Spring 2006 Sisyphus - St. Louis University High School

SISYPHUS
The St. Louis U. High Magazine of Literature and the Arts
Spring ’06
LITERARY EDITORS
Tony Bertucci
Ben Farley
Kyle Kloster
Jake Kessler
Joe Milner
Paul Robbins
Joe Lauth
Jim Santel
Dave Spitz
ART EDITORS
Nick Jacobs
Joel Westwood
Tyler Pey
LAYOUT EDITOR
Tim Huether
MODERATORS
Frank Kovarik
Rich Moran
Manuscripts are considered anonymously.
We regret that we received more
fine submissions than we could publish.
Thanks to all those who offered their writing
and artwork for consideration.
Special thanks to Joan Bugnitz, John Mueller, & Mary Whealon.

2
Si s y p h u s
Spring ’06
Table of Contents
Cover artwork by David Rhoads, design by Joel Westwood
Masthead photography by Matt Nahlik
Borders artwork by Nick Jacobs
3 Checkmate, poetry by Noah Mitchell
4 To Suffer and Die Without Due
Resurrection, prose by Tony Bell
5 photography by Nick Niehaus
6 At Sunrise, fiction by Alex Orf
7 Ignorance is Bliss, poetry by Kingsley
Uwalaka
7 photography by Kevin Casey
8-11 White Houses, fiction by Ben Farley
8 photography by Matt Nahlik
11 artwork by Peter Kidd
12 From Boy to Man and Back Again, poetry
by Shane Lawless
13 Desert, fiction by Henry Goldkamp
13 photography by Anthony Sigillito
14-15 Attention, fiction by Jonathan E. D.
Huelman
14 photography by Louis Nahlik
15 artwork by Stephen Kelley
16 Response to an age that finds it pleasing
to overuse “random” and to misuse
“abstract,” poetry by Henry Goldkamp
17-20 Just Like Old Times, fiction by Victor
J. Kessler
18 photography by Henry Goldkamp
19 photography by Henry Goldkamp
20 photography by Alex Grman
21-22 Sunset, fiction by Peter Lucier
22 photography by Henry Goldkamp
23 Gravedigger, fiction by Kyle Kloster
24-28 Metro, fiction by Tony Bertucci
24 photography by Louis Monnig
25 photography by Louis Nahlik
26 photography by Matt Nahlik
27 artwork by Louis Monnig
29 Argumentum ad Sapientem, poetry by Dan
Yacovino
29 photography by Sean O’Neil
30-31 Stuck in Fast-Forward, poetry by Shane
Lawless
31 photography by Henry Goldkamp
32 artwork by Niall Kelleher
33 Fear, poetry by Timlin Glaser
34-36 Late, non-fiction by Jim Santel
34 photography by Kevin Casey
35 photography by Sean O’Neil
36 photography by Sean O’Neil
37 Lost, poetry by Shane Lawless
38-42 Prayer, fiction by Matt Wilmsmeyer
40 photography by Tim Seltzer
41 photography by Kyle Kloster
43 Le Mont-Saint-Michel, poetry by Tony Bell
44-45 On Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” essay
by Kyle Kloster
45 Grass, poetry by Adam Archambeault
46 Springtime, poetry by Steve Behr
46 artwork by Dave Bosch
47-49 Waking Up, fiction by Timo Kim
49 artwork by Matt Ampleman
50 Embrace, poetry by Will Turnbough
50 photography by Anthony Sigillito
51-54 Excerpt from The Endeavor’s Compass,
fiction by David Spitz
55 Being Below Zero Makes You Think,
poetry by Jonathan E. D. Huelman
56-58 The Damn Armrest, fiction by Connor Cole
58 artwork by Tyler Pey
59 Like, Poetry and Stuff, poetry by
Henry Goldkamp
60 An Ode to My Ballpoint Pen, poetry by
Thad Winker
61-62 Long Dark Hallways and Cedar Closets,
narrative by T. J. Keeley
63 Spitting Image, poetry by Timlin Glaser
63 artwork by Dom Palumbo
64 The Turn, fiction by Tony Bertucci

Ch e c k m a t e
Noah Mitchell
Why, pawn, are you weak,
so frail and disposable,
exposable, expendable,
a bowling pin
so edible to the will
of a higher, towering power?
Do his orders deafen
the squeaks of revolution
peeping through the curved crevice
on the crown to your captivity?
Your goal
to lose identity pinned with such brevity,
3
Charge, hope, hop to end…

4
To Su f f e r a n d
Die Wi t h o u t Du e
Re s u r r e c t i o n
Tony Bell
Cramming into my dad’s crummy ’83 Ford
Escort every morning around sunrise, that
disorienting time when the sun leaves hints of
itself in the sky and on the pavement, shining
through the trees that canopied Francisca Lane,
Jake or I would co-pilot the mumbling stick shift
with Dad’s hand on top, and we’d set off for
Jeff and Joe’s house. The journey was so short
that, on cold winter mornings, we’d arrive in
front of their sloping front yard before the heat
even started to thaw our fingers. Although so
near, the Marxkors’ house seemed like another
world. Set up on a proud hill, its yellow siding
would always beam with the coming of first
light, illuminating the differences between my
side street Francisca and their Lindsay Lane.
They woke up to cars waiting at a stoplight
and a 7-Eleven across the street. But with this
lack of solitude came many great things, such
as the presence of the Buddhist monk around
9:00 each morning.
“Boobist! Boobist! All the way from
Boobistland!” we’d shout into the window pane
of the front door, our noses pressed hard against its
smooth but smudgy surface. He would walk with
the utmost serenity, the smallest shuffling steps,
to the end of Lindsay Lane, where it cornered
with Shackelford, and then back again into the
depths of our imaginations. Oh, the places that he
came and went! We’d imagine him crossing vast
oceans and massive expanses of land in his orange
robes, tanning to a nice brown before getting to
the corner of Lindsay Lane and Shackelford,
and turning back around. Jeff, Joe and I would
ponder the purpose of his journey and come to
respect that cement corner as a haven for the
spiritually inclined. It seemed that at this corner
he received some sort of enlightenment before
turning around and returning to his antipodal
home.
Now that I look back on it, I imagine the
Marxkors’ house as my second home, the all-encompassing
destination each morning when my
parents went to work. John and Cheryl Marxkors
were my surrogate parents. John was my soccer
and baseball coach, and Cheryl looked after my
brother and me, along with her own four children,
Matt, Melissa, and the twinners, Jeff and Joe, my
two best friends throughout all of adolescence,
from 7:00 until 2:00 each day of the week except
Thursday, when my mom was off work. It was in
this home that I first experienced many elements
of the world—death, divorce, and some sort of
limbo.
The weird neighbors on the corner of Lindsay
Lane and Shackelford had flowers planted
in potting soil in a toilet in their backyard.
Daisies, I think. When I accidentally kicked
our soccer ball over their fence, I’d be forced
to enter this world of eerie wonder. Dropping
down slyly onto the crackling summer grass,
dried out and neglected, I’d carefully pass the
mystical assortment of gnomes in their red hats
and green shirts and enter the neighbors’ sad
attempt at a garden through a creaky, rusted
iron gate. It looked more like a jungle than a
garden, and it was all I could do not to sweat
from its tropical humidity and the anxiety that
steamed up inside of me. I would quickly rummage
through the weeded overgrowth with the
goalie gloves I borrowed from Jeff, who usually
played keeper, until I came across a fragment of
shiny white plastic, a piece of a puzzle which
formed our soccer ball. After quickly retrieving
it from the weeds that already started to
engulf it, I retraced my steps out of the garden
and past the goldfish pond, saluting the hearty
cluster of gnomes before climbing back over
the chain-link fence.

During winter the goldfish pond froze. No
attempt was made to retrieve the three goldfish.
On some of the warmer days of Christmas Break,
Jeff, Joe and I would bundle up according to
Cheryl’s winter regulations, and we’d stand with
our mittened hands linked in the chained-link
fence, lamenting the frozen goldfish. I don’t think
we fully appreciated the goldfish until they were
frozen. Then one day we went outside in jeans
and sweatshirts, Cheryl’s lesser regulations for
a coming spring, and the water bubbled with
the liveliness of three goldfish. They had been
resurrected, like Lazarus, we’d later learn, saved
and redeemed by the grace of God.
“He takes care of animals too, you know,”
said Melissa, shocked by our elation over the
resurrection of three goldfish. Her room was
covered in Precious Moments porcelain and
posters. “I knew they’d come back because I’ve
seen it before,” she said, stressing the I’s in all
of her wisdom and experience. She faithfully
believed in the saving right hand of the Father,
and we, mere first-graders, had not yet learned
prayers.
Four weeks later Melissa’s best friend, Megan
McKeating, died on our grade school’s gym
floor. Apparently the hole in her heart that was
supposed to be plugged came unplugged during
the sixth lap of an easy calisthenics workout, and
she tumbled to the dusty floor before the blue
and yellow home team benches. She never got
up. Megan’s parents cursed the school, knowing
it wasn’t the school’s fault, and Melissa cursed
God. The next morning at the Marxkors’ house,
Melissa skipped breakfast. She skipped school,
and Cheryl gave her time to cope, holding Melissa
preciously in her arms throughout the day
while we learned to read simple subject-verb
combinations and dressed down for dodge ball in
gym class. When Jeff, Joe and I came home after
school, Melissa was in the backyard looking at
the three goldfish, teary-eyed, her delicate fingers
fixed within the gaping holes of the chained-link
fence. We watched from afar as she bent her
head forward, touching it to the cold metal of
the fence, wondering, I guess, how God could
use his divine finger to warm the goldfish pond
with new life but not to plug the hole in her best
friend’s heart.
Megan’s death cut deep gashes into the
St. Ferdinand parish community. My parents
sent flowers to the funeral home. It was on a
Wednesday, so my mom was unable to attend.
Cheryl went with Melissa, and we were watched
by Matt, our school day cut short by Megan’s
absence. On that warm day at the beginning of
spring, Jeff, Joe and I echoed the movements
Melissa made in the backyard. We curled our kid
fingers through the chained-link fence, looking
at each other with the kinds of faces we had seen
on the Precious Moments porcelains, tight-lipped
and droopy-eyed, shocked that God wouldn’t at
least try to mend the holes.
Halfway through that summer, the last summer
that I would have to be watched over by a
babysitter, Cheryl and John filed for divorce. I
wasn’t there when they told the four children, but
I imagine it happening in their master bedroom,
where we once watched home videos of both of
our families on vacation in Gulf Shores.
John moved into an apartment about five
minutes down Shackelford. The four children
went to see him on the weekends. Sometimes
when neither parent had the time to take them to
or from their new home in the apartment complex,
they had to ride the bus. I saw them once, on the
way to my grandma’s house. Jeff and Joe waved,
Melissa stared sadly ahead, indifferent to the
honking or the honker, and Matt reluctantly led
them on, walking to the bus stop at the corner
of Shackelford and Lindsay Lane.
Ni c k Ni e h a u s
5

6
At Su n r i s e
Alex Orf
On the very edge of the horizon sat the faintest
hint of pink, defining the previously
formless skyline. Rachel and I stared intently at
it, as if believing that our collective focus would
accelerate its spread. Buried under a mess of
blankets, we sat huddled together, backs pressed
against the gray expanse of the stone reservoir
in Reservoir Park.
“Won’t be long now,” Rachel muttered. She
smiled at me, a bright smile that caught what little
light we had at just the right angle, giving her
face a warm orange glow. But soon her lip began
to tremble, and she pulled a patchwork quilt up
over her nose, curling into the fetal position and
looking out towards the light.
We discovered the reservoir—or rather we
had been introduced to it—on a night that had
been going nowhere. Out of feasible pursuits and
desperate to find somewhere, anywhere, to waste
our night, we followed a friend’s suggestion to
see the view. Eight of us went that first night in
February, and as we stood on the hill, backs to the
reservoir to escape the wind, Rachel and I were
left speechless by the brilliance of our city, neon
and fluorescent and radiant. From that perch, the
fast food chains and skyscrapers and dive bars
all meshed into a harmony of urban beauty.
“Can we keep it?” Rachel had asked hopefully,
as if the skyline were a stray puppy.
“Well, there’s no harm in trying,” I replied
through an amused grin, and in the month since
we had stolen away to visit Reservoir Park
whenever we could spare a minute. It became
a sanctuary, hallowed ground. Rachel said it
was the location, inside the city but far enough
removed to observe comfortably, and I had to
agree with her. There was a balance to it; it felt
right.
We could see red now, with orange in tow.
The buildings in the distance began to gain
dimension and color. I inhaled deeply, and the
sharp, frigid air scratched my throat, provoking
a cough. “You had to pick the coldest damn day
of the break, didn’t you? I’m going to catch my
death of frostbite if we’re out here much longer,”
I croaked at her mock-contemptuously.
She flashed a wicked smile for a moment,
then contorted her cheerful face into a stoic
shell and shrugged. “I don’t see where that’s
my problem,” she quipped, deadpan. “No one
forced you to come. Besides, this is the clearest
morning we’ve….” She trailed off when the
first flicker of golden yellow slipped above the
horizon and caught her eye.
It started suddenly, rising up to a single
point before stretching out along the horizon.
When the sun broke the surface, its rich, heavy
light trickled through the city streets, expanding
and creeping up the skyscrapers. Rachel slid in
close and fumbled under the blankets to find my
hand. As the sun fought to clear the horizon, the
light began advancing faster and faster until it
became a veritable flood. Only moments after
the sun separated itself from land the light hit
us and, for that brief second, the buildings, the
parks, Rachel and I—the whole city froze, gilded
in shimmering red-orange. I heard Rachel take a
breath, and the city slid back into its grays, tans,
and reds.
Resting my head against the concrete wall,
I looked over at her inquisitively. She gave me
a wide-eyed, almost startled look, and I couldn’t
help but smile. “So,” she said softly, airily. “What
should we do today?”
What couldn’t we do?

Ig n o r a n c e is Bl i s s
Kingsley Uwalaka
It’s hard to notice.
It’s very subtle.
But it’s there…
The glow in a child’s eyes,
The glow of naivety,
The glow of curiosity for the world around him.
I want it back.
I want to go back.
I want to feel again.
I want to swim upstream again,
Not worrying about river-born germs,
How stupid I must look,
Or that I’m getting nowhere.
I just want to enjoy the water again.
Ke v i n Ca s e y
7

8
Wh i t e Ho u s e s
Ben Farley
hopped out the side door and onto the concrete
steps of my house. The damp humidity
I
and glaring sun reminded me: It’s July in St.
Louis. Staring straight ahead, I looked longingly
across Bryncastle Place to the open field
spread across three backyards in my South
County neighborhood. Manicured Scottsdale
grass sloped gently downward across the field.
To my right, Castlegate Street led down a dark
alley, scarred with many potholes and black tar
streaks over the many years since it had been
built in the 1950s. On both sides of the road,
dark-brick homes stuck out of the ground, surrounded
by gnarling, twisting trees.
The “old neighborhood” frightened me with
its lonely darkness. I never saw any of the houses
of the old neighborhood up close. Once, when I
was five, I walked across the street and snuck up
to the building closest to my house. I never saw
much of the building, nor any of the other ones,
because of the high wooden fences that encased
them. They must have been hiding something,
which is why I walked over that one day. But
before I could come close to the truth, a dog began
roaring from behind the fence. I jumped away
from the lamp post I had hidden behind and ran
back home, crouching underneath the slide in my
backyard. Today, the old neighborhood looked
particularly evil, with long shadows underneath
the dense trees.
To the left of my house, Bryncastle continued
and made a right angle turn away from me. Down
there, the “new neighborhood,” barely ten years
old, began. The shiny aluminum-sided homes,
white-washed and perfectly square, arose from
the ground. The roofs, gray as dark rain clouds,
rose to the majestic peaks that make suburbanites
feel superior to flat-roofed apartment dwellers.
I envied all the rich kids, wearing Nike shoes
and Abercrombie shirts, who lived in those pure
white houses. I still wore the same Sambas my
mom bought me three years ago. We lived in
a house awkwardly placed at the corner of the
intersection of Castlegate and Bryncastle—added
in the seventies and different from all the others.
That pretty much summed up my existence. I
stuck out of any group like a bruised apple. My
love of National Geographic and inability to
talk about pop culture made me awkward even
around the small group of friends I had. Not many
nine-year-olds are interested in Grant’s improbable
victory over the Rebels at Chattanooga. I
knew about Alexander’s victory at Guagamela,
Bismarck’s realpolitik philosophy, and Keynesian
economics. To be short, I was Ted Koppel
in a ten-year-old’s body. The one normal thing
in life was soccer. I walked down my driveway
and towards the open field.
The field formed a long rectangle, perfect
for a soccer game. Almost everyday during the
summer, I would walk in the late afternoon, along
with my little brother who skipped and pestered
me along the way. On this day, I could see a whole
group forming. Kevin, a year older than me, with
a shock of reddish-blonde hair and a tall, athletic
build, was the leader. He always captained a
team, usually leading the league in scoring. The
Rozencrantz twins, two years younger than me,
also ran to join the games. The Guild boys also
played. Kevin told me the oldest, Shawn, had a
crush on Jennifer. I didn’t understand why he
wanted to crush her, but I kept watch on him
in case he tried. Jennifer, my cousin two years
older than me, was the greatest person I’d ever
met. Unencumbered by life’s pains, she walked
through life confident, sure of herself.
“Countdown.... Ten...nine...eight...!” Jennifer
began the infamous countdown preceding
her booming penalty kicks. In front of the goal
stood my team, all of us holding our sweaty
hands over our crotches. Jennifer would launch
those missiles towards us and we’d dive out of
the way, unwilling to stand against her shot...
against her.
“...two...one...blast off!” I felt the rush of

