Et Cetera English Student Research

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1983 et cetera Marshall University

Follow this and additional works at: https://mds.marshall.edu/english_etc Part of the Appalachian Studies Commons, Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Fiction Commons, Nonfiction Commons, and the Poetry Commons

The 1982-83 Et Cetera In Order of Appearance:

ORA WING ...... Tony Fitzgerald PROJECTION ORA WING...... Teresa Harrold AN EVEN TRADE ...... Sam Pritchard SPENCE MILLER'S STORE ...... Deanna Armour LITTLE ONE ...... Jan Curry UNTITLED POEM ...... Lynn Thomas THE FARM ...... Debbie Jackson THE BOND ...... Sarah Leaberry AN EPISTLE ...... Anonymous CRADLES AND CODAS SENILE ...... Taube Marie Cyrus AQUA DREAMS MUD NIGHT AS SEEN BY AN IND/AN ...... Lee Smith NO SWEAT ...... Alan Benjamin EIGHT MINUTES ...... Gary D. Hall INSPIRATION ...... David Clark TRANSITION ...... Jennifer E. Smith A WINTER'S ANTIC/PA TION ...... Carla Seamonds UNTITLED POEMS ...... Rondalyn Varney GHOSTS TOBACCO JAR ...... David Hatfield DR. RUBELLA CARTOONS ...... Tony Fitzgerald WORD-FINDER ...... Christine Delea LIT-LOVER'S XWD ...... Tony Fitzgerald HOMECOMING ...... Ralph Wadkins JEWEL DROP THE DUNE ...... Rose Davis A PUZZLE ...... Jeannie Burdette NEW HOME IN THE CITY ...... Kim Mullins THE FURNACE ROOM ...... Jonathan Schulze DOC CONE ...... Eric Spurlock DRAWING ...... Chuck Fry MISUNDERSTANDINGS LOST ...... Christine Delea SON OF THE LIVING ...... Betty Rickman DRAWING ...... Kris Hackleman THE BLUE SUN ...... Penny Booth DRAWING ...... Teresa Harrold ROAR ...... Steve Ambrose OYSTER STEW RIDDLE ...... Patricia Jordan UNTITLED POEM ...... Jerry Keene SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION ...... Alan Benjamin ORA WING ...... Chuck Fry DEA TH OF A LOVER ...... Terry De Estenssoro HOUSES ...... B.W. Thornton ORA WING ...... Teresa Harrold PHOTOGRAPHY ...... Molly Cook NEGATION A VICIOUS TALE ...... Thom Houghton ODE TO A SLEEPING CHILD 246 HAL CREER ...... Andrea Christensen DAILY I SEE PAIN ...... Christine Delea THE HEAD OF THE CREEK ...... Drema S. Redd DRAWING ...... Shelley Hage

THANKS: to Sam and David, J. McK. and S. Pett, for putting up with my hysterics; Big Dave and the kids, for living with me in spite of it; Dr. Robert Gerke (twice), Dora (thrice), and Eric Thorn, for helping lots; Ann, and Shirley; and to Esther Freeman and Ruthie at Wig- gins' for allowing us to in- vade their space for the back cover photo (by Tony Seaton). And most especially to Tony Fitzgerald, without whom this would still be a mass of papers lying in my desk drawer.

1982-83 Et Cetera Staff

DREMA SKAGGS REDD, editor SAM PRITCHARD, assistant editor and prose chairman

DAVID HATFIELD, poetry editor TONY FITZGERALD, layout

Poetry Committee: MIKE PLYBON, DEANNA ARMOUR

Prose Committee: CHRISTINE DELEA, HEATHER KEIGLEY, ROSE DAVIS

Staff artists, etc; JOHN COX, PAT CONLEY, TONY FITZGERALD

Publicity & general help: TERRY DE ESTENSSORO

Faculty Advisor: Dr. JOHN McKERNAN and Dr. STEPHEN PETT, English Department

I threw a pebble in the water then and there a thought took form you stood unabashed in nakedness (like Venus unveiled) I laughed then got caught up in your cloudy sensorium

We spun 'round one another two peacocks armed in rainbow plummage singing, strutting alien beings faces melting into slime and earth the stars, floodlights to our re-enactment the sun, a monument to such passion sweet bread and sacred wine ours is the holy euchurist spun of ethereal rays limitless light thought thinking itself into matter in time, a moment loses life it was so long ago memory slips into fleeting images but, how can a thought form tell me a thing? How can salt be sweet? then I heard you speak you said that the sun shone magic through my hair again the instant passed the vitality dead moving on to another place I settled in the valley of wakeful remembering you dissolved like an aborted dream thinking I saw you ... no an illusion there was no you only my reflection - nd I had no eyes only circular pools radiating outward where I had thrown a pebble which was no more

4 Teresa Harrold EDITOR'S AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ARTWORK (TIE)

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5 AN EVEN TRADE Sam Pritchard Senior

The fallen, hand-painted sign and never said a word. He had that she might find an attractive, rested, as it had for the last twenty thought of tel Iing Victoria about more sensible man - should years, against the side of the shop. his plans to trade one of his new anything happen. "After al I," she It said: "HONEST JOHN'S. Trac- tractors for a team of horses, but reasoned, "we have to prepare tors & Implements. BUY. SELL. as he watched his horses move ourselves for the future. There's no TRADE." It was the same sign that through her flower garden, he sense kidding myself. Women live John had put out when he had thought it'd be better to wait. longer than men. And he's already started in business nearly fifty John went on clearing his throat, past his four score an' ten. Doc years ago. He had taken it down and thought, as he had at least Price told him to take it easy, but and painted the word "Tractors" once a day for the last forty years, there's no changing an ole stub- over the word "Horses," and never about his plan to hand the business born mule like John." Victoria got around to putting it back up. over to his son Johnny. John was smiled to herself, and stopped to The Cunningham's house and convinced that his son would never stir the corn mush. barn stood behind a thin grove of amount to a thing. "He won't listen She had stopped thinking about trees a short distance from the to a word of what I tell him. It's leaving him many years ago. But shop. Stacks of used tires, ir- hard work that got me where I am. she stil I thought about trying to reparable equipment, rusted pick- If it was up to him, he'd no doubt change him. She stirred as she ups, piles of decaying manure, a be givin' everything away. Tried to thought. "There's no sense in it. fallen corn crib, and a sunken tell him there's no such thing as We've got enough money to retire. three-sided shed surrounded the cheatin' a man who ain't but And Johnny could run the barn. The barn creaked and groan- cheated himself first. It takes two business." The spoon stopped. "Of ed, but it remained standing. The to trade. But he ain't interested in course he don't have half the in- house was circled by tires that had trading. I tried to tell him, if you stinct for makin' a dollar as his long ago been painted white. want to stay in business, you've got father." She stirred. "But he'I I have Petunias bloomed. to be will in' to trade the old for the to take over sooner or later Over the years, additions had new. And what's he say? It's just a anyway. What he hasn't learned by sprung from the house at assorted job. Just a job." A deep guttural now, he never will. There's nothing angles until it looked like sound came out of his mouth. It hard about selling farm equip- something a child had built. Vic- kind of startled him a bit, and he ment. Johnny just talks too much toria had said, "The least we might qui clearing his throat. to get any work done. He'd do just do is cover it with the same style John shifted his eyes and saw a fine if John would retire and let clapboard, and have it painted." lone russet that had been left hang- him alone." The mush had thicken- John didn't think much of her idea, ing on a distant branch. "And to ed. Victoria stirred her thoughts. but they had it done anyway. think them apples won first prize She'd heard it often. Behind the house was the at the Calhoun County Fair. How He'll say just what he always garden, and in the center stood a many years has that been? Been a says when I ask him to retire. gnarled apple tree. Beyond that long time. But they still make good By God, nothing will ever come were the hills. Eroded cattle tracks sauce." John looked at his reflec- to a man who ain't will in' to work. cut circular paths, and dead tion in the window. "Damm if I Work. Is that al I you can think chestnut trees stood like don't look like a wrinkled russet about? monuments in the deep ravines. myself." He pulled at his buttoned Who'll run the business? and the John was watching his horses shirt collar, and hoped that Vic- farm? I can't get Johnny to put in a from the kitchen window. His head toria wouldn't see his horses eating day's work at the shop, let alone do was twitching. It always twitched. her flowers. some farm work. And he cleared his throat as he Victoria was moving about the It's not his place to do farm thought. It was as if he were about kitchen fixing breakfast. She was chores. He's got a life of his own. to speak, but as often as not, he almost fifteen years younger than By God, there's no sense even just went on clearing his throat, John, and it pleased her to think thinking about it. We haven't got 6 --

