esprit - The University of Scranton

e s p r i t
f a l l 2 0 0 7

ESPRIT
The University of Scranton Review of Arts and Letters
Fall 2007
Editor-in-Chief
Jonathan Sondej
Production Manager
Andi Frankenburger
Assistant Production Managers
Jenn Dice, Joseph A. Koivisto, Jenn Lewis,
CJ Libassi, Katherine Nullet, Matthew Vita
Edward DelSole
Jenn Dice
Andi Frankenburger
Joseph A. Koivisto
Jenn Lewis
CJ Libassi
John X. Mandarano
Matt Mercuri
Editors
Gemma Williams
Check-In
Maria Landis
Faculty Moderator
Stephen Whittaker
Katherine Nullet
Patrick J. O’ Kernick
Shane Rielly
P.H. Spalletta
Sarah Suwak
Alison Swety
Ashley Teatum
Matthew Vita
Esprit, a co-curricular activity of the English department, is published twice yearly by the students
of The University of Scranton. The content is the responsibility of the editors and does not
necessarily reflect the views of the administration or faculty. The University subscribes to the
principle of responsible freedom of expression for its student editors.
Copyright by The University of Scranton, Scranton, PA 18510.

Fall 2007 Awards
The Berrier Poetry Award
Jonathan Sondej
Amphibian
The Berrier Prose Award
P.H. Spalletta
This Thing of Darkness.
The Esprit Photography Award
Michelle Geise
Silent Breeze
Fall 2007 Award Judges:
Poetry:
Rachel Chibnik, class of 2007, was both an editor and an assistant production manager for
Esprit. Her poems “Capable of Being” and “Imitation as Flattery or Stolen,” as well as her
photograph Tooth, were published by Esprit in 2006 and 2007. She is currently pursuing
her M.A. in Educational Theatre for Colleges and Communities at New York University.
Prose:
Dan Mac Guill, class of 2007, is an award-winning writer, and was Editor-in-Chief of
Esprit. He hopes to begin an M.A. in philosophy at University College Dublin, Ireland, in
September 2008.
Photography:
Lisa Hinkle is an assistant professor at Marywood University, from which she received
her M.F.A. She teaches history of photography and all levels of studio photography. She is
currently at work on a collection of her photographs.

Contents
Frank
Sorrow
Untitled
Deliverance
Teh Modern Man in Repose!!!1
Untitled
Amphibian
Great Grandpa vs. The Last Cowboy
Untitled
The Smile
Bloodlines
Dirty Dishes
Bellevue
The Haunt
This Thing of Darkness.
Silent Breeze
Integrate
Untitled
Michelle Geise
Jenn Lewis
Jenn Lewis
Alison Swety
Siobhan Casey
Katherine Nullet
Jenn Lewis
P.H. Spalletta
Andi Frankenburger
Jonathan Sondej
Brian Affleck
Jenn Dice
Carolyne King
Edward DelSole
Andi Frankenburger
Matt Mercuri
Patrick J. O’Kernick
P.H. Spalletta
5
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9
10
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18
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21
22
26
27
28
29
31
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
Back Cover

Frank
Alison Swety
She combed her hair a final time, carefully applied a second coat
of lipstick, and turned away from the mirror, satisfied. The girl returned
the comb to its home on the middle shelf. Her freshly manicured fingers
coiled around the silver tube, and she tucked it into her handbag. The girl
took a notepad and pen from the cabinet and wrote Purchase More: Ruby Red
Passion in neat cursive. Frank loved that shade. She replaced the pad and
pen on the shelf, next to her wallet, and closed the cabinet door.
As her feet left the soft bathroom rug, she felt the cold shock of
winter wood floors. The girl slipped her left, then right, foot into the pair
of heels that she had selected for the occasion, and started toward the front
window. She stuck her fingers between the blinds and peeked through.
No car. The girl turned from the window and sank into an armchair. The
clock’s hand ticked to 7:13. She reached for a magazine on the side coffee
table, casually flipped through it, and stopped at the earmarked page.
The sudden blare of the telephone broke through the silence. The
phone rang twice before she placed the magazine back on the table, gently
pushed herself out of the chair, and walked into the kitchen. Her heels
clicked a steady rhythm against the tile floor. She picked up the phone
from its cradle and raised it to her ear.
“Frank?” the girl asked sweetly.
“Just me. Are you waiting for a call?”
“Oh. Hi, Mom.” The girl’s voice dropped to its normal octave.
“No, he’s just a little late. We have dinner plans tonight.”
“That’s right. You did mention dinner. Are you going to that Italian
restaurant?”
“Antonio’s? No, Frank’s taking me somewhere formal. He didn’t
say the name of it.”
The girl moved toward the cabinet, selected a clean glass from the
bottom shelf, filled it with tap water, and took a sip.
5

