized bed. I took that Friday off from
work and drove down for the weekend. All along the highway, in the
hills on both sides, the trees were burning and I felt vigorous
again, as if I was back in the hunt and even acts like turning on the
radio assumed importance.
The motel looked just right, its flashing arrow standing as a beacon
for the tired motorist. Everything went smoothly. The room was neat
and the sanitized smell of the bathroom made me pure. I leafed thought
the ragged phone book for her number. It was still there under her own
name. Tomorrow I would call on her. I'd make my stand.
I was hungry for some Doritos and wine. There was a SaveWay
supermarket across the boulevard from the motel, so I figured I'd
walk over, get some air. The evening had turned cool and the sun was
setting behind overcast, cracked gray winter clouds. The supermarket
was warm. The fruits and vegetables were ripe and fresh and colorful.
Hard, shiny apples and juicy oranges and magical pears. I almost
bought some.
At home I could never get out of a supermarket without seeing someone
I knew or recognized. Usually it was someone I didn't want to see.
But I never thought that in Virginia, in this wealthy neighborhood,
with my guard down, that I'd see her in a supermarket. She was back
at the meat counter. She chucked a pound of ground beef into her cart
and rolled up another aisle. I was sure it was her; that face
wouldn't lie. I was afraid, but I gathered myself together and snuck
up to the other end of the aisle to watch her. She was choosing a box
of cereal, which took a while because there were so many brands. I
ducked into the next aisle, paper towels and tissues. She passed by
to the next aisle. I couldn't stand the tension much longer. I
followed. The junk food aisle. She grabbed a bag of tortilla chips,
the same brand I liked.
Even when she bent over to price the soda pop, she looked innocent.
She hadn't grown fat or anything. She was almost the same, maybe even
better, because there were some slight wrinkles around her eyes,
adding some character that wasn't there before. In a sense,
experience had changed her in ways I'd never know, but it was still
her in the living flesh and nothing could change that. Just looking
at her filled me with warm energy. It was so much better than trying
to remember her in the empty places of the present, where she was
only a ghost of past moments. She rolled to the freezer section. We
were the only ones in the aisle. My heart dropped like lead, like
when you're dreaming that you're falling. The adrenaline was pumping
hard and it would not let me back down.
I hesitated.
She picked out some frozen corn.
I wobbled closer. Still she did not notice. Then she glanced.
Nothing. I closed in the final few feet, hands in pockets and head
sunk down. I stood before her.
She looked at me. I was scared and my eyes probably showed it, but I
smiled and said hello. She was confused. Her eyes rolled back trying
to recall my image; then she twitched and there was a moment when she
recognized me. I know it.
Then she squinted and her mouth dropped and her eyes turned gray.
"Excuse me, do I know you?"
I told her who I was.
She stood there, faking at being puzzled.
"Sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else."
But I hadn't. It was her. Her hair was still gold as an October leaf
and her face and voice were the same. I tried to break though again.
"Remember high school, spring track team? C'mon, you remember those
times down at the track? Remember we shared a Pepsi and you're mom
drove up --"
"No, sorry."
It was the way she said it, like crushing an ant in the snow.
Then she looked one last time before rushing off, and in that deep
drop of her eyes I could tell that she kind of pitied me, for I
believe she recognized every secret hope that was never meant to be.
I followed her to the checkout lines then gave up and only my eyes
followed her as she carried her groceries back though the rain to her
BMW. I didn't want to move further. The hard rain beating against the
window held me back.
I stayed in my room all night. Didn't even swim in the indoor pool.
When I was younger, I could turn on the radio and feel along with the
songs, but that was behind now. The magic fingers didn't soothe me
much either. I lay in bed and listened to the cars splash through the
night. And I wondered why things don't work out and how all that was
left was to remember the way it was under a May sun in a green field
with her for a couple of minutes. That's all I had. There wasn't
anything left to expect.
____________________
Jim Esch <Jim.Esch@launchpad.unc.edu> is a freelance writer and part time
college instructor living in St. Louis, MO.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Excerpt from _KISSING THE DEAD_
by STEWART O'NAN
Larry Markhams wife left him while he was asleep. Between four
and six, he figured as he made himself an egg that Monday morning,
because at three hed gotten upas was his habit, especially during
the rainy seasongotten out of bed and, before looking in on Scott,
turned the overhead light on and stood naked in the middle of the
rope rug, amazed at the safeness, the pleasing security of their
bedroom. The pictures on the dresser, the wicker hamper, Vickis
breathingthe whole instant struck him as overly familiar, as if
lifted from a dream. Before hed flicked the switch (though he
knew it was foolish) hed been prepared to see the musty inside of
his poncho liner, his rucksack smashed against his cheek.
Skull, Carl Metcalf was saying, prodding him with the tip of his
jungle boot, time to motate, bro.
No. This was Ithaca, not Vietnam, clean sheets instead of red
dirt. The sudden jump pleased him. He looked down at his new
foot to confirm it, and there was the prosthesis, perfect, not a
single nick in its ridiculous, skin-toned rubber coating. He was
alive. It seemed, he could admit, standing there soft and a
little paunchy, an overwhelming piece of luck.
He had stood looking at Vicki curled and warm under the covers.
Now, at the stove, he wondered if she had actually been asleep.
The gas hissed, rushed and flowered into a blue flame. Outside,
the rain made a sound he had not quite learned to ignore. He
thought he should feel worse about her leaving, about Scott, but
he only felt incredibly tired, leaden. It was unfair; October was
his favorite month. He could not think of what to do. The house
was quiet, his coffee steaming. There was one crust of bread
left. It was enough today, now. He had work to go to, and after,
his group at the hospital.
It was not the first time Larry Markham had woken alone to the
radio and gone to Scotts room and found his bed mussed and his
drawers empty. It wasnt a mystery. Theyd had trouble early that
summer, after a long good stretch. Since shed come back theyd
been trying, but lately every effort seemed to take all their
patience. There were nights after Scott was in bed that they
didnt talk.
Hed called down the stairs, not expecting anything. She had
leaving him down to a routine even he knew by now. The fight
Friday night over who always drove Scott to his Rehab, who picked
Scott up from the Special Childrens Center, who did the food
shopping, who did the laundry, had not been merely to set the mood
for the weekend but a formal way of saying goodbye. How many
times had she done it, and yet it still surprised him. Shed
risenhe knewa few hours before he was supposed to get up to run,
and guided by the weak beam of a penlight theyd received for
subscribing to Time (which he still refused to read), made her
way through the house. She had skipped work the day before to
pack a bag each for herself and Scott and then hidden them
somewhere, Scotts closet or among her summer things in the attic.
Shed gone to the bank just before it closed and arrived home at
the same time as if shed finished her shift at the Photo USA.
There were variations of this, but it came to the same thing. He
i
Great, he said.
The egg butted the side of the pot, dinging, and Larry spooned it
out. He ran cold water over it and knocked it against a wall of
the sink, picked bits of shell away from the dent. He set it
gingerly in a dish, sat down by himself at the kitchen table and
chopped it into bits with the side of the spoon, the yolk too
runny, disgusting. He sat there, spoon in hand, and looked at the
egg as if it were a sign, a reminder.
He wondered who it had been in the dream this time. He wondered
if hed called out the mans name in his sleepif, creeping down the
stairs holding Scotts hand, Vicki had heard him, and if because of
that (not in spite of it), she had felt even more sure, more at
peace with what she was doing.
Hed dreamed, he knew, because he was exhausted, but which one?
Doesnt matter, he said, and took a gluey spoonful and a bite of
heel and sat there chewing, trying not to think, to focus on the
positive, as he counseled his group, on the immediate, the real.
It didnt work for them either.
There was no real. There were the dreams and there was what
Larry Markham remembered. They did not change. In both, his
squad all died. Pony, Bogut, Lieutenant Wiseall twelve, night
by night, died, and Larry was grateful to wake to the
ceaseless Upstate rains, the day laid out ahead of him like
the puzzles his mother pieced together those long, drizzly
fall afternoons, familiar and somehow comforting, a way to
hold off the cold and the gathering evening.
Some nights it was oneLeonard Dawson or Fred the Head. Bates.
Jesus, he thought, Go-Go Bates. Larry had fixed him twice, and
still he died. He cut their fatigues off in dripping swatches,
guided the syrette into their jumped-up veins. After he popped
them with morphine he drew an M in blood on their foreheads so the
doctors would know back at the aid station. Dumb Andy, Smart
Andy, Soup. Carl Metcalf.
Whats it look like? Lieutenant Wise asked when theyd thrown a
perimeter around the downed man, and before Larry could answer,
the face strapped into the helmet or cinched into the boonie hat
changed, became all of them, none of them. They never looked down
to see what had happened; they gripped his arm and looked him in
the eye and waited for him to tell them. Nate looked up, the
Martian looked up, clutching his elbow so it hurt.
Youre gonna be all right, Larry Markham said then.
Truth, Skull. And still they wouldnt look. He did because it was
his job, just as he ran to them when all he really wanted was to
hug mud. Corpsman up! someone not hit called, and Larry saw his
man and flung himself forward, his own skin burning in
anticipation of the bullet. Sometimes there was nothing but a
rag, a red flap, the unreal white of bone. With body shots, if
there were more than four holes most likely the guy wouldnt make
it much past dust-off, but you couldnt just let the guy go, not in
front of everyone. Blood bubbled up between his fingers, ran over
his hands. The dust could only soak up so much; then it flooded
like a Coke knocked overa gush and little rivers.
Man, Larry said, sticking another pressure dressing on, it dont
mean a thing, and he could not tell from the change that came over
their faces then whether they were grateful or hated him.