the money. cap to the ground. helluva way to hafta make 3 Money. If you're so doggone Victoria went outside. "There's livin'?" worried about spending a little no sense gettin' excited. It ain't Raiph was an alcoholic wh 0 money, how's come you keep nothing new. If you'd build a de- dreamed of going to California to those useless horses? I suppose it cent fence for once in your pick fruit for a living. "That'd be don't cost nothin' to feed 'em? I ife ... " the life for me," he would saY· A man's got to keep somethin' to "I ain't got time to be chasin' Every Friday he made plans to remind him of what was. And I like these horses all mornin'. There's leave, but come Monday morning, to look at 'em. work to be done!" if his hangover permitted, he wa Reminders. Haven't you got "I ain't got time neither." back working for John. "Ne)( enough junk settin' around here? "By Cod!" said John, his head week," he'd say, "next week yo u You an' your good ole days. I get shaking, and his trembling hands won't be seein' me a breakin' rnY tired a hearin' it. They're gone. held out before him, "I don't know fool back for nothin'. I'll be go ne Cone. Can't you understand that? why you plant flowers next to the o to Cal-i-forn-i-a." He'd smile, sh 1 ; By Cod ... house anyway." ing the teeth he had le few rotten t Victoria felt her own head begin She laughed. "Let 'em be. They and the chew of Elephant But to twitch. She snapped her eyes can't do any more damage than tobacco that swelled in his jafci open wide and lifted the scorched what's already been done. No, sir. Ralph's job was to clean up the O d mush off the burner, striking the I'm through chasin' those inbreds." equipment and then paint it red spoon against the side of the pan. She surprised herself with the tone John wanted everything paint, lt "Mush!" she said sharply. of her voice. "The least you might red. It didn't matter to Ralph. John was still standing at the do, if you insist on keeping some all pays he'd say. e the same," e window, still hoping his horses stupid reminder ... " didn't work much even when would get out of the flowers. The "Hem ... hem ... A-hem!" was sober. "For twelve dollars sound of her voice startled him. He "I ain't through yet! The least day, I can't afford to do too mu c I< turned abruptly, sending half his you might do is get some decent work." come to 1° 0 Ralph had d coffee to the floor. They looked at stock. Somethin' that didn't hurt like the cheap whiskey that fe each other for a long moment. your eyes to look at." him. He twisted off the cap, to o l< John started walking towards long swallow, and offered it t the shop. "Where in the devil's Clarence. ·d A man's got to Clarence and Ralph?" He looked at "Too early in the day," 531 his watch. 8:05. "I sure would like Clarence. is keep somethin' to to have workers get here on time "Aaahh," said Ralph, "this for once." He stopped, and turned breakfast." remind him of what back towards the garden. "I reckon Jo h "I ain't got all day!'' said e was. it'll be ten o'clock before Johnny They walked on towards t ever gets here." Then he stopped ab0 t house. Clarence paused i e and turned towards the shop again. every third step t? cough and t eY "Well," said John, standing with Clarence and Ralph were arriving. a As t drag on his cigarette. 5 his back to the window. He began "Hey! Over here!" said John, and passed the row of new tractor.; to clear his throat. he started waving his cap as he Ralph said, "Ain't ole. wha_t's 'r- "Well what? swear if moved behind two of the horses. name bringin' his team in this r;}, sometimes you ain't worse than a "I'm gettin' tired a chasin' them nin' to trade for a new tractor· kid." damm horses," said Clarence. "Ole Woody Everly?" John just stood there, his head "It all pays the same," said "Yeah," said Ralph. "Now 0,-,.hat twitching, and that deep guttural Ralph. sessi oughta be a real tradin' re sound rolling in his throat. Clarence stopped to roll a Why I'll betcha a bottle a this heh,, "Co on and get out of the way so cigarette. Standing still, Clarence cheap whiskey that Honest J 0 I can clean it up!" She paused, and looked as if he were tied in knots. gets the best of him." glanced out the window. "Gosh He still carried shrapnel from the 3 us· "Shit," said Clarence, as he P re Neds! If you insist on keepin' them Great War in his hips and ed of trees whe in the thin grove ed horses right here next to my shou Ide rs, and arthritis plagued the used equipment was scatt I garden, the least. .. " She heard the rest of his joints. When he about, "that ain't no bet a-t 3 ; ,,, the door close, and shouted, "The walked, his legs swung outwards, been here goin' on forty years, st least you might do is build some and his stooped shoulders swayed I've yet to see any man get the be decent fence." gettin' kinda with each step. "I'm of John Cunningham." .., id Victoria watched from the win- slow," he I iked to say, "but I can "Ole Everly's pretty s l"k"S<>,c , dow. John was waving his cap, run- still roll my own cigarettes, and I Ralph. . t be ning first in one direction and then can still roll Ma over in bed." "Then you take him. I m,gh the other. The horses had scat- Clarence was the mechanic. He dumb, but I ain't stupid." tered. He stopped to brush back was better at taking things apart "It's a deal," said Ralph. iJeS his white hair, and motioned to than putting them back together, As they passed the assorted . Victoria. "Get out here and help!" but he got the job done. When he r,S of junk, Clarence took a cous e ri She waved back. John looked at didn't know what else to say, he spell. "There's somethin' ro gh her in disbelief, and twisting his walked about the shop saying, as if around here. It'll make me co body in frustration, he threw his to remind himself, "Ain't this a every time." 7 John crossed the small strip of "Ain't none finer," said Mr. Ever- "Did you need any lawn. "Come on. We ain't got all ly. implements?" said John. mornin'." Ralph nudged Clarence. "Looks "Don't reckon. Not unless you The three of them spent the bet- like you're gonna be a buyin' that wanna trade for some more ter part of an hour chasing the bottle." horses." horses. Clarence mostly just stood "Hush," said Clarence. "Not today," said John as he there. When he wasn't coughing, Mr. Everly was still resting on his stood gazing at the twitching tails. he was shouting. "Yee - haa! Yee haunches, and still slowly shaving He took a step towards the buggy, -haa !" at his piece of wood. He paused for and then he turned and said, "I "This ain't no rodeo," said a moment and pushed up the want you all to fix that fence Ralph. bill of his cap with the tip of his before the day's over. Go on an' John was running about, with his knife blade. He looked first at the get what you need. An' tell Johnny, red cap in one hand and his white tractor and then at his team, and, if an' when he ever shows up, that hankerchief in the other, waving slowly, he turned his head until his he's on his own. I'm goin' for a and shouting directions. "Get over eyes met John's. "Well, Mr. Cunn- buggy ride." that way. No. This way. Hurry up, ingham, we might set about here He heard Clarence and Ralph Ralph. Don't let 'em get out doin' nothin' all mornin'. But I for laughing as they started the pick- towards the road. Stop 'em, one has got work to do. How ya up. Clarence. Drive 'em back. That's it. trade yonder tractor for them "Maybe we best get that bottle, This way." horses?" 'fore you forget," said Ralph. Victoria laughed as she watched "I'll take a thousand dollars to "I won't forget," said Clarence. through the window. Clarence kept boot." "I don't reckon I'll ever forget that hollering, "Yee - haa! Yee - haa!" Without so much as a sideways trade." Ralph finally got five of them cor- glance, Mr. Everly rose, walked to John stepped onto the buggy, nered and drove them back into his team, and said, "Come on, gals. and lifted the reins. The team the lot. The sixth one followed. We might as well go home. There's began to fidget. He tried to speak Mr. Everly was sitting on his no tradin' to be done here today." softly, but the more he tried, the haunches, about midway between John trembled as he thought. more they fidgeted. His hands were his horses and the new tractor. He "He's crazy. That's already givin' it trembling, and his voice made that had picked up a piece of scrap away." He fought the urge to deep guttural sound. They started wood, and, slowly, flecks of wood speak. "Maybe Victoria's right. It'd to neigh. They were moving, danc- flew from his pen-knife. He heard be nice to take it easy. Maybe even ing, first backwards, and as they John clearing his throat. Mr. Everly build some fence. Sure would started to lunge forward, John lifted his eyes and watched John as make her happy." grasped the reins tightly, jerked he examined the team, and then "Wait a minute," said John. ''I back and shouted, "Whoa! Whoa!" the buggy. But he never raised his might be able to do you a little bet- They reared. Their front legs rose head until he saw John's feet mov- ter. They are a fine team." and danced in the air. When they ing towards him. He rose. "What'd I tell ya," said Ralph. touched the ground, the hind legs "How ya do this mornin', Mr. Clarence was silent. flew back, crashing into the buggy. Everly?" "I'll take five hundred to boot, "Whoa! Whoa!" They rose again. "I do just like I always do." and that's my final offer," said And again, the hind legs came "And the good ones twice," said John. smashing into the buggy. And they John. "It's a deal," said Mr. Everly. kicked still a third time. Mr. Everly returned to his haun- "Did you want the buggy, too?" Mr. Everly looked back as he ches. John cleared his throat. "The buggy?" said John choking topped the hill. "I thought he had Clarence and Ralph watched from on his words. more sense than that." He reached the shade of the nearest tree. "You win," said Clarence. "But into his pocket, pulled out the "I told ya he was a slick one," there must be somethin' powerful crude wooden horse that he had said Ralph. wrong with John. I never seen the carved, and cast it into the road- "Hush," said Clarence. "Ole I ikes." side brush. "Horses are a thing of John ain't even got started yet. Just Mr. Everly smiled. "Them's fine the past. A man's got to keep up wait till he gets done clearin' his horses. Mighty fine. I raised 'em with the times." He opened the throat." myself. Worked with 'em everyday throttle and watched the black John walked back over to the till they knew by the sound of my smoke filter into the air. team. He felt the supple harness, voice and the touch of my hand Slowly, and painfully, John and stroked their strong, slick just what was expected of 'em. made his way to the house. He necks. His head following their Fine horses," he repeated. ascended the stairs, pausing on twitching tails. "Now they're even " 'Course that ain't sayin' nothin' each step. Victoria followed pretty to look at," he thought. about the buggy. It's an antique." behind him. "Sure would make Victoria happy. "So am I," said John. "Dear God! What's happened?" Get shed a them others, and just "What's that, ya say?" "I just need to lie down for a keep these two. Maybe I'll retire "I say, you throw in the buggy, spell." an' take her for buggy rides." and we'll call it an even trade." "Should I call Doc Price? Where "Them horses ain't bad," said "An even trade. Yes, it's an even are the workers? Is Johnny here? John, "but I thought you were br- trade. Now, if you'll excuse me, I Dear God, what's happened?" inging your finest." best be on my way." "It's them horses," said John in a 8 clear cold voice. "Now will ya just wide open. The smoke was just a Let's go to the house." let me sleep for a spell?" rollin outta .. " Johnny turned the sign on the front Victoria descended the stairs "Listen to me, Johnny ... will door to the shop. "Sorry, We're and ran to the shop. She was runn- you just. .. " Closed." ing about in circles when Johnny "Wait a minute, Ma, I'm just get 0 John slept. The morning became arrived. He was doubled over with tin' to the best part. Anyways, he a stampede. Thundering hooves of laughter. was laughing just as hard as a tel la a thousand horses ran before him. "You'll never guess what I saw could laugh. Well, no sooner than I Then it was quiet. He saw himself on my way here. It was the durn- passed him, than .here comes his riding in his new buggy, with Vic- dest sight I've ever seen ... " team a horses runnin' like their toria beside him. He was stricken "Quiet, Johnny. There's been an tails was on fire. And they was with joy. "I've done it. I've done accident." draggin'. .you ready for this? it." Then he turned, and his head "An Accident? Ha! That ain't They was draggin' what looked to lay motionless on the pillow. nothin' compared to what I seen. me like the remains of a buggy." Clarence and Ralph spent the You know Woody Everly from out "Johnny, your father's been afternoon in the shade of an oak. there on Breakneck Ridge?" hurt." They drank whiskey, and laughed "Please, would you be quiet a "Boy, I'll tell ya, a fella don't at the day, until night overtook minute and listen to me ... " hardly know from one minute to them. "Wait a minute, let me tell you the next. Now does he?" "You reckon JoHn will ever this. I couldn't believe it. I'm com- "John Charles Cunningham change his ways?" said Ralph. in' to work, right? And what do I Junior!" "How's that?" see ... " "Hey, what is it Ma? Where's "Well, you think he'll still want "Johnny ... " Dad?" us to build that fence in the mor- "What do I see but Ole man "He's asleep." nin'?" Everly comin' down the road like a "Where's Clarence and Ralph?" "It ain't likely," said Clarence. blue streak. He had that tractor "I was hoping you'd be able to "It ain't likely." , runnin' wide open, and I mean help me figure out what happened.

9 SPENCE MILLER'S STORE

Deanna Armour Senior Spencer Miller's Store is very old. The front steps are oiled wood, worn and cracked. Dirt has settled into the grain and streaked the boards smooth. Old Men in overalls and billed caps sit on those steps, chew tobacco, and talk about used to be. I pass. They smile and nod and speak and so do I. I know them all. Years ago they bought me candy for a dime from Spence Miller's store.

LITTLE ONE

Jan Curry Freshman

Little one ... You have brought such joy to my life.

Little girl. .. So much wonder in your large blue eyes.

With the single charm and your loving arms, you share your snacks with the family dog. (Scamp not a hog?)

The warmth of your laughter, I find a family is what I'm after. You have shown me why.

Tender joy came from your toys, you have grown up so fast. I am afraid you have put them in the past.

Special "Hi's" and soft "good-byes" have filled my heart with love. you are five now nine soon way above.

Listen to the sounds and look up at the clouds, for you Annie are my special friend forever.

10 Lynn Thomas

On waking up.

My dreams drift and swoop in maddening maze and then pause on uptilted daffodil smiles moments before

they prance away, just out of reach.

The Farm

Debbie Jackson Senior

My earliest memories are of a farm in Nicholas County: When I was scared in the night Pap-pap held me, warm. Mam-ma sang, washing dishes; the kitchen light smiled me to sleep.

The sunflower plants were much taller than me; We saved the gourd til the seeds rattled, dry. And cows licked the grass from upturned baby hands.

The iron-water pump gave forth cold, metallic water. The yellow-topped kitchen table offered raisins and cheese As curious hands reached up at Mam-ma's prompting.

Baths were in the front yard in a tub full of sunshine. My brother found a rattler and Pap-pap shot it in the garden. I showed Mam-ma wild violets under the storybook tree.

Mam-ma pulled our red wagons on the coal-sprinkled road: "Are you taking us all the way to Charleston?" And we ate vanilla ice cream cones from J.P.'s store.

11 THE BOND Sarah Leaberry I guess it happened the summer my sister moved out and before my junior year of college. I can't pin- point it exactly. It was not a radical or drastic change, but rather a gradual, all-encompassing change. Reality hit me one evening as I stepped out of the shower and hung up my bath towel. No more of that reaching for a half-knives and Ann's "old" room. The brilliance of loaded guns. The shotgun stands in readiness by the the clean fire-engine red carpet back door. The neighbors wince at its frequent roar, struck me as being odd. That and rush to check on dogs, cats, or any other pets stupid carpet! How we had argued that might be executed for presuming to cross the ten years ago over a color and path of one of the old man's chickens. The pistol finally settled on something we goes inside the old terror's waistband, underneath both later regretted. his jacket or shirt, unsuspected by passing motorists until its crack warns them not to use his There was something else dif- clearing to make a U-turn. The knife nestles in his ferent: the furniture was all neatly pocket, razor keen. Its blade glistens in his gnarled dusted and newly arranged, like a hand when one of the grandchildren, delighted with small child's room. It no longer resembled a twenty-two year-old's the overgrown playmate, begins to tire him. There has been no blood yet, but small arms made red room, with pictures of the fiance, from twisting and blue from make the dried flowers from past dances, pinching parents' eyes grow anxious, and perhaps little and sorority paddles. The walls a desperate. They don't come around often, now. were shouting a new theme, one I And me? speak walk wide circles, could not comprehend. I softly, in and lie awake Suddenly I felt out of place, like nights. an intruder. It both shocked and As always, depressed me. I quickly turned and entered my own room. I gazed J.B. around at my worldly possessions. Somehow they seemed so trivial: a cat calendar, a music box, and sorority paddles on the wall. An uneasy feeling washed over me as I wondered how long it would be before my day would come. Would I return one day to discover a spotless room and an empty closet? With that thought in mind I flipped on the stereo and became absorbed in the sounds, shutting out all else.

12 Editor's A ward for OutstandingPoetry CRADLES AND CODAS

Taube Marie Cyrus Freshman

My nerves are bad, knotted in Boy Scout puzzlements. AQUA DREAM And here, in my pill-box of sugary treats, the Rainbow of sherbets digestable as placebo Metaphors. It's enough to keep a clock busy. Lee Smith When I chew one, drawing on the dry chalk Artillery, it keeps washing up, Senior When I become a writer An unstrung bottom fighting to disappear, I'll write about living Fearing death by soda water. fathoms below sea level and bouncing water I should not speak of it, this ventriloquist trick with the iridescent shine of fish scales, with Of swallowing lean green balloons. one hundred year old turtles While the lips smack their chicken livers ' and showers of minuscule minnows My tongue clacks like a train track. feeding on rainbows of seaweed Clickety-clack, cl ickety-clack. ' my air bubbles and foam Now quiet, pretending to be the pancake flowing over my head Face ironed flat on a T.V. screen. to the feet of baked tourists The puffer fish sag in and out. who will never appreciate the luxury of gills. Mad will, the doctor's incantations crawl Through my cool tubes-the sluggy plumbing. I blink and wait. I fold inward like hands. Patty cake, patty cake and all that. Gate-crashers and the pity-party Pump me back from my repose. Heads shake, mouths frown. Something bad's happened, I suppose.

SENILE Taube Marie Cyrus

Nanny May has gone blank as a picture tube, again. MUD She is wilting hand and foot, old orchid, A strung glove with prune-dried breasts Lee Smith The saggy edges taped flat on a brassi;re. I used to eat whatever my friend gave me At night we hear her chicken soup sigh until she gave me mud and told me it was a cookie. Fading across the shutters like a violin. When I told my mother, she said, Moths gather at the windowpane "Friends will feed it to you Their O-mouths eating on the curtains: as long as you'I I eat it." Hand-loomed linens Opa picked up In Germersheim on an impulse. She was so young back then, jingling Her skirts, loving the beer and pretzels, Dancing the Danube and saying I do, I do. She thought she had it made. But what do you do when Nanny's in Pampers? Do you say Ponce de Leon ain't no Santa Claus Or do you suck your thumb?

13 NIGHT AS SEEN BY AN INDIAN

dedicated to Or. Robert Sawrey Lee Smith

If you stand in any cornfield in Sylvatus, Virginia, facing Hiawasse, at sunset, and half-close your eyes, you can see a hump on the mountain that looks like a tee pee. The tee pee is big enough for only a single Indian.

That Indian builds a fire at about 5:30 every night to roast the rabbit he hunted in the afternoon. Then he sits by a smouldering fire and watches the sk y .

The sun sets in his blood. The blue-black sky is his magnified eye-an eye that saw the land hundreds of years before those who blinded that eye. The moon becomes less and less transparent in the eye and reflects his face. Stars turn over on their bright sides to sparkle for him. He reaches up to take one so he can remember the sky the way he sees it tonight.