“Well, that sounds nice. You should wear your silk dress. You know,
the blue one with matching—”
“Actually, I bought something new,” the girl interrupted. “It’s a
little black one from Adam West’s. Frank loves it when I wear black.”
“Isn’t that the place we found your sophomore year? When you
were going through that awful breakup with John?”
“Jack,” she said, and shifted the phone to her left ear.
“That’s right. Jack. He transferred to a school in some big city.
New York…Philadelphia…Boston…”
“Chicago.”
“Yes. Chicago. Now I remember. Did you ever—?”
“Never mind, Mom. Frank should be coming soon.” The girl
sipped the remainder of the water, rinsed the glass, and placed it into the
dishwasher. “What did you call about?”
“Actually, I wanted to make sure that Frank is coming to your
grandmother’s for dinner next Sunday. She keeps asking to meet him.”
“Yes, of course he’ll be there.”
“Perfect.” A ten-second lull came between her words, and the girl
pictured her mother taking a deep drag from a cigarette. The girl craved
one, but Frank disliked the habit. “I’ve told her so much about him. I may
have gotten overexcited,” her mother continued. “I wouldn’t be surprised
if she checked your finger for a ring next week.”
A smile leaked from the girl’s face, and she lightly cleared her
throat.
“Honey pie?” The girl could hear the anticipation rise in her
mother’s voice. “What should we be expecting?”
“Well, Frank did stress that he has something to tell me.”
The girl distanced her ear from her mother’s squeal and reunited
with the phone to hear her mother persist, “Oh, I knew it! I didn’t want to
say anything just in case, of course. This is such wonderful news. And he’s
already found a job, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, with an accounting firm. A major one. They’ve only offered
positions to two men in our class.”
“Sweetie, I’m so happy for you. I’ll be sure to tell your father
tonight. Oh, and we’re having Mr. Thomas and his wife over. Did you
6

hear about their daughter? Left Princeton for a year, Princeton, to wander
around the world. God knows where. By herself. Ruined everything with
that nice Jimmy Brown.”
“I did hear. I can’t even imagine,” the girl confessed. She opened
the refrigerator, straightened the cans of diet soda, and shut the door.
“Frank and I plan to travel sometime after graduation, though.”
“That’s completely different.”
“Yes, I guess it is,” she replied truthfully.
A forceful knock on the apartment door caused the girl’s attention
to swerve away from her mother and toward the source.
“He’s here!” she whispered. “I’ll give you a call later, Mom.
Goodbye.”
She hung up the telephone before her mother could respond. The
girl tugged her dress into place, patted her handbag, and walked to the
door.
Her hand clutched the doorknob and turned. A sudden
comprehension filled her eyes as the neighborhood boys laughed and ran
away.
7

Sorrow
Siobhan Casey
Sunflower inside a
water-warm glass, only
window pane and my
eyes touching wild-plush
petals, smooth arms
flung into space, yellow heat
melting cold nothings, and
I can’t help but carry its
slippery-glow around with me,
as if its presence changes every
thing, as if it knows what it is to
mourn, face turned upward, a
thousand searching eyes, darkness
at the heart of gold.
8

9
Katherine Nullet

Deliverance
Jenn Lewis
Thursday afternoons I trudge
down cool green tile, sweating
a well-preserved funk
of unease. But curiosity
ripens each lungful of reek
before souring, checking
my stride at the door. I linger
while the teacher scoops
one from the tank—“what a beauty!”—
and serves it, raw. Fluid puddles
beneath an indifferent gaze.
I try not to stare back
as I arrange my immaculate
knives: inspection follows,
the body in rigor, so unlike
the bundles in movies and ads
and food packaging. I consider
means of setting pins, avoiding
almost-cloven hooves or squashed
hindquarters. Hairless,
its back rests slick beneath my fingers.
They prickle as I unzip
the smooth leather jacket, and I murmur
a brief prayer of contrition for
what I am about to do.
10