Other nights they came in bunches, the gloom of monsoon season
filling the chill bedroom as he screamed into his pillowor moaned,
for their blood and stunted breathing no longer shocked him (as it
had not shocked him originally, after the first few), but rather
struck him with dread and, unable to stop or even slow the
approach of the next one, he could only protest feebly, leaching
out a No, no, that drove Vicki to the living room sofa at least
twice a week.
She knew not to wake him with an elbow or by nudging his shoulder;
once, coming out of it, he punched her in the throat and had to
drive her to the emergency room at Tompkins County, where he knew
his father would hear of it at shift change. That she had
intentionally broken Larrys nose during an earlier, less desperate
period (with an ashtray stolen from the club where she waitressed,
drunkenly and furiously hurled with absurd, almost comic
precision) was held not to his credit but as further evidence that
the entire marriage had been, as his father had maintained from
the beginning, a mistake in the first place.
He let the spoon drop and sink into the yellow mess. She never
left him for more than a few days. That was what this was. It
was Monday, and he was sure to have a full truck, big deliveries
at Tops and Wegmans and the three P&Cs. Some machines up at
Cornell, then the loop of gas marts south of town. Group. It
would be a full day, a good day.
He left his dish in the drainer, assembled a bologna-and-cheese
sandwich, bagged an apple and got ready to go. He liked having
the house to himself, the silence. He thought of not going in,
but brushing his teeth he walked by Scotts door and noticed his
ham radio, the happily-colored map of the world stippled with
pinsall the places Larry had called and given the mike to Scott so
he could mumble his name. He was eight but would always be three,
four, the doctors werent sure. Larry went back into the bathroom
and spat. At the last second he remembered to put the answering
machine on.
On the porch he fumbled with his keys, dropping his lunch with a
thud. He was going to be late, which he hated. The trees had
just begun to turn and a first layer of wet leaves filled the
ditches. Rain hung from black branches across the road; the cows
were out, standing and breathing steam. Farther up the hill a
grey barn leaned as if gently stepped on. The rain made him
listen harder; it pricked his face but from habit he didnt blink.
The chill of Ithaca had not lost its ability to surprise him. He
could never get warm enough, even in the height of July. There
was no reason; hed lived here his entire life except for his
tour. He knew that that one year shouldnt have such pull, yet
often it seemed equal to the other thirty-one, a balanced half,
and sometimes, the worst times, he was convinced it meant
everything, summed him up and finished him before hed had a chance
to understand. In its lostness, its distance, it was something
like childhood, vivid yet irretrievable, precious. Occasiona
Next door, Donna Burnss old Impala sat with its nose against the
rotting lattice of the porch, its bumper jutting over the
sidewalk. Save the Earth, begged an exhaust-filmed sticker.
Taking up the back half of the drive, Wade Burnss nearly restored
Camaro permanently wintered under a cloth tarp dotted with pockets
of black water, and Larry thought that if Vicki couldnt stay for
him, at least she shouldnt have run out on Donna.
They hadnt seen her this weekend, but the car had stayed where
shed parked it early Friday morning, crookedly, getting out loudly
by herself and hooting at something utterly private. Hed
complained to Vicki that she was getting worse.
What else is she supposed to do? shed said, and rolled over, away
from him. That he and Wade had been closehad talked about his
leaving over cold Schaefers in their garage months before Wade had
gotten up the courage to actually do itwas a fact Vicki could not
forgive him, and which he, seeing how quickly Donna had fallen
apart, now helplessly defended to himself. Shes nice, shes the
sweetest woman in the world, Wade admitted, then shook his head.
But shes not right. Theres something very basically wrong with
her. Ive tried but I cant fix it. Larry promised that he and
Vicki would keep an eye on her for him, which consisted of making
sure she refilled her prescriptions, and occasionally, when she
forgot, bailing her out. She had the habit, in the grip of her
mood swings, of getting wildly drunk and smashing windows. One
Easter morning theyd seen her in the backyard wearing nothing but
a pair of tennis shoes and menacing Wade with a rake.
I dont care who Jesus is! she shouted. I want my own radio show!
She was better by the time Wade left, but they worried about her.
Friday when shed gotten in, Larry had seen her lights come on and
lain in bed looking for her shadow, waiting for the crash and
tinkle of glass. She crossed the windows and pitched forward,
fell without a sound. At three, when he rose up in the thick of
the jungle to find himself saved, her lights were still on.
Now it almost seemed funny that they were both alone, a weird
coincidence. Hed had a crush on her once, a vision of her in a
swimsuit at some summer barbecue, her dark hair halfway down her
back. The children were little then. The judge had given them to
Wade, and there was nothing to argue about, even she knew. So
strange. After all their plans, it had come down to two houses,
two people.
Fucked up, he said.
He detoured around the Impala, wetting one leg of his jeans on the
bumpers rubber strip in keeping to the asphalt walk. He could
walk on grass now, but only when the weather was dry, and he would
not step on dirtit always appeared freshly turned and tamped. He
could not explain why he still distrusted the ground; his foot was
only the most obvious excuse. Early mornings, running the road,
he had to pick his way through long puddles and ruts, herringbone
patterns of mud laid by tractor tires, and when he accidentally
touched one and his Nikes slipped an instant before regaining
traction, his heart would spike and hed swear out a cloud. Hed
seen Dumb Andy fly backwards over Pony and then himself into a
banana tree where pieces of him hung like drying laundry. Weeks
ago, cruising by the bus stop, hed caught the toe of his new foot
on the lip of a pothole and was sent stumbling, and two girls
smoking cigarettes had laughed. Dizzy with fear, hed nearly had
to stop to vomit.
The walk began to disintegrate, then ended ineptly in chunks of
asphalt. He followed the roads tarred, irregular edge, listening
for cars behind him. Far off, the pitch of their tires on the
concrete mimicked the shifting rush of a Phantom levelling out for
a run. It was a pleasing sound, but one which made him flinchjust
slightly, for an instant hunching one shoulder to protect his
face, like a sleepy duck tucking its head beneath a wing. From a
klick off, the heat of a ville going up warmed his face like the
fire in his fathers den. When hed first caught himself in the
gesture, running with his old foot, he had been ashamed. There
was so much of the world he didnt trust anymore. For months he
taught himself not to look over his shoulder, to let the noise
grow behind him and not see the napalm canisters tumble from the
rack, leave a smear of fire a block long. A stage passed where he
could laugh at it; now it was a rare day that he gave it a
thought, usually the sign of a bad one.
Carl with his hands out, the skin of his fingers seared together
into mitts.
Just get me through today, he thought.
There was no one at the stop, for which he was grateful, only the
Journal machine chained to the telephone pole. Something about
the town trying to cut a last-minute deal. Typical
Ithacanickel-and-dime politics. Cars came by with their lights on
and their wipers arcing, each bringing its own small squall as it
passed. One of them honked for some reason. Too late, Larry
waved. Wind slipped under his collar, reached down his back. He
fitted his lunch into the crook of his elbow and jammed his hands
into his jacket pockets. He could feel the warm lint in there.
The cows seemed to be looking at him.
Got a problem? he called, but they didnt look away.
He checked his watchthere was still time, another ten minutes
maybe. His luck. One must have just come.
Another car honked.
He waved.
Why dont you stop and give me a ride, he muttered, watching it
go.
A Duster passed, the wrong color and younger, hardly rusted.
Vicki would have dropped Scott off already. Shed be at her
mothers over by Trumansburg, getting ready for work, rolling her
stockings on, clipping her name to her uniform. He imagined what
his father would say when he found outand he would, Ithaca was
that kind of town. Vicki would probably call his father to
explain. Larry imagined him in the den after dinner, listening
with that polite, untiring patience he used with the dying,
thanking her for calling and then hanging up, continuing with his
New England Journal of Medicine and half-finger of scotch. He
would not be surprised; he would wait a day or two to call Larry
to see if he was all right.
Im okay, Larry would say.
If theres anything, his father would say.
No.
All right then.
Okay.
By Friday his sister Susan in Michigan would know the whole story
and give him a consoling lecture of a call. She had divorced,
remarried, divorced again and remarried her first husband, and she
had advice.
From the barn came the bright clinking of a bell, and the cows
sauntered away in a group, their tails flicking. He turned from
the road and kicked at the base of the telephone pole, his boot
leaving a smudgy ghost of its waffle design in the creosote. He
made another print directly above it and practiced hitting the
two, as if warming up for a more difficult exercise. With his
hands in his pockets, he imagined it was good for his balance. He
could feel the rain sitting in his hair but didnt mind. He
thought with a bitter kind of pride that hed seen worse.
A Cougar came by flashing its lights.
What the hell, he asked, but waved. The drivera fat, bearded man
he didnt recognizewaved back furiously.
Everybodys friend, Larry said, thats me.
He gave the shaft of the bus stop sign a spin kick, and the metal
head shivered tinnily. Jesus, he hated being late. He hadnt been
late for work in three years, and that was a snow day. He showed
up to find the store locked, the parking lot trackless. Vicki had
teased him for his loyalty, then speculated bitterly on the
chances of him ever becoming a manager. For years theyd waged the
same two or three fights, resting only for a special dinner, a
present, an inspired night of lovemaking.
A pair of headlights the right height flared in the distance, but
it was a rental truck, college kids. Discover America! the panel
urged, above a lumpy Mount Rushmore. At least the little snots
didnt honk.
