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Chronicle

Winter Literary Issue 1990 Editorial

In the hopes of avoiding personal rejection, people often feel compelled to commit themselves to the trends of their contemporaries. A magnet of appeal seems to draw many to its circle of acceptance, giving them a false

sense of security within themselves. The fear of ostracism is an impetus that brings out the conformist in a person — often times forcing a person to follow a pool of standard ideas and watered-down perceptions. While we

inherently seek a path to stability, we must also consider that this stability

may lead to insufficient expression.

At Chronicle, we recognize such an inevitable insufficiency, and contin-

ue to provide an outiet for those people with this common recognition.

Each year we generate three magazines to provide the community of stu-

dents at Clemson University the opportunities to express their ideas, creativ-

ity, and perceptions, and to reveal to the rest of the community some of the

exceptional paths chosen by our students, which otherwise might never

even be seen. We honor and respect those who choose to create, and en-

courage those people to recognize their talents of individuality.

We hope that Chronicle can expose you, the reader, to some unique

forms of expression, and can inspire you, the creator, to express them to

others.

Enjoy 'y;k.'tk fU'lil

COVER ART: Monica Fogg Inner Cave

Chronicle 1 CHRONICLE

VOLUME 93. ISSUE 2, WINTER 1990

Table of Contents POETRY

Cathy R. Moore Harvest, Old House page 2, 3 Wendy Styles Evening page 6 Beth Lyons a still aftemoon in sunlight page? Beverly Cooper Gunter american junglewalk pages George Flores Surrealistic Sojourn page 9, 15 Reid Sisson self-betrayal page 10

Beth Williams Sea memory page 1 Christopher W. Lockett Insomniac Blues page 18 Amy Sheppard The monkey writes home. page 19 Stephen Lomas Death's Pale Actress page 23, 24,252 Leonard J. Bullard The Show page 31 FEATURES

Linda Varkonda Art in Clemson page 16 FICTION

Kathy Brown The Seventh Day page 4 CariMcCall Crysyn's Cross page 12 Rim Alan Cox Kocomo Motel page 20 Matthew Dubord The Train page 26

Chronicle was established in 1897 as the official art and literary magazine of Clemson University, making it the university's oldest student publication. Opinions expressed in Chronicle do not necessarily coincide with those of tne student body, faculty, or adminis- tration. The editor assumes responsibility for opinions, should there be any, presented in Chronicle. Address all correspondence to: Chronicle, Box 2187, University station, Clemson, SC 29632. Student subscriptions are paid through student activity fees. Ad- vertising rates are available upon request

Winter 1990 Harvest

Climbing high into the tree arms, She placed a sole into the well worn toe hold, And slowly rocked the limb.

Pecans pelted gatherers, backs bent, eyes down. Searching the brown grasses for sustenance.

Cheeks flushed, surveying her horizon, She swayed again. Hoping to harvest the tree's last fruit.

-Cathy R. Moore

two Chronicle Old House

This house and I are lovers - Moaning late into the night as nails pry loose, doors come down, We sweat, and grunt, and strain together.

This love is different than my parent's house - where What Was becomes confused with What Will Be. Only a small patch of territory to claim as Mine To struggle in through rebellious years.

No - this house is different - Coming to me already grown. I took the privilege to shape at will, Timidly, then with growing zeal,

Wresding with spaces I barely knew.

Later - passion spent - Dull comfort setting in, I realize the things which can NOT be changed, Character created through time To think that every spider has been named.

Only to come upon some new cubbyhole, or artifact ... Whose height is etched in the closet door?

This house is more beautiful for the things I did NOT create Did not, muddling, reach sticky fingers to touch.

These curves, these lines, were created beyond me . To accept those things which are not ME - This house has hammered its own nails.

-Cathy R. Moore

Winter 1990 three The Seventh Day a a a a a n by Kathy Brown

the beginning, there was only lines were drawn on a spring day, Indarkness, and God was bored. when I was twelve. I was out in On the first day. He created light the garden, hoeing. If the weeds and saw that it was good. On the grew unchecked they would take second day. He divided the sky over and choke the young butter from the water and saw that it was bean plants. The fields were plant- good. On the third day, He divided ed in rows, divided into threes by a the land from the water and saw wide flat bar of dirt. The tractor that it was good. On the fourth straddled this bar when Daddy day, God created lights, to divide plowed. It was a haven for weeds. day and night and saw that it was I sat down on a weed row to rest good. On the fifth day. He created and buried my feet and hands in the fishes and birds and saw that it was cool dirt. I made frog houses by good. On the sixth day, God creat- packing the soil around my bare ed the animals of the land, as well feet. If a foot was pulled out too as mankind to have dominion over quickly, the house would crumble. them. And He saw that it was too I was on my third frog house good. when the sky fell. The clouds were On the seventh day, God did not so low and dark that I could touch rest. He created Sorrow and gave them. Within seconds, the sky was her mankind for a whore. grey. The sun was gone. Its But she is an attentive lover. warmth and light had never existed. Her embrace is unyielding and her The air was too full to breathe. It sighs offer the promise of eternal burned my skin and nose. The commitment. Her kisses suck all earth was alive. It shuddered and resistance from mankind. Sorrow the frog houses crumbled. I stood is beautiful. She is perfect pain, alone in the bean field, touching the blinding in purity. sky with upturned face and out-

But I can no longer feel the tor- stretched arms. I walked toward menting bliss of her thighs. Many the house and listened to the rus-

years ago, I was freed from her tling leaves discuss this magic. embrace by a great gift, more per- The house stood on a green car- fect than pain, more blinding, and pet. It was bordered by a road in more exquisite. the front. The rows of crops ema-

It was a magical time when my nated like spokes on a broken sister was born. The whole of ex- wheel from the sides and back of istence gathered for one bloody the house. The walls were a single stand against Sorrow. The battle thickness of bare boards. They were painted yellow and green on four Chronicle the inside to hide the shabbiness. world indiscriminately. She hated The yard was bare except for a me no more and no less than the single oak tree in the back. It dead people in the backyard. It marked the graves. The limbs were was a cold, penetrating hatred that

a mother's protective arms. Under- took my breath away. So I

neath were forgotten people, stopped looking at her. I pretend- dressed in yellowed wedding ed that both she and Daddy were gowns and decayed Sunday suits. beneath nameless tombstones in They were my father's family, old- the back yard. er than the laws restricting places of Mama stood on the back porch burial. They couldn't even remem- and spoke for the last time. "You ber themselves. But they could not better come on in," she said. And forget Sorrow. They were her lov- for that instant she wasn't cold, ers. Even in death she was loyal. she was just sad. She knew that Her hand still held theirs, but her something was coming and just touch was softer. The falling of the stood there looking at the floor sky aroused their waning interest in boards. Her belly grew bigger the living. They shifted and while I watched.

strained to see past mossy tomb- I couldn't look anymore. It all

stones. And they laughed when became too heavy for me. I they spied the pregnant sacrifice, closed my eyes and touched the my mother, on the back porch. sky. I stood in darkness and lis- Mama was scowling at life from tened to the speculations of the the porch. She was scowling at dead. When I opened my eyes, death too. There was enough ha- the rain was hitting my face and tred to go around. Mostly, Mama Mama was gone. hated herself for being an Indian. It rained for five more days.

She had been taught from birth. The more it rained, the bigger She learned to hide her darkness to Mama swelled. Her feet and an- deny anyone else the pleasure of kles became so swollen that she

hating it. She reveled in her private couldn't walk. Her skin strained

bitterness. She punished her hair to keep it all inside. She was hid-

by pulling it back so tight that her eous. On the sixth day the rain scalp ached. And she covered her stopped and the wind came. It skin with as many layers of cloth- carried the laughter of the dead. ing as she could stand. She even The next morning the clouds kept her eyes lowered to hide their and wind were gone. When the blackness. She only lifted them to sun rose in, the screaming started. hate. She was still screaming when Mama also hated Daddy - for Daddy drove her away. I don't marrying her and sharing her think she ever stopped. But it shame, I guess. The hate and didn't matter. The sacrifice was shame became a batde. Through small. Sorrow only got a bitter thin walls I could hear it being woman. I got a sister. Not even fought each night. This bitter Sorrow could negate the gift of struggle for control conceived my love. H sister. Mama hated the rest of the

Winter 1990 Evening

She relaxed in the wicker

Listening to it creak With each small movement

Wondering At the shadow of the old oak chair with the worn leather seat Made BIG by the Hght of the slender brass lamp

And the dried blue flowers in the glass jar on the floor

-Wendy Styles

six Chronicle a still afternoon in sunlight

i am home, still and waiting, in my lap beats a heart of blood and silver,

i am home, warm in sunlight, your face in clouds: come home,

i whisper, come home to my warmth, be at home inside this house where sunlight becomes you.

-Beth Lyons

Winter 1990 seven american junglewalk

oh say can you sing in the dark in the dark in the dark's lovely light down the stairs and into the night: the streets are wet and darkly sparkling Usten, our hearts are red drums feel, our breath like wind rush see, here come streaming shadows to stripe us in a night cage on night stage each step becomes a gesture each move a stroke the palette: all streets we pass look, a glimpse of car steals around comers, gleams under bright stars: a million eyes ahead, our path unfurls walk with the dark the dark breathes with us the dark sings in us walk through this smoky doorway we'll show you things

Beverly Cooper Gunter

eight Chronicle Surrealistic Sojourn (Columbus on a bus)

Icicle flashes of light echo, bounce. Reflections of resonance, crisscross activity. While electric coolaid trickles downstream, and light blue sound music from the Hummingbird Express, flirts with my indifferent brain. "Ya, it's dead. It was all lying in the road doing convulsions."

-George Flores

Winter 1990 nine self-betrayal

so she shut out the in-between choosing only to wade on the banks thinking it was better

but knowing that it wasn't hating the way the bottom felt but afraid to swim out into the deeper water

she has no idea what it is to swim across the river to feel the currents pull

all she knows is mud that oozes between her toes

once i saw her dive but she decided it was too tough she'd rather stand in the shallows and help the fog roll

-Reid Sisson

ten Chronicle Sea memory

It all seems clear to me now, the smell of summer the endless ocean licking the sand from beneath my toes, the sound of salt-sea air blowing across the seashells their old home of a salty-soft water nature, and their new home; the grip of a careful, careless two-year-old, wide eyed and wonderous at the beauty God gives such things — the trash of the sea. He brings them home to sun-baked, sunscreened, oily, sleepy mother who says, "How nice." when she glances at them through her sunglasses. He puts them in her bag and they go home and turn into sand anyway.

-Beth Williams

Winter 1990 eleven Chrysyn's Cross

by Cari McCall

"I never saw a butterfly die."

The sound of her voice penetrated the stillness, jolting her from a rest- less, warring reverie. The idea felt nouvelle.... one of those thoughts, striking unsuspectingly, giving a bird's-eye perspective of past, present, and future; a pearl from Destiny's hand of one-last-chance. Before the compelling conjuration of the thought, her mother's voice, roughened by years of smoke and dissatisfaction forever battering within the attics of her mind, spewed sightless, sermonious advice. Crysyn saw mother Mara, clothed in a red rayon robe, poised, smoke and words en- twining as she uttered The Law: "Crysyn, you obviously have a great deal of potential in areas other than art. Do you really want to be a starving artist when you'll see your class- mates pass by you in their Mercedes? Why can't you go to a good school

first, and worry about art later? It will always be there. It is not something

lost or gained overnight. Listen to me, I know. As for John—he is sweet and kind—but he will limit you. Artists starve... and I don't think you want to starve." Yet the thought intensified, the reality rising like the wind, the wind which rides on the coming of a storm. Colors leapt out: maples rosier, grass greener, goldenrod more golden. Crysyn felt newborn, christened in the rivers of color surrounding her. Iler mind raced. Snapping on the radio to twelve Chronicle relieve herself of the mental bar- to paint, the one who whispered rage, wishing words singing he would wait until she decided ''Sweet Freedom whispered in my what to do, the one who made her ear... You're a Butterfly... and feel mighty enough to paint the

Butterflies are free to fly... high wind. away... by and by." Now she knew the answer to By and by, the wind of the her thought: Go to John. Find thought returned home. One beauti- him. Say yes to his proposal and ful autumn day she visited a little live her life. Damn starvation. pond, hoping to sketch a swan Damn her Mama. She had never which nested there. Sitting on a disappointed Mama before, but low hill, looking about, she spied a now she had to. She wanted to. small something on a long blade of She would save the emperor this grass jutting out of the water. Mov- time. ing closer, she saw the something Slowly descending, the sun was a beautiful blue emperor but- spread its fire throughout the terfly. Crysyn stared, in awe of land. Urgency filled Crysyn 's such fragile beauty, never having spirit, urging her to hurry, not seen such deep, vibrant blue de- knowing why, only obeying the signs or raven lines. Perched upon need. The last tum led down the his enthroned blade with sunlight familiar dirt road, lying shadowed falling on him like glory from heav- by tall pines. John's home stood en, the emperor ruled creation, una- like a tiny doll house, growing ware of the web above him. A slowly as she approached. The large brown spider ran down, sun glowed crimson; everything snatched the emperor, wrapped him flamed with bronze fire. For a in death clothes of spun silk, and second John's house resembled paralyzed him. The blue wings beat an image from a Sunday school madly, then slowly less and less story in Crysyn 's mind—Elijah's until they barely moved. With the altar, ablaze with holy fire. drop of his majestic head, the em- Opening the heavy door, she peror died. Crysyn never returned called his name. Her voice ripped to the pond. through the stillness of the house, The memory shook her to the ricocheting off every wall, every core of her spirit. Instead of head- comer, every space. Searching ing home, she turned a different di- everywhere, not finding, Crysyn rection—towards John's house. grew frantic with the passing mo- John: the one who loved her, en- ments. She crept up the stairs, couraging her talents, knowing the fear overwhelming her, the still- potential in her that would go far ness terrifying her. Gripping the beyond sketching; the long-haired, knob of the garret door like a sa- wizardly bearded one who threa- cred relic, she swung the door tened Mama's claim to Crysyn. He open, creaks and squeaks crash- was the one who gently pushed her ing the still air like vandals.

Winter 1990 thirteen —

Crysyn almost died. A crow hopped about on the Twilight reigned the evening window ledge like a mad demon. sky, yet John's auburn locks held It flew away as Crysyn ap- the last remaining rays of sun, his proached, blacker than night fall-

head bathed in hallow flame as it ing. At the ledge Crysyn noticed lay upon the drawing table. Crysyn small red prints where the crow crept over to touch his face and felt had perched. She dipped her fin- the cold, Hfeless skin. In that mo- ger in the fresh print and smelled

ment she cursed herself a milHon it. Her heart stopped. It was not

times, in a mil- paint, it was lion Hfetimes, blood—John's. damning herself Her voice ripped Mixing his own to a hell self- blood with the through the stillness wrought. Her paint, John mind ques- of the house, rico- created the life- tioned, inquisi- cheting off every giving colors of tioned, ''How the seraph to could this hap- wall, every corner, give his work pen? He was in every space. life. the best of Crysyn v^ health. . . =====^ stayed with John How?" Looking for a long, long over at the left wall, she began to time. Every day disappeared, eve- see how, and later why: ry year ran; his funeral dragged

Standing tall, the portrait filled into a millenium. She lived in the entire wall. Sunlight softly illu- John's house, sleeping in front of minated the painted seraph before the portrait, crying saldess tears in Crysyn's eyes. The blue of the her never-ending night. wings spread beyond perception Forty years later, when they no other blue had ever felt so... found her lying dead before the ahve. Oudined in deep ebony, the seraph, a piece of crumpled paper wings almost moved with a life of dropped from her weak, wrinkled

their own. All of it swept out at hand. It was the only drawing she Crysyn, breathing, living. Rosy had done in those forty years... a cheeks complimented the seraph's blue emperor. Underneath the face. Yet the raven-tressed creature butterfly was written: had no eyes—John's masterpiece was incomplete, but a master work "/ saw a butterfly die." [g nonetheless. She stood before the

image as if it were a bizarre carnival mirror reflecting something she had never seen before. For an instant she saw a vague semblance of her- self, and nothing more. fourteen Chronicle allegory

an old seed was planted in not so good soil where the sun was blocked out and the sprout that sprung up was not staked

and every so often when the time was right a man would spray bad insecticide on it and cause bugs to grow on it

and it grew weighted down with them and its shape was distorted

-George Flores

Winter 1990 fifteen by Linda Varkonda

Tired of a steady barrage of orange and white tiger paws? Longing for an artistic vision that encompasses more than chemistry formulas and plant- cell diagrams? Then look around you and you will find that the Clemson community has many resources for students in search of expressions of the fine arts. Foremost is the Rudolph E. Lee Gallery, located on the main floor of Lee Hall. Gallery director Jon Myer explains that this gallery's "primary purpose is to show risk-taking contemporary art." The gallery hosts national exhibits as well as the important student shows from the Col- lege of Architecuire. Master of Fine Arts (MFA) exhibits are held in De- cember and April along with the highlighting of the graduate architecture thesis projects. During the summer, the best student work of the previous academic year is displayed, and at the end of November, the annual Student and Faculty Art Sale begins the holiday season. The gallery director strives to balance the activities with student shows, local or area artists, regional talent, and national exhibits. The biennial Clemson National Print Show at- tracts the country's top printmakers. Some of the shows planned for 1990 are ^Transforming the American Garden— 12 New Landscape Designs" and a group show of prominent living American artists such as Louis Hemenez, Dottie Attie, and Judy Pfaff. For further information call 656-3081.

^ Linda Varkonda is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture. She has been with the college for two years. Chronicle expresses its wholehearted gratitude for this exclusive feature contribution.

sixteen Chronicle Lee Hall also has the MFA Gal- studio space. Mrs. Bowers pro- lery lcx:ated on the ground level. vides an annual exhibit of her stu- As a multi-purpose space, it is used dents' work. Nearby in Pickens is for both graduate and undergradu- the Pickens County Art Museum ate exhibitions and special shows which offers twelve annual exhib- of guest artists. its, including a In addition, /^Z. ^^^ juried show the facility is (f TheT greater Clemson area with regional also used for boasts several well- judges. The meetings and Anderson reviews for established artists with County Arts Bachelor of Center in An- Fine Arts studios open to visitors. derson also (BFA) and V J presents na- MFA students. tional exhibits Unique in its organization, the as well as an annual juried show. events are planned only from se- For those interested in the active mester to semester by both the stu- Clemson art world, there are abun- dents and faculty. With each show dant opportunities to see contempo- lasting only two weeks, the gallery rary works of painting, printmak- offers a continual view of the con- ing, sculpture, crafts, and temporary art scene. Call 656- ceramics, g] 3081 for information. Sikes Hall contains a collection The arts industry in South of works by various European art- Carolina has suffered serious ists. These works, once part of the setbacks due to the blows of Thomas Green Clemson estate, Hurricane Hugo. Reports of in hang various administrative of- damages and losses pour in eve- fices in the Presidential office suite. ry day to the South Carolina These oils reflect the tastes of the Arts Commission, and as a re- cultivated nineteenth-century Amer- sult, the Hugo Arts Fund has ican gentleman who served as the been established to support the charge d'affaires to the reigning rebuilding of the arts in South Belgian king, Leopold L Old mas- Carolina. The rebuilding of galleries ters such as Franz Floris n, Louis and performance centers is ne- Robbe, and Cornelius Schut are cessary for artists and art organ- represented, as well as a work by izations since they base their Thomas Green Clemson himself. livehhoods on the events held The greater Clemson area boasts within these facihtics that were several well-established artists with destroyed studios open to visitors. Carole Donations can be sent to Tinsley's studio in Pendleton has the Hugo Arts Fund, c/o South been mentioned previously in Carolina Arts Commission, Chronicle (Vol. 93, issue 1, au- 1800 Gervais St., Columbia, tumn 1989). Jo Carol Mitchell and SC 29201, or called in at the Brenda Bowers, owners of Art toll-free number: 1-800-868- ARTS. Parts, offer art supplies in conjunc- Information from ARTIFACTS tion with Brenda's instructional

Winter 1990 seventeen Three A.M. Insomniac Blues

Three A.M. insomniac blues laundromat smells and Televangelist' shells ahh

I breathe deeply. Skipping, alone, deranged A wise old man at 21 Solitude among the machines. Weee! I actually take the time to unfold my socks and underwear; no rushing the pale chubby creature of the night! Edgewise by will A better man because of it! I find a lost pen in my clothes Rewards and penalties of slovenly living.

-Christopher W. Lockett

eighteen Chronicle The monkey writes home.

He peels his banana and uses it as a pencil, the peel as his paper.

Dear Mom, Don't expect me home. Vm running off with Lucy, the orangutan. (She's the wild redhead.)

He ate the rest of the banana and left the note on the kitchen branch.

-Amy Sheppard

Winter 1990 nineteen Kocomo Motel

by Rim Alan Cox

We were on our way to Florence when my 1968 Falcon quit. Watching the speedometer wind down as we coasted to the shoulder almost made me sick to my stomach. Just past Columbia, we had 60 miles to go.

I looked over at Chris.

"I'll see what I can do," I said without much enthusiasm.

I popped the hood, put the toolbox on the fender and bent over the en-

gine. By this time the sun had set; you could feel a chill in the air.

I walked over to Chris. She continued gazing straight ahead. Maybe her

mind was somewhere else, but more likely it was seething at being stuck on the side of the road with a useless car, and an even more useless boyfriend.

"Shit! Chris, I'm sorry. I can't figure what's wrong. Maybe it'll start in

awhile. The flashers are on. Sooner or later a trooper will stop anyway," I said.

"Boy was I stupid. What I ever saw in a guy who drives such a piece of shit," she said more to herself than to me.

She looked down at her watch. I looked at mine and cringed. It was 7:30.

"I guess we won't make it to my house for dinner," she said. Looking

up at me finally, she began to cry.

That was more than I could take. I walked back to the engine, played my

tiny flashlight over it and cursed my bad luck.

I was thinking it could be the points, although I had just put in new ones, when a truck slowed and pulled off the interstate, stopping in front of

us. I stood and turned to face the truck. I could still heiu* Chris's crying. twenty Chronicle The truck was ancient, giving no I got in the car, glanced at

clue as to its ancestry. It might have Chris, whose face was white, and been blue once. Now rust, dirt and tried the engine. No luck.

mud covered the entire vehicle. It "Had one myself after the war. lacked a tailgate, leaves and empty My girlfriend took off one morn-

beer cans were scattered in the ing with it. I suppose it was a fair back, and a Montana Hcense plate trade," he continued with a grin. was propped in the window. Pliers in hand, he methodically My enthusiasm for help cooled. went over the entire engine, prob- The heft of the wrench in my hand ing, pulling, tightening.

began to feel curiously comforting. "Yep, if a man knows what

Then the driver got out of his he's doing, all he needs is a pair truck. He must have been around of these. Have you got a bottle?" forty. He had a big, bushy beard he asked.

and shoulder-length hair, both I stood puzzled for a second,

streaked with grey. but thought it bet-

He wore a ripped ter not to ask, Khaki vest, exposing found a botde in an impressive growth "Yep, if a man the grass and

of white chest hair. knows what handed it to him. Camo pants and jun- he's doing, all He pulled a hose gle boots completed from the bowels of he needs is a the outfit. In con- the engine, shoved

trast, his eyes pair of these.' it into the bottle twinkled warm and and told me to friendly. crank the car. "You folks havin' "Stop! That's

trouble?" he asked. I started to ex- good. Come 'ere and look at this,

plain, but he interrupted and contin- why don't ya. See this layer at the ued in a monologue that lasted until bottom?" he said pointing to the

he left. half- full bottle. "Well that's water

"Well, don't you worry old Ko- in your gas. It'll shut you down

como Joe '11 have you on the road faster 'an anything. Now I got

again 'fore ya know it. just the thing for you. Yessiree- "'68 Ford Falcon. They don't bob," he said, tapping the bottle make 'em like this no more. No as he turned toward the truck.

sirree. Give her a crank and we'll I watched him rummage

see what's ailing her," he said. through the back, pawing through

Winter 1990 twenty-one the junk. He triumphantly pulled a water some more just in case," he small, mean-looking can from the said, walking toward his truck.

pile. "Sir?" I said. He turned. "We

"This here's my special mixture. appreciate your help." I held out

We'll put it in the tank and you a check for twenty dollars that I'd watch; this old car won't even no- written while he worked. "Here

tice the water," he said, going you go."

around the passenger side to the "No, that won't do," he said, gas tank. shaking my hand. He stepped

I saw Chris sHde even further into his truck and was gone.

into her seat. She hadn't said a I stood there dumbly holding word the whole time. the check. Kocomo finished and started "Are we going, or are we go-

back towards the engine. ing to sit here until this piece of

"Don't you worry miss, this car shit stalls again," Chris yelled.

is as good as going," he said, smil- I folded the check, placing it in

ing at her, a full, yellow toothed my wallet (where it still stays) and grin. Chris buried her face in her walked back to the car. jacket. Kocomo laughed. We pulled into the evening "Give her a try," he said. traffic. We'd be in Rorence by

I cranked her, but she didn't 10:00.

start. "He smelled," she said.

"Sometimes it takes a special I looked at Chris and smiled,

touch with these gals. Let me give thinking wouldn't it be nice to

it a try," he said. wake up early one morning and I hesitated, knowing I'd never take off in the Falcon. H hear the end of this from Chris, but

under his spell, I moved out of his way.

"Come on girl. You're not ready for the boneyard yet," he coaxed.

Under his hand it backfired, chugged, then caught, purring as good as ever. "That's a nice sounding engine. You've got to watch where you get

gas these days. If I was you I'd fill

up at the next gas station. Dilute the iwcnty-two Chronicle Death's Pale Actress

Inspired by a photograph from The Best of Life (1913)

"Plunging 86 floors from the observation deck

of the Empire State Building ... An attractive 23-year-old lies peacefully" shrouded in a black metal sedan, as if she were performing a choreographed death. She reposes legs crossed, shoes missing, one stocking peeled carefully from her foot. She clutches pearls tightiy in her fist. Head tilted and lips pursed she screams quietiy, both fists clenched squeezing the pain. the 33rd street traffic muffled the echo and the crash as hats and eyes passed the car oblivious.

-Stephen Lomas

Winter 1990 twenty-three The Funeral in March

Rose a winter whipping wind From the grove behind the graves,

Driving dust and twigs before it, It forced a mournful close. Parching huddled faces. Drawing shadowed tears Howhng deaf to every ear. It sucked away the reverend's prayer. And cracked and wailed its dirge. Splintering an elm for an epitaph.

-Stephen Lomas

twenty four Chronicle Listen for the Green

I dreamed of colored sound red shrieking like a jet blue pattering on the window pane of mushrooms made of clouds bombs tossing in my salad of parachuting from a bridge about Mae West on chocolate stairs of a castle on the stage actors EUzabethan dressed of being the casde king in blue jeans and a leather coat of making mud pies in a frozen moat while rain pattered a nearby frog I could not hear the green I dreamed.

-Stephen Lomas

Winter 1990 twenty-five Train

by Matthew Dubord

Men entered the mines each day, new sunlight inviting them from their homes, inviting them to crush the hard February snow beneath their heavy boots, to dig coal from dark holes in the earth. Horrifying men, these min- ers, men working sequestered from the sun, white eyes leaping from the hollows of their drawn, blackened faces. Rail cars carried them into the mines, their helmet lamps illuminating the descent. Time distorted into two periods—work and sleep. Moments in-between were vanishing and pain- ful, a battle to eat, to suspend sleep, to supress the coughing, to soothe the twisted agony in the lower back. Clement Deets watched the interchange of men and coal in the fading daylight. Miners shoved coal-laden cars out of the mines. Miners congre- gated around the mouths of the shafts. Worn men trudged back to town. A low clatter pulled Clem's eyes from the windowpane. The 6: 13 from Charleston to Pittsburgh had crossed the gorge and was easing across the tracks to the north of the mines, bound for the loading platform. A mesmer- izing sight, the long, black train, its smokestack unfurling a white plume against the thick sky, headlamp blazing, cutting the encroaching darkness. The whisde screamed, and the train lurched to a halt beside the rusted load- ing tower. Momentarily, movement ceased. Miners interrupted their march through the snow and turned their eyes to the interloper. A chute dropped from the tower with a splitting clang into the first car behind the engine, the conveyor belt started, and the dull nimble of falling coal chunks com- menced. Henry Deets pushed open the door and dragged his big, tired body into the house. Clem fell back from his perch at the window, suddenly embiu"- rassed, fearing detection. twcnly-six Chronicle "'Evening," mumbled Henry as Clem beamed at the compli- he collapsed into a chair behind the ment. A small, frail boy, often kitchen table. "Got some supper, sick, he resembled his mother hon?" more in temperament and body "Be right there." than his father, physical qualities Clem's mother turned from the that had ingrained him with a stove. She carried a bowl of beef sense of inadequacy since he had stew in one hand and a plate of yel- been old enough to recognize the low combread in the other. Clem feeling. At twelve, his face was watched her place the food on the bright and expressive, dominated table, in front of Henry, who had by his blue eyes. A shock of tan- bowed his head, mouthing a silent gled brown hair tumbled across prayer. his forehead. "Eat yet, Clem?" he asked He wanted desperately to when he had finished. know his father, the hulking man "No paw." who woke him in the mornings "Well, git y 'self a piece of bread for school and uttered a few and some stew. 'Bout some butter, words to him each evening before maw?" disappearing into the back bed- Clem moved over to the table room. This paternal anonymity and took the chair opposite his fa- did not seem to trouble Clem's ther. His mother brought a slab of friends, whose fathers worked in butter on a plate and sat between the mines as well. They were her son and her husband. big, strapping boys, however, in- "Henry, you could wash them heritors of the family mining tra- hands," she said. ditions, congenial to Clem but Henry studied and turned his aware that his poor health made a heavy, calloused hands, thick cres- life in the mines impossible. cents of black beneath the split and Clem detested the mines, felt broken nails. they deprived him of his father, "Jes git 'em dirty again," he sapping the big man of his said, chewing a piece of bread. strength and will. At night, Clem "Good bread. Who made this? would lie in bed and listen to the Your mamma make this?" tortured coughing and wheezing, "No," she replied indignantly. the gasping for breath, sickening "It was Clem and me. Ain't that sounds from his parents' room, right, Clem?" sounds that worsened each year. "Yes sir, paw," said Clem, After Henry had gone to sleep, straightening in his chair. "We while Clem sat on the floor, at-

done it th'saftemoon, mixin' it and tending to his schoolwork, and

all. I tasted it when we's done, jes his mother scrubbed dishes, a

to see if it was right." knock came at the door. Clem

"Well, it sure is good bread," hopped up from his lessons to an- said Henry. swer. Mickey Rynn, whose fa-

Winter 1990 twenty-seven ther owned Flynn's Gas and Ser- field quickly, silhouettes in the vice Station, had walked down moonlight. They paused by the from his house in the hills. His tracks, catching their breath, then eyes flashed, animated with antici- Mickey broke off running again, pation, mischief dancing across his hard snow crunching beneath his features. Mickey's hands be- boots, calling for Clem to follow. seeched Clem, urging him to leave Clem scurried to catch up, fight- the house and come out into the ing the snow, the cold, his own cold night. gaspings for air. "Maw, I'm goin' outside with About a half-mile down the Mickey, okay? Won't be long," tracks, Mickey slid behind a said Clem, already halfway out the strand of thick-trunked trees and door, the sleeve of his old coat over settied down. one arm. "Bring them botties and rags "All right Clem, since it's early, over here, Clem," he said. but don't dawdle 'round too late Clem obliged, setting the crate

now, y'hear." down so hard that it stuck in the Mickey darted around to the side snow. of the house, and Clem followed "Easy Clem," said Mickey. stepping gingerly through the Clem nodded in compliance snow, shoulders braced against the and cupped his gloveless hands to chill, hands plunged deep into his his mouth, warming them with coat pockets. Mickey crouched in his moist breath. He leaned the dark recesses by the wood pile against one of the trees and slid and pulled a milk crate into the his back along its coarse bark, moonlight. He had collected a easing down to sit in the snow, half-dozen empty soda botdes, opposite Mickey, who was work- some yellowed and frayed rag ing diUgentiy on the bottles. strips and a gallon of gasoline in a Mickey filled each clear glass ves- red can. sel with a careful measure of gas- "C'mon Clem, take them botties oline, stuffed rags into the and rags and foller me, and don't mouths, packed the makeshift stumble," said Mickey. fuses in place with putty produced "Where we goin'?" from his pockets, and wedged the "Jes foller me." finished products in the snow. Mickey hefted the gas can to his Standing, he surveyed the neat chest and sprinted across the wide row of six identical creations. field between the Deets place and Gradually, Clem realized the the railroad tracks. Clem took off plan. after him, running hard, chest "Them's firebombs," Mickey heaving, breath steaming in front of explained, gesturing dramatically his face, thin anns wincing under at the bottles. "Now, when that the weight of the botties and the 6:13 gets done loadin', it'll pass crate. The two boys traversed the right over here, headin' out of iwcnty-cight Chronicle —

town. We' s gonna heave these "C'mon!" said Mickey, igniting

here bottles, after I lights 'em, up two more firebombs. in them coal cars. It'll be sump- The boys pitched hard and accu- thin' else!" rately, both bombs tumbhng into Clem dropped his jaw, amazed at one of the cars. Clem turned to Mickey's audacity. run, but Mickey seized his arm.