Teh Modern Man in Repose!!!1, or: A Serious and
Thought-Provoking Literary Analysis of the 21 st
Century Epistolary.
P.H. Spalletta
tom—did i leave my social security card at your apt?
I don’t think so, but I’ll look. How can you lose something like that?
dunno
And why did you bring it to New York with you in the first place?
dunno
I really don’t think it’s here.
just look around. coffee table, probably
Fine. If I find it I’ll mail it to you.
thx—how’d youre play go?
Great. Full house both nights.
reviews?
Just one. Overall good, but they didn’t like Caesar’s haircut.
stupid—nothing to do with writing at least
Yeah. I liked the whole hair-and-beard the same length. I think I’ll try it.
don’t
Why not? I think it looked cool on Dave.
11

you’ll look like an escaped mental patient
What? Why? Fuck you.
you have a lumpy head—it’s disturbing
My head is perfectly spherical
delightfully spherical
Shut up. How’s Angie?
good
Just good? You guys over your thing?
yeah
How did you fix it?
bought her a pumpkin
A pumpkin? Are you retarded? Why would you buy her a pumpkin?
she likes pumpkins
What the hell does that mean?
they’re ‘cute’
A vegetable can’t be cute.
i have told her this
Well. A rutabaga is kind of cute.
only if you put a little hat on it and name it
Wait, is a pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable?
seeds inside
12

…so?
i don’t know—i’ll ask her
angie says it’s a gourd
So…?
it’s a gourd
OK. Figure out why she was mad at you?
fuck should i know
True, true.
sup with brenda?
Eh. We went to a movie.
movie?
The new Superman.
wtf?
What?
1. superman is not a date movie
Come on.
2. superman is terrible
I didn’t think it was that bad.
no i mean Superman as a concept is terrible
I thought you liked him because he’s the only Jewish superhero.
13

he’s the only jewish superhero who sucks
He’s the only Jewish superhero.
the thing is jewish—the thing does not suck
The Thing is not Jewish.
ten dollars
What?
ten dollars the thing is jewish
No.
wikipedia says the thing is jewish
Fine. I bow to your superior knowledge of superhero religions.
send $10 with the social security card
Fine.
Hey, I found your card. I mailed it today.
thx. did you see my lighter anywhere?
No. Buy a new lighter.
can’t
They’re like a dollar or something.
my lighter is a 1958 zippo slim
Oh. Sorry. I didn’t see it anywhere.
14

they dont grow on trees tom
If I find it I’ll send it to you. You’re the one who lost it.
it is not lost—it is unfound
How profound.
confound!
That was terrible. We are no longer friends.
did brenda leave you after superman
No.
she should have
Unlike you, Brenda does not let Superman come between us.
i do it because i care—you should not suffer a lame superhero
The Flash is lame. You like the Flash.
the flash is not lame
The Flash is horrendously lame.
the flash is misunderstood
The Flash’s main villain is a hyper intelligent psychic gorilla from a land of
other hyper intelligent psychic gorillas.
that is kind of lame. gorilla grodd is kind of lame
So you admit it?
this is something i admit—but gorilla grodd did have mind control
Yes. The spectacle! Mind control vs. super speed.
15

the sport of kings!
Oh, Caesar’s Ghost won at the festival.
no shit
Shit.
congrats. wish i could have seen it when i was up
Come up for my next one. It’s about Tartaglia.
the mathametician?
Yeah. And his ultimate betrayal.
it’ll be better than superman
Just take your shit with you when you leave.
=p
16

17
Andi Frankenburger

Amphibian
Jonathan Sondej
In the beginning was the abyss.
Feeling nothing, being nowhere,
I drank of life unknowing that I lived.
I, deathless chimera of the wheel of time,
Through ten thousand breathless expirations,
For eons plied primordial brine.
Vomit of the salted deep
Wriggles up the rugged coast,
Terminal and so eternal, mutable and so immortal.
I have sipped the arid thought of a drowned man,
And thus am I delivered. As Jonah unto white sands,
As wave-worn Ulysses unto ruth’s red shore.
18

