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swer it. I was attracted to her. She and I had common attributes, a common motive for hanging around Henry, the same lurking insecurities that brought us into each other's acquaintance. In making such a bold statement, however, I itched against an insecurity she in fact didn't have. In calling attention to my private feelings, she'd spotlighted the feeling that I didn't have a voice. "Well, Henry's mistaken. I never said that." "I won't tell Henry. He's a bastard. Why would I? C'mon, tell me the truth. You still like me, don't you?" When she framed it this way, rejection leapt out of possibility. I knew she was ready and willing to let me usurp Henry's former position. I raced through the idea of becoming her lover, leading her around on my arm, having late night chats about art, making art together, playfighting with paint, and making love among the half colored canvases standing like dominoes in her garage. "I can't." That race my head was running finished with Henry. Then I recalled seeing the two of them laughing together, hearing them spout sweet nothings to each other on the opposite chair, and even Henry complimenting her, something he rarely did with any of his girls. Chloe's eyes started floating in more water, and I cringed at what was coming. She stopped looking at me, and muttered, "So you're not attracted to me?" "Chloe, you know damn well you're attractive. Why do you think I can't? Isn't it obvious, I'd love to start seeing you?" "You're not acting like it." "I'm acting like a good friend," I said without thinking, and immediately I wondered if Henry would do the same. "You don't think he's an asshole? Do you really care?" "If he is an asshole, it doesn't change the fact that he's my friend. Henry really liked you! A lot! You're the only one he ever talked about." 'This is bullshit! I thought you'd be different. I'm not coming back here. This place is full of all kinds of fucked up, man." Chloe left. Ten minutes later, Henry whistled his way through the door. Henry plopped down across from me, pressed his head back into the cushion, and sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow, making every indication that he'd just mowed ten lawns in a row in the hundred degree heat and needed a nap. He sat like that for thirty of forty seconds, before he opened one eye and grinned. "So, what's goin' on?" I asked. Ben Martin 55
"I'm having a great day, man." "Really? From the looks of it, you're about to pass out from exhaustion." Henry chuckled and pulled a wide grin. "Brother, you have no idea. I'm probably more exhausted than I look. She wore me out." "Oh yeah, that should've been obvious. What was I thinking... that you'd been doing something productive?" I said with a laugh. "So, which one was it this time? Luna?" "Oh no, definitely not Luna. I haven't called her in a long time. She's off the list." "Sarah?" Henry opened his eyes to glare at me for making such an outrageous suggestion. "Ok, ok... hell, I don't want to guess. Tell me who it was." "I think I'm going to stop seeing the other girls. I'm really starting to think that Chloe's the one. She's really rearranged my thinking on the whole notion I had about free love." "What do you mean?" "I mean I think I shouldn't be lying to Chloe anymore. I'm gonna cut it off with the others." "Why so tired?" "I was at Chloe's last night. We were up late. I didn't leave until four A.M." "Oh." When Henry was a freshman in high school, he saw his first girlfriend and sex partner tumble down the steps of the school's main stairs with tears running down her cheeks in little black rivulets of Goth black eye shadow and mascara. Above her standing at the top of the stairs were two blondes standing akimbo and watching the scene in petty glee. When the girls had brushed their hands in job-well-done fashion and disappeared in a trail of high-pitched giggle gossip, Henry approached and lifted the girl to her feet. "What happened?" he asked. "Oh my God... fuck it. Just fuck it, you know!" She spewed and ran with her face cradled in her palms to the nearest bathroom. The next day, Henry convinced her to join him behind the school for a cigarette, and she told him her long history of freakish misfortune, her obsession with death and suicide, and explaining the small cuts forming a ladder on her arm. Henry, overcome with feeling a human connection similar to what he felt upon barging in and seeing the nudists dancing in artificial twilight, 56 Henry Fragmentary
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Coe Review Volume 38 Number 2 Sprin
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Coe Review COMMUNICATIONS EDITOR Ka
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Roman Norma of the Manor Ben Brooks
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might know things. In fact the more
Page 10 and 11: "So how was your day?" he asked. "M
Page 12 and 13: head upstairs, and eat at his desk
Page 14 and 15: and looked over the page she was re
Page 16 and 17: then get up. If you want to go away
Page 18 and 19: the drawings phase, and his next pr
Page 20 and 21: fingers brushed a red plastic bow t
Page 22 and 23: Old Wars Dennis Vannatta My wife us
Page 24 and 25: all over it until I'm exhausted but
Page 26 and 27: could be a freshly dug grave, but I
Page 28 and 29: "The German babe." "Oh, that Marie.
Page 30 and 31: I'm going to make you pay rent on t
Page 32 and 33: always the same sound. That sound w
Page 34 and 35: quantity, the quality. I would alwa
Page 36 and 37: point, will you, lady? this article
Page 38 and 39: it: Nothing. You laugh, though ther
Page 40 and 41: Slaughtered Cows Julia Rubin You ar
Page 42 and 43: Your heart starts to pound. "I'm a
Page 44 and 45: You wake in darkness, curled up on
Page 46 and 47: Kyle Mangan 41
Page 52 and 53: Henry Fragmentary Ben Martin Henry
Page 54 and 55: on weekends, that I had a handle on
Page 56 and 57: As a matter of fact, I had gathered
Page 58 and 59: irthday who played Henry's game as
Page 62 and 63: lunged, lips first, for her mouth a
Page 64 and 65: "It's nice to see you." I break the
Page 66 and 67: lanket across her torso to keep her
Page 68 and 69: my whiskey. Suddenly I feel loose a
Page 70 and 71: cheek. I squeeze her. "It's all rig
Page 72 and 73: nius." "I like to think so." "So St
Page 74 and 75: person, and while I'm still in thei
Page 76 and 77: shampoo commercial. "He graduated f
Page 78 and 79: them my ID. I haven't played that g
Page 80 and 81: "Nice meeting you," she says and le
Page 82 and 83: get you laid?" "Well I go to these
Page 84 and 85: was some sort of foul religious slu
Page 86 and 87: While waiting for it to bake, Darla
Page 88 and 89: I'll be right to bed. Well? Well? C
Page 90 and 91: screaming children again, Darla tri
Page 92 and 93: A box of fish sticks, a bag of pota
Page 94 and 95: Who is this? It's after midnight! F
Page 96 and 97: telling her hush now, it will be ok
Page 98 and 99: cannot, for the life of me, account
Page 100 and 101: I know she goes to Northern Illinoi
Page 102 and 103: manage to pry it loose then this be
Page 104 and 105: None of the lines are all that deep
Page 106 and 107: Gut Bay Elizabeth Eslami There is a
Page 108 and 109: on to and feel you were holding on
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did Dr. Renard. We didn't tell them
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into the ice, the wind ripping at t
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It was another year before Lloyd ha
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again somehow, and wondered if thei
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Contributor's Notes Alonso Avila is
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the Department's Lon Tinkle Prize f
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