warm air as the ball whizzed by, inches from my
bulky hearing aid, and into the shredded net. We
all picked ourselves up, incredulous about what
we saw now for the 197th time, and set the ball
up at half-line. I never felt better than when I
played soccer. I was part of something, with other
people. I dissolved into the collective identity of
the team, losing my own personality. But after
the game, I had to return to my personality—who
I really was.
Don’t feel different; feel special,” Jennifer
“ gently whispered as she glided her hand
through my mangy hair as we sat in the family
room after that Saturday’s game.
“That’s crap,”
I replied with the
new word I heard
Dad yell as he
missed the nail
with his hammer
last week.
“Don’t say
that!”
“Well it’s
true, it’s crap...
crap, crap, crap,
crap! “
“Why do you
say that?”
“’Cause life
sucks!”
“No, it doesn’t...”
“YES, IT DOES!” Now the whimpering tears
came. “I don’t have...friends and...I...I’m…different
and...I hate myself.”
“Why?”
“Everyone else goes and plays and has fun.
Why can’t I do that? I want to be normal. I’d
give up this stupid ‘gifted brain’ just to be like
everyone else.” I sighed, finally able to admit
the hopelessness of my life.
“Holden, come with me.”
She pulled my sullen body off the couch and
we walked across the plush carpet of her living
room. The sun burned my eyes as we stepped
out of her white house and onto Bryncastle. We
walked down the street, completely abandoned
except for the Rozencrantz twins racing each
other on rollerblades. They sailed right by us
in a whirling cloud of fumes. Down the street,
Tim knocked his twin, Tom, to the ground and
grabbed hold of the finish line, the half knocked
over “25 MPH” sign. He jumped furiously in joy,
as Tom cried for Mommy near the sewer. Tim’s
skates slid out from under and his ass hit the
ground. He sat dumbfounded for a second, then
joined in his brother’s cries for Mommy. Good, at
least some things are fair. Jennifer and I walked
down the street and turned left onto the soccer
Mat t Na h l i k
field. I instantly
took my shoes
and socks off,
wanting to feel
the tingly green
grass between
my toes. I forgot
all my problems,
even why
we were there.
I was happy...
smiling...unscarred.
“Holden,”
she gently spoke
as we stood in
the middle of
the field, “look at those houses.” I stared at the
backs of all the white houses. I could see hers
down the block.
“That’s you, Holden. Or at least that’s where
you’ll be. Someday, that brain of yours is going
to make you great and rich. People will love you.
You won’t have any worries. Just white walls
and big screen TV’s.”
I almost said “That’s crap,” but there was
something about her, about her voice, her confidence,
that cajoled me into believing. Plus, I
thought she had grown sick of the incessant flowing
of “crap” from my mouth. Everyone told me
9

10
I had a bright future. I guess that’s what happens
when you can recite all the presidents in order
and name the atomic number of plutonium. But
I never felt like the white houses, except now,
with Jennifer.
“Now look at those houses.” She pointed
toward the row of houses in the old neighborhood.
“They’re all ugly and beat up. That’s what
you’re doin’ to yourself. Don’t end up like one
of those homes. You’ve got a future of white
homes, stick to it.”
“Where are you, Jennifer?”
She shrugged without
care. “Oh, I’m already at
those white houses. Never
had to deal with anything
bad or nothing. You don’t
have to either. All you have
to do is stay up, don’t worry.
It’ll all work out.”
Well, now I felt better.
Jennifer always made me
feel better. Nothing ever
bothered her. She never
cried or whined about anything.
She avoided anything
bad and upsetting. I wondered
if that’s what it felt
like to live in one of those
white houses—no worries
or problems. Jennifer had it easy.
What’s leukemia?” I asked my mom, tears
rising from the bottom of her eyes.
“ “It’s a cancer.”
“But Jennifer can’t have cancer, she’s not
old!”
The only people I ever saw with cancer
were old aunts and uncles. My uncle Fenton
had died when I was five. My parents told me
he had stomach cancer. I wondered why he had
swallowed a can. This was a time before I knew
the reality of cells slaughtering themselves in a
senseless war. I stood in the parlor (why do old
people always have parlors?) in a starchy white
shirt as the tall man in the same starchy white shirt
pronounced my uncle dead. I asked if I could ride
in the ambulance, since I wanted to be a doctor.
For some reason, the paramedic picked me up
and took me into the ambulance. I was so excited
to be in there, since I had never heard of anyone
else riding in an ambulance. He showed me all
the machines and tools inside the ambulance.
He walked to the front to talk to the driver for a
Pe t e r Ki d d
second, and that’s when I
lifted up the sheet covering
my Uncle Fenton. I stood
there, staring into the calm,
cold face of this old man I
barely knew. Suddenly, an
image of Jennifer with a
cold, dead face now flew
into my imagination and
froze there like a movie on
pause. I cried and bawled
as my mother, hiding her
own grief, gently rocked
me back and forth.
The next day, I stood
outside Jennifer’s massive
white house, a building
cold and imposing. I saw
my Uncle Fenton’s face on
the aluminum siding, and
rushed towards the porch.
The doorbell rang, one of those artificial bells
meant to convey warmth, failing miserably.
“Oh, hi, Holden,” my aunt, gaunt and pale,
asked without any force. She stood lifeless for a
while, not looking at me, but through me. I stood,
slightly trembling, unsure of what to do.
“Is Jennifer...is she...can I see Jennifer?” I
haltingly asked.
“I’m not sure she wants to see anyone,
Holden. She’s not feelin’ good. I just...”
I snuck past her and walked across the plush
carpet and upstairs. I walked gingerly, not wanting
to disturb the deadly silence in the building.

I walked up to her door, scarred with the white
streaks left behind by a torn off Madonna poster,
and knocked. No answer. I knocked again.
“Jennifer, are you in there?”
“Whaddya want?”
I just wanted to see how you’re doing?”
“FINE!” followed by painful coughs.
“I was just wondering... maybe you could
come outside?”
“No.”
“But Jennifer...”
“No! OK, No! I don’t want to. Why should
I? I don’t have a life anymore. Or did you not
hear...I got leukemia.” I could hear the sobs
through the thin wooden door. “Just leave me
alone, I don’t want to be near anyone.”
I ran down the stairs, banging my knee off
the post at the top of the stairs, and ran outside. I
ran past the Rozencrantz boys ding-dong-ditching
the neighbors, and collapsed on the soccer
field.
I cried. I screamed at God, the old man
with a beard who always answered our prayers
if we tried hard enough, or at least that’s what
Aunt Mary said. I looked over to the ugly brick
houses, tears flowing down my face. Somewhere
in my psyche, I blamed those buildings. I saw
the house, the one that scared me when I was
five. I wasn’t scared now, just angry. I hated the
darkness of the house, the loneliness that I felt
once again. Now that darkness had overtaken
Erin. The high, wooden fence rose up, not allowing
any healing light into the darkness. I hated
the house, the darkness, the loneliness, myself.
I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I lifted my body off the sod and ran towards
the fence like a bull towards a matador. I stepped
on my ankle as I charged forward, but ignored the
pain. I leapt up off my left foot and slammed my
right leg, followed by the left, into the surprisingly
strong wooden fence. I fit the fence line
under my arms and awkwardly pinned myself
against the barrier, ready to curse at the evil that
the house was. I breathed in a mighty breath...
and saw a girl in a pink dress playing near a
revered oak tree. Startled, she looked up at me
with a terrified face that quickly dissolved into
a bright, toothy smile. Her puffy cheeks rose up
and turned crimson with happiness. She began to
giggle and flail her arms in the way that toddlers
do.
I just hung there, stupefied while I watched
this beautiful girl playing with a Tickle-Me-Elmo
doll at the bottom of a wooden, hand-made playground.
She cooed and laughed at me, showing
the hope of a new life. After a few minutes, she
rose up haltingly, gathered up her treasures, and
walked toward the closed-in patio. As I lifted my
eyes following her, the sun’s fading orange rays
bounced off some beautiful, metal wind chimes.
The sun slowly sank behind the distant church
spire, and I saw beyond the brick houses a wide
green field that flowed right up to the horizon.
After what felt like a day, I remembered I
was hanging on a wooden fence and the wood
was digging into my underarms. I hopped down,
landing on my twisted ankle, and sat against
the fence. My brain churned with thoughts and
images that I couldn’t describe. There actually
was beauty in that house. Beyond it, the sun
looked brighter and warmer than I ever thought.
So, there’s actually hope there. Not even the old
neighborhood is hopeless. What does that mean?
What do I do? All that time I limped back towards
the white houses. My self-absorbed anger slipped
away and the real world, filled with all its pain
and joy, rushed back. Looking at one of the
white houses, I noticed the paint had begun to
chip off the lower sidings. I looked over at the
pre-assembled plastic playground and felt empty.
The pure white houses, with all the nice-looking
but soulless accessories, no longer seemed real
to me. I looked back at the open field, the old
neighborhood, the setting sun, and now knew
what to do.
“Jennifer,” I yelled as I hobbled along, “guess
what I saw!”
11

Fr o m Bo y t o Ma n a n d Ba c k Ag a i n
Shane Lawless
I climbed atop the mountain till I reached the peak
Hoping the higher altitude would give me clear vision
If I raised myself above the throngs.
But all I did was lose my head in the clouds, clouding my vision.
I clothed myself in the glorious sun, shining for all to see,
Hoping the light would destroy any blemish on me.
But all it did was blind me with brilliance while
Allowing others to see my faults.
12
I hid my countenance behind a porcelain mask,
Hoping all would admire my divine perfection.
But all I did was lose my place in the crowd among other masks,
Fading into the fog of obscurity.
I picked up the megaphone, raising it to my mouth. I spoke,
Hoping to share my inspired words with the world.
But all I did was let everyone know in an echoing voice
That I had nothing to say.
(It’s easy for a boy to learn to be a man)
Climbing down that mountain, I gazed at its majestic beauty.
Tossing aside my blanket of light, I find comfort cloaked in shadows.
Removing my mask, I see my imperfections as testaments to my humanity.
Turning off the megaphone, I learn to find wisdom in my own silence.
By descending from my lofty perch, I could see beyond the horizon.
By dwelling in shadows, I outshined the sun.
By displaying my disfigurements, I made myself beautiful.
By discussing in whispers, I heard those secrets whispered to me.
(Much harder for a man to relearn to be a boy)

De s e rt
Henry Goldkamp
The burning heat of the sun cascades down his
weathered face, waking the sleepy drifter
from his uncomfortable bed of dirt. Drenched in
sweat, his tearing eyes and chafed lips burn. He
can taste the salt on his tongue. Scorpion tracks
surround the makeshift camp, reminding him of
his first trial with the serpent. And even though
he is starving, he knows he must not give into
temptation for his Father’s sake. His mind starts
to wander and comes to the conclusion lizards
would probably not taste that bad after all, as
long as they were cooked. The morning sun
brings him back to reality, which, even hotter
in the afternoon, is starting to beat down on his
already burnt body. The exhausted man begins
the daily routine of meditation and prayer to ease
his weary mind, to aid his spiritual recovery.
He looks towards the horizon, searching for
any sign of life, any sign of shade from the
blistering heat. He discovers a slightly darker
spot silhouetted against the bright, blinding
dirt reflecting the sunlight off in the distance.
Could this be an oasis? He runs to the figure
as quickly as his calloused feet can take him
there. Snake skins strewn across the desert are
picked up by the wind, crossing the hopeful
vagabond’s path.
He reaches the destination only to be disappointed—it
is nothing but the corpse of a dead
camel. He prays for the strength in the upcoming
temptations he must face. He knows what he
must do, but he also knows it will be hard. He
wonders when the serpent will next challenge
him again. What will the temptation be? Vultures
soar overhead, thinking this man is weak and will
soon be nothing more than dead flesh to prey
upon. The desert breeze runs through his long
brown hair, matted with sweat and dirt. Soon
the wind is blowing all around him, picking up
the dirt along with it, and a thick cloud of dust
surrounds him. The wind suddenly stops, and
all is numbingly quiet. As the dust settles, a
black snake appears hissing at his feet. Its cold,
unforgiving eyes peer up at him, the sense of
confidence glistening in its coiled posture. With
a sigh and a deep, sinking feeling in his stomach,
the spiritual exile confronts the serpent.
13
An t h o n y Sigillito

14
At t e n t i o n
Jonathan E. D. Huelman
It was because it was standing up so straight
that he noticed it. There were many other
things about an unlabeled, shining, silver aerosol
can sitting conspicuously in the middle of
a parking lot downtown that could have been
noticed by an average middle-age, middle-class
white male stepping out of his Corolla towards
his miserable job in an equally miserable office
complex, but he noticed it because of how it
stood: nice and straight, instead of rolled over
on its side as
if it had fallen
off a delivery
truck. Defiant
and gleaming
in the morning
sun, this nondescript
can of
whatever had
reached out
and grabbed
him simply
by being
there. At that
instant, with
the door to his
car hanging
open and his
casual-Friday-attired leg still on the floor near
the pedals, he felt something that he longed to
make others feel. This paltry can had done in
ten milliseconds what he had been striving to
do for ten years, so he took it with him.
He got to his cubicle and set the can down
and began to work. Work was work, and that was
it. His boss was bossy, and his co-workers were
really just mechanized drones fueled by coffee
and chitchat. He strongly believed that nothing
short of the Apocalypse would stir these simpletons’
souls, not even for a moment. Nothing
had ever excited them and nothing ever would,
Lo u i s Na h l i k
and they were fine with that. But he wasn’t fine
with it; he wasn’t fine with anything about his
workplace. But instead of taking drastic measures
and burning the place down, he just sat there and
watched as nothing happened all around him.
He spent most of the morning down in the
mail room laboring through the confusion of a
delivery mix-up. At lunch, he took the elevator
back up to his floor, and there it was. That same
can was still sitting on his desk in his cubicle,
staring at him. He stared back, bewildered that
such a simple human creation could mock him so
maliciously. He sat down facing it with his brown
paper lunch sack at rest in his lap. Feeling undermined,
he
hunched over
and demanded
that the can
stop. More
than anything,
he wanted to
stop this can
from unsettling
his mind. He
turned away
in his standardissue
swivel
chair, laid his
lunch on some
open space on
his desk, and
began to eat,
ignoring the can. As he slowly chewed his cold
store-bought sandwich, he felt it boring into the
back of his skull, working its way into the deepest
curves of his mind. He stopped chewing to
take a sip of the grape soda that would have been
coffee if it weren’t for his co-workers’ need for
every drop of hazelnut-flavored caffeine. As he
sipped, he abruptly became disgusted with the
undistinguished way he was drinking and suddenly
tilted the can vertically, letting the soda
cascade past his taste buds and into his throat,
with some of it splashing free onto his white
casual-Friday shirt.

Determination has a funny way of messing
with time. This time, to his delight, it caused
the clock to fly forward, making hours flash by
in minutes. Since his mind was already back in
his house plotting, it made sense that his body
would feel an irrepressible desire to catch up to
it. And so he sat in his mismatched, arid kitchen,
with the can standing on his counter top. He had
already planned what to do, and was now planning
how to do it: when and where. His mind
almost couldn’t see it coming, he was thinking
so far ahead. At night, when the last neighbor’s
lights had been snuffed out and the last stray dog
had whined its goodnight to the bleak city moon,
he would set upon the northern wall of his sad
house on a deserted corner. This was the solid
brick wall which would tomorrow morning face
the world with the acrimonious message:
s tay t u n e d f o r m o r e c o r r u p t i o n
The word choice, he thought, was important.
Since he was a good citizen who always voted
and never spoke out, the neighbors whom the
policemen would question around 9 a.m. would
never suspect him of writing such an obviously
political message. The blame would fall squarely
on some unnamed and unnoticed emotionally
challenged youth who would escape unpunished.
They would never notice the commanding nature
of the graffiti, and they would never even notice
that they hadn’t noticed. Whether he had taken
up the burden of some forgotten man or that of
his own selfish desires would never be noticed,
either. His anonymous handiwork, not only a
smack in the face to an age-old enemy of his,
but also a tip of the hat to a newfound psychosis
driven by the need to stand up straight, was in
fact all just a product of a universal accident:
the dropping of an unlabeled aerosol can in the
middle of a parking lot downtown.
15
St e p h e n Ke l l e y

Response t o a n a g e t h at f i n d s it p l e a s i n g t o
o v e r u s e “r a n d o m ” a n d t o misuse “a b s t r ac t”
Henry Goldkamp
You’re so random! That was random.... RANDOM
PIX!@#$@$!@!!89~~@! I