Come on, he said, and looked at the sky, the wind cold on his
throat. Above him, clouds tore themselves to bits, shredded like
sopping handfuls of gauze. It was an all day rain, the kind that
seemed to follow him around the globe. Hed liked them as a kid,
liked sitting inside the dark house while his mother knitted to
the radio. Susan was at school. His mother had a stack of heavy
78sThe Budapest String Quartet, Glenn Gould, Charles Munch and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra. On the covers were palaces and women
in skimpy, exotic costumes. Her cane rested in the gap made by
the couch cushions, its curved handle worn thin from her touch,
the varnish hard and smooth as glass. Sometimes she had to try
several times to get up. Come give me a lift, shed ask him, and
hed carefully place one sneaker on the empty tip of her shoe and
take her hand and lean back with all his weight. Other times she
would call for Mrs. Railsbeck, their housekeeper, and he would
have to go outside or upstairs. Im all rig
It was official, he was going to be late. It angered him like a
defeat. He thought of what he could say to the bus driver,
something about being paid by the hour. A bead of water hung
icicle-like from his nose; he blew it off and rubbed the spot
with the back of a sleeve. An orange Volvo shot by, flashing its
lights, hauling behind it a wall of spray that settled upon him
like a net.
For Chrissake, Larry Markham said.
He was wiping water from his eyebrows with a knuckle when a large
white car with its lights on slowed and stopped beside him. It
was the Impala.
Donna Burns leaned across the big bench seat and opened the door
for him with what he thought was too much of a smile. For a
second he imagined she had just stopped laughing. She was
brightly made-up and had on sunglasses, a purple scarf, tan
trenchcoat and black kneeboots, and Larry thought he didnt have
the energy to deal with her.
Thats all right, he said. Ones due any minute.
I dont think so. Dont you know? She grinned at him as if he knew
the answer but was playing dumb. She had an aggressive calm he
associatedfrom his groupwith lunatics. He wondered if she could
tell from his face that Vicki had left him again.
No, he said blankly, I dont know.
Theyre on strike.
Jesus Christ, he said, thinking, it figures.
Come on, she said.
He got in and they started off. Shed just gotten out of the
shower and was wearing too much perfume. On the dash a red
plastic coffee mug with a Cornell logo sat wedged into a matching
base; in the trough of the defrost vent rested a bottle of
Tylenol. She worked as a secretary for an obscure department,
something to do with plants and psychology. He could not imagine
how she dealt with people on an everyday basis, yet she did, and
had even during her weird years. She turned down the radionew
wave, all synthesizers and chilly English accents.
They just started today.
Thats what I get for not reading the paper, he said.
She turned up the heater for him, offered him the coffee. Its got
a kick, she warned.
It had some sort of liqueur in it, creamy and intensely sweet.
She laughed at the face he made.
Too early for you?
Nope, he said, embarrassed for her, and then thought of riding
around all day drinking the way he had when he first came back. A
line of cars passed them in the other direction, people intent on
getting to work. It pleased him to see life going on, even
without him. It made his problems seem smaller, insignificant.
Crummy day, huh? She looked from the road to him. Her lipstick
was smudged from the mug.
Yeah, he admitted, and looked at the ranches and split-levels
drifting by. Some had pumpkins on the porch steps, headless
scarecrows made of old jeans and flannel shirts stuffed with hay.
They slumped in lawnchairs or against coachlights, lay sprawled
and fallen like dead VC. Hed have time to buy candyor Vicki
would. Scott was going to be Superman, shed already made the
cape.
So how are you doing? she asked.
It was a hard question. He wondered if she knew, if shed figured
it out or if Vicki talked to her the way Wade did to him.
I dont know, he said, okay. How about you?
Great. Never better. She took her hands off the steering wheel
and put them over her eyes, leaned her head back as if rinsing her
hair.
Hey! He took the wheel with one hand and brought the car back
into the right lane. It was power steering, and hard to make it
go straight.
I suppose you didnt hear me come in Friday night either.
We did. You sounded like you were doing all right.
Im not. Wades moving to Oklahoma. Isnt that nice? She took the
wheel again, chased him away with a hand. Tulsa. Im not going to
see Brian and Chris except for Christmas and two weeks in the
summer. I think thats fair, dont you?
Im sorry. Whats he doing in Tulsa?
Fucking some redneck bitch. And hes got a new job. Oh,
everythings going great for Wade. He says hello.
Say hello back.
You do it, she said. She took a long shot of the coffee and
pushed it into its holder again, frantically lit a cigarette and
stabbed it at the windshield, the wipers slapping the rain away.
You dont know how fucking glad Ill be when this year is over.
Tell me about it, Larry said, and for a moment hoped she knew.
They were coming into Ithaca, passing the long prefab barns of
Cornells Vet school before the hill dropped into town proper. The
dash clock gave him an even chance of getting there on time. All
the roads east of town funneled into Route 79, and he was glad she
had to concentrate on traffic. Behind the wheel, she bobbed and
weaved as if slipping punches from the other cars. He thought of
spending the day riding high in Number 1, the simple deliveries,
stopping to off-load a tray of Donettes and Hohos and Ring Dings
to people he didnt know beyond a polite greeting.
Well, Donna said, what are you gonna do, yknow? She seemed to
wait for an answer to this, then asked, What time you need to be
there?
Doesnt matter, he said, but at Seneca and Aurora she gunned it
through a long yellow. He would punch in before he put his
uniform on, get a coffee at his first stop. Over the years he had
not lost a taste for the crumb cakes, and one of his great
pleasures was driving with an open box on the dash, washing the
bite-sized treats down at stoplights and feeling the caffeine and
sugar kick in. He always paid himself for them, and the next
morning ran them off, fifteen calories a minute, but everytime he
tore the perforated strip from a new box, he accused himself of a
sinful decadence, an intemperance indicating far greater
weaknesswhich only made him eat more. Like everything, they
tasted better in the rain. He knew he would polish off a whole
box today, and it didnt bother him, in fact made him grateful for
the very existence of crumb cakes and to Hostess for making them
bite-sized.
They didnt say anything for a while, and he liked her for it.
Coming down Seneca they got caught behind a school bus picking up
some kids. One had a camouflaged backpack which made Larry look
away.
Hey, Donna said, I know its none of my business, but are you gonna
be okay?
He looked back to the school bus, willing it to move. In the
emergency door a crush of little girls not even Scotts age were
giving him the finger. They smeared their faces against the
glass, blew their cheeks up monstrously. Donna looked at him
pityingly, as if she understood. The dash clocks red second hand
swept along.
Ive done it before, he said, Christ, I dont know how many times
now.
I know, she said. She stubbed her cigarette out and frowned. The
conversation seemed to have taken all the life out of her.
Why, he asked, is this time going to be different?
She looked at him as if what she had to say would hurt him, but
said nothing.
The bus pulled its stop sign in, its lights went from red to
yellow, and it pulled out with a burst of diesel smoke. Donna
passed it, and after, paid too much attention to the other
traffic. They turned left at Meadow Street and headed south down
13. The Wonder Bread outlet was less than a mile from them,
wedged into the sooty gauntlet of used car lots and fast food
franchises, muffler shops and budget motels. If they hit every
light they might still make it.
I dont know, she said, ducking a blue Buick. I just dont think
its the same this time.
What did she say?
Nothing new, really. She grimaced apologetically. She told me to
keep an eye on you.
Oh, great. When was this?
Thursday.
Thanks for warning me, he said.
She said youd understand.
I dont understand anything, he said, though even she could see it
was not true. Just to piss him off, the lights ahead of them
dropped sequentially to green, and silent, the radio playing some
maudlin song about the difficulties of loveTheres one thing you
gotta do /to make me still want you/ Gottta stop sobbin oh-hothey
ate up the mile to the outlet.
It was a white cinderblock building infected with the products
red, yellow and blue dots. Today they made him feel especially
clownish; he hoped she wouldnt notice.
Hey, she said, dropping him off. The chorus was going on and on.
Maybe Ill come by later, okay? Or vice-versa, whatever.
Sure, he said, and thanked her and closed the door, and for a few
seconds walking to the rear of the building he was completely,
blissfully alone.
He punched in precisely on time. The locker room was empty.
Murrays gold Eldorado was in the lot, which meant he was in his
office. Derek was upfront, cheerfully taking care of the
earlybirds; Julian wasnt in yet, his card still on the OUT side.
Larry was surprised the kid hadnt been fired. He was nice if a
little spacya Deadheadand unlike Derek, seemed impressed that
Larry was a vet. Julian was always after him for storiesand not
obnoxiously, not kidding, he really wanted to hear them. Larry
put him offso much that it was a joke between thembut still it was
good to have someone acknowledge what hed done. Last week, Murray
had asked Larry to talk to Julian about being late. Larry thought
hed gotten through.
Now he was late himself. This second he was supposed to be
loading up the truck, ticking off his customers orders against his
invoices. Wonder White, Wonder Lite, Wonder Wheat. With a finger
he flipped his locker open and began changing into the
blue-and-white uniform. A picture of Vicki helping Scott onto a
pony was stuck to the door. She had on red short-shorts and a
peppermint tube top; you could see the white lines from her
bikini. He began to remember the day at the lake, the trip to the
gift shop, how Scott had been excited by the windmill and the
water hazard at the miniature golfand stopped himself by humming
the song from the car: Gotta stop sobbin oh-ho, yeah, stop stop
stop stop, gotta stop sobbin,oh ho, and on and on until he had
clipped on his bowtie and zipped his Hostess jacket to the neck.
Beside the picture hung a piece of Scotts art, a collage of
fabric, macaroni and cotton balls signifying earth, sea and sky.
Larry closed the door and pulled his cap snug on his head, took
He gave Murray a wave as he passed his window, upfront said, Hey
now, to Derek.
Hey hey, Derek said, fastidiously bagging a couple boxes of Suzy
Qs for a stout woman Larry had seen before. Probably a teacher
putting on a Halloween party. Scott had tomorrow off, though he
still had Rehab. Larry tried to think if shed ever left on a
Monday before.
