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The Mockingbird

1978

The Mockingbird

ETSU Department of Art

ETSU Department of English

Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/mockingbird

Part of the Art and Design Commons, and the Creative Writing Commons

Recommended Citation ETSU Department of Art and ETSU Department of English. 1978. The Mockingbird. Johnson City, TN: East Tennessee State University. https://dc.etsu.edu/mockingbird/35

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CONTENTS page PHOTOGRAPHY: Bob Palmer (First Place) 23 Paula Anderson (Second Place) 17 Jon Buchanan(Honorable Mention) 30 Kathy Lewis (Honorable Mention) 3 Kathy Lewis (Honorable Mention) 11

PRINTS: Art Taylor (First Place) 12 Jon Buchanan (Second Place) 7 Bev Yokley (Honorable Mention) 29 r Connie Morrison (Honorable Mention) 24 Ted Aguirre (Honorable Mention) 4 ,. DRAWING: Kim Guinn (First Place) 18 Tom Lawhon (Second Place) 33 Amy Green (Honorable Mention) 8 ...

SHORT FICTION: James Mintz (First Place) 14 Marlane Agriesti (Second Place) 28

POETRY: Jim Anderson (First Place) 5 Anonymous (Second Place) 13 Tom Lawhon (Honorable Mention) 6 Tony Clark (Honorable Mention) 11 Rick A. Davies (Honorable Mention) 27 Rick A. Davies (Honorable Mention) 36 Mary L. Foxx (Honorable Mention) 13

ESSAY: Kay Decker (First Place) 9 -..,• Bonny Stanley (Second Place 25 "·

OTHER CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS AND POETS: Amy Tipton 20 Van Perry Rose 21 Gary Kellar 22 Mary L. Foxx 22 Jackie Grindstaff 26 39 Karen Laws 27 Peter Montanti 24 Velmer Rock 37 Dennis Watson 38 Cathryn Blalack 39 KATHY LEWIS Honorable Mention Photograph

3 4 TO JEAN'S KID Time was when a mooncalf It commenced to flow stirred -- sublimberly, in our mother the sea in a sanguine glow. long ago, before her face was even wrinkled. Her wetbird body crouched. The moon moved her, her foggy face cleared. the sun lay hot upon her her pulse became a wave rolling tides for That flung her gasping for eternity, except when a blinding beach. passion wearied into the cry that jumped clouds -- then they were apart, and longing held From off her tongue even air's breath has held so many forms, until the tall rain but quite this one washed them together. Before; she looks like you, her mother said, Somewhere, sometime, who let's name her Jean. could say, the river spouted, swelled beneath the sea's emotion, inhaled till it had filled her belly, Most rivers start till it had breathed all the water, then, as springs there, where the huge thighs were stretched or pools of rain: round a continent, there the river spilled, the muddy earth drips, stood. and trickles meet in creeks, and waters fall down Soon mere land ponderously was flooded, drenched, to the sea. years remained the only Most rivers, all but one, channel. but that one runs in ...and reverse through a bedrock change: the main flow of years, and moves forked into phylum, to turn its sluice genus, an artery splinters into blood. into capillaries, thousands

5 of species of rivulet forged So, you want on, and where a trickle a new wet the dust, something dress shook itself, and breathed. Something new Not a sound ... to wrap but something strangely that mother-starved kin ... resonates motherly body resonates. of yours The right tone will in make a room And we'll all feel new resonate, a normal in our sweet pastels sound becomes much ...God how will I explain greater, the if she sees that-­ whole room sings. she'll get offended At times me talking about her matronly body not a sound ...but it's true but something strange Even her eyes resonates are matronly-- downriver. I'll never have a sister she says Now and again a creature she'll never have a child-­ remembers, recollects, that doesn't stop me being a tells the river story. perpetual brother-- Tells it with the body, we invent the things tells it from the beginning we cannot be when the earth and sky Oh,-- I was just thinking of you Curled up into an egg and that new dress and hatched a trillion new surprises; the tale unfolds I was thinking of something with soft sloping lines-­ And likewise does the teller. something which follows the body moves from plant the pear-shape of your body to fish, from gills to Something soft depending Lungs: sound like healthy like your mother bosom-­ ones, her mother said, but I didn't say this i think i'II call her Rachael. to you

