RC Alumni Journal Journal Alumni RC RC Alumni F Journal

Are you just going to sit

there and let No. 2017, all 1 these youngsters Relax, Midge! drink us out Before you know it of house and they’ll be wanting home? organic frappés and will forget all about our “Bug Juice”! Fall 2017, No. 1 Welcome! 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the RC, but it’s also the 47th anniversary of its creative writing program.

If you figure that at least 10 students a year graduate with a degree in RC creative writing, that’s a cohort of over 500! Not including those who took classes but had other majors, or didn’t graduate in the RC, or didn’t graduate.

It seems an auspicious time to launch this journal. We hope it will be a place for RC creative writing alums to learn about and celebrate each other, but also a place where new graduates can find friendly feedback and a place to begin publishing.

This journal’s genesis occurred in the spring of 2014, just before the first of three Voices of the Middle West conferences held at East Quad, with the idea of a separate website for RC creative writing students and alumni. A calendar of readings and other events was developed, with email reminders sent out periodically. Then . . . .

This first issue contains a selection of work by RC writing alums from each decade of program history. Enjoy! Image Credits

The following images are courtesy of Shutterstock: Laura Stachew’s “Beautiful Objects” on page 8: Pavel Klimenko Cameron Finch’s “Frozen Lake” on page 21: Ian O’Hanlon Table of Contents Laura Thomas’ “Third and Manageable” on page 27: David Lee and Ivan Mlankovic Ellen Dreyer’s “Heartland, on page 36: CREATISTA Peter Anderson, Excerpt from The Banana from Outer Space 1 Amy Gustine’s “Black Box” on page 54: jannoom 028 Paige Pfleger, DNA testing reunites family after 50 years 5 Ian Singleton’s “First Time” on page 62: anemad Lauren Stachew, Beautiful Objects 8 Dennis Foon’s “Acid Trip” on page 74: Gorbash Varvara Matthew Rohrer, Four Poems 12 Clare Higgins’ “Love” on page 86: stockphoto mania Alyson Foster, The View from the Fourth Floor 16 Allison Epstein’s “Delilah” on page 94: Viki1984 Cameron Finch, Frozen Locks 21 Anna Prushinskaya’s “Love Letter” on page 96: Mirjana Uzelac Marty Sherman, Three Poems 25 Jon Michael Darga’s “Genesis” on page 98: Michael D. Brown Laura Hulthen Thomas, Third and Manageable, 27 Liz Parker’s “Pearls” on page 108: DnDavis or Why I Bought My Son A Rifle Ellen Dreyer, Excerpt from Heartland 36 “Banana” performance photos on pages 3-4 are courtesy of Peter Clare Higgins, Desdemona 44 Anderson. The photo accompanying Paige Pfleger’s “DNA testing” Clare Higgins, nine ways of looking at her knees 45 article is courtesy of Paige Pfleger. Dan Madaj took the photo ac- Elena Potek, Dead Empty 46 companying Alyson Foster’s “Fourth Floor.” Amy Gustine, The Expert’s Black Box: Using Instinct and Observation to Improve the Fiction Workshop 54 The drawings accompanying Peter Anderson’s “Banana” on page 1 Laura Kasischke, At Gettysburg 59 and Dan Madaj’s “E.J.” on page 117 are by Dan. Ian Singleton, First Time 62 Bob Clifford, Five Poems 70 The cover is a composite of all these images (except for the rifle from Elizabeth Schmuhl, Two Poems 73 Laura Thomas’ piece), plus part of a drawing by Dan from back when Dennis Foon, My Acid Trip 74 the journal was testing the name “Bug Juice.” Clare Higgins, Love and Other Disorders 86 Peter Anderson, Acid 92 Head-shot photos for “Program News” are from U-M or personal Allison Epstein, Delilah 94 websites. Anna Prushinskaya, Love Letter to Woody Plants 96 Jon Michael Darga, Genesis 98 Logan Corey, Three Poems 106 Liz Parker, Pearls Before Swine 108 Daniel Madaj, E.J. and the Trojan Horse 117

Print copies of this journal were made possible by funds from the Program News Residential College. Thank you!

Dan Madaj served as editor, etc. Contact him at [email protected].

Zillions of thanks to Laura Thomas and the advisory group, which in- cluded Laura, Cameron Finch, Elizabeth Schmuhl, and Logan Corey! An excerpt from The Banana From Outer Space

Peter Anderson

The Banana From Outer Space, a musical comedy, was performed in the RC theater on June 20-23, 1973 to boisterous crowds. Aside from Anderson, at least three RC creative writing students and over 20 other RC or U-M students were involved. Peachy Cream evolved from the Banana experience (and other performances in the Inn and elsewhere), staging comedy- and musical reviews around town over the following three years.

A mute and mysterious banana from Spublowski a working class couple outer space named Benny lands his watching the movie on TV. donut-shaped spaceship on the Wash- ington Monument and is promptly befriended by a young ZAG: (pointing to audience) Hey, janitor Fred and his girlfriend Nancy. look! The National Guard’s Before long the gentle and hapless surrounding the Washington banana has stirred up strong reac- Monument and commanding tions among spiritual youth, rock and the donut to surrender. roll fans, the police, the military, and religious extremists. In this excerpt, Zig ZIG: (to Fred) After this, who and Zag are undercover CIA agents, knows? Benny Banana for Rev. Cracker a conservative minister President or . . . running for president on an anti-veg- etarian platform, Capt. Zilch the host NANCY: Fred, if you say no I’ll of the late-night Sci-Fi Thriller TV show never speak to you again. broadcasting the movie “The Banana from Outer Space,” and Rose and Joe FRED: Say no to what? RC Alumni Journal • 1 ZAG: (menacingly) Confrontation, man, covering Rev. BIll Cracker’s (Zig and Zag, until now typical street (Black-out center stage. Spots on confrontation. pre-election rally in downtown people, pull out guns and wallets) Joe and Rose watching tv) Washington, D.C. (to Benny) FRED: I’d lose my job if anybody found Excuse me, sir, but who are ZIG: Alright, everybody freeze, JOE: Hey, that Cracker’s alright. A out I was at a protest. you voting for in tomorrow’s this is the CIA! president like him’s what this presidential election? country needs to straighten (Loud explosion ... they fall down) (Zig and Zag remove long-haired wigs) up. ZIG: (to Fred) Whaddya say we REV.: (coming out of prayer) Amen. communicate nonverbally via Lt. Zag, frisk that banana! ROSE: I think he’s a monster -- the mass media? (hands Benny the (to Nancy, Fred and Benny) way he’s persecuting that FLOCK: (coming out of prayer) Amen. cream pie) You’re all under arrest for cute banana. conspiracy! FRED: I don’t like this, Nancy. If the FRED: Benny, I don’t think you should. JOE: Cute banana? It’s a monster! National Guard’ll blow up the FRED: Hey, that’s not fair! Washington Monument, think NANCY: Oh, don’t be a stick in the ROSE: No, he’s not. He’s just what they’d do to Benny! mud, Fred -- he’s his own ZIG: I’d like to advise you of your misunderstood. banana. rights. NANCY: Now that you’re out of work JOE: This is a monster movie and you can grow your hair long, Fred. ZILCH Rev. Cracker, is it true that the FRED: You’re not hippies, you’re he’s the monster. Don’t you National Guard has blown up spies. know nothin’, Rose? Look, it FRED: What? the Washington Monument says right in the tv guide ... because a spaceship shaped like ZAG: And you’re under federal “monster banana ...” It don’t ZIG: And go on welfare! a donut landed on it? custody. (he leads Fred and say “monster reverend ...” Benny offstage in handcuffs) ZAG: And smoke dope all the time! (Benny stalks Cracker with pie) ROSE: I don’t care. ZIG: (to Nancy) You come with NANCY: And be a hippie! REV.: Our planet is the only planet me, chick. (exits with Nancy) JOE: Keerist, Rose, don’t you see? in the universe visited by Jesus All that love crap’s a trap to ZIG, ZAG & NANCY: And live! Christ and therefore the only ZILCH: This is all too incredible to get everyone to drop their planet blessed by God with believe. A giant banana from defenses ... then POW an FRED: I can’t do that ... what would my intelligent life or the brainpower outer space has just tried invasion lands and because mother say? necessary to launch an to assassinate presidential all the liberals are off playin’ intergalactic space vehicle. hopeful Rev. Bill Cracker! with their bananas the U.S. ROSE: Such a nice boy. And it looks like, yes! The is conquered by a fleet of FRED: I don’t think that’s logically Rev., apparently uninjured, is fruitcakes. ZIG: You don’t have to do anything, correct. going to make a statement. just let Benny throw this (a pie) in ROSE: Does it say all that in the tv Cracker’s face. REV.: There is no such things as REV.: This only confirms what guide? creatures from outer space, giant I’ve been sayin’ all along FRED: Well, I don’t know. bananas, ghosts or dreams! -- vegetables are the work JOE: But then Cracker unleashes of Satan! Fruit, too! I am this top-secret weapon paid ZILCH: (playing himself in the movie, (Benny creams Cracker) confident that after the votes for by decent hardworking center stage) Hi there, this is Capt. are counted tomorrow we’ll citizens like me and single- Zilch for WOOM woom news REV.: (tasting) Mmm ... banana cream. all Eat the Meat! handedly wipes out the aliens 2 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 3 ... then, when everyone sees how Peter Anderson (RC 1972) studied right he was, all the lazy jerks at the Dell’Arte School of Physical and intellectuals are put in a big Theatre before moving to Canada in space ship and sent to Mars. 1977. He’s the recipient of six Jes- sie Richardson Awards, a Bay Area ROSE: But how could a Man of God do Critics’ Circle Award, Leo and Gemini that? nominations for best performance (The Overcoat), and a NY Drama Desk JOE: God don’t care about Mars -- go nomination. He lives in Vancouver gemme another beer. with his wife, maskmaker and writer Melody Anderson.

Front row: Scott Winter, left, sits next to his biological mom, Nancy Oakes Dewitt, and his older brother, Keith Murphy. In the second row, Charles Murphy, Jeannette Murphy and Lynnae DePaolo. (Paige Pfleger/WHYY) DNA testing reunites family after 50 years Photos from the original production: Zilch (James Guthrie) watches as Benny Paige Pfleger (Debby Krant) pies Cracker (Michael Parsons); Cracker orates, with two Nameless Faces (Bob Honeyman and Kathy Brown). The night of Sept. 18, 1966, 18-year- Nancy and Patrick got married old Nancy Oakes Dewitt went into shortly thereafter and had two labor in the back seat of her car. Her daughters and another son. She boyfriend, Patrick, was just 17 at the never planned to tell her kids about time. He delivered the baby, cut the their long-lost brother, but Patrick umbilical chord, and tied it off with had different plans. a shoelace. He wrapped the baby in white towels, and left him in a ran- “This was one of the catalysts for dom car parked outside a New Jersey his alcoholism, the guilt,” Keith said. bowling alley. “My mom found religion, and my dad This was Nancy’s second son, but no found the bottle.” one would know that. No one knew Keith was 16 when he realized he she was pregnant, and she never told had a brother out there somewhere. anyone about the baby boy. She hid His father came home drunk, threw it because her parents threatened to a table across the room, and shoved Fred (Nick O’Connor), Zig (Gail Lee Reisman), and Zag (Peter Anderson); Benny with take away her first son, Keith. his finger in Nancy’s face. He asked suitcase; Warren Hecht as, of course, God. 4 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 5 her why she hadn’t told the kids Across the country in California, childhood,” Nancy said. “And I was passed away a few years ago. They about the child they abandoned. 49-year-old Scott Winter was having certain that Scott would have a more celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, The news sent Keith on a de- what he thought would be a pretty normal childhood. To this day, I think and Christmas all at once, and they cades-long search for his missing typical day. He woke up, got ready for he probably had the best childhood celebrated the 49 birthdays they had sibling. He collected clues from his work, and sat down at his computer. of any of them.” missed out on. father’s drunken episodes, trying to “I logged onto Facebook and saw Scott had a happy life, but admits “I don’t know what I was thinking. I patch together the details of that a thing about how to find these hid- that one of the most difficult parts of went out and bought a lottery ticket night. He went to the police station, den message requests, so I just out his childhood was all of the ques- after all this happened,” Scott said, dug through newspaper articles, of curiosity clicked it,” Scott says. He’s tions he had when he found out he laughing alongside his family mem- combed through adoption records, talking about the folder where mes- was left at a bowling alley. bers on a couch. “I was like, ‘What am but all he discovered were dead sages from people the user hasn’t “Do I have siblings? What are they I thinking? I already hit the lottery.’” ends. friended are filtered. He opened the like?” Scott said. And as for his bio- They sit talking together like this Eventually, Keith gave up hope. folder, and he saw a message from logical mother, he wondered, “On key for a while. This is only the second someone named Keith Murphy. dates like birthdays or Christmas, or time they’ve all been together, but It’s a match He read Keith’s message, checked something, was she out there think- they don’t look anything like strang- his ancestry.com profile, and sure ing about me?” ers. They look like family. About a year ago, Keith decided enough, there was a notification that “These last 49 years were very pain- to take a DNA test on the website said he had been matched with a ful,” Nancy said. “His birthday, Christ- This story was originally published for ancestry.com. Curiosity more than brother. mas, the first few years when you WHYY’s The Pulse and aired nationally anything drove him to take the test “I remember standing, looking at saw a little one running around who on NPR’s Here & Now. — he was trying to compile a family my computer in disbelief for about would have been his age, you always history and was interested in finding 10 minutes, going, ‘Is this a trick? Is wonder, ‘I wonder if that’s mine.’” Paige Pfleger (RC 2015) also has a out more about his ethnicity. someone playing with me?’ It took But this holiday season, 50 years degree in Communication Studies from “The results came in, and you look me about another five or 10 minutes after Scott was left in a car at a bowl- U-M. During her time in Ann Arbor, at the ethnicity at the top and it says to dial his number,” Scott said. ing alley, the family reunited. When she worked at NPR member station 65 percent British. You scroll down “I still remember that very first Scott last visited the family, who now Michigan Radio. After graduation, she to your direct connections, and — lo phone call,” Keith said. “I answered live in Pennsylvania, they took the interned at NPR headquarters in Wash- and behold — I found scottwinter17,” the phone, and he goes ‘Keith?’ and opportunity to celebrate the holidays ington D.C., where she reported for the Keith said. I said, ‘Yeah?’ and he goes, ‘This is together. It was Nancy and all of her web. Currently, she’s the associate pro- The DNA profile said that user Scott’ and I said, ‘Man, I’ve been wait- kids: Keith, Scott, Lynnae, Charles ducer of WHYY’s The Pulse, a national scottwinter17 was Keith’s sibling. ing for this phone call all my life.’” and Jeannette. Their father, Patrick, health and science show. So he did what any self-respecting They talked for hours, and discov- 21st century person would do — he ered they had a lot of similarities — stalked every single Scott Winter on they’re both in sales, grew up in the Facebook and sent them all the same same part of New Jersey, and share message: an obsession with shoes and peanut “Scott, my name is Keith Murphy. butter. I’m looking for Scott Winter 17 from ancestry.com. And I believe that if Their biggest difference was the you are him, we are brothers.” kind of life each had growing up

‘I’ve been waiting for this phone “I know the childhood that my four call all my life’ children had, and they did not have what you would call a normal 6 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 7 and their arms wore rows of turquoise didn’t want anything to do with that curves like waves, elbows flowing woman. into pointed, triangle wings marked The bee woman mumbled with white shapes like fish scales, as something incoherent and stuck though these angels bore fins instead her hands out in front of Edith. She of wings. looked up at her mother, who smiled The lake puddle used to have a warmly and said, “It’s alright. Take it.” name, but Edith never knew it. Back She reached out and picked up the when her mother and father were angel from her hands. It felt hollow and as old as her and her sister, it had a reeked like the mud. The bee woman’s shore and a beach, and didn’t look so big, droopy mouth fell agape into a burdensome on the side of the road. toothless smile. She turned on her heel, She knew it started to dry up some stumping back towards the mud, and years ago before she was born, and threw her hands up to the sky, wild she supposed that it had decided, eyes, sputtering out indecipherable about three-quarters of the way sounds. through its decay, to stop. Ever since She didn’t say anything to her then, it remained as it was: soggy, mother. She stared at the angel’s face, filthy, blistering sludge. two pitch black dots staring back at Beautiful Objects She watched as one of the old folks her. She blinked at it, but it didn’t blink hobbled towards her and her mother back. Lauren Stachew from the puddle – her snarled, gray Her little sister threw a fit when hair in knots, and dusty clothes in they returned home. She hollered They were walking back from church up for their brother to come home tatters – cradling one of the angels in throughout the house for a good when they first saw the angels on (and he never did,) and the day her hands. Her left arm was exposed twenty minutes about how it wasn’t the side of the road – drenched and their cow got real sick and almost from the tears in her sleeve, where fair that Edith got one of the pretty muddied in the lake – or rather, what died, (but she didn’t.) All of those her skin was pierced with tiny raised angels and she didn’t. was left of the lake. Little, ornately times, her mother had her hands bumps. “Bee stings,” her mother had “Here, you can have it,” she said, painted figurines, their bellies pink clutched together just like she said to her the week before, while they handing her the figurine. “I don’t want like salmon, lying head-first in a mass does now. She held her hands were preparing supper in the kitchen. it.” She spit in her face and hurled it at grave. Edith stood behind her mother, tightly, and the tips of her fingers “Every morning that woman wanders her stomach. watching the pained faces of the turned white. out into the woods and shoves her “No! I don’t want yours! I want mine!” townspeople as they began to weep, Edith peered closer at each of hand elbow-deep into fallen nests to She burst into tears and ran off into the trudging through the mud to gather the angels cradled in the dirtied gather honey. I know some people attic. Her father came in silently from the treasures in their arms and wiping cloths. Their faces were simple. who tried to stop her at first, but she the kitchen and picked up the angel the faces of the angels clean from the Two black dots for eyes, a pointed, kept on going – still does. Those bees from the floor. He gave it a quizzical mud with the sleeves of their tunics. pale nose, and a single stroke of tear at her arm like dogs. Your father look. Edith looked up at her mother and red for a mouth. Their skirts were was out in the woods not too long ago “Got some funny eyes, don’t it?” tugged at her skirt, but she didn’t shaped into ripples by the four and saw her, hunched over by a tree, She nodded. He walked over to the budge. She remained silent, staring out craters that were pressed into their fishing out handfuls of honey into a fireplace and set the angel on the into the lake puddle. She was clutching sides with fingerprints, glossed bucket. Said it was like she didn’t even mantle next to her mother’s crocheted one hand onto the other like Edith with bright orange. The fingers notice the bees were there…. I don’t cross. knows she does when she’s nervous or folded together on their hands want you running out in those woods, The angels in the mud weren’t as scared. She did it the night they waited were implied with thin, black lines, Edith.” She told her she wouldn’t – she strange as what had happened a 8 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 9 week later. Night fell, morning rose, after a few minutes and set the box the couch and trotted after them, a hole big enough for her arm with a and on that day everyone in town on the table. She waited for them to wailing, “No, Mama! Don’t throw that sharpened stick, and reached inside. began to offer away their belongings leave, then approached the box. She pretty angel away!” Edith could hear the soft, low roar of to the angels, perched high up on reached out to lay a finger on the lid, The town gathered around the swarming as the bee woman swam the mantels of the fireplaces. Lamb when she heard her mother hiss, “Edith! lake puddle with the angels gripped her fingers through the hive. Once stew, painted wood bead necklaces, That is for the angel! Don’t you touch in their hands. The voice of an older she gathered up a handful in her fist, silk scarves, and porcelain china cups. it!” She rushed over to her and swatted man called out, “Now!” and Edith she crawled on her knees over to Edith overheard people bragging at hard at her hand. Edith could hear her watched silently from behind her Edith and sat her arm in the bucket, church, naming off all the beautiful growling irritably under her breath. mother’s skirt, holding her sister’s scraping off the honey with her other objects they laid out onto their dining As expected, the box was gone when tear-soaked hand, as everyone flung hand. Sometimes the bees would tables for the angels. Their eyes were she woke the next morning. She asked the angels back into the mud. The get stuck in the honey on her arm, wide with pleasure – the expressions her mother about it, but she replied bee woman stood silently among their last moments spent wriggling on their faces sculpted in a permanent, that she didn’t know where it had the crowd. desperately in the sticky trap. She disturbing awe. disappeared to. Her face showed no Within three days, the lake puddle didn’t pay attention to them. She The odd thing is that those objects remorse. Edith shifted her glace to the had buried the angels within a merely scraped them off of her arm, disappeared. The folks would make angel, its praying hands folded proudly massive dome of dirt. The lake was right into the bucket. When the bee their offering, and next morning it over its stomach, still flat and pink, but a lake, then a puddle, and now woman wasn’t looking, Edith tried would be gone – completely vanished guilty. Its quiet face lay unchanged, but a mound. No one was reckless to scoop them out with a stick, even – they would say. These angels with she knew. enough to dig and see if the though they were usually already fins instead of wings, now worthy of angels were still there. The mound dead. Their bodies, encapsulated in consuming another’s possessions, Edith and her mother stepped into concealed the sight of anything that the glimmering, golden tar, looked gnawed at the beads and the cups in total uproar upon laying foot in the might be hidden beneath, and that like perfect fossils, the curvature of their flat, pink stomachs. The delight church that following Sunday. Among was enough. their wings remained untouched and on the faces of those that she watched the commotion of stressed, chaotic But the mound was angry, immaculate. Wings, not fins, built for buried a sick feeling inside of her. shouting, Edith overheard a woman perhaps, at its neglect by the the air and not the sea, shining in their Her mother and father were say that a young couple living in the townspeople, for on the third yellowy sweetness, but useless in their unfortunately afflicted, too, by the gift- bungalows near the river had offered Sunday following its arrival, the too-heavy weight and their death. Too giving. Edith woke up each morning their angel their newborn baby girl. townspeople quietly disappeared. bad, Edith thought. She looked up at to see them kneeling in front of the The loss of necklaces, scarves, and tiny The mound, previously puddle, the bee woman, who was staring back mantle, always a different object held cups didn’t bother anyone, but the loss previously lake, now a slightly larger at her, arms elbow-deep in the bucket. in their hands. Her concern didn’t of a human life, let alone a baby, was mound, was certainly involved, “They can’t fly away,” Edith said, settle in until the day she saw her apparently enough to unleash a clarity Edith thought. She was left behind and held up the dead creature in her mother holding her grandmother’s over everyone that what they had been in the consumption, along with the palm. “They’re stuck here.” The bee ivory jewelry box with the painted doing was wrong. The townspeople bee woman, who stomped circles woman nodded her head and, yes, she red elephants to the angel’s dotted quieted down and settled the matter: around the mound, punching hard blinked. Edith could be sure of that. eyes. Her grandfather had it specially everyone was to go home at once, at its sides. Edith accompanied her made for her as a wedding gift. She remove their angel from their mantles, to the woods the next morning Lauren Stachew (RC 2017) minored remembered when her grandmother and return them to where they were to help in the honey-gathering. in Russian Language, Literature, and died, her mother had sworn that box found. Edith and her mother fled home She squatted, holding the bucket Culture. This story appeared in the was the last thing she’d ever rid of, along with the rest of the town, and between her knees, far enough Spring 2016 issue of RC Review. Her even more than the family rosary. without a word to anyone, her mother away so that the bees didn’t sting nonfiction is forthcoming in Oleander Edith stepped back behind the door burst into the house and snatched the her. The bee woman whittled out Review. and watched them through the gap angel from its venerated spot like a in between the wall. They stood up feral cat. Her little sister jumped from 10 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 11 Four Poems Mary Wollstonecraft Traveling With Her Kids Matthew Rohrer Mary Wollstonecraft traveling with her kids. She was very brave. They rolled over the Earth Poets With History/Poets Without History underneath the sun only rarely drawing attention to themselves. I have a secret which I will now reveal Or they floated like a cork in a great bay I believe it is possible to tell if someone is interesting of cognac. That is why or not simply by looking into their eyes I haven’t called. on the train each morning it is hard for me not to stare at each person variously sleeping The sun is furiously at it again or listening to music, to see who they really are when you are still asleep. but this is difficult to pull off In my mind it is all green among the guarded patriots, the fearful, and gold where we were, everyone talks all day on their little phones as a light through a mug of beer. to their mothers, mama, they say, Or I am driving you to Queens mama, I had a bad dream sick at heart and high when they haven’t slept, in the backseat in the rumble of big cars moving slowly in the sere heat off the BQE. on the city streets a ghost removes his heart A window has been left open. and falls through the clouds The poppies give you confidence and the melting icebergs crumple and they take it away, that is all like a prisoner shot in the side I have to say about them, I move through the days remarkably sinuously I can’t be their friend anymore. and spinning inside 2:32 PM. My mouth is watering. I wash the dishes 2 or 3 times a day A darkness on my heart with the hot water on and on despite the weather, like a dream behind the yellow gloves nothing between from which I too cannot awaken my hat and the planets. though my son is done with school I walked through the park and holds my hand on the walk home to the library writhing the feeling of falling backwards like a terrible serpent. into the bed at night fills me I felt like Shelley. To love each time the world and hate its face. with sweet content Then Planned Parenthood called. all the people rounded up in camps I gave them $50 more. have a look in their eyes This calmed me down. that can’t reach us now To stay out of the fight, but to egg it on.

12 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 13 What Is More Distracting Than Clouds from the mares’ tails if they looked up they’d see Everything is more distracting than the clouds there’s nothing to be afraid of they are never there they move on a high pressure system is moving in the air is cooler now no one can say remember that cloud the sky is a mild blue something we saw in college it’s still there has changed let’s go see it again they walk their dogs in the park they raise the plastic shade on the airplane window and see a low region surrounded by thin peaks Like A Sausage all of it unreal white needle shaped mountains like a scroll of Chinese painting a landscape not even imagined At the top of the park which disappears when the plane flies through it I lean back on the bench and emerges in the blue air over the monotonous sorghum fields below and survey the entire cosmos. and everything changes a diet coke sprays open It is time to understand the distracting flight attendant glides past my poetry. but the clouds continue to gather The squirrels half-heartedly hide they fail and dissipate they come from the east from the young doberman pincer where the sea makes them foam who hovers over the grass or they come from the west in a blur. full of ragweed and pollen too small to see Like a sausage. everyone breathes it all day Despite the squall distracted by a song a friend sings the world bursts into mirth. over and over white miraculous shifts overhead I want the dog to bite the squirrel in half, the clouds reflected in the surface of a cocktail but my poetry does not. completely ignored drink and cloud ignored while a woman takes her clothes off in front of a man who smiles shaded by the passing helicopter’s rotors tearing up the stratus clouds and flinging now her shirt at him rain falling in her almost unnaturally light blue eyes when he looks closely reflected there in the morning the whole sky is a lusty pink lamp turned on a little girl stands open-mouthed in her pajamas she is his daughter it is five o’clock in the morning the city still sleeps the clouds fly out to sea Matthew Rohrer (RC 1992) is the author of several books of poems, most how many people saw them this morning recently The Others and Surrounded By Friends (published by Wave Books). the citizens who turn their backs on the leaves and insects His first book A Hummock in the Malookas was a winner of the National Poetry who turn their faces to the light of their rooms Series Open Competition, and A Green Light was shortlisted for the Griffin when the clouds are the color and shape of flaming brigantines International Poetry Prize. Two of his tattoos appear in books on literary tattoos. gone up in a dark harbor but they’re distracted He was a co-founder of Fence Magazine, and now lives in Brooklyn and teaches creative Writing at NYU. These poems have previously been published.