He filled the orders on his clipboard, counting out cupcakes and
mini-muffins, arranging the plastic trays in the dolly. Wegmans
alone took fifteen minutes, and as his hands played over the soft
bags and cellophane-windowed boxes, he remembered Leonard Dawson
and Go-Go Bates eating pound cake at some night position in the
hills. Nothing had happened, it was just a picture his mind
coughed up, the thin, sickly black man with his thick, issue
glasses, beside him the dangerously energetic Bates, spooning
contentedly from their cans. They played hearts together with a
deck Leonards sister had given him; he sent a card home every
Wednesday, one for each week of his tour. Hed started with the
hearts, so by the time they left Firebase Marge, the only card
they had to watch out for was the queen of spades. Leonard said
he was saving the deadly ace for last, that, defying all odds, hed
take it with him on the plane, pin the sucker to the peephole in
his skivvies and play peekaboo with the stewardesses.
Larry finished the last rack of fruit pies, added an extra box of
crumb cakes, then took it off again. He remembered hed left his
lunch in his locker, and retrieved it before rolling the dollies
onto the truck. Behind his window, Murray lowered his newspaper
and pointed to his watch; Larry nodded.
Eat me, he said when he was past, then did an immediate
about-face, thinking of the crumb cakes, but saw instead Leonard
Dawsons small hands, the high school ring he was so proud of, and
stopped himself. On the way out he gave a lariat-twirling
cardboard cutout of Twinkie the Kid the finger.
It was still raining; it was Ithaca. From the side of Number 1
the same boggle-eyed cartoon smiled down upon him, in full chaps
and spurs yet horseless.
Yahoo, Larry Markham said.
He checked the rear doors, got in and settled himself, letting the
engine warm. He tugged on the knuckleless driving gloves Scott
had given him for his birthday, snapped the snaps. He would call
her at the mall, and then her mother if he didnt get her. The way
he was going hed barely have time to eat. He threw Number 1 into
first and headed across the lot and clicked his turn signal on.
As he was waiting to take the left, Julians rusty Subaru turned in
beside him and beeped. Larry honked back, shaking his head, and
goosed Number 1 across Route 13.
Sometimes he thought he was happiest driving, with his mind only
half-connected to the rhythm of bumpers in front of him, the flow
of lights and signs. His eyes flitted over the road as if on
ambush, picking out movement, gauging and dismissing it. The
truck heated up. He got the defroster going, put the wipers on
low and tuned the radio to WSKG, which had the last movement of
Schumanns Rhenish Symphony blasting. He liked Schumann, unlike
his mother, who called him that nut, and when told by the
announcer that hed composed a piece shed been interested in,
responded to the room at large, Oh, him. As a child Larry liked
how the music forced him out of himself, took him somewhere else
completely. Now he let the rain and heavy strings sweep him
along to his first stop at Wegmans, insulated from the day.
The first thing Ron the assistant manager asked was, Hows it
going?
Good, Larry said aggressively. You?
It was all he had to say. Everyone else in the half-lit back of
the store was busy tossing boxes or hosing down produce. They all
wore the blue Wegmans uniform, and responded to his with the edgy,
mutual tolerance natural between different branches of the
service. He rolled his dolly along, following the
yellow-and-black caution tape on the floor through a tangle of
hanging plastic strips which swallowed him like a carwash. It was
cold on the other side, and he heard the ring, clash and clatter,
the high, grinding whine of a saw from the meat department, but
passed the gleaming steel doors without looking in either
porthole. Above the last doors before the actual store hung a
sign that said: COURTESY FIRST. Beneath, behind violet-tinted
windows, shoppers and their carts glided silently as fish. Larry
paused an instant and straightened his cap. He liked the whole
pageantry of entering from within, as if hustled from his dressing
room through the chaos backstage to emerge perfectly from the wi
The lights were blinding, the air warm, the Muzak immediately
lulling. It took him an instant to recover, as if hed bumped a
piece of scenery. No one noticed. He guided the dolly up the
cookie aisle, set up shop and redid his shelves.
No one approached or interrupted him. Shoppers pushed past,
oblivious, as if he were invisible. The company was featuring a
seasonal orange-and-black jack-o-lantern cupcake, and to make room
he had to tighten everything on that shelf. Someone had left a
half-eaten Sno Ball on top of its wrapper; he put its pink remains
on a tray to toss in the garbage on his way out. And the new
Brownie Bites werent moving, there was a form to report that. He
checked everything against his clipboard and rolled on toward the
bread corner.
His donuts and Donettes were fine, his mini-muffins and iced honey
buns. He could have easily shorted them a box of crumb cakes, but
didnt, instead buying a huge styrofoam cup of black coffee at
their fake European bistro. When he switched the hazards off and
headed Number 1 for Tops, he was on time.
Larry, the manager there said, how are you, buddy?
Great, Larry said.
At the first P&C, the woman at the bakery counter asked, Hows the
family?
Fine, he said, but this time questioned his enthusiasm, wondered
if it gave him away.
And your wife, inquired the woman in the second P&Cs courtesy
booth, she still working up to the mall?
Sure is.
And your boy, hows he now?
Goddammit, he said in Number 1, throwing his clipboard against the
dash so hard his pen flew. He went into the back and grabbed a
box of crumb cakes from someones tray. No one would notice. Hed
make it up next week.
At lunch he stopped by the IGA in Dryden and tried Vicki at work.
He stood in the rain-beaded telephone booth, a chill sneaking
through the accordioned doors.
Photo USA, another woman answeredCheryl maybe, or Katie, he could
never tell them apart.
Is Vicki there? he asked. A hand clamped over the mouthpiece. He
heard someone muffled in the background.
Is this Larry?
Yes, he said.
She didnt come in today. She waited, as if challenging him.
Not at all?
Nope.
Okay, he said, thank you, and hung up.
He let her mothers phone ring nine times before he retreated to
the oily warmth of Number 1. He sat there in the parking lot of
the IGA and looked at the puddles and the phone booth while he ate
his sandwich and his apple and three more crumb cakes, and thought
again of Leonard Dawson, how he had disappeared from his foxhole
one night to pee and they had to go find him. He was just a
little guy, Bates kept saying afterward, showing how the ring
wouldnt fit his own pinky, but nobody really wanted to hear it.
He wasnt the first and wouldnt be the last, and maybe if hed
showed around that picture of his fine sister, more guys would
have liked him.
Larry wrapped the core of his apple in a napkin and stuffed it
into the bag, balled it up, got out and threw it in a barrel by
the electric doors. He tried Vickis mother again but came up with
nothing. At her work he got the same answer from what he assumed
was the same person, which meant nothing. She could still be
either place, and with the car she was mobile. He decided to zip
through his afternoon stops and catch her picking up Scott at
schoolnot to argue with her but just to show he missed them. It
was a plan, and enough to keep him moving.
It was a slow time at the gasmarts, and everyone wanted to know
how he was, whether hed had a good weekend, who he liked between
the Cards and Milwaukee.
Fine, he said, yep, oh, the Brew Crew, but kept his eyes on his
merchandise, and hiding his rudeness behind work, hurried the
clerks into signing his clipboard, refused their offers of coffee
and swung Number 1 across the empty lots. It rained all day, as
he knew it would. He finished early in Danby and rocketed back to
town with his lights on, accompanied by a murky, Scandanavian tone
poem. Below, to the north, an appropriate mist hung gloomily over
the lake.
Pulling into the lot of the Special Childrens Center, he was
pleased to see the numbered buses waiting nose-to-tail with just
their running lights on, chuffing out exhaust as their drivers
caught a smoke under the overhang. Evening had begun to come
down; a warm light filled the windows, made the emptying
classrooms seem rich and busy as a hive. Only a few parents had
shown up so farno Ruster.
When they first sent him there, Scott had wanted to take the bus;
theyd even tried it for a week, but Vicki found herself going to
get him anyway, haltingly following the bus home. Larry joked
with her about it, but nowand whenever he drove past the Center
during the dayhe felt just as helpless. It was his fault the
doctors had to reroute Scotts intestines as an infant, his fault
his son hadthey told them when he was threeno sense of smell.
Often when Scott looked at him with his mismatched eyes, his brow
so large it appeared ripe, almost soft, Larry wanted to take the
boys face in his hands and with a power drawn not from God but
simple justice miraculously heal him. Instead he had taught him
how to turn the sound down on the TV so the cartoons he loved but
would never understand wouldnt wake them up Saturdays. Two years
ago, when he was picking up his first words, Vicki got him to say,
Smells good, whenever she creaked open the oven door. It was a
highlight of holiday get-togethers at her mot
Larry took the last crumb cake from the box, then put it back as a
brace of cars pulled up and doubleparked beside the loading zone.
One man in a Toyota took out a book and began to read.
A few students pushed through the doors and scattered, then stood
dazed in the rain, trying to identify their rides. He recognized
some from their coats and canes, and one from the steel halo
bolted into his head. He was so used to seeing the contraptions
in his group that he had to remind himself it wasnt normal.
A rush of students spilled onto the walk, and the bus drivers
ground out their cigarettes. A mother flung open a car door and
knocked a lunchbox from her sons pincer of a hand, waited
patiently while he retrieved it. Larry didnt see anyone from
Scotts class yet. Still no Ruster.
The children sprinted and skipped and wandered, some holding their
coats despite the cold. One stood forlornly by the doors, resting
his hooded head against the brick wall. A mother struggled with a
science project made from aluminum foil and a large cardboard
box. The first bus pulled out and the other two moved up. He
thought he spotted a girl named Natalie that Scott had invited
over to play once, and there was Jeffrey (Death-ray, Scott called
him), and Matthew with his Smurf backpack, and Luke. The second
bus was loading, heads filling the windows. A cheddar Chevy van
swung alongside the curb, picked up one kid and zoomed off again.
The headlights of the second bus came on, showing how hard it was
raining now. They swept across the lot as the bus wheeled around,
followed identically by the third.
