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The literary magazine of Saint Peter’s College

Editor-in-chief Patty Portee Assistant Editors Jackie Jankowski Melissa Bentley

Business Manager Mary Erbach Art Editor Chris Peruzzi Editorial staff Liz Benitez Natalie Quintela Mike Portee

Cover by Bill Blanchard SECOND PLACE 360 Degrees

I don’t know why some lovers meet their bitter end.

Walking on tacks weary from the sun

They hustle and bustle and shuttle through time Yet do not run. Their lives are roads that never cease bustling with activity at 360 degrees.

The only love they ever see kisses the clock good morning and takes the work to bed at night.

I don’t know why some lover’s meet their bitter end.

When they first met they had a LUXURY called time for each other. like Hello big boy Hello girl Until big boy has no time for his girl And she cries at night

And it is always 360 degrees.

I don’t know why some lovers meet their bitter end.

—Melissa A. Bentley KILLEEN AWARD FIRST PLACE

Encounter To my brothers: Tony, Roger, Noel

We’ve walked through books and nights and tears snatching away the swift flow of laughter, rushing the way to find our shadows on the ephemeral arrow clamped with hope.

Yes, we find ourselves a little too shallow, there’s woe in our eyelids and everlasting creatures circling the finest trigger of our raging worlds.

Perhaps undaunted by experience the airiest silent scream of darkness we razed, never wasting a blood-drop or the fury unmindfully we spared.

Nevertheless, here we stand granting smiles even in the saddest of situations and deep inside like newly born we struggle dazed in close horizons one step ahead.

—Rafael Roman Martel

3 A s ~ ‘ 0 SPINELLI AWARD ~ Oiuler S i ay FIRST PLACE FICTION

Separate, distinct and apart from the village, along a brittle, ascending road, at the termi nus of a broad malocclusion of sky, forest and mountain, was the hospital. Laterally quarried walls visible from the periscoping west balcony wept with summer’s afternoon rains, flashing feldspar deposits, multi-colored igneous quartz, long venous pegmatitic crystal. Ambivalent strata were held to scrutiny, displaying gashes and lacerations and fickle, happenstance bruises and suppurating wounds that would not heal, much like the men quartered at the hospital. Each day, dependent upon the indifferent phrases and supervisory interest, some of these men would grow clinically better, or would become subtly more hopeless within the confines of their debilities. Some would die, some would go home. It was the bond of over- medicated suffering that remained constant, their reminder of themselves, each other, the war. “You’re life is too alone, Monsieur Anglais. No family. You never hear from them. Not a word, no mail ever. Never a visit in the entire sixteen months, Monsieur Anglais. No sweet heart anywhere. You could perish here, no one would know.” “I’m Irish; I have told you severally, by your own vernacular. My mother is still a school teacher in Ireland. County Cavan.” “Your bold correction is accepted, Monsieur Lieutenant.” “My mother thinks I’m dead, or she would be here. As for romance, of course, the treat ment could only be a shade of your own, Adeleine. No one can gut an hour with a moment quite like tu.” “Perhaps, Lieutenant, your family, your mother, is correct.” Madame Adeleine, ignorance becoming edifice. A perennial malefaction, civilians trough ing the government payroll after the war. The administrators and doctors; the nurses and nurses’ aides; the pouffe orderlies and attendents. Visiting day would arrive and pass like a pall. Officially Sunday, it was any day that a soul could stand it. We all admired from afar the wife of the artilleryman. We admired her for jour neying twice each month from Pas de Calais; for keeping so personally trim; for encouraging her husband, who had been blinded on the St. Mihiel salient; for finally taking him home, gracing all present with a dewy smile from beneath a broad-brimmed chapeau. That Sunday, she brought their daughter, whom had not accompanied after the first visit, Christmas, 1918. The one son, always supportive of his mother, carried his father’s valise from the ward, down through the rough stucco corridors to the stairs. Husband and wife proceeded arm-in-arm, the artillery man perhaps a bit rigid, like a horse stepping into the sunlight from artificially darkened stall. Before the war, he had repaired watches and set precious stones; his wife had found him work as a bookbinder. Exiting, the reunited couple would pass near a cluster of staff doctors cordoned around the bedside of another soldier. Here was a finale accurate to a matter of hours, and the doctors knew it. Lungs scorched by poison gas, the alveoli destroyed, he could no longer oxygenate his body’s blood supply. The hospital had been his home since Armistice. This soldier’s constant struggle for breath was ironic to his innate ability as a storyteller, un raconteur, and fluency for the two languages, English and French. On the balcony, not less than eight weeks prior, endowed with an attentive listener, the mid-day warmth and a gentle breeze, he had labored to preserve his memories at the Marne. There had been an interminable bar rage, a fate counteroffensive. The men in the trenches had been instructed to elevate their spades above shoulder height to mark their place beneath should they be buried by the tremen dous upheaval of tortured earth. One young fusilier, driven mad by the bombardment, enemy proximity, and death’s impersonal meander through the ranks of the living, advanced across the yellow-lit field of wire and mud, wearing a soccer tunic. The last choate sight was that of this soccer tunic dissolving into the flares and the muck and the enemy’s salvoes, this fusilier and the crazed whinnying of horses protesting being made to pull through hell. “There is every chance for a consultation concerning your condition. We are optimistic, of course, that you will go home soon.” “I am somewhat optimistic, also.” I could not feel anything from the waist down. This staff doctor could extinguish his cigar on my right leg from the femur to the ankle and I could not feel it. Yet, he’s optimistic. The very same optimism for a French sailor who had been torpedoed, caught in a flaming oil slick. What saved his life initially was the heroism to cut free from the gilet de sauvetage (life vest) holding him to the flames like a bobbing cork. Freely adrift, he brought two others to safety aboard a bit of flotsam. For gallantry, he received Le Croix de Guerre, and before he died here from the bums and the prolonged expo sure to salt water, he presented the award to the one nurse’s aide who had never commented on his condition, who had never proferred false hope. The aide, in turn, pinned it to the small pillow within his casket at his hometown, Ville-en-Tardenois. A few words thereafter, some earth falling, the respite of an afternoon rain, and the price had been paid again, anew, for a war that was already over.