Ju s t Li k e Ol d Ti m e s
Jake Kessler
The sky was a cold, cloudy grey, and it
started to rain.
“Shit.”
We had been standing out in the alley behind
the building for twenty minutes now, waiting for
Rick to pull around in the van. Eddie pulled his
suit jacket more tightly around him and shuddered.
“Cold out here.” He shuddered again.
“Shoulda worn a coat,” I said.
“Didn’t think we’d be out here so long,” he
replied. “What’s takin’ him so long anyway?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Well, what do you think he’s doin’ in there,
anyway?”
“Eddie, I’ve still got no idea. I didn’t know
when you asked me five minutes ago, I didn’t
know when you asked me five seconds ago, and
chances are that I still won’t know if you ask me
five minutes from now, which I know you will
because you can’t keep your damn mouth shut
long enough to keep the food from fallin’ out of
it.”
“Christ Almighty, I was just tryin’ to make
some conversation.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not helping.”
“He’s just been in there so long, I don’t
know what he could be doin’.” He walked over
to an old torn-up sofa someone had pitched out
into the alley, started to sit down, then changed
his mind and shuffled back over to the loading
dock. “’Sides,” he went on, “It’s goddamn cold
out here.”
Rick turned away and drifted out of the
office, past the smiling receptionist, and
into the hall.
We had always been buddies, Rick and I. I
was the smart, quiet kid who lived down
the street; he was the unruly rich kid with an
affinity for chaos. God only knows when we
first met, but in my earliest memory of him we
couldn’t have been older than nine or ten. It
was hot and sticky that summer, and I know it
must have been Tuesday when Rick and I stole
the bus. I know it was a Tuesday because on
Tuesdays Rick’s father always went down to
Vince’s place to count the money people had
blown at the track and the bar over the weekend.
Vince had made a small fortune pandering to the
more unsavory elements in the neighborhood,
and while nothing he did was illegal, it wasn’t
anything you’d brag about to your mother either.
Rick’s dad kept the books because it made
the C.P.A. feel like he was living on the edge.
Compared to most accountants, he was.
Anyway, with Rick’s dad down at Vince’s
and my parents at a funeral in Texas, we were
left completely unsupervised. Leaving two bored
kids to their own devices on a hot summer day
is a lot like driving past a gas station during a
dry spell and throwing a lit cigarette out of the
window. By the time you realize what you’ve
just done, you don’t know whether it would be
better to go back to put out the fire or to floor it
and drive far, far away, but you know either way
something bad is going to happen to someone.
That day, nobody bothered to put out the fire.
The rain was coming down harder now, and
I could see my breath dense as the soot
pouring out of the stacks of the car factory a few
blocks away. The neighborhood, usually filled
with blaring car horns and colorful obscenities,
had all of the eerie silence of a funeral parlor
without any of the bad music or tasteless decorations.
Thick, white steam poured out of the
gutters and manholes, covering the ground in the
same kind of fog that was always rolling around
graveyards in horror movies. Eddie sidled up to
Peter and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, buddy, how’s it goin’?”
Peter remained motionless, staring out into
the rain.
“Buddy?”
17

18
He looked as if he were just part of the
landscape, just another fixture poking up out of
the broken asphalt, immutable.
“C’mon, buddy, say somethin’, would
ya?”
Peter did not move.
“Fine, be like that.” Eddie shuffled back
over to the loading dock. “Whaddya suppose
he’s doin’ in there, anyway?”
The corridor was endless, an infinite progression
of sickly pale fluorescent light bulbs
flickering towards the vanishing point where
they met
the dirty
l i n o l e u m
tiles and
the bare,
stained drywall.
A red
exit sign
promised
an escape
ahead, but
he saw it
as no more
than a hollow
mockery.
He realized
now
that nothing out there was really any different
than things were in here, and that no change of
venue could erase that horrific revelation. Two
security guards sprinted towards him, but he
drifted on, impervious to their searching eyes,
their questioning minds. He passed through
untouched as they ran by him, back towards
the dingy office. He drifted on, impervious,
untouched.
As usual, Rick came up with the plan. The
bus stopped at the end of the block three
times every weekday. His dad got on in the
morning and off on the 4:30, leaving us with
the 11:20. Every day, without fail, the heavyset
He n ry Go l d k a m p
woman who drove the bus pulled up to the stop
then got out and went into the convenience store
on the corner, where she deliberated for twenty,
sometimes even thirty minutes on whether she
would prefer to eat herself to death with a Ho-
Ho and a Big Gulp or a pound of beef jerky and
a few donuts. The plan was simple: bus lady
comes out, we go in. Foolproof.
The bus pulled up right on time. It was
completely empty except for the driver and a
tattered-looking old man asleep in the back row.
The driver stood up, sweat literally dripping from
her formless pink face and splattering on her uniform,
leaving
black
s t a i n s
on whatever
they
t o u c h e d .
She walked
inside.
We sprang
from our
h i d i n g
place behind
a gas
pump and
sprinted towards
the
bus like it
was Christmas morning. I did an overly theatrical
dive into the open door, sliding under the wheel
to take my designated place at the pedals. Rick
took the wheel. Since neither of us had any idea
of what to do next, we emulated the only driving
instructor we had: television. “Floor it,” Rick
yelled, attracting the attention of the bus driver,
who was filling out her Lotto slip at the counter.
I pressed down hard on the smaller of the two
huge pedals with my hand and the bus jerked
forward. We didn’t make it far, of course, only
a block and a half until we had a run-in with a
phone pole, and then everything came apart with
a sickening crunch.

It was getting late. I couldn’t see the smoke
from the factory anymore, and the soft patter
of raindrops on the cheap tin sheet over the loading
dock was giving way to the sharp, insistent
pounding of hail. Peter still stood rock steady in
the alley, while Eddie sat huddled up against the
wall, shivering in earnest now. His teeth knocked
against each other as he spoke. “I just wanna
know what we’re doin’ here, is all.”
I sighed. “I’m here ’cause Rick happens to be
a friend of mine, and he asked me to come along
’cause he’s in trouble. You’re here ’cause you
insisted on tagging along like you always do, and
Pete over there
is here ’cause
he’s Peter, an’
that’s what he
does. For the last
goddamn time, I
don’t know why
Rick is takin’
so long, but I’d
expect he’ll be
more than happy
to tell you all
about it when he
comes out.”
“What’s the
deal with that
guy, anyway?”
“Rick?”
“Nah, the other guy.”
“Like I said, Peter is Peter. I dunno; he’s
always been quiet ever since I met him years
ago. Me, him, and Richie go way back.”
“Uh hunh.” Eddie nods, but I can tell he
isn’t really paying attention. He pulls out a pack
of cigarettes and lights one up.
“Those things kill, you know.”
Peter came to us one stormy night straight
from the Old Testament. A fight had broken
out in the bar between one of the regulars, Eddie,
and some big shot from Manhattan who he
owed money. Eddie proceeded to make references
to his creditor’s mother, at which point
the brawl broke out. I was trying to pry apart a
German immigrant from a Texan Communist
when I noticed Peter’s massive form blocking
the doorway. Without a word, he marched into
the room, grabbed the Manhattanite by the collar,
and stared at him. Without a word, Peter
let go of him and watched as he fled the room.
We’ve been close ever since.
He had always said that he’d rather believe
in God and be wrong than believe in nothing
and be right, but now Rick knew better.
He smiled for
He n ry Go l d k a m p
the first time
in days, maybe
for the first time
since that summer
so long ago.
He’d just have
to let him figure
it out for
himself.
They found
me where
I had left off,
curled up under
the wheel. I was
a mess: broken arm, three cracked ribs, blood
everywhere. Rick was even worse off, but neither
of us could compare to the old man who
had been sleeping in the back. He must have
been getting up to shout at us when we collided
with the pole. His body was thrown clear of
the bus, straight through the back door, and he
catapulted through the empty space until he
made contact headfirst with an unyielding wall.
I was out cold, but Rick saw the whole thing.
He didn’t speak again for seven years.
W
“ e’re going to be late, aren’t we?”
Eddie looked absolutely miserable. His
thin hair was plastered to his head, his dress shirt
had gone transparent, and his skin had the same
19

20
scaly texture as a football. He rocked back and
forth, legs hugged close to save what warmth
he could. The smoke from his cigarette was indistinguishable
from the steam that poured from
his mouth and nose, and his voice was drowned
out by the crash of ice on metal.
“Would you really want to show up to a
classy affair lookin’ like that, anyway?”
He sighed this time. “Nah, I guess not. I just
want to get outta here.”
“Really?”
He stared at me. A faint metallic click, and
then the door opened.
After he started talking again, Rick fell in
with what my mother called “the wrong
crowd,” and I always felt obligated to keep an
eye on him. He would go missing for weeks at
a time, only showing up again when he needed
money or a place to hide. Took a toll on his old
man and his heart condition more than anyone.
After his father died, he got a job collecting
for Vinny, who I had been working for since
graduation. The work seemed to help. Rick
was never happy in the traditional sense of the
word, but he came as close to it as I had seen
since the accident. His absences grew shorter
and shorter until they eventually stopped. Vinny
treated him like a son, and when he passed away
it was Rick he left the business to.
The end of his journey in sight, Rick darts
out into the alley, positively gleeful now.
The loudmouth from the bar sits curled up in
a corner while he leans against a pole, a stark
black silhouette against the icy curtain.
The crack of Peter’s .45 is lost in the infernal
din of the hailstorm, as are the next two
shots. The hail comes to a stop and the corner
of his mouth imperceptibly moves up a fraction
of an inch as he walks towards the van.
Al e x Gr m a n

Su n s e t
Peter Lucier
As I walk home from work, the world slides
through my vision like the opening screen
shot of some chick flick. I’d stare at my shoes,
but every time my head drops I get a whiff of
the store, and I’m pretty sick of smelling like
that shithole. The sun is down just enough to
sparkle red and gold across the tops of the
trees, the oppressive heat of mid-day gone,
leaving just the sinking warmth that gets deep
inside you. Walking home was feeling pretty
good, (better than being home), so I reminded
myself not to walk so fast. Where was I rushing
to anyway?
The comforts of home. All those folksy singers
always sang about wanting to come home,
“Ho-omeward bound, I wish I wa-as.” Was no
one ever content to sit out on the range and watch
the sun go down?
Looking up through the trees, the sky breaks
into soft-edged pieces like stained glass through
the overhanging branches, a swirl of blue and
purple.
Home, where it’s shit and sympathy that get
piled up in front of you, a whole warm homemade,
artery-clogging apple pie of lies that you
get your face shoved into, so that after a week
of it you just want to stand up in the middle of
church and scream at the pastor, who insists that
you patiently take the troubles of this world, week
in and week out.
Out there, in the real world, you get reality
shoved in your face, and the truth hurts, at least
I’m told. But at least it’s the truth… doesn’t that
count for something?
Laughing, I wonder what someone would
think about this little conversation I’m having
with myself. “What’s the matter, boy, don’t you
love America? Eat it up with a spoon… or else.
Or else all the good ol’ boys’ll call ya homasexchual,
or a crazy, or a commie.”
I’ve stopped walking. I’ve stopped really
paying attention to what I’m looking at.
The whole world is just a snapshot. Drag your
sagging, overweight, white-collar ass to work
everyday, so you can go home at night and be
greeted with a botox smile from your third wife
and two step-kids. “Send me to war,” I think,
“cause, and pardon my French, ‘Eff that.’” Who
wants that anyway? If you’re average, school
scares you out of your pants for fear of failing,
and if you’re smart, they dangle a carrot in front
of you, promising… what? A two car garage,
in the ‘burbs, monogrammed wine glasses, his
and her towels, and cable TV? What they’re
really advertising is safety. All the rest is just
a bunch of crap to keep us from thinking about
our MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING LIVES.
Safety’s what’s offered, safety from “all them
scary colored people running around at night
with guns, and…God forbid…drugs!” Is that
what we’ve traded our lives for?
All the rhetorical diarrhea I’ve been spewing
floats away like a bad dream when I catch sight
of this angel, rocking in a porch swing in front
of a white two-story across the street.
Holy…Christ, she’s pretty. She’s got this
little book in her lap, and her face all scrunched
up, staring at the pages. Oblivious to this crippled
skeleton of humanity staring at her, she’s patiently
catching the last bit of sunlight on the
pages. There she is, just a-sittin’, so pretty as you
please, a couple wisps of her golden brown hair
hanging over her face, slipped out of the rubber
band which holds the rest back in a tight pony
tail. She’s got on those short-shorts that always
come out in the summer, and her legs are pulled
up on the swing, and all I can see is the golden
smooth skin, real soft in the light. The sun’s barely
pushing a few gold and orange beams through
the trees now, and there’s this smell, like summer
in the air, warm dirt and old peanut shells…
I’m almost drunk off it. Christ I’m right about
to go over there, to this girl I don’t even know,
because I just got to tell her how pretty she is, I
don’t know, but something about walking over
there seems like just the right thing to do….
21

Before my feet can carry me though, I
remember that I’m still wearing my uniform—
scuffy brown dress shoes and thick knee-length
crew socks, soaking my feet in sweat. My shirt
still smells like the store, ammonia and bleach
and that sawdust that janitors throw on little
kids’ puke. Somehow my trance is broken. That
feeling of “rightness” abandoned me about three
steps towards her. I’m just disgusted all over
again. What exactly was I going to do anyway,
just walk up and say, “hey!” like some doofus?
“You crazy old loon,” I think to myself, “you
thought you’d found something?” Nervously
glancing around to see if anyone’s watching
me, I wonder how out of place I must look. If
you’ve never used your feet to get around in
your life, here’s an interesting truth for you: if
you’re moving, no one notices you, you’re just
another commuter with someplace to go, but the
second you stop, you’re a sore thumb sticking
out. Everybody’s so damn set on getting where
they need to go, eyes on the road or their feet,
that there is something about someone taking a
break that seems almost...diseased.
My feet are walking again, and looking back
over my shoulder, she slowly pans out of view
like some bad romance flick. I look down at my
shoes and get a whiff of that shithole. I need a
shower.
22
He n ry Go l d k a m p

Gr av e d i g g e r
Kyle Kloster
Driving home that night, I clicked my
headlights on and off, watching the world
disappear for an instant and then return safely,
the same as before. After the last turn before
my neighborhood I flicked them off again, and
when the revealing lights flashed back on, the
wide eyes of a doe glinted back from the sidewalk
fifty feet in front of me. I jumped a little,
involuntarily, and coasted the last leg home
through the fog of a dazed mind, my thoughts
slow with shock and wonder. Who would hit
a deer and then leave the animal’s body right
on a sidewalk corner, right next to someone’s
home—where children, who may not have even
seen any relatives die yet, live?
The dead animal was only a quarter-mile
from my house, the closest I’ve ever seen road
kill to my home (they seem to get closer every
time). Before I pulled into my garage, I resolved
to go back with a shovel, dig a hole not far from
the road, and bury the poor creature to protect
its corpse and the people who drove by, those
who saw but forgot seconds later the lonely and
cruel demise of something more innocent than
any of us.
I parked down the street from it and zipped
up my coat after getting out of the car—it was
the coldest night of the month, but I was warm
inside two coats and a pair of gloves. I walked
with purpose in each step, holding a shovel and
a trash bag in my hands. As I approached it, I
could see the doe’s entire body intact, and it
looked as if it was napping with open eyes. I
stopped several feet from it, bewildered at how
different it looked from every stuffed deer, lawn
ornament, or picture I had ever seen. This was
the closest I had ever looked at life.
A pair of halogen eyes flashed from down
the road, and as they neared me they slowed
down as though to stop and stare. I felt almost
embarrassed standing next to this dead deer. A few
smears of blood gleamed on the street, invisible
until I crouched down for examination. I found
no breaks in the animal’s hide or wet patches of
fur. Its legs looked locked, frozen at attention to
whatever harsh superior commanded her now,
and its face held fast in confused awareness,
eyes open with the hopeless awe and despair
of having spied from afar the human world of
daunting unfamiliarity. I took off a glove and
sneaked a pet, amazed at the yielding flesh and
soft, cold fur. Another car revved a ways down
the road, and I shot up, still embarrassed by my
position. After it passed, I threw the trash bag
around my arms, guarding myself from blood
and other impurities of dead things, and bent
down to pick up the body. I tugged, but gave up
instantly, shocked at the sandbag weight of the
carcass and its statuesque inflexibility. It was
smaller than grown humans I had given piggy
back rides, but I could not lift it.
Headlights blinked closer through trees not
far down the road, and I moved away a few feet,
ashamed. Alone again, I quickly fit the trash bag
over my hands and dragged it across the pavement
by its hooves, aiming for a ditch on the
other side where the body would at least keep
out of sight and reach of neighborhood kids. I
frantically heaved the doe, like a mulch sack, to
the ground there, too scared to dig a hole, and
sprinted back to the comfort of my car. It was
all I had the courage to do.
23