"Aw, I don't know. We could git "Wait Clem! Watch!" in a heap of trouble. My paw Clem held his ground apprehen-

would whoop the fire outa me if he sively eyeing the long train as it found out." leaned toward the bend that would

"You ain't gonna run out on me, take it out of the valley. Shvers Deets, are you?" of orange began to leap from the Clem looked back at his house, car into which the boys had distinguished in the distance only lobbed the firebombs. The con- by a solitary, lighted window. flagration built, and within sec- Resolutely, he scooped one of the onds the coal caught fully, blazing bottles out of away, con- the snow and torted flames fixed his eyes stretching in on his friend, By Tuesday evening the wind, lips tightening. they finally broke thick smoke Mickey smiled rising through and and and started exhumed shrouding rummaging in the mangled and brok- the moon. his pockets for The train en bodies. a box of match- stopped, and es. A whistle shouting screamed in the men sur- distance. rounded the burning car, decou-

The big engine passed, bending pling it. The engine started again, the long rails against heavy cross- dragging the abbreviated load ties, creating a regular, rocking ca- down the tracks, stopped, and the dence. The headlamp pierced the men disconnected the burning car,

night. Clutching botdes, the boys isolating it. squatted and waited. Clem stared, consumed. "Now!" hissed Mickey, striking a Mickey exhorted him to run, but match and lighting two of the fire- he could not move. The holo- bombs. caust—high, orange flames Clem and Mickey stood and straining to escape a solitary en- threw as soldiers hurling grenades. cumbrance, denying the moon

The lit fuses fluttered as the botties transfigured him, reddened his icy arched through the air, sailing over cheeks, flashed in his tormented the train and landing on the oppo- eyes. Elemental beauty engulfed site side of the tracks. his soul. His heart swelled and

Winter 1990 twenty-nine bumed with the fire, and his breath console Clem's mother, who had seized in his throat. Hesitatingly, curled herself in a rocking chair, looking back, he turned and ran. rocking and weeping. Clem sat Three days later, Monday after- on the fireplace hearth, warm noon, the number-three shaft col- flames lapping at the back of his lapsed. Thirty-nine men were neck. trapped and killed. Some were "Oh God! Them mines," crushed, but many others suffocat- wailed Clem's mother, wrenching ed in the damp darkness. Workers her head, clenched fists pressed to struggled through the night and into her forehead. "Them goddamn the dawn, attempting to rescue mines! All our hfe is in them

what they thought was a pocket of mines, and they take it away, jes survivors. But the faint moans and like that. Ain't right. Ain't right!" hangings subsided before the "Aw child, you rest easy workers made any progress. By now," said Grandmother Deets. Tuesday evening they finally broke "His paw said he didn't have no through and exhumed the mangled pain." and broken bodies. Henry Deets "Oh goddamn, ain't nothin' was among the dead. but pain ever come outa them The school had sent Clem and mines! Ain't nothin' good ever the other children home early on come outa that hell in them mines, Monday afternoon when the teach- 'cept pain and death. Goddamn ers got word of the disaster. Clem coal. Ugly, black death!" had gone straight home from the Clem cowered by the fireplace, bus stop, avoiding the confusion at terrified, confused, his mother's the mines, eyes locked on his screams echoing in his head. house. He stayed in all day. At Crackhng, orange flames splat- night he listened to the shouts and tered his face with warm light, the sounds of digging and drilling. catching the horror flashing in his He could not sleep and he could not wet eyes. bring himself to look out the win- In the cold, February night, a dow. whistle screamed. H] Grandmother Deets learned of her son's death late Tuesday even- ing and went up to his house to tell her daughter-in-law. Her husband, Henry's father, had dug coal for his entire life, and she had experi- enced mining tragedies before. But this was close, much closer than the disasters that had killed and maimed in the past. A trodden expression on her face. Grandmother Deets tried to llurty Chronicle The Show

We went to see the show. The lights, the lies that tangle and intertwine. snakes, bodies writhing, biting. The actors, the plot all adrenaline. The price of the ticket.

Hours later, all reality dispelled. Clothes crumple to the floor. home. bed. sleep Lights go down but lids stay up realization, damnation, the curtain's still up The show goes on

-Leonard J. BuUard

/inter 1990 thirty-one DO THIS.

Cathy R. Moore Beth Williams Wendy Styles Christopher W. Lockett Beth Lyons Amy Sheppard Beverly Cooper Gunter Stephen Lomas George Flores Leonard J. Bullard Reid Sisson

A) He is a junior Building B) "Virginia bom in 1968. A bi- Science major. An observer zarre creation gathered from in the audience. the four winds of the night. This is my first contribution to C) 'After a long stint as an under- the Chronicle." graduate, I am pursuing a master's degree. My wife and I live in An- derson where our lives are ruled D) "I just want to get by a house and a cat. I plan to out of jail and see teach literature at the college level my baby." and hope to write best sellers."

G) "I dedicate my work E) 'Those who re- F) "I was raised to my mother, Lillian strain desire do in Clemson, Ridgeway. I'm a so because and both my Master student in the their's is weak parents work School of Textiles, enough to do for the Uni- native Beltonian, and so." -WiUiam versity. My a die-hard Clemson Blake favorite foods fan." are popcorn, pizza, and H) "A man peanut butter. far to goes My major is I) "I like travel, both physical find out English; Ger- and mental. I might live in is." what he man is my mi- Ireland for awhile, because -Theodore nor." poets don't pay income Roethke taxes there (assuming I qualify)." J) "I graduate in May and then

I'll be lost. I love summer

rain storms and cheap beer. I K) She is a graduate student in think poetry should be fun." Architecture.

ANSWERS: Moorc:G. Slylcs:E. LyonsJ. Cooper Gunlcrl. Florcs:D. Sisson:H. Williams:K, Lx)ckctl:B, Shcppard:F, Lomas:C, BullardiA. Thank you for playing.

Ihirly-lwo Chronicle Editor-in-Chief—Dawn Ellen Kirkland STAFF Managing Editor—Susan Wethington

Editor Daniel J. ^ Layout/Design — Norwood^ George Flores Poetry Editor Beverly Cooper Gunter — Beth Lyons ^ Fiction Editor—Bob DuBard Stephen Lomas^ Art Editor—Becky Rogers Kris McGuire^ Business Manager—Harry Conner'^ Christopher Lockett Copy Editor—Ted Collins Promotions Director—Craig Hughes P poetry board Media Adviser—Kirk Brague Faculty Advisers—Mark Steadman, fiction board Lynn Craig

DONORS PATRONS SUPPORTERS FRIENDS Type Right Clemson Newsstand Students for Social Manifest Discs Concern and Tapes Clem son Open Book Music Source Art Parts Bob DuBard The Tiger Listener's Choice Tracy Malcolm

COMING UP: "An Evening with Chronicle'' Chronicle brings its past pages to life with poetry readings, orig- inal art, films (and a little mood music) on Wednesday, February 28 from 8 to 10 P.M. in Daniel Auditorium. Be sure to join us and experience an evening of insightful, cultural, and pleasing entertainment.

Submissions for the spring art and literary issue: Send poetry, plays, short fiction, features, and art to Box 2187 University Station, Clemson, SC 29632 with S.A.S.E. Include name and phone number on the back of each submission. If you do not wish to mail your art, call our office at 656-2833 and leave a message. DEADLINE: February 28

Vinter 1990

.^'^

CHRONICLE Spring 1990 Editorial

Permutation. Transformaton. Deviation. Transmigraton?

When is it time? Often we are not alert to the timely need for change which is essential for growth and for avoiding staleness. We sometimes destroy the uniqueness of a beautiful thing by draining it past its prime.

On our globe there exists such a wealth of options that it seems trite to

linger over one for any extended amount of time once it has ah-eady been smelled and seen and tasted and felt in all its possible ways. Take an apri-

cot. When you withdraw its water, it gets dried up. And, once that's

done, you cannot go any further with it except to eat it up, throw it out, or

let it rot on the shelf. At that point, I suppose it would be time to get a new apricot ... or a new magazine format. Chronicle was dried and eaten a couple of times throughout its lengthy

history, and once or twice it came close to rotting on the shelf, but that was another time. Now, more than ever, Chronicle keeps its juices intact through a myriad of sources— the artists and writers who contribute, the donors who support, the readers who read, and the staff who, through all of its stages, keeps the magazine clicking its heels. I think we are all more than willing to accept advantageous permutation, if we can only realize

what it is and when it comes knocking. This year we have been teetering on a see-saw between tradition and matured innovation, resting on the starting Hne of transformation while looking back warmly on the days of antiquity. And somewhere along the

line, possibly without knowing that it happened, we started running with the good of the past in one hand and the images of what's to come in the other.

Enjoy,

//OUA^ fci«^ /WiiA^

COVER ART: Alexia Timberlake Myself on my Heart acrylic on canvas

Chronicle CHRONICLE

VOLUME 93, ISSUE 3, SPRING 1990

Table of Contents POETRY Amanda Johnson Untided page 2 Chuck Emory To Lawrence Ferlinghetti page 3 George Rores Indian Summer... pages Christopher Lockett Prophets in Dust page 9, 16 Russ Hallauer Old Sensations page 14, 15 John Davis If the Igloo page 28, 29 Michael Reynolds Done Been Gone page 36 Erin Laney Southern Nature page 37 Robert Stewart Parkinson's Pond page 38 John Medrano Structure page 39 ART

GALLERY page 17 FEATURE

Phil Broder The Environmental Blues page 25 FICTION

John Edwards Ivory Heart page 4 Jay Pobis On the Porch page 10 Warren E. Edminster Inheritance page 30

Chronicle was established in 1897 as the official art and literary magazine of Clemson University, making it the university's oldest student publication. Opinions expressed in Chronicle do not necessarily coincide with those of the student body, faculty, or adminis- tration. The editor assumes responsibility for opinions, should there be any, presented in Chronicle. Address all correspondence to: Chronicle, Box 2187, University Station, Clemson, SC 29632. Student subscriptions are paid through student activity fees. Ad- vertising rates are available upon request.

Spring 1990 .

Rapport Yes, please —

And my toothbrush . . A desuhory thought. However I'll watch the sun rise Through the steam over my tea cup Tomorrow.

Pariahs do not exist Within my black box. And apathy is dead. Only the candle breathes Silendy — But through the gate Mendacity is bom.

No, thank you —

I cannot dance.

-Amanda Johnson

two Chronicle To Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Set sail for happiness, Lawrence; Elvis is dead — He knows The secret of eternal life, Man, and you don't.

Tom Swift is grown. And the American boy Tore off beauty's clothes And raped Alice in Wonderland. Aphrodite grew live arms And pushed the human crowd off a cliff.

Here's your renaissance; Here's your rebirth of wonder; Here's your retribution For what America did To Tom Sawyer.

-Chuck Emory

Spring 1990 three vory Heart

by John Edwards

I don't believe in destiny. My fate is in my own hands. I've always known that. But somehow I feel it was part or a plan that I was to meet him and know him. In the short time that I knew him he changed the way I thought about Hfe, at a time when life was what I thought on most Perhaps I sought him out unconsciously, or sought out what it was in him that cnanged me so. I had my idea of a life's purpose whittled down to a basic shape, but he refined it, made it simple and clear. Yet he was not a simple man in that he was com- pletely unpredictable to the modem, conventional mind. I saw his way of living as an art instead of a science. His life was a symphony, composed and performed in the African wilderness. I witnessed only the tragic finale^ but the theme was still there, and it was strong. Now I will add words to his music. It will be a requiem for the Africa that was, the Africa of which I had only a brief ehmpse, a rare sight in the modem day. It was Smythe's Africa. I was a wealthy young man on my first safari. For some reason, perhaps as a part of the plan, it was Smythe's last. I arrived at our starting destination by a hehcopter chartered out of Nairo- bi. It was the end of the dry season, and from the air I could see the plains smoldering from the grass Fires that release seeds for the next season of rain- fall. There is no better time to hunt Africa. When the grass is high, the ani- mals disappear into the hills and mountains, fleeing the hidden predators. But when the grasses are bumed away, the animals return to celebrate the re- birth of the plains, and the Ufe-givine rain that blesses the thirsty survivors. The populanty of the late dry season limited my choices of equipment and guide services. My pilot warned me of my choice of guides and explained that he had rescued more than one disgmntled cUent from Smythe's remote campsites. The towering office buildings of the city werejust out of sight as we landed on a dusty clearing by a row of small mud-brick shacks. The pi- lot reminded me that he was only a radio-call away, and that if I should need him he would be ready to oblige. I had been treated with nothing but royal kindness and hospitality after arriving in Africa, for the more money you have, the more cooperative and helprul the people become. I didn't know how soon that was going to change. It was to have been a small photographic safari for lion, cape buffalo, the elephant, and the sitatunga. It was the sitatunga, a shy species of marsh- buck, that made Smythe a necessity, for he was the only available hunter with the experience to track them. There was only one exception to this bloodless hunt which was to be the highlight of my first safari. After a large donation to the Wildlife Conservation society and the Serengeti National Park Service, I was given permission to participate in elephant population control by shooting one bull elephant, half of the ivory going to the Park Service, and half for me to keep as a trophy. The laws and regulations on African safari hunting are many, but there are few that cannot oe bent or by- passed by tourist dollars. And as you put the buildings and the bureaucracy behind you and venture deep into the heart of Africa, all civilized laws fade and eventually vanish, and you are left with your own sense of right and wrong. four Chronicle I looked over the group of men I have the tracking skill, so wheth- who were loading the jeeps with the er or not you're a lucky man camping necessities, and 1 found doesn't matter. Well, if the lion my guioe, the only white man in the charges, it might make a differ-

crowd, working steadily along with ence. I suppose that's what your his hired help. But it was not nis rifle is for. If you miss your sec-

Caucasian status that made him ond shot, youll be lucky if I don't stand out. If Venus emerged full- shoot you myself." He smiled, grown from the foam of the sea, but it didn't necessarily indicate

Jonathan Jacob Smythe could just that he was joking. I decided to as easily have arisen from the change the subject. ground a living composite of the "What about the elephant?" I dust and sweltering neat of the Se- asked. rengeti plains. His skin bore a rich "What about them? Magnifi- bronze luster from countless hours cent creatures, aren't they? Did of baking in the blazing African you know that they huddle when sun. His short, thin hair shone in danger to hide the tusks of their olden blonde against his dark face, bulls? It's almost as if they know f estimated that ne was somewhere that's why they're in danger, like between thirty-five and forty^ they know what's happening out- though in that severe climate it is side their tiny sanctuaries." impossible to judge a person's age "No," I explained, "I mean rny by appearances alone. Smythe elephant. I brought along a .505 dressed in traditional khaki bush for the job, and Iwondered what clothes, and one would believe that you're going to back me with." he could easily disappear into the Smythe turned and glared at parched grasses, perfectly hidden me. red-faced, and then, as if he from the most wary antelope and had momentarily forgotten him- bushbuck. He carried a .416 cali- self, his expression relaxed, and ber Holland & Holland double- he turned his eyes back to the trail. barreled rifle, without ornamental "Special permit from the gov- engraving or telescopic sights, with ernment, eh?" Smythe asked. aplain brown military-style sling. "You didn't know? My outfit- The only vivid color Smythe dis- ters didn't tell you?" played was the deep, even blue of "I'm here^ aren't I? I do not his eyes which, had he spontane- kill or assist in the killing of ele- ously originated from the plains, he phants. You see, Mr. Branyon, would have derived from the cloud- there is no need to *thin out' the less East African skies. As we few remaining herds. If an ele- shook hands at our first meeting, I phant starves today it is because a realized I had failed to make an man has pushed it out of its own equal impression on him. I was home. You're an American, merely a customer, a visitor to this aren't you? The elephant is the land. He was Africa. Native American of the African After we greeted each other po- continent. It has been pushed and litely and my supplies were paclced shoved into tiny reserves of use- away, we were off, headed away less land. Poachers and politi- from the hills and into the flatlands, cians slaughter those animals dai- in search of the lion and elephant. ly. I refuse to. If you want to "There was a time, " Smythe ex- photograph them, well good for plained as we rode along, "that you, ni put you to where you can rinding a good lion was almost smell their breath. But no shoot- commonplace, not unusual at all. ing. If you want to turn back, But baiting for predators has been we'll turn back. This is not nego- oudawed for a long time, and suc- tiable." cess with lion or leopard now re- I considered this ultimatum in quires luck or decent tracking skills. silence, knowing I would have to

Spring 1990 s

sacrifice the elephant or the marsh- alone. But a lion or leopard usual- buck. Turning back would mean a ly takes the young. They're slow- week's delay, and I knew that even er, weaker, more tender, and there if I got lucky and found a new is very little lost by taking a young guide, Smyme's objection was still animal. That's the important a valid one. If I didn't shoot the el- thing—nothing's wasted. Can ephant, someone else would, but you see it? Allthis, the ecology of that didn't make the decision easier. Africa, is too fragile to withstand It was a personal decision, and waste and wanton killing. Don't there, surrounded by the wonder of you agree?" the dark continent, I knew that my "I suppose it makes sense," I ivory trophy would have to wait. I rephed, "but what about the preda- could afford it, but perhaps Africa tor that loses that young deer? Li- couldn't. Smythe commended me ons and leopards can't exacdy sit on my decision, and we traveled on up on the hul, picking and choos- in silence until we made the evening ing with a high-powered rifle." camp. "Yes, the predators. I really The next morning we decided to sympathize with them. A deer hunt some meat for the camp. We eats only what grows naturally were now deep in the last wild, un- from the ground, while a predator, touched part oi Africa, and the like you and me, must work for it. game animals were abundant, mak- Of course, a deer must work to ing cameo appearances as we set to avoid us, but in the end we get all our work. I saw several kudu, a the bad publicity. Especially nice sable, and I even caught a when we take the young ones. A glimpse of a black rhino fleeing into memsahib would have tainted if a tunnel in the high sansiviera she saw me take that little impala. grass. I followed Smythe and his You barely flinched. That should gunbearer Kadesi along a stony tell you something, Branyon. path to a narrow overlook above the Something good about yourself drying river basin. I noticed the No, not necessarily good, but dry, hardened prints of a lion from something strong. It takes a cer- the rainy season, and I guessed that tain strength to nght your compas- the lions also used this overlook to sion. You just might be a survi- find their prey. A group of impala vor." had gathered oelow at the stream to Just then, one of Smythe' drink. I decided to take the largest trackers appeared on the overlook, buck, which was actine as a senti- frantically waving his arms and nel, searching and snining for pre- shouting in Swahili. Smythe dators. As I raised my riile, grinnedand replied, "M'zuri. letti Smythe signaled that ne would take lorry hoppa!" TCadesi shouldered the crucial shot himself He fired the skinned deer and started back once, scattering the impala, leaving up the bank. only a small fawn lying dead by the "I told him to go back and bring stream. *'I know, you would have the jeep. How would you like to shot the buck," Smythe said as he get those elephant photos right descended the steep bank to claim now? My man says he's found the young deer '*but you're not that the largest bull elephant alive, and hungry, and I don't feed the vul- trust me, friend, this tracker tures. would know it." The excitement A little embarrassed, I followed was contagious, and I agreed that Kadesi to the stream and filled my we shouldpursue this animal right canteen as he set to work gutting away. After stopping by the camp and skinning the animal. for my ciimera we were "headed "It's strange," Smythe began, west to where the giant bull was "but most hunters would have taken spotted. that big buck, even if they were all It was just me and Smythe on

SIX Chronicle the trail of the elephant and we left chaos, sounding loudly, drown- the others to channel their excite- ing the noise of the automatic ri- ment into the task of preparing sup- fles. The poachers, four of them, per for our return. Smytne assured attacked the herd from the forest me that with any luck we would surrounding the wide clearing. have the photographs and be back Without a word, Smythe grabbed in camp before nightfall. After a his rifle, raced towards the battle- thirty-minute, bone-jarring ride ground, and fell to a prone posi- over the plains the herd was in tion in the dust. The .416 roared, sight. Smythe stopped the jeep and and a charging poacher somer- inspected the group with his field saulted to tne ground. Smythe's glasses. Pleased with what he had rifle flashed again, then two more seen, he handed me the binoculars. times, and the confused poachers In the center of the herd of elephants retreated into the darkening forest, was a towering, majestic bull with as quickly as they had appeared. tusks that nearly reached the As the last echoed boom of ground, curling up into a sharp, Smythe's rifle resounded off the perfect point. The sheer size of the wall of trees, the hunter stood up animal was amazing, but I couldn't to face the other survivor the bull keep my eyes off of its beautiful, elephant, riddled with bullet-holes periectw symmetrical ivory. As I and charging with all his remain- scrambled for my camera, "Smythe ing strength. Smythe took two stopped me. He didn't have to ex- cartridges from the loops in his plam, I just understood. In the vest and shouldered the double- wrong hands, a picture of such a barreled rifle. He aimed carefully trophy would turn any greedy hunt- and fired, sending a puff of dust er or impoverished native into a ca- from the elephant s ear. He fired reer elephant poacher. It was again, this time at the animal's enough just to see the animal, and feet, but it refused to turn away. as we sat on the hood of thejeep As the dust storm in front of the and watched the mighty bulltend to elephant grew upon him, Smythe his harem, it came to me that what I reloaded, slowly and deliberately. was witnessing was, in a nutshell, But there was no third shot, and the very thing I wanted from life. finally there was silence. This bull was a survivor. "It's what Smythe had no family in Afri- we all want," Smythe explained, "to ca, or anywhere that anyone in control our element. Complete con- Nairobi knew of, so I saw to it trol. The lion is not the 'King of that he was buried in a guarded Beasts.' That's the gentieman. memorial cemetery near the city. I right there. With those tusks, he mariced the grave with the ivory of must be as old as Africa itself. He the dead buU, the tusks curling to- probably watched the first men gether at the points, not unlike the leave the cradle of civilization. He snape of a heart, with brass caps at must have surely wept when the the oase. I placed a stone between first white man stepped ashore. them inscribed: Well, here's to you, old sport." He took a sip from a small flask of brandy and passed it to me. As the FAREWELL sun set, we finished the flask and Johnathan Jacob Smythe wondered at this simple creature AFRICA which, in the heart of the wilder- Nineteen Hundred Eighty^even ness, shared its secret with us, em- bodying the oldest ideas of a suc- B cessful existence. It started with the cracking sound. It was barely audible in the distance, then the herd scattered in

Spring 1990 seven —

Indian Summer at Long Beach

Seated on a bench along the wooden paneled boardwalk cigarettes, The Daily News, an allowance of marijuana— and throbbing, waves beat down retracting sand, two humans in wetsuits defy the elements,

and though it is a far cry from 19th century Paumanok, I am conscious of acute rhythms.

Predator birds squawk and slash, circling the return of the tide, gather crustaceans that drop and crack the blacktop behind me where men and women in business suits and hard-soled shoes walk unseen in a tapdance discussing the latest bit of insignificant health related information issued by the FDA. Car doors slam, horns blow jeers, police whistles shriek at the intersection, and from the window of her 3rd floor low-cost housing apartment,

a brute Italian twelve-year-old voice which I ignore (and must strain to call even slightly feminine) barks at me repeatedly, demanding a cigarette, providing a pulse —

and I have noticed these before beneath a plum tree in a grove.

-George Flores

eight Chronicle Prophets in Dust

These dusty roads much traveled Wise old black men singing to themselves Thinking their madmen thoughts Whisthng their own songs of the South Stumbling out of the night, almost hit by me. I, alone again, drive along Kinston backroads. Many knowing nods have been exchanged between skins and wisdom.

-Christopher Lockett

Spring 1990 nine by Jay Pobis

We moved into the house next to Tuck's the summer before I started the fourth grade, and I met the man the very first day I was there. We had a huge wall out on one side of the house that had been perfectly made for throwing a tennis ball off of and chasing down up to the row of palm trees that separated our yard from the next. The trees formed an imaginary line that you couldn't step over, because that was the outfield fence, and so you would have to reach out as far as you could to try and snag the ball to

save the game. Sometimes I couldn't make the catch, the ball beyond me and the outfield line, gone forever for the moment, then rolling lazily over into the next lawn, where I would have to listen to the jeers of the crowd

as I went to fetch it. But, then, there was always another game and anoth-

er chance. On the next house was a porch, and it seemed like sometimes

when the ball would roll kind of close to it, I could hear a soft creaking sound, back and forth, coming out. The lower half of the porch was wooden with a wire screen across the top that caught the glare of the sun

so fiercely sometimes that you thought you might go blind. I couldn't really see in from a distance and so after a few minutes decided to go up

close and just look in. I had to cup my hand against the cool wire to get a look. There was an old man moving easily in his rocker there, and a dog lying next to him. *'Hello," came a scraggly voice from the shadows.

'*Hi," I said, moving back a couple of steps. 'Tou a ballplayer?" '*] played shortstop and first base and pitched in the little league where

we used to live before we moved," I pushed out in one breath.

ten Chronicle "You like to play, do ya?" hot, that summer, so that the "Yessir." beads of sweat running down my "Well, that's fine. Been hoping body felt like the drops of wax on

there 'd be a young fella around a melting candle, and I was sure I here before too long." was wasting away, Tuck would "You don't mind do you, sir, I have me up onto his porch, to a mean about me being in your yard spindly lawn chair and lemonade,

and all?" and the best stories I have ever

"No, not a bit. And you could heard. I Sf)ent another lifetime call me Tuck, if you would. My there, in his world, in the South friends do." Side of St. Louis 1935; Old "All right, Tuck, Tm Alex." Sportsman's Park on the comer "Happy to know ya." of Grand and Dodier, three-cent And that was the way it started. train fare or a nickel round trip from up North; and a little blue pass boldly printed with "Knot- Usually in the mornings, mom hole Gang." Old "Ducky" Med- would wake me up and I would do wick, who used to talk to them in chores around the house or mow the left field bleachers, Pepper the lawn, or some kind of busy Martin and Leo Deroucher, Spuds work 'to keep me out of trouble,' Davis and Bill DeLancey, and but the afternoons belonged to me Dizzy Dean who'd hook up with and my imagination and my easy Carl Hubbel, a nasty screw ball, admirer. Some days I'd go out and and the Giants from New York throw the ball, or I'd get out my for fifteen innings. The '34 club Star Wars guys and have huge that won the pennant from the wars sprawled out across two Series and the '35 Cubs who won lawns with Darth Vader and the twenty-one straight down the Empire in one yard and Luke and stretch to steal another from the the Rebels in a tree or bush in an- Cards. He told me about an Au-

other. And always I knew he was gust in 1936 when the Giants watching me, could hear the soft came to town and the "Gang" was

rhythm of his chair mixed in with told they couldn't come . . . those the blowing palm fronds and the seats were going to be sold. And

ripple of maple leaves. But it Tuck wrote to the club president, wasn't like someone was watching told him he didn't think it was fair me in a bad way, but more like I that the kids came out to cheer was being soaked up the way an against the second division but orange will take in sunshine, and I were turned away for a first place liked that. Every once in a while team. And how he got a letter Tuck would let his dog, Snup, out back, got taken up to the presi- into the grass for me to roll around dent's office, window overlook- and tease with, but not a lot, be- ing the crowd, big pictures of the cause Snup was kind of old and he '30, '31, and '34 Championship would rather just sit on the porch in teams on the wall, and a friendly the shade with the man than run man in a straw hat and blue and and jump with me. white striped seersucker suit who And when it would get really took them down to the best seats

Spring 1990 eleven in the house. He told me stories moment I wasn't sure that they about stickball in the alleys, playing would ever open again. The lines in the fire-4iydrant, and anything on his forehead took on a pro- else that came to his mind. I didn't nounced heaviness and became care. I loved it all. And there was tense. And then his eyes opened

a strange power in his voice and a and it was like looking into the

glow in his eyes that made it all so ocean when you know the water real to me. is there and that it's clear, but it's also blue or green or both under- I remember the last time I talked neath, and you don't see the water to him, too. He asked me up to the (though you do, but only the col- porch for a drink and a rest from or.)

the heat As I opened up the screen "I got a grandson, 'bout your door the bright sun splashed the age, maybe a couple of years floor and walls and man for a mo- more. Lives in Orlando about ment, and then was gone as the four hours north from here on the opening sealed up behind me. In turnpike. Haven't seen him since the shadows there, the breeze al- his grandmother's funeral back ways seemed much cooler than in two years ago. Fine boy, like the yard, my arms and neck break- yourself Used to play out in that ing then in goose bumps at the sen- yard same as you." His voice was sation. I fixed a glass of lemonade breaking badly now. "Used to and had a seat. He didn't say any- ride around on Snup's back when thing to me at first and we sat in si- he was a tyke. Right out in that

lence for a while. . . and I just yard. But it's just me and the dog looked at him. His hair was gray- these days anymore."

ish-silver and all mussed up like it For the first time I was begin- hadn't been combed in a long time. ning to feel real uncomfortable, His forehead and cheeks were terri- sweat breaking out in patches un- bly wrinkled, and he almost looked der my arms and in the seat of my

like a bulldog, his mouth and eyes pants. And I felt terribly young

turned down in that sad kind of and alive. . . and ashamed for it. way. He was wearing a white un- We sat there for a long time after

dershirt that left his shoulders and that, but I didn't think I should

arms exposed and an old blue pair say anything and I didn't feel like

of trousers. Snup lay asleep on the I could go. Tuck just kept on floor next to him, the man's hand rocking, patting old Snup on the stroking his head to the motion of head. After a spell he got up and

the rocking. That's how I remem- went inside, the dog following

ber him. slowly behind. I set my glass "Why you being so quiet to- down, stepped back out into the day?" he asked. sunshine, and crossed the lawn to "Gonna have to start school in a my house.

couple of weeks," I said, "as soon

as I get back from visiting my The afternoon that I returned

grandparents," regretting that al- from my grandparents' I went out

most immediately. to the wall to play ball. I had Tuck closed his eyes, and for a been secretly missing that wall twelve Chronicle during the whole trip, and the I turned eighteen last Saturday. thought of at least one interested One of the cards my parents gave fan in the stands. I thought about to me was in a yellowing enve- actually going up to the porch to lope that had come from a safety

talk to him, but I figured Td just deposit box. I broke the seal and

wait until he said something. I had pulled out the letter that was in- been throwing for about fifteen side.

minutes when it occurred to me that It said: there was no creaking coming out from the porch. I walked over, Dear Alex, then, to see if Tuck was there, but I hope you remember who he wasn't. I guessed that he proba- I am, and the little time bly had an appointment or errands we spent together. You or something and that that he would were very important to me. be back before long. But he never When I needed to be needed, came out that afternoon, and I went you were there. I want you

into dinner wondering where he to have this . I think you could be. will understand. The next day turned out to be Sincerely,

more of the same, and I became Johnson Tucker worried that he had left and would not be coming back. Maybe his grandson had come to take him On a neady creased piece of back to Orlando. I didn't know. 1936 St. Louis Cardinal letterhead On the third day I decided to go was this note: up to the back door and knock, to find out for sure. I felt kind of awkward going up on the porch 9 August, 1936 without him being there, but I hoped that he wouldn't mind. Dear Johnson, There were glass panels on the top I was very pleased to half of the back door, and I was receive your letter of 6 looking in to what seemed to be the August showing your support

kitchen. Across in the den I could for our Cardinals. If your see him reclined in an easy chair, dad can bring you to the eyes closed, T.V on. Snup was game of Saturday, 15 Au- asleep at his side. I pushed on the gust, the attendant at the

door and it opened. I went in. The Dodier Street gate will be salty, sour smell of medicine happy to take care of you rushed me and my stomach turned. both. Jeopardy! was on the television, but everything else was silent. I Thank You, went over to Tuck and touched him Sam Braedon

on his arm. He was cold. He ... I President turned and ran from the house, St. Louis Cardinals across the porch, and into the sun- S light, tears breaking in my eyes.