14 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 15 first page. A newly-married couple the glider shrieked and squealed, and was walking up a beach somewhere in Sam shifted between napping and Maine, a man and a woman in a green gnawing my nipples raw, I plowed bikini. It was raining there and the my way through Thomas Hardy and birds were screaming overhead. Dan Chaon. There’s a picture of me All my thoughts were obliterated Michael took around that time. I’m then. They blew from my head like sitting in that glider, a burp cloth on dust. I just turned one page after one shoulder and Sam on the other. another, and when I stopped and My face is tilted toward the window, looked up at the alarm clock on the bright with late-May sunlight, my dresser, an hour had passed. eyes are closed and purpled with It was the first book I had read in exhaustion. You can’t see the copy almost a year. of The Empathy Exams spread open on my lap but trust me, it’s there. I Before and during my pregnancy, I remember, because it’s the last breath had all the run-of-the-mill reservations I took before I went under. about having a baby, including the ones about losing the extravagant About a week later, Sam woke up The View amounts of time I had to myself. In one morning with a bruise the size of my head, I made a bargain. I would a quarter on the top of his left foot. I give up all other things: my sleep, was changing him out of his pajamas from the Fourth Floor my (admittedly few) nights out, all when I first spotted it: a sinister red Alyson Foster my leisurely hot showers, as long as circle, flecked with a darker violet Here’s the first time I stopped lit, I carried Sam out on my hip so he I kept reading. I knew other women, at its heart. I lifted it up to the light thinking about the possibility of Sam could see. He’d been home from the smarter and better read than I was, to inspect it. For a second or two, dying: hospital for over a month by then and who had stopped reading when they there was no concern, just reflexive It was the day before Christmas, and was still struck dumb by the great had babies, and more than anything I curiosity, the way there is when you Washington, D.C. was in the middle of outdoors, all that sky and open space did not want to join their ranks. I was catch the flicker of a shadow out of a freakish heat wave, the air so balmy that he’d barely seen. a writer, after all. Reading was like the corner of your eye. Wait a second, and humid, we opened up all the His hair was growing back; it was breathing. It didn’t matter how noble what’s that? you think. And you turn windows and the doors. now a velvet buzz cut that appeared the calling of motherhood. If I gave up your head, expecting nothing but a We hadn’t bought a tree. The doctors nearly black from certain angles and books I was as good as dead. Anything simple explanation. had advised us against having one an angelic silver from others, less like but that, I silently vowed. That moment, standing there with in the house. Any mold or fungus hair than a faint aura, though one still At first, I made good on my word. Sam’s foot cradled in the palm of my it carried with it, they said, could too tentative to read. The two of us About a week after Sam was born, as hand, was something I would return be dangerous to the baby, with his stood together outside for a long time soon as I got the hang of nursing and to again and again in the months that freshly rebooted immune system. So looking at the lights, until he got too could manage a free hand, I picked followed. About seventy-two hours my husband, Michael, had decided to heavy, and then I carried him back up reading right where I had left off. later, in the ICU of Children’s National set up luminarias on the railing of our inside. I sat in the cheap, squeaky glider the attending hematologist gave us porch, and he’d spent the afternoon I had just bought a copy of Lauren we’d acquired, and rocked what was his diagnosis: Sam had an extremely pouring the sand into the brown paper Groff’s novel, Fates and Furies. After I probably the seated equivalent of rare, fatal autoimmune disease. A bags out on the driveway in nothing put Sam down, I stretched out on the miles, a novel in one hand, baby in the bone marrow transplant might save but his T-shirt. bed, in between the piles of jeans and other. I was beyond sleep-deprived him. It might not. My father and After dusk fell and the candles were onesies and I opened the book to the and yet also weirdly focused. While mother, my sister and brother-in-law 16 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 17 were all there. Everyone in the room to cohere, to draw me in. Or maybe There were other ways to self- invisible microbe or fungal spore. was crying except for me. they were drowned out by my own medicate besides books, of course. Everyone coming into the room wore The doctor had a great deal to tell thoughts. My whole life, I had used Drinking was the obvious one. gloves and lavender paper masks. us; I heard almost none of it. I just stories, both my own and other There was watching TV. There was Michael and I scrubbed down the stared through the prison-like metal people’s, to check out: of grocery store stuffing yourself with ice cream bars. crib rails with hospital antiseptic so railing of Sam’s hospital crib. If I had lines and long bus trips, of stints in One could always luxuriate in self- strong we later discovered it was only known, I thought. I would have doctors’ waiting rooms, of heartache, recriminations – God knows, there carcinogenic. We were constantly lingered there at the changing table, of my own depression, and finally were no end to those. dowsing ourselves in Purell. It looked reveling in the most mundane of tasks of the tedious exhaustion of new I didn’t blame myself for what had like we were perpetually wringing our and trying to draw them out as long motherhood. Now, here I was in this happened to Sam. I knew his fate had hands. Which, of course, we were. as possible: painstakingly securing 15-by-20 room, where monitors and been sealed the moment sperm met the tabs of my baby’s diaper, carefully alarms were constantly beeping, and egg—the biological version of a Greek With our days whittled down snapping all the snaps on his onesie. there was no way out, except the tragedy. In hindsight it was clear that to logistics, governed by a single, I would have paused to caress his tiny unimaginable. we, the mortal fools, had all been all-consuming goal, keep Sam from toes, marveling at the lovely ordinary rejoicing when we should have been dying, I found myself reduced to a life that had so briefly been ours and Life in a hospital requires you to weeping, when we should have been wordless, almost unthinking state, now was about to be lost. continuously exist in a sort of survival steeling ourselves for an ambush, a which even now is hard to describe. mode. It was like we were living in battle, a long period of wandering People were always asking me From Sam’s room on the fourth an internment camp. We survived in an existential wilderness, far from how I was doing, and I was always floor of Children’s, you could see a its discomforts without complaining comfort of any kind. answering, OK, when what I really reservoir, sparkling and chopping, like because we couldn’t escape, because But I did think about those weeks in meant was: terrible. But there were a miniature ocean, and a large, empty we had no other choice. the rocking chair, all that obsessive long, disorienting stretches of time field studded with storm drains. On We had to live strategically, to ration reading, and its uncomfortable when I wasn’t sure if these two states any given day, you could watch the out our sleeping time, to concentrate resemblance to flight, all that time weren’t somehow actually the same. bright yellow medevac chopper as on procuring the necessary supplies: when my mind was not on my I believed I had lost most of my basic it ferried in children who were on cups of coffee and caches of gummy new baby, but somewhere else, feelings, even those good old atavistic the verge of death. I would sit with bears, the orange pacifiers that Sam somewhere he was not. It was hard standbys, grief and fear. It was like my back to the door, my bare chest liked, batteries for the psychedelic to remember, but I think I had been dropping a stone down into a well or draped in an afghan while I used the firefly mobile that he loved, the one trying to prove something. What it was the long, black shaft of a mine, and hospital-grade pump the lactation that looked as though it had been I could no longer say. listening and listening and having no consultant had procured for me when designed during a bad 70s acid trip. sound come back. the chemo made Sam stop eating. We had to scrounge for sustenance in The days ground on and Sam’s There were moments though. I would watch the helicopter as it the cafeteria, choking down servings counts dropped toward zero. This Sometimes leaning over the rails descended cautiously down through of the scabrous macaroni and cheese was the most treacherous period, the of Sam’s crib, I would study the the wind, until it disappeared past the or congealed prepackaged sushi. weeks between the time the doctors expressions passing like clouds across jutting wing of the building, covered In the halls, I avoided the gazes of the decimated Sam’s immune system his face. As young as he was, he with its galaxy of dark windows. other parents, our fellow inmates. I with a regimen of intensive drugs could emote with a startling amount Somewhere in the bowels of my didn’t want to hear what they were in and the time before his new T-cells, of nuance and force: skepticism, purse was a Nadine Gordimer novel, for. I didn’t want to know what worse donated by a 20-something-year- indignation, outrage, the impish a tale about struggle and strife in things might lie still ahead. old stranger in California, began to appreciation of a joke. a country half a world away. I had We learned to ignore the muffled proliferate and function well enough He was stalled out in those series of tried a few times to start it without wailing we could sometimes hear to keep him safe, both from himself milestones American parents obsess success. On their own, the sentences through the walls. and the outside world. Death loomed about: rolling over, sitting up, learning made sense, but together, they failed Or we desperately tried to, anyway. as an invader in the form of a single, how to swallow spoonfuls of puréed 18 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 19 peas and applesauce. But he had writing this, a trite piece of symbolism figured out how to clasp his hands if ever there was one, but true together, to raise them to his mouth nevertheless. The trees outside our when he smiled with delight. It was his kitchen window are coming into own little utterance of overwhelming flower. In another couple of days, joy. That’s when I knew I was still they’ll be in the kind of full bloom that feeling something, that’s when I could makes them appear as though they’re hear the booming reverberation of the emitting light. stone traveling back toward me with That old restless writer’s habit of such a terrible and ferocious force that trying to inhabit other people’s lives I had to put my hands over my ears is back with a renewed, unsettling and turn away. force. On the walk from work this week, under a gloomy overcast sky, I The days ground on and Sam’s was passed by a teenage girl driving counts started coming back up. a decrepit minivan. Something about We were too exhausted and leery her face caused me to conjure up her to allow ourselves to think maybe life, the slick feel of the worn steering we’d survived the worst. One day wheel under her palms, the particulars we brought his car seat back to the of the home she was driving toward. hospital. We strapped him into it and I was trying to bestow upon her a Frozen Locks then we drove him home. problem, her blessing or her curse, Cameron Finch the one mysterious and secret pivot The day after Christmas, I finished on which her life might turn and Here’s what she brings with her won’t be able to find me in the world reading Fates and Furies. I started suddenly become unrecognizable. when she goes to work: a walkie- I entered tonight. That is unless she another book. Then I finished it and The thoughts were so vivid that I talkie, a can of pepper spray, a plastic believes in an afterlife. Which I know started another. got distracted. I wasn’t looking where bag of peanuts and green M&M’s she doesn’t. I was going and I almost ran head on (green because it makes her feel I watch her from the car window. I’ve read stories like this one over into a jogger and her dog coming out healthier), anextra pair of mittens The cold has disabled my view, its the years, well enough to have a sense of nowhere over the crest of the hill. that are too big for my hands, and her breath drawing chicken-scratch on of the form. As they passed, they both bestowed ring of keys. She has forty-eight keys the glass. I can just make out her I know this is the place where the upon me a warning look. on that little bent moon of metal. I blurry figure. My mother childlocks triumphal note is supposed to sound. My heart was thundering away. I counted them once while she ran into the car. This is her time to be in My son survived; it seems, perhaps, lifted my head up and looked back the gas station to buy an emergency control. But she doesn’t know that we have found our way back to the over my shoulder all the rest of the rain poncho. I still wonder what a I’m there. She also hasn’t realized that country of the fortunate ones. We’re way home. person could do with that amount of she’s left the window open a crack. supposed to have brought back a keys. I flatten out and slide through with souvenir with us, a handful or two Alyson Foster (RC 2004) has had two Even when she wears her keys on ease. of dark and harrowing grit to spin books published by Bloomberg: The the loop of her pants, my mother When I was alive, it wasn’t often into gold. But on the subject of Place of the Holy, a collection of stories grips them tightly, as if she doesn’t that I saw her. She worked all the redemption I only have this to say: (May 2016), and God Is An Astronaut, a trust the strength of the fabric. Her time. It seemed she was always on sometimes there is none. novel (2014). This essay first appeared in hands are stained with their oily duty, always being called to bring Still. It’s spring here in D.C. as I’m Guernica. smudge, but she doesn’t mind. The replacement keys, to make repairs. ability to unlock any hidden world is Sometimes I wondered why she had worth a little dirty work. Except she been a mom in the first place if she 20 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 21 never had the time to spend with me. is one of those people who wander I lived in this hell in the hours secretly hoped so. Most days I spent alone in the house, through headstones, selecting names before I learned how to ghost. I I took another bite of my sandwich doing homework after school, and creating a life for them, together slammed down the phone, took my and then pitched the other half as making dinner for myself, watching or apart. A life that was never theirs to sandwich with me and ran down to far as I could. It landed with a thud a Adult TV and later, practicing what have. the dock at the edge of our backyard. few yards away. It felt good to throw I saw on myself upstairs until Mom It had not been snowing when she I started out onto the frozen lake something. It felt good to be alone in came home. I had never met my dad. started her rounds today; when I broke because the outdoors knew nothing the winter night with only the stars Mom never said much about him through the ice. about me. It couldn’t talk to me or and the trees and the church bells of either. All I knew was that he lived in She is not wearing an overcoat, only ignore me. I was allowed to just be St. Mary’s in the distance. I was good Florida now with a woman named a thin t-shirt and a lime green safety me. Some might say it’s dangerous at being alone. Kathleen. vest to show she is a city worker. The to be alone amongst all that ice, but I wasn’t sure how much time had My mother never talked about her snow is blinding, biting her skin. The the key is to know when the risk of gone by. My mom was probably job, except one time, when she took snow goes right through me. My living is worth stepping where the ice going to be back from work soon, my friend, Jocelyn, and me ice skating spirit slows down the flakes’ path for a is thinnest. and I was beginning to get cold. And at the local lake. It was my birthday second before releasing them on their The stars were out and I liked to hear that’s when I took the wrong step. and I had never seen her like this. I way. the birds overhead. I inhaled fresh air My foot cracked the ice as if breaking thought she had forgotten. Mondays, In a few days, when the divers drag and felt instantly better. My stomach into the caramelized top of a crème she said, she opened the local history my body out of the lake, my mother growled, so I bit into my sandwich brûlée. I lost my balance and museum for school field trips. There will realize that no coat, no vest can hard. My teeth punctured the bread. fell into the surge of black water. I was a couple in #11 at the Super 8 keep you truly safe and warm in this Nutella smeared onto my palms. felt the heat of my body firing up that she habitually had to let in. They world. The ice glistened and refracted the in fight. Adrenaline pulsed to my always smelled of weed and wore It is after hours. She’s not supposed moonlight on its surface. I sat down temples. Then came the utter cold. fluffy bathrobes. With nothing to be here. She could get in it with in the middle of the lake. My mind To my fingers, to my knees, and then underneath! Jocelyn and I giggled. the police if they find her, breaking in couldn’t leave alone the phone call to the knobby bones of my elbows. A week ago, she was called to lock to the graveyard. It’s not technically with my dad. Why after all these My legs, then my torso, numbed as I up the gates of Bloomfield Park. Two breaking in if she has the keys, right? years was my dad calling our house continued to sink. My throat teenage punks had battered down After all, she is the keeper of these anyway? Every time I asked about narrowed. There was nothing but the chainlink fence, waffle ironed the portal openers. She looks behind him and who he was and what he coldness. Nothing but coldness. I grass, charred the log cabin Jocelyn her suspiciously. But it’s just me. I’m smelled like, Mom said no, she didn’t looked up just in time to feel and I had played House in long invisible to her and anyway, ghosts want any contact with him. I didn’t a hot drop of rain land on my ago. They even had pummeled the can’t tattle. My mom drops the green know what he did to deserve that, forehead. And then nothing. wildflowers to an ashy pulp; the same neon to the ground. It is swallowed but I never questioned her. But, * wildflowers I would run through up by the blizzard and disappears maybe I should have. Couldn’t she at My spirit left my drowned body when I was young and my mom took completely. least have called him to tell him he that same night only to find my the time to be there. * had a daughter? Unless, my mother mom still at work. She goes about, Tonight, we are not at any of these The priests will tell you that hell is never told him she was pregnant. repairing and unlocking, totally places, my mom and I. a firepit, but they are wrong. Hell is a I had heard about a phenomenon oblivious. I want to tell her that my She’s taken us to the Mt. Evergreen place where you’re home by yourself… called the “oops baby.” Was I one of dad called. I want to know the truth Cemetery. I wonder if she comes here all the time. Hell is a place where you those unfortunates who was never of my existence. I want to tell my often during her rounds. I wonder make Nutella sandwiches for dinner meant to be born and grows up to mom that I didn’t want to die, that it about what crosses her mind when and pick up the phone to hear a man be just a tumorous burden? Maybe was an accident, a mistake. she comes here. Does she think of asking for your mom. Hell is a place that’s why she always grabbed extra I imagine her future now, her future dying, or perhaps, is she motivated where your father calls and can’t shifts - to avoid seeing me so often. without me. I know that she will to keep on with life? I wonder if she identify his own daughter’s voice. I wondered if I looked like my dad. I continue to childlock the door. She 22 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 23 will sometimes drive by my school. her thumbs rub over its face. I had a I’ll spy on her snuggling under my stuffed bunny once with a pink satin covers, curling them up to her chin. bow. I rubbed the bow until it was She will continue to go through the streaked with dirt and more brown motions like I’m alive. Because it is than pink. But there was something in easier to love someone you never the motion, a soothing circling comfort Three Poems meant to birth when they’re gone. that the satin would always be there. Marty Sherman You see, it won’t be me she’ll be Even when the color ran out. This is how missing. No, I don’t think so. She’ll fall I hold her hands now. They are cold, in love with my memory. I can see statuesque, teal-marbled with veins. I 1. the way that the neighbors will stare can’t remember the last time she held at her. She will gain a new identity me in her arms. Woke up alive with plans rewrote. - the mother of the dead child. She She drops her hands, then wraps her Boiled water, clicked the quiet door will be ignored by most, because no fingers around the gates. She shakes. shut, turned, tiptoed one knows how to talk to a wounded Her keys respond. Chattering their teeth, and watched the news unfold. animal. Some will go so far as to say, too. The vibrations echo through the The holiday could just be right or “I’m so sorry for you.” But I’m not sorry eery quiet of the plaques and stones pass away. Twenty years old for you, Mom. sticking up and out from the earth. Then, I wonder if she will feel guilty when suddenly, she palms the top bar of the Pidge was adroop. A drunk she finds out I’m gone. Will she realize gates and scales it swiftly, shimmying the forenight roiled she wasn’t present enough to actually her ass and legs up and over. She jumps his small body. Quintets of sobriquets be considered my mom? Will she down and pats off her hands. raced liked a sea wall, sunk believe that she’s the one at fault? I never knew how strong, how lithe like a mermaid waltz, boiled She might think that if she can keep my mother could be. The lockkeeper has like a morning dip. Cast a net. me a phantasmic youth forever, she’ll overcome the need for locks. I watch have a chance at a doover. But even her through the slits of the fence. She We cannot hold a moment or ghosts grow old. wanders down the cemetery path until define the ‘tweens of afterteens The cemetery lock is sheathed the blizzard makes it impossible for even but timing makes us all more in frost and looks like the glazed a ghost to see through. a less. Those great spans where donuts they sell at Hinkley’s bakery. The night, my witness, has walkers perching wires careen The ice has filled in the keyhole with undoubtedly whispered my death and fall into the air. impenetrable crystals. The lockkeeper through the wind, through the trees. has been outdone tonight. The Tell her gently, I advise. She is still my 2. elements prevent her from finding mother, whether she wants to be or not. her way inside the graveyard. Reason and rhyme, reason and rhyme. I’m hovering behind her now, still Cameron Finch (RC 2016) is a short story Who got the patience, the bother, the time? wondering why she is here. writer and poet. While at U-M, she was Hook my shoes to a twelve-bar blues Her hands let go of the keys. They the Editor-in-Chief of the RC Review. She my mind to a dendrite wire. clang to her thigh and silence. Her is currently a candidate for an MFA in To the time elapse of a nerve synapse hands, bare, slide over the padlock. Writing and Publishing at Vermont College Set my memory to fire. It is slippery in her sooty hands and of Fine Arts.

24 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 25 Let a flame play deep in your heart Let a tune burn deep in your blue blue heart. The ice age veins insist on stalling, Yet you persist like water falling.

Why you want water when I got wine? - The unstilled spirits’ll suit me fine. Where you gonna be the day I die? - Bottom o’ the barroom stinkin’ o’ rye How you got an answer whatever I ask? - I cheats. I looks behind da mask.

3.

Stepping with brisk swirl, late, into unions arranged, a trio of loosely hung joints to unmarked Third and Manageable, organs, with a whisk and chill, swept our bloods in pumping heart of wood or and whiskeys, a history of tentacles tackling a thought, a ticking throughout our limbs Why I Bought My Son a Rifle a thrashing for life, lashed flash and fine wire mesh, a grid of fire along the capillaries of a lung Laura Hulthen Thomas a breath sharply inhaled and a rearranged union. This holiday season, the thorniest gift him the gun on this milestone day, decision my husband and I faced had the registration would be in his name. His back cattycornered and muted the edges of the walls, little to do with Lego sets or video If the rifle appeared under the Christ- a trail of cigarette smoke flew out the reaches games, our two sons’ longtime play mas tree, ownership would rest with of a distant thought, a recovered nightmare. staples. In between detailed web us, at least on the official paperwork. Whitewashing his future, I stole the pattern searches comparing ammunition, Each choice, we felt, would bestow juggling a wind of time and events scope specs, and trigger locks—the its own message about parental their networked nerves best deals, we learned, were ad- oversight. On the gut level, where played a line of pain along the Dresden heart. vertised on CheapasDirt.com—we so much of parenting lives, retaining debated whether to gift our eldest his ownership felt like a duty of care to Marty Sherman (RC 1974) lives in Seattle with his wife Linda Wallen. Linda longed-for target rifle on Christmas our child, a backstop to any lapse in and one of their three children, daughter Rachel, are also RC grads. Among Day or on his birthday two weeks safety or judgment. But at eighteen other things, Marty has worked as a truck driver, a wine salesman, and a clown later. our son would be able to purchase a at Ringling Bros./Barnum and Bailey Circus. He is the proprietor of Seaport The timing of the gift would make rifle on his own. Wasn’t the impulse to Sellers, a small Seattle winery. NeWest published Elephant Hook, a collection a big difference. My son would turn have our name on the paperwork an- of Marty’s stories, in 1992. eighteen in early January. If we gave other overprotective cling-wrap our

26 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 27 son had outgrown? Besides, transfer- schools, sat front and center in the at this fleeting peace. “I know you’re slough off the Eastern pizzazz and ring the registration at a future time auditorium straight across from my anti-gun. But you’re not anti-sport,” resilience of the passing game for the might prove complicated, not worth son onstage. Like the other parents he argued, as if this dichotomy didn’t slow, methodical Midwestern power the Christmas Day delight and the present, we were appalled at the share the connective tissue of a drive. Pro games ran on our televi- days off from school to shoot at the gunslinger holster and overkill ban- weapon. sion all weekend long, a continuous brand new mall-sized shooting range dolier of ammunition this young man Since our son has also been in stream my brothers and father shared that had just opened down the street had strapped to his chest. He claimed treatment for depression, our own- as devoutly as a religious ritual. To the from our home. to have brought the gun to protect ership dilemma felt like more than uninitiated, the offensive drives down That Ron and I were debating his sister from bullies. The former just a concern of convenience. I had the field were exasperatingly opaque. whether our son should own the rifle superintendent of schools apparently convinced myself that whose name I was attempting to decipher these outright, not whether he should own held no objection to this lopsided we attached to this firearm amounted plays in the days before sharp-image one at all, had long since ceased to display of protectiveness, and spoke to a hope of influence over our son’s television screens made the ball vis- worry or amaze us. Months of strug- out in support of his grandson at the emotional health. Our name on the ible even to clumsy viewers like me. gle and wonder about how we really next week’s open public meeting papers might bestow on this weapon Brightly colored digitized highlights feel about guns had surrendered, in to ban weapons from Ann Arbor’s our protection, our authority, our on the line of scrimmage and the next the manner of things you think you’ll school campuses. moral outlook on life and death. We down would, after 1998, the year of never do as a parent, to an uneasy, My son held no objections, either, were contemplating handing over the my son’s birth, make the ball’s trudge tacit acceptance that our decision had to singing the high bass line of a Bach means to make a suicidal impulse an downfield obvious. But as a kid all less to do with our moral position on cantata to a Glock in the front row. irrevocable one; my thinking, wishful I had to guide me on our 24 inch weapons, and everything to do with His defense of the open carry might more than magical, was that a lack black and white television were the loving our son. merely have been teenage bravado. of ownership of those means would confusing sideline hash marks and But recently we’ve come to see his translate to a lack of power to use this measuring chains the men in my fam- * * * view as more about investigating the weapon for harm. ily seemed to interpret without effort. emotional impulse behind carrying But our son wasn’t suicidal, his My older brother could even leave the Before the demands of raising babies the weapon than defending the therapist reassured me. Gifting the den entirely to fetch another pop and sidelined any hobby not homebound, weapon itself. The occasional target gun into my son’s direct ownership still absorb the down with his head Ron and I hunted pheasant on my shooting my son enjoyed with his might be an empowering act, even a in the fridge as if the play was just in-laws’ land outside of Marquette Boy Scout troop had lately, he told loving one, I was counseled. We ad- another snack. in the Upper Peninsula, shot skeet us, become more essential than a mire your passion for this sport, this “But where is the ball?” I would at a friend’s cottage near Lewiston, sometime hobby. This past autumn, a gesture might say. We trust you with pester Dad after every snap, pass, and and kicked up grouse from the ghost lingering bought of the summertime this firearm. We trust you as an adult. drive. town Deward’s grassy rail beds. In blues had become unshakeable. As We trust you as a man. “How many yards are left?” the years since our shotguns have he struggled to keep his footing, our “Just watch.” This while my dad been locked up away from our kids, son discovered that achieving good * * * kept up with the game from behind epidemic gun violence and the aim transcended skill and discipline. a newspaper or the latest Book of gridlock over commonsense public Focusing on the bull’s-eye had come As the only daughter embedded with the Month Club selection. Despite policy remedies have left us with little to mean attaining peace. He quoted three brothers, football was both my squinting at the plays, the only times appetite to return to shooting now from articles on flow and the healing first fascination and bewilderment I was certain of what I was seeing that our kids are grown. Last October, power of meditation. He wrote his with a sport devoted to men. When was when the chains came out to a recent graduate of my sons’ school college application essay on the joys my parents relocated from a liberal pinpoint the exact yard. My favorite brought an open carry to the choir’s of taming his reflexes in the cross- New Hampshire college city to a sul- play was when the ball was just shy Choral Cavalcade concert. hairs. He urged us to buy him a rifle phur-aired Wisconsin paper mill town, of the down, because the television The young man in arms, a grand- so he could shoot more often, join rooting for the Green Bay Packers camera would swoop on to the ball, son of the former superintendent of competitions, make everyday grasps over the Patriots became a way to locking focus for a brief moment. The 28 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 29 ball looked nothing like the cheap could divine the movement of the trigger, and that he never flinched at discussed buying a rifle for our child, leatherette bomb my older brother ball, while I lost track of the play at the the gun’s kick. Ron and I were desperate to help our would whip at me in the yard during snap almost every time. Years later, I’d found out something else, too. son with his incremental healing. I’d half-time. The leather looked pliable, the hardwire explanation still makes a When target practice would end never sanctioned the knife collection, the stitching uniform, the laces craft- certain sense of my play blindness. and we fetched the paper targets the violent video games, the fascina- ed to the correct grip. Then the official from the clothespins clamped to tion for rifle firepower and specs he would make the call, the camera * * * the field stand, the bull’s-eye would traded in conversation like the stats would cut away, and the offensive line be shredded. A precise shot pattern on a favorite sports hero. Despite would once more swallow the ball When I’d asked my son’s therapist would ring the hole like a neat row of hating the knives, the games, and, from view. whether buying a gun for a depressed eyelashes. now, the shooting, I’d allowed him The blame for my play blindness, child amounted to a breach of paren- My son, I’d learned, is an excellent to acquire them. I can’t explain why I decided, lay with my crummy aim. tal duty, she talked about how the shot I indulged hobbies so antithetical Since we lived out from town a bit in gun might be my son’s best course of to my beliefs. Perhaps out of guilt Wisconsin Rapids, and later, on the treatment. He has a passion for the * * * as much as conviction, I’d had the rural outskirts of Ann Arbor, when my sport, and goals for competition. He conversations about our firm belief older brother wanted to whip that immerses himself in the flow of the During my son’s slipping away in non-violence and gun control. As cheap ball around, or fling a Frisbee, I moment between aiming and pulling days, he quite literally blinks out. The far I could tell, my son agreed with was his only pick. His aim was so true the trigger, feels the healing serotonin light in his blue eyes, his rod iron pos- these values. He talked about the I never had to move from my spot on when he hits his mark. He feels pride, ture, his speech, all dim and slacken need for a sensible gun control policy. the lawn to catch his perfect toss. But not anxiety, about his performance. until he’s a ghost floating through He agreed that military-style assault after a half hour spent running to and These sensations and motivations are the rooms of our home. This wind- rifles belonged in the military, not in fro across his side of the yard, leap- exactly what he needs to counter his ing down lasts for a few days before civilian life. Wasn’t this proof that my ing for my wild, ragged throws like a depression, she advised. The thera- reversing itself. By now, my son has son is a level-headed, gentle person? desperate end zone receiver grasp- pist’s rationale was more treatment found ways to coax a recovery from If a careful, responsible aim brings ing for the Hail Mary, we’d rejoin the plan than argument, and matched these cyclical depressions. He lays out him peace, shouldn’t I oversee the televised game with my skin bone dry what we’ve been counseling our his knife collection, the one we locked careful, responsible means to pursue and his weeping perspiration and dis- son. Find a passion. Heal through a in the garage at the onset of his trou- his sport? gust. “What’s so hard about throwing sense of purpose. Could I now argue bles. He shuns Call of Duty and logs My parents gave birth to their straight?” he’d grumble, as if aim were that because this passion was armed on with other players to League of children during the Vietnam War. as natural as watching the football we wouldn’t support it? Besides, I’d Legends. He bakes cookies and sautés They put guns in the same immoral change hands on a monochromatic seen him shoot targets at a forested onions in sesame oil for handmade category as the war. Arming in per- screen. range at the local Boy Scout camp. pizza. He drives out to the camp to sonal self-defense they viewed as a At least, that’s the connection The shooting pavilion is located in shoot. His healing comes down to a nullification, not a protection, of civil I drew. A few weeks back, when I a peaceful meadow surrounded by series of small recoveries, slow step by order. So when, during a midlife crisis WhatsApped my brothers, now living tall golden grass, maples and birch. slow step. when I was eleven, my dad signed on in California and Texas, to ask how While my son loaded his borrowed The football announcers call this to the Ann Arbor auxiliary police force they could keep track of every single rifle, I’d watched fathers show their small progress that’s well within reach and brought a handgun home in a game stat during the height of the young scouts the basics of aiming third and manageable. Third and white shoebox, my mother insisted season, the Frisbee victim replied, and firing. I’d seen how the intense manageable signals a confidence in he return it. By then my parents were “We’re men. We’re hard wired to care focus of good aim relaxed my son, the almost-there. ensnared in a tumultuous marital about football.” He was joking, but I soothed the unhappy knot along his The smart strategy is to fight for meltdown that I later learned some- thought back to how the men in my jaw. I’d learned that his restless comic possession, buy one more shot at the times turned violent. Looking back, family dissected every play I couldn’t spirit can achieve absolute stillness goal line. my mother’s demand was not out of see almost before it happened. They in the moments before pressing the By the time we first seriously conviction, but out of fear for her, and

30 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 31 our, safety. would Dad, too, contribute a snap of a The neon sign decorating Ann are vigilant but relaxed, overseeing a On the day Dad turned in the handgun to this family arsenal I didn’t Arbor Arms’ new showroom says typical Sunday afternoon at the local weapon, I drove to the police sta- know existed? Prepare Defend Survive in bright range. tion in downtown Ann Arbor with pink, purple, and green lights. As my I promised to watch my son, but I’m him. The shoebox holding the gun * * * son fills out the forms for the range not built to be in the same room with rested between us. I’d never seen to shoot with his new rifle, I won- the assault weapons. The blamblam a real live gun, so I was desperate When I watch football now with my der which verb he would choose to wall of sound, the smoke and fire, to peek under the lid, but was sons, I don’t have to be hardwired to describe what he is about to do. We the quiet pings of the shells as they afraid I’d be yelled at. Because my see the plays. Thanks to those bright watch the required safety video, slip fly back to land at my boots, sets me parents divorced soon after, I never lines overlaying the field, the ball’s in foam earplugs, snap on ear protec- on edge. What prevents any of these did ask my dad what impulse, or strategic journey is perfectly clear. I tion over the orange nubs. The range shooters from turning around and desire, drove him to want the gun. see the flight from the snap, the faked dedicated to rifle shooting is separate shredding the room as they are shred- As far as I know, he has owned hand-off, the exact distance the ball from the handgun range. When we ding these paper targets? I can’t help nunchuks and a pair of Japanese comes to rest from the next down. enter the range, I see that assault but think that if someone snapped, Sai, but never, again, a gun. The What was once a confusing mass of rifles are lumped in with the .22 my the handguns the employees sport closest our family would ever come bodies oriented around an invisible son is prepping at his station. below their folded arms and spread to embracing a violent pastime, I target, I now see strategy, patterns I see, too, that besides my son, eagle stances would stand no chance thought, was watching football. set into motion by cues of hand or everyone is shooting an assault rifle. at all. This sport bears no resemblance On the first cold day this past glance, each player’s arrival at the ball To my son’s left, a bald, beefy man to hunting on those crisp autumn December, when Ron and I choreographed in advance. I’ve come in short sleeves, a line of pimples days in the hardwood forests and tan finally decided to purchase a rifle to understand that the real challenger erupting at the folds of his neck, is grassy fields where Ron and I used to from Cabela’s to place under the isn’t the opposing team, but the exe- shredding his target 15 yards away. comb for grouse. That sport had our Christmas tree for my son, my cution of a perfect play. I’m now able Flames pop from his barrel, and the rifles’ noses to the ground until the sister-in-law happened to put out to follow the ball from snap to down quick reports sound like cannon shot. moment our pointer would flush a a question on our family WhatsApp as effortlessly as the men in the room. Shells pop from his weapon and fly to bird and there would be a reason to chat group. I’m thinking of buy- But the cure for my play blindness the spot where I am pressed against fire a shot at a swift, fleeting shadow ing a handgun for self-protection. coincides with the NFL’s long-de- the back wall. To my son’s right, a against a clean blue sky. Any recs? She’s asking the wrong nied acknowledgement about the young man and his girlfriend are less Experiencing these assault rifles in crowd, I thought, and put down devastating effects of concussion on expertly tearing up their target with the close space, barely better than an the phone. My screen flashed; my the sport’s players. I wonder if next an assault rifle. echo chamber, makes me ashamed eldest brother had sent a snapshot season I will find it immoral, even Flames, too, lick their barrel, and to remember my walks in the woods of his handgun, a shiny Sig P226. cruel, to cheer the Packers and hold the noise from their shots is deafen- with a shotgun slung at my hip. I’m A few moments later, my young- out hope for the Lions. ing. They are pals with another couple part of the lineage that has brought er brother, the husband of the One habit hasn’t changed since I in the next bay, laughing and horsing to my son’s choir concert a handgun questioner, sent a photo of his 357 was a kid squinting through traces around, trading places and rifles like in a holster and filled these bays be- Magnum. of electronic snow on a black and taking turns at the joyride wheel. A fore me with assault rifle shooters. And a few moments later, my white screen. I am most alert in the lone man, skinny in plaid and jeans, It’s as difficult to recall the un- stepdad’s Smith and Wesson R1 moments after the men on the field fills the last bay, methodically pep- complicated joy of shooting at those filled my screen. settle into position and before the pering his target with careful trigger birds, even though I missed them all, Of nearly all my family members, snap, moments of stillness when rest- squeezes. Two employees, handguns as it is to recall the joy of watching I realized, I was the only one who less, powerful bodies fall motionless, holstered on their belts in plain sight, football in the days before brain scans did not own a handgun. focused utterly on the next play. keep a careful watch and admon- revealed the effect of that sport on Since my mother is on this chat ish anyone who infracts even the the men who play it. group, my father is not. If he were, * * * slightest rule. The security patrol guys I’m on the verge of tapping my son 32 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 33 on the shoulder to mouth, I’ll wait for expected to be the only one to fail to gun. If so, they would be a family hardwired to find peace in firing a you outside when he settles into his hit a target. My aim hadn’t improved of two handguns and three young weapon. shooting stance on a stool, tennis since my Frisbee days. Despite my children. But my son’s happiness after a shoes balanced on the concrete, stock practice sighting ahead of the disc They live in Texas, where it is now shoot gives me the only peace I, too, firm to his shoulder, eye pressed to and shooting into the arc’s apex, legal to conceal carry almost any- can find these days. Perhaps, I remind the scope. He’s perfectly still, aiming I could never hold my arms still where. At my son’s choir concert, the myself, our gift of gun ownership says at the target 25 yards away, ten yards enough for an accurate aim. After firearm was in plain sight for parent what I know my son most wants to farther away than the assault shoot- missing a few, and watching the guys and child to see. I’m still not sure hear. We trust you with this sport. We ers’ targets. He’s here for the hard hit a few, I hefted my shotgun while which set of laws bothers me more. trust your aim. We trust you as a man. shot, not the easy one. I can’t disturb my husband loaded the trap. The sky Post shoot, my son’s eyes are him now, so I press back against the was bottle blue, laced with wispy bright, his shoulders relaxed. He Previously published in Midwestern wall. clouds. At the crack of the launch, I smiles and talks easily, almost his old Gothic, Issue 23, Fall 2016. Just watch, I hear. And so I do. tensed and followed with my barrel self again. We chat about the range. In the swirl of noise and smoke sur- not the skeet, barely visible against Were you bothered by all the noise Laura Thomas is the program head rounding him, my son is motionless. the white clouds, but the curve of the assault rifles made? I ask. for the Residential College’s creative Where I flinch at every report, he the target’s whistle. I squeezed the It’s great practice to learn to tune writing program, and the author of doesn’t move a muscle. For every trigger. The disc exploded. Shards it out, he tells me. States of Motion, a collection of eight twenty blasts that shake the range, rained from the sky like shattered stories (Wayne State University Press, my son shoots a single time, pop, bone china. * * * May 2017). She is a Pushcart Prize and then aims again. He is calm, I lowered my gun to the sound nominee and received an honorable unhurried, studious. If the chaos is of whoops from the guys, a class of Ron and I are still fighting worry mention in the 2009 Nimrod Literary interfering with his concentration, cheering I’d never heard before, or and grief over our son’s depression. Awards. Thomas is also a contributor to you wouldn’t know it by the neat, since, from men. Grinning, I turned to Our son is fighting to make the Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them, an careful patterns on the target, and see our friend standing in the canopy incremental progress toward peace award-winning collection of stories by once more, I’m reminded. My son is of birch trees rimming the clearing, that is so often the only progress left noted Michigan authors published by an excellent shot. watching me with open admiration to fight for in our struggle to make Wayne State University Press. Thomas The young couples clear out, and respect. This particular man had good, reasonable sense out of what holds an MA in Slavic Languages and swinging their gear. One of the patrol never looked at me in this particular we conceal and what we carry in the Literature from the University of Wis- guys cleaning up the bay next to my way before. He was not my brother, or open. Shooting still gives him some consin-Madison and an MFA from the son unhooks the thick cardboard my father. But as I enjoyed an unfa- fleeting moments of satisfaction. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson form that clips on the targets. He flaps miliar surge of triumph at the differ- When I think of the progress that lies College. She is the recipient of U-M’s it back and forth. The bullet-ridden ent way this man was viewing me, I before us, and question the wisdom Individual Award for Outstanding Con- cardboard snaps in two like a neck wished all of the men who have ever of buying my son a rifle, I wonder if tributions to Undergraduate Education, violently shaken. The patrol guy rolls underestimated my aim could have the real heart of my concern lies not as well as a number of University grants his eyes at me. seen this shot. in accepting that my son owns a gun, for her creative work and professional Kids thought they were Rambo, he When my son wraps up his session, but accepting that he is, perhaps, activities. mouths. we collect our driver’s licenses from And I remember a moment from the front desk and spend a few mo- my shooting days when Ron and I ments browsing the handguns and shot skeet at that friend’s cottage assault rifles for sale in the showroom. near Lewiston. Our friend had not Thanks to my brothers and stepdad, I yet arrived home when we hiked to recognize some of the models. A pink a clearing with a few other guys we weapon catches my eye. I wonder if knew. I was the only woman, and my sister-in-law ever bought a hand- 34 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 35 barn and sleep over? she could hear “Milk, too,” she told him. “Why don’t Grandma ask in her head. we expand the herd?” Because of the stink, she answered, “Finally outgrown your britches, and saw Grandma’s blue eyes miss?” He’d said it with a smile. laughing behind her white-framed “Dad, I’m almost seventeen.” glasses. She had ideas. Voicing them She grabbed the hose from the was natural, if it was out of her wall. A wet nuzzle at the back of her mother’s earshot. Her dad might not bare knees, and another, greeted encourage her, but he didn’t give her her as she stepped inside the pen. an argument, either, about what was Two Yorkshire hogs and a banded or wasn’t her place to comment on, Hampshire gilt. Three pigs. Three which was as good as acknowledging snouts. Eight hundred pounds of she was every bit a farmer as him. swine were crammed into the show Today she’d prove it by showing pen. She couldn’t see most of their everyone that Schulte Farms could parts; there was barely room to turn raise prize-winning pigs as well as around, the pen was that small. cows. Sure, they were cute. She would She stroked their backs, each in have named them after the Three turn, and ruffled their brushy neck Stooges if they’d all been boys, but as hair. She was still amazed at how it happened they were Mo, Larry, and sensitive they were, how much they Velvet. responded to her touch. They seemed Look how pretty they are, Grandma. even more delighted when she And your first year of showing pigs, squeezed the hose handle and let the Grandma would have added. first drops fall on their backs. True enough. She’d read every single “Faith Schulte!” Lance McNamara pork pamphlet the 4-H could dish breached the barn doors, striding up, relying on memorization and noisily past her. Faith turned away, An excerpt from mnemonics to learn the living parts, forgetting the hose, nearly drenching the retail cuts, the breeds, the feeds, the silver-haired judge (who’d be Heartland the diseases. considering her pigs in exactly an Ellen Dreyer Fore rib. Back. Rump. Loin. hour) walking past the other way Not that Faith had chosen to switch before she could close the nozzle. Chapter 1 neighbor. from cows, which she’d shown since Faith might have added: “What are Show Day “I’m good.” Faith stripped a long, she was a five- year-old in oversized you doing in the show barn, Town Kid, corkscrew strand from her forehead. boots, leading a balky calf. When with your clipboard and ballpoint, Friggin’ hell, she was late, flying She’d had trouble falling asleep after her dad started calling around to peace-sign buttons rattling on your through the doors of the swine barn getting home past midnight, and get a few good piglets to raise, she chest like some useless breastplate?” and crashing into barrel-bellied Earl overslept the alarm. Now there was hesitated. She aimed the hose at him, but he Nessle. only an hour and a half before show “We’re diversifying,” he told her. was already too far away, interrupting “Get caught in a cat fight, Little Miss time. She had to wash her pigs so “Schultes can do swine as well as other kids amid their chores. The pigs’ Bit?” they looked their best. Senior 4-H dairy. Diversification will put us in the snouts, all of them at once, were on Earl smiled, but there was no kids had to set an example. black. Plus, market prices for pork are her like leeches. OK, maybe not that time to be neighborly, even with a Why didn’t you bring a cot to the on the rise. So.” bad. More like rightful nudges. We’re 36 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 37 roasting in here and we can’t sweat. rubdown as much as a shower? ribbons with her heifers, then gearing “You’re breaking everyone’s Shower us. Shower us again. “Got any clippers?” up for the State Fair in Des Moines. concentration on the most important Faith obliged, as they shifted and Faith looked up. The blocky girl They were there for the first time last day of the year.” lifted their feet from the scattering had thin blond braids that grazed August, she, her dad, Grandpa, and He stared at her for a moment, dirt. Clear beads pearled on Velvet’s the tops of her shoulders, and one Grandma, who was still perfectly looking like he’d burst out laughing, heels. of Lance’s damn buttons. Make healthy and helped her in the cow and removed his hand. “I’m glad “We can’t be silent any longer about Love, Not War, it read. barn. The place swarmed with reserve to see you,” he said, somewhat this unjust war,” Lance announced. “My pigs have a lot of ear hair. It’s champions, champions, and all other apologetically. “How’s your summer He was her friend, or so she’d distracting,” Ginny said. manner of bovine excellence. She’d going?” always thought. They’d been lab “Talk about distracting!” Faith come close to placing, had no wins, “Fine.” partners more than once, assembled blurted, pointing at the button. it was hot as a griddle and rained the She looked away—not entirely puzzles together in kindergarten. “The judge’ll take points off for entire time, yet she loved being there breaking the spell, but just enough— “President Nixon wants to end it,” that.” Faith shook her head as she and wanted to return, to victory next and about faced. said a girl. rummaged in her show box. Give time. “See you,” he said. “Good luck!” “He wants to pull our troops out,” Ginny her clippers and send her on Swine just might not work out. She walked carefuly back to her Lance corrected her, “but we’ve her way. “And it isn’t patriotic.” Nor could she keep herself pen. already lost. Thousands of soldiers Ginny scratched her ear. “It isn’t from following Lance’s progress. “‘Just the person I wanted to see.’” and civilians dead, all for nothing.” patriotic to want peace?” Embarrassment crept over her, adding Then he’d touched her. She’d stared at “To stop the commies!” Faith Faith put her hand on the old to her distress. She checked the him like a dummy, like the fair police, shouted. electric clipper that Grandma used dirt-encrusted clock above the barn as if he’d invaded her territory. Her pigs grunted, startled. She was to use to cut Grandpa’s hair. She doors. Eight fifteen. Still a few minutes Well, he had. as surprised as they were. Thankfully, had to untangle the frayed cord before she met her dad for breakfast. Still. the judge was nowhere to be seen. from a couple of brushes. “Besides,” She started across the barn. What did Lance McNamara know “This is no place for politics,” she she went on, looking up at Ginny, “So what’s this about a peace about pigs? Did he even know that a explained, not shouting this time, “remember what we learned. group?” she said to Lance’s back. He gilt was female, a hog male? Had he “and you all know it.” Show day is it. You need to focus turned, his face dimpling on either ever actually smelled pig shit before Some of the kids laughed. They had completely on your animals and side of his mouth, the yellowish flecks today? Town kids in the show barn Lance’s buttons affixed to the collars doing your best out there in the in his brown eyes seeming to swirl were trouble, plain and simple. of their white 4-H T-shirts. A hot ring. Completely.” She finally put around. She topped off the grain buckets, bloom spread across Faith’s cheeks, the clipper and cord in Ginny’s “Faith!” he said. “Just the person I freshened the water, and inspected and she turned away, laying her waiting hands. “Good luck with wanted to see.” the clippers that Ginny returned for hands on her pigs’ backs, as much to that ear hair.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him foreign hairs. She left her shaggy- calm herself as them. “Good luck, in general,” Ginny and his buttons to an empty corner of eared pigs (now snuffling happily in Ginny Hincks, busiest of busy offered, as if she’d been waiting to the barn. “You should leave.” their buckets) and went outside to bodies, broke away from the Lance say it. “Why? Seems like a lot of 4H-ers meet her dad, who stood outside the cluster and came toward her, want out of Vietnam.” He pointed barn doors, right on time. eyebrows knit with some form of Maybe these were signs. She them out to her, hand on her “Okay?” he asked. concern. shouldn’t be here with the pigs but shoulder. Faith shivered, riveted to the “Yup,” she answered. “Hey, Faith. Are you okay?” in the cow barn, where she’d been spot. Those yellow flecks seemed to They headed across the dirt yard Faith blinked. “Itchy eyes,” she every year since she was three. be moving around, like ducks set free onto a grassy hillside, enacting the said, turning away. She stretched a Where there was plenty of time from a shooting gallery. And was his same ritual they’d done every year raggedy strip of towel over Velvet’s for chit chat while doing chores. hair that long when school let out? since she’d learned how to walk. Her shoulders and rubbed vigorously. Shoveling manure that smelled The chestnut waves fell almost to his feet fell heavier now, still, there was Didn’t her dad say that pigs loved a sweet, not sickly. Winning some shoulders. goodness in the grass underfoot, in

