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Fall 2004, Volume 30, Issue 2 The University ofAlabama at Birmingham COVER ART BY DOUG BAULOS FROM HIS SERIES WHEEL OF LIFE Aura literar_y arts rev1ew
Volume 30, Issue 2 Fall 2004
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Office of Student Publications HUC 1351530 3rd Ave. South Birmingham, AL 35294-1150 Phone- 205.934.3216 Fax - 205.934.8050 Email - [email protected]
$6.00 Copyright © 1974-2004 Aura Literary Arts Review. No part of this publica tion may be reproduced in any way, shape or form without the express writ ten consent of the artist in question. All rights revert to each respective artist after publication in this magazine. For information on reaching an artist in regard to republication of work, feel free to contact the magazine.
ISSN 0889-7433 Aura Literary Arts Review
Editor-in-Chief Carl Chang
Associate Editors Michael Davis Laurel Mills Christina Schmitz
Art and Design Editor Jacqueline Homm
Faculty Advisor Tony Crunk
Student Publications Advisor Amy Kilpatrick
Aura Literary Arts Review is a semi-annual publication funded through the Board of Student Publications at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Aura Literary Arts Review is staffed entirely by graduate and undergraduate students of the uni versity. All proceeds from advertising and the sale of the magazine go to help fund both Aura and the other student publications of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Submission Guidelines All submissions should be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Without such, no response will be offered in regard to publication, nor will the submission be returned. Please do not send previously published work or simultaneous submissions. Both will be automatically rejected.
All submissions of relatively great length (short stories, essays, plays, etc.) should include a copy of the work in electronic format (prefer ably on diskette).
Submissions of poetry should not include more than five poems and should not total more than ten (10) typed, double-spaced pages.
Visual artwork of all forms is accepted; slides are preferred but not required.
Aura Literary Arts Review supports the literary and artistic talents of the residents of Alabama. Any submissions from outside the state of Alabama will not be considered.
Please include a copy of the artist's name on each page of written work or on the back of each piece of visual artwork (if this is possi ble). Contact information for the artist should also be easily accessible.
Advertising/Sponsorship/Subscription Information Advertising opportunities as well as sponsorship opportunities are available. Subscriptions to Aura Literary Arts Review are also avail able. Please contact the magazine for more details.
Contact Information Aura Literary Arts Review University of Alabama at Birmingham HUC 135 1530 3rd Ave. So. Birmingham, AL 35294 Phone: (205) 934-3216 Fax: (205) 934-8050 Email: [email protected] Table of Contents editor's introduction ...... ix
.E>ark.sdale-Ma!:Jnard Frize Winners Poetry Noel Scott Poor Memory ...... 129
Fiction Ramey Channell Voltus Electricalus and Strata Illuminata ...... 130
Foems Kate Asson Rabbit...... 116
Jerma Bazzell Still Waiting ...... l26
Ivey Brown Rejects ...... 79
Ramey Channell In Belfast ...... 54
Tina Harris At a Poetry Reading at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church...... l Pray Without Ceasing ...... 2
Ann Hoff Sestina ...... 4
Ashley Hulsey The moon has been slipped ...... 71 Demon Possessed ...... 72
Aisha Johnson I Can Fly ...... 84
Clifton Kelly Your Back Porch ...... 51 What a Girl Can Do ...... 52
Jennifer Land Indigenous ...... 127
Susan Sailors Watcher ...... 120
Brent Stauffer Treasure ...... 82 Western lllusion of Separation...... :--fl~
~ ~~ceSteel 4:32 am ...... 39 Living...... 40
Madison Stubblefield at a cactus ...... 80
Chris Tidwell Clothespin...... 85
Brandy Yates Ruby of the Desert Sky ...... 86
Quinn White the need to heal her blush...... 107 Pale Blue Opening...... 108
Stor:l Tony Crunk The Kid With Two Fathers ...... 16
Short Stor:l Thomas Goldstein Moving Toward the Gul£...... 6
Mike Herndon Luke Skywalker ...... 41
Catherine Roth Evergreen...... 74
Creative Nonfiction Doug Baulos Near the Hill of the Poisoned Tree ...... l03
Reagan Rhone Fishing the Cahaba ...... 109
Miranda Wade Who's Afraid of the Big Brown Turd? ...... 121
Visual Art John Butler Untitled ...... 23 Japanese Charcoal...... 24
Erin Childress Haley ...... 25 Jason ...... 26
Christopher Dang One Day ...... 27 ~ ~ustan Creech The Breaker Boys ...... 28 "= The BreadLine ...... 29 A Look Back ...... 30 Distance ...... 31
Gene Ferreiro Perception ...... 32 Tree-form...... 33
Michael Lukacovic Untitled ...... 34 Untitled ...... 35
Amber McLeroy Timeless ...... 36 Fork Schmork...... 37 Roman in Motion ...... 38
Lindsay Mouyal Self portrait...... 55 Cattails ...... 56 Woven...... 57 Everything's better in 3' s ...... 58
Gloria Nuckols Untitled ...... 59 Untitled ...... 60 Untitled ...... 61 Girl with Flowers ...... 62
Stephanie Sides Dreaming...... 63 The Future ...... 64 Self Portrait...... 65
Yosuke Sho Incomplete Trinity ...... 66 Diagonal Relationship of a cube ...... 67
Paul Cordes Wilm Fashion Talker ...... 68 Mr. Bright Ideas ...... 69 Loaded Conversation 1...... 70
Quin Zhang Series ...... 87
Doug Baulos Wheel of Life (Series) ...... 95
Contributors ...... 133
Cover Art b~ Doug !)aulos
\ Colophon
Aura Literary Arts Review is printed by Alabama Web Press in quantity of 400 copies per issue. Paper used for text is 70# Exact Text, Natural. Paper used for 16-page visual art inserts is 70# Cougar Opaque Text, White. The cover is printed on 80# Dull Cover, White. This issue is 144 pages in length.
The editorial process is performed with QuarkXPress 6.1 running on a Dell Precision 360 PC with Microsoft Windows XP. All visual artwork was sub mitted electronically and toned in Photoshop 6.0.
Fonts used are Papyrus for title-level headings on pages, names on Contributors page; Perpetua for issue information on Title Page, titles on visual artwork pages, text on inside cover; Garamond for contact informa tion on Title Page; Arial Rounded MT Bold for page headers and page numbers; Imprint MT Shadow for artist names on visual artwork pages; Book Antiqua for general text; Comic Sans MS for the non-heading text on the Story pages.
Images of the frame provide a window into the creative worlds of litera ture and art. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Art and literature and Alabama. For many of us who grew up in the state of Alabama, mentioning those terms in the same breath invited cynical ridicule and sad laughter. Art and literature in Alabama?-irreconciable, a contradiction in terms. Art and literature were created in places like New York or San Francisco. These were live, vibrant places, and many of us young people wanted to escape to them, away from the dead carcass of culture. This place we referred to as home, "Alabama," was uttered with a sarcastic smile followed by a wistful sigh and shaking of one's head. Art and literature and Alabama. As editor of this mag azine, those terms together don't seem so strange anymore. They resonate with credibility as well as hope and potential. This issue is the second of the new direction for Aura. We no longer look to places like New York or San Francisco for great material to publish. We only have to look around where we live and see the wealth of culture developing and multiplying in Alabama. New art galleries seem to be springing up by the week in Birmingham, and universities such as UAB now offer concentrations of study to accomodate the region's aspiring creative writers, who like the artists draw upon the great liter ary and artistic traditions from around the world but also sketch the kudzu in our backyards or chronicle the delightful devourment of barbecue in Alabama. This issue showcases many of the true talents in Alabama including established writers and artists such as Tony Crunk, selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets-the most prestigious award for a first poetry book in America- and Doug Baulos whose visual artwork and poetry has been exhib ited/published both nationally and internationally. We also feature writers and artists at the dawn of their careers such as Clifton Kelly, Quin Zhang, and many more. Some of the works found here are centered on places unique to Alabama. Tina Harris's descriptions of transformation from flesh to word in "Poetry Reading at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church" takes place in a church in Birmingham. Other works capture the feel of a small town in Alabama as with Thomas Goldstein's
ix "Moving Toward the Gulf," depicting the narrator and his fam ily's return to a town with a unique twist on memory and iden tity. We are also fortunate in being able to present the winners of UAB 1s Barksdale-Maynard Prizes, Noel Scott for poetry and Ramey Channell for fiction. In addition to the artwork for the covers, Doug Baulos1s Wheel of History series has provided us with a theme for this issue. His frames and windows remind us of a perspective into history and creativity. Reproduced in several pages of this issue, the frames and windows tell us that freedom and limita tions are not irreconcilable, a contradiction in terms when describing artistic creation. Only through a medium with inher ent limitations does an artist perform. Freedom is experienced when the bounds of the canvas or a piece of paper is transcend ed. When words on a page or paint on a canvas reaches out to their viewers and delights us or saddens us, art becomes a form of freedom in its creation and participation. Those who appre ciate the work, the audience, also experience this freedom. The freedom to create is not just in the hands of the artists and writ ers but also in the community, those who support and nurture artistic creation. Art and literature in Alabama. With our new focus, Aura is devoted to supporting the artistic and literary commu nities in Alabama. As a forum to showcase work and share ideas, we also plan to be active in hosting/ participating in var ious artistic and literary activities. (Look for an Aura-hosted art show or literature reading near you.) Though still in develop ment, we aim for our website to be a destination for aspiring and established writers and artists-a place to receive feedback on their work and to provide the same helpful constructive crit icism for others. We hope you share our recognition that art and literature is alive and kicking in Alabama but continues to need the nurturing support of an appreciative audience and community. Thank you for your support and I hope you enjoy this issue.
-Carl Chang
X Aura poetry
Tina Harris
AT A POETRY READING AT ST. ANDREW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Again I find myself sitting in a hushed pew.
Tonight, I 1m here to witness the transformation of flesh into words. Now, I don't count how many times the speaker says "dream," "labor," or "love," the way
I once counted, as a child, the preacher's use
of II redemption," II fire," and II uh," just as my eyes no longer trace the various paths to the cross made by the metal frames of the stained glass. Still I listen, searching like other hungry souls for something more to live by than bread alone.
1 Aura poetry
Tina Harris
PRAY WITHOUT CEASING
Aunt Joan talks to Jesus all day; today she stepped out on her porch, said, "Jesus, it's hotter than hell out here," then leaned over to me, whispered,
"You have to remind Him sometimes to have mercy." After she tells mama to go to hell and hangs up on her, she breathes softly, "God, have mercy" shaking her head.
I've stayed here for months, but still jump when Aunt Joan hollers "Jesus H. Christ" the same way she belts out "Micheal G. Carpenter," so I'll come running. She claims Jesus, like God, enjoys resting, and she has to holler to wake Him. When Aunt Joan asked
God to damn that trucker to hell for swerving into our lane, Mama started in on her, called her a hypocrite for taking a switch to me for saying "hell," when she says it. Aunt Joan didn't take her
2 Aura poetry eyes off the road, just said, "You don't know what I am, and I'll beat devil praises out of your son's mouth, like 'hell, yea' as long as he's living with me." Once after Mom left,
I punched the window. Aunt Joan grabbed my cut fist, and pleaded "God bless it." When I asked her why she said that, she hugged me close, told me "If I don't teach you to ask, when will you ever receive?"
3 Aura poetry
Ann K. Hoff
SESTINA
In the colors of leaves as colors go cold, he finds home, or in the shape of a well-worn rock whose fluent shape seems made to fit in his calloused hand-
A work-hardened hand, though not by necessity. But sixty years leaves its mark at any rate. His daily venerations to his home have pumiced him; given a smoothness and shape as they did the rock
he holds. His name means rock even-Peter-a man to whom a God might hand a history. Or children to shape to color, to adorn. He leaves a legacy at least, a home worth coming from, and his
Disciples know they're his. They were carved by him of rock and strength and years. Imbued with home, their paths away open like a hand waving, as each will do the day she leaves. She may seek at first a finer shape,
at first, a carven, sculpted, polished shape more deliberate or refined than his, a delicacy as diaphanous as the veins of leaves and shun a while the bluntness of a rock. At length she'll find one in her hand, smooth as home
4 Aura poetry as graceful and as sound as home. It is, after all, a subtle shape that can cool the palm of a frantic hand. It is an elemental habit of his, she will recall, to find familiar the smoothness of a rock or the color of the leaves as colors go cold. There is home in that habit of his, in the rightness of a rock.