JIM ANDERSON TOM LAWHON First Place Poem Honorable Mention

6 JON BUCHANAN Second Place Print

7 AMY GREEN ti n Drawing Honora bl e Men 10

8 OUR MOUNTAINS KAY DECKER First Place Essay With the dawning of each new sea­ then merging quickly with the trees, son in the mountains, the fever for ex­ we made escapes Tom Sawyer would ploration - that desire for the excite­ have envied. ment of discovering unknown paths - The mountain stretched one long, would flood through our veins until sparse arm down to the top of our hill. the urge could no longer be denied. Here we entered, immediately sheltered My brothers and sisters and I would from inquisitive adult eyes. Since it abandon our squabbling, united by a lay within the boundaries of family common goal. Together, we sought property, we felt as if this small part the opportunity when, for the few rare of the mountain was exclusively ours. moments our parents' attentions were Affectionately, if inappropriately, we focused elsewhere, we could skip away called our claim to the mountain "the to continue our explorations unham­ Jungle." We spent many happy hours pered by their watchful eyes. here as small children, before our ex­ Despite our youth, the knowledge we panding minds and bodies led us to had accumulated through numerous seek further horizons. expeditions greatly exceeded that of A deep gully divided the Jungle into most adults. Nevertheless, Mom wor­ two halves. The gully no longer served ried when long hours passed before we as a water runoff, and decaying trees reappeared. had fallen throughout, providing a Living at the foothills of the same spongy, moist brown carpet, spotted mountains he had explored as a child, occasionally by a small patch of soft Dad knew the temptations his children green moss. were subjected to. Yet he also knew the One side of the gully sloped sharply dangers of the alluring forest, where upward. At the top of this steep slope, the same sun-speckled shadows which small but stout pines sheltered the gully. camouflaged fawns often concealed Battered by the elements, these pines rattlesnakes. And, knowing the care­ had only a few sparse branches; how­ free abandonment of children at play, ever, they extended their sturdy lower Dad usually joined Mom in her cau­ limbs invitingly only a few feet above tions. "Sneak off like that one more the gound. Short legs and arms were time, and you'll wish you hadn't," he just long enough to reach these lower would warn, attempting to be stern and branches, and these became our favor­ not quite reaching his goal. ite trees. Scrambling to the outer edges Despite their worries, our parents of the limbs which extended over the knew it was useless to hope their gully, we built a small tree house from warnings and threats would be heeded; which we could guard the front en­ the moment the opportunity presented trance to our Jungle. itself, we wasted no time. Sliding under Blackberry briars were scattered the rusty wire fence at the foot of the throughout the Jungle. Although we hill, pumping laboriously to the top, greatly enjoyed the berries, the bram- continued 9 bles served still another purpose - that bite of cold winter air, and carried a of providing much-needed coverage hint of the spring to come. when we played cowboys and Indians. On such days happiness and joy were The Jungle still echoes with our as natural as breathing, and even the battles. "Get that Indian - he's behind loser of snowball fights could not re­ that rotten log," a cowboy would yell. main angry for long. At such times Seconds later, the bloodcurdling Nature, too, rejoiced; our shouts re­ screams of the "captured" Indian re­ sounding through the trees were as verberated through the Jungle, and much a part of the mountains as the counterattacking Indians dashed silence which prevailed on dark autumn through the foliage in pursuit of a flee­ afternoons. ing cowboy. We learned much from the moun­ When, at last, we tired of re-creating tains. We learned the forests can be history in our battles, we found evi­ gentle, yet harsh. Soft spring winds dence of ages long past when we pro­ that nourish the newly-blossoming ceeded farther into the forest. Trees foliage can become a cruel tempest began to look older and bigger, and overnight. The mountains taught us to many had fallen, resting in various enjoy nature, yet respect it; and that stages of decay until, at last uniting often, simple happiness comes not with the rich dark loam of earth and through a driving search for the end of fallen leaves, they nourished new seed­ a golden rainbow, but through relaxing lings. in a place we love. The soft rustling of leaves and branches overhead, the occasional snap of a twig underfoot, and some­ times the whistle of a bird or rustle of a small animal in the undergrowth were the only noises invading the still­ ness of the forest. Even we, the noisiest of children, would speak with lowering voices as we proceeded deeper into the forest. Whispers seemed irreverant, and usually our voices faded into silence. While sometimes our visits were quiet meetings with Nature, other times were just for fun. One of our favorite 1, times to visit the mountains was in the I· late winter, following the last of win­ ter's heavy snows. The sparkling white diamonds would loosen their grasp on the tall trees and plop heavily to the earth in huge, soft lumps, dampening the forest floor until our booted feet could hardly free themselves from the slush. Warm sunshine banished the

10 1 EMPIRICAL WINTER LANDSCAPE I see a field of snow a fence a high ridge visible behind the trees that grow on a sun a sky a cloud

KATHY LEWIS Honorable Mention Photograph

11 ART TAYLOR First Place Print

12 THE FIRST DAY

My father grew violent the other day in his unreason Having no answers to the raging curses of old age I packed some books in an overnight bag and started walking the narrow road As evening mist settled round a deserted house Feeling no familiar comfort I slept there a stranger Rat-like among the rafters with my revulsion Next day seeking work so I could escape and leave the old man to his madness Everywhere told they were taking no applications Thinking only of bricks and dollars green leaves of numbers I left that empty house cursing heading home by way of the cemetery Up the hilly gravel-and-clay road and there he stood The mist lifting as if chased away by his waving arms

ANONYMOUS Second Place Poem

CASTING We used to fish here. Rowed out to that point where we Couldn't get by walking. But the water there bred bluegill So we rowed and cast our lines, Watched them fall straight and deep, Waited while the sun passed over. A patient man, content to wait For the big strike that never came, With the son he never had.