38 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 39 the climbing, in her heart tripping and Faith’s mouth watered; she was Billie. Plus, there was all that Lance “It wasn’t my fault, though. Lance a beat as they topped the rise. Sun hungry, the six AM eggs and bacon weirdness to tell her about. McNamara was in there recruiting glinted off the distant Ferris Wheel all used up. A few minutes later he They walked through the picnic kids for his anti-war group. I told him and strands of spider silk shimmered headed toward them, his tray piled area and the rusty playground to the off, right in front of everyone.” in the ash trees. with powdered doughnuts, two red barn, the last building left from “I saw him.” Billie smiled. “His hair’s Two 4-H food tents stood in friendly cartons of milk, and two steaming, the farm that the fairground was built getting long.” competition by a grove of trees, Styrofoam cups. He was so slim he on. A banner stretched across the top Faith sighed, forcefully. “He beyond which lay a playground, almost seemed to fold in the middle of the barn read 4-H ART SHOW. Billie shouldn’t have been there. It’s like a and all the rides. Faith waved to her as he slid onto the bench beside her. slipped around the side of the barn slap in the face to his own brother, cousin Billie and her Uncle Gerry, who “Well, now. Schultes can win and plunked onto a shady strip of Alan, and all the other boys over in sat at a picnic table under a gnarled ribbons for pigs as good as cows.” grass overlooking the racetrack. She Vietnam. Not to mention a huge mulberry. Her uncle worked on the Uncle Gerry grabbed a doughnut and took a pack of Marlboros and a lighter distraction to all of us.” farm almost every day, but she hadn’t turned to her dad. “Right, Fred?” from her fringed white purse. “Well,” Billie said, drawing the word seen Billie as much as she would “A-course.” Her dad broke a “Excuse me?” Faith said. out as if it were a point in itself, then have liked since school got out in doughnut in two, then licked his Billie lit up and inhaled without taking another drag on her cigarette, May. She wore a new blouse of thin fingers. coughing. Well, she was seventeen “this war is different from any we’ve green cotton, with appliqued flowers “They’re sayin’ rain next week,” since February. That was old enough had before. A lot of soldiers don’t around a square boat neck and a tear Gerry said through a mouthful. to smoke, Faith guessed. But still. believe in what they’re doing over in the shoulder along the seam as “Maybe one of these times they’ll It was just like always: Billie taking there.” if she’d started to take it apart then be right.” the risk while Faith stood by, waiting “How do you even know that?” changed her mind. Uncle Gerry swilled and swallowed. for them both to catch hell. There “Talking to people.” Billie turned Billie swished a fly away from her “Who knows, the way this year’s gone. was the time Billie snuck into the the cigarette in her fingers, and face as Faith slid in next to her, nose Blizzards nearly all winter long and neighbor’s pasture and jumped on finally looked up at Faith. “You wrinkling at her cousin’s strong then come Easter, Big Chief shuts the their pony, Tony, who dumped her know something? Before she died, perfume. Billie had the better end of faucet. Few showers here and there on the ground and headed out the Grandma told me she regretted not the bargain when it came to looks: don’t amount to much.” gate, onto the road. Faith had to going to an anti-war protest.” straight, dark blond hair falling past Faith winced as Billie’s eyes met run to grab him. Another time, Billie “Please don’t talk about her,” Faith her shoulder blades, bottle green hers. She knew Billie knew what she insisted they touch an electric fence whispered. eyes, and a smooth, ski-slope nose was thinking: that Big Chief—her at the same time, to see how it felt. “Ok ay.” that defied the Schulte bump shared father’s name for God—had shut off Faith’s mother, who believed yelling Billie stubbed her cigarette in the by Faith, her dad, Grandpa and Uncle more than the rain at Easter. wasn’t ladylike, gave them what-for dirt. Gerry. Faith’s was the worst, after “Been raining steady for three after both those antics, and grounded “What? Did she really say that?” crashing into a tree while sledding weeks up north,” Gerry added. Faith in her room. When Billie’s family Billie nodded. “She said, ‘We’re when she was six. Not that she By up north he meant Minnesota. packed off for town after the second meddling where she shouldn’t be.’” thought herself ugly, just a little “Oh, it’s comin’,” Faith’s dad said, time Uncle Gerry, drunk, put a farm Faith shook her head. “Remember dented. biting into a doughnut. truck in a ditch, Faith should have last July, when Alan McNamara was “You git your chores done?” Uncle Billie raised her gaze to the heavens seen it as an end to her troubles, but on the float, with Kip Neary and Gerry said. “Ready to show?” and down again to Faith, with she didn’t. Billie was as good as a Jimmy Reichenstall? She saluted “Uh-huh,” Faith answered. something like a smile; speared the sister to her, and Faith mourned the them.” “Good girl.” two remaining doughnuts and took day they left the farm seven years “She didn’t salute,” Billie countered, “Does it stink real bad in there?” off across the yard. Faith got up, too, back. “she waved.” Billie asked. though she wouldn’t have minded “I made a fool of myself in the barn,” “I saw her salute.” Faith shrugged. “Not awfully.” talking more about the rain, or lack she said. “Minds change.” Dad was at the front of the line now, thereof. It was automatic, following Billie turned to her, exhaling. “Not that fast. Not about important 40 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 41 things.” all of McGill County and beyond came supposedly made by hand. Maybe to a high, sweet pitch, like taffy on a The thing was, Grandma should be to hear Chet Atkins do his amazing appreciating a chair could lead to hot day. here. She hadn’t missed a fair since guitar picking. She wished she could other things. She peered more closely A voice, amplified through a Faith started showing. She wasn’t bask in the sweetness. The stories. at the racetrack. The tractors were megaphone, came rolling up from supposed to be dead, taken by cancer Their Great-Great Grandma Greta John Deere 5020s, from the looks of the show barns. Faith glanced at her on Good Friday. Big Chief shut the and Great-Great Aunt Maria, two it, and only a couple of years old. “Dad watch. “Shit!” That was not a word she faucet, all right. teenaged sisters from Pennsylvania, would give the skin off his finger for usually used, and she half expected “She would have loved to see the who “staked a claim and had to prove one of those,” she murmured. another gale of laughter from Billie, moon landing,” Faith said, her eyes up,” in Grandma’s words. Back then, “Yeah. Maybe an arm.” Billie grinned who only said, “Good luck.” welling up as if she was still staring Faith only dimly understood what at her sidewise. “Hey, did you see On her feet, gazing down at into that pit watching dirt rain on the that meant. Yet she and Billie played the hippies down to Limestoneville? her cousin, Faith wondered if coffin lid. “When they planted the at being the sisters again and again— They moved into the old mill. They’re she should run, or wait for some flag—” Greta, strong and practical, and Maria, starting a commune.” She pulled acknowledgment that hippie Her voice broke. Billie laid a hand dreamy and sickly. She wasn’t sure her hair back from her face, looking communes had nothing on being in on her shoulder; the weight was a those things were true, or if they’d straight at Faith. the show ring. comfort. made them up. “A commune? Like that one in Life Billie shaded her eyes, looking up at “Don’t dwell on it,” she said. “We’ve got to carry it on, Bil,” Faith magazine?” Faith who was already moving off, and “Grandma wouldn’t want you to.” She said. “The farm.” “Exactly.” called out, “Later.” took her hand away. “Remember all Immediately she wished she hadn’t Faith sighed. It was funny, the way she said it. So the good things.” said it, not that way, pleading. Billie “They’re free, you know? They’ve flip. Not “See you later and we’ll go “Like...” hunched her shoulders and pulled ditched all the stupid rules that make get Greta’s chair.” “Later” could mean “Those stories she told us.” her long hair forward, laying it over people so unhappy. Look this way. anything. Faith closed her eyes. There was her knees like a blanket. She drew a Think that way. Suck up to authority. Faith turned to wave, but she was Grandma, shepherding her and Billie circle in the dirt, added petals for a Know what I’m saying? They don’t no longer there. to the high point of Faith’s front yard flower, then erased it. “Those were believe in war, or the all-mighty dollar. and turning them to face east. “There,” stories, Faithy.” They don’t even believe in God . . . at Ellen Dreyer (RC 1983) has published or Grandma said, pointing across forty The stab of hurt surprised Faith. least God as we know it.” edited over 60 books for young readers. acres of beans, “is where the sod Along with something, a sense of the The tractors snapped into action. She received the Bank Street Best Book house was.” words running off, as if into some Faith suddenly longed to be down of the Year Award for The Glow Stone “Remember?” Billie said. distant brush where words waited. there, chopping grass, maybe figuring (Peachtree, 2006), and two Hopwood Something shifted back and forth Billie was born on the farm, just like out how many rotations it would take Awards for short fiction. She currently in Faith’s chest like bumper cars. she was. The farm was theirs to carry to cut the whole damn field. “God’s a teaches creative writing and literature Remember? Did she breathe? to the next generation. Faith knew Him, not an it,” she heard herself say. in the Rutgers University early college “Greta and Maria. Weaving those this, the question was, did Billie? Billie’s laugh started out low and rose program REaCH. wildflower halos by the creek. Trading “I guess you don’t want Greta’s with the Indians.” chair?” Faith said. Faith opened her eyes. Billie’s grin “‘Course I do.” Billie peeked at her sparked her own. “You ran away with from behind her curtain of hair. them. I couldn’t find you in the brush.” “Grandpa said I could get it later. Billie laughed. “I know.” Want to come with me? Help me On the racetrack below, men figure out where to put it?” climbed into tractors with mowers “All right,” Faith finally answered. It hooked up. They’d neaten the grass was something, at least: Billie wanting just for it to get trampled later, when the old chair that Greta’s husband had 42 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 43 Desdemona nine ways of

Clare Higgins looking at her knees

Kitchen smells like garlic Clare Higgins your back, tied up in holy knots your lip got cut in a fight but I told you hold back your sword knobbly hob hills where the goblins and elves go on those black nights you can’t see the moon for squinting, trying peach-tops: piles of fuzz and pale dew two leaves if it is warm

Days bent over vinyl booths a thin film over blue veins spider-like a map of the body and I went back to work for you dotting her wounds Daddy held up the rent money real quick heard I was running with a black boy new young muscle brash all envy and I cut my ties for you old clickety-clacking when overrun pop and hiss Now you come, stand over the bed railroad song curse me, you’re brave, aren’t you soldier still knows how to fight older cousins to sock feet angular tween grace but wouldn’t know his woman if he crawled between her thighs soaked after rain their tears pool in her shoes and she bit him on the cheek boulders against one another when I wake in her bed So take me, spitfire and all I won’t go down white flag making a tunnel for promises to pass through and if you think I’ve ever loved a man face the color of the moon whispering then I hope you find your prayers answered in someone else’s book – pages torn rippled by seawater

In a dream you came, powerful and strange as sable evening skies took me in your arms and held on safe enough for kissing sinless lips and I cried out for you Clare Higgins (RC 2017) has won Hopwood awards for her collection of poems, “An Commend me to my kind lord Education,” and her screenplay, “Hindsight.”

44 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 45 together. I don’t really feel like of the Cardiovascular Center’s anything could be funny right now. lobby. “So what was the most Professor Flint lets us know that interesting case you’ve seen?” we are waiting for one other girl to Erin looks up from her phone, her join us before we head down. He is face caught in the trickling light an older man, always well-dressed pulled from the windows around in corduroys, a button-down, and of her. This building is beautiful. The course, his signature bowtie. With light from the windows catches their unusually bright colors and on the gold flecked paintings in odd patterns, his bowties make me the lobby, making them glitter. A smile long after our class has let out. delicate stream of water runs down His class begins at 8:30 am. Most the wall alongside the stairs that mornings we are greeted at the front lead to the lower levels. Professor of the classroom by containers of Flint hates doing forensic cases, he homemade cakes and cookies, and says, because it sometimes requires our professor’s wide grin. He loves to going to court. “There was one bake for us, and even invited anyone woman I did an autopsy on who was in our class who didn’t have a place allegedly strangled with a telephone to go for Thanksgiving to celebrate cord by her boyfriend.” I watch the the holiday with his family at their water move against the sturdy home. I like to think of him as the white wall behind it, hugging its soft, wise, grandfather I never had. smoothness for support. “In court, The four of us ease our way into the judge asked me how much small talk. Sam launches in with force the murderer would have had Dead Empty the awful record of the Michigan to use to kill her.” The water flows Elena Potek football team, and, after some downward, disappears beneath painful silences, the conversation the stairs. “The girl’s boyfriend I arrive in the lobby of the arrived before the window of allotted flows into questions we have for sat across from me as I answered Cardiovascular Center on a bright, time expired. The chilly breeze our professor. “Did you ever get the judge, staring straight at me crisp, fall morning. I see Professor outside stripped me of my sleepiness, nervous before doing an autopsy without looking away.” I pull my Flint in a chair to my left. He waits only a cold anxiety remains. when you started?” I ask. He thinks eyes away from the water. “That patiently for my arrival and is joined I recognize the girls beside for a moment as he folds his hands was pretty creepy.” I shudder from by two other girls from my class. me as Erin and Sam, two of the together on his lap. “I haven’t done his recollection. Professor Flint They both agreed to observe the students who sit in the first row of many, only about 150 cases.” To cut seems lost in his thoughts then and procedure, as I had. I imagine they our Monday/Wednesday morning 150 dead apart, all of the stories looks out with a distant stare at the received a similar call from him class, Introduction to Medicine: those bodies told, seems like a lot window behind me. “I also don’t like this morning. We’ve got one, he Clinicopathologic Diagnosis of to me. “The main coroner here has doing child abuse cases. Little kids, announced over the phone, as I lay Human Disease. Sam sports workout probably performed over 10,000.” you know, especially girls because in the warmth of my bed. A drug clothes, as if the events we are about He looks at us and smiles easily. “But, I have two of my own.” The stream overdose. Far too chipper for such an to observe will energize her enough to answer your question, no. I was continues to fall, I hear a soft gurgle early morning conversation. Be here to hit the gym directly afterward. never nervous.” Great, I think, just me as water hits the distant bottom in half an hour. Now I sit down next to Erin scrolls through something then. I smile back uncomfortably. floor. my Professor and my two classmates. on her phone. She leans over The bitter November sun filters I realize now that that this decision I’m breathless, having just barely and shows it to Sam, they snicker in through the clear, wide windows may have been a huge mistake. 46 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 47 I’m not very good with blood or med. Throughout the semester, wings of the hospital, the ones I papery thin medical smock over his needles, medical procedures or pain. no matter how grotesque the usually take, are straight off this clothing. He looks far too formal to At checkups, when a nurse attempts pictures on the slideshow or corridor to the right. Instead, be a doctor and I wonder what he to give me a shot, my screams can disgusting the symptoms we Professor Flint turns left down a is doing there when I spot a gun be heard by doctors attending to discuss, these students never different hallway. The other three strapped to his belt. He is speaking their own patients on the opposite flinch. They even ask follow up girls swiftly follow him, barely giving to the doctor. “…was out until end of the building. I know this for questions, probe our professor Dr. Kevorkian’s smiling portrait a 2:30 because right after I finished a fact, because the office I went to for more gruesome details. In second glance. But I feel his black with him I got another call. Lots as a kid was my mother’s. Dr. Maach, the back of the class, my eyes and white stare on my back as I trail of overdose cases.” As he speaks, I it sounds like your daughter has are jammed shut. I sit at a desk, behind the others. finally look through the glass for the arrived, her nurses joked, as she was wish I could crouch underneath This wing is much more isolated, first time. I let out a small bit of air. forced to stop what she was doing it instead. Hiding from the without the bustle of nurses and Right below me is a man who looks to come check on me. As I left the information being taught, visitors who pile in and out of the to be about 30 and is, apparently, office, her apologies to the other however, would likely diminish elevators to see their patients or dead. But he doesn’t look it. Had doctors we passed always made me my chances of passing this class. loved ones. A lone elevator arrives he been tucked under the sheets feel guilty for my squeamishness. There is no hiding now. to take us down to the hospital’s of a bed in the general wing above But it wasn’t a feeling I could control. Professor Flint rises from his chair basement. As the doors slowly us, I would have peeked my head Over the years I have become mildly and asks us to follow him. We open, Dr. Flint says, “Here we are, the in and closed the door gently so better with needles, but not by head down the stairs and through bottom floor of the hospital. If we as not to disturb him. He is fully much. When I came to college, I the hallway that connects the go right here, this is where all meals clothed and other than the waxy thought volunteering in the hospital Cardiovascular Center to the are made for patients, and if we go look of his swollen fingers, he could could help. It is an interesting general hospital wings. This straight, we’ll arrive at the mortuary.” be asleep. I realize that until now, I dilemma, having a doctor for a part is familiar. Every Friday I We get off the elevator as someone have never seen a dead person. The mother. I feel a certain comfort walk through this hallway on in a staff’s uniform pushes a cart of funerals of my grandparents or great with the sterile, beeping world of a my way to visit with patients. prepared food past us and down the uncles had all been closed casket; hospital. And yet, when I walk down I sit with them and hear their hall. I never before gave any thought it is Jewish tradition not to view the the hallways to visit patients, I still stories. For at least a half hour to all that went on in the hospital bodies of the dead. This 30-year-old fear what I will see behind each or so, my nods and smiles allow outside of the rooms I visited drug addict is my first. door. This contradiction is not so them to forget where they are. each week, the dead and the food He has on a grey, worn T-shirt, unlike how I feel towards my mother, Now, I wish someone could do being prepared so close together. and I can’t make out what it says. too. The skills I taught myself in the same for me, too. Along the Professor Flint takes out his Mcard Black graffiti letters trace themselves order to attune to her sadness were way we pass the portraits of and swipes through a locked door. across the front, as indecipherable good practice for this work. I never every graduating class from The He shuffles us through before the as his heartbeat. His creased belt knew what to expect when I peeked University of Michigan Medical door closes behind him. We are in an snakes through the loops of ragged, my head inside her room. School. “If you look closely you’ll entirely white hallway, sterile, bright. dirty jeans. A slit cuts up the bottom “Sorry I’m late,” the last girl from our see Dr. Kevorkian up on this At the end we enter through the last of the left leg all the way to his knee. class pants. As she rushes in, my wall,” Professor Flint points out. door and come to a small narrow I can’t tell if this was his doing or the mother’s darkness fades. I become I feel like I should have noticed room. Completely windowed on one doctor’s. I see from the slit he has aware, yet again, of where I am his portrait before. But when I side, the room looks down into a on white Hanes crew socks pulled sitting. Late-arriving Becca, along walk through this hallway I’m so lower chamber. as high as they can go, his feet with the other two girls sitting wrapped up in my list of patients The first person I see is a man who tucked inside brown slip-on shoes I beside me, are among the many to visit, that I barely notice the stands near the set of windows. He imagine he bought at Walmart. The students who put their hands up on world around me at all. wears black suit pants, a tie and man is heavy, with thick thighs and the first day of class as being pre- The elevators to the general white button down shirt with a a protruding stomach. He has large 48 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 49 ears and the ridges of his skull show holds a clipboard, and slowly makes further. Small illustrations on the back while I watched from above, slightly underneath his bald scalp. his way around the body. He picks sign depict the necessary garments distant and God-like. But now, he On each arm, a tattoo captures what up an arm, examines a leg, turns we must don before we enter. lays so close to me. If I wanted to he felt deserved permanence in his the man onto his side. The resident Professor Flint leads by example as step forward, to touch his rough short life. Like the words on his shirt, continues to make marks on his he pulls on shoe covers, a hairnet, cheek, I could. The realness of his I can’t decipher the tattoos either. white sheet of paper as he searches apron, latex gloves and glasses. skin would be all that remains of In death, meaning ebbs away, no the full terrain of this man’s body. A Without a word, he disappears what has already left his body. longer translatable. photographer also makes his way into the room behind the door, As I attempt to distract myself The police officer explains that the around the table. He positions his swallowed by the light within. As we by looking around the room, the man had been taking prescription camera, bends the man’s body in pull on our hairnets, I try hopelessly resident and assistant completely medication for chronic back pain odd angles to get the picture he to bond with the other three girls, undress the man. I am drawn to his after a car crash 10 years ago. needs. Latex gloves cover his hands, and confess that I’m phobic-level brown scuffed shoes and dirty jeans According to his girlfriend, she but he doesn’t wear the mask, cap afraid of blood. and T-shirt in a heap on the floor was aware that he switched over or medical apron the other officials “My mom made me go to therapy beside him. While on his body, they to heroin last year, but had tried to have on. He sports cargo pants and for it when I was younger.” were the final pieces that hid his stay out of his habit. It’s unclear why a vest with mesh pockets that looks Gym-clothed Sam offers an deadness to me. The photographer he stopped using his medication, more suitable for a jungle safari unsympathetic, “Then why are you asks the resident to reposition the but the man had been admitted to than an autopsy room. A Nikon SLR here?” man, as he needs a few final shots the hospital five times in the past digital camera is strapped around I really didn’t have an answer, at before the procedure begins. The year for near-overdose mishaps. his neck as he places a small metal least not one I’m willing to uncover. resident rolls the man towards “Apparently,” the officer reports tag on the man’s puffy right big-toe. So instead, I reply, “I thought it himself so the photographer can halfheartedly, “he wasn’t very good He takes a close-up shot, as if the would be interesting to see another get a picture of his back. As he at knowing how to do it.” The officer deadness will tell him something part of the hospital.” turns him, with what obviously took looks down at the man below him. I more later on. Now, the tag is Once inside, the room seems a considerable amount of strength, follow his gaze. I am struck by how balanced on the shiny roundness of bigger and blindingly white. Lights, blood gurgles out of the man’s young the man is, how different the man’s head. The photographer just like the one a dentist points into mouth and splatters onto the floor, from the many elderly patients I snaps two or three, close up and a mouth, blink on in full brightness. inches from the resident’s feet. The am so used to visiting. Those age- farther back, then continues across Even the faces of those alive look resident quickly rearranges him spotted ladies and wrinkled men the landscape of this cold body. ghostly. A framed poster on the onto his back and the assistant share fond stories with me of Ferris “Well, you ready to go down?” middle of the wall that faces the brings a mop to wipe the floor. Wheels and the bright lights of their Professor Flint looks at us. Until windows lists the normal weights for The blood begins to disappear youth. They may be close to death, that moment I am so entranced a heart, spleen, lung and brain. Their into a bucket, while the moment but at least they have lived. This by what is taking place below me weights seem surprisingly heavy. permanently pools in my mind. man’s memories cannot be shared that I forget I am supposed to be Obsessive about my own weight, I I feel the banana I ate on my way with us here. Instead we tell his story down there too, watching up close. never think about anything other to the hospital and close my eyes of addiction for him, with distant The other girls look far more ready than the fat on my body. The sign to try to hold it down. I open my eyes gazing through thick glass. I than I. We cross the windowed posted before me in plain, black eyes once the nausea passes, only look at the officer now and wonder room together. Erin, Sam, Becca lettering illuminates what I ignore. to realize that in the time they were how many people, like this man, he and I journey down the stairwell Parts of my body that actually closed the situation has gotten has found dead in their bathrooms. that leads to the entrance of the matter, weigh me down too. much worse. Looking over at the And, I wonder what he first sees autopsy room. Thankfully, an In the room, I feel too close to body I see a newly created V-shape when he looks at them. “Autopsy in Progress” sign is posted death. I had surprised myself by cut across both sides of the man’s Below us a resident performs the on the door. Its warning stops us, at being able to handle the dead-or- chest, meeting at his neck. The initial evaluation of the man. He least momentarily, from going any maybe sleeping man who laid on his slice is colorful and layered, with 50 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 51 the red from blood and internal had just done, I would have rushed memories. Their pasts were painted and checks the man’s organs but it body organs below and the yellow to the bathroom to vomit. But this by the stories they told, of lives is she who singularly deconstructs of fat and skin above. The resident woman spoke to me calmly, she was experienced in exhilarating color. him. I breathe sharply in. Just a few is folding these chunks of flesh in no hurry as she left. A few minutes So foreign were their stories to me, minutes earlier she had handed me back and over the side of the body later, she returns with a bottle of to the black and white life I had chocolate with hands that are now to peer into the just-minutes-ago water and three miniature Hershey’s come to understand through the encased in bloody latex gloves. I whole man. It is at this moment chocolates. With a nod she sets eyes of my mother. I’d hoped these stare at the pile of the man’s clothes, that I start to see black spots in my them in front of me, on the ledge of sick people’s outlooks could provide still piled on the floor, and realize vision. I let out both uncontrollable the window I now stare through to me with clues, help me finally find the absurdity of what I had hoped laughter, and a gasping, “I think I gaze at the man below us. “It’s really my own, better, answer. But, when to find in coming here. I expected need to leave the room.” hard the first time,” she says as she I walked out of their rooms, their a stranger to give me an answer I feel defeated and far weaker than crosses to the stairs. “But you get smiles faded against my back; to life that he couldn’t even give my fellow classmates. I find each used to it.” The woman exits and I their colorful stories faded too. My himself. Her drill pushes deeper into staring straight ahead, as if they am left alone again. Below me, I see mother’s silent one powerfully took this man’s skull. No different than actually want to see more. Their eyes her enter the procedure room. She its place in my mind once again. leaving the rooms of sick patients shine with pure curiosity. There is returns to the table where the still Perhaps the hospital was a gateway each week, I feel myself deflate. The no deadness in this man that they man lies, already so well-versed in drug for me. Since I never found hopeless question inside of me, that fear seeing reflected in themselves. what I am too afraid to understand. what I needed in the dying, I moved I try so hard to answer, still lives. Professor Flint opens the door and Guilt creeps up my spine. I on to death. Maybe this extreme, an I watch her movements, leads me back into the windowed remember how I stood next to my already dead man, could give me methodical and direct, and am room above. I take off my mask and mom in her office as she made the answer no living patients could. drawn to wonder. Did she touch hair net. Without the sharp tools, my excuses for my weakness. I feel like Maybe the memory of him will be the face of her boyfriend that fear recedes. Above the bright room, that same child again. This woman powerful enough to shut out all else. morning, hold a niece over the my breath returns. thinks I am here to become more What this woman didn’t realize is weekend, chop vegetables for last I continue to watch through comfortable with death, to uncover that I came here for myself. I wanted night’s dinner with the same hands the windows, safe, in my distance. the mystery of how to disassemble to feel the ephemeral sensation now caged in this man’s dead and Audible gasps and dramatic phrases a body. But now I know that I came of living, to use the painful end of open body? And I wonder, too, claw inside my throat. They are this morning to find an answer someone else’s life to compel myself before he shot that needle into his too hard to hold back. But after to a much harder question. Like to start living my own. arm, about the last life this man one of my “Gross, gross, gross,” volunteering each week, I didn’t I watch the events that take place allowed his hands to touch. exclamations, I hear the door come to help patients, or to confront below and am startled. The woman open and up the stairs walks the my discomfort. I came for something who I mistook for an assistant is now Elena Potek (RC 2015) currently lives in assistant I recognize as the one else entirely. performing the procedure herself. Chicago and will be returning to Ann who retrieved the mop after the When I looked into my mother’s She holds the large shears in her Arbor in Fall 2018 to pursue a dual nauseating gurgling-blood incident. silent room as a child, at her hands, cuts through each rib, digs masters degree of Public Health and Her latex gloves are off, too, and she sleeping body across her bed, I into the man’s insides, saws away at Social Work with the goal of becoming approaches me asking if she can get closed the door on her sadness, his skull. The resident only weighs a sex therapist and educator. me some water. I feel embarrassed unwilling to accept its dark answer. that yet another completely unfazed But, if I chose to look away from her, professional noticed my pansy-ness. I would have to find somewhere I tell her that I am fine, and thank her else to look. I still needed an answer for her offer. She leaves the room. I for the question of how to live. wonder where she is going. If I had This search led me to the hospital. mopped blood off the floor as she I encountered patients with happy 52 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 53 for the figure. These snap impres- shops is that they invite people sions drove the museum to perform who aren’t experts to give advice to more analysis and they were eventu- others. The problem with this obser- ally able to prove the sculpture was vation is that it doesn’t unpack the fake. concept of expert and thus can mis- As a writer, I began thinking about lead people. In fact, there are three this incident and others in Blink as different types of experts relevant to they pertain to the process of asking a writing workshop: readers, editors for and providing feedback in work- and writers. shops. Though we are certainly open For our purposes, let’s call an to corrections of fact and grammar, expert writer a person whose work these edits aren’t really why we bring has been published in book form or a piece to workshop. What we are re- has had extensive magazine publi- ally asking for is a global reaction to cations. (Certainly, there are expert the story, poem, memoir or essay. We writers who don’t meet this criterion, are asking, “Does it work?” In other but for the most part publication words, we want people to use their is a good rough guide.) Other than black boxes to make snap judgments the instructor, MFA workshops often about our submissions because, like feature no expert writers. That’s also it or not, this is precisely what editors frequently true of summer work- and agents will do when we send to shops. Does this mean such work- them. Ironically, though this is actu- shops shouldn’t allow participants to ally the motive for bringing a piece offer a judgment? The Expert’s Black Box: to workshop, participants rarely if Gladwell’s work suggests the an- ever share these global judgments, at swer to that is no. Using Instinct and Observation to least in their most blunt form. As far as step one—a global Instead, typically workshops ask reaction to the work being dis- Improve the Fiction Workshop participants to do what agents and cussed—goes, being a useful editors won’t (or can’t): avoid glob- member of a workshop doesn’t rely Amy Gustine al judgment, but explain in detail on people being expert writers. It negative and positive opinions about only relies on them being expert In his book Blink Malcolm Gladwell within seconds of seeing it, even a story’s components (plot, point of readers. It requires, or assumes, that explores the fact that we are capable though a geologist, a team of lawyers view, setting, pacing, diction, struc- your response to other people’s of making accurate snap judgments and other art experts had judged it ture). Then we go further, and expect work is a reliable reflection of the without being consciously aware of authentic after a year-and-a-half of participants to suggest strategies for response a broader audience is likely our reasons for them, particularly if intensive study. The art historians improvement. In light of what Glad- to have. In other words, the mini- we have significant expertise in an identified the fake without examin- well reveals about the way our black mum qualification for being a useful area. Gladwell calls the part of our ing it up close by simply relying on boxes work, what implications for workshop member is having spent brain assessing evidence without their first reaction. For one man this a workshop do these expectations enough time reading to develop an our conscious awareness “the black was noticing the word “fresh” popped have? expert-level black box full of reader box.” Among his examples is this in his mind. For another it was the First, we have to think about reactions. anecdote: When a museum bought a feeling that there was a wall of glass whether we and the other people in Do most workshop participants new sculpture, several art historians between him and the work. For a our workshop group are “experts.” In meet this criterion? Hopefully, the identified it as an accomplished fake third there was a feeling of repulsion fact, a common criticism of work- answer in a general sense is yes. Un- 54 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 55 fortunately, in a narrower sense the is for any given piece of writing. Also, cites studies which suggest people can plain what we liked and didn’t, and why, answer may frequently be no. find out what those in your work- actually inhibit their ability to accurate- we simply said, “I felt bored reading it, An expert in Gladwell’s parlance is shop routinely read. This will help ly “intuit” something simply by being and unmoved when I was finished.” This someone who has spent over 1,000 you weigh the feedback they provide asked to explain why they feel the way would be tactless, for one thing, and hours developing a skill. It’s probably about your work. they do about it. For example, in some probably prove pretty frustrating to the fair to assume most people in MFA Next, start building your black box studies people’s preferences for things writer. They want more guidance. After workshops have spent a thousand for the neglected genres. If you don’t changed when they were asked to ex- all, stories aren’t like ancient sculptures. hours reading quality writing. It may read a lot of memoir, but one of your plain them. In others, people described Carbon dating and other objective sci- even be fair to assume this about members is writing one, read some having seen something that didn’t occur entific methods will never tell us if they any workshop. After all, people who well-reviewed memoirs and a few when asked to explain an insight they are working well or not, so opinion is all hope to be writers are probably big reliable craft books about the genre. had about a situation. Psychologists we have to go on. We need people to readers. However, not all writing is Ditto for YA fiction, essays, mystery, speculate this may be because people explain these opinions. But what if you measured against the same stan- romance, thriller, science fiction, sat- feel uncomfortable not being able to can’t honestly say that you have enough dards. For example, young adult nov- ire or any other identifiably distinct “back up” their feelings, so instead they experience to be an expert critic or edi- els have parameters that are different type of writing. If you participate in a change their feelings to fit the evidence tor? This is probably the case with most from literary adult-audience novels. community writing group, try to find or explanations they can articulate. That people in MFA and summer workshops. Most are first person, feature a young one that limits the type of writing brings us to the third area of expertise: One simple thing participants can try protagonist and avoid or minimize it considers to genres about which editing. to both improve the workshop experi- flashbacks. They also tend to have you are willing and able to develop Once you’ve read several examples of ence and to build their skills as editors straightforward chronological struc- expertise. a particular genre, your global reaction and critics is, ironically, to spend less tures. Someone who has read dozens Another approach is to ask the may be more reliable, but that doesn’t time evaluating and more time describ- of YA novels but rarely reads adult writer to characterize the work for mean you are in a position to make rec- ing or observing work. Typical workshop literary fiction may bring this black the group when they submit it. While ommendations about how to improve discussions begin with what people box of expertise to the table, and this is rarely done in workshops, it a work. In other words, expert readers liked about a story, and then move onto provide misleading feedback about could help sharpen reader responses. are not necessarily expert editors. The what they didn’t like. This completely literary fiction for adults. The same For example, a writer may identify a demands on editors are far greater. bypasses our global reaction, which can be said for other categories. You story as satirical. Knowing this can First, they have to explain the reasons for reasons of tact and good will might may read lots of literary fiction, but afford readers a chance to educate for their judgments. Second, they are be necessary. But it also bypasses the hardly any memoir. You may read themselves about the conventions of expected to offer suggestions on how process of accurately describing a story. classics but not contemporary fiction. satire and help focus their feedback. to fix the work’s weaknesses. Editors It assumes everyone observed the story You may avoid satire. You might read One trick is to ask the writer to name must also work within the parameters carefully and that their observations a lot of novels but few short stories. one or two writers whose work they of the writer’s intentions and aesthet- yielded the same conclusions. At the You may read essays and articles, feel is similar to theirs and in what ics. They are supporting the writer, not same time, it pressures participants to but no fiction. These preferences in way it is similar. Someone who is taking over the project. (Critics exist evaluate something they may have yet your own reading will be reflected in aiming to please Jodi Picoult’s audi- somewhere between the reader and to understand. your “black box” and therefore drive, ence needs different feedback than the editor, able to articulate what’s First, workshop participants could maybe inappropriately, your snap someone who is writing with Adam wrong with a work but not required to be encouraged to articulate the story’s judgments about a work. Johnson’s readers in mind. This type come up with ways to fix it.) Even expert objective features, such as its clock So, what should we do? First, con- of deliberate audience identification writers, usually the workshop leader, (how much time the present story sider the type of work you routinely will also help writers seek appropri- should be aware of the editor’s special covers), its stage sets (where events take read. It will help you identify whether ate agents and presses down the line. expertise, and that they may or may not place), its shape or structure (scenes, other people’s work is truly in your Another point Gladwell makes have developed it. flashbacks, exposition), its plot, and its area of expertise, and thus how about the black box is more con- But where does this leave a work- point of view. Next members can try reliable your black box of aesthetics troversial in a workshop setting: He shop? What if instead of trying to ex- to articulate their interpretation of a 56 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 57 story’s less objective features, such as writers and editors. They may overlap, narrative distance and tone or voice. but they don’t always. Another part is Asking participants to describe each of recognizing, and educating ourselves these elements in a disciplined way will about, the conventions of different force readers to note how a story is put genres. Finally, we must recognize the together; articulate slippery, subjective value the story’s author brings. While At Gettysburg impressions; and get people talking she shouldn’t interrupt discussion to ar- the same language about a story. For gue with feedback or justify her choices, Laura Kasischke example, what may seem like stating inviting a writer to pose questions or the obvious often gives rise to surprises. explain her hopes for a work before- Sometimes you’ll discover half the work- hand can add valuable focus to readers’ shop thought the piece satirical and the observations and the workshop discus- The one I love stands at the edge other half didn’t. sion. of a wheatfield wearing This method may also lessen the If we can find a way to respond viscer- a blue cap, holding chance that, by being required to justify ally to work as well as intellectually, and a plastic musket in his hands. The one I love does a goofy our judgments, we subconsciously alter to describe stories before (or instead of) them. Observations about a story are criticizing them, perhaps our workshops dance at Devil’s Den. Mans a cannon. Waves just that: objective. It’s nearly impossible will understand better how and why at me from a hill. He to invent what you thought was note- a story is put together before we start worthy about a character. You either tearing it apart. dips his foot into Bloody Run. The sepia noticed his obsession with jelly beans dream of his dead body or you didn’t. How many people noticed Amy Gustine (RC 1991) is the author of the is pulled by the water it, and what they thought it meant, is story collection You Should Pity Us In- over the rocks. And I valuable information for the writer, but stead (Sarabande Books), which received it doesn’t require a judgement of quality starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, am the shadow of a stranger taking from the reader. Similarly, instead of Kirkus and Booklist. The New York Times his picture, laid out like so much black telling the writer we thought a character Book Review called the collection an drapery on the pavement. Is there was underdeveloped, we can describe “affecting and wide-ranging debut” and it what we do and don’t understand about appeared on many “best of” lists, includ- some better explanation? Was there a character and let the writer decide ing the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Best of if our understanding is sufficient and 2016: 100 Recommended Books.” Gustine’s some other mossy, meandering accurate. fiction has also been published in sever- path we might have taken As workshop leaders and participants, al journals, received special mention in we all have a duty to continually refine the Pushcart Prize anthology and been to this place through time and space? Why our black boxes, that store of experi- awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual ence which helps us react usefully to Excellence Award for 2016. Amy Gustine is it that where my heart work. Part of this is keeping in mind the currently lives in Toledo, Ohio. should be, there’s graduating and distinct skills of readers, a small bright horse instead? While I