Spring 1990 thirteen Old Sensations

I've found that the bedroom is no place for love and that the bathroom suits its needs much better, because I've washed the dried blood of menstruation off my inner thigh.

I've been up to my ankles in cheap vodka, Mexican beer and tears before; this is nothing new to me, it's been handed down from lover to lover for years.

Some call it messy to stand in a puddle alone without regard to the rain or the mud on my shoes,

but I stand in one and stomp my feet, splashing anyone near enough with reality and pain.

-Russ Hallauer

fourteen Chronicle Simple Question

Are we drunk enough to spill our drinks on the crotches of our pants and through some slight humiliation find some type of realism; just enough to jump off of our bar-stools with another drink and a book of poems to sit together on a comfortable couch and put our boot-heels through the walls around us?

-Russ Hallauer

Spring 1990 fift^" To Someone I Know

Art imitates life. So does a mirror. Neither lives. Life imitates art. So does she. "Ain't no life nowhere."

-Christopher Lockett

sixteen Chronicle Tom Braswell Fallen House silver gelatin print

Spring 1990 seventeei Jim MicConnell Untitled silver gelatin print

eighteen Chronicle Alexia Timbcrlakc Apple on Colour Field acrylic on canvas

Spring 1990 nineteen Ron Dill Blue Balls

oil and enamel on canvas

twenty Chronicle ^L^O

Ron Dill Untitled

oil, enamel, and latex on canvas

Spring 1990 twenty-one Judy J. Williams Beneath the Smoke lithograph

twenty two Chronicle Robert Long Fixed in Time clay and steel

Spring 1990 twenty-three ^ .>^»ng;?Q

Tom Braswcll Deconstruction silver gelatin print

iwcniy (our Chronicle MAGAZINES SINGING THE ENVIRONMENTAL BLUES

by Phil Broder

I t can be suicidally depressing sometimes, especially when the magazines ""^arrive. You see, all my magazines get sent to my home in Michigan, so every few weeks my father packages tnem up and mails them down. Tney all snow up at once. Imadne getting half a dozen environmental magazines all at once. Audu- bon, Sierra. National Wildlife, International Wilcflife, Buzzworm, South

Carolina Wildlife. . . . Plus there's Conservation '90, Greenpeace Action, Outside, Wilderness, and several others that friends leave with me. Imagine hundreds of pages of articles, facts, figures, and glossy photos about the end of the worldj and according to the authors and photographers and statisticians and scientists and government officials and naturalists it won't be a quick death. Our lungs will blacken our skin will dry, our in- sides will rot, and we will perish. And there will be no birds or mammals left to note our passing. You can see how it might be a downer. This is the end of my undergraduate life, a time when I'm supposed to be enjoying myself, blowing off some classes to create extra party time, maybe even doing serious stuff likejob hunting (Do I need a license to hunt jobs? And what gun do I use?) and^establishing a credit history (Whaddaya mean taking 21 credits this semester isn't enough to get me an American Ex- press?). Instead I find myself trying to organize Earth Week for a college that often doesn't seem to care about anytning except alcohol and athletics. I spend my rare free afternoons on the telephone, lining up speakers and films and slide shows and display tables. In the evening I wnte letters, go to meetings, give speeches, plan events, and, once in a while, study. I sleep now and then. Don't get me wrong. Nobody's holding a gun to my head, forcing me to do this. In a twisted sense of the word, Ilike doing tnis. Theprospect of showing 16,000 students the error of their ways is exciting. Tne idea of saving tne planet—of making sure that my grandchildren will be able to see the stars at night and the elephants of Africa—thrills me. But as exciting and thrilling as it may be. I get overwhelmed. How do I convince account- ing majors that rainfall lOO times more acidic than it should be concerns them? How do I persuade physics students that PCB's in Lake Hartwell aren't in their best interests? How do I get across to budding

(f Phil Broder is the Director of Education for Students for Environmental v^ Awareness, and he belongs to many national and international environ- mental groups. When he s not working on Earth Day or playing with his peregrine falcon, he can usually befound glued to his couch watch- ing sitcoms. Phil hopes to go to Boise State university next year to start on his M.S. in raptor biology, plans to become the president of a major environmental group someday, wants to save the world^ and u hopes to neverforget his Michigan roots and accidentally say y'all." n

Spring 1990 twenty-five architects that breathing the air in single elephant left on the African the CaroUnas and Georgia isn't continent. healthy after industries in those That's just a single month's states pump out 250 million pounds news. So if I seem a tad bit de- of toxic emissions annually? And pressed occasionally, it's under- how do I convince myseli that this standable. There's also work to battie is winnable, especially after consider. the magazines come/ You'd think that going to work, Take the recent batch. The news staying busy, would keep my wasn't anything to smile about. If mind off the problems or the global warming continues, future world. I suppose if I were a nor- nurricanes willmake Hugo look mal person, clad in the polyester laughable. The rhinos ofthe worid fineiy of the local eatery or the are headed toward extinction. De- body- strangling three pieces of a spite the Alar uproar^ dangerous "real" job, smiUng a hollow smile chemicals are still being put on our at all the empty people around me, fruits and vegetables. Rainforests, it would. But my job isn't like temperate forests, wetland, grass- that. lands, mountains, coral ree^, and The only smile I have to give is cities are all imperiled by man- to one of the lords of the sKies, kind's folly. Tne government is grounded forever. telling half-truths about wetland in I work at the Carolina Raptor order to get itself reelected. Koalas Center in Charlotte, trying to put may become endangered soon. the pieces of injured birds of prey Everybody except France and Aus- bacK together so that they can tralia wants to drill for coal and oil spread their wings between the in Antarctica. Biodegradable plas- clouds again. I'm only successful tic isn't really. The world's popu- about eveiy other try. lation is still growing explosively. At one time or another we've all Louisiana's coast is disappearing thought about what it would be under water because of cnanges like if we lost our legs, or arms, we've made to the Mississippi Riv- or eyes. As someone who can do er. Oil exploration will destroy an miraculous things like walking ancient tribe of Ecuadorean Indians across campus, writing articles that have never even seen a horse, for Chronicle, and watching the let alone an oil drilling rig. Experts leaves change into their autumn advise tourists to see tne rainforests hues, I know that I'd be devastat- now, while there's still rainforest ed if I were suddenly dealt a left to see. Balloons kill sea turtles. physical handicap. The Everglades are awash in agri- But how does tne golden eagle cuhural pollution. Black bears are feel? Being able to walk is quite being slaughtered because Koreans incredible in itself, but flying as think bear gall bladders are aphro- an eagle flies, soaring past the disiacs. Brazilian rainforest is dis- tops of mountains, dropping like appearing at the rate of 14,000 lightning onto unsuspecting square miles annually. The U.S. lunch, swooping between tne military seems bent on trashing trees. What if that ability were American land while practicing to suddenly gone, taken by a red- trash foreign land. Very few nvers neck yahoo with a shotgun and flow freely to the sea anymore, too much time on his hands? now that they're tied up by dams, When I look at that eagle, or the locks, canals, and irrigation pro- owls that have been shattered by jects. The three R's are now Re- collisions with rushing Toyotas duce, Reuse, and Recycle. Every- and Oldsmobiles, or the falcons one wants clean air, and everyone left crook-winged by the sky- wants someone else to pay for it. scrapers that occupy their air- In twenty years there may not be a space, what should I feel? An

Iwcnly-six Chronicle .

apology on behalf of my species Sir Isaac, I don't buy into that. If would seem appropriate, yet I am I do, I admit that losing this fight unable to apologize for acts of is inevitable, that saving the plan- senseless idiocy that I can't even et—and we had better, oecause understand. How can anyone Venus is just too damn hot— is an shoot an eagle? And how can I ex- unattainable goal. pect someone who does that to care Sometimes 1 remember all the about the effect of energy con- good old environmental plati- sumption on the upper atmosphere? tudes, just to try to freshen up a Maybe HallmarK should mA:e little. "Fm sorry" cards for people to send to the planet. A good planet is hard to find. Depression is easy. But those of Love your Mother. you who know me know that I Now. Or never. don't mope around in a funk. Hap- Do we want to get where we're piness is nard. going? You've seen me around campus. We stand for what we stand on. I was the person teUing you that I Think globally, act locally. didn't need a bag for the one item I Ifyou're not part of the solution, had just purchased. Why not let you're part of the problem. some stately old tree live another day? Maybe I was that crazy guy I've heard them so many times who asked you not to toss your they've become nearly meaning- Pepsi can in the trash and then di- less. Maybe one of you can find rected you to the nearest recycling wisdom in them. barrel. After all, recycling a single Better than any of them, I think can saves enough energy to run a (I think!, therefore I recycle!: Co- TV for three hours. Perhaps you gito ergo recyclo), are the last overheard me asking the dining hall words of the Once-ler, that notori- manager why styroioam bowls had ous eco-thue who cut down all of to be used. It seems to me that Dr. Seuss' Truffula trees, driving creating a hole in the ozone layer is the brown barbaloots, swomee like unzipping the planet's fly. swans, and the Lorax away: That recyclea paper I handed"^ you to Eut in the computer center's printer Unless someone like you cares a eld inkjust as well as any other whole awful lot, nothing is going paper. Collecting scrap computer to get better. It' snot. paper isn't enougn: it's not recy- cling until it's used again. A wise man, that Dr. Seuss. I No matter how I confronted you heartily advocate using his books and your particular environmental in Freshman English. problem, 1 always tried to be That someone who has to care is friendly. I don't want to be a me. And you. And all my doomsayer. If I stood around friends. And all your friends. reaching I'd know, and E the end of the world, And everyone we e telling the truth but not one of everyone they know. People who you would be listening. So I sneak care don't get depressed quite so up on you, take you be surprise. I easily, especially when there are impart a little learning, grin, and other people who care about the move on. That alone Keeps me go- same things. ing from day to day. Maybe we won't be able to The secret, perhaps, is to never make a living. We'll be able to waver, never accept defeat. New- make a difference instead. And ton's Laws, in a rather bastardized someday, when a whole lot of form, tell us that we can't win, we people care a whole awful lot,

always lose, and we can never maybe there won't be enough |— break even. With all due respect to news to fill all those magazines. IJL

Spring 1990 twenty-seven If the Igloo

If the igloo rose, then sank Beneath the bubbles in the Thinking Tank, The Prestons would leave And the Evelyns would ease Their way through the gasping For Peace On their knees.

Their esteem now collapsed And smallness at nap. The iglooans chirp out their death-bubble bath, Burping and bubbling Ice into gas.

And if the igloo were a five-finger drink, Imbibers would belch up the need to think, Sodden with envy For those who believe The Night's almost never Fully retrieved.

Then the taste of metal Makes one think Of when the igloo rose, Then sank, Beneath The bubbles Of the Thinking Tank.

-John Davis

iwcnly^ighl Chronicle Incommunicado

If ... Everything meant nothing. Would this grave atrocity communicate? Of course! The course direction takes When lost in the woulds, At least, When you breathe. But at least. You shouldn't. Rather wouldn't, No couldn't breathe Because if you did. It should be okay, Though there are no shoulds In this jungle of woulds. Where the bears feed in frenzies, A less than sickest litmus ickest. But up gut come For ott Lodee Shoo si Beau two.

-John Davis

Jprine 1990 twenty-nine INHERITANCE

by Warren E. Edminster

"It wasn't so much his appearance that bothered me, Alex." Jon looked at the rapt attention on his American son's face. It reminded him of the look of a faithful retriever waiting for a ball to be thrown. He looked away and continued the story. ' That wasn't all. Oh sure, Andy had always been neat, but so had we all. In boarding school, they whipped the shit out of us if we weren't. They had daily inspections of everything. Every morning while we were in class, the prefects would check all the rooms. If they didn't like the way we cleaned them, the wankers would reix)rt us ana we would get called in for cuts. Hell, they used to check the length of our hair as we left chapel every day. I guess they thought that we would develop habits of neatness ana cleanliness. The only problem was that a lot of guys, once they got away from the strict, structured neatness, had no self- discipline at all. ^o his appearance wasn't the main thing that startled me." Jon could see in his mind the thin, unwashed arms. The lifeless, cha- mois-like complexion. The dirty brown hair that hung in ragged bangs across a flat forehead. He noticed the yellow fingers that alternated be- tween fondling cigarettes and nervously tugging at an uneven, half-grown beard. The stained jeans and torn calico shirt. The muddy army-issue boots. This was his friend. This nightmarish figuree, like a character from a Goya painting, was Andrew.

"No. it wasn t his appearance. It was the flat, blank stare of his eyes that really shocked me. There seemed to be no interest in them at all. I could tell he had been drinking, but it was more than that. It was the way he stared at my chin or at the wall, or off into space. He just showed a to- tal lack of concern about everything around him, including me."

ihirly Chronicle Jon drew his breath in slowly. with old milk bottles, empty cigar- He felt like it was snowing inside ette packs, broken glass from vod- his chest. He rubbed his nands up ka bonles, and dishes covered from his knees to his thighs and with half-eaten meals. Dirty then continued. clothes lay on his floor among "You see. Andy had always had books that looked like they hSd this undefinable twinkle to his eyes, been thrown about at random. a sort of glimmer that sized up the The only furniture he had were world witn confidence and anticipa- two chairs and, between them, an tion. Why not? He was very bright old traveling trunk which he used and fairly athletic. Most of us liked as a coffee table. The trunk was him and ne had more than his share covered with old letters, bills, and of girls. He had good reason to be magazines. On top of those lay confident. He wasn't cocky. He his pistol." just walked around with his chin up Jon broke off. He could see and his chest out, looking forward the black Beretta 9mm perched to anything that might come his ominously on top of the chaotic way. He had the eyes of a child jumble of paper. It was spotlessly who just knows that everything will clean, shining brightly with a thin tum out OK." layer of oil. Its orderly efficiency Jon looked into his son's eyes. contrasted sharply with the mass They too had that glimmer, that in- of junk that lay around the house. explicable shine that indicated a love It rested patientiy among the dirt for cold mornings and warm girls. and trash—latent, violent death At the moment they were temporari- just waiting for a reflex. ly dulled—one of Alex's friends "He had obviously been taking had woken up the day before and care of his pistol. It was well decided that the blue "barrel of a oiled and wiped clean, and that shotgun was easier to face than life. bothered me. I knew something They were sitting up in the kitchen, was terribly wrong. His mother's talking about life, discussing the voice on the phone had been errat- reasons anyone could have for ic and almost hysterical. So when wanting to leave it. Jon was trying I saw him, when I saw his obvi- to explain despair, trying to assuage ous lack of interest in his house the feelings and personal of impo- ^ ^ appearance, tence and and then betrayal that ''The trunk was covered when I saw follow a the pains- friend's sui- with old letters, bills , and taking care cide. Yet he had been he knew magazines. On top of giving his that boys pistol, I got like Alex those lay his pistol/' really wor- rarely had ried.^' the capacity Jon for sustained grief. He listened to paused. He flexed his hands the silence that had rushed in since against his thighs until he felt the his last words. ReaHzing that Alex dull warmth or pain creep into his was waiting for him to continue, he shoulders. cleared his throat and again thought "Anyway we sat down and back to that hot Rhodesian night. started talking. I hadn't seen him "Anyway, he invited me in, if in three years, so we had plenty to not wannly, then at least politely. talk about. Or at least I did. I re- He still had the ability to go through minded him of certain girls and the motions of social decorum. His teachers and old friends. I talked house was a mess. It was littered about the times we had gotten

Dring 1990 thirty-one drunk together, the goals we had Jon dropped his gaze. He had, the progress of the war..." couldn't bear that look. The man that was sitting across from him Jon looked again into his bore litde resemblance to his friend's eyes, the blank green eyes friend. Andy had been filled with like stagnant pools of water, with energy and vitality. This man was no ripple of pain or pleasure, no en- ust an empty shell of the friend he thusiasm at all, eyes which focused iad known. beyond the worid of space and The smell of unwashed cloth- time, beyond the limits of matter ing crept into Jon's nostrils. He and dimension, beyond the human noticed that the carpet needed vac- echo of a foreign past which sat be- uuming badly. He looked at the fore them. Jon looked into those sun-bleached hair on his arms. eyes and knew the boundaries of Cigarette smoke curled around the his own fragile existence. He heard silence. his voice flowing out in a slow, Andy began speaking. He careful rhythm, asking and probing spoke in the words of a soldier, while Andy's voice responded, giv- telling of a world where life be- ing answers honestly and without came cheap and meaningless, interest. Yes, he had gotten a com- where thoughts of the dead con- mission when he had entered the in- standy plagued those who were fantry. Yes. a real honor, very dif- ahve, where values mixed and ficult indeed. Quite, a big morals warped until all that was responsibility. No, it hadn't been left was a need for self-respect. too much. No, he did not mind He told about men who struggled fighting for his country. Yes, desperately to keep the rickety someone had to defend freedom and code which they called honor. democracy. Of course, men died in His voice was unhurried and un- war. Yes, he accepted that. And caring, moving along as a man in a then silence. Silence which roared desert might move, knowing that in Jon's ears. He repeated the ques- there is no hope, knowing that tion. there is no chance of rescue, mere- "What has happened to you ly walking mechanically on be- then? My God man, look at your- cause there is nothing else to do. self What the hell went wrong Jon listened to the monotonous with you?" pounding of the voice. He heard Andy's eyes met his for the first the steady tread of booted feet. He time. They showed no passion, no saw the sliadows of rifles moving offense at what had been said. across dust. They merely shifted upward to look It was late afternoon and into Jon's face. They reminded Jon Andy'splatoon was following the of a hyena he had once found in a spoor of five men through the tall wire snare. From the marks in the Khodesian grass. Their faces earth, Jon could tell that it had been were taut with aneer and horror. trapped for several days. Its leg An hour before, the tracks had led was already rotting from lack of cir- to a small white farmhouse. The culation. Exhausted, it had merely platoon had approached it cau- watched as Jon levered a shell into tiously. It seemed peaceful his rifle and circled around to aim at enough. Chickens scratched busi- the base of its skull. Perhaps it had ly in Uie dust. Goats lay quietly in known it was going to die. or per- tne shade of a corrugated tin haps it had considered itself dead al- shack, seeking relief from the Af- ready. In any event, it had waited rican sun. Andy had distributed quietly for its death. That was how the platoon around the house and Andy looked. He stiired expres- then called out, announcingthat sionlessly at Jon for a while. His they were security forces. There cheek jerked almost imperceptibly. had been no answer. Two of the thirty-two Chronicle men burst through the front door. ing the air for smells of soap or to- The platoon waited nervously, rifles bacco. Andy could sense that gripped tiehtly. Then one oftne something was not right. The men stumoled out of the house to bush just didn't feel nght. A dove fall on his knees and lie retching cooed in the silence, and then he among the chickens. As Andy ap- knew. That hadn't been a dove. proached him, he heard the staccato Andy and his men crouched low bark of a rifle from inside the and scanned the tracks ahead. house. He rushed into the house to Sweat began to trickle into their find the other soldier firing repeat- eyes, but they didn't dare to edly into a brown farm dog. On the move. Off to the right, the grass floor lay the mutilat- began to rustle. ed body of a young Andy motioned to woman. Beside Anthills jutted his men to spread her, Andy saw the out. A twig remains of what out of the grass snapped in the si- must, at one time, lence. Rifles came have been her child. like miniature level. The after- Apparently, the dog noon erupted in had been eating at castles, ten, fif- gunfire. the baby. The Andy was run- hands had been cut teen, twenty feet ning forward. He off of both bodies. felt the grass cutting On the soft yellow high. into his arms, the wall a message was ground slamming written in human against his boots, blood. "DEATH TO ALL the sweat stinging in his eyes. WHITES!" The soldier ran out of Ahead of him, he could hear the shells and stopped firing. As the burping of machine-gun fire. He echoes died away, Andy heard the ran towards it. A body lay face- buzz of flies settling back down on down in the grass in front of him. the congealed blood. It was one ofthe terrorists. He That nad been a lifetime ago. leapt over the dead man and kept Now the tracks led through the tall, moving forward. The firing sharp grass. The men moved with a stopped. Andy burst into a clear- concentrated hate. Behind them ing and stopped. On the ground, a were curses and oaths. Behind young black boy dressed in the ca- them was vomiting and tears. Be- mounage of a soldier was franti- hind them lay the carnage of terror- cally tr)ang to change the clip of ism. Ahead of them lay revenge. his Chinese submachine-gun. The heat rose with the dust. Doves Andy stared at him in disbelief A called sofdy from the intermittent child! Here? There was no longer thorn trees. They had done so for any gunfire. Andy could hear his centuries, cooing contentment as platoon members shouting his wildebeest died in the heat, as py- name. The boy looked up. Andy thons wrapped around impalas, as felt himself far away. He could kudus sank beneath the claws of hear the songs of his childhood. leopards. He and his mends were playing Anthills jutted out of the grass Kick-the-Can, white ancl black, it like miniature castles, ten, futeen, didn't matter, they were friends. twenty feet high. Their shadows He was hiding in the grass and stretched out across the grass. The sneaking cautiously up to see if platoon passed by them silently. the can was covered. It wasn't. The sky was streaked with the first He could see those who had been red and orange hints of sunset. caught, sitting in a circle not far Andy raised his hand and away. He measured the distance stopped.. The platoon waited, sniff- to the can, sprinting for the can.

Spring 1990 thirty-three The clip clicked into place. The boy the fact that what I did was the who was "It" had seen him. Andy right thing to do. Life gives us no was racing towards the can, sprint- real choices. It gives us no control ing for dear life to beat the boy who of our actions. Icouldn't have was "It" The boy raised the sub- done anything else. I owed it to machine-gun. Andy could see that that woman. 1 owed it to myself he had pissed his pants. Some- All I could do was kill that boy. where in his mind, Andy heard the And I did. I did the only thing I buzzing of flies. He smelled con- could." gealed olood. He saw the slash of Andy looked up. His cheek dark red against yellow. His moth- twitched methodically. "Can't er was calling him home. That was you see?" His hand grasped the enough Kick-the-Can for one day. Beretta. "It isn't a question of The &3y's finger was inside the right or wrong. I did the right trieeer-guard. A dove called stu- thing, the only thing I could do, pidly from a nearby tree. Andy and yet I can't live with it." Jon looked nervously at his friend. Andy's hand was white Jon sat quietiy, looking at his where he was gripping the pistol friend. The echoes of gunfire re- butt. ceded with the echoes of Andy's "So what areyou going to do? voice. Kill yourself? That certainly isn't "So you killed him?" the nght thing. It's cowardice." Andy looked up. "Yes." Andy laugned, not with humor, "He deserved it." not even witn irony, just the "Yes." weak, tired laugh oi a man who "He would have killed you." has surrendered to his body's irra- "Yes." tional reactions. "So they tell us. *Then what the hell is the matter? Those who have never had the You do what you have to do in courage to face the blackness tell life." us that suicide is cowardice." He Andy looked away. "You don't passed his free hand across his understand." His voice was not ir- race. "All it is is evolutionary eth- ritated, just tired. "It's not some- ics. Those who have had the cou- thing I can rage to escape help. I am are not consumed around to by a flame '7 ask you, is a slave a give their that is an in- reasons or tegral part weakling for wanting his opinions. of my oe- They are ing. I am freedom? Is a prisoner a dead. Only tortured by those who aeon- cowardfor escaping from have never science that committed I cannot his cell?'' suicide are kill, be- around to cause to kill pronounce it would be to imprison myself in a judgment. We only hear their soul that I hate." side. But they have no right to "But why? Why do you feel so judge. They are writing a book re- fuilty? You had no choice. You view of a book they haven't id the right thin^." read."

"You still don t understand. Andy reached into his pocket, You could never understand unless nulled out a cigarette, and placed it you were me. It isn't a question of between his lips. He lit it and con- right or wrong. My agony lies in tinued. "I ask you, is a slave a ihirty-four Chronicle weakling for wanting his freedom? a coward, not as a friend who has Is a prisoner a coward for escaping betrayed you or let you down, but from his cell?" He leaned forward, rather as someone who had the gripping the Beretta tightly. "Hell courage to escape a life in which no! if your life is agony or impri- he was miserable." sonment, it is cowardice not to Alex studied the floor. "I commit suicide. It shows that you guess so." He shuffled his feet are afraid of the blackness, that you uncomfortably and shifted his do not have the courage to face your weight in the chair. His forehead death." was wrinkled with one of those Jon stared at his friend in hor- temporary perplexities which ror. For a moment he couldn't youth seem to get over so quickly. speak. He couldn't answer to the Jon waitea in silence for his oarkness that crept in around them. son to think everything through. He sat and watched the slow twitch- He wished that he had as mucn ing of his friend's cheek until the si- confidence in himself. He won- lence became terrifying. Then he dered if he would ever figure it all spoke, a small boy s voice in a out. room full of shadows. "Then for Alex looked back up. "It's you, suicide is the only right thing hard to understand, but I guess I to do." owe him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was my friend. I just Jon stopped speaking. He could miss him, that's all." feel his son s eyes upon him. The two were silent, father Those bright eyes that glimmered and son in a world that, at least at with the stupidity of youth. It was the moment, made littie sense. cold in the spacious American kitch- Jon got out of his chair and patted en. He shivered. Alex spoke. his son's shoulder. He said good- "So what happened?" night and went upstairs to his bed- "Nothing." room. By the lignt from the door, "After aU that, nothing hap- he could see that his wife was pened?" sleeping. Jon noticed the way that "No, nothing. I walked away the Dlankets tumbled across her from his house, expecting to hear shoulders. He reached beneath the sound of a gunshot, but nothing the bed and pulled out a small box. happened. A few years later I heard He took it into his study. On his that he was working in a tobacco desk sat a boyhood picture of he factory, but by then we were losing and a friend. He sat down in his the war and I immigrated here soon chair and looked at the two young after. I never heara of him again. faces for several minutes. Then Our friendship was gone anyway. he opened the box and took out an He couldn't deal witn the present so old Beretta 9mm. It was clean and he refused to lean on the past. You well oiled. He spoke softiy to the see, he despised himself because he picture. was too great a coward to try to es- "Well my friend, maybe to- cape. His explanation was not a night I'll be able to face the black- justification. It was an indictment. ness." [i] Andy felt that he was a coward, and he hated himself for it Maybe he was a coward. I don't know. I no longer feel capable of judging any- one else's life." Jon looked around at his son. "Perhaps you shouldn'tjudge your friend's actions either. You don't know what he was going through. Perhaps you can think of him not as

Spring 1990 thirty-five Done Been Gone

That's sandpaper ain't it, Dave? Down my spine, Drop me a weather under Drop me a dime.

Drowning by the thought Of a fermented vine, Might drop by and by By a far mean side.

Why, I want to bite you, Dave! You would find it high Plowing and a far mean Ignite your earthly site.

-Michael Reynolds

thiriy-six Chronicle Southern Nature

It occurred to me to write of rain and the gusts that spin our weathervane; a thunderstorm with all its wrath and stars that guide the traveler's path.

It occurred to me to speak of snow and fireflies whose tail-ends glow; a mountain range with sugared peaks and crayfish deep in southern creeks.

It occurred to me to sing of hail and how water falls like a bridal veil; a summer sky all blue and clear and winter hunting for Georgia deer.

It occurred to me to think of sleet and mimosa to make the breezes sweet; a morning glory in the early mist and a field of grain that the sun has kissed.

It occurred to me to dream of fog and the age-old scent of rotting log; a big ole buck with a ten point crown and a perfect spot to watch the sun go down.

-Erin Laney

thirty-seven Parkinson's Pond

Paddlin around on Parkinson's swamp, A paradoxical quiz, or a frivolous romp? Five hundred turtles in Handel's choir Little old ladies sitting 'round a fire. Despite the words bein' passed around. Ain't a sage in the group to be found.

Paddlin around on Parkinson's lake, Found half the remains of a dead old snake. A crusty old hen and a cranky fox Was shunnin fried chicken for gefilte and lox. And despite all their idiosyncrasy. Ain't neither one got all the philosophy.

Many of these things are in Parkinson's ditch. To clue you in on which is which. Are two green frogs and a musty toad A one-eyed dog in the middle of the road? To some these are the things that be, The ultimate solution to the mystery.

-Robert Stewart

ihirly-cight Chronicle Structure

Let me take you; Leap out of your sensibilities, Personalities; Fall out your ear perhaps, Or drip out your eye; Either way, come with me. Come see; A fantastic panorama spreads before us. That pillar of concrete, solid and white. Smoking in the Hght (but very cold) That's just you, as you were; I'm a jellyfish. Live like me.

-John Medrano

pring 1990 thirty-nine EXECUTIVE STAFF

Editor-in-Chief Dawn Ellen Kirkland Art Editor Becky Rogers Managing Editor F Business Manager Susan Wethington Harry Conner p Layout/Design Editor Advertising Manager Daniel J. Norwood Christopner Lxx:Kett

Copy Editor Poetry Editor Ted Collins Beverly Cooper Gunter Promotions Director Fiction Editor Craig Hughes Bob DuBard Media Adviser Kirk Brague

Faculty Advisers Mark Steadmiin Lynn Craig STAFF

P George Flores p Beth Lyons

Stephen Lomas F Kris McGuire

special thanks to Winkie Stiles

^poetry board

fiction board

forty Chronicle DONORS PATRONS SUPPORTERS FRIENDS Clemson Newsstand Clemson Open Type Right Book Tiger Town Tavem Judge Keller's Store Columbo's Pizza Students for Social Bash Riprock's Concern Head Hunters

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Announcing:

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featuring: bands acoustic artists general tomfoolerey Saturday, April 21, 1990 noon to midnight in the AMPHITHEATER

Submissions for the autumn issue: Send poetr>' plays, short fiction, fea- tures, and art to Box 2187 University Station, Clemson, SC 29632 with S.A.S.E. Include name and phone number on the back of each submission. If you do not wish to mail your art, call our office at 656-2833 and leave a message. DEADLINE: September 1 pring 1990

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Cover Art Submissions for the winter literary issue will be accepted befor

Ron Dill December 10. 199(). Send us jxxrtry, plays, and short fiction to Boj Ilium 2187 University Station, Clemson, SC 29632 with S.A.S.E. Includ< name and phone number on tlie back of each submissionJ oil and enamel Chronicle Volume 94, Issue 1, Autumn 1990

Table of Contents

Fiction Features Dust to Dust Fanzines John Edwards 8 4 Christopher Lockett The Spirits of the Bear Claw Mark Mulfinger, Guest Anist Bob DuBard 19 22 Susan Wethington Building Character Kris McGuire 25 POEIRY couplet 2 Elaine Stephens Not a Refusal to Love Art 3 Russ Hallauer Untitled the metaphorical medium Shannon Morrissey 11 7 Beth Lyons Landscape Untitled Ron Dill 12 16 Sean Jason Jay Interior Untitled Alexia Timberiake 13 17 Michael O'Rourke The Hunter Grass Trip Godwin 14 34 Scott Taylor

Three I — if, then Steve Short 15 35 Michael Holland

Chronicle was established in 1897 as the official art and literary magazine of Clemson University, making it the university's oldest student publication. Opinions expressed in Chronicle do not necessarily coincide with those of the student body, faculty, or administration. The editor assumes responsibility for opinions, should there be any, presented in Chronicle. Address all correspondence to: Chronicle, Box 2 1 87, University Station, Clemson, SC 29632. Student subscriptions are paid through student activity fees. Advertising rates are available upon request. Submissions are chosen anonymously. Chronicle is printed on recycled paper. couplet

i melt this poem into your skin with tongue that drips your taste and smell. alliterate here and here again, allude to what this poem will tell. onomatopoeia you sigh, groan, whimper, rhythm blurs at this furred place. my tongue lingers indelibly longer here where poems are traced with skin, smell, spit and sweat with tongue and taste and wet.

Elaine Stephens

Chronicle Not a Refusal to Love

I've held a knife close enough to see the reflection of my eyes

in the angles of the blade, close enough to notice their color has changed, close enough to realize the knife

is dangerous

in its sheath and safer

in my hand, but I've been told

love is nothing physical.

