SPRING 2018 A PETIT LITERARY JOURNAL VOLUME 3 ISSUE 1

The nobodies: nobody’s Hunger / 1 children, owners of Hunger Leaving San Salvador and heading nothing. The nobodies: toward Guazapa, Berta Navarro the no ones, the met a peasant woman displaced nobodied, running & the by the war. She was no different like rabbits, dying from any of the other women through life, screwed and men who had exchanged every which way. Transient hunger for starvation. But this Who are not, scraggly, ugly peasant woman but could be. was standing in the midst of Who don’t speak desolation, her skin hanging Hero; languages, loose on her bones and a scraggly, but dialects. ugly little bird in her hand. The or the Hunger Who don’t have bird was dead and she was very religions, slowly plucking its feathers. of Publishing & but superstitions. The Publishing of Who don’t create art, Hunger / 2 Hunger Painting by Ricardo Celma but handicrafts. A system of isolation: Look out Who don’t have culture, for number one. Your neighbor Painting Excerpts From but folklore. is neither your brother nor by Mark Axelrod The Book of Who are not human beings, your lover. Your neighbor is a but human resources. competitor, an enemy, an obstacle lmost all of this is from an to clear or an object to use. The article I wrote in the 90s Embraces Who do not have faces, A by Eduardo Galeano system feeds neither the body nor that was published in The New but arms. the heart: many are condemned Internationalist which was the Who do not have names, to starve for lack of bread and only periodical courageous enough The Nobodies but numbers. many more for lack of embraces. to publish it. I have revised and Fleas dream of buying themselves Who do not appear in the history added a bit, but what was true With Permission of the Author a dog, and nobodies dream of of the world, two decades ago is pretty much escaping poverty: that one magical but in the police blotter true today so, rather than rewrite day good luck will suddenly rain of the local paper. what has already been written and still remains germane down on them—will rain down in The nobodies, who are not worth especially in the United States, I buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain the bullet that kills them. down yesterday, today, tomorrow, have decided to let it stand. As or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall Vonnegut might say, “So it goes.” down in a ne drizzle, no matter A quarter of a century ago, in how hard the nobodies summon it, 1992, as the sun set on the Bush even if their left hand is tickling, Administration and the sun rose or if they begin the new day with on the Clinton Administration their right foot, or start the new (two sides of the same star), I year with a change of brooms. had witnessed the famine in

1 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Contents

Introduction FICTION POETRY Memoir Eduardo Galeano ...... 1 Jonathan Swift...... 5 allen Ginsberg ...... 11 Ariel Dorfman ...... 22 Excerpts From the Book of Embraces A Modest Proposal C’mon Pigs of Western Civilization Heading South, Looking North: A Eat More Grease Bilingual Journey Mark Axelrod ...... 1 Margaret Atwood ...... 7 Hunger and the Transient Hero Bread Luisa Valenzuela...... 16 Ian Prichard ...... 8 Dark Desires Clarity Charles Bernstein ...... 16 BIOGRAPHIES John Diamond-Nigh ...... 10 Rivulets of the Dead Jew Dragon of Air Doris Lessing ...... 17 About the Writers ...... 24 Knut hamsun ...... 12 Two Cities Hunger (Excerpt) george Orwell ...... 12 Down and Out in Paris and London (Excerpt) Flann O’Brien ...... 13 The Poor Mouth (Excerpt) Luisa Valenzuela...... 18 From Death Cats/El Gato Eficaz Steve Katz ...... 19 The Smoochers Maxine Hong Kingston ...... 14 The Woman Warrior (Excerpt) Charles Dickens ...... 15 Oliver Twist (Excerpt)

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge those who have helped make the publication of MANTISSA possible: President Daniele Struppa, Dean Patrick Fuery, Dr. Joanna Levin, and Dr. Eric Chimenti.

This Issue was created by Chapman University’s Ideation Lab. Special thanks to Renee Bulda, Aly Carley, and Cassandra Taylor.

Look for Volume 4, Issue 1 in the Spring of 2019

2 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I Introduction

Somalia with both consternation express that. And so I set myself whatever reasons they had, I had of Aesop’s Fables or a redesigned and perplexity—at what was the task of writing to as many two dozen or so of the world’s cover of Tolstoy or Trollope. After happening and at how I was so writers as I could to see if they nest writers, all of whom were all, those are all public domain. ineptly capable of alleviating might contribute. In the course committed to contributing prose any aspect of it. Being a mere of four years I have written or poetry of some kind, and Then I thought that, perhaps, purveyor of words, I really had over 200 writers worldwide all I needed was a publisher, a Grove was an anomaly; perhaps no idea of what I could do to help and of those 200 I have received publisher willing to publish the publisher who had published remedy that horror or any other positive responses from about these writers, a publisher whose such distinguished humanists horror whose focus was pestilence. 26. And they are: Martin Amis, interest in social responsibility as Beckett and Pinget and Genet Pestilence and hunger. Famine, Margaret Atwood, Christine was forthright and sincere. had somehow changed directions. mainly. Sitting on my sofa, watching the nightly news and feeling impotent to effect change was not the principle upon which one took remedial action. Nor was sitting in my corner of ce working diligently on the next piece of ction or deciding whether to use an excerpt from Derrida or Eco in an upcoming lecture. So, I began to think about what I could do to get involved since not to remedying the problem was, as Cleaver the Younger once so deftly put it, being part of the problem and being part of the problem was not being part of the solution. But what could I do, as a mere purveyor of words, that would get me off the couch and into the universal melee that was hunger? World hunger. Finally, I came upon an idea to organize and edit a collection of ction, poetry and essays devoted to hunger, written by writers from all over the world and published by a publisher who would donate most of the pro ts to a foundation whose mission it was to help remedy the burden of world hunger. I set out very systematically to discover a Painting by Alejandro Boim foundation that would be eager I rst contacted Grove Press From new directions to newer to participate in such a program Brooke-Rose, J.M. Coetzee, thinking, of course, that such a directions. Perhaps others, and I found one in the Freedom Maryse Condé, Ariel Dorfman, distinguished press, a press of when they discovered such a ne From Hunger Foundation of Davis, Raymond Federman, Eduardo noble causes and richly-stocked collection of writers and writing, California which, “founded in Galeano, Allen Ginsberg, Günter writers, would be interested. And would be as enthusiastic about 1946, [...] promotes ‘Self-Help for Grass, Alasdair Gray, Thomas they were. For a time. Until the the possibility as I was. Perhaps a Hungry World.’” Their mission Keneally, Maxine Hong Kingston, day came when they informed Noonday would be interested. “is to create, develop, demonstrate, Doris Lessing, Wole Soyinka, Ben me that “the collection would After all, they published and still and disseminate, worldwide, Stoltzfus, Ronald Sukenick, Luisa not make much money.” But published Hamsun’s Hunger and, innovative programs to eliminate Valenzuela, Gerald Vizenor, and I didn’t think making a lot of after all, it documents the horror chronic hunger by providing Elie Wiesel. I also had the good money was the point. At least of hunger—albeit in an artistic resources and information that fortune of interesting Madame not making a lot of money for the way. But perhaps that kind of empower the poorest families Jehan Sadat, an enthusiastic publisher. Making some money hunger is easier to publish. After and communities to help supporter of the Freedom From for the foundation which, in all, it happened over a hundred themselves.” They appeared Hunger Foundation, to write a effect, might put some bread on years ago, and late nineteenth- to be the kind of foundation foreword to the collection. And the ground for some child in, say, century Norwegian hunger isn’t with whom I could work and then there were others who Ethiopia was the point. But I was n de siècle American hunger they had been very helpful in have not committed, but who wrong. Pro tability was the point. or Latin American hunger or sending me material which I said they’d consider it. There How naive. And in my naïveté Rwandan hunger, and Hamsun could forward to the writers. were, of course, a lot of missing I marveled at the loss of the pro won a Nobel Prize and... well, bono spirit of publishing. At least you get the idea. In short, their Once I had a conduit for the writers, noble and not Nobel Prize winners, who did not wish to semi-pro bono. Not in that world. answer was “this would not “pro ts,” my next goal was to No “kinder, gentler” humanists be suitable for our list” and, of interest writers. Writers from participate. For whatever reason. There were a number of American there. No, what I discovered were course, “list suitability” is around the world. Writers bottom-line guys and dolls whose of paramount importance who had either experienced writers, minority writers, who did not wish to participate either. quest for the absolute seemed to in the publishing world. or understood the debilitating be hedged in a “new” collection effects of hunger and who could For whatever reason. But for 3 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Introduction