No one else was coming out; most of the cars were gone. Two
teachers stood by the doors, a man and a woman hugging themselves
against the cold, occasionally waving. He strained toward the
windshield to see if Scott was among the stragglers on the walk,
and when he didnt spot him, undid his seat belt, got out and
picked his way through the puddles.
Im looking for my sonScott Markham? he asked the man and woman
simultaneously.
Wait here, the woman said, and went inside.
The man was young and wore a thin leather tie and pointy shoes.
Larry could feel him looking at his uniform.
Hows it going? Larry asked.
Good, the man said defensively, and asked him back.
They stood side by side watching the last cars go off, the clouds
slide dramatically across the hilltops. Now the children were all
gone, the lot empty except for Number 1. The lights inside went
out.
He wasnt in today, the woman explained when she returned. The
office has it as an excused absence.
Larry tried to come up with somethinga mix-up, crossed wiresbut
could only thank them. He knew they would watch him back to the
truck and talk about him as he pulled out. What the hell, at
least he had tried.
He started Number 1 and pulled his gloves on, and looking at his
fingers saw Go-Go Bates with Leonard Dawsons class ring on a
bootstring around his neck. When they came to medevac him out the
second time, the doc on the chopper automatically went for his
tags. He squatted there with the ring in his hand as the skids
rose and tilted. B plus! Larry hollered up into the rotor wash,
Hes B pos! though his heart had already stopped, and when the
other medic held a hand to his ear, gave up and pointed to his
boots, where Bates had stashed his tagsone in eachso they wouldnt
clink and give him away on ambush.
Jesus, Larry said in wonder, and gently thumped a fist against the
steering wheel. Go-Go, man. B plus. He opened the last crumb
cake and sat there eating it while the rain trickled down the
windshield. When he was done, the man and woman were gone, the
doors shut.
The lights of Ithaca were on now. Rush hour had begun, and Larry
had to jockey across several lanes to make the turn into the
Wonder outlet. The front was busy with people picking up cheap
loaves on the way home. Through the windows he could see Julian
and Derek at the counter, and he thought he would have to ask
Julian for a ride to his group at the hospital and then fend him
off in the car. There were these two guys in our squad, he might
say. A little guy and a big guy. A black guy and a white guy. A
smart guy and a dumb guy. Then group, where it was his job to
hear their stories, and later hed have to catch a ride back with
his father, when all he wanted was to be alone with Leonard Dawson
and Go-Go Bates for the evening. Vicki would show up at her
mothers eventually with some loopy rationale for Scott missing
school. Christ, it was tiring.
Murrays Eldorado was gone. Larry fit Number 1 into its space
and locked up. Inside, the picture of Vicki in her tubetop
ambushed him, and he banged the door shut so hard that it
opened again.
He called her mothers from the front; while he was listening to it
ring, the lights flickered twice, signalling last call. When
Derek had rung up the last customer, he chopped the lights off,
neatly vaulted the counter and locked the front doors. He had his
apron and uniform shirt off before they made the locker room.
Julian said he could give him a ride but first he had to lock up.
And hes going to open up tomorrow, Derek said, hauling on his
leather jacket, and all week. Word came down.
All talk, Julian said, but glumly.
I dont know, Larry warned.
I will see you gentlemen tomorrow, Derek said. He punched out,
and a minute later crossed the front window holding an umbrella
and leaning into the wind.
Larry helped Julian wipe down the counters and stayed out of the
way while he swabbed the floor. A car turned into the lot,
realized they were closed and swung back onto the road. Larry
peered out at the traffic, the lights going both ways.
Wanna get stoned? Julian offered, pinching a roach between
fingernails.
Cant.
Julian took a last hit and tossed it into the mop water, rolled
the bucket to the sink and muscled it up and in. While he cleaned
the sink, Larry picked their cards out of the rack and looked at
Julians time IN.
He looked at the phone with its twisted cord hanging beside the
time clock and thought he would have to call his father
eventually. He picked it up and dialed the number, waited for the
operator and then the receptionist to switch him to the office.
This is Doctor Markham, his father answered, as if prepared for
the next, more difficult question.
Dad, Larry. I was wondering if I could get a ride with you
tonight.
Again.
Again, Larry admitted, though the last time had been a month ago
when the Ruster dropped its muffler.
Car trouble?
Basically, Larry said.
Eight-fifteen?
Yeah, that would be great.
Meet you in the lobby.
Okay, Larry said, thanks, and they hung up without saying
goodbye. Larry stood there looking at the phone for a second, the
swinging cord. It hadnt been bad, and yet he knew his father had
already counted thishowever smallas another failure.
Dont punch me out yet, Julian called from the front.
Right, Larry shouted.
So what did Murray say? Larry asked in the Subaru. Julian had the
Dead blastingRed Rocks 73, he said. He darted aggressively
between lanes, making Larry press an imaginary brake pedal.
Nothing. I just cant be late for a while. I can do that. Dont
get me wrong, but its not like my dream job, you know?
Yeah, Larry admitted.
You know, I dont know, dream and job dont really go together for
me.
They turned onto Fulton and then State, headed for the Octopus,
where the roads from the west side of the lake came together at
the bottom of the hill.
So whats up with your group? Julian asked.
The usual, he said, deadpan, to keep him from going further. The
usual. And what was that?
A dead guy and a dead guy.
No one would touch Leonard Dawson until Larry cut him down and fit
him back together.
Fuck, Lieutenant Wise said when he saw him.
Fuck is right, Bogut said, holding his own jaw as if it might fall
off.
Bates came stumbling through the bush, half-awake. Larry saw Pony
look away, saw the Martian turn to give the big man space. Carl
Metcalf went to stop him, but Smart Andy held him back with a
hand. Bates stood there.
Aw, Leonard, he said, and knelt down. Aw, Leonard. He put his
sixteen aside and reached for his boonie hat to put over Leonard
Dawsons face, but he wasnt wearing it. He used his hands to cover
his friend, as if the torn skin were a blinding light, something
not to be looked upon, and after a minute Soup came back with
Leonard Dawsons hat with its jaunty Australian curl and handed it
to Bates. Everyone stood around in the dark while Nate read from
his miniature bible. They could not get a dust-off until morning,
and all night Bates sat beside Leonard Dawson as if he were only
sick, feverish, and when the chopper came and they bagged him up,
Bates laid him on the floor of the Huey himself, and while the
rest of the squad watched, unzipped the bag for a last look,
closed it again and patted Leonard Dawson on the shoulder as if
hed done a good job, and clambered out. The chopper lifted,
dipped its nose and powered away, leaving a cloud of red dust that
made them claw at their eyes and spit.
He couldnt fucking hold it, Bates said a few weeks later. Fuckers
probably got him in mid-squirt. Fucking Leonard. I told him,
save that water for the middle of the day, drink your Cokes early
on to get your motor going, but hed have em with dinner. He liked
his Cokes, that was one thing he liked all right. Weinies and
beans and a Coke on a shitty day.
A day like today, Larry thought, watching the blurry taillights
through the wipers. They were going up the long hill of 96 to the
hospitals, the route the ambulances took, past Vinegar Hill.
Below on their right lay the dark blot of the lake, the far shore
defined by a few tiny lights. On the way down with his father
they would see the lights of Ithaca. And what would Larry say to
him? So often his life seemed without explanation, utterly
defenseless, though he knewdeeplythat he was trying.
Carl staggered, reaching out to him stiffly, the skin on his face
still bubbling, sloughing off in sheets.
Fucking rain. If she was gone for good, maybe hed leave, go
somewhere dry.
Emergency entrance? Julian asked, turning into the highly-lit
grounds. The VA and regular hospitals were connected and shared
parking.
Right next to it.
They pulled up ahead of a darkened Bangs ambulance. It was a
local joke; downtown the Bangs family ran an EMT service and right
beside it a funeral home.
Thanks, Larry said, getting out. Ill see you early tomorrow.
Okay, boss, Julian said. As the Subaru looped back to the
entrance, Larry could hear the Dead thumping through the doors,
and thought that it was inevitable and best not to get involved.
One way or another, he would lose him too.
It was always the goddamn Wall. All summer the ward had seen it
being built on TV, on the Armed Forces Network. A big black V
engraved with the names of the dead. It was being built not by
the government but with private money raised by a vet, which they
liked. They wanted Larry to go for them when it opened, to make
sure their buddies were there. They joked about getting up money
to send him, like the Fresh Air kids from the city. They wanted
him to take pictures of names, whole panels, and though he said
flatlylaughingthat he would not go, each of them was drawing up a
list of dead friends.
It was what discussion drifted to in rap group. Theyd lose what
they were trying to say about the war and go off into stories
about people hed have to find.
Man, Mel White would say, or Cartwright, this dude you got to
get. He was one bad-ass Sergeant Rock motherfucker.
Sponge was the worst, because of the old hematoma. His memory
wasnt good but it was full, and since hed started talking again,
no one could shut him up. On top of that he was a juicer, and an
old RTO, and something about stories got him going. The rest of
the time he played Othello and penny poker with Rinehart and
Meredith and, like everyone on the ward, watched the game shows
with a mixture of disbelief and scorn for not only the host and
contestants and studio audience but any country that would permit
such abominations. He had a dent in the side of his head like a
little shelf, and sometimes hed rest a pen there and forget it.
Hed been in the Ia Drang Valley early on, a place Larry Markham
even now considered himself lucky not to have seen.
I wish I could remember his fucking name, this A-gunner. Everyone
called him Dog cause he had this german shepherd he slept with.
Couldnt sleep without him cause he was afraid of rats. Frank
Something. I remember the dogs name was Toad. He was supposed to
be able to sniff out trip wires and shit from the fish oil on the
gooks fingertips.
And this Toad stepped on a package and waxed Frank Something,
Trayner guessed.