Great Grandpa vs. The Last Cowboy
Brian Affleck
He reminded me of a grizzled German submariner,
Great Grandpa—in fact he was a diver in the Navy before he became
That red-haired, rocky-eyed relic.
I feared his beard.
Great Grandpa was the reincarnated Odin, his secret safely tucked
In those blazing whiskers and my wild imagination.
Great Grandpa was an ancient form of Man,
The kind immortalized in the lyrical histories of
Barbarian cultures, somehow preserved
In flame through the eons upon a drifting treasure ship,
Searching for a willing heart to hear his songs.
He shared these lost chronicles with me often,
Wrapping his tongue in the tattered rug of
Whiskey and bathing every breath in rusty pipe smoke.
His voice sounded wars.
Every word was an exploding grenade, every gasp escaping soldiers still
smoldering
As they ran from the stinking trench that was his throat.
But Great Grandpa speared me most frequently with his battle against
The Last Cowboy.
In his youth, Great Grandpa spent hours sweating out West.
He encountered The Last Cowboy while passing time in the shade of a
saloon.
This man, one of a dying breed, sang a song for Great Grandpa.
The Last Cowboy hummed the saga of his questing through the untamed
plains,
19

And when his song was sung The Last Cowboy paused…
“Well, that’s the end of my story.”
Great Grandpa watched as the revolver was raised into
The Last Cowboy’s mouth before an explosion slammed through the top of
his skull.
Great Grandpa watched as brain-blood spilled onto desert dirt.
Great Grandpa watched as he sang me this legend.
And when his story ended
Great Grandpa sank, unsalvageable and unsung—nothing like a Viking
hero.
20

21
Jenn Dice

The Smile
Carolyne King
She lies stiffly on her back, sheet tucked neatly under her arms, the wide
band of white a bandage around her chest that contrasts sharply to the
dark blanket. It is late, yet she cannot sleep. A feeling of panic fills her.
She stares down her still form, her body coffined by the stiff blanket that
covers her.
Her body appears angular in the rigid position it holds. The waxy paleness
of her forehead contrasts vividly against the fan of dark hair that flows
out to her shoulders. Her arms, placed outside the blanket, are pinioned
at her sides, elbows slightly angled allowing her hands to lie folded at her
waist. Pale in the insignificant light, her wrists almost disappear against the
deep blue of the blanket before the slightly more substantial whiteness of
her interlocked fingers. From the point of her elbows, her body creates a
still, rigid column that meets the slightly boxy upturn of her feet. Under
the smoothing stiffness of the blanket, she appears as an awkward, oblong
hexagon.
She stares above her, eyes locked on a point of the ceiling. She does not
move her head to gaze down her body, past the band of the white sheet.
She does not try to wiggle her toes or to flex and stretch her calves,
thrusting arched feet at the door. She lies immobile beneath the slight
weight of the blanket, feeling the silence and dark press in against her. It
restrains her, holds her in rigid place, the air as stiffly confining as a plank
of wood.
Fabric hisses and the bed stirs beside her. It shudders as he rolls towards
her. Springs depress at her side, almost causing her to slide down the
incline into his warm skin. He sighs and shrugs his shoulders, moving the
blanket fluidly around his form.
22

A knee pushing into her space disturbs the forced rigidness of her position.
It breaks the long line of the leg above the knee, leaving an undefined space
between the thigh and the upturned toes. Startled, she glances down.
Quickly, she averts her eyes, resumes her stare at the ceiling. She cannot
look at the rumpled blanket, no longer a fluid unbroken line of leg. Her
leg … cut off beneath the knee. The violence of imbalance surprises her;
the broken symmetry of her body repels her mind from even the most
fragile, tentative touches. She dares not move. She cannot send nerve
impulses through her spine, down her thighs, telling her ankles to strain
downward and the balls of her feet to curl. She cannot bear for the
electrical pulse to spring into the synaptic gap only to remain there—
hanging in the void where her leg once was.
The intruding knee pulls away. Once again, her body becomes an oblong
shape, legs smooth lines leading to upturned toes.
“Are you awake?” She does not respond—her mind caught in the gap of
her leg; she is separated from the ability to force air through her throat to
create sound.
He turns on his side to study her, her face a dim profile of forehead, nose,
lips, and chin above her blanket-bandaged chest.
“Have you been able to sleep at all?” This time, she sighs. Her chest expands
abruptly before air pushes out between lips, leaving her chest and
body once more still beneath the blanket. “Go back to sleep.”
He reaches out a hand, moving it beneath the covers, to noisily make its
way to her side. He brushes her forearm with a finger.
“Are you going to be able to sleep at all tonight?” Again, she does not answer.
He strokes her arm, a long touch from wrist to elbow. It startles her
and convulsively, she shudders, muscles tensing beneath her skin. Her feet
jump beneath the blanket, and, surprised, she glances down at her legs.
23