14 NO SWEAT

Alan Benjamin Senior

A siren sounded in the distance, make it to his funeral. school while his parents were out growing louder as his mind raced "How much further?" the kid of town. Also at her suggestion toward consciousness. A flat, dull paramedic shouted to the front. No they went straight to bed. More pain spread across the left side of answer. than anything else he remembered his face as the siren died. The pain "Not much further now," the kid the sweat that covered them both, was sharp and quick near his said to him. the drops that fell from his nose cheekbone and eye. He could feel Each bump summoned pain and forehead to her face. He was moisture around his temple, slowly from his body. A sharp right turn; it sweating now. Some sweat oozing towards the back of his hurt even more as his body swayed beneath his bandage seeped head, drenching his scalp along the to the left. He thought of Judy. through a crevice of his swollen way. Most of his left side was She'd cry when she heard about face into his left eye socket. It numb, his right leg hurt relatively this. He could see her now, stan- stung like hell but there was little. After keeping his body ding there with her handkerchief to nothing he could do. healthy and in good shape for her face. She was a real crier. "Now, this won't hurt a bit," the twenty-two years he suddenly "Johnny! Get down out of that huge black nurse told him. She was found it battered and broken. tree, you're going to fall and break at least fifty pounds overweight. He thought hard to remember your neck!" his mother shouted. "We just need to fill these two tiny what happened, the screaming He was high in the maple tree in his vials for samples. You probably tires, a long burgundy hood, a front yard, a tree made for climb- won't even feel it." Bullshit, he felt thump, his own legs silhouetted ing. Dad promised to help him it plenty. There was something against the sky, and the dark pave- build a tree-fort in it someday. He psychologically painful about ment suddenly rising up to catch tried to tell her that he was doing metal protruding from the body. him. That explained the massive some surveying; she didn't buy it. He'd hated needles ever since. bandage on his face; the pave- He also climbed the tree to look at Blood on the paramedic's pant ment's kiss had not been sweet. the clouds, the white clouds, white leg. Blood is so dark, he suddenly Movement was impossible; so like the inside of the ambulance. realized, much darker than in the was speech. It was all he could do He wondered how often they movies, almost black. Even dried it to open his right eye. Just as he had· had to clean the insides of these isn't red. A reddish-brown at best. thought: an ambulance; fire ex- things to keep them so white. The This blood isn't dry yet, still soak- tinguisher hanging in the corner, neon lights must last forever. ing into the pre.ssed white uniform. "To Operate Hold Upright, Pull Pin, Neon, neon. White, white. Squeeze Handles, Discharge at "Neon, atomic number: 10, lee skating. The flat, cold rink base of flames." How did he know atomic weight: 20.179, a colorless, beneath the steel of his shoes. Fall- that? A portable EKG lay on the odorless primarily inert gas found ing. The cool white ice much more cot across from him, electrode- in minute amounts in air and used forgiving than the asphalt. His dad tipped wires still hanging loose. He in electric lamps," Mr. Jones was made him wear a hockey helmet remembered a burning pain in his saying. Nice fellow, but a lousy after that; he could imagine what chest, accompanied by flashes of chemistry teacher. A severe bump his parents would say this time. light. and John Henry drove a spike of Another blast of the siren "Get that piece of shit out of my pain into his lower back. brought him back into the am- way!" came a shout from the front, He began to enjoy this. Billy bulance. They weren't supposed to followed by another short blast Pilgrim would be proud of him blow off their sirens unless the traf- from the siren. right now, so would the fic was thick or they came to an in- A broken-out face swung into Tralfamadorians. The pain slowly tersection. view. Just a kid, he thought, a diminished, no longer caused by In his chest, he felt a massive scared kid. The unmistakable look the turns of the ambulance, but by growing-pain. Suddenly he was of anxiety frozen in his eyes, beads another person's hand. very tired. The paramedic was say- of sweat dotted his forehead. He Susan Pinwell dug the finger- ing "No," in a pleading whisper, felt his own sweat. The sheets were nails of her right hand deep into his but he only wanted to sleep the soaked. left hip. He writhed in pain but rest of the way. His eye closed by "Don't die on me. No one's ever couldn't escape her white- itself. The pain subsided. In the died on me before," the kid said. knuckled grip. Susan was the first distance the siren slowly faded, I won't, he thought. His sister girl he ever laid. Technically, she and in the darkness he could feel was somewhere. Where? Far away, laid him. At her suggestion they no sweat. he knew. He wondered if she'd drove straight to his house after 15 EIGHT MINUTES

Gary D. Hall Junior

His mouth fell open when he had been in the woods, but they heard the news. Nothing else mov- never camped too far from a beer ed, just his mouth. He didn't freak carry-out. Before dark they wou Id out, though many other poeple hike to the small dirty gas station would have. His first thought was and buy enough beer to keep them that this could not be happening. busy for a couple of hours. These He had never expected to die so were his favorite memories: being soon. He felt like running, but huddled around the light from a there was no place to go. All he campfire, talking about everything could do was accept it and wait. from music to why crickets make After what felt like hours he such loud noises. turned off the television and got Half of his time was gone now, up from his seat. Slow with shock, he knew that. He began to tremble he looked out the window. It was a with the realization that it would beautiful fall day, the wind chilly soon be over. The waiting seemed but refreshing. The sun was gleam- to make time stretch to alarming ing and warmed the skin. The trees lengths. He began to believe that were alive with bright colors. It Time was stretching for him rather was all so wonderful, but of course than against him; stretching to give this would be the last time he him time to think about all that would see it. had happened in his life. His He turned from the view and thoughts raced, and he was surpris- walked across the room to the bar. ed at the things he remembered, He found almost half a bottle of things he hadn't thought of in bourbon and drank it down, as years, while Time kept playing with quickly as he could. He his mind. remembered when he was a young He knew he didn't have much boy his teacher had told the class longer. The TV announcer had said that someday this could possibly it would happen in about eight happen. He and his friends half minutes. He estimated that about believed her, though at the time six had passed. they made jokes and laughed. Now He walked back to the window those jokes weren't funny. They and looked out. No one could be haunted him. It wouldn't matter seen in the streets; funny, he soon. thought, why isn't there mass The alcohol was beginning to chaos? Everyone's too shocked to numb his body, but he couldn't move, he figured. Like me. He saw relax. He wished he weren't alone. birds flying overhead, but nothing He began to think about his else was in the sky. It was a friends; he wished he could see beautiful day, so he decided to some of them before it happened. stay by the window. He knew these He began hoping furiously that so- would be his last looks at a lovely meone, anyone, would show up; world. Tears began to burn in his deep down he knew no one would. eyes. It was all so silly, but it was There wouldn't be time for that. going to be settled now. He began He especially wanted to see his to cry. best friend. He thought about the The cloud swelled into a tremen- times they had gone camping dous mushroom. together. Some of their best times There was no one left to cry.

16 INSPIRATION

David Clark Sophomore

I fell away from the trail It's a long walk now I'm waiting for the sail to fill with inspiration I'll know it when it hits but it cannot pass my lips without changing into bits of utter nonsense I'll grasp and hold and think to try to cheat the flash as it passes in a wink of inspiration I know it can't be shared or held or spoke or dared but still I try to hold this inspiration Here it is again flowing like the wind TRANSITION inspiring me again to share Jennifer E. Smith to care to hold without grasping Junior to tell without gasping my inspiration To Punkin: Who can't wait for his miraculous change. Silver moons don't shine alone, even if from a million miles away you can see their blinding sparkle.

Grasping up its treasures don't wipe away no misery,

and you know, love don't do no heroic deeds.

Florida don't make your soul shine,

because treasures corrode, and become corrupt in a bit of time. Young boys go bouncing off everywhere, looking for a way to capture their manhood,

but beware, growth don't come, my son, by material things, but by how well you cultivate your precious temple and master your sacred land.

Manchild looking to blossom with the summer's sun, may have to wait seasons before this comes.

so relax, my son, don't rush your rebirth, because in time the change will miraculously occur, and be done.

17 A WINTER'S ANTICIPATION Carla Seamonds Graduate Student

Crickets singing the summer to sleep, dark feathered wings beat in a rhythmic cloud to the south.

The wind's temperament changes quickly now with all the comings and goings, as the grass lies deep and green from the muggy days and sultry nights past waiting to fill the air one last time with its scent.

The waves of the lake, tinted gray from the shoreline shale, no longer reflect a bright blue sky but one darker from the confusion of whether to let the sun in or out at its own will.

A small bass tosses ringlets in the water, as it swallows one of the last June bugs that had mistaken the lake for a continuation of the sky.

The sand's wrinkled face speaks of web-footed geese, sleeping silently among the rushes.

Mist rises from the lowlands. The sunset softly promises no rain for tomorrow to the pines, stretching long black fingers across the water's edge.

18 --

UNTITLED POEMS Rondalyn Varney Senior

When I think of him I guess I'll always think of toothpowder under a foggy mirror and the smell of his pillowcase and rumpled bedsheets and his boyish excitement with old, discarded items, midnight prowls in the rain, kitchen talks of former heartaches, present loves, and vegetarian diets in the meat-market world. Even now when I wear his rugby socks I re-feel the pain of excessive laughter and I still recall the songs his guitar cried for the girl in Texas. But most of all, when I think of him, I'll remember that he never touched me until we said goody-by and how I loved him for that.

Rondalyn Varney

Ink pens have been my tongue when the one in my mouth stuttered. And a scratchpad my ally when shoulders collapsed Button-€yed animals and soft pillows have been my encouragement; cruel hearts and insensitive laughter my inspiration.

So laugh, you bastards, and scream your thoughtless words. I challenge you to a battle armed with my pen.

19 GHOSTS David Hatfield Graduate Student

Ghosts on Hemlock Street stare down Glassy eyed from the third floor Of the old grey house. "Haunted since I was a boy," My father used to tell me. Dusks spent as a boy Under the streetlamp on the far corner, Watching the ghost house, waiting For the ghost children to rise From the cold earth and dance and play Across the front lawn. "Don't get your shrouds dirty," Their ghost mother would call to them, Sticking her head right through The closed front door. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Who wanted only to remain Forever a child, Was all I knew of ghosts; Casper And terrible stories my brother told me While we lay awake in bed on hot summer nights. After he stripped the sheets from his bed To stay cool, holding them up high By the corners to carefully fold them, The streetlamp shining through The open window. At two in the morning I cross The dark room, stare out the open window, Across the empty street to the puddle Of light beneath the streetlamp, Imagine a small boy staring back, Half hidden behind the lamppost, waiting, Watching, then suddenly turning and running away Down a twilight street. My brother is gone, forever leaving me To smell summer airs of freshly mown grass And honeysuckle blossoms through open windows By myself. Now I know. Casper is a little dead boy Who belongs in a tomb, buried Stone cold in the cool, damp earth With all the other ghosts who don't understand And rise to leave behind empty graves. Lord, if I were a ghost What poetry I would write. What verse Would float from my ectoplasmic head In words fully conceived and land on paper. I would write a billion names Of a billion ghosts on paper And read them aloud under the streetlamp On the far corner of Hemlock Street, And Casper and my brother And all the ghost children would join me, To dance and play once more Across the cool night lawns of summer, And my brother and I Would smell damp grasses and apple blossoms And I would forget about empty graves.

20 TOBACCO JAR

David Hatfield

I have a bag of dreams Hidden in the tobacco jar In my den, and late at night As my wife lay sleeping, And the children sleep A child's peaceful sleep, I creep down the darkened stairs, Silent as a thief, Put some dreams in my pipe And smoke them.

In the dim light of the desk lamp, In the wisps of blue air Floating from my pipe and drifting From my mouth, the dreams Take form: Sitting naked on the roof At night in a terrible storm, Forks of lightning crackling Around my head, and thunder Rumbling deep inside me; Making love in a deep summer forest To a dark haired woman On a cool, green bed of moss; Running my bare hand Along the rough wood of the ocean pier; Touching the smooth cheek Of my wife as she lay sleeping Without fear of waking her; Walking through an orange grove On a wet summer morning, Air heavy with the scent of blossoms.

And when the tobacco is gone, And the smoke is gone, I put away my pipe, press The door of the den so carefully closed, And return to bed.