Emulsified his master, is that right? Cartwright baited him.
Around the circle the rest of them waited for Sponge to come up
with his usual sparkling bullshit. It was a game, and okay
because Sponge knew it too and was good at it. It wasnt like
trying to listen to Rinehart, who they all knew was telling the
truth but couldnt make it interesting. They all wanted to see
what Sponge would come up with, all except the new guy Creeley,
who picked his nails with mock concentration. His face was subtly
two-toned, the skin grafts from his thighs lighter, with bristly
hairs. Across his forehead the contrast between shades made his
hairline look crooked, as if hed had the top of his head cut off
and all but a small strip put back on, which in fact he had. Hed
been on the neuro ward less than a week, and it was his first time
in group. He could talk, but slowly and with a slur. His file
was frightening in its poverty of detail; all it said was that hed
been a SEAL working in the Phoenix program and that hed been
wounded in action, though it seemed obvious to Lind
VC haul him off at night and boobytrap his ass, Meredith offered.
A beat behind, Johnny Johnson laughed, for no apparent reason. He
had a teflon plate and no ears and was subject to long, exhausting
fits. On his bedstand his mother had propped a picture of himself
before the war wearing a floppy velvet cap and giant sunglasses
edged with rhinestones and playing the bass. Is it hot? he would
ask at anytime, referring, Larry supposed, to the landing zone or
village he was continually approaching. He had been walking
behind a man who stepped on a 250 pound antitank mine. The man
was instantly vaporized. Johnny Johnson lost his right arm, right
leg, right kidney, most of his spleen, half his pelvis, his
testicles and his penis. The others considered him the worst off,
and gave in to him on small matters such as extra desserts and
what to watch on TV.
Its a rat story, Mel White tried. The rats chew his nose off and
old Frank loses it.
Unh-unh, said Sponge, wait, and tipped his head forward as if to
call for quiet or gather breath. As he did, he discovered a
mechanical pencil sitting on his dent. He pinched it off and
admired its intricacy a second, with such smugness that they knew
he was done stalling.
So were out on night ambush
The circle as a whole ridiculed this pat opening with snorts and
puffs of breath just short of a mass raspberrysave Creeley, who
seemed annoyed by the entire process. His chart said he was
heavily medicated for pain. Dilaudid, 3X. He looked off down the
ward as if any minute a car would turn the corner of the nurses
station and pull up for him. Sponge acknowledged their derision
with a nod, but kept on.
Were patrolling around for a while and havent found a juicy
position, no contact, nothing. You know, ghost time, everybodys
spooked
And the dog barks, Trayner said earnestly. He was the baby of the
group, a month short of thirty. Hed caught a rocket in the face,
thoughas Meredith saidyou couldnt be sure he wasnt like this
before.
Sponge stopped as if pondering Trayners suggestion, honestly
trying to remember. No, I dont think he did. He might have, I
dont know. Cause all of a sudden we get some fast fire from the
right and everybody hits it. Another mad minute, man. Like a
year later its over and you can hear Toad crying, and you know hes
got one in him. Sounded just like somebody real, swear. Franks
trying to shut him up and calling for the doc.
Fucks the doc gonna do? Cartwright said, partly to rib Larry.
They knew hed been a platoon medic. Hed never told them, just as
hed never told them his nickname. He never told his own stories
in group. It was not that his own were either special or dull or
that he thought he would not do a good job of telling them, but
that they were not all his to tell, though (and this they did not
know, Vicki didnt know, even his father did not know) he was the
only one left to tell them. And this was their time, not his. It
was enough, Larry thought, that they knew hed been in-country and
seen some shit, but like Julian they were interested in him. They
always wanted more.
So the doc goes over and slaps a dressing on him and shoots him up
and has me call for a dust-off, and by the time they come in there
are tracers zipping all over the placered, green, stop-go, all
that shit. We get Toad in a poncho and up and in, and the door
gunner is all bullshit that his WIA is a dog, and the pilot wants
to toss him until Frank makes him understand, know what Im
saying? So Toad goes to some evac hospital and we bust caps at
them for a while and thats that. Back at base they call in and
tell me Toads okay, but Frank cant sleep. Do a bone, I tell him,
have a nice warm brew, but he cant fucking sleep. This goes on.
Ive seen it, Rinehart seconded.
Three days, four days, and Franks a fucking zombie. The
lieutenant asks the doc to give him something, and it works, but
its not the same kind of sleep, its like fake sleep, and Frank is
just as messed up as before. Make a long story short, he steps on
an unfriendly device and goes home in a jar.
But the dog lives, Trayner said.
Course the dog lives, Jughead, Mel White said. Thats what the
storys going to be.
Right. Cause when Toad comes back from the evac, his pal Franks
gone.
So now the dog cant sleep, Meredith said.
Or he barks all night, Cartwright said.
Bingo, Sponge said, pointing. We couldnt take him out anymore.
Wed leave him back at base and hed howl like a coyoteaahhoooooo
and shit all night long. It was obnoxious. Finally someone in
Bravo greased him while we were out. Tore half his fucking head
off and burned him in a shit barrel. End of story.
Damn, Cartwright said, and nodded.
Johnny Johnson giggled. Rinehart tapped his shoulder and held a
finger up to stop him.
There was a silence, as if in honor of the dog or, more
importantly, the moral truth of the story.
A boy and his dog, Mel White said, thats what well call that one.
Bull . . . shit, Creeley squeezed out. It was an effort, as if he
were dredging the words from his lungs, muscling them up and
pushing them out. Sponge shrugged as if Creeley were nuts and it
was impossible to take offense.
They waited for Creeley to go on.
No . . . dog.
What the fuck are you talking about? Rinehart said.
No dog. Bullshit.
Were you there, mister? Cartwright said. With his legs on he was
half a head taller than Larry Markham; he squeezed a handball
constantly, even while eating. His only problem was that from
time to time he held hands with a friend hed left behind, a guy
from his hometown named Mobley. Mobleys tired of five-card, hed
say after conferring with him, or Mobleys got a case of the
fuck-yous today.
I was, Creeley said, everywhere. He turned to Larry, pointed and
said, I know you.
Listen to this shit, Mel White said. Hey, Captain Motherfucking
America, you got a story for us or you just wanna piss on our
party?
Yeah, Meredith said. Doc, make the newby tell us a story.
His story, Cartwright said. Thats what I want to hear.
Fair enough, Larry said. Mr. Creeley, would you like to introduce
yourself?
Fuck that, Creeley said. He stood and gave them the finger,
turning so they all got it. Then he hobbled down the ward to his
bed and drew the curtain violently about it, the rollers
protesting.
Yeah, Sponge said reminiscently, and looked at the pencil, Frank
Something. Wish I could remember.
Fuck Frank and fuck his dog too, Cartwright said, pointing to
Creeleys bed, Im putting his name on my list.
Fucking brain-damage two-tone Frankenstein piece of shit! Mel
White hollered at the curtain, and all but Johnny Johnson
laughed.
All right, gentlemen, Larry said, back to business. Whose turn?
Before he could check his clipboard, Meredith said, Okay, I got
one, and the group settled in to hear it. Meredith had been a
lurp, and his stories always began a few weeks into the deep
bush. The jungles triple canopy and birdless silence gave his
tales a mystery the others couldnt resist. Looking for lost
choppers, his squad would stumble over an NVA base camp with the
rice fires burning, or come across an underground hospital full of
VC hooked to empty bottles of blood, their throats cut. He was
also wholeheartedly born-again, and at some point in the story, by
way of explanation, the Lord would be called in to set things
right. It was an annoyance someone like Rinehart wouldnt get away
with. Tonight they were in the Arizona Territory, and Larry
kicked back and listened. He remembered the jungle, the heavy air
and smell of fungus, the dusk in the middle of the day. Meredith
lead them in.
It was here, among the other men, that Larry most felt himself.
He felt welcome, he felt understood without having to explain. He
could rest, stand down, as he did now, barely marking Merediths
progress into the foothills of the Que Son Mountains. The thought
of Vicki and Scott, of riding home with his father, no longer
bothered him, and though he knew that would change when he left
the ward, that the world would come flooding back with all its
problems, he would not let it intrude and ruin this quiet time.
It reminded him of his mothers radio, how those afternoons alone
he didnt want the music to end. Now he wanted the stories to go
on and on.
But like every Monday, they ended when Shaun the orderly came in
to give night meds. It was past eight but he waited a minute by
the swinging doors for Meredith to finish. It was a tiger story,
how both sides stopped in the middle of a firefight to watch it
lope through, how no one dared shoot.
Cause, dig, the animal was majestic, Meredith preached. It was
better than us and we knew it. It was purer. We knew we didnt
have no right so we just let it walk on by. See, I didnt know it
at the time, but I see now that that was a holy experience.
Fuck, Mel White said. You should of lit his stringy ass up.
A tiger, Johnny Johnson said, awed like a child.
Musta been something, Trayner said.
It was okay, Sponge complained. Not a lot of action.
No . . . tiger, Cartwright stuttered, mocking Creeley. Bull . . .
shit.
Larry looked to Shaun and nodded.
Okay, guys, Shaun said, tapping his watch, and they muttered and
swore.
Mel White started to roll away.
Larry checked his clipboard. Next week weve got Cartwright and an
open spot. Who wants it?
Anybody but Rinehart, Mel White tossed over his shoulder.
Eat shit, Rinehart said, but didnt volunteer.
Come on, Larry prompted, standing now. They were scattering to
their beds. The World Series was on in twenty minutes. Train,
you havent been up in a while.
You tell one, Trayner said.
Yeah, Meredith seconded.
Yeah, cmon, Larry, Shaun pitched in.
You owe us, Doc, Sponge said.