This same sailor had heard from a German soldier returning home after three years — two years on the front, one year hospitalized — to find his seven-year-old son sleeping upright aside a stone doorway alcove. House and farm, dispossessed to a banker and his sons, who had bought their way out, remained behind. The dragon’s teeth sown in Deutscheland. When will this horror end? “Monsieur, you have not eaten at all! So much for your privilege to dine evenings on the balcony! The birds and the view take your appetite away”. Heady fall winds rounded the valley and impelled crisp leaves about the green and grey slate. There was a marble balustrade appointing the apogee of the crescent-shaped balcony, two arcs linked by a light chain fending a space two meters wide. Children had climbed down the now decrepit ladder to pick wildflowers from the natural rock formation twenty-five meters below. This cliff was irregular, and to one side it would be a precipitous drop of almost two hundred meters straight down. Throughout the summer months, I had tossed pebbles from my wheelchair over the balus trade, estimating the height and the due north of the cliff. Also, the way the birds — sparrow hawks mostly — rode the air currents.

—John F. McCabe

5 Num Credidimus In Unum Deum?

From Manresa to Tashkent, soldiers go where they are sent (double-damn the passive voice, although they claim they have no choice).

“They do not believe in God! They do not believe in God!”

Go-go lady, standing there, rings of roses in your hair, we hear the cancer efflorescing, not in any sense a blessing, unseen, bell jar-hidden nova eating from within our Gova; your anger takes me by surprise: must you burn me with your eyes?

“They do not believe in God! They do not believe in God!”

Surely you’re mistaken, lady; we’ve asked and been assured by Grady,

who never would old friends decieve — he wears conviction on his sleeve.

“They do not believe in God! They do not believe in God!”

Panyi mayatche parusski? Sabine, da, ya panyi mayo; true, some of us are from Ohio, but what is that to such as we whose accent always cover blows? Komsomolskaya Pravda knows!

“They do not believe in God! They do not believe in God!”

Hush! Back, my sweet, there is no turning: change is on the march and burning

suppositions wide and far — you doubt it ask? Ask the commissar.

“Too bad they don’t believe in God!” Too bad, you say? Too bad? Thank God!”

—James C. G. Conniff 6 Destiny

Somewhere in the distance, Somewhere in the night, Somewhere along the lines of Fate Red flames cast eerie light.

Too late to douse the burning flame, The ashes stain the ground. Destiny came roaring in And left without a sound,

Now silence screams a silent shout, The quiet is a curse. The ruined rubble rapes the mind And desecrates the earth.

The mushroom cloud above the ground Diseased the once clean air. It should cause fear among mankind But no one’s left to care.

—Joseph G. Brauner

J~k c2~ 7 Discarding Directions

Summer was as cold as death. We also lost the burning side of winter, the inerasable touch forever served.

