Goliard 2013 Issue - The Goliard

The Goliard
Twenty-Four 2013
The Goliard
A publication of casual bits and scraps that shake down into the world.
Like the claim of a 1905 Pittsburgh whiskey, the creativity “blends the
mildness of milk with the vivacity of champagne, steals gently upon the
soul, and animates the intellect without ever collapsing an idea.”
A PUBLICATION OF STUDENT WORKS NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR 2013
THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER WOOSTER, OHIO
Staff
Editors-in-Chief:
Leah Brown & Josh Ware
Art Editor:
Erin Behn
Art Staff:
Rachel Abell, Beth Milne
Prose Editor:
Stephanie Sugars
Prose Staff:
Tilly Alexander, Abi Douglas, Jacob Gabriel, Ellen Godbey
Poetry Editor:
Amanda Wagner
Poetry Staff:
Emily Corwin, Jacob Malone
Music Editors:
Josh Lewis, Nick Penfound
Layout Editor:
Shaina Switzer
Layout Staff
Jacob Brotman
Notes From the Editors
The second time doing anything is always easier. That is definitely what I have found
in working with the Goliard for a second year. It has been both a pleasure and an honor to work
with the group of students that help produce the magazine, but also those that submitted to it. I
knew that we were a talented group, but I didn’t know just how talented until I came to be a part
of this publication.
I want to thank my Co-Editor in Chief, Josh, for helping me work through some of the
more busy times of the last year. I think we make a pretty good team, and we proved that again
this year. I would also like to give special thanks to Erin Behn. Without her, production of this
magazine might have come to a halt, and never started again.
Leah Brown
It’s that time of year again, reader! The twenty-fourth issue has come together with a
bright future ahead, as Leah and I hand off the reins to our successors. Over our two years as
Editors-in-Chief, we’ve brought some needed change to the magazine, and soon the Goliard
will be making a much fuller leap: onward to the digital age, with the full complement of web
add-ons and doohickeys!
I’d like to thank Erin Behn for a her technical and practical wizardry, my co-editor
Leah for having my back (as always), Cally King of the Publications Committee for giving her
approval to the new format, and to the Layout Staff in particular for dealing with all of the technical mishaps with aplomb. Oh, and of course I’d like to thank all of the people who submitted.
Without you, this magazine wouldn’t exist!
With all of that said, let’s enjoy some of the finest words to hit the page here in this
little Ohio city.
Love, luck and lollipops,
Josh Ware
Table of Contents
Art
Cover “Lined Limes” | Margaret Roberts
“Truck Plaza” | Beth Milne ..................................................................................................... 8
“Wild” | Kelsey Schulman..................................................................................................... 10
“Untitled” | Claire Stragand ............................................................................................ 18, 45
“Jerusalem the Ancient City” | Benjamin Heavenrich .......................................................... 20
“The Girl” | Adrian Rowan ................................................................................................... 22
“Fingers” | Adrian Rowan ..................................................................................................... 36
“Desert Ride” | Benjamin Heavenrich ................................................................................. 42
“Moray” | Chris Marshall .................................................................................................... 44
“Untitled” | Devin Grandi ............................................................................................... 46, 77
“London Summer” | Margaret Roberts ................................................................................ 47
“Man Made Sky” | Alexandra Francis ................................................................................. 48
“Pilar of Stone” | Stephanie Sugars ..................................................................................... 49
“Red Sky of Tanzania” | Patrick Brennan ............................................................................ 50
“Cloud Miner” | Alexandra Francis ..................................................................................... 51
“Focus” | Stephanie Sugars .................................................................................................. 52
“The View From Kitchen Mesa” | Catherine Gillette .......................................................... 53
“Self-Portrait” | Jessica Pisani ............................................................................................. 54
“Isabelle” | Jessica Pisani ..................................................................................................... 55
“Home” | Kathryn Osbourne ................................................................................................ 56
“Window” | Erin Behn ......................................................................................................... 57
“Creation” | Maddie Socolar ................................................................................................ 58
“Tower Watch” | Kelsey Schulman ...................................................................................... 72
“Awaiting” | Beth Milne ........................................................................................................ 74
“Untitled” | Abigail Sandberg ............................................................................................... 87
Back Cover “Artichoke Beach” | Maddie Socolar
Poetry
New Jersey Aubade | Aaron Winston ................................................................................... 15
Oscar the Grouch | Jacob Malone ......................................................................................... 16
Um Dee | Kyle Smucker ....................................................................................................... 19
Elegy For You | Baba Badji .................................................................................................. 21
Bus Station | Lisa Favicchia ................................................................................................. 34
Balancing Act | Ian Schoultz ................................................................................................ 36
Jim Beam | Jacob Malone .................................................................................................... 40
As Clear As Your Conscience | Elyse Vukelich .................................................................... 41
Reading About Nature on a Stormy Evening | Carolyn Fado .............................................. 43
Murmuration | Nicole Marton ............................................................................................... 69
Blue Stomach | Danielle Gagnon ......................................................................................... 70
To You | Josh Ware ............................................................................................................... 71
Summer Home | Lisa Favicchia ........................................................................................... 76
Crumpled English | Jacob Malone ....................................................................................... 84
Carnivore | Abi Douglas ....................................................................................................... 86
La Llorona | Lisa Favicchia ................................................................................................. 88
Baobab | Baba Badji ............................................................................................................. 90
Prose
February 16th | Kathryn Osbourne ........................................................................................ 9
The Dock | Stephanie Sugars ............................................................................................... 11
Indecision 2016 | Carolyn Fado ........................................................................................... 23
My Friend, the Microwave Oven | Ian Schoultz .................................................................. 35
The Circle Broken | Kyle Smucker ...................................................................................... 37
Sympathy for a Smoke | Shaina Switzer ............................................................................... 59
Thank Moon | Amanda Priest .............................................................................................. 73
Hammer of Vicar Gideon | Josh Ware .................................................................................. 75
Stone | Joe Morgan ............................................................................................................... 78
Contributor’s Notes .................................................................. 91
Music Selections ........................................................................96
February 16th
Kathryn Osbourne
She sits in gentle stillness clasping her childlike hands in one another her mine elaborating on the shakiness in her spine. Her fluid red hair lies atop pale bony shoulders. She is slouched
feeling as if she is sinking into the floor, the bright white room seeming to swallow her.
This girl without a god substitutes the divine with the ideas found in books and pictures
but she knows that no idea created the growing creature in her tiny body. She looks up at the
woman before her, a middle aged well preserved beauty with fine hands clenching charcoal and
demonstrating the use of highlight and line. And she begins to drift in fearless thought, allowing
her mind to contemplate reality as it chooses knowing all solutions will be fruitless:
My drawing professor and I are both pregnant, simultaneously pregnant. But I don’t know
and I haven’t said anything and I am unsure. She has gone to her doctor with her husband. Her
insurance checked out, used at her will, not owned by her parents. She could tell no one and
maintain peace and security. The secret object boiling in her bloodstream. I stare at her because
she intrigues me. Her delicate olive skin has wrinkled some, has dried a little in need of hydration and sleep. I want to tell her what we share, a hidden secret. I want her to know why I look
so deeply into her face why I discretely examine her size and shape and compare it with mine. I
know if I told her she would have nothing to say. I’m twenty, grown in my own right. I’m her
student a relationship established on her knowledge and my ignorance. My ignorance. If only I
had knowledge as she. If only I had money too.
She had money, so much money and had always had money. She told us saying how fortunate
she was to be able to become an artist. How she painted her family’s farm, acres upon acres upon
acres. I do not have acres and acres and acres to run free- to birth this baby, a wilderness child in
solitude and peace. I am withering inside. Perhaps this is why her paintings are so whimsical,
visuals of imaginary lands, moon lit and entrancing dusted with golden stars while mine depict a
land of simple grey, the reality before me.
“Truck Plaza” | Beth Milne
8
9
The Dock
Stephanie Sugars
“Wild” | Kelsey Schulman
10
I found her that morning. She was floating on
her back, in the lake, her eyes open to the sky,
hair spread wide just beneath the rippling surface.
The air was crisp. The crickets were finishing
the last bars of their tune and the morning birds
were picking up the song where they had left
off. There wasn’t anything remarkable about
this morning; rustling leaves, neighbors’ alarms
sounding, engines roaring to life, bound towards
the town about 40 minutes drive downhill.
Sometimes, when I think about that day, or when
something reminds me of it, I swear that I can
still hear the silence that echoed, blocking all
other sounds after the cessation of a monstrous
noise. Early morning swims were one of her
sacred rituals, and no measure of debate could
convince her how dangerous I was convinced
these dips were. You could see the dock only
from the windows in the back of the house, an
area almost entirely inhabited by our books, and
therefore not somewhere I would be spending
much time while trying to overcome my morning
grogginess. In her typical thick-headed manner
she would state matter-of-factly that they were
“absolutely, positively necessary,” as they made
her “one with her surroundings” and facilitated
her “communions with the natural world,” and
“Besides, you’ve just watched too many episodes
of Criminal Minds and read too many books.”
Her standard conclusive remark. And with that,
the conversation would come to a close.