24
Me t r o
Tony Bertucci
Metropolitan Deed Recording, Incorporated.
That’s what it’s called. But don’t
let the name fool you, it’s not exactly a bastion
of corporate standards as the title might suggest.
It’s not even that metropolitan if you ask me.
It’s a weed in the rich industrial lawn off Page,
a crack in the pavement. A person’s liable to
drive right by it if they didn’t know any better,
and if I could give that person some advice, I’d
tell them to quit looking for it and go home—it’s
probably not worth the time.
I worked
there last summer.
The name
f o o l e d m e .
I could just
imagine writing
those four
sophisticated
words on a job
resume, and
I had always
wanted to be
“incorporated”
in something
anyway. My
first day, the
boss explained
to me just exactly
“what we do” here at the Metropolitan
Deed Recording, Incorporated. “What we do”
involved processing every single record of land
distribution or exchange that occurred in St.
Louis. I was an integral part of the “Hub of the
American Dream,” and I would be going down
in the basement with Neil to get “oriented to the
system.” Getting “oriented” with creepy Neil
down in the dark under-dwellings of the office
brought a number of scenarios to mind, many
of them disturbing, but I suppressed my urge to
flee and gave myself up in hopes that the walls
would be thin enough that the others could hear
my screams.
We descended the stairs. The “Hub of the
American Dream” turned out to be a sordid array
of congruent cubicles juxtaposed throughout the
dimly lit, cheaply carpeted basement.
“I’m gonna show you how to make some
copies,” Neil yawned. “I just started working
here a couple weeks ago, so I probably won’t
be too much help. It’s like the blind leadin’ the
blind.”
I let out a very thin and awkward chuckle,
hoping creepy Neil couldn’t see through my shallow
gestures of pitiful friendliness. I saw a head
Lo u i s Mo n n i g
pop up from a
nearby cubicle
from the corner
of my eye, but
when I looked
over they had
vanished. I was
being watched
and I knew it.
The basement
dwellers were
peering through
their cubicles
like suspicious
natives as I
marched by, trying
my best to
seem oblivious
to their scrutiny.
“It’s really not hard at all,” said Neil. I stared
through the steam rising from Neil’s coffee cup at
the blurry, horribly mundane images of computer
monitors and paper trays. It was making my head
spin, but I looked on nonetheless in captivated
silence.
“What are you lookin’ at, kid?” Neil broke
my trance. “You’re creepin’ me out a little,” he
giggled—a weird, raspy, grizzled giggle. Though
I had imagined it an impossible task, I had evi-

dently managed to creep out creepy Neil, the
connoisseur of creepy basement orientation.
By the next week I had become quite unpleasantly
oriented to the basement workings.
The squeamish mole-people of the cubicles
began to venture out and talk to me, showing
their broadly weird idiosyncrasies. They told
stories of the world up above, where it was still
light and warm. Even the coffee tasted better,
they said as they mulled around and tried to act
as busy as possible. Todd told me stories of his
days traveling with the national Judo team. Bill
told me stories of Todd’s mental instability. I
became addicted to coffee and developed an
odd affinity for
rubber bands. I
was reluctantly
being assimilated
into the
family.
In a couple
of months I
would be heading
off to college,
starting
a new chapter,
opening new
doors, and all
the rest of those
cheesy slogans
on the pamphlets
they send
out. I had gotten in to the college I wanted to go
to, or at least where I thought I wanted to go. My
last semester of high school had whirred by in a
complacent lump of uneasiness, the byproduct
of a relatively passive college selection process.
I knew where I wanted to go to only by lack of
preference. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just lacked
the prerequisites to make an informed decision
about what will ultimately dominate the rest of
my life, and now I found myself hurtling headlong
into the fray of the adult world. I figured a job
at Metro might clear some things up, but so far
the bizarre world of the basement only further
glazed my vision, like looking through the steam
from Neil’s coffee cup.
I would hang out in the break room a lot with
a guy named Jeff. He was in his early thirties, a
pure child of the ’80s, still clinging to his teenage
vernacular. The abominable pop music of
his time drove him to death-metal rock, and he
proudly brandished his crusty black, guitar-laden
t-shirts around the office. It was always an odd
sight to see him walking around the computers
and copy machines, dressed like he was going
to see a show at The Pit or something. Jeff and I
took a lot of breaks and just sat there, coffee cups
in hand, gathering the energy for short bursts of
Lo u i s Na h l i k mumbled conversation.
The
only thing that
spurred us from
our wretched
haunches was
t h e h e a v y
footsteps of
the boss coming
down the
stairs.
“Yeah man,
the only thing
worse than Eddie
Money’s
music is—”
Creak, creak,
“—Uhh.....
yeah, I found the Plat from Tower Park but
there was a vague land description in the deed,
will you pull it and copy it for me?” Jeff was
an expert at imminent-boss-presence-recovery.
I could feel the boss shifting his attention over
my way. By this time I knew the drill.
“Yeah, definitely, I’ve got a few more to
make for some people down here, but I’ll get
that to you before lunch,” I said, confident in
my abilities as Jeff’s apprentice.
“Have you guys seen Todd lately?” the boss
asked.
25

26
Like always, he must have bought the routine.
“No, man. Sorry,” Jeff said, though he surely
wasn’t sorry at all. Jeff was the ranking officer of
Todd-evasion techniques, a science that I hadn’t
come close to mastering. Todd’s presence, when
unavoidable, was excruciating. Todd loved to
spin yarns, really bad yarns, and he didn’t really
spin them but rather wrapped the coarse fabric
around your helpless throat in a choking frenzy
of unrelenting bullshit. Every word out of his
mouth was fiction, but not the sort of whimsical,
uplifting fiction everyone enjoys hearing every
once in a while. His stories hit you in a whirlwind
of awkward distastefulness, always followed
by an uncomfortable silence and the sound of
babies crying in
the distance.
O n t h e
Thursday of
my third week,
Jeff and I were
sitting idly in
the break room,
doing our usual
thing.
“You hear
the big news?”
he asked.
I looked
at him, unenthused.
“No.”
“The boss
is going out of town tomorrow,” he grinned
mischievously. “You know what that means...”
Slightly more enthused but a little disturbed
by Jeff’s glancing grin, I responded, “Actually
no, I don’t know what that means. Some kind
of hazing ritual?”
“No, man, it’s Barbecue Friday. Bring your
sandals, we’ll go out back and grill some burgers.”
“Grill them on what, the sidewalk?”
“No, man, we got a grill out back.”
“Why would there be a grill out back?”
“I don’t know man, I just work here.”
I sat there thinking Jeff was being a little
liberal with that last statement. Then I realized
I was once again transfixed by the coffee steam
emanating from my Styrofoam cup.
“I better go do something,” I said, and I
walked off to the copiers.
We were standing out back in our flip- flops,
the grill smoking gently in the summer
heat. Small bush-like trees squirmed out of the
ground around us, their natural pattern of growth
contorted by an array of mechanistic garbage
littering the ground. A thin layer of sand lined
the surface, gritty under the sliding shuffles
Mat t Na h l i k
of our feet.
The backdrop
was something
surreal, a burlesque
anomaly
in the boxy,
gray network of
buildings that
was Page Industrial
Court.
Jeff referred
to this bizarre
ambience jokingly
as “the
beach.”
“Man, it’s
great out here,”
he said as he
flipped burgers and rearranged hot dogs.
“Yeah.” I sat down on a pile of sandbags.
For a moment I zoomed out of my reference
frame and imagined seeing this outrageous scene
through another’s eyes. I thought of my timecard
languishing in the metal clip by the front door, of
the mole people scurrying around the basement.
I never would have thought of Metropolitan
Deed Recording, Incorporated as a beach-side
resort.
“What the hell are we doing out here?” I
asked, shaking my head with a half-grin, not

eally sure if I was complaining or musing at
our outrageous lack of initiative.
“You know man, people always bitch about
the burgers being undercooked.”
“But just look at us right now...”
“I just hate to have to burn the burgers like
this. What are they afraid of? There’s nothing
wrong with a soft, pink middle. A nice, pinkish
hue. But no, let’s just have Ol’ Jeffrey burn the
piss out of it...”
So I gave up talking to Jeff and resumed my
nervous reverie. I panned the absurd chromatism
of the pseudo-beach once more. Something
just wasn’t right. I was
supposed to be in the real
world, getting paid, mingling
with people twice
my age. In two months I
would be starting to decide
the outcome of my life with
only the experiences from
this dump to reassure me.
I looked over at Jeff.
He was in his own universe,
so comfortable, grilling on
the beach like he invented
beaches or something. It
was then that I realized I
had no conception of what
Jeff actually did, what his
job was, or even if he had
a job at all.
“Jeff…”
“You know my grandparents
used to burn the piss out of—”
“Jeff, Jesus, will you shut up.”
“Sorry, man, take it easy, relax. It’s Barbecue
Friday. You’re so uptight.”
“I’m not uptight, I’m just…I don’t know.” I
was uptight, and he knew it. I didn’t know how
to respond.
“Oh, shit,” Jeff gulped.
“What?”
“Todd’s coming. We’re trapped this time
man. Looks like we’re gonna hafta bite the bullet—Oh,
hey, Todd, what’s going on man?”
“Hey guys. Barbecuing?”
“No.”
“Yeah...did I tell you about the last time I
was at a barbecue?”
“You know, Todd, I think you told us that
one.”
“So I was at this barbecue, right, and…”
I don’t remember what Todd said, but if I had
to guess, it ended with two people beating each
other up, then the cops showing up and beating
people up, then the cops beating each other up,
and of course Todd getting some blows in here
Lo u i s Mo n n i g
and there.
“I tell you what,
Todd, you’re something
else. Will you watch the
burgers for a second,
man?” Jeff looked at me
with the “get the hell out
of here” expression on
his face. “I gotta take a
dookie.”
“As do I,” I lied.
With that Jeff and I trudged
inside, back to the basement.
Our eyes readjusting
to the poor lighting,
we descended into the
under-workings in refuge
from certain Todd-induced
doom. As we passed by
the scurrying figures and
skewed cubicle walls, I
finally worked up the courage to ask Jeff exactly
what he did at Metropolitan Deed Recording,
Incorporated.
“What do I do?” He responded with apparent
excitement.
“Yeah, what do you do?”
“Follow me, dude.”
I followed Jeff to the far side of the basement,
where the cheap carpet ended and the bare
concrete floor showed through with sparkling
realness. There was a set of white double doors
27

28
that I had never noticed before.
“I take care of the file room,” Jeff explained,
and swung open the doors.
I stepped inside the file room, expecting to
see a few cabinets and boxes lying unordered
on the ground. Instead, an enormous expanse
of shelving met my eyes, row upon row upon
row of folders, doubling the area of the rest of
the basement itself. The rows of shelves were
so long they seemed to extend into nothingness,
and they were much taller than I was. Each one
was like a vaulted corridor.
“What is all of this?” I asked, awestruck.
There had to be thousands and thousands of
folders in front of me.
“My friend, you are looking at the records
of every single property exchange that occurred
in the city or county of St. Louis in the past
century.”
I paused in disbelief. So there were thousands,
even hundreds of thousands, of folders
in front of me, and each one of these folders
held within it the forgotten documentation of
some important decision, the remainders of a
life choice carefully tucked away and filed and
never seen again. As I stood there in absorption,
I felt as if a weighty truckload had been lifted
from my rigid shoulders.
“They put you in charge of this?”
“Yes sir they did.” He didn’t seem offended
by my incredulity.
“Just how long have you been working
here?”
“Uhh…Since I was about seventeen I
guess.”
I was still wandering down the rows. I could
get lost in there. Apparently Jeff had not gone to
college. Or maybe he had. Whatever the case, I
struggled with the idea that this bumbling character
stuck between adulthood and childhood, this
half-assing, beach-barbecuing bungler who once
tried to freeze a coworker’s office supplies into
a block of ice could be given such a profound
task. It seemed that in my search for the adult
mentality I had been looking in the wrong place
all along.
“Don’t go too far, there, Magellan. We
shouldn’t have left someone like Todd in charge
of the grill. He’s totally mental. We gotta get
back there.”
“You know, that’s a good idea,” I said. “Did
you ever think about putting some lawn chairs
out there too?”
“No, man, but I like the way you think…”
So we went back out to the beach and relieved
Todd of his duty, but not without first listening
to a vintage Todd story, which I didn’t seem to
mind all that much anymore. After he left, Jeff
assumed his former position at the head of the
grill.
“For Christ’s sake, I knew Todd would burn
the piss out of ’em.”
Just when it looked like Jeff would indulge
in yet another tirade on proper meat-grilling
protocol, the door to the basement opened and
the boss sauntered out, gawking at us.
“What is this, some kind of barbecue?”
“Uhh…hey, Boss…I thought you said you
were going out of town.”
“What is this, some kind of beach?” The
boss seemed more confused than pissed off.
“And where did we get a grill from?”
“Don’t ask me,” Jeff said. I looked on silently.
“Well, at least give me one of those burgers,”
the boss snorted. “Pullin’ a stunt like this, they
better be damn good.”
Jeff hastily scooped up a burger from the grill
and tucked it inside a bun. The boss snatched it
up and took a bite. He looked up at Jeff with an
exaggerated expression of gustatory disappointment.
“You really burned the piss out of it, didn’t
you?”
Jeff tightened his grip on the spatula.

Arg u m e n t u m a d Sa p i e n t e m
Dan Yacovino
And your questions, unanswerable,
to find the meaning to life,
to love, why
To live; experience as much as you can
before that bleak ultimate encompassment,
before you have your answer.
They who know, lie.
Answers are not, cannot be the same
when the skeptic is unique.
Time reveals all, but not in the world
of instant gratification not fast enough
and light too slow.
29
Se a n O’Ne i l

St u c k in Fa s t-Fo r w a r d
Shane Lawless
A little boy sits with you in the sandbox,
Building the castle of sand for his princess,
Waiting for the day he can take you to the real thing.
He cannot wait so he fast-forwards…
That same boy, pulling your pigtails in class
Plays house with you
Imagining the day when pretend becomes reality.
He grows impatient with waiting so he fast-forwards…
30
The boy, now a young man, parks the car atop the hillside.
As the windows slowly fog over, obscuring your shapes,
He dreams of making that moment last forever.
(Here the young man is happy. That perfect moment
With you lasts seven minutes but could last eternity if he just paused.
Instead of living with what is, he wonders what could be)
He decides to fast-forward…
The man, your man
Raises your child aloft with a grin as you sit, smiling love at him,
But he can only think of the day that boy becomes a man.
Knowing nothing else, he hits fast-forward…
The man, who is still a child inside,
Drives off on a grocery run that should last minutes but takes years.
All because everything’s moving too fast for him to keep up.
Although he doesn’t want to, he still hits fast-forward…
The man, now nothing more than that,
Comes back years late (without the groceries) only to find his life gone.
His woman is now another’s, his children have forgotten his face.
He screams and decides to end it all so he hits STOP!

The man, your man, the young man, the boy, and the child all stand
Facing the stone that ends it all.
Fast-forward too much and eventually we all wind up in a bed of dirt
With a stone for a head.
He remembers that day on the hill, and wishes he was there.
As he is fading, he hits the remote one more time,
And this time he hits rewind…
The young man parks the car atop the hillside and
As the windows grow foggy, he dreams of making that moment last forever,
He worries about the future but doesn’t care as long as you are together.
That’s why this time he presses pause…?
He n ry Go l d k a m p
31

Ni a l l Ke l l e h e r

Fe a r
Timlin Glaser
In my twenty-seventh hour of birth
The doctor gave my mother drugs
To force me from her womb
Of course I can’t attest
To my state of mind at birth
But as I try to understand
My current malaise
On the threshold of adulthood
I’ve come to learn
I only go by force

34
Lat e
Jim Santel
The last time I saw John Fitzsimmons alive,
he was sitting on a sofa, laughing. Not an
endearing laugh, but a grim one, a reaction to
a Get Well Soon card someone had sent him.
The laugh, it seemed, of a dying man. I saw
him this way as I walked through the Fitzsimmonses’
bright, airy living room to their kitchen,
timidly following my mom through their house,
perhaps carrying one of the casseroles she baked
for the family in those few months. John didn’t
acknowledge me as I walked by, didn’t even
look up. In fact, although he was my dad’s
closest friend,
in the three or
so memories I
have of him,
it seemed that
John never noticed
my presence.
Jane, the
youngest of his
three daughters,
only two
or three at the
time, wriggled
over him as he
laughed, and he
appeared similarly
oblivious
to her—the Hallmark card held him rapt. I’m
not sure how soon after that afternoon John
died, but the next time I saw him, he lay in a
casket.
particularly nasty kind of cancer had struck
A John. Once, after we learned of John’s
illness, I asked my uncle Don, a biomedical
engineer who knew these types of things, how
exactly cancer worked. In response, he pulled
from our shelf an imposing book about the
human body titled The Incredible Machine,
opening to a page showing bloated green and
black cancer cells viciously attacking a tissue
as he lectured in the background about “cells
just going crazy, attacking the body. They don’t
know any better,” Don said, making them sound
like misbehaving children. I wondered if cancer
hurt. Cancer, I would think to myself. Just the
word hurt.
My parents told my sister and me about
John’s disease as we huddled on her bedroom
floor, and less than a year later my mom sat us
down on our family room couch as soon as we got
home from school. We knew right away. As the
three of us cried, John’s mom’s quavering voice
(she sounded so tired) played on our answering
Ke v i n Ca s e y
machine, saying
plainly that
John had passed
away the night
before.
The funeral
home unnerved
me. The
gaudy chandeliers,
fireplaces,
and plush
floral carpet
seemed to say,
“You could live
here!” but the
unnaturalness
of it all—trying to make a place of death look
like a place of life—made me want to leave.
Somber people forcing teary smiles filled the
room, my parents among them. John’s middle
daughter Colleen walked by, and my dad hugged
her and planted a kiss on her forehead while saying
sympathetically, “I’m so sorry.” I observed
this with detachment, itchy in my starched white
shirt, and uttered a feeble condolence to Colleen,
partly because my first-grade social skills lacked
polish, but mostly because I was dumbstruck by

the sight of my dad treating another child like one
of his own—as he would treat me or my sister.
I ran a brief clip in my mind of myself standing
outside our house on Christmas morning, looking
in at Colleen excitedly opening my presents as
my parents looked on with delight.
I had a sort of stage-fright about seeing a
corpse for the first time. John lay there, looking
rather healthy. My mind flashed to the image of
John laughing as Jane squirmed in his lap, a fly
skittering across an animal carcass, I thought.
Being so close to a dead body didn’t scare
me as I thought it would, but I couldn’t stop
staring at the baseball
cap that hid John’s
chemo-induced baldness.
The horrors that
I had steeled myself
for—rotting flesh,
horrible stenches—
didn’t exist, but the
baseball cap made
me turn away from
the body.
W
“ hy?” the priest
intoned at the
funeral. “He was only
thirty-eight years
old.” I recalled from
my reading about
space exploration
that Neil Armstrong
had been thirty-eight
when he walked on
the moon. He had
gone to the moon,
and John, whom my
dad often described
as one of the most brilliant men he knew, lay
in a coffin.
I looked over at my parents. They were
squeezing each other’s hands. My mom’s eyes
were puffy and watery and looked more like
the side-effects of allergies than mourning, and
my dad breathed heavily, his cheeks shiny and
damp—the only time I have ever seen him cry.
I did a lot of crying myself in the time after
John died, but not for him, I realized at the funeral.
As much as I tried to feel sorrow for John, I frankly
had never liked him very much. He didn’t show
any particular affection for kids other than his
own—the exact opposite of Chris Fava, another
classmate of my dad’s and John’s, who smiled
widely and called me “buddy” and enjoyed the
Three Stooges and Animal House and who now
shuffled into the pew next to us, trying to make
his mischievous smile a mournful one. I would
Se a n O’Ne i l
have cried if this had
been Chris’s funeral,
but I don’t think
John ever called me
buddy.
Alice Trillin once
wrote of what she
called the “existential
paradox” that all
humans experience:
“we feel that we are
immortal, yet we
know that we will
die.” The standoff
between these conditions
defines much
of my behavior. If
I could truly convince
myself that I
am mortal, not just
think the occasional
thoughts of “you
will die someday,”
but really drive the
point into my consciousness,
I would
waste a lot less time watching vacant television
shows or browsing useless web pages and invest
more time in calling my grandparents or saving
money to travel to Europe. But instead, I continue
to float on, oblivious to death yet still taking care
in my evening prayers to thank God for giving
35