Russ Hallauer

Autumn 1990 Fanzines

Christopher Lockett

The word "fanzine" came into use popular market, but into comic book between 1945 and 1950, in the "Golden conventions and junior high school Age" of comic books, before the infa- lunch periods. In the 60's, with the help mous social psychologist. Dr. Wertham of corporate America's new toy, the and his Comics Code Authority de- Xerox photocopier, the fanzine reached cided that Batman and Superman could a more adult audience in the Haight- warp the minds of America's youth. Ashbury scene of psychedelic San

Dr. Wertham ' s reports received so much Francisco as a counterculture musical national attention that the comic book and political voice in the press. The industry censored itself by affixing a fanzine left American soil in the 70's to Comics Code Authority stamp of ap- escape the disco trend and traveled to proval on every comic it published for the U.K. to thrive in the Lx)ndon punk a general audience. However, try as he scene. The 80's showed the fanzine's might. Dr. Wertham and his Code were return to the U.S. in post-punk New unable to keep the average American York, D.C., and L.A. underground. twelve-year-old from tales of murder, Although the fanzine has undergone suspense, and gratuitous mutilation: the some changes over the yeiu*s, it is now kids went underground. enjoying a new vogue.

In response to the disappearance of Staying true to their heritage, most their cherished illustrated literature, "'zines", as they iu-e now called, are inventive adolescents typed up their shoestring budget, cut-and-paste pho- own magazines and traded them with tocopy productions of material rele- their friends, exchanging collectors' vant to theircreator's message. Today's information and prices for these publi- typical 'zine often contains the most cations. Thus the fanzine was born, not bizarre and disturbing forms of graphic into mainstream literature, nor into the art available to those who create these

Chronicle contemporary masterpieces. Add to students. Security 'zine, from Daniel this some of the most original and High School, covers the indusmal music energetic writing on topics not often scene. Pendleton's contribution to the seen in mainstream publications and list, Soulless Structures, rants for nearly the typical 'zine makes for very inter- thirty pages, in which the reader will esting reading. encounter anything from skateboarding

news to band news to a letter (in the last At present, there are at least seven issue) from "a proud Aryan woman." 'zines being published in the Clemson Though only seven area 'zines are area. Big Swollen Toe, published by mentioned, keep your eyes open; oth- Clemson student Spot, is a 'zine com- ers may be lurking in the shadows. plete with band interviews, local music scene reports, poetry, short stories and Fanzines are not money making artwork. Padrot, creation of Clemson vehicles for their creators. In fact most student and Sleestacks guitarist Mike of the people producing them lose Benson, features skateboard and local money. Production costs range any- music news. Heretic is published by where from fifty cents to a dollar per

Spot's roommate Andy Hayes, who is copy. Many 'zines are distributed free the DJ of WSBF's "Ugly as Sin" show. at local hardcore punk shows, or are Heretic has many band interviews and given to local record stores to distrib- advertisements from hardcore record ute. For example. Manifest and Listen- labels, some from as far away as Greece ers' Choice in downtown Clemson carry and France. Clemson student Evan an occasional copy of Big Swollen Toe Mann publishes The Twilight 'zine, or Heretic. which contains stream-of-conscious- ness poetry, short stories, and some When asked about the motivation "1 great photographs of local skaters in behind his 'zine, Andy Hayes said: action. The newest member of the started the Heretic about six months

Clemson family of 'zines is WSBF's after I'd interviewed a band on tape. I

Super Duper Pooper Scooper, the first had this great interview lying cU-ound copy of which contains interviews, and I had nothing to do with it, so I reviews, a poem and a program guide started my own 'zine. I've never made for the station's varied format. a buck at this, but it's great for band

contacts, and the reviews I give the

There are two other ' zines currently bands are always good for a few free being published by local high school demo's or HP's. Hayes went on to

Autumn 1990 -

describe his usual procedure: he sends sive or disgusting. Some contain inter- out a standardized sheet which the bands views of bands with names such as

fill in and send back for publication. Bloodcum, Psycho Sin, or Chemical "It's a hell of a great way for under- Dependency. Equally revolting are the ground and hardcore bands to get some many "hate 'zines" on the market. These publicity for the price of two twenty- fanzines contain articles promoting five cent stamps," he said. A full page racial, political, and religious hate as

ad in Heretic costs three dollars, and the well as hate for its own sake. circulation varies between 30 and 70 copies per issue. As mainstream publishers huddle together beneath corporate umbrellas

Spot from Big Swollen Toe men- and the NEA is being forced to restrict tioned that "although most 'zines don't their government grants to "nonoffen-

have much in the way of budgets or cir- sive" literary and art publications, the

culations, people trade them at shows corresponding growth of independent

and advertise them in other 'zines." He presses naturally fills the void. Some says that "he has no problem getting a fanzines may be shocking, offensive,

copy of something like the ' zine Hippy poorly-written, or unappetizing to the core from Arizona," and even receives general public. However, therein lies

copies of international magazines which the beauty or the fanzine: if you don't

have seen reviews of his fanzine. like what one has to say, all you need to

do is sit down at a typewriter, cut out Factsheet Five and Maximum some artwork for attractive packaging, RocknRoll are two magazines that re- head to your local copy shop and create view 'zines. In any one issue of either your own publication. As almost all

magazine, one may find as many as two publishers today tremble in feiu* of

hundred different reviews. Both maga- censorship, it seems that the fanzine is

zines provide wide-ranging menus of the last true free press in a country subjects from which to choose. Ex- founded on freedom of expression.

treme voices which cannot be found in any conventional form of media appear

in the 'zine in unaduheraied, unedited, uncensored frenzy.

A word of caution: many fanzines

contain material that is highly offcn-

Chroniclc the metaphorical medium

i am sculpting

this : your marble perfect shoulders, sharply shadowed by the streetlights and the accompanying lines of the window frame; chipping away at the vowels and consonants of this abstract medium; revealing the brilliance of the moment.

Beth Lyons

Autumn 1990 —

Dust to Dust

John Edwards

There are few places left in the Carolinas nature and outdoor six)rts, but they respected (or anywhere, for that matter) wherein a each other's individual qualities, even when skilled outdoorsman can truly become lost they resulted in conflict. John was by far the not in the sense of merely losing his way, but more reserved, introspective half of the duo. losing himself; losing the idea that life is a He seldom initiated a conversation, not complexity, and that living is necessary and because he had nothing to say, but because can be taken for granted. Losing the arrogant he was no good at saying it. He was success- misconception that as human beings we are ful at putting his thoughts on paper, even on distinct exceptions to Nature, and that we are canvas, but to share a thought spontaneously above animal behavior because of some through speech was difficult and frustrating. divine birthright. There arc few places where Gary was the one f)erson with whom John the forests are dense enough to hide the could comfortably discuss his ideas, and vapor trails and blinking lights of polluted Gary, who was naturally talkative with skies, or where animals wander freely anyone, would listen and piirticipatc energeti- without unnatural scars from barbed-wire cally. He was not only a physically large fences or farmer's bullets. Green River cove person, his personality was large, 'larger than in western North Carolina is one of these life.' He made loyal friends wherever he places. It remains an untamed, forever went, and he was never alone. But he and virginal hunter's Eden, just as the Cherokee John had a special friendship, forged solid in left it over a hundred years ago. their youth, and now they were reunited for a John always chose Green River when he week-long hunting trip on the Green River, wanted to be alone, but this lime he decided to catch up on the experiences and lessons to share his camp with a friend. He and Gary Ic^imcd during the two years since they left had been best buddies all through their high their hometown.

.sch(X)l years until graduation scp:iraial them, On the first day they worked until John going on to college while Gary signed sundown, setting up camp and scouting the up with llic Army as a paratrooper. They had steep terrain for signs of whilctail deer. By almost nothing in common besides a love for evening, both men were experiencing the

8 Chronicle strange, aching satisfaction of well-earned something a litde lighter to talk about, so fatigue, settling by the fire in their folding let's do." canvas chairs. Despite the cold and the "Whatever you say." Gary stared deep rugged, primordial setting, the camp was into the embers along the edge of the quite comfortable. The shadows of the giant campfire, trying to beat John's own reflective pines darkened the camp long before the sun pose, blackening the tip of his hunting knife had disappeared, and when the evening meal in the flame. "Tell me then, John. Do you was finished and the dirty crockery rinsed, believe in God?" the night had surrounded them, and the John rolled his eyes in disdain. He flashing light of the campfire set a small simply could not escape it; Gary was going stage for an evening conversation on science, to have a debate. They had had this discus- philosophy, or whatever the two men had on sion many times before, and Gary knew his their minds. thoughts on the subject, so he chose sarcasm When the time came, Gary introduced a for his reply. topic for the campfire discussion. "Do you "Of course," John said, "I believe there think much about dying?" he asked. is a man with a long, white beard sitting on a John settled in his chair, looking golden throne in the sky, passing judgment deliberately thoughtful. "No," he replied. "I on us all. I believe the Earth has four don't dwell on it, if that's what you mean. comers, and that the sun stood still, and that I'm too young to fear death, and I'm enjoy- Jessica Hahn was a virgin before Jim Bakkcr ing my youth. And I don't see why you have came along. I believe it all, Gary. I'm to bring up such a dreadful subject to talk keeping the faith." about." Gary chuckled. "I don't mean 'God' as

Gary smiled. "Why is death such a bad an institution, but as a concept. Seriously, subject? It's coming, you know; it's just a what exactly do you believe?"

matter of time." "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I believe

"Yes, I know," John replied, "'ashes to that God is an invention of man to excuse the ashes, dust to dust.' But I think we can find sins, the wickedness that should be conU"olled

Autumn 1990 and not conveniently pardoned. And heaven, Gary spoke again, this time in a grave, heaven is a real easy was to deny your serious tone. "I have a problem, John, and I mortality, to stare common sense in the face, haven't really told anyone yet. You see, I'm point to the stars and say 'to hell with you. sick. Well, really I'm more than sick. A I'm hving forever, and that's where I'm specialist at Fort Bragg has examined me and going when I pass on.' It sounds silly when the diagnosis is cancer. It's in my bone you think about it. You can't deny it. I don't marrow. Doesn't look good, I'm afraid...." need a deity to give my life meaning. The John looked at him and gave a short, appreciation of life is enough of a religion for breathless laugh. But he knew his friend well me. Life is sacred, if anything is, and enough to know he wasn't joking. His anything you do that detracts from life is, in reaction was the same in any crisis, reflexive my book, a sin. And that includes dwelling and stoic, but he knew his friend was dying, on the idea of death, and wasting your time and if he had just now shaken the faith of a studying modem mythology. Life is a gift, a dying friend, his own sadness would be that privilege, but when you're gone, you're much greater. gone. Worm's meat. Kaput." "I've known about it for about a month

Gary thought for a moment, digesting now, and I think I've been handling it rather what he had heard. "Tell me then, is hunting well. I surely don't have time to worry about a sin?" it. I think you've helped me. They say

John had prepared for the question. "Of denying it is just a stage, but I hope it lasts. course not. Life is lived to the fullest only by It feels pretty damn good just to ignore it." the animals. Their fear of death has been As the reality of his friend's situation reduced to an instinct. They don't think slowly sank into his heart, John looked to

about it when they run from danger, they just him for an answer. "So what do we do

do it. They don't have regrets when they now?"

meet their doom, they just meet it. We are Gary gave a valiant, slightly uneven

predators by nature, and if we deny our smile. "The same as we've been doing, I prcdatorial instincts, we're not hurting the guess." animals, we're hurting ourselves." The next morning the men rose early and

"So you're saying that there is no headed for their hunting positions. Just as

afterlife—that all we arc is meat and mat- they topped the first hill, a solitary whitetail ter—and the spirit docs not exist." buck wandered from the edge of the pines to "No," John explained, "the spirit exists, the grassy meadow below, unaware of the

but it is tangible and finite. It's chemical, hunter's presence. John and Gary sat on the just like your thoughts and memories. It hill and watched the young buck as he

doesn't disturb me to know that 1 am mortal, stopped to graze. After a few minutes, the Gary. We're just passing through. Make deer caught the scent of the hunters in the every minute count, and lake some responsi- early morning breeze, and bounded off into bility in your life. Find what turns you on the brush. ^ about living and go with it. It's all you can do."

Gary laid Hal on the ground by ihe fire, thinking to himself for several minutes. Just as John thought the conversation had ended,

10 Chronicle Shannon Morrissey Untitled color woodcut

Autumn 1990 11 Ron Dill Landscape

oil on canvas

12 Chronicle Alexia Timberlake Interior acrylic on masonite

Autumn 1990 13 Trip Godwin The Hunter oil on canvas

14 Chronicle Steve Short Three I acrylic on masonite

Autumn 1990 15 6

Superman surged ahead through the streets and flew high into the rooms, the housing of collegiate numbness.

Found : crying alcohol, lost soul flowing from head-to-toe, floundering in a sea of inexperience ...

Knowledge is osmosis in a moment ... Superman sits solemnly in front of the beginning of the Holy Screen ... Pathetic Panting in the ruins of numbness. — — Man, this ... oh man, hit me! just wake me up!

He said Goddamned! ... He said Ice Water! he has lived before with Jesus, a disciple of the old regime ... now reduced to Goddamns. He doesn't feel good, man, he's bad art against the wall, the one time or another in which his collegiate anxiety surfaces in a gurgle, surfaces in a prayer to the commode. Panting and vomiting, the subject cries to an unsympathetic

God, foolish in his newfound beliefs.

Our hero, your narrator, stands alone and is the sole witness to this tragic event, although there are several others present, they are blind to this common oblivion of collegiate numbness. Naked, the proselyte of collegiate blues stands wretchedly puking to the beat of the flowing intestinal music ...

— Shower, Shower ... (stumbling, bumbling) ... neon gods, I want to fuck the stalls in the shower heads and sleep!! —

And sleep he will ... probably for the rest of his life.

Sean Jason Jay

1 Chronicle in the winter I smell a dream breath smoke spirit guides and auras home the way in time

they say phantasmagorical forms very briefly treasure All the filth mushroom-shaped pretty abominations of unknown errogenous desolation better weapons from whom all blessings flow lovers spinning around the dead in our joys and body scars birth what Fancy they wither away the giggling flesh my hands have no fear they've got hate rescinding auras a nightmare any individual feeling morbid the undertaker's giving me my voice

Michael O'Rourke

Autumn 1990 17 A note concerning the poem by Michael O'Rourke Michael O'Rourke is a computer science major whose creative process which

is somewhat different than the usual appears approach to writing poetry. He has on designed a computer program which the he uses to produce his poems. Michael preceeding excerpts from works finds chooses he page in his friends' American literature an- thologies and sometimes song lyrics by Laurie Anderson or Shriekback. He

enters these into a file. The program

takes the input file and decollocates

the lines, randomizing the word order.

The output file is one long paragraph

of text, mostly garbage. Michael se-

lects some lines which interest him and deletes some words; he may change a

verb tense or add a word to enhance the

effect. Michael enjoys creating his own meanings for the resulting pieces, and especially enjoys hearing what pos- sible interpretations other people con-

struct in response to his poems.

18 Chronicle The Spirits of the Bear Claw

Bob DuBard

I awoke around nine-thirty one slightly mimicked the motion of the great beast's overcast Saturday morning in October. I was heart. Since it was moving only slightly, and surprised that I had been allowed to sleep so sluggishly at that, I decided that it was time late. I was in my mid-teens, living with my to go find my father. parents, and my father usually roused me to He was working in the garden beside the help him around the yard. Since he had not, I house. As usual for the time of year, he was decided it would be reasonable for me to find tilling under the remaining vegetation to him. provide nourishment for next year's planting. In the front yard, my father's green The broken read earth was soft under my feet

Dodge pickup sat next to the driveway. The as I left deep footprints out to the noisy, morning dew had not yet dried from it, smoke-belching machine. My father didn't except for a large section of the hood. spot me until I stood directly in his path.

Considering the time of year, I supposed that Suddenly, I didn't want to tell him. In meant he had been out early, hunting with the few seconds it took for the tiller to thump my uncle. I was curious about my father's to a halt, and a short silence to descend luck, so I approached the vehicle and peered between us, I realized he did not know what I in. knew about the deer.

A deer lay curled in the bed of the truck. It didn't make any sense, but I said,

At first I though it must be dead (after all "Uncle Ken and I went hunting this morning.

Dad had shot it, hadn't he?), but I noticed no Uncle Ken shot one deer with his shotgun, blood, no wounds, and the animal was still but didn't get a clean kill. He had to chase it breathing. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth, down and shoot it again. I got one too, with chalky and gray. The deer's deep brown my bow, one shot, straight through its heart. eyes gazed into the distance. It was then that It dropped right to the ground."

I noticed the meter mounted between its As if this story had made him forget the antlers. truth, made him believe I was the one who

Securely affixed to the center of its head went hunting, he said, "Have you dressed it

was a round, white dial about the size of a out yet? You know, gutted it, skinned it, cut quarter. It was similar to the face of a clock, the meat up? Because if you don't, the meat but had no numbers or words to signify its will go bad." purpose. The motion of the single, red I was confused. Was he kidding me? indicator, however, was enough. That little Was he just playing along with what he red needle, not quite the color of blood. thought was a joke? Did he hope to trick me

Autumn 1990 19 into doing a job that I had neither the warmer.

inchnation nor the knowledge to perform? I "O.K." I finished the rest of my knew that somehow I must do this thing he sandwich and left the kitchen. I was going to had asked me. go check on the animal.

"O.K. Dad, I will," I said and walked Although it had barely moved, the deer's

away. tongue was back in its mouth, and its eyes were no longer unfocused, but gazed up at

My father and I sat alone at the table me with a pleading mixture of trust and fear.

eating sandwiches he had made. The sun had It was as though this creature knew that its

burned through the morning haze and now fate was not entirely in my hands, but it felt

brightly illuminated the kitchen. I noticed, my compassion anyway. The meter, still not for the first time, the silence left behind there, said that the deer was getting stronger.

when my mother and four siblings had found What was I going to do? I didn't know how

something better to do at noon on a Saturday. to dress out a deer. I didn't want to kill it. The sunlight seemed out of place.

"Have you dressed that deer yet?" he The sun had worked its way across the asked me. sky. The world once again took on the

"Uh, not yet Dad. But don't worry, I leaden look it had that morning. I felt

will." terrible. What was I going to tell my father? "Well, just be sure you do 'cause the What was he going to do? For the third time

meat will go bad, especially if it gets any that day I set off in search of my father.

20 Chronicle He was around back of the house, horrible was about to happen. splitting wood. The axe swung u-ue in his In a voice not quite his own, my father hands. Each length of the solid oak seemed said, "This is a bear claw. This is a cum-blue to simply pop in two with a single stroke. He J.C. Penney sleeping bag." He said it very did it methodically, absolutely no movement matter-of-factly. He said it with such wasted, with the casual assurance of a man conviction. He said it like he believed it to who had no doubts about his work. I knew I be the truth. had to tell him now. And upon uttering those ridiculous word, He set the axe to one side, and said, he began to squeeze the deer. His tanned,

"What is it, son?" work-hardened arms began to force the

"Well, I was planning on dressing out animal's head toward its tail, slowly, the deer, but I'm not really sure if I know powerfully. I heard a mighty crack, like the how to do it exactly. I was wondering if you report of a rifle. He broke the deer's back. could, uh, kinda help me with it?" Then he dropped it to the asphalt.

"O.K. It's getting a little too dark for me I heard a voice in my head as I watched to do much more of this now anyway. Let's this beautiful beast die on the pavement go." amidst broken glass and bottle tops. "/ saw the five spirits of the bear claw The night sky was moonless, and the leave the deer at that time. One leapt streetlights were just bright enough to skyward over a fallen branch. " The deer obscure the stars. What were we doing in the uncoiled and su-etched its forelegs. It really city? We drove into the parking lot of a mall. looked like it was leaping, although it lay on

My father pulled the pickup near a streetlamp its side. in the empty part of the lot, a good ways "The Second bent to take a drinkfrom a from the stores, or any other cars. It seemed cool, running stream." Reflexively, its head like a pretty odd place to skin a deer, but bent towards its feet. I could imagine it somehow that didn't worry me; I had other standing that way when it drank in the things on my mind. Neither my father nor I freedom of the wilderness. had looked in the bed of truck when we got "The Remaining Three screamed in in the vehicle a half hour before, or even as agony and did the Dance of Death." And we drove into town. Was the deer there? now the deer went into its final spasms.

Was it still alive? Without any semplance of directed motion,

It was still there. And when my father like an epileptic seizure, each muscle in the slammed the door, it lifted its head and tried deer contracted and released. It was like to struggle to its feet. There was no longer each part of the deer u*ied to free itself from any look of trust in its eyes, only terror. The the others, as if each part could save itself if red arm of the meter whipped wildly back it could only get away. and forth. My father didn't seem to notice. Suddenly it was all over. The deer was There was a wooded lot a mere fifty dead. yards away, just past where the asphalt ended. "Run!" my mind screamed, but I just I've thought a lot about that day. The stood mute as my father reached into the crazy parts get to me, especially the ridicu- back of the truck and lifted the deer out. lous words my father said just before he

He held it in his arms, like a huge baby, broke the deer's back. I think he killed that with its legs pointed insanely in the air. It deer, not by breaking its back, but by calling struggled, but was no match for my father. it a bear claw, a cum-blue J.C. Penney

In fact, he seemed to be completely unaware sleeping bag. If he hadn't done that I don't the beast still lived. I knew something think I could have let him murder it.

Autumn 1990 21 Mark Mulfinger is an artist who teaches drawing at Bob Jones University in Greenville. He has experimented with many different media, but for the last four years, batik has been his

primary form of artistic expression. Batik has traditionally been a method of decorating fab- ric or clothing. In recent years, Mark and other artists have increased awareness of batik as a

medium for art.

In batik, wax is used to resist dye. One

characteristic of batik is that the wax usually cracks, letting some of the dye seep in a crack- led pattern. First, the original color of the fabric

is preserved by painting melted wax on some areas with a tjanting needle or brush. Then dye

is applied to the fabric. This is usually done by dipping the fabric in a bucket of dye, but Mark prefers to minimize the inevitable cracks by spraying on the dye. Mark says, "Every time

you spray the cloth, the entire batik is covered with a new color against all the old ones so that

all the colors can be compared to the new color, suggesting exciting combinations." After the

fabric has dried, this new color is immortalized with wax in the appropriate areas. Now the

artist has two choices; cither a new color can be blended with the original one or the old color can be hosed out. If necessary, a weak solution of bleach may be applied, but the fabric will

never be as white as it originally was. This process can be repeated for any number of colors. Mark typically uses around twenty colors in one piece. Mark cralits the stable amiosphcrc of Bob Jones and the support of his family (including nine sisters and one brother) for giving him an

Mark Mulfinger demonstrates en vironmcnt conducive to crciiLJng his art. "My the many uses of his chair

sculpture in progress.

22 Chronicle Mark Mulfinger

mother was very patient with me as I used our kitchen as my studio fora number of years. On rainy days I would hang my batiks in the bathroom for the ceiling heater to dry them and sometimes the wax would drip on towels and washcloths." Some of his batiks have a musical theme, reflecting the influence of his very musical family; both of his parents chose music education as their profession. All of his grandparents were professional musicians and he and his brother and sisters all play musical instruments.

Viewing Mark's many works at Bob Jones University involves a tour of most of the offices in the Fine Arts building. Many of his other batiks are on display in the new Shriner's Hospital for children in Greenville—the subjects mostly animals. Mark's work has also been shown in the Pickens County (Old Jail House) Museum and the Museum of Greenwood.

Autumn 1990 23 Mark Mulfinger

24 Chronicle Building Character

Kris McGuire

He didn't see her until she dropped into the roots of his shaggy hair. That question the seat across from him, faintly smiling, wouldn't exactly qualify as one of his looking and acting as if she'd popped out of favorite original one-liners. the dusty air—a slight swirling and rearrang- "No." She propped her elbows on the ing of atoms, and there she sat. He was a bit table, laced her fingers together, and rested embarrassed by her sudden presence, because her pointed chin on this bridge. "But I know although he considered himself fairly alert you," she went on, fixing narrow gray eyes and observant, he had somehow still missed on his. "You're Kyle Yardley. You're this strange girl's approach. twenty-seven. You have a red '65 Mustang.— He looked at her blankly, groping for This is your favorite restaurant. And " the something to say. Before he could make any smile reappeared,— teasing at the comers of response (his quick wits, like his alertness, her lips "you're becoming a pretty well- were another of his small prides), she known writer." reached across the table, touched the hand He was more unnerved than before, but that held his fork, and said, "Since I'm here, by now he was ready to reply. "And you're would you cut me a bite of that steak?" Rumplestiltskin," he said, taking a huge gulp Just like that, perfectly forthright. She of his beer. sat back, waiting, wearing an odd smile. He She sat back in her chair again and drew didn't quite know what to think of her one foot beneath her body, exposing a very expression: it was no more than a twist, a tilt pale, slim, torturously lovely leg. She wore of her pale, dry lips. It looked like the smile black. Long black skirt, thin black blouse of someone hiding a missing front tooth. missing a fake-pearl button, black sandals, Still surprised, he cut off a piece of his and a black bead necklace. On one of her steak, speared it with his fork, and held it out interlaced fingers was an onyx ring. to her. "I'm Samantha Prewitt," she said,

The girl took the fork and daintily bit the abruptly extending her hand. It was an oddly steak from the tines, her lips never touching masculine gesture, out of place with the the metal. He was relieved to see that all her mystique she seemed so intent on projecting. front teeth were intact. "Thanks," she Kyle took her hand and realized he mumbled around the bite of meat, then didn't know what to do with in. Should he

swallowed and resumed her expectant pose. shake it or kiss it? He looked back at

"Do I know you?" he asked finally, and Samantha Prewitt and dropped her hand.

felt a blush crawl over his face until it heated "Hi," he said. Then, regaining some

Autumn 1990 25 "

ground, "Won't you sit down?" praise, although it went mostly unread by the The gray eyes didn't even blink. public; and he'd published two collections of Kyle suddenly felt about twelve years short stories, which sold somewhat better old. than the novel. He also sold his stories "I've read a lot of your stories," she said, regularly to popular magazines. Esquire, as if he'd never spoken. "You're actually not Playboy, Atlantic, even once to The New bad." Yorker. And these stories consistently won He took another swig of beer. "So prizes because of Kyle's uncanny ability to you're a fan?" invent good characters.

"I didn't say that." To him it was a simple enough process;

He felt his blush darken still further. he explained it in interviews as if it took no "I do like one thing," she said, demurely more work than mixing a microwave cake. inspecting her silver-painted fingernails, "one Look around you, he'd say—look at people particular thing about your work." on the street, at old photographs, at pictures Kyle frowned.— "Well, don't let the in newspapers. Take a face that interested praise go to my you and give it an appropriate name, or, "Your characters." depending on your story, an inappropriate He stopped. And stopped frowning. one. Then give this face-and-name combina- And to his own disbelief, grinned. "You like tion a lifestyle, a home, a job, a lover (or lack my characters?: of one), and so on. And give them habits, She nodded. "Yep." idiosyncrasies; often the stranger these were, He grinned even wider, telling himself the more realistic they'd probably seem. At not to notice that she'd said anything as silly- this point he usually cited two of his favorite sounding as Yep. Praise was praise, if she creations as examples, a truck driver who did talk like a cowboy. "Thanks." liked opera and an elderly schoolteacher who

She eyed him and covered her mouth to practiced ballet in her basement. yawn. "Are you done with your lunch?" she "And there's your framework," Kyle asked, motioning toward his steak with would say in conclusion, shrugging and distaste, as if she hadn't just eaten a bite of it pushing his hair out of his eyes. "There's the herself. basis for your story. It's easy, really, if you

"I'm finished." His appetite was gone; start with a good character." luckily, by now that damned blush was Samantha Prewiit wanted to be a good receding as well. character.

Her teasing smile returned. "Well, That was the offer she made him iJiat Kyle," she said, extending one foot under the afternoon, shortly after untangling her limbs table so her toes brushed his leg, "I've got an from his and tugging a sheet up to cover her offer to make you." chest. She rested her head on his pillow, her long, thin black hair tickling his nose and giving off a dusty, sunflowery scent. Kyle

He wasn't really a famous writer, but stared at her, trying desperately to stay awake

Kyle was, as Samanilia had put it, becoming and absorb this news. He sometimes thought well-known. At twenty-seven, he was doing of his mind as having a harried, bespectacled fairly well for himself; though his actual secretary inside it, someone whose skills at profession was leaching freshman English at shoriliand and filing could have used a the nearby University, he'd recently written a refresher course. Right now this secretary novel, which was received with critical was utterly lost in trying to cross-reference

26 Chronicle "

the half-hour he'd just spent in bed with hands on his leg. "Look. I'm trying to do Samantha with the strange girl's desire to you a favor. All that work you usually go join the trucker and the would-be ballerina through to make up characters is already and the rest of his mental circus of charac- done for you. Face it, Kyle, I'm as 'differ- ters. ent' as they come."

"You want me to do what?" he asked. He couldn't deny it. But she was now Samantha rose up on one elbow and becoming a distraction. "I don't know you," leaned so close to his face that meeting her he said, standing up, retrieving his clothes. stare made his eyes cross. "I want you to put "I don't know any of these weird habits me in a story," she repeated. "Use me as a you're telling me you have. How am I character. It doesn't really matter what kind supposed to write about them if I haven't of story it is." seen them?" Kyle closed his eyes and sighed heavily, She smiled coyly. "I guess you could thinking, This one is too much. This is the call that a fringe benefit..." strangest woman you've ever gotten mixed up with, weirder than the bulimic beat poetess, freakier than the lady lifeguard with 'You let a total stranger move in with the tattoo collection. you?" Kyle's brother This one wants to crawl said in disbelief. up inside your head Kyle sighed and and come out on paper. covered his eyes with Weft ^Cc/ "she said, CT^tending This is a nut case. one hand, pretending to one foot under the tabU so her "You probably rub his forehead. think I'm crazy," toes Brushed his Ug, "I've go an Actually he was " Samantha said, half- offer to maf:^ you. fighting embarrassment. smiling again. "She's not a total "No, no, that's not ^^_^^^^^^ stranger, Dave, I've it" Kyle sat up. "It's known her two weeks

just that. . .I'm not used to using real people. by now."

Usually I have to invent them to make "Good Lord." Dave shook his head and them... odd enough." downed the last of his drink. "I never

"Yes, I noticed you write about pretty thought I'd see this," he said. "Let me get it strange people." She nodded knowingly. straight. She moved in with you so you

"Listen. I don't exactly strike you as Miss could see how crazy she is. And once you've

Average, do I? Would just anybody walk up seen it, you're going to immortalize her in to a total stranger and ask to share his literature or something?" lunch?" Kyle sank lower in his seat. Dave was a "Well, no—" — songwriter and guitarist, working in a music "And I'm not—here " she gestured store by day and playing local clubs with his around the room "because I'm such a fan. band by night. Of course, Dave lived a far Writers don't get groupies. Surely you know stranger life than Kyle—after all, Kyle had to that already." appear at least reasonably sane to keep his He was beginning to get annoyed. "No, teaching job—but somehow Dave projected we don't, but I don't exactly— suffer for the more stable, levelheaded image. company, if that's what "She's not exactly crazy," Kyle said.

"Save it." She sat up and rested both "She's just a little. . .uhm. . .left of center."

Autumn 1990 27 i)

28 Chronicle "That's what you used to say about your the room, and Kyle squirmed. Those tattooed lady." "changes in the apartment" weren't all to his "So what? Maybe she will own liking, though for the sake of peace he'd be... inspiring. At least I won't have to work managed to squash his distaste. on building some nutty personality on my The room had acquired tones of black. own." The all-black outfit Samantha had worn on

"I've got to see this woman." Dave their first meeting had been no accident. laughed again. "Anyone who willingly She'd hung veils of black crepe over the moves into that demilitarized zone you call windows and blinds, and had brought in a an apartment must have a loose screw black throw rug that could have been made somewhere." from the hide of a mange-ridden Labrador

Samantha was there when they arrived at retriever. It smelled like mothballs, though

Kyle's apartment—and, he realized with Kyle had already sprayed it down with air dismay, she was well into her eccentric act freshener—twice. already. She lay flat on the hardwood floor Kyle's posters, mostly of Marilyn without a pillow, apparently meditating, Monroe, Elvis, and the Rolling Stones, had wearing a black shirt and pants, bunny been shifted aside in favor of Samantha's slippers, and a greenish motley art collection. facial mask that left She owned several only her pale eyelids faded reprints of Bosch, bare. When the two Sfie Cozuered (ur eyeCids and Dali, and Norman brothers arrived, Dave Rockwell, and now managed to regain her sultry stopped dead and displayed them from all Coof:^ green skin and all. stared; Kyle couldn't sides of the room. Now read the expression on that they'd been moved his brother's face, but it into the hallway, Kyle looked caught some- thought Marilyn, Mick, where between pain and amusement. After a and the King seemed to glare at him every moment Dave turned to face Kyle and said, time he walked to the bedroom or the John.