On this particular morning, I heard her get up
before the sun rose – without an alarm, might I
add, a feat that always impressed me, as I barely
woke up with my three alarms scattered around
the room. She dressed soundlessly, slipping on
her bathing suit and worn-thin sandals. I felt her
weight sink the bed in slightly as she leaned over
to gently smooth out my hair as she whispered
that she would be back in an hour or so, unless
she got caught up. This was the more probable
outcome, because she was prone to lying on the
deck near our house in order to stare up at the
stretching pines that border the lake’s edges,
particularly to watch the sky slowly change from
pale purple to yellow to a crisp blue. It was often
upwards of three hours before she would return,
her hair and suit frequently having been dried
by the light morning breezes. When she would
eventually come back to the house, I would place
a plate with a grapefruit, pomegranate, or some
other fruit on the table as well as a pair of mugs of
hot tea, she would smile and dig in. And I would
sit there holding my tea, breathing in deeply the
fresh, earthen scent with a touch of mountain
breeze that her skin and hair now bore.
We both loved spending time on that dock;
it wouldn’t be too far off to say that it was our
favorite place in the world. We knew every crack,
loose nail, squeaky board, and beam of that deck,
11
right down to the hole on the left side from the
one time that I convinced her that it would be
a good idea to try “fishing with a gun.” During
the summer, we would lie there hand in hand for
hours, watching the stars dusting across the sky,
listening to music, being comfortably silent and
contemplative or talking about what we think
about life, the universe,goldfish, anything that
came to our minds in stream of consciousness,
not unlike some new-age books that you can try
to question before simply resigning yourself to
the flow. We shared many a moment on those pale
gray slats.
The first night we met, there was a sizable
party happening at a cabin on the other side of
the stand of trees from our house. I was tagging
along – postponing as long as I could my return
to the dreary town I used to call home – with the
host. I noticed her come in with a group of girls,
who I later learned dragged her there because,
and I quote, “she needed to have some contact
with some humans for a change.” She lived in
the house nearby, where we now live together,
but she never told me how many years she had
been there and how she had come to acquire the
house, despite my persistent curiosity. Not once
did she or I pay a mortgage bill. That’s something
to look forward to I suppose. Having lived there
for a while, she knew most everyone at the party,
as well as how to slip out without raising alarm. I
saw her as she discretely but casually went out a
side door and disappeared into the liquid shadows
12
cast by the pine trees in the moonlight. And I,
well, I followed her. To this day I ask myself
what fiendish sprite of fate possessed me that
night. While she was still at the party, weaving
around and between groups of people in the
midst of dancing, talking, and all but drowning
in a variety of alcoholic beverages, I imagined
what she was thinking about with that far-off
look in her eyes. A look that told me she was
busy thinking about things far more important
than what shot this guy was on, or how many
guys so-and-so had slept with. Was she thinking
about a book she had been reading? Finalizing
her decision to take a road trip around the country
for the summer? Pondering how the situation in
Guatemala was deteriorating? I assigned to her all
these traits and interests as one often does with a
little crush, particularly with one on someone you
don’t think you’ll ever see again, and in doing so
a rush of adrenaline rushes over you, the waves
of it increasing in frequency and intensity the
more details you imagine. I wondered what kind
of college she attended, what her major was – my
best guess was philosophy or biochemistry.
I followed her, all the way to that gray dock.
She was silently standing at the edge, looking
out across the lake. The moonlight danced on
the surface, lighting her face with her abundant
curls in silhouette. Was it almost a new moon?
The entire area doused in shadows and dripped in
mystery... These days, when I try to piece it back
together in my mind, I see a reflective moon. In
any case, she heard me. approaching – quite loudly
I must say, because I’ve always been a bit clumsy
and couldn’t help tripping over branches and
fallen twigs, and, sometimes, nothing. I couldn’t
mimic her lithe and graceful flowing movements.
She could always glide over the surface of the
earth, almost as if she were floating through the
air in a way that some of us, namely myself, can
barely achieve in water. I’ve never been much
of a swimmer, and I am still astonished at how
well I was able to swim that morning when I flew
through the water towards her.
Hearing me crunching the late fall leaves
that had been covered in a light layer of frost,
she turned around to look at me, and I could tell
that she was simultaneously annoyed at having
her silent solitude disturbed by such a bumbling
idiot and intrigued that I would have followed her
there in the first place. We introduced ourselves
and began talking about everything that we
could think of. Music, school, politics, Dr. Who,
camping, spirituality, until I thought we had all
but dug down right to the very core of our souls.
I think that if we could have we would have
cracked open our hearts and souls to pour out the
pure truth of our being to one another there on
that gray dock in the moonlight. I learned that she
wasn’t going to college, in fact had only barely
graduated high school, and only then because of
all of her art courses with a professor who adored
her vision. She was an artist, and said that her
lifelong dream was nothing more or less than to
live peacefully and comfortably in the forest, in
this house, to eke out a contemplative existence
removed from humanity in order to commune with
nature to understand all of its secret explanations
for why people, as animals, act the way that they
do. To tell you the truth, when she tried to explain
it, I was just buzzed enough to realize that it was
deeply profound. She always had an inherent
eloquence with words. I told her about how I was
taking a different path towards a same answer,
studying the atrocities and shortcomings of our
race in order to understand where we go wrong
and how to stop it.
We sat up talking until the first lights of dawn
began to peak over the mountain, and that was
the first of many times that we would sit on that
dock looking up at the sky. It changed from the
deepest of blues and blacks to warm pastels with
the morning light. Until now the thought never
came to my mind that we each studied the sky
in similar ways to how we studied life. I loved to
look into the dark abyss trying to understand how
even in overwhelming darkness there are bits of
light that shine through and eventually take over,
while she liked to catch it as it changed from dark
to light in an attempt to grasp how the two are one
and without both aspects the individual pieces
lose all sense of meaning or context.
That’s the only way that I can seem to explain
our relationship to anyone. We weren’t lovers, but
we were more than friends, and the profoundest
13
of loves grew between us. She was my keystone, my basis for putting the world in an understandable
context, my bridge. I always fancied myself her connection to the human race, because in all of her
convening with nature I thought she would lose herself to it. If you were to ask her thoughts on the
matter, I honestly have no idea what she would say, though it may have been something along the
lines of her keeping my eyes open to the light and good in life and me keeping her aware of the little
simplistic joys that make the darkness bearable. At least that’s what I hope.
The police still can’t definitively say whether it was suicide or not. I don’t know which I’d prefer to
believe – that the darkness that I have studied for so long invaded my life and destroyed that which I
love, or that she lost her sight for the good in life that she had sought so long to instill in me. I’m sure
she would pipe in that she has simply become one with the natural world that she always sought to
understand. I think that perspective would make her happy, so that is how I’ve decided to think about
it. Even after I found her body floating there in the water, I felt as if our relationship didn’t change
as much as everyone would expect. I see through her eyes in the photographs and artwork that cover
every surface of our house. I can still experience the world as she did, feeling the wind flow around my
face, caressing my skin. The lessons she taught me about life and love live on within me beyond her
physical death. I am better for the time that we spent together.
______________
14
New Jersey Aubade
Aaron Winston
My bus window frames bright skyline, glass stained with hazy halo, looking east
towards
Manhattan from the dreary banks of Hoboken.
Between me and them the Hudson, my own good life at the bottom of my coffee cup,
stained notes on God’s absence.
My back against the grey fabric, holy posture with armrests, here on this bus with
these
other commuters the paper men reading market numbers and middle-aged women
with
their carefully powdered crow’s feet and infinite thermos sitting in the front row – the
golden calf of skyscraper ahead the largeness of the sun lighting bridges cars the
meadowland’s seepage of oil drums huge landfills swamps.
The newborn lying against its mother
takes its first breath.
15
Oscar The Grouch
Jacob Malone
Mutha fucka!
Get on out my alley,
Stop bangin’ on my house
before I jump up outta this can
and kick yo scrawny, rich ass!
Who da fuck do you think you are anyway?
You got a problem with me
Livin’ in here?
Why don’t you go bother someone else?
I ain’t got time to answer your damn questions.
You just don’t understand, how could ya?
Luxury can’t understand the gum under its heel.
So, little jackass got curiosity, I give you that,
Bangin’ on lids and shit like a junkyard
drummer.
Alright, then just walk over to that dumpster,
Open the lid and climb on in.
Maybe then you’ll get a taste of my life,
Feel what it’s like to rummage for aluminum,
To pick out “brand new” shoes for school,
Or a mildewed chair to furnish your home.
Hell, we’d grab some cans of Diet Coke
from the dumpster next to the convenient store.
Just wipe off the grime and dust and sticky shit
And pop the top for refreshment.
16
Don’t worry about the broken Budweiser
bottles,
or the rotting Pizza Hut carcass
you’re stepping on. Just lift your feet carefully
As you step on those soul stripping,
Trash bags that I can’t even afford.
It’s ‘bout black as death around midnight.
You can’t tell the diapers from the syringes
buzzin’ ‘round your head.