was simply standing over there by a stone, waiting, did an old woman run her bony hand through my hair and leave this gray ribbon there?

58 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 59 The one I love leans up against a fence, and then how can you expect to know where you are now? Truly, pretends to be shot. He (stanza break) (stanza break) I don’t know. I look around. opens his eyes I say, We’re lost, wide and grabs his chest, stumbles to the one I love, who backwards, falls gracefully into the grass, where he lies looks over my shoulder and laughs. No, for a long time holding the sun in his arms. I take Mom, he says and points to dot and arrow another picture there. The worms of ourselves on the map. beneath him make You’re holding the battlefield upside down. the burden of the earth seem light enough to bear—and still

inside me I believe I carry the pond where the injured swans have come to flock. I believe I hold inside me the lake into which the beautiful, armless mortals wish to wade. I am

after all, their executioner and their creator, being as I am, their mother. Were

they gods who came to Earth to die and suffer, I wonder, or

boys who died and turned to gods? O, Laura Kasischke teaches creative writing in the Residential College and the MFA Program and is the Allan Seager Collegiate Professor of English at U-M, where she the one I love needs sunblock, I think, too late, and, has won numerous teaching awards as well as a Distinguished Faculty Achieve- perhaps, a bottle of water, but now ment Award. Laura has published eight collections of poetry and eight novels. Her novels include Suspicious River (1996), White Bird in a Blizzard (1999), and The I have no idea where we are. Where Life Before Her Eyes (2002), which have been made into feature films. Her work has been translated widely, and she has been the recipient of the National Book were you, God asks, when I Critics Circle Award for poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two creative writing spread out the heavens and the earth? If you fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the DiCastagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, several Pushcart Prizes, the Bobst Award for were not there, then Emerging Writers, and the Beatrice Hawley Award. Laura is a graduate of the Resi- dential College, where she studied creative writing. ”At Gettysburg” was published in the New England Review, and then in Best American Poetry, 2006.

60 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 61 at her nakedness, even the baby fat Alabama for New York, where she’d she’d never beenable to shed. Then found a job at a publishing company. he struggled with his own clothes, Leah gave a shrug, as if she couldn’t tripping over his half-removed pants. help being so lucky, and it reminded She waited for him and didn’t even Miranda of A.J.’s hip dismissal. tighten when he entered her. He was To celebrate Leah’s success, on clean-shaven, so her skin wouldn’t feel Labor Day weekend they rode with rubbed raw, like after A.J. But maybe some of Leah’s old friends to Orange that was why, after he came, she Beach. Miranda caused uproar inside couldn’t. “Short but sweet,” she said. the clown-car space by mocking She could tell he didn’t like that. He left pickup lines like, “‘Baby, I read you to pee. like a book,’” and, “‘Girl, I wrote this The morning after, in his bachelor’s song for you.’ Then he asked me what kitchen, her one-night stand cooked my name was.” an egg while simultaneously talking At night they sat drinking wine by about running. Then he hurried to a bonfire on the sand. The humidity escort her outside. She stood at the made the buzz come on faster. Fried corner, mouth poised. He gave her a from chain-smoking cigarettes, their peck and said, “I’m about to go on a voices rasped. The firelight wizened First Time two-miler. Else I’dgive you a ride. You their faces. Like a good English Ian Singleton said your sister’s around, right?” major, Miranda had brought Edna St. Instead of asking Leah for a ride, she Vincent Millay. She edged toward the walked almost five miles to her dorm. flames to recite, “Time does not bring If only you’d kept your mouth shut, relief; you all have lied. / Who told she thought. On the way, she stopped me time would ease me of my pain! / It was like looking into a mirror. out, had to tell somebody. If not, she a passerby her age to ask him for a I miss him in the weeping of the rain.” She was surprised A.J. could still was gonna blow. cigarette. His eyes darted left, right, At that line she stopped and turned appear so innocent, when she saw at her face, then down, making a little the page to find another poem. A the live-motion portrait of him on the There she was at a college party in cross over her body. The gaze tickled boy stood, his fists, his whole body, television more than a year later. She Southside Birmingham, where one her. As he handed over the cigarette, throbbing. He demanded they hadseen that primed glance, like the guy, a little drunk, who had nodded in he said, “This a walk-a-shame? Go on, skinny-dip. ting off the tip of a fang, that minute a genuine way while she spoke, asked girl.” Against the black line ribbed pupil of his mouth. Now, just like a her back to his place a few blocks by moonlight, they disrobed. The year ago, he looked choked for breath away. Miranda had only drunk one She paid attention while cooking elongated crash of the surf spurred between verses. She wanted to reach Dixie cup of wine. her eggs. Other girls at Birmingham- everybody into a jog. She and the him. Nonetheless, she was careful Southern started sentences with, “Girl, tall, thin, tanned preppy boy named But then she remembered how, climbing the stairs to his room, when I got kids…,” but Miranda kept Geoff veered from the others and when it happened, she had thought angled against the roof and reeking of mum. sprinted further, until she dug her he was just as innocent and exposed sweat. His jaw was clenched. Miranda One evening at dinner, Leah heels in. “I prob-ly taste like vodka,” as she was. In a sense, she had wondered if he would make the A.J. whispered to her the question of she said. thought, she was swallowing him. On smirk she knew so well, when he put motherhood. Miranda decided it was Geoff didn’t break his genuine the TV was a flare of astonishment. a finger to his lips. His room stank time to tell Leah, at least, about A.J. smile much to speak, but when he Had he stolen that face from her? She less than the hallway and gave just But her sister announced to the whole did, it always sounded like he was had to get him from inside of her enough space to undress. He gaped family that in August she was leaving apologizing, which was the best use 62 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 63 of the Southern drawl he possessed, “Course. They won Dixie Punk 1997. Geoff half-led, half-dragged her out offered his hand, she slipped further slighter than Miranda’s. Before she They’re playing Birmingham, Atlanta, of the room to another, more private into the sack, covered her could make her move, his fingertips even New Orleans. They got a new place. breasts. After a heavy thrum, he drew a line down her back. Wind album coming out.” In that private place she began to thrust the guitar toward the ceiling. cooled rarely exposed spots on her scream. “I know it’s just gummi sex, His voice smelled like his gum. bare skin. Miranda felt as if her touch Miranda sold back all her CDs. Then but it’s a small, hot trap to me,” she Just before she could taste it, she would forever come short of him she had more than enough cash to sobbed. And that was the moment burrowed in over her head. “I’d by a small distance. She watched a pre-order the new release by Lonely she knew she had to tell somebody, if like to give you a kiss,” he said. She floater flash away across the sand. 101, A.J.’s band. not Geoff himself. snorted and raised her legs, putting They closed in again. Astride Geoff, Their music played everywhere, her feet in and immediately lifting she threw her head back and came. like at the house where Geoff and his If she were going to tell somebody, them from his lap, as if scorched. Indifferent, the moon wheeled past. roommates lived and partied, more or she would tell him about the party “You’re hard to read, aren’t you?” Light from the fire glistened in the less, every weekend. Adamant about her sister threw a couple of years ago. She thought answering might give granules on their skin. The others not neglecting his friends for a girl, at She would tell him how nobody stuck her away, so she simpered instead. grinned at them and passed looks. some point on a typical night, in some around when Miranda started talking, The couch creaked. Somebody had brought sleeping shadowy nook, he would pinch her not even other girls. She had felt like She’d tell how, from deep inside, bags out, and one couple had already butt. That meant they could leave. a telemarketer. She’d teased any curl his breath had warmed the cloth burrowed in. Miranda shuddered but Or they spent time at Geoff’s out of her hair, tied it back, and put on around her, and this warmth drew did not crawl to Geoff. Instead, she church, where he was in a Christian a green pencil dress, eyeliner, and this her into a lurking drowsiness, while leaned back on her palms, as if to hold youth group. One night there was almost-neon lipstick. But they could he continued to whisper sweet court. She imagined A.J. saying, Shut a “spiritual retreat,” and they were probably tell she was still in high nothings. Maybe he stuck around up. supposed to stay overnight at the school. Sitting on the couch by because she was the only girl left. She woke abruptly. The sun had church. There was no butt pinching herself, drinking, Miranda had His hand poked her thigh and risen, the others had gone indoors, then, no kissing either, not even a decided she hated them, at least the skated inward. She flailed. Sweat and the fire had turned to ash. peck. girls. smeared the cloth within and Miranda squinted at the blanched Sex still stuck to them, though, only She would tell him how, by the time pressed cold against her. His hands surroundings. it was “gummi sex.” That was a game the living room had emptied, only the lingered in her grasp. In an uncaffeinated blur, they they played, since everybody had light of a few guttering candles had She’d tell how metal had clicked crammed into the car and departed. brought sleeping bags. Two people, kept Miranda from crashing. For some the way an unlatched buckle Once they were on the road, usually a boy and a girl, crawled inside reason, a croaker sack had been sounds, had slid like an unfastening everybody including Geoff fell asleep, their bags backwards, feet out the lying on the sofa. She put her legs in zipper. Creeps were supposed to except for Miranda and the driver, opening. Then they wrestled like and closed her eyes. She was alone, or come drooling, poorly dressed. Noel. “Hey, I need you to talk to me, so gummi worms. at least thought she was, until a dirty- That’s what mom had said once I don’t snooze behind the wheel,” Noel Miranda was already covered by a blond boy flopped down next to her. while tucking her in. She had forced said. web of cold sweat when she inserted She kept quiet, or else he’d leave too. herself not to think of her mother. Miranda rested her forehead against herself, faster than anybody else had, She would tell how this seemed He whispered, “Think I could get the back of the passenger seat. “I into the polyester material. When it to work—the dirty-blond boy into you.” She clutched cloth in don’t think anybody got any sleep last was their round, he came on strong at picked up a guitar. As he strummed her fists. She turned her head, and night.” first. Miranda let herself scream, like it, his bottom lip enveloped the the bitter sack covered her gasp. “Yeah, baby,” he said in a low, a cartoon superheroine. But cartoon top, awkward but cute. “A lullaby Her body mindlessly swelled with confidential voice. He bared his teeth, superheroines never cry, and that for adults. For pale brunettes like curiosity about his hands. How had as if bracing for impact. was what she was doing when they you.” The vibration touched her. He they become so callous? What they Deflated, she asked, “You probably stopped, and she kept crying as they introduced himself as A.J. “I’m in a had already started, slipping the know Lonely 101, don’t you?” pulled the sleeping bag off her and as band called Lonely 101.” When he sack off of her, she allowed them 64 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 65 to finish, even helped herself out “It was this girl I knew, older…I heard waterworks? Maybe she just wasn’t “Our love is viable, you’re the one, my and into their grip. She had thought she’s got like three kids now. She the type of person who cries after setting son. It’s timed to come at the his squeeze couldn’t possibly be as was smart, really cute. Big, but cute, losing her virginity. same time his son is born. It’s a play tight as her vagina then. She was you know? She was just, like, really She’d tell how she had heard the on words.” wrong. That was one of the many confident in herself. Anyways, one voices of her sister’s roommate and “Wasn’t that guy at your party last surprises. When it thrust itself into Saturday, we were at the mall bored of Leah herself, “What kind of porn night?” Greta asked. consciousness—her consciousness, out of our minds. She had this tight are you into, Kim? Ha ha. Our mama “Who wasn’t? My parties are the not his—she asked, “Can you please green dress on. My friend kept staring. always said ‘slept like the dead,’ shit,” Leah barked. get your hand out of my underwear?” She got in the car with us. She kissed instead of ‘slept like a baby.’ Mamas “No way,” howled Kevin. He didn’t answer. Or he did, only my friend on the cheek, then the lips. can say any old weird thing to their She’d tell how she had asked to bum not with his mouth. It was too busy She touched his dick. But he didn’t kids, and the little ones just have to a cigarette to make Kevin shut up. He twitching—was that a smile?—when want her to do it in front of the other listen. Not just anybody can blurt gave her the smoke without making he saw the blood, as if it were ink guys. I didn’t care. She went down whatever she wants. Did y’all see eye contact, but Miranda could feel on a document and she had signed on me right there. Then she got on Carol Ann last night?” Like anybody the darting glances of the others. something away to him. top of me. The other dudes looked cared what Leah thought. “Hey, kid Leah would never light up in such a away. I had never been…intimate sister. Some party, huh? Lord. This cramped booth, or, if she did, she’d But she kept A.J. inside, even after with anybody.” Geoff had hardened. place looks like a flop house.” Leah say to Miranda, “I bet you didn’t know the “gummi sex” incident. His taller body pressed against sniffed. “Miranda, did you give some mama smoked back when.” Miranda After real sex one night, she began hers, which was in fetal position. lucky beau a fish sandwich?” pored over the filter for a second, lit talking about anything but her first He thumbed the waistband of her She’d tell how she had searched for up, then thumbed her pager, as if time. “Isn’t it weird how lullabies are pajamas. “I couldn’t believe it. I think a prop. Leah reached out to hold her there was a number displayed with all so morbid? Sorry I quit the pill. It I said, ‘Whoa,’ or something stupid.” sister’s cheek, but Miranda ducked. somewhere for her to be. The plume was messing up my cycle. I just worry He flattened out with a heavy sigh Without a cigarette, she raised her of exhaled smoke reminded her of an so much.” and took up most of the mattress. His chin to hold back the waterworks. She ole-timey record player. Geoff said nothing. jaw was distended, teeth bared. The snatched the nearest drink, a can “I’m sorry you had to pull out. Hey, bed was rocking faster than he and of coke on the table. The can, a Nights passed without Geoff, who don’t ash in that can. I accidentally Miranda had ever caused it to. After makeshift ashtray, tossed flecks that was at lab late or working on a paper, swallowed a bunch of ashes once his mouth closed, he rolled onto his coated her face and uvula. then at an all- night Waffle House, ‘cause of that.” side away from her. He had come She’d tell how that awful taste then sleeping into the afternoon. If In a more countrified mockery without her and now, like all men, had made a desert of her larynx but not studying, he drank beer with “just of her voice, Geoff said, “My name would sleep. worked. Miranda didn’t cry or tell. the boys.” Her roommate was usually is Miranda Duvall from Jemison, They went to breakfast at a diner, and missing, so Miranda kept to herself. Alabama. I accidentally swallowed She’d tell how the morning after she she wrote down that lyric, desert of Life seems elsewhere, she wrote in her ashes.” had avoided the mirror while trying her larynx, in a composition notebook journal, which she balanced against She gave him a sideways glance and to pee. She had decided she wouldn’t she had brought—her journal, which her abdomen. In the morning, I’m reached for the window but didn’t tell Leah. That meant she wouldn’t tell more than a year later Geoff would hungry. I can’t stay up anymore. have enough leverage with his legs anybody. She stepped onto the front kiddingly call her diary. Greta, Leah’s The next day, reading these words across her lap. He rose to shut it, then porch to smoke one or maybe all of friend, had been next to Miranda. as if they were somebody else’s, she pulled her down to embrace her. the cigarettes A.J. had recommended Next to Greta had been her boyfriend, said out loud, as if to that somebody The room soon became stifling. and handed her, before he “jetted.” Kevin. Greta asked who this was else, “Hello.” “What was your first time like?” she She still possessed these cigarettes, playing. “Lonely 101. Local legends,” After she had finished, Miranda asked. Then, maybe, she would tell rolling in the back of a drawer. Kevin answered. “You know, they’re set the unused test strip in the hers. Maybe it was the smiling red of the working on a new album.” In Greta’s medicine cabinet, next to Geoff’s Next to her ear, his voice thundered, morning light that had held back the face and across Miranda, he sang, toothbrush, and shut the mirror door.

66 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 67 Her reflection trembled, but Miranda for New Women, All Women in Five out the CD, slipped the sheath of against her window. Miranda stood ignored this. Points. Geoff mentioned making an cellophane off the case and opened guard. The music would probably While she walked to class, she appointment. It was the middle of the it, inserted the disc in the player, and muffle the familiar rumble and shriek shivered from the cold cement school week, and clouds teemed with tucked herself in. The first song was from within the kettle. through the soles of her slip- ons. a threat of rain, weather that always “Lullaby,” nothing but an acoustic Posters for Lonely 101’s new album burdened Miranda with a funereal guitar and A.J.’s voice, almost country. Ian Singleton (RC 2004) was born littered campus. She had her copy fatigue. Maybe all of this was why she She wondered if the lyrics were about in Dearborn, Michigan, grew up in now, but she kept it in her closet couldn’t tell him. She really wanted to, her, as they soothed her down to the Alabama, and moved to Massachusetts, tucked under blankets, like hidden but she felt like it was too important pitch dark where you’re going and where he met his wife. Along with evidence. The wind tossed her for her tongue, which drawled more where you been. their beloved daughter, they share hair against her face. Trees lashed than his. She might become angry at an apartment in Brooklyn. His short themselves, bushes fell to pieces. The him for never asking. Tight, aching uncertainty anchored stories, translations, reviews, and wind lifted girls’skirts, as if to reveal At Geoff’s request, she had switched her in bed. A sharp wave came and essays have appeared in journals such their panties. But it couldn’t touch on her electric kettle for instant cut her loose, and she plunged to the as: New Madrid; Digital Americana; what was tucked deep down inside coffee. “Better than at church,” he said, surface. She was sitting up, her cheeks Midwestern Gothic; Fiddleblack; Miranda. nursing his cup. Under the table, he finally wet with tears. She sat still until Asymptote; Ploughshares and several In a line of cars, drivers were cuffed her ankle with both his feet. they dried. She’d tell him that only she times in Fiction Writers Review. His holding their horns. The one in front “You’re not partaking?” he asked, could save that life. first collection, Grow Me Up, is seeking had stopped to let two raising the coffee. Her pager chirped its tiny song. a home. He was a student at Emerson girls pass and continued to ogle them, “I don’t know. Sorry,” she mumbled. From the wall, the phone played the College and at U-M won a Hopwood. even after they cleared his fender. The He planed his face, warping its second act. Nobody but Geoff ever Ian has taught Creative Writing and girls made faces at one another and features. Through his squished mouth, called her. He’d probably try to make Literature for the PEN Prison Writing didn’t notice Miranda, which was fine he repeated, “I don’t know,” as if again her think she wasn’t alone in this time Program, the Prison University Project, with her. Traffic moved along. in mockery. of crisis. She was sure now that she the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute “I’d like to tell you that I would could tell him and could forgive never at San Francisco State University, When Geoff answered, she protect her, the baby. If that’s what asking about her first time. Cogswell Polytechnical College, and automatically said, “Hey, daddy.” you’re worried about.” But instead of picking up, she the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. He Afraid he would think it was a weird “Wait. You found out it’s a girl?” pressed play on the stereo again. A currently teaches for New York Writers sex game, she repeated, “Hey… “No. Why do you ask?” little voice inside her rose with the Workshop and PrisonWrites! and Geoff.” He greeted her as usual and “It’s just, usually people say he-or- volume. She switched on the kettle. freelances as a translator and tutor. He waited. She glanced out the window she, or just he.” On the tea tin was the staid face of is working on a novel titled Odessitka. at the baby-blue sky, wound the “I’m just saying. We shouldn’t blame the Queen. The music overwhelmed “First Time” was published in the 2016 cord around her finger, like girls are her.” the stirring of the leafless oak branch issue of New Madrid. supposed to. Her voice became just as Although she waited for his dumb casual as his. “Um, you know how I’m hick voice, he never responded. He late?” left without pinching her butt. He said nothing, like he had done Staring out the window, she sat nothing. “Huh?” She dug her nails in what was usually his after-sex into the seam on the phone. “Oh shit. pose but without a cigarette and You’re pregnant?” without having had sex. After a day of anticipating sleep, now insomnia They were thumbing through the tickled her scalp with the too many back pages of the January 4-10 issue things she’d like to tell. She crossed of Magic City Times and saw an ad her room to the closet and took 68 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 69 Farewell to the lonesome warrior

The Wrestler Five Poems You awoke with your noble values Your love along side the daily sunrise Your vision Bob Clifford The will to conquer and full fill the Your dreams mission Your force

The mat was your partner The message from you will be carried The physical challenge on the wings of the butterflies for the Devils Gate Rawlins where your dreams died The son earth to breath when the sun shines The brother Devils Gate where your dreams died To the river The Husband The lonesome warrior has with your broken wooden wheel To the future The father galloped away with his God. dead deer with no tripe of the chasity The teacher The ashes twirl below the rocks the pass in the mountain The gentleman Gate to death that saves and not kill The editor pray for forgiveness To the future memory The Democrat To finish a journey To the scared The will to win herded by the seekers To the sacrificed To the morning you started West The casket makers for wars Wolf Mountain sings a song of Only knowing the sunset of the West redemption to the repented The casket makers for wars Which way West Brown Eye brings you to your knee’s On a long crooked road Which way East Looking for the past from the Wind One size fits all AS the casket makers pound nails Which way South River Who do they put in there Into a invisible hole Which way North On a lonesome road with no water the same person who traveled to die The edge of the hammers are dense Come up over the mountain stars are the map for the human prey the pine box without finish that Say they the wagon train to Death’s gate being prep for the morning sun Deliver the final answer of destination The unforgiven terrain awaits you On a howling windy night when the prep for the lunch hour On a required requiem of precision mud froze prep for the dinner hour The hoarses died prep for the story hour The makers of caskets for war have a The people crawl inside the cavity to memory breath The casket makers for wars the flowers are on put on the caskets For their America Carry a soul not a body with the bodies that cannot smell Who is in that pine box do those flowers go to the rest home That is carried to a hole after Will the dirt feel the soul The casket with a soul not a body Will god find the soul meets the Will the 80 fingers that carry the Hole that is straight from hell. casket Be different after and holy

70 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 71 As the daisies wake up for another day of sun As the daisies wake up for another A ghost visits every night day of sun It will not leave until sunrise The lust of the seeds seek the boarder Sleep cannot hide you from the haunt Two Poems We walk down the limits of the trail a past Smelling the presence of the past Elizabeth Schmuhl Where is the full moon The daisies go to sleep so the ghost Where is the coyote howling can visit on the train Who is the coyote howling too That arrives at the chicken coop #67 #37 Can you hear the orchids sing to each station with cut off heads other And throats emptying the sins of the Beetles visit A rose is a nice way Can you hear the water travel slicers the hydrangeas to remind the person you Will you crave what you have not at night. love about impermanence. done The Daisies go to sleep so the fox can Will you crave what you have done travel with the moon or no moon I kneel I pick a yellow one and stuff it Will you bury both in your selfishness The Daisies go to sleep tucked away waiting into an envelope from the violent smells till dawn. send it to a lover who thought The optical revisit to love and the The Daisies will wake up with they left me and yet. sorrowful without pity everyone looking at them Not even The gray fox peaking out of his home a moth The black and yellow snake laying in Who will look has landed the sun on one of my petals. Running through the Assabet Valley

The earth here Running through the Assabet Valley The shotgun acidic. My Wet leaves of trails The power pellet petals Virgin trails The orange coat no longer Virgin runner The 10 fingers pink. Virgin mind Virgin hope Running through the Assabet Valley On a foggy raining day The splash of mud Where is the river The whip of the branches Where is the dam The thud of a gulley Where is the exit Elizabeth Schmuhl (RC 2006) is a multidisciplinary artist and the author of Presto The crack of the twigs Oh my do I wish the wishes of the prey Agitato (Dancing Girl Press & Zoo Cake Press, 2015) and Premonitions (Wayne State University Press, forthcoming). She illustrates essays for The Rumpus, and co-edits the twice-weekly micro-fiction journal CheapPOP. She has taught at the RC and now works at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Art. She divides Bob Clifford (RC 1979) is a poet, and former associate director and coordinator of her time between DC, NYC, and her centennial fruit farm in Michigan. These pieces acaddemic programs. He was Senior Associate Athletic Director at Oregon State have been printed elsewhere. University for 13 years and in 2016 became Director of Athletics at New Mexico Highlands University. Bob’s second book of poems will be released in fall 2017.

72 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 73 does look like an aristocrat: my late Me: You were junk collectors. great-uncle Moishe, whose magnificent Grandpa: Junk, no! Scrap metal. And shadow loomed over our lives. This man Moishe turned it into gold! He was an was my father’s beloved mentor. I never alchemist! He’d separate everything and met Moishe, but his shadow was always then sell it by the ton. Copper, lead, there. I was forever trying to find out iron! Worthless bent-up crap bought more about the man, the perfect role for pennies, sold for dollars! He was a model for the enterprising 8 year old that genius! Einstein would have wept to I was at the time. Luckily, my grandfather have a brain like his! Because five years was always happy to talk about his big after coming to this country with holes brother. in our shoes, we’re all driving cars and have houses for everybody to live in. Me: Grandpa, tell me about my Uncle Everyone in the family, as soon as they Moishe. got off the boat, they came and worked Grandpa: Moishe? Well, my darling boy. for Moishe, the cousins, the in-laws, This is all you need to know: there is God everybody. -- and there is your Great Uncle Moishe. Me: You all loved him. Me: You really mean that? Grandpa: Loved? We worshipped the My Acid Trip Grandpa: When the Cossacks came ground he walked on. My cousin, (those butchers, those dogs from hell), Bertha, with the big lips, every Rosh Dennis Foon he saved our lives and brought us all Hashanah, she’d take off Moishe’s shoes to the glorious Promised Land: Detroit, and socks and kiss the dirt on his feet. Michigan. That would be enough for Me: He did so much. What did he want This is a potato. This is a piece of I am almost eight years old and it’s most people. To save so many. But in return? paper with a drop of LSD on it. Any the breaking of the fast at Yom Kippur, then, here we are, a bunch of starving Grandpa: Nothing. Only love. All our undercover drug enforcement agents the highest of the High Holy Days immigrants without a word of English, love. that are here tonight can relax, for and there is a mountain of provisions and he saves us again. Me: Okay, so tell me, why does my dad although this is a literal potato, there on the table waiting to be consumed Me: Tell me the story, from the beginning. cry whenever we say his name? is no literal drug on this literal piece after the prayers. Sitting around this Grandpa: In the beginning, God created Grandpa: Because Moishe was like his of paper. Which I will prove to you Mt. Zion of food are thirteen people, the heaven and the earth. father. now. (licks it; staggers) Oh man… three of whom are featured on an Me: I mean, later. Much later: Moishe, the Me: But you’re dad’s father. wow. This is heavy shit, man. (looks at old photograph on the wall that was business. Grandpa: Believe me, darling boy, the audience, soberly) just kidding. I have taken in a little shtetl near Kiev. In Grandpa: Then what did you say ‘at the day Moishe came to me and said he other props here too. This is a jar of the picture are my great-grandfather, beginning’ for? wanted my son to be his right hand, it Tar Ointment used for the treatment great-grandmother, grandfather, and Me: I meant the beginning of the was the proudest day of my life. of skin diseases such as eczema and my great aunts and uncles. Eight business. Me: And when he died? the heartbreak of psoriasis. Unlike penniless Jewish peasants pretending Grandpa: Ah, well, in the beginning, Grandpa: (Grandpa just looks at Me. blotter acid, it can be purchased over to be aristocrats, all posing somberly there was just me and your Great Uncle Eyes tear up.) A mench like that. He the counter at any pharmacy. And in their best borrowed clothes, in Sammy. Moishe got me a wagon, and can never die. this is a copy of the Old Testament. front of a painted backdrop of an lush gave Sammy the wheelbarrow and he Me: But Grandpa… These are not randomly selected garden that looks like something out would send us off with a pocketful of Grandpa: In the beginning, God made objects. They all, in fact, relate to the of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. By far pennies. We’d go from house to house, the heaven and the earth and your Jewish High Holy day, Yom Kippur, the the most striking figure is a tall and paying a few cents for some copper pipe, great uncle Moishe. Day of Atonement. For me, at least. handsome young man, who actually or an old stove, or a steel rod.