5 Aura short story
Thomas Goldsmith
MOVING TOWARD THE GULF
"Cohen's," written in wide, light gray, cursive letters, is still visible through the whitewash on the brick facade above the double glass doors. It's like trying to read something through thick fog. My father, my cousin Larry, and I are stand ing in front of the department store my great-grandparents once owned on Central Boulevard. I never met my great grandparents, or my grandparents, for that matter. I have the same name as the faded and cracked one on the old brick in front of me, but it does little to arouse any sense of familial pride or connection to this place. This is my first trip in mem ory to Bigbee, the small, southwest Alabama town where my father's family took root many generations ago. My father and I have brought our elderly cousin Larry on a day trip from his nursing home in Montgomery. He has been in Mount Haven for the past seven years. He was sent there after a devastating car accident that should have killed him. Before the wreck, Larry could be described as quirky or eccentric. Now, names for him are not so kind. As far as we can tell, he has adopted the vocabulary and accent of his black nursemaid from Bigbee in the 1930s. He is skinny, bald, and slightly hunchbacked, with large flat feet and thick Buddy Holly-style eyeglasses. He slaps his feet slowly around the nursing home saying things like, "Is this where us is in the mawnin? 0 lawd," and "Get out my kitchen fo I slap you bawlheaded." Some who hear him are understanding; some are offended; and others, usually with lit tle success, try not to laugh. "Larry, you remember the store, don't you?" my father asks. Larry turns toward my father and moves his jaw from left to right several times. "Fo sho. This where I be in de mawnin," he answers. "Where' s that, Larry?" I ask him. He stares at me. "You're in Bigbee," I tell him. "Iiey! I from Bigbee, honey." He then a.sks, "So wha.t are we doing here?" It doesn't happen very often, but I'm always surprised
6 Aura short story when he speaks in a normal manner. "First we're going over to your old bank," my father answers. "Whose an old bank?" "No, to your old bank. First National." "First National," Larry parrots. "There be lots of firsts in the nation, honey." My father just shrugs his shoulders at me. Strolling down Central Boulevard, I realize that Bigbee is one of those towns one can find so often in rural Southern states: a once vibrant cotton-belt community that hasn't kept up with time. It is endangered, threatened by the changing world around it like native tribes in the Amazonian rain forests. We pass a park separating one side of the boulevard from the other. A stone statue of a Confederate soldier stands on a pedestal beneath an oak tree. The brim of his hat curves over his brow as he looks stoically toward a small group of houses and a Kwiki Mart at the end of the street. The park is covered with historical society plaques reveling in the bits and pieces of Bigbee's role in a war that seems to have turned the town into some kind of shabby Southern time capsule. I cross the street to read the plaques about minor skirmishes in the cotton fields outside of town, and about a house down the street where a group of men gathered before heading east to face Sherman. Another recounts troops coming through Bigbee on their way to New Orleans. On Central Boulevard, on this late Friday morning, the plaques outnumber the visible resi dents. I cross back to see Larry slapping his feet along the side walk. My father walks beside him, talking and pointing to buildings. Sunlight reflects off quartz specks in the cement. I look back toward the Confederate soldier. Two men are walk ing in our direction on the other side of the street. They seem to be watching us. I guess they recognize my father and Larry. A block and a half down we get to the First National Bank of Bigbee. I hold the door open for Larry and my father. An elderly woman behind a desk sees us and picks up her tele phone. She hangs up the receiver after a brief conversation and stands to address us. "Hey Lee. How are y'all today?" Her hose rub together as she walks. It sounds like
7 Aura short story locusts descending upon us. She and my father shake hands. "How are you, Pearl?" my father asks. "Just fine, fine. Getting along the best I can." She watches Larry take off his glasses and rub his eyes. "Well that's all we really can do, now isn't it," my father says. She pays no attention to his response. She looks at me. "And you just have to be Stephen," she says. "Yes Ma'am." "You probably don't remember me. It's been," and she pauses for moment to take a deep, dramatic breath, "such a long time." I hear heavy steps behind us. "Lee Cohen, you old donkey." An enormous man with shaggy salt and pepper hair and a fading blue and white seersucker suit is taking enormous strides in our direction. He and my father shake hands. "How are you, Lee?" he asks. "Doing great, Pete. Good to see you." "Good to see you, too. Larry, they treating you OK over at Mount Haven?" Pete asks. Larry stares at him, then holds out his hand. Pete shakes it. "Japanese nurses, in de mawnin'," Larry responds. Pearl blushes and returns to her desk. Pete chuckles quietly. "I hear you, Larry." "How's your mama?" my father asks Pete. "Getting along. She's living at the house with me and Charlene and the girls." He then booms in my direction, "And I believe you are Stephen. My God, I haven't seen you in I don't know when. I know you don't remember, but you and your daddy used to come by and visit me and Larry every now and then. That was before, well, you know," and he stops to look at Larry. "Welt how about we go on upstairs. Stephen, you can look around up there where you used to play when you could barely talk, you and Ms. Pearl did," he says. I'm trying, but I don't remember ever being in the bank. There is no flash of memory, no hazy photograph from early life.
Upstairs, Larry and I sit in a conference room. My father is in Pete's office across the hall. The conference room's
8 Aura short story walls are covered with murals depicting Bigbee's past. One shows a handful of Confederate soldiers keeping hundreds of Union troops at bay. Another shows a city leader giving a speech on the steps of Bigbee's oldest and largest antebellum home. We continue to stroll around the room, Larry's flat feet making tracks in the thick carpet as if he were shuffling through sand. We come to a mural of Bigbee's early settlers shaking hands It sounds like with Alabama Indian chiefs. "I like him," Larry says point locusts ing to an Indian in particularly elabo descending rate dress. He leans in closer, then looks back at me, grinning. "He upon us. wearin' bedroom slippers in the woods, in the mornin'! I wonder where he wear 'em now." "I don't know, Larry. He's probably fishing down at the river." Larry turns back to the mural and stares. I leave Larry smelling the mural and walk across the hall. The door to Pete's office is slightly open. I listen as Pete says to my father, "There is nothing to indicate the foreclosure was in any way illegal. Wade's insistence that Larry was somehow negligent in his duties is still completely unfounded. The wreck and Larry's behavior prior to it have made Wade's case stronger to those who don't know any better. Wade is a very proud man, Lee. He's got to blame the loss of his farm on somebody, any body but himself. Unfortunately, some folks started to listen to him after they found Larry in the store." I don't know who Wade is, but I do know the story of the department store. Larry walked into Cohen's one after noon not long before the wreck. After awhile, the counter lady hadn't seen him, so she went to see if he needed help. She found him in a dressing room with the door open and panties and bras hanging from everywhere. He was just sitting in there feeling them. She called her manager, who, after several tries, escorted Larry out, and the story was all over town before he even made it home. "Now I know getting caught in the dressing room feel ing panties don't make you a crook, Lee. Makes you crazy as a shit house rat, but not a crook. No offense." "None taken." He pauses, and I hear a chair swivel. "Still nothing new?" I hear my father ask softly.
9 Aura short story
"Nope. Like I said before, there is nothing to implicate Larry of any wrongdoing. The fact that the dam and lake got made on Wade Chisolm's land soon after the bank foreclosed is a coincidence, one Wade can't deal with. A few other folks think it's fishy too, but I just can't find anything to cover up not that I would, mind you." I smell cigarette smoke coming from the room. "But listen to me, Lee. Just because there isn't proof doesn't mean there aren't people here that want to see some harm come to Larry. Wade is an influential man when it comes to hate. You know that. That's one of the reasons y' all and most of the other Jewish people left here. I wouldn't let Larry out of your sight while you're here, and, you know, I probably wouldn't stay here too long anyhow. It's not the Bigbee we grew up in. Just trying to be realistic about this." "I know you are, Pete, and I appreciate it," my father says. "Wade Chisolm is definitely not one to forgive and for- get." "Didn't somebody help him get a new place not too far back?" my father asks. "Yeah, but it's not nearly as big. Away from the river, too." I hear the window go up. Then nothing. I imagine them smoking cigarettes in big leather chairs, smoke slithering toward the open window and out over the town. Then my father speaks angrily. "Well, dammit, Pete, there's got to be some resolution to this thing. This is where I'm from." "You haven't taken a good hard look around lately. Where our generation is from isn't around anymore. The Wade Chisolms of the world have sunk their teeth in every where. Where you're from is still there, Lee. You might not be able to see it anymore, but its still there. Stephen's a smart kid. Teach him right, and you'll see where you're from in him, too." "Thanks, Pete. I'm sorry. I just get a little frustrated sometimes." Then from behind me I hear Larry whisper, "What us is, Mr. Stephen?" "Larry," I say, spinning around to face him. His hand is cupped behind his ear. "Stephen?" I hear my father call. I grab Larry by the
10 Aura short story arm, and we walk into Pete's office. My father is putting his cigarette out at the window with his back to us. "We're getting hungry," I tell him. "Good. I was just about to come find y'all for lunch. Pete, you want to join us at C-Dell' s?" "No thanks, Lee. I've got a lot of work to do, but I'll walk you down." Back outside, the same two men I saw before sit across the street, watching us silently. The watchers lean back on their elbows, legs sprawling down the post office steps. I watch their heads moving as we walk toward our car in front of the department store. "What is C-Dell' s?" I ask my father. "C-Dell is a person and a barbecue joint. He's an old friend of mine, a tenant farmer who worked land my parents used to own near the river. He cooked the best barbecue in the county and loved to do it, so after a while, with some help from our family, he was able to quit farming and start his restau rant." I open the car door for Larry, who uses it and the roof to crouch slowly toward the seat like he was easing into frigid water. Once down to a safe height, he releases his grip and falls into the back seat with "Ohhhhh" slowly rattling to an end deep in his esophagus. "Have you seen him in awhile?" I ask. "No, I haven't. One of the reasons why I wanted to come to Bigbee today. I heard he's been sick." One of the watchers is still reclined as the other uses a pay phone just down the street. They turn in unison to watch us like they are each an eye in the same head. It seems they're watching with a slow and empty curiosity, like this day is no different from any that has been or will be and the only thing helping to break the awful stillness of their lives is the sun reflecting off the hubcaps of my father's car. Before I can stop thinking of the watchers, we are at C Dell' s, a small, gray cinder block building with smoke rising from a low chimney. I watch Larry raise tiny tornadoes as he shuffles through the red dirt of the parking lot. We enter, and I fill my lungs with sweet, hickory and pork-saturated air. A few men sit at a tiny bar in the back right corner. Three tables are occupied.
11 Aura short story
"Have a seat over there," my father says, pointing to a corner table in the front window. "I'm going to say hello to C Dell." He disappears through an old wooden door, and Larry and I sit down. "You wash them hands good now, honey," Larry calls after him. Everyone looks at Larry except the men at the bar, who haven't moved a muscle. They look like props, like C-Dell took cardboard cutouts from a movie set to use as customers. Larry is watching the people around him eat. He looks over at me. "I need some pork," he says in his normal voice. He unrolls his napkin to let a fork and knife drop gen tly into his wrinkled hand. He puts the napkin in his lap and places the fork to the left and the knife to the right of where his plate will be. Making sure they are straight, he flips the knife over so the teeth face outward. He folds his hands in his lap and sits. A skinny, young black girl brings us water. My father returns. "Did you order yet?" "No. I thought you would know what's best." He motions to the waitress. "We'll take three plates, large, and three iced teas." As she turns away from us, the front door to C-Dell' s swings open, and a thin, leathery man walks in. The watchers follow him. They walk straight to the bar, and I hear them order beer. The first man looks over to our table as he drinks. Our food arrives. I hear the crushing of a beer can, and anoth er opening, and I see the leathery man looking at our table. He's looking at Larry, who is taking slow bites of baked beans. They trickle down his chin and fall back to his plate. I hear footsteps and look toward the bar. The man is walking toward our table. "How you doing, Lee?" the man asks as he puts both hands on our table. His fingers are cracked and dirty. "Wade." "You boys come back for some, uh, sight-seeing?" "We're just getting Larry out for a few hours. Thought we'd come for some barbecue." "Well ain't that real nice of you, getting poor old Larry
12 Aura short story out for awhile. I been out clearing some trees for an extra field on my farm. Don't have quite as much room as on my old place, but it'll do for now." I see Wade's right eye twitch as he watches Larry move beans from one side of his plate to the other. He leans down closer to Larry. "Said I don't have as much room as on my old place. You probably already know that, don't you, Larry." Wade is almost whispering now. "I bet you're just dying to say something, to unburden yourself. I bet if I asked real nice, you'd open that goddamned, snaggle toothed Jew mouth of yours and tell us all what we need to know." Larry stares at his beans. "Well, it'll rise to the top at some "I need point, I reckon. It's been building and some pork," building, and one day it's going to just he says ... gush on out, isn't it, fake retard?" Wade takes a sip of beer, holding it in his mouth for a moment, then sprays foam in Larry's face. I'm up and moving. My heart pounds as I shove the man from our table. He falls onto a table behind him. I keep moving. "Stephen, that's enough," my father says. "Well, I see somebody's all grown up. Just think, boy, when you get old you can act like a retard too," Wade says pointing at Larry. A trembling drop of beer hangs from Larry's nose. "Stephen, we're leaving. Help Larry." I wipe Larry's face and shirt with paper napkins and help him to his feet. "Wade, I'm filing a restraining order against you. Stay the hell away from us," my father says. "You scared I might try to hurt your son or the retard here?" Wade asks. "Well you should be scared, Lee Cohen. You should be scared about the ever after and your goddamn lying souls. Isn't no restraining order going to save you from that." Larry begins to mumble to himself. "Guilt will make you do things. Won't it, Larry? Made him act crazy. Larry, don't spend all that money they gave you on pudding and pharmaceuticals, OK. Good seeing y' all again. Have a real nice day." Wade walks back to the bar, straightens his shirt, and sits down with his beer.