36
me one more day on earth. Then I plan what I
will do tomorrow.
As I stood at the graveside, looking down
at the deep gap in the earth where John would
soon lie as the sweat-drenched, filthy gravediggers
stood impatiently during the last rites, the
components of Trillin’s paradox first collided
violently in my mind. I found myself at a loss
for air as my nerves tingled violently, and it took
several deep, labored breaths to calm myself
down. Here, then, was why I was crying: the
realization that this—the funeral, the hole in
the ground, death—would happen to me, my
parents, everyone I knew. The sharp dagger of
reality had pierced my armor of ignorance.
Since then, I have periodically experienced
the same chilling sensation that I did at
the cemetery. These fits afflict me to this day,
sometimes as I do homework or walk to class,
other times while I stare at pictures of John,
strong and stoic, in my dad’s high school yearbooks,
walking the same halls that I do now,
and I wonder: did he have any inkling while he
was still in high school that he would contract
cancer and die so young? And then I wonder
if this is my lot as well, and the fear ambushes
me, leaving me terrified and gasping so that I
must repeat my mantra, “You’re all right, you’re
still alive, you still have plenty of time left,”
until my breathing levels and I can force my
thoughts elsewhere.
My chief problem with death is that it ends
life. Catholicism promises heaven, but
the best image I can conjure of the afterlife
consists of fluttering around all day in the sky,
clad in white and missing life on earth. This
doesn’t appeal to me much at all. I resent and
fear death because of its power to take without
discretion.
Even now, years after the funeral, I struggle
to rid myself of the residue of John’s death. Because
of that day, I force myself to look away
when I drive past a cemetery and close my ears
at mass when the priest recites the part of the
profession of faith about Jesus “coming again to
judge the living and the dead.” It is why flying
in airplanes makes me uneasy with thoughts of
crashes. When I visit my grandparents in their
reeking retirement home, I can often define them
only as people who will die soon, just as I can
only think of John’s daughters as girls who have
lost their father.
Shortly after John died, his wife Joan gave
my dad a flannel shirt that John had never
worn. The tags were still on the shirt and all,
but I couldn’t understand why my dad would
wear something that John had bought for himself
while he was still alive. My dad still wears the
shirt for odd jobs around the house.
By our fireplace is a plant that sat in John’s
hospital room during the months of chemo.
Every year, more and more of the plant’s stems
turn brown and wilt, and each winter threatens
to kill it for good. But new green stems always
appear in the spring.
Se a n O’Ne i l

Lo s t
Shane Lawless
The streetlamp casts its yellow light down on me
As I sit on the corner, stooped
Constructing a shadow to keep my company.
But I rise, leaving that corner alone
As my shadow fades in among its companions.
A chilled wind claws my skin
And I pull my collar around my neck
For shelter from the harshness of both winter and life.
Downward the moon gazes on the road
My road, illuminating the path forward.
But I hope moving ahead will lead me back,
Back to the beginning of beginnings.
But I don’t know if this winding road
Leads home or to the land of forsaken memories
To be recalled but never relived.
37
But I still walk, with determinedness
Despite the destination being unfound.
Onward I travel
Gazing up at darkened windows,
Portals to a home now closed to me.
Great care I take in avoiding
The cracks and crevices lacing my path.
As I step, despair, welling up from the depths,
Reaches. Its blackness swallows the night,
Collapsing infinity into a moment.
I strive and struggle, straining against the pull.
Vanquished, I am pulled down, striking cold concrete.
I lift my battered head to the sight
Of a flower, defiant of winter’s laws, blooming,
While the beams of my father’s headlights envelop me.

38
Pr ay e r
Matthew Wilmsmeyer
That Saturday night was my girlfriend Rose’s
last at Eckert’s Orchard and Apple Farm.
She did plays there, humorous little skits for
kids that were funny simply because they were
corny.
I wanted to go because it would be Rose’s last
night there. Not only that: Rose had mentioned
that she had notes for me that she had written
in her free time; I had no idea what they could
be, but Rose assured me that I would enjoy
them. I didn’t plan on making it to Eckert’s,
though; Mother mentioned that my cousin had
an engagement party that night, and I wouldn’t
be able to skip out on it. Also, I was to spend
most of the day at my uncle’s house, working to
convert the back half of his two-bus garage into
two bedrooms and a bathroom. I asked Rose to
bring the notes anyway, but not to expect me to
be there.
But Saturday morning, when I asked Father
(in a last-second attempt to argue my way out
of going) when the engagement party was, he
responded, “Next week.”
I offered up a quick prayer to God, the first
of many, and checked the calendar. He was
right, and Mother apologized for screwing up
her weeks.
But there was still the work to be done at my
uncle’s house, and I would be there until at least
five, according to Dad’s estimate. That wouldn’t
be so bad. Eckert’s ran until nine, so I’d have
at least three hours there with Rose after I got
home, showered, and headed out.
It didn’t work out that way. I forgot my cell
phone, so I couldn’t call Rose, and we ended
up finally leaving my uncle’s house at six in the
evening. There was still time, though—I showered,
changed, threw on my hoodie, grabbed
directions, grabbed my cell phone, kissed Mom
goodbye, and drove off.
That’s when I finally started to realize: I could
surprise Rose, not even tell her that I was on my
way. In planning that, I realized that everything I
needed to pull it off—such as forgetting to take
my cell phone to my uncle’s house—had worked
out perfectly. It couldn’t be coincidence, could
it?
Car time alone is sacred to me. I don’t jam
my techno CD’s as I do when I’m with my little
brother on the way to school, or act like the
model older brother (that is, listening, smiling,
and nodding) when driving my seven-year-old
sister to her friends’ sleepovers, or even keep
both hands on the wheel, silently, staring straight
ahead, being a model driver while my dad’s in
the car.
I pray. I turn on Classic Ninety-Nine, listen
to whatever peaceful music is playing, and speak
out loud to God (I don’t call Him “God” or “Jesus.”
I have my own secret names for them). I
discuss my day, what I did or didn’t do right or
wrong, and what I’ll try to do next time.
That Saturday, I prayed extensively. I prayed
in thankfulness for His intervention—which I was
by then sure that it was—on my behalf. I thanked
Him profusely for granting me the fortune I was
experiencing today, and vowed I would try my
hardest to make sure to do what He needed me
to do.
Rose called twice on the way over, but both
times I lied and told her that I was on my way
home, or was arguing with my parents about
not going. I don’t think God minded my lying,
since He was the one who gave me the chance to
surprise her. It was for a good cause, after all.
When I finally got there, I called Rose and
asked her where she was. It was 7:30. She would
have just gotten done with the play she did every
two hours.
“Why?” she asked, confused. This was the
important part, sound casual and don’t sound
like you actually care much.
“Just curious,” I said apathetically, as if I
had just lost an argument with my parents.
“I’m sitting on the hay bales in front of the
stage, waiting for the next show,” she answered.

Perfect, I knew exactly where those were.
“Oh, hey, can you hold on a sec? Jon’s calling
in on the other line,” I said quickly. I told
her I’d call back, then shut off the phone.
Fortunately, facing the stage meant facing
away from the entrance, which made it easy for
me to sneak up behind her. She was huddling
against the cold wind, her arms crossed and her
hands tucked against herself for warmth. She was
wearing a thick beige coat, dark blue jeans, and
a long brown scarf. Her dark brown hair was in
two braids, with a bright orange kerchief tied in
a bow on each. She was beautiful.
I tapped on her shoulder—the scream and
hug that I received were, alone, more than enough
to justify the long drive to Eckert’s.
“I hate you for that,” she said, grinning from
ear to ear. She was clinging to my arm, as though
assuring herself that I was really there. We were
walking down to see the pig races, which ran
between each show.
“It was worth it,” I said, smiling.
“Oh! I have these for you!” she said, reaching
into her coat pocket. She pulled out a couple of
intricately folded up pieces of paper. From what
I could see, the notes were very colorful, and
even appeared to be written partially in colored
marker.
She made me promise not to read them until
I got home, so I shoved them in my jeans pocket
and said, “I promise.”
The pig races went by too quickly—both
of us laughed at the corny names (“The Notorious
P.l.G.,” “The Real Pig Shady,” and “Steve
Oinkel”), but I guess the pigs were tired, so they
only ran two of the four races.
After they finished (Steve Oinkel won both
times), we went up to the bonfires—the only
warm part of the entire apple orchard—and
huddled up beside the fire. “Only a half-hour
until your next show,” I noted.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, laying her
head on my shoulder.
“You have to, or else you don’t get paid,” I
muttered.
“Oh well. I wanna stay here,” she looked
up at me, smiling.
“You gotta, or else I don’t get to see your
show,” I raised my eyebrows, challenging her
to come up with a response to that.
“Oh, fine,” she said, looking back down
at the fire. She didn’t get up, though. Oh well,
there’s still time, I thought, gazing into the fire.
Eventually, one of her coworkers called to
her from the stage to warn her that she only had
a few minutes left before the beginning of the
play. She groaned, then sadly stood, said, “Bye,”
and went to change. I slowly walked to the hay
bale benches, and remembered how cold it was
after just a few steps.
While I waited, shivering in my hoodie
(which held far less heat than I had expected),
a mother and her two sons walked up the center
aisle, and took a seat on another bale. The mother
appeared relatively young, and her oldest boy
couldn’t have been more than seven, but the
mother’s face was worn, by either the wind or
the constant care of her two boys, who took to
wrestling as soon as they were seated. She broke
them up as soon as she noticed, and sternly admonished
the two of them. “Hey, hey, cut that
out! You two had better behave, I’m taking off
work to let you come here tonight. You’d better
appreciate it!” she said.
I raised an eyebrow at the vocabulary she
was directing at her children, who I thought
couldn’t possibly have understood. But it seemed
to work; the two boys settled into their seats,
not even casting angry glances at one another.
I raised both eyebrows. Impressive, I thought. I
hope she remembers how maturely they listened
next time she goes to yell at them.
Another thought followed, almost instantly:
No act does any good if no one responds to it.
I frowned, and turned my eyes to the ground.
Then...none of the blessings I’ve received will
be any good if I don’t remember them.
I slid my hands up my sleeves to keep
the wind out. For a second, I thought I understood—Don’t
let me forget this night, Lord, I
39

40
thought to myself, but remind me of it in times
when I think you’ve forsaken me.
The music for the play began, warning everyone
to “gather ’round for the scary story!” I
recognized Rose’s ten-year-old cousin Rachel
acting as the announcer.
In the show, “The Legend of Pumpkin
Holler,” Rose played Katrina, the daughter of
a rich family; one of the guys, Ryan, played
her boyfriend Mike; and an older man, Wayne,
played a schoolteacher, “Itchy Bob” Crane, who
planned on marrying Katrina to get all the famous
succotash that her mother made. Rose put on her
strongest southern accent to invite both guys to a
ghost-story-telling contest at her house. She told
a story about
ghosts eating
a weary traveler,
Itchy Bob
told the story
of the goblins
that threw corn
at the farmers
on nights with
full moons,
and Mike told
the story of
the Headless
H o r s e m a n ,
who searched
every night for
the head he lost to a cannonball in the Civil War.
The play ended with Itchy Bob getting chased
out of town by the infamous Headless Horseman
(who would have been scarier if I hadn’t seen
through the gauze that covered his face that it
was Ryan).
After the play, Rose and the other two stuck
around to talk to the kids who had watched
the show. The two boys seemed particularly
enthralled by Rose. I smiled when I recognized
their infatuated looks. Eventually, their mother
ushered them on to go see the next set of pig
races. Rose went backstage to change out of her
costume, and I went to wait by the bonfire.
When she returned, we went with her mother
and Rachel on a haunted hayride with most of
the people who were still there (with a half hour
until closing time, there couldn’t have been more
than thirty people left). Rose sat on my right,
and on my left was a likable elderly man whose
jokes often caused the entire wagon to laugh.
We faced the inside of the wagon, which meant
that any number of people could surprise us from
behind.
Nothing on the ride was scary—there were
a few crucified figures that I didn’t approve
of—but other than that it was rather funny. Her
mother spent much of the time talking with the
old man and Wayne, and laughing into her hand
Tim Se lt z e r
at the things the
old man said.
The little boys
acted scared
by everything
and dove back
and forth trying
to hide (I
think they were
showing off for
Rose. One especially
kept
looking at her
to see if she
noticed), but
even funnier
was Rose instinctively diving into the center
of the wagon in fear of the chainsaw-wielding,
Freddie-esque figure that ran up from behind
the wagon. She was laughing, embarrassed, as
I helped her back into her seat.
The hayride had to end, unfortunately. We
finally came back around to the loading dock,
and everyone started toward the stairs. As I
stood and offered my hand to Rose, though,
her mom stopped me. “Nuh-uh, stay there. I
need pictures of you two,” she said, pushing
me back down into the seat. I grinned, knowing
that Rose would share the pictures with me next
time we saw each other. After the flashes (and

corresponding momentary blindness), we had to
get off the wagon. Rose’s mom and cousin went
to the bonfire to wait, while Rose and I went to
another one near the entrance of the orchard.
We talked for a while. Eventually I even
began to regain the feeling in my fingers and
toes. After a few moments, though, Mom called
and asked where I was.
“I’m...on my way to the truck now,” I lied.
Rose frowned.
“Okay, drive safely and call me if you get
lost, okay?” Mom said.
“Yes, Mother,” I gave the usual strained
reply, and hung up.
I didn’t
move, though.
Rose eventually
looked
up at me, and
said, “Hey,
you need to
hurry, or your
mom’s gonna
be worried,”
she said quietly.
“ T h e n
I’ll tell her I
got stuck behind
a slow
car.’’
She smiled. “Hey, I don’t want to get you
in trouble,” she said.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. When she didn’t reply,
I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She
smiled, and looked back at the fire.
I risked another two minutes of quiet time
with Rose before I finally moved to stand. “All
right, I gotta go,” I muttered.
“Oh, okay…” Rose said. We stood, hugged,
and I finally headed to the truck. Rose had to
stay and clean up her stuff, since she wouldn’t
be back again.
Once in the car, I again turned on Classic
99, and let my thoughts drift back to the events
of the day. One thing came through: the woman
and her kids before Rose’s play. I remembered:
If you don’t act on the good things that happen
to you, then there was no point in letting them
happen.
“You don’t agree, do you?” I asked out loud.
“You would turn it around, and say that no matter
what, you should be kind to people.”
No response. I turned the key in the ignition,
and let the truck roar into life. I backed out and
turned onto the small country lane that led to
Eckert’s.
“But when you really think about it, that
won’t get you anywhere. You have to realize when
Ky l e Kl o s t e r
all your kind
efforts aren’t
working on
c h a n g i n g
someone,”
I muttered.
“But…
that’s the
idea of forg
i v e n e s s
and eternal
love, isn’t
it? You’ll
always love
someone or
something
regardless
of how they feel about you, or even if they won’t
admit to your existence.” I turned the truck on
to the entrance ramp for IL15-West.
“Even worse, what happens if they appreciate
what good things you do for them then,
but not later? That’d be hypocrisy on their part,
especially if they’ve promised to remember your
gifts to them.” Already time to turn on to 170
North. Right turn signal, lane change, off the
accelerator for the curve, accelerate gradually
to save gas while merging.
I suddenly remembered from earlier: I
promised to do Your will, and to try my hardest
to do it well.
41

42
“Hm. I think I get it. You want me to remember
blessings like this, huh? So that I can recall
what happened when things start going sour?” I
realized that this must be it. I could simply feel that
this was correct, that I was right. I can’t explain
it. I clicked on my blinker to rush around a slow
minivan before the exit, a half-mile away.
“In that case...may I remember this time,
what you have done for me tonight, next time I
start to lose faith in you. Remind me of it when
I feel like accusing you of something going
wrong.” I said this loudly, over the accelerated
music and the roar of the engine. I lane-changed
right twice to take the 55 North-70 East exit.
“Don’t let me be a hypocrite, Lord. I know
that if I remember this night, I’ll have the inspiration
to persevere, no matter how hard the
challenge. All I want is to be reminded.”
My memory when it came to important
revelations was none too good. That’s why I
asked God to remind me, not anything more.
I drove in silence for the last two miles before
my final exit. I felt good, but how long would
it last? And would I be able to remain positive
when things weren’t going as well as they were
now?
I grunted as I realized the pointlessness of
the question, because I already knew the answer;
God would be there, regardless of what happened.
I clicked the blinker and took the IL-143 exit,
braking all the way.
Left at the stop sign, over the bridge, right
U-turn onto Blackburn. It was a deserted country
road, with bare corn fields on one side and bean
fields on the other, and at least three or four miles
long. I clicked on the brights and cruised. “So.
If I remember all the good stuff that happens to
me, then I’ll be able to do whatever you want
me to do. If my real problem is memory, then
maybe I should write it down,” I said aloud.
That wouldn’t work. I knew damned well
that my writing could never capture the emotion
I felt at any moment. There was no way, through
the limits on the near-infinite English language,
to actually get close to what I felt. Not only
that, I just wasn’t a good enough spontaneous
writer—too many things could fly through my
head in the time it took to write or type them out.
I clicked off my brights and pulled to the right
to avoid a car going the other way.
The only other option was to strongly associate
those memories with an object, something that
just looking at would remind me of how I felt.
It had worked with my Kairos cross; I absently
fingered the emblem of five-crosses-in-one that
hung from my neck, and remembered the powerful
emotions that I had felt during and after the
four-day retreat. I turned left onto Fruit Road,
another unpainted country path punctuated by
hills.
But I’ve no object to use here, I thought.
I ran through the events in my head. “Nothing
last night, nothing at Uncle David’s... nothing
at home... nothing at Ecker—ah! The notes!” I
crammed one hand into my jeans pocket to pull
out the two notes that Rose had given me, even
as I turned onto old Route 66.
I pulled them out, and glanced down at them.
Then Lord, help me to remember, every time I see
these, how much You have given me. Help me
to see that, though not everything goes my way,
You have a plan, and that I’m not the center of
it. I want to remember this night every time I so
much as think of these notes.
I turned onto South Hazel, and carefully
slid both notes into the pocket on the front of
my hoodie. I pulled into my driveway, turned
off the car, and glanced at the sky. Orion, my
favorite constellation, was visible on the eastern
horizon. “Thank you, Lord,” I muttered. I turned
and went inside. I would not forget.