Stipulations of the instinctive kiss, the wildest moderation in our eyes weren’t enough and long before I felt we met, in less crowded centuries perhaps. Then I held a thunderbolt in my hands and shades of pink covered your mornings like a triumph.

The bird of summer is gone like a lover or a hero or a rose, for I’ve been told that the existence of love is no more than a drop in the rain.

Behind my door lips, arms, dark mirrors await, but my eyes are tired, I must confess; the blandishment of words is far from my veins, like the curse of your touch.

—Rafael Roman Martel

8 I Miss You

I miss you. Obviously More than you do of me. It’s a sunken feeling to care, and not to receive in return. It’s an empty feeling to love when you really don’t want to. It’s a beautiful thought to dream about craving desires. It’s painful to want, and not be wanted. It’s depressing to notice someone more than he notices you. It’s confusing because I don’t understand. It’s satisfying to be doubtless and certain about a person and their feelings. Otherwise equal lengths of pleasure will never be reached

—Liz Benitez 9 Jane at the Window

She could not come to terms, semantically, With morning rain or the surrounding clouds. She perused the pages of her mental Dictionary to discover proper Non-discriptive synonyms for these, These drops that fell, and, in their falling, blurred The positive components of sunrise.

No readout would appear, and she was left With the reality of her window And the greyness of the sky, the rain As things and thing, irrevocably since The rain existed, apart from its context, As the destroyer of her utopian Fancies planned yesterday, now fallow plots.

It was this enigma, this discrepancy Between the rain as thing and her as thing, Between the sky’s reality and her dreams That made her contemplate the harshness of Things’ ambiguity, the aimless rift Between their form as image and as thing. She thought of this while sipping some hot tea.

—Dr. George P. Castellitto

10 /

fr

11 Can You Blame A Girl For Wanting To Know More?

Try to understand; I don’t want to seem pushy but you’ve told me a lot about yourself Can you blame a girl for wanting to know more?

33rd St. Trading stories at your favorite Dive What’s there for you? Why not make music with the artists and dabble in poetry?

See, you were the first— Okay, that doesn’t mean I own you but I’d like your life to mean something... When you play guitar, how the Sparks fly in Washington Square You’d think music was everywhere It is in you.

Try to understand; I don’t want to seem pushy Why not make music with the artists and dabble in poetry?

Pick up that Les Paul If it’s to heavy, I’ll carry it for you and start writing songs the way you used to— before the boys with guns stepped in and told you that you weren’t a man because you played guitar.

Try to understand; I don’t want to seem pushy but you’ve told me a lot about yourself Can you blame a girl for wanting to know more?

—Melissa Bentley What Mr. 0lovers Won

Although occupying an apparently eternal niche between the evening news and primetime, “Bargain Basement” was not a nine day wonder of television game shows. It drew only a moder ately-sized audience and moderate ad revenues, but its producers (two former pawn brokers from Hoboken) didn’t mind because “Bargain Basement” had one transcendent quality that it shared with all other game shows. It was cheap. Dirt cheap. During a four to five month period, they knocked off two shows a day, five days a week (enough shows to fill out a year-round schedule). Even when it started out, the show was cheap. The cheap fiberglass set and lights cost about as much as a used car. The host and obligatory pretty girl were both on their way to oblivion or other game shows. On tonight’s particular show appeared Mr. Rufus Glover; a sweaty, overweight, prematurely aged, sad sack of a man; who had somehow managed to survive one of the most blighted neigh borhoods in the country. The best makeup men in the country had gone to work on this rumpled, semi-exhausted, working man and failed. He still looked as if he had fallen off the back of a truck and into the studio. Behind him was his live-in girlfriend, Keesha, and her sprawling brood whom she had tried to keep from running pell mell all over the set. “Now then, Mr. Glover,” the host began reading his cue with a perpetual grin. On TV he looked like a mannequin. In real life he looked more like a puppet. “Answer this question correctly and you win the grand prize. Are you ready?” “Yes,” Mr. Glover replied, a stray thought running through his mind. He suspected that if he were to pick up the host and toss him into the audience, a little man clutching the controls and cursing in some strange tongue would fall down from behind the set. “All right, Mr. Glover, for our secret grand prize, Who was Sherlock Holmes’ archenemy?” “Professor Moriorty ?“ “YESSSSS! ! ! !“ At once bells started ringing, lights started flashing and the show’s theme muzak (performed no doubt by drugged Japanese musicians or so the rumor went) played over the sound system while the audience was cued to cheer wildly. “YOU WIN OUR TOP SECRET GRAND PRIZE!” “That’s right, Bert!” a familiar voice expounded from the sound system, “Mr. Glover wins our grand prize, a freshly decommissioned B-52 bomber!” To Mr. Glover’s amazement an entire wall of the set slid away to reveal an airplane as large as a football field. It taxied down the runway towards him, led, so it seemed, by one of those zaftig blondes you only see on television. She wore what appeared to be a cross between an airforce general’s uniform and a Playboy bunny outfit. Another blonde waved prettily from the cockpit. “Yes, the Boeing B-52 intercontinental strategic bomber, with four thousand miles to a gallon and an eight thousand pound bomb capacity. Now available to the general public! The airforce has to pay for the new Stealths somehow! Buy one! Be the first on your block to have first strike capability! Rule your zone of influence!” Rufus Glover was so stunned that he fell backwards into the arms of his family. He had only