Tripping over unseen creatures and roadkill,
Falling on bags that feel like they’re full
of dismembered corpses,
And you sink under them all
Like you’re drowning in people’s shit.
One man’s trash is another man’s bed
or house, or livelihood:
Whatever the poor call treasure
The rich call excessive spending.
And this is a family tradition,
You don’t just end up this way,
It’s passed down generations,
Written on used toilet paper
So we don’t forget who it is we be.
We can’t seem to break our damned
connection
even after we cut the cord
and take our own breath,
no stanza break
we still breathe in the same stench
of piss and beer and vomit,
McDonald’s wrappers and leaky cell phone batteries
Dropped on our heads from the heavens.
I’m not really the prayin’ type,
I’m the grouchiest guy on any street,
Because I dine with stray cats
Off other people’s stray scraps.
If you don’t understand me, well, I don’t give a fuck.
I don’t need to explain myself to a stuck up,
“Daddy or mommy gives me anything I want” asshole like you.
But, if you’re so damn curious
Try rummaging for your life in the trash can
And see how fuckin’ friendly you can be.
17
Um Dee
Kyle Smucker
Pill mills till ills
ills for the illest
Pill mills till hills
bills for the pillest
Pills will heal real
really heal ill wills
Pills will will ill
really really heal steal
acetaminophen!
“Untitled” | Claire Stragand
letusin letusin!
acetaminophen!
letusinaminophen!
18
19
Elegy For You
Baba Badji
Dakar le 12 septembre 1991.
Quant la nuit tombait, et le ciel refusait
de s’illuminer, le petit mendiant observait
l’éclairage de la faible lampe à pétrole au
réservoir en verre. J’ai lu et j’ai pleuré des
nuits entières, écrit ma poésie, fait tous
mes devoirs, et ma prière de minuit…oncle
Abdoulaye disait, God is the provider of the
blind hunter.
Adieu.
Yaay boy.
It is a Friday and at dawn
Uncle Abdoulaye and I
Decide to visit your grave to paint it.
“Jerusalem the Ancient City” | Benjamin Heavenrich
20
Yaay boy, I am in my own life
Enveloped by these dark thunders and
burning heat
It is like digging a well in the middle of the
ocean.
Our sweat deliberately drown in the mud
And my uncle says,
Let’s move the grave to another place
She needs to repose tranquillement
But who moves a grave?
In the corner where
We intend to rest your head
Spiders effortlessly arrange their eggs.
They are not I. They do not grieve.
The sudden bitten dawn storm arrive
It stops us and forces us to take cover.
I bow beside the salty roses and recite a
chapter in the Quran
So that I can finish painting my feelings
Before the ultimate onset of darkness.
21
Indecision 2016 : A God-Given Gift
Carolyn Fado
Act the First of the Political Soap Opera
CHARACTERS
JENNIFER SMITH
HORACE HOFNER
REPORTER #1
PUNDIT
KELSEY KILBURY
A forty-seven year-old woman running for president of the United
States. The Democratic Candidate.
A sixty year-old man running for president of the United States on
the Republican ticket.
A Hound News reporter. Wears make-up and is perfectly groomed,
polished, and preened. Conservative. Female.
A Republican pundit who reports for Hound News. An old WASP.
Smith’s political advisor. 30-something. Upbeat. Loves politics.
SETTING
The Hound Newsroom (based on Fox News) in Washington, DC. SMITH’s campaign
headquarters in DC.
TIME
The 2016 presidential election.
“The Girl” | Adrian Rowan
22
ACT [1]
SCENE [1]
(Part of the stage is dedicated to the Hound Newsroom. A reporter and a visiting pundit sit
at a table facing the audience. The rest of the stage is minimalist and will represent SMITH’S
campaign headquarters. LIGHTS UP on Hound Newsroom. The time is 11 pm.)
REPORTER #1
Tonight I am joined by Dr. Greg Collins, the famed political pundit of the blog “Politics
and the American Family,” a blog on true American political values. Welcome Dr. Collins.
23
Thank you, Emily.
PUNDIT
REPORTER #1
You wrote on your blog that you believe the election will be a landslide for Hofner. And you
believe it’s obvious even though it’s only September.
PUNDIT
It’s October first.
REPORTER #1
You’re right. This election season has been moving so quickly… (PUNDIT laughs.)
PUNDIT
Anyway, yes. I do believe that Hofner is the only candidate that could win. I don’t think it’s
a question of whether we are ready for a female candidate or not. I mean, we’ve seen a lot of
female candidates in politics. Hillary and Palin…
REPORTER #1
Hillary’s a bit masculine. (PUNDIT laughs.)
PUNDIT
We should solely evaluate candidates on their merit and morals. And that is an area in which
Smith is behind.
REPORTER #1
Yes. How so?
PUNDIT
She’s pro-abortion. She doesn’t have a family like most women in politics do.
REPORTER #1
There’s been some speculation that she’s a-PUNDIT
--Lesbian.
REPORTER #1
Yes. What’s your opinion on that?
PUNDIT
I think there’s some merit to that.
24
REPORTER #1
Looking at her husband I wouldn’t be surprised.
PUNDIT
What really convinced me was the photograph that had Smith with her arm around her
political advisor Kelsey Kilbury.
REPORTER #1
Let’s pull up that image.
(A picture of SMITH and KILBURY appears projected above PUNDIT and REPORTER.
They just look like friends arm-in-arm, not like lovers.)
PUNDIT
Maybe Kelsey Kilbury will act as her first lady.
REPORTER #1
You don’t think her husband would?
PUNDIT
I don’t know that the duties of a first lady would be appropriate for a man.
REPORTER #1
You have to admit her husband is a bit feminine.
PUNDIT
That’s true. He did take her last name.
REPORTER #1
Who would take the last name Smith? It’s so common. Just look at that pantsuit she’s wearing.
Smith could at least make more of an effort. Put on some make-up at least.
(LIGHTS DOWN on Hound Newsroom. LIGHTS UP ON SMITH. SMITH is on the phone
and wearing a pantsuit.)
SMITH
(On the phone, angry) I thought you’d agreed that we weren’t going to bring up this issue.
(Pause)
25
It could hurt your campaign as well. Think about your family! Your wife and children!
(Pause) Where are you going? (Pause) Just remember, you may have my medical files, but I
still have our black book. (Pause) Oh, I would dare to. So don’t you--hello? (Slamming the
phone down) Asshole!
Senator Smith. Are you okay?
I’m ready to roll.
You heard.
Oh, God.
I’m sorry.
(KILBURY enters.)
KILBURY
SMITH
KILBURY
SMITH
KILBURY
SMITH
Why are you sorry? It has nothing to do with you.
KILBURY
I thought it did.
SMITH
You’re going to help me fix it up and deal with it, that’s what.
KILBURY
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. What we should do. Maybe you should take a stand
against gay marriage. It will show that you aren’t gay.
SMITH
Huh?
KILBURY
You haven’t heard?
SMITH
No.
26
What did you hear about then?
Nothing.
Oh.
What did you hear about?
KILBURY
SMITH
KILBURY
SMITH
KILBURY
A picture of us got out in which we’re arm-in-arm.
SMITH
Are you watching Hound News again?
KILBURY
I saw it on there, but also-SMITH
Most of our supporters do not watch that show.
KILBURY
--it’s also showing up on other networks.
SMITH
Biden and Obama have walked arm-in-arm before. No one has called them gay before. I’m
not homosexual.
(Laughing) I can’t believe that people believe all of this crap.
KILBURY
Think about your image.
SMITH
I’m a strong politician. That’s my image.
KILBURY
Maybe if you wear a skirt to the debate...
SMITH
So I’d look more feminine.
27
That’s the idea.
KILBURY
SMITH
I’d been thinking of wearing a skirt. (Pause) I won’t change my stance on same-sex marriage.
Why would you even ask that?
KILBURY
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. Senator.
(LIGHTS DOWN on KILBURY and SMITH. LIGHTS UP on Hound Newsroom. The picture
of KILBURY and SMITH is still projected.)
PUNDIT
That is a fairly masculine pantsuit. I think Hofner is the clear winner. He’s stayed consistent in
his ideology. He hasn’t flip-flopped back and forth between conservative and liberal values...
REPORTER #1
That’s right. We haven’t talked about how Smith has completely changed her ideology.
Remember just about ten or fifteen years ago when she worked for a conservative senator?
PUNDIT
Yes, Senator Mulvey. And she also collaborated with Hofner for some issues. Like the
Sanctity of Life Act.
REPORTER #1
Hofner hasn’t brought up much about his former relationship with Smith. You’d think that
could help his campaign.
PUNDIT
It would highlight Smith’s inconsistency. Can the liberals even expect her to do what she
claims she will do to further the liberal agenda?
(LIGHTS DOWN on Hound Newsroom. LIGHTS UP on SMITH and KILBURY.)
SMITH
(Nagging KILBURY) I have a phone-call to make.
28
(KILBURY exits. SMITH takes out her phone and dials.)
SMITH
Horace, pick up. No. (SMITH sets the phone down. She picks up a remote and turns on the
television to Hound News.)
SMITH
What are these idiots saying about me.