Le Mo n t -Sa i n t -Mi c h e l
Tony Bell
A fortress of desert seascape
Sought by the Sun and Moon
With the ebb and flow of tidal persuasion,
By the sand and seagulls,
Naturally,
And by Michael, the Archangel,
Who burned a blessed hole in St. Aubert’s skull
In order that he build God’s will on a rock
Sought by the Franks and Bretons and Normans.
A tidal island revealed to all by a natural land bridge
At low tide,
One of the holiest places revealed as a prison
And closed as a prison,
And opened again to tourists from
Germany, France, and England.
43
We took our chances,
Braving death by going where the tide shifts quickly,
Pulling our pant legs up and our shoes off.
We found that the biggest threat lay not in the
Franks or Bretons or Normans,
Nor in the surge of high tide,
But in the seagulls,
Who dive-bombed us in claim of their territory,
Naturally,
Which had never been loosed from their lengthy beaks and webbed feet.

44
On Ma ry Ol i v e r’s
“Wi l d Ge e s e”
Kyle Kloster
committed my first sin when I was just eight
I years old, in a Schnucks, tagging along as
my mom scrounged through the shelves for the
right can or jar. In my mind, back then, I had to
wait for days for my mother to select our meal,
and I never did it
quietly. Eventually,
my mom learned
to keep me quiet
with the reward of
candy at the end of
the journey—if I
behaved, I’d get to
pick out a piece or
two in the checkout
line. One day, I
was particularly
anxious, so she
let me head to the
candy section at
the beginning of
the shopping session
to calm me
down. I immediately
snatched up
a piece of licorice
and pocketed it to
bring with us to
the cashier, but I
Wi l d Ge e s e
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
—Mary Oliver
forgot to have my mom pay for the licorice. I
only remembered this when I patted my jeans
pocket hours later and felt a foreign lump inside.
Confused, I dug out the licorice and an
equally foreign lump plugged up my throat. I
had stolen. Me, student of a Catholic school for
three years — I had learned about people like
me, they had a commandment for people like
me, I was a thief. The licorice scared me like a
spider creeping across my skin, and I flung it
away from me. “I’m sorry!” I screamed up to
my ceiling, teary-eyed. I knew it was too late,
though: I was going to hell because I was no
longer good.
I was trained to follow the law to the last letter
obediently, almost robotically. I only recently
realized it, near the middle of high school, but
I still haven’t shed the same fear-instinct I had
when I stole the licorice. The first line of Mary
Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” shook one of the
deepest roots in me, contradicting the most fundamental
principle
my whole childhood
was founded
on: “You do not
have to be good.”
I had always been
told otherwise, in
Schnucks, in grade
school religion
class, at church on
Sundays, and even
in high school. Every
time Dr. Gavin
asked a drowsy
student to stand for
the rest of a period
to avoid nodding
off, I got the message
that I had to
be good. Every time
my second grade
teacher made me sit
on the curb during
recess for talking
during class, I got the message that I had to be
good. Such everyday occurrences ground into
me that I do have to be good, but Mary Oliver’s
poem “Wild Geese” challenges my understanding
of “good” that I had beaten into my head
during childhood.
Oliver forces a second look at what it means
to be good. The poem contrasts the sort of
regulated, list-based morality that middle-class
children like me grow up under with a truer sense

of being good that Oliver sees in natural things
existing as exactly what they are. “You do not
have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles
through the desert, repenting. / You only have
to let the soft animal of your body love what it
loves.” To be good, Oliver seems to suggest,
has less to do with meeting checklists and adhering
to codes than it has to do with allowing
yourself to be human. Being “good” isn’t always
following those dotted lines my childhood laid
out—say “please” and “thank you,” make your
bed in the morning, and put your bowl in the sink
when you’re done eating—it involves more than
running through the mechanics and routines of
manners and society’s expectations. Being genuinely
“bad” has little to do with a falling GPA,
unfinished homework assignment, or unexcused
belch, just like the true sense of “good” has little
to do with tucking your shirt in, coloring inside
the lines, or getting zero tardies.
The trees and geese she describes exist precisely
as trees and geese, standing with the beauty
of a deeply rooted plant branching into the sky
and flying with the harsh and exciting freedom of
birds that are always “heading home.” Oliver’s
poem gracefully lifts the burden of grade school
conditioning that many private schools push.
Oliver forces a rethinking of values in a society
that needs much rethinking, and she replaces
the sort of false morality with a philosophical
ideal of finding belonging and purpose in your
existence as a human. Goodness does not come
from matching ourselves up with some sort of
model of behavior, but from filling out a self
that feels the most natural, like a home. While
the poem can uproot a childhood like mine, it
offers a new way of thinking about life. No, we
don’t have to jump through hoops to be good, we
must simply be human towards one another and
recognize the beauty and despair in the world,
as well as our own place in it.
45
Gr a s s
Adam Archambeault
Tender growth,
Reaching up towards the sky,
Knowing nothing but its simple green life,
Cut short.

Springtime
Steve Behr
Dav e Bo s c h
46
The mechanical drone of the freeway is drowned
out by the serenading birds.
The grass, a cool carpet for my feet, tickles my
toes as it pokes through their gaps.
The cool breeze gently sweeps past and holds
the temperature at a standard of complete perfection.
Flowers soak up their energy and then slowly,
timidly poke out from their warm buds to color
the world with blazingly passionate and brilliantly
intricate colors and designs.
The air carries a scent of grilled hamburgers, the
echoing sounds of the neighborhood puppies, and
the baritone voice of an announcer broadcasting
the early season baseball game.
The distant rainstorm strolls across the evening
twilight and promises a night shower that will
provide a peaceful patter on the tin awning.
The faint chatter of people dining outside at the
corner café adds a baseline to the harmony.
The sun tries to catch a glimpse of its counterpart
and stays with the world for a little longer to let
it know it’s been a long winter and that it would
light the skies for a few moments more.
A few more moments of catch,
A few more moments of a lazy snooze in the
hammock, swinging to and fro,
A few more moments of the moist, tangy barbecue
dancing on tongues,
A few more moments of the cool popsicle that
glues hands together with its sticky syrup,
A few more moments of springtime.

Wa k i n g Up
Timo Kim
When I was little, I got up on my own every
day, or so my mom tells me. Her favorite
story to tell is how I got up in the middle of
the night once and walked around the house
turning on all the lights so I could see. The
next morning, my mom found me sleeping by
the bay window, my face leaning against the
glass, my breath sending filaments of fog out
across window’s chilled surface. She says I
kept repeating that the snowfall the night before
made everything look new.
I don’t remember any of this; all I can come
up with is a sense of possibility, like déjà vu but
not nearly as strong. I don’t know if I believe
those stories at all, really. At any rate, I try not
to think about them. The past doesn’t matter
anymore; now, about thirteen years later, I try
to stay under the covers as long as I can.
Especially that morning. My alarm clock
had resumed its imperative beeps, its too-bright
yellow numbers indignant at my lethargy. The
snooze button never lasts long enough. Still
groggy, I tried to roll towards the center of the
bed and away from the insistent clock and the
glaring sunlight piercing through the half-closed
blinds. But I managed to roll off instead, knocking
my head against the nightstand on the way
down.
“Are you all right?” my mom called from
the kitchen below.
I grunted a reply and stumbled to the shower. I
should probably take cold showers in the morning
to wake myself up, but I don’t think it’s worth the
effort. I usually down some tea instead; coffee’s
too bitter.
I was late. I ignored the toast my mom offered
me at the door, grunting my thanks. Useful
things, grunts, conveying meaning without the
effort of thought.
It was spring already, according to the sickeningly
cheery pastoral scenes on the calendars
my mom buys. Seemed like winter to me. It was
even snowing, lightly. But luckily the flurries
weren’t sticking, so there probably wouldn’t
be traffic. Still, a light, chilling fog clung to the
ground, and a biting wind gnawed at the feeble
remnants of the magnolias in our garden. Yeah,
right. Spring. I hadn’t even noticed they had
bloomed.
I pulled out of the garage, spaced out, and
found myself merging onto the highway. The
rising sun squeezed through the low clouds and
bloodied the sky, blinding me as I drove east.
But with sunglasses, the world sank again into
pallor. I always put my sunglasses on when I
drive; I don’t have to notice anything around
me that way. Highways depress me. I might be
ten feet away from the people in the lanes next
to me, but I can’t say a word to them, nor can
they to me. We probably won’t even look at each
other. The times our eyes do meet, invariably
we avert them awkwardly, like children caught
eating cookies between meals. The most ironic
thing is that we probably take the same route,
get stuck in the same traffic, and noodle-neck at
the same accidents every day, and I still don’t
even know their names. I have less contact with
my neighbors, but I know their names. But it’s
not that important. I’ll never actually meet them
anyway.
I accelerated to a comfortable speed, too
slow for most other people. Their problem,
not mine. But I drive in the right lane so fewer
people feel the need to tailgate me. Less bother
for me. I switched on the cruise control, and
then shivered. It was cold. Last night’s frost had
sheathed the rear window in a feathery web of
ice. But I didn’t need to look back; I was only
going forward. The engine hadn’t warmed up
yet, but I turned on the heat anyway and settled
further back in the seat for the drive.
By most standards, I guess I’m a pretty safe
driver. I don’t speed, ever. I use my signal lights,
check my blind spots, and even stop for flashing
red lights late at night. But I don’t know. I drive
so I can zone out. Music makes me concentrate,
47

48
so I usually listen to some guy drone on about
the price of clams in Djibouti or unrest among
florists in Ulan Bator. I drive slowly because
I hate feeling the movements of the car; they
remind me that I’m moving, too. I do the rest of
those “safe” things out of routine. Sometimes,
something will jolt me out of my zone, and I’ll
realize that I’m stopped at a red light or something,
but I wouldn’t know how I got there. I think
I don’t get into accidents because either people
instinctually avoid slow drivers, or I somehow
wake up in time to react. Probably the former.
Either way, I haven’t gotten into an accident yet,
so I guess I’m safe.
As the sun rose higher and brightened, traffic
slowed. I flitted in and out of lanes, trying to coast
as much as possible. Energy efficiency. Eventually,
however, everything stopped, paralyzed by
the wall of light rising in front, but still trying to
inch forward defiantly. Or perhaps ignorantly. I
just flipped down the visor and began waiting.
I chose my work site several months ago.
Well, I suppose “chose” probably isn’t the right
word; it just kind of happened, actually. The site
needed some volunteers, and I had a graduation
requirement to fill, some sort of stupid PR thing
that the Board of Education passed to educate
the callous high schoolers in service or something.
Like they’re such bang-up philanthropists.
Whatever, though. Beats going to school.
As I stepped out of the car onto the school
parking lot, a cold blast of wind nearly knocked
me over and then settled in a slow whirl around
my body. I was late by only five minutes, but
the lot had already emptied of kids and parents.
Silent, except for the whistling of the wind around
me. I burrowed my head down into my collar and
zipped my coat up a little farther. The whistling
faded, and I trudged into the building.
The frigid wind followed me into the building.
The secretaries looked up and scowled. I
shut the door quickly and nodded at them as I
passed, but they didn’t notice. Right. I hurried
past through the deserted hallways, my footsteps
echoing softly behind me. I was late.
I walked into the classroom greeted by the
usual smiles and waves, which I returned, but
only just so. I learned early on not to bother to
try to keep up; little kids just have too much
energy.
And then there was Christie with her draining
lethargy. I’d never met such a depressing kid. I
had tried not to, actually; when the choice came
between Christie and the other cheerful bundles
of adulation...well, it wasn’t too hard. But classroom
aides are like slaves, and no teacher wants
to work with silent, uncooperative kids all the
time.
I passed the morning circling the classroom
like a leaf stuck in an eddy, occasionally correcting
pencil grips or choosing crayons. Miss Emily
tried to work with Christie but eventually gave
up and returned to the whiteboard. I watched
half-interested, and then continued circling.
“Christina! Pay attention,” Miss Emily
scolded.
I zoned in and winced. It was the second
time on that worksheet that Christie had fallen
behind. I bent my head and went back to prodding
Mikey to color his pictures in the lines. It
was probably better that I didn’t get involved.
“I’m sure Mr. Charley doesn’t like it that
you are wasting everybody’s time,” Miss Emily
continued.
I winced again. I hate being implicated like
that. Obligated, I raised my head, half-smiling
painfully, and shook my head first at Christie
and then Miss Emily and then back at Christie
again. She stared at me, her face blank, her eyes
awkwardly trying to show what I assumed was
guilt.
Mikey finished, and I had no excuse. It was
not going to be a good day. I rose and dragged
my chair over to Christie’s table as Miss Emily
turned away and continued the lesson. Two
kids gave me high fives before I motioned for
them to pay attention. I forget their names, but
they’re great kids: obedient and behaved. Christie
continued staring blankly at her worksheet.
“Now Christie, what letter are we working

on?” I asked, expecting her either not to answer
or to start coloring randomly.
“G,” she whispered, following her answer
with a guttural series of “guh” sounds.
I pressed onward, “Which pictures start with
the ‘G’ sound?”
She stared at me blankly again and then put
her head down. I raised her head up and replaced
the pencil in her hand. Again, “Does ‘goat’ start
with the ‘G’ sound?”
She put her head down again. Miss Emily
and the other children finished the worksheet
and began bustling around the classroom getting
ready for lunch. I groaned inwardly. “Christie,
we have ten minutes before lunch. If you don’t
finish the worksheet now, you know that you
will miss recess and have to work on it then,” I
admonished. She closed her eyes.
Miss Emily gestured for me to get her ready
for lunch. I tried again to get Christie to make
at least some progress on her work. She messily
circled three pictures, two of which were wrong.
I gave up and hurried her to the coatroom.
I ate lunch distractedly. Noisy kids and my
aversion to working with Christie interrupted my
usually peaceful lunch. I couldn’t figure it out.
Nothing worked, not prodding, coaxing, scolding.
Nothing. Sometimes she knew the answers.
Just as often, she didn’t. The only constant thing
was her demeanor. Like that helped at all. I zoned
out again. Then noisy kids turned into screaming
kids, squealing with delight and disgust.
Christie had thrown up. I fought the momentary
surge of anger and hurried over to Christie,
trying to calm the kids in the process. She was
sitting alone, and most of the vomit had landed
on the table and tray in front of her. I took her to
the bathroom, cleaned off what had gotten on her
coat, and then had the office call her mother.
She sat quietly on the bench outside the office
while I zipped up coats and tied shoes as kids
went by for recess, rushing them past the door to
avoid their curious stares, and more importantly,
questions. And then they were gone. For once
I was thankful that Christie didn’t say much. It
would make waiting with her easier. The harsh
fluorescent light above flickered weakly, giving
me a headache. I closed my eyes, slouched back
into the bench, and sighed. Time crawled by.
“Mr. Charley, do you like me?” Christie
asked suddenly.
I sat up, surprised. “Of course I like you. I
like you a lot, like everybody else,” I responded
perfunctorily. I smiled. Smiling tends to calm
little kids’ nerves.
She looked at me with that strange blank
stare of hers again. “Then why haven’t you
played with me yet?” she asked.
Her mom walked in the door shortly after.
As she signed Christie out, Christie looked at
me with that blank stare one last time. Her coat
flapped open gently as a cold gust blew through
the open double doors. I shivered. Forgot to wave.
And then she was gone. Recess was over.
Mat t Am p l e m a n
49