13 Aura short story
On the way out Larry asks me, "Who's him that skeet- ed beer on me?" "Nobody, Larry." "I hadn't tasted no beer in a long time." He's smiling. We get in the car and drive to the edge of town to the old Jewish cemetery where most of our family is buried. Larry will probably be here soon, too. My father pulls a bunch of fresh flowers from the back seat, and we walk to the edge of the cemetery, Larry's arm hooked in mine. It looks as though the large iron gate has been recently painted. The hinges move silently. My father says our family plots are at the far end of the cemetery, so we begin walking past austere rows of gray markers. They remind me of Mount Haven, of the residents lining the halls. Some lean stiffly over their walkers. Others sit slumped in wheelchairs, vacant eyes staring at reflections in the slick green floor tiles. I think Larry sees it, too. We stop. I feel his arm loosen in mine, and I'm startled to feel the touch of his hand, his bony fingers closing around my hand like a bird' s foot on a branch. I look straight into his eyes, huge and lumi nous behind the thick square lenses of his glasses. All I can do is smile gently and resume our walk. Our family plots sit high on the white chalk banks of the Black Warrior River. I hear the dry clicking of branches against one another in the breeze, and I think of children sword fighting. Larry and I watch the murky river making its way toward Mobile Bay and the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I throw a rock into the water below. Rings of energy spread from the impact and diffuse outward like smoke into the air. My father brushes bird droppings from his parents' marble headstones and replaces the old flowers with new ones. "This is a beautiful spot, Stephen," Larry says, staring out over the water. "Sure is," I say. "I guess we'll all be here one day, too." I watch wisps of white breath slip from his lips. "I know we will, Stephen." He turns to look at me. "Thank you, sweet boy." The ride home is a quiet one. My father finds a classi cal station on the radio. I drift in and out of sleep as Larry sits silently in the back seat, reeking of sour beer. It's twilight when we reach Mount Haven. Birds' black silhouettes rise from trees into the fading sky. I stay in the car as my father
14 Aura short story escorts Larry inside. I watch them walking together, Larry's hunched back bobbing toward the sliding glass doors. My father turns back to look at me as they walk, and I wonder who we are.
15 Aura story
Tony Crunk
THE KID WITH Two FATHERS
One of them was Frank, who drove a dump truck at the quarry and had a tattoo on his leg that Jimmy wasn't supposed to stare at. The kid's name was Jimmy.
But Buddy Wright down the street said, "He's not your real father, he's just your mother's boyfriend living off the child support from your real father, who's a drunk and he lives over in Grayson County now, my sister said so."
Jimmy said, "Shut up Buddy Wright, he is so my father."
And Buddy Wright said, "You shut up you little punk, you don't know anything, I'll bet you don't even know what screwing is."
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So Jimmy went home and sat on the back steps and ate some Fruit Loops out of the box and watched some ants and didn't think much more about it.
But then a few nights soon after that Jimmy heard some whispering, so he snuck down the hall and watched Frank and his mother mess around naked in bed, so he went back to his room and lay awake and thought some more about what Buddy Wright had said.
Somewhere down the alley somebody's dog barked most of the night.
The next day was Sunday. When Jimmy came home from Sunday School Frank was lying on his back in the front yard under his dump truck. Jimmy walked up to his feet which were sticking out and said, "You're not my real father."
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Frank said, "Hell boy you don't know anything, go get me some pliers out of the garage."
Jimmy came back with the pliers and said, "You're not my real father, God is my real father, and he is in heaven, and he made me, becasue I asked Mrs. Marsten."
Frank hollered, "Goddamn gasket." So Jimmy went inside and turned on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and didn't think much else about it.
After that, though, when Frank made Jimmy go to bed before Battlestar Gallatica or hollered at him to get out of that goddamn truck right this minute Jimmy would say, "You're not my real father, my real father sees everything you do, and I hate you." But usually he would just get hollered at some more for saying it, so usually he just said it to himself.
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Jimmy's mother was named Carla. One day when Jimmy came home from Sunday School Carla was in the kitchen dropping potatoes into the pressure cooker. Steam was flying up around her face.
Jimmy climbed up on a chair and said, "I know Frank's not my real father, but I know where my real father is, and someday I'm going to go live with him."
Carla gave Jimmy a look and said, "Where'd you get that big idea, and I thought I told you once to throw that banana peel away didn't I?"
So Jimmy threw his banana peel away and went out into the driveway and tried to make a radar receiver out of some pop top rings and a piece of inner tube and didn't think much else about it.
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But one day soon after that he came home from Sunday School and Frank was lying in bed in his underwear watching the game. Jimmy walked up to the bed and said, "When my big brother gets here he won't ever let you holler at me again."
Frank said, "Hell boy you don't know anything, you don't even have any brothers that I know of, now go get me another biscuit."
Jimmy came back out of the kitchen with the biscuit and said, "When my big brother comes back, he's going to take me away from here, and you'll all miss me, and then you'll be sorry."
Frank hollered, "Goddamn Vikings." So Jimmy went out in the alley and tried to pry a loose board off the back of Mrs. Payne's shed to make a skateboard with and he didn't think much else about his big brother.
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But then one day soon after that it was Saturday and Frank and Carla drove out to the mall to pick up a couple of movies for the weekend.
Jimmy stayed home. He was in the driveway trying to make a rocket launcher out of a piece of pipe and the bottom half of a Clorox jug when a man on a motorcycle came up the street and stopped in front of the driveway.
The motorcycle was loud and shiny and blue. The man had long hair and a beard and heavy boots.
It was Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Jesus didn't have to say anything. Jimmy just put down his rocket launcher and climbed up on back of the motorcycle. They scratched off in the gravel and roared down the street. An empty Ho Ho's wrapper rose up out of the ditch and scooted along after them a few feet then coasted back down to the pavement.
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They turned left heading west on old Winchester Pike disappearing into the sun on the horizon which was sliding down into the blue hills like the blade of a slow orange guillotine.
On their way to the mall Frank and Carla passed some cars along the side of the street that looked like they had been abandoned. Some still had their radios on.
And when they got to the mall the air conditioning had just then broken down so all the doors were propped open. There weren't many people shopping and all of the clerks were standing around in front of the stores looking up one way then down the other like something had just then happened and a hot dry wind whistled down the length of the concrete block arcade . ..
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Untitled John Buttler
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Japanese Charcoal Butler
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Haley Erin Childress
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Jason Childress
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One Day Christopher Dang
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The Breaker Boys Dustan Creech
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The Bread Line Creech
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A Look Back Creech
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Distance Creech
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Perception Gene Ferreiro
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Tree-form Ferreiro
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Untitled Lukacovic
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Timeless An1ber McLeroy
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Fork shmork McLeroy
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Boyce Steel
4:32AM
And all I can hear is the clock not ticking, but humming electric time, red numbers marking off each moment.
Scattered piles of her clothes wait for me to launder, but I'm not ready to fold her up and put her away just yet.
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Boyce Steel
LIVING
living sleeping eating sitting standing waiting walking stopping standing, standing waiting wanting using doing seeing (being seen and being seen being seen) selling buying eating looking sizing up (being sized up) kissing tasting smelling wanting (being wanted) laying down touching rubbing needing eating sucking fucking loving needing standing up and walking away regretting forgetting begetting
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Mike Herndon
LUKE SKYWALKER
Rex stared straight ahead as he relieved himself in the train station bathroom, eyeing a large metal box on the wall that offered condoms by the three-pack for fifty cents. They all carried strong-sounding names-Trojan, Sheik, Ramses. He heard the tap, tap, tap of an impatient foot on the tiled floor behind him, but didn't dare look around. The tapping grew louder, more forceful, until a scruffy-looking man with a goat ee stepped up next to him, unzipped his fly, and began doing his business, throwing his head back and releasing a long, pleasurable sigh. There was no urinal where the man was standing; he was pissing on the floor. Rex zipped up and quickly rinsed his hands in the sink next to the urinal, taking care to avoid the puddle that was now spreading across the tiled floor. He stepped back into the wait ing area, where a clock on the pre-fab wall behind the rows of vinyl chairs read twelve-fifteen. Behind the ticket counter, a sour-faced woman with gray-streaked hair sat reading a romance novel. "Any idea when the eleven-thirty from Montgomery's getting here?" he asked her. "Shoulda already been here," she said, not looking up. Rex slouched into one of the oddly shaped seats, rub bing his wrists as he scanned the room. They were thin, weak wrists-much too delicate, he had always thought, for those of a man- and it often required a conscious effort to keep his hands from dangling, girl-like, at the ends of them. To his left sat a young man and woman wearing shorts and hiking boots, the woman's blond hair tied back with a blue bandana, a hoop earring stuck through the man's left nostril. In the row of chairs behind him sat an elderly man reading a newspaper, a stainless steel four-pronged cane standing in front of him like a sentinel. Across the aisle, a bearded man in an unbuttoned flannel shirt climbed atop his chair and stood with his right hand raised to his forehead. "Let's take this opportunity to salute a great American war hero, Gen'ral George S. Patton," the man called, standing
41 Aura short story stoically atop the chair with his large belly hanging over his greasy jeans. "A braver man never lived. God bless George Patton!" The couple and the old man ignored him as he stood in the chair, saluting a long-dead general who couldn't possibly have heard from his grave in Luxembourg. Rex glanced toward the ticket counter, where the woman lit a cigarette and shrugged. "It's somebody different every night," she said, exhaling a plume of smoke. "Last night, it was Audie Murphy. Tomorrow, it'll probably be Luke Skywalker." "Who the fuck is Luke Skywalker?" the man barked, spittle flying from his lips. "He ain't no soldier I ever heard of." "He was in Star Wars, you idiot," the woman said. "Now get down outta that damn chair before I have to call the cops on you again." The man stepped down from the chair and walked to the restroom. "Star Wars," he muttered, slinging open the door and turning back to face the woman. "What kinda stupid shit is that? I'm talkin' about real heroes." Not wanting to make eye contact with the man, Rex stared at the Tom's snack machine in the corner, empty except for a lone bag of sour cream and onion chips hanging almost exactly in the middle. As the door to the men's room slammed shut, he turned toward the woman behind the counter. "Is he a veteran or something?" he asked. "Yeah, he's a veteran, all right. Of the nut house. Wish they'd take him back there." Rex leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and con sidered Patton's credentials for the War Hero's Hall of Fame. The man may have been the greatest general this country had ever produced, but as a general he wouldn't have been the one risking his skin in the trenches. He would have been back in the bunker, drawing up war plans for others to carry out. So who was braver, the famous general in the bunker or the unknown grunt on the front lines, lugging a rifle and a ruck sack and crawling under enemy fire? He opened his eyes with the sound of a distant rumble. A long, loud whistle swung every head in the room toward the door in back that led to the platform. The rumble grew louder and then slowed, like a good drummer breaking down the beat, and finally gave out with the gushing sigh of the air
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brakes. A few minutes later, the door opened and a uniformed porter kicked a doorstop under it. Rex stood as a stream of pas sengers entered the building, as though his father wouldn't have been able to find him in the nearly empty room otherwise. After a burly, bald-headed man who might have been a professional wrestler stepped through the doorway, Rex spied his father, his hair still a dark shade of brown at sixty-three, his thick hands flipping forward the thin rubber tires of his wheel chair. "Hey, Dad," Rex said, meeting his father at the edge of the rows of seats and extending his hand downward. The still young-looking man who had once tried to teach Rex how to gut a deer reached up and shook his hand, frowning as his son's wrist went limp.
* * *
The shit was everywhere, watery and black. On the crib sheet. On the bumpers. On the railing. On the floor. On the wall. How the hell did it get on the wall? How could all this have come from one sweet little baby? And where was the gar den hose she used to spray it all over the room? Samantha reached into the crib and lifted Ella out, hold ing the infant at arm's length as she carried her into the bath room across the hall. She set Ella in the tub and gingerly peeled off the child's pajamas, tossed them into the sink and turned on the faucet, adjusting the water until it rushed out warm, not hot. Using the extension hose, she sprayed the water between Ella's legs, rinsing the mess from her delicate parts. Then she soaped up a washcloth and scrubbed the places she missed. It was a lengthy, deliberate procedure, and Samantha had nearly gotten accustomed to it. Ella had been having diarrhea for nearly a week now, and Samantha was beginning to get wor ried. After she got the baby cleaned and clothed in a fresh pair of PJs, she sat in the gliding chair at the foot of the soiled crib and tried to rock her back to sleep. Nobody ever said it was going to be this hard, she thought as she listened to the back of the chair rhythmically click against the wall behind her. Nobody talked about the crying, about the helplessness, about the diarrhea. Nobody ever said how old this made you feel. She was only twenty-four, an age that was meant to be
43 Aura short story enjoyed. She thought back to the bright summer mornings when she'd wake up and wonder what she was going to do with the day. That seemed like a long time ago now. It would all be better when Rex got home, she told her self. When he was there to help her, everything seemed to work itself out. He'd hold Ella while she washed her. He'd take a turn rocking her to sleep. He was so gentle with her, yet Nobody talked strong. Somehow, he never saw himself that way. He always about the crying, seemed to worry that his hand about the helpless shake wasn't firm, that his arms ness, about the were too small, that he didn't look like the athletes he saw on diarrhea. TV. But Ella would melt in those arms, sensing even at her age that she was safe when he held her. And Samantha knew that after he laid their sleeping daughter in her crib, he'd come to bed and wrap his legs around hers and breathe onto the back of her neck until they fell into a sleep so deep that not even the loud crackling of the baby monitor on the nightstand could rouse them from it. The child wailed in her lap, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Shhh, honey," she whispered, rocking faster. "Go to sleep. Daddy will be home soon."