13 wanted a microwave oven for his girlfriend. Brought back home and put to bed by his family, Glover spent half the night pondering his predicament before finally dropping off. He was awakened the next morning by a screeching roar that shook his apartment building to the very foundations. Literally leaping into his pants, he raced downstairs and out into the street only to be totally awestruck. For there, parked before his house, stretching the length of the block with one of its great wings stretching over into the vacant lot across the street, was the B-52.He let out a strangled gasp; until now he had been hoping that it had all been a dream. A man climbed out and approached him. “Mr. Rufus Glover?” he asked. “I’m Glover.” “Here are the keys to your B-52. Enjoy it. And by the way, bombs’lI cost you extra.” “What in the Hell am I going to do with this?” “How should I know?” The man disappeared into the crowd forming around the plane. Glover collapsed to his knees, moaning every foul word in his repertoire. He really thought it unfair that he didn’t get a toaster. The B-52 lived up to Glover’s expectations in that it was a real pain. It limited the flow of traffic, became a popular hangout for pushers, a canvas for the world’s worst graffiti artists and accumulated enough parking tickets to keep not only Glover and his distant descendents in debt but also to pay off the state deficit as well. At least one person was killed when he tried to steal one of the monster’s jet engines only to have it fall out on top of him. And last but not least, some kids climbed into the cockpit for a joyride. They managed to ignite the engines and the plane taxied merrily down the street. Its huge, durable wings knocked every cut-rate rat hole and project over, from the place across the street, to the river. Then the plane crashed, sinking a ferry and forming a makeshift bridge to Brooklyn. This was indeed the last straw. Glover caught up with the two men responsible for this alumi num albatross. He made them pay for all the damages that he had incurred and demanded another secret consolation prize. Glover was happy; at last he would be getting something that he could use. Returning home the next day from work, he found a hundred and fifty men lining the stairs to his floor. All of them wore evening clothes snd carried large cases. “Herr Glover?’ asked one of them with a German accent as Glover opened the door to his apartment. “Yeah ?“ “I am the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonica. We have been contracted to provide entertainment for your family for the next five years.” Glover watched in horror as 150 men filed into his tiny, three room apartment.

—Sean Somers

14 Ode To A Girlfriend

Heat in Motion Sweet Devotion Girl you really turn me on.

Heart of Fire Feeds Desire Passion till the break of Dawn.

Erotic Treasure Perfect Pleasure Let emotion break your will.

Passion Player Serpent Slayer Come with me and get your fill.

Liquid Dreams And Wicked Schemes Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Sweet as Sin So let me in I’m all you’ll ever need.

—Joseph G. Brauner

15 Mother’s Love Song

(To Maritza Lyngved)

We never meant to be immortal or to fight the ensuing wind but we were traveling together, among my veins

and I fed you with my hope and my smile, you responded with the tender beat of your heart You made me see the morning stars and the little birds and butterflies erasing eclipses, exploring the ambit you conquered with your face; appearing in trains, offices and my deepest mirror

Let me understand you are coming back, now there’s a heavy rain flowing through my eyes and a nubilous sensation lives in my mind

Now the butterflies are dead in river tears where the little birds incessantly implore: Come back

—Rafael Roman Martel

16 Fears in the Night

In the shadows longing for him. The mind is ripe with imagination Dreams, of yet to be.

His cigarette still lingers a reminder he’s not long gone. Desire on hold. Fear in high gear. Empty arms Darkness.

—Lynn S. La Mothe Englewood Cliffs campus

Sad Eyes

She was a beauty, and every man’s dream, A walking goddess, or so it would seem.

At a quick glance, it was all right; One short look, it was love at first sight. Her face was honest, and told no lies, Except for the sadness behind her blue eyes.