Em b r a c e
Will Turnbough
Knotted tree fingers feel their way to a brother
As if since their emergence from the soil
They grasped for the first touch of a similar being.
(They don’t touch now—
even trees enjoy solitary moments.)
But when the invisible rays of warmth cut the frost
And the heart of the mighty plant opens
Shooting life to the farthest tips of the intricate skeleton
50
The trees connect
In an arching embrace.
An t h o n y Sigillito

Ex c e r p t f r o m Th e
En d e av o r ’s Co m p a s s
David Spitz
Neither the warm spirit of friendship nor
the warming friendship of spirits could
fully suppress the unnerving presence of Mr.
Thomas Witan, though both had been enjoyed
in excess. Even on that momentous night,
December 31, 1851, when these two forces,
binding and blinding in power, ignited under
the masking billows of perfumed smoke, Mr.
Witan remained willfully daunting.
Sir Alfred Benton Berkeley, fine gentlemen
and somewhat reluctant guest, found himself
especially perturbed that evening. Having already
reached his peak in English society, Berkeley
cared little for the New Year’s celebration, as
he firmly believed that anything new would be
significantly less comfortable. Nor did he concern
himself with the growing discontent regarding
cotton and slaves in a far-away land in which he
had absolutely no business, save business. And
least of all did Sir Berkeley care for the most
tedious talk of constructing railroads (in India
of all places) for Mr. Witan’s shipping company,
whose socially inadequate owner he would later
describe as such.
“To sit beside the man is to be wholly
uncomfortable. At one moment, his tongue is
smooth enough to cut more than his fair stake in
any proposition, yet, when temper calls for such,
so sharp he need not chew his food. Put simply,
he is a monster in gentleman’s garb, and it is no
mystery to me that no respectable woman will
let him into her house. Rather, what racks my
brain is, why on earth his own forgotten mother
ever let him out of hers!”
Mr. Witan shifted uneasily in his chair and
breathed deeply from his smoldering cigar, the
thick, burning smoke seeping slowly into his
blood. His eyes flickered with the glowing flame
and danced savagely about the room, scorching
through the casual business chatter and fine
tailored suits.
Mr. Callahan, fellow associate and banquet
guest, squirmed behind his fading veil of smoke,
puffing madly from his cigar in a meager attempt
to elude those burning eyes. He was a man of
great stature, both of body and blood, yet, when
set beside Mr. Witan, his amassing wealth was
but a poor man’s wage, his great physical strength
but a child’s might, and his noble legacy but a
servant’s wretched lineage. Though three years
of profitable acquaintance and eight months
of genuine friendship had taught Mr. Callahan
humility, no amount of time would harden him
to Witan’s wild stare, and tonight, when smoke
had failed to conceal, he sought solace behind
blinding flattery.
“A most beautiful club, Thomas,” he offered,
sipping quickly from his glass. “The envy of all
London…of all the globe if you ask me…or at
least it will be when word gets around and, given
the safety of the seas, that won’t be but a few
months. Everyone listens when the coins start
clanking,” he raised his hand awkwardly from
his side and patted his stomach, “or at least when
the dinner bell rings. Truly, my friend, it was a
most marvelous feast.”
Witan smiled warmly, wild eyes tamed
behind his rigid collar and fine silk shirt.
“My thanks, Monty, but I can accept no
praise for the latter.” His lips twisted into a sly
gentleman’s grin. “A raging cyclone, blinding
fog, whirlpools so large they stretch to the
ocean’s bottom—I’ll navigate all with crew and
compass…but Lord save me if I’m faced with a
ladle and pot.”
Mr. Callahan chuckled deeply and drank
from his brandy. His tongue was lithe, too slick
for reason or tact to restrain.
“Bah, nothing wrong with that,” he replied,
words slipping more easily from his spirited lips.
“The kitchen’s no place for you anyway. No,
that’s a woman’s…” He jerked himself from
drunkenness at once. “It’s no place for one of
your stature.”
51

52
Witan smiled, but not so warmly, and Mr.
Callahan squirmed again.
“I agree with Monty,” offered Fredrick Trent
as his emptied whisky glass wobbled atop the
oaken table beside him. “The club will keep
your competition silent and their wives talking
for quite some time.” He grinned behind his
moistened beard and slumped into his seat. “Ah,
a bed of banknotes never felt so comfortable, and
I would know.” He slowly raised his shaking
arm. “And the furnishings are brilliant. Those
ships there, the family’s, I surmise.”
Witan nodded curtly, eyeing the shimmering
paintings hung upon the wall beside him. He
gestured to the nearest.
“The Endeavor…my great-grandfather’s
vessel.” Frowning, he gulped quickly from his
glass and struggled with the rigid collar caught
tight about his throat. “Source of riches…
and…”
“It’s marred,” interrupted Edward Gage. The
young engineer reached to adjust his spectacles
but, having forgotten his drink, managed only to
wet his nose. “The…the…oh…the mas’ there,”
he pointed with the precision of a drunkard, his
harsh, slurred words cutting through the masking
smoke. “It’s…it’s different somehow.”
Mr. Trent rolled nimbly off his seat and
cocked his head sideways, joining Mr. Gage in
a closer inspection.
“It is,” he agreed. “There are…things sprouting
off the main mast.” His glass fell suddenly
from his hand and chipped upon the hard wood
floor. Smiling coyly, Mr. Trent turned to his host.
“The artist’s slip perhaps?”
A smooth chunk of ice had slid from the
overturned glass and came to rest before Witan’s
smoldering gaze. It melted promptly.
“If only,” he muttered, eyes fixed upon the
gleaming puddle.
Mr. Gage leaned closer to the painting as
Mr. Trent bent to retrieve his broken glass.
“Then the ship herself bore the flaw?”
Witan’s eyes shot up at once and met the
engineer’s stare, a Hell-born fire blazing in his
vicious orbs. Alive and ravenous, it consumed
all spirits in its clenching jaws and left the poor
mortals sober in its wake. Mr. Trent froze at
once.
“A ship of my line flawed!” Witan leaped
from his chair with furious agility and struck
the Endeavor with sudden passion. The painting
tore and the frame rattled viciously against
the wall as Mr. Gage jumped back, eyes wide
behind his crooked spectacles. “I’d rather myself
be stricken deaf than hear my family’s vessels
slandered unsound.”
“I…I didn’t…”
The engineer crept timidly behind his
chair, pocket watch rattling within his coat. His
brandy-stained cheeks had blanched bone white,
the ruddy blush of drunken friendship all but
forgotten as he peered meekly into Witan’s wild
eyes, probing daggers no longer hidden by the
gentlemen’s smoke.
Mr. Callahan choked upon a mouthful of
liquor and coughed violently to regain his breath
amidst the clearing smoke. Seeing this, Witan
smiled warmly and relaxed his stare upon the
trembling Mr. Gage. Then, removing his fist
from the tattered canvas and nodding politely
to his other guests, he casually returned to his
chair and resumed puffing at his cigar, face hidden
once more behind the wafting smoke. The
ruined Endeavor alone remained evidence of the
entire incident.
“I can assure you all,” Witan began, sipping
calmly from his glass and shifting his tender
gaze between the men. “There has never been,
nor will there ever be a ship of the Witan family
constructed poorly. Of this alone I am certain.”
He glanced quickly at the tattered canvas and
breathed hard from his cigar, concealed eyes
shimmering with self-restrained tears. The smoke
appeared painful to his throat, as the words to his
tongue. “Our vessels are not marred upon their
launch. Any damage they endure—any break
upon the hull, tear upon the sail, crack upon the
mast—all is due to captain’s error.”
Mr. Gage gazed nervously around the room,

jittery eyes shifting between tattered canvas
and sobered drunks. He drank heavily from his
brandy before daring a look at Witan’s friendly
smile, and though his tongue squirmed lithely
in his mouth, words did not slip easily from his
lips.
“Then…then the Endeavor…met with some
misfortune?”
Witan turned suddenly and stared at the
ruined painting, chuckling softly as his reddened
lips twisted foully into a spirit-crazed grin. Beads
of sweat rolled from his smog-bathed face and
pooled upon his shirt, staining the white silk with
streaks of gray.
“Does misfortune attend service on Sundays?”
Mr. Gage squirmed within his seat, brow
cocked and eyes worried.
“Sir?”
“Does misfortune stroll in the park on Monday
mornings? Drink tea with her friends on
Tuesdays? Attend chorus practice on Wednesday
evenings? Does she visit her sick grandmother
every Thursday before supper? Knit sweaters
for the family on Fridays? Visit the lake every
third Saturday?”
Mr. Gage turned to the others for counsel
but received only blank stares, motionless behind
smoke and wonder. Witan alone remained
unmasked, fierce eyes alive once more in fury
and lunacy.
“How can a man meet with misfortune if
she keeps no schedule?”
Mr. Gage opened his mouth slowly, countenance
frozen in a bewildered gawk.
“I…what I meant…”
“No man seeks out misfortune!” Witan
swigged violently from his glass, horrific grin
drenched in brandy and madness. “What sane
captain sails for the tempest when calm waters
roll by so near? No, misfortune seeks us out,
forces its will onto us, springs from the waters
of life, vengeful and furious, and consumes our
riches, our lives!”
Mr. Gage gulped from his drink as Witan
once more rose to his full, daunting stature.
“But you…you mentioned captain’s error.”
Witan sank slowly back into his chair and
drew deeply from his cigar, grasping out with
tired lungs for something real, something tangible
in the thick, stagnant air. He turned and looked
sadly at the tattered painting which clung crookedly
to the wall beside him, then closed his sorry
eyes and sighed.
“The Endeavor’s main mast was splintered
rounding The Cape.” The engineer’s eyes sparked
with interest as Witan sipped hesitantly from his
glass. “It was my great grandfather’s first expedition
with her…a trading mission on which the
entire Witan fortune depended.” Witan paused
and stared once more at the ragged painting. “She
was raped on her maiden voyage…raped by an
ocean-brewed fiend. For six days and nights she
struggled against his will—clawed, bit, spat,
tore, cursed, matched his atrocities with grit and
resolve of equal ferocity. But on the dawn of the
seventh day, as God lay slumbering above, she
lost all strength and succumbed to his twisted
pleasure.” Witan swigged from his brandy and
breathed in the heavy, perfumed smoke, spirits
of passion and deception seeping into his veins
and drowning his wild heart with crushing smog.
“The following morning, she crawled her way
to land, shamed and crippled…but in her womb
lay safe the seed of my wealth.”
Mr. Gage glanced quickly about the luxurious
room, blazing eyes darting between lavish
furniture and royal trim. The soft glow of lamplight
illuminated all in flickering radiance, eerie
and wondrous, as Witan’s black shadow lay stark
upon the floor.
“Then the Endeavor’s cargo was saved from
the storm,” the engineer declared, voice cracking
with a bubbling hatred. Witan nodded grimly as
Mr. Gage again drank from his speech-provoking
glass, burning face alive, awake, sobered of
alcohol yet drunk on boiling passion. “But surely
not saved from the beasts of the Continent!”
“The Endeavor’s crew held courage enough
53

54
for tempest. No four-legged fiend could threaten
her.”
“None indeed that run, slither, or pounce…”
Mr. Gage staggered across the room and stroked
the tattered Endeavor with his shaking hand. “The
vicious lions the crew could match with simple
fire, poisonous snakes can easily be avoided, and
fever…” His eyes blazed behind his spectacles
as his reddened lips trembled with each uttered
word. “Fever is nothing. But I’ll tell you what
the true danger is.” Mr. Gage whipped about
suddenly and jabbed at Witan’s chest with his
sweat-drenched fingers. “It is those merciless
demons which lurk in huts and fish in rivers….
Be careful and trust not your eyes, for they are as
we are but for the black of their skin and the red
of their fangs. If the cruel blue sea tainted your
ancestor’s virgin, then the fiends of the jungle
made her their whore!”
“Enough!” Witan roared, bolting to his feet
and matching the engineer’s raging stare with his
own blazing eyes. Mr. Gage remained untamed,
face dripping with blinding sweat, hair matted
raggedly atop his head, and mouth contorted into
a vicious snarl.
“Have you ever been to Africa, Mr. Witan?
Have you ever once traversed the White Man’s
Graveyard?” He spat the words between his
lips, abandoning reason for brandy and passion.
“I have…and it was not the lions which I
feared.”
“Sit down, Edward,” Mr. Callahan pleaded,
tugging meekly at the engineer’s sleeve.
“I was once a guest at their village…” Mr.
Gage hesitated and, turning away from Witan’s
blazing stare, sank slowly back into his seat. He
reached for his brandy. “I was surveying for the
iron mines a few years past…. There…there was
an incident.” His voice trailed off as his eyes
glazed over with cooling sweat. “A flood…sudden
and fierce...it consumed everything…left us
to die on that horrid land…” He turned once more
to Witan. “…but they came for me…revived
me…”
“Then they should be praised,” Witan interrupted.
Mr. Gage shook his head and rubbed his
face quickly with his sleeve.
“They found others…warriors of rival tribes
too weak from hunger to cast themselves into
the water…. They dragged them to where there
was no water, a barren land of ash…no tree, no
vine…only fire and wailing.”
“They murdered them?” Mr. Callahan whispered,
slowly wafting away the smoke with his
hand.
“They butchered them—cut their throats,
tasted their blood, and spilled the rest upon the
dust. So, Mr. Witan, forgive my prejudice. Not
soon do I forget when souls are chained forever
in prisons of ash, and black-skinned demons lick
clean their tainted fangs.”
Witan sighed deeply, fire quenched within
his eyes, and reached for the tattered painting.
His hand stopped suddenly, mere inches from the
canvas, as if the very paint repulsed his skin. But
then, with great effort, Witan willed his trembling
palm forward and stroked the Endeavor upon the
mast.
“She was not constructed by my great
grandfather. He bought her from Americans…
traders…slave traders.” Witan closed his eyes,
voice hoarse with smoke and ash. “He wagered
everything on her…chanced all his worth on this
ship, this pure maiden of the sea who had raped
that continent until it bled. Look again upon her
disfigured mast. It is a tree, torn from its roots to
heal what the tempest had wrought. Even then,
after she had taken so many souls, her hunger
for life remained unquenched. My wealth has
sprung from death.” Witan’s fiery eyes blazed
fiercely at the silenced engineer. “Your demons
were chained by iron. I am chained by blood.”
He overturned his glass and stamped out his
cigar. “You’re right, Mr. Gage. But for the black
of their skin and the red of their fangs, they are
as we are.”

Be i n g Be l o w Ze r o Ma k e s Yo u Th i n k
Jonathan E. D. Huelman
It was
Below two hundred and seventy three
Below zero, and
Below thirty-two, and
I couldn’t feel my face.
No, seriously.
My face felt number than is humanly possible.
I am not exaggerating.
If there were an SI unit of measurement for numbness,
My face would have been approximately
A bazillion of them.
I sort of wish that there had been someone near
To slap my face,
So that I could have not felt it.
My fingers would be a bazillion and one
On that numbness scale.
My little frozen fingers in my gloves
Were like little prepackaged sausage links at Schnucks,
Completely useless to me.
They might as well have not been there.
There could have been
Alligators gnawing on those digits,
And I would have become that guy
Who, years later, people remember
As the guy who just sat there peacefully as
Alligators ate his fingers.
Fighting isn’t worth it, anyway.
Not in this weather.
55
And my toes.
Don’t even get me started on my toes.
I had initially put on nice thick woolen socks
That morning, but I had taken them off,
Afraid that my feet would be too warm.
My toes, in a defiant and rebellious act,
Were refusing to move.
Ten little union workers,
Sick of being teased with the benefits of warmth,
On strike against the rest of me.