* * *
It took several awkward attempts for Rex to help his father into his ten-year-old Subaru wagon, but the wheelchair folded and fit neatly in the back. The chair had been a part of his father's life for some ten years now, ever since the sleepy driver of an eighteen-wheeler forced him off the highway and into a tree somewhere just south of Greenville, but Rex still could not get used to the sight of it. The stoplights all blinked yellow as he pointed the car down Government Street, the long, straight east-west dagger that pierces downtown Mobile. "So tell me about my granddaughter," his father said, his head tilted back proudly as only a new grandfather's will. "She's a beauty," Rex said, not really knowing what distinguished a beautiful baby from an ugly one. "We're hav ing the time of our lives with her," he added, not really sure he
44 Aura short story and Samantha knew what the hell they were doing. "I can't wait to meet her," his father said, a smile spreading wide across his face and then vanishing as the car sputtered at the one stoplight on Government that still turned red. "When's the last time you changed the plugs?" he asked. "Dunno," Rex shrugged, not having the heart to tell him that he had never changed the spark plugs or anything else. He got the oil changed once at the Jiffy Lube and figured then that he had done what he could to keep the car in good working order. The rest was in God's hands. "You know you gotta keep clean plugs in it or it won't run right," his father said. Rex didn't answer. Somehow, he thought, all their con versations ended up on auto mechanics. They could be talking about the whooping cough and before long, they'd be dis cussing the exhaust system of a '74 Pontiac. "You've got a family now," his father said. "You've gotta take care of your car. Wouldn't want it to leave y'all stranded somewhere, would you?" Rex shrugged and thought back to those times during his childhood when his father had asked him to help while he worked on the family station wagon. Helping usually entailed standing in the driveway with his hands in his pockets, kicking rocks into the street while his father lay under the car, perform ing some miracle of auto repair that Rex couldn't see. He'd hand his father a wrench from the toolbox whenever asked and would then try to guess the meanings of the curse words he heard muttered from under the car. The most he ever learned on those afternoons with his father was that "cock sucker" is something you say after you bust your knuckles with the han dle of a socket wrench. "You still go out much at night?" his father asked, fin gering the Subaru logo on the dash. Rex shook his head. He had just about quit going out in the past year or so, ever since he had seen his friend Matt beat en bloody in a parking lot behind the row of bars on Dauphin Street. Matt had been hitting on a girl in one of the bars when he was confronted by her boyfriend, who must have been six foot-five. He could have just apologized and moved on, but Matt was never one to let things go. He got in the guy's face and was quickly dragged outside and worked over, meaty fists
45 Aura short story driving into his face, blood pouring out his nose and down his chin as a crowd from the bar watched from the sidewalk. Rex could not make himself move to help his friend. He rationalized later that Matt had gotten what he deserved; if he'd been smart he would have just let it go. He was really more of an acquaintance than a friend anyway, somebody Rex used to work with when he was an orderly at the hospital, before he'd begun handing out license plates at the courthouse. And if he had jumped in, what would that have accomplished? He would have just gotten his ass kicked, too. He remembered seeing a girl he knew from the hospital there on the sidewalk that night, a nurse in the psychiatric ward. He spotted her through the crowd as the cops arrived, the blue lights flashing across her blank face, the accusatory glint in her eye unmistak able: You should have done something. He knew now that she was right. He'd broken the code of ethics he and everyone else he knew had grown up with always back up your friends- and more than a year later he still had a hard time stomaching it. Matt's beating was a test, and Rex had failed. Every time he went back to Dauphin Street, he was reminded of it. After a while, he just stopped going. "That's good," his father said." A father doesn't need to be spending his time in bars anyway."
* * *
It took half an hour, but Samantha finally rocked Ella back to sleep. She laid her in the middle of the bed and crawled in alongside her, brushing her hand across the baby's tiny feet. She had a sense that Ella's wasn't the only life that had just begun. She and Rex would have to learn how to become par ents, something that now seemed only marginally less difficult than learning how to walk. It had been a struggle the first few weeks. She could feel herself, at times, start to lose control, to grow angry with Ella when the child wouldn't go to sleep or take the bottle. Other times, she just didn't feel herself; a heavy sadness overtook her for no reason and she didn't want to get out of bed. But Rex always helped her talk her way through it. He was her stabilizer, her rock.
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She tried to lie perfectly still as she listened to the baby's soft breathing. The bed creaked as she pulled her arm under her, and she heard Ella begin to fret. Samantha pulled the blan ket up over her head as the crying started. She had been up since seven that morning, dealing with the baby and trying to clean the house with Rex's dad coming, and she was emotion ally and physically exhausted. Go back to sleep, go back to sleep, ... before long, go back to sleep, please go back to sleep. The crying continued, they'd be discussing with Ella scarcely stopping the exhaust system long enough to take a breath. Samantha threw back of a '74 Pontiac. the covers and got out of bed, picking up the bawling baby and holding its frail body to her shoulder. The alarm clock on the nightstand read one-fifteen. She plodded up the hall, patting Ella's back and whispering softly as she carried her up the hall. "Shhhhh," she cooed, swaying from side to side in the middle of the living room floor. "It's okay, honey. Mama's here." Ella's crying was angry, choked sobs giving way to long, tormented wails. Samantha could feel herself tensing up, frustrated, with every failed effort to soothe the child, and the crying only grew lQuder. She finally laid Ella in the playpen beside the couch and stepped into the kitchen, where she pulled a bottle of Dewar's from a cabinet and set it on the breakfast table. She got a glass from another cabinet and held it under the ice maker for a few sec onds, then sat in a straight-backed chair and filled the glass with scotch as the tears...started to form in the corners of her eyes. I can't keep going on like this, she thought as she lifted the glass. Something's got to give, kid. Ella's cry was one long, violent scream.
***
Rex knew his dad was right; a father needed to be home with his family, and it was good that he didn't go out like he once did. He looked at his own father, sitting quietly now in the passenger seat, watching the telephone poles and planta tion-style, wood-frame houses pass by outside the window. He had always been there for his family. He'd helped Rex and his
47 Aura short story sister with their algebra, he'd built the play fort in the back yard, and later, he'd sat by their mother's bedside and stroked her hand as the cancer ate away at her. There had been a time when Rex's sister, Gina, was dating a boy from Elmore County who blew a gasket when she broke up with him and showed up at the house with a sawed-off shotgun. Their father, whose legs were now useless, stood in the doorway that night, unarmed, and told that boy to get the hell out of his yard. The boy turned and left without a word. Rex wondered if he'd be able to do the same thing if a hormone-crazed teenager with a gun showed up at his door looking for Ella in sixteen years. The night was pitch black, without a moon, and there were only a couple of street lamps working as Rex turned into his neighborhood. As he neared his house, he saw a light flick ering from the eaves of one of the homes down the block. He coasted past his driveway as the light became fierce, illuminat ing the street and surrounding yards with its brilliance. The house four doors down was on fire. Rex pulled the car to a stop, opened the door, and stepped out, staring at the flames jumping from the windows. The house was fully engulfed, its roof already charred black, bright orange flames curling around the eaves and dancing through the cracks around the front door. He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of a fire truck. "I hope nobody's in there," his father said, reaching for his cell phone. "They'll never get to 'em." Rex knew Mrs. McElvy had to be inside; seventy-four and a widow, she rarely left home. This, he knew, was another test. A strong man would run into that house and pull Mrs. McElvy out to safety. A weak man would sit in the car and watch the flames. A brave man would see the chance of saving that woman's life as greater than his own personal safety. A coward would rationalize that the fire truck would be here soon, that he should leave a job like this to the professionals. Saving her wasn't possible, he would say; he didn't have the skills, the fire was too hot, and she was probably already dead anyway. Rex heard his father yelling from the open car door as he raced toward the house. I am the brave man, he told himself as he leaped onto the porch. I am the strong man, he thought as he picked up the welcome mat, folded it around the brass
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doorknob, and threw open the door. I am the brave man, he told himself again as he rushed inside, barreling into a wall of smoke and searching for the staircase. Then, suddenly, he forgot what he had been telling himself and could think only of how hot it was, how unbear ably, unbelievably hot. Perhaps, he thought as the world turned bright around him, this wasn't a test after all. Perhaps this was just something that happened, something that forced him to make a choice and accept its consequences. Perhaps the strong man would have gone home.
***
Somehow, Rex's dad arranged for a full military funer al. Rex had gone to Air Force basic training for two weeks after graduating from high school, but was sent back home with a medical discharge after stepping in a pothole and breaking his ankle. He had never talked about it. Samantha only knew because she had found his discharge papers in the bottom drawer of the dresser during one of her many attempts to clear away some of the clutter in their lives. Now she yearned for clutter, begged for it, tried to bar gain with God for just a little bit of it. But her house was as neat as a pin. In the past four days there had always been a casse role on the kitchen table, and someone always seemed to be sweeping the floor. It was as though the steady parade of peo ple who marched through her door thought they could sweep the grief away and fill the emptiness inside her if they fed her enough. She held Ella in the crook of her arm, the baby's head nestled neatly in the inside of her elbow as though it was made to fit there. The child slept peacefully, the rise and fall of her tiny breaths flowing in rhythm with the tortured beating of Samantha's shell-shocked heart. Ella was oblivious to every thing, and Samantha envied her. "Rex Wheeler was a man we all aspire to be like," said a voice a few feet away, somewhere behind the big black box that Samantha could not take her eyes off. "This was a man who gave his life to try to save someone else's, who moved to help another without thinking of himself. That is the definition of a hero."
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Ella woke when the saluting guns went off, but did not cry. She stared up at Samantha with eyes as blue as the September sky, her brow slightly furrowed in a quizzical look. She looked, Samantha thought, as though she was reading her mother's mind: What now? What do we do now? A uniformed officer stepped toward Samantha and handed her an American flag folded tightly into a triangle. She heard Rex's father crying behind her as she accepted it. "He never could have made it. Never," he whispered between sobs. "What made him think he could make it?" Samantha wondered who he was talking to. Probably, she decided, it was God. She rocked Ella lightly as the guns went off again, look ing up at the man who had been speaking about Rex's heroism. It was a minister, a large, round-bellied man wearing the flow ing white robes of the clergy. Liar, she thought as he turned and stepped away from the casket. You don 't have the foggiest fucking idea what you're talking about.
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Clifton D. Kelly
YouR BAcK PoRcH
Plumes of breath obscure stars I can't see from the place I now call home.
I don't hear you at first. These doors never creak or bang for you. You never woke me coming home from work, 3 AM white shirt purple in the black light, pants crumpled on top.
"I miss you." I pretend I don't hear.
I miss you
My empty smile: "Why? I'm right here."
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Clifton D. Kelly
WHAT A GIRL CAN DO
She traces a crooked wheelbarrow, her tiny fingers gripping the ugly, splotched black crayon, pressing paper against table. Day by day she is learning what a girl can do when she's not pretty.
She sometimes feels pretty empty, like the ragged outlined wheelbarrow, her fingers slowly learning the contours of something ugly: not her face, not this table, not the crayon, not even the drawing the crayon produces, trying to bleed something pretty from its tip onto the table, (but the paper and the wheelbarrow get in the way, reminding her how ugly things can't be erased). She is learning all of this, learning it and marking it with a crayon, black and creaking and ugly. She could use another, one of the pretty colors, draw something other than a wheelbarrow. She could leave the table.
But this table is the best place for learning these lessons, and the wheelbarrow she etches in crayon- lines can't be pretty. This is its purpose- to be ugly.
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She knows that even ugly things serve a purpose, like the table, and she's pretty sure that it is vital, learning these things now, from this crayon and this ugly black wheelbarrow.
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Ramey Channell
IN BELFAST
In Belfast where there is no sky and where hope has been extinguished one child at a time, one fire at a time; where grey sidewalks blush red with old and new blood mixed over and over again; where crazy passionate legends and brothers, christened and ordained by thirst, are bound together and murdered one child at a time; I search the streets and alleys for a dream. I search for hope and dreams of freedom where all dreams are hidden, in Belfast, where there is no sky.
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Self portrait Lindsay Mouyal
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Cattails Mouyal
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Woven Mouyal
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Everything's better in 3 's Mouyal
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Untitled Gloria Nuckols
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Untitled Nuckols
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Untitled Nuckols
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Girl with Flower Nuckols
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Dreaming Stephanie Sides
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The Future Sides
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Self Portrait Sides
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Incomplete Trinity Yosuke Sho
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Diagonal Relationship of a cube Sho
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Fashion Talker Paul Cordes Wil01
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Mr. Bright Ideas Wiln1
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Loaded Conversation 1 Wilm1
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Ashley Hulsey
THE MOON HAS BEEN SLIPPED
into a gauze envelope of clouds, not dark enough to block out the light entirely but thick enough to provide texture over light. Celestiallampshade stretches over Birmingham's June sodden, mushroomed yards. The Crepe Myrtles are so heavy with pink and with dew they bow down on either side as I pass on cool Southside sidewalks; evening always gone so much faster than I want it to be. The hours pass so quickly, breathe the breath of the seasons.