The sensation, I cannot define, but somehow the sadness, buffed up her shine. For a fleeting moment one could see this trait; One had to be quick, or it was too late.

She was unique and one of a kind; Her face is burned in the depths of my mind.

—Rob O’Conner

17 A Tenement in Soho

I wish you would tell me about yourself a simple introduction would do I live in a tenement in Soho but it has a beautiful view.

The flowers look pretty in the windowbox and I have a chair to rest my feet The light in the kitchen is fading and sometimes I have enough to eat.

I live on the second floor and an artist lives downstairs Sometimes I yearn that we could exchange stories God, it gets lonely up here.

I can’t walk to the corner store anymore It’s not for my people at all It is now a restaurant with brass railings and rich carpets much finer than the strip that lines my hall.

Please stop by, I’d love to talk to you Although there isn’t a lot to do I live in a tenement in Soho But it has a beautiful view.

—Melissa Bentley

18 19 Night Frights Silence, comes the horrid darkness slowly onward creeping invading all the living’s dreams scaring, shoving, chasing.

You run and scream in sheer madness overtaken at times doors closing and corners move slowly dimming all lights.

You jump out of bed breathless sweat streaking down your cheek while your heart beats inside blinking down your body heat

You lie back in search of peace blanket held to cover voices eyelids never wanting to close dreading all the ticking noises.

Pray, wait for the glimpse of day evil from the night hides you get out of bed and run out, prepare, defend, and fight.

A new day races by, night nears all the fright returns. You sleep under blankets, teddy near you never turns.

—Nazhal Attal

20 Lost in Washington Square

Lost in Washington Square forever I’ll be searching for pieces of you and me.

Whenever I walk beneath the arch and there’s a chill in the air I remember how it was to be sixteen and in love with everything— the salt from the pretzels the wind in our hair...

Huddled on a bench underneath the lamppost light you’d play your Les Paul softly and I’d sing to the stillness of the night. And if I’d ever feel lonely you’d only be a few steps away. You said there would always be a bridge between us even if we go our separate ways.

So now I’m standing beneath the arch wondering why? (after all we’ve been through) I’m waiting beneath the arch, I’m building a bridge—to you.

—Melissa Bentley

21

THIRD PLACE Existential Blues

Oh Camus, what did you do, With your time in the cafes in France?

Devoted your life to the Absurd, Applied it to life, with your thoughts and your words.

Had a battle with Sartre, But where did it get you?

Nobel Peace Prize, before millions of eyes, God! You did it right!

January 4, 1960, on a spur of the moment trip, A car, a tree, your death.

Pictures in a frame; Life is not the same, With you in a grave.

Oh Camus, what thoughts took you, That absurd night to the train?

—Rob O’Conner

23 Is it enough...?

A sacrifice Surviving For Beyond the boundaries Everything believed Of An argument Helplessness, For Alongside Lifetime dreams. Hopelessness Sometimes Failing. To accomplish Disapproval A dream. Of Continuous thoughts Forgetable forces Of To keep believing Hopes, Observe Sometimes diminishable, The impossible For Creation An endless future For Containing Desired happiness The necessary Gathered by Destined element Portions Of Of Satisfactory relief, Cherished freedom. Never ending. Classifying each self Thus, With a title Arriving Of At great distances. Inspirational success. Yet Always preceding to A need to arrive Golden, At even greater distances. Yet Unclassified struggles Burdened To execute Equality of fate. Detoured obstacles Because Of Life itself. Of Others insisting on Is it enough...? Degrading What you are. —Liz Benitez

24 By The Way A Funny Thing Happened To Me

I died yesterday... or was it the day before? I’m not even sure how long a day is anymore. That’s the problem when your dead; you lose track of life. Anyway, a frmnny thing happened to me just a little while ago. I was traveling the plains of existence when I found this door, an ordinary door until I opened it. It led to a place I can’t really describe, a place where reality had no meaning. It was a Roman arena that seemed to stretch to infinity. Just about every seat was filled; there must have been millions of people in front alone. I was suddenly seized by the urge to sit and watch. I wanted to sit down, but there wasn’t an available seat for miles. So while I was wandering around looking for one, I bumped into this guy. Somehow he reminded me of someone I should know. Anyway, I hoped he would be able to find me a seat, so I asked him. He smiled, and led me to what looked like an overglorified press box. “Compliments from my father to me,” he said sitting in his chair. “He isn’t here right now; He had some business to take care of.” “What’s the main event? It seems pretty popular around here”. He laughed and looked at me as if I had missed a joke. “We’re watching the battle between order and chaos; good and evil; whatever you prefer to call it. Since I had nothing to do I sat and watched the game for a while. I found out it was a game of chess. The two old men competing looked like twins. The longer I watched the more their moves confused me, so I questioned the guy next to me. He answered, “The moves are so complex that mortals such as you and I can never under stand them. My Father said it was all necessary to the master plan. He understands it all. “Who’s your father ?“ I asked, hoping to find out more about this familiar person. “Well, he’s your father too. He’s God the Father. He loves everyone and devotes his energy to order within the universe,” he said with a smile. Something about what he said sent a chill up my spine. I had to ask the obvious question that would confirm my suspicions. “Who are you?” “You may have heard of me. My names vary, but I prefer Jesus Christ.”