They all looked at him hopefully, and he wondered which one he
would tell first if he were going to. His own, or just the
beginning of his. Getting there. And then who? Fred the Head
and the little girl? The day Nate tried to fly. The first and
then the second. Hed have to put them in order. It was hard to
remember exactly but hed have to do it. Because once started he
would have to tell them all.
When Larry didnt answer, Cartwright said, Okay, then the new guy.
Jesus, Mel White said, itll take all fucking night.
They looked to the curtains around Creeleys bed as if he might
answer.
Ill just leave it open, Larry said.
He always had trouble leaving. Often he wished he could stay,
bring a case of beer and watch TV with them till lights out. He
stowed his clipboard and papers in the one drawer the hospital
gave him and locked up. Later in the week Dr. Jefferies would
open it and look at his notes; once a month they had a meeting in
her office. She was interested in the men, but she was Chinese,
and they distrusted her.
Shaun rolled the meds cart between beds, handing out pleated paper
cups and, for a few, shooting prepared syringes into their IV
drips. The drips hung from wheeled stands so they could roll them
down to the lounge to watch the game. Trayner was helping
Cartwright with his legs.
Larry put his jacket on. Ill see you in a week, he announced, and
waved to both sides of the aisle. He was always tempted at this
point to salute, but as usual fought it off. He made for the
doors, not looking at anyone. Good men. It was not bullshit.
He thought of stopping to look in on Creeley, then decided against
it. Give him time, room to move. It wasnt like they were going
anywhere.
His father was not waiting for him in the lobby, as hed promised.
Larry checked the clock behind emergency admitting, then went
outside to see if his Imperial was in the lot. His father was the
first person in in the mornings, and parked nearest the doors.
And there the big Chrysler sat in the rain, waxed and sleek as a
speedboat, its windows dark. Last week Larry had seen a similarly
big Oldsmobile south of town with former prisoner of war plates,
and thought maliciously that his father would never advertise,
never admit that fact to the world. Why did Larry want him to?
He retreated inside, and as he watched the Brewers bat, the day
returned, as he knew it would. He thought of calling Vickis
mother again, and only pride and not wanting his father to know
yet kept him from doing it.
Across from him, leaning forward and staring at the floor as if
shed been benched, sat a teenaged girl in a basketball uniform,
glumly holding a plastic bag of ice to her wrist. Beside her a
friend was filling out her paperwork, and though the girl did not
seem to be in any real pain, Larry turned away. There were no
outs and the Brewers had already scored four runs. Someone had
liked baseball a lot. Nate, maybe. Stars and Stripes had the box
scores a week late.
Are you allergic to anything? the friend asked, and Larry had to
get up and move to the other side of the room.
It was one of those days nothing was safe. The first magazine he
picked up had a picture of British soldiers patrolling the streets
of Belfast, the second a model with an elaborate version of Vickis
perm. He moved to the back part of the hallway, where there was
nothing but aerial photos of the new wing being built, and at the
far end, a rain-lashed window looking out on the night and the
cold lake, the shivering lights of Ithaca. He paced and thought
of the Wall, how they would make him go. He supposed he owed it
to them. He would have to make his own list. Look up their
names, take pictures. He almost wanted to. It would be simple.
The hard part would be the bus.
Behind him, farther up the hall, the elevator rolled open. His
father got out first, already wearing his hat, and turned for the
lobby without noticing Larry. Behind him came a pair of families
exhausted with visiting; the children spread across the hallway,
and Larry had to tag along behind. His father walked
purposefully, as if in a hurry, outstripping them. He had his
keys out, jingling, and carried nothing but a pair of gloves. The
tasseled end of his white scarf flopped rhythmically against his
back. He had no reason to look behind him and see Larry, but when
they got to the lobby, he didnt stop or even hesitate, only waved
to the uniformed guard, drove straight for the automatic doors,
hit the mat which made them fly open and marched off into the
dripping night, still in stride.
Larry caught him before he opened the drivers side door.
Hey, he called across the roof.
His father looked at him quizzically, surprised to see him but
pleased.
We were supposed to meet in the lobby? Larry said. I needed a
ride.
Right, his father said, still catching up to it. He pointed to
show he did remember. Sorry.
He opened the door and reached across the seat to lift the knob,
and Larry got in.
Sorry, his father said, Ive been dealing with Margaret Cushing all
dayMrs. Cushing who used to live on Linn Street? She went around
dinnertime and its been crazy. So where do you need to go?
Just home.
Can do, his father said.
As they exited the lot, an ambulance pulled in. Its lights werent
strobing, but the back compartment was lit, and Larry could see a
blue-shirted EMT moving within. She wore rubber gloves and had a
ponytail. He concentrated on the ridged knobs of the radio,
making the orange line slide across the dial, but couldnt stop the
vision of Nate from cominghis own hands pushed into Nates chest,
the lung wound bubbling with every breath, hissing and sighing,
almost squeaking like a leaky tire.
Truth, Skull.
Dont mean nothing, man.
Shit, the Martian said, staring at the hole where Larrys hands
disappeared, shaking his head. There it is, man.
Get him the fuck away from me, Larry told Bogut, and he did.
Dont mean a thing, Nate babe, Larry whispered.
Truth.
Truth, bro. All right?
All right, man.
All right, man, youre gonna fly them friendly skies, all right?
This is gonna pinch a little.
Sall right, I cant feel shit anyway.
Youre all right, man.
Mall right.
Larry rubbed his eyes as if he were tired, and it disappeared,
replaced by the glare of oncoming traffic. His father leaned back
in the seat, steering with his gloved hands resting near the
bottom of the wheel, a mannerism he and Larry shared. His chin
was lined with a white stubble, his neck a soft, wrinkled wattle
disappearing into the debonair scarf. The news was onanother
flood in the Midwestand Larry wondered if the prison camp came
back to him every time the Japanese were mentioned. The wire, the
mealy rice, the friends who didnt survivewhere did all of that
go?
Theyd never talked about it; his mother wasnt allowed.
He will tell you, shed say when pressed, when he thinks you need
to know those things.
It was too late now, Larry thought, though he couldnt pinpoint
when he could have used his fathers wisdom. Before he signed up
for the fucking medical corps and Fort Sam Houston. But that
wouldnt have stopped him, only made him want to go more. He sat
back in the seat and watched the dark farms slide by, the lights
of oncoming cars mimicking the firefly wobble of an RPG round.
Car trouble? his father asked nonchalantly.
Oh yeah.
Bad?
Dont know yet.
How old is that thing anyway?
Ten years, same as this, Larry said, and then regretted comparing
the two.
Just tuned her up, his father boasted.
She sounds good.
It was a lesson, like everything between them. He thought if they
made it to the Octopus without his father asking after Scott that
hed be all right. They coasted down the hill toward town; below,
a string of lights described the jetty running out into the black
lake. Probably rain again tomorrow.
So how is everyone? his father tried.
Okay, Larry said. Hows Mrs. R.?
As usual. She keeps trying to get me to retire. Hates the
weather, you know.
Larry half-ignored his answer. He had asked after her only to
change the subject. He did not need to imagine their life
together in the old house; besides a few new appliances,
everything was the samethe paintings in their heavy gilt frames,
his mothers furniture, the color of the walls. And for his father
the days were the same. Mrs. Railsbeck laid out his clothes and
made his breakfastas his mother once hadand while he was at the
hospital, did the laundry and the cleaning and the food shopping.
His father had bought her a Volkswagen Rabbit, and occasionally
Larry would see her around town, squinting at the traffic, her
chin almost touching the steering wheel. Back home she watched
the little TV while preparing dinner, and when his father came
home, ate with him, cleaned up and sat reading magazines before
the console in the living room while he retired to the den. They
slept in separate rooms, just as his mother and father had, though
everyone in town presumed to know.
She says we ought to have you folks over soon. Its been a while.
Tell her to give us a call, Larry bluffed, knowing he was just
being polite. It was one reason Vicki hated him, the endless
courtesy. Why doesnt he just say it to my face? shed complain. I
dont understand all this pussyfooting around. He doesnt like me.
Thats okay, I dont mind, I just wish hed be upfront about it.
They breezed through the green of the Octopus, and Larry tried to
imagine riding with him every Monday.
Hed call Vickis mother when he got home. Maybe they could work
something out with the car.
Downtown, his father missed the turn to take him up the hill.
Do you mind taking me home? Larry asked. Or you can just drop me
at the stop up here.
Sorry, his father said, woolgathering, and tapped the brim of his
hat. He changed lanes and made a quick left to get back to where
theyd been. Still, he did not seem to be all there, staring over
the wheel like a trucker too long on the road. Hed had a patient
die today. Larry thought it was foolish to worry about him; it
was the last thing his father would want. He was tempted to think
that after so many years you got used to losing people, but Larry
knew that each oneand especially the ones hed had for
yearsbothered his father, even if he would never admit it.
Who was it today? Larry asked gently.
Mrs. CushingAnne Cushings mother. Anne was there.
She was in Susans class.
Nice girl. Shes with Pfizer now.
How was it?
Oh, his father said, perking up, it went well.
Good, Larry said, equally cheerful, but his father was done
talking.
They cruised up the hill, past the students ramshackle houses with
overstuffed chairs and hibachis perched on their porch roofs, the
gutters stuffed with beer cans. The Imperial climbed easily,
shifting into low for more torque. They hit the long level and
the streetlights gave way to fields and woods, night. The road
was shiny and pasted with leaves. They sped through the black,
wipers lashing.
His father slowed to read the mailbox numbers. It was a guess.
Another mile or so, Larry corrected him.
The house was dark. His father pulled into the empty drive.
So, his father asked, drawing it out, making Larry tense up, more
car trouble, huh?
The way he said it, it was not an accusation. Larry looked to him
to see if he was yanking his chain. He didnt seem to be.