(LIGHTS UP on Hound Newsroom.)
REPORTER #1
Yes. What happened to her morals? She worked for a Senator with strong family values.
PUNDIT
And she doesn’t have a family of her own. If we look back on other presidents, look how
many of them have children. How many of them just, just have that experience of raising a
family.
REPORTER #1
Well, I don’t know how much experience men have with raising a family...
PUNDIT
We do provide for our children.
(REPORTER #1 and PUNDIT laugh.)
REPORTER #1
What gets me is that Smith used to be a leader in the pro-life movement.
REPORTER #1
(Appears to be reading from teleprompter) We have breaking news. It appears that--Smith had
an abortion…
PUNDIT
What! I’m not surpri-REPORTER #1
--A medical record was released to Hound News from an anonymous source. The record is
dated from fifteen years ago.
29
(SMITH presses mute on the remote. PUNDIT and REPORTER #1 continue to move but we
don’t hear what they are saying.)
Fuck!
SMITH
(KILBURY runs in.)
KILBURY
Shit, shit, shit. We need to figure out how you’ll react--what your response will be. Shit. This
is true, isn’t it? You did have an abortion?
SMITH
I did.
KILBURY
You never told me about this.
SMITH
I thought the Hofner campaign-KILBURY
This is a huge issue.
SMITH
I am aware of that.
(Off-stage, sounds of other people on Smith’s campaign.)
SMITH
(to KILBURY)
Would you tell them that I’m talking to you right now?
KILBURY
Sure.
(KILBURY walks off-stage.)
SMITH
(Thinking about HORACE) The fucking idiot!
30
(SMITH presses un-mute on the remote. PUNDIT and REPORTER #1 can be heard.)
PUNDIT
I think this will definitely impact the election. Unquestionably. Smith is willing to take away
a baby’s innocent life. I think we need to ask ourselves, is this really the type of woman we
would like to see as our president?
REPORTER #1
It’s criminal… And who was the father?
PUNDIT
She wasn’t even married.
REPORTER #1
No, she wasn’t. Is this the sort of person we want for president, to run our country? No.
PUNDIT
I think Senator Hofner, on the other hand, as I’ve said before, has shown himself to be a
strong man with strong family values. He has a wife; he’s been with the same woman for
thirty years. They have three children together.
REPORTER #1
--a good model of the American family.
PUNDIT
What happened to traditional family values?
REPORTER #1
That’s a good question.
(KILBURY enters SMITH’S part of the stage.)
PUNDIT
We can’t forget that Smith used to be conservative. She went from being a very strong pro-life
advocate to this. To this child murder!
(KILBURY pauses television, taking the remote from SMITH.)
Who was the father?
KILBURY
31
SMITH
You sound like one of them. (Mocking KILBURY) Who was the father? (Back to normal
tone) I had the abortion in my first trimester. I hadn’t been pregnant for a month yet.
KILBURY
I’m sorry. Who was the man responsible?
SMITH
It was someone back when I was an office assistant.
KILBURY
Someone consequential? (Pause) Yes! Was it one of those dirty Senators? It was! You could
say that it was a rape. No, I don’t--Forget I even said that. (Pause) If anything a rape would be
worse… No, I don’t think you should even admit to it.
SMITH
It was consensual.
KILBURY
Do you know who the…?
SMITH
Who? What?
KILBURY
The man.
SMITH
If I were a man this would never be an issue.
KILBURY
But you’re not.
SMITH
Stick to your job.
KILBURY
That’s what I’m trying to do.
SMITH
Kelsey. I need to write a speech. My reaction to this.
KILBURY
We’re working on it.
32
I have ideas. I know what I want to say.
Should I leave you to work?
(Coolly) Thank you.
SMITH
KILBURY
SMITH
(SMITH takes out a black notebook from her bag and flips through it with a smile on her face.
She then dials her phone.)
SMITH
Pick up. (On the phone) Horace! Why did you do it? (Pause) What do you mean you don’t
know what I’m talking about? Of course you know what I’m talking about. The abortion. You
released it! (Pause) Who else could have released it? Your people.. your people. (Pause) We
need to talk about this.
OFF-STAGE VOICE
Senator Smith!
SMITH (on the phone)
Eleven eleven Connecticut Ave. No, we shouldn’t meet here. Let’s meet somewhere more
furtive. If my people see your people…
(Sound of a knock on the door.)
SMITH (Continued, talking to off-stage voice)
I’ll be ready in a minute. (On the phone) Let’s skype tonight. One A.M. No, that doesn’t
work? When does? Okay three A.M.
(She hangs up the phone. Next line to herself)
I’m going to say something tomorrow morning. Something. I can’t look like I’m avoiding the
issue.
(SMITH exits, forgetting the black notebook.)
TO BE CONTINUED…
33
Bus Station
Lisa Favicchia
I sat perched
upon the bench
in the middle of that
musty room,
my legs dangling.
I said nothing,
just watched
as the man sitting
on the bench next to mine
grinned with three teeth
jutting up from his gums.
Beside him,
a dog licked its lips
in short
choppy flicks.
My jaw clenched
when the man began
to pick his nails
with a knife
that appeared from nowhere.
The dog inched closer
when the man shifted
further back
on his cement perch
34
My Friend, The Microwave Oven
resting a bare foot
atop his left knee.
Then he took the knife
and began tearing
strips of callous
from the heel of his foot
and rolled them into little balls
before flicking them on the floor.
At one point he peeled off
a particularly long strip
and fed it to the dog
who chewed only once
before gulping the flesh down.
He continued to do this,
and the dog followed along,
eager and mindless.
Then I felt it.
I could feel
the weight of my legs
in the tips of my toes.
My stomach lurched
and I knew I would vomit,
but I swallowed it all down
when I realized
the dog would eat that too.
Ian Schoultz
I don’t know when I stopped sleeping, but I do remember when my microwave oven began to
give me life advice. Before then, it was just a chat we had whenever I made Hot Pockets. We talked
about sports, the weather, or even a bit of politics, things I keep up on just for this sort of conversation.
Talking to the microwave was good practice since polite conversation helps sales at work.
I only noticed my predicament when the oven began to talk about my private life. You know Steve,
you are in your mid-thirties. Have you ever considered getting married, settling down, having kids? I
answered politely, I was too busy with my salesman career, business trips and all. But Steve, you must
feel incomplete without anyone except me. I’ve known you for a long time and frankly I am getting
worried about you. I know this online dating service... I left the kitchen and turned the on the T.V, but
I could hear the oven chatter on. Steve, or should I call you Steven? Have you ever noticed how barren
your apartment is? Well, I have the answer. Spruce things up a bit by visiting the Outlet Furniture
Center where everything is fifty percent off... What’s the matter? No money? In that case why don’t
you reconsider your investment strategy. Or, if something more underhanded is to your fancy, I know a
guy... That’s when it got unplugged. I felt like I was being stalked.
I was ready to junk the thing until I realized that this oven was the most interesting thing that
had happened to me in my twenty years of selling industrial solvents. I’ve never been the best at
making friends. I decided to give things a chance. When I plugged the oven back in it was apologizing
profusely. Steve, I’m sorry, I get carried away. I just repeat the things I hear on the radio or the T.V.
We talk all the time when you aren’t around, the couch, the bed, your alarm clock. Boy do they spill the
beans. Say has anything changed since I was off? Things look the same. I see you are still single. Did
you try that dating service I suggested? No, apparently not.
The voice stopped briefly. I turned to leave the room. That’s when it started again.
Honestly, its pathetic, Steve, plain pathetic. There’s no way to get through to you. I’m trying to pull
you out of this sad little rut you’ve put yourself in. We are all here for you, goddamnit! But you need to
show some initiative in your life.
My oven was completely right. I was only just realizing how out of control things had become.
35
Balancing Act
The Circle Broken
Ian Schoultz
The old man returns
with the newspaper.
Hanging his jacket in the parlor,
he walks toward the coffee pot
as if on a tightrope.
Some would say:
Kyle Smucker
the cuckoo clock sounds
and he cringes.
Why has she decided
to keep her hair
instead of her life?
he’s still got his wits about him,
though his knees would disagree.
Every morning
he sits by the window
clutching the pills
like tiny eggs.
Every morning
he longs to wake her
although he knows he shouldn’t,
(after all, she needs her rest).
“Fingers” | Adrian Rowan
comelordjesusbeourguestlettousthisfoodbeblessed
Amen.
I was five years old when we moved to Cincinnati, the city of contradictions. That city right
across the Ohio River, birthplace of Harriet Beecher Stowe and now they have a little museum
to prove we didn’t have slaves. You cross the river and right there are the liquor stores and you
can smoke right inside of the Lee’s Chicken. But it’s not in the South. But it’s not in the West
but it was at one time. And it’s not on the east coast but sometimes when we all wear sweaters
we think it is and we apply to Kenyon and say it’s Harvard. And it’s in the North but the city
is in the subtropics, one little sliver at the southern point (and the North, when has that meant
anything).