56
Th e Da m n Ar m r e s t
Connor Cole
killed the engine. It’s what she wants, I
I guess. I don’t really know. The windows
were down, and the August night was beginning
to cool off.
“Do you have a lighter?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed a yellow one from the
little storage area under the radio and handed
it to her. She lit her cigarette. “You know those
are the preferred cigarettes of cocaine users.” I
was almost able to say it and have it sound like
I had a point.
“What?”
“Parliament Lights. They have that little
filter that goes in. You know what I mean? That
little part you can stick your tongue in? It’s got a
longer filter for…” I trailed off. “Never mind.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Just trying to make conversation,
I guess.” And man, I was struggling. Good
God, this is awkward. It was only 10:30, though.
I can’t pull the “I’ve got to go home” just yet.
Entirely implausible.
“It’s all right.” Out of nowhere she reclined
her seat all the way back, leaving me alone at the
100 degree angle. I considered my options. She
rolled over and faced the door, just lying there
with the cigarette. I finished mine a minute later
and reclined back to join her. I wish that I could
have left the radio on so that I wouldn’t have to
listen to that silence. It was a silence that crept
into my car and allowed me to realize just how
bad I am with girls. I must have five friends in
this exact situation right now, scattered across
West County, and I’m the only one not in the
back seat with the girl not wearing a shirt.
We must have sat there for fifteen minutes,
neither of us saying much. I asked about
her job, and she told me. She asked about football,
and I told her. But between these small
discussions, which wouldn’t go for much more
that forty-five seconds apiece, we just sat there
in silence. And to think I’d be starting school
again in almost a week. A wasted night. I was
now cursing myself for not leaving the radio
on. It’s really just the damn car. The two front
seats were so far apart, with one large divider for
an armrest. It wasn’t even an armrest at all, the
more I thought about it. No, it was a barrier. A
barrier impenetrable to my right arm’s attempts
at her lap. You buy a car for 3,000 dollars and
you think you’re getting a deal. But then you
have it tested for emissions, and it fails. So you
have to get it fixed, and wouldn’t you know
it it’s going to cost another 800 dollars. A red
Pontiac Grand Am with thousands of dollars
in hidden costs, and the layout of the vehicle
won’t even allow a guy to just reach his arm
over there. So I’m lying here in this piece of
shit, with this damn armrest blocking every
move at reaching my hand over, and the only
contact I’ve had all night is passing a lighter!
You remove the armrest and bring the seats a
little closer, and it’s now a few inches from a
gentle brush of her thigh. Man, wouldn’t that
just start it all. Just reach over, and set it on her
thigh. Easy does it…
made it to the armrest. I had to set my hand
I down there. The damn armrest. I couldn’t go
much further then the armrest without sacrificing
my own dignity really. She’d know what I
was trying to do, if she didn’t already. She had
rolled on to her back, but her head was still
turned in the other direction. She was chewing
her gum; her legs were just a little spread apart
under her denim skirt. I bet I have a comment
about the type of gum she’s chewing, too. Or
maybe her skirt. I bet I know some fun facts
about her skirt. This would be so much easier
with alcohol, or if we had smoked some pot.
I’ve never smoked before, but I’d be more then
willing to if it meant alleviating some of these
problems my car was causing. That would really
initiate the process. Get the ball rolling. That’s
really all we needed. I could take over after

that, just kind of kick it into autopilot. I guess
that’s how it worked. If she would just meet me
halfway. Just meet me here on this armrest. If
she would just make the first move.
I
“ think it’s time to take me home.” In one fluid
motion her seat sprang upright again. I was
left lying there feeling like a complete loser.
What a blown chance. But I understood, and
we pulled out of the dark parking lot behind the
abandoned warehouse in Brentwood in silence.
We were headed west on Highway 40 when her
cell phone went off.
“You can answer it.”
“Hello? Hey what’s going on Lauren? Yeah,
what did you do tonight?” Ali sat there and
listened for a while, and laughed once or twice.
“Oh, that’s great! Oh, nothing I just stayed home
tonight. Yeah, no, I’m just tired. No, it’s fine. I’ll
call you tomorrow night when I’m off work. All
right, see you.” She snapped the flip phone shut,
and sank back into her seat. “I’m sorry. I just
didn’t want to make it sound like…I just didn’t
want to tell her you know. Just because we’re not
like going out or anything so, if I was saying that
I was just like hanging out with a guy behind a
warehouse in Brentwood while they’re at a party
they might think there’s something going when
there’s nothing there.” That was the most she’d
said since I picked her up.
“No, yeah, I totally understand.”
“Yeah, I know you do. I don’t mean to sound
mean or anything. I don’t want to come across
that way. Because I mean I had fun tonight.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“We didn’t do anything. We just drove
around and then sat there.”
“I know. Well, I mean it would have been
nice if we’d had something to do. But it’s all
right, you know?”
We got to her house at 11:24. She got out
and went inside. I didn’t walk her up or
anything. I don’t know if people even do that
anymore. I put the car in reverse and headed
home, disappointed if nothing else. I could have
just made the move. I know she’d have gone for
it. I guess she’s that type of girl. I don’t really
know what that means… well, I guess I do. That
armrest just made it so tough. It’s not really my
fault; it’s the car’s fault. If the two seats were
right next to each other I’m sure that something
would have happened. I am completely positive
of that. I decided to call her. I imagined that ring
tone going off somewhere in her room, and her
deciding to not answer it. Surprisingly, she got
to it pretty quick.
“Hey, Ali, it’s Mike again.”
“Hey, Mike.”
“Listen, Ali, I was thinking, it’s not really my
fault. It was the car’s fault. It was the armrest’s
fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, that divider. Between the
seats.”
“I don’t think I understand what you
mean.”
“Hey, do you want to sneak out tonight?”
“Mike, what are you talking about?”
“There’s no armrest in the backseat.
“Why would we sneak out?” I guess I had
to state it now. I had to state explicitly what my
intentions were, to say what I had thought I had
the courage to say when I made up my mind to
call her. Why not.
“So we can…you know…get on each other?”
It really did sound just like that, and it felt all
wrong right after it had left my mouth. It was
almost degrading. It probably was degrading. It
didn’t sound the way I had wanted to say it at
all.
“What! What are you talking about?” You
want to sneak out so that you can just get on
me? No. I have to work tomorrow. I’ve got to
get up early. I would probably get caught by my
parents. And besides,” her voice now dropping
from disbelief in my petition to complete disgust
in me, “I don’t even like you. I have no idea why
I didn’t go with Lauren to that party tonight. A
57

58
wasted night. You have no idea how to treat a
lady, let alone make conversation with one!” At
that she hung up the phone.
Ali had said she had fun tonight. I couldn’t
figure this girl out. I picked her up at her house.
I came up with all of the ideas too. I offered to
go to a movie, or ice cream. I’d have paid, too.
I just got this car, and all I thought was that it
would be a good idea to go for a drive. Ali did
too. That’s why we went. I didn’t even want to
get on her when I had called earlier. She was the
one that wanted to. I mean, who reclines a seat
like that?
was parking the car on the street in front
I of my house when she called back. “Look,
Mike, I’m sorry I hung up on you. You kind of
caught me off guard, but it’s OK.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.
I guess I thought it was what you wanted.” I
paused to think about it for a second. Why can’t
I be real with this girl? The night couldn’t get
much worse. “What did you want?”
“I didn’t want anything.”
“Then why didn’t you go the party? Why
did you go with me? You said that you don’t
even like me.”
“Of course I like you. I just don’t like you
like that. The way you were tonight. I don’t
know; it just feels good to get out of the house.
It felt good to be in a car that my parents weren’t
driving. I mean we’re friends and all, even if we
have nothing to talk about.”
“We could have stuff to talk about. It was
just being forced. I thought I was supposed to
make the move. I don’t know.” I sat there outside
my house on my front porch. Everyone would
be asleep by now. I could go in whenever.
“Well then, tell me something interesting
about yourself, Mike.” That sounded forced, or
even a little fake, but I knew it wasn’t.
“Well, I guess you know I play football.
That’s funny that the first thing I identify myself
with is the football team. Well, I do more than
play football. I was in two plays at school last
year.” We just started talking. I just started talking,
not worrying about what it sounded like to her.
I had to draw on just about every aspect of my
life, but I found things to say. After awhile she
was telling me about stlpunk.com, and although
I had no idea what she was talking about, I found
her interesting. We actually could communicate.
If nothing else it just felt good to be real with
someone, without a mask.
It’s funny what they say about cars, and how
it’s good for guys to have conversations in cars,
because they don’t have to look at each other.
Well that’s not how it works in my car. I save it
for the flip phone, after the car. It read 1:48 on
the microwave when I went in to go to bed.
Ty l e r Pe y

Li k e, p o e t ry a n d s t u f f
Henry Goldkamp
This started blankly
and now a piece,
certain sections are, well,
not as blank.
Kindly filled with ink, thoughts, letters, words,
perhaps even feelings.
Perhaps.
But the thing of importance that it lacks is knowledge.
Damn it!
I promise you, my dear reader,
If I had some I would gladly share it.
Not even some—I’d share it all with you.
But now I must give you a sincere apology
because I have none.
I only wonder now
how long it will take for this to fade away
or be erased by someone_____
Only to be given another chance at figuring it out.
And as long as scraps of paper are available,
I will keep trying.
Owning a large library,
acquiring a taste for Chinese tea,
using delightful, pleasing words.
They don’t produce knowledge.
I realized this a few books/sips/conversations ago,
And I know I know nothing.
I think some poets might, indeed,
at this point claim something along the lines of,
“Alas! I have uncovered knowledge in knowing I know nothing!”
59
But what brand of knowledge is that? Useless!
Time to turn the page
and try
again
again.

An Od e t o My Ba l l p o i n t Pe n
Thad Winker
60
I sit and write
with my ever-faithful,
never-failing
ballpoint pen.
The tip slides across the paper
like a figure skater,
leaving a trail of elegance,
rising up
and falling back
to the pad.
Each period:
a twirl on the ice.
A colon:
a leap with perfection
in mind.
Line
by line
my pen swivels across the page.
Each mark is another
complex maneuver
hoping to award my pen
a perfect ten.
Oozing from the tip
with unseen precision,
the ink leaves a trail with bumps
and turns. Each one more
exquisite than the next.
Oil dripping from a car,
the ink shows the path
of the pen.
The line of black oil is
sporadic,
jumping
from line
to line.
Twisting and turning
a sudden
stop.
My pen makes its path
through highways and parkways
trying to get to school,
it is my great tool.
My pen sings in my fingers.
Its song is written between the lines,
a song of pain,
a song of toil,
this is the song
of a man pushed too hard,
a man stretched
like a skater’s muscles.
This is a song about
a man losing his strength
as a car loses its oil,
its life line.
My pen weeps as I weep,
in pain, stretched from
here
to there.

Lo n g Da r k Ha l l w a y s
a n d Ce d a r Cl o s e t s
T. J. Keeley
In my six-year-old mind, everything stopped
that day. The late afternoon sun peered in
my car window as I read The Very Hungry
Caterpillar for the thousandth time. Reading,
a skill Grandpa had helped me develop, fascinated
me. It felt like it took an entire day for
Mom to drive me to Grandpa’s farm. He often
invited me to spend the night there and help
him feed the chickens, collect the corn off the
stalks, and pull the weeds out of his garden.
This was the first time that it actually worked
out for Mom to take me there, after my many
weeks of begging. Grandpa had that way of
getting things done the “right” way the first
time so he wouldn’t have to do them again,
and he would not stop unless everything met
his satisfaction. I liked that best about Grandpa,
his control over uncontrollable things, and his
ability to deal with anything thrown his way.
Occasionally, when the car would stop at a red
light, I looked out the window at the sparkling
sidewalk pavement. I thought about how he
and I would talk about Kindergarten before
he would sneak down the long, dark, and very
scary hallway into the cedar closet at the end
and bring back a flimsy cardboard box filled
to the top with train cars, tracks, and hours of
fun. He would sit in his brown, squeaky recliner
chair with me on his lap and rock slowly back
in forth while he watched the evening news,
Channel 4, for how the weather would affect
his work schedule tomorrow. As always, we
would eat fried chicken and mashed potatoes
(that I could never finish) and, after dinner, he
would give me a brown paper bag filled with
giant Tootsie Rolls to share with Adam, my
brother. In the morning, he might let me ride
in the tractor with him.
The ringing of Mom’s cell phone interrupted
my daydreaming. Dad had called. “Why?” she
asked curiously. “Okay, I’ll pull over by the gym
on 158.”
She drove the white SUV off the main road
and into a black asphalt parking lot where only
one other car sat motionless. Mom just sat there,
drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, with
a talk-radio show playing quietly on the radio.
Moments later, Dad arrived in his small black car
and parked next to us. I looked out the window
and saw the only other car in the parking lot pull
away. Dad slowly opened his door and reluctantly
got out of the car as if someone or something
forced him to do so. His eyes squinted as if he
searched for something in the distance, perhaps
for the right words to say. His once-white tennis
shoes showed blotched, brown dirt and his jeans
were wrinkled. I could see a small coffee stain
down the front of his shirt. After he slammed
his door with more than the necessary force, I
popped my door and yelled “Hey, Dad!”
“Hi, son,” he answered back in a quiet tone
and an emotionless face. Still sitting in my seat,
I could see that the sun hid in the clouds now,
and the first claps of thunder made me jump in
my seat.
“Are you in?” Dad asked, making sure I
wasn’t hanging out of the car before closing the
door. He lacked the liveliness he would normally
display when he greeted us. He raised one lazy
arm to open Mom’s door and motioned with
that hand for her to get out. All I could sense
from the world around me was the beeping of
the car that stopped when Mom closed her door
after getting out. Once her door slammed, I no
longer heard the thunder in the sky, or either of
their voices. The tinted windows in the back seat
made it difficult to make out details. Dad stared
at the ground for a long moment, again appearing
to looking for something he might have lost.
He raised his head slightly and, with lowered
eyebrows, opened his mouth only half way and
muttered something inaudible to Mom. Immediately,
Mom’s eyes got really big and deserted.
The gusts of cool air had taken away every sliver
61

62
of happiness from Mom’s face, and Dad gave
her a long hug. The sun completely hid in the
clouds now and a light drizzle of rain started. I
could then see Mom’s face. It looked like she’d
been crying. But Mom didn’t cry, did she? No,
she must be laughing, but about what? It seemed
like an eternity as I sat in that car, completely
removed from the entire world around me, and
the longer I waited to learn what had happened,
the further away from them I grew. The glass in
the car window seemed thicker as I sat deeper in
my leather seat in the car. I sat there in a strange
trance knowing something had gone wrong, but
not how wrong. After several moments, Mom
opened the car door, and I could again hear the
noises of the world around me resuming their
courses: the rain, the thunder, the beeping, the
traffic. Dad waved me into his car, but didn’t
open my door. I stepped down from the high
position at which I sat in the white Navigator
and stepped down from the joyous attitude the
day once knew. I settled into the back seat of
the passenger side of Dad’s small black car and
looked at Mom out the window. She sat in her
car crying, and I sat there staring as we drove
away and the image of her got smaller.
I asked Dad, “What’s happening? Is everybody
okay?”
Dad spoke to me on the car ride for the first
time. “No, no, son. It’s Grandpa. He died this
morning in his bed.”
Grandpa? Surely not my Grandpa. No, he
invited me to his farm today to spend the night
there. He could not have died. I suddenly felt this
emptiness eating away at my stomach. I blamed
God for the sense of betrayal I felt. What did dead
mean for me, surely this a temporary thing. He
would be back soon, I thought.
I did see Grandpa again, but not the way a grandson
should see him. He lay there, motionless, with
his eyes closed, in a black box. He looked pale
and thin, not like the Grandpa I remembered.
People much taller than me dressed in black and
carrying tissues surrounded me. They, like Mom
had, cried and kept repeating how sorry they felt.
I didn’t know what all this meant. People stood
in line waiting to see a dead person, my grandpa.
Children my age and younger ran around laughing.
Many people stood in small groups talking
about happy things, forcing a smile and pretending
everything went well. I could see out the small
glass window on the wall on the right that the rain
had come again. How could everything change
in my life as soon as Dad pulled up in his small
black car on that empty black parking lot? Was this
a dream, or a joke? Grandpa liked to joke a lot.
I began to convince myself that he would
get out of that black box smiling and laughing.
He would come over to me and take his
false teeth out, a trick that always fascinated
me. We would go to his house and everything
would go back to normal. But it didn’t happen.
I stood there, in the middle of the room
by myself staring at Grandpa in the coffin.
All hope of a saved day suddenly escaped
when I realized that those false teeth would never
come out again. We would never again sit and
talk about Kindergarten or eat fried chicken and
mashed potatoes. I wondered who would feed the
chickens, collect the corn and care for the garden,
if not Grandpa. I realized that Grandpa had made
his last trip down that long, dark hallway to get the
old cardboard box full of trains. But, to Grandpa,
in life, one would have to take long scary walks
down dark hallways because reaching the cedar
closet at the end and playing with his grandson outweighed
any fear the hallway might give. Grandpa
once told me, “It’s important to work hard in
your life, because dying would be even harder.”
Grandpa had always told us that he no
longer feared death after Grandma had died. He
felt he had lived a good life and couldn’t wait to
see her again. As his friends and the people he
knew started to die, he told us, “If I could pick
my way to go, I would want to die right there
in my bed, peacefully during my sleep.” And he
did.

Spit ting Im a g e
Timlin Glaser
A nineteen-year-old version of my father
Stares at me from a thirty-eight-year-old photograph
Out of the small, broody blue eyes he gave me,
Hoarding the same glimmer I see in the mirror
His face gleams of innocence behind a cigarette
His cheeks
Not yet permanently speckled with stubble
His forehead
Not yet drooping with age
His head boasts of hair, thin but present at least,
His hands, smooth, free of the cracks and wrinkles
He now brandishes after years of hard work
His arms are thin and nearly hairless
63
His half-smile poses angst
Of his uncertain future
He’s just a boy, like me
Do m Pa l u m b o

64
Th e Tu r n
Tony Bertucci
T
he soft thud of the tennis ball against the tan bricks of my house
must have caught the attention of my neighbor. I had my brandnew
tiny baseball glove, not quite plastic but not quite leather, and I
was breaking it in on the side of my house. I was six years old.
Bill traipsed over in his work boots and flannel shirt. He was an
austere, nearly senile carpenter who had lived in the house next door for
the majority of his life. I dropped the ball and stared at him as it rolled
up to his boots. He stooped over, grunting, and snatched the ball off the
ground.
“I used to be a ball player, ya know.”
I was too afraid of Bill to respond. Once I accidentally rode behind
his truck with my tricycle and he called me a dingbat. Since that incident
I had grown wary of him.
He flipped the ball up and down with his crusty paws.
“I was a shortstop, and a good one too. Just make sure when you
play shortstop that you be careful on the turn. You know what the turn
is, don’t you kid?”
I didn’t know what the turn was. I nodded my head anyway.
“I wasn’t careful until I learned it the hard way. Got spiked right
in the shin.” He pulled up his pant leg and revealed a dark purple scar
trailing down his shin to his ankle.
“The next time that guy came in on me, you know what I did?”
I was still staring at his ankle, frightened at how the story might
conclude.
“I’ll tell you. I dropped the ball—I dropped it, right there on the
ground—and I let him slide on in. When he looked up at me, I took my
glove up and slapped that sonofabitch right across the face with it.”
I turned around and ran in, leaving my plastic glove in the grass
outside.