—Joseph Callazo

25 Comfair/Noumea All the bones speak

to me — us? — that, sitting seeming-dumb, wait in the long moan’s empty tolling sea-time, endless, louder than the many-tongued, loud-sounding Greek a-chuckle with the sibilant rue from the atoll’s fish-dim mouths for you, my dear long-gone antipodean friend, rusting your flag-lit doom amid wreckage, rivets burst asunder, forever unrusting knife-sharp aluminum cowl bent into the throat, eyeless, somehow fleshed-again grinning, lopsided, out of youth that fades, and fading fades forever to the rhythm of the lolling skull, no lips, so how talk or curse again or, worse — we did once, you know — pray? All the bones speak again, a-whisper in the too-bright shimmer, like lost trireme’s enchained inaudible white beat a-stir in the anticline’s cold plane deep under the island carrier’s moving shadow glides, the broken TBF idles across a planet, deep, deep, too deep; no small gnats there, me bucko, to mourn

your struggling —no escape then, eh? — to rise, your watery fall sinking in the uneared, unechoing gloom where blinding emeralds flash unseen and living rubies bleed. Come, come, while yet too late, too latw for us in any whichway order ever again to sit and smite memory, even so, here in the unending noon’s half-hazy many-tongued sea-time chrysalis of undimmed recall stretch the tall, steel-muscled, languid body once more, once more under the treacherous whore of sunlight, undependable and warm as death is sudden, wet, blood-drenched a-waft in the currents diluting thickly upward to the gaping snap-tailed whirl of the mindless, murderous length. Together both, here, we hear again, friend, what not you, not I, had ever thought could be: the long-haired, bronze-fleshed bones — see? — they speak to us, rippling there, without end beside your many-tongued, my solo-moaning sea. 26 —James C. G. Conniff Holiday Rain (lyrics of an unfinished song)

For all the arms in embrace, There’s a cold shoulder somewhere. For every smiling face, There’s one in a window with a lonely stare. For tears from a heart in happiness, There are tears wept in dispair. For every golden sky, Looms a grey one in holiday rain.

Under this wet cascade, Casting dry shadows beneath street lights, Is someone tapping my shoulder? No, just rain drops, that pierce the night. There could have been something special, But I kept myself turned away. Now I’m chilled to the core And shiver in holiday rain.

A home glows warm inside And a clock chimes midnight. It fills with light conversation And bursts with laughter in delight. The house next door sits dark and cold, All alone in silent pain. For there is someone inside seeking shelter from holiday rain.

—Patrick Francis C.