21 DR. RUBELLA

Tony Fitzgerald Senior It was becoming too cold for His voice droned on as I became converse. I told him about my flies to live. But there was one in engulfed in the sensation of my disgustingly wealthy family who my room, battering himself against body rising. The room blinked on were not only paying for my the window again and again. It and off like a strobe light. And my hospital stay, but slipping me some careened in buzzing loops and head went "clik, buzz, clik, money besides. crashed its tiny head into the win- cl ik ... " "I have quite a bit of money dowpane. Then the fly would shud- myself," the old man said. "I was a der on the sill for a moment before * * * * practicing physician, so I, too, am beginning another crazed series of 'disgustingly wealthy' ." loops. My first sensation was the Recklessly, I rambled on. I need- The fly, I thought, clearly suf- pungent odor of fried institutional ed someone to talk to, badly. I told fered from a bad case of amnesia. fish filets. I realized that I was in him that I often compulsively It snapped into the glass again and the dining room with several other counted objects. again until it finally bounced to the patients. I sat alone at a table. "There are 295 blue tiles in my floor like a marble. Kindly old Dr. Three days had elapsed. I could room," I said. "I had to move the Hitchcock stepped on the fly and tell because the hospital cafeteria rug to count them." continued talking. always served fish on Friday. "Once I read about a man who "The very fact that you placed While picking at the filet's compulsively followed cars," he in- yourself in our care three months breading with my fork, I became terrupted. "You know how license ago shows that you are willing to aware of a large older man sitting plates have numbers such as help yourself," he said. "We are next to me. He was in his early fif- '2N-5385'? His mind would change making progress in your case, but ties, I guessed, and he had a coarse the dash into an equals sign. The we cannot cure your frequent at- mane of white hair. Over his mouth poor fool would follow cars tacks of amnesia, or the was draped a shining white around all day, trying to solve the schizophrenia which causes them, moustache which caught the equations on their bumpers." without your help." crumbs of the bun he was eating. "Well, listen to this," I said, lean- I told kindly old Dr. Hitchcock We ate in silence. Becoming ner- ing forward. "My mind changes about the way my mind changed vous, I summoned the courage to channels." channels. I would be sitting in my introduce myself. Although he seemed rather living room when a sensation came "Hello. I'm Charles Jankal. disinterested, I felt that since I had over me, a rising and strobing feel- What's your name, sir?" told him so much about myself, he ing which began a three or four day Straightforward. Respectful. I was shou Id share some of his secrets blackout. My mind would go "clik, proud of myself. My self- with me. Also, I had let him eat buzz, clik, clik" and it would sud- confidence swelled in my chest. most of my dinner, which entitled denly be next week. "What does it matter?" he snarl- me to something, I thought. "I don't enjoy them," I said of ed, squinting at me as if I were a "So what about you. Tell me the attacks. "I can't stop them dead roach floating in his soup. My about yourself," I said. either." chest deflated. "Not much to tell," he said brus- Kindly old Dr. Hitchcock ex- A few moments later he asked quely. "My name is Dr. Rubella." plained calmly that these were me if I was ever going to eat my "My friends call me Hank," I caused by repression. fish. said. "What do your friends call "You must face whatever it is "No," I said. "Fish revolts me." you?" that you are repressing," he said. "Fine, I'll eat it, then." He "Dr. Rubella," he replied. "We can do this through hypnosis speared the filet with his fork. At that instant, kindly old Dr. or. . ." The ice thus broken, we began to Hitchcock stuck his head between 22 us. channels the same number of that one of them belonged to kind- "Are you feeling better today, times. One day following one of ly old Dr. Hitchcock. Dr. Rubella Hank?" he said. these attacks, the hospital broke put that one on. Before I could answer, Dr. into a raving panic. Orderlies and "Why do we need these?" I ask- Rubella grabbed him by the collar psychiatrists were running about ed. and pulled the psychiatrist close to like headless chickens. There was a "Because it's cold outside," he his contorted face. lot of shouting going on. I stopped said, grabbing my arm and pulling "Where are my mallomars?" he an orderly to find out what the me through the big double doors of demanded. trouble was. the hospital. "What? What mallomars?" sput- "Water main broke." he said. Outside, we hailed a cab. He tered kindly old Dr. Hitchcock. "Goddam cold ... " pushed me, protesting, into the cab "The ones I requested. Why am I Breaking free of my grasp, he and sat on the seat beside me. He being denied these mallomars?" disappeared down the corridor. I plopped the other coat in my lap said Dr. Rubella. "I tell you, you turned to see the figure of Dr. and leaned forward. just can't get decent service Rubella lurking in a doorway. "Driver, take us downtown," he anymore. It's all beaurocracy. "Did you hear?'' he asked. "The said as we pulled away• from the Why, I remember that we used to whole main floor is filled with curb. "Third and Market Street have five-cent stamps, and now we several inches of water." would be fine." have twenty-five cent stamps. And He grabbed my arm and pulled I watched the compound disap- do you know why?" he continued, me down the hall. pear from view through the rear peppering the psychiatrist's face "We're going downstairs. window. with tiny droplets of saliva, "it's all Quick," he said. "Goddamn it! I'm going to be in because of that Socialist Jew We proceeded down the stairs. trouble now," I said. "And you are, bastard Roosevelt, whose name On the main floor, we saw a crew too. We're not supposed to leave was actually Rosenfeldt. He let the of doctors, orderlies and ad- the grounds." bankers take over and now even ministrators working side by side "Cool your jets, boy," said Dr. the police officer don't know what to help salvage furniture and Rubella. "We're just going out for buttons to push." carpeting. One orderly stood in a night on the town. It'll be good "Let go of me. You're becoming water up to his ankles, carefully therapy." violent again," said kindly old Dr. unplugging electrical appliances. I stared out the back window, Hitchcock. "Please don't make me Dr. Rubella strutted up to him in a saying nothing. send you back to your room." most official manner. "Aw, c'mon," he said. "You like "Very wel I," said Dr. Rubella. "The medical records are on this Big Time Wrestling, don't you?" "But the New Dealers sold this floor, aren't they?" he asked the "Yes," I said, wondering how he country down the river, and no one orderly. knew this about me. Perhaps I had seems to care. However, if you "Yes, I guess they are," he said. told him the night he ate my fish. bring my mallomars, I shall gladly "Well, don't just stand there. "Look. I have two tickets to see share them with you." Those records are being Swede Olafson versus Abdul the The psychiatrist observed us for destroyed," said Dr. Ruebella. Enforcer tonight at the Colosseum. a time, but grew tired of waiting "They must be taken to an upper They're having female midget tag- for another outburst. As he walked floor immediately." team wrestling, too. You wouldn't away, Dr. Rubella winked at me. "Yes, sir," said the orderly. Sum- want to miss that," he said. "You've got to do that once in a moning help, he led some men into "Where did you get those while," he said. "It keeps them on the medical records library. Dr. tickets, Dr. Rubella?" I asked. their toes." Rubella looked around the large "I have connections," he said. It was days later, while taking a corridor with alarm. "But listen. We'll go out to a nice walk through the hallway, that I "Look at these electrical restaurant, and go watch the mat- saw Dr. Rubella again. He was star- sockets. Water is pouring out of ches. We can get back to the ing at the wall, appreciating it like them," he said loudly. "We must hospital before we're even missed. a Van Gogh painting. clear the lobby and turn off the "Even if we get caught, we aren't "These walls," he said, "aren't electricity, or run the risk of elec- considered dangerous loonies," he they white?" trocution. Where is the fuse box?" continued. "They may watch us a "Yes, and they're always so he asked a passing maintenance little more closely, but they won't clean," I said. man. punish us. Wrestling is worth it, "White walls," he said. The man showed us the fuse don't you think?" "Yes. White walls," I said. box's location. We stood before it, I had to admit that he was right. "Lovely white wal Is." pondering the myriad of switches. Anyway, the damage was already "Yes. Yes. Very lovely." "What the hell?" said Dr. done; we had left the hospital. "Lovely white walls to write Rubella. "We'll turn 'em all off." "Hey, buddy, what are you talk- 'shit' on," he said, producing a red Within an instant, he had darkened ing about back there?" the cab magic marker. the whole floor. Muffled, panicked driver said. We had completely I wished I had thought of that. I voices came from the library. forgotten about him. Would never have had the courage "Quick," Dr. Rubella said, "see "Ask me no questions, and I'll to do it in a thousand years. those two coats on that chair? Give tell you no lies. Keep your mouth In the next two weeks, it snowed them to me. shut and you won't catch no flies," three times and my mind changed I grabbed the coats. noticing said Dr. Rubella. 23 We arrived at our destination, a ma'am," said Dr. Rubella. "lay The larger of the two, a frowzy fine steak house called The Steer. back down on the floor, please." blonde dressed in a leopard skin, Dr. Rubella had no sooner walked She obeyed. Dr. Rubella explain- grabbed the legs of her opponent, in the door than we were accosted ed that he was going to treat her who was dressed in campy Nazi by the Head Waiter. further. regalia. The leopard girl lifted her 'Tm sorry, gentlemen, you must "This is to prevent infection and nemesis bodily from the canvas. be wearing a tie to enter here," he relapse," he said. She spun the screaming Nazi said. He reached over to a nearby around like a propeller, and hurled "Yes. We know, sir," said Dr. table and grabbed a handful of her back to the canvas with a bone Rubella, pulling a pair of ties from chocolate mousse. He smeared shaking 'thwaaap." his pants pocket. I would swear this Iiberal ly over her breasts, I had been lost in the action, but that they were my ties. He handed stomach and legs. then I noticed a small army of one to me and we put them on. "And this is to ease the pain in pol ice officers at the door of the "Very good, sir," said the Head your throat," said Dr. Rubella, in- arena. Waiter. "Table for two? Follow me, serting two carrots in her nostrils. "Dr. Rubella! At the door," I please." "Uhh, Doc ... I think you've said, "the cops." We walked to a table in a fairly done about all you can," I said. "Don't worry," he said. "They'I I secluded corner. My shoes were "Ambulance is here," called a never see us. They're probably still damp from the flood in the voice from the kitchen. looking for someone else." hospital and make a squishing "How long should I keep dese The entire crowd booed and sound as I walked. The people sit- cawotts up my dos, Doctor?" the hissed as the Nazi tagged her part- ting next to us stared at me as we woman asked. ner, who entered the ring. She was seated ourselves. "About ten minutes. Tap root also a Nazi. With a savage cry, she Waiters attired in formal tux- therapy works very quickly." said fell upon the leopard girl. The edoes brought us delicious salads Dr. Rubella. "The ambulance at- pol icemen dispersed into the and cheeses. I ate and drank like a tendants can remove them for crowd. ravenous fiend. It had been weeks you." The leopard girl straightened her since I had eaten such delicious "How can we ever repay you? mighty legs, sending her opponent food, but it seemed like years. You saved her life," said the hus- flying into the ropes. Soon, the waiters brought the band. "Get that damn Nazi!" Dr. steaks, sizzling in their metal "Thanks for a job well done is Rubella shouted. plates surrounded by big golden enough," said Dr. Rubella as we I looked to my right. A black french fries. The steak was wonder- walked out the front door without policeman pointed his finger at fu 1, and it melted in my mouth like paying our bill. me. He shouted instructions to his butter. "Way to go, Dr. Rubella," I said. fellow officers. Six or seven of I was placidly chomping at the "Remind me to tell you about them began fighting their way last few french fries when I heard a the time in the Canary Islands through the throng, surging strange noise coming from the next when I performed open heart towards us like salmon swimming table. surgery using nothing but a rusty upstream. "lhhk! lhhk! lhhk!" went the butter knife," he said. "They saw us! The cops saw noise. It was a cold but pleasant walk me!" I yelled. I turned in time to see a sack of to the Colosseum. We presented But Dr. Rubella did not hear. Dr. rocks hit the floor: a lady who had our tickets and merged with the Rubella was gone. stared at me fell from her chair. milling throng of wrestling fans. "Dr. Rubella! Dr. Rubella! Help "My wife! She's choking to We bought candy bars, M&M's, me!" I yelled. death! Help!" cried a man. and Cokes and found our seats. I scanned the crowd for his "lhhn! lhhk! lhhk!" said his wife. "Damn! Ringside seats!" I said. mane of white hair, but to no avail. "Move aside! I'm a doctor," said My admiration for Dr. Rubella was The police were getting closer. I voice. A large crowd gather- a was growing in quantum leaps. scanned the crowd again, in in- ing. Dr. Rubella streaked past me. The female midget tag teams creasing panic. The faces of the "This woman is choking to were climbing into the ring. We wrestling fans began to blink. I death," he said. "I must have cheered. We shouted. We scream- could feel my body rising and spin- room." ed like maniacs, like madmen, like ning. And them ... clik, buzz, clik, Dr. Rubella raised the woman to the rest of the crowd. clik. an upright position, bent slightly Tag team wrestling has always from the waist, and hugged her been one of my favorites. When * * * from behind. his hands meeting one wrestler becomes too tired to over her diaphragm. He squeezed continue, she tags her partner, who Reverberating footsteps and her hard, many times, in quick suc- continues the match. A lot of echoing voices rang in my ears. I cession. cheating goes on, and sometimes opened my eyes. I was not in jail. It "lhhk' lhhk! WOOOF!" said the both members of a team will be in was some sort of a bus station. woman as a small piece of damp the ring at the same time. It is "It's a Greyhound bus station, meat hurled from her mouth. dishonest and dirty. I love it. Hank," said a voice to my right. It "Oh ... Oh ... I almost died," The first round began and the was Dr. Rubella. she said, grasping for breath. two diminutive females circled "By the way," said Dr. Rubella, "You aren't out of danger yet, each other, looking for an opening. "you may have set a new land 24 speed record while running from "Suffice it to say that I don't ex- "What can you expect from the cops. You should have seen the ist. 'N'existe pas', as the French someone who says that he doesn't looks on their faces." say," said Dr. Rubella. exist?" I thought, boarding the bus "But how did I get here?" I ask- I said nothing. and moving to the seat in the very ed. "Why am I here?" "This ticket will buy you some back. "I brought you here, and I time," he said. "When things cool The bus lurched into motion. bought you this bus ticket. You're off here, you can return to the The seat vibrated. Snow surround- going to Chicago until the heat's hospital. I am certain that they will ed the moving vehicle like a wet off." readmit you with a minimum of shroud as it careened around the "Chicago? Why me?" fanfare. They don't like bad corners of the city. "The cops know you escaped publicity, especially kindly old Dr. We rolled past the Colosseum. the hospital. They think that you Hitchcock." Throngs of people straggled from assaulted that woman in the "That bastard," I said. the exits, pulling their coats around restaurant while impersonating a "And here's some cash. About them against the wind and snow. A doctor. Also, we neglected to pay $300," he said, stuffing the cash in- crowd of policemen stood by the the check." to my pocket. "Besides, you'll door. I saw the black policeman "But why me? How about you?" need this." who had spotted me, shaking his "I have a confession to make, "Okay. You're right. Thanks," I head in digust. Hank." said Dr. Rubella. "I'm not said. The Colosseum grew smaller in Dr. Rubella." "And I'm sorry about this mess I the green-tinted rear window. I "What? Then, who are you?" I got you into," he said, standing up. turned around in my seat, enjoying asked. "However, I'm sure that things will the heated air that blew on me "I'm you," he said. work out fine." from the vent above. I thought of "What????" "I hope." Chicago. I could stay in a cheap "Did you ever see the movie "Perhaps we'll meet again," he hotel for a week, I thought, or even 'The Three Faces of Eve'?!! said, "but under better cir- longer ... I certainly couldn't "No." cumstances." spend the week sleeping outdoors "Well, never mind then. You're I turned to watch the bus to on a park bench or something. It scared and confused. You pro- Chicago slow to a moaning halt at would be cold in Chicago. It would bably wouldn't comprehend right the gate. I had a feeling that when I be too cold for a fly to live. now," he said. looked back, Dr. Rubella would be "Try me," I said. gone. And I was right.

25 JIJST A Bllr,· -----, ..------, EAC.H lNOJI/IDUAL IS SO, IT IS LOC:.ICAL TO A UNIVERSE IN HIM .:i, ASSUME THAT THE HER SELF, AND THLJS ONLY PURPOSE FOR.. IS CAPA&LE Or ONLY E){1STINCr /S EXISTANCE ONE 5£'f or PERCEPTIONS ITSELF AND ... AND EXPERIENCg ___ ::-zo -· _.r- . I -= "L-i L'-=------'----'-'----__j

26 -

WORD - FINDER

M 0 T w L E V E R T 0 V

0 C K R A 0 N 0 L s

D u N C X B H G H

E T 0 G 0 V A N N D

R C H T A s R K N G

N C A T X K B A R K s T

u N V A w R K H T B

s E R L E D K A B L E s

p L A T H u E K R 0 R T

0 C 0 A B N K 0 N G R

E N w G A C 0 N 0 C T A

T A B E A A R p K E H N

s E X T 0 N N V s G D D

To find out what the subject of this Word Finder is, read the first down column. There are seventeen of them somewhere ...