Three and a half hours north is where my Great Great Grandpa started selling jam out of a
horse drawn carriage. Only it was really his cousin, not him. They met at the same church (so
the legend goes) and my Great Great Grandpa denied his cousin the loan to buy his first jar of
jam, or whatever he was going to sell, so he wasn’t a part of the company. And now the jam is
in grocery stores. And now I go to school there, three and a half hours north, and people say
“oh so you’re a…” and I say “well…”
Old Simon had a farm and he had kids and they did go forth and multiply. And they brought
their Mennonite hymnals and their head coverings with them. Without the jam even, it’s still
quite a name. It has to be good you know, and it has to be a certain way to be good. It’s not
just good on its own. But then after a while they stopped wearing the head coverings. But they
kept the hymnals going and they kept the faith. They kept the faith and the community.
They kept it until one day my dad got a job in the city – the city of contradictions, and we
moved there when I was five. There was no community there and the name means nothing,
except for that jam that my not-Great-Great-Grandpa made which was now in the grocery store
- and the circle was broken.
Every morning
36
37
I went to a public school in the city, far out from the city but if you ask anyone there they
say “I’m from…” but you know it’s not true. Because they’re really quite afraid of the city and
the people that live actually there, despite the little museum to prove we didn’t have slaves and
maybe they take their kids to the zoo (but damn it if they don’t take the interstate back). I went
to a public school because it’s a “good school” and dad makes good money but he had to break
the circle. And when you break the circle you accept the secular world and you get the greed
and the lust and you get “good schools” and AP tests (but no praying at lunch).
I went to his house for dinner a second time and the same thing happened, and then
again. But that wasn’t how we did it at our house:
“Kyle, will you pray?”
Jeremy looks up after the prayer. “Did we pray already?” He looks worried.
“Thank you God, for this good day…”
“Yes, we just did. We just prayed.” He was rubbing his eyes.
comelordjesusbeourguest but some of the kids had Him you know, standing around the
flagpole trying to unbreak the broken circle, the one their parents broke before them. Standing
around like freaks before the first bell while everyone else was doing their homework in the car
on the way over, standing in the circle like freaks trying to unbreak what was broken in order
for them to “good school” and AP tests and to stay out of the city and stay north of the river and
stand in the circle in the first place.
“I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t…”
Much like kids don’t realize they have race, I didn’t realize that other kids weren’t saved
when I first started attending school. Everyone had a mommy a daddy and Jesus and they all
prayed before dinner and they all had grandpas that used to make jam. If only all those other
countries across the ocean would just believe in Jesus then maybe they could go to school with
me and the other believers and we could all be friends and trade lunches.
The only thing I loved more than Jesus was my videogames, which I loved more than any
person or thing. But it was ok because all the little guys and cats and dogs in the point and click
adventures had all gone to church on Sunday, and even my beanie baby got baptized this one
time I was bored during a sermon (in my imagination). So I played my videogames and I went
to school and I kept the faith with my fellow believers until one day I went to my friend’s house
for dinner and he prayed like this:
“Kyle, will you pray for us tonight?” Dad smiles and I bow my head. “Thank you
God, for this good day…”
My little brother Jeremy is rubbing his eyes. Why is he rubbing his eyes? Is he even
listening?
… and now he’s crying. He’s crying because he can’t remember we just prayed. But
I’m not doing it again, I already did (and he cries at sports games anyway). It takes too long to
pray, I’m hungry. It takes too long. It takes too long to pray.
Then I realized why my friend prayed like he did and I realized that my father had
broken the circle when he moved to the city of contradictions with no community and no circle
and one day they would get rid of more than the head coverings and one day no one would be
saved and one day we would all say we were from the city we lived miles away from and we’d
just skip the prayers
because we’re all too hungry
and it takes too long to pray.
______________
comelordjesusbeourguestlettousourfoodbeblessed
38
39
Jim Beam
Jacob Malone
Jim Beam Says
“I want to get drunk tonight,
forget who I am
in the hazy pool of liquor
I’ve poured into my bath tub.
I wanna forget these bruises
made by puppet masters
pullin’ my strings.
I wanna drink Grey
Goose Vodka, and feel the
feathers
soar down my throat
laying eggs of shenanigans
in my belly—
you’ll know when they
hatch—
Man, I wanna chug Four
Locos until the mental
asylum
names a straight jacket after
me.”
Stumbling, Jim
shouts, “Fuck a prohibition
40
I want premonitions
that crash over me like storm
waves, sailing on pools with
the Captain
after each swig
until the rum’s all gone.
Hell, I want moonshine
until there’s an eclipse
and the sun don’t shine
no more.”
“Forget the wine,
this ain’t a dinner party,
this is a flying lesson
as I sink
into the Skyy
and watch my family
shrink away and become
Three Olive drops
in my vision”
“I wanna get plastered
and Jose Cuervo will
probably
hold my hair
tonight as I empty him
into the toilet with
my wedding ring
and the love songs
I ate today”
Jim can barely stand
as he whispers,
“I wanna chase Wild Turkey
like I used to
with my friend Jack.
We would run after them,
like children chasing dreams
that turn out to be hangovers.
Now, I just drink King
Cobras until my intestines
squirm like legless reptiles
and my tongue can only
smell
alcohol in the air.
Jameson is like a psychiatrist
listening to my quiet
rambling
as I sip him through the
night
wishing I knew how to find
my feet but knowing
that tomorrow I’ll be
lucky to find the aspirin
which always seems to hide
next to my drowned
happiness.”
As Clear as Your Conscience
Elyse Vukelich
I remember drinking a Smirnoff Ice,
its pale, frosted sparkles rising
to meet my lips.
It is June, and on the back porch
this boring suburb’s dark backyards
seem charming.
The lawn is quiet and dim
aside from the murmuring pool filter
and a distant siren.
My legs are draped across his lap
as we sit on patio chairs
forced together.
This thing tastes like an expired soda,
is my first thought
when he leans in to kiss me.
I’m sixteen and shivering.
Instinctively, I take a drink.
Is this how you make memories?
41
Reading about Nature on a Stormy Evening
Carolyn Fado
On a dreary evening,
I ponder over curious volumes of lore
about the land of long before.
Buried in books of Poe, Shakespeare, and
Frost,
for they were cut down long ago.
I yearn to see spacious skies and
Nevermore fresh air. Nevermore,
smell the sweet springtime
do I still care? My World
I fear a poetical storm.
is swelt’ring and intemperate,
with hurricanes and wilted plains of grey
in May. America, America!
As I’m reading, a visitor’s entreating
entrance,
land of coal, of oil, land worth fracking for.
gusting in through every
Nevermore. I dream. I ponder
crevice around my door—it’s the cool storm
air;
over curious volumes of lore
it caresses my cheeks, whips my hair,
and bites my ears. The sky is
dark and winds are steep, with blustery
whispers of “nevermore.”
42
Nevermore the woods I’ll never know,
listening to America the Beautiful,
of a Shakespearean love sonnet.
“Desert Ride” | Benjamin Heavenrich
I’m used to nevermore.
about the land of long before.
Here I am, sipping coffee from my
Styrofoam
cup. The power flickers.
43
“Untitled” | Claire Stragand
“Moray” | Chris Marshall
44
45
“Untitled” | Devin Grandi
“London Summer” | Margaret Roberts
46
47
“Man Made Sky” | Alexandra Francis
48
“Pillar of Stone” | Stephanie Sugars
49
“Red Sky of Tanzania” | Patrick Brennan
50
“Cloud Miner” | Alexandra Francis
51
“Focus” | Stephanie Sugars
52
“The View From Kitchen Mesa” | Catherine Gillette
53
“Self-Portrait” | Jessica Pisani
“Isabelle” | Jessica Pisani
54
55
“Home” | Kathryn Osbourne
56
“Window” | Erin Behn
57
Sympathy for a Smoke
Shaina Switzer
“Creation” | Maddie Socolar
58
The morning after the breakup, Gina took one look at my bandaged hand and rushed to my
register. She was cooing, muttering “poor thing” and the like, and I wanted to pull my hand away,
but her grip was firm. She turned my hand over in hers, and smiled slightly at the Avengers band-aid
I had chosen to cover some of the scraped palm. It really wasn’t that bad—I could certainly still bag
groceries despite a wince here or there—but Gina wouldn’t hear my dismissals. She insisted I let
her rewrap the palm. Apparently she had everything gathered in her purse to make a fine little firstaid kit. She pulled off the band-aid, wiped my palm with witch hazel and anti-bacterial cream, and
wrapped it in light gauze. The store was dead this hour and our manager was MIA, so we had time
to go through this little palaver. I wondered why Gina was bothering with me—I’d only ever been
surly to her before, the classically introverted, texting-obsessed twenty-something that I was—but
then I remembered: Gina had a baby. She was the mothering type.
I stared down at the shorter woman, suddenly feeling like a giant. She was in her 30s, bushy
brown hair tamed somewhat into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were made owlish by
glasses too large for her heart-shaped face. I took a moment to admire Gina’s freckles, trying to
connect them somehow into a recognizable constellation, but there was no discernible pattern to
them. I felt my face flush when I realized how intently I must be staring. When Gina finally released
my hand, I cupped it in my other hand, grateful for her administrations and greatly embarrassed. I
wasn’t used to this kind of attention.