"She isn't dead, is she?" The kitchen, normally stocked with Diet

Samantha' s eyes popped open. "You Coke, microwave chicken Angers, beer, and didn't tell me you had company," she said, lunch meat, now held jars of pickled food scrambling to her feet, startled out of her (some of which Kyle hadn't identified yet), mystique for a moment. "I'm Samantha." black swampy-looking molasses, several jars She lowered her eyelids and managed to of chocolate-covered ants, and what looked regain her sultry look, green skin and all. curiously like home-canned gumbo.

Dave nodded. "Yeah, I guessed that, Samantha's diet seemed somewhere between from what I'd heard. I'm Dave. Kyle's expensive Manhattan chic and New Orleans brother." Cajun. No wonder she stays so skinny, Kyle Samantha nodded back, and Kyle had thought more than once. wondered if he saw a pink blush growing Now Dave smiled a bit too sweetly at behind the green mask. "Nice to meet you," Samantha and said to Kyle, "Nice decor,

she said. "Why don't you sit down? I'm bro." sure you'll notice a few changes around the Kyle got up. "Let me get you a beer or

apartment. I have rather distinctive tastes." something," he said, sulking. Dave stood

"So I see." Dave stared openly around too, and followed him into the kitchen. Once

Autumn 1990 29 "

there, he rolled his eyes at Kyle and said, but it was related to the problems in his

"You let that woman turn this place into an whole nutty relationship with Samantha. opium den." — Something just wasn't right. It seemed "Now look, Dave to fill the air in the apartment like an of-

"Will you look at all that black! And fended spirit, disapproving of the change:

what happened to that Elvis poster I gave you the black crepe, candied ants, Rockwell for your birthday?" replacing the Stones. Logically, Samantha's "It's in the hall." kooky presence should have inspired one of

"Kyle, the woman isn't running on all Kyle's best characters yet; but ever since four cylinders. Bosch and Norman Rockwell she'd moved in, he*d found he couldn't write paintings side by side?!?" a thing. "Shut up, Dave, for heaven's sake," Maybe she's just too eccentric, he Kyle muttered, glancing back through the thought, rereading the opening scene of his open doorway to make sure Samantha wasn't story, in which he described an event that had

within earshot. "So the place looks a little actually happened a few days ago when

different. What's it to you?" they'd driven downtown to do some grocery

"Shouldn't it be something to you? shopping. They had taken Samantha's car, Does she expect you to live off pickled pigs' an electric-blue VW Bug that Kyle could

feet or whatever the hell this stuff is?" barely fit his tall frame into. Samantha

"It's good to have a lot of different couldn't find a parking space close to the

experiences if you write," Kyle said defen- store, so Kyle had climbed out and gone into

sively, looking down at the jar in question the supermarket with the grocery list, while

and hoping it didn't really contain pickled Samantha planned on cruising around the

pigs' feet. "As much credit as I get for my parking lot and picking him up when he screwball characters, don't you think she'll came back outside. make a good one?" Kyle bought their groceries and was on

Dave frowned at the chocolate-covered his way out the front exit when he heard an ants. ear-wrenching crash not far from the door. "Well, don't you?" Kyle persisted. He shook his head, pitying the poor slob His brother sighed. "I honestly couldn't who'd done that, and walked outside to see

say. But you're the writer, right? It's your Samantha's Bug, minus the passenger door,

story. I guess you know what you're doing." some fifteen feet away.

She explained it later, driving slowly to the nearest body shop, shouting over the "I don't know what I'm doing." wind noise rushing through the open space Kyle yanked the sheet of paper out of the beside Kyle. She'd just circled the parking

typewriter with a protesting squeak of gears lot for the third time, passing the store

and stared at it dully. It was his fourth false entrance, when she saw Kyle walking toward start in three days of a story about Samanllia. the exit. Since no cars were behind her, she

He'd given it a working title of "Chocolalc- simply opened tlie passenger door, put tlie Covcrcd Ants"; lately he'd developed a laste Bug into reverse, and angled the car toward for the dratted things, which in his mind was the supermarket entrance. Unfortunately

something like admitting an atkhclion to a she'd angled it too close and ripped tlie door fiber laxative. He munched on some ants oK trying to back past an iron lamppost in

now and thought about what was wrong with troni of tlie store.

the story. He couldn't quite put a Fiame to it, "1 could' ve just walked to the car.

30 Chronicle .

Samantha," Kyle yelled over the whoosh of mcnt when she wanted to be. The black-only air from the missing door. outlUs were beginning to get tiresome.

"Well, I thought I'd save you the When he took her to parties she wore one of trouble." She sighed, but immediately her countless black dresses, sometimes with a perked back up. "Anyway, it'll be something fuzzy gray shawl covering her shoulders; his else you can put in your story about me, friends mistook her at first for Kyle's old right?" girlfriend the beat poetess. When asked what "Riiiight," Kyle said now, and crumpled she did for a living, Samantha was apt to give the page in his hand. The scene in the any offbeat answer that leaped into her parking lot was totally lost on paper. How mind—professional roller-derby champion, could he explain someone who could knock part-time tree surgeon, Julia Child imper-

the door off a car out of sheer. . . silliness? It sonator, sex counselor. Kyle would laugh wouldn't ring true. No one could believe and quickly explain that Samantha was with that. a temporary service, ha ha, but didn't she Of course, who would believe the rest of have a charming sense of humor? his characters? The Russian spy who trained "Look, Sam," he said in exasperation horses in a circus, the color-blind fashion one night. "Have your fun, but you're designer? None of his getting silly. These creations were supposed people know you're to come across as not really Ringo familiar figures. But Sfie must sit around Starr's manager, Samantha... ate day tftinlQn£ of okay?" Well, she worked at "You have no zvays to 6c tveird. . her kookiness. She must sense of humor," she sit around all day said, sulking. "You thinking of ways to be ^ can use it in your weird, Kyle had thought story." more than once. Like the way she tried to Really, life with her was becoming cook. For a week, Kyle had come home each bizarre. And as usual, his brother Dave afternoon to find she had "invented" some never missed a chance to comment on it. "So new cake recipe. Bet none of them were how's life with the Muse today, Kyle?" he'd remotely edible combinations: lime juice and ask at lunch or over the phone. When Kyle peanut M&Ms, strawberry and raspberry took Samantha to see Dave's band perform at Jello mixed into the batter. That one, he a club, Dave introduced her to the rest of the recalled, would' ve bounced. Or how about group as a "literary model." Samantha didn't the time she had alphabetized all his books, seem to mind; Kyle turned bright red with records, and magazines, all starting with the embarrassment. letter M? She'd spread them all out across "What did you say that for?" he asked the floor as she went along. And when he'd his brother later. finally suggested that they add some color to "Well, she is, isn't she?" Dave said the place to counteract all that black, she'd innocendy. "How's your latest story spray-painted yellow stripes on the dead-dog coming?" throw rug. Some of the paint had sprayed Kyle glared and didn't answer him. onto his hardwood floor as well; he'd spent He nibbled again at some of the choco- an hour scrubbing it off. late-covered ants—really, they were pretty And she could be a public embarrass- good, once you got used to the odd scrunch-

Autumn 1990 31 — '

." ing sensation they made against the teeth "Mmhmm, well. . Ann tilted her chair and rolled another sheet of paper into the back, took a drag on her cigarette, and began typewriter. I ought to just write down this reading. It was a fairly short story; yet to whole thing, he thought, with a more than Kyle it seemed to take her a long time to slightly grim smile. If she wants to be in a finish. He forced himself to look confident, story, she'll get her wish: a story about a but obviously all wasn't well to Ann. She weird woman who walks up to a virtual frowned too often, flipped through the pages stranger and proposes that he write about her. too much. After five minutes she stubbed out

Wasn't that enough of an oddball character to her cigarette, looked at Kyle over her glasses, suit his style? and pronounced judgment.

Wasn't that purely Samantha? "It'll never work," she said. He swallowed the last chocolate ant and He didn't think he'd heard right. started typing. Ann sighed. "I'm sorry, Kyle, I'm

surprised to have to tell you this. I wouldn't

recommend printing this story even if it came

Kyle had an appointment with his editor from a lesser writer, let alone someone like two weeks later to put together his next you." collection of short "But I don't..." stories. He brought ^^^^^^^^_ He shook his head as if along a copy of each to clear it. "Ann? story he'd had pub- *. What's wrong with it?" . . / can 't imagine lished over the last "Well... I know anyone. . . eating pickS^dpigs year; and he also you've built a reputa- feet and ckocoiate- covered brought his newly tion for yourself on finished, unpublished ants. "Eccfi!" your, er, offbeat story of his recent characters. And this weeks with Samantha. —^^^^"^^ one probably didn't

It was called 'The start off under any

Proposition" and was shoved discreetly in the different conditions than the rest, did it?" middle of the stack. He didn't answer her.

His editor, Ann, a woman in her late "Anyway, you seem to have... overdone forties, welcomed him with a smile and a it. Most of the time your people are strange, sisterly kiss on the check. Ann liked Kyle; but ultimately believable. But this woman, she liked her benefits from his proliferation this Sarah in your story... no one like this of work as well. "Let's see what you've could really exist. She's completely unbe- brought here," she said, silting down behind lievable. I can't even imagine anyone her desk with a cigarette and his stack of actually knocking the door off a car like that, stories. "I've probably seen all these before, or putting Dali and—Rockwell side by side on right? These have all been published? the same wall,— or " she shuddered with You've got the one about Nikolai the spy mild disgust "eating pickled pigs' feet and circus u-ainer, and Hank the trucker... what's chocolate-covered ants. Ecch!" this one?" She'd Hipped through the papers At that Kyle grinned in spile of himself. and cxuacted his copy of "The Proposition." "So 1 just wouldn't put it wiili all lliesc Kyle cleared his throat. "That's some- other good stories you have here," she thing I finished just a week ago," he said. "I finished. thought It might be worili mcluding." He sighed. "All right. I'll Uike your

32 Chronicle word for it." who can do me justice," she said, and was "Good," Ann responded, and tossed gone. "The Proposition" back across the desk and into Kyle's lap. "Then I'll put the others in rough order, and you can come back next After Samantha's departure, life became week and make sure it suits you, too." pleasantly quiet and sane for Kyle. He "Sure." He stood up, shoving the moved his posters back into the living room, rejected story into his coat pocket. "Ann," he rolled up the blinds and enjoyed the light. said suddenly. "Do you know this story is And he wrote. He wrote so much that his the only thing I've worked on for about a fingers grew sore from bashing the type- month?" writer keys. He turned out new stories in "Well, no," Ann said, looking surprised. practically record time and sent them off to

"Oh yes. And I'll tell you something his usual magazine sources. This time he had else." He walked to the door and announced, no doubt they'd be worth publishing.

"It's true. Fact really is stranger than It's like being free of a jinx, he thought fiction!" one afternoon, proofreading the final draft of

And he left her office, slamming the his latest talk. It looked as if his writing was door behind him. better than ever. He'd just set it aside when someone knocked at the door.

Kyle got up and opened it. Thecaller As soon as he told Samantha what had was Dave. happened, she began gathering her things in a "Man, I have got to talk to you," his huff, preparing to move out. He'd figured brother said as he walked in. He barely she would. glanced around the apartment; Kyle expected

"I can't believe it," she said angrily, him to show surprise or derision at the return circling the aparunent like a maddened bee, to its original decor, but Dave didn't even yanking down her art prints, removing the comment. pickled pigs' feet and canned gumbo from "It's gonna sound su-ange," Dave said the kitchen, rolling up the black-and-yellow grimly, sitting down, "as much as I made fun rug. "I thought I'd found someone creative," of you for letting that Samantha move in she went on. "Ha! I was a fool!" here. But just listen. I was having lunch by "I'm sorry," Kyle said, amused, watch- myself the other day, and she just sort of ing her strip the black crepe from the walls. dropped in out of nowhere—and now she's Forgotten sunlight fell back into the room. been hanging around ever since. We started She stalked into the bedroom and came out talking and she mentioned that she really minutes later with her suitcase full of black enjoyed seeing me and the band that time. clothes. He grinned. He might not be too And then she said since I'm a songwriter, sorry to see her go, after all. maybe I could do something for her..."

"I'll pick up the rest of my things later," Dave sighed, "well, I guess she's just

Samantha said haughtily. "Anything I've got some kind of spell, and. , .I'm working on forgotten." a song for her, but it's not going too well yet

"Be sure not to forget your car door at I thought you might give me some ideas?" the body shop." Kyle smiled sweetly at his brother and She tightened her lips into a thin line, returned with two beers and ajar. gathered her bags, and swept toward the "Sure, Dave," he said. "Have some cho-

door. "I guess I'll just have to find someone colate-covered ants. I'll tell you all about it."

Autumn 1990 33 Grass

September grass grows a different shade of

green : The pages of poetry in my autumn hands, another turning leaf rocking gently to the sidewalk

is the shade of sunset.

Scott Taylor

34 Chronicle - if, then

if, then two things exist side by side — one, the other a piece of

if you know what, the other, one of those things that.

then, if these speak to you and

I

in different ways, then

I

will say that

my mind is beautiful an elephant as big and bold as the sun.

Michael Holland

Autumn 1990 35 d i i o r i a 1

Have you ever looked af fine objects around you and wondered where fhey have been and where fhey are going? Inside fhe cover of a used fexfbook, you see fhe name of fhe former owner and wonder why he or she stopped high- lighting important points after fhe first few chapters. Vou wonder what happens to all the things that don't belong in that Sesame Sfreef^^ skit, {apologies to freddle Lashlie) Try applying that to all the paper products you use. Not long ago, that paper cup you drank from last time you went to the Greasy Spoon was part of a forest; part of an intricately balanced ecosystem, providing homes for wood- land creatures and shade for plants that like shady areas. By now, that cup is probably occupying space in a landfill, where it will remain for centuries, failing to decompose. Not so with the magazine you are now holding. Chronicle is now printed on paper which has already led at least one useful life. Hopefully, you are now enjoying this magazine and in the future you will use it as a handy reference or pass it on to a friend. peace...

^-^^iC^i^O/r^

^ ^ \ Execaiive Staff

£dif or- In-Chief Susan Wethlngton Managing Edifor Christopher Lockett Poefry £difor Beverly Cooper features Editor Rebecca Morris fiction Editor Reld SIsson Art Editor Katy Cooke Business Manager Harry Conner Advertising Manager Trip Godwin Copy Editor Kris McGuIre Promotions Director Russell Hallauer Office Manager Bill Cullum Media Adviser Kirk Brague faculty Advisers Mark Steadman Lynn Craig Designer Mike Lusk Contributing Artist Jack Welsh

Special Thanks to Winkle Stiles Martin Printing, Inc.

fief ion Board Poetry Board Christopher Lockett George f lores Kris McQuIre Catherine flynn Rebecca Morris Beth Lyons

Chronicle

Winter 1991

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Cover Art Suhmissions tor ihc spring issue uill he acccjnccl hcrt)ro March I, Karl W. Wilkes \^)^>\. Send us poetry, plays, and short fiction to Box 2187 University front' The Struople Station, (Memson, SC 29632 u ith S.A.S.I!. hichide name and phone Mixed Media number on the hack of each submission. back: The Terrible Truth Oil and Acrylic Chronicle Volume 94, Issue 2, Winter 1991

Table of Contents

Fiction Featirk Matumus Essentia John Edwards Politics & the Individual Late Night Shopping at Ingles 18 Beth Lyons Beth Lyons 26

Poetry Two Haiku Merger 22 Chris Lockett

Bob Walter 2 Devil's bit eat your words 23 Chris Lockett Elaine Stephens 3 Jesus Metamorphosis 24 Michael Holland Beverly Cooper santa claus died 5 o'clock shadow 24 Michael Holland Beth Lyons 15 praise that cat Colors of Childhood 25 Michael Holland Dale Thomas 16 NY, NY Cadence Americana 33 Cecilia Herles Russ Hallauer 17 Poem Locomotion 34 Russ Hallauer Beverly Cooper 21 Fate 35 Michael Holland

Chronicle was established in 1897 as the official art and literary magazine of Clenison University, making it the university's oldest student publication. Opinions expressed in Chronicle do not necessarily coincide with those of the student body, faculty, or administration. The editor assumes responsibility for opinions, should there be any, presented in Chronicle. Address all correspondence to: Chronicle, Box 2 1 87, University Station, Clemson, SC 29632. Student subscriptions are paid through student activity fees. Advertising rates are available upon request. Submissions are chosen anonymously. Chronicle is printed on recycled paper. Merger

We were flipping through Art Treasures of the World. "Do you like that one?"

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's a Saltcellar by Cellini," I read, "Nearly solid gold with some enamel. The man is Neptune, the sea god, and the woman is the earth goddess. Their erotically entwined legs represent the merger of earth and water, a promise of fertility." "Earth and water makes mud." She's nearly solid gold herself, with some enamel.

Bob Walter

Chronicle eat your words

fish sparkle,

slip, glide quiet as monks until they splash a jump that ripples waves.

catch them bear-clawed —

quick, before their still. careful the slicing fins, small metal eyes, shard teeth.

on the plate they look quite different,

Elaine Stephens

Winter 1991 Metamorphosis

We sit opposite each other, under glare from the kitchen bulb. We stare at senseless patterns in linoleum.

Words crawl from our I will dive beneath them lips, stiff, creaking in into the dark coolness, where the light glows armor. I have left the window open so that like stained glass. I will let small bubbles leave my lips I can fly out when and rise to the surface. You can I can no longer stand this stuttering silence. catch them in a cup of your hands, Then, meet me at the trees and drink. Taste the sound that lean together like my mouth makes. Down there folded hands, that make we can change our shapes. a small steeple in the dark. There We could grow wings, or claws, we can make our own colors, or shimmering scales. hues creeping through our cells We can have five legs and hands.

in slow waves. Our words are We can have fur, or leathery hide. choking me, twigs and leaves We can have antennae or fins. caught between rocks We will give ourselves

in that stream. many names. We will feel our lines easing, our angles softening. We can spill the screams inside of us

like running glass, until

gently, in quiet voices, we make our own patterns with sounds.

Beverly Cooper

('hronifU —

Maturnus "Essentia

n^fie Slncient !Art ofLiving as a "Woman John Edwards

I know you don't know who I am, on my side of the building, and 1 had but trust me, that doesn't matter. to be the one to find it. What is '1t."

This is very important, what I have to you ask? I'm getting to that. All last

say, but it's not about me. I'm not week and this week there has been a being chased by the CIA or the KGB, big Mary Kay convention going on but my situation is just as bad. I'm a dancing, music, drunk women every- man, that much you need to know. where. And naturally, with all that

I'm not a writer, I hate to write, I boozing, the bathrooms have been always have. But we, as men, are in busy as hell. I find a tube of lipstick danger. The danger doesn't come here, a feminine hygiene thing there,

from one source, it's not something and I either throw it away or turn it in

we can duck or dodge, and I'm really at the desk. But today I found some- not sure we can do anything about it thing different, something I wasn't at all. But that is why I have to write. supposed to find. I walked into the

It's why you have to listen. third story ladies' room, knocking

I'm a janitor. I probably first, and there was this book on the

shouldn't have told you that, but it's sink. It looked old. and the bindings part of the story. Why else would I were ratty, like an old family bible. have been in a ladies' bathroom, But the gold embossed title was like

unless I was a pervert or something? new, and it read: Maturnus Esscnitici.

And who would you trust more, a The Ancient Art ofLivi/ii^ as a janitor or a pervert? I'm wasting Woman. I'm no bookworm, but a time, though. Just listen to my story title like that would tempt any man to

and listen hard and try to learn some- put his nose where it doesn't belong.

thing. I'm trying to do you a favor. So I stashed it in my cart so I could

I clean the restrooms in the Hyatt read some of it on my break. And

here in Atlanta. Fifty-four of them. when my break came around, it didn't take long before I knew I was in deep conspiracy, and they know more trouble. about us than we do ourselves.

I really can't afford to give you They've had to learn all that. They any more background on how I know have adapted, and while we sleep, what I know. I never went back to they plan; while we wait for them to work after break, and I'm in the get out of the bathroom, they com- library right now (no one who knows pare notes and strategies. You, I me would expect to find me here), mean we, can't do much about it but I only have time to give you the now. But read on, and you'll be a important stuff. This book, Matunius little more even in this battle of the

Essentia, is the secret to understand- sexes. Maybe you'll come out alive. ing women. It's a plot, you see, a I don't think I will.

Maturnus Essentia The Ancient Art of Living as a Woman dated 1674, revised 1776, 1856, 1910, 1969 **with a brief introduction by Gloria Steinem

SALUTATUS

Warm greetings and an explanation; a summary of our age-old struggle against masculine domina- tion; a brief history of our alliance, and an introduction to the honourable Discipline of Womanhood.

II PERSONAE CONFLICTUS

INIMICUS MASCULUS—the enemy General guidelines and Modus Operandi; how to survive and prosper through the study and ma- nipulation of the male sex. A general descrip- tion of the masculus.

Chronicle AMICUS FEMININUS--the Sisterhood Expounding on the Art and the Discipline; de- tailed explanation of rank in our community; man- ners and etiquette in relations between Sisters; rules for competition within the sect. How to use the Sisterhood to your advantage.

Ill MATRIMONIUM

Detailed instruction in coping with marriage; more subtle technique in manipulation; selecting a proper husband; accurate assessment of a poten- tial victim's resources; lessons in pageantry and ceremony; a brief excerpt from Chaucer' s Wife of Bath. How to turn matrimony to your advantage.

IV MATURNUS INSTRUCTUS The beautiful art of conception, deliverance, and nurturing

When precisely to concieve; frank and factual in- formation about giving birth; the role of the Mother; definition and therapy in the art of nur- ture. How to turn child-baring and Motherhood to your advantage.

V APPENDICES Special topics; lists, tables, reference

Coynes s--Poise-- Intel ligence-- Intel lect --Qui It -- Lust --Romance- -Sovereignty- -Conspiracy Excuses for every occasion; Confusionist tactics; the marriage contract; Credo of the Sister.

Winter 1991 ^^A Brief Introduction by Gloria Steinem Young Woman of the mod- Gone are the days when ern world, you bear so every Woman had to secure much responsibility, so a good man in order to much weight on your shoul- live in the fashion that ders ! You are on the She deserved. Just as a front line, the "cutting band of guerrillas eventu- edge" of a struggle that ally becomes a legitimate, is as old as life itself. functional army, we must As you read this text, fight the modern war with which had remained virtu- the popular tools of ally unchanged for three rhetoric and logic, and hundred years, you will only as a last resort (or notice that the weaponry when it is clearly more of our sex consists mainly convenient or effective) of trickery and deception. employ the wily talents We have evolved into crea- sharpened and passed down tures of wit and sensitiv- by our Mothers and Grand- ity in order to defend mothers. That is not to ourselves from the physi- say that these methods are cally stronger masculus, unethical. They are our and with these weapons we strengths, our gifts. Use have battled to regain our them wisely and you will rightful superior position achieve your greatest po- in society as the life- tential as a Sister, con- givers and nurturers of trol the elements of your the earth. But in the life, and pass down the modern world we combat the Art to your Daughters as opposite sex by insisting your Mother has given this that we are equal and volume to you. independent beings (when we know that this is far Salutations and sincere from the truth: As Women best wishes as a Sister, we are superior, and the happiness or despair of men, as well as the very future of our species, is Gloria Steinem totally dependent on us.)

8 C^hroniclc II INIMICUS MASCULUS —THE ENEMY—

General guidelines and Modus Operandi; manipulation of the masculus; prescribed disposition of the Sister in specific relations with the enemy.

A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MASCULUS: he is your exact opposite; he is, by nature, the harsher, more mechanical part of the human duo. he is forever in pursuit of our innate understanding of the liquid, abstract quality of the universe, and without us he would splash and choke in seas of despair and insan- ity, he perceives the world in two dimensions, and what he cannot pinpoint with a simple location he is unable to comprehend. he has no sense of motion or rhythm, and his incessant analysis destroys any beauty in what he creates. Indeed it is this analytic qual- ity that separates us most often, and it is unfortu- nate that we are forced to relate to this stubborn animal in order to bring new life into the world. he will try to seize you just as he attempts to grasp and hold everything else he sees. However, if you read carefully and apply the techniques that follow, you will always control the relations you have with these poor wretches.

GENERAL GUIDELINES and PRACTICAL ADVICE —when you choose to relate to members of the masculus —

1 . When judging the enemy, the potential victim must be assessed by weighing his resources; that is, what he has, or will have, in his power to do for you. In the modern, civilized world, priority is given to financial assets, then to personal ambition and moti- vation, and lastly sincerity and intellect. The last Winter 1991 9 . .

two attributes are seldom found in significant quali- ties in the masculus, and any display of these quali- ties is, more often than not, affectation or mimicry.

2 Always take care that your outward appearance is appealing to your victim, as it is well known that the masculus best appreciates that which pleases his sense of esthetics. Sisters lacking in gifts of wit and common sense must work hard to exploit the physical nature of the struggle. Intellect can be a mighty weapon, but use it instead as armor; a fair complexion and rosy lips cut quicker and deeper when properly wielded. . .

3. When you have selected an acceptable male, first achieve a personal connection with him by establishing a sense of sincere interest. Be attentive and lively in your discourse, and as he eventually becomes com- fortable and convinced that he has your favour, inter- rupt his equilibrium by spontaneously introducing a new distance in the relationship. That is, turn your attention into disinterest, and destroy his balance. This assures that he will in no way take for granted your tolerance of him, and presents a form of chal- lenge to a naturally competitive creature.

19. If, as a result of pride, stubbornness, or characteristic insensitivity, the man refuses to hold you in the highest esteem, and will not place you on the pedestal you are created to adorn as a member of our community, then you must put yourself upon it; in- deed you must rise above it to your superior position, so as to count the enemy beneath you; and remember the contumacious groundling that has scorned you, for the noble eagle in her flight must eventually relieve her- self somewhere....

10 Chronicle *** 20. A final and most important guideline for the Sister: Inevitably the man will come to the conclu- sion that he has you figured, that he has captured your uncontainable essence, and therefore has won the war. The proper retort for this presumptuous boast is to instantaneously change the rules; that is, modify, reverse, or abandon any established behavior, stan- dards, routines, or prejudices that have simplified or categorized his methods of regard towards you.

Ill AMICUS FEMININUS —THE SISTERHOOD—

Detailed explanation of rank in our community; Manners and etiquette in relations between Sisters; rules for competition within the Sisterhood.

In all societies there is a hierarchy; a chain of command which prescribes the degree of authority held by each member. In the case of our own community, rank is based solely on the Sister' s ability to wage war against the enemy; that is, the quality and magni- tude of Her resources which aid in the manipulation of the masculus. The combination of these resources is invariably unique to the individual; they include con- sideration of intelligence and intellect (for these two are separate and distinct attributes, the former

more prevalent in our community than the latter) , charm and physical appeal, emotional strength, sensi- bility, economic and social position, abilities in politick and rhetoric, and so on. You must hold in constant consideration the fact that Sisters of your exact same rank and appeal are automatically regarded as your enemies. Never trust or confide in Sisters who compete at your level in

Winter 1991 11 this struggle. The only rule of competition between Sisters is that no rules can ever exist. However, Women of different rank are your trustworthy confi- dants and should be treated with the utmost respect and civility; they are at your service, and you must return this kindness, if called upon, whenever it is possible and reasonably convenient....

I'm going to have to stop here for left me—she knew. They're like now. This Ubrarian, I don't know, human antennas, reading our emo- but I think she's watching me. About tions, tasting our guilt. ..She's going ten minutes ago she started rearrang- for the phone! I've got to get out of ing the books on the shelf across from here... but where can I run? Where my table. She keeps looking over would I be safe? I'm not done with here, like she knows something. Or you yet. You need to know more. maybe knows that I know something. There's a lot of stuff in this book, and

Jesus Christ! I'm sure of it! She's I can't possibly get it all down for watching me.... They know things, you, but Fm trying to get the good they sense it. They know our secrets. stuff, the important things that might

I remember the night my first wife save us. But I need some time....

APPENDIX E •the topic of lust —

As Women, we are reminded times perverted by this natu- daily that we have been cre- ral gravitation that draws the ated as superior beings in sexes together for procrea- sensitivity and wit. However, tion. Therefore it is a ne- the Creator has implanted in cessity for us to forge within Her chosen society the some ourselves a discipline, an libidinous desires that exist ability to command and re- (though in a much less refined strain our desires in order to state) in the flesh of the turn these passions to our ad- masculus. That is, the lusts vantage. In the heart of the that burn within us are much Woman, lust and Romance carry the some as those baser urges on a complex courtship; they in our counterparts. Unfortu- mingle and mix in varying pro- nately, our judgment is some- portion-an indefinite, immeas-

12 Chronicle . .

urable presence. Yet in the provides for the Sister an- mind of the masculus, lust is other tool for control and ma- sovereign, and the value of nipulation. If we can command mastering this passion becomes that which the male is a slave evident: Such a basic motive to, we are in a good position

in such high and unpleasant indeed. . . quantities in the masculus APPENDIX F •-the topic of Romance-

In your relations with the guage of which they are hope male sex you will be witness lessly ignorant. You must to many comical situations, recall that the male vision IS but few more humorous and more limited by dimensions, and futile than the masculine what they cannot precisely attempt to create and maintain locate they can never find. Romance. It would be unreal- In the realm of Romance, the istic and unfair to expect masculus is no longer our these poor beings to be ca- enemy, but instead he is our pable of such delicate work as pupil. In their cold, tan- the harvesting and distilla- gible world they hunger for tion of the beauty in life, what is fundamental to the and their clumsy efforts in Feminine spirit, but they the Art of Romance must be search in vain: Without the respected to a degree, for heart there can be no under- they are struggling to express standing between the hand and in a lan- themselves to you the mind. . . SPECIAL APPENDIX The Marriage Contract

In this volume we have as your prisoner. By the time often referred to the masculus you have turned a man into a as ""the enemy, " and throughout husband, he should undoubtedly history he has earned this have been trained to respect identity, along with tyrant, you as a representative of a barbarian, cuckold, and buf- higher power, and you can foon. However, after you have lighten your disposition and selected a tolerable specimen consider your personal war of the male sex and have mar- with the masculus won. As for ried, you are allowed to re- Love, we cannot suggest that gard him differently; not as no form of true Love can exist an enemy, for as such, a daily between Wife and husband, for relationship between Wife and the Creator in Her divine husband would be impossible to wisdom has engineered the maintain. Instead, regard him nature of human beings as a

Winter 1991 13 positive and negative situ- nurturers of the earth. It is ation; a deeper attraction intrinsic to the Feminine between the sexes, one which spirit to care for anything transcends struggles for power that is helpless and weak. and sovereignty, will forever The masculus, without us, is draw us together in the end, exactly that. What better way though it may certainly drive is there to express our nature us apart by the bye . As mem- than to adopt a man, to care bers of the superior sex, we for him, guide him, and raise must remember our role, espe- up a family? .... cially in marriage, as the

That is all I can give you. My equal, but MORE than equal. They time is up. Tm hiding in a supermar- are superior, we've forced them to ket, behind the magazine counter, and become that. They are different, but they're about to close up. But can in a way that kind of complements us, you see how blind we have been? and we need them much more than Can you see the trouble we have we know, much, much more than we ahead of us if we don't change right show. I've learned this all too late. away? Boys, I tell you, it's not a But you have time, time do make it man's world anymore. It's not a right. I'm hiding this letter in a buyer's market. You really don't Sports Illustrated magazine hoping even now know the half of it, but let that it will reach one of you, so you me tell you this, and you listen good: can spread the word. I can hear them The only thing you can possibly do to coming for me. their heels clicking save yourself a lifetime of misery, the down the produce aisle, about fifty of only possible thing, is to treat them. them or so. I don't think I'm going to Women, with the respect they de- be able to share this with anyone else. serve. We have to express ourselves They're getting closer, it's like they to them, we've got to work to be can smell me or something. But sensitive and to care about them the remembei"—respect, sensitivity, way they really want us to, the way honor— it's all in here. Learn it and we always should have. And above learn it good. You are a real man all, we must rcali/c thai lhc\ arc not now. Make some more o\' us....