27 The Swan Song It was one of those nights, By that I mean I knew from the moment I picked up the hooker that the next few hours held some sick twist for me. Had I been wrong I would have written it off to the cheap scotch and the Chesterfields; both of which I had been inhaling at the bar. As usual, I picked a hell of a time to be right. The scent of the hooker hung stagnate in the air of the hotel room. Physically she had been gone for about ten minutes; in her wake she had left an in visible cloud of “Hooker Air”. The cheap fragrance polluted with the reek of other men told me I was her tenth or eleventh client of the night. I used the term “Hooker Air” whenever my wife or daughter asked me what I thought of a new perfume I didn’t like; I said it smelled like something a hooker would wear. The woman I had been with tonight obviously shopped in the same stores they did. All this reflection on the aroma of the hooker began to make me uneasy, so I opened a window hoping the breeze would relieve me of the accusing cloud. The fourth floor of the motel gave me a good vantage point of the street so I lit a cigarette, leaned out, and began to look around. The sounds of the street seeped into the sides of my head. A siren, a dog barking, and a car horn played together in the cacophonic symphany one can only hear in such a place at three o’clock in the morning. Noises that are indigenous to a dark city street. The place was a necessary catalyst in the bizarre reaction that had begun with the departure of the odorous prostitute. It was not the worst neighborhood in the city because it was not a neighborhood at all. Not if one considers a neighborhood a friendly place where the children play all day in the summer, and waited for the ice-cream man at dusk (Mr. Softee never cruised these depraved streets). Bonds of friendship only existed between dealers and junkies, bartenders and drunks, hookers and regular johns. They were always relieved to see each other. The gnarled mentality of the asylum-like population thrived everywhere. The outer shell of the area loked as rank and sleazy as the people it sheltered. Most of the neglected buildings were being corroded away by time, like their tenants. The streets webbed with sinuous rivers of urine, beer and anti-freeze, separated the blocks with uncertain authority. Hazy street lights cast depression, not comfort. Circles of yellow speckled the sidewalk, and the bulbs caused shadows thus making the scene much more sinister. Something caught my eye on the top of the building directly across the street, and I knew my original feeling about the night had been correct all along. There were a pair of legs hanging, —no, swinging over the edge. The figure to whom they belonged was concealed in the shadows. As my eyes adjusted to the dark rooftop, I could make out the outline of the figure. It was a male, and he was just sitting there. I watched for a few minutes. Eventually, I decided to go up and talk to him. I pulled myself into the room and the persistent leftover aroma of the hooker hit me, no breeze had come along. I dressed and made sure I left nothing in the room. On my way down the gloomily lit hallway, my palms began to sweat. What could he be doing there? Why am I going to see him? And why aren’t.I afraid of confronting a man sitting on the edge of a building in the middle of the night? I could not think of any answers so I hurried down the stairs and across the street. I was so consumed with anticipation that I did not look closely at the building. The un

28 locked front door did not even strike me as strange. I had to get upstairs to meet the man with the dangling legs, so naturally the front door should be open. Not until much later did I realize how oddly the night would end. My legs seemed to have minds of their own as they leapt up the stairs. I did not care how many floors the building had, because I knew I had to go all the way to the top. At the third floor I began to sweat. At the seventh I was drenched, so I stopped counting. I reached the door to the roof and I paused for a moment to regain some composure. I was so disoriented that I was not sure where the man would be once I opened the door. To my surprise, his back faced me as I pushed the door outwards. The figure turned slightly in acknowledgement of my presence. “Are you a cop?” “No” “Are you going to try to stop me ?“

His voice changed then from monotone to casual friendship. “Well then, come on over and sit down”. I squatted Indian style with my back against the ledge. He turned his head and looked down at me. “Do you have a cigarette?” I took out two from a pack and handed him one. He took out a pack of matches and lit mine then his. I felt the question in the back of my throat. I was done asking it before I heard my own voice. “What are you doing here?” “I’m going to jump in a little while”. “Mind if I ask why?” “Not really. I’m just tired of living, tired of making excuses. Tired of asking unanswerable questions.” “What do you mean unanswerable questions?” “All day long I ask questions there are no real answers for. I think about abstract things that cannot be thought about.” “You mean like daydreaming?” “Yes, only its my job”. “You mean you’re a professional daydreamer?” He laughed very loudly at this, and swung one leg back over the ledge. I took this as a sign that he would jump. He sat facing me. Staring up at the sky, he said, “I teach philosophy at the university”. It was my turn to laugh. “Oh, now I understand”. “Good. You see I’m tired of teaching freshmen that Socrates was more than a child molester. I’m tired of teaching sophomores metaphysics. I’m tired of teaching juniors St. Au gustine. You want to know what I’m most tired of doing? Of telling one class there is a God and fifty minutes later telling another class there isn’t.” “I guess it could get confusing”. “Beyond that, it gets boring. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even care anymore and I’m tired of doing it.”

29 “You don’t care if there is a God?”