“Do you want me to do anything?” She continues to stare wonderingly
at her legs, at the distorted blanket that no longer smoothes them into a
single shape. “No, go back to sleep.”
He sighs. For a moment, a silence exists between them.
“Can’t you tell me what happened? I just want to help you.”
She stares down at her legs. Her eyes mold the cover around them. Two
lines. Two symmetrical contours ending in a messy upturn of blanket. Two
legs. Two knees, two shins, two sets of toes. She does not dare to wiggle
them yet, but she stares.
“I told you. I don’t want to… about it.”
“But maybe, if you just… it could help you. I just want to understand.”
He moves his knee, pushing it next to her, adding tactile contact. She sees
it move under the cover. It lays next to her calf, touches her calf.
“you’re… my leg.”
“I’m your…! I can touch your leg. I’m not hurting you. I would never hurt
you!” His voice rises and reflexively, she shies away from him. Her legs lift
and her hips swivel, moving them several inches to the left. She watches
her body, its movement directed by some power of its own.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” He strokes her arm, gently, his finger
searching for a way through the gap that separates them. “I would never
mean to hurt you. You know that.”
“I know.” She is quiet, content to watch her body move. To see a whole
outline through the covers, both legs miraculously long. Could she have
imagined…? No. Quickly, she looks once more at the ceiling.
“Won’t you say anything?” His voice intrudes on her quiet contemplation
24

of the ceiling. It forces her eyes down, to again drag over the still form
that is her body. She glances at it as if separate from it. There is no
familiarity to the column of her torso, her limp hands, the line of her legs.
Her eyes settle on her joined hands, fingers interlocked below her waist.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push you on this.” His voice pleads with her, battering
at her detachment. It forces its way into her, through the delicate
membrane of her ears, pounding into her head. It paralyzes her, holds her
still. For a moment, the sounds are separate from any meaning. A
conglomeration of noises, they gradually gather significance as they create
a pattern of sounds and silences.
She loosens her tongue, shifting it in her mouth, touching the roof, curling
up and backwards, flexing. She swallows. She forces it to move, to press
down and against her teeth. “I don’t know what to say. I just, I just can’t.”
He reaches out to her. His finger strokes her ear, tracing the outline of the
ridges of membrane and skin, tugging the earlobe before dropping down
to the neck, caressing the delicate skin, feeling the steady beat of blood
beneath. His hand comes to rest at the base of her neck, cupping the hard
line of the bone and the thin covering of flesh.
For a moment, she lies quietly, allowing his hand to rest. Then, she swings
her legs away from him, sliding from under the blanket. Knees lift and
bend, coming to rest over the edge of the bed. She sits, back slumped,
elbows on knees, head dragging towards the floor. His arm slides from
her neck, down her back, and comes to rest behind her. An inch of white
sheet separates his hand from her body. He looks at her, body turned away
from him, legs cut off by the edge of the bed. He smiles.
25

Bloodlines
Edward DelSole
Penetrated
veins entwined.
Mosquito,
drink what is mine
and make scarlet
our corporeal sum.
Ventricle fed,
this bloodline
perpetuates our connection
as daughters will drink
from daughters.
Is it through some
ancient grace
that this blood tongue
tastes of the dust
from our parents?
Oh, murderous hand
on blood soaked land,
and goodbyes
to our daughters, mothers,
and our ferrous connection.
26

Dirty Dishes
Andi Frankenburger
Posed as a question, she wore lips
which could part with no answer.
—But what turns you on
What do you touch
What gives you pleasure?
Above her silence
his eyes narrowed,
a cold blue of foreign waters
breaking over her, still.
In flannel pajama pants,
she straightened her back.
Forced a laugh.
She knew no response
just stooped again,
placed their cereal bowls
in the dishwasher.
That night, lying face down,
she thought on how to tell him.
But what swelled inside
pressed against her alone;
sheets no longer shared
with brothers. Only breath
bearing witness, she would come
to expand, to compress
through the body’s terms release
what lay beyond her own edges.
27