MARYL. FOXX Honorable Mention

13 TOYS JAMES MINTZ First Place Short Fiction Aunt Crystal was always different so crisp and new. (As opposed, say, to from the rest of us, a real lady and a my dad's threadbare, greasy overalls.) generous one at that. Her very life was But that uniform was about all I could different--1 think destiny made it so, or find to like. Otherwise he seemed cold perhaps some kind of writing in the and distant and somewhat condescend­ stars. She left Tomotla Creek as soon as ing to us country folks. Not that it mat­ she graduated from high school, in the tered to me, for I could have taken Uncle spring of 1940--got away from the mis­ G. Edward any way he came, even if erable place while she was young, as I'd hated him, because I worshipped Grandma often said in later years. But the woman he married. Or, at least, I she came back frequently, and her visits did for years. were the absolute high points of my After their marriage Aunt Crystal early childhood, on a par with Santa and Uncle G. Edward usually came Claus, snow, and the days when Mama back to the Creek for a visit two or three and Daddy didn't fight. times a year. Most of the time they ar­ When she left she went east to Char­ rived in the dead of night, after I was lotte and found a job as a secretary asleep, perhaps because they had to trainee in one of the offices of Butler drive so many miles. They'd write Brothers Manufacturing Company near Grandma beforehand to say they were Pineville. That didn't last long. She coming, and since our house was only soon met and married G. Edward White­ a three-minute run (or a five-minute more, a lanky student at Johnson C. walk, if you prefer) from hers, I was Smith University. With the war on its usually the second person in the entire way, he was to become an officer in the valley to know her visit was imminent. U.S. Army. I would have accepted nothing less. I never liked G. Edward that much. I Those magic nights were always always thought he was somewhat slack­ better for me than Christmas Eves ever jawed and dumb, but my mother, who were. I'd go to bed early, and before was two years older than Aunt Crystal, the sun ever rose, while the roosters adored him. A fine brother, she always still crowed and the dew still hung called him, so handsome in his Army heavy on the trail to Grandma's, I'd suit with the brass buttons and the go to her, slipping into the bedroom stripes down the legs; and who, she called the upper room where she al­ never failed to point out (especially if ways slept. my dad was within earshot), provided Seeing her there, breathing so softly so well for his family. with the dawn breaking outside the Although I could never see Uncle G. curtained windows, was a wonderful Edward's finer qualities quite as clearly thing, even if G. Edward was only a few as my mother did, I tolerated him. In feet away. I enjoyed looking at her fact, I even came to like his uniform, nearly as much as anything else. I'd if for no other reason than that it was creep close and sit cross-legged in the 14 continued floor beside the bed, watching her in into battle, soldiers standing tall and moonstruck awe, trying to guess what proud. Some had painted-on uniforms joyous things she'd brought me this just like Uncle G. Edward's; others time. Often I was uncertain she was wore fatigues and carried bazookas or even a real person, thinking she might flame throwers or strange devices I be an angel or something. Her blonde didn't know. hair fell in shiny tresses across her soft There were other gifts besides sol­ oval face, and her nightgown, whatever diers, or course. Once she hid a rocking its color and design, was always prettier horse at the foot of the bed, a magnifi­ than anything else I'd ever seen. And cent white-footed sorrel frozen forever she smelled wonderful, always. She in a deathless prance, covered by one wore perfumes no one else ever wore. I of Grandma's spare blankets to surprise would not have believed, had someone me. And sometimes there were puzzles, told me, that those aromas were made or a bow and arrow, or even stuffed by the hand of man. I'd just sit there animals. But she was particularly fond and look at her and wonder and wait, of giving me soldiers. I got all kinds of and I guess in a way she was the first them, boxes and sacks full, and by the woman I ever truly loved. time I was six I could assemble whole Invariably, although I was quiet as a armies. At last there were so many they spider, something would tell her I was cluttered up our house and sometimes there, and she'd open her eyes and look got in the way. at me, just like that. All on her own. One evening my dad came in from Her dark eyes were wide and soft and the mill, tired and dirty, and stumbled always smiling, and when they were over one of my batallions in combat opened upon me, G. Edward might as along the Western Front (a place more well have been a million miles away. commonly known as the living room). For a glorious eternity, while she gazed Beneath his weary feet my warriors at me, no one else was in that room but went flying, and when I raised a boyish she and I: A five-year-old and a goddess. howl he let me have the back of his "I've got something for you, Strang­ hand across my face. It addled me. My er," she'd whisper with a smile, driving mother saw it all and fell screaming to me nearly crazy. I'd leap across the gulf my side, grabbing me and doing the between us and pile onto her in una­ three-minute dash up the trail to Grand­ bashed joy. She'd hug me tight against ma's. There, after awhile, her rage sub­ her warm soft breasts, kiss me, and say, sided, but the fallout from that episode "Hush now, don't you wake up your was a long time passing. Uncle Ed." I was her slave. I would not Probably due to it more than any­ have made another sound if I'd been thing else, Grandma cleaned out an dying. attic room at her house and instructed True to her word, one of the suitcases me in the future to mobilize my Armies at the foot of the bed was invariably full up there. I did, secretly; my dad never of good things. Toys galore: Cars, guns, knew. From then on, when Aunt Crystal tanks, and always soldiers. Soldiers brought me toys I carried them up the crouched for attack, soldiers leaping stairs and left them there, taking home continued 15 only the clothes. This kept peace that listen. Now she's paying." otherwise might have been broken. "Shush, Child!" Grandma would say, Grandma's house had a system of even though she had stirred the whole flues running through it, little chimneys thing up with head-high holes for stovepipes, "Well, it's true, and it doesn't matter when electricity came to Tomotla Creek if the truth is put into words." just before the war, one concession "Then, too, Gus doesn't like you giving Grandma made to progress was to in­ so much to Donnie like they don't have stall newfangled electric heaters in all nothing," Grandma would say in a sort her rooms. She was a widow, as she of half-hearted defense of my father often mentioned, and had no strength "It only causes more fighting between to chop firewood for the rest of her life. them when you do." Aunt Crystal brought them to her from "Well, it ought to cause something," Butler Brothers, and all the cast iron, Aunt Crystal, would say sourly. "May­ wood-burning, Warm Morning stoves be it will wake her up to the awful mess were taken out of her house, the elec­ she's in." tric heaters were installed, and she no "Shush!" Grandma would say, but longer needed wood. As plugs over the Aunt Crystal would know she didn't flue-holes in each room she fastened mean it, and would go on and on. reversed paper plates. One time during the war when Uncle There was a stovepipe hole, too, in G. Edward was in Germany or some­ the flue that passed upwards through place, Aunt Crystal came home alone my attic room. I learned one day that and stayed several weeks. I received if I was quiet I could hear almost any my usual rewards upon her arrival, and word spoken anywhere else in the afterwards spent my days playing alone house. The paper plates were very thin. in the attic room. One particularly bor­ For instance, from time to time ing day, when all the battles were Grandma would tell Aunt Crystal about fought and all the wars were won, a my dad's fits of anger, his poor pay, strange new voice floated to me th rough his occasional drunks, and especially the flue, a man's voice I'd never heard his gross mistreatment of my mother. before. I came to see, even at seven, that here I played on, but listened, for this was my dad always got the short end of the something different, a sop to my bore­ balance-pole. He never was as awful dom. Grandma soon said her goodbyes, as those two women said he was, al­ and even at my age I thought that odd, though they seemed to truly believe all for she never left when visitors were they said. And the subject obsessed on the place. them. The voices continued to drift to me "It was a mistake for her to marry through the flue, questions from Aunt into that trash," Aunt Crystal would about the war, his travelling, and other say in her soft velvety voice, making things I did not understand. Then they me wonder what she meant by "trash." made a big ceremony over some sort of "You know, Mama, I told her as much drink, glasses clinked, and gradually before she did it, but she wouldn't both of them became very friendly and continued on page 19 16 PAULA ANDERSON Second Place Photograph