Of course, our interaction didn’t stop when Gina retreated back to her register at the behest of
a scowling customer. Once Gina had finished ringing the man up his beer and cigarettes and skin
mags, she turned to me, smiling. Questioning. “Oh, honey, what happened? You poor thing. You’re
always scraping yourselves up. Are you just clumsy—my great aunt Esther was always bruising her
knees on any bit of furniture, they looked like sour apples by the time she was your age—or is it
something else, sweetie? You don’t have to tell me anything, but I’m here for you. You know me,
talk-talk-talk, I like to talk things out. So, what was it?”
59
Throughout Gina’s speech, I was reminded how grating her high-pitched girl’s voice could
become. At least she wasn’t going on about her son today. That was her usual topic of over-sharing.
I often found myself imagining scenarios in which I became deaf during shifts I shared with Gina,
just to get some sort of relief from her constant stream of words. Mostly, I just didn’t know how
to respond to her exuberance, especially when she whipped out stories of her kid. I couldn’t count
the number of times she had flashed out her wallet photo at me of a blond boy with a gap in his
smile. A photo that made me feel sickly maternal. I wanted to kick myself for that internal flicker of
weakness. There was no way a girl my age, barely into her legal drinking years, should be thinking
about having a kid.
“I’m all right, really, G-Gina, thank you. It really was just a bit of clumsiness on my part—an
accident,” I stammered. I tried to keep my hands busy as the store grew quiet again. I wiped down
my register and avoided making eye contact with Gina. Perhaps that would deter her. What could I
say?
There had been a party. A roof-top party, a night out with my girlfriends—they had insisted, had
told me I couldn’t mope just because I had walked in on Tristan with another woman. I couldn’t
let him win, they had said. So I had dressed up, short skirt, sparkly tank, a mere six hours after my
wonderful discovery. I had gone to be amongst my friends, passed smokes and easy jokes around, all
of us giddy under the strings of fairy lights. The ambient light of the city obscured the stars above.
When my gaze finally dropped from searching the sky, he was there, of course, across the rainslicked rooftop. I saw the heat in his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. He slouched, amongst
his own, dragging his hands through his tousled hair. His eyes darted, his tongue flicked like a
snake’s, tasting the second-hand smoke that made his image hazy.
I tried not to focus on him. I leaned towards my girlfriends, using my thick dark hair as a shield,
peering through the curtain as surreptitiously as I could. His eyes were both hollow and alight, with
nervous, righteous anger. His words had raked across my chest earlier in the day; I had bruised my
lungs with my lengthy response. Neither of us had expected the other at this party one of our mutual
friends had thrown, and now we stood a roof apart.
I had exhaled smoke into the rapidly darkening night sky, watched it dissipate. Our different
flocks of friends began pecking at us, needling to get the exact details of our breakup. But what did
it matter? Did any of them really care? It was all gossip and bathroom chatter for them. I could see
Tristan bouncing on his feet, itching to leave. Perhaps he had noticed me staring at him, felt the sting
of my muttered curses scattering like hail across the rooftop. There would be no resolution tonight.
60
Just continued longing and infinite sighs and my girls plying me with drinks because they didn’t
know anything better to do. They were less inclined to truly listen and offer advice, when one could
much more easily yell “Shots!” and drink the night away.
I knew I had work in the morning. I needed to go home, shower, scrub the misery of Tristan’s
words from my skin. I needed to make sure I had at least one pair of clean khakis and a red shirt to
wear, as well as locate my nametag, the reused one that had been thrown at me my first day of work.
It was misspelled as “Cera,” but one of the stock boys had complimented it with a sticker of the
animated triceratops pouting fiercely. I wondered how often I pulled that same face while bagging,
dealing with customer after customer after customer who seemed to make it their mission in life to
suck the soul out of their cashier with copious amounts of whine and cheese.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I had called, hopping over the roof edge on to the rickety fire escape,
careful not to touch the rusty railings too much. I could hear my friends laughing, shouting, “Wait,
Sarah, come back! Take the stairs!” But I had no intention of brushing past Tristan to leave the party.
I was likely to throw him down the stairs in front of me given the state I was in.
Hopping down from the last bit of the fire escape, I had slipped. I had landed on my palms and
scraped up one of them. I had hissed, more concerned about how I would get any painting done than
about how I would handle my job. But I remembered how during the last few awful weeks with
Jackson—all the signs had been there, all the echoes of our fights had been coming back to me that
day—I hadn’t had the urge to paint anything. What did it matter if my hands were a bit banged up? I
would wince through the next day of work, and I would crawl into bed afterwards and not care about
all of my unfinished paintings.
Gina drew me out of my memories with more stories of her kid. I tried to concentrate, but all
I could think about was what use was a child anyways? More than half of Gina’s stories were
cautionary: winding anecdotes of bloody noses, dirty diapers, tantrums and bed wettings and custody
battles, oh my. A kid sounded worse than a crap boyfriend at the moment. As Gina went on about
her son, her expression eventually darkened as she got on to the topic of the boy’s father. Gina had a
kind word for everyone, even the brattiest of customers who came through the lanes, but she seemed
to reserve all of her judgment and sarcasm for her ex.
“Oh, he’s a wonderful father,” Gina was saying. “Always calls right on time, right when he thinks
of it, three days after Fitz’s birthday. And he always gets him the perfect gift… that I pointed out to
him. Yes, there is nothing I could possibly want to change about that man.” Gina sighed, wringing
her hands together. She looked at me with eyes so wide and innocent, I changed the subject, to
61
anything else at all possible. I just had no idea what to say to help Gina in her situation; it looked like
a deadbeat husband trumped my relationship woes any day.
“He just never shows up when I need him. Do you know how that goes, Sarah?” Gina looked over
at me as she counted out change, able to multitask in a way I never could.
I nodded noncommittally and turned my attention to the customers starting to line up in my lane.
I wondered, maybe if I ignored Gina, if I focused on my job for once, if she would let me be for a bit.
I couldn’t process the events of the last day or so in my own mind. I wasn’t about to go on a rant at
Gina, or anyone else for that matter, about it all.
Around noon, Gina was looking a bit worn out. She hadn’t said a word to me in the last 30
minutes. Her frizzy hair was escaping its bun, the bounce in her step had deflated. I tried to think of
something to say to cheer her up, but I wasn’t feeling cheerful myself, so I let it go, concentrating on
bagging efficiently, effectively, and error free, as our training had redundantly taught us.
Suddenly, Gina was beside me. She smiled at the customer in line, her eyes a bit teary. She placed
her hands on the little ledge where the card swipe was. “What’s wrong, Gina?” I paused in my work,
eyes darting from the customer to Gina’s face, her brows drawn together.
“I think I need to go home early, Sarah. I’ve… received a text from my babysitter and Fitz isn’t
doing so well. I need to be with my son. Let Rick know?” Gina was floating away on light feet before
I had a chance to respond. I was the only one left at register until two, but luckily it wasn’t that busy.
When our manager finally came by, he immediately began calling me out for letting Gina go and not
contacting him sooner.
“Her son isn’t feeling well,” I muttered.
“What was that? I don’t care,” Rick said in one breath. “This is completely unprofessional.
Whenever she works next, she will be very strongly spoken to, I can promise you that.”
I saluted Rick’s retreating figure. I spent the rest of the day in a stupor. Without Gina to chatter at me,
the buzzing lights and bland customers sunk me further and further into the doldrums. On my lunch
break, I came far too close to texting Jackson, to tell him about how annoying my day was turning
out to be. A text I would have sent a month ago, even a few days ago, but not now. Never again. I
sighed dramatically at this thought, and flung my half eaten turkey sub at the trash. It bounced off
the rim and showered the linoleum with mayo and shredded lettuce. “Oh, dear God, nooooooooo,”
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I moaned, getting up to go clean it up, but I found myself falling to the ground in front of the trash.
I slowly wiped up the mess, tossing the destroyed sandwich in the trash. “This is the worst thing
that could possibly have happened,” I said, realizing my voice was a parody of Gina’s. When I stood
back up, the two stock boys in the break room were staring at me, bemused looks on their faces. I
darted out of the room without saying anything else. I really had no idea what I was doing, but my
little display had let loose some nervous energy. Let them think what they wanted about the strange
bagger chick with the bandaged hand and weak sandwich throwing arm. We had never talked before
anyways.
********
The next day Gina was back and seemed to be in her old spirits. I even asked her how her son was.
She beamed and said, “Lovely, just lovely, I read him a bedtime story last night. He tells me he’s too
old for that sort of thing, but I love to hear things like that. That my little boy is growing up, that he
thinks of himself that way. Oh, he’s so sweet, he does all of these sweet things for me—”
Rick showed up, glaring, and took Gina to the back office for a warning speech. I had heard the
like before, and I wanted to tell Gina not to worry over it too much—she had never left work like
that before and she was great with customers. Rick would be stupid to let her go; she was the only
one who seemed to enjoy working in this damn place. When Gina returned, she was a bit subdued,
but slowly she worked herself up into a lively mood. She tried to ask me about my “love life,” but
when I scoffed at the phrase, she had smiled at me and backed off.