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Ashley Hulsey
DEMON PossESSED
Volleyball was not the only game you played that night. The station wagon was soured-milk yellow and full of girls. The girls had long arms and legs and tight fist tits that ached all night. You were one of them and this is why you remember: invading air through half cast windows blowing over inexpertly shaved shins, with their sore nicked pocks, yours is shiny with blood where you picked the scab and ate it when no one was looking.
Are they looking now? Twenty years into the future you still see their eyes turning to you like a den of cats. They take it all in. Scab picking, shin nicking, the crooked glasses you held in your hand between classes, feeling your way through the blur, the seventh grade, christian school impressionist painting that is your trip to the locker.
You were singing Jesus songs and smiling in the back seat. Your uniforms were ironed into crisp blue and gold polyester creases. Prom the way-back, from the tangle of free standing
72 Aura poetry hair puffs, Tiffani Johnson calls for you to stop, holds her hands over her ears, don't say that name she says like a church movie, like a backward masking voice, deep and gruff, half-whispered, half-hissed. Backseaters turned to way-back on their knees, you prayed for her watching her framed by headlights behind and beside and beyond that, freeway blackness, that lengthened and fell away behind her dark hair.
By the time your mother pulled over to see what was going on there was no more time for this game or for Krispy Kreme. Tiffani wiped off her tears and whispered a story of suicide and lust in the remaining miles and your righteous demon-caster turned hungry for the sensation of her voice, thrilling you in physical waves. The sound of sin left a hot, burned sugar smell lingering, and you rubbed it in that night, over your tired body, over those new breasts, rubbed the darkness against the light until they cancelled one another out and there was only your insomnia, the anxious replay of events and cliched prayers to repeat through the post-midnight hours.
73 Aura short story
Catherine Roth
EVERGREEN
Down the dusky streets of my childhood memory, the Christmas tree hunt is the house with a light on. The one I slow down to look at, whose blurry gold-toned light obscures what I don't need to see anyway -loose shingles, peeling paint, foundation problems beyond repair. Because there I am little among tall things. The cold air stings my nose. There is snow, a hunt, a triumphant return with the spoils. There is hot cider and the bleary pleasant feeling that everything is going to be just fine. I want to pass this on to my son, to give him a pocket of security to warm his hands in when the weather goes cold. He bucks, with the collective emotional strength of his four years, against the pressure of enjoying this mother-son outing. "Mommy, why can't we have a fake tree like Charlie?" In the rearview mirror, I see him squirming. The straps of his car seat are too tight with the winter parka and my purple cashmere scarf wrapped around him. "We could get it at Super-Mart. They come all decorated." "Where's your Christmas spirit, Bob?" I try to create in my own voice the singsong quality of Sunday School teachers and pediatric nurses about to administer vaccinations. "I'm hot," he says, tugging at the cashmere. I shoot an air conditioner vent his way. It's in the mid-fifties outside, barely jacket weather, but I thought the clothes would spark in him some buried sense of nostalgia, some image of holiday cheer he's seen on television and will be secretly glad to have for himself. Outside, it is humid and sunny. The sun glares through the ragged trees, many of which are still holding on to their leaves after a windless autumn. The brown grass in the medi an looks harsh and unmovable as the road narrows to two lanes. By the time we're in the full-fledged countryside, past the last mini-mart and used car lot, Bob is bored enough to ask questions.
74 Aura short story
"How much further?" I check him in the rearview, and his head is lulled over to the side. "We're getting closer and closer, buddy. Have you thought about what kind of tree you want to pick out?" "Do they have the white glittery kind? Charlie's Dad got a shiny one that turns around in circles." "No, honey." I take advantage of my forward position, rolling my eyes where he can't see me. "These are all live trees. Evergreens. Bringing one into the house and decorating it is a way of adding a little life to the middle of winter. It wouldn't be the same with a fake. But we could get big or small, fat or skinny. Your choice." Bob sighs audibly in the back seat, but seems to recon- sider. "We could get a really fat evergreen?" "Fat as you want." "Charlie's dad says Charlie's mommy is the most fat lady in the neighborhood." "Wonderful." I promise myself to limit Bob's play dates with Charlie and his prince of a dad. I check the direc tions taped on a napkin to the dash and turn onto a gravel road marked only by a white sign with the faded outline of a Christmas tree. Ten mind-rattling minutes over the gravel later, we're there. "Carl's Tree Farm" is row upon row of Christmas trees in various stages of growth fronted by a circular patch of dirt with a mobile home in the middle. I hop out of the car and stretch, trying to excite myself for Bob's sake. When I open the back door, I see that he has fallen asleep. "Wake up, big man," I say, unbuckling him. "We're here." He rubs his eyes and pouts, and so I pull him out of the car myself, balance his thirty-four pounds on my hip, and walk toward the beige mobile home that seems to be the tree farm headquarters. "Help you ma'am?" A scruffy middle-aged man comes around from behind the trailer, looking as if he's just woken up, though it's nearing three o'clock in the afternoon. "We're here for the perfect tree," I say, jiggling Bob to try and wake him. "You must be Carl." "Naw, Carl ain't here. I'm Joe. Why don't you take a look around and come get me when you find something."
75 Aura short story
Bob is refusing to wake up, and I consider putting him back in the car, but that doesn't seem such a good idea with Joe hanging around. So I trudge, encumbered, into a section of medium sized firs, trying to remember what the characteristics are of a "good" tree are anyway. My dad always picked them when I was a kid. He knew how high the ceilings were in the house, which ones wouldn't shed needles or mess with my brother's asthma. Bob's dad is Jewish, and gone anyway, so he never had a thing to say about Christmas trees at all. I hear something moving among the trees and draw a sharp breath, thinking of some wild and hungry animal or an escaped convict from Unsolved Mysteries. But when it slips out from between the trees, I see that it's a child, a little girl in a faded pink jogging suit. She steps noiselessly onto the worn dirt pathway and stands there, looking at her feet. "Hi there." I say, as if I'm Mary Poppins or some other angelic creature loved by children. In fact, other people's chil dren are mysteries to me, strange little enigmas whose lan guage I can't communicate in. "Hey," she says, looking up at me for a split second before beginning a detailed investigation of her fingernails. "I'm Joe's kid." "What fun to get to play at a Christmas tree farm," I say. "You probably already picked the perfect tree for your self." "Naw. Joe don't like trees in the trailer. What's wrong with your kid? He sick?" "He's tired." Bob is getting heavy. I shift his weight, and the blood needles back into my arm. "Well this tree right here looks pretty good. What do you think?" The girl looks at the nondescript tree and swipes at it a little with her hands. "Looks good to me," she says, stepping back. Her eyes climb up and back down the height of the tree. "You must have a big house." "How old are you?" I ask, my standard small talk for the twelve-and-under. "Seven," she says. "He's awake."
76 Aura short story
Bob lifts his head off my shoulder, and I slide him down to the ground. "I'm hot." Bob says, pulling the cashmere scarf off his neck and dropping it on the ground. "I'm Joe's kid," Joe's kid says, looking Bob square in the face. "Can I have that?" She picks up the scarf and runs it through her hands. "I'm Bob," he says, taking my hand, keen on making it clear that this particular adult belongs to him. "Can she have Because there that?" he asks, looking up at me. I am little "We've found a great tree, Bob," I say, avoiding the topic of among tall giving away one of the most expen things. sive items of clothing in my pathet ic wardrobe. "Shall we go find Joe?" My use of the word "shall" began suddenly when Bob was born and increases in proportion to the number of children I am with. "I'll get him," the little girl says. "JOE!" she yells, standing in place. "JOSEPH!" I am at a little bit of a loss, but then I hear Joe's dragging feet coming closer through the gravel and he's right there, scratching the side of his face. "She bothering you?" He gestures half-heartedly at his daughter. "No, she's been quite a helper. She helped us pick out this great tree. Right, Bob?" In Joe's presence, Bob becomes a silent and unrespon- sive stone glommed to my side. "Go get the saw," Joe says to his little girl. I start to laugh at Joe's joke, but Joe doesn't laugh. "Surely you don't expect her," I start to say. But the lit- tle girl runs off into the trees, my cashmere scarf the last thing I see of her, a flit of purple between the evergreens. Joe still doesn't laugh. "She's a sweet girl," I say. But Joe has already turned and is trudging back toward the trailer.
77 Aura short story
On the car ride home, Bob is quiet. "What kind of tree did you say you wanted?" I ask, my singsong so forced it almost sounds like I'm crying. "White," he says. "Glittery. Like Charlie's." "We'll go to Super-Mart. Okay buddy?" "Okay," he says, on his way back to sleep.
In Super-Mart, I am small among the towering aisles of boxed-up trees that will never shed, or turn brown, or smell fresh and woodsy in my living room. I am trying to think about the prices, and Bob's wish list, and the weather, but in my memory there is a little girl, the sound of her feet hitting the ground as she disappears into the evergreens getting lighter and lighter, and then fading away into nothing.
78 Aura poetry
Ivey Brown
REJECTS
Your bed folded into the wall-no kitchen but all the fruit you could eat, overripe leftovers, abandoned by mourners, we slept on thin over-washed sheets and small hard pillows made for corpses who didn't care if their pillows were soft and plumped. The closet's darkness hid us from the street you my rescuer, yourself liberated, yet couldn't understand why you wanted my back-not my face when we made love.
I know why now
I'd do it again sleep in a bed that folded into a wall, make love over a funeral hall while the dead listen.
79 Aura poetry
Madison Stubblefield
AT A CACTUS
1. three cacti catatonia roots inter twined in a ceramic home
11. i would pet you, cactus, but your rustic quills iii. i tend to shower daily- but the cactus watching, reminding: "maybe you should learn to say no"
IV. a bald afternoon- only movement in the room: the slow growing cactus dropping a brown leaf v. the metallic taste of evening: the candleabra faces east in sunset, reaching for the rising moon always the same handsongs
80 Aura poetry vi. morning- a finch perched on the side of an open window softly, then gone vii. i asked the cactus: "what do you meditate on when you're falling asleep?" it responded: "drink only from the water in your shoes."
Vlll. not when it rains like this do i drag my wet clothes inside the grey feline drinks from my canvas shoe she must've been talking to the cactus
IX. a cactus walks into the local pub. his wife dislikes the pub. a cactus ignores his wife, downs a few prickly sodas, and leaves his prickly wife.
X. a flickering streetlamp behind the form of a cactus is this what you're looking for, summer moth? xi. repotting you, cactus, is like trying to put a cat in a tub of water
81 Aura poetry
Brent Stauffer
TREASURE
I found a hair from your head Draped over the doorknob today, As long as a beautiful sigh.
The tune of the bones inside Your fingers, tapping over the sea Of my skin, lingers sweetly.
The air above my still bed Is like a black sidewalk after the rain: Cool and bright under the sun of my heart.
82 Aura poetry
Brent Stauffer
WESTERN ILLUSION OF SEPARATION
harmonica prayer lonesome reeds high lovers roll out beds moon craters tumbling sheets sun lowers eyelashes sitrrup pebble pond hoof depression sand hat on post boot off foot red socks wave in the air! strawberries burst from hair!
83 Aura poetry
Aisha Johnson
I CAN FLY
Sometimes I feel like a bird caged in by psychological locks living off of clocks set so fast I can't remember my past so I just keep repeating it unable to add up my worth cause society keeps subtracting from me constantly telling me what I can or can't be No one around creative enough to believe in my vision to fuel me with encouragement so my soul is on empty Operating off of fear and commitment afraid of what's in store for me on this journey looking for something that can't be seen programmed not to dream so really I'm my own worst enemy I'm drowning in my own self-pity caged in My life is almost invisible But I have one thing my words and as they travel from my heart to the paper they leap over haters and non-believers my words change lives and elevate minds and when I write I am free I am flying
84 Aura poetry
Chris Tidwell
CLOTHESPIN:
the snap photographs with no faces the dead men tell no tales the burnt fingertips, the papercuts, show far truer the love with which i1ve pieced things together in one large fragment. here1s a smile candidly connected hanging ever so on the wire now doubly exposed, the feeling naked and not beautiful. in these still objects are poured hearts, spoken dreams, whispered things to be forever. its so hard to burn pictures in the rain. ifeel... i feel so .... fingerprints are all dried up now the pillow takes back its shape.
85 Aura poetry
Brandy Yates
RUBY OF THE DESERT SKY
And she was beautiful inside With her white blood cells And dark heart Full of love for those unknown and unshown through glass doors and walls with no locks on them. She was inside us all until she went under the dark water to cleanse her soul. Our eyes hurt from the light, a light she led us to but was not a part of. She was one of us all along. It showed through in her dust-covered lips and desert mouth with watery, far away eyes. That thin line of life runs down her nose, over her forehead out to us. Her fingertips touch the world with light caresses like a breeze, a fresh breath from her desert. Make my flat-footed feet turn round. Again, a few colors come but, blinding, finally fade.