They are: Alta, Baraka, Brooks, Duncan, Ginsberg, Giovanni, Jong, King, Koch, Levertov, Logan, Plath, Rich, Rios, Sexton, Strand, Wright

27 ■■■■■■■■■■ ■ ■ ■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■ ■ ■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■ ■ ■ ■■■■■■ ■ ■ ■■■■■■ ■ ■■■■■■■■ ■ ■■■■■ ■ ■ ■■■■ ■

■LIT-LOVER'S CROSSWORD ■■■■■ by Tony Fitzgerald Designed

ACROSS DOWN

1. Wrote the play A Doll's House 2. Author Susan

4. Eighteenth century Scottish poet 3. Author Swift 6. Alfred, Lord ---- 5. Wrote The Grapes of Wrath 8. Tolkien's initials 7. Garp author

9. Author of Cat's Cradle 8. Salinger

11. Created a character named Mr. Dooley 10. Wrote Rabbit, Run

13. Wrote Ignatius his Conclave, Juvenilla 11. Sherlock Holmes' creator

15. Poet, wrote Ode to a Nightingale 12. Wrote Robinson Crusoe

17. Early eighteenth century poet, writer and 14. Cassidy, in Kerouac novel moralist 16. Cummings, whimsical poet 18. Author of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf to be 17. Postscript -Solution found elsewhere in this issue- 28 Editor's Award for Outstanding Prose

HOMECOMING Ralph Wadkins

The sharp salty taste of tearing, while I fumbled for a deeper into the bamboo without a grenade at my belt. I threw my machete. I was like a badger back- the blood running from knee across his throat and began ed into a hole, waiting for the the corners of my eyes bashing his head in with the hounds to find me. and nose along with the grenade, while I kept tearing at his Finally, the gooks pulled out, eyes. and I made my way back to the fecal smell of spilled in- Finally, when only a wet thud- Fire Base's perimeter after booby testines made me gag. ding came from him, the red rage trapping the mortar rounds the I shifted my foot slowly along in my mind began to recede. I gooks cached. They'd sure have a the bottom of the hole, trying to flung myself off the corpse and surprise when those two grenades keep from stepping on Jordan's rolled back to my hole. My hearing went off in their mortar rounds. guts. I felt my boot step in had partially returned, and I I isten- "Hello the gate. Sergeant Davis something soft, something from ed carefully, as I tried to slow my coming in," I yelled at the guard Jordan's abdomen. adrenaline-fueled breathing, my bunker by the gate. I dove into a My eyes still retained the after hands beginning to shake. hole as a burst of fire sprayed the image of the blast, seemingly etch- I had to get out of there. The area where I'd been standing. ed on my retinas for good. There grenade had destroyed the radio, Hugging the bottom of the hole I was no sound to my deafened ears so I couldn't tell the bunker line I yelled, "Get the Sergeant of The except a loud ringing. was coming in. I could hear the dis- Guard." I leaned my shotgun against the tant explosions from that direction. This time there was no fire. Still I side of the hole. I didn't dare use it They were getting hit hard. The stayed in the hole. I didn't trust or I'd give my position away; the only way left to me was deeper in- whatever cherry was on the gate. gooks thought they'd eliminated to the jungle; with luck I could lay In a few minutes, I heard the gate both of us. Instead, Jordan fell on low until daylight and then go in. open. Raising my hands over my the grenade clasping it tightly to I finally crawled into the edge of head, I slowly stood up. himself when it exploded. Jordan a dense bamboo thicket, going to "Sergeant Davis, C.R.I.P. Team," had been a brave man; now he was sleep almost immediately. The I yelled. dog meat. adrenaline high had given way to "Yeah, right Sarge, come on in," I pulled my Gerber knife from an almost "hung-over" feeling, as the Guard Sergeant called. my boot, and slowly crawled over though I was coming off a three- When I reached the gate I the lip of the hole. I rolled next to a day drunk. lowered my hands and took the lit fallen palm tree, where I waited, Just before first light I was cigarette he was offering me. I crouching. I smelled the hot awakened by the sounds of a V.C. heard a shout, and looking up, I pepper-charcoal-foreign sweat Mortar Squad digging in. I backed saw Murray hurrying across the before I caught a movement on the deeper into the bamboo until I was compound, a grin on his sunburned edge of my peripheral vision. about fifty feet from their nearest face. A Viet Cong snapper, wearing hole. I checked my shotgun and "Damn! We thought you werE' only a pair of dark shorts, his body found that the grenade blast had dead," he said clapping me on the greased, and a satchel charge over bent the trigger until it was useless. arm. "Division's already listed you his shoulder, crawled by me. That only left me with two as M.I.A.-Believed Dead." Holding my Gerber in my hand, grenades and a garrote for I grinned, "Like the man said, blade up, I jumped onto the snap- weapons. All I could do was lay 'The reports of my death are great- per's back. I threw my left forearm low and hope they didn't find me ly exaggerated.' I'm too mean to around his neck, effectively stifling before they moved out. I had a die." a any crys he might make. I thrust feeling it would be a long day. "How about getting me cold the knife into his back, trying to Yeah, it was a long day; it was a one while I report to the old man?" come up under the scapula into long three days. For three days the I asked, already thinking of that the heart. But, I missed and struck mortar squad lounged around first cold Adam's-apple-bobbing drink. the spinal column, the blade snap- cleaning their weapons and smok- "Roger that," Murray said as he ping in my hand. He tried to throw ing opium. For three days I lay in started off. "Oh, by the way, your me off, but I held on as best I my own filth, not moving except to D.E.R.O.S. orders came in three c?uld, my sweaty hand sliding on sip from the collapsible canteen by days ago. You should have been his greased flesh. He gave a twist my mouth. I craved a cigarette so stateside today." a d. managing to get my arm from bad I was tempted to try to take D.E.R.O.S., Date of Estimated his neck, he twisted to face me I out the gooks, but I could never Retur .. Over-Seas. Uamn, what a !ammed the fingers of my left ha d catch enough of them in one group lovely phrase. Home! The land of into his eye sockets, hooking and to get them all. I couldn't go any the big P.X. I was really excited, my 29 - a

mind running wild as I walked serve you, you're not twenty-one." brown hair contrasting with the towards the Company C.P. I looked at her like she was yellow dandelion perched over one We stood in front of the grizzled crazy. "You mean I'm old enough ear. A high-necked "granny" dress Master Sergeant behind the to spend a year in Vietnam, get made her look like someone from podium, every appropriate ribbon shot, lead men in combat, but I'm an old picture. and patch in place on our just- not old enough to drink a beer?" "Can I sit here?" she asked as issued-dress uniforms. In various "I'm sorry, sir. I don't make the she pointed to the empty stool attitudes of impatience, we I isten- laws." crowded in next to mine. Her voice ed to his boring, monotonous brief- I felt someone grab my arm and was soft and shy, completely dif- ing. as I turned from the bar I saw an ferent from the strident voices of "And Men," he said. "You're not airport cop. the Vietnamese bar girls I had going to find the states I ike you become accustomed to. remember. The states have chang- "Sure," I muttered. "Why not?" ed in the year you've been gone My face burning She took the dandelion from her and so have you. Especially you hair and handed it to me. "You've guys wearing a Combat Infantry with humiliation, just come from over there, haven't Badge (C.I.B.). You're going to find you?" she asked me. out in a stateside line unit you'll the red rage hover- "Yeah, how'd you know," I not have the freedom you had in replied. 'The Nam.' So, for any of you who ing just inside the "I watched you; you watch have orders to units stateside you edges of my mind, I everyone's movements. Up close I don't want to go to, you can can tell by your eyes," she said, always go back to 'The Nam.' We walked out of the looking deep into my eyes. have the authority here to cut new "Besides, you wear that silver rifle orders." concourse. over your ribbons and I know Laughter and snickers filled the enough about the Army to know room. The big Sergeant drew "Let's go soldier; we don't need you only get it for fighting.'' himself taller and yelled, "Atten- your kind in here," he said, as he "I just got back a few hours tion." Everything got quiet again propelled me to the door. ago," I said. "Do you observe all and he continued. My face burning with humilia- men I ike that?" "We are open here 24 hours a tion, the red rage hovering just in- "No, only the ones I want. Do day processing guys just like you, side the edges of my mind, I walk- you want me?" so if any of you decide you want to ed out of the concourse. I flagged Here it comes, I thought cynical- go back, come and see us. That's down a passing taxi and told the ly, the pitch. "Sure, I wouldn't all! Dismissed!" driver: mind. How much?" I asked, affec- Every "returnee" was entitled to "Look man, here's twenty bucks ting a bored tone. a free steak dinner before he left over the fare if you'll take me to a In reality it didn't matter. I Oakland Army Terminal. I decided bar where I can get served.'' wanted her and would pay to skip mine. I shared a cab to San Looking at me in the mirror, he whatever she asked. Francisco International Airport said. "If you got time I'll take you "Nothing, I'm not a hooker. I'm with a talkative, rear echelon Ma- to North Beach. I don't know just lonely and you look lonely is jor. Seeing he didn't have a C. I. B., I nothing closer." all," she said very softly. "Would wasn't interested in his war stories. "I've got the time," I said settl- you like to get a bottle and go I just politely nodded in the right ing back on the warm seat. around the corner to my place?" places while my mind was on what I got out of the cab in front of "What's your name?" I asked. to do with my leave. Big Al's Place in North Beach. The "Flower," she said. When she At the airport it turned out that I place was lit up with what seemed saw me smile, she said, "No, it real- had an eighteen-hour wait before I to be miles of neon lights. The ly is." could get the connections I need- streets were filled from curb to I knew she was tripping on ed. It took longer to get to West wall with people. Mostly flower something, but it had been so long Virginia from San Francisco than to children, blacks with panther since I'd been with anyone who San Francisco from Vietnam. I'd berets, obvious gays, and here and spoke English that I didn't care. I been wanting a beer since I'd land- there a uniform made up the had an ace in the hole if she had a ed. A cold beer, in a glass, not from crowd. boyfriend or pimp at her plac e a rusty can. I went into Big Al's and started waiting to roll me. I had my new I found the Cocktail Lounge and drinking. None of that I.D. Card Gerber boot knife strapped to my stepped up to the bar. "Give me a crap there. I drank and moved calf under my blous e d trousers. Bud and a glass of ice," I asked the from bar to bar, feeling the tension We got a bottle at a carryout blonde behind the bar. slowly leaving me. The alcohol and walked a couple of blocks "I'll have to see your I.D. Card dissolved the rage from my mind. I from the main street. We climbed first, sir," she said. began to enjoy watching the street three flights of dimly lit stairs I opened my new wallet and people, to groove on the sights, smelling of stale marijuana an d took out my I.D. and handed it to sounds, and smells of North Beach. fresh urine. her. I started, as I felt someone pull The apartment was dark wh e n "I'm sorry, sir," she said handing my sleeve. I turned and saw a small she unlocked the door, so I let he r me back the card, "but I can't willowy girl with long, ironed go in first. Bending, I unsnapp e d 30 my knife sheath and put the blade anymore. I took out my frustration Flower and, with disgust, of my behind my back in my belt out of and rage on her willing body. own brutality. Maybe she was sight. I heard the sound of a match "Now, screw me!" she begged right; maybe I liked hurting people. being struck, and the soft glow of when I finally stopped hitting her. I bar hopped and rode cabs from candle light illuminated the room. "You're not good enough," I said one after-hours bar to another in a I moved in cautiously, one hand on as I turned and started from the blur of alcohol-induced excite- my knife hilt. room. ment. I didn't give a damn any There was no furniture in the "Bastard! Don't leave me like more. I was looking for something, single room except a mattress and this," she screamed. but I didn't really know or care rumpled-stained sleeping bag on I kicked a wine bottle at her, what. A fight, a woman, another the floor. A few wine bottles serv- "Here, use this bitch; maybe it'll drink, somewhere in San Francisco ed for candle holders. I moved to satisfy you." I'd find it. the only other door in the room. I I slammed the door on her As the sun was pushing back the felt excitement course through me, curses and replaced my belt as I night, I found myself in an alley whether from the impending sex or slowly descended the stairs. I stop- next to an after-hours club, the possibility of action I didn't ped on the ground floor and vomiting up coffee (I'd tried to know or care. squared away my uniform and cap. sober up on) and stale whiskey. Cockroaches scuttled under the As I came out onto the street, I Before I could leave, two figures filthy, old-fashioned tub as I open- saw an old black man sitting in an blocked the mouth of the alley. ed the door. The smell coming adjacent doorway, drinking from a "Well, well, the Nazi baby from the stained commode almost bottle in a brown paper sack. He killer's sick, Charley," the biggest made me gag. I hastily shut the called out to me, "Did you beat one said, nudging his friend. door and walked over to where her, boy?" I bent over into a crouch and Flower knelt on the mattress I felt the red rage coming over came up with my knife in my hand. lighting a joint. The light from the me, and had him pinned to the wall I looked at the two long-haired candle, making her dress almost by the throat before I knew what I bearded men, peace signs scrawled transparent, intensified my desire. was doing. I eased off on him as his on their Levi vests. It had been a long time since my eyes began to bulge. "I'm going out where you're last pass to Saigon. He coughed, and said. "Hey, standing," I said, the red rage She handed me the joint, and I man, easy, easy. I didn't mean no gathering at the edge of my mind passed it back shaking my head no. harm. She takes all the soldier boys ready to be released like a rabid "I thought all you guys were into up there and has them beat her. dog. stuff," she said. Then she gives them sex." The shorter one hacked a gob of "No," I said, bending over and I released him and stepped back. phlegm from the back of his throat replacing my knife and sheath. "So, what's the deal? Is she nuts or and spit at me. Instead of trying to "Unbutton me," she said, getting what?" I asked him. dodge his spit as he expected, I to her knees and turning her back "In a way, man. She's eat up with came directly at him. The red rage to me. the syph. The Army killed her ruled my mind and the adrenaline I knelt on the dirty mattress and brother in a riot, and this is her way my body. began to fumblingly open the row of getting back at yo al I." I went for his eyes in a backhand of tiny buttons. When I had the I handed him a five and walked swipe with the double-edged knife. dress open to the waist, she shrugg- off down the dim street. I couldn't I missed but laid his cheek open to ed it to her hips. Her narrow- believe this madness was home, the bone. He screamed like a shouldered back was covered with what I'd dreamed of for a year. I woman and grabbed for his face. scars and scabbed over places. felt like an alien in my own coun- His friend dropped the broken bot- Squirming to face me, she try. tle he held and both men ran from revealed the small slightly grubby I went into the first bar I came the alley. breasts. Crabbing them with both to, and began drinking seriously. "Fuck it," I screamed with my hands she squeezed until I could Whiskey with a beer chaser, put- disappearing rage. see the pressure marks around her ting them down fast, waiting for I stepped from the alley and fingers. the first numbness to hit me. Pray- walked down the street to a parked "Take your belt off," she said in ing for the welcome release cab. I slid into the back seat. a husky voice. alcohol would give me. "Oakland Army Terminal," I told I stood and, unbuttoning my Looking out the plate of glass the driver. foat, pulled the metal-tipped belt window of the bar I watched the Two days later, as the military ron, my pants kaleidoscopic street scenes. The charter flight banked over Ton- "Now beat e S with it," she said. tourists had thinned out by now, Son-Nhut Air Base, I looked out lay back and pulled the bunch- leaving the junkies, lost (and over the distant, green checker- edlle fro hai ress her hips, baring her maybe-sti II-bel ieving-in-somethi ng) boarded rice paddies, and knew .. ess, bruised, scarred groin. flower children, the pimps and that soon I'd be back in the bush Co ahead, bat I like it. All you com- hookers and the other street peo- among my own kind. The war had guys like hu rtm to hurt people so ple. I found myself wondering why changed me. I was now back where " s he taunted me, stroking I had even bothered to come I belonged. Curiously, I felt a sense he rs e it' b tween So the legs. stateside. I thought with longing of of homecoming. dtd. I beat her with my belt, the uncomplicated pay-for-play Until' 11 could hardly raise my arm Sai on bar girls. I thought of 31 Jewel Drop Rose Davis Sophomore

The velvet sky diamonds against backdrop A gem silently falls, in all its splendor forever lost at sea

The Dune

They crawl like ants across the shifting crest silhouetted in a circle of flame.