I’ve continued to scour the book The Blockbuster Complex: The endpiece is a painting by the Manhattan pavements for a Conglomerates, Show Business Chilean painter, Camilo Ambrosio. publisher who might be interested and Book Publishing that “Given In both cases, I am extremely in this collection, but the results the preoccupation of publishers grateful to them for allowing have been fruitless. Without and editors with acquiring and me to reproduce their pieces. naming names, just about every promoting best-sellers, and the major publisher has repeated evident decline in editorial Dismissed by the the same phrase to me: “it won’t standards, the question of how disingenuousness of the New York turn a pro t.” Curious, that in authors whose works have more publishing establishment and in an industry which thrives on literary than commercial promise a pique of rejection, I composed the “stripped cover” and the may fare today is a crucial one for an essay, this essay, as a way of junk book, no one would be the industry. From what I have expressing my frustration with interested in supporting an issue been able to observe, apprehension the Mad Ave. moguls. I said to like hunger simply because it is widespread—among authors, myself, send this essay out to might not make “big bucks.” It among many agents, among some magazines in order to expose the reminds me of the admonition I editors, and even among some publishing industry’s callousness once received from a Hollywood heads of conglomerate-owned to things that matter. No luck. producer that I shouldn’t write publishing houses—that in the The Nation ignored me; as did any lm script which had to do blockbuster era the artistic worth Harper’s and The Atlantic; only with American Indians since, of many individual authors is Esquire had the decency to write well, Indians don’t sell at the box being sighted or ignored, and their me their sympathy. Undaunted, of ce. And, apparently, hunger minimum means of livelihood I made a tape of the essay and doesn’t sell in the bookstores rendered more precarious than sent it to National Public Radio; or on college campuses. ever” (Whiteside 103). One certain beyond any reasonable may, by extension, include uncertainty that they, of all One of the latest publishers (in books of purpose as well. media, would eagerly broadcast a series of publishers who sit it. After all, how many essays behind four walls and several Clearly, some may recognize my on “what it was like to go to my windows) told me she was attempt to get this anthology high school reunion” could they reluctant to publish an anthology published as being a fruitless play? But their response was with only half of the collection in one done in a meager effort to equal to the rest. In ways it was hand. That is to say, she seemed try to rectify the heretofore even more puerile, since they said concerned that the writers who unrecti able notion that in a free- it would be better as “a written were writing original works could market, Friedmanian economy essay” than one made for radio. not ful ll the task. I asked her if “some must eat and some must she were worried that writers like starve, depending on the vouchers So, after 25 years of getting Martin Amis or Ariel Dorfman or one has,” but I felt certain that nowhere in an attempt to publish Wilson Harris weren’t up to the somewhere on the streets of the literature of hunger and not task of writing a piece on hunger. Manhattan, somewhere, someone, the hunger of literature, I have She replied that she was concerned someone other than someone my own platform to do so. they couldn’t do a very good job who by Grand Central Station sits writing “on assignment.” Hunger? down to weep, would rede ne the An assignment? “You mean you issue of the bottom line in terms think none of these writers has of the human condition rather ever thought about that issue?” I than capital gains. Needless to asked. She hedged. And hedged say, the relationship between again. And the hedging was pro t and prophet goes beyond merely another way of saying, “we the homonym of spelling and I won’t make any money.” Except continue to search impatiently for she didn’t have the courage to say an editor who can recognize the that. It’s not politically correct to spirit of humanity. So far there decline to publish an anthology is little fruit either in America on hunger based on content alone, or England. This is where the one must have an excuse. Hers revised portion comes in. was to cast doubt upon the ability of the writers to produce a work of When all else fails, publish substance, rather than consign her yourself. So, I decided to devote decision to the god of pro tability. this 3rd edition of MANTISSA to “hunger” in several of its To say I have been disappointed iterations. I’m including stories by the New York publishing written by those people who so “community” is to say the very graciously offered to submit a least. Perhaps the industry quarter of a century ago and those “reects” the tenor of the times, who only recently submitted. I’m the Gingrich tenor, the balanced- also devoting this issue to the budget-at-all-costs tenor, the rst person who agreed to submit disdain for social responsibility something; namely, the late tenor, the tenor of the times. Eduardo Galeano... and in honor Perhaps it’s always been that of his rst contribution, I’m also way. I’m reminded of the quote including a painting of him by the from Thomas Whiteside’s 1980 Argentine painter, Ricardo Celma. 4 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I Fiction A Modest There is likewise another great nor cultivate land: they can very baked, or boiled; and I make advantage in my scheme, that seldom pick up a livelihood by no doubt that it will equally it will prevent those voluntary stealing, till they arrive at six serve in a fricassee or a ragout. Proposal abortions, and that horrid practice years old, except where they are by Jonathan Swift of women murdering their bastard of towardly parts, although I I do therefore humbly offer it to children, alas! too frequent among confess they learn the rudiments public consideration that of the It is a melancholy object to those us! sacri cing the poor innocent much earlier, during which time, hundred and twenty thousand who walk through this great town babes I doubt more to avoid the they can however be properly children already computed, or travel in the country, when expense than the shame, which looked upon only as probationers, twenty thousand may be reserved they see the streets, the roads, would move tears and pity in the as I have been informed by a for breed, whereof only one- and cabin doors, crowded with most savage and inhuman breast. principal gentleman in the fourth part to be males; which beggars of the female sex, followed county of Cavan, who protested is more than we allow to sheep, by three, four, or six children, all The number of souls in this to me that he never knew above black cattle or swine; and my in rags and importuning every kingdom being usually reckoned one or two instances under the reason is, that these children are passenger for an alms. These one million and a half, of these I age of six, even in a part of the seldom the fruits of marriage, a mothers, instead of being able to calculate there may be about two kingdom so renowned for the circumstance not much regarded work for their honest livelihood, hundred thousand couple whose quickest pro ciency in that art. by our savages, therefore one are forced to employ all their time wives are breeders; from which male will be suf cient to serve in strolling to beg sustenance four females. That the remaining for their helpless infants: who as hundred thousand may, at a they grow up either turn thieves year old, be offered in the sale for want of work, or leave their to the persons of quality and dear native country to ght for fortune through the kingdom; the Pretender in Spain, or sell always advising the mother to themselves to the Barbadoes. let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them I think it is agreed by all parties plump and fat for a good table. A that this prodigious number of child will make two dishes at an children in the arms, or on the entertainment for friends; and backs, or at the heels of their when the family dines alone, the mothers, and frequently of fore or hind quarter will make their fathers, is in the present a reasonable dish, and seasoned deplorable state of the kingdom with a little pepper or salt will a very great additional grievance; be very good boiled on the fourth and, therefore, whoever could day, especially in winter. nd out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these I have reckoned upon a medium children sound, useful members that a child just born will of the commonwealth, would weigh 12 pounds, and in a deserve so well of the public solar year, if tolerably nursed, as to have his statue set up for increaseth to 28 pounds. a preserver of the nation. I grant this food will be somewhat But my intention is very far from dear, and therefore very proper being con ned to provide only for for landlords, who, as they the children of professed beggars; have already devoured most it is of a much greater extent, and of the parents, seem to have shall take in the whole number the best title to the children. of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little Infant’s esh will be in season able to support them as those who throughout the year, but more demand our charity in the streets. plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by As to my own part, having turned a grave author, an eminent French my thoughts for many years number I subtract thirty thousand I am assured by our merchants, physician, that sh being a proli c upon this important subject, and couples who are able to maintain that a boy or a girl before twelve diet, there are more children born maturely weighed the several their own children, although I years old is no salable commodity; in Roman Catholic countries schemes of other projectors, I apprehend there cannot be so and even when they come to this about nine months after Lent than have always found them grossly many, under the present distresses age they will not yield above at any other season; therefore, mistaken in the computation. of the kingdom; but this being three pounds, or three pounds reckoning a year after Lent, the It is true, a child just dropped granted, there will remain an and half-a-crown at most on the markets will be more glutted from its dam may be supported hundred and seventy thousand exchange; which cannot turn than usual, because the number by her milk for a solar year, with breeders. I again subtract fty to account either to the parents of popish infants is at least three little other nourishment; at thousand for those women who or kingdom, the charge of to one in this kingdom: and most not above the value of two miscarry, or whose children die nutriment and rags having been therefore it will have one other shillings, which the mother may by accident or disease within at least four times that value. collateral advantage, by lessening certainly get, or the value in the year. There only remains one the number of papists among us. scraps, by her lawful occupation hundred and twenty thousand I shall now therefore humbly of begging; and it is exactly at one children of poor parents annually propose my own thoughts, I have already computed the year old that I propose to provide born. The question therefore is, which I hope will not be charge of nursing a beggar’s for them in such a manner as how this number shall be reared liable to the least objection. child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and instead of being a charge upon and provided for, which, as I have I have been assured by a very their parents or the parish, or already said, under the present four- fths of the farmers) to be knowing American of my about two shillings per annum, wanting food and raiment for situation of affairs, is utterly acquaintance in London, that a the rest of their lives, they shall impossible by all the methods rags included; and I believe no young healthy child well nursed gentleman would repine to give on the contrary contribute to hitherto proposed. For we can is at a year old a most delicious, the feeding, and partly to the neither employ them in handicraft ten shillings for the carcass of a nourishing, and wholesome good fat child, which, as I have clothing, of many thousands. or agriculture; we neither build food, whether stewed, roasted, houses (I mean in the country) said, will make four dishes of 5 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction

excellent nutritive meat, when he above twenty years ago, and in hath only some particular friend conversation told my friend, that or his own family to dine with in his country when any young him. Thus the squire will learn person happened to be put to to be a good landlord, and grow death, the executioner sold the popular among his tenants; the carcass to persons of quality as mother will have eight shillings a prime dainty; and that in his net pro t, and be t for work till time the body of a plump girl of she produces another child. fteen, who was cruci ed for an attempt to poison the emperor, Those who are more thrifty was sold to his imperial majesty’s (as I must confess the times prime minister of state, and other require) may ay the carcass; great mandarins of the court, in the skin of which arti cially joints from the gibbet, at four dressed will make admirable hundred crowns. Neither indeed gloves for ladies, and summer can I deny, that if the same use boots for ne gentlemen. were made of several plump young As to our city of Dublin, shambles girls in this town, who without may be appointed for this purpose one single groat to their fortunes in the most convenient parts cannot stir abroad without a of it, and butchers we may be chair, and appear at playhouse assured will not be wanting; and assemblies in foreign neries although I rather recommend which they never will pay for, the buying the children alive, and kingdom would not be the worse. dressing them hot from the Some persons of a desponding knife, as we do roasting pigs. spirit are in great concern about A very worthy person, a true that vast number of poor people, lover of his country, and whose who are aged, diseased, or maimed, virtues I highly esteem, was and I have been desired to employ lately pleased in discoursing on my thoughts what course may this matter to offer a re nement be taken to ease the nation of so upon my scheme. He said that grievous an encumbrance. But many gentlemen of this kingdom, I am not in the least pain upon having of late destroyed their that matter, because it is very deer, he conceived that the want well known that they are every of venison might be well supplied day dying and rotting by cold by the bodies of young lads and and famine, and lth and vermin, maidens, not exceeding fourteen as fast as can be reasonably years of age nor under twelve; so expected. And as to the young great a number of both sexes in laborers, they are now in as every country being now ready hopeful a condition; they cannot to starve for want of work and get work, and consequently pine service; and these to be disposed away for want of nourishment, to of by their parents, if alive, or a degree that if at any time they otherwise by their nearest are accidentally hired to common relations. But with due deference labor, they have not strength to to so excellent a friend and so perform it; and thus the country deserving a patriot, I cannot be and themselves are happily altogether in his sentiments; for delivered from the evils to come. as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their esh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended. But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London 6 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction Bread that you can see the bread, you by Margaret Atwood can even smell it, it smells like yeast, and it looks solid enough, First published in Murder in the Dark solid as your own arm. But can you trust it? Can you eat it? You Imagine a piece of bread. You don’t want to know, imagine that. don’t have to imagine it, it’s right here in the kitchen, on the bread With Permission of the Author board, in its plastic bag, lying beside the bread knife. The bread knife is an old one you picked up at an auction; it has the word BREAD carved into the wooden handle. You open the bag, pull back the wrapper, cut yourself a slice. You put butter on it, then peanut butter, then honey, and you fold it over. Some of the honey runs out onto your ngers and you lick it off. It takes you about a minute to eat the bread. This bread happens to be brown, but there is also white bread, in the refrigerator, and a heel of rye you got last week, round as a full stomach, then, now going mouldy. Occasionally you make bread. You think of it as something relaxing to do with your hands. Imagine a famine. Now imagine a piece of bread. Both of these things are real but you happen to be in the same room with only one of them. Put yourself into a different room, that’s what the mind is for. You are now lying on a thin mattress in a hot room. The walls are made of dried earth and your sister, who is younger Painting by Alejandro Boim longer had any food left. She went than you are, is in the room with to her sister and asked her for a you. She is starving, her belly is tell, thirty or forty or a hundred mouthful of bread. ‘My children bloated, ies land on her eyes; you of your friends, your comrades, are dying,’ she said. The rich brush them off with your hand. will be caught and will die. If sister said, ‘I do not have enough You have a cloth too, lthy but you refuse to tell, tonight will for myself,’ and drove her away damp, and you press it to her lips be like last night. They always from the door. Then the husband and forehead. The piece of bread is choose the night. You don’t think of the rich sister came home and the bread you’ve been saving, for about the night however, but wanted to cut himself a piece days it seems. You are as hungry about the piece of bread they of bread; but when he made the as she is, but not yet as weak. How offered you. How long does it rst cut, out owed red blood. long does this take? When will take? The piece of bread was someone come with more bread? brown and fresh and reminded Everyone knew what that meant. You think of going out to see if you you of sunlight falling across a This is a traditional German might nd something that could wooden oor. It reminded you of fairy-tale. be eaten, but outside the streets a bowl, a yellow bowl that was are infested with scavengers and once in your home. It held apples The loaf of bread I have conjured the stink of corpses is everywhere. and pears; it stood on a table you for you oats about a foot above can also remember. It’s not the your kitchen table. The table is Should you share the bread or hunger or the pain that is killing normal, there are no trap doors in give the whole piece to your you but the absence of the yellow it. A blue tea towel oats beneath sister? Should you eat the bowl. If you could only hold the the bread, and there are no strings piece of bread yourself? After bowl in your hands, right here, attaching the cloth to the bread all, you have a better chance you could withstand anything, or the bread to the ceiling or the of living, you’re stronger. How you tell yourself. The bread they table to the cloth, you’ve proved long does it take to decide? offered you is subversive, it’s it by passing your hand above and Imagine a prison. There is treacherous, it does not mean life. below. You didn’t touch the bread though. What stopped you? You something you know that you There were once two sisters. One have not yet told. Those in control don’t want to know whether the was rich and had no children, bread is real or whether it’s just a of the prison know that you know. the other had ve children and So do those not in control. If you hallucination I’ve somehow duped was a widow, so poor that she no you into seeing. There’s no doubt 7 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction Clarity thing, anyway. Calling her had lab notes crinkling beneath them express their true selves. He was by Ian Prichard been a test, a last-minute gauge and textbooks digging into her unconcerned as to what form these to see what power she still held back, Kira knew the feeling was expressions took, suggesting only “Poor Tom,” she said, and hung over him. And instead of eeing, something else entirely. Victory that their intensity increase. Nine up. For more years than he instead of fending off panic was too strong a word, but agency, in ten of the men Tom brought to cared to count, it’d been “Poor and cascading into frenzy, here certainly, and pride, and whatever him never showed up a third time, Tom,” then emptiness. he was, wondering almost idly else you called the opposite of but those that stayed kept telling how long that kite string was shame. A kind of astonished Jonah things. Torments they’d Tom could quite literally do the today. Was she in Istanbul? elation, like walking through suffered as children. Abuses math, could see as they spoke Buenos Aires? Across town? the curtain of a waterfall to they’d doled out since. Thought the wireless connection between nd not a dimly lit overhang, dreams and impulses they’d them, clear as kite string between For many years, Tom wished he’d but what you always thought planned to take to their graves. cans. And when it was over— never met Kira. It never stopped life should be, what existence, those two words were a visceral him from calling, but he used to what existing should feel like. Soon, the weight of their severance. Shears through string. daydream about her falling off collective debt was palpable, the Gristle yielding under the knife. cliffs or stepping in front of a bus. The last time she’d seen him, the strain of it showing in Jonah’s Something shattering and nal. sun hadn’t made it up over the face. Tom longed to shoulder “Wait,” he’d choke into the row houses across the street. She some of the burden—not for the space between his name He was clear of all that now, was up, working, and annoyed. glory, or the secrets, but to ease and the silence. “Wait.” though, thanks to Jonah. And his keeper’s pain. Jonah was he slid his phone back into his “I don’t like showing up like candid with him, and the method Then he’d come back to himself, at pocket and jogged back across this,” he said, an ataxic gesture was plain, but the endgame a bar examining freshly scuffed the street to join them. indicating all the different had been beyond Tom’s ken. knuckles, or in a convenience thises that he meant, his eyes store buying cigarettes he’d never ❧ bloodshot and red-rimmed. “Prepare your heart to be smoke, or bent double in the street spontaneous,” Jonah had told sucking air after what his lungs “I’ll let you if you pay me,” she’d “I know,” Kira said. “But him, once he started speaking told him was a long, hard run. said back then, the words nearly you can’t come in.” in aphorisms about closure drowned out by the vein-ooding and the fullness of circles, and Tonight, though, staring at the “But I have it.” Crumpled bills rush. Kira thought at rst that dragging his boning knife phone in his hand, “Call Ended” lay cradled in his open, shaky the feeling was shame. It should across the whetstone, Tom fading to black, such desperations palm, the smell of stale bed have been, from what she knew nally knew what he meant. barely registered. He’d been calm linen and the need for sun rising then of the world and morality. for several weeks now, returned off him. “Poor Tom,” she said. But in its wake, with Tom pulling almost to a pre-Kira state. What “Look what it’s done to you.” ❧ twenties from his wallet, with he could remember of such a For a moment Kira wondered if she To say Kira sold sex would be were about to see a man liquefy, or to grossly oversimplify what spontaneously combust—some it was she did. Unlike college, Victorian nightmare come to life. she discovered shortly after But he pulled himself together and leaving it, the real world was a walked down the stairs. When he place where if you call someone was beyond the gate, Kira hollered stupid, he’ll give you money. This after him, “You can still call.” was true at all levels, and what Kira specialized in was nding ❧ men who believed themselves impervious to bullshit, and For generations, the blocks shoveling it down their throats. around CJ’s had been a family neighborhood, its composition Like any good consultant, she a microcosm of the city at large. convinced people that she alone It was decrepit now, and half- held the key to a problem they vacant, and the six- gurines were weren’t aware they had. She pouring in. Most of them loved simpli ed game theory to an living in the overpriced squalor, elevator pitch McLaren-driving with coffeehouses and art spaces assholes could pretend they sprouting around them—Tom understood, and by applying was there for the others, those at to nancial markets certain the end of the bar, back to the TV, cosmological principles like gaze xed rmly on their receding the ubiquity and perpetual potential. If a mark mentioned expansion of dark energy, she the word “unfair,” or so much made a name for herself in ever- as hinted at the concept, Tom smaller circles on ever-higher would nod at Jonah, who would oors of ever-taller buildings. approach, buy a round, and listen. She required cash, up front, and All Jonah required was faith— billed the sex in seven-minute willingness in the absence of increments as a change order explanations, as he had it. There under “executive management.” It was no dogma, and little in the gave her timid clients the board- way of core philosophy. Jonah Painting by Alejandro Boim simply encouraged them to

8 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction Dubai started talking again, assumed psychologists would standing over whoever’s voice it whining really, but Kira’s call denial, Tom knew it was was squeezed the trigger again, attention drifted. More than a the same, but why bring it up and the street went silent and still. mile off the freeway, it was quiet from down there, to cheapen here in the middle of the night, his devotion? So his conception Standing in the aftermath, as and while she was sure that what of Kira existed in suspension, the kids came back to life and she was hearing was the tramp untethered from reality or apartment windows slid up of heavy-soled boots, there was principles. The way he longed and everyone started dialing a moment of disbelief, of eerie for her, and the hope with which 9-1-1, Kira thought of the police, disconnect before she realized the he staunched his hemorrhaging of the time they’d take, the boots were not some aural illusion pain—these too existed in a blind money she’d be out. “Nothing but actually treading her street. spot, simultaneously purposeful that concerns us,” she said to She turned towards the sound and and beyond any semblance of will. Dubai when he asked what was saw seven men in quasi-military happening. She turned against garb marching, not in formation, “Have you ever heard an the stream of people rushing to but in gaits coordinated enough IV drug user describe his meet the sirens, and walked her that their footfalls rang together. addiction?” Jonah had asked client through the presentation They carried knives—kitchen when Tom rst explained it. he was making in forty minutes. room con dence they needed, and knives and cleavers, from what And so Tom had come up leeched her unrulier ones of just Kira could tell, and one that with tonight’s errand as an enough of their volatility to keep looked like a small sword. intervention, a way to break them toeing their investors’ line. She was close enough to see the cycle. He diagrammed the location, chose the night, lined There was a third type, the ones their faces, or would have been, up the clothes, told the men to Forbes, etcetera, considered pillars had they not been shrouded in bring their knives. He didn’t know of the international economy— balaclavas. There was some fear what they’d do once they got and, increasingly, that Forbes, hanging around somewhere, in there—Jonah had taught them to etcetera, didn’t mention at all. her twitchy quads and deep plan well but leave the act itself What she did with these men breaths, but mostly it was to inspiration—but they all knew was rearrange them, morally, curiosity she felt, watching it was “next-level shit,” as one of motivationally, permanently. them cross over her street on the men put it, excitedly, when They have more in common with their way up the main road. they were only a few blocks away. every other male on the planet than either group would like to ❧ admit, but one trait unique to ❧ them was that at a certain stage Tom didn’t recognize Kira, either, When the rst screams came— in their development they were though he did see her. She was shrieks of panic from the women deprived of something they backlit by a street lamp, and the and the beastly roar of male wanted very badly, and they mask, hanging down over his aggression—Kira took a few had built their lives around the eyebrows, made the distance strides in their direction. Then determination to never experience fuzzy. But even in broad daylight a couple of shots popped off, the feeling again. Kira wasn’t so he wouldn’t have taken her in loud as hell but small caliber, fragile that she could commiserate, right away. He had no reason probably something tiny like but she recognized the emotional to expect her, for one, and two, hers, like what she was reaching mechanism, and she manipulated for the rst time in twenty for, fumbling for in her purse, not that fear in ways that the men years, she wasn’t on his mind. nding. She stopped. Sorry, girls, who paid her to do so invariably, His mind was on a building three she thought, you’re on your own. afterwards, wished they hadn’t. blocks ahead. Storefronts below, Most of them simply disappeared apartments above, a string of girls Kids rushed out of a pizza from her life when she told them out front. He’d never thought joint, shouting, pointing at the the bill they’d just paid would be of himself as someone who had uniformed men retreating, full their last. The more vindictive anything against prostitutes. speed, the knives they still among them—a trait she Lust was an urge that required gripped catching the intermittent cultivated—exacted their revenge satisfaction, and if the notions of lights of the night street. Kira not on her, but on the colleagues romantic love peddled by Disney counted six. In their wake, or rivals they referred her to. movies and the American popular girls who’d slipped their heels were in hot, barefoot pursuit. These days, Kira’s practice song were a lie—which Tom comprised almost solely men from knew them to be—at least there Then a groan of agony came from this third group, and it was to one was a modicum of honesty about the center of violence. Then of them that she was talking an the world’s oldest profession. another, this one sounding more hour after hanging up on Tom. Neither, however, had he ever like a word. Then the word, clearly, repeated three times, each louder “No, you listen to me,” she said quite come to terms with the fact than the one before. “No.” The into the phone, to a man in Dubai. that what he’d done with Kira man had to be making an effort She was on the street smoking a counted as the same thing. He’d for his voice to carry so well. cigarette. “That’s actually why chalked their transactions up “Please. Look. I. You,” the voice you pay me. I’m terribly sorry you to a quirk of their friendship, a said. “I won’t.” Kira couldn’t place thought I was going to be there kind of quid-pro-quo generosity it, but for a second it registered today, but since I never told you he could afford. On some level, as familiar. Then whoever was I was, I’m actually not sorry.” buried under strata of what he