86 Aura art
Qin Zhang
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94 Aura art
Wheel of Life Series Doug Baulos
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102 Aura creative nonfiction
Douglas Baulos
NEAR THE HILL OF THE POISONED TREE
Kampuchea Dream No. 7 I'm at the foot of the temple looking up in the sky. A moto driv er comes up and tells me I have a beautiful nose. I ask him if he knows any ghost stories. He tells me about the bodiless witch, an ordinary person by daytime and a witch at night. The only way to tell if someone is a bodiless witch is by the deep wrinkle lines around her neck. At night when these witches go to sleep their heads separate from their bodies. Dragging their intestines along, they fly around to places where there's blood and death. The heads fly so fast that no one has ever seen the faces, only their shiny red eyes and some times the shadow of their heads and entrails. Once she finds a dead body, the bodiless witch nestles against the corpse all night. Their tongues lick blood and eat flesh while their innards writhe around them. He tells me to look for enemies around you walking, but also aim at the sky for witches. I look up at Barang on top of the temple with the blue sky behind. He doesn't have wrinkles around his neck.
Kampuchea Dream No. 8 Cambodians like to press against you. Orange monks have bird feet and moan and hum under yellow & saffron umbrel las. They live near blind people with seeing hands, while musician amputees play marimba boats and tell stories about stacked bodies-brilliant coffins and wings. Long snakes wind ing around pagodas determine boundaries and protect stupas and sewing and boxes of tiny bones and tired children sucking black crusted eggs. [I'm taking long walks in the wrong direc tion.] We are walking up stairs sucking eating green mangos with red salt. An old yellow head towers above the jungle and us-another is surrounded by a bamboo puzzle structure. Orange buddhist blankets draped on fences are a backdrop to red concrete animals drippin0 teeth and other parts. The yel- low checkerboard floor has red flames rising: paraffin and holy candle fire. [Triangle fabric curtains, dusty sandals and a
103 Aura creative nonfiction banana amputee buddha collection.] Barang has his hand caught in the tiger mouth. He claims it's a compassion and knuckle sandwich.
Kampuchea Dream No. 13 There is a thin layer weaving as a smell that I can see it is orange-statues are draped and bandaged-I'm wondering if it's that easy to walk into dharma or not- remembering the hol low reverb dint of those circular gamelan instruments.
Kampuchea Dream No. 16 Perishable secrets and paper histories crumbled and rediscovered In Siem Reap, Barang tells me there is a story about the life of Buddha in which a mother carries her dead son to him draped in her arms. The woman has heard that he is a holy man who can restore life. Crying, she asks for mercy. Gently, Buddha tells her that he can help save her son's life, but first she has to bring him a mustard seed secured from a family that has never experienced death. Frantically, she searches home after home. People want to help, but everyone has already experienced a loss-a sister, a husband, a child, parents. Finally the woman returns to Buddha. "What have you found?" he asks. "Where is your mustard seed and where is your son? You are not car rying him." "I buried him," she replies.
Kampuchea Dream No. 19 The yellow and white checkerboard floor of prisons and monasteries-the monk is taking his robes off, orange falls to yellow. AIDS lesions look the same world over. He talks about cancer instead of AIDS. He gives me a cancer poster he knows I want for my artwork.
Kampuchea Dream No. 22 Ronng Neak Ta are special places typically tucked beneath the giant umbrella shade cast by huge old po (banyan) tree, where spirits are thought to dwell. These sacred shrines are made of wooden boxes in the shape of a house, secured between large branches or in caves created by the massive trunks and roots. Each of them has a tin can filled with sand into which incense sticks are planted with prayers and food offerings.
104 Aura creative nonfiction
If the enemy comes before you, make it pass over. If it comes from behind, make it vanish.
Kampuchea Dream No. 26 On the way to S'korn to eat roasted corn and drink Tiger Beer, Barang told me about the spirit houses lining the road and about dust and glass rings in the Tonle Sap. There is water everywhere -lotus weeds and land mines choking each other. They advertise with flags, fake tits and mandalas. Then we pass the prison. Sign at Tuol Sleng: [Hill of the Poisoned Tree] Also killed 168 children today-the most so far! Now by noon today, 178 enemies exterminated. 1. You must answer in conformity with the questions I asked you. Don't try to turn away my questions. 2. Don't try to escape by making pretexts according to your hypocritical ideas. 3. Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution. 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflex. 5. Don't tell me about your little incidents committed against the propriety. Don't tell me either about the essence of the revolution. 6. During the bastinado or the electricization you must not cry loudly. 7. Do sit down quietly. Wait for the orders. If there are no orders do nothing. If I ask you to do something you must immediately do it without protesting. 8. Don't make any pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor. 9. If you disobey every point my regulations you will get either ten strokes of the whip or five additional shocks of electric discharge.
Kampuchea Dream No. 27 A yellow snake crawls around a building and delineates its corners-goes up to roof-beams. Naga moves, slithers, frames the doorway. There is a woman in the doorway wearing blue and it's very dark but she has strange sunglasses on. There is a young boy on a balcony and he leads me towards something-
105 Aura creative nonfiction to see his family lying on a cot in the middle of a deserted street [most have fled this town]. There is a man carrying a huge 1970's type television cabinet. He is struggling under the weight. The largest school in Phnom Penh has the greenest chalkboard and aubergine lions near blue cog wheel fences. Children and adults dream of broken mountains they will never see. Tourists pour Fanta soda on giant linga and drink fruit shakes and pass blinded apsaras. There was a baby left at Elephant Terrace.
Kampuchea Dream No. 31 A crowd is walking ahead of me in a hallway-they are excit ed and chattering about more rice. I am straining to know if I'm dreaming or not. I think I wake up. Barang's mother is watching T.V. and fixing an older woman's hair. Seckon is looking in a mirror saying "same same" and pushing a banana peel against his complexion. Tito is snoring softly and lays legs crossed with one foot flat on his table and has his shirt off. He looks really thin and seems asleep [in my dream]. He wakes up and talks to me and is waving his hands-there is a low hum in the air [a fan]-he says good good good oh good .... He is singing but he is not the one that sings-that's Wattana. Green vegetation in room and lots of green-Seckon is lying in a hos pital bed near me and telling me about a woman with gray hair "same same" as me with no legs, no waist. She will crawl around after you unless you feed her. She is famous on the yel low stairs and Seckon has always had a crush on her. She was a movie star in his province. Seckon is talking so fast, he's claiming that I will not sleep again and that I will find a blue box with a white skull that is a warning against power and choke holds. There are people lining up in lines and this is how it has always happened in history. There's a stone build ing, shrouded-you can turn the wheel back or forwards. You can leave the plate of food for that dead soldier on the left side of the back door at 9 p.m. and wait to see his footless corpse hovering over the food. If you want to see him. Wait.
106 Aura poetry
Quinn White
THE NEED TO HEAL HER BLUSH
carl perkins wrote blue suede shoes on a flattened potato sack spread over cracked brick steps, guitar curled over knee- for last night's girl dancing crooked on top her man. he wrote for her spastic steps, for the need to heal her blush, for the man in turquoise suit, pink tie whose cornflower shoes barely moved, for the man who frowned at his girl carl perkins sat after midnight enjoying his heaviness like a woman remembering the swings of her legs, like pastel curves in a geometry class daydream.
107 Aura poetry
Quinn White
PALE BLUE OPENING
you should not be reading feet numb as erasers sleep on blue cotton- there are infinite steel stories to climb. your back and forth eyes could be proofing drafts, scale model mansions, French windows opening in and out- leaves splay sharp soft bodies on sidewalk. you look because within mortal cavity, bones, blood, beating-a question but no answer. under the cold caves of banks backs bend, you are smaller than that, small as a sentence- sunrise isn't red, but pale blue opening.
108 Aura creative nonfiction
Reagan Rhone
FISHING THE CAHABA
The Cahaba is muddy. It rained all week long, so the river is swollen and quick, carrying plenty of broken branches and leaves with it. But today is sunny, and people are walking with excited dogs and children down Old Overton Road by the rivQr whQrQ traffic is rare. Leaning against my parked car at the canoe launch, I down the last of my orange juice and check the time. lt1s just after 11. Having consulted Field and Stream and In Fisherman the night before, I know that the best time to put my line in the water will be between 1 and 3 in the afternoon. I don1t under stand how this is calculated except that it has something to do with the cycles of the moon. Early afternoon, however, contra dicts the fisherman1s adage that necessitates rising before dawn, before the day is hot. Today, though, it fits my schedule, so I'm fishing in the middle of the day. I pull out my rod and reel and tackle box and arrange everything on the trunk of my car to make some preliminary decisions. Because of the sediment and swift current, the lure I choose should be bright and noisy; bass can see better in muddy water than humans can see in clear water, but if a fish can hear a lure, then he doesn1t need to see it. And it needs to run deep because bass go deep in the heat of the summer. But I don1t want to run too deep, or I risk catching a catfish. Some people love catfishing because of their size and catch rate. Flathead catfish that troll the bottom of most Southern rivers can grow to 3 or 4 feet long. Channel catfish are smaller and better to eat but have a sharp, rigid dorsal fin that sticks straight up. And catfish eat anything. I've caught them off corn, sausage, shrimp, scrambled eggs, venison, and bass lures. If it1S dragging the bottom, a catfish will eat it. 1 I hate catching catfish. While they are good eatin , they stink like the garbage they eat, have to be skinned like a land animal, and groan painfully when out of water. Plus, channel catfish eyes and blood look too human for me. I came to this decision while trying to free the biggest channel catfish I ever
109 Aura creative nonfiction caught. When he gored me through a leather glove, I couldn't distinguish my blood from his. But today, before the fishing has begun, I'm optimistic. I've chosen a brand-new lure just released by Rapala called a Bleeding Shad. It's a blue-silver holographic, rattle lure that has a streak of bright red down the middle. The idea is that lazy, mid-day bass won't be able to pass up an injured baitfish because it's an easy meal. That's what the back of the box says anyway. I snap the lure on, throw my tackle box in my backpack, and head down the short, rocky trail to the river. The small, 1 ld 't sandy beach has all but disappeared ··· COU n next to the cement canoe launch, so the distinguish water soaks through my shoes as a try to b1 d get further down the shore, away from 00 my the small, rocky rapids near the launch. from his. This seems like a good place to begin because bass love anywhere the current pools as it slows; they like to wait there for insects and smaller fish disoriented by the circulating water. I cast out across the river, near the rocks that line the opposite bank, and slowly begin to crank the lure back to me. As the lure sinks deeper into the current, he gently tugs to go with it and begins his bass-attracting wiggle. Should the tug ever slacken or the wiggle every stop, it's time to set the hook because I've got a fish. But it doesn't. The Bleeding Shad swims his way back to the sandy side where I stand, and I toss him back over. Again he wiggles and tugs to go with the current, to go to Birmingham and down to Shelby County, so I let him. I give the lure lots of line and let him find his way a little around the bend of muddy water, well past the end of the sandy shore, before beginning to crank him home along the fallen trees and flooded brush on the river's edge. The current is too strong. The water is moving too fast, even along the bank, for a stalking bass. But I cast out with the new lure one last time, just in case there's a hungry, but lazy lunker between the rocks on the opposite bank. I cast out, splashing the lure down within inches of the outcropping. I let him ride the current past the mossy, jagged edges. Nothing happens.
110 Aura creative nonfiction
I decide to try the high ground above the rapids. The water is deeper there, so the current will be slower. And there is more flooded vegetation, a perfect place for languid bass to lounge and wait for bugs, lizards, and frogs to eat. But there is no sandy beach, and I am forced to slide down the riverbank to a muddy creek bed that feeds the river rainwater. It's a precarious position, and the dense tree branch es providing the shade above my head also make it difficult to cast. The river is wider here, and without more room, I won't be able to reach the opposite bank. I open the line and prepare to cast anyway. I swing the rod with as much grace as I can muster, but the Bleeding Shad merely rattles in a swaying oak branch above my head. I reel in the excess line and rip it down. I try to reposition my feet, and they sink into the mud, suctioning each of the soles of my shoes as I try to lift the other. The only stable footing I can find is too far back into the brush to get a cast off. I try anyway, though, and manage a weak, underhanded lob that only gets about 10 feet. "Oh, come on. You can do better than that." I sigh. I mount the bank and look over the river from about 5 feet above it. If I actually caught a fish of any size from here I wouldn't be able to pull it up the dense, brushy hill without doing serious damage to the fish, my rig, or both. I know this. But I'm determined to get at least one good cast off before I quit this position. And I do, managing to put the lure about halfway across the river. "Thank you!" As the Bleeding Shad reaches the edge of the water as I reel him in, he gets stuck on a Magnolia limb at the base of the hill. I tighten the line and snap the rod up sharply, as most fish erman's manuals instruct when caught on a plant, but the lure only imbeds himself deeper into the soft, juicy grain of the green branch. "What? You've got to be kidding me! Get up here!" The Shad refuses to be reasonable. I tighten the line, lower the rod, and steadily pull harder until the line snaps and the Magnolia slaps back to the base of the hill at the waters edge, flailing the rattle. I peer down the hill, but the Bleeding Shad is gone.
