0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 1 EDITOR David Bartholomy ASSOCIATE EDITOR Chris Tiahrt ASSISTANT EDITORS Dori Howard Patrick Pace DESIGNER David Stratton Cover and interior artwork by John Dawson: cover, “Arrested Sky”; back cover, “Fire Breather Squeaker” p. 1, “Shibadance” p. 4, “Bucky Fuller” p. 32, “Da Gulls” p. 60, “Window Texture” p. 86, “Snowtree” p.113, “ Somewhere on the Edge of Maine”“ Editor’s Note: All of the 44 writers in this issue were invited to submit work because they are affiliated with Brescia’s creative writing program and because they are from this region or are writing in it. Some are current or former Brescia students, some have given workshops or readings at Brescia, and some have read at Third Tuesday Writers Coffeehouse, which is an outreach of Brescia’s creative writing program. The result is an assemblage of talented writers from Western Kentucky and Southwestern Indiana. The policy of Open 24 Hours is to present work that is truthful, fresh, artful, provocative, and clear and therefore deserves to be read. D.B. The views expressed in this journal are, of course, those of the writers. Address all correspondence to David Bartholomy, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY, 42301 or <[email protected]>. Copyright ©2010 Brescia Writers Group. All rights revert to the authors. ISBN 0-9777052-4-2 1 0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 2 C o n t e n t s Humid Voices Dori Howard Glitter . 5 Joey Goebel Awful Quiet . 6 Teresa Roy The True Religion. 13 Jim McGarrah On the Streets of Saigon in 2005 . 14 Jay Chaffin Lost Causes and Human Walruses . 15 Michael Battram Quotidian . 21 Michael Battram The Descent of Management.. 21 Phoebe Athey Damned Mexicans . 22 Patrick Reninger Why I Refuse to Sign Up for Direct Deposit . 25 Ed McClanahan Horsefeathers: Stories from Room 241 . 26 Bringing the Body’s Breath John Hay Exile . 33 Annette Allen Learning to Talk . 44 Teresa Roy Up Until Now . 45 Alice Driver “Mackanan”: Lost in Translation . 46 Dori Howard Five Spot . 47 Erin Barnhill Time Capsule . 48 Mark Williams Hitler the Pigeon. 49 Jesse Mountjoy A Friend of My Uncle . 50 Rusty Smiddy We Lived on the Street that Led to the Dump . 56 Laurie Doctor This Work . 57 Jordan Overby Role Playing . 58 Kelly Lee The Melody of Her Words . 59 Laurie Doctor A Place Beside the Sea. 59 0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 3 Love and Fried Potatoes Rey Ford Visiting Kentucky in Late Spring . 61 Richard Taylor Innovation . 62 Richard Taylor Henderson .... 62 Linda Neal Reising Congregation of Crows . 63 Steven Skaggs Sectional Sink . 63 Joe Survant Owl . 64 Missy Brownson-Farmer Relearning the Alphabet . 64 George Fillingham On the Britmart Road . 65 Tom Hunley P. T. Barnum . 66 Tom Hunley Babe Ruth ... 66 Lynn Hardesty Faith Like Fields . 67 Tom Raithel Fog . 74 John Beemer Orchid . 74 Ashley Boswell Potato Peeler . 75 Adria Nassim Welcome to Tractorville . 76 Todd Autry Ol’ Hosscat . 77 Jason Rhodes I Was Eight Years Old. 84 Irene Mosvold About Last Night . 85 Curving with LIfe Clayton Galloway Shatters . 87 Annette Allen On the Day Before I Was Born . 93 Jim McGarrah The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. 94 Katerina Stoykova-Klemer To the Bugs Still Drowning in the Pool . 94 Katie Beyke Reawakened Sisterhood . 95 Julie Marie Wade The Follower . 97 Amy Tudor Overheard: The Father and the Earth . 98 Mary Welp Roasted Root Vegetable Soup . 99 Chris Tiahrt Status: Three Years (a Writer’s Block) . 101 Rey Ford It Is Silly . 103 Sagan Sette Broken Gingerbread Houses Taste the Same . 104 Ellyn Lichvar When Your Husband Lost His Arm . 107 Patrick Reninger Two Weeks After . 108 Contributors . 109 Creative Writing at Brescia .. 112 0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 4 Humid Voices “His hands were in his coats pockets. They had been the whole time, and she couldn’t tell if he had a weapon.” Joey Goebel, p. 6 “I decide to remain on the floor, where I am safe from the toxic air and the close proximity of two people I find revolt- ing.” Jay Chaffin, p. 15 Open 24 Hours 4 0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 5 Open 24 Hours Dori Howard Glitter This is how it begins: Unassuming girl in a crowded high school hallway. A boy she doesn’t know, trying to know himself. He delicately clasps her arm and pulls her Toward him, a foreign tide, as students rush past them on all sides like careless bodies of water. His tongue probes for answers in her innocent mouth