A PUZZLE Jeannie Burdette Junior

You are just like a jigsaw puzzle, Keeping me confused and befuddled, Each time I think I have you figured out, Another piece appears with completely different edges.

NEW HOME IN THE CITY Kim Mullins Senior

Hard concrete pavement has taken the place of daisy-filled meadows I knew as a kid and the sounds of nature have been replaced by honking cars and supersonic jets. Tonight, from my window I watched the sun set, climbing down one telephone wire at a time.

32 --- THE FURNACE ROOM Jonathan Schulze Graduate Student

I was helping Billy Johnson load furnace? There's 8 of 'em. Now, argue. I had work to do. Besides, I some drums on a forklift pallet you take these trays and you fil I knew damn well it was him. when in comes Mr. Straight with a them with powder and you push I went over to oven #5. It was pale little man trailing behind him. them through the tubes with this shut down because the guages I went about my business. I'm not rod, kind of like a ramrod. See?" I needed replacing. But I kept my in the habit of paying much atten- took a scoop and filled and leveled eye on Whitehead. He was putting tion to bosses. I do my job the best a tray with one smooth motion, his whole body into pushing those I know how. The hell with the opened the latch on one of the trays. I knew that would tucker bosses. A lot of guys stop tubes, and placed the tray inside. him out in a hurry. I was surprised everything when one of those "Now you push the tray in as far as they'd let an old fart push fur- whiteshirts walks through the it'll go. There's a guard on the rod. naces. These bosses don't know a plant. They'll look at the boss with See? At any time, there are 5 sets of thing, anyways. They were born in a friendly grin like "Hi, Mr. Buddy trays in the tubes. You push all 8 their offices. my friend sir. How is your wife and tubes every 15 minutes." When I'd been in Whitehead's golf swing and Lincoln Continental As I loaded the trays and pushed class, I'd thought he was already doing today?" Shit on that. them in, I had to laugh to myself old. But he looked a grey 65 now, Anyway, Mr. Straight walks right because I knew I was making it so he must have been only 30 or so up to me and taps my shoulder. look easy. But those trays are then. The more I remembered He's wearing his bossman white heavy. Even strong men have trou- about him, the madde,r I got. He shirt and tie and double knit pants. ble pushing those tubes the first was a real uprightskin. He had a I swear most of these bosses were couple of days on the job. It takes crewcut and black rimmed glasses. born in their offices wearing white some getting used to. And He was always talking about the shirts and smelling like they just everyone gets blisters. The tubes USA's space program and bringing had a bath in Aqua Velva. Well, are damn hot, and the room itself in pictures of Gemini rockets, and Mr. Straight motions for this little is always about 100 degrees. he was always cutting up Russia, guy to come over by us, and he in- I led Whitehead around the saying how lucky we were to live in troduces me as the group leader of oven. "When you've done that America where we weren't con- the tungsten powder furnace room. you've pushed a set of trays out trolled and were free and didn't Then he says, "Dan, this is our new the other side. Empty the powder have submachine guns pointed at employee, Richard Whitehead." into these drums. When you've fill- our temples when we went to vote. Whitehead. Well if that didn't ed a drum, clamp a lid on it and One day a whimpy, orange nearly blow me over. My second put a label on it with your name, haired kid came into school with a grade teacher. I'd forgotten all furnace number, and the date. crewcut, and I thought old about that bastard. Understand?" Whitehead was going to turn cart- Straight reached out and shook "Yes." wheels. He said now that was a real Whitehead's hand. "Dan will take I'll bet you do, I thought, but haircut and all the boys should care of you and put you to work. just wait until you try it. Before I have crewcuts. Well, by God, Welcome to CDJ." Then he whips walked away, I said, "You before the week was over just around and marches off as if he's remember me?" about all the boys did have one. By got something important to do. "No." the end of the week, I had the I didn't let on that I knew "Well, I remember you. I had longest hair left of any boy. It was Whitehead. I just showed him you in school. You told me to get a then that he told me I looked like a around the ovens. "We have 10 haircut. That I looked like a girl." girl. I felt like I didn't belong at high temperature furnaces here. I'm 6'4", but felt about 8 feet tall John G. Morgan Grade School We heat-treat tungsten powder so as I looked down at old anymore. Well, I got a trim, but I it can be pressed and fired into Whitehead. He kind of shrank and didn't get any crewcut. My mom metal rods. Then they make wire turned even paler. cut my hair, and she said she didn't out of it for light bulb filaments." I "That wasn't me, son." He want any skin-headed son. led him to furnace #2. "See those sounded as if he meant it. But I Most new workers only push the tubes that run clear through the wasn't going to stand there and furnace for about an hour. but I let 33 old Whitehead work right up to with crayons. Well, this picture would slide backwards until it lunchtime. He was grunting and was of a car with a stupid looking seemed like he was going to slide sweating and had black powder on man in it driving down a road next right down on his face. But he his nose and forehead where he'd to a field full of cows. It was a always finally pushed that rod in tried to wipe off the sweat. His stupid picture. I could have drawn and would go on to the next tube. checkered, button-<:lown shirt was a better one myself. Anyway, I I was still working on #5 an hour soaked, and he'd somehow torn a started in on that car and colored later when I looked up and saw hole in the leg of his green work one fender green and the other one him pushing. Nothing was happen- pants. I led him to the company orange. Then I made the door ing. He was leaning on the rod with lunchroon and then went to sit yellow and the hood purple. I was all his weight, but it wasn't moving. with a couple of my buddies, group just getting ready to make the As I watched, his black rimmed leaders from up in the wire- cows blue when I smelled old glasses slid right down his sweaty drawing division. Old Whitehead Whitehead peering over my nose and fell to the floor. I was sat by himself, chewing slowly on a shoulder - he smelled like a big bar scared he was going to collapse, so thin white bread sandwich, not of deodorant soap - and he snat- I walked over and picked up his looking around, but just staring at ches my picture off my desk and glasses and handed them to him. his table. says, "How come you did that?" He stood back, panting and "See that old coot over there?" I Then he gets a picture from one of sweating and looking at me like I said. the crewcutted boys, marches to had betrayed him. I told him to "Yeah. What about him?" the front of the room, and says, grab a broom and sweep the floor, "He was my second grade "Class, which car would you and that I'd take over. I like to teacher, Mr. Whitehead. Now I'm choose? This nice red one or this push furnaces every once in a telling him what to do. They sent dreadful green and orange and while, anyway. It's a good workout, him to me this morning." yellow and purple one?" and I don't want to forget how, like "To the furnaces?" Well, hel I, after he said it that the whiteshirts. "Yeah." way, what did he think? That kids I pushed the furnace the rest of "What in the hell'd he do to are stupid? Everybody in the class the day and old Whitehead swept. deserve that?" said "the nice red one" and I just I felt damn funny by the time I got "I dunno. Got to start sat there getting all red. The hell home, and when I walked in the somewhere." with him and his nice red car. house I felt like kicking the dog "I think I heard about him. He I had planned on giving old and yelling at my wife, but I knew got fired a couple years ago after Whitehead an easy job after lunch, better, so I just went out in my he hit some politician's kid or but I put him right back on the fur- shop and started to sand a shelf something." nace, instead. His hair was caked that I'd been working on. My wife "Well, he screwed me good a by dried sweat. He'd washed his came out and asked me what was few times." face in the men's room, but it took wrong, but I told her "nothing" so I got to thinking about once him about five minutes to get filthy she went away. I just sat there when we were coloring. Whitehead again. sanding and feeling angry and was always giving us these little I have to give him credit. He was ashamed and thinking about old handouts with pictures on them fighting that furnace like a Whitehead's glasses sliding off his that we were supposed to color in bulldog. He'd push and his feet nose.

34 DOG GONE Eric Spurlock

I had a real big dog My canine's name was Davy He was a bad, bad dog But good with a little gravy!

35 Misunderstandings II christine delea

11 Senior

11 It is Ash Wednesday tomorrow and he is worried about his pot belly and his sisters and '1 his poverty and half a billion other things that he feels he does not understand I as much as he thinks he should be able to Perhaps i will go to mass tomorrow and pray for him Maybe i will call him and say reassuring words Can i write a letter that will carry his fears as an autumn rain takes leaves from the gutter and deposits them down the block?

Although i am not there i know he is worried talking to himself and cursing fate and fat alike and all i can do is write a poem and when i am in mass tomorrow receiving ash on my forehead for things don't understand i will pray for the kind of rain it takes to carry away his fears of things he does not understand

And everyone knows when it rains it pours Ashes to ashes Lost All the leaves end up down the block when all is said and done chrlstine delea

amongst souvenirs are promises and lies. i meant to give neither to you.

it was all there. it only got

lost

in the crazy dancing, the clash of pool balls, the chiming songs of drunkeners, two breaths turning into one. it was plenty there. it just got

lost

amongst souvenirs. and for all the things i never said, all the words that somehow got

lost

i'm sorry. i never expected you to find yourself so

lost

in me. me, a souvenir i gave you at the end of winter. a postcard of february

lost among your souvenirs. 36 SON OF THE LIVING

Betty Jane Brogan Rickman Graduate Student

At first, for Ren Setchel I, the discoveries that illuminated his Every first-born son of every ancestry evoked only a passing in- seventh generation son died a rav- terest. Dead ancestors, long ing lunatic before reaching the age buried; what power had they over of thirty-five. his I ife? But as the centuries began Finding a new source of records, to roll back, he became intrigued. Ren often forgot to eat or shave, The search for geneological and made love to Margaret only records became first a game, then out of necessity. Margaret was the a challenge, and finally an obses- unloved librarian whom he screw- sion. ed twice a week in a little alcove of By the time he reached the the library. In exchange for these Revolutionary War, Ren's plunge semi-romantic trysts, he was per- into the past began to interfere mitted to pore over ancient and with his performance in the pre- musty records that were closed to sent. His wife, Nadine, no longer the public. When he finished with held any charm for him, and his job the records, he finished with as computer analyst was an irrita- Margaret. The librarian was left by tion that bound him to the dullness then with a living reminder of of his existence. those brief sessions, but this was He was only slightly disturbed no concern of Ren's. He had never when he discovered a seemingly been particular about where he disproportionate number of in- planted his seed, or what became sanities among his ancestors. of it afterwards. Nadine took this information more Before he left England, he knew seriously. "That's the umpteenth he was being followed. Some taller nut you've uncovered so far. Some shadow stalked his own, but when forms of insanity are hereditary, he turned suddenly, there was you know." Ren ignored the mean- nothing, no one. He didn't really ingful glance she cast at him across care. He was back to the twelfth the paper-strewn breakfast table. century now, and obsessed with He hardly noticed when she moved the need to fill in every piece of out less than a week later. the bewildering puzzle of births When the search for his pro- and deaths that led forwards to genitors led him to England, Ren him and backwards to what? He felt no regret at leaving his home, had to know where that haunting his job, and his country. In London, pattern of madness would lead. he spent two years deciphering old In the middle of the eleventh records and crumbling century the thread to the past manuscripts. By the fourteenth broke, and he could find no clues century, a clear pattern to the to continue his search. Long, madness that kept recurring fruitless months passed, emptying among his ancestors emerged. his pockets. He sheltered in the streets, eating when he could. He looked into alleyways in search of

37 elusive shadows. and muttered snatches of geneological lore to A year passed. They chained him himself. Once, he wired home to a to a narrow, austere bed. Carrying friend for money, but forgot to out the ancient charge laid on their pick it up when it arrived. The tall order, the monks watched over him shadow was always behind him with compassion mixed with a kind now, and one afternoon when he of revulsion. One evening when turned around it materialized. Ren they came to feed him, the bed lay looked into a stern, gray face all empty, the chains unbroken and but obscured by the cowl of a unlocked. They searched for him monk's habit. anxiously until they realized where "Are you one of my ancestors?" he must be. In a hidden chapel, a Ren demanded, and caught the in- plain and unlovely altar cradled voluntary shudder that coursed his lifeless body. They looked with through the monk's body. "No, you horror at the wooden chest that wouldn't be like me. The first-born should be on the altar, but now lay son of the seventh son, that's who I overturned on the rough floor. am." Ren laughed bitterly. "But I Slowly, murmuring prayers, they won't go like the others. Not me. approached the corpse. Coming I'm tracking it down. A curse, that's closer, they saw that the hairy what it is. The first-born son ... " chest was partially covered with Babbling, he would have fallen but tatters of white cloth. The monks for the strong arms that caught and knew well the secret history of held him. those ancient cloths. The babe who He awakened in a monastary, was Ren Setchell's most famous where the monks bribed him into ancestor had worn them as swaddl- staying by giving him some age- ing clothes over two thousand worn manuscripts to read. During years before. moments of lucidity, Ren traced in The tall-shadowed monk these volumes the unbroken chain reverently lifted the pieces of of his I ineage, never once consider- white and replaced them in the ing the improbability of such coffin-like chest. Gently, he passed records being at the disposal of the his hand over the face of the dead monks. He sensed the nearness of man, blotting out the tortured the end of his quest, but the time stare. "The first-born son of the he had left was compressed into seventh son." The monk shook his too short a space. He went com- head and voiced the feeling they pletely mad without ever knowing all shared. "It's over. May God that he lived because once, in a grant there will never be another." moment of human weakness. a At that moment, in a small young Jew had used a set of apartment facing one of the genitals never meant for the act of dingier streets of London, a procreation. fatherless little boy wakened from a troubled sleep, and, filled with some unknown terror, screamed.