17 KIM GUINN First Place Drawing

18 quick to laugh. softly I could barely hear them, and "There aren't many as sweet as you," presently the man left. Grandma came he said once. (I agreed wholeheartedly, home later and I kept on playing, vow­ and liked him.) ing never to tell. Besides, I asked my­ "Hush," I heard her admonish, be­ self, what did I have to tell? Only that tween giggles. "My sister's kid is up­ she might've kissed someone, which stairs and he'll hear you." wasn't bad, for she often kissed me. But of course I knew there was some­ "Who?" sudden caution. thing more, something strange and "My nephew. But he's only six--no, wrong, and whatever it was I vowed seven." no one, no one, would ever hear it from "Oh, a kid. Well, he won't understand me. even if he does hear." Awhile after that, I don't recall how "Yes he will. He's very bright." She long, my cousin Eddie was born. By made me feel proud, although I did not, then I was well past seven. From the for a fact, understand any of it. time Eddie first came to Tomotla Creek "Would he tell?" with her, an infant in blankets, I knew "Tell what?" something peculiar had gone wrong "We'll see." between us. She did not ever again seem She giggled again. "I don't think the so loving and happy with me, or so car­ little booger would. He's on my side. ing of my expectations. Now it was al­ Ed says--oh, sorry." ways Eddie. For awhile she continued "Don't be sorry. Good ole Ed," the to bring me toys when she came, and man said, and laughed loudly. "To Ed." clothes, but I noticed they were more Again the glasses clinked. often little kids' toys, cracked rattles "Reckon where he is?" she said, with and broken guns, pull-ducks with bro­ a snicker. ken strings, puzzles with the pieces "Probably some whorehouse on the missing. There were no more soldiers, Rhine," he said. and the shirts no longer fit. More snickers. I couldn't have fun with those things "Quiet!" he ordered. "Major G. Ed­ the way I always had with the soldiers ward Whitemore wouldn't do a thing and the rocking horse, but I played with like that." them anyway, slavishly, faithfully, in "The Hell he wouldn't," she said. the attic room. I wanted desperately to "Kiss me." please her and make her again the way Silence. Then, from him: "Crystal, she'd always been. But those days grew H oney... " long for me, and just didn't work out. A pause. Then from her, softly: "Bolt She often became irritated if I touched the door first." little Eddie, or tumbled with him on The bolt slid home. the floor, and once she spanked me More silence. Then funny sounds, like soundly and sent me home for no other sort of whispering and groaning, and reason than that I woke him. And one rhythmic noises from the bed in the autumn day when she and G. Edward upper room. were home I heard her tell Grandma After awhile they talked again, so that little Eddie was so much more ad- continued 19 vanced for his age than I was, whatever sister!" she screamed. "Or smarter, that meant; and, she went on, he had either! You could do better to look at already stopped wetting the bed, while your own self, Gus McCoy, than say that still was not true of me. (I had to things like that in front of this child! agree, with an awful sense of failure.) Go somewhere and get a decent job in­ And, too, it seemed when I was near stead of always being a trashy mountain her she always found qualities in tow­ sawmiller like you are!" headed, fat-faced Eddie to boast about. Burbling. Tears. More rage I began to get the distinct feeling that "My sister told me I'd be sorry I ever I'd better not ever find anything I married McCoy trash!" she wept for could do better than he could, or else perhaps the millionth time. "All my I'd pay. Somehow, I'd pay. people have said that! God, God ... " "Blood always tells," she said once I quivered in her arms as she began to Grandma, puzzling me. When I to jeer: "Ain't got nothing, cain't get asked my mother about it at the dinner nothing, don't want nothing. trash, table that night my dad jumped up and trash, trash!" yelled that Crystal was the most selfish, With that, clutching me to her heav­ most one-sided person he'd ever met. ing breast, she flung herself out of his "Don't let me catch you near her house and ran all the way home to again!" he yelled at me. But of course Mother, and Sister, and noble G Ed­ he couldn't make that stick, not even ward , to tell her sodden tale Going for two minutes. My mother took him away, I saw dad standing mute in the to task then and there, right across the doorway, watching us with a sort of pinto beans and the mashed potatoes. pain and sadness in his eyes. "There's never been a sweeter per­ Things went on that way forever son on the face of this earth than my