“Listen my friend, “ he swung the other leg back over, which I took as another good sign, “there are so many good arguments on both sides I don’t know who to believe.” “I took basic philosophy in college.” Although it was true I was not sure why I said it, other than because it seemed appropriate. “What did you major in?” “Accounting.” “Well thank God you did not get enough into it to get screwed up.” “I thought it was interesting, but I never had time to really think about it.” “That’s good, I devoted my entire life to it only to wind up feeling it was all for naught. It’s such a dead end!” “Do you really think so?” “At first I thought I could solve the problem of whether or not there was a God. I was young and idealistic, I was also very foolish. Now I am disgusted. The other day I was reading a critism of Nietzsche, when I realized that no one had any more answers than anyone else. A first semester freshman could give as much concrete evidence of the existence of God as I could! That put me over the edge.” He sat down on the roof next to me. He leaned his back against the ledge and puffed his cigarette. This made me certain he would not jump. For the first time I took a good look at him. His clothes were normal enough: jeans, T shirt, and sneakers. His smooth face reminded me of the shave I gave myself the night of my prom. There was nothing so striking about his features that I remember enough to describe. His hair was brown and wavey, in other words, just as common as the rest of his appearance. I noticed the college ring on his right hand for two reasons. First, because I had put mine in my pocket before getting into bed with the hooker and I had not replaced it yet, second because of the way he kept turning it and fiddleing with it. I got the feeling it gave him some sort of skin rash on his finger. I did not let him know I saw this. He continued. “I figure the only way to find peace with myself is to do it all the way, I’ve done too many things half-way in my life. This is one thing I’m going to follow through, no matter what the consequences. Do you know what the ultimate irony of an athiests’ suicide is?” “No.” “He will never know if he’s right, only if he’s wrong.” I gave him a puzzeled look. He automatically began to explain in a tone that made me feel like a student in one of his classes. “Well, let’s say that I’m right and there is no God, or anything else after death. Then I’m jumping into total oblivian. My entire being will cease to exist. But here’s the catch, if I’m wrong and there is a God, he’ll be staring me right in the face wherever I stand in the hereafter. “I never quite thought of it that way.” “I’m a professional daydreamer, remember?” “Aren’t you afraid of going to hell?” With a wink he said, “I figured out a long time ago that hell was invented to keep Catholic boys from masturbating.” After we finished laughing, “You really aren’t afraid of hell?” “Look at it this way, if I’m willing to take a chance at annihilating my existance, why 30 should I worry about burning for all eternity?” “That’s true.” “I don’t worry about the consequences. If I’m wrong, and there is a God I believe He’ll forgive me, because it’s partly his own fault”. “His fault?” “Yes, because He created the men who developed the doctrines that brought me up to this ledge!” “What about your own free will? You could have chose to disregard things that would lead you to suicide, just written them off as extreme bullshit.” “Once you learn a philosophy, you can never totally disregard it. It always has a little influ ence on your thought. Even if it is bullshit.” “I see.” “Are you going to watch me go over?” “You got any family?” I said wanting to change the subject. “No.” He turned his head and looked me in the eye. Before I go I’d like to give you a couple of things, okay?” “Sure.” He undid his watch and handed it to me. The ring that had been bothering him came off next. After he handed it to me I put them both in my shirt pocket. He rose to his feet and stood up on the edge. “Well, see you around, maybe.” “Good luck.” A whisper was all I could manage, but he heard me anyway. He winked and said, “There’s no such thing.” Helept off the roof in the most beautiful swan dive I have ever seen. After pushing himself up and out he hung in the air for a second, not moving. As if some invisible strings were cut, he began to fall. He looked straight ahead, and I still try to imagine what the sidewalk looked like rushing up to his face. Watching him slip through the air reminded me of the cliff divers I saw Acapulco on my honeymoon. His fully extended arms looked ready to slice through the water, or to crumble and snap against the cement. His dive ended in an instantaneous and final splash. It was not a thin tanned body piercing azure tropical water that echoed in my mind; it was his blood splattering onto the cold waves of the concrete ocean. The lone sound throughout the dive was the splash which only lasted for a second. I didn’t know it then, but that same splash would torment me over and over again. Aside from the ring and the watch, he left me with that haunting noise to make sure I never forgot him. The next day I stopped at the bank on my way to work. I put my college ring in my private safety deposit box. Next to it, I laid my Timex. In the privacy of the little booth, I slipped his ring onto my finger. It felt tight but I could live with it. His watch posed no problem; it fit perfectly. No one, including my wife, has noticed the change. Rings and watches are the kind of things people get used to—after a while they don’t look too closely. On the same day every year, I go to the same neighborhood, get a hooker, and take her to the same room. Afterwards, I go up to the roof and smoke a couple of cigarettes. I haven’t missed an anniversary in 10 years. I still wear the watch and ring. On that one night a year, if I close my eyes and listen, I can barely hear the splash echoing in the street. —M.A.Baldassare. 31 Honor Calls To honor am I bound For an ageless time around Noble acts and deeds Shall surpress all others’ greed Always the straight and narrow Fitted and let fly by the archers arrow Speeding into the sky Now all can see my love die Emotionless shall I strive Through and through I shall survive By honor am I bound In the end return me to the ground

—Mark Hanford

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