and it’s quick and it’s over before she even sees his face and he has faded again into a sea of backpacks and books and lockers, leaving scented traces of cafeteria ketchup and a whispered and humid thank you in her ear. Her first kiss with a boy. His last with a girl. This is how it continues: Straight girl sheltered in a gay bar, reveling in a colorful glitter pit of mirrors and dance floors and embraces that stitch permanent imprints of designer cologne into the seams of her clothes. Since her first kiss, she cannot count the many more she’s given and received from men who love men who love men, and she carries the memory of the first like a secret coin in her pocket that she will never spend. It’s an extrication, the knowledge of living as a man’s epitome Of her gender. She is a man’s scrutiny of attraction. His capping test of genetics. So she falls in love over and over without consequence. She falls in love over and over with men who love men who love men. She falls in love with George who develops a harness for poetry that gives her infinite power over her words. With Alistair who ties her to a city life and shows her how to count the cracks in crowded sidewalks and the number of steps across bridges. With Thomas who proves that her heart is a measuring tool. She is content as they mold her into a candle free of flame, hold her skin free of touch, and she is never lonely is this world they have created so soft and unassailable because it’s true that love is love is love. 5 0p2410.qx 3/12/10 11:57 AM Page 6 Joey Goebel Awful Quiet It was not uncommon for Irene to be up at around 3:00 a.m. At least once a week, she had a wide-awake spell, which she always handled the same way: she took one half of a sleeping pill, went to the family room downstairs so she wouldn’t wake her husband, and read a book until the pill sang its sweet, simple lullaby to her brain. After taking half an Ambien, Irene turned on the family room lamp and plugged in the Christmas tree lights. The soft glow of the lights had been an image that had soothed her since she was a little girl in overalls. Irene actually enjoyed the nights when she couldn’t sleep. Her kids were peacefully drooling on their pillows. All the TV’s were off. No cars passed by outside. The telephone would not be ringing. The silence was perfect. She lay on the couch. Once her old brown shawl was draped over her just so, she opened her book, The Godfather. She had read it twice before and seen the movie over twenty times, and like most Americans considered it to be the greatest film to have ever been made. The film and the book were about some mobsters who take turns getting revenge on one another. There was something about The Godfather that always made Irene come back to it. Maybe it was because, despite all the violence, it was basically a story about a family whose members put each other above everything else. So she felt her muscles relaxing as she read about Vito and Sonny and Michael and all the rest. Thirty minutes into her reading, the shawl was mak- ing her feel toasty warm, and she felt the first hint of sleepiness. She looked over at the multi-colored Christmas tree lights, just to enjoy them for a moment. As she returned her gaze to her book, she thought she caught a glimpse of something. She looked at the doorway between the family room and dining room, and her heart instantly began beating faster than it ever had in all her life. Without a sound—without any warning whatsoever—a stranger had entered her home. He simply stood there, silently staring at her. * * * They stared at each other for twenty horribly long seconds. Irene’s nerves sizzled with fear, causing her entire body to go from toasty warm to fiery hot. She opened her mouth to scream. “Shhh,” said the man, his finger to his mouth. He wore black gloves. His face was wrapped in soiled, tattered bandages, not like a mummy so much as a hideously wounded hospital patient, and all Irene could see of his features were his dark eyes and purplish lips. “Please, I know this will be difficult for you,” he said in a slow, steady, quiet voice, “but try to remain calm. Do not cry for help. I may or may not be here to harm you. How you behave in the next five minutes will determine my decision. If you do as I say, you are much less likely to be hurt or killed, though I should warn you that no matter what—even if you do nothing at all to offend me, there is still a possibility that you’ll be killed within the next five minutes.” Irene threw her book aside and sat up.