9 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction Dragon of Air overgrown–I see these guys on the man. Another stone goes into his axe down. As weapons go, the by John Diamond-Nigh lam, fugitives, bums, making their mouth. He wavers, hand propped hatchet of course is more portable. way to shadowy pseudonymities against the tree, head down. He Missing one hand, what use is When Loie Fuller’s Chinese somewhere toward the railroad’s is very weak. And likely quite ill. an axe? I bought that hatchet, dancers enwound end. If they get that far. Many believe it or not, in Damascus. The boy–be frank, I was the boy– A shining web, a oating don’t even suspect I’m here. He takes the stone from his in his minute château en Espagne, ribbon of cloth They look up and see a kid’s mouth and gnaws on a new one. was writing a letter. Such is our It seemed that a dragon of air playhouse, though pretty high idealism at 16 or so. To the editor I have a dozen hard-boiled eggs. Had fallen among dancers, had and substantial for a kid. It’s not of his town paper at just that point Some bread, some cheese and whirled them around much to look at from outside. when the tramp appeared. All I an apple. Into the pail they go. I Or hurried them on its own And who lives in a treehouse? hear anymore is ‘fraud’. Our world add a bottle of water. Then down furious path. Birds. The stone goes back in his mouth. Not once does he look up. is so profusely avaricious that it through a small trap door I lower Elsewhere Yeats asks, in what So I never see his face. But I like takes whole galaxies of bureaucrats the pail. Hand over hand, I let is perhaps his most frequently him. Tell me why? He’s taking my to protect me. Above those Dantean out the rope. It’s how I bring my quoted line: Who can tell the axe. But that stone is poignant. circles of bureaucrats, the few men rewood up, my food, all that dancer from the dance? An old He gnaws it like an intransigent and women who own the world in my bird-sung, Thoreauvian friend, facing the dissolution of rind. He’s hungry. That stone is protect me from even greater fraud. domesticity I need. I don’t need his marriage, wrote those lines all that he has for food. When that Fraud from Haiti, from Russia, much. That pail, in fact, came at the bottom of a card. I think stone is done, he slides it into his employing, of course, a speckled from my mother’s barn, once he meant to ask, who can tell the pocket and takes out another. and camou aged fraudulence of used by pioneers. There’s a risk that he’ll cut or untie her delicate relic and take that too. In the pail I’ve also placed a knife. My best hunting knife. A diminutive Excalibur. A knife, I believe, that makes you inviolable. I have so few possessions; those I have are laden with magic and stories. Just as he reaches into the pail for an egg, we both hear a crash, far off, then a steely rustle nearby. He grabs the knife and a couple more eggs and he’s gone. Manifest even to me are his terror, his weakness. He wobbles, he stumbles but somehow has vanished. Quick, climb up. He still might have time. He does look up. I see his eyes, kind yet charred almost wholly black by the miseries of a bad relentless luck. He shrieks but it’s soft, a warble almost, a sound his pursuers will take for a bird, as he’s hurried away on some furious path. It seemed like a dragon of air . . . mistakes of life from life itself? Or, as Auden, and later James He could be a hunter, his gun their own. They stalk and undo my Hillman would point out, who nearby, propped against a tree. enemies. Like the reach and grace really knows what powers control There are many of those in the of God used to do, they protect our lives? What forces hurry us woods. Or a brother-in-law of the me from evil, yet all the while are off on their own furious paths? Maysersmiths, who live in a tidy themselves the greatest evil of all. I farmhouse down the road with look at this now–men and women Under the tree where I live an lamb’s ears and daffodils and who own the world–and think how old man is stealing my axe. He gentle English ethics. Maybe he’s out-of-step I was, how arcane, sorts through a small mound of from Iowa. Breaking himself from the dandy En Espagne of an old, metallic debris under its curly tobacco by chewing a stone. Maybe aesthetic morality. Emulating camouage of vines. From his he’s Baudelaire, here to inspect Baudelaire up to his trivial end. mouth he draws a wet stone. He’s my opera. My opera takes place searching for what? A weapon. in Paris. It begins at Baudelaire’s I cap my Pelikan pen and watch One of his hands is missing. The Le Club des Haschichins on Isle as the man at the foot of my tree forearm wilts down to little St. Louis, where a doctor serves rubs a thumb along the edge of more than a blunt twig. I see this jellied hashish on a silver plate. my axe. It’s sharp. I sharpened it sometimes. Wracked animals. That fantasy is relentless: even this morning. To be sure, it would Deer, dogs, men. My tree being when I see a wolf (especially when offer negligible defense against close to the disused Buffalo- I see a wolf) I think it’s Baudelaire. the ries of a cop, or prison foe Hamilton line–a line now shorn I think of Baudelaire now when I or bounty hunter, but some of its rails and ties and thickly see this tragic, poignant, hungry protection. He picks up my hatchet and feels that as well. He sets the 10 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I poetry C’mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease by Allen Ginsberg

Eat Eat more marbled Sirloin more Pork’n gravy! Lard up the dressing, fry chicken in boiling oil Carry it dribbling to gray climes, snowed with salt, Little lambs covered with mint roast in racks surrounded by roast potatoes wet with buttersauce, Buttered veal medallions in creamy saliva, buttered Pass out in the vomitorium come mailing love letter bombs in beef, by glistening back cough up strands of Vienna or setting houses mountains of french fries sandwich still chewing a re in East Germany pastrami at Katz’s —have another coffee, Stroganoffs in white hot sour delicatessen here’s a cigar. cream, chops soaked in olive oil, surrounded by Back to central Europe & gobble And this is a plate of black forest olives, salty feta cheese, Kielbasa in Lódz chocolate cake, you deserve it. followed by Roquefort & swallow salami in Munich with Bleu & Stilton thirsty beer, Liverwurst on Athens, 19 December 1993 for wine, beer Cocacola Fanta pumpernickel in Berlin, With Permission of the Author Champagne Pepsi retsina greasy cheese in a 3 star arak whiskey vodka Hotel near Syntagma, on white bread Agh! Watch out heart attack, thick-buttered pop more angina pills Set an example for developing order a plate of Bratwurst, fried nations, salt, sugar, frankfurters, couple animal fat, coffee tobacco billion Wimpys’, Schnapps MacDonald burgers to the moon & burp! Drop dead faster! make room for Chinese guestworkers Salt on those fries! Boil onions & with alien soybean breaded mushrooms curds green cabbage & rice! even zucchini in deep hot Crisco pans Africans Latins with rice beans & calabash can stay thin Turkeys die only once, look nice & crowd in apartments next to tall white glasses for working class sugarmilk & icecream foodfreaks— vanilla balls Strawberry for sweeter color milkshakes with hot dogs Not like western cuisine rich in protein cancer heart attack Forget greenbeans, everyday a hypertension sweat bloated few carrots, a mini big liver & spleen megaly spoonful of salty rice’ll do, make the plate pretty; Diabetes & stroke—monuments to carnivorous throw in some vinegar pickles, civilizations briny sauerkraut check yr. cholesterol, swallow presently murdering Belfast a pill Bosnia Cypress Ngorno Karabach Georgia and order a sugar Cream donut, pack 2 under the size 44 belt

11 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction Down and Out in The two pounds that B. had given me lasted about ten days. That it Paris and London lasted so long was due to Paddy, by George Orwell who had learned parsimony on the road and considered even These three weeks were squalid one sound meal a day a wild and uncomfortable, and evidently extravagance. Food, to him, had there was worse coming, for my come to mean simply bread and rent would be due before long. margarine--the eternal tea-and- Nevertheless, things were not a two-slices, which will cheat quarter as bad as I had expected. hunger for an hour or two. He For, when you are approaching taught me how to live, food, poverty, you make one discovery bed, tobacco, and all, at the rate which outweighs some of the of half a crown a day. And he others. You discover boredom managed to earn a few extra and mean complications and the shillings by ‘glimming’ in the beginnings of hunger, but you evenings. It was a precarious job, Excerpts and I got downright angry with also discover the great redeeming because illegal, but it brought in myself for the effrontery of which feature of poverty: the fact that a little and eked out our money. I had almost been guilty. “That is, it annihilates the future. Within by God! the shabbiest thing I ever certain limits, it is actually true Hunger heard,” said I, “to rush at a man that the less money you have, the by Knut Hamsun and nearly tear the eyes out of his less you worry. When you have head just because you happen to a hundred francs in the world It was three o’clock. Hunger need a shilling, you miserable dog! you are liable to the most craven began to assail me downright So--o, march! quicker! quicker! panics. When you have only three in earnest. I was faint, and you big thumping lout; I’ll teach francs you are quite indifferent; now and again I had to retch you.” I commenced to run to for three francs will feed you furtively. I swung round by the punish myself, left one street after till tomorrow, and you cannot Dampkökken, read the bill of the other behind me at a bound, think further than that. You are fare, and shrugged my shoulders goaded myself on with suppressed bored, but you are not afraid. You in a way to attract attention, as cries, and shrieked dumbly and think vaguely, ‘I shall be starving if corned beef or salt port was furiously at myself whenever I in a day or two--shocking, isn’t not meet food for me. After that I was about to halt. Thus I arrived it?’ And then the mind wanders went towards the railway station. a long way up Pyle Street, when at to other topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some A singular sense of confusion last I stood still, almost ready to extent, provide its own anodyne. suddenly darted through my cry with vexation at not being able head. I stumbled on, determined to run any farther. I was trembling The rst day, too inert to look not to heed it; but I grew worse over my whole body, and I ung for work, I borrowed a rod and and worse, and was forced at last myself down on a step. “No; stop!” went shing in the Seine, baiting to sit down on a step. My whole I said, and, in order to torture with bluebottles. I hoped to catch being underwent a change, as if myself rightly, I arose again, and enough for a meal, but of course I something had slid aside in my forced myself to keep standing. I did not. The Seine is full of dace, inner self, or as if a curtain or jeered at myself and hugged myself but they grew cunning during the tissue of my brain was rent in two. with pleasure at the spectacle of siege of Paris, and none of them my own exhaustion. At length, has been caught since, except in I was not unconscious; I felt after the lapse of a few moments, nets. On the second day I thought that my ear was gathering a I gave myself, with a nod, of pawning my overcoat, but it little, and, as an acquaintance permission to be seated, though, seemed too far to walk to the passed by, I recognized him at even then, I chose the most pawnshop, and I spent the day once and got up and bowed. uncomfortable place on the steps. in bed, reading the Memoirs Of I could not get my request over Sherlock Holmes. It was all that I my lips. This man’s friendliness felt equal to, without food. Hunger seemed to me beyond bounds, and reduces one to an utterly spineless, I ought to know how to appreciate brainless condition, more like the it. Rather die of hunger! I went. after-effects of inuenza than Not even when I was outside the anything else. It is as though one door, and felt once more the pangs had been turned into a jelly sh, of hunger, did I repent having or as though all one’s blood had left the of ce without having been pumped out and luke-warm asked for that shilling. I took the water substituted. Complete other shaving out of my pocket inertia is my chief memory of and stuck it into my mouth. It hunger; that, and being obliged helped. Why hadn’t I done so to spit very frequently, and the before? “You ought to be ashamed spittle being curiously white and of yourself,” I said aloud. “Could occulent, like cuckoo-spit. I do it really have entered your head not know the reason for this, but to ask the man for a shilling and everyone who has gone hungry put him to inconvenience again?” several days has noticed it.