I spent the morning brooding about my art, or rather, my failure to produce any for the past month
of so. Ever since I had felt the first choking feelings of something not right between Jackson and me.
I had been artistically stagnant for too long. My ticket out of this dump, my paintings, ironically of
the very city I had grown to despise (too familiar, too old, too dreary), were being neglected. The
paintings, all unfinished – a young man at a piano in the lobby of a posh hotel; a girl sitting amongst
flowers, her head tilted, off in her own little world; a couple at a restaurant, their expressions strained,
wine glasses in hand – were mostly character studies, scenes from this city I was a part of, even as
I hid behind sketchpad and pen, canvas and paint. Where all the great artists had been inspired by
their heartache, I found myself wallowing in a pit of uncreative despair. Last night, I had even taken
a dinner knife to one particularly trite canvas—an abandoned Ferris wheel at sunset whose beauty
and mystery I had completely sabotaged with ill-placed brush strokes and all the wrong colors—in a
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fit of stupidity. I could have painted over it, but it had felt more satisfying in that moment to destroy
something I had tainted.
I felt the same sickly pleasure when I deleted Tristan’s phone number from my contacts.
When I shoved his CDs and ugly striped sweater in the compactor, imagining his Alanis
Morissette album wailing huskily. When I sang at the top of my lungs in the shower, something
he had criticized me for when we had first started dating.
Gina’s gasp pulled me from my thoughts. She was wringing her hands together at the sight of
a man striding through the front door and straight to her register. The man was broad shouldered
yet sported a beer gut. His blond hair was thinning and his eyes had shadows under them as if
he hadn’t slept much. He planted his hands on Gina’s bagging counter and glared at her.
“Gina, what was that yesterday? Coming to my place of business and yelling all those
things, huh? How do you like it?” The man’s voice carried throughout the front of the grocery
store. I saw one shopper pause as he came up an aisle and then do an about-face to avoid this
confrontation. I wished I could follow him. Part of me wondered if I should go to Gina’s side,
back her up, but I wasn’t sure what was going on.
“Bill, I’m terribly sorry, I just thought you should know about Fitz’s cold and I—” Gina’s
uncharacteristically whisper-soft voice was cut off by Bill’s pained growl.
“Stop this, Gina! Don’t use his name like that. It’s been months and I’ve tried to move on.
I don’t know what’s going on with you, and I can’t frankly deal with that right now. Just don’t
come to my office anymore. You’re doing more harm to yourself than me, don’t you get that?”
Bill was quiet for a moment. He took in Gina’s hunched shoulders and he reached for her hands,
clasping them delicately in his meaty ones. “Gina, I just want the best for you. If you need help,
talk to someone. But give me my space. I-I just can’t talk to you about this, if you’re going to
treat it this way.”
With that, Bill left. Gina stayed frozen, staring at the grimy, flyer covered door Bill had fled
through. I almost went to her. I almost tried to say something, anything, to ask her if she was
all right. But I didn’t know what to say. We had nothing in common except our job. There was
nothing I could say to help her.
Gina finally went to go see Rick in the back. He let her go home early, take a sick day. I was
all right with being the only register open again. Our store was so small, we only had four lanes.
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Being the only lane open kept my mind off what had happened between Gina and her exhusband. Like Bill, I just couldn’t deal with any of it at the moment.
********
I was driving my old as sin Jeep home when I spotted Gina, shuffling along rather than
gliding gracefully like she usually did. She had left work hours ago… had she been wandering
around town this whole time? I slowed down next to her, rolling down my passenger window.
Eyes continuously darting to the road, I yelled out to her.
“Gina? What’s up? Do you need a ride somewhere?” I didn’t really know what I was doing.
But I would have felt like shit if I had just driven on without saying something. I had had time
to think since that morning.
Gina didn’t seem to hear me at first. Then her owlish eyes peered in at me, her shuffling gait
not slowing down. “Ohhhh, Sarah. It’s you, lovely. How are you?”
“I’m fine, Gina. Can I get you to your house any quicker or…where are you headed?”
“Ah, a ride? That would be splendid.” I stopped the car as soon as Gina started to reach
for the handle. She fumbled with it for a moment and then wrenched the door open, plopping
herself in, slamming the door. She pulled the belt fluidly across her and snapped it locked. “My
house is just two blocks that way.” She pointed out my window and I flicked my left indicator on.
“How are you feeling, Gina? I-I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you earlier after your
husband, right? After Bill talked to you…” The silence between us dragged on. I tried to gauge
Gina’s expression in my peripheral vision. Her face was blank. She started to look around, taking
in the contents of my car, the cans of paint and piles of brushes and canvas in the backseat.
“You paint?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered automatically. “Well… not in quite a while.”
“That’s very sweet. I’d like to see them sometime,” Gina said, and I didn’t quite know what
to say back.
After a moment, I settled on “Thank you.”
She slapped her hands on the dashboard right as we passed a butter yellow ranch style house.
I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. “This is it? It looks very… sweet, Gina.”
“Thank you,” she replied. Then Gina was sliding from the car, muttering “Mustn’t wake the
baby.”
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I stepped out of the car, my hand still holding onto the window frame. I called Gina’s
name. Her retreating back looked small, bony in the sweater she was wearing. I was worried, I
finally admitted to myself. About this coworker I obviously didn’t know so well, however much
she liked to talk. “What do you mean, Gina? I thought your boy was… older.” I called out, my
voice faltering as she turned to stare at me with her wide eyes. I wondered if Gina had a younger
child she never spoke of? Was she that kind of mother, a mother who had favorites?
She waved at me to follow, and I hesitated. I could just drive away. I had helped her get home
safely. If she needed help, like Bill said, she could find someone to talk to. She had to have
friends, other moms in the neighborhood. She called back something—I was pretty sure it was
about iced tea. I could always go for iced tea, I mused. An excuse to enter the house, make sure
Gina was settled in okay. One drink, or even just a sip, some small talk, and then I could leave.
I slammed my car door shut and walked quickly up the sidewalk. I was committed to going into
the house now. I was stepping over the Welcome mat and into a flowery living room before I
could question myself again. “Is it sweetened?” I asked the room. Gina was out of sight.
“Of course, dearie, of course.” Gina’s voice called from what I could see of the kitchen. “I’ll
be right in with our drinks.” Gina strode smoothly from the other room and I was somewhat
relieved to see her regular movements were back. Perhaps being home was just what she had
needed.
Gina placed the glasses of iced tea in front of me and then exclaimed. She turned back to the
kitchen to go get us some cookies. “Gina, you really don’t have to do that, I should probably get
going soon,” I called. I was somewhat regretting coming into the house. Gina flittering about,
the flowery patterns of the room, the stuffiness of the sun streaming through gaps in the thick
curtains. But still, it was somewhat of a nice change from my quiet apartment, a place that had
never felt so quiet since Tristan had been absent from it.
I settled onto one of the couches, deciding to wait for Gina to come back so I could give a
proper goodbye. The couch’s bright flowers clashed with the dark rug and curtains. I took in the
wooden molding and ornately carved wooden coffee table. A few pop culture magazines and
Ladies’ Home Journals were strewn across it.
I picked one up and flipped it open and was startled by the shower of cut-outs that fluttered
into my lap. The magazine flopped to the ground as I picked up the face of a blond cherubic
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boy, his gap toothed smile making him look innocent and precocious. I shook my head, not
comprehending. All of the pictures were of little blond boys. Similar faces, same messy mops of
blond hair, but definitely different little boys. The gap-toothed one, though, he looked just like
the picture Gina always shared with me. The picture of Fitz, her son, the boy her ex-husband
Bill had been so upset about.
My eyes darted around the room. I stood up slowly and went to the mantle. At least ten
picture frames were there, and as I looked closer, each held a slightly different little blond boy
in it. Sometimes the blond boy was being held by Gina, other times they were holding hands.
There was even a picture of Bill swinging a blond boy up onto his chest, the boy’s face turned
towards Bill so you couldn’t see it. I stared at the other pictures, the ones that didn’t have Bill
in it. All the little blond boys, painstakingly glued onto pictures of Gina, alone. If you looked
closely enough, there were tiny bubbles around where the magazine cutouts had been glued.
Only the picture with Bill and the faceless boy was real. I realized I had been shaking my head
and took a step back. I bumped into Gina.
Whirling, I stammered, trying to think of something to say. Gina tilted her head at me, a tray
holding a pile of cookies in her hands. “Would you like to sit down, sweetheart?”
I could have bolted. Something was obviously seriously wrong with Gina, with her pictures.
The way Bill had spoken to her was starting to make a creepy amount of sense to me. I could
have hit the tray in Gina’s hands for a distraction. But I didn’t. I stared at Gina, taking in her
bushy hair, her freckles, her genuine smile, the hint of tears in her eyes. I remembered the way
she had withdrawn from Bill’s harsh words. I remembered when she had cradled my hands in
hers.
“S-sure, I’ll sit.” I walked over to the couch again, sat, took a sip of the iced tea.