Murray plaid on the bedspread my mother bought for me and a map of Scottish clans on the peeling wall cinder blocks surround me and Celtic ghosts and karma; Sears boots unlaced and clumsy on the littered, rented floor broken weather-stripping rattles against the thin door; the heroes and the saints never sang of Gaelic trivialities ..... I think we left the loftiness in port with the bad potatoes and the passage money. AMY TIPTON

20 LILLY REMEMBERED (FROM A NIGHT IN NORFOLK APPROXIMATELY 9:30 p.m.) "Ladies and gentlemen! against the starsockets of our eyes Tonight, for your pleasure, she moves down and down we present--Lilly!" on an old dependency of ambiguous undulations Lilaclike--paleskinned as moonsilver-­ grinding down on its unseen force i n a hairless body on and on with blonde head that drenches inside the ring of music and eyes long and pale music light andlilly like pouringcream strobing now Lilly hangs her buckskin bodysuit strobinglight on a beam above the bar music and Lilly (a token to the lechfilledeyes past death peering through the beeramber past those eternalwaiting like waiting stars watching stargazed eyes their maker form new universes for them to lighton) outside the eyering to where stars (imagination bursting the crying collective and Lilly lifts her arms elliptic gases of their fires) to her lovedance heat lilies Musicheat fills the room in the icyfields of deadworlds semenrich andsticky as galaxymilk. (seedo Lilly loosens what her body to the music starsdo tilting her breasts lightdo like flagons above the sea what gyrating her pelvis liliesdo a ship tossed on the waves Lillydo loving loving loving wedo wedo wedo) the music Lilly! Heavens! but you are beautiful! the liquid body of Lilly even sterile lifting the music even icyworlds away between her hips youmindfucker! balancing it there VAN PERRY ROSE on her thighs mating with music the rhythm of her body lovemaking a melody. As the light strikes her nightposture into shocks

21 GO CHASE BIRDS YOU SILLY DOGS Go chase birds, you silly dogs, Go run and try to catch them You know they can and will fly, dogs, And you keep running for them N.ot always birds though, eh, you dogs? Cats and rabbits, rodents all Have fled ahead of glistening fangs, Seldom by those fangs they fall Why is this, then, you queer old dogs? For if you chose, you'd win the race I think you chose your fate, dear dogs - Does catching end the chase? The silly one stands here, wise dogs, My wants have flown like birds from hand 0, if I could want only wanting! You go chase birds - I understand GARY KELLAR

FUNNY The mist is heavy this morning. It's muffled the pulse of the traffic and trapped The smells of cheap fish and diesel fuel. The moon has called me from my book and bed. I find him at my window Offering what remains of the dark morning hours. From my porch I can see the veiled lights of the city And hear some promise of life from a distant highway. The rain has stopped. The street dogs are asleep. In the strange and welcome calm there is a voice that says Sorry it has to be this way . ... Funny how that comes back to me, How it had to be that way. Trucks on the main street. Everything passing through. Sooner or later, everything passing. MARYL. FOXX

22 BOB PALMER First Place Photograph

23 • . . ' .

CONNIE MO Honorable MentionRRISON p rint·

24 THE NAME GAME BONNY STANLEY Second Place Essay The first thing I learned when I en­ Isabel; therefore Elizabeth was my real tered St. Mary's School was that the use name. I reiterated, quite politely I of nicknames has a firm place on the thought, considering the absurdity of list of sins that cry out to heaven for arguing over one's own name, that vengeance, at least according to gram­ Elizabeth was not my name. Sister mar school nuns. Names like John, Baptista said that she did not like im­ Margaret, and Catherine are to be found pertinent, smart-aleck children and that on the Calendar of Saints, but never I could write one hundred times "I will Buddy, Sissy, or Cathy. I have been not be an impertinent smark aleck." called Bonny all of my life to distinguish My mother finally entered the fray and me from my mother who is also named wrote the principal a note stating that Isabel, but at St. Mary's I had to be Isa­ Isabel was indeed my name regardless bel or risk celestial ostracism. This of its Biblical root. I have often won­ bothered me greatly because I am a dered if Sister Baptista made all of the birth certificate Isabel but a real Bonny. Annes in the school Hannah and every The nuns urged me to cultivate a de­ James a Jacob in her name purge. She votion to St. Isabel, but it obviously certainly pegged me as a trouble­ did not take because I do not have the maker, an opinion which would have foggiest notion of who St. Isabel is to been re-enforced if she had realized this day. It might be safe to style her a that the real Biblical root of Isabel is virgin/ martyr though, because most probably Jezebel. feminine saints in the Catholic Church I was finally able to checkmate the fall into this rather narrow category. Sisters of Mercy in the name game, but It has always been hard for me to it was necessarily a silent coup. When understand why the Church expects its Catholic children are confirmed, they women to identify with virgin/martyrs take an extra saint's name in honor of when most of the female faithful are the occasion. The nuns tried to direct not virgins and probably find the the choices of the confirmands towards Church harder to live in than to die for. old favorites like Joseph, Mary, and In time I resigned myself to Isabel, Bernardette; but I had no intention of but I did not reckon with having to take being stuck with a name as worthy as on Elizabeth. One day the principal, Mary or one as syrupy as Bernadette. I Sister Baptista, posted a list of children settled on Veronica. I really wanted to do some project on the bulletin board. Veronique, but I decided that this might I was the only Bonnyman in the school; be pushing the nuns too far. My parents so I asked her if that was supposed to did not take Confirmation names very be me. When she said that it was, I told seriously and were not a bit surprised her that my name was Isabel not Eliza­ by the oddness of my choice. Sister beth. The principal informed me that Celestine, my teacher, was quite Elizabeth was the Biblical root name touched by my presumed devotion to for all such names as Elspeth, Eliza, and St. Veronica, the woman who wiped continued 25 Christ's face as he was carrying his ence of guardian angels. I can only cross. I was given credit for being a very speculate on my fate if Sister Celestine devout child. This incident surely had ever learned that I chose the name makes up for all the times I acted like Veronica because I had a crush on a a normal child at St. Mary's and was character of the same name in the reprimanded for being insolent. All "Archie" comic books. I had always one had to do to be considered insolent wanted to have a name with an accent, was: walk on the wrong floor tiles dur­ and Veronique would have given my ing a May procession, forget to wear a comic book heroine a certain panache; hat in church, or question the real pres- but you cannot have everything.