12 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction Excerpts where every human being was two hands in the middle of the sunk in poverty, we always countryside and over its mouth regarded him as recipient of alms he had placed old sacks and and compassion. The gentlemen branches of trees as well as any The Poor Mouth from Dublin who came in motors useful object that might provide by Flann O’Brien to inspect the paupers praised shelter against the water which him for his Gaelic poverty and came down on the countryside There was a man in this townland stated that they never saw anyone every night. Strangers passing at one time and he was named who appeared so truly Gaelic. by thought that he was a badger Sitric O’Sanassa. He had the best One of the gentlemen broke a in the earth when they percieved hunting, a generous heart and little bottle of water which Sitric the heavy breathing which came every other good quality which had, because, said he, it spoiled from the recesses of the hole earn praise and respect at all the effect. There was no one in as well as the wild appearance times. But alas! there was another Ireland coparable to O’Sanassa of the habitation in general. report abroad concerning him in the excellence of his poverty; which was niether good nor the amount of famine which fortunate. He possessed the very was delineated in his person. He best poverty, hunger and distress had neither pig nor cup nor any also. He was generous and open- household goods. In the depths handed and he never possessed of winter I often saw him on the the smallest object which he did hillside ghting and competing not share with the neighbors; with a stray dog, both contending nevertheless, I can never for a narrow hard bone and the remember him during my time same snorting and angry barking possessing the least thing, even issuing from them both. He had no the quantity of little potatoes cabin either, nor any acquaintance needful to keep body and soul with shelter or kitchen heat. He joined together. In Corkadorgha, had excavated a hole with his

13 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction Excerpts the dry rocks. Heavily weighed until your eyes start to invent could stare at ordinary people down by the wood on my back, new sights. Hunger also changes and see their light and gold. I branches poking maddeningly, I the world—when eating can’t be could see their dance. When I had burned almost all of the fuel a habit, then neither can seeing. get hungry enough, then killing The Woman Warrior not to waste strength lugging it. I saw two people made of gold and falling are dancing too. by Maxine Hong Kingston dancing the earth’s dances. They Somewhere in the dead land I lost turned so perfectly that together The old people fed me hot The rst night I burned half of the count of the days. It seems as if I they were the axis of the earth’s vegetable soup. Then they asked wood and slept curled against the had been walking forever; life had turning. They were light; they me to talk-story about what mountain. I heard the white tigers never been different from this. were molten, changing gold— happened in the mountains of the prowling on the other side of the An old man and an old women Chinese lion dancers, African white tigers. I told them the white re, but I could not distinguish were help I had only wished for. lion dancers in midstep. I heard tigers had stalked me through the them from the snow patches. The I was fourteen years old and lost high Javanese bells deepen in snow but that I had fought them morning rose perfectly. I hurried from my village. I was walking midring to Indian bells, Hindu off with burning branches, and my along, again collecting wood and in circles. Hadn’t I already been Indian, American Indian. Before great-grandparents had come to edibles. I ate nothing and only found by the old people? Or was my eyes, gold bells shredded into lead me safely through the forests. drank the snow my res made run. that yet to come? I wanted my gold tassels that fanned into two I had met a rabbit who taught me mother and father. The old man about self- immolation and how The rst two days were gifts, the royal capes that softened into and old woman were only a part lion’s fur. Manes grew tall into to speed up transmigration: one fasting was easy to do, I so smug of this lostness and this hunger. does not have to become worms in my strength that on the third feathers that shone—became light rays. Then the dancers danced the rst but can change directly day, the hardest, I caught myself One nightfall I ate the last of my into a human being—as in our siting on the ground opening the food but had enough sticks for a future—a machine-future—in clothes I had never seen before. I humaneness we had just changed scarf and staring at the nuts and good re. I stared into the ames, bowls of vegetable soup into dry roots. Instead of walking which reminded me about helping am watching the centuries pass in moments because suddenly people too. That made them laugh. steadily on or even eating, I my mother with the cooking and “You tell good stories,” they said. faded into dreams about the meat made me cry. It was very strange I understand time, which is spinning and xed like the North “Now go to sleep, and tomorrow we meals my mother used to cook, looking through water into re will begin your dragon lesson.” my monk’s food forgotten. That and seeing my mother again. I Star. And I understand how night I burned up most of the nodded, orange and warm. working and hoeing are dancing; wood I had collected, unable to how peasant clothes are golden, A white rabbit hopped beside me, sleep for facing my death—if not as kings’ clothes are golden; how and for a moment I thought it was death here, then death someday. one of the dancers is always a a blob of snow that had fallen The moon animals that did not man and the other a woman. out of the sky. The rabbit and I hibernate came out to hunt, but studied each other. Rabbits taste I had given up the habits of a like chickens. My mother and carnivore since living with the old father had taught me how to hit people. I would not trap the mice rabbits over the head with wine that danced so close or the owls jugs, then skin them cleanly for that plunged just outside the re. fur vests. “It’s a cold night to be On the fourth and the fth days, an animal,” I said. “So you want my eyesight sharp with hunger, some re too, do you? Let me I saw deer and used their trails put on another branch, then.” I when our ways coincided. Where would not hit it with the branch. the deer nibbled, I gathered the I had learned from rabbits to fungus, the fungus of immortality. kick backwards. Perhaps this At noon on the tenth day I packed one was sick because normally snow, white as rice, into the worn the animals did not like re. centre of a rock pointed out to The rabbit seemed alert enough, me by a nger of ice, and around however, looking at me so acutely, The man and woman grow bigger the rock I built a re. In the bounding up to the re. But it did and bigger, so bright. All light. warming water I put roots, nuts not stop when it got to the edge. It They are tall angels in two rows. and the fungus of immortality. turned its face once towards me, They have high white wings on For variety I ate a quarter of the then jumping into the re. The their backs. Perhaps there are nuts and roots raw. Oh, green re went down for a moment, as in nite angels; perhaps I see joyous rush inside my mouth, my if crouching in surprise, then two angels in their consecutive head, my stomach, my toes, my the ames shot up taller than moments. I cannot bear their soul—the best meal of my life. before. When the re became brightness and cover my eyes, calm again, I saw the rabbit had which hurt from opening so One day I found that I was turned into meat, browned just wide without a blink. When I put striding long distances without right. I ate it, knowing the rabbit my hands down to look again, I hindrance, my bundle light. Food had sacri ced itself for me. It recognize the old brown man had become so scarce that I was no had made me a gift of meat. and the old grey woman walking longer stopping to collect it. I had towards me out of the pine forest. walked into dead land. Here even When you have been walking the snow stopped. I did not go back through trees hour after hour— It would seem that this small to the richer areas, where I could and I nally reached trees crack in the mystery was opened, not stay anyway, but, resolving after the dead land—branches not so much by the old people’s to fast until I got halfway to cross out everything, no relief magic, as by hunger. Afterwards, the next woods, I started across whichever way your head turns whenever I did not eat for long, as during famine or battle, I

14 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction Excerpts up to the master after supper Oliver was ordered into instant that evening, and ask for more; con nement; and a bill was next and it fell to Oliver Twist. morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of ve Oliver Twist The evening arrived; the boys pounds to anybody who would by Charles Dickens took their places. The master, in take Oliver Twist off the hands his cook’s uniform, stationed of the parish. In other words, ve For the rst six months after himself at the copper; his pauper pounds and Oliver Twist were Oliver Twist was removed, the assistants ranged themselves offered to any man or woman system was in full operation. It behind him; the gruel was served who wanted an apprentice to was rather expensive at rst, in out; and a long grace was said over any trade, business, or calling. consequence of the increase the short commons. The gruel in the undertaker’s bill, and disappeared; the boys whispered ‘I never was more convinced of the necessity of taking in the each other, and winked at Oliver; anything in my life,’ said the clothes of all the paupers, which while his next neighbors nudged gentleman in the white waistcoat, uttered loosely on their wasted, him. Child as he was, he was as he knocked at the gate and read shrunken forms, after a week desperate with hunger, and the bill next morning: ‘I never or two’s gruel. But the number reckless with misery. He rose was more convinced of anything of workhouse inmates got thin from the table; and advancing in my life, than I am that that as well as the paupers; and to the master, basin and spoon boy will come to be hung.’ the board were in ecstasies. in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: As I purpose to show in the sequel The room in which the boys were whether the white waistcoated fed, was a large stone hall, with ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’ gentleman was right or not, I a copper at one end: out of which should perhaps mar the interest The master was a fat, healthy the master, dressed in an apron of this narrative (supposing it to man; but he turned very pale. He for the purpose, and assisted by possess any at all), if I ventured gazed in stupe ed astonishment one or two women, ladled the to hint just yet, whether the on the small rebel for some gruel at mealtimes. Of this festive life of Oliver Twist had this seconds, and then clung for composition each boy had one violent termination or no. support to the copper. The porringer, and no more—except assistants were paralysed with on occasions of great public wonder; the boys with fear. rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. ‘What!’ said the master at length, in a faint voice. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their ‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, spoons till they shone again; and ‘I want some more.’ when they had performed this operation (which never took very The master aimed a blow at long, the spoons being nearly as Oliver’s head with the ladle; large as the bowls), they would pinioned him in his arm; and sit staring at the copper, with shrieked aloud for the beadle. such eager eyes, as if they could The board were sitting in solemn have devoured the very bricks of conclave, when Mr. Bumble which it was composed; employing rushed into the room in great themselves, meanwhile, in excitement, and addressing the sucking their ngers most gentleman in the high chair, said, assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes ‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your of gruel that might have been pardon, sir! Oliver Twist cast thereon. Boys have generally has asked for more!’ excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the There was a general start. tortures of slow starvation for Horror was depicted on three months: at last they got so every countenance. voracious and wild with hunger, ‘For more!’ said Mr. Limbkins. that one boy, who was tall for his ‘Compose yourself, Bumble, age, and hadn’t been used to that and answer me distinctly. Do sort of thing (for his father had I understand that he asked for kept a small cook-shop), hinted more, after he had eaten the darkly to his companions, that supper allotted by the dietary?’ unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he ‘He did, sir,’ replied Bumble. might some night happen to eat ‘That boy will be hung,’ said the the boy who slept next him, who gentleman in the white waistcoat. happened to be a weakly youth ‘I know that boy will be hung.’ of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly Nobody controverted the believed him. A council was held; prophetic gentleman’s opinion. lots were cast who should walk An animated discussion took place. 15 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University poetry

Dark Desires Rivulets of the by Luisa Valenzuela Dead Jew A woman slowly by Charles Bernstein Ate A man. Fill my plate with boudin noir First she told him, Boudin noir, boudin noir Open your mouth, and Fill my plate with a hi-heh-ho he opened as if & rumble I will go To swallow, Don’t dance with me But he was swallowed ‘til I cut my tie (the ambiguous condition of Cut my tie, cut my tie the glove that contains the Don’t fancy me ‘til hand and loses its identity The rivers run dry as a glove: it is the hand) & a heh & a hi & a ho The man obeyed and opened his mouth, wide, I’ve got a date with a The woman slid down his Bumble bee, bumble bee throat and began gnawing I’ve got a date with a Bit by bit, wee bonnie wee Starting with the sleeves of his & a hurtling we will go intestines until she reached His heart. The hunger of the swallower was less urgent than the Hunger of the swallowed A very voracious man swallowed a woman and was very calmly eaten. El hambre es el lobo del hombre. (Hunger is a man’s wolf.)

16 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I poetry THe Two Cities But as the rain grew thin, and the by Doris Lessing shelterers passed on, Two black children strayed on the Long sheltered avenues of light, kerb to sniff the smells the streets; And watch the eaters shut behind And crowds all gay and laughing; the brilliant glass. for the rain, The rain was clinging to their That unexpected challenger of backs in sodden folds, human warmth And no one raised his head to see Swarmed down the walls and them wandering, shook their world like hands; Hungry and cold, wanting what But with a pleasant shock, like never had been theirs, cold showers after hot. Small outcasts from the open city Pleasant the light reminder of the down the hill. dangerous gods, But the guarded town, the citadel Shut out with walls and roofs and of pride, certain food to come: Shuddered as it watched: goose- For it was lunch-hour on the pimpled with the rain, pavements; all the town And huddled in its grey, it wept Was full of good warm smells from fear and pain. and people going home.