'^

14 Chronicle five o'clock shadow

I was in the damp closet straining to hear the calls of those who knew how to bike ride when they passed out the smarts,

daddy, i was in my bed tensed for heavy footfalls when they passed out

the looks, i was quiet amid my battered toys every night at five.

Beth Lyons

Winter 1991 15 Colors of Childhood

Orange is a gumdrop. all sticky, sweet, gooey that your mother told you not to eat too many of but you did anyway and you got sick.

Green is the color of the grasshopper your brother caught for you and you took to school for Show-and-Tell and everyone Oood and Ahh'd and the teacher patted you on the head.

Black is the color of your knees after you built the fortress of dirt in your backyard that no one could come into, not even your brother, but the rain didn't listen.

Yellow is the big school bus you rode every day for ten years that after all. wasn't that big. and you met your first girlfriend and everyone laughed and said,'Timmy's got a girlfriend."

Purple is the smell of your mothers perfume on Sunday morning in Big Church where you sat with your parents and wondered why you couldn't sit with the rest of the boys your age. and fell asleep in your father's lap.

Blue is the color of the Spiderman lunchbox that you slept with the first week you had it. then begged your mother not to make you take it to school with you after you turned ten and were a big kid.

Red is your face the year you went to the beach and got sunburned and bitten by a crab and cried until you fell asleep and dreamt of giant red suns playing chase in the sky.

Brown is the little boy you were not allowed to play with but never knew why and you secretly gave him the sandwich your mother had packed you for lunch in your Spiderman lunchbox and who you let in your fort when no one was looking and who sat beside you on the yellow bus and was the only one who didn't laugh at you and you gave half of your gumdrops to. but you still couldn't play with.

Dale Thomas

16 Chronicle Cadence Americana

1 Gut my thoughts, skin

dreams, for blind 1 ^y

1 ant icipation stomp my

Russ Hallauer

Winter 1991 17 Politics

the Individual

Beth Lyons

Democracy: /?. 1) government by the origins. This type of leader, we say, is people. 2) the absence ot hereditary what makes America great. How long or arbitrary class distinction or has it been since we had a self-edu- priveledge. cated, poor, ugly president? MYTH: anyone can grow up to We work so hard to assert our indi- be president of the United States. viduality in every aspect of our lives REALITY: anyone with the right except politics. Our government says

schooling, enough money, and con- that it is doing everything to protect the

nections has a shot at becoming presi- individual while passing legislation to

dent. ensure homogenization. Surely , the poli-

What we have here is a national ticians understand that one law for all is schizophrenia. not democracy but insanity.

Our government officials spend Should I be forced, on penalty of thousands and hundreds of thousands fine, to wear my seatbelt? Should of dollars trying to get re-elected. And women who smoke during pregnancy instead of being sickened by this bla- be held legally responsible for low birth tant attempt to buy votes, the American weight babies? Should Arab-Ameri-

public falls for it, every time. The rea- cans have their homes searched for son being that part of our cultural heri- terrorist materials because of the Gulf

tage is to respect and revere the rich. War? Where does the Bill of Rights

That is why, in our so-called democ- come in? Are these hard questions?

racy, our leaders arc driven around in Everyone complains that the Ameri-

limousines instead of taking the bus or can public is apathetic, is this surpris-

driving themselves to work in $I2,()()() ing when we are discoiirui^ed from Hondas or fn)rds. thinking for ourselves? We are not even We teach our schoolchildren about allowed to say how our income tax

Abraham IjficoIfi and his loii cabin dollars are spent. We allow ourselves to

IS C'hronicli be placated by the very instrument that transportation and communication arc

is used to delude us—television. It takes accessible to almost every citizen; isn't

more mental effort to eat than it does to it time to take a long look at our govern- watch television. Does this say some- mental system? thing to you about the quality and con- In our modem age, direct democ- tent of our network programming? racy could be easily implemented. Some of us elect rich old white men Mainframe computers could be made to go Washington to think for us. They available in every home or shelter. The do quite well at voting how they wish expense of installing computer termi-

(this is, after all a democracy) and later nals in homes or in public places, as rationalizing their votes to their con- with public telephones, would be neg-

stituents. Having the general populace ligible compared to the billion dollars

vote for a president is not unlike allow- we are spending every two days in the

ing a child to work a toy steering wheel Gulf. Or, at the very least, telephones while the parent actually controls the could be used to vote on every issue that car. The existence of the Electoral is placed before the public. Getting in-

College keeps individual control from formation to the public on the issues is resting with the people. Yes, maybe simple. We have CNN and C-Span. We once upon a time, when the population could easily have a TV channel that was sparse and transportation was dif- would broadcast information on the ficult, our system of bastardized de- proposed policies and legislation. mocracy was the best solution. Now Or if democracy in its pure form

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

Amendment II A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,

without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be pre- scribed by law.

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Winter 1991 19 Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise in-

famous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in times of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same

offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any

criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right

to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have previously ascer- tained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process of obtain- ing witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines im- posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the

Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respec- tively, or to the people.

seems too cumbersome, how about the the community, voting on foreign pol- system that is being proposed in icy, and budgets, without the shadow of

Vermont? It has been suggested there re-election looining over them. This that the state be sectioned oft into small would make Political Action Commit- townships called "shires." The citizens tees and lobby groups less powerful. of each shire would vote for the laws Without them, more political control that would govern that area. The state and responsiblity would rest with the government would exist for cohesion. individual. This system seems less bulky than di- Throughout this latest Middle East rect democracy while still allowing the crisis, people have been saying "yes it individual to have a place in govern- is a bad situation, hut what can I doT' ment. Going a step farther, each shire And as the UN deadline approached, could elect a representative to serve the people said, "well, no I don't want to go

Federal government lor a one time three to war, hut it's going to happen." Does year term. In this way, they could serve this sound like a democracy?

20 Chronicle Locomotion

I let the chinks close a little, Will I'm sorry but that light was bright. Look, we're outta this cave. Roadside. Rain cleaned.

It might be time to hop that train

only late in the evening. Dark, sleek and wet, the long lovely missile missed me again.

And I was sitting on the tracks: Wanna know a rule? Never feed anyone you don't know

that's how they got the pyramids built. The caboose breeze has tossed my hat so we'll take that direction:

rocky, hilly, lakey. We can walk forever on these feet, walking inside of the world

it keeps right-rolling under us. Sand keeps no time

and clay changes its face.

Why do you hate it when I make up rules? They're tatooed in my palm with wine. Over at the station cops read the signs, check their watches and dials.

Hang loose, Will, we're in the open now. More than clean,

it's off at the hinges.

Beverly Cooper

Winter 1991 21 Christopher Lockett

Two Haiku

Grace

Shadow gate on snow Her empty hospital bed Death came in the night

Yet Standing

Down here on old Earth Feel of grass under the feet

Still on solid ground

22 Chroniclo Devil's bit shone on my steps

staggered, stumbled into the soft pool of 3 A.M. dew

as it wept glorious

patois to my heavy ears

as it was reflected in an Ixionic vision

of semen spilling from the tired whore of the night

merciful holies of the persistence of youth

in pursuit of life through death's summons

This inheritance has no executor

childhood passes intestate to the next

with a sly smile

that is wrinkled beautifully about the

corners.

Christopher Lockett

Winter 1991 23 Jesus was a Marlboro Man. (Yes He was man) - painted and

lit up like a poster child, santa claus died

Tragic (that is why in he's not capitalized) prickly thorns this year: that stretched oh yeah,

all and Christmas too- the keeled over like way one to of those Gl's

the bottom in a bmovie of His suede coat. we watch on TV instead of caroling like we should be; but, no one gives a shit

anyway - except god and jesus Christ, and everyone knows they've been dead for years.

Michael Holland

24 Chrotiiclc —

praise that cat Michael Holland Little Lethargy a true Roman he was; godsentor so he thought, his days were long and just-

to roll his eyes and thus rot swat he did (and swear) and raise his gluteus rumpus high

in the air,

like

f ing romuremus s ing on that rolyus polyus

wolf's tit; to begin again

it

I'd like to say as or L would sometimes quip — "let's praise the day (yawn) and thank God for our remote et cruise controls, and bite the heads off of those chocoloti elves, and always, always remember that history does repeat

itself

Winter 1991 25 Late

''Fuck you. I don't owe you shit. You're talking like a fucking Biff, for

God's sake. I don't need this."

And I walked away. Obscenities

and threats filled the air around me.

But I had to keep walking. If you "Hey, fuck you, Lyons. I run, you die. could've been a Dormee. So just

That's life in my neighborhood. FUCK off."

We can't get cable out here; the "Patti. Chill. It was, like, a joke. cable dudes are afraid to come this far Jesus."

west of the city. So we sit around Bingo from upstairs walked in. and sweat or freeze and watch net- She said, "I need munchies. Let's go

work programming. It sucks. to Ingles."

The other night I got this knock Patti looked at her. "Right.

on my door. It was my best friend Who's got money to binge? It sure as Patti. She used to spell her name shit ain't me. Listen to this: my with a "y". But she says an 'i" looks fucking landlady comes by yesterday

better on the back of her leather to tell me they're raising the rent. jacket. Again. Two hundred dollars more. Right. My mouth must have dropped open She says, "Hey, I'm bored ouita cause she says to me, 'Well, we are

my skull. I hate not having cable. planning on fixing the place up a bit.

Jesus Christ! What I wouldn't do to Someone will be cleaning the hallway be able to vcg to MTV." regularly, and we are thinking about

'\Say that a little louder, maybe putting carpeting on the stairs.' Then some cruising Biff will hear you. she says, 'Seven hundred dollars a

YoLi can go to his dorm in his Mus- month is quite reasonable for this tang convertible... Tni sure he's out area.'

there looking for a hunk of off- *i wanted to scream in her face:

campus meat like you." it's a fucking ghetto!"

26 Chronicle Night Shopping at Ingles

Beth Lyons

Bingo put her arm around Patti. 'They don't understand. They just don't understand. They pave over the grass and plow down the trees in the

name of progress... It's Hke there're

big panes of glass that separate us. Our minds are fixed one way, theirs another way."

"Goddamn it," said Patti. "I just don't want to be homeless."

We always live with the threat of being streeted. But usually we don't

talk about it. Talking about it makes

Winter 1991 27 it worse. Talking about it makes us a six of Olympia for his trouble. I realize how thin the line is that keeps mean, hell, that's a lot cheaper than us off the streets. Talking about it putting gas in the car. breaks the illusion of control. As we drove through the off- Sure, spending money was just campus student housing, we passed what we needed to lift the Spectre of the bonfires. Homeless students the landlady. Illogical and impracti- studying for exams by the firelight. cal, that's the American way. Late They bum whatever they can: leaves, night shopping at Ingles. A modern shrubbery, old notebooks, discarded cure-all. timber. Chevettes. They used to

"Hey," I said. **Fuck your land- study in the library, but now the lady. I got twenty dollars. Let's library will only admit students who shop." can prove that they have a home....

Bingo said, "Who'd you roll?" Exam time can be pretty in the

'i didn't roll anyone. Shit just projects. From a distance the fires went right for a change. O.K.?" look cheerful, festive. Admins who There was no way that the three skirt the edges of our neighborhood of us were going to fit on Patti's can see the fires and depending on

Honda scooter; I went up the stairs to their mood. I'm sure, they either sigh ask Julio if we could borrow his Bug and think that they have done so for an hour. I told him I'd bring back much for the off-campus students, or they curse us for destroying the tene- ments they worked so hard to build

for us. i lilies I like kite night shopping at Ingles. At three a.m. the grocery store belongs to Offcamps.

Before we got to the first section oi the store, the manager stopped us.

He wanted to sec our money. I showed him the twenty. "Just picking up milk and white

bread. In case it snows."

The manager glared at Patti.

"Well, just hurry up about it. O.K.?"

Willi ()iil\ twenty bucks, four

dollars ol w hich hclonus to Julio's

2h riironicli quart of ice cream, and some ba- nanas.

1 said, '"Like, do you want

some lonely cake to ^^o with the ice cream? Do we have a birthday

to celebrate?"

••Right. Il"s Millie Bush"s birthday. She's ten. That's sev- enty to you and me." 'That's so fucked up. Millie Bush, dog diplomat, dies and they fucking get another dog and name her the same thing. Like some kind of White House token."

''You mean totem," I said.

Olympia, we didn't have much of a "And yeah, you're right, it's pretty selection. We could go for one grand fucking strange." purchase, like a two pounder of Patti said, "Shit, that dog eats Oreo's and a gallon of ice cream. Or better than us. And that's what really we could get lots of little stuff, like matters." oatmeal, yogurt, crackers... "Big fucking deal. She's not in

My favorite section of the store is grad school." the bakery. Sometimes they have "Right." I started laughing my donuts on sale. Sometimes, when a head off. "Right. But look who the birthday cake doesn't get picked up, they will cut it up and sell ^ the individual slices. The cake is almost invariably dry white cake with gobs of sugary white icing. We call this "lonely cake."

On my way to the bakery, I grabbed a bag of potatoes. My contribution to the homeless stu- dents. It keeps them from trying to bum my bike. Patti and Bingo showed up with two bags of cheapo chips, a

Winter 1991 29 fuck is smarter: she's eating three Bingo smiled and said, "Hey, that times a day." reminds me Lyons, are you ever

gonna turn the fucking heat on? I

"So, I was sitting in class the should turn off my fridge and bring other day and Fredd, the really weird my shit down here." homeless dude, comes in late. The ''We could kidnap a Bunny." Patti teacher and all the Dormees. like, said this quietly, seriously. sneer at him. Does Fredd notice? Bingo and I stopped short. "Patti,

No. he goes and sits on the front row. honey." I said, "why would we want Right next to this blonde Bunny. Oh to do that?" god. you should have seen her body "Well, Bingo says they're not language. The teacher, Dr. Marsh, gonna listen any other way. I thought he couldn't lecture. He kept losing if we nabbed her and brouizht her his train of thought. And the Bunny back here, you know, introduced her is all crunched up on one side of her to Fredd and Sally, Jim, Susan... Let desk, like Fredd is gonna permeate her really meet some of the homeless her or some shit." students... Maybe she could go back Bingo sighed. ''You know some- on-campus and she could tell them times I think that if we could all that we are all the same, really." switch bodies for a day, life would be "You're turning soft on me, better." Scareli. You been hanging around

"You mean, like, if we could be the sewer vents too much? Or are homeless or Dormees and vice versa you in love?" that maybe we'd all get along bet- "Fuck you, Lyons. Where's my ter?" fucking tea? My hands are turning

"Yeah, right," says Patti, "you blue over here." think some Bunny would gladly give "It's coming. It's coming. Who up her three-way makeup mirror to are you? Vhc fucking Queen live on the street? Get a grip." Mother?" "1 'Hey, hey, hey," 1 said, "no don't think we're addressing

fucking fighting in my house. Do il the important issue here." said Bingo.

in the fucking street where every one "Kidnapping would get us the chair. else does. O.K.! Jesus. Here. I'll I don'l want lo fr\ , e\en if 1 did start

make us sofuc lea. Il will kccj^ xour this screwetl up conxersalion." hands warm, anyway." "Oh, Jesus, Bineo," said PaUi,

30 Chronicle "you are so prissy. We wouldn't ''well they could have homes if really kidnap her. We could just they'd get o\'( their soiry asses and invite her for dinner. That is not a work."

Federal offense. Unless you cook." It makes me want to grab his shirt "'Dinner? What are we gonna and say, *1iey, Biff, does your sorry have—a braised leg of Spam?" ass have a job or do mommy and We had three cups of tea and daddy pay your way?" nothing was resolved except that You can't do shit like that though.

Bingo was a jerkface and I needed to Sometimes I get so mad, I want to turn on my heater. I threw them out plant bombs in the frat houses. I when I went to the Hbrary. don't want to kill anyone. I just want

I stopped at the homeless fire to to shake them up a little. But that'd give my friend Sally a cup of tea \ and to find out if anyone needed any books checked out from the library. I told Sally about Patti's idea for world peace.

"I used to be a cheerleader," she sighed.

The library was overflowing with Dormees with their new clothes and big white teeth. I tried to imagine being in their place, but I don't think I could ever fit in. The homeless, my hunger, the cold, I could never forget them. But could it work the make things worse. Mommy and other way? I think if a Bunny spent daddy would lean on the Admins who two days with me, she would go back would lean on the cops who would on-campus with a totally new per- make life in my neighborhood very spective. Maybe she would look at tight. the homeless students as humans instead of animals. If 1 had a dollar This Bunny was standing over by for every time I heard a Biff say, the pay phones. A sign above her

Winter 1991 31 head said that she was collecting that people don't want to remember. money for the Gulf War veterans. My sorority sisters think we're really

Jesus. The Gulf War. It seems like whacked." ancient history. But it's only been 15 Her voice trailed off. Maybe she years. realized the implications of standing A Bunny doing her good deed. in the library talking to a non-

How quaint. So as I walked by on Donnee. I felt sorry for her so I took my way to the Offcamp study lounge, a step back, spat on the floor beside

1 dropped in a dollar. What the fuck, her and said in a very loud voice, right? My mom was in the war. "well fuck \Y^// and your fucking es-

'This is a cool cause," I said. tablishment!" And I stomped away. "My mom was in the war. What That scene should have redeemed her group is this?" in the eyes of her ever-watchful

"Oh, just a bunch of Dormees. sisters. We, ah, got together because our dads The rent-a-cop gave me a dirty were there. Some people really got look as I walked by, but that was all. messed up over there. You know?" No full body search, late night inter-

"Yeah," I said, "my mom got rogation.... What boring cops they really fucked up. Chem warfare have on-campus. I wondered if he really sucks." was a Gulf Vet. But I figured there

"Oh wow. That's too bad. Some was no point in asking. people in my dad's outfit got gassed We make it so easy to stratify, too. He's told me about it. You codify, deify.... know, the thing I hate the most is

^

32 Chronicle NY, NY

Wailing sighs of the sax in the distance, dribbling streams of spittle and mold cascade an alleyway. Groveling hands slapped back into their threadbare vetements. Wafts of urine and pressing bodies mingle with the stench of cheap cologne.

Look into the hole in the ground where the animals ride going through their motions to survive.

Cecilia Herles

Winter 1991 33 Poem

I put my thumb and forefinger together at the opening of my nostrils and slowly move them apart along the hair

on my lip then down across the corners of my mouth until they meet again

at the tip of my chin.

Russ Hallauer

34 Chronicle Fate,

As it would seem (and Fate often does) to undo the und on[and]e (and twist the) But

I know which (twisted) and (turn)

that which is [on and on] And that which isn't into (the turned) something

I know

I really never expected But choked on [and on and on] anyway.

Michael Holland

Winter 1991 35 Jh orla

Gradually and insidiously, America has turned from o country full of people who revered the freedoms listed on

pages 1 9 and 20, especially the freedom of expression, to a country in which people who disagree with our president's decision to go to war are called un-American. Recently, many people have said that it is dangerous for anti-war protesters to express their opinions, and that no one shoulo protest the war.

Are ideas really dangerous? If freedom of expression were not dangerous to someone somewhere, it wouldn't need to be protected. However, the opposite is a greater danger to the people; if we are expected to give flag-waving support to every decision our president makes, then he is given free rein to do anything he pleases without being given different points to consider.

In '^ Politics Sk the Individual," Lyons points out this country's dichotomy between yearning for individualism anc the ultimate result of homogenization. Individualism is coming up with your own opinion by carefully considering the relevant facts and exposing yourself to viewpoints that may at first seem foreign. If you value this process, then you will not try to squelch the individuality of others.

If you are one of the &% that disagrees with the decision to go to war, or in the undecided percentage or even in that other one, join the Chronicle staff in the Amphitheater on

Friday, March I to express yourself. Keep your eyes open for more specific information.

'^ -^^.*tVrx^ CxM^(AJ^^l^^rh^ £y.ecufive Staff

£dii or- in-Chief Susan Wethington Poetry Editor Beverly Cooper features Editor Rebecca Morris fiction Editor Kris McGuire Business Manager Harry Conner /Advertising Manager Trip Godwin Promotions Director Russeil Hailauer Office Manager Bill Cullum Media Adviser Julie Walters-Steele facuity Advisers Mark Steadman Lynn Craig Designer Mike Lusk Contributing Artist Jack Welsh

Special Thanks fo Martin Printing, Inc. Debbie Williams

Art Board Poetry Boord Melanie Case Harry Conner Harry Conner Beth Lyons Beverly Cooper Rebecca Morris Russell Hailauer Elaine Stephens David McManus Jennifer Petroff JustJenn Todd

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Chronicle

Spring 1991

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1 1 3/4" X 9 7/8" 21 Chronicle Volume 94, Issue 3, Spring 1991

Table of Contents

Fp:atures Fiction Review: The Jack Kcromic Collcciion Chris Lockett 4 Return of the Mad Painter Buffalo Gals 7 Kris McGuire Catherine Flynn 29 A Boy's Game The Forbidden Natural Resource 14 Jay Pobis Beverly Cooper 36 Lunchtime Cabaret

M J Industries 42 Debbie Cravey Mike Marshall and Joel Jenkins 41 Poetry Art Nap Untitled 2 Celeste Putman Tracy Bradshaw 19 City Man's Saturday Untitled 3 Celeste Putman Shannon Morrissey 20 Cuando Mon ami 5 Russ Hallauer Kumar L. Chalasani 21 Showers of Spears

Home 1 Beaner Michael Caron 22 on the appearance of a good and noble poet

Man and Pig 1 Beth Lyons Aaron Baldwin 23 that tenuous embrace of blue ne\'er seen Gear 13 Beth Lyons Ron Dill 24 Hand Me Dow n Self portrait 33 Steve Brink Robin Robert 25 Mountain Running Untitled 34 Edd Golubski Linda Buchanan 26 Formalities Untitled 35 Edd Golubski Forest Hooker 27 reciprocal Untitled 47 Beverly Cooper Bill Sizemore 28

Chronicle was established in 1 897 as the official art and literary magazine of Clemson University, making

il the university's oldest student publication. Opinions expressed in Chronicle do not necessarily coincide with those of the student body, faculty, or administration. The editor assumes responsibility for opinions,

should there be any. presented in Chronicle. Address all correspondence to: Chronicle, Box 2 1 87. University Station. Clemson. SC 29632. Student subscriptions are paid through student activity fees. Advertising rates

are available upon request. Submissions are chosen anon\ mously. Chronic le is printed on recycled paper.

Spring 1991 Nap

Yellow hair tangles soft against my cheek as one slippered foot starts the tip tip tipping of this broad-shouldered chair that we climbed on to rock the sleep into your eyes. You, my sister's child, fight the dreams closing fast on the day.

So I keep the lulling pace slow and steady back and back and breath deepens to sighs as wave upon wave pushes and tumbles thought into this tide I've made.

I feel, as I wander through the window of sun and blue and wind, the warmth of your body falling heavier into mine.

Celeste Putman

('lironiclc City Man's Saturday

no overalls for this farm man he wears old jeans leather on his hands he don't need no whistling tune he's got red tractor fumes to make the load light.

he grips and grunts that gear shaft into place and off he bumps and roars past the pasture and the grazers to the terrace he must build.

thick, black treads spin holes out of soft red clay down they go six railroad ties rumble to the ground one more pile to move to make the line complete.

but it won't get done today the limp says the work day's through

the shoes are the first to go the fence ain't finished

all the ties aren't down but he got sun on his neck

and dirt in his hair and he's happy cause he sweats.

Celeste Putman

Spring 1991 Review: The Jack Kerouac Collection

Chris Lockett

Jack Kerouac Collection unofficial title "The Father of the Beat Gen-

Rhino R70939 (1990) eration," he is usually given credit for

breeding new life into the American bohemian

Jack Kerouac was as much a musician as movement. He is also considered by many to he was a novelist. be a catalyst of the hippy movement.

The Jack Kerouac Collection. Rhino's first Kerouac's writing style echoes the jazz release on their spoken label, is an ambitious music he heard in the late 40's and 50's; undertaking. It is a boxed set reissue of three almost any Kerouac sentence, read aloud, albums of Kerouac 's poetry and prose read- takes on the verbal equivalent of an impro- ings originally recorded in 1959. Long out of vised Charlie "Bird" Parker alto sax solo. print, the original albums have been selling Over the years. Kerouac's rambling prose has for as much as $150 a piece on the collectors begun to present a problem for the reader who market. Thanks to Rhino Records, the has grown up on the regular rhythms of rock medium of sound has found his words again. and roll. Kerouac wrote by ear—he was com- On The Road, Kerouac \ second novel, was pletely in tune with his time, with the great a popular culture phenomenon when it was jazz of the "American bop night." With The published in 1957. The closely autobio- Jack Kerouac Collection, there is a voice to graphical novel tells the story of Sal Paradise, go with the words, complete with all the in- the Kerouac-modeled writer, and Dean Mori- Hections, dynamics and pauses. Kerouac's arty the idealistic James Dean figure. It is a articulate slang, the product of a Massachu- manic trek, fueled by cheap wine, marijuana setts milltown upbringing, dips and cuts and amphetemines, from New York to Denver through impossible mouthfuls of colliding to San Francisco to Mexico and back again syllables on these albums. several limes to find the heartbeat, the essence The first disc. Poetry For the Beat Genera- of America. tion, features Kerouac reading selections from On The Road offered a tremendously familiar works like On the Road as well as un- energelic, romantic vision of America. published material. Steve Allen's graceful

Kerouac wrote the novel in three weeks on hacking piano creates an approjtriale smoky a 1 00 fool long roll of liiiolypc paper. By the yd/:/ bar atmosphere which iVames Kerouac's accounts of his contemporaries, he v\ as a voice as a capable leatl instrument. lightning quick typist and ielt thai slopping to In kee|-)ing w ith Kerouac's siontaneous change paper woiikl inhibit the truth of style, the first album was recorded in less than creation in his spontaneous prose style. an houi, in onl\ one take. The liner notes

Inspired by Kcrouac's words, a generalion ol recall (he session where Kerouac and Allen disartected post war youth look to the were passing a bottle oiriuinderhird back and highua\s lo 'Mind" America. The Beat lorlli and laughing, some of which can he

(lencralioii uas horn. IIioul'Ii he denied his heard on ihe lecoiclini:. The hiuhliuhls of the

Chronicle first disc are the romantic visions of San but impatient with the trivial obstructions, to

Francisco in "October in the Railroad Earth/' be existential in the Kierkegaard, rather than and "Readings From 'On The Road' and the Jean-Paul Sartre, sense." The twelve 'Visions of Cody" from Kerouac's Novem- minute bonus track, "Is There A Beat Genera- ber 16, 1959 appearance on "The Steve Allen tion?", is excerpted from the infamous Plymouth Show." Brandeis Forum where an extremely stoned On disc two. Blues and Haikus, Kerouac Kerouac was speaking against four hostile and tenor sax greats Zoot Sims and Al Kohn panel members. Kerouac stepped to the mike perform duets between voice and sax. As and pronounced his fellow speakers to be "a Kerouac says in the liner notes: "Zoot and Al bunch of communist shits" for threatening the blow sweet, thoughtful, metaphysical sor- freedom he and his Beat Generation contem- rows." This is a much more authoritative poraries had reintroduced to America. Kerouac here, having gotten past the experi- The Jack Kerouac Collection offers mental nervousness of the first album. The testimony to Kerouac's seminal influence on highlights of this disc are "Poems From The American culture. Accompanying the

Unpublished Book Of Blues" and "Conclu- collection is a 32-page booklet of tribute, sion Of The Railroad Earth," both recently commentary and rare photos from friends and discovered on acetate as outtakes from the fellow Beat Generation writers Allen original sessions. Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Michael

Disc three. Readings hy Jack Kerouac on McClure. It features a bibliography of all the Beat Generation, features Kerouac's voice known Kerouac works. However, Kerouac's alone. It is the best expression of the musical- vast appeal is not only limited to the literary ity in his art. The raw emotion and intimacy crowd. of Kerouac's voice painfully illustrates the Bob Dylan credits Kerouac with turning streetwise, yet vulnerable nature of the man. him on to poetry. So much so that in 1975.

By all reports, Kerouac was a terribly shy Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review visited his man, often getting drunk or high to ease the gravesite and improvised a slow blues. Jerry discomfort of public appearances. Alcohol- Garcia of the Grateful Dead says "I don't ism led to his death at age 47 in 1969 from a know if I would ever have had the courage or massive abdominal hemorrhage. However the vision to do something outside with my drunk. Kerouac is nothing short of masterful life. ..if it weren't for Kerouac opening those in his readings on this disc. Flawlessly doors." Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for The articulated multiple tongue twisters like: "the Doors, even more emphatic, says: "If Jack wailbar wildbar wartfence moonlight mid- Kerouac had never written On the Road, The night Lucien Dolophine immensity Visions of Doors would never had existed." the Tathagatha's Seat of Purity and Womb..." Our own times share much with Kerouac's. roll from his mouth in haunting confessional We are once more living in an era which is tones. reluctant to stare into the eye of nonconform-

Disc three is the most important in the ity. Kerouac's legacy, the restless calling of collection in terms of defining the amorphous a man's heart to experience everything first Beat Generation. John Clellon Holmes offers hand, has never been more important. his definition in the liner notes: "Beat is a Nowhere is this so well illustrated as in The state of mind from which all non-essentials Jack Kerouac Collection. have been stripped, receptive to everything,

Spring 1991 Cuando

I'm making the bed to be unmade

cleaning sheets and fluffing pillows.

I'm picking your drawers and stuffing mine

leaving you the bigger ones and waiting to do this distance.

I'm clearing the closet out for you

because I don't got nothing needs hanging anymore.

Russ Hallauer

Chronicle They took the Mad Painter away yesterday. landlord caught him in the basement laundry.

All this time I'd had no idea who it was, but Said he was drawing smiley-faces and 'Have when I walked home from the bus stop after A Nice Day' on one of the washing ma- work I saw a small crowd gathered around the chines." front steps of my apartment building and a "That's my next-door neighbor!" 1 said. police cruiser parked beside the curb. A "Really?" She eyed me with slightly more woman I knew vaguely was one of the group; interest. "Who is he?" when she saw me approaching, she said, "His name's Arnold Dreyfus." Not one of

'They've caught that painter guy. We're your expected Mad Painter sort of names, I waiting to see who it is." thought. We didn't have to wait long. The "What did he do?" building's front doors swung open from the I blinked. "Well, I guess he was the Mad inside and a police officer came out, along Painter." with a man dressed in white, evidently a "No, honey," she said rolling her eyes, "I hospital orderly. Between them walked a mean for a //\7//i,'. Did he have a job?" stooped, bearded, balding little man carrying a I shrugged. "Some kind of salesman, 1 handful of colored chalks. The officer and the think. Maybe insurance." Or was it encyclo- orderly escorted him to the back seat of the pedias? I wondered; I couldn't remember cruiser and drove away. which.