Its in the shop, Larry said.
How olds that thing again?
Ten years. Same as this.
Just tuned her up, his father said, and patted the dash.
She sounds good, Larry said, as if following a script. He opened
the door, but paused. He wanted to ask his father if he was all
right, then decided he was just tired, and got out.
Let me know if you need a ride tomorrow, his father offered.
Thats okay, Larry said, thanks, and clunked the door shut. He got
the mail, watching his father reverse out of the drive and tool
away, then walked toward the porch, digging for his keys. Next
door Donna Burnss windows were lit.
Inside, before he even turned the lights on, he saw the red
flicker of the answering machine. Once, twice, three times. At
least one of them would be her. Hed call her, and then they could
start working to fix it. He hung his jacket up, went into the
kitchen and sat down at the table to go through the mail.
First he tore the pre-approved credit card applications and
childrens book club offers in half and tossed them in the garbage;
then he opened the bills and wrote the date they were due on the
return envelopes. He piled her catalogs to one side, and the
Pennysaver, which she liked to look through. All hed gotten was a
postcard from Wade. It showed a green trout dwarfing a railroad
flatcar. They grow em big out here! it said. Wade said hi. The
kids were healthy, he was doing well, and hed send an address as
soon as he had one. He was thinking of Ithaca. Larry stuck it to
the fridge with a magnet.
He looked in the refrigerator and then in the cupboard. He ate a
few of the chocolate chip cookies he packed as part of Scotts
lunch, washing them down with a beer. He got another handful and
went into the living room and stood above the answering machine,
eating.
He punched the play button and the machine whirred, reversing the
tape. The cookies and beer made a thin, sweet gruel going down
his throat.
The beep beeped.
Vicki, a woman said. This is Cheryl. Ronnie wants to know if
youre coming in or not, so call, okay? Bye.
It gave the time and beeped again.
Vic, Vickis mother said, and he leaned closer to the machine and
turned the volume up, stopped chewing. This is Mom. I thought
you might be trying to call me. Nothing new, just wanted to
talk.
That had been five-thirty, late enough for her to pick up Scott
and make it to Trumansburg. The machine clicked complicatedly.
He took a slug of beer to brace himself; it gave him a chill, the
fine hairline beginning of a headache.
Larry, a woman said, I was wondering how youre doing. It took him
a minute to figure out it was Donna. She went on talking,
concerned; he turned the volume down and went into the kitchen.
He sat and rested his arms and hands flat on the table, palms
down, and looked at the space between them.
Goddammit, he said, and tilted his head up and eyed the tile
ceiling as if it were a sky full of answers. He sighed and picked
up the beer can and took it to the sink and rinsed it out.
He called her mother and stood there listening to it ring,
wondering what he would say to her. The truth, it occurred to
him. If theyd really taken off, shed want to know.
Larry, she said, surprised.
Are Vicki and Scott there?
No. She made the question sound absurd. Theyre not there?
No, he admitted. He told her about finding them gone, about Vicki
missing work, Scott not showing up for school.
Im sorry, Larry, but I honestly havent seen them. I wish I had.
Now youve got me worried.
Im sure theyre okay. I thought shed call is all.
You let me know if she does, her mother said.
Same here.
After hed hung up, he wanted her to have been more concerned, and
not only her but himself. The way they talked about it was too
routine, as if Vickis leaving had been expected, or worse, that it
had lost the power to hurt him. He hoped it hadnt.
He didnt feel like eating, which he thought was a good sign. The
World Series was on, and though the score was 10-0, he watched for
another beer, from time to time glancing over at the phone.
As he was cleaning up and turning everything off, it rang. He
flew across the room and picked it up before the second ring.
There you are, Donna said, and he hated himself for hoping. I was
wondering if youd pick up. How are you doing?
Okay.
She waited for him to say more. He waited.
Have you heard anything?
No, he said, nothing.
She said shed call you.
She didnt, Larry said, and wondered why he was so angry with her.
Again, they waited.
Hey, she said, do you want me to come over, just to talk?
No, he said, Im going to bed, and then felt guilty for being short
with her. Thanks.
Thats all right, Donna said.
He had almost put the phone down when he remembered he needed a
ride.
Sure, she said, relieved, and they agreed on a time.
When he hung up he stood there a second as if it would ring again,
and when it didnt, went upstairs. In the dark of Scotts room the
power indicator of the radio threw a weak red sheen over the
world. He thought of how far they could have gotten. Sixteen,
seventeen hours. He missed them, but not enough, he thought. He
could see himself living like this, eating alone at the kitchen
table, seeing no one. In the bathroom mirror he was surprised he
didnt look any different, and shrugged.
He turned on the bedroom light before clicking off the one in the
hall and undressed in the yellow glow. The hamper was empty; shed
done the laundry. Small favors, he thought, and got into bed, the
covers snagging his new foot. On the dresser stood their
pictures; he rolled over so he wouldnt have to look at them.
Tomorrow was Tuesday. He had no idea what hed do. Call her work,
drive by Scotts school, talk to Donna. He lay there looking at
the bright leaves and flowers of the wallpaper, tracing the vines
false progress toward the ceiling as if reading a map.
She was the one who turned out the light every night, and now,
without her, he thought it fitting that he leave it on. When they
came to him laterwhen Pony came, or Bogut, or Carl Metcalf, and he
woke up with his hands miraculously cleansed of blood, when he
missed his dead so much that he wanted to be alone with them, if
only in sleephe would need the light. To remind him that there
was another world. To remind him that he was alive. And deep in
the night, he did.
____________________
Stewart O'Nan is a writer living in Ithaca, New York. His first
collection of short stories, In the Walled City, is currently available
from University of Pittsburgh Press. His first novel, Snow Angels, will
be published by Doubleday in November. He is the recipient of the
thirteenth Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
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POETRY
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THE SIDE SHOW
BY DANIEL SENDECKI
Errant knight - reverent killer
Don't you know?
The Holy Grail, Sir Galahad
is not deep in the tenements
nor high in the battlements
It sits beside a cupie doll, dusty and spent
it travels with the circus
Those who admire it
The Bearded Lady, The Strong Man
realize - not everlasting life
but their own tarnished reflection.
____________________
Daniel Sendecki <rn.6333@rose.com> is a young, emerging Canadian author,
who is currently pursuing his writing at home, but who intends to further
study English Literature at MCGill University in Montreal, Quebec. His
story "A Serpent's Embrace" will appear in an upcoming issue of SUNLIGHT
THROUGH THE SHADOWS magazine.
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WHILE WALKING
BY ANDREA KRACKOW
These sidewalk shoes grin
and pretend our life.
Do you live? In tenement shacks of
Chunky Chicken, I dream of becoming
your wife.
Thumb walking,
limp talking,
my words are week-
day normal,
(I speak like gravel).
Will you walk on me?
Or take a sideway street?
Or leave roses by my corner?
Leave roses by my corner.
____________________
Andrea Krackow <krackoa@alleg.EDU> is a first year student at Allegheny
college. She is studying Ceramics and poetry.
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THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
BY NANCY BENT
(In 1988, a young man arrived at a hospital emergency room, where the
staff thought he would make a good organ donor because he was only
twenty-three. Involved in drugs, he had been shot above the fourth
certical vertebra.)
When he was still alive on the
Third Day, they told him he would always be
Unable to move his body below his jaw.
Privately their words were "A head in bed."
It would be like this:
They would beat on his chest and
Maybe have to break his ribs if his heart
Stopped. They wanted him to understand that.
One doctor said to himself in such a situation
He wouldn't want to live.
He would have to imagine the feel of water
When they bathed him.
He would never touch a woman with long black
Hair or flirt with her,
Never beat another guy in a fight.
He could only breathe through a machine.
By blinking the young man could speak.
Twice for yes and once for no.
Amazed that he wanted to live,
They asked him again.
He blinked twice, each time.
After four years he went home to constant family care.
His mother in the day and the rest taking turns at night.
The family stuck together. They had fled from Mexico,
Crossing the Rio Grande where it slowed to a trickle.
But they had not left hard times.
Now he was reborn, passive, pure,
A dedicated mother by his side,
His hands helpless on the tray before him,
Nothing expected, nothing possible,
Only belief in life.
He explained, using a voice box,
"If I hadn't been shot,
I would have died.
My sister brings me food,
I go outside, I see my family.
This is the way it is."
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IF I WERE A LOVER
BY JIM CHAFFEE
If I were a lover
would I love all or some
or none, save me.
____________________
Jim Chaffee <jchaffee@alleg.EDU> is a computer specialist who enjoys
writing poetry in his spare time.
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CINDERELLA REWRITTEN
BY RACHEL L. MILLER
As a small child
I loved a lie
Read to me by
A teary-eyed mother
You see--
My mother was once
Cinderella--woman of ash
The blessings of society
Hidden behind closed doors
By selfish brothers and fathers
Ella dared to challenge
The order, leaving
Her ghostly mother and
Alcoholic father's
Run-down rusty trailer
For the big city
Disappointment--
You can only buy success
Discovered my penniless heroine
She prostituted herself
To the lucky sons
In their shiny cars
Helped out of the gutter
By a fairy godmother
Wearing crushed purple velvet
Minus magic wand
When the lights went out
She finally learned
Her lesson--
Ella can only depend
On one person--
Herself
There is no better savior
Woman of ash
Rises from the ashes--
Like a phoenix
Now she buys her own shoes--
They fit better that way
She lets me choose
My own shoes, too
____________________
Rachel L. Miller <rlmiller@chaph.usc.edu> is a second-year undergraduate
at the University of Southern California--School of Cinema Television.
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FURTHER QUESTIONS
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That's it! Thank you for reading. The next issue of Whirlwind:
MAY 1, 1994
.