74 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 75 That night, my Grandpa leads the to know that this is a metaphorical Me: To Denny’s house. from age, he remained unmistakably prayers that Moishe once led. These starvation, that I have fasted for all Dad: Come again? the same Sammy, who was always are the holiest of all holy prayers that my accumulated sins not just for the Me: I’m going to Denny’s. considered useless and negligible, still no one sitting here can understand last year but for all of my eight years Dad: What was that? of the old world, still a peasant. While except for the Baruch Ata Adonai, because this is my first fast, and I am Me: Denny’s. my eyes shift from the photo to the Blessed Art Thou Oh Lord our God, doing a big penance today, and that Dad: You need pennies? You wanna man, comparing the changes time has and the amens, which I always try to this isn’t just my starvation but a small look through my change? wrought, my great uncle Sammy does say with a great deal of commitment, version of the big starvation all the Me: No thanks, Dad, not right now. the unthinkable. Ignoring the holy but at which I always fail miserably. Jews have suffered. I’m not thinking Dad: What? rituals that are going on at the head Grandpa, on the other hand, is very of all the big planetary starvations Me: Nothing. of the table, he lifts his fork, reaches good at this. He reads and chants and taking place right now( beside which Dad: Okay then, if you’re so rich. Do over to the bowl heaped with whole bows his head and kisses his tallis and my own, trivial, personal, time-limited me a favor, son, will you? skinned and boiled potatoes, jabs his my dad is the only other person at the starvation pales) but this symbolic Me: I gotta go. fork in, pulls out the biggest potato banquet table who is keeping up with fast which will buy atonement for Dad: Give me a little scratch. and jams the entire thing into his him. My dad looks kind of haunted, all my sins like the times I stole a Me: I can’t right now. mouth. My own mouth drops open there at the head of the table, but comic book or neglected to wash Dad: But there’s this spot that’s killing wide in utter shock at his chutzpah. since I am eight, I assume the haunted my hands after a pee, or picked my me. But unlike my mouth, which closes look is due to the eminent arrival of nose without using a Kleenex. At Me: Sorry I gotta go. again, his mouth does not because God. least, those are the sins I told myself …But let’s go back to the breaking of the potato is wedged in. Uncle I was atoning for. In truth, I had a the fast, the eight year-old me staring Sammy can’t get it in and can’t get it Please note that my dad and his much deeper, darker sin that plagued at my father who is fervently praying, out. He’s opened his mouth so wide, father are very devout and very deaf. me: I did not love my father. I did dark bags under his red rimmed and the potato’s undercooked just My dad is completely deaf in one not honor him, which broke the eyes. And this revelation hits me: enough, and so deep in his throat, he ear and half deaf in the other, and Second Commandment. Worse, I was my dad’s back is not just bent from can’t bite down. So he’s frantically grandpa lost a chunk of his hearing ashamed and repelled by him. First, arthritis; it’s bent from the weight of jabbing with his fork, trying to pry it from old age, so neither of them seem because of his deafness, he was hard sin. It’s obvious that no matter how out but the potato won’t give. to be noticing that not one of the to talk to. And though I was told huge my offense against him feels, other people at the table are paying that before I was born, he was a nice it’s a mere teardrop compared to the Everybody is ignoring Sammy, not any attention to the religious ritual. looking, athletic guy whose only flaw oceanic transgression he’s feeling. because they’re disgusted, but Two of my older cousins, who are was a little rash on his elbows, by the How is it possible? That my sin, which because they’re too busy sleeping, lifeguards at the pool, are sleeping. time I came along, the little rash had seems so overwhelming, should be putting on makeup or praying for My mom is talking to my Great Aunt spread over his entire body -- wherein miniscule compared to his. It made forgiveness. Great Uncle Sammy’s Rozzie -- she’s the old beautician with comes the tar cream, which failed me desperate to know, exactly what gagging and I am fascinated, thinking all the makeup and the super black him. He was eventually covered with was his great secret sin? that maybe he is going to die right ratted-up hair who doesn’t seem to red peeling blotches that left scales here, because he’s committed a care about God at all, because she’s all over the house, and his joints were Anyway, my epiphany is interrupted sacrilege, wondering if this is God’s applying mascara on Cousin Bertha swollen and twisted with arthritis, by the old guy sitting next to me, punishment to the wicked who of the legendary foot kissing lips. I which curved his spine, making him my great uncle Sammy. He is a preempt the prayer with a potato. have fasted all day for the first time look like a leprous Quasimodo -- very scrawny little man, and after I am suddenly filled with the dread and even though I have a very, very who, by the way, was also quite deaf fifty years, he looks remarkably that this Day of Atonement, Great tiny stomach I can feel these gigantic from ringing the bells. When we did unchanged from the short and Uncle Sammy is going to be struck pangs of hunger gazing at the feast communicate, it went something like scrawny boy in the family portrait. down by a tuber from Yahweh and fall that we are not allowed to touch this: Apart from the wrinkles, baldness and over dead on my lap. It takes a great until the last amen. I am old enough Dad: Where are you going? hairy ears which have grown larger deal of effort but I manage to pull 76 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 77 myself away to look urgently at my know. He was more a father to me be quite honest, I gave them every bathing suit as much as you want. father, but clearly he’s not about to than my own father. Uncle Moishe reason to be. A development that be distracted. I don’t know what the was Moses, Gandhi and Elvis rolled up seriously threatened my mother’s You can understand why, after a Hebrew words are he’s intoning, but into one. dream of me becoming a brain conversation like that, I might want to his eyes have shifted to the portrait. Me: What happened when he died? surgeon, or at the very least, an go straight to the librarian. He’s staring at his Uncle Moishe, who (Dad looks at Me, grief stricken) orthodontist. seems to be staring back at him. In Dad: Come again? Dealer: What exactly are you looking fact, my mother always claimed the Me: What happened? Mom: Come here. Come closer to for? reason everyone thought Moishe was Dad sadly shakes his head. Dad: He me. I want to smell your breath. Me: Something on paper. a saint was because no matter where left us too soon. Moishe… Me: Why? Dealer: how much do you need? you stood in the room, Moishe’s eyes (Dad starts to cry) Mom: I think you have halitosis… Me: Just one dose. in the picture seemed to be staring Where are you going? Dealer: You tripping alone? right back at you. I’d often try to talk I used to think -- especially when Me. To gargle. Me: No, with a friend. to my father about Moishe, who you consider Uncle Sammy with the Mom: Let me smell first. Dealer: Kind of hard to split one drop died before I was born, but these potato sticking out of his mouth or Me. You want to smell my halitosis? on paper between two people. conversations always ended the same my Dad scratching himself all day Mom: Why are your eyes bloodshot? Me: He’s got his own. way. long – I used to think the strength Me: I was swimming. There was Dealer: Interesting. Two parallel trips. Me: Dad? in my family had died with Uncle chorine in the pool. …So you’ve tripped a lot? Dad: Hey, boychick! Moishe. I imagined that my great Mom: You were not swimming. Are Me: Oh yeah. A lot. Lots. And lots. Me: I have a question. uncle was puking in his grave at you taking drugs? Let me see your (The Dealer picks up the Dad: A confession? Do I look like a how lost they all were without him. bathing suit. piece of paper) priest? Did you go Catholic? I fantasized how much different my Me. Now that’s just kinky, Mom. Dealer. Good. Cause this is powerful Me: No, no. A question. own life would have been if he’d Mom. I don’t care. Get it. medicine, man. With this shit, you do Dad: Ah, questions! You’re in the right been my mentor, my teacher, this Me. You want it so bad, you get it. not trip alone. place! I am the answer man. Fire man who’d saved dozens, hundreds Mom. How dare you talk to your Me: I don’t. I’m not. Not me. away! of people from death and poverty. mother that way! Dealer: Well, then. Bon Voyage, Star Me: Tell me -- Under his tutelage, I would have been Me. How else should I talk to you. Boy. Dad: Whoa! That ear’s as dead as a so much more, so much better than I This is bullshit! Me: Over and out. doorknob, Son. Talk into my good was. Mom. When your father gets home -- Admittedly, there was a little hubris one. Me. What? We’ll have a conversation? going on here, because I had been Me: Uncle Moishe. So how was it that my father Good luck. telling people and myself that I was Dad: Wait! Gotta turn up the hearing could have been under his wing Mom. Where are you going? an old hand at this kind of adventure. aid. Try again. First question, batter of greatness and become such a Me. To the library. Research project. After all, I had been smoking large up! crippled, pitiful man? These negative You’re going out with dad tonight, quantities of pot, which in retrospect Me: Uncle Moishe. feelings took over my life the way right? So I guess you won’t be here was probably catnip. The fact was (Dad hyperventilates. His eyes water a baobob tree might overwhelm when I get home. my only previous experience had up.) an island. And as a result of these Mom. You hate me. You hate your consisted of ingesting some peyote Me: (over-enunciating) Please. Tell me insinuating and endlessly multiplying mother. and vomiting all night, which I guess, about Uncle Moishe. doubts, I became distant from my Me. Will you please just leave me technically, you could call a trip. It’s Dad: (desperately controlling the father, ashamed of him, and over alone! true I had dropped some mescaline emotion) Never forget this: he was a the years I developed into what is Mom. Do you want to kill me? Here’s but I realize now must have been great man. He was the greatest. commonly known as a problem child. a knife. Stab me in the heart. a mild amphetamine, because Me: Was he really your teacher? My parents became concerned that Me. Don’t worry, I’ll just eat some we stayed up till dawn, watched Dad: He taught me everything I I was going off the deep end, and to leftovers. Feel free to smell my the sunrise and were so wired we

78 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 79 watched the sunset too. Having catnip or horse manure and I’d smoke from pogroms or the holocaust, I Spiderman comic in sober frustration, done these field tests, I felt it was it all night and convince myself I thought that maybe they went to you assuming I’d been totally ripped off time to raise the ante and see what was stoned on Acapulco Gold. I was because you’re like them. by the dealer. Then I noticed Peter Timothy Leary was talking about. raised on this quaking bog of bullshit. Rozzie: Of course I like them, they’re Parker was melting in my hands. Unfortunately for me, unlike the my customers. The carpet was rippling, the walls previous dealers I had bought catnip Remember Great Aunt Rozzie with Me. No, I mean like, as in similar. undulating. I felt this overwhelming from, this guy turned out to be the the very black black hair? She is also Rozzie: They want similar, I give them urge to scratch myself. My arms -- the real thing. in the picture, she was one of the similar. They want Lucy, I give them skin was all red and inflamed and Oh, right. There’s one thing I lucky ones standing on the right, next red. They want blond, I make them huge white blisters were breaking didn’t mention about that old to Great Uncle Sammy. Rozzie was so Marilyn Monroe would eat her out all over. And inside the blisters, family photograph of my great- the one putting makeup on Cousin kishkas out. little black things were swimming. I grandparents and their family. You Bertha. Me: I heard that when Uncle Moishe looked closer. The black things were see, six months after the picture was I actually liked talking to Great Aunt pulled you from under the bed -- centipedes, millipedes, all kinds of taken, over half of them were dead. Rozzie. Of course, when it came to Rozzie. Your Uncle Moishe was a venomous pedes. One tilted its razor Everybody standing to the left of family history… saint. That’s who you should be sharp barb and sliced the blister my great-grandfather was killed by talking to. open. Liquid poured out and so Cossacks. Grandpa, Moishe, Sammy Rozzie: Darling, you’re so big now, Me. But I can’t. He’s dead. did millions of pedes, all of them and Rozzie were the only survivors, you’re all grown up, you’re a big Rozzie. Such are the tragedies of life. swarming on my skin. led to safety by Moishe. I never met handsome boy. When are you going my great-grandpa, but if I had, I to let me cut your hair so we can see The thing the family always The only thing I could think to do would have definitely made a point of that beautiful face. whispered about was Auntie Rozzie’s was run. But how do you escape never standing on his left. Me. Soon. Auntie Rozzie, I’m working hair. You see, back in Russia, led by from your own skin? I bolted from I’m saying this because I don’t want on a project. their eldest brother Moishe, Sammy my room, leaped down the stairs to imply it was my father alone who Rozzie. For school, good. and my grandfather ran into the three at a time and tumbled to a stop turned me into a surly, drug abusing Me. A family project woods when the Cossacks came in the dining room, heart pounding. adolescent. I was raised with the Rozzie. Whose family? to the house. But Rozzie, being The walls were throbbing. I peeked paranoia of extinction, if not by the Me. Our family. I’m trying to find only eight and too small to run, at my hands and stifled a scream. I Cossacks or Nazis, maybe the people things out about our history.Can I ask was hidden under a bed. From that was trapped in my worst nightmare. next door -- maybe even…you. And you something? vantage point, she was able to watch I was wearing my father’s skin. then, of course there were the lies, if Rozzie. Of course. Anything, darling. the soldiers hang their parents from not outright, then certainly through Me. When you were a child, just the rafters and witness their last Did I hear a sound, a voice? Or was it obfuscation: What was my dad’s before you came to this country… dying breaths. After the Cossacks a flash of light coming from that old great burden? Nobody would say Rozzie. I don’t remember. left, Moishe and her brothers came family portrait? I scanned the dead exactly what it was. My mom was a Me. But Uncle Moishe saved you from back to the house, found their dead faces, frozen in time, peasants posing neurotic mess -- why? I knew that the Cossacks -- parents and there, under the bed, was as aristocrats -- and then I stopped somehow my Great Uncle Moishe Rozzie: My brother Moishe, may he Aunt Rozzie, still hiding, unharmed. cold: My Great Uncle Moishe’s was the key to solving the puzzle, but rest in peace, what a jewel, what a The only thing different about her regal nostrils were flaring. He was getting the truth about him was, as it mench, if only God was a man like was that her black straight hair turned breathing. His eyes were, of course, happens, no easier than getting the him. white and frizzy. She’d been dyeing staring at me -- but with compassion truth about God. Nobody would talk, Me. So when the Cossacks came -- and straightening it ever since. and love. Uncle Moishe, I said, I’ve everybody was perfectly willing to Rozzie: (flatly) I never saw a Cossack lost my way. I thought I knew what lie -- the very fabric of their existence in my life. An hour after I licked the little dot I was doing with my life, but I don’t. was based on deceit and denial. It Me. But Auntie, your customers, at off the paper, I was sitting in my I’m seventeen and I just want to die. was no wonder a dealer could sell me the salon -- most of them escaped room, alone in the house, reading a Please, Uncle, help me, help me. 80 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 81 was all big deals -- Moishe was out of walls. sidewalks, across the streets, running Voice: What’s wrong with you? his league. Your father was bringing Me: Oh my god. from her, from them, from it all. But I gasped. Froze. in truckloads of junk cars from Toledo, Mom: For the next two months he it was no good, there were too many Me: (whispers) …Uncle Moishe? Chicago, New York. Moishe was a lay in bed, crying. I begged him, others trying to escape ghosts, all Mom: No, it’s your mother. Are you fifth wheel now, but he still strutted explained things to him, screamed at lost, lonely, sick, dying, afraid. My talking to that picture? around like he was cock of the walk him. Nothing. For sixty-one days your footsteps joined their footsteps until - Slowly I turned, avoiding her eyes. and paid your father shit. But that father just laid there. Finally between finally, I couldn’t run anymore. I was But I couldn’t help peeking. Her wasn’t enough, he had to punish your the psychiatrists and the rabbis they caught in the truth of existence: life is body was throbbing, ballooning, father more. got him back on his feet. a nightmare you can’t wake from. swelling larger and larger. My mother Me: Dad loved him. He loved dad! Me. But he was never the same. was as big as the room. I swallowed Mom: (snapping) Oh yeah? Then why Mom. He was never the same. The There was nothing else left to do but desperately, trying to find words. did he blow his brains out! little itchy spots he always had on his surrender. I looked up at the sky. At Me: …I was thinking. -- Suddenly I saw an elbows spread over his whole body. first I saw one star blink on and off, Mom: Thinking out loud? About eruption of blood spewing out Red blotches, white scales. then another, and another and then I what? of Moishe’s picture. I must have Me. He’s always scratching. He was caught. I could see the distances Me: …Uncle Moishe. screamed as I fell into the chair scratches till it bleeds. between each of these suns, could Mom: Why him? because my mom loomed over me, Mom. Every night I’d put the tar see the galaxies, could feel infinity. I Me: Because things would be so whispering: cream on him, then wrap him in felt a calming intelligence wash over much better…if he were here. Mom: You’ve got to swear to God plastic and tape him up. And in the me. And knew that if there was a Mom: You’re out of your mind. you’ll never tell a soul. morning I’d cut him out of it. But that god, this was it. And our world was Me: Why? He was a great man, a Me: Who am I gonna tell? wasn’t the worst. part of it, I was part it. I had just been hero, he saved the whole family. Mom: Swear it! Me. What could be worse? busy, too worried, too preoccupied Mom: He was an asshole. Me: I swear to God I’ll never tell. Mom. He walked away from the with myself to notice. I looked at my Me: But he created the business -- Never, never, never! Tell me what business. Gave it back to his relatives. hands. I understood now that they Mom: Moishe never made that happened, please, Mom, tell me what The psoriasis ate away at his joints, were an illusion just like I was an business. It was nothing. Just a happened! the arthritis twisted his fingers, bent illusion, that the ground and the trees bunch of junk peddlers until your -- I watched spellbound as his spine, hardened his arteries. and the footsteps, this entire physical father came along. a tear formed in the corner of her eye And the family swallowed up all the existence was just a stopping point, a Me: But everybody was making socket, then slid slow down her cheek profits. It was like in the Bible. The place for a bunch of molecules to take money with Uncle Moishe. like a tiny slug, leaving a shimmering Book of Job. That is your father. shape for a while before becoming Mom: None of them drove Cadillacs trail. -- Then she looked at me. something else. And that was okay. until your father came along. Mom: …On Friday after closing, Mom: What’s wrong with your eyes? In fact, it was extraordinary. The Everyday he’d walk in with ten new Moishe borrowed the night Me: If my eyes are throbbing it’s fear lifted off me because I was filled brilliant ideas to improve the profits. watchman’s gun. because you just blew my mind. right up with the stars and the space He replaced those pathetic wagons -- She stared at me: What’s different Mom: You didn’t eat dinner. between them. I could be happy and wheelbarrows with trucks. about you? Why are you making me Me: I’m fasting. because I was much, much more and Me: But Uncle Moishe… talk like this? Mom: You wanna get sick? You much much less than I ever imagined. Mom: Sammy loved driving a truck Me: I don’t know. Who cares -- keep have to eat something. We brought It was a beautiful place to be. I was and your Grandfather was happy to talking. you back a baked potato. Here, bite completely blissed out and there was sit and play casino all day, but Moishe Mom: Our phone rang. The police it. Before it gets cold. Put it in your one person I had to share this with. was eating his kishkes out. He had wouldn’t say what it was, just called mouth. Eat the potato. nothing to do. Once your father came your father to the office. He walked -- She’s trying to push the potato Me: Dad, I have incredible news. along, there was no more nickle and into that room, and saw Moishe lying between my teeth. Dad: News? Talk in my good ear, son, diming, no more two-bit peddlers, it there, half his head splattered on the I ran. Out the door, down the and speak up. 82 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 83 Me: It’s all an illusion. Me: Did you really not hear a word I after I had rubbed this tar cream on ambulance came, Great Uncle Sammy Dad: It’s what? said? his skin and he’d gone up to bed, was dead. Me: An illusion! We can be free of all Dad: No, No, I got it. You’ve gone the effect of the acid wore off. And this, dad! Buddhist. Don’t tell your mother. sitting there at the empty table, I His passing was hardly noticed. After Dad: Who’s free? Me: I’m not Buddhist, I just had a found his scales caked under my all, he wasn’t Moishe. Death by Me: I had a religious experience, Dad. revelation. fingernails. Without the chemical potato being far less dramatic than I felt the universe inside me. Dad: That none of this is real. in my system, no matter how hard I the tragic hero’s death by bullet. Dad: When? How? (Scratches himself) This isn’t real. tried to think of them as an illusion, I Me: I was…meditating. I felt it. Me: That’s right. What do you think? could not. And my hands stank of tar, Most of my life I felt torn between Dad: You saw God. Dad: It’s a crock of shit. the remains of dead dinosaurs. Later my two great-uncles, fearing I was Me: I felt it. The cosmos. And I Me: Yes! That’s it exactly! Reality is a that day, my dad caught me sniffing an invisible Sammy, dreaming of realized…the world…all this pain and sham! It’s bullshit! my fingers, and I think the look of attaining Moishe’s stature. But suffering…all these things we call Dad: No. I mean you’re full of shit. revulsion on my face and the sorrow lately I’ve come to an unsettling reality…they aren’t real. Me: I am? on his made it clear that a repeat realization: I’m more like the rest (Dad just looks at Me.) Dad: I don’t know what God you were performance of the scratchy love-in of my family sitting around that Me:…Did you understand what I talking to, but if this is all an illusion, would not be coming soon. table, overwhelmed by the gigantic said? Should I say it again? he’s one sick bastard. atonement required of me, paralyzed, Dad: Say what? Me: It’s just…if you could feel what My Great Uncle Sammy was always blind to the vicissitudes of the world, Me: Dad -- you, me, our lives, I felt…I don’t think you’d suffer the kind of invisible, which might explain incapable of response, surrounded our memories -- none of it’s real. way you do. why he went for that potato, and why by things that make me feel more All these years, me feeling guilty Dad: That’s what this is all about? no one ever looked up. I often think than I am. In case I’m wrong, I make about you, you feeling guilty about You don’t want me to suffer? back to that moment and tell myself sure there are no guns in my house Uncle Moishe, we’re just clinging to Me: That’s right. there was nothing I could do. I was and I always, always eat my potatoes memories and feelings because we Dad: Well, fuck the god shit, son. only eight, and even less important mashed. But somehow I don’t think believe our existence depends on There is something you can do. than he was. Still, I could have stood that’s going to be enough. them, but it doesn’t. If you let go of Me: Anything. up, screamed, pounded him on the yourself -- the pain goes too. Dad: There’s this spot, right here, I back, or even tried to pull the potato Dennis Foon (RC 1973) has received Dad: I don’t think so. can’t reach. It’s driving me wild. out. I said ‘uh!” to my Great Aunt many awards for his screenplays, Me: Don’t you see? You don’t have to Me: …You want me to scratch it? Rozzie, who hissed ‘sh!” and never which include Life Above All (Oscar blame yourself for Moishe. Dad: If you wouldn’t mind. turned. Everyone else was too busy shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Dad: What about Moishe? Me: Okay. talking or sleeping or praying to God Film) and On The Farm, 2016 Leo Me: For twenty years, you’ve let your (Me scratches Dad. Dad moans with for forgiveness to notice the man winner for best screenplay. An guilt destroy you, even though he pleasure.) suffocating in front of them. They internationally produced playwright, killed himself. It had nothing to do Dad: This is what Uncle Moishe was didn’t even look up when he hit the his plays have received the British with you. missing, son. A good scratch. If you table. It was only when the fork Theatre Award and two Chalmers Dad: What? can’t get that, it makes it awful hard flew out of his hand, and shattered a awards, including New Kid, Liars and Me: You can let go of Moishe. to live. wine glass that the property damage Mirror Game. His novels include The Dad: You’ll have to speak up, this snapped everyone to attention. I Longlight Legacy trilogy and Skud fucking hearing aid’s on the blink! -- I must have scratched him all night couldn’t speak, I just pointed at (BC Book Prize). His latest feature Me: You didn’t kill Moishe, he killed long, watching the scales flake off him. He was blue. And despite my film, Indian Horse, is slated for a 2017 himself! his back and snow on my feet. It cousins ‘the lifeguards’ best efforts release. Dad: I can’t hear what you’re saying! gave him such pleasure, I felt like I to resuscitate him, by the time the Me: Dad. Dad! was making up for seventeen years (Dad breathes, starts to calm down.) of reviling him. Around dawn, hours 84 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 85 legged beetle that crawls around your message to Guatemala from the Neth- backyard and lives for maybe three erlands, but my mother has told me weeks at best. I’ve found The One. I’m every story of their romance together, very sure about it this time. This isn’t and today, I met my very own Bernard anything like the windowshield smas- Horace Crenshaw. From the way David ing the incident, I swear, and honestly, smiled at me on the elevator today, that was all a misunderstanding. Jacob I knew he was no Jacob. Given the was only a him, but this man. incredibly similar circumstances of our His name is David. I met him in the meeting, we probably have the same elevator going upstairs a few minutes soul make-up, which makes us 100% ago. We said hello and I thought to compatible. It’s my father’s essence, myself He is the most handsome man sent to me in the form of the perfect I have ever seen. I liked his sexy khaki man who I’m going to marry and have postal uniform and I told him so. I told nine perfect children with. I’m just a lot him My name’s Angela very calm and luckier than other girls to have found sophisticated and he said I’m David. him this quickly. That’s all for now. Then it was quiet for a bit but I quickly Angela interjected and I found out that he was delivering his package a package Wednesday, June 9. to my across the hall neighbor who Status report: Good. I decided lives three floors below me so I said I to start adding that for each of the Love & Other Disorders could drop it off if he wanted and he entries, to help you with things, so said No thank you, they’ve got to sign you don’t have to read into my words Clare Higgins for it anyway but you’re very kind, and etchings, I can just tell you. You’ll what’s your name again? And I told probably think that’s condescending Monday, June 7. yet since our Friday appointment. him. Then the elevator stopped and of me, Michael, but it really isn’t. I’m This is my first entry in my “feelings There hasn’t been anything particular- he got out and said Well, I’ll see you just being helpful like you always are. journal”, as you so aptly put it, Dr. Mi- ly thrilling to write about since then. around, Angela. Just trying to help! chael Train. I would just like to say, for I’ve just been sitting in the apartment, It was exactly how it was supposed Now, as you know, it’s been two days starters, that our appointment was just counting my insects. I know you said to happen. My mother told me that since my first meeting with David. fine, but you came across as a bit con- it shows signs of the urge to control was just how she met my father, not The first time we met, he told me See descending when you said You may others, putting them in jars like that, on an elevator exactly, but on top of you around, Angela, but I knew the call me Dr. Michael, or even Michael, but they’re really quite happy in there. the Empire State Building, which is fates had already been good enough if you wish. Like I was a jumpy teen- I went for a walk once, as well, like you very similar. Both tall buildings. She to send him to me in that elevator, ager just bursting to know what your said I should. It was all right. I wore a says he asked her if she had a light and and I was on my own at this point. So first name was. I honestly think you sunhat. she said No, she didn’t smoke but as naturally, I followed him learned from only did that because Dr. Train would But getting to the reason I’m writing soon as they locked eyes, something a friend that he lives at 401 N. Kings- sound too stupid childish for an adult today. Something incredible happened special happened. He took her by the borough Street just on the Upper East psychiatrist. I’ll have you know I’m this afternoon. I’m going to remember hand and forgot all about the evil pull Side where each house has a nice little probably older than your wife, and you this moment in my life’s history until I tobacco has on the human soul. And garden in front of it. I swear, it’s just like have sex with her, so that’s a respectful die. that’s how I happened. Tom Hanks’ childhood neighborhood act depending on how you look at itso I’ve found him. Well, maybe him isn’t Now, I’ve never gotten to meet my in that one film, where all the leaves you should treat me as an equal. the best word, it seems so little and father, as he died soon before my turn golden and orange in the fall. Just Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t written insignificant. Him sounds like a six- birth trying to deliver a government beautiful! 86 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 87 I stopped by again today and de- were in the sun for too long and I spot- out of the car (she used plastic bags worlds: he’s from the postal realm, I’m cided to ring the doorbell. My heart ted some this morning on their backs which is the absolute worst option in entomology, but the universe has was beating right out of my chest and all dired up and grisly not moving. I for the environment, by the way, she been sending us messages for years I told myself Angela, he could answer should pay more attention and move could have at least chosen paper) and without us even knowing it. Do you at any minute, just be calm. But he the different jars when the sun chang- turned her own key in the door. ever wonder whether all those wrong didn’t answer, and I figured he must es, or maybe draw the shades. Oh well. This was what had stopped him. numbers, or random emails or those be at work, so I wrote him a nice note Got any craft ideas for dead ladybug With that awful woman around the flirty messages from Singles in your with my phone number and left it in skins, doc? Ha ha. Just kidding. house how could he get away to call? Area, were really from your soul mate? the mailbox. Any day now, he’ll call Angela It wasn’t his fault: he was a prisoner All those could have been him, trying and I’ll tell him all about the father I in his own home. No concrete plans to reach me without even knowing it. never knew and I’ll suggest we meet Monday, June 14. yet, because I am doing what you Today, I made a sacrifice, as far as my for dinner at this nice Italian place by Status Report: Not good. I took mat- said, with the calming breaths and the bug collection goes. I decided to send his neighborhood. I’m very accommo- ters into my own hands today. Michael, waiting 24 hours instead of lashing something different to the house, the dating. I’m going to be stern but casual here out. But stay tuned. beautiful Meloe Americanus I found Angela and call you Michael, I know that you Angela last month. I’ll miss the way her exo- said if it was meant to be with David, skeleton shone and I’ll always remem- Friday, June 11. then things would work themselves Tuesday, June 15. ber the day I found her under a log Status report: Fine. Today, I had out, but I think you just read those Status Report: Eye of the Tiger. Isn’t on the woodsy trail behind the house. another appointment with you, Dr. little inspiring phrase books in your that creative? I thought it would be It’s a loss, but it’ll be well worth it Michael, but you already knew that. spare time and then regurgitate those cute and fitting for the occasion. when that god awful mind controlling You said I should share more of my phrases to people like us in your little I stayed up most of last night and woman opens the envelope and gets inner thoughts with you in this journal. appointments. I’m sorry for being stern I’ve come to the conclusion that I hemolymph all over herself and the So I would like you to know that when but causal like this, but it’s important need to intimidate the opposition. I blisters start forming and freaks out. you said You know I can still read all you know why I did what I did. have decided to send her messages of Then she’ll read my note and leave of the words you cross out, don’t you I I sat around all weekend waiting for hatred to show her my dominance like him as fast as she can move. Or maybe was thinking Well fuck you then, Train David to call. But my thoughts started dogs do when they pee on telephone she’ll be just fine. The Meloe’s only that that was a nice, informative thing working their ways around themselves poles. Today, I sent a note, and just for dangerous if provoked. to say. So thank you, Dr. Michael. and it dawned on me all of a sudden dramatic effect, I popped a few lady- Angela Anyway, no progress yet with David. and I got this sinking feeling in my bug carcasses in there. Nothing dan- I read an article on Thought Catalog stomach. What if the mailman took the gerous about them, just for show. Plus, Sunday, June 20. today about how these days, we are all note out of the box? What if an animal now I’ve gotten rid of them. They were Status Report: Right as rain. I stuck in this crazy dating game where got into the box and ate it? ANYTHING making my apartment look dismal. apologize again for not writing since whoever cares less, wins. So it’s hard to could have happened to that note, Dr. Angela Thursday, but you really can’t blame tell the difference between someone Train, and you know it. And I couldn’t me after your outburst, Train. You who is trying to appear nonchalant just sit there after that. Thursday, June 17. really should have been pleased at my and someone who doesn’t care at all! I watched went to the house today Status Report: Inspired. I watched progress this past week, if anything. I Poor David. He’s probably nervous and sat in my usual spot was about to You’ve Got Mail this afternoon, where did the deep breaths and added the about talking to me. I understand how knock when I saw her, with that swishy, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks think that status reports and everything. Thank he feels since my sexual confidence polished ponytail and those stupid they shouldn’t be together, but that’s you for not noticing, by the way. I sup- can be disarming for some. I just hope yoga pants when she pulled up into because they don’t even know that pose I got angry about your judgmen- he can get over himself and pick up the driveway in a gray Subaru. At first the universe already decided for them tal tirade, so I struck back. the phone already. I thought maybe she could be a rude that they’re perfect for each other. I Anyway, I’ve recovered from that, My bugs are doing well. Some of salesperson who drives to houses in- personally identified with the story. with the sometimes helpful breathing, them, at least, I think the ladybugs stead of walking but she got groceries David and I come from such different but mostly I’m better because I saw 88 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 89 mother today. I always feel better after Tuesday, June 22. affairs again. me and he said What’ve you got there? I’ve seen her. She gives the best advice Status report: Elated. It happened Since I don’t know if I’ll ever see you And I coughed on my soup and he in the world, and she still spoils me today. David has finally broken again, Michael, Dr. Michael, whatever continued with I like a woman who because I’m her #1 daughter, she says. through and come to me, even with you want to be called, I guess I should knows her Chicken and Lentil. She told me all the old stories she his hang-ups. thank you. Even though you were At first I was offended and tried to loves to tell about her and dad. She I was going downstairs to try and Despite your Well, of course just just leave but he asked me about my inter- misses him all the time. I was itching catch the matinee of West Side Story Thanks for all you’ve done. I’ll miss our ests and I told him reluctantly about to tell her about David, but I waited that’s happening at the local theatre meetings, in a way. I hope you succeed my insects. As it turns out he tried to until she had finished every detail of just by the park, and there he was. In in your fixing of all the crazies out join the Peace Corps after high school the meeting story, including the whole all his magnificent anger, he strode there. but the feds caught him with drugs hearing him phone in to a radio talk up to me. He is so beautiful when he’s Angela and then he was resigned to spend show bit, to the writing him a letter to tense. years behind bars. He’s a renegade. He meet her on Valentine’s day, and about He yelled at me about Was I the Friday, June 25. said his name was Hans, and also said almost not mailing it, but then being woman who had been sending bugs Dear Dr. Michael, Your eyes are incredibly beautiful and urged by her coworker and pal, Jean, to his wife and Was I insane and Stop I’m sorry I didn’t come to the suddenly when we met eyes again to just live a little. Then the final meet- harassing my family and Go see a appointment today but I did leave a there it was. ing part and I just melt every single shrink (I chose not to mention you), message with your secretary and I am So I have realized, Dr. Michael, that time I hear that one. then he asked Did I have anything to happy to say I will be coming back in David was too aloof and couldn’t com- When I told her all about David and say and I only shook my head since I the future! municate. Hans and I share the same the ups and the downs we’ve been was all too aware of the game he was The most amazing thing happened morals for the most part and can talk through, she said she was happy for playing. Then he stormed out. to me last night. I was picking up for hours. He gave me his phone num- me. She said, though, if he was having Afterwards I went back to my apart- some late dinner on the way to David’s ber 814-996-3702 whoops and since trouble reaching out, then I shouldn’t ment and poured myself a celebratory house and to be honest with you my then I have left him five voicemails. His succumb. Otherwise I’d end up in a glass of Pinot. He came straight to me hands were shaking badly by that voicemail says This is Hans and here’s one-sided marriage. So I should wait just like mother said he would. I did point so I needed some food in me if I the beep! I also found him on Face- for him to come to me in his own time. wonder how he found me out and was going to go through with it. book. He hasn’t had an account for My mother knows what she’s talking then I thought he must have craftily Anyway, I stopped at Panera Bread long so there aren’t many pictures of about, so I’m going to leave David be noticed my return address. to get the soup and salad deal that his face but I still found it—his profile for a bit. I miss him very much. Like we Regardless, all plans are back in really is the perfect size portion for a picture is a character from Dragonball: talked about in the last session, he is motion. I have it all figured out. I’ll do cheap price. So I sat down and opened Evolution. Anyway, David really was probably reluctant to communicate it Thursday night—you don’t need my bag just to check that the black just a him and would never meet me with me because his heart is guarded to know anything more than that. I widow was still there in its jar that I on top of the Empire State building. and he’s very shy. I would like to add might not come to my appointment had everything and it was and I did so Sometimes you think you’ve got it all to those reasons that his wife is a crazy after that, so I suppose I don’t know I thought I was fine but when I looked figured out and there you go! Your life heathen who has stolen him away exactly why I’m writing now, but I around someone had seen me. turns around completely. I resched- from me There is also the wife prob- guess it’s more of a habit than any- He was tall, almost as tall as David, uled our appointment for Tuesday. I’ll lem. Some people just settle down too thing else. and he had brown hair just like Tom see you then! early, before they can meet their true Anyway, once she’s out of the way, Hanks’ but he was like a young Tom Angela soul mate. But it isn’t too late for us. I everything will be fine. Smooth sailing Hanks and he wore a tie-dye shirt with know it isn’t, and it’s just up to our love from here. Then David and I are going cargo shorts. He was very handsome Clare Higgins (RC 2017) double majored to conquer the circumstances. And it to spend a weekend away together. I but I didn’t notice it at the time. in creative writing (RC) and screen arts will, like in Romeo and Juliet. sent him our tickets to Fiji in the mail He came over to me and I was about and culture (LSA). She has Hopwood Angela with no return address this time. I to run but he put a finger on his lips awards in both fields (poetry, 2015; don’t need her messing around in our as in Shhh and sat down across from screenplay, 2016). 90 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 91 Acid

Peter Anderson

I drop some blotter on the Vegas strip. The gods are turning soldiers into stone; Next thing I know a giant slot machine They topple down like statues in a square — Is telling me “Jackpot! You’ve won a trip! Smashed, abandoned, left there on their own, You’ll soon be seeing things you’ve never seen.” Each one looks up, a blank and granite stare, The sidewalk’s undulating like a wave — At transport helicopters overhead It swells above my head then swallows me Who’re plucking lucky souls from off rooftops. In so much light, the universe is paved The rest left down below all left for dead. In pink neon as far as I can see. And then I bump a family who stops And then I’m at a blackjack table. Weird. To stare at me as if I am the one The cards too big, each one a different size, Who’s sleepwalking through hell without a clue. The dealer sizes me, I see his beard What if I am? When all is said and done Emitting psychic sparks, his x-ray eyes Who knows what’s for show and what is true? Are piercing me, I stand to go, the door And just like that it’s gone, my fragile dream Is upside down, the ceiling is the floor. Evaporates like dust, a cloud of steam.