'^That was the Mad Painter?" I asked in The woman looked ready to ask something disbelief. else, but I headed upstairs to my apartment

"I guess so," the woman said, 'i heard the before she could continue. As I jogged up

Spring 1991 —

steep, narrow steps, half-doubled over ai the flight of steps, I saw faint smudges on the panting: but none of them even offered to hold concrete wall, reminders that a week ago the

open a door for me. I guessed the sight pf a Mad Painter Arnold Dreyfus?—had adorned tall, skinny woman, winded and red-faced, it with sketches of day-glo astrological signs. was merely comical; they all had valuable I stopped and looked, but no trace of the time and belter things to do with it. original designs remained. They had been All but the Mad Painter, who was still almost entirely rubbed out. unknown to me. After my fourth trip up- i" stairs which felt more like my eighty- ' So. I'd lived for four months next to this —

fourth— I relumed to the lobby to find the quiet little man who resembled either a three remaining wexxien boxes swimming modem monk or someone's ornery old uncle, with color. On one craic. a pink dragon, and all this time he'd been the Mad Painter, hastily hut skillfully sketched, floated in a the nameless, faceless, ghostlike rebel who yellovK cloud; another showed a swayhacked had nightly decorated the neighborhood green horse, munching on a mouthful of blue storefronts and sidewalks. Who would 've flowers; and the third depicted the Golden thought it? Gate Bridge, suciching acrc^ss a bay of Thinking back on it, I realized I had met purplish water. Dreytus and his alter ego at almost the same !" "Wow I said ama/ed. '"Who in the time, on the day I'd first moved into the world'.*..." building. I'd spent most of the afternoon .\ man crossing the lobb\ on his way to the moving boxes of my belongings into the door stopped beside me eyeing the artw ork lobby, then carrying them upstairs one by one. and shaking his head. "The Mad Painter's got Some of the other tenants had greeted mc in you already," he said. "And this is only your passing as I lugged each crate up eighteen

Chronicle first day here. You'll gel chalk all over your a wild, funky swirl of colors, like crayons clothes." melting in a bowl. 'The Mad what?" The Mad Painter might tattoo the gray or "Painter. Some local graffiti goofball. white concrete storefronts with bright rain- Real nuisance. You'll find out," he said and bows of color. Or the squares of sidewalk walked away. before my feet would suddenly open up into

I carried each of the reamining boxes incredible sunsets. I always enjoyed discover- upstairs, taking as much care as possible not ing these. They made me think of watching to smudge the chalk drawings, particularly the Mary Poppins as a child, and despite myself I horse. As I reached my apartment with the sometimes wondered if I might fall through. last crate, the door to my left creaked open The drawings decorated benches at the bus and a short, half-bald, goateed man peered out stop. I learned that only the foolish or at me. absentminded sat down without first checking "You're new here," he said. for those brilliant, smudgy chalks. "That

"Yes. Hi. Fm Liz Anderson." I held out idiotr a businessman yelled one morning and my hand in case he wanted to shake it. sprang up from the bench as if scorched, "I'm Arnold Dreyfus," he said, and glanced wearing a pattern of red, orange, and green nervously at my extended hand, as if I was across the seat of his light-gray pants. "I wish offering him a raw egg. "You've got chalk somebody would do something about that nut dust all over you," he went on disapprovingly. case," he grumbled, brushing frantically at the

1 felt like a messy child reprimanded by a chalk but only smearing it in deeper. He grade-school teacher. Then he shut the door looked tie-dyed. I barely managed not to in my face. laugh. At other times, an unsuspecting

I sighed. So much for neighborly camara- commuter would lean against a streetlamp derie. I shoved the crates inside my own post, or loop his ami around it apartment, thinking briefly that the only comfortably. ..and then catch sight of the welcome I'd received today had been from the "strand" of colored ivy that twined around the Mad Painter—whoever that was. post from the ground up. Everyone in the

Later, as I settled in and gradually came to neighborhood knew the catch-phrase "the know some of the other tenants, they told me Mad Painter strikes again"; this was occasion- the local legend of the Mad Painter. Though ally followed by, ""dammit." high-school kids were the usual suspects, no Meanwhile, life was always quiet at the one had ever seen him. Everyone knew his apartment. I tried being pleasant to Dreyfus, work, though, and in that way, I became but privately considered him a crank. He acquainted with him myself. I'd walk to the answered my "hello's" with nods or grunts, bus stop every morning, brooding at the and when he smiled, he looked nervous and thought of another day at work. ..but inevitably pained. He seemed to leave his apartment a splash of color would distract me. The only for work, departing every morning with a masterpiece of the day could be anything, slam of the door, always carrying his anywhere: op art, day-glo peace symbols, salesman's briefcase. Now I wonder if he flags of various countries, astrological carried his chalks and pastels in that case, symbols and familiar cartoon faces were my hidden under contracts, carbons, papers. Even personal favorites. Sometimes his work with hindsight, I can't say that I liked the would have no discernible desisn: it would be man. But I secretly liked that less respectable

Spring 1991 citizen, the renegade Mad Painter. I some- times wished I could catch him in the act: I felt we'd probably have something in com- mon, something we could talk about.

Today a brief article about the Mad Painter appeared in the morning paper. "LOCAL VANDAL CAUGHT, FINED,"' read the bold print. I read through it over breakfast, though

it told me little I didn't already know. The only surprise came at the end: apparently Dreyfus would have to undergo some basic psychiatric tests. How about that, I thought, and shook my head. The authorities must've Streetlamps had dull black iron posts. thought the Mad Painter was really mad. Benches were plain tan wood again, and

I folded the paper and dropped it into my groups of commuters sat on them without makeshift magazine basket—one of the crates fearing for their clothes.

I the Painter had decorated that day I moved in. That afternoon, got off the bus a block Fine dust had settled on the old green horse by sooner than usual and stopped b\ a small art- now, but I was afraid to brush it away: it supply store. I selected a book on beginning would only smear the chalk. Some of the design. When the clerk prepared to ring it up. colors had faded as well. He was rcalK more 1 said, "Oh, wait just a minute." and added to grey than green, and the Howers in his mouth m\ purchase a box of the most basic pastel

looked decidedly dcatl. If Fcl known Dreyfus chalk colors.

lessons?" the clerk asketl politel\ . was the Mad Painter, 1 wondered, would 1 "Taking have asked him lo come over and touch up his "Just starting." 1 said.

1 left the stoic and headetl back to my arluork'.' 1 thought probably not. ..and 1 didn't really like my sell lor it. apartment, feeling a little belter than 1 had the

I lel't tor the bus slop a leu inniutes later, da\ before. carr\ ing the bag safely tucketl uiulei (m^: so the art-store logo w as lor the Insi tunc m lour months. 1 sa\\ the aim streets untouched b\ the Mad Painter's nighll\ hidden. \\ ho arc you kiiiciuiii. Liz? 1 thought, work. .Side\valks no longer showed sunsets: laughing a lillle. I ilidn'l ha\'e an\ artistic they were gray, cracked with cigarette butts talent at all. Well. ina\he 1 ei)ul(l pick that up. and gum wrappers as their only ailornmenl. I reasoned, grinning to myself. Ma) be it was Storetronis were plain, tonsentional white. jusi ihe Mail pari thai counted.

10 Chronicle Shower of Spears

Remembering into the ways of the olden found relics of youthful glory.

As we ripped apart old models, burned and smashed

Crushing our own fingernails just to recreate someone else's pain

Someone else's crashes. Crashes with something that's paid

for.

We're all aching today So much aching never letting the sun into us for awhile.

The glass really effected me Flying through the air a shower of spears:

A shower that i could never let die.

As it was, it was forced upon me by some unguided unyielding will of genius or contempt, or hatred, or misconeception.

Look, who knows what the hell it meant

only it was like a siren twenty hours long twenty days wide

twenty years tall.

Beaner

Spring 1991 11 on the appearance of a good and noble poet

who could live poetry for 73 years burned gentle by the fire of language, humbled by the furtive search for the, anthologies notwithstanding, poetry simple normal need of words

speech so flowing in extraordinary

cadence in rhythm pulled between phyllis wheatley & bessie smith.

Beth Lyons

Ch that tenuous embrace of blue never seen

a poem i shall grasp the sky never seen in green leafy summer as lovely tree arteries whose bared branches capilaries trees stretch themselves out

or is it the sweet earth to keep us from flowing oblivion

Beth Lyons

Spring 1991 13 The sun shone brightly now on the raised mound of red clay, the easy spring sky spreading to infinity above with only a few white wisps to break up the blue monotony. The sun was hot already as evidenced by the salty beads that glistened on the young man's face, rolling down from his temples to his chin, pooling there, and then dripping onto his chest. He stood on a patch of worn green grass just behind the mock hill, facing the centerfielder. who stood like a redwood in rhythm. Fastball, high and away, was the call Kansas, beating his hand into his glove and (Fastball). shuffling his feet. But though he faced the Smoothly and surely his body glided into man he wasn't really looking at him. He its motion. The windup was more natural to wasn't looking at anything. All he could see him now than walking. As he came off the

C'See it in your mind. ..feel it," his father rubber he pushed with his left leg, and at the spoke) was the soft target of the catcher's same time, threw his energy into the rotation mitt, a buUseye. That was all that mattered. of his left ami. He watched the ball stream-

He could feel his right hand sweating in its line towards its target, the batter's eyes cozy glove, and his whole body also, except (Wide) widening in seeming surprise. his left hand which now cradled the ball. At There was a half-hearted s\\ ing and then times like these he began to understand the the ball rested comfortabh in the catcher's nature of the beast. He knew the fear—the mitt. fear of ("Feel the ball and let it be a part of Scribbling poured out from the dugout. He you. There is nothing else.") failure. smiled inwardly as he turned around again to

The batter stood in now. digging in face the centerfielder. recei\ ing the ball as he actually, seeming like the great Cyclops. But spun. He noticed that the centerfielder had this was only a game, a game of boys (I am a shifted position, and now , unobscured, he boy), played by men. A game in spring meant could see a \ oung woman sunbathing out past next to nothing really, but everything to him. the chain-link fence. She flipped through the He could always hear the stubby old manager pages of her magazine so noiichalanil\ that he scribbling incessantly in his little notebook, wondered if she even knew w here she was perched on the top step of the dugout, (Who are you? Why are you— ) ("Concen- marking every move, seeing, remembering trate. ..nothing else."). He dipped his free

(That damned notebook. ..the pencil). He had hand into his glove and began turning the ball to be better. Belter now. better always. There over and o\ er and o\ er again, thoughts

was survival aiul true greatness ("You are the ranging at will. best —you have to be.")("Daddy— ") and He si|uaretl up to the plate again, climbing nothing else. precariously alop the rubber ([Exposed). Once

He turnetl and cased onto the mound, more he looked in lor the sign. Anothei" hard

holding the small ball in his hand. The one. high and tight (Up and in, up and away, dangling fingers of the catcher caught his eye back and forth so many games. Just let me

and he peered in for the sign. Sounds play).

surrounded him; Crowd, shortstop, P. A. Again he began his motion and again he System, u ind, mind. ..chanting an ungosernetl loosed the ball with a ureal deal of effort. He

14 Chronicle A Boy's Game

Jay Pobis

He wanted to throw the curve. He had set

it up, he was confident, he was in control

(Control). It would be simple (Always so simple). He searched again for the sign,

shaking off another fastball, first, before settling on the curve. His favorite pitch. The way he held the ball, like a half-moon, and the

way he twisted his arm and elbow at the same watched the ball as it bore in on the man's time, with the same precision, allow ing the reflexing wrists. The strike was fought off ball to spin out just so. The feeling. He with a half-swing/half-twist that resulted in a began the wind and came through with the harmless pop into the sparsely covered pitch, once more. Rotating and falling, almost bleachers. A small boy in an oversized hat in slow motion, the ball approached the plate. and no shirt raced for the souvenir. (Like the Earth in space, spinning and

No balls. Two strikes. moving, spinning and moving, hanging— ). He was in control now, on top, in com- (Hanging?) Hanging too much. mand. Except for the scribbling which The report of the bat echoed in the cham- seemed to flood out now like some tidal wave bers of his mind. that would drown him if he didn't (Run) run. Uncontrollably he watched as the ball sped

He waited as the large, blue-clad umpire on its arc toward the deepest part of center, produced a fresh ball for play, which he soon the fielder loping lazily to the track but received. watching helplessly as the ball landed well He took his glove off and began caressing beyond the fence. Out by that woman. She the ball with his two bare hands, as if the ball didn't notice. needed to be wanned up on a day like this (Hanging) one. There was the feeling of the ball, though, ("Oh, daddy, I'm so sorry. I tried. ..I did.") the smooth leather surface broken only by the ("We'll make you better. We will. The symmetric thread of the seams. It reminded best.") him of his childhood, of—playgrounds past And the sound of a pencil scribbling, still, ("Daddy I'm so sorry. I ") ("We'll make on the pad. you better. We will."), of being a kid. Glove back on his hand, he approached the mound. That night he slept. And he dreamt. He only needed one more (One more). One He dreamt the dream that had come to him more and he would have survived another a hundred nights before. day. The sea seemed to stretch forever into the

Spring 1991 15 horizon and the gradual change from green to with pitching, anyway? Not much. Alisa blue was almost impossible to notice. Clouds Bollinger, though, now she's got something to billowed up like so many castles, soft rounded do with pitching. I bet I could pitch the best comers impressing the sky, without end. You game of all time if she wanted me to. I mean, could see into space, here, and beyond. To she's pretty. Won't ever say that to Paul, universes and galaxies and nothingness. And about his sister and stuff, but it sure is true. maybe then into the smallest needle point in Except she knows too much division. It must the vast eye of God. Hot sun came blinding be off of breaking waves and baking off of pure Bell. Yess. Free at last. cream sand. Cool ocean breeze blew waves to shore then left to blow on dangling fronds. Hope mom has got some Chunky soup Perfect. waiting for me. Can't pitch without Chunky A boy raced shin deep through the water. soup. Can't do much of anything good His young powerful legs tread the resisting w ithout Chunk) soup, though, "...park?" flow with grace and ease. A ball fell softly -Huh?" from the sky and the boy raised his soaked "When are you going over to the park? leather hand to receive it. The glove molded God, I swear, you're in a different world quickly around the ball and engulfed it. The sometimes." boy broke his stride and came to rest. Salty Butt-hole. Butt-hole for a best friend. beads moved rhythmically on his chest, "I don't know Paul, I think max be I'm not holding the sun. He craned his face to the sky feeling too well. I'm not gonna play tonight." for a moment before he turned back, peeled "Yeah. And I'm Queen of England. out the ball, and tossed it without effort into When?" the horizon. "When I get through eating." Waves passed gently by. "When?" Soon a speck could be seen that was "I dunno. Four thirty? Something like another ball. The boy turned again and began that. When I get through eating." after it. "You want me to come get you on the Night passed this way. way?" "Don't you always?"

It's hard lo concentrate on principles o\ "Yeah." division on a day you were going to have to "Sooo..." pitch. 1 mean, what does division have to do He hates that.

with pitching, anyway? Not much, I imagine. "Just asking. Jee/."

I just wish she'd get the idea. Smell that Chunky soup. Just makes the

" "Hmm. I didn't hear what you said. w hole world seem like a better place, that

"I asked you, Alex, if you could please tell stuir. Mom's all right. Okay. Okay, get

us what the answer is to prohlcin 13?" these jeans off and get ready. Socks first. *'Uh, yeah. Umm. 64." Keep the orange parts on the bottom. Just like "Thank you." she says. Then leggins. Stupid name. Some

Biddy, f-ive minutes lo go and she still old gu\ named "em leggins, I'm sure. 1 mean,

/ wants to do problems. 1 bet on weekends she no one eoi^I'd call the things leggins. right

goes home and tloes division all the time. Iki Pants. Pants. In the drawer. Good. Nice aiul

she thinks it's liiii. Ihal's why she's so good clean. Mom's Okay. Shirt. Shirt. Shirt?

at it. Aiul. I mean, uhat docs it have to do Closet.' No|u\ Drawer? Nope. Under the

ChiDiiicIc pile of sheets? Nope. Good, he's here. Took him forever, but "Mom." he's here. Looks pretty happy, loo. Good.

Deaf woman. Ann feels nice and warm, just like he said it "Mooom." should. He'll be happy. Good. Okay. "What?" "Hi. My arm feels real good. Real warm, "Shirt?" just like you said."

"In the laundry room. 1 think." "Good. Good. How long have you gu> s

"Can you get it?" been out here?"

"Nice try, but you can make it." "I dunno. Maybe an hour. We've just been

Lazy woman. All she's got to do is sit throwing around and talking and stutf." around all day while Tm at school trying to "All right. No more throwing 'til I say. figure out some stupid division and she can't Don't want to throw anything out. Go on over even get my shirt. She knows I'm gonna pitch and start getting ready. Think. Get focused. tonight. She just doesn't understand. Not like Concentrate. Nothing else, out here. Okay?" dad. He'd be up here helping me get ready if "Yeah." he was home. Make sure everything was Concentrate. Concentrate. Gonna throw cool. He'd get my shirt. strikes. Nothing too hard, nothing I can't do. just strikes. Gonna be better than them. Out "When's dad getting home?" think 'em. Be smarter. Throw inside, throw

"He'll be home by six, I promise." outside, throw 'em where I want them to go.

"All right. Just asking." Just let Tommy put that glove down and

Good soup. Good Chunky soup. throw it right into the heart. Right into the "Good soup." bullseye. Simple stuff. Real simple. Nothing "Thanks." else. Nothing

Alisa's here. Wow. This is good. This is

Oh, my god. my arm is sore. That's why I very good. It's gonna be a real good game. hate division so much, because if you do That much for sure. Gonna be some real good division all day then your arm is tight. pitching. You just watch. You just see. Alex

Doesn't help your pitching one bit. He's too is a pretty good player here. You're gonna far away. Idiot. know that much. All right. Good. Okay. "Paul, come closer. You're too far away." Good. "You are such a baby." "Good."

Clueless. Never pitched in his life. Just "What?" stands out there in centerfield picking his nose "Good, I said. Just talking to myself." or something probably not even paying "Concentrate, now. Get focused. Nothing attention half the time. else."

"Like you'd know. Dad said to start out by "Got it." throwing short until my arm feels really loose Good. and warm. Then throw longer to stretch everything out." Okay. It's all right. Breathe. Breathe a

"If your dad told you jump off a bridge lot. Slow down. Let's take a little walk. Get would you do it?" off that mound for a minute. Okay, here he

Yes comes. Good. We'll talk. He'll know what "Don't be stupid." to do. "How you feeling. Al?"

Spring 1991 17 "I'm all right. Just a little hot. But Vm problem. Up on the rubber. Feet even.

Okay." Good. Okay Tomm\ . here we go. Right leg

"Those two guys score and it's over." up, ami back, arm over... pop. Looks good. "I know." That's pretty. We got him. Not even going to

"Just settle down and concentrate. You can swing. Yess. Yess. See that Alisa? See it? get this guy. No problem. Concentrate and do what you want to do. You're the one in "Baall." control out here. Not him. Not anyone else. Okay?" Oh my god. Oh my god. That was perfect.

"Yeah." That was great. What a terrible call. Idiot.

"Take your time." That was perfect. He wasn't ready. I sur- "Yeah." prised him too. Had to be. That was perfect.

"See it in your mind. Think it. Feel it. What was he looking at? Oh my god. Fine.

Then do it." That's Okay. He'll see. They'll both see. I "Yeah." don't need any curveball to strike this guy out.

Hot. Just gonna throw it right past him. Fine. Fastball. Fastball. Yep.

Okay. This is good. Very good. Two Right leg up, arm back, ami over...Ooww. fastballs, two strikes. No problems. Just Pain. Hot. relax and breathe and feel it. Nothing else.

Just me and Tommy playing a little catch. No. No. No. Hot. That's bad. Not good.

Just the two of us. Don't need anyone else. I can't believe I did that. Right over the

Just us. Just me. Okay. All right. Let's talk middle. No. Bad. Run Paul. Get it. Catch about it. Make sure. it. Please. Please. Someone. Anyone. I'm

"Tommy." sorry. It's my fault. I screwed up. I'm sorry.

That stuff is way too big on his body. God, God, bring it back. I'll slow down. I'm sorry. he looks stupid. Hot. Real hot. Don't cry. Don't. Not out "You Okay?" here. Not in front of everyone. Don't. Not in "Yeah, I'm fine." front of her. I'm sorry.

"How's your arm?" "Oh, daddy, I'm so sorry. I tried...I did." "Good." "We'll make you belter. We will. The "Wanna try a curve?" best."

"I dunno. I'm not sure what it'll do."

"It'll curve, vvon'l it."

"Yeah, if I do it right."

"Okay. Curve. He won't know what hit him." Yeah.

This is gonna work. Piii in\ p{)inting finger on the scam and ciij") ihc rest of my hand around the bottom half. Okay. I*eels good, f'cels nice. Mick my vsrist and jerk m\ elbow.

Make it pop. Just relax. Just throw it right into the bullseye. Okay. Breathe. No

IS Chronicle GALLERY

Tracy Bradshaw untitled

Print, 8" X 10" "Photography goes much further than the release of the shutter.

Seeing how far an image can be pushed in the darkroom is what makes photography so exciting—there are so many possibilities."

Spring 1991 19 Shannon Morrissey untitled 3/4'' Intaglio print, 7 x 1 1 7/8"

''1 believe in self expression and emotion."

20 Chronicle Kumar L. Chalasani Mon ami Pencil Drawing, 10'*,\12"'

*'Art is a way to make me feel worthwhile

when I do not feel like beins an engineer/'

Spring 1991 21 l-H

i

i' f^

Michael C'aron Home

Slccl aiul wood niixcti media sciilptmv, S' \ 4' \ ^Y

"Ihc inlcraclion ot Ihc individual with my work is very important. By enclos- ing spaces both overwhelming and intimate to a viewer 1 can force not only a sense ot confrontation hut also a sense of magnetism and accessibility."

("hioniclc Aaron Baldwin Man and Pii^ Oil on canvas, 83" x 53"

"It disturbs me to realize that what I make is so easily tainted by my desire to be reproduced in a publication."

Spring 1991 23 Ron Dill Gear

Oil on canvas, 3' x 4'

'The only rules in art are the ones we make for ourselves."

24 C'hionick Robin Robert Self portrait acrylic on canvas, 14" x 24"

'Feed off of your life tragedies; that's where you'll find most of your creative energy."

Spring 1991 25 Linda Buchanan untitled acrylic on canvas, 15" x 16" 'Torm and color are my muse."

'*' ~-^'''-'-^'-^'^ ii iSc^^^^^m- ^^^^^Kt ^

_

C'hroiiicli Forest Hooker untitled Monoprint. 18"x24"

"This is the first in a series of monoprints looking at (from the position of an outsider) 'pre-integration

African American culture.' This is an interpretation of Altyler lithographs."

Spring 1991 27 Bill Sizemore untitled 3/4'' Gelatin silver print, 1 1 x 9 7/8" ''Why do empty buildings reveal our suffering?''

2X Chronicle Buffalo Gals

Catherine Flynn

dedicated to Gabriela, Susan & Tammy those real Buffalo Gals who don't stutter when saying the "D"" word.

This feature was written in response to "Oral History

and the Study or Sexuality in the Lesbian Conununity: Buffalo, NewYork, 1940-1960" hy Madeline D. Davis

and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy. The article is a product of the Buffalo Women's Oral History Project.

I walk into the Stone Castle (now just the Castle) with Tony(a). We have to shov\ i.d.s at the front desk, which is just a small room cut off from the rest of the bar. It's also a chance for the owners to check us out. to make sure we're okay. I hear Dolly Parton off in the distance

singing "Working 9 to 5. What a way to make a living ...," then Patsy, "I've got your picture she's got you...".

It's show night. Tonya heads for the bar and gets a gin and tonic, and I head for the pool tables because that's what dykes do here. I've learned the customs. The do's and don'ts. The first time I went here, I wore a skirt not knowing what that meant. It's one of those unwritten code things that you eventually find out about. Only 'Tag-hags" or "extreme fems" wear dresses or skirts. And it seems to be an invitation for the "bull dykes" to buying you drinks,

light cigarettes and show you how to play pool, "little lady." (I hate all these labels we put on each other, but I feel that in this context they may be used as more descriptive than defining.)

The bar is Yeats' "terrible beauty." It is both horrible and depressing to watch all the lonely people hanging on to the side of the bar, chain smoking nervously, to see the drag queen heroin

addicts who hang out in the back room, to witness the sleaziness of the "chicken hawks"

preying on anything fresh that walks in. to hear the way people gossip about who's done w hat

to whom. But it's also safe inside. It's a place to go with friends to relax and not worry about censoring our language—even with our most accepting het friends there are certain things they don't understand or have their limits talking about, and the bar is the only place where some

people meet. It's a curious place. Lesbians only show up sporadically. I watch these womyn,

all very different and I find myself wanting to ask them how they ever knew they were gay.

when they knew, what it was like growing up wherever they came from, w hat their parents and

friends thought about it? I never get tired of listening to them: I want to know there are lots of

Spring 1991 29 lesbians out there, that we have a background, up all night saying rosaries ("Hail Mary full of that we've always been here. grace... please let me be nomial"). before I

had a word for what I felt, I loved w omyn. I

When I started reading "Oral History and loved Kathryn Hepburn in Adam's Rib and

the Study of Sexuality in the Lesbian Com- African Queen , I loved Amelia Aerhart and munity'* by Madeline D. Davis and Elizabeth the thought of flying all by myself. I loved

Lapovsky Kennedy, I wondered how those Wonder Woman comics and Jo in Little womyn ever knew they were gay. How did Women, I hated that she got manied to they know those feelings? I didn't even know professor Bear, I loved to watch Martina what a lesbian was until I was sixteen. When Navratilova and was ecstatic when I saw Billie did they know? We are assumed and raised Jean King play at the Triangle Tennis Club in straight. How did the womyn in the 40's and Pittsburgh, I loved my sixth grade American

50 's ever find each other? How do we find history teacher who did actually wear a black these bars, these small smoky dark places? I leather jacket and took me for a ride on her read this essay because I wanted to find out Midnight Virago Yamaha, and most of all I more about my culture, my lesbian history. loved Ann who was on the swim team w ith And Vm wondering if lesbians have their own me—that womon's butterfly stroke came w ith history. I mean there are womyn's studies, it own orchestral accompaniment w hen her black studies, Hispanic studies, Asian body hit the water. But 1 never knew that studies—are lesbians just supposed to be many of the womyn 1 admired and lo\ed were included in them? Do we write differently, or lesbian. I was never told Virginia Woolf's did we have to write differently than men and secret, I never read anything like that in the straight womyn? What are codes used in the Norton Anthology bibliographies. past? What names did womyn write under? But 1 w as curious. 1 searched for something

Do we read and perceive literature in a unique to read or watch about gays, an\ thing. 1 saw way? I am drawn to other histories/songs/ the porno movie I Like To Watch when 1 w as writings/art of African-American and Native 18— 1 became ph\sicall> sick half wa\'

American wonn n. 1 look to the womyn in through it —and 1 read a hook called Lesbian

those cultures lor strength because I cannot Secrets . Both, 1 found out later, were w ritten find mine. My role models were denied. and produced b\ men. Lesbian sex, I thought, was no different than het sex —one person

Before when I knew and did nothing strapped on a dildo and was the fucker/man because I thought 1 was the only one. helore and the other person w as the fucked/womon. 1 when 1 was the quietest person in class and say fuck because their was nothing mutual sat in the back scooting down in my desk so I about w hat I had seen or read. 1 hatetl these wouldn't be asked my opinion because I images w hich alwa\s had wom\ n being didn't want to disagree, heloiv when 1 sal in watched h\ a man. oi" later turning to a man religion class and listed out loud along with for "real" gratification. These images weren't

the rest of the class how you could tell if a mine so I couldn't he gas. person was homosexual ("They're haiitliess-

ers, they wear make up and leimnine clothes. I look a woniyn's studies course; it was the

they hang out in resirooms. Dykes are Inst time e\ei I heard a womon talk about womyn who want to he men. the\ wear lesbians, .ludilh Slanlon look an entiie week leather jackets and aie liuek (lri\ers. rhe\ 'le lo discuss ilie topic o\ lesbianism and didn't

child molesters."), helore when I used to sta\ caic il people thought she was ga\ . Teminism

.^0 ( 'hioiiicic held so much slrcnglh. I tch that "yes ihis is Jiidilh gave me books, references. And 1 right, this is the way I thought it should be." started reading The Furies : Our class deconstructed everything we could get our hands, eyes, ears on. It didn't take nic We (ire (//li^ry hcamsc \vc urc oppressed In

long to embrace feminism as my religion. It nuile siiprenidcy . We have been fucked over had a meaning and purpose that empowered nil our lives by a system which is based on the not weakened my soul. I wasn't crazy, I doiniiiaiion of men over womyn, which wasn't abnormal, and I found out why I had defines woniyn as iiood and female only as been so angry. I came out to myself and then <^ood as the man yon are with... to my womyn's studies class. Judith gave my We want to build a movement which can thoughts the words, the concept of lesbian effectively stop the violent, sick oppressive feminist and I will always be grateful to her acts of male supremacy. ..(Furies). and love her for that. No other professor

before ever had seemed to talk about lesbian I read Lesbians in Revolt , Dworken's book anything. In many of the ws classes the Intercourse and some of her essays. Ruby fruit

"lesbian issue" is diffused into something Jungle , Off Our Backs ... I hated the idea of else usually because the professor is uncom- lesbian being defined in heterosexual terms fortable with the subject or doesn't seem to "Butch- Fern" the people who played those know that much about it, or we just didn't roles just kept lesbians down. I was reading have time for it since if was at the end of the contemporary lesbian feminist thoughts syllabus, which is a nice way of not talking without knowing my history—where the about lesbianism at all. anger came from, who helped us get here,

I am always surprised to see the professors what they had to pay. who are the most liberal and many of the I remember going to an Upstate Womyn's profs, who are gay run from the topic of event and seeing a couple in their late 60's heterosexuality as oppressive and avoid early 70's. They were the oldest lesbians I discussions of themes of homosexuality in had ever seen and I was fascinated b\' them certain works. It would seem the prime but they scared me too. One was dressed very opportunity to educate people about gay "manishly" in a full gray tweed suit, black ties issues, especially in an academic setting. It and black wing tips. Her hair was slicked meant so much to me to hear the words gay back with some kind of grease. Her partner and lesbian in class that I know to anyone was wearing a white print dress, hose, and one who isn't out yet it must be like throwing a inch plain heels. She also wore make up and life line out. because you really do feel like a lot of jewelry. It makes me think of that you're the only person in the swimming pool quote in the Davis Kennedy article in which a and that heavy lunch you just ate finally hit street dyke says "there was a great difference bottom. You're going under. Without the in looks between a lesbian and her girl." I words we have no power. We don't exist. was ashamed of them somehow. 1 wanted to We remain silent. We allow the oppression. hide that part of lesbian history.

We deny ourselves. We fear each other. And I remember my roommate who found out I

I want to know where is our history? Where was gay accidentally. After the shock, she are our word? Where are our role models? asked me later if I was butch or fern because Who teaches us? Are we invisible? Do we she didn't think she could live with a butchy stay silent? dyke—she was a nurse, she had psych/soc/ I had no words. behavior classes. What the hell do they teach

Spring 1991 31 —

people in college? I told her that was a myth given one day in a womyn's studies class — and I believed it at the time, that that was a the exceptional w omon. stage of lesbianism our old history. I wanted those old dykes to disappear from our history. I think about these spaces we have been

I remember telling this to Judith and she gave given, allowed in history, in literature, in our class the Davis Kennedy article to read the defining of ourselves and Fm standing in following week. And I felt ashamed of front of the womyn's bathroom at the Castle

myself after reading the quote : — castle, a fortress to keep out invading

armies, castle, where chivalry rules, castle,

Things back then were horrible and I pull up the draw bridge. I open the door. think that because I fought like a man to There are two stalls — one without a door so

survive I made it somehow easierfor the that there are always womyn waiting for the kids coming out today / don't even toilet with some privacy. There are no

have a little money I would have nothing decorations in this room. No gay pride

to leave anybody in this world, but I have posters, no Upstate Womyn's fliers, no news

that I can leave to the kids who are bulletins, no paintings of womyn. It's just

coming out now... I wouldn' t deny it, even painted black. I stand there waiting for a stall

though I was getting my brains beaten up but men keep coming in to use this bathroom.

I would never stand up and say, 'No, Some are bi and have the nerve to proposition

don't hit me, I'm not gay.' I wouldn't do you while you're peeing. Now the drag that. queens are shooting up or fixing themselves.

I think about those buffalo womyn. I w ant to

How dare I deny them. They are my part cry. Their bar may have meant something, of our history. I wanted to tell that old couple but it's always a sad place to be. This isn't a how proud I was; I wanted to thank them place for talking, for making differences. We but 1 never saw them again. need rooms of our ow n. 1 w alk outside the

I thought about those womyn in Buttalo. bar thinking about the wom\ n inside and I

They are my ancestors, but I hesitated to want to know w here the Furies went. claim them the first time 1 read this article

over two years ago now . 1 haled the ideas of And I hear someone humnnnu

'role appropriate beha\ ior"" that seemed so prevalent in the 4()'s and 3()'s and 1 started "Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight. wondering ii the authors assumed that after Come out tonight, come out toiughi. the gay iiberalion movement in the 7()"s that Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight. those roles no longer existed as strictly? And And dance b\ the light of the moon?"