17 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction From Death Cats/ teachers to teach hunger and he wouldn’t have a bite to eat, all they can think of is me. My his wife would insult him but El Gato Eficaz musical ear would compose what difference was it to him, by Luisa Valenzuela symphonies of meteorisms and engorged as he was with tears? would sequence the tick-tock There are people who search Wanted: Teachers to teach hunger. of empty innards. My savvy for the most furtive and --Roberto Juarroz aesthetic vision would uncover the sweet greenish blush of those complicated juices, like the We are the guardians of this beings whose ribs are showing. lactic acid of fatigue or even world; the other world should look adrenaline. These are the saddest after itself: it doesn’t need any love There are those who are folded and the most damaging. or watching over. An irreverent in two like an elbow, those who I found him with a sign on his unfolding of eshless beings, are that and nothing else: green back that said “For sale, cheap”: nobody will be there anymore to elbows bent into a V to pinch the you have to pay for your vices as watch over it, or to turn their head bellies of the stunted children best you can, harvest dirty pesos with amazement or to... I am the (a belly like an inated balloon, of disdain to purchase a voyage distinguished maestro Sir Isidro, inated like a kite to the heavens to tears, an eternal trek that I can’t wallow in the swamp, in that only I know how to y, since leaves her exhausted, or a good the black mountains of rock coal, I am their teacher in hunger, fright that leaves the woman in the intestinal life of the oil giving them a little more air— trembling, leaking adrenaline. pipelines, in that covered cloaca the only thing I have to offer). of hide that is the human being. I treat my teaching like a Nothing comes easily these days; people are really stingy There ought to be teachers who priesthood. The of cial with secretions. teach hunger, I read maybe in appointment has already the want ads section of some arrived; all that’s left to morning paper. Or maybe in settle is the salary gure. a book of poems I scanned perchance unawares, since I am the poet Sir Isidro, the It takes all kinds, no doubt about isidropoet, and few, other than it. Malnourishment, nutrition: myself, can utter the truth. it doesn’t matter. I knew a good man who used to feed on tears: To be sure, I recognize in the abundant tears of the woman this sentence the voice of the he abandoned on a street corner. one who calls me. They need He would return home satis ed,

18 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction The Smoochers never a word? Look and look and by Steve Katz you never say nothing? Are we married?” Her words dissolve into to commemorate a brief the slur of her voice. conversation with Anselm Hollo about Charles Bukowski held “I never married again,” I say. “I’m some time in the early 80’s even too shy to talk to a woman.” The jays battle the blackbirds that with cameo appearances by Ernest Hemingway, Joanna Russ, Gerard nest in the long grass outside. Manley Hopkins, Mark Leyner, Norman They know this is almost dawn. Lear, Chuck Wachtel, Isak Dinesen, The humans should be gone. Harold Schimmel, Gary Busey, Ted “You stare too. At me.” Berrigan, Joy Williams, Ted Greenwald “For sure. I have lonesome staring The doors to Harriet’s Grill Pub girl scout patch. I drink always open and two men walk out. Past here so I can look at good humans.” closing time now, for me the end. The kitchen shut down an hour “And we both look so good.” ago. We are less than a week after the election. The few bags left of A quick chuckle sets us coughing. puffed pork rinds hang from a Nancy? Meghan? Maybe a state rack. And the bar has closed on like Nevada or Dakota. Rhode me. I think I voted. I think I voted Island? No parents would give for the moose, but maybe the their kid Rhode Island. Not as a crocodile. I’m alone as usual at name, I knew a Hope once. And a the end with my double Turkey on Patience. This is neither Hope nor the rocks. It warms in my hands Patience. Why don’t I just ask her? as the ice melts. I like one big I don’t. She puckers forward to gulp before I leave. Where do I go kiss and catches my nose and next is always my question? My sucks down the boogers and the own nest? I manage life like a rat drip. Now my nostrils are open. in a hole, the rat’s life is what I It’s been like forever since that. I enjoy, bless their slippery souls. kiss both her eyes. The mascara is They tell me I smell sour as the bitter. “We are doomed,” I sing dump, though my own sniffer is into my sleeve. “Doom da doom worn out, and except for a whiff doom.” of the woman at the other end We leave together. No ifs, ands, or of the bar, I don’t smell much. buts, Grandpa Shlomo used to say. Like me she’s a regular here, but I was named after him, but a little I haven’t talked to her yet. She different. The woman’s knees “Can we do some assistance?” asks the savannah, burning all night probably voted for the butteries, wobble. I have to hold her steady my limp companion, sounding to keep the beasts away. “And why and she got the mosquitoes. I am as she goes. Nor am I so steady almost sober. “Some help or do you young men want the as usual alone. We eye each other where I go. comfort in the confusion?” Marriott?” along the bar as the drinks slide “Please hold me up while...” They look at her as if she has “My wife has our room. She knows through. I can taste her from here. She pisses on my sneakers. risen from the curbside garbage. about us.” He kisses his Her name is Beverly or Eloise. I “We are not confused, thank you companion on both cheeks and don’t remember. Alice? Her face “Don’t you need to squat?” very much. But we are benighted then on the lips. “Says she’s too wrinkles with the pain in her life. maybe with gin.” They dress like sick for gin. Too sick to have a Is it her pain that pushed her into “I like to stand. Hold me up, please, Mr. ... Mr. ... .” corporate gentleman slaves, drink with us. She had a fever. Her the soak or too big dipso that laid striped ties and polished black forehead hot hot. I’m going to kill the maniac onto her look? I’m easy. “Steven.” I can ask her name now, Oxfords. Cuff links too. “Which her.” Just check out my nose. It starts as but I don’t. way is the Marriott?” they ask, as a tree trunk and ends as a g ready if they don’t expect an answer. “No don’t kill. Why kill?” to bust open. Pleasures without “Ph or the v?” “Make everything simpler. Dead reward, and pressure without “I know the Marriott,” she says “V for victory, no ph acid / alkaline wife no strife. All she has to do is release. That’s us. Whatever with all the dignity she can slur. stuff.” She doesn’t volunteer her show up. She doesn’t even do... beauty she had back then, and all name. Holly? No. “O for sure,” says the more drunk The only...” of us have had a touch at some of the two. He bows and his friend point in the life, all plowed under. Encouraged by her gush my has to hold him from falling face “What’s her name?” That Irish face or maybe Slovenian, bladder releases and soaks my rst into the gutter. “And in what the tough furrowed product, Atta girl! The right question jeans. We next can build a boat so capacity were you there, young vulnerable and bitter. Molly? at the right time. we sail down piss river to my place lady?” Esther? Perhaps. a few blocks away. Agnes? Lori? ”You want to know?” “I was CEO of Puplettes. Back in We slip closer together. The two men are stuck, still near the day when I was a CEO. This “Everyone wants to know.” the door. They giggle like girls in “We do closing time again. Just you Marriot is a couple of blocks East. seventh grade, and rotate “I want to know.” I pipe in. and me. You ‘lom (she could have That way.” She points out over the aimlessly. meant to say “glom” but in her cityscape that slopes away from us, “Olio’s the name,” says the current state has a fear of the lit here and there by houses. They husband. “When she was gutturals) onto me like that and are luminous as res by camps on born, her parents...” 19 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction

“Everybody’s favorite cooky. Oreo. girl, I burp up a tidbit of chicken anyone still call it the head? And my left hand while I send a ne Everyone,” says my gal. wing. My girl for now, just for now. maybe that’s her name, Lou. stream of pressurized water Joan of Arc I would call her in this vibrating into her puckered little “Fuck you,” they say as one, and hour. Why not? Drunk Pussy of I op on the bed and unbuckle toothole, or what determinists kiss again on the lips, then start Arc. Suddenly I need to get laid. and start to jerk off. When your might call The Exit. See my good towards their hotel. woman is on the loo, that’s one brain. I told you. What difference The door to my mansion is stuck of the best times to jerk off in “Fuck them,” they say loud enough does it make? Oooh, she moans. shut. I never lock. The lock is this city of do’s and don’ts. You Clean as a whistle once I am for us to hear. “Fuck them all,” anyway busted. My philosophy is lie back and fantasize about the they agree with each other and done. Flakes of her stuff stain never to own anything someone load she is dumping, the brown the towel I spread at her feet. stagger down the street into the might like to steal. Though that pool she is culminating. O if weatherless early light. Down the is unkind to the common thief. life were only good like this, I O it tickles, she sighs. She relaxes. boulevard the city rolls out wild. But own only crap. Most of my wouldn’t be so lonesome. Yum, Steven with a v, this feels An enormous roar lls the shallow possessions are gross, odious to like a commotion of dreamy, small expanse. It rattles through my the average man, or the common It takes a while for her to nish dreams in my booty butt, she sings. bones. Do you hear that? Roar, woman. Even my clothes, all her duty. I don’t make wood any Petals! Petals raining down on she roars in her smallest voice. greasy. These are my vestments, more, can get only half hard or me. I love this more than I love... a though I do keep a few clean shirts half soft, depending on how you caterpillar. I’ll do it for you if you “Do you think the wife is look at it. I am satis ed with in danger?” in case I have to meet the taxman. want me to. Let me do you, please. The door takes a blow from my pulling like on a hag sh or a “Everyone is in danger.” shoulder, and then from the lady’s, puppy shar pei. She comes out I am at that stage, a clearly drowsy before it pops open. and looks around for me. She has stage of wobbling knees and They are on their way to the neglected to wipe herself so I have drooping eyes. Almost gone. Gone Marriott, maybe to kiss, maybe to kill. In this ne early dimness before dawn it’s hard to tell. Death and the gentlemen strolling together. She and myself look at each other and laugh, Why are we laughing? What are these noises in the inebriated universe? “Fuck ‘em,” we say, and then we say, “Fuck ‘em.” and it makes us laugh. At least we have this in common. We laugh again. “What was Puplettes? You were CEO?” “I made that up. I have a very good brain to make a big surprise. But I do have that Marriott in my basket. I’m sure I was a CEO somewhere, once or twice.” “That’s like when I was an engineer.” “You, engineer?” “I read the water meters for the city. They called me a hydro... hydro... ” My hands on her anks try to steer to do it for her. Then I remember with the mind. Wait a second, I “Engineer,” she sang out. her to the bed but I see she really the waterpik Sophie left me when say, and I fetch the Turkey from needs the bathroom. Her jeans she went back to Wisconsin to the kitchen table and top off We stop at Shedd’s All Night drop to her ankles. I’m so sorry, take care of her father. Take good our drinks. She stands there Liquor. There are times on a long she says. Nice waif this one, in the care of this, she said. I never use now wielding the wand of this bender when you are more sober dreary world of aging adults. it. This time I ll it with warm implement, striping the room than when you’re sober. Like when Diarrhea drips from her butt crack water and take her hand to lead with its ne stream. At any stage you buy a bottle. A quart of the onto the shag carpet. It’s not the her to the bed. I need a drink, she of my drunk or before or after I Turkey I grab. She lifts the bag rst time. There will never be a says. So do I, say I. Then I ll two will have a tough time resisting from my hand as soon as we’re out rst time. I grab a roll of paper tumblers with Turkey. Some ice any woman with a waterpik. of the store. Is it Nora? Or maybe towels and follow her to the toilet in mine, she shouts at me. I take Nuclear? Why can’t I just ask her? with the quicker-picker-upper. She it neat. Turkey is best as Turkey. You like that? she asks as I What’s your name? Simple as that. leaves a wide puddle of shit on the am bent over the bed for her But I don’t. Maybe I am afraid to small pentagonal tiles next to the There’s a tray of ice cubes in the treatment. I can’t see her from lose face? What is that? Who’s got loo. Those are some tiles of yester- fridge, and I drop some into her this angle, but she sounds like face to lose? year, I think. I call it the loo when glass. The ice is grey as the dust she really cares. It feels good, like I want to sound British. I almost bunnies under the bed. How did an Instronaut streaming all the She slips the bottle out of the bag never want to sound British. I that happen? She slugs down way to your most hidden your and kisses the turkey on the label. am an American, and proud of it. a big gulp, and I bend her over intimate cavities. She will do “God bless you,” she says. That’s my But I won’t call it the head. Does again, spread her buttocks with you small favors. I feel myself 20 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I fiction breathe. “... a spritz of color / in at the application you submit to After the exertions of night, and all But now I will know her name. this life / is what we can expect...” enter heaven. Stand by your heap. the perks of sexual exhaustion, it is Next time I will know it. I will Otherwise, what is there to live for.” sheer pleasure, a quiet exhilaration sit down at the bar in Harriet’s “What is that?” she asks. to lie together in the warm uids and ask Philly-Jane, who owns This is it. I love this woman. and speak in tones of reverie and the place now. We all could “Don’t stop now. It’s from a poem Margaret maybe. Except this I heard once. I heard it. Don’t nostalgia. “Do you remember,” sing “Those Were The Days.” Margaret doesn’t grieve the I ask her, my baritone like a stop.” Suddenly a great fart, and shedding of leaves, and the barren When Harriet died she left the my bowels erupt, and spray cashmere blanket, “when all the grove from which she spanks automobiles took their names from shop to her niece, Philly-Jane, a across the room splashing her (She spanks me now, spanking tough, ambitious lesbian missing pink nipples and blue veined food? I sang a few verses of ‘Those and squirting, squirting and Were The Days’ and felt the spirit both her eye teeth. She didn’t breasts. I ll the bellybutton of spanking.) never has any foliage change the name of the place, my beloved. “Nice,” she sings out. of Archie Bunker ll my heart with to lose. But Margaret is a good one hot-dogs. Cars like the Chevy Knish, so Harriet’s stayed alive still “That was a Poem!” she sings again. for her. I mean name. Look it up. the DeSoto Cheeseburger, the little being Harriet’s. I’ll ask Philly- Jane, you know that woman who “It makes me cry. Do you ever I’m so drunk, she croaks, her voice Nash Alfredo, I always wanted think,” she says, and she sounds a Packard Porterhouse, a totally sits at the end of the bar most scratchy reptilian. We toss the nights? Do you know her name? almost sober, “of how much shit waterpik and I yank her onto the elegant ride, and the Oldsmobile anyone produces in a lifetime, like bed like the man I’m supposed to Empanada. When my father died If Philly-Jane doesn’t know, I’ll close to a pound a day, measured by be, roll on top of her and wipe my he left me his Studebaker Pierogi, call my baby Pittsburgh or the people who do measurements?” half hard along her dry crack. I a car design way ahead of its time. Emma-Lou, Tug-boat Minneapolis. Made in South Bend, Indiana. I sold “How do you know a pound? vomit onto her face. We welcome Whatever I like, and that will be it then. If I kept it I bet I’d be rich What’s your source?” I wiggle this and smush around coughing her name for me from then on. today. What do you think? Where and splash the stream around. into the green golden swamp juice speckled with tid-bits of do you nd a Studebaker Pierogi “Believe me. I know better mixed nuts, pork rind, pickled today? Or a Lancia Parmigiana? than anyone. I told you I egg and some other stuff. A Lamborghini mozzarella, a have a very good brain. Maserati and Aston Martin on a “I’m not your human skewer by Bentley.” I wanted to “She does. I don’t know her name, shmata,” she whines. call her by her name, but I had but I’ve witnessed her brain. no name for her. The name gives “Shmata?” I’m a New Yorker, and a person shape and history. “What I think would be good,” I know from shmata, but I want she says, “for mankind, for to keep this conversation alive “Steven with a v, please don’t womankind, for the nation, for the so I pretend I don’t get it. I’m leave me here alone.” world of words and moves, would surprised she had the word at all. be that at the pearly gates (do you “I live here little one.” think they’re really pearly? Pearl “You don’t know shmata? Mr. “You live... Because if you leave is too precious to waste).” A rat Steven with a v. Wake up. You there will be no one here in the watches us from a dark corner near should get yourself a life.” morning to shake the scorpions the closet. I know that rat. May it “I’ve got a life.” out of my boots. Nobody...” At be blessed by the god of rats. She this appeal her voice took on the kept going. “Every one should “Show me.” tones of a voice from way back, stand and be measured against the another time in her life, a sweet heap of his lifetime production. I “This is my life.” I lift the empty seductive charm in the syllables. mean, my Steven with a v, not even bottle in the air. I gesture around the room, “And this is my temple.” Balzac with all the novels of his “You don’t ever wear boots. Human Comedy, and all his other While settling down on Mr. Only ip-ops, only ats.” writings, nor Joyce Carol Oates Peeps, my shy little snorky hiding She was already asleep. The time who writes two or three books a somewhere down there, she had passed, the time had come. year, nor the great Carl Jung who upchucks everything she had in She snored bubbles into our soup. produced book after book, theory her all over my belly. Something She even resembled someone after theory, produced enough work was alive in it, that slithered off pretty with her face relaxed to measure up to the weight and the bed into the corner where my into the smells of Morpheus. volume of their own excrement. I rat grabbed it for breakfast. I call say excrement because I want you my rat Tarzan. In the culture of the When I woke up in the late to think well of me. I’m not a bary, people of my moiety maybe this afternoon, she was gone. Of only. I am impressive. Nor Haydn, is sex? It feels good to me, blissful course. Why would she stay? Only nor Bach, nor Philip Glass who to rest here in the green golden to squabble? So she could watch writes opera after opera several pool, reeking of each other, happy me snore? I was always ready to each year plus the other works of to be together in our relief. I pour squabble as soon as I woke up, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, the rest of the Turkey over us. An except I don’t squabble any more. can measure their works (though ablution. Blessed Turkey for its Too old to squabble. Best I can do is who can weigh music?) against the bouquet, for its nish, for its holy to call on the Bright Belly people. lifelong heap of their production. burn. The mattress absorbs the wet They will come and clean my place, Perhaps some sculptors, or painters as it has done plenty times before. oor to ceiling. And in the Spring can weigh their art against We sound like a squeegee when we they’ll bring lilacs. My place will their shit and make art come move, which we don’t much, happy smell like lilacs in the Spring. out on top, given several days of to be still together with an ecstasy constipation or the runs. I think of dawn outside at the horizon. this assessment should be made

21 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Memoir Excerpt our car whizzed by on the opulent estates behind which the The very next day the doorbell road to Santiago; it was there upper classes lived in outrageous rang and there he was. Again I in the endless shantytowns of luxury, that little boy’s condition invited him in for a good meal, the capital, the urban sprawl became all the more pathetic, so but this time my mother didn’t Heading South, of cardboard-and-tin hovels that, when we reached my bus make an appearance with clothes among the weeds and the stray stop in a somewhat more modest or a welcoming smile, nor, when Looking North: A dogs; it was there in the army part of the area, I impulsively I said goodbye, did I suggest Bilingual Journey of derelicts of all ages that invited him to come home with that we set up another meeting, crisscrossed the avenues of the me for a hot meal. Our house was suspecting that he would be back, by Ariel Dorfman city, sleeping under the bridges far from being a mansion; just a anyway. I wasn’t surprised when, The story thus far: born in Argentina of the Mapocho and blanketing large, comfortable residence, but twenty-four hours later, he turned in 1942, Ariel is taken at the age the steps of the churches as seen through his eyes, it took on up with two other waifs. This of two and a half to the United if they were crippled birds. the magni cence of a palace. time I hesitated, but what was States, as his family ees a military I to do? Turn them away? They “You’ll get used to that,” a UN We had two servants-one who marched into the kitchen and I sat regime with fascist tendencies. colleague of my father’s said to cooked and one who cleaned and Ten years later, persecuted by them down in front of the cook me, in English, when he heard served at table—and neither was and she frowned and extricated McCarthy, the Dorfmans leave me expressing amazement at delighted to see the seedy guest I New York for Santiago in 1954. some leftovers from the fridge such widespread misery. “As had brought home. But my parents and warmed them, grumbling there’s not very much that you weren’t around, so I was the boss. under her breath, and then the can do about it, anyway.” The kid chattered away while he doorbell rang again and the It was not that I discovered the ate, and then my mother came maid went off to see who it was existence of misery when we went He was more right than wrong home and, after joining us for a and came back and announced to live in Chile. I cannot, literally, in his rather ippant assessment. moment, went off to rummage noncommittally, “Buscan.” remember a time in my life when Even if I could not avoid being in the attic for some old clothes Somebody had come to see me. I was not mindful of the fact that intermittently embarrassed for the kid. I escorted my young there were many in the world less whenever a human being in friend to the door and told him fortunate than my family. I look distress came limping through my that I hoped to see him again. back and see them there, on the life, I was basically walled away rim of my life, watching me as I from the poor of Chile in every watched them, and what I recall possible way: I was young, I lived is my compassion, my attempt to in a well-to -do neighborhood, and jump into their point of view, to I attended a school which trained beggar myself into their eyes, to the elite that would govern wonder what hunger meant, what this country and its wealth. sickness meant, what despair I did make one attempt to meant, what it meant to die before intervene in the quagmire of having lived. But as there were Chilean poverty. I must have not that many really indigent been around fourteen and spoke people around in booming New enough Spanish to engage people York after the Second World War, outside my house in ordinary their mysterious destiny was, in a conversation, and one day when I sense, an abstraction, they became was returning from the dentist’s I an occasion for intellectual had taken pity on a street urchin elaboration, to be explained away who was singing boleros on the into comprehensible categories, bus. His voice was as cracked as particularly by my father. his blistered feet. He was covered Whenever I asked why those with scabs, his hair a shock of harrowing gures of destitution black sticky strands, his shirt haunted my books or comics or torn. He couldn’t have been more lms (more than my streets), my than six years old. I gave him a father would use that example coin, asked him a question, he to educate me, point out that saw a friendly light in my eyes the poor existed as a direct, and and, perhaps encouraged by my necessary, consequence of the strange accent, he began to tell his richness of a small minority . story: how it was better to live on Once we were in Chile, however, the streets than risk the beatings poverty ceased to be an of a father who might or might abstraction. It was there the day not be around; how the pacos (the we arrived, in the tired backs of Chilean police) had picked him up the longshoremen on the docks one day and threatened to put him as our ship creaked against its in an institution but he had fooled moorings; it was there in the them and escaped; how once in a weatherbeaten shacks clustered while he made his way home to like ies on Valparaiso’s hills; his mother, who was always sweet it was there in the bare feet of to him and had taught him his peasants laboring on elds that repertory of lovelorn canciones. did not belong to them, scarcely As he talked, our bus began to raising their bronze faces as enter the barrio alto, where I lived, and as we passed the façades of