TWO ROLLS OF FILM AND AN APRIL AFTERNOON If you will stand just so against the shadows I'll capture how you look to me when you've forgotten holidays or dinner dates at nine I can't seem to hold that expression in my mind Throw back your head and laugh while the sun eats up your throat Ten years from now perhaps I'll see just what it was in you that did just that to me But now while April is here Spring sunlight tends to tighten up your brow I'll catch you as you are and I promise you won't fade with the years

JACKIE GRINDSTAFF

26 THE GHOST GRASS Walking home in the shallow lights of this winter's day I found a piece of last summer's grass clinging to my leg, held fast with a dab of mud-- a pale stalk, the kind my brother would call the ghost grass. There were November afternoons we sat in the den reading, trying not to look out of the picture window that looked too largely on the brown world outside, trying not to watch the limp stalks standing outside the fence at the back of the yard-­ tall, listless straws, drunk in the wind: reeling at every touch of that vagrant draft which pressed its fingertips against the glass, testing, measuring. They sit on white painted porches We read hoping to keep our eyes away from the shivering weeds, talking of their children, death, and knowing instinctively most importantly, somewhere below those ragged tops the weather----­ the roots lie buried saying the kids living somehow. have grown so I remembered that now fast, isn't it a shame turning the dead stalk in my hand that so and so died looking into its empty center. and predicitng what And I wonder where the roots are hidden, the skies will bring waiting under the cracked, frozen ground, tomorrow. waiting for a touch of warmth They never think to to resurrect themselves jeeringly question politics, with a green smirk. war, or religion but accept only RICK A. DAVIES the simple things Honorable Mention that happen to people who sit on white painted porches.

KAREN LAWS

27 WINTER'S END MARLANE AGRIESTI Second Place Short Fiction Maura looked out of her fourth floor brown tiled floor in stockinged feet. As window at the huge, bare trees against she passed the mirror she glanced the grey winter sky. Staring at her from at the passing figure--noticing the life­ across the lawns and the walk and the less brown hair that hung around her expanse of cold empty space between pale, expressionless face, the way her them, poking out of the roof of the shoulders hunched with her arms folded building opposite, was the top of the across her stomach, and the absurdity elevator shaft and the empty black of the orange-red sweater against the window that rested in it. cool, celery green floor-length skirt-­ Her eyes shifted slowly from the trees then quickly looked away. to the window, and finally to the letter "Detachment," Maura said to herself she was writing at her desk. It was to and chuckled. "You've certainly be­ her sister: come detached from the way you look." Dear Chris, Then quickly, like a secretary at a What is the proper way of open­ filing drawer, she ran her fingers across ing a letter? I would like to know. the tops of her album covers and pulled Living here at Ellingham is going out Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. smoothly. I don't enjoy it the way Holding the record by its edges she Mom says she did when she was placed it on the turntable and switched here, but it's such a good school the stereo on. Turning away now, she and it is enriching, you know. pulled a cigarette out of her sweater Studying classical music and great pocket. Slowly putting it to her mouth, literature and all. she lifted her lighter with the other One day I can be a wealthy al­ hand, and hearing the first notes of the coholic wife and crack intellectual piano on the black disc, lit the cigarette. jokes at cocktail parties. Standing in the center of her room-­ Do you know that it's been two with printed reproductions of classical months since I have felt emotion? to modern paintings, India-print For two months I have not been spreads on the bed and the couch, a angry, depressed, or happy. yellow wicker lamp which cast a web Detachment. of shadows across the floor, the furni­ ture, the walls, the ceiling--she looked Maura looked again at the blank win­ now up at the ceiling, and fixing her dow facing her. With the horizontal line eyes on the shadows, listened to the across the center of it, the window had sounds of the music rise and fall. the look of a half-closed eye. Winking, Maura was not thinking about music. blinking, nodding off to sleep. She was not thinking about anything. The sky was darkening. The wind A pain jabbed the fingers of her right was blowing and a chill came in hand. Jolted, she dropped the cigarette through a crack under the window. butt in an ashtray and put the two burnt Maura got up and walked across the fingers in her mouth. continued on page 31 28 BEV YOKLEY Honorable Mention Print