38 Editor's Award for Outstanding Artwork (Tie)

Kris Hackleman Graduate Student

------··-- THE BLUE SUN

- Trying to Explain to others Penny Booth What they can neither see nor touch, Freshman Is impossible for the teacher, but them." The learner gains so much. - "What do you do?" "This? Oh, I'm just laughing. The sun came down to kiss the Another aspect of emotions." clouds. In return, they constantly "Is it good?" evolved fingers with which to "Yes." touch and caress it before they "Why harm someone glowed a brilliant red, which trail- you dislike? Explain." ed away into gray. Jealously, they "Hate a type extroverted monopolized its powerful rays, is of thing. You some of which were able to escape ... " thought you said emotions their grasp and trickle to the planet "I were to be found on the inside." where they molded themselves to are. But the the shifting curves of the waters. In "They amount of the hatred may grow so large an effort to rid itself of the blinding that it sort of overflows. The person can I1ght, the water tried to push it on- hold the hatred in no longer, so to the pink shoreline in rigorous he does something he thinks will get poundings. It was there that the rid of it. By harming whatever it is light lay waiting for someone to he hates, he attempts to get rid of come along and scoop it up in the hatred." bared hands. Indeed, it looked as if "What takes the place the someone had succeeded, for runn- hatred leaves?" ing parallel to each other were two "Usually guilt or something like sets of black impressions in the that." sand: one pair of human origin, one "Then, if someone purposely not. did not avoid someone or not hate "Tell me," the alien said, his did someone, what would that be? dented translator rattling, "ex- would they rid themselves plain. Of emotions. All about." How of emotion? And what "Well," the human began, "emo- this would take its place? Please Explain." tions are how you feel about a par- the first place, nobody ticular person or thing." "In wants rid themselves "In the way that the blind at- to of caring for someone. people tempt to see more clearly? If two love each tend Through touch?" other, they to stay together." "Are you referring to male "In a way, I guess." The human the and female of your race?" picked up a flat, deep-blue rock. It "Yes and no. People can care for was the bluest rock he had ever others without marrying them. No, seen; made entirely of the color as general rule, that's the way it one found only in the deepest part a is. But sometimes two people find of this strange world's seas. "I'm that they care for each other more touching this rock externally with than they do for any others. What's my hands, but emotions are an in- that old saying? Poet said it once ner form of touch. If I were to, say, though I can't remember which enjoy picking up rocks, I would try one. Uh ... something about two to do so as often as I could. But if I lost halves of a soul being reunited didn't enjoy it, I would avoid pick- into one." ing rocks up. You understand?" "Is this when you shed your "I am not sure. If, as another ex- skin? reunite with ample, you did not enjoy someone, To another of your kind?" you would avoid picking them up?" "No. That's when someone dies." "No," the human laughed. "But "Then what happens if you disliked someone, you to you would probably avoid seeing them when you die?" human looked or maybe even wish harm upon The at the rock that he had been holding in his hand during the conversation. It

40 burned coldly, so he tossed it a few times. Then, after watching the until they can function no longer, burning red sun. he the flung blue we may be harmed so much that object as hard as he could toward our bodies cannot be repaired, lots illuminated mass which the had by of reasons. But we normally don't now rested itself firmly on the edge decide ourselves. We let our sur- of the ocean. The insubstantial roundings decide." clouds drifted about the sun, still "Is it the wish of every human to trying catch with fingers. to it their go there?" They would almost have until it it "Yes." The human turned to face would slowly slide between from the sea again, gazing at the area them into the sea, like a sinking where the rock had landed a few ship on the horizon. The noise of moments ago. breaking the rock the surface "I did good once before. I show- cou Id not be heard over the soft. ed you laugh. But it lasted not pulsating rhythm of the waves tear- long. Now I shall bring good upon ing into the shore. The young you once more." With that, the human turned to the alien. alien drew the long ceremonial "Most us humans disagree of on sword he had been presented with what becomes of us, but just about only that day and plunged it deep- all of us feel that, once we've ly into the back of the human. The thrown away the 'pleasures of life.' human dropped to the beach, place we go to some of greater dead. happiness. That we live where "Your troubles are gone now. there are no problems, discontent, Only through this separation may or even hatred." you be good. Be happy in death." "Then, why you allow hatred do The alien saluted sharply before he ach here if you plan to go where it walked the rest of the beachline. not?" is Only one set of depressions mark- can't help something "We it. It's ed the sand now. The waves lashed of our control." out at the rocks. Sun I ight cast long "In this place, are all good things shadows of the alien as the remain- there?" ing portion of the sun fell in the "Yes, only good things." sky. Then it was gone. "How do you know when to shed your go skin and there?" -And where dwells this Alien, don't. Our "We organs may age He lies within our heart; He is our logic, questioning, Which tears us all apart.

TERESA HARROLD

41 ROAR Steve Ambrose Senior

From the dance floor everything that ring and ring and can't inner ear evaporation but I still was dark except the band; not that hear anything except the heard the beat so it was cool. it was a dance floor just an area of music. " When the music stopped it was like dark tile formed from pushing And we jumpe_d and bumped listening to a shell, a dull roar and back chairs and tables. Me and the and twisted and shook and rattled we went back to the table and the girl were shakin' it; I was heavy in- our bones and I had to sit down I'm thumpthumpthump of the old rib- to oxygen debt but the girl she was not eighteen anymore but there cage. She lit a cigarette. I gulped a flower her dark face was dry ring- were plenty who were out on the some beer. "Where do you Iive?" ed in black hair that flew away dance floor contorting bodies into "Northside. A little apartment. from her head while I was sweating unreal gyrations. I gasped for Small, but cheap." bigtime. breath again and held my side and "What are you doin' after this?" The band they were getting gulped beer. She leaned forward and puffed down playing originals and Devo " ... only if you're sleazy and flashed the whites and said, and oldies. Their first appearance baby only if you want it bad "Gonna go home to the old man," in town; Razor and the Blades. can't waste my time on and her hand came up to prop her New Wave and we rode it like a goody-goodies can't be sad chin and I noticed the ring for the river and we were styrofoam cups be sad be sad ... " first time and tried not to act but broken and cracked you could "Having a good time?" I got out. disgusted. tell by the way the floor filled with "Sure. They're great." She lit a "Oh, you're married." arms and heads and legs flinging cigarette and I couldn't figure out "Yep. Got a kid, too. This is my every which way. how she could smoke and dance night out." The stage was white lights that like that or how she could sit there "Great." I tried to sound sincere careened into blues and golds and without breathing not even and edge away to the other side of greens and reds. Razor ripped the sweating or how she could drink so the table and felt ridiculous. songs out of his lungs up there much beer and stay sober. After I could breathe again I got dressed in black no sleeves with " ... if you're gonna do it do up and decided to disappear it was dark hair washed out with light but it right make it last the night going to be a long night I thought still looking like a used Brillo pad. the night use your head use so I might as well head home I'd The Blades backed him up in polka your mind use your body had enough beer and dancing dots and stripes and drums and anytime ... " anyway. guitars. The place was well who She leaned back and looked at My side felt like someone was cared we were only there for the me. I flashed the old white prides twisting a knife into it so I walked music and we got it; the fever of and scooted closer and took slow through the cold air and only Razor and the Blades left our ears another drink of beer that I just I stumbled twice and found my alley ringing and our faces crying for noticed was a little flat. and sat on the steps. I leaned my I, I, more flushed faces drinking too "Almost tripped over those wires head against my knees but the much beer and talking too loud out there. Did you see me hit the lines of brick started to waver and hell even screaming but it was cool stage?" jump so I looked up. It was cloudy- everyone was having a good time She laughed. "Yeah, that was -no stars-and the telephone pole and nobody had even got into a great. You know you stepped on on the other side of the alley look- fight. some guy's foot who was sitting ed like it was holding up wires to Razor announced a break thank next to the floor three or four ten thousand lives so I looked God I thought I was having a heart times. I thought he was going to away like maybe I was prying or attack and me and the girl sat slug you." eavesdropping. I I down and talked about Razor and "That's okay, you can protect I got up and went through the Devo and the Beatles and drank me." door and tripped over the bike I've beer and the band came back and She stubbed the cigarette into been meaning to move for two we were on the floor again begging the ashtray. "Let's dance!" I groan- weeks or so and fell onto the the Blades to tell us where it's at: ed and followed her out on the carpet. Everything was still roaring " ... Weary faces in the floor and started it all over again. like that sea shell and the carpet it crowd they say the music's My face wasn't even dry yet. smelled like old age. much too loud but I like ears My hearing faded maybe from

42 Oyster Stew Patricia Jordan Senior

What if they discover that this girl is just a speck of sand and not a pearl?

Riddle Patricia Jordan Senior

(Why everyone wants Sheila's body) She asks with her eyes dropping invitations here and there and then rejecting any positive rep I ies a full force pullaway touched red hot but she never says no in her mind.

UNTITLED POEM Jerry Keene Freshman

I drank the bug floating in my drink Thought about life, death, survival. Survival in strange worlds. Perhaps she is pregnant in my stomach; Resilience, adaptation, bugs' hopes I considered, generations and evolution. There's the climate of potentiality in my stomach.

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION Alan Benjamin Senior

Friday's paper: "Strolling woman bursts into flames." (Headline) "Burned beyond recognition," police spokeswoman said. No cause, no reason, and the one witness didn't see much. Saturday's paper: "Autopsy questions report of woman bursting into flames." Cook County Medical Examiner said she was dead twelve hours before. Lt. James Moore said lab tests indicated the presence of an accelerant, possibly gasoline. I didn't get to see Sunday's paper.

43 ; ··-'

'n /

., .. ,• ···: ·_:_:(:: :·: ..

' i ::-: / ! ' .. : (_,/

CHUCK FRY

44 "Death of a Lover"

Terry De Estenssoro Senior

You were but a fire work in my life. With a thunderous boom you entered it. I held my breath ... & watched ... & listened Your colors exploded before me I was in awe of your brilliance I became happy, elated, excited - Still I held my breath I know not why. Then suddenly your burst of colors divided - into a million sparkles Like mercury spilt on marble. You crackled and crackled, fainter and fainter Till no sound was heard and your colors were quenched by the darkness.

HOUSES

B.W. Thornton Senior

Inside live painted ladies Their cheeks aglow with supple oil Casting reflections invisible Except to those pledged as loyal.

Symbols of this loyalty Above the doorway have been raised And decorate their garments To be recognized and praised.

Brothers come from a house down the street For their weekly "Preppy" convention Like gendarmes the boys stand straight and tall Protecting their female extentions.

They raise a toast to loyalty Lifting high their holy names Like ancient gods and goddesses They play their mythical games.

45 ------,

TERESA HARROLD 46 PHOTOS BY MOLLY COOK

Aqualung American Cranes

Puzzle Solution

"What, no John?"

47 A VICIOUS TALE

Thom Houghton

They tell me that Christ lies, bones in a box, waiting on nature just Iike the rest

His carpenter's death, I've heard was nailed to a dream tree;

they say when I speak of Him, sanity splinters

NEGATION

Thom Houghton

Her raven hair itself says no to me. I know to inquire is a stillborn dream

The ghosts of her princes eclipsed at the drawbridge remind me of diamonds ode to a sleeping child that froze at her fingertips.

andrea christensen Junior

good night, my son sleep so well tomorrow will be better

picked the cotton all day long and learned the 14th letter

mammy was in the field all day was toilin' in the sun-0

fell down hard in the southern sun shot by the master's gun-0

so good night, my son sleep so well we'll be free in the mornin'

the bread we ate here tonight was more than halfway poison.

48 246 HAL GREER andrea christensen

the green parrot is bowing to the Stones, and the white water glass catches the lonely lights' shadow on the match filled fiery filled ashtray. Newton-John stares intensly at The Wall and smoke flows toward the guitar. it finds strumming fingers as he sits cross-legged on the orange fringed chair. the I ittle finger left-hand ring dances on the neck. his shadow rests on her blond hair as Capote tells her of cold blood and violence slaying minds. torn threads reach to the red frayed blanket, and flesh presses on. crumbs drop; lie softly on blue denim. laughter shrieks and faces fall. the hands circle the clock. the green parrot sleeps while the Stones rest under cover. the lonely lights' shadow diminishes and the ashtray burns. the standing guitar supports the wall. little finger left-hand ring dances no more - his shadow rests. blond hair is gone. ambers die. daily i see pain but Capote tells of cold blood and violence slaying minds christlne delea and Newton-John jumps The Wall you've come a long way, baby.

then why are you still calling me 'baby'? i'm nobody's baby. i'm no baby.

"Want a ride somewhere, baby?"

the weaker sex. i bleed monthly but i don't die. i am raped and beaten and harrassed and daily i see pain.

"Can i buy you a drink, baby?"

my children. those who are alive and those who never were. my babies see the pain.

"Need a place to stay tonight, baby?"

our education. womens studies, womens literature, womens guy. separate but equal. but we know better for we have seen the pain.

"Can't you take a joke, baby?"

Sure.