22 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I Memoir

of a Siqueiros painting showing the lavishness and splendor of the workers of the country—a gain Latin America as a centaur in [Latin American] nature,” most that was lost during the ensuing agony, half beast, half man, always of the population was “groaning seventeen years of dictatorship. divided, I watched the maid tell under the yoke of poverty, misery Also worth noting: one of Allende’s the kid that I wasn’t home, and and the vices which are their rst decrees was that every child he looked straight at where I was inevitable consequences”? And in Chile should be given, paid for hiding behind the curtains and now, after that question, repeated by the States, half a liter of milk, then up toward the second story by each generation of Chileans medio litro de leche. And so, a tiny of our house, where my room (and Latin Americans in the rest consolation. During the thousand was. I watched from that house of the continent), had received no glorious days of Allende, kids lled with books that analyzed satisfactory answer, a left-wing like the one I had welcomed to my Outside our gate stood the mother inequality and surplus value and movement of intellectuals and house and then banished were not (at least she said she was) of my economic underdevelopment and workers and peasants that had condemned to inevitable hunger. singing friend with a baby in the philosophy of justice and the been forming during most of the her arms and a ragged older girl rights of indigenous peoples. I century was gaining strength. clinging to her dress. She asked watched the boy turn away, and the Since colonial times, the same Ariel Dorfman, August 2017. if I had any work for her, for the next day he came one last time and ruling classes, and their allies girl. I told her to wait and went I forced myself to contemplate his abroad, had kept a stranglehold on upstairs to my own mother, who defeat and my defeat all over again, the country’s economy and, most took charge of the situation. She and that was it. After that, he never of the time, on its government walked out to speak to the woman, rang the bell again. He understood as well, and the result had been gave her some money, informed what had happened, the limits social injustice, educational her that unfortunately we had no of my compassion, he came no and technological stagnation, a work, and added that the boy and more, and whatever guilt I felt was scandalous disparity between his friends would be out very soon. insuf cient to make me interrupt the means and lifestyle of a small Half an hour later, when all the the life I had led up until then. I oligarchy and those of the vast intruders had left, my mother continued my estranged existence impoverished nation, a productive sat me down, complimented me in Chile almost as if nothing system geared to the exigencies on my good heart and told me had happened. But I had learned of the foreign marketplace rather rmly that this could not go on. something: the truth of who we than the needs of the citizens This was not the way to solve the were, the boy and I, the cards we themselves. The left proclaimed problems of Chile’s perpetual had been dealt. I lived here, in a that it was time to institute underdevelopment. One beggar safe, happy house, the foreign, real reforms and wrest control had begat two more and now others bilingual son of a diplomat going to of Chile’s wealth from foreign were clamoring at the door and this the most exclusive school in Chile, corporations and a handful of was incremental, there were too and that child had nothing but his greedy families. It was time for a many indigent people out there and throat and his songs of adult love different class to take power. It was too few homes like ours that even and betrayal to ward off death. I time, they said, for a revolution. cared. We would be overrun and watched him wander off under the splendid trees of Santiago and It must have been around then, in unable to lead a normal life. I could, 1956, that I rst heard the name of course, if I was so inclined, sell the mountains that years later would urge me not to leave this of Salvador Allende, a socialist my records and my books and my doctor who had been the youngest candy bars—but not my clothes! country, and his tribulation and abandonment were made all the Minister in the 1938 Popular she added hastily —and turn them Front government of Pedro Aguirre into cash for my aficted chums. starker by the contrast they offered to the breathtakingly beautiful Cerda and who had, from that post, My mother warned me that within instituted the rst social security a few days the supply would be surroundings in which they festered, that land which had more and national health care system gone and I would be back exactly in Chile. He was now a senator where I was now: they would still than enough resources to feed him a million times over and could not and he had been instrumental in be as poor as ever and I would be formulating a program that was as fed and clothed and housed as even guarantee him, and so many others like him, one meal a day. supposed to solve the country’s ever, the line dividing us would structural problems. Nationalize not have disappeared. Someday If I ended up transitorily trapped the copper, nitrate, carbon, iron perhaps, I would be able to do in the prophecy of my father’s UN mines, expropriate the main something about that line and colleague, unable to intervene in industries and banks, divide that poverty, just as my father the age-old injustice of Chile, I up the large haciendas among had tried, but now was not the would not be left there for very the peasants that worked the time and this was not the way. long. All around me, thousands land. And this overturning of The next afternoon I watched as of other inhabitants of Chile were privilege was to be accomplished the maid went out to the gate when ready to take more decisive action. democratically, through the my singing urchin came around electoral process. It was a program Two hundred years before I arrived virtually identical to the one again, with the same two pals, and on the shores of that country and with a couple of older kids hovering Allende set in motion when he did wondered how so much bounty when the Presidency in 1970. in the background. I watched could produce so much suffering, a from behind the curtains in a Chilean named Jose Cos de lribari It is worth remarking that, of course, room lled with art books, a room had asked a similar question the Chilean revolution of 1970, where my mother played the piano even before independence had brutally suppressed on September to songs I sang in English, a room been gained from Spain: How is 11th, 1973, raised the standard of with an enormous reproduction it possible that, “in the midst of living of the immense majority of 23 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University authors

About the writers

Margaret Atwood Charles Dickens Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer born on November 18, 1939 in Charles Dickens (February 7, 1812 to June 9, 1870) was a British Ottawa, Canada. The internationally-known author has written award- novelist, journalist, editor, illustrator and social commentator who winning poetry, short-stories and novels, including The Circle Game wrote such beloved classic novels as Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, (1966), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Blind Assassin (2000), Oryx and Nicholas Nickleby, David Coppereld, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Crake (2003) and The Tent (2006). Her works have been translated into Expectations. Dickens is remembered as one of the most important and an array of different languages and seen several screen adaptations, with inuential writers of the 19th century. Among his accomplishments, both Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace becoming miniseries in 2017. he has been lauded for providing a stark portrait of the Victorian era underclass, helping to bring about societal change. When Dickens died of Mark Axelrod a stroke, he left his nal novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, un nished. Mark Axelrod is a graduate of both Indiana University and the University of Minnesota. He has been the Director of the John Fowles Center for Ariel Dorfman Creative Writing for which he has received ve National Endowment for Ariel Dorfman, (born May 6, 1942, Buenos Aires, Argentina), is a the Arts Grants. He has received numerous writing awards including Chilean American author and human rights activist whose plays and two United Kingdom Leverhulme Fellowships for Creative Writing as novels engage with the vibrant politically engaged Latin American well as screenwriting awards from the Sundance Institute, the WGA literary tradition of Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez. Dorfman East, and the Nicholl Fellowship. He recently received awards from writes extensively on issues related to Latin American politics, American the Irvine International Film Festival, the Chicago International Film cultural hegemony, war, and human rights, publishing essays in both Festival and the Illinois International Film Festival for his screenplays. English and Spanish. He also works with organizations such as Amnesty International, Index on Censorship, and Human Rights Watch. Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein was born in New York City in 1950. He received Eduardo Galeano his B.A. from Harvard College. Among his more than twenty books Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015) was a Uruguyan writer, historian, and of poetry are Girly Man (University of Chicago Press , 2006), With journalist. Best known for books such as Football in Sun and Shadow and Strings (2001), Republics of Reality: 1975-1995 (2000), Dark Open Veins of Latin America, his writing signi cantly contributed to a City (1994), Rough Trades (1991), The Nude Formalism (1989), greater global recognition and appreciation of Latin American literature. Stigma (1981), Legend (with Bruce Andrews, Steve McCaffery, He once described himself as “a writer obsessed with remembering the Ron Silliman, Ray DiPalma, 1980), and Parsing (1976). past of America above all, and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to forgetfulness.” Allen Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was one of the most inuential poets of the 20th century. As a founding father and iconic artist in the Beat movement, Ginsberg published numerous collections of poetry, including Howl and Other Poems (1956); he was the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Robert Frost medal, and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun was born into poverty in Lom, Norway in 1859. In his celebrated novels such as Hunger, Pan, and Victoria, he led a Neo-Roman- tic literary revolt against realism and naturalism. His innovative psycho- logical realism and lyricism inuenced writers including Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway; he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun died in disgrace in 1952 after supporting the Nazi inva- sion of Norway; his Complete Works were published posthumously.

24 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I authors

Maxine Hong Kingston George Orwell Maxine Hong Kingston was born in Stockton, California in 1940. Kings- George Orwell was born in India in 1903. His rst book, Down and Out ton’s writing often blurs memoir and non- ction with myth and ction, in Paris and London, is about his experiences as a struggling writer; he exploring feminist themes, the anti-war movement, and the Chinese-Amer- would later become one of the most famous authors of the twentieth ican experience. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, century. After ghting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, including the National Book Award for China Men and the National Book Orwell worked as a literary critic, novelist, and political journalist; his Critics Circle Award for The Woman Warrior. most famous works include Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Doris Lessing Ian Prichard Doris Lessing (1919-2013) was born in Kermanshah and grew up in Rho- Ian Prichard works in the water industry and lives in Los Angeles with his desia, but lived most of her life in England. She wrote in diverse genres, wife, kids, cats, and sourdough starter. He was educated at the University including novels, poetry, non- ction, plays, short stories, and essays; her of Virginia (MA ‘05) and Chapman University (MFA ‘12). His writing has most famous novel The Golden Notebook portrays societal, political, and appeared in The Mulberry Fork Review, Meat for Tea, Mantra, and The Post psychological fragmentation and collapse. She is celebrated as one of the Game. greatest British writers of the century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Jonathan Swift Born in Dublin in 1667, Jonathan Swift received his Doctorate of Divinity Steve Katz from Trinity College. A founding member of the Martinus Scriblerus Club, he published numerous literary, poetic, religious, and political works, all Steve Katz was born in May of 1935, in the Bronx. He has never not been under pseudonyms, and is considered one of the most brilliant satirists a Yankee fan. He lives now in Denver, Colorado, retired from teaching at in the English language. His most notable works include Gulliver’s Travels, the University of Colorado. His books include The Exagggerations of Peter Tale of a Tub, and A Modest Proposal. Prince, Saw, and Creamy & Delicious. He is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and has been a featured reader at the &NOW Festival at Chapman University. Luisa Valenzuela Luisa Valenzuela was born in Beunos Aires in 1938. She writes powerful experimental ction in both Spanish and English, including the novels Flann O‘Brien Como en la guerra, Cambio de armas, and Cola de lagartija. She is the recip- Flann O’Brien (1911-1966) was a key gure in both postmodern litera- ient of numerous awards and honorary degrees; she was awarded a Full- ture and in twentieth century Irish literature. He published novels in bright scholarship in 1969 and was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2015. both English and Irish, including At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman, and An Béal Bocht. He was also a proli c satirist, publishing innumerable short columns and pseudonymous letters in literary periodicals and The Irish Times.

25 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Submit your writing to the Spring 2019 Issue of Mantissa!

The next Issue is devoted to

The Holocaust

The Deadline for Submissions is September 1st, 2018

26 Mantissa Journal Volume III Issue I Painting by Camilo Ambrosio

27 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University