28
Matt Mercuri

The Haunt
Patrick J. O’Kernick
As if it were the remains of much division
and further dividings, as if to mock the numbers
penciled between lines
and the lines of numbers penciled
down pages, as if to frustrate,
as if to call to mind
erasable days, the presence of the file cabinet
presses itself into my life,
desk, carpet, wall,
and the flimsy, black bookshelf.
The shelf shies from the metal,
leans toward the door; it’s a short, crooked rectangle,
light with angled, unread books. It sings each night
a red song through the darkness to my bed—my digital clock,
its head. The black throat notes
with anxious, shifting lines and shifty numbers; it reminds me of
the gothic throats
chiseled amongst the angles chasing
and the tracks from shadows runaway.
Did the peasant hear this red song in the waters’
thuds when the heavens rained?
Or had the song, up ‘til then, come from only women’s lips
and wounded men—life’s beginnings,
means, and ends?
Now human lives are filed away,
black and white into the grey, and
though the clock busies me each day, I pause
29

and wonder,
“What does the red time hide from me
in the quiet
that I know it always keeps?”
30

This Thing of Darkness.
P.H. Spalletta
Calvin “Matches” Malone, the Black albino boxer some consider to
be the worst that ever lived, was a man of numerous and immediate trials.
He was born in 1941, fatherless, in a broken-down caravan just outside of
Criminy, Mississippi. His pale skin and red eyes terrified the doctor who
birthed him—he ran back into town, leaving Calvin’s mother unconscious
and Calvin bloody on the floor. The good doctor unknowingly started a
tradition: most people who met Calvin would leave him in the same condition.
He was born to suffer: a Black man who wasn’t black, and a white
man who wasn’t White, Calvin was mistreated and hated by both sides.
Indeed he was, during those dark years in Mississippi, the only thing that
united the town of Criminy.
Malone’s childhood, if it could be called that, was spent confined
to the caravan in an attempt to save him from the burning daylight and the
curious eyes of Criminy. But rumors spread. Everyone knew that Sarah
Malone was hiding something in her caravan—something only seen in
glimpses through trees and windows. Eventually, when Calvin was into
his teens, it became impossible for Sarah to cage him. He would wander
around the edge of town, often suffering severe beatings if he strayed too
close. Later, he would be known for his ability to withstand all
manner of punishment in the ring, but at fifteen Calvin still ran home
crying. The more superstitious of Criminy’s residents saw him as some
unholy wretch—but Sarah Malone would wipe away her son’s blood and
tears and tell him stories about his father. John Malone, she said, was a
member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, shot down over North Africa in
the war.
When Calvin was eighteen, the Malone caravan burned down with
Sarah inside. The townspeople saw the flames in the night and ran to
investigate, finding Calvin outside on his knees, howling at the blaze in
rage and pain. Later they would discover that the fire had been caused by
31

an oil lamp tipping over, but at that moment all they saw was a fire and
a bellowing monster. The mob would have killed him—and they almost
did—but a bookie named John Prosper intervened. He carried Calvin
into Criminy and took him home.
Over the next few months, after Calvin had been cleared and his
mother buried, Criminy gained a kind of tolerance for the boy. He was, at
best, treated like a local oddity. At first he was stared at, and then eventually
ignored by everyone but Prosper’s family. They treated him moreor-less
like their own. Prosper’s daughter taught him how to read, and
Prosper taught him how to box—eventually becoming his promoter. “If
people around here want to beat on you so bad,” Prosper used to say, “we
might as well make them pay to see someone else do it.”
Malone’s boxing career was a joke. At first he tried to be promoted
as “The Flying Tiger” (an attempt at honoring his father), but “Matches”
was the only name that ever took. A man with skinny white arms and
bright red boxing gloves can’t expect much else. More importantly, he
was just a terrible boxer. Matches landing a punch was like a solar eclipse:
it rarely ever happened, and it was a big deal until the next day when
things were back to normal. But despite his apparent lack of any talent
or skill, Malone made his promoter a very wealthy man. And every fight
night Prosper would be in Matches’ corner with his book, taking down
bets as to how many rounds he would be on his feet. “Reel it in, boy,”
Prosper would whisper. “Reel it in and make it last.”
As Prosper figured, people didn’t come to see Malone box, they
came to see him get beaten—and not just people from Criminy. The
ever-growing crowds cheered with every landed blow. When he teetered,
they would shout “Fall! Fall!” and reach an uproar when he finally did,
purple and bloodied. Children told stories of being close enough to hear
his ribs crack. After the fights, the gloves that pounded his flesh and broke
his bones would go up for auction, usually fetching a good amount. But
more importantly, boxers came from all over to fight him: Black
boxers wanted the chance to send a white man to the mat, and White
boxers found Malone was one of the few Black men they could beat.
One night, as he hobbled the long walk from the ring to the door,
a reporter asked him why he kept boxing. It was a question he often got,
32

