A Journal Of Literature the new or.zleans r.zeview & Culture LOYOLA UNIVERSITY Vol. 2. No. 1 table of contents articles The Dynamics of Short Story Cycles/Forrest L. Ingram. S. J. .... 7 .. 27 The Theatre of Pilgrimage/Ernest Ferlita .............. .. ... 74 The Cybernetics of Othello/John P. Sisk ....... .. .. ................ .. fiction Seven Feet Down and Creeping/Nelson Algren ................. ·········· 3 ........ 15 The Novios/Lioyd Halliburton ...................... .. 39 A Living Son/Robert Joe Stout .. .. special section NOR Presents Poetry of British Columbia/ed. J. Michael Yates .......... 43-72 interview Granville Hicks ....................................................................................................... 21 photography ... 31 Portfolio/A Miscellany ....................................................... poetry ... 12 2:00a.m., New Orleans/William Mills ............................................ .. 13 Forty Seven Violins and Three Harps/Helen Sorrells ..................... 18 The Regent/Lawrence P. Spingarn ............................ .. Miss Dark/Harold Witt ...................................................................... .. .. 19 An Ending/Dan Masterson ...................................................... .. ........................ 25 Thoughts in Honor and Contempt of Death/Charles Suhor ..... ... .......... .. ..... 30 be returned In a Killing Season/Margaret Gibson ............................................ .. ................. 38 anied by a self Alone/Tom McKeown ..................................................................... .. .............. 42 envelope. ...... 78-79 to prevent En el rincon aquel. donde dormimos juntos/Cezar Vallejo ........ .. ts, but no re assumed for material. reviews 82 Perspective/John R. May .............. 81 Books .................... .. ............................................................. 88 Poetry ...................... .. .... 91 Records ...................... 92 Jazz ............ .. Seven Feet Down and Creeping by Nelson Algren The hard-time houses of Moorman Street abide in a city as extensive as the city above it, depends com brown, old-fashioned light. Smoke holds onto their pletely on the little hunk of snot and bone called: eaves in winter: the chimneys of Moorman Street The Nose. take no chances of being billed by some utility com Down in the dark megalopolis where water drips pany for sending smoke too high. between abandoned walls, a tiny leak in rusted tub The windows of Moorman Street never look up ing may blast innocent persons through their roof in lest a meter-man be looking in. Anyhow, why look the middle of a summer afternoon. In the middle of up? Everything that happens happens on the a wintry night is better yet. ground. Selma and Roman were so serious about one an The iron fences of Moorman Street have a watch other that one day she said to him, "Let's go down to ful air; and the grass behind them has a hard time of Hubbard Street and get the free blood-test." it all year round. "I go where I'm needed most," Roman agreed. In this block-long row of low-built houses bearing Selma stood on one side of a screen and Roman low-hanging porches under a smoke pall that pre on the other. fers sidewalks to skies, one house is missing-as if it "Do you have good urine, honey?" she asked him. had sunk. Yet under the nameless weeds and the "Mine is fine." rubble of the changeful years, the arteried stone ''It was romantic-like," Selma told me. "It was like remains; where once stood a house that sank, being in love." burned or simply fell in. Children of Moorman The next week Roman received an induction no Street go there to play catch. "I'll meet you at the tice. house that came down," the kid with the ball tells "I'm needed there even more," he assured Selma. the other kids. The first time he lined up with his squad, a second I am the only one who remembers the couple lieutenant observed that Roman had more muscles who lived in The House That Came Down. than the army knew how to use. "Keep this man off K.P." the lieutenant instructed Roman-From -Metai-F in ish i ng never expec the First Sergeant, "he's boxing material. Make that ted more out of life than to be married to out in triplicate." Then he looked Roman over once Selma-From-Endless-Belting. Selma Endless never more. dreamed of any life other than one of being married "See that this man gets a quart of milk a day while to Roman Metal-Finishing. Had anyone prophesied in training. Make that out in triplicate also." that a day would come when Roman would wear the For the remainder of his stateside army career proud blue and grey of Some People's Gas Compa Roman received three quarts of milk a day. ny, who would have believed? Neither I nor the chil "How come you