***
111 Aura creative nonfiction
I load my gear in the car, disgusted at my own stupidi ty. I'm not as angry at the loss of a perfectly good lure as I am at my own behavior. Nothing irritates me more than finding other irresponsible anglers' tackle hanging from trees or float ing in the water. What if a bass does happen by my technolog ically engineered lure hanging in the water and actually takes it? What if a bird mistakes it for an easy meal? I feel like a child in need of punishment. I pull a bottle of water out of my car and force myself to think about what I have just done. I decide to find another spot, one more suited to my obvious inability to judge my own fish ing skills. Driving slowly up Old Overton Road with the win dows open, I examine the shoulder for breaks in the kudzu and underbrush and listen intently for running water. I stop sever al times to explore old utility trails and flooded streams for signs of bass spawn. I see minnows, turtles, and even a snake. Someone once told me that if you find turtles sunning on old logs and rocks, you can catch bass in the shallow water. But I still haven't found a new spot. Then I see a small field of aquatic vegetation. But, the ground is relatively dry, which means the rainwater must've found a way back down to the river from its pooling point in the field. I slowly drop my Honda Civic off the shoulder of the road, treating it like the Chevy Silverado I wish it were, trying to maintain some speed to keep from getting stuck in the mud. The ground is relatively solid, so I stop and inspect the little, dry lily pads. The ground in the middle of the field gives slight ly under my feet, and I search for it to get softer. Finally, I find small break in the trees where the water has drained down the bank of the river. The dirt has washed away in places, revealing rocks that create a natural staircase down the hill. I creep down. At the bottom there is a large jut of rock, upon which no plants can take root, jutting about 3 feet into the Cahaba. The water is slow here, pooling for the rapids about 50 feet down. To my left is exactly what I've been looking for. It's a small pocket in the bend of the river that is shaded by a thick, horizontally growing maple tree. It's own waterlogged weight forces it to dip slightly into the current, catching bits of pine
112 Aura creative nonfiction straw, fallen branches, brown leaves, and a few empty Coke cans. The debris blocks the river's flow, creating a small, still pocket of shaded water against the edge of the bank. "Oh, that's perfect. Don't move. I'll be right back." I scramble back up the hill and jog across the little field to my car. Again I arrange my tackle on the trunk and think about my strategy. I will not lose another lure, but surely the bed of the river is full of obstacles filtered by the rocks just before the rapids. That's good because it nearly guarantees fish, but it's also bad because it makes them harder to get at. After ruling out a topwater "hopper-popper" because of the mud, I settle on a small green and silver spinner bait that looks like an The Shad impaled grub or baby grasshopper. I know this lure well, having caught all refuses to be sorts of pan fish and catfish with it. I reasonable. know how strong it is and how easily I can dislodge it from the brambles. Because it is small, though, there is a danger that if I don't set the hook quick enough a fish might swallow the hook, and I may kill it while trying to release it. But again I'm optimistic, and I collect my gear and trot back to the hole in the brush. It's harder to descend this time because of my backpack and rig, and my shoes slide in the mud. I try to brace myself on the saplings on each side of the rocks, but they only uproot. So, I slide down the hill on my heels and palms, trying desperately to clear my rear from the rocks. The rocks pushing out into the river brace my skid because they're covered with moss. Once again, I survey the stretch of water visible from my rocky perch just above the water. The river is too wide here to cast completely across, and casting further downstream would force the little grub lure into the rapids. So, I inspect the serene pocket again. It's going to be tough. Not only is the pocket upstream but it's also slightly behind me. And my footing is slippery again because the moss on the rocks that just saved me from a swim are now soaked and muddy just like the hill. I settle in as best I can and hang my backpack onto an adjacent branch for easy access.
113 Aura creative nonfiction
My first cast is off because I1m not used to the lightness of the lure at the end of my line. It splashes in far from the riverbank and the current carries it lazily toward me. lt1s diffi cult to keep the line tight because the sleepy drift is still faster than I want to reel. But the pocket is too tempting so I crank the line in more quickly, catching a few times on unseen branches along the bottom. The next cast is better, landing just inside the pocket near the accumulation of debris on the outside of the bend. I rush to tighten the line as the grub drifts back to me. Still, there is no strike, but plenty of snags on the underwater obstacles. None are serious and easily freed thanks to the cooperative current. The process repeats itself several times. I visualize dropping the green grub inches from the bank inside the pock et. Because of the overhanging limb, the mossy, muddy rocks, or my own lack of skill, though, the line hits the water too wide; any bass stalking the pockets would be suspended a few inches under the surface, as close to the bank1S vegetation as possible, waiting. I stop for a moment to wipe the sweat rolling down my cheeks. I take a deep breath. The birds chirp cheerfully in the trees around me, attracted by the pleasant, whispering rush of the water accompanied by the cicadas1 rolling din. I have not heard a car on the road above the riverbank in quite a while. I'm alone. I eye the spot beside the bank inside the pocket once more. I release the line and cast horizontally, following through more than usual so that the lure lands within millime ters of the bank. But the line continues to give! I pop the crank and snap the tip of the rod, and the serenity of the enclosed pocket explodes as bass bucks angrily to the surface. "Oh, oh!" I pull the rod high above my head, and it bends sharply in protest. Reeling as smoothly as I can, I lower the rig again to allow the fish some slack. As I pull the rod high again though, he struggles to go deeper, farther out into main current of the river and again breaks the surface of the water. He seems to tire now, reluctantly allowingtrehook in his lip to pull him. Only when he is almost to the rocky platform does he object one last time, splashing the water violently with his tail in an attempt to find the bottom.
114 Aura creative nonfiction
It's a large-mouth bass, a young but mature adult. I kneel on the rock and hesitate to touch him. "God, you're pret- ty." I stroke his smooth underside with my index finger and place my thumb on his tiny, sandy teeth, lifting him partially out of the water. His mouth gapes, revealing the immense, hol low, fleshy cave that dominates the front half of the fish. The crumpled body of a carpenter ant hangs on the pink flesh just inside his blood red gills. He doesn't move as I search his large, black eyes and study the colored pattern of his scales while wiggling the grub lure's hook out of the folds of his bottom lip. I don't want to release him, but I have no desire to kill him either. Nor do I wish someone were here to see the fish I caught. I'm glad it's only him and me. And I wish there were more to the exchange. "You were fun, man. Thanks." I lay him in the water vertically once again and release his lower lip. For a moment, he hangs there by the rocks, nei ther swimming nor sinking. Then, the water ripples, creating a small, sharp splash. I peer down into the water, and the bass is gone.
115 Aura poetry
Katheryn E. Asson
RABBIT
They called her Rabbit from a very young age for her front teeth acutely protruding from her baby face. She had an affinity for carrots and a talent of escape; always hopping the playpen, always finding new gaps in the poorly screened-in porch of backwoods Alabama.
Like a rabbit she was one of many, just a fraction of the dirty batch of attention-starved children, and as one of the women she was forced to put down her play-things and all too soon tote baby siblings on her barely female hips. She hated the smell of urine, and even worse the use of shoes, which was lucky because even if she liked them they weren't to be had.
Her feet were tough, her soles, so early, rubbed insensitive to pine cones and sharp sticks, broken beer bottles and the occasional prick. She could scale a fence of any make faster than the shoe-shod boys and for this talent she often found herself the subject of dangerous dares. Fetching the game ball from the Boo Radley yard was just a start. Her speed deemed her token shop-lifter,
116 Aura poetry window-breaker, and money-taker as well. Notice was also taken when the protrusions started to show and slow her down. Rabbit couldn't run as fast with her new breasts, but she could surely fill a more important role.
She wasn't fast enough to dodge the rock thrown. Blood in the ear and cracked on the jaw she lay down in the high Alabama grass only to be caged and force-fed carrots. This is a metaphor for rape. She didn't know the word rape. And even if the abuse had been one on one the rock to the head still did her in. They called her crazy, crazy like a jack rabbit after that and she never ate carrots again.
Her breeding was quick to show, and like all the Hesters and Tesses of rural Alabama her burden was deemed her sin and from the brick school house to the white-washed church she was banished and renounced. Even her over-bred mother couldn't stand the competition. She gave the girl her first, only, and last pair of shoes and sent her packing with nothing but a lunch on that red dirt road. The carrots she threw out immediately, but the bread and meat she rationed for a week.
Weary of day-light cat calls and nightly mosquito bites, she left her shoes and the road for the cool of kudzu and cotton fields. In the still of summer under the calico stars of a heavy and pregnant sky she laid down her load.
117 Aura poetry
Pulling up plant roots and making tiny, scared animal noises she forced out what was forced in. And with the clap of hands from an angry Southern God her blood mixed with the red mud of a relentless rural flood. Her heart filled with water that night, and so too the baby's mouth.
It was three days later, the moon high and full, when the blues with badges found her wedged in the roots of a sassafras tree, clutching dead baby, umbilical cord and placenta like they were all equally important; rocking, a crazy rocking, back and forth singing, to the dead baby or to herself no one made the distinction.
With agile reflexes she took fright and bolted; one hand with dead baby to hip, the other, throwing arm pulled back with heavy rock she barred her rabbit teeth and screamed crazy things. Shot, the bullet caught her square in the chest and she lept up, making a high, wide arc in the full, white moon of an Alabama sky. And there, like a rabid animal she fell and died with her young. With a twitch and a sigh she spilled out the rest of her blood to mix again with the red mud of a sad and heavy season.
Some say, in that death jump her spirit leapt up higher and left her. Clearing the grass, Clearing the trees, Clearing the sky
118 Aura poetry she leapt up to the moon and there she watches over all her children; to protect the babies who aren't yet girls and the girls who aren't yet women. And when a skinny tomboy declares herself a Rabbit, the moon is always full in Alabama.
119 Aura poetry
Susan Sailors
WATCHER
The sound of the wind causes my head to ache. The darkest night flashes vividly within my mind and I again feel the ice in the wind and I call, but receive no answer. Wandering down crooked miles and memories, denied the release that should have come before, I feel the quake of thunder and hear the roaring waves, far below me, yet so near. The oscillating light above sends an ever vigilant beam out to those who depend upon it, though they may no longer hold fast to me.
120 Aura creative nonfiction
Miranda Wade
WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BROWN TURD?
Sitting at my desk about one o'clock, I feel a familiar rumbling cramp in my stomach-an urgent rumbling cramp that does not signify hunger. I drop my pen immediately and dart out of my cubicle. Down the aisle, around the corner, by the mailroom, along miles of windowed corridor, past the gray swinging door that says "Women," through the breezeway, down two flights of stairs-pace frantic now, I burst into the third floor bathroom, and overjoyed at its desertion, I dash into the first stall and shove down my pants. While nature takes its course, I ponder the necessity of making the long trek to this secluded restroom whenever I have to drop a load. I'm certainly not alone in seeking solitude for this most private endeavor. I know of this bathroom only through the merciful generosity of my coworker Christy. This is her dumping ground, but having been my friend and team mate for some years now, she was kind enough to direct me to this green stalled, work crap haven. The restroom nearest our work area, though fine for urination, is utterly unacceptable for depositing one's solid wastes. The place is always crowded, and it smells "like crusty butt holes," to quote Christy directly. You can bet that if you try to take care of business in there, someone who knows you will bear witness, which can have ugly results. Take Harriet*, a woman on my team, for instance. Her habit of farting thunderously in the restroom is well known in the department. One of my coworkers once proclaimed that Harriet "£arts like a mule" whenever she's in the bathroom. I soon learned the coworker was not exaggerating. I hear the mule £arts almost every time I share the restroom with Harriet, but it seems unfair that her butt should make her the butt of jokes. After all, isn't the bathroom the appropriate place to pass gas?
***
121 Aura creative nonfiction
Elizabeth, a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is no stranger to toilet persecution. The fear of having anyone outside her close circle of intimates smell her feces has caused her to develop what she terms "foreign toilet syndrome," an inability to defecate in any toilet other than her own or that of a friend or family member. Though always modest about her bowel functions, Elizabeth's anxiety didn't reach its present intensity until her freshman year of college at the University of Montevallo, where she lived in the Tutwiler dormitory and shared a community bathroom with her sorori ty sisters. "It was awful," she confides, "Everybody made such a big deal when somebody took a dump. 'Ewww!!!! Who did this?! Somebody spray some air freshener. What did they eat?!!'" Occasionally, Elizabeth walked to another floor of the dormitory to void her bowels, but she typically forced herself to hold it until the weekend, when she could relieve herself in the comfort of her own home. She simply preferred the intense discomfort to public embarrassment. After leaving Montevallo, her bathroom anxieties stuck with her, commonly preventing her from relieving herself in any public or semi-public setting. "I just can't go," she says. "So your body can't pass the turds?" I ask in fascina- tion. "No, it's not physiological," she explains. "It's a mental thing. My mind won't allow me to go."
***
Self-consciousness about defecation and flatulence is not restricted to women. Although society is markedly more hostile toward women's smelly souvenirs, men cannot walk into a public restroom and relieve themselves without trepida tion, though some (like my father) will flatly deny it. Remember Harriet? She's not the only one to be surreptitious ly mocked at work over bathroom issues. A coworker once made harsh light of the stench the chief underwriter generated in the men's bathroom one morning. (The boss was not within earshot, of course.) "The key is to make sure no one sees you when you walk in and out," my fiance claims. "But the other day I stank the place up, and Woods* was standing right out side when I walked out of the stall," he confessed with obvious
122 Aura creative nonfiction embarrassment. Clearly, the oppression of the anus transcends gender lines.
***
My department moved to the company's posh Building Three earlier this year. The bathroom closest to our new work space is floored in glossy black marble, which acts as a mirror. I tried to take a shit in there once, and I will not do it again. I haven't felt so exposed since junior high when I got diarrhea at the public beach in Gulf Shores and had to unload under a deck. ***
Elizabeth suggested I speak with her psychology pro fessor Dr. Mary Hagan. So I gave Dr. Hagan a call to get her professional opinion on why so many people are so uptight about their butt by-products. Unfortunately, she seemed quite taken aback by my question. "So, are you talking about a dis order or 'I just don't like to fart around people'?" she asked, horrified. "Yeah, the last one." "I'm sorry. This is just the weirdest thing I've ever heard." "Ummm ... yeah, it is pretty weird." "This isn't my area. Maybe you should talk to some body in anthropology."