and a question he usually ignored.
“I don’t box,” he said. “I’m no boxer. Why do you come down
here and ask me questions? That’s your job. Why do I get in there just to
get knocked down? That’s my job. Reporter asks questions. Shoemaker
makes shoes. Calvin Malone gets hit.”
While Malone was losing fights in Criminy, another boxer named
Tom Scratch was traveling all over the United States beating every boxer
he fought—sometimes without even getting hit. But besides his ferocity
and perfect record, Scratch became famous for his unique appearance. It
was rumored that Tom Scratch was a White man with black skin. It was
also rumored that he was the Devil himself. The latter is up for debate, but
the former turned out to be true: Tom Scratch was, and remains, the only
known case of total human melanosis—a condition that turned his skin,
hair, and eyes completely black.
This, of course, got people talking about a possible fight between
Malone and Scratch. It was an opportunity that John Prosper didn’t see
fit to pass on, and after three months of trying he finally managed to pull
Scratch to Criminy.
The crowd at the Malone-Scratch fight was more than twice the
usual pull for watching Malone lose. The Criminy Herald ran the headline
“Two Times the Freaks, Two Times the Seats”—a phrase John Prosper
adopted for the night’s posters. As Malone walked in, the crowd
seethed and rolled; hands grasped and pulled him and he was assaulted
with frothing shouts. Tom Scratch was already in his corner, his black eyes
never moving from Malone’s.
The beating that Malone took during the first round was the
worst of his life. By the time the bell rang his chest was a crackled mess of
broken ribs, his eyes were swelling shut, and his head was murky and slow.
Scratch didn’t take a single blow, and simply returned to his stool and
waited. Malone had never been frightened in the ring before, but that
night he was in hell. The crowd’s venom was powerful, and with his head
so abused Malone started to see them darkly. They were tearing each
other apart to get at him, and as blood fell into his eyes he thought it was
the room filling up: an ocean of raging scarlet. Sitting calmly in his corner,
33

Scratch himself took on a terrifying persona. Malone saw his black skin
rippling and twisting and shimmering like a bubbling tar pit.
As the second round began, Malone stood up thinking that he was
going to die. This glittering blackness he was fighting was going to beat
him, suffocate him, and drag him down within itself—the crowd roaring
and applauding and drowning themselves. But something caught his eye
in the approaching darkness. On the surface, or maybe beneath it, he saw
himself: swollen, bloody, broken, and pale. His gloves hung at his sides like
lead weights, and in his own red eyes he saw the still smoldering ruin of his
birthplace. In that brief moment, Calvin Malone smiled. “I’m no
monster,” he whispered as the two men met in the center, wrapping his
gloves around Scratch’s shoulders. “Not next to you.”
When the round started, Malone took several heavy blows,
drawing Scratch in close, allowing him to focus on Malone’s shattered
ribcage. When Scratch’s arms were down and his head unguarded, Malone
sent his fist into Scratch’s temple, knocking him momentarily off
balance and taking him entirely by surprise. Scratch opened up, and
Malone landed his second punch—and another, and another. “Easy, now!”
John Prosper called out from the ropes, “Easy!” When Scratch recovered,
Malone gave him another glove across the bridge of his nose. For the first
time in his life, the blood splattered across Malone was not his own. He
beat Scratch furiously until he fell, face up and limbs akimbo. The
audience was silent. The referee didn’t count as Scratch slowly lost
consciousness on the floor. The only sound was Malone’s heavy breathing
as John Prosper closed his book and threw it into the crowd.
After that night, Matches Malone never fought again. Prosper
dropped him and no boxer would fight him. The novelty was gone.
Malone had fought—and won. He stopped being an amusement and
became a boxer. And no one wanted to fight a boxer with a record of one
win and eighty losses. His less than illustrious career had been somewhat
fruitful, though, and he used his savings to open a shoe store. People
slowly started to call him Calvin as the years went on, his time as a boxer
fading from Criminy’s memory. After the bout with Scratch, Malone lived
alone and ultimately died alone. He suffered a heart attack in the fall of
34