Tell me when you say something funny. 49 THE HEAD OF THE CREEK Drema Skaggs-Redd Senior

Adam spread peanut butter "You stay away from Jim-Bob down at the boys from their per- thickly over the bread and then Walls. He's a drunk." ches. Along the banks of the creek, carefully sprinkled sugar on top. "Jim-Bob told Tommy that they ferns grew thick among the He placed the top slice of bread on run a farm. Said they had no men rhododendron. his sandwich and crammed it into a on the place, just run it The going soon became rough; baggie, then dropped it into his themselves. You think it's true, the path grew steeper. The creek knapsack with some cookies and a Mom?" bed was clotted with huge banana. He was eight years old, "I think Jim-Bob is trying to boulders, and the stream was and he and Tommy, his ten-year- scare Tommy. Those stories have smaller and thinner than it was old cousin, were going on an been flyin' for ages. I don't believe along the road, so far below. adventure. it, myself. Now you be sure and be On a large boulder splotched Adam's mother watched from back here before dark, mister, or with moss, they ate their lunch. the doorway; he thought he had you and I will have a confronta- Adam chewed his sandwich and the prettiest mother around. She tion. And you two be carefu I! Does listened to the birds. Tommy was smiled at him. "You did a good job Tommy have a snake-bite kit?" sprawled out on the rock, trying to for a change," she said. "You didn't "Aw, mom! You know it's too unravel the lacy pattern of inter- get peanut butter al I over the late in the year for snakes. You mingled tree branches against the counter. You must be growing up, worry too much. See ya!" Adam sky. right?" darted out the back door, across "Wonder how they keep from Adam nodded. "Me and the yard, and through the hedge growing into one another?" Tom- Tommy's going exploring, like that separated his house from my said dreamily. Adam didn't Daniel Boone." Tommy had told Tommy's. Tommy was sitting on answer; he was by now finishing off him about Daniel Boone, how he his back steps, waiting, his knap- the banana. He tossed the peel into had explored this area when there sack in place. When he saw Adam, the brush for the ants. were still lots of Indians. It thrilled he stood up. "Let's go," he said, "How much farther till we get to Adam to think that the very woods and Adam followed. They went the head of the creek?" he played in every day had once around the house to the front yard "How should I know?" said Tom- been dangerous wild country. and across the bridge to the paved my. "Probably not much farther. I "Oh? Where will you explore?" road that ran parallel to the creek. think we're more than halfway up, his mother asked. They hurried up the road, eager to so I guess about another hour up "We're going to follow the creek get to where the paved road ended and then a couple of hours or more to where it starts. We're taking our and the woods began. The houses to get down. Why? Getting lunch with us and might not be of their neighbors nestled beside chicken? back till dark." Adam wasn't afraid the creek up to the end of the Adam made a face. "Sure. Who of the woods. His mother en- road-the hollow's point and the was it who just about fell down the couraged his playing among the mountain's foot. hill when we startled that deer out trees, building 'cabins' of fallen Without hesitation, Tommy of the brush? Not me. You looked brush. started first up the footpath that like you'd seen a bobcat." "We used to play up there when began a short distance from the Tommy pouted. "Well, I didn't I was a kid. One time Lucy Han- blacktop. Adam stopped and look- know. It could have been a bobcat, shaw, Sarah's mother, and I followed ahead into the trees. He had from the sound of it." ed the creek almost all the way up. never gone very far along this par- "Bobcats probably don't even My Grandpa had told us there were ticular path, only to the foot of the make noise. They probably just bears up there, and we got scared hill. He remembered uncomfor- jump out at you all of a sudden, and came back." tably that the state animal of West from a tree limb or behind a bush." "Bears?" Virginia is the black bear. Secretly Adam poked Tommy in the ribs "Well, so he said. We didn't see hoping that bears hibernate in and growled. "You'd never even any, but we did see a copperhead. September, he hurried after his know he was there ... " After we got home that night, cousin. "Aw, shut up," Tommy said, mama told me that Grandpa used The climb was easy at first, and scrambling to his feet. "If I ain't to scare her with stories about pleasant. Soon the boys were play- home for supper, my mom'II some crazy old ladies who lived at ing at Daniel Boone. Tommy had ground me. Let's get a move on." the head of the creek." the lead, since he was the oldest, The stream was only a trickle "Jim-Bob Walls told Tommy while Adam had to be contented now and the boulders larger. There there's some crazy ladies there, with being the Indian scout. Car- was no longer a path; thick brush too! Said he's seen them at the dinals streaked from tree to tree, hid sticker bushes along the creek grocery store lots of times, even red slashes against a dark bed. The boys' progress was slow, been to their place." backdrop. Bluejays chattered and they were soon hot and swea- so ty. After a while the ground leveled me alive. You're coming back with Adam's dad worked in town, at the out. Adam, who was ahead, said, me." electric company. Tommy's dad "There it is." They stopped. In "You're just chicken!" Adam drove a coal truck. Their moms front of them was a large cliff, and shouted. He was already running bought chicken at the store; he'd from a crack in its foot trickled a across the field. Tommy sprinted never seen one being cleaned. bubbling stream of water. The boys after him, caught him, and had When the woman finished she whooped with delight. "All right!" Adam pinned to the ground in no leaned back and took the boys in Tommy yelled, "We did it!" time. Adam had wrestled with his with her gaze, majestically wiping "Let's leave a sign that we were cousin before, but this felt dif- the blood off her hands onto her here," Adam said. "Then someday ferent to him. Tommy was really apron. "What's your name?" she we'll come back and find it." After scared, and Adam could sense it in asked them. They told her. "Mine's some debate, they agreed to carve the way he was being held down. Elanor," she said. She got up; she their initials into the face of the "Let's go!" Tommy cried out. did not look at Tommy again. cliff with a sharp rock. They "I'm tired of your foolishness! This Adam had the feeling that she was scrambled down the last boulder place is spooky, and we've got to particularly interested in him; that to the sandy floor and dipped their be home before dark! Ain't you got she had picked him as her favorite hands in the water, delighting in its any sense?" Tommy was shouting, of the two boys. coolness. They drank deeply from his voice sounded far away to his "If you boys want something to their hands, and then, refreshed, own ears. eat, come on in. I made some they made their mark in the cliff Adam started to cry. "Let me go! doughnuts today." with a piece of quartz. So we'll leave, okay?" Tommy got Adam and Tommy looked at one They noticed a small path up, looking ashamed of his sudden another and shrugged. They had to leading through a grove of pines to panic. He helped Adam to his feet. follow. The woman led them up their right. Adam was curious. "Only let's just look a little onto the porch, cats mewling and "Let's see where this goes!" ways," Adam pleaded. "We'll just winding around her feet, eyes on "I dunno, Adam. We gotta get see if there's anything past those the dead chicken she carried. The back." trees." boys entered a dark, cool "Oh, come on. It'll only take a "Jesus Christ," Tommy mut- passageway and fol lowed Ela nor minute." He dashed out of sight tered. "You'll just whine all the to the kitchen. It was huge. There among the trees; Tommy followed way home if we don't, I guess. was a large wooden table in the him reluctantly. Come on." He trudged toward the center of the room, with eight or Past the pine grove there was a path. Adam ran ahead; when he nine chairs around it. One wall was large clearing. The path skirted reached the path he stopped and almost entirely windows, facing along the edge, but Adam was waited for his cousin. They started east. Pots of wild ferns grew heading for something in the mid- through the trees together. beneath the windows. The op- dle of the field. Tommy hurried to The pine thicket extended for posite wall contained a large stone catch up. The boys stopped in only a few yards, the path once hearth. A small blond girl sat by front of a rough sonte object. again opening onto a clearing. the fire, at the feet of an old, old "It's a bench," Adam said, "or a Here was a well-kept farmhouse, a woman. The woman seemed to be picnic table for elves." couple of outbuildings, and a reading or teaching something to Tommy snorted. "Why would dozen or so cats milling about. A the girl from an old musty book. anybody want a bench all the way large woman was seated on an up- "What's this?" the old woman up here? What's that stuff?" There turned washtub in the yard, a said. were dark stains on the bench, freshly-killed chicken draining into "Got two lost boys," Elanor said. some trailing down the sides. On another tub in front of her. She "This is Adam," she touched him the ground were a few little pieces called out, without looking up on the shoulder, softly and briefly, of bone. from her work, "Y'all sounded like "and Tommy. Thought I'd get them "It's paint," Adam said bravely, Coxey's Army, comin' across that a bit to eat." though he was beginning to doubt field. Come out from behind them The old woman nodded, her it. bushes and act like you got some eyes on Adam. "Come here, boys, "That ain't paint, that's blood," sense." and get warm," she said. "We've Tommy whispered. "And these are The boys came forward without got a little fire going." bones. Somebody's been making feeling their feet move. The The boys obeyed. They stood sacurfices up here." woman sat calmly cleaning her silently by the fire. The old woman "What's sacurfices?" chicken. When the boys stopped in put down her book and lit a pipe. ''That's when you kill something, looked them Adam looked her over, carefully. for front of her, she at the devil." both, in the eyes, for a long mo- Her face was a thousand wrinkles, "You're giving me the creeps. like those little dried-apple dolls he Who'd ment. Then she grinned, just slight- want to do that? Let's go ly. Her eyes were deep brown, and had seen at an arts and crafts fair. see where this path goes. Look, I Her hair, thick and white, was worn can grim. "Y'all hungry?" Neither boy see it going through the trees could say a word. "Talkative lot," in a single long braid falling over hn the other side. I don't wanna she sniffed. She finished cleaning her shoulder and into her lap. She ang around this thing." puffed at a pipe and looked into "I'm the chicken in silence, while the going home," Tommy said. boys watched. the fire. The little girl just stared. "Okay, 1'11 go alone." Adam felt a little sick. The peo- Elanor set a plate of doughnuts "The hell. Your mom would skin ple in the hollow weren't farmers; on the table, and three glasses of 51 milk. "Y'all come on," she said. cliff. It was still there, scratched in- and a few chickens pecked around The boys went to the table, sud- to the rock: "AS". Tommy's mark, in the yard. Cats slept everywhere. denly aware of how hungry they "TP", had worn almost completely Suddenly, silently, the rain were. The little girl followed, and away. That's strange, Adam began. The chickens dashed cluck- the three ate and drank in silence. thought, I guess Tom just didn't ing toward their coop; cats darted Elanor joined the old woman by carve hard enough that day. But under the porch as Adam ran up to the fire. They exchanged a few after twelve years, Adam's initials the door and knocked loudly. The quiet words, and waited. When the were still easily read. door opened, and Adam instantly children had finished their snack, Adam was home from the recognized Elanor. Her dark hair Elanor called them to the fire. University for the weekend. It was was beginning to gray, but she still "Go put the cow in the barn," September 21st, the day of the first looked as strong as a man. she said as they approached, and home football game. Adam hated "Come in, Adam." Adam didn't realize at first that she football, and as an upperclassman Adam was astonished. "You wasn't talking to him. he knew well that campus would remember me?" he asked. Then the little girl spoke for the be a riotous madhouse all Elanor smiled. She stepped first time. "Yes, Mama. Want me to weekend. So he had decided to back, and Adam entered. "I made milk her?" escape, come home, do his laun- doughnuts today," she said. "If you please, ma'am," said dry, and enjoy the autumn scenery. The entry hall was cool and Elanor, and the Iittle girl went out A letter from Tom, working oil rigs dark. Adam followed Elanor to the the back door. in Texas, had prompted him to kitchen. A single oil lamp burned "You boys live down in the remember their expedition up the on the table. It and the roaring fire holler?" Ela nor asked. They nodd- mountain when they were kids. He in the fireplace were the only light. ed. "How'd you get up here?" hadn't thought of that journey in The storm began to rage furiously; Tommy spoke. "We followed years; he decided to re-explore. It a clap of thunder shook the win- the creek." Elanor was looking at became an obsession with him, so dowpanes. The ceiling and corners Adam. that he could hardly wait to get of the room were bathed in The old woman spat into the there. He kept imagining himself in shadows like giant cobwebs. A fire, saying, "You've got a long hike the large kitchen with ferns on one faint sweet smell permeated the back down. You'd better get along side of him and a stone hearth on room, and Adam slowly realized if you want to be home by dark." the other. First thing that morning, that the scent came from the apple Adam shook himself into right after breakfast, he had left wood on the fire. speech. "What's your name?" he without saying where he was going. "Please, sit down" Elanor said. asked of the old woman. It was all Adam glanced through the She brought a plate of doughnuts he could think of to say. treetops at the gray sky. The storm- to the table. "lnnanna," the old woman clouds were moving in fast. He had "Where's lnnanna?" Adam ask- replied. first noticed them halfway in the ed. "And the little girl, your Sounds "banana", like Adam climb up the dry creek bed. He'd daughter?" thought. He said aloud, "That's a be lucky to get home without be- "lnnanna died last year. Lilith is name." funny ing drenched, but he didn't want to here." Elanor moved to leave the "It's old," real said lnnanna. leave yet. He wanted to visit the room. "Wait here," she said. doughnuts, "Thanks for the old farmhouse, and see if the Adam felt sorry about lnnanna. ma'am. They were great," Adam women still lived there. He follow- He would have liked to see the old said. "We've got to going." be ed the path leading through the lady again. He was beginning to "Suit yourself," said Elanor. She pine grove on the right. feel sleepy and warm. lnnanna's rose to lead them to the door. When Adam reached the clear- face floated before him as he clos- "Goodbye, lnnanna," Adam said ing, he noticed immediately ed his eyes. The apple scent. .. the shyly. that there was something lying room seemed heavy with smoke, "Y'all come back," said lnnanna. on the stone bench. When he got closer, though he had not noticed it upon Elanor closed the door behind entering. Rain beat against the win- them. They saw that the sun was he saw that it was the carcass of a cat, its entrails laid dows and the wind through the already beginning to go down. in a curious around Adam trees sounded like women chant- "We've only got about an hour pattern it. stared, try- sense ing. He began to nod. of good light left. We'd better ing to make some of it all. rumble hurry!" Tommy jumped easily over There was a of thunder "Hello, Adam." Adam jumped at realized the porch steps and landed in the from far off. He that he the sound of his name. He looked yard, on his feet like a cat. should seek shelter at the farm- up and saw before him a beautiful The two boys ran down the path, house; the storm was just hitting vision of a girl, the most exquisite across the field where the bench the mountain. He shook his head at creature he had ever seen. Her hair was, and scrambled furiously over the cat, attributing it to a cruel was in a thick braid hanging over the rocks. Adam couldn't wait to prank by some local children. A one shoulder, reaching past her get home and tell his mother that bolt of lightning streaked across waist-spun gold in the firelight. the story about the ladies was true. the sky, arrd Adam ran across the She wore a long, loose white robe field, toward the path to the house. tied with a red cord around her He stopped running when he found * * * slender waist. "Do you remember himself in the yard, the house un- me?" she asked. changed since his last visit. An Adam could only stare. She Adam stepped to the face of the herb garden flourished on one side, laughed, a sweet tinkling sound, 52 and knelt at his feet. "You're the mantlepiece, one on each side of a creek was swollen with the last little girl," he said. She laughed graceful hanging mirror. Lilith held night's rain, so Adam picked his again. He thought he could never out her arms to him. Gazing deeply way carefully along its banks. hear enough of her laugh. into her green eyes, he slowly un- down the mountain to his home. "Well, I was. you were pretty lit- tied the cord holding her robe. It Adam's mother looked at him tle then, yourself. I knew you'd be dropped to the floor, and they lay strangely when he came in. She back, you know." down together on the bed. assumed that he had stayed with a "How?" Adam wakened to daylight girlfriend the night before, but ask- "lnnanna told me. The day you streaming through lace curtains. ed no questions. Adam moped were here, I asked her why you He felt groggy, but at the same around the house the rest of the didn't stay to play with me, and she time pleased, as though he had weekend, and it was three months said you'd come back when I grew fulfilled some great purpose. Lilith before he came home again. It up." She rose regally, like a wisp of was nowhere to be seen. He called didn't occur to him to visit Lilith smoke, slipping her hand into his. her name once; he had the odd again; the memories faded quickly. "Come with me." feeling that it would be somehow After a few weeks, there was He followed her without ques- improper to seek her out. He dress- nothing more than an occasional tion. There was nothing else he ed and left the room. vivid golden dream. could do. He had no control, and The house was empty. Adam Nine months later a girl child didn't want any. He followed went out into the sunshine- there was born to Lilith of the mountain. without wondering where they was no one in the front yard, so he Elanor sacrificed a cat to insure were going, or why. went through the woods to the the child's fertility. Lilith named In her bedroom two large red field. The dead cat had been her child Rain. candles burned on the removed from the bench. The

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