get three quarts for yourself dren of Moorman Street. when eight of us fellows have to divide two quarts?" For Some People's Gas is a mighty utility, owning an undernourished corporal wanted to know. miles of gas piping and gasified bookkeepers keep "Because I always go where I'm needed most." ing gasified books, to see that people who use Some Roman never minded hitting somebody with his People's gas pay their gaseous bills. It employs gasi fists if it was all right with the other fellow, and then fied collectors who come to the doors of people the other fellow would hit Roman with his fists and who have not paid for their Some People's gas. Roman didn't mind that either. He had simply never Nobody knows but that there might somewhere be thought of it as a profession. ghastly courts where people who steal Some Peo Roman won his first four fights on knockouts as ple's gas are sentenced-quite properly-to gas-lit they were all fellows from Los Angeles. He had nev cells. er been in a fight before where he had never been And this vast empire of gas tubing and gas meters, hit himself; it came as a complete surprise. This had gas inspectors, gas collectors, gas directors, gas de it all over K.P. tectives and gas detectors, rulers of an underground "There's a sergeant from Butte been pretty lucky Roger Pfingston 3 so far," his First Sergeant told Roman. "If you can Their honeymoon was a whole Sunday afternoon put him away, you'll make Pfc." in Nelson Brothers Rock Garden. "I don't know if I can handle the responsibility of One morning shortly after their wedding Roman office," Roman admitted candidly, "but I go where was smelling the difference between Old Fitz and I'm needed most." Old Grandad in Sigmund's Whiskey-Tavern, when The fellow from Butte knocked Roman cold in he smelled something which was neither Old Fitz twenty-two seconds of the first round. nor Old Grandad; nor even Sigmund. He traced it "If you hadn't come out of your corner so slow," around a corner of the bar and right under Sig his First Lieutenant reproached Roman, "he could mund's feet. have knocked you out in nineteen." "Gas," he told Sigmund. "I'll try to come out faster the next time, Sir," Sigmund couldn't smell it. The customers couldn't Roman promised. smell it. Nonetheless, Sigmund phoned Some Peo And he kept his word. After that Roman got him ple's Gas. self knocked out so fast that other armies began The Some People's Gas Detector couldn't smell sending in men to see him get it. One night eight anything either. But when he put the automatic German PWs, flanked by two MPs, walked in. His gas-detector to where Roman's nose was pointing, opponent broke Roman's nose as soon as they met the needle jumped. in the middle of the ring. The eight Germans stood "You ought to be work in' for Some People's your up in the front row and cheered with a single shout. self," the Smeller told Roman. "You're raising morale all over the post," the First "I got a cousin works downtown there," Sigmund Sergeant encouraged Roman. "Keep it up." told Roman. "I'll bring him over. We'll talk to you Roman kept it up. How many times his nose was and Selma about gettin' you on." broken not even his HQ company knows to this day. "You don't talk to no Selma," Roman told Sig Medical records, however, reveal that he was in the mund. "You talk to me." Ft. Bragg infirmary thirty-two times. Since medical Some People's Gas put Roman on call as an ap records are made out in quadruplicate, this indicates prentice smeller. Now, any hour of the day or night that Roman's nose was broken eight times in de the phone might ring and Roman would jump into fense of democracy. his gas company uniform, grab his Some People's On the day that Von Rundstedt began his great Gas-Detecting Bag and wheel, walk, run, taxi or bus drive to the sea, Roman sneezed so hard in the Ar to the leak whether fast or slow. dennes forest that he broke a bone fragment out of "It's romantic, sort of," Selma told Sigmund, "like his right ear. Von Rundstedt kept coming all the a doctor's wife almost. And in forty years he gets a same. pension." Selma was waiting for Roman at the gate when his Sometimes Roman had to creep beneath a side turn to be discharged came up at Camp Grant. But walk and sometimes he had to climb a chimney. Roman didn't come through the gate. His nose had Sometimes he had to break a hole in a roof and hang been broken so often, it turned out, that he was no head down. Sometimes he had to get people out of longer entitled to be a civilian. bed and sometimes he had to fight off dogs; and Every time he sneezed, he was informed, he put sometimes he would answer a call from a woman innocent bystanders in danger of being struck by with a slow leak.

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