1998. The citizens of Criminy followed the instructions that he left: He
was buried near his mother, and his gravestone, a simple granite block,
read:
Calvin Malone
Boxer, Shoemaker,
Darkness that Dreamt it was a Man, Briefly.
35

Contributors
Brian Affleck is a junior English major.
Siobhan Casey is a junior English major.
Edward DelSole is a junior biochemistry and philosophy major in the SJLA
program.
Jenn Dice is a sophomore secondary education English major in the
Honors program.
Andi Frankenburger is a senior English major in the Honors program.
Michelle Geise is a sophomore occupational therapy major.
Carolyne King is a senior English and theology major in the Honors
program.
Jenn Lewis is a junior English major in the SJLA program.
Matt Mercuri is a sophomore English major in the SJLA program.
Katherine Nullet is a senior elementary education major.
Patrick J. O’Kernick is a senior English and philosophy major in the SJLA
program.
Jonathan Sondej is a senior English major in the Honors program.
P.H. Spalletta is a senior political science and philosophy major in the SJLA
and Honors programs.
Alison Swety is a junior English and philosophy major in the SJLA
program.

Acknowledgements
Esprit appreciates the kind support of:
Kevan Bailey
Ray Burd
Ellen Casey
Rachel Chibnik
Jody DeRitter
Mary Engel
John Meredith Hill
Lisa Hinkle
Diane Jachimowicz
Maria Landis
Dan Mac Guill
Wade Ollendyke
Glen Pace
Lynn Scramuzza
Jenny Whittaker
CLP physical plant staff

Esprit Submission Information
Esprit, a review of arts and letters, features work primarily by students of The University of Scranton
and is published each fall and spring as a co-curricular activity of the English department.
Manuscripts - Original stories, poems, essays, translations, features, sketches, humor, satire,
interviews, reviews and short plays must be typed, paper clipped at the upper left corner and in an
envelope. All manuscripts, except poetry, must be double-spaced. Every page of the manuscript must
list the title and page number in the upper right corner. The author’s name must NOT appear on the
manuscript or on the envelope. Please include a 3.5 inch disk or CD-R containing each submission
saved in either Word or WordPerfect, and please label the disk with your name and the title(s) of
your work(s).
Artwork - Black and white photographs and pen and ink drawings work best in this format, but
pencil drawings, collages and paintings will be considered. All original work should be submitted
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should not exceed 8 x 12 inches (larger works will NOT be considered). Please include a 3.5 inch
disk or CD-R with digital photography submissions. Please note that the original print will be the
only copy reviewed during the selection process. All graphic submissions should include a simple
mark indicating the orientation of the work on the backside of the print. When work submitted is a
study of, or is otherwise dependent upon, another artist’s work, please supply the other artist’s name
and that work’s title.
All submissions MUST be accompanied by one 3 x 5 card for each genre. The card should include
the following information:
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Genre of submissions on current card
Title of each work submitted in this genre
We will consider a maximum of five visual art submissions (art, photography) and five literary
submissions (prose, poetry) per author/artist. Submissions received late, mislabeled, faintly printed,
or without a disk or a complete 3 x 5 card (including the real name of the submitter) will NOT be
considered. Esprit does not accept resubmissions or previously published works.
Submissions and inquiries:
Esprit
Room 221
McDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts
Scranton, PA 18510
(570) 941-4343
All submissions are reviewed anonymously. All submissions to Esprit which have been accepted for
publication by the editors and which are the work of currently enrolled full-time undergraduates
at The University of Scranton will be considered, according to genre, for The Berrier Prose Award
($75), The Berrier Poetry Award ($75), The Esprit Art Award ($75) or The Esprit Photography
Award ($75).
Deadline for submissions for Spring 2008: March 28th
Esprit is available online at http://academic.scranton.edu/organization/esprit/