It’s crazy, but then maybe it’s just me — The sun comes up and what the night revealed What if I never come down from this high Retreats in shadows on an empty street. And who I am is who I’ll never be The oneness that I felt is gone, congealed. Again? Forever gone. I start to cry. There’s no more haloes, I’m a bag of meat, What’s going on? I try to talk, the drugs — And everything once more seems hard and fixed; Now everyone’s an undercover cop. The towers trumpeting our vanity, The patterns, trails, dissolving into bugs — Mean-spirited and hateful politics, I close my eyes, that makes it worse, no stopping The City, War, Man’s inhumanity, it, what’s happening, I cannot think — A land that eats its young then spits them out A blinking billboard winks at me and nods: And goes about its business every day “Nudes on ice! One hundred in one rink!” As if it’s normal. Why? I want to shout I look up and see clouds turn into gods But no words come; I’m coming down and, hey, Who weep to see what’s happened to our nation. It’s coming — breaking news — around the bend, Their tears fall down, and then a revelation — The day when everything comes to an end.

Excerpted from the sonnet drama “Peace & Love 1971.” More information about Peter Anderson (RC 1972) on p. 4.

92 • RCAlumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 93 dangle between his fingertips, consid- # ering. The roads are too icy to drive. The phone in his pocket vibrates as Delilah’s is on the corner of Diversey he shaves in front of the bathroom mir- and Lincoln. Fifteen minutes, if he ror at five forty-five the next morning. makes the train. The razor slips, hot pain and hotter He sweeps on his coat and closes anger. He swears under his breath. De- the door, leaving the cigarette flicker- lilah—not her name, but what else can ing in the sink. he call her?—rolls over in bed, turns # her face to the wall, ignores him. He worries the phone into his hand. Delilah’s. Mark. From the other side of the bar, he He does not answer, even though his feels her interest trickle hot down brother never calls. And if he does, not his throat. Smooth sparking amber twice in two days. filtered through liquid eyeliner. Whisky When the second buzz comes bear- inhaled from a distance. He tosses it ing voicemail, he’s looking at his face in around his throat, catches the savor, the mirror, dabbing at the blood with edges it back. the back of his hand. From the bed, Delilah Dark jeans and a black silk top. not-Delilah snores, slaps at the alarm Allison Epstein Ice-pick heels. She brought no coat. he forgot to turn off. Out of politeness, he pulls her into the Through the window, the sidewalk He feels his father’s indifference like walk along Racine. He sets a sweating bathroom, presses her back against disappears under the snow. a cramp in his stomach. bottle of out-of-season Oberon atop the stall door, sinks his lips into her # He’s no longer a child, not any- the book. It leaves a ring, will ripple the hungry kiss. more—there’s no reason to think about pages if he ever decides to open them. He feels his father’s death like the Why wait for the train? Not in weather any of this. Sometimes he wonders if The orange streetlight drenches the loss of cancer. He stands taller now, but like this. “childhood” was a thing other people budding snowdrifts. he has grown used to the texture of She is married—he sees her ring. had, like lake houses or great-aunts A text. mutated cells. She is twice his age—he saw her who wrote you checks in birthday cards He has never been good at not He stands on the opposite side of driver’s license when he slipped open that came three weeks too late. thinking. the church from Mark, who cries like it her wallet, helped himself to two Here, in this third-story studio Leaning over the kitchen sink, he belongs in the Special Skills section of twenties while she ordered him a apartment, snowflakes lazily beating rests his elbows on porcelain. Cigarette his résumé. drink. the frost-slick window, the last thing he ash rains pumice dust on the drain. When they lower the casket into the She is rich—he sees her ring and her should be thinking of is his father. Mark likes to tell him smoking is a frozen earth, he lights a cigarette. wallet. But still. A call. Chrissakes, he’s not vulgar habit. Vulgarity thrives in graveyards. She kisses him like a wolf howling ambitious, a text, even. These days, Vulgarity luxuriates in his veins. With low expectations, one can never at the wind. He is either the rabbit or radio silence is always intentional. Even The phone in his pocket has rung disappoint. the gun. Starbucks wished him a happy birth- twice since seven thirty. Once, Grace, He feels her brand sizzle across his day. happy birthday get out here we’re all Allison Epstein (RC 2014) lives, writes, back, fingernails biting flesh. He lets A paperback copy of Infinite Jest at the bar come out Delilah’s don’t be and drinks coffee in Chicago, where she is her do what she will, and stands on winks at him from its sideways home a prick come. The second time, Mark, pursuing her MFA in fiction at Northwest- the corner leaning his cigarette into on the windowsill. Its laminate-slick telling him to come see Dad before the ern University. “Delilah” was previously her lighter when it’s over. cover glints with reflected streetlight, hospital closed for the night. published in the September 2016 edition Delilah. with the snow drifting onto the side- He lets the winking firefly cigarette of Sweater Weather Magazine. 94 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 95 graduate instructor says of them, way they move with wind, I become meaning something common, mun- the backdrop to the forest. By the dane, easy to define. Silver, red, sugar, end, my senses are exhausted, and and box elder, they do their own I listen. It is the time of year when I thing. Thankfully, the Hawthorns one can hear the acorns drop, a time of cannot distinguish, by the species at year I hadn’t noticed until now. I am least. They have a thorny, suckering not particularly spiritual, but I quiet. habit. They are part of one another. I think: Once I was an addict. Maybe I It is true that they have thorns and still am. haws. In the Mary Karr memoir Lit, she The shrubs that creep and climb conveys a familiar situation. When beneath, I had not noticed. The vines in traffic, inching bit by bit, we don’t with their special lifestyle, a specialist think of ourselves as it. Traffic is explains. They adapt; survive in high the other humans. Prickles, spines, winds; have structures. Sometimes, thorns, I touch plants with all of them. they smother, they get a bad rep. (Some things are structural.) What A man comes to talk about soil, its else can we learn from the woods, at micro-biome with elements that a time when we need to learn from outnumber stars. He throws acorns at something more than ever, perhaps, the students to get their attention. A I think, too sincerely. I crush leaves, I student asks how we could count the rub at bud scales. stars; the man explains. The saying that encapsulates advice I drive to somewhere by Highland for winter identification, after the Township, and towards Detroit, and leaves have dropped: “Trust the bud.” to the border with Ohio, to find My instinct is to walk away from the the right plants. There are places in forest, the way it’s changed me in Ann Arbor I had not considered, the weeks. My instinct is not to trust it. glacial features. The forest changes. A I am hoping instead to find a place place that felt common, felt familiar, where I can. The woods in town, is not the same place. I’ve only visited perhaps. Love Letter to Woody Plants the class for weeks, which is to say, I Anna Prushinskaya know not much at all. Still, that is all it Anna Prushinskaya (RC 2008)’s “Love takes to make the forest strange and Letter to Woody Plants” was first pub- To the woman in the parking lot of I have been learning the names lovely, a place to touch and explore. lished by Great Lakes Review as part the park, who has found me crushing of woody plants this fall thanks to a Often the forest is a backdrop. of the Narrative Map Project. It’s part leaves, smelling them, and looking at special course at the college in town, Now, as I walk and scan the paths for of Prushinskaya’s collection of essays the willows: I am giddy because I have a historic course, and sometimes I bark patterns, and then the under- A Woman is a Woman Until She is a identified a poison sumac. It grows am overwhelmed with the trees. The story, the leaves on everything, the Mother, out in Fall 2017 from MG Press. on the trail by the water. They happen distinctions between oaks, the tips of in Southeastern Michigan, and here their leaves sometimes bristled, their are some ways to tell: Shrub or small buds sometimes tomentose, their tree; leaflets compound, sessile, with acorns brimmed with fringe, where scarlet midribs; drupes white, persist- they are and aren’t on a hill. And the ing in winter. maples. “Something like Acer,” the 96 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 97 bit of a day, too, and I thought…” The court room, then.” smile again, but this time it’s thinner, “I suppose so.” more self-conscious. “Oh, God, I sup- As soon as the word are out of her pose I just thought that two strangers mouth, his mind is moving the requisite in a pub might like to bitch at one an- ten steps ahead: an awkward silence other about their lives.” The glass slips will fall with the unpleasant speed of a bit from its perch, and she catches a cold autumn rain, after which he will it with a tiny “oop” noise. “But I might cough, say he needs to use the toilet, have just had a bit too much, also.” and vanish. Jenny is, it turns out, a He’s staring at her. He doesn’t mean shooting star: pretty when admired to; partially it’s because he’s tired and from afar; flaming hunk of space rock partly because it’s in his nature to study when seen from close-up. everyone. Very little make-up, vulpine But before he can start to scoot his face, curly blonde hair. She’s wearing chair out, she says, “What’s your biggest a loose purple blouse and tight jeans regret, Malcolm?” that make him wish that he’d seen her He laughs, because he doesn’t know walk his way, just a bit. “Sit,” he says, and how else to react. “What?” winces because it sounds like a com- “I’m visiting. From out of town. Pro- Genesis mand, and he sounds like an ass. “Sorry, fessional conference.” Lips like her nails: you’re right, it’s been a long day.” unremarkable, yet when she smiles… Jon Michael Darga But she just grins, and pulls out her there’s that way it makes her shine in chair, and traces the grains in the wood the dark. “The only way anyone would Together they were black — not an they’re manicured. He holds his own with her finger. “Jenny.” ever know what you tell me is as ‘this absence of light but an absorption of hands in front of his eyes, twisting them “Malcolm.” man I met once in a pub.’ Don’t tell me it, drawing it into their bodies until back and forth, trying to catch a glint in “Very nice to meet you, Malcolm. So, that’s not an attractive confessional.” there was nothing left. Together they their dull opacity like a caveman might what do you do and in which ways has “Why did you come over here?” he consumed. They were the moment try to spark a fire. it fucked you over lately?” asks. This isn’t a normal conversation. between waking and sleeping, the wick When he looks up, she’s standing Who are you? “Uh. I’m police, actually. There’s nothing normal about this; of a candle after blowing out the flame, there, small bubbles rising up to the Investigator. I’m sure you can gather there’s nothing about this that should the blank reflection of a phone screen top of her drink, frosted condensation from that why it’s been a rough… life.” be happening or that has ever hap- seconds before it lights up — sorry, misting the glass over, except for the “A copper,” she says, putting on a very pened to him before. She’s the kind of there’s been an accident — and in the shadows created by the warmth of her good show of being delighted. “Homi- dream where you feel like something moments after. A smoldering every- palms. “Hello,” she says, in a voice lower cide?” When he nods, she adds, “It just is missing the next morning, like your thing, then a smothering nothing. and richer than he was expecting. didn’t seem like petty theft would lie so subconscious had tried desperately to “Hello,” he says, creaky with surprise. I. heavily on you, is all.” patch a hole in the ripping fabric of your He coughs, self-consciously, and takes a “What about you?” life overnight. He sees her first; or, if she saw him sip of his cider. “Sorry.” “Barrister.” A slight pause, an upturn “What do you want me to say?” she first, she doesn’t let on. She’s sitting at “Not at all.” She smiles. “Sorry, I didn’t of her mouth. “Though I’ve always said asks, her eyes squinting. the bar, pale hands cradled around a mean to startle you. Or be forward, or that they should call female barristers There’s an invitation in her voice that pale beer. Her nails, he notices, aren’t anything. I’ve just…” She sets her glass ‘baristas,’ for the fun of it.” he doesn’t take. “I’m sorry. I should manicured; at least, not in any notice- on the back of the chair in front of him, “That’d be good,” he agrees, chuckling probably be going.” He nods her way, an able way, though they glimmer in the her hand cupped loosely around it. It lamely. “What sorts of cases?” acknowledgement. “Long day, after all.” dim light of the pub every time she tilts balances. “It’s been a long fucking day “Defense.” “I don’t really have regrets,” she says. the glass to her lips. Perhaps that means and you seem like maybe you’ve had a “We’d be on opposite sides of the “Or at least I try not to. I’ve made 98 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 99 mistakes, but doesn’t everybody? You meaning. He wonders if what they did He doesn’t; he would rather not hear “Why are you doing this?” he asks, live, you learn.” Lips sip from her drink, had any meaning. Probably not, he than get sucked in deeper, like CS Lewis almost to himself before he realizes he but Malcolm doesn’t see the volume in acknowledges, even as he remembers wrote, further up and further in. He hasn’t hopes that she can hear him, and before the cup go down. “I regret not taking that as they left the bar it was definitely read since childhood, really, but he he finishes talking he realizes, again, more chances, I suppose. Going places. not, even as he worries that as he leaves remembers enough to know to avoid what is familiar in her. It’s instinct, born Meeting people.” Eyes on him. “I’d regret the next morning it will be probably wardrobes, avoid white witches, avoid from the same adrenaline-spiked urge if I drove you away right now.” yes. But there’s no real fear of being let anthropomorphic things that stand in that makes him lean harder into the A jolt as her foot touches his shin, lin- down; they have both known, from for God. interrogation of a bereaved widow, or gers for a second, then two, then three, the beginning, that she is leaving town “Malcolm?” she asks. to leave the room and let the stoically then leaves. This world is not yours to fix. soon, and that there is safety within this “I don’t know what you mean,” he says. grieving brother to sit in silence. It is a Who’d said that to him the first time? built-in ending. “You carry things,” she says, and her recognition of the same. Boss or lover or mother or friend? Did it “I see it,” she says suddenly, softly. thumbs press into the flesh around his “You have it, too,” he says. matter why he was such a trope — the “What?” He looks down — it can’t be shoulder blades, muscular; yet her fin- It is not his job to fix her. He cannot cop with the weight of the world on his that visible; and anyways, it’s not all gers hurt him. “Here. I want you to know take this burden on. She is a random shoulders? Wouldn’t it help him, then, there yet, not enough for a second go, that I see it; that I felt it. That somebody from the bar; a one-night stand. maybe, if he let this happen? If he didn’t anyways. knows. What you hold onto inside.” He feels warm breath against his neck, try to fix this woman sitting in front of “Your darkness,” she says. It’s so simple He reminds himself that this is why condensed like the thick foggy steam him, but went home with her, because that maybe she’s talking about the dark the sex was good; because she’s a from a shower. She is saying something, the crazy ones are always the best lays, of his clothes, or the way he takes his loony, because she is likely one of those and the warmth feels good, so good and he could slip out from her hotel coffee, but she’s not. This isn’t what he women who dance naked around that the rest of his body breaks out into room early the next morning, and never wants to talk about after sex; he wants the forest in the light of the full moon a small, shuddering shiver, and he feels see her again? her mouth around his cock again, or and believes that by doing this she is goose-pimples rise like grim soldiers When was the last time someone maybe to learn her taste all over again, restoring some form of balance to our at attention on his arms and neck and had talked to him like this? What would or maybe just to climb on top of her tortured earth. back, and he feels her fingers trac- happen if he said yes for himself, not for and slip inside, staring at the pillowcase It is also, he thinks, not at all difficult ing over these new hills of discovery, somebody else? just past her head because to make eye to look at a homicide detective ap- conquering, and he leans his head back He downs his drink in one and leans contact while doing this, something so proaching middle age and see world until it lands on hers with a small thunk, in. intimate, with a stranger, is somehow weariness. It’s like the veneer on a car like what it must sound like when the “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever too much for him. — or maybe, more accurately, the mud worn hull of a ship first makes contact done?” He scoots up and rolls away, so that and dirt that have come from years of with a foreign shore. II. his back is facing her. He can hear use. She breathes again, and her breath her shift on the covers behind him, a But then, there is also something new sounds like, “Yes.” “You’re very good,” she says, and even smooth silky rasp of skin against fabric. in Jenny’s words, in the way that they as he wonders how exactly she means it III. Fingers begin tracing the same patterns cover him like a blanket. Again — and he knows he doesn’t want to ask. on his back, between his shoulder he remembers that he has felt this way When he walks into the room it feels “I had a good time,” he responds, and blades, some circular and light, tickling; about her before — there is something like a dream. Maybe it is. Maybe he’s she smiles up at him from where her some angular and harsh; some neither; rich to the way she speaks to him, in this still sleeping; maybe when he dreamt hair is spilled out across his chest, light some both. If he needs to, he can swing case a full and textured acceptance. Not of the two of them lying on a forest against dark. Her finger traces shapes his legs out from beneath the covers, pity, which has always tasted to him like floor bleeding out to the sound of birds in the black hair of his chest, entwining exposing his body to her but protecting thin and oily coffee; or a sort of nervous trilling and a faraway stream it wasn’t her strands with his, until she shifts her something far more valuable. fear, bitter and gritty grounds. This is a dream at all, and this is just… in-be- head and they pull loose: together and “I’m sorry if that was too sudden,” she luxurious, coating, and it feels like he is tween. then, simply, not. says, softer still, almost so that he has to on a diet and this is something that he is She is sitting at a dinner table cov- He wonders if her shapes have any lean backwards to hear her. not supposed to eat: good, sinful, guilty. ered in plain white cloth, two dark red 100 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 101 candles sputtering as wax drips down you didn’t accept me you wouldn’t be nect between the you that everybody within, glowing. “You don’t have the them tar-like. The black dress she wears here.” sees and the true you that you feel inside. courage to be happy, Malcolm. That’s looks so smooth and silken it’s almost “Where else is there for me to go?” A Trans-emotional.” the secret, you know, that nobody ever like lingerie; the way that it hangs off of sip from his wine: he’s not sure where He is still laughing, on the verge of what tells you. It takes courage to be happy.” her is like a loose curtain drawn against it’s from, or what year, but it’s perfectly could be described as hysterical laughter, Another sip of her wine as she plays a full moon, though why it’s like that he paired, the taste of berries so full it’s al- as he drinks more wine. “You just made with the flame. The red sits on her lower doesn’t know. If this is a dream, after all, most earthy. Of course it would be. She that up, didn’t you?” lip like blood, but Malcolm knows that he doesn’t need to. always knows what fits together. A tight smile peeks around the edges of this is in his mind; that he is running A song lingers in the air, from every- Do they fit together anymore? Did her fork. “I might have done.” amok with blood on her hands asso- where and nowhere; it’s a slow and they ever? Something pulses behind “It’s not a thing, Jenny. ‘Trans-emotional’ ciations; that red wine does not and haunting version of “Stand By Me”: the bridge of his nose, like a migraine. is not a thing.” cannot reasonably stand in for anything “When the night has come/And the Something horribly, terribly broken; a The smile fades. “Perhaps it should be.” remotely like blood. “Because what land is dark/And the moon is the only shard of lost memory obscured by dust, They eat in silence until he says, “I can’t comes after happiness? Either the great light we’ll see/No I won’t be afraid/No I still sharp enough to cut to bone. What figure it out.” quest is over, or you realize that it takes won’t be afraid…” was it: the man he had been or the man An eyebrow raises across the table, but work to maintain. Each one is terrifying. The words sound like a growl, like a he would never know? she doesn’t say anything. They will sit in If it’s the first, well, then, you’re done. threat. “Anywhere.” silence or move the conversation else- It doesn’t get better. Yes, you’re happy, There is nothing about this that he “I can’t go anywhere,” he says. He where or he will tell her. She will not press great, but that is it. You’ve seen it all. enjoys, and yet, because she is here, wishes he could spit the words out; him for information; that would be too Treading water; you’ve seen all that there is no other place that he can be. hurl them across the table at her like a close to begging. you can see. And if it’s the latter… well. She has trapped him here as thoroughly weapon. “You’re wrong. I don’t accept “How is this real?” he asks, finally. “How Treading water takes effort, doesn’t as Dante in his levels of hell: the only you. What you are; what you’ve done. I did I get here?” it? You get tired, eventually. You want escape is deeper, deeper. never can; you know that.” He looks up “You don’t really want me to answer to stop. But if you stop you’ll drown.” “I made steak,” she says. from his meal, at the piercing eyes that that, do you?” Pause. “So it’s easier, really, to imagine “You don’t cook.” are already staring at him from across “Do you ever think it’s not real?” happiness as this faraway, unattainable “I know my way around meat.” She the table. There is still a jolt, like he has “How do you mean?” paradise island. At least that way it will smiles, elfin and mysterious, so com- been injected with a drug, urging him “That this is some sort of purgatory.” always be ideal. It’s absolute cowardice, pletely comfortable in who she is that to go, go, go; to run; but when he tries Jenny’s knife slides against her plate of course, but to each their own.” he almost forgets what she is. to run away it’s like he’s only running with a high and pitiful ceramic squeak. Like scenes from a reel of film that He pulls out his chair and sits, and against the treadmill, going nowhere. “I “Stop. Stop comparing being with me to have been separated and then, shoddi- she pulls out hers across from him. can’t go anywhere because you’re here. various levels of hell, Malcolm. Nothing’s ly, put back together, his tongue is sud- With a fork and knife in each hand, he I don’t accept you. I do love you.” preventing you from going.” denly in her mouth with no recollection cuts slices off of the filet in front of him, “You don’t accept me because you “I can’t–” of the in-between; next he is standing and it carves tender and rare, spilling don’t accept yourself. You never have.” “You can’t what? Live without me? Then back and staring at her face, her face, out steam and blood. “How did we get She looks back down at her steak, to cut kill yourself, if that’s what will make you the only face he wants to see; then he here?” he asks. it. “You’re trans-emotional.” happy.” When he stares at her blankly, she is on his knees, on grass, outside, a clear “Love,” she answers, as if it were that He laughs at this; he has to. “What?” laughs sharply, and empties her glass of sky and cold stars above him. He looks simple. “Love and acceptance.” “Society expects you, based on your wine. back. Jenny’s silhouette is framed black A cut of steak goes into his mouth; outer appearance, to be one thing, but Without looking, she refills her glass, against the light of the house, blurred it’s rich and seasoned and flavorful. inside you feel differently. You’re a cop then holds her hand up to the flame of around the edges from distance or mist, Delicious. “I don’t accept you.” who feels the burden to do right, and so the candle in between them. Her fingers but she stands unmoving. “I understand what you need to do for you are expected to be a good man, but get closer and closer, until Malcolm is sure “What am I doing?” yourself,” she says. “I do. What you need you are not, and so the weight of that her fingers must be burning, until it looks But he knows exactly what he is to tell yourself. But Malcolm, really, if bears down on you. You feel a discon- almost like they are lit from something doing. Something snaps inside him, not 102 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 103 breaking but slotting back into place. he does understand and likes even less murder is still murder. The result is the She turns over, again, and looks at This — all of it — is to make himself feel where this is going. same.” him. Her smile is gone. She is no longer better. He has known exactly what he “You asked me earlier what was the “Is it? For the dead, yes. But it takes hiding anything. “You know.” has done, all along, just as she has. The worse thing I’ve done. Where do you two.” He nods, in grandiose solemnity. “I do.” draw your battle lines, Detective Mal- He means to tread carefully, pick his blood is on both of their hands, both I. of them willing participants. He’s tired colm?” There are no flirtatious fingers way through thorny underbrush. “Yes, of the ruse, so tired of feeling guilty for tracing along his chest now, no playful legally speaking. It’s prison either way.” He needs another drink, he needs to something that has also felt right. lilt to her tone. They have descended “There’s the physical prison and then be more drunk than this, he does not Why can’t you be happy? Because further, to where he does not yet know. there’s the emotional prison.” go home with random girls from the admitting to happiness also means “If your friend were to steal a chocolate “Are you a failed poet then?” The bar sober, though where this moral admitting to something that he hates bar from the store. Would you end the question comes out of him unbid- compunction comes from he does not within himself. Perhaps it’s not the friendship? If your mother were to push den and unexpected, using the same know, because he does not judge this worst to allow yourself to be cut against her sister down the stairs and kill her, by instinct as he would pulling his body behavior in others. the broken edges. Perhaps the Greeks accident…?” away from a physical blow. He almost She takes his hand as if in a dream, had something right: they believed, af- “Why do you want to talk about this?” covers his mouth as if to prevent more and runs her thumb along his palm, and ter all, in bleeding the bad humors out They’re staring at each other, sparks words from coming out. “I’m sorry, that the sparks there jolt him awake but he and in blood sacrifices to the gods. Two in her eyes as he hopes there are no was–” does not want to be awake, because for one, something left behind while sparks in his. “Another man would “That was your defense mechanism with waking comes awareness and something comes home. have his clothes on and been out the coming out, yes.” complications and judgments. He looks back up at the bright pin- door by now had he been asked that When he looks over she’s already on “Come on,” she says. And he stands pricks in the sky and then back at the question. You’re uncomfortable talking her back, and the bedsheets have fallen up and her eyebrows furrow and she house, back at Jenny, still exactly as she about it. Look–” she places her hands down to expose a pale breast, and she’s says, “You never said what your biggest stood. The darkness between the stars. on his shoulders, rubs her fingers into laughing so hard that tears are running regret was.” A wave of euphoria crashes over unwilling muscle –“you’re tense. Fight down her sheets and darkening the He lies, “Breaking up with my girl- him so suddenly it feels like drowning, or flight. But you’re a parched man in pillowcase like raindrops and her chest friend at university because I was scared everything aflame and gasping. the wilderness who hears the trickle of is heaving. “Oh, God, that was brilliant. of where we were going.” Something in him is awake. water.” He sees her playfulness again as That was – God, I was sounding preten- She shrugs and says, “If that’s what if a blindfold has been removed from tious, wasn’t I?” you want to go with.” II. his eyes, as suddenly and as clearly as “It wasn’t pretentious.” He can’t help And he thinks, I am scared of where She’s taken control; she’s on top of a pilot light lit on his stove. “I am your but smile. “It was a little pretentious.” this is going. him, fingers digging into his shoulders oasis.” She makes a strangled “ugh” noise And he thinks, My biggest regret will and leaving behind the indents of her “The water source,” he says slowly, and swats the bed beside her. The palm be you. own stigmata. This is different than the “could be tainted.” He doesn’t know why of her hand leaves an indent that the And he thinks, Don’t wake up. first time, like a shroud has been lifted he says it. It doesn’t even make that covers slowly rise to conceal, until noth- to reveal a living face behind it, to re- much sense, if you think about it too ing is there. “You know what I meant.” Jon Michael Darga (RC 2014) is an editor veal something that is more truth than much. But she smiles and makes a sort “I know what you meant,” he agrees. at The Crown Publishing Group, an façade. This is right, in a way that it was of humming noise, as if she under- “We’re all serving our own sentenc- imprint of Penguin Random House; and a not when he was atop her. stands. es.” She giggles, but a giggle sounds reader for the literary journal Midwestern It feels as if everything that came “For me, it’s intent,” she says. “Any act wrong, and she clasps her hands over Gothic, where he co-created their Voices before was prelude. is forgivable, depending on the intent.” her mouth, and he can’t tell if she’s of the Middle West lit fests. He attended “What,” she asks, when they are done, Her voice lowers and lowers in volume, mocking him for doing the same thing the Columbia Publishing Course and “is the worst thing that you could until her consonants sound like the a moment earlier. “That pretension was moved to New York City shortly after accept?” sputtering of a flame. on purpose.” graduation, where he still lives. “How do you mean?” he asks, though “That makes sense. But accidental “I’m sure it was.” 104 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 105 Jane Goodall & Tom Cruise

“Find what you love and let it kill you.” — Charles Bukowski

It was four weeks until authorities discovered Two Poems the sluggish, grunt-like nature to Jane’s vocal techniques Logan Corey and movements were symptoms of a larger problem, specif- ically, the crafty gorilla using Jane’s hollowed out skin as a human disguise of sorts experts suspect this key factor also contributed to Jane’s sudden drastic increase in body size over the past Likewise four weeks it’s been decided the gorilla will be allowed to publish his these are my people findings for the past four weeks as long as he agrees to stop who mistreat cashmere sweaters submitting articles written under the Goodall name stolen Salvation Army who fish boxes Tiffany blue * * * upturn garbage can New York City who memorize Bryant Park The Church of Scientology has issued an newness, plaster discarded circulation leaflets official day of mourning to commemorate in grimy spirals against a mouthy palate the deceased, who travel by discount commuter train who was unpleasantly crushed earlier today, borrowed boxcar redeye voyage when the L.A. billboard featuring Mr. Cruise’s likeness who never buy leapt free of its hinges and pitched straight downward, tickets to sold out shows, deftling splitting Mr. Cruise’s skull wide open along his hair- who search the bottom of the barrel line’s subtle point, which, incidentally, revealed nothing but and reevaluate the notion of food cybersparks and smoking gears as substitute who buy the biggest, cheapest bottles for insides of foulest champagne, and toast wordless speeches to friends they cannot afford to keep who have never touched their foot soles against another country’s soil-stem and spend their days manual-clutch training optic nerve lenses in worship of counterfeit grail that manic-gleam reflects the uninhabitable absence of Here. Logan Corey (RC 2013) is director of admissions at the RC. She was editor of the Residential College Review in 2013. These poems are reprinted from the 2013 issue. “Likewise” also appeared in her honors collection, The Leather Lotus, and in the 2013 Literary Statement issue of the Michigan Daily.