* * *
Not wanting to embarrass myself again, I passed on ringing up the anthropology department and headed to the library instead, where I was rewarded with the delightful arti cle "Shit Scared" by third year British medical student Ayesha Nunhuck, who was similarly befuddled by this pervasive anx iety. Culture plays a major role in shaping attitudes about defecation, according to Nunhuck, and those attitudes vary by culture. Though all cultures view crap as dirty, some are more averse to it than others-for example, Native Indians and Africans really despise ~he stuff, but ~he Chinese and Japanese have a history of using human dung for fertilizer. Not surpris-
123 Aura creative nonfiction ingly, our aversion to our own excrement protects us from dis ease. Human turds are chock full of dangerous germs that can spread diseases such as cholera and render water dangerously unfit for human consumption. Though Nunhuck acknowl edges that the precise origin of the aversion is yet unknown, she points to the plausible hypothesis that ancient humans began concealing their pungent feces to prevent predators from following the scent. Furthermore, our bodies exhibit a very real physiological response when exposed to poop-if the exposure is prolonged, the stomach begins to convulse, caus ing vomiting. It seems that our crap anxieties are deeply ingrained biologically and over time have been absorbed and reinforced by culture-which explains why the phenomenon is so powerful and widespread.
* * *
Okay, so since the poo-poo paranoia is obviously not going to go away, I've compiled a list of tips on how to make "foreign toilet" dumps as low stress as possible. -If you can, find a bathroom that receives fewer visi tors. Not only are you less likely to have company, the toilet is probably cleaner. An added bonus. -Try to go at off-peak hours. Restrooms are prone to crowding during lunch and break times. -Even if there are people in the latrine, it is possible to save face. Stall for time until everyone who isn't in a stall leaves (pardon the pun). Tie your shoes, adjust some article of clothing, preen your hair, pretend there's something in your eye, whatever. When the coast is clear, grab a stall and get down to it. When you're done, listen carefully and utilize the crack in the door-inconspicuously-to make sure no one's outside. Wash your hands and beat it. Hopefully, nobody rec ognized your shoes. -Squeeze out your toots slowly and carefully to increase your chances of achieving the coveted Silent Fart. -Employ the Courtesy Flush (a post-turd flush that reduces stench) if your dump is especially foul smelling and the bathroom is likely to have other occupants. Some experts are overly fond of the Courtesy Flush, in my opinion, and rec ommend excessive use of it-for instance, to warn other bath-
124 Aura creative nonfiction room visitors of your presence. I see no reason for you to draw unnecessary attention to yourself, so I only advise Courtesy Flushing for smell-reduction purposes. -If you are taking a massive and/ or messy crap (one that requires many wipes), you must use the Safety Flush (a well-timed flush to limit the volume of paper and turds in the bowl) to avoid overflowing the toilet. If this happens, there is no help for you. Get the hell out of there and hope you're not observed fleeing the scene.
***
Finally, if you wind up in an embarrassing situation, just remember that everybody's had at least one humiliating gastrointestinal experience. I still haven't lived down the pub lic beach shit. You're human, and these are vital biological processes. It's not as if a giant boar is going to catch a whiff of your scat and charge over to skewer your tribe.
* Some names have been changed to protect the flatulent.
125 Aura poetry
Jenna Bazzell
STILL WAITING
Why don't you hold me within your grasp the world can't tear us apart. We can turn on your favorite cartoons and I'll tuck the blanket under your chin. At night, those vampires hiding underneath the bed can't hurt you if they can't find your neck.
Softly your breath against my skin reminds me of when you weren't so hidden between the white sheets used for sails and the light that slips-breaks and in strips meets with my quiet anthem of my falling farther. Every ten minutes, six sighs on the hour, it's love on a telephone wire like a freight train long distance through dreams, closed eyelids screaming wake up, wake up ... and breathe ... with me.
Let me see you fidget, let me see you squirm and blush at all the memories of a winter made warm. Perpetual holiday, Christmas kiss after kiss as we pounded down the silence with our furious fists to remedy years spent in quiet destitution. Alone, alone, our hearts raked against the coals, fingertips drawn tightly wrapped within our toils.
Why don't you let me hold both your hands to my heart, turn off the ringer, and let our thoughts slide. We'll turn off the TV, we'll turn on the lights, and we'll do all our laundry, we'll clean up just right. Because all of the history hiding inside our heads won't hurt us as much if we mean what we said and we can stay awake just in case there's anything left to say.
126 Aura poetry
Jennifer Land
INDIGENOUS
An audience applauds when you come out on stage. They stand simultaneously-smile, wave, pound sweaty palms together repeatedly, listening to their cheers overpower tears of a lost generation. This is time that can never be replaced. No matter, they think. This makes up for it; this means something. Not when the space between your scapula and sternum is empty. Not when your voice breaks, not when they sidestep the shards littering the aisle that leads toward an exit. Not when your daughter addresses you as sister, not when sunlight is still too far away to reach fingertips, or even toes. Your eyes are swollen, lip quivers when Mother and Daddy leave- and though they have been gone for years, they still live on through you, a small shadow born in their stead. This is not the end of your struggle for freedom: you still sigh with relief when you are no longer mistaken for a native. You still offer your heart skyward, flaming hot as the rack in my oven, searching for ancestors that were long ago buried in the dark recesses of a hidden culture.
127 5arksdale-Ma~nard Contest
@(ectpk:nls cf !he ~arksdale-olfapnard Awards
PoetrH Noel S cott
fiction f\a m e~ Channell
The Barksdale-Maynard Creative Writing Prizes were made possible by a gift from Isabel Barksdale-Maynard, who completed the first MA thesis in creative writing at UAB, in honor of her family. Prizes of $100 each may be awarded annually for the best work of short fic tion and the best poem or group of poems submitted by currently enrolled UAB students in good standing with the University.
The contest is judged by faculty of the UAB English Department and/ or by judges selected by the faculty of the UAB English Department. Prizes are awarded at the judges' discretion; that is, the judges may elect to award no prizes in either category if, in their judgment, works submitted in any given year are not sufficient to merit an award.
Winners will be recognized at the annual UAB English Awards Ceremony in the Spring, and the winning story and the winning poem or poems will be published in Aura, the UAB literary arts mag azine. The winning entries will also be housed in the Mervyn Sterne Library on the UAB campus. Aura poetry
Noel Scott
PooR MEMORY
Oh, yes, I forgot ... I am the lurking fear in the jungle of ideologies. Oh, yes, I forgot... I am the hangdog diffidence, harbinger of miseries. Oh, yes, I forgot... I am the Himalayan exception, the antithesis of hope. Oh, yes, I forgot... I am the executioner with slipknot rope. Oh, yes, I forgot... I am the black flame, and you are the light. Oh, yes, I forgot ... I am on the Left-Hand path, and you are on the Right. Thanks for reminding me ... And correcting my poor memory.
129 Aura short story
Ramey Channell
VOLTUS ELECTRICALUS AND STRATA ILLUMINATA
They were married. The wedding march ushered them briskly out of the candle-lit church into the ecstatic sunlight. Rice and birdseed were thrown. Brown sparrows and gray doves skittered along the warm sidewalk amid the feet of exu berant guests. A solitary squirrel ventured down the trunk of a massive oak tree to peer at the festive crowd, as Albert Slater led his bride to the car parked at the curb. That was on Saturday. Now it was Wednesday. Marissa was still trying to get used to the fact that she was now Mrs. Albert Slater. She thought she might never get used to the fact that she was Mrs. Albert Anybody. Albert was such a dif ficult name to get used to; so old fashioned and stiff. She would have preferred a Daniel, a Greg, or a Jason. Albert was a stuffy, dusty sounding name. But here he was. Thank goodness he didn't look like an Albert. They stood together on the hotel balcony overlooking the endless view of mountains piled one over another into the blue distance. Sun struck his clean thin face, causing him to squint as he smiled at her. She could see scattered prisms of refracted sunlight in his hair. Suddenly the thought struck her that he seemed to actually emanate light. That's it, she thought. He looks electrical. She continued to watch him, the sunlight firing off his face, his eyes, his red hair; then she had to explain why she laughed. "It's because you look electrical, Albert, like a volt of electricity. Like a watt. Like a bolt of lightning tearing across the sky, like the King of all lightning and electrical impulses." Albert had no objection to being the King of Electrical Impulses, and since it amused her he let her fashion a costume for him out of coat-hangers, plastic dry-cleaning bags, shoulder pads snipped from articles of clothing, a clear plastic belt strapped diagonally across his chest. "Wild King of Electricity," she addressed him that night inside their institutionally impersonal honeymoon suite.
130 Aura short story
"Your name henceforth shall be Miraculus Voltus Lectricalus." And she laughed and laughed. And he laughed too, watching his new bride apply red lipstick lightning streaks to her fresh just-married face and along both arms from shoulder to wrist. He pranced about the room, uninhibited for the first time in his life, striking poses he deemed to be thoroughly electrical, as she continued drawing red zig-zags of lightning from her thighs to her ankles and from her breasts, downward across her stomach and abdomen. She moussed her blonde hair into two huge spikes that actual ly looked quite like horns, and she sprayed them with hair spray until they radiated stiffly from her head. Then she fash ioned a costume for herself, folding many sheets of white writ ing paper into fans which she tucked into her bra and under the straps and around the elastic of her bikini panties. Then she encircled herself with a long, heavy-duty extension cord which she ripped from the lamps on each side of the king-sized nuptial bed. From this, she dangled her curling iron, her hair dryer, his electric razor. "My electrical darling!" he exclaimed, as if he had rec ognized her for the first time. "Yes," she answered. "I am known as Strata Iluminata." And she danced for him, a frantic, twitching pavane with many starts and stops, like an electric light switch flipped on and off. Thus, when they came back from their honeymoon, they possessed a private world, inhabited entirely by electrical lovers of wattage. No one else guessed that there was such a world, and that of course made it all the more amusing. When in the company of relatives and friends, often they looked shyly at each other when anyone mentioned power surges, or they winked furtively across the table when someone predict ed an electrical storm. They felt, even more than most young married couples, special, set apart, conspirators. Mythological. They had a nice little home, a renovated 1940's bunga low on Southside. There were tall trees in the back and thick, luxurious green grass in the front. The young couple enjoyed lying on their backs on that verdant green carpet at night, watching the stars and talking of the distant electric galaxy from which they came. Soon they began wrapping themselves
131 Aura short story in long strings of Christmas lights, augmenting their electrical costumes with thousands of tiny luminous bulbs. His were multicolored; hers were clear. They purchased more and more extension cords, stringing them together end-to-end, so that the two glowing, frolicsome beings of enlightenment could run about across the lawn each night, sparkling and volatile, dancing dances of astonishing incandescence on the dark summer grass. Strata Illuminata teased and tempted her mythological hero, Voltus Electricalus, as she romped across the dew cov ered lawn. The fescue glittered under her feet, reflecting the brilliant beams cast by the thousands of tiny lights adorning her otherwise naked body. V.E. laughed lustily and gave chase. "Come to me, my flashy seductress!" he called, pursu ing his flickering loved one. "Illuminata! Illuminata!" She squealed and threw herself into his arms, giving lit tle thought to the crackling of tiny bulbs. They bought only the kind that would continue to burn if one burned out. The thunder of the approaching storm was muffled by the shouts and laughter of the radiant lovers who were now entangled in their multiple extension cords as they thrashed about in fervent embrace. The immense bolt of lightning ripped out of the turbulent sky and made contact with their many-lighted bodies. And that was the end of that marriage.
132 Contributors
K._ate Asson Michael Lubcovic Dougf)aulos Amber Melero:! jenna I)azzell Undsa~ Mou~al !ve_0 brown Gloria Nuckols John butler Reagan Rhone 1\ame~ Channell Catherine Roth E_rin Childress Susan Sailors Dustan julius Creech Noel Scott Ton_0 Crunk Yosuke Sho Christopher Dang Stephaine Sides Gene f erreiro I)rent StauUer Thomas Goldstein I)o_0ce Steel Tina Harris Madison Stubble~ield Mike Herndon Chris Tidwell Ann Hof+ Quinn White Ashle~ Husle:J f au I Cordes Wilm Aisha johnson E:,rand~ Yates C lifton !(ell:! Qn Zhang jenni~er Land Sigma Tau Delta is proud to support Aura and our student writers, editors, and artists!
For more information on Sigma Tau Delta as a national organization, go to www.english.org.
For more information on the activities of your local UAB chapter, please contact Dr. Alison Chapman ([email protected]) or Dr. Cassandra Ellis ([email protected]).
Activities and perks include: Fall Book Swap Spring essay contest in the local high schools Free movie tickets for members Scholarships and faculty mentorship for applicants Annual Sigma Tau Delta conference
Please consider joining us, and please consider submitting your own creative work to Aura. . ~~----~~~~~ ~