29 JON BUCHANAN n Photograph Honora ble Ment10

30 Someone was knocking at the door. to Florida for Spring break." "Come in," Maura said. Tracy strolled "No kidding! I might commit a mur­ in smiling. "Moonlight Sonata again, der. I'll be in dark ole dusty Sandusky. huh? I guess everyone's got to have a What a thrill." vice." Tracy was looking at the thick book "Ha, yeah, I guess so. What's new?" on the bed. "What are you reading?" "Nothing's new. Everything's old. "Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad. It's Work work work work and more work. a great book. Conrad was Polish but But I had a neat dream last night. I he wrote his books in English and his dreamed I played Mozart's fifth violin English was pretty awkward, so it reads concerto from start to finish without a like someone did a lousy job of trans­ single error. I was in a huge concert lating it. But it's good. Really good. My hall, and every seat was filled--it was god, there are about twenty main char­ packed. When I finished, I bowed and acters, all interesting, complete char­ the audience stood up and applauded acters--and though there is one big plot for half an hour, roaring and throwing that encompasses them all, there is a roses onto the stage. Then I awoke and different angle for each character." remembered Mozart never wrote a fifth Maura was shaking her head in admi­ violin concerto. He only wrote four." ration." My god, what an achievement," Maura was grinning. "Ha! I like that. I she mumbled through the cigarette really like that. How long did it take you she was lighting. to remember you play cello, not vio­ The tea was ready, and Maura was l in?" pouring. "Look--anyone who's good enough "I'd like to borrow it when you're to write Mozart's fifth violin concerto through, if it's that good." can surely play violin." "Great. I'd be interested in knowing "True. Would you like some tea?" what an intelligent person thinks of "Yeah, I would," Tracy said. She it." Maura handed Tracy her tea. settled down on the low couch made Tracy noticed the smooth swiftness from two mattresses stacked together of Maura's movements. She was like a against the wall, her slouched body ballet dancer, always ready, always on propped up by the elbows. Her eyes her toes, barely seeming to touch the swept the room in a half-circle as ground at all. And yet she was so pale, though she was scanning an imaginary like a ghost. The dancing ghost, she arch in the room. "This is a neat room. thought. Spooky. But neat. You lucky dog." "The character I find most interest­ "Not so lucky. I had to destroy three ing," Maura was saying, "is a little roommates in five months to get it. French journalist named Decoud. He's They gave it to me cause they didn't mid-thirties, intelligent as hell, and de­ want to risk another emotional trauma tached. He finds all the tragic life-and­ in the dorm. Face it. I earned this room." death goings-on in the story amusing, Maura looked over at the dormer win­ nothing more. When all the other char­ dows jutting out of the slanting walls acters are going on about virtue and into the black winter sky. "I might go disgrace, Decoud is saying the only continued 31 was it Dr. virtue is intelligence--of course, that's a "Sure, Maura, here. What yester­ laugh on him because everyone has Heinz wanted to see you about his own definite ideas about what in­ day?" school pays telligence is--but, anyway, Decoud "That nosy shrink. The ask fancies himself to be intelligent and I her to snoop into our lives and you agree he was and he was very virtuous rhetorical questions like, 'Why do Do about his detachment. I have to admire keep running away from yourself?' him for this, what I call the ultimate I appear to be running away? That was detachment--he rowed himself out to a rhetorical question. I'm not running sea in a little rowboat and, standing in away, I'm right here at school, doing the boat at the proper angle, shot him­ well in my courses. It seems someone self out of existence and fell into the told her that I didn't appear to be happy in sea with the gun. The only evidence he at Ellingham. What does she want I left behind was the empty boat." She this dry hole of a place? Last quarter school in took a huge slug of tea. "Admirable as was unhappy. An all-girl's hell." the middle of nowhere, no social life, any­ "Uh, admirable?" Tracy had her me a girl who had all the friends school. I've ad­ eyes fixed on the floor. Her elf's face one could want in high along, to get with the curly hair around it lay stiffly justed. I've learned to get has to offer. back from the shoulders of her small, out of this school what it was leaning thin body which had stopped moving-­ I do well enough." Maura brown for­ she looked like a statue in repose. "The with her back against the her cup guy kills himself and you find it ad­ mica-topped dresser, turning for­ mirable?" around in her hands, thinking how "But don't you see, he didn't leave a tunate she was to be rid of the pain. last trace of evidence. He did it for his own Her memory circled in on her be­ amusement. He didn't give a damn visit home, and the friends who had about life, he was bored with it ... and trayed her, or had they? At any rate, this was his final laugh. Well, skip it. the people I thought were so wonderful I guess I shouldn't have brought it up." who turned out to be jerks. The jerks "Remember last semester, Dr. Pa­ who still thought it was neat to sit the derewski's class, the giggle fits we used around a dark room in a circle with begin to get into? His long skinny nose and stereo on so loud you couldn't joints the hair that stood straight up and his to hold a conversation, and pass gets long thoughful pauses?" around and whoever's the neatest time and Maura was pouring herself more tea. to change the records all the an in­ "And the time he told the class 'In a whoever doesn't smoke dope is not a minute now, they're going to start sult to everyone who does. That snorting,' and you wet your pants and single one of her friends had proven had to leave the room? Maura, do you loyal to her, not one. remember last semester?" And how she'd cried for two days "Do you have any cigarettes, I seem straight, and when she'd stopped, her to be out." Maura looked blankly at her face had been swollen and red from the friend. pain. But she had stopped. She had continued on page 35 32 (