106 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 107 color, a technique that some of the old- thing of a bookworm. She thought that er mermaids favored, but looks weren't joining the swim team would maybe exactly a priority for her nowadays. The help with a social life, but it had yielded Incident had changed her priorities. nothing. She was, of course, one of the Lily wasn't entirely sure why Androm- fastest swimmers on the team, but that eda even let her attend high school. ended up working against her; the girls Andromeda's grandmother, Astrid, had pegged her as a show-off, and none been fooled by a human; her grandfa- of them had even attempted to get to ther, Phillip, had seemed like a fantastic know her outside of swim practice. guy at first. He wooed Astrid, who in Lily, an introvert by nature, was turn married him and later bore his chil- dreading having to take over the dren, including Andromeda's mother, throne from Celeste; the Bay's mermaid Ruthven; but later, when Astrid aged, a flock was currently scattered, and it younger woman caught Phillip's atten- made it hard to govern. It's not like tion, and he dumped Astrid. Shamed, they even had a future—all of the mer- Astrid sought out an enchantress, and men and even the merboys were gone, was able to get her mermaid body now—but Celeste insisted on moving back; she then returned back to the sea, forward like no time had passed at all. Pearls Before Swine bringing her babies—who were, by that Today was a new day though, and Liz Parker point, teenagers—home with her. anything could happen. In the past few years, though, An- dromeda had tired of home-schooling 2:30 p.m.: swim team practice It had been three years since the that. That was her and Andromeda's Lily, and had asked her if she would be Lily stumbled a bit while walking into Incident, but Lily still wasn't allowed business, and no one else's. From the willing to undergo the Triton Clause, the locker room; some days she still felt out past 9 p.m. She fought this tooth hours of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., when she which would give her “sea legs” and unsure using her legs, even though it and nail, of course, but Andromeda was was at her high school, she was a nor- allow her to get by in the human world. had been two years now. Lara Kenne- firm: no swimming past that hour. This mal human. As normal as a mermaid The Triton Clause would permit her to dy, team captain and resident mean meant a lot of hanging around—and a can be, anyways, while passing for a attend school, get her high school di- girl, snickered at Lily as Lily righted lot of pouting—but Andromeda would human. She came home to the Bay at ploma, and eventually come back and herself. Lara hated Lily, because Lily not change her mind. 5 p.m. daily, after swim practice had let lead the Bay as their queen. Lily's aunt, was the fastest swimmer on the team; Lily had never led a sheltered life, out for the evening, did her homework Celeste, was currently running things Lara wanted some of those first place but she was becoming more and more while sunning herself on the rocks, as the temporary queen, but her reign medals for herself. cloistered since the Incident. Androm- then put the completed homework in had been going on for far too long; During practice, they separated into eda kept tabs on her at all times, and the backpack that she left in the bush- after the Incident, Andromeda was too three groups, based on ability—Lily she was only allowed out for school es, nearby, and came back to Androm- shaken up to lead, and the agreement was always in group #1—and they and after-school activities. It wasn't like eda for the night. was made that Celeste would take practiced holding their breath. The she had any friends, anyways—the girls In her heydey, Andromeda had her place, at least until Lily finished other girls constantly complained at school thought she was the school been a stunner, but stress was starting high school and was of age (though, about Coach Gold's “Gold Fish Club,” as weirdo, despite her athletic prowess— to show. Mermaids don't get lines technically, a mermaid could be made he called it, but Lily didn't; she could but there had always been the hope on their faces like humans do, but a queen at Lily's present age of 16). breathe underwater as a human, still, of friendship, and now that hope was Andromeda used to have light blonde, Lily was on the accelerated route—in though the other swimmers didn't dashed. almost translucent hair; at present, and out of school in three years— know that. Lily had a unique home life situa- that hair was half grey. She could have which probably didn't help her social To make it into the Gold Fish Club, tion, but people didn't need to know used kelp to dye it back to its original status; it made her a nerd and some- you had to swim one length of the pool

108 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 109 while not breathing. Get to the other own age to talk to—and Andromeda the residents of the Bay were happy. were encouraged to attend these, too, side, take a quick breath. Then repeat. eventually acquiesced. There hadn't been a pearl culling in but Andromeda was busy with Jack, You were allowed one breath per lap, Lily shrugged. “I know you like to years and years, and the mer-people and Lily was still too young to go; the if needed. Do that for twenty laps, and control everything, Mother, but even had almost forgotten about it. The minimum age was 16. If Damon had you secured yourself a spot in the Club. you can't control the weather.” humans, however, had not forgotten. just spent one more day away from Only five swimmers were in it, currently, She flapped her fins and swam over Many moons ago, mermaids and the Bay, maybe things would have including Lily and also Lara, although to where her mother was lounging. mermen were selfish creatures; they been different – maybe he would have Lara had the slowest time of the five. “Where's Aunt Celeste? Wasn't she took what they wanted, when they survived. For Lily, the challenge was actually holding court today?” wanted. Legend states that the very Celeste and others had spotted remembering to take that one breath Andromeda sighed. “You know your first pearl was taken from a human— the fishing boats earlier in the day, per lap. The first time they had done aunt. After court she likes to linger. It's though originally, of course, grown in and the Bay inhabitants knew to stay the challenge, she hadn't breathed at the only day she wears all her baubles, the sea—and ripped off her neck by a away. Mermaids who were caught by all, and the girls thought she was just too, so she likes the girls to admire her mermaid who was posing as a human fisherman rarely survived—even if being a show-off, per “usual.” After this jewelry before she stows it away again.” at the time. The human/mermaid they knew how to invoke the Triton happened a few times, though, they Celeste was Andromeda's younger couldn't deny herself the beautiful Clause—and if they did, they were started to wonder how she did it; rath- sister, and her complete opposite: An- object, and ripped the pearl necklace viewed as oddities, perhaps curiosities er than be the focus of their gossip, she dromeda had been a bit of a tomboy off the woman's throat; all of the pearls at best. At worst, they were placed started taking the one breath that was growing up, whereas Celeste loved to littered the ground, except the larg- in the county zoo with the other sea allowed, even though technically she dress up. Celeste was especially proud est of the bunch, which the mermaid “animals.” didn't need it. of her pearl collection, which had been grabbed, and made a mad dash for the Later in the day, the boats were scavenged from various corners of the exit. The mermaid, who ironically was stationed directly over the Bay, and 5:30 p.m., the Bay world: Japan, Australia, Israel. named Sapphire, brought the pearl the mermaids and mermen had been Lily normally rode her bicycle home The pearl obsession was what had home to the Bay, and our people were cautious all day long, as to not get in from school every day, but today the caused the royal family's troubles, able to extract its essence and make the way of the humans. However, the weather had been ghastly and raining; though; because of this, Lily was sur- more pearls from it. natives were starting to get restless. she came home half an hour late. An- prised that Andromeda still permitted Since then, pearls from the Bay have “This is getting a bit ridiculous, An- dromeda, of course, was furious. Celeste to showcase them, much less been considered precious, and humans dromeda,” said Damon. “Yes, the boats “Where have you been?” she de- wear them to court meetings. dredged the Bay every year during the have been parked here all day, but we manded. “I was worried sick.” summer, looking for pearls to wear and can't let ourselves be trapped in our Lily rolled her eyes. “I had to bike Three years ago sell. home like this.” home in the rain.” Lily was thirteen years old when the Celeste had been a human for an Andromeda narrowed her eyes at Andromeda glowered at her. “Well Incident occurred. At that point, her extended period of time at one point, him. “It's not safe to go out. You know maybe if you didn't insist on doing family still included her father, Damon, and passed along a rumor that the Bay that.” extracurriculars after school, you could and the baby of the family, Jack, of was empty of pearls. All of them must Ever the stubborn merman, Damon, have avoided the weather and arrived whom she adored. Jack, at two years have been found, she said, winking too, glowered at Andromeda. “I know home earlier.” old, was still just a toddler; Damon and slyly at whichever male companion that I need to be careful. But I won't Andromeda didn't like Lily being Andromeda had found themselves was with her at the time. Word got allow their actions to control mine.” on the swim team, but she also didn't with a surprise pregnancy on their around, and eventually the fishermen, The royal family's abode was in a want to attract suspicion by having hands, but Jack had made their little as well as those wanting to make a master suite in a sunken yacht, which Lily engage in no extracurriculars at family of four complete, and everyone quick profit, stopped coming to the had been at the bottom of the ocean all. Lily begged and begged her for was in love with him, the only baby Bay. This year, however, would prove to for ages and ages. Damon swam to the permission—this was Before, when she merboy in the Bay at the time. be different. top of their quarters, and gave An- thought she might actually make some This was Before – when Andromeda Damon had just returned from a dromeda a steely look. “I won't allow friends at school, and have people her was Queen, and Damon was King, and food-gathering expedition. Women our family to be stuck here until when-

110 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 111 ever those humans decide to leave.” Lily stared at the grisly scene before for yourself.” when they were very young, and since Damon had never been a fan of her. Lily stifled a laugh. “She's kind of then, Andromeda had always looked humans, and thus was definitely not a It was a massacre. Forty-nine mer- telling the truth, Mom. When was the out for Celeste. It made Lily sad to think fan of the Triton Clause. He especially men—the entirety of their mermen last time you went out and had some that she never got to meet Ruthven, didn't approve of Celeste using it, but population—and fifteen merboys had fun on the Bay?' but it was what it was; Andromeda then again, Celeste had quite a few been slaughtered. Lily couldn't bear Celeste nodded in agreement. “Se- and Celeste never really got to know enemies; she was never afraid to speak to look, and turned away, wanting to riously, Andie, my niece is right. When their mother either, as Andromeda was her mind, which often caused drama. vomit. was the last time we had cocktails over only four years old when she passed. Damon disappeared out of the room. Half of her family – gone. at Bayside? Pierre makes a mean marti- Andromeda told Lily that she has oc- “Damon!” cried Andromeda. “Come ni, you know.” casional memories of Ruthven, but for back!” Present day Pierre, like all of the mermen who the most part, she doesn't remember She grabbed Jack and swam after Celeste, always her bubbly self, currently resided in the Bay, was a anything from that early part of child- Damon, leaving Lily alone in the room. suddenly appeared out of nowhere. transplant – he had migrated there hood – and Celeste was only one year “Mom?” she said, tentatively. Lily quick- “Andromeda, darling!” she trilled. “Lily. from a nearby mer-colony. old at the time, so she had no memo- ly debated if she should swim after How are we?” Andromeda glared at Celeste. She ries of their mother at all. them or stay there, safe, in the room, Lily shrugged. “Fine. I had a lot of hated being called Andie, which Ce- but family loyalty won out; she swam homework today, and Mom is giving leste knew perfectly well; yet, Celeste One day later as fast as she could towards the sound me grief about getting home late, but continued to use the insufferable Andromeda and Lily swam up to Bay- of her mother's voice. otherwise good. How are you?” nickname. side, the Bay's best restaurant and bar, What she found, a few minutes later, “Marvelous, just marvelous,” Celeste “I don't drink anymore,” Andromeda according to Celeste; whom, of course, made her speechless, and to this day is beamed. “Court was very productive said, frostily. was biased, since she and Pierre always still hard for her to think about. today. We decided on some new neck- “Remember all the fun times we flirted madly with each other. Andromeda, sobbing over baby lace options for the merladies, and had when we were in our early 20s?” “Yoo-hoo!” Celeste cried, beckoning Jack's lifeless mer-body. Damon, a few also what we want to serve at the Bay Celeste teased. them to the bar area. “I'm over here.” feet away, completely still. And the rest dinner that's coming up soon.” There was no drinking age in the Bay, Andromeda and Lily approached the of the mermen and mer-children—but Andromeda rolled her eyes. For all though it was frowned upon to drink bar, and Celeste grabbed the Mai Tai only the males—floating beside them. of the hardships that came with being before the age of seventeen. Lily was that she had been drinking and swam All were dead. queen, Celeste seemed to revel in the looking forward to the day when she down from her bar stool. “I was just “What happened?” cried Lily. She frivolous obligations of the role; obli- could try a mixed drink; some of the catching up with Pierre while I waited noticed a few pearls bobbing besides gations which Andromeda had never concoctions that Pierre made sounded for you two.” She winked at Pierre, and the bodies, in the water, which nor- cared about. marvelous. followed Andromeda and Lily to their mally would have been a pretty sight; Lily perked up. “When is the Bay “Fine,” Andromeda acquiesced. “One table. instead, it added confusion to the dinner?” drink. I can do tomorrow if Lily comes A waitress asked Andromeda if she chaotic scene. “I've told you about a billion times,” too.” would like anything, and she ordered a Andromeda threw herself onto a huffed Celeste. “It's a week from today. “So glad I was able to fit into your rum and soda; Lily ordered a raspberry nearby rock, inconsolable. And I'd better see both of you there! schedule,” laughed Celeste. “See you smoothie for herself. “The fisherman,” she sobbed. “They Especially you, Andromeda,” she tomorrow, Andie.” “So, sister … what's new?” Celeste wanted the pearls, and your father got rebuked her. “You know your loyal sub- Celeste fluttered away, and Androm- asked Andromeda, twirling the colorful in the way. Jack swam over to him and jects are missing you these days ever eda sighed, turning to Lily. “I always mini umbrella in her drink. “It's been they murdered him too.” since you've become a hermit.” have been a pushover when it comes ages. And Lily, how are you fitting in “But how did the other mermen die?” Andromeda loudly sighed. “Sister, to Celeste,” she said. “It's been like that that human school of yours?” Lily cried. “And the merboys?” I've never been a hermit. I'm content ever since we were young.” Celeste had in fact gone to high “It looks like they were playing near with staying home, is all, and not Lily's grandmother—Andromeda school too, but soon became bored of the boats as well,” Andromeda said. frolicking every night, like you prefer and Celeste's mother, Ruthven—died it; she dropped out when she had only 112 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 113 completed two of her four years, and that we don't discuss it in front of Lily.” her stomach. Celeste against a large rock. came back to the Bay to hang out with Lily's curiosity was piqued. “I'd like to Andromeda turned to Celeste and “You've always been selfish, but I her friends. hear the story,” she said. gave her a piercing look. “Did you reasoned it was because Mother had Lily laughed. “You can just call it Celeste patted Lily on the back. “No, somehow orchestrate my husband died young and you were the baby of 'school,' Aunt Celeste. And it's fine.” your mother is right,” she remarked and my son's deaths? Please tell me I'm the family,” Andromeda said to Celeste. Andromeda gave her a sharp look. coquettishly. “She did win Damon fair wrong on this.” Andromeda sounded almost calm now, “You just told me the other day that and square, after all. No use dredging Celeste half-smiled for a second. and Lily was scared by this; she had it's not fine, Lily. Didn't you say you up the past.” “He was the only merman I've ever never seen her act like this before. haven't made any friends there?” “Fair and square?” Andromeda said, loved, Andromeda. And he chose “I never would have thought that you Lily squirmed in her seat. “I'm still narrowing her eyes. “Even after we be- you. Do you know how that feels? You would do something like this … so … hoping to make some friends. The oth- came a couple, you still declared your weren't even trying to find a merman; so despicable,” Andromeda whispered. er girls are just a bit difficult, is all.” love for him. He politely turned you you had no illusions of marriage! If I Celeste opened her mouth to speak. Celeste smiled at Lily. “They're prob- down, of course, and then immediately couldn't have him, I didn't want you Andromeda shoved Celeste, who ably jealous of you, Lily. Didn't you told me about it.” to have him, either. The fact that it was reeled backwards and hit her head on say you're the fastest one on the swim Celeste swiveled to look at Androm- pearl season, and that the fishermen a large rock. Suddenly, Celeste was still. team? Of course, they have no idea eda, mouth agape. “He did?” wanted the pearls anyways, was just a “Celeste?” Andromeda whispered, whom they're up against!” “Of course he did!” Andromeda happy coincidence.” putting her hands to her face. “Yeah, I'm pretty fast. I don't think exclaimed. “He was my husband – did Andromeda stood there for a minute, Lily quickly swam over to Androme- that helps much with making friends you really think he'd keep something trying to formulate words. “So you had da and Celeste's lifeless body. though,” Lily said. “The other girls like that from me?” the love of my life killed, as well as my “Mom?” Lily said. would rather come in 1st place than Celeste blushed. “I'm sorry, Andie. baby boy? What kind of a monster are “Celeste! Wake up!” Andromeda cried. see me take home all the medals at the What can I say—I was young and you?” But it was too late. meets.” foolish. You remember what it was like Celeste was starting to realize that Celeste pooh-poohed this idea. “Non- to be young, right?” she said, trying to perhaps she should have kept her Two weeks later sense. I would think they would aspire excuse her behavior. mouth shut. She started slowly swim- “Please repeat after me,” said the to be you, rather than dislike you!” Celeste was a few Mai Tai's in, and ming away towards the entrance of the magistrate. Lily struggled to keep Celeste had always been wildly opti- it was starting to show—her face was restaurant. the heavy tiara on her head, and she mistic, thought Lily wryly. red, and she was sweating a bit. “It's Andromeda, however, had anticipat- looked at her steadily. Andromeda, who rarely drank any- not like it matters now, anyways—the ed this, and grabbed Celeste by her “I, Lily McIntyre, do solemnly swear more, was halfway into her drink, and fishermen killed them all. It wasn't sup- long, blonde hair. “You—little—mer- to uphold all laws as Queen of the Bay, was feeling a little inebriated. posed to happen that way though.” whore,” she swore. “How dare you!” and to serve my people until my dying “Oh please, Celeste. You've never Andromeda blanched. “What?” Celeste chose this moment to turn breath,” she said. Lily repeated the vow had issues making friends. My little Celeste swayed a bit in her chair. on the waterworks. “I'm so sorry, after him, and the people of the Bay sister, always the belle of the ball,” she “The fisherman. They were only Andie,” she cried, “I didn't mean to do it. cheered. remarked. supposed to kill Damon, not the other I've regretted it ever since. And the rest It has been two long weeks since Ce- Celeste's smile faltered slightly. “Well, mermen and merboys.” of the mermen and merboys weren't leste's death. Andromeda was currently not always, Andie. As I recall, I ap- Andromeda gasped. “What are you supposed to be killed—that was truly being tried for her murder, although proached Damon first with an offer to talking about?” an accident!” her lawyer had been able to get the dance, at the Bay Dinner, but he chose In an instant, Celeste seemed to “I don't believe anything that you charge of 1st degree murder dropped you over me.” realize she had said too much, and she say anymore,” yelled Andromeda, and to mer-slaughter; it was an accident, This was news to Lily. “Really? What put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God. she grabbed Celeste and threw her after all. happened?” Nothing, Andromeda. I don't know outside. Lily, as the only witness, will have Andromeda glared at Celeste. “That's what I'm talking about, I'm drunk.” Lily, shell-shocked, swam outside as to testify in front of the court in a few ancient history, Celeste, and I prefer Lily had a strange feeling in the pit of well, only to see Andromeda pinning months, but she first had to attend 114 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 115 to the more pressing business of the she said. “You will be Queen, and it Bay being without a queen. Lily had to does not behoove a queen to visit a drop out of school early, citing family murderer in jail every day.” problems—not entirely untrue—and “You're hardly a murderer, Mom,” said promised the Bay school district that Lily. “It was an accident.” she would eventually get her GED. Andromeda looked at Lily, unwav- Although Lily was heartbroken at the ering. loss of her aunt and also of her moth- “That may be. But you're queen now, er's freedom, all in one fell swoop, she Lily. You can take care of yourself. All I knew that the Bay needed a leader, ask of you is that you remember who and she was determined to be that you are, and that at one point in time, leader for them. we were a family,” she said, crying. “I The day before, she had visited wish your aunt hadn't poisoned that Andromeda in jail, which was in a for you, and I'm sorry that we can't be smaller shipwreck close by to the yacht a family anymore.” that Andromeda and Lily had formerly Lily tried to hug her mother through inhabited. As queen, Lily was expect- the bars, but Andromeda pushed her ed to live in the royal family yacht, a away. “Go, now,” she said, wiping her E.J. and the Trojan Horse different shipwreck where Celeste had face. “Please don't come back.” Daniel Madaj formerly lived. “Of course I'm coming to visit,” Lily “So the coronation is tomorrow?” said. “Mom?” she pleaded. Summer Instead E.J. moped, and hoped that Andromeda had asked Lily. Andromeda turned her back on Lily, things would warm when she returned “Yes,” Lily said. and sat down on the floor in her cell. Wasn’t it a Russian writer who said to town in a few weeks. But no. “You will be a great queen,” Androm- “Mom,” Lily said, in a choked voice. that smart things are done uniquely, No doubt E.J. was the new face eda said, clasping Lily's hands in hers. “I Andromeda did not turn around. but dumb things are done in generic illustrating the dictionary definition of know you will.” dumbness? He might have gone on to stupid, but he had to wonder: Bushy “But what about you? How are you When Lily eventually falls asleep say that there’s never a good time to or clean-shaven? Tortured, guilty, in doing?” Lily asked. the next night, after the coronation, do something dumb, but that some denial? It was some time later before Andromeda shrugged. “I'll be fine,” she does so with a heavy heart. She times are worse than others. he started to see that if something was she said, obviously lying. dreams of the Bay and its people; and Well, anyway, Emil Joseph Jackson too fragile to withstand one blow it The Queen was allowed to pardon she sees Damon and Jack, who wave at picked a bad time: Dotty was home could hardly be durable. By then he had her subjects, but when it came to her, from the recesses of the dark sea. to England midsummer to visit family moved on to other, hopefully less stupid family, an impartial second advisor and friends. “E.J.” waited and waited for things. had to also agree with the Queen's Liz Parker (RC 2009) is an editor for Snack some “special hash” she had promised. His focus on the stupidity obscured pardoning. The whole Bay knew what Food & Wholesale Bakery magazine, a Overcome with an odd righteousness, the central point: why did he get so an- had transpired between Andromeda business-to-business publication cov- ignoring their surprisingly good spring gry and feel such injustice? This would and Celeste; however, although most ering the snack and bakery industry. In together, he sent a snippy, hurtful text. complicate every romance and most agreed that after her confession, Ce- her spare time, she runs two blogs: Yes/ Dotty replied: We’re done. every friendship for many years.... It leste deserved to die, Andromeda still No Detroit, and Books I Think You Should E.J. sent apologies, flowers. He was like he kept something radioactive needed to serve time for the events Read. She also writes “Best of Detroit” should have bought a plane ticket locked away in a suitcase locked away that had transpired. articles for CBS Detroit. While in the and flown over. Not that it would have in a closet, but the radiation eventually “I'll visit you every day,” said Lily, RC, Liz was the recipient of a Hopwood done any good: even Dotty didn’t yet leaked out. He needed to open that tearing up. Award (Cowden Fellowship) for fiction. fully understand that when she closes suitcase, deal with what was inside, or Andromeda hardened. “No, don't,” Liz currently resides in Clawson, MI. a door, it never reopens. he would be carrying it around with 116 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 117 him everywhere, while it ate away at Autumn! He met Dotty last au- end of April it went to Marv Gleason, his grief he had missed the first week and everything. tumn, in the Inn, in the Experimental freshman year roommate, of all people! a half of school. “I can try to catch up College basement. The Inn had a more What was the library’s name? Some- with my classes, but I wondered if there Autumn formal name, but it now escaped him. thing like Bootlicker. Buttkicker? might be other options available.” Inn-Digenous? Inn-Digestion? Dotty It turned moot, as the library “down- Ruth stared at him impassively. Of course E.J. heard the party Botsford was a first-year student from sized” over the summer, and was now “You could drop out and leave town,” around him, Sunday night, the first England (her parents had met at the hardly larger than a broom closet. It she quipped, then waited, as if for a weekend of fall term. E.J. spent most of university), seated with her two room- seemed to operate like a kind of vend- drumroll. “Well, there is this Aristo- that evening face down in bed, in “his mates, Deb and Casey. ing machine.... phanes project,” she said. “I think they’ll and Dotty’s” room in the three-bed- E.J. had been in the small game Usually, the Inn closed every sum- still looking for a token male so the room he shared with fellow writing room to the side, frustrated as usual mer but would surely be open by now. project doesn’t look too skewed towards majors Lou Mothersbaugh and Gus with his poor showing at the Inn’s It wasn’t. In fact, the sign was gone. He women.” She checked things on her Jamison. E.J. heard the music, the ancient pinball game, a version of Rap- stood before the door, rather stupidly, computer, then texted a brief message. babble of the visitors, smelled the ciga- pacchini’s Daughter where the player until someone called out to him from “Yes....” She sent him down to room 112. rette and grass smoke. takes on the role of young Giovanni a dorm doorway. Didn’t you hear? It’s And from time to time he heard his and infiltrates the poison garden (one been shut down.... E.J. stood before the door. It looked bedroom door opening.... ball active), adjusting to the various like any other dorm room, except for The next morning, he waited until poisons just enough to convince The XC administrative offices were a taped handwritten note, “Aristo.” He everyone had left the apartment, Beatrice to escape with him (two balls on the first floor, set off on the south was about to knock when the door flew then hobbled down the hallway to active), engineering an escape (three side near the southern-most entrance. open, almost smacking his nose. He the bathroom, bleary, heart-broken, balls), then nursing himself back to The office seemed unchanged: a surpris- stepped back. Sylvie St. John, sobbing, troubled, but finally too bored to stay health and her to a new chemistry of ingly large room with several desks, win- stepped out. Tall, too thin, with long, inert. health. And then presumably living dows along the back wall, and then an shiny black hair, she looked woesome in E.J. looked in the mirror. As usual, together, happily ever after. After office to either side, one for the admin- that way that was too painfully familiar. he didn’t like his beard; it looked like a countless quarters spent, E.J. has never istrative manager, the other the director. Before he could think, he put his arms matt of iron filings hugging a magnet. been able to restore Giovanni, which You just knew that when the building around her. She collapsed into him, Or his hair, a bristly bush. But then, seemed a bitter but fitting metaphor was next renovated this space would sobbing harder. He held her head gently he didn’t like himself clean-shaven or for his romantic failures. be slashed to the size of a dumpster. It with one hand and he steered her tears with his hair short or slicked back. His With one last quarter in his pocket, was the middle of a Monday afternoon onto the front of his left shoulder. Good- nose seemed too large; all his features he decided to use it on a song from the in the second week of the semester, and ness, did he kiss her on the top of the seemed crowded into the middle of jukebox. He picked a new solo song the place was quiet, two of the three head? his face. Some times it looked just the from one of the Barberless Quartet, desks vacant, and the XC director’s office “Thanks, E.J.,” she mumbled, stepped opposite: tiny little features spread out and one of Dotty’s roommates piped dark and locked up. back, and gave him a piercing look of against a vast wasteland.... up that the Barbers were also Dotty’s Ruth Warshington was the young appreciation. favorite, why not sit and join us? woman at the one occupied desk. E.J. An older woman appeared at the How long had be been hibernat- couldn’t remember why he and Ruth door, wearing a slight smile. “You must ing? Stepping out onto the sidewalk, it Thinking about Dotty and the Inn disliked each other, but he assumed the be E.J.,” she said. “I see you already know was no longer summer. Mid-Septem- on the walk to the XC, he headed break-up with Dotty only made it worse. Sylvie.” ber: moderate, not humid. The big ma- downstairs. He was going to ask for a “I was an idiot,” E.J. offered. “I’ve ple out front still had a head of green, job. He’d never worked in a restaurant, apologized, tried to make amends, but Justine Nesbitt wasn’t a creative if “greying” at the temples, but several but who else ordered more hippie nothing seems to work.” writing major when she started at the shrubs were flame red and a few trees fries? He had assumed he’d be head Sally smiled with some satisfaction at Experimental College. She was in the up the road had already yellowed or librarian at the dorm’s library, thought this, as if a lifetime of misery would only XC’s second class; the creative writing browned. he had the inside track, but then at the start his penance. He told her that in his program hadn’t started yet.