1 wondered who were bulch lesbian models?

Helerosexual men? Maybe lesbians definetl aiui liiul that il is me. masculine and feminine in different ways. I

(lon'i knou . Win tlon't I know? We are

32 Clironicli Hand Me Down

This couch I've spilled so much on

is becoming a dingy weave of wasted hours, patterned whites and tans recording events with every stain and blended shade. Marker splotches highlight the nights

I've let my studies drool onto the arms, the boredom wetting the loose cushions to my textbook and my chin. The countless times I've woken up half sprawled, crook-necked or fetal, shoved into this loveseats' two-butt width.

The scents still linger of people, of girls, who have infrequently graced either corner or the edge. A confusion of musk and smoked-out perfume, draft beer and perspiration, this low back lump of wood and soft foam seating.

Steve Brink

Spring 1991 33 Scrubbed and rubbed shiny she points up. angled to ride The esses and near eights of those scribbled mountain roads That take you surely not as the crow flies From a gas station closed, but L7'" " '"' S^^Tos^e ,Xte° Mountain Running Crowns the state.

The art is not dead, as some assure, Of jars of almost clear hot liquid

Getting hotter in that trunked up hole following That "57 Chevy into the black night.

You'll find that car. the student told me.

Full of gas and key poised in the slender slot. Ready.

The two hour drive or more is Induced by five Hamiltons

Crisp in a well-used envelope Pressed between the vinyl seat. They fund you through the dance weekend So you can proud your date Between the gates of Death Valley.

You don't know where it came from, care less of where it went. But the 200 jars behind the back seat of that near classic car

Are living, odored proof of an enterprise still enterprising

In the hills above Walhalla. While the hordes below, less fortunate for sure. Mix labeled stuff with coke and water and tonics

Or simply smoke 'till pupils try to escape The brights of lights trespassing the eyes.

Well on the outside of the county sheriff's range Or want

The sticky stuff is brewed and cooked and dripped

And loaded and sent to thirsty cracked lips. My part provides me cash enough to get educated or learned

Or taut and still taste the women and song of school.

Long live you stillers.

May you and your preserves be preserved, if only To show tomorrow's youth

The thrill Of pointed Chevrolets Running and curving the mountains

With cargo hidden and full

In the black night

Edd Golubski

34 ('liioiiicK We shook hands;

It seemed such an anemic way To say Good Bye. Formalities

That woman: Into whose mouth I had Breathed me, And breathed her back,

That woman: Around whom I Hung my everydays,

Verified to me, it was she,

That woman: Who sucked me dry. My eyes. My brain. My shaking hands.

We shook hands;

It seems such a novel way

To lie.

Edd Golubski

Spring 1991 35 — s

What's Wacky Isn't the Weed

Beverly Cooper

"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is

upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the

fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And

to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air. and to

everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life,

I have given any green herb for meat: and it was so." (Genesis)

If our representatives in government were early as 8,000 BC in the Middle East. Hemp aware of a single solution to the many textile industries were developed about the divergent problems faced by our nation today, same time as pottery. Hemp replaced papyrus wouldn't they quickly implement the plan? for paper as a vehicle for the dissemination of

Wrong. Scientists have determined there is information; in fact. The Declaration Of a plant which, if cultivated on a large scale, Independence and The United Slates could simultaneously bolster the economy, Constitution were both originall) drafted on restore our farming areas, save the environ- hemp. The sails and rigging for ships that fa- ment, prevent another oil-related crisis in the cilitated the development of worldwide com- Middle East, treat several painful diseases, merce were made from hemp, w hich made clothe us, and provide us with a recreation Columbus's trip to America possible. Hemp option. Unfortunately, it's illegal. was one of the major cash crops of the w orld

is Cannabis Hemp an environmeniali\ until the late l*-)th centur\ and in the I'nited friendly, fast-growing and multi-use plant. Its States until just before the Great Depression. byproducts are commercially usable, it grows In the 193()"s, special interest groups per- up to 12 feet in three months and can be used suaded the U.S. go\ernment to enact law for oil. fabric, paper, rope, food and as an faxoring non-renewable resources h\ lewing [icrb. The production of this plant could add a prohihiti\e lax on hemp, and e\enluall\ over a trillion dollars to the US economy, but outlaw ing its production, tlistrihulion and since the late I93()\ its cultivation has been possession. Its passage was acct>mplished banned by federal law. Most legislators, partiall) b\ scare tactics which pla\ed upon caught up in the fervor of the War on Druus. anti-Hispanic aiui anti-Black sentiment and have neglected to consider the \ei\ simple ignorance about the plant aiul effects o\'

saFie solution: legalize it. and derivative WW. In his book I he /.nipcror C'ivili/alions throughout histois liase rec- Wears No Clothes ( IMS.'i). Jack I ierer shows ogFU/ed the \ aliie ol hemp. Archaeologists Ikus anti-nKiiijuaiKi laws, ostensibly passed to

it ol agree that was one the first crops suppress the alleged drug-intluced \ iolence ol possibly ///(' first cultivated by humans, as users, especialls Mexicans and African-

36 ("lironiclc —

Americans, wore really intended to eliminate that could replace all types of fossil fuels the competitive threat ot the hemp industry. currently produced b\ industry. Material for A few powerful companies in the paper and fossil fuels—oil. coal and natural gas emerging petrochemical industry — Hearst formed from plant matter that lived over 160 Paper Manufacturing Division. Kimberly million years ago. The scientific process by Clark, St. Regis and DuPont — panicked w hich to convert living biomass to fuel when breakthroughs were made in hemp requires only a matter of hours rather than the decorticating and harvesting machinery. Oil. eons necessary to reproduce fossilized timber and bank barons maneuvered a ban material. When fossil fuel is burned, sulfur under the then obscure Mexican nickname, compressed into the material is spewed out of "marijuana," although the Spanish word for power plant smoke stacks causing acid rain hemp is actually "canamo." Most Americans, which reportedly kills 50,000 Americans and including doctors who routinely prescribed 10.000 Canadians each year according to cannabis extract medicines, thought hemp and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Fresh plant marijuana were two different plants. Dr. mass contains no sulfur and so can be James Woodward, who testified on behalf of converted into hydrocarbon-rich fuels that do the American Medical Association at the not result in this fatal phenomenon. Industri- congressional hearings, said that AMA doc- alized nations have been burning these tors hadn't realized until two days before the hydrocarbon fuels that are not part of the vote that the plant Congress intended to current ecosystem for over one hundred years, ouila>A was the same one medically known as severely disrupting the equilibrium between cannabis because it had been described in the life and climactic cycles by the release of gar- press as '"the killer weed from Mexico." Then gantuan quantities of ancestral carbon dioxide in 1937. just when fiber/liurd separating into the atmosphere. American CO, produc- machiner} had been perfected and Popular tion from burning fossil fuels will rise by 35 Mechanics declared that hemp would be a percent by the end of the century unless a billion-dollar-a-year crop, hemp was out- substitute is put into use immediately. Con- lawed. versely, fuels derived from fresh biomass are Americans continued to grow hemp clan- part of the present CO, cycle. The crop destinely, making it today the largest cash absorbs as much CO, as it grows as is released crop in the country, generating almost four into the air when it is burned: one year's times as much revenue as its closest competi- biomass fuel produces the CO, necessary for tor, corn (4 1 .6 billion per year versus 1 3.37 the next year's growth. billion according to the federal Drug Enforce- The government's major candidate to ment Administration). But this is only a small replace the dwindling fossil-fuel supply is fraction of the potential revenue. It is now wood, even while the Administration agrees estimated that a legal hemp industry would that our forests are necessary to prevent generate enough taxable income to substan- further global warming. The Bush tially reduce the national deficit. The eco- administration's plan to plant one billion trees nomic benefits for all Americans could result a year will only provide a 15 percent reduc- in a decentralized and self-sustaining econ- tion of C02 in that time {Science News, April omy and at the same time prevent us from 28, 1990), and the paper industry cuts down committing biocide. our forests at such a rale that a billion saplings It was proven in the 1970\s that plant a year cannot possibly compensate. By this mass, or biomass, can be converted to fuels logic the blanket of carbon dioxide warming

Spring 1991 37 the planet can only continue to thicken. waterway pollutant. It is also dioxin-free.

Hemp is an easily accessible and renew- The paper is stronger and has greater folding able natural resource. About 6 percent of con- durability than wood-pulp paper, and makes tiguous United States land area put into culti- superior cardboard and paper-bag products. vation for biomass could supply all of our Hemp paper is also known for its resistance to current demands for oil and gas {Energy yellowing, cracking or otherwise deteriorat-

Farming in America, Lynn Osbum). Biomass ing, and the fine print quality of hemp paper is conversion to fuel has been proven economi- equal to that of paper made from tree w ood. cally feasible in both laboratory tests and pilot The entire hemp plant is usable. The plant plant operations since 1973. Biomass has a is dried and broken down into two parts, the heating value of 5.000 to 8,000 BTU/lb with hurd and threadlike fibers. The fiber strands

\ irtually no ash or sulfur produced during can be spun into thread, which can either be combustion. Biomass conversion to fuel made into rope or \\o\'en into durable, high using p\ rolysis. the technique of applying qualitN' textiles for clothing, sails, fine linens high heal to organic matter in the absence of and fabrics of all textures and t\pes. It can be air or reduced air used to produce charcoal, woven as coarse as burlap, smooth as silk, or condensable organic liquids (pyrolitic fuel intricate as lace. Fabrics made from hemp are oil), non-condensable gasses, acetic acid. more insulating, softer, stronger, more water acetone and methanol, can allow us to convert absorbent and more durable than cotton. The to methanol-powered automobiles and reduce plant fiber holds its shape as well as polyester, emissions from coal-fired power plants. but "breathes" and is biodegradable because it

Pyrolysis uses the same technology now used is completely organic. The original Le\ i jeans to process crude fossil fuel oil and coal, so the w ere made of hemp. switch would be uncomplicated. The remaining fragments of dried stalk can

Although our forests are being destroyed at be used to manufacture non-io\ic paints and an alarming rate, it is not realistic to demand a sealants, building and other industrial fabrica- halt to construction and paper production in tion materials, plastics, and many other our present-day society. About 75 years ago. products. The seeds can be pressed lo \ ieid

United States United Stales Department of oil for cooking, lubrication, fuel, et cetera.

Agriculture (USDA) scientists Dewey and The hemp seed is a great source of protein

Merrill projected that we would deplete the w hich can be made into a breakfast cereal as it forests in our lifetime if we continued to use is in some countries, and its leaves and paper at the same rate, and so began a search flowers are also edible. The foliage has for an alternative agricultural resource for medicinal \aliie for easing pain, relieving paper products. They found that the ideal stress and treating illnesses as diverse as substitute was leftover pulp, or hurds, from glaucoma, asthma, tumors. epileps\ . muliiplc hemp harvest. USDA Bulletin 404 states thai sclert)sis. spasms, rheiiinalism. arthritis, 10.000 acres of cultivated hemp could provide migraine headaches, emphysema, and nausea

enough paper, building materials and pulp to from cancer and AIDS therap\ . The leaves

save 4 1 ,000 acres of forest. \ lemp hurds are and flowers wc kiu>w as marijimiia are richer in cellulose and contain less lignin iIkui snioketl or eaten for therapeutic, religious or wood pulp, which means that sulliir acids lelaxationa! |nnposes. used to break down lignin in wood are not Hemp IS a soil huiklnig plant, its strong necessary to the hemp paper-making process, loots ser\ ing to prevent erosion. I'he self-fer- iherebv reducini: the disehari:e oT a niaioi tili/ing. pest lesistant plant can be grown in

38 C'hronicK rotation with food crops or on marginal land Hurd and Primavera found that "smokers, where food production is not profitable. A nonsmokers and former smokers did not differ green economy based on a hemp multi- from each other in terms of social or emo- industry complex could provide income for tional adjustment, alienation, aggression, or farmers in every state. The traditional hemp reactions to frustrations" {Journal of Social fiber-growing areas in the eastern United Psycholoi^y. 1 10: 273-283, 1980). R. Jessor

States would be reinvigorated by the creation reports in Handbook on Drui^ Abuse of new jobs in an old industry. The northern ("Marihuana: a review of recent psychosocial plains, an economically devastated region, research", 1979) that "users tend to be more would prosper as the nation's energ\ -farming open to experience: more esthetically ori- states. Hemp is drought resistant, making it ented: and more interested in creativity, play an ideal crop for the dry western regions. On novelty or spontaneity than nonusers." And less productive, higher elevation lands, me- DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. dicinal and intoxicant-grade hemp could be Young made this statement: "The record on grown, as mountainous areas are well suited marijuana use encompasses five thousand for this quality of the herb. Since hemp can years of human experience ... marijuana is be farmed \'irtually anywhere, the monetary now used daily by an enormous number of power of energy will no longer be confined to people throughout the world. Estimates the small group of people who control our suggest that from 20 million to 50 million current fuel supply. However, the American Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke petroleum industry will not become obsolete marijuana w ithout the direct benefit of since their expertise, hardu are and manpower medical supervision. Yet despite this long will be crucial to the new energy industry in history of use and the extraordinarily high the process of turning raw biomass into number of social smokers, there are simply no refined fuels. medical reports to suggest that consuming Although the focus of prohibitionist propa- marijuana has caused a single death." Unlike ganda is the intoxicating and medicinal most other drugs, marijuana has an extremely qualities of hemp, industry based on these will low toxicity. It is impossible to die from an generate the least amount of capital while the overdose of marijuana. oil. textile, cellulose and energy industries In our society we tend to associate mari- will develop thousands of sustainable jobs. juana with criminal behavior automatically. Hemp grown for biomass makes very poor The most obvious link between marijuana and grade marijuana for smoking, and commercial crime is simply that we have outlawed the strains contain very little THC. production, sale, purchase and possession of

Even while recreational use has never been it. Just as with alcohol prohibition, profits to proven to have any major adverse effects, the be made from illicit trade attract organized American public continues to be bombarded drug traffickers who are notorious for with anti-marijuana hype. The very mention violence and other criminal behavior. Rele- of marijuana tends to evoke images of wild- galizing marijuana would return control to eyed malcontents who might explode into legitimate industry. uncontrollable frenzy reminiscent of the early Ignorance about marijuana and its use has propaganda film Reefer Madness, or reclusive been responsible for the unnecessary arrests of degenerates who cannot keep a job. Yet there 300.000 to 400,000 American citizens each is substantial research which exposes the year over the last 15 years. In a May 23, 1990 inaccuracy of these stereotypes. Pascale, LA Times article, the State Judicial Council of

Spring 1991 39 California complained that since drug cases Patrick Murphy. Judge Robert Sweet, fomier now make up 60 to 65 percent of all criminal Secretar\ of State George Shultz, and San prosecutions there is a backlog of civil cases Francisco Examiner editor Will Hearst. postponed indefinitely, and that San Diego There is a large legalization movement in this ceased to hear civil cases at all for a month country, led b)' man} organizations promoting recently so that they could get caught up on the use of the hemp plant to improve the the overload of drug cases. California Chief econom\ and rescue the environment. Certain Justice Malcolm M. Lucas in a State of the groups often work to protect the rights of

Judiciary address to the legislature last people who use marijuana medicinally or

February expressed concern that the increas- enjoy it recreationalh . To get invol\ ed in the ing delay in hearing civil suits has long hemp legalization movement or obtain more postponed important cases "that effect the information, contact Georgia Chapter of The environment, civil rights and other important National Organization for the Refomi of aspects of our lives." In a recent issue of Marijuana Laws (NORML) P.O. Box 821 Mondo 2000. Robert Anton Wilson observes Lithia Springs, GA 30057 (404) 739-1870: that as the Bush administration continues to Cannabis Action Network (CAN) P.O. Box ignore the warnings of judges that our courts 54528, Lexington, KY 40555 (606) 266-3218 cannot continue to take on this additional or (202) 829-9419: Business Alliance for burden, the Bill of Rights is "getting more and Commerce in Hemp P.O. Box 71093. Los more trashed each month." Angeles. CA 90071-0093 (213) 288-4152: Obviously, our government's current mari- American Civil Liberties Union, 132 West juana policy defies logic. In our current 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036. Jack economic and environmental situation we can Herer's The Emperor Wears No Clothes is hardly dismiss our most promising solution. available from H.E.M.P., 5632 Van Nuys

We must make our government see legaliza- Boulevard, Van Nuys, CA 9 1 40 1 for S 1 2.95 tion of the hemp industry as an intelligent and plus $2.00 shipping and handling. You can conscientious move in a belter direction. The also research the hemp issue at your local

idea is not radical or new . Many well-know n librar\ . an agricultural lihrar\ . historical

individuals have been speaking out in support sociel) . or a medical or legal librars . and let of legalization, including conservative your legislators and Congressmen know you columnist William F. Buckley. Mayor Kurt believe marijuana shoukl he excluded from Schoke of Baltimore, astronomer Carl Sagan. the War on Druiis. former New York police commissioner

40 ( "liionicic M J Industries Mike Marshall and Joel Jenkins

Spring 1991 41 Lunchtime Cabaret

Debbie Cravey

Sara looked the menu over with a quick Mackie. and as she quickly jotted the girl's glance, as if she hadn't been holding onto it order, she felt the stare. It gave her an for several minutes. "Do you have a lasagna uncomfortable, self-conscious feeling. Who without meat in it?" do these springy Barbie dolls think they are,

The waitress, a frazzled skeleton of a anyway? If they had to work their tails off blonde, at least forty, took a breath for every day they couldn't survive. They fall patience's sake, and shook her tilted head. helpless at the first hint of crises, only to be

Her day had started at four-thirty that morn- saved gracefully by some Cloroxed-white ing; the cat had decided to forego politeness bohunk. Mackie smiled without showing her and commenced to wailing at the morning decaying teeth and answered Sara's question. moon, pleading to the gods for a compliant 'i'U bring a basket with your water. Will lover. She had felt guilty for not having the that be all?" animal spayed months before, but its mournful cry had also reminded her that she, too. was sleeping alone. She couldn't blame the cat for feeling its isolation in the frozen quiet of the dawn, but she could resent its audacity. "Well, just give me a Greek salad and a water. Oh, and do I get one of those baskets with the crackers in them?" Sara closed her menu with decisiveness and looked for the first time into her waitress' face. It amazed her that so many people sIk ran into in this liiiic Virginia moun- tain town reminded her of her mother. 1-Acn the men. ThcN ail had a hoiiovv look lo their eyes. 1 jer own eyes slipped to the laded v\hite name tag on the wonKin's left breast. It seemed lo read "Mackle," but she couldFi'l be sure. A blotch of dried,

red sauce covered the last ol the

letters.

The waitress' name was actually itf#«j^

42 ("liroiiicic "Yes." looks like that. She longed tor atfirmation As she turned her bod\ in the direction of that she was as normal as a person could get. the kitchen. Mackie stubbed her toe. which Normal seemed to her to be the most pain-free was already swollen from an ingrown toenail, way to be. This insecurity had given birth to on the leg of the table, and longed more than her habit of talking quietly, but earnestly, to ever for a break. The indulgent pleasure of a the air. fifteen minute break was the most relaxing 'i'm in Abingdon on business. Hopefully." time of her day. How she longed to ease her She made big, exaggerated gestures with her body into one of those cold, vinyl chairs that eyebrows and mouth muscles. "They're accompanied the wobbly card table in the having auditions for Cabaret down at the break room. Often she would sit on one, Barter Theatre. It's my favorite musical, well, feeling its coldness slip past her cotton skirt, that and Little Shop of Horrors. I just loved and put her feet on another. Sometimes she Liza Minelli in the movie version. And The would line three of those chairs in a row and Barter Theatre! It's famous, you know. Gary lie across their seats, with her head facing the Collins and Ernest Borgnine both got their stained white tiles of the suspended ceiling. starts there. I would love to get the chance to

There were exactly sixty-two of those tiles. play Liza's role. She was so ...sad. I just

One in particular was her favorite. It sported want to hug her everytime I see the film. I've a large, moldy-looking, blackish-yellow bulge been acting for six years now, ever since I was in the center, obviously the result of some a freshman in college. I do mostly character kind of leak, which appeared to loom over her parts. I even played a black woman once..." as if it could drop on her face at any moment. Sara noticed that a small man in a black

It was its personal threat to her that she loved. suit coat was peering at her from a table in the

Today, however, she wouldn't get to sit in the comer. The comer was dark and lit only by break room. The owner was out of town and the neon beer signs that hung on the wall it was just her and the cook left to mind the above his head, which made his eyes appear store. Luckily, it was Wednesday and she was reddish. He saw her glance at him and he working the day shift. The restaurant hardly released a jagged grin. Sara thought he got any customers at all before late afternoon, looked like a gangster. She had stopped and only two, in fact, were there right now, becoming embarassed by people who caught since the table of truckers had left. Mackie her in her monologues. In fact, she thought of hoped the day would stay slow. them as her audience. She gave the subtlest

Sara sat upright at her table, looking nod she could muster to ackowledge his sideways at her reflection in the scratched interest, and looked again to her reflection in glass of the tabletop. She was amused at her the table. She focused on a clear, circular own vanity. She often caught herself looking stickiness on the table's surface that had for her face in the windows of parked cars or escaped erasure maybe more than once by the in the reflection of automatic doors. It gave quick sweep of a waitress" cloth. Sara was her a feeling of seeing what others saw of her happy its perserverence had been rewarded. in given situations. She had been told that she Mackie 's frame suddenly appeared in her was beautiful a few times, but rarely did peripheral vision, interrupting her thought. "1 people make her feel that way. Often she felt went ahead and brought your salad, too. as if she must look strange to others and that Would you like anything else right now?" A they didn't talk to her about it because they thin, steady hand placed a w ooden bou 1 figured she has a hard enough time living with chocked full of greens in front of her. She

Spring 1991 43 .

looked at Mackie. "I don't think she's ever been in before. 1 "No thanks." get the impression she's real hoighty-toight\ The waitress dashed off a quick something Why?" on the check (to Sara, it looked like she was "I think I'll go over and meet that girl. making a small scribble) and placed it Bring us some wine or something, "kay?" gingerly on the table, between the bowl and ''Lou, she's young. What's a man your age the water, where its dryness mixed with the want with a bird like that?" Mackie wasn't in condensation on the glass. Sara watched its love with Lou, but still she felt betrayed. He upper comer change from dry to wet as if it had been coming in for lunch every Wednes- were in slow motion. day for years. "Oops!" She called after Mackie, who had Lou didn't respond, but rather, wiped his really only just turned to walk away, "I forgot. mouth and chin with his napkin and stood up

Could I have a straw for my water, please?" to walk across the room. He stopped brietly

Mackie didn't turn around, but rather to look at Mackie. After an uncomfortable answered over her shoulder. "Sure, be right pause in which their eyes met and locked for a there with it." She paused at one table to moment, he resumed walking, saying, "Make gather some dirty plates onto her tray and sure it's a good wine." pocket the dollar's worth of quarters that had Mackie watched him stroll over to the girl, been left. They had been pretty good old but didn't want to appear too interested. She boys, even if their tip would be considered reached to get Lou's soiled plate and utensils insulting in some restaurants. That was the and placed them on her tray, then headed back trouble with working at a place this close to towards the kitchen. the interstate, she thought. Truckers are great, "Excuse me. Miss, would you mind a little for the most part, but you can't invest your company while you eat?" He stood facing energy in them. Most of them you may never Sara, his left thigh lightly brushing the lip of see again, and the ones who do come back are the table.

even more dangerous. Just as soon as you Sara's eyes widened in\ oluntariK . The start to look forward to their coming, they gangster was addressing her, and she had no don't. She used to mean it when she flirted idea why. and no idea what to say to him. She back at the good-looking ones, but she soon parted her lips as if to form words, but was got tired of them breaking her heart with their silent. Lou tilted his head in a nonvocal casual smiles, their road- weary eyes. She still "Well?." but getting nt) response, simply enjoyed the truckers, but she didn't give a stood there looking at her. The moment was damn about what they did outside these doors broken by Mackie. w ho pushed in front of" anymore. She sighed and headed for the him to place a chilled and open litre ofGallo kitchen, but stopped vshen she noticed the chablis on the table, along w ith \\\o empty

man in the corner looking her \\a\ . She w ine glasses. Sara's look went from astonish- walked instead over to his table. ment to perplex it\.

"Is everything all right. Lou?" Her "Uh. I didn't order this." ingrown toenail was beginning to throb. "I did." Lou saw his place to jump in. "I

The man leaned forward, as if to whisper, mean. 1 thought we could share some w ine aful spoke in a coughing voice. "Who is that and get actiuainted. I was watching sou from girl over there?" His lace remained serious. o\er there." \\ ilh this pioelamation. he Mackie searched his c\es lor a glimmer ot pointed to w here he had eaten his lunch, and mischief. the eyes ol" both Sara and Mackie Ibllowed his

44 (Miroiiielc tossed the limp paper to the table and started searching

his pants pocket for a lighter. "So who were you talking to?" He pulled one of those

silver lighters with the lids on them from under the table

and flicked it ablaze. "Talking to?"

"You know. When I was watching you."

"Oh, I guess I was just talking to myself." He took a slow drag on

the thin white stick in his mouth and clicked his lighter

shut. He didn't look at her. "What were you saying to yourself?" Sara thought for a moment. "I was talking about the auditions for a play finger to the abandoned table. They all stared that Lm thinking about going to." at the comer for a heavy moment, then Sara "A play? Which one?" found her voice. "'Cabaret. They're putting it on at the

'*0h. Well. Do 1 thank you? Maybe you Barter. I would just love to get a part in that should sit down."' She gestured to the seat show." She thought she should be polite and across from her. Lou scooted into the chair, pour them both a glass of the wine. and looked up at Mackie as if to say "That's "You wanna be an actress?" all. Go away." "Oh yes." Sara exclaimed, excited to get The faded waitress grudgingly took her the chance to talk about her passion. "But the cue. Sara watched the other woman's feet as competition is very, very tough. That's why I they lifted and fell and lifted again until they also plan to be a playwright in my spare disappeared behind the swinging door to the time." kitchen. She took a silent breath and looked Lou sucked hard on his Camel and looked at the man who had made himself comfortable up at his new acquaintance. "Isn't the across the table. He was quite wrinkled playwriting business just as tough?" around his small black eyes, and his chin was "Well, yeah, I guess so. But I'm pretty covered with patches of a salt-and-pepper sure I'll make it acting one of these days." stubble. He reached into the inside breast Lou smiled at this bit of self-assurance. He pocket of his jacket and retrieved an open took a long time to ask his next question, pack of Camel Lights. She sat silently making the silence last by alternately sipping watching as he took the last cigarette in the his wine and smoking. Finally he spoke. pack, placed it between his dry lips, and "Do you live here in Abingdon?" crushed the empty package in his hand. He "No. I'm only here for the weekend. If I

Spring 1991 45 get the part. Fll rent a room or something. It's looking man. She couldn't make out what bad luck to make plans about a show before either was saying. They talked for a few you're cast." minutes, as if they were friends, but they were Seeming pleased with this response, Lou both very serious, like each was trying to leaned back and stared at the young girl's sway the other's opinion. She saw the man face. Sara had a thought that maybe she reach into his back pocket for his wallet. He should be a little more guarded in her ex- turned around and mumbled something about changes with strangers, but she had always buying her lunch, too. She suddenly realized been this way, and besides, this man was that she didn't even know his name. Oh well, intriguing. Her eyes darted to his ring finger. easy enough to find that out. Empty. He finished paying and walked over to look

"Would you like me to show you some of at the painting with her. "You ready?" he my favorite places in Abingdon?" asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and

He had said it so casually that Sara won- leaning his mouth towards her ear. dered if he had said it at all. Did this total She nodded and allowed him to lead her to stranger want her to just up and leave with the door. Mackie sat and watched them leave, him? How dare he just expect her to trust him leaning her elbows on the counter. She like that? And yet. perhaps u hat she read in watched as he unlocked the passenger side of his squinted eyes was pure adventure. The his pale blue Buick and opened the door for pure adventure that crops up in everyday life, the girl. Once she was buckled into her seat, of which she was always slightly expectant. he swung her door shut and scurried lo his

"That sounds like fun." own side and got in. Mackie saw the faint His facial expression did not change. He blue puffs of exhaust shoot from behind the took a last draw on the cigarette and crushed it car, and she watched as he backed out o\' the powerfulK into the bottom of the ashtray. space. She strained her eyes trying to see the

"Good. Let's go." face of the girl through the glass of the car's

"What about all this wine we have left?" windows, but all she could see was a silhou-

Sara felt a wave of fear that perhaps she had ette. The silhouette turned tow ard the dri\ er lost control of the situation. and nodded. She w atched the taillights o\' the

"Leave it." he said as he stood up, gestur- car as it pulled out of the parking lot. Then ing with his hand to help her out of her seat. she watched the space w here the car had been. She look his hand, feeling a scaly dryness Letting out a stale breath that she had been against her skin. She clicL however, like the absentmindedi) holding. Mackie returned her firm grasp ot his fingers. Standing up. she focus to the aged tabloid that la\ spraw led followed him towards the cash register, where across her counter, yearning for her attention.

Mackie sal reading a month-old Nutioiuil Her glance sweeped across the page, snagging

IjK/iiircr. Sara didn'l remember seeing ihe on an atl\ ertisenient in the corner for a cat wailress go past her on the way from ihe lover's calender olTer. it w as sponsored by

kilchcn to the counicr. The woman's appear- Purina Cat Chow . the people w ho made her ance here almost siariicd Sara with a spooky, own cat's laxorite footl. With a sudden ineiafihysical teeling. and she hung back, nourish, she reached into her pocket for her pivlcfuling lo look al a painting of an old harn tickethook and pen. and began to jot dov\n the vkIiicIi luiiiLi on the uall. She uatchcii as ihc details ol the oiler. wailress placed her /ju/uircr flal down on the counter before speaking to the gangster-

46 Chronicle reciprocal

1 listen

My ears bloom.

I hear everything at once.

I listen hard to soft sounds, membranes thin as wasp's wings vibrate. Tiny hairs that line cochlea quiver like antennae on shrimp.

I hear small green shoots pushing up the damp soil to stretch

pinkish roots down like nerves. I hear waves of wind spreading the clouds into wide spirals of sound.

2 speak

voice sealed

in, my own

lips slit on the paper edge of the envelope. taste of blood

filling mouth. my teeth

melt in this warmness. my trachea

is a ring of burning. my throat

is swallowing my tongue alive.

Beverly Cooper

47 h\ oria

Here are a few finings I am angry abouf this issue. Days after policemen in Los Angeies and then New York showed Americans in ways they couldn't ignore that police brutality is alive and well, the Supreme Court ruled that coerced confessions will, for the first time in American history, be admissable in court. Although the Justices qualified the ruling, they have cleared the way for police to beat confes- sions out of suspects without the fear that the sus- pects will be turned loose on this ''technicality'' (now a '^harmless error"). In Utah, abortion is now considered a crime punish- able by firing squad. The South Carolina Legislature is considering a bill that would outlaw all abortions except those in which the mother's life is in danger. The Cracker Barrel recently fired nine employees because they were gay. As of now there is no civil protection forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation. The federal Civil Rights Amendment Act would add affectional and sexual orientation to the list of classes protected from discrimination by the

1 9M Civil Rights Act and the 1 968 fair Housing Act. Your call of support may help speed up this long- overdue correction. Executive Staff

Editor- In-Chief Susan Wethington Co-Manaqing Editor Russell Hallauer Co-Managing Editor Rebecca Morris Poetry Editor Beverly Cooper features Editor Cecilia Herles fiction Editor Kris McGuire Art Editor Just Jenn Todd Business Manager Harry Conner Advertising Manager Trip Godwin Promotions Director David McManus Designer Mike Lusk Contributing Artist Jack Welsh Media Adviser Julie Walters-Steele faculty Advisers Mark Steadman Lynn Craig

Special Thanks fa Martin Printing, Inc. Debbie Williams

Art Board Poetry Board Michael Caron Harry Conner Rebecca Morris Russell Hallauer Jennifer Petroff Beth Lyons Rebecca Morris '^^^ ~r y