AWHON SecondSecon L Place Drawing

33 PETER MONTANTI

34 made herself stop. Nobody had helped "See you later, kid." her. And she hadn't cried since. "Yeah, get to work on your cello. Before that, there was the boy she Maybe you can remember some of that had loved. The boy who had told her concerto you wrote in your sleep last he loved her, and one day he had quit night. But here's hoping you don't". coming to see her and she had played "Thanks a bunch. Bye." Tracy piano by the front door all day for a stepped out the door and shut it behind month, waiting for him to come to the her. door and one day she had quit playing "What was I doing, now? Oh, yeah." piano and gone down to the basement Maura went over to her desk and sat and stared at the furnace until she fell down. She wadded up the letter to her asleep on the cold cement. sister and started a new one. And she had learned not to cast her Dear Chris, pearls to the swine and had hidden her I'm looking forward to seeing pearls in a very safe place so that now you next week. I can't wait to feel even she could not find them. the warm sand between my toes Maura shook herself. "Would you like and the water around my legs. some more tea?" And to get some sun--you ought to "Nah, I'd better not. I've got to go see me, I'm white as a ghost. practice cello now." Tracy stood up and It's been a long, cold winter. stretched. "Are you going over to prac­ Maura looked up and out through her tice tonight?" window. Barely visible in the faint light "I should, but I've got a few other from a distant street lamp, the window things I want to get done tonight, so in the elevator shaft winked at her. I guess I'll just sleaze out on piano." Maura winked back, then reached up and pulled the shade.

35 Somewhere in this dark, I feel sure, this breakwater that was solid and stone the instant before the light drained down into the west has melted into the sea. I know it is still there; I know rationally that it is solid out to the very end. I am assured by a wooden crate-- half buried its corners, splintered and definite, its paint, peeled and unmistakable. That is enough to confirm a continuity. Without that, I am not sure. There seems to be only one vast mass of sea and sky. Not simply black sky joined to black sea by an invisible horizon, but one flowing senselessly into the other-­ a solution of salt-sea-air less solid than mist. But, there is distinction. The sand juts distinctly against the water at my feet. The water travels in a straight line to the horizon where the sea and the sky are concretely joined. The sky spreads thin and sure over my head touching the other horizon where it meets exactly with the earth. From the earth's horizon it is simply a direct line to the heel of my shoe ... I think. Could the waves which I hear in front of me, stuttering along the shore, be a whisper-- some echo from some tidal star? Is the black sky filled to its fathomless depths with floating things? Somewhere farther along the beach someone with his heels dug into the sand flicks his flashlight, on and off, willfully into the face of Andromeda.

RICK A. DAVIES Honorable Mention

36 VELMER ROCK

37 DENNIS WATSON

38 CARRIED AW A Y I rub the butterfly from the windshield. Your neck jerked on the moment of impact. I smell sunlight, wild flowers on torn wings. You blame me coldly. You want to study the grillwork. Butterflies in macabre patterns pasted with the glue of their bodies. ON SCHOLARSHIP I cannot stop this slaughter. Lover Driving slower does not help fortified in all the dreams of your youth and You seduce the silver princess. we have too far to go Worldly charms embrace your head to walk. as you strut on to the fable. High school boy CATHRYN BLALACK who showed his stuff and fantasized the ultimate affair with basketball in hand ... Envy of all short skirted beauties ... Locker rooms of obscene gestures and exaggerations of last night's triumphs ... You became the stag king and envisioned the rape of your next queen at eighteen. Yield gently sweet boy you can't make love to an angel in the mind. Touch skin and know that I touch back. High school proms and basketball sweethearts are nothing more than images of smells. At twenty you can dance the dance and no one will even care. So lie beside a warm one and feel that ache inside. It's real and so am I sweeter than you ever dreamed at eighteen.

JACKIE GRINDSTAFF

39 MOCKINGBIRD 1978 STAFF

EDITOR-IN-CH I EF: Weldon P. Barker ART EDITOR: Connie Morrison PRODUCTION EDITOR: Randy Hodge LITERARY STAFF: Tony Clark Rick Davies ART STAFF: Connie Morrison Randy Hodge FACULTY ADVISORS: Styron Harris, Department of English Helen Hollingsworth, Department of English Al Park, Department of Art

JUDGES of ETSU, holds POETRY: Marion C. Hodge, Jr., a graduate a Ph.D. in English Literature and is a published poet. ART- PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHY: Bob Porter is Professor of Art History at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Uni­ DRAWINGS: , Leon Weisener is Professor of Art at the versity of Tennessee, Knoxville. ESSAYS: Felix Lowe, a graduate of ETSU, is Deputy Di­ rector of The Smithsonian Institution Press. SHORT FICTION: Christopher Dickey, a graduate of the University of Virginia, is a staff writer and Literary Critic for the Washington Post.

MOCKINGBIRD award money courtesy of the ETSU Foundation and the Johnson City Monday Club

Cover Design by Randy Hodge

Printed at East Tennessee State University Press

40 The Mockingbird, as East Tennessee State University's only recurring forum for the student's literary and artistic creativity, is always seeking ways to encourage more students to exercise their self-expression.

Although the Mockingbird has achieved national recognition in every year of its existence, an accomplishment in which the en­ tire University community can take pride, the segment of the stu­ dent body involved, either as contributors or as staff members, is a miniscule part of the student body. This is, of course, a distressing situation to all of us who feel that there is a sizable body of untapped artistic talent as East Tennessee State University.

It is our fervent wish that all those students who are interested in the development of a viable, lasting avenue for the University's literary and artistic abilities will support the Mockingbird enthusi­ astically.

Weldon P. Barker

Randy Hodge

Connie Morrison