118 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 119 Justine was a star journalist in high about these details, but Justine could crafted proposals, and eventually one dents would win the competitions, and school, as much as such a thing is possi- see the outline clearly enough. Most ex- was funded. awards are always a good way to spruce ble, and she came to college to get a de- ternal details about Costa were slightly His caveat? That she agree to meet up a resume and get attention. gree in journalism. During the summer vague, but it seemed mostly because of him in Athens at Christmas during the The Trojan Horse? Students would before her freshman year, the university a boundless restlessness, a yearning for project, assuming she was not in a seri- study Greek plays, maybe even learn sent her and all other incoming students new things. ous relationship. Or even if she was. Greek, then work towards writing a note describing the XC and inviting Costa lived well and probably two ten-minute plays to perform, one applications. Justine was intrigued; she beyond his means, so it was not a Justine ushered E.J. into the modest humorous, one dramatic, for a brief applied, was accepted. surprise to find him adept at grants- office and gestured to a scruffy, padded modern competition similar to the old Justine remained committed to manship, if not outright tax-dodging. chair that he seemed to remember from Greek ones. But the real purpose would journalism, working at the university’s He encouraged Justine to establish her the old library. She sat behind the desk be teach practical discipline about student paper; she was editor-in-chief own foundation (which she didn’t do) and tidied up a few folders there. She writing for a specific audience. Almost in her senior year. But along the way or at least to “find ways to get others smiled, and E.J. realized that she was amusedly, Justine thought to indulge she discovered drama, first in the XC, to pay for things you would like to see younger than he thought. He squinted. her personal belief that drama, and writ- then in the larger university. Drama led happen.” He said that if you’re going to 30, maybe? She was dressed well, min- ing specifically, are fundamental tools to a class on television arts. Meanwhile, end up paying taxes, why not use those imal make-up. He recognized a quality for every writer.... when a junior, Hayley van der Berg was payments to subsidize things you want that he had in short supply: self-confi- She opened a chocolate. The bar hired to teach creative fiction.... to see prosper? Which she eventually dence. He reached up and patted at his had an unusual name, Ygias. She then Justine won a Ficklehart Award for did with the Aristophanes Project. hair, wondering how disorganized and carefully folded the wrapper into smaller a tv screenplay, which led to a summer She was coming back to the area self-conscious he looked. and smaller squares. At first, E.J. thought internship in LA, her junior year, working regularly to visit her aging mother, Justine was smiling because she she might be folding it into an origamic for a small tv writers conglomerate. They and dropped in periodically to see saw in E.J. several possible solutions. horse. She opened a drawer and offered liked her; they offered her a job after Hayley and other teachers at the XC. For one, he was male, which the Project him samples: “ all successful bribes from graduation. The university had been pounding her needed, and for two, he would be the the Ion candy company.” Perhaps it was her earlier focus on with generic requests for money, but fourth of four Project students. For They talked about the Trojan Horse, journalism, but Justine found herself she found the requests hollow, even if three, he might have a further calming and about how unexpected outcomes able to be creative within the narrow the caller was usually an earnest young and sustaining effect on Sylvie, who a can arise from seemingly clear begin- confines of television writing: be cre- man breathlessly telling her about the moment before was considering leaving nings. ative, but none of the main characters exciting opportunities made possible by the Project and perhaps even dropping “That’s what I mean about the Trojan can change and the plot should wrap alums just like her. She assumed male out of school. Sylvie’s boyfriend, Rex, Horse,” Sylvie said. “Unexpected out- up within the episode, which currently alums were called by equally charming had apparently dumped her; apparently comes, at least for the recipient. meant within about 35 minutes of on- young women. this violated Sylvie’s unviolatable 50 year “That’s what.caught my eye about screen time. Oh, and keep it simple. This led her to muse: what if there plan, leaving her plan-less. Sylvie,” she said. ” Did you know she won Justine prospered. was something specific and desirable at Justine described the Aristophanes a Ficklehart Award this summer for a She might argue that she prospered the XC? Would I give to that? Of course Project, but spoke more about the spring story about the concept?” too well: for one thing, dating was she would. So she mused about what Trojan Horse. Back in L.A. when she saw No, he didn’t. In fact, he knew almost difficult. Men seemed intimidated by that would be, which in quick order the Aristophanes play, she remembered nothing about Sylvie, except what he her success. One who wasn’t was Costa led her to imagine the Aristophanes the annual theatric competitions that had learned in the last few moments: Papagalos, whom she bumped into at Project. But she found it impossible to Aristophanes, Sophocles, and others that she was suffering from his sad ill- a local LA production of Aristophanes’ set the wheels in motion at the univer- participated in. She saw a matrice ness, and that she hadn’t clobbered him Lysistrata. They shared a drink after, sity; it became clear that it would be that could train writers to work within when he hugged her. and had a brief relationship. It might immensely better if the Project already narrow parameters, which she saw as Justine happened to be a guest read- have been more than brief if he wasn’t existed, or had external funds to bring it necessary for success as a writer in the er for the summer Fickleharts, and when already married; he was always vague into existence. So with Costa’s help, she real world. Plus, one or more of the stu- she read Sylvie’s story, she knew she had 120 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 121 her first Project student. was “immersing” with an Italian tutor/ that room for the rest of the academic effort wasn’t changing her mind. Then “The story is about someone distrib- girlfriend.... Rex was gone. The Plan was year, but that was only mostly true. E.J. decided to “be positive,” which first uting counterfeit coins that mimicked dead! took the form of awkward love letters to ancient ones; there was no financial Hayley Van der Berg kept details Dotty and then to Sylvie, embarrassingly fraud involved; the purpose was to E.J. wanted to look for Sylvie. But of her own story discreet, but most transparent wishes that the universe inspire curiosity and wonder. ” first he forced himself to look for work.... students knew she ran the XC’s fic- smile more broadly on these relation- Justine asked E.J. about his writing Sure, the thing with Justine might pan tion writing program. Trim, compact, ships. and then asked about administrative out, but with the Inn gone and the earnest, intense, she had a reputation as Consequently, E.J. was not one of background. He had worked a bit at the library gone.... fair and even-tempered, if stoic to the Hayley’s students recommended to Jus- library, and in high school had done He went to university counseling point of inscrutabilty. It would surprise tine for the Aristophanes Project. She office work. Heck, she might use him to to ask about fellowships. Yeah, may- no one that she was herself a writer; she recommended two; one, Darla Marbury, run things locally so she didn’t have to be there was one for stupidity. (He wrote manuals and instruction pieces was selected. make so many trips! promised himself he would fund such for industry which brought in a steady a fellowship, later, if one didn’t already second income. But she also wrote They never discussed it, but E.J. and Justine knew little of Sylvie’s 50 Year exist.) Since the semester was underway, detective fiction, under the pseudonym Sylvie cohabitated in a pleasant limbo: Plan. The Plan began when she was 12, the wait was not long. He was called Piso Cuidado. Sylvie was waiting for Rex to come to his so you might say it was now in its 43rd into a small office where a thin, nervous Cuidado’s stories are popular in senses, and E.J. waited for Dotty. At least year, but it didn’t hit its stride until 11th man with orange hair and an inordinate Argentina and Central America, where at first. grade, when she was 16, when she and amount of figurines lining his desktop middle-aged detective Niño en la Canis- Rex started dating. She knew then that and bookshelves gestured for him to ta solved seemingly unsolvable mys- E.J. loved to watch Sylvie when he he was The One, even though he was sit. The counselor perked up when he teries with the aid of the psychedelic thought she didn’t notice, although a year younger and just in 10th grade. heard about the Greek things. If you’d drug asahuenga. Cuidado followed the the truth is that she noticed almost They’d both go to the same college, take Ancient Greek, a stipend! Courtesy standard detective formula for the first everything. That was actually one of she’d major in anthropology, he’d be an of the Greek Antiquities Council. E.J. books in the series, but increasingly the her problems. Tall, too thin, with long engineer, they’d marry when he had his was good at language.... And hey, if by drug is causing a spiritual and existential black hair, she was very pretty, perhaps degree, they’d live on the west coast, chance you took ancient as well as mod- crisis. Of course, the publisher worries moreso because she didn’t wear make- eventually have two children, a boy and ern, well, more money. Courtesy of the about where this is going, but so far up and didn’t draw attention to herself. a girl .... Greek Tourist Agency. He could take the sales have been strong, so worries have If you didn’t know her, you would likely But the plan was not specific about two language classes, his tutorial, and been pushed to the future. There are find her guarded or worried or thinking the summer after Rex graduated high the two Aristophanes classes, 15 credits. talks about movie adaptations. about events somewhere else. Even if school, and he had a chance to attend Perfect. And the stipends would more Hayley wanted to explore a the- you did know her, these would be nor- college early, that spring. Wouldn’t it be than he could hope to make working 8 ory that people are drawn to writing mal states. cool if she also took spring classes and hours a week.... as a way to better detail one’s sexual they lived together? It sounded good. fantasies. This seemed true of her male E.J. periodically hacked at his big She took two classes, including a writing It was late when he finally reached students; when they’re not exploring head of red-brown hair and his big class, because it was available and be- Sylvie’s door. (He had read the num- the miserable pointlessness of human red-brown beard, always being sculpted cause she had heard good things about ber off a sheet on Justine’s desk). He life (as if the first one to truly see it that or shorn into a mustache or Manchu or van der Berg. Living together was great. knocked. Waited, waited. way), they’re writing about their own something as E.J. struggled to find an She wrote that story.... The door opened. Sylvie smiled. sexual parts (as if the first one to ever identity he liked. Mountain man? Not so But during the spring Rex bumped “I just wanted to make sure you were have them). much. Clean-faced youngster? Not so into the Immersive Language Program, okay....” EJ began. Both themes were big for E..J., at much. and before Sylvie knew otherwise She kissed him. She pulled him gen- least at the start. But then he abruptly Rex was moving into the Italian dorm, tly into her room, and shut the door. turned to space opera, which Hayley Early in October, Sylvie got very sick referred to himself as Giovanni, and E.J. wanted to say that he stayed in hated: she didn’t like sf and E.J.’s tepid with flu. Dispite a nimbus of toxicity and 122 • RC Alumni Journal RCAlumni Journal • 123 exhaustion, she willed herself to class hallucinogist E.J. recognized as pre- side of a near mound and picked it them; he was crazy enough on his own. and kept up with schoolwork. And she flight warm-up. “How many imposters up. Improbably, it was in fact Dotty’s If anything, drugs dumbed him down. resisted every effort of E.J.’s to help. “Let do you think there are, like here in the earring from last year, lost somewhere This wouldn’t all come together until me get you some ramen!” he would audience?” she asked. Without turning on the walk from the arena to the XC. It some time later, after he and Chrysanthe complain. “Let me wipe your forehead!” his head her boyfriend conversationally must have been lost in the grass, and became a couple. In some ways, she But no. The most she would concede: if replied, “Well, let’s see, there’s you, and now.... Stunned, he offered it to her. She became his anchor. But let’s not get too E.J. replenished the ibuprofen, and left me....” Then the music blasted forth. looked at it, laughed, and walked ahead, far ahead of ourselves. the bottle out on the top corner of the E.J. was only passingly familiar with leaving him alone with the earring in his dresser, she might nod in his direction the Imposters, but found the concert hand. After homesteading began to fall when she took out a pill. pleasant enough. He would not have apart, Milton called his parents and thought to conjecture whether the Sylvie was still up, in bed, reading. got a ride back to school. You’d think Last year, E.J. and Dotty had ushered lead singer sounded different, acted She asked about the concert, heard the they’d be furious with him, but mostly several large concerts; it was a good way younger, or stayed away from quieter whole story. She couldn’t help but smile they were glad to have him back and to hear music for free. E.J. had forgot- and more reflective songs. You see, to herself: if Dotty had responded differ- delighted to see he had lost his appetite ten that he had signed up for this year, there was a rumor that the singer was ently, would E.J. even be here to tell her for recreational drugs. until a notice appeared in his e-mail in struggling with addiction recovery about it? But she was sympathetic; she But Milton was even later than E.J. late September for October’s Imposters and wanting to write more thoughtful, also placed inordinant significance on getting back into the Fall semester. In concert. less raucous material. Perhaps he was moments of augury, or at least she used fact, his air guitar playing at the Im- And it wasn’t until he met with the sequestered on a South Pacific island to to. posters concert fell on his first day back other ushers at the concert that he recover, and meanwhile was replaced She took him in her arms. Generous, in town. He wasn’t on drugs when he remembered that Dotty also signed up. with someone more rock-oriented. We she soothed him. But: she never said.... did it, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t It was probably best that he didn’t know the rumor to be true, but that’s a But she never said. very, very high. see Dotty until the crowd of ushers story for another day. gathered before their amped-up super- Late last Winter semester, a small E.J. spotted Milton in the XC lobby visor: as he looked around the group, During the last of three encores, a group of fervent believers led by Josh the next morning. He wanted to ask there she was. He nodded, smiled; she young man looking all the world like (“just Josh,” charismatic, heavily-beard- about the commune, but was afraid he nodded and smiled back. They were Milton Sharp ran up on stage, dancing, ed) stopped in town on their way to would hear something spiritual that assigned posts at opposite ends of the singing, and playing a spastic air guitar homesteading in South Dakota. Milton might infect him, ruin him before he arena; E.J. didn’t see her again until after until guards muscled him off stage. went to hear Josh’, and the next anyone had yet developed his yet-to-be-devel- the concert was over. Could it be Milton? The last E.J. knew, knew, Milton was gone to South Dakota. oped special self. Milton might have said The opening band was Blabble.... Meltin’ (as everyone called him) had The homesteading experience went that the extreme spirituality was much E.J. had never heard of them, so he got joined a religious commune out west.... largely as you’d expect: no one knew like his old drug experiences, except less an unique experience: the lead singer After the house lights came on, and much about subsistence farming, and it transient, perhaps a step closer to the at seemed to mutter incoherently, but folks left, the ushers gathered for a brief was a lot of hard work, not to mention trick of reality. then suddenly the lyrics were clear, thank-you and then also dispersed. the fact Josh didn’t help much. And then Class-wise, while it was too late for sharp, and seemingly intended for him Dotty was also headed to the XC, and this privilege extended to Josh’s women, Milton to enroll for the Fall semester, he alone! E.J. looked around: many seemed it seemed natural to walk with her. The and then his “bodyguards.” planned to finish up Incompletes from to be having the same experience! walk was about half a mile, and E.J. was But Milton liked the spirituality. At the Winter, since he had left with a few Remarkable. pleased to see how easily they fell back least it was fresh and new, at first. Even- weeks of school work not finished. E.J. No surprise: the Imposters wore into their ordinary rhythm. tually it seemed to have more to do with suggested he consider an indepen- disguises. Just as the band was about to As they walked past the piles of dirt Josh and less with anything else. dent study in Winter to reflect on his begin, E.J. saw a young woman sitting across from the XC (where yet another And although he didn’t think of commune experience, something he near him turn to her boyfriend. Her business school building was going it this way, he liked being away from could begin to work on now. He told voice had a nervous quaver that veteran up), E.J. saw something aglint on the drugs. As it turns out, he didn’t need him about the Aristophanes Project, 124 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 125 and wondered if he might be good for No sooner did everyone return from smoking or drinking to thin....but by some of us remember, she wrote it into it next year. And of course he told him the break but Justine announced a perk the time he has an opportunity, he’s so the grant that funded the Project. about Sylvie, hardly mentioning Dotty. for Project students: she herself was bamboozled he can hardly put three Finding a place to live for Milton was going to Athens for a few days around words together. The best he can do is On the plane, Justine had the win- complicated. He crashed with friends New Year’s; the Project would pay for stagger to his feet and somehow find dow, Chrysanthe the middle, and E.J. that first night; he had heard that there any Project student who wanted to his way home. the aisle. Chrysanthe’s excitement was a was “always room” at the Omega Omega come along. She’d pay airfare (roundtrip What should he do? Is this a sign that welcome distraction from E.J.’s tradition- Omega fraternity. Neither of them knew New York to Athens), and two nights in they shouldn’t be together? al brooding. They all dozed during the 9 about Omega’s parachute-less plane an Athens hotel. It turned out to be a Should he be more clever? hour flight to Athens; E.J. read a bit from jump each spring, which was one of the Grade H hotel, but it had hot water, after Yes, probably more clever, E.J. a book, studied up on Aristophanes reasons there were always vacancies. a fashion, and was, after all, free. thought to himself, not that he knew (which he had neglected to do before- E.J. was tempted to let Milton use his Three of the five of them took the much about being smart in relation- hand), and played blackjack and solitaire apartment, since he spent most of his trip to Athens: E.J., Justine, and Chrysan- ships. He couldn’t offer Fred any advice on the in-flight console. in Sylvie’s dorm room. He brought this the. other than words of consolation. Olympic Air was a Greek airline. up with Sylvie. They’ve been spending Sylvie had declined so early and so Fred dropped E.J. off at a commuter Chrysanthe asked for a snack in perfect about 70 percent of their time at his completely that E.J. couldn’t help but station just north of the city, and E.J. Greek, the stewardess responded, and apartment. Couldn’t Milton.... wonder if she had made other plans, took a train to Grand Central and then a then E.J. also asked for something, also Immediately he saw his error. It was specifically with Rex. He had done his bus out to JFK. in Greek, which pleased the stewardess. like what he had lucked into learning: best detective probing but was unsuc- Chrysanthe punched him playfully in don’t touch her, let her touch you. She cessful in learning if she saw Rex over When Chrystanthe arrived, E.J. the shoulder. had to initiate. She might have offered.... the Thanksgiving break, considering barely recognized her, and realized how Was the universe pushing them but didn’t like having it suggested! No, they both came from the same town. little attention he had paid to her even together? E.J. just shook his head, loyal, no, forget about it! We’ll find something Darla declined and then dropped out though she was in his modern Greek probably to Sylvie. else for Milton! of the Program. class. She was smaller than he remem- The plane landed, they retrieved lug- bered. Was she even 5 feet tall? Trim, gage, and Justine was suddenly saying Thanksgiving Break was short, only The three of them rendezvoused at dark haired, she blazed with an excite- goodbye! She put E.J. and Chrysanthe two days longer than a normal week- JFK in New York for the flight to Ath- ment that even E.J. couldn’t not notice. on a cab to the Byron Hotel, said she end. E.J. dutifully went home for his ens. E.J. had hitched a ride via the Ride When Justine had announced was staying elsewhere. She paused to family’s Thursday mid-day meal, and Board with Fred Stockbridge, a pleas- the Athens opportunity, Chrysanthe wish Chrysanthe a pleasant trip to her drank whiskey and watched football ant if hyper native New Yorker. They parlayed it into an extended trip to relatives’ farm, and said she’d see E.J. with his uncle and his brothers. E.J. was left around dusk, drove all night. Fred family on Xathos: she would take one back at the airport for the return flight in alarmingly distracted; first, he brooded looked haggard, but declined E.J.’s offer exam on-line, and then return after the four days. that everyone would be asking him to help drive. E.J. figured Fred must be a semester break. Chrysanthe was the first The Byron, although just half a about Dotty (they didn’t), and then, he hard partier, but eventually Fred turned recruit to Justine’s program: she was a mile or so from Syntagma Square and brooded that he couldn’t imagine bring- to E.J., sighed, and said, “There’s this girl, creative-writing major from Chicago, her within hailing distance of the Acropolis, ing Sylvie home to meet the family. Was Jill.” parents’ Greek immigrants. Chrysanthe seemed to exist in a different, more it because they weren’t actually boy- He was smitten, of course, but was was fluent in modern Greek and more run-down city. E.J.’s room was on the friend/girlfriend, despite the practical having an impossible time getting close literally interested than most in the third floor, Chrysanthe’s on the second. appearances? It seemed clear that a day enough to her, at parties, to find out specifics of the Aristophanes Project. Distracted, E.J. hardly said anything to would come, perhaps sooner than he what she thought of him. You see, she Justine arrived as boarding began. Chrysanthe as he unlocked his door, put thought, that Sylvie would be walking could handle her drugs like no one Fred She had a small carry-on satchel and his suitcase down, opened the balcony out of his life. Could it do anything else knew, and certainly more than Fred. had checked no bags. She deflected window, stepped outside. but break his silly heart? He tries to hang in, limit his con- all questions, but it was clear that this Here he was, halfway around the sumption, wait for the circle of folks holiday Greek trip was not her first. As world, and all he could do was brood 126 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 127 about Sylvie (what was she up to? upstairs feeling guilty and disloyal to (The hotel was so old, there wouldn’t seats on the plane, E.J. shared some of What would come of them?), Dotty not either offer for Chrysanthe to come be more hot water until morning). And his adventures. Justine was delighted! (was he being disloyal to have already up or for him stay down.. they only had a block of feta and a What had he learned? How were things stopped mooning for her?), and fend In the morning, they went to the bag of raisins to eat! They hadn’t seen with Chrysanthe? How were things with off this new little tickle he seemed to ruins of the arena where the original anything like a grocery or restaurant. Sylvie? be feeling for Chrysanthe! It seemed Aristo plays were performed. It was E.J. laughed. Yes, he now knew that He blurted out: first on his visit to too complex for such a simpleton. another beautiful summery day, blue Athens is a true European city: things friend at Antioch, then anon, he quickly He tried to sleep but jetlag and his skied, a few fleecy clouds, amazing are in districts, and the Byron is in what realized he was (1) over Dotty, (2) that worries distracted him. He must have vistas. They talked about writing, about appears to be the washing machine Sylvie was not as much in love with him dozed because next he knew there Aristo, about themselves. Then her cous- district. Or maybe the crumbling Grade as he was with her, and (3) Chrysanthe was a knock at the door. It took a while in appeared in a car, there were quick H hotel district. Come, I’ll show you a Chrysanthe Chrysanthe! He talked about to register. Who could be knocking? introductions and then an even quicker cool place to eat. the power of the Greek ruins and seeing Was something wrong with the reser- kiss from Chrysanthe, and she was gone. And so they walked up the street where the plays were performed. vation? Had he been discovered to be In many ways he would have liked to toward Syntagma. Justine talked more about the histo- an imposter? have gone into the car with her, to visit E.J. liked them, but was uncom- ry of the project, but expertly deflected It was Chrysanthe. her relatives, to quit school and settle fortable with the differences between any talk about the man she was with in “I tried calling you on your cell, but with her here.... them. How could this relationship last? Athens. you must not have switched it back on Stu didn’t seem capable of stretching after the flight.” That was true. Sadly, he made his way down the further, while Danielle seemed to grow Winter “It’s getting dark, and the Acropolis hill and back to the Byron, which was more bored with each minute.... will be lit up!” she exclaimed. “Let’s take familiar and yet alien without her. He felt guilty but he left them at As Winter Semester began, every- a look!” He grew quickly bored with his the souvlakia restaurant where he and thing looked the same: he and Sylvie, The Byron was in deep shadow. regular agitations. It was almost time Chrysanthe had had lunch. He contin- still cruising along. Same routines: she As they stepped outside, the lights of for dinner. He wandered down to the ued toward the Square, and chanced liked to sit propped up in the bed, lap- the Acropolis stood in contrast to that second floor. Chrysanthe’s door was upon a hotel with the word “star” top open, notebook beside her, head- darkness. They made their way up. open; he couldn’t help himself, he had associated. He stepped inside, saw phones on, working diligently. He would They were disappointed not to actually to check to see if she hadn’t somehow there was a Starbucks, stopped for a sit at the desk, stare out the window, walk inside, but it was still fun to have returned, perhaps overwhelmed with dark roast. He had heard that so-called stare fondly at her, stare at his home- a view over the city and to be in the her new love for him? But no. Inside, American coffee was rare, and could work.... midst of history. a young couple were bickering. They be as expensive as a cheap hotel.... But almost everything was different. After, tChrysanthe led them them stopped when we appeared, so he said, And even though it was, he decided to Because she hadn’t made a further to an ouzery for a few shots of ouzo “Sorry. A friend of mine was staying here have a cup. commitment to him, because she and then to a little restaurant for ex- last night.” The couple seemed embar- Sitting, looking out the window, treated him exactly as she had before, cellent souvlakia and retsina. E.J. didn’t rassed, so he said, “Hi. I’m E.J. Where you who should he see but Justine.... that was nevertheless a change for especially care for the retsina, but headed?” Happy with a man about her age, E.J., because he was certainly ready for he drank it dutifully. Then came the Turns out they were Stewart and flirting, headed out on the evening. He further commitment! He tried not to be odious banana liquer that the owner Danielle, from Ann Arbor. He could tell had finished his coffee; so he followed greedy. He tried to appreciate what they insisted on when he heard Chrysan- right away that Stu was dazzled, almost a bit, pretending to be a spy. He wasn’t had together. But still.... the’s blazing, new-native Greek, and overfilled with experiences, while Dan- a very good one. He tried to catch E.J.’s administrative work for Jus- E.J.’s faltering, academic, but accurate ielle seemed already bored and agitat- some of their conversation, but was tine kept growing, and Justine’s direct version. ed. Stewart sheepishly explained about unsuccessful, then lost them com- involvement began to lessen. E.J. didn’t They wandered, talked, sang, and the shower – they had ordered one, but pletely. see it, but she was preparing him (as made their way back to the Byron. he had taken too long, the hot water well as testing him) for running the They said goodnight, and E.J. trudged had run out, and there was none for her! The next day, as they took their whole show, next year. 128 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 129 He had been determined to drop party at his apartment that weekend. ny thrill of it alarmed him. He decided productions. Frankly, he thought that modern Greek, because with the in- Compared to E.J., at least, Kaiser seeme- he had had too much to smoke and money would already be coming in from creased work and his excellent procras- dat the zenith of social status, so getting drink, and headed for the door. the various stories he’d sent in to jour- tination practices he had too much to an invitation made E.J. feel like he existed As he opened it, there was Andy nals, but no, not yet, and not to mention do. But Chrysanthe was in the modern in the real world, at least through the Boggs, about to knock! Andy had grad- the rejections and requests for elabo- Greek class.... weekend. But no sooner did E.J. arrive at uated the previous year, staged a very rate rewrites. Andy had a job working He was supposed to be finishing the party than Kaiser was bustling out popular musical comedy in town over construction, which freed up his nights his two mini-plays for the end-of-term the door, with his customary entourage the summer, then went to France for a and weekends but left him so exhausted festival. After writing, the students of cute women. Friendly, effusive, Kaiser semester, funded by Ficklehart money it was a struggle to do more than eat and would need to figure out how to stage welcomed him. “Make yourself at home!” he’d earned last Winter term. This was sleep. That’s why he hasn’t been much in their plays (with minimal props and zero he enthused. Nevertheless, it did not the first he’d seen of Andy, who had the social scene, although he’s been back money to spend), as well as to conscript seem that Kaiser would be returning any been preoccupied with work and other in town since January. a friend or two to help in the cast. But time soon. things since returning to town in Jan- Andy invited E.J. into his small living E.J. was still stuck puttering on adapting E.J. slowly made his way through the uary. And Andy wasn’t much for social room, pointed him to the one chair. an unfinished Greek parody he had crowded kitchen, took a red plastic cup media, or even email. E.J. was tempted Andy himself sat on his futon bed. He started in high school, with no thought already poured with punch, and jostled to stay a while and talk, but he could tell brought E.J. a beer, although he brought yet to the dramatic play. his way into the living room. No one was Andy wanted to work the crowd, and he a glass of water for himself. Andy po- even vaguely familiar, which seemed himself still felt spooked, so he asked to litely declined any hits off the joint E.J. Near the end of January, one of his improbable, unless he had entered a get together soon and talk, then scoot- brought.... apartment-mates had discovered a portal into a parallel universe, something ed home. As E.J. got stoned, his memories loophole in their lease (they weren’t that often seemed likely. He was pleased of the rest of his visit blurred. But he old enough to have legally signed), so that he didn’t feel particularly awkward Despite Andy’s reluctance, he recalls Andy lamenting local changes the guys were moving out and into a and self-conscious. A young man with a allowed E.J. to come over to his apart- making his plans difficult: the closing of cheaper sublet. Did E.J. – or E.J. and Syl- silly half-beard that made him look like a ment to visit, late one afternoon that the Inn (where Andy thought to stage vie, or Milton – want to join? Of course, chipmunk offered him a hit from a pipe; February. E.J. was caught up in the some activities, perhaps at no rental he would save a lot of money if he just E.J. praised the music, which he recog- glamour of Andy’s recent past (awards, cost), the new university regulations lived here with Sylvie, since he spent nized as a Babble song. Mr. Rodent was successful summer play, off writing making it hard to schedule performance most of his time here, anyway. And it very impressed he had heard of Babble, in Europe) and imagined a frugal but or rehearsal space and then requiring would be nice to live with her in an and E.J. talked about ushering the con- elegant studio apartment, full of exotic complex justification lest there be steep actual house: it would make them seem cert in the fall. houseplants with large windows and charges. more like a couple, yes? But E.J. simply E.J. kept a view of the apartment door bookcases lining the walls. The place “That’s why this place is temporary,” signed up for a room in the new place to see who was coming and going. He was frugal, but also quite spartan: Andy Andy said. “If this doesn’t work out, I’ll and never brought it up with Sylvie. mused that maybe Sylvie would drop explained, seeing E.J. look of disap- have to do something different. Maybe in, although that was unlikely, since she pointment, that the place was quite I’ll get a master’s degree, or get a PhD In January, when he’d stare at her, didn’t drink, smoke, or like crowds. He temporary. and work as a cryptologist for the FBI in she’d sometimes pause, smile, look over mused at how these seemed unmutable E.J. was also surprised to see how Washington....” at him. Yes? He’d say, oh, I’m just ap- facts; he had completely accepted the tired Andy was, just returned from work But he lit up when E.J. described the preciating how beautiful you are. She’d fact that she made all her own rules, and still wet from a shower. He looked Aristophanes Project. E.J. felt bad that smile, regally. even if those rules excluded him or any wirey but gaunt, exhausted. he didn’t more about Justine’s plans By February he wanted to say.... possible future together. He realized Andy’s plan had been to return to and, now that he thought about it, her with a happy jolt that he wasn’t hoping town, get a decent-paying job but work obvious well-thought-out strategy for E.J. bumped into Kaiser Roberts to see Dotty. And that jolt was followed no more than 20 hours a week, so he keeping costs down. E.J. promised to outside the Grad Library, one day in by a happier one, thinking that perhaps had time and energy to write but also introduce Andy to her.... February, and Kaiser invited him to a Chrysanthe would come by . . . The sun- to develop his ideas for local theater

130 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 131 Sylvie’s brother and parents visited, ing up her submissions for the Winter necting Andy to Justine, but apparent- recalled later that Aristophanes was in March. The brother is a junior in high Fickleharts. E.J. still intended to write a ly that had happened in another way. talking in an unfamiliar version of school, taller and lankier than Sylvie. few major works (or at least polish up a ancient Greek, using unfamiliar accents So far, his passion is basketball, so if he few minor works already submitted to There was less a week until the fes- and unfamiliar colloquial expressions. came to the university he’d likely be far his writing classes), but so far his main tival, and E.J. only had one of his two Especially in his sworn oaths, of which away from the XC. E.J. is impressed that achievement was in picking a pseud- plays ready. The one that was ready there were many. he’s actually friendly, but then again, onym, a requirement for submission. was not very good, he decided: a He appeared in an old white robe, everyone in Sylvie’s family seems sweet He really liked “Wyatt Trayish,” but musical parody of Oedipus that he had something he seemed to have slipped and wholesome. E.J. can’t help swoon- Sylvie noted that in research showed begun in high school, daydreaming in on recently, as if grabbing something ing as he imagines himself, some day, as that few winners had two-syllable last church one Sunday. In his daydream, to throw on when responding to the part of this family. Of course, it does not names. E.J. stewed for a while, hating he was excited about having members doorbell. Perhaps it was true that Aris- seem likely, alas. to give it up, but then came up with of his school’s choir sing narrative tophanes had been back to Earth many “Ralph Saccavomiti.” Wonderful, Sylvie parts in parody of the classic formula. times since the old days, animating Easter fell in mid-March, this year, said. Now that that’s all set, maybe he The play seemed to revolve around various personae that likely included and E.J. went home for the entire week- should do some writing . . . . Instead, he a small pun: a polluting corporation creative ones. In fact, did E.J. recall a re- end. Again, most of the anticipated daydreamed about winning the modest was a potato chip manufacturer that mark that suggested that Aristophanes eruptions and strong emotional weath- Aristophanes prize money ($100 for resonated wit the Greek play’s name, would be returning and soon? er didn’t materialize. It was enough to best tragedy, $100 for best comedy), Laius. Well, E.J. never finished the play, In any event, Aristophanes was make him wonder about how much of then sweeping the Ficklehearts! He’d be then or now, and in any event could annoyed to be bothered by E.J., seemed a catalyst he has historically been with rich! He’d be famous! only strip out a five-minute segment to to have only the vaguest memory of such things. Of course, it helped that he be performed. And, you know, in the this Earthly life (“That was thousands of willingly went to church and accepted In early April, weeks before the final analysis, there just isn’t that much years ago, you oaf!”), and no interest in wearing a suit (instead of blue jeans and staging of the First Aristophanes Tour- funny about Oedipus, after all. helping E.J. out. a t-shirt!), and it also helped that he was nament, Justine announced that Sylvie He had no idea about the second Much later, it occurred to E.J. that he relatively clean-shaven and his hair the would be leaving the XC at the end of one, and now with Justine’s news and might have studied Aristophanes’ plays, shortest it’s been in years. the term and taking a job with Justine in the certainty of Sylvie’s departure, it especially the most popular ones, and It was warm enough that his Uncle Hollywood, at her current firm! And E.J. seemed impossible for him to muster see what themes might have a con- John had a barbecue that Saturday in later learned that she and Andy Boggs any enthusiasm for the project. Mop- temporary resonance . . . . That’s what his back yard, bringing the food into the were now in a relationship, and Andy ing, he bitterly admitted that he must Sylvie did, and that’s likely why she won kitchen when it was done. E.J. hung out was moving to LA to be near her! (He have hoped that he and Sylvie would first place in both competitions, drama with him by the garage while his uncle remembered reading somewhere that continue together all of next year, so and comedy. The audience voted with a grilled. The uncle asked after Dotty, re- two writers could survive and remain that even if there might not be any show of hands. membering that she had been over last creative on two part-time jobs, where a long-term future (unless Sylvie finally Darla had dropped out. Crysanthe April for Easter. Wow, what a thunder- single person could not.) came to her senses), at least there placed second in both categories. She ous mess that had been! Sylvie looked sheepish and apologetic. would a short-term one. Now it was would later note that she had taken So he told his uncle that they “I only got the offer a few days ago; I just microscopic. the assignment too seriously; that as had broken up (but not that she had decided to accept it; I wasn’t sure how Likely as a way to punish himself, a Greek herself she wanted to explore dumped him), and when he asked if he to tell you... “She was sweet, friendly, E.J. then had a dream where he met contemporary Greek problems like refu- was seeing someone else, what could loving. Aristophanes, and had an opportunity gees, bank fraud, and cheap feta cheese he say? So he said the truth, “Yes, sort But she didn’t ask him to come west to ask about some of the story ideas (that tasted just as good as the authen- of.” It sounded so much less than it really with her. from some of the lost plays. (Only tic but expensive kind). But that wasn’t was. about 11 of 50 plays Aristophanes’ what the competition was about. But Andy? plays survive). Late in March, Sylvie was polish- E.J. hadn’t yet gotten around to con- Or was it a dream? After all, E.J. The festival was held in the XC

132 • RC Alumni Journal RC Alumni Journal • 133 Theater. The stage was set up minimal- In the fall, Justine asked him to idea was to re-open the Inn but outside ly with the façade of a simple Greek As usual, too late, E.J. realized that function as coordinator as well as staff, the university, where it might exist as temple on the right and a little three- he could have written something about which was an increase of hours as well a bar and restaurant with a basement stepped platform to the left (apparently the Trojan Horse for the competition.... as rate. performing space for theater, music, a nod to where a small Greek chorus After all, Justine had mentioned the For the summer, he ended up and comedy. It turned out that a Korean would traditionally stand). The festival Horse at the very beginning, when she subletting Andy’s tiny apartment, and restaurant almost across the street from was a rough approximation of the “City talked about Sylvie’s story about the then signed up for the coming year. the XC had failed, and this became Dionysia” festivals from ancient times, counterfeit coin. There was little news from Califor- the Outside Inn when several alumni usually held in the Theater of Dionysus And now that he thought of it, E.J.’s nia in the summer, but in early October stepped up as investors. E.J. had spear- on the side south of the Acropolis. own experience of the project was also he learned that Justine had left her headed this initiative, starting when he Performances were limited to 10 like a Trojan Horse, in that he started Hollywood job and headed north contacted the alum who had underwrit- minutes, which with a full docket would with a few things in mind (a way to with Andy to open a theater com- ten support for the Rappaccini’s Daugh- have run the festival nearly two hours, solve his enrollment troubles, a way pany in Portland. Sylvie remained in ter video game in the old location. It with a short intermission between to pay the bills, and then a way to be Hollywood, deftly taking over most of turned out he was delighted to help tragedies and comedies (four students, closer to Sylvie) but seems to be ending Justine’s accounts. the game find a new home, as well as to four 10-minute tragedies, four 10-min- up with different things (development, What did this mean for the future help with the restaurant venture. Other ute comedies). But because Darla had giving, the value of being organized). of the Aristophanes Project? One year alums were happy to help find the Inn a dropped out and because E.J. was tardy, And now that he thought of it, E.J. of grant funding remained. E.J. was new home. there were only three comedies and saw how the Aristophanes Project itself stunned to realize that the Project had two tragedies. Justine decided to forego was a kind of Trojan Horse: luring stu- been set up so it could almost run for Oddly enough, E.J. and Rex (“Giovan- the intermission, given the reduced dents in with the promise of something free.... ni”) became friends, probably because number of performances, and the festi- exotic and exciting, but instead training There were no “necessary” costs. of their shared fondness for Sylvie. Rex val was completed within the hour. them about specific goal-oriented writ- An assistant to handle day-to-day had emerged from his two-semes- Attendance was good, mostly ing, something useful in the real world! duties could be a volunteer. The trip ter-long intensive Italian to find Sylvie because it was mandatory, at least for to Greece, while delightful, was not gone. Obviously, E.J. knew more than XC writing and drama students. Greek Summer and Beyond necessary. Even the modest awards most about what Sylvie’s year had been language students earned extra credit for the festival could be eliminated, or like. At first, E.J. was angry, then sad, for attending and then writing anessay. That summer, E.J. worked his old could be subsidized by an alum. Like to think about Giovanni having and Much of the set-up and all of the library job, but also a few hours a week himself, he realized. If he was in town, squandering something so precious, costumes were given gratefully by the of Aristophanes Project duties. Justine he could run the program and subsi- but perhaps it was E.J.’s own history of university’s costume department, but invited him to take on as many of her dize the awards and the project could blockheadedness opening into com- funding paid some of the final touches, functions as he cared to, and so E.J. not run indefimitely! passion for blockheadedness in others and then for things like the program, only wrote the first draft of the required Alums of the Project might even- that formed a basis for commonality and a little reception in the lobby after- annual report, he also devised an evalu- tually want to contribute, especially if and then friendship. wards (Greek salad, spanakatirakopita ation of the year just passed, complete they clearly saw how their dollars were Also odd, E.J. had a brief romance squares, pita and chicken, and of course with recommendations of change for being spent. Additional grant funding with Ruth Warshington, the difficult contraband retsina and ouzo discretely the second year and beyond. Justine was of course possible, especially if the student in the office who had set up under the tables in the corner). asked him to recommend current stu- Project could expand or adapt in ways his first meeting with Justine. It turned Sylvie and Chrysanthe had conscript- dents for the project in the fall, and had that would interest funders. out that Ruth and Dolly had a sudden, ed XC drama students for all her roles. him meet with admissions staff to see if intense falling out, and Ruth turned to E.J. took the stage himself, with help any incoming students might fit. In the All this activity proved seren- E.J. as a source of information and then from Milton. It was at the after-party end, five students were selected: two dipitous for E.J.’s involvement in the solace. It didn’t last, but was quite pleas- that E.J. introduced Milton to Chrysan- new ones, three existing; three females, Outside Inn project, something Andy ant while it did. the, getting them started into motion. and two males. had started before leaving town. The 134 • RC Alumni Journa6 RC Alumni Journal • 135 It’s still early, but it does not appear Dan Madaj was in the third RC class that Justine will be traveling to Ath- (Fall 1969) but didn’t actually graduate ens this December, happily busy with until 1982. He worked for U-M for over Andy in Portland. She may offer the 40 years, primarily at the natural history trip to Sylvie, since the trip is already museum, in linguistics, and in social Program News funded and in most ways it is easier to work, but also had four brief jobs in East use it than apply for an amendment Quad (dishwasher, custodian, librarian, Retirement! Staffing notes to the grant. Justine might see it as a RC office). Many of the events in this RC Creative Writing After Ken Mikolowski way to keep Sylvie connected with the story actually or almost happened; for instructor Warren Hecht retired in April 2016, Aristophanes Project. After all, if Sylvie example, Dan briefly held the “karma retired at the end of the Program replaced continues with her success, she may pinball” high score (with Marty Sher- December 2016. Warren his teaching and tuto- decide to be a benefactor. And wouldn’t man) on Flower Power in the Halfway started the RC’s creative rial work with Laura it be something if Sylvie invited E.J. to Inn. For eight years (2000-08) Dan was writing program in 1970 Kasischke (teaching) meet her there for the holiday? She just editor (etc.) of the Old West Side News, and served as its director and Sarah Messer (tutorial). Laura is might. an Ann Arbor neighborhood newsletter. through 2002. He’s a graduate of City Allen Seager Collegiate Professor of That Russian writer wouldn’t like that He has two wonderful children and a College of New York, and moved to English, and was happy to return to one bit. He’d probably think it stupid.... fabulous dog. Michigan in 1969. He was editor of The the RC half-time. She has published Periodical Lunch and Street Fiction eight collections of poetry and eight Press’s Softcover Original Series. He novels. Three of her novels have been continues as deacon at St. Thomas made into feature films. She is an RC the Apostle Catholic Church in Ann creative-writing alumna. Arbor, and has been painting northern Sarah Messer is the Michigan landscapes and rural dwell- author of four books: a ings since 2003, often from his cabin up hybrid history/memoir, a north. book of translations, and Poet and long-time cre- two poetry books. She ative writing lecturer Ken also teaches for the Fine Mikolowski retired from Arts Work Center in Provincetown’s on- the RC and from U-M line writing program, 24 Pearl Street, at the end of the Win- and is a cheese maker at White Lotus ter 2015 semester. Ken Farms in Ann Arbor. taught poetry at the RC for nearly 40 After Warren retired in years, since 1977 (full-time since 1988), December 2016, the Pro- and is only the second poetry instruc- gram hired poet Christo- tor since the Creative Writing Program pher Matthews, who has began in Fall 1970. Ken’s newest book worked in LSA Academic of poems, That That, was published in Advising since 2013. 2015 by Wayne State University Press. Christopher has been Visiting Assistant In the 1960s, Mikolowski founded the Professor of English at Washington Alternative Press in Detroit’s Cass Cor- and Lee, and a post-doctoral fellow at ridor with his late wife, the painter Ann Kalamazoo College. He has a PhD in Mikolowski. Aside from the RC, Ken also English from U-M, an MFA in Poetry taught at Macomb Community College from Warren Wilson College, and a BA and at Wayne State. from Kalamazoo College. 136 • RC Alumni Journ30 RC Alumni Journal • 137 I am the very model of a modern to graduating writers “who demon- major . . . . strate excellence in creative writing In recent years, the RC’s Creative but have not previously received a Writing major was opened to LSA writing award recognizing their writing students, who have long been able achievements.” In 2014: Allison Epstein; to take RC creative writing courses. in 2015: Angeline Dimambro and Vicky Speaking of majors, you may be inter- Szcpkowski; in 2016: Alexander Miller ested to know that the RC drama ma- and Sydney Morgan-Green; in 2017: jor is now coordinated with the LSA Ashley Bishel and Lauren Theisen. Department of Theatre and Drama. It is not unusual for RC creative writing Writer-in-residence students to also study drama; several Desiree Cooper will be students have recently written plays writer-in-residence in as part of their tutorials and then had the 2017-18 academic them performed by RC Players. year, and will give a The RC’s is the only U-M major in public reading. A 2015 undergraduate creative writing, but Kresge Artist Fellow, English has both a creative writing Desiree Cooper is a minor and a “sub-concentration.” fiction writer, former attorney, Pulitzer The Sweetland Writing Center has Prize-nominated journalist, and Detroit a “non-creative” writing minor (i.e., community activist. Her collection of journalism, non-fiction). flash fiction, Know the Mother, was published by Wayne State University Recent faculty publications Press in March 2016. Cooper was a Wayne State University Press pub- founding board member of Cave Ca- lished Laura Thomas’ story collection, nem, a national residency for emerging States of Motion, in 2017. Also this black poets. She is currently a Kimbilio year, Picador published Alexander fellow, a national residency for African Weinstein’s story collection, Children American fiction writers. of the New World. Recent RC faculty publications More info about the Program and include Lolita Hernandez’s story about alums . . . . collection, Making Callaloo in Detroit Updated info (with clickable links) is (Wayne State University Press, 2014), available at the RC Writers’ website: and Laura Kasischke’s novel, Mind http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/rcwriters/. of Winter (HarperRow, 2014) and If you would like to receive periodical collection of poems, The Infinitesimals emails about readings and things in (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). the greater Ann Arbor area, send Dan a note at [email protected]. Student awards Aside from the Hopwoods, since 2014 Next . . . the RC has given Emerging Writer What about a second issue next Fall, awards (funded by a writing alum) maybe with 20-25 other writing alums?

138 • RC Alumni Journal