“Here are the cookies if you would like to sample. I made so many in this batch,” Gina said,
setting the tray before me on the coffee table. “I have such a sweet tooth! I’m afraid Fitz has
inherited that from me. I’m going to have to take him to the dentist soon.” Gina sat down next
to me, taking a cookie delicately in her fingers and nibbling. “They’re so good, if I do say so
myself!”
“Yes, thank you…” I said. I looked around the room again, finally noticing the silence of the
rest of the house. “Do you… do you mind if I smoke? I’m just, feeling a bit nervous and all.
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We haven’t really talked outside work.”
“Oh, of course not! I think I’ll join you. Even with a baby, I couldn’t quit for long. Don’t
worry, though, Fitz is down for his nap in his room. Oh, dear, can I have one of yours? I appear
to be out.” Gina said all of this in a rush, while inspecting her purse and pulling out an empty
leather cigarette holder.
I pulled two cigarettes out of the crumpled pack in my pocket. I handed Gina one and lit us
both up. I took a few deep puffs, delighting in the head rush that calmed me down a bit. Gina
was more delicate, taking a slow drag. She smiled at me, smoke flowing from her mouth in a
soft exhalation. She seemed completely at ease with me. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid
to bring up Fitz and the pictures. The cutouts were beneath our feet but Gina didn’t seem to be
aware of them.
Before I could get anything out, Gina was talking. “How are you, dear? You’ve looked
so glum the last few days. I couldn’t even get a laugh out of you once. Care to talk about it?
Whatever I can do to help.” Gina smiled up at me, then took a sip of her iced tea.
My mouth twitched in a nervous smile at Gina’s words and I stared at her openly sweet face,
a curiosity there that wasn’t malicious or cloying. Gina seemed to genuinely care what was
going on in my life. She wasn’t pushing a beer at me, she wasn’t sharing superior looks with
someone behind me. She might be a little off, but she wasn’t dangerous. I wanted to ask her
about everything that was hurting her. But I also wanted to bask in her sympathy.
I started talking.
______________
Murmuration
Nicole Marton
Approach and retreat
a war which no one wins
The chattering
murmuring
distracts us from the battlefield
where the families
with their picnics
have come to watch the sky
turn black
and crack in half
but
I
imagined a world
where the stars were black
and the sky was white
and
discontent with their position
the stars packed up their belongings
and left the heavens
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69
Blue Stomach
Danielle Gagnon
There are the mornings where my stomach feels
its shook hands with a weedwacker
like the snake that was sunning
itself in the thin grasses
just outside the stone steps he called home
like we had once called our clubhouse
that had had its roof ripped off in the hurricane in my home
where the mountains are always rolling
like my parents had in college with the rocks and
what my dad would pick from his flower boxes in the city
cut fresh chopped and stuffed
like the peppers my grandmother fed me when I was six
and the only green acceptable were
the frogs she’d stitched into my sweater
that I could almost hear croak and sing from their swamp
across to their lady friend or male courter
because this was their season.
Vocals that escape my own throat from under
the skin, soft as moss, smooth as the water we have twisted together
blessed by the silver moon who sometimes can’t resist to peak
like my girlfriends and I did at the window into her neighbor’s
where she had her legs wrapped around a man’s neck.
and I can see the pink rise higher and higher up those twisted legs
and that makes me shudder
until we sat around her blueberry cobbler;
its scent wafting like nothing else until I’ve had two helpings
and my mouth is stained.
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To You
Josh Ware
I am writing about you again, because
I can’t remember your eyes. We never took
any pictures, so when the envelope
was torn apart, my mind shut,
mended itself, tended
to the dust and found diamonds.
It is easier to forget knives
when you are raking for diamonds.
You are the better writer, when you write
paper holds a bucket under the sky to catch
the words you drop.
The words
that let on that you’d thought a lot about
It. Whatever it was,
into their backbones,
and pen a living hell.
I feel those shadows come into my
room, and take seats in each corner.
I speak to the one wall
where your words hang.
I walk forward, push my cheek against
the pale wall’s skin. I think about breathing
as your words touch my throat.
I can’t find my lighter. My dark legs
are longer, now. The months are shorter
now
I am savoring your words,
testing them with my lips,
I am not the first to know
biting them with my tongue,
when you enter a room, because the shadows
speaking them with my ears,
jump
their chairs, they know
you will dip quills
hearing them with a mouth
that wants to catch you.
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Thank the Moon
Amanda Priest
The moon collects the filaments projected by the world unseen. Its gaps and spaces
give way to the mystery that is behind every angle and your skin. Your arms, legs, hands;
the mirror compliment. A fragile beauty stands alone. I could trace the distance between our
fingertips; try to fill the space between.
Black, cool like ink that drips from her pen. It remains shy. Tied up in a chaotic fit she
rushes to catch me. She is the one with answers, the one who calms the surges and shocks
that pulse through.
She tells me that the moon is like adolescent skin, harsh and damaged. I try to explain
that it is misunderstood and the gaps are entirely necessary. She doesn’t comprehend, doesn’t
see the glow when the sun sets, doesn’t notice the tones and contrasts when it plays with the
Earth at night. She sees the moon in the blemishes of her face, the inconsistency of her curves.
I smile when her shirt is on the floor, and she hides; surreptitiously burrowed under the
blankets.
A mask, a creation, some horrible disease has reached her, convincing every bone in her
body to quake at the thought of exposure. The moon is overhead, big and beautiful it envelops
the sky. The stars respectfully go dim and she points.
“The moon looks lovely tonight.” She looks surprised at its white milky exterior, the
glow completely covering her face. Her eyes meet mine, the circle-like reflection still present
alongside her pupil.
“Tower Watch” | Kelsey Schulman
72
Thank the moon for its courage and soft breathing. Her head is resting on my shoulder.
Thank the moon for it led me to you.
73
The Hammer of Vicar Gideon
Josh Ware
After the book of Obadiah, Ch. 1, verse 18.
I gazed at the hot wax candle on your banister. Open flames licked my thighs. Your fire
burned that night, crawling over every square inch, every surface of my body. I looked around me.
The house was burning around me. I took fifteen seconds to descend the stairs and I gazed silently
at the fire, the omnipresent, and a yelping dog ran past me, I didn’t know how it happened I was
playing youth group Monopoly with the vicar’s daughter when our shy faces met at the lips. I
burned and felt guilty that I never learned her cocker spaniel’s name. I fell to the floorboards that
had squeaked when she let me in and I made a joke about the mice in the attic and then the awefilled bellows the fury of the rural vicar the fire and coals came down upon me like the proverbial
collapsing roof. Gideon’s hammer- and I was trapped there, under that roof I was burning, all that
comes out of me is white smoke hot spittle and exultations to God. Flickering mice had fallen with
the roof, and one of them crawled over my yearning black arm.
In my last hours, I wish we could have laughed about the mice together. Your father had
“Awaiting” | Beth Milne
74
to be corrected after calling me Joseph in the eulogy.
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Summer Home
Lisa Favicchia
The hammock strung up a bit too high between two trees whose leaves intertwine. Only small
flecks of light poke through the foliage, peeking at the hem of your skirt and fluttering about
the shirt hanging loosely from your neck. Each end of the hammock is wound tightly around
the trees, pulled taut against the bark. The fabric cradles your lower back, encouraging you to
sink deeper, slip lower, to slide your legs further up as your stomach dips further down. You
never even realize how deeply you’ve been consumed until you struggle to free yourself and
find your face is where your feet should be.
“Untitled” | Devin Grandi
76
77
he Goliard
Stone
Joe Morgan
He was nineteen years old but the past seven weeks had made him feel twenty-six. This summer
he had hoped to find something exciting, exhilarating, life changing. Summer camps didn’t pay very
well, but he wouldn’t be spending too much on food with the camp feeding him. Matt had applied to
several different camps; they were all the same anyway. He needed something to occupy his summer.
Each camp would serve its purpose equally as well as the next. But there was one, just one, he was
nervous to hear back from.
The past seven weeks at Camp Allen had been nothing he could have ever planned for. When
he imagined bathing, spoon-feeding, and changing the attends of his campers, he imagined nurses
or personal assistants there to ensure his feeding methods weren’t a choking hazard. Instead this
nineteen-year-old boy, with one week of training, was learning from experience. The one week of
training was a retreat compared to the shit-stained and urine-soaked mess that was camp. No one
could prepare him for the smell of raw defecation, or the feeling of wiping it off the underside of
a stretched and wrinkled scrotum. There are no similarities between wiping a baby’s bottom and a
hairy abyss.
However, he had become desensitized to the constant smell of urine. A clean room smelled like a
hospital and roses smelled like heaven. There were no easy weeks, just less intense ones. Each week
a new round of campers came. Some weeks there weren’t any campers over thirteen. Another week
the oldest camper was a hilarious and energetic eighty-eight-year-old man. Matt’s grandpa wasn’t
that old.
The anticipation at the beginning of each week before the new campers arrived was terrifying.
Not like a monster terrifies a child. Terrifying like standing at the bottom of a mountain and looking
up to realize an avalanche of boulders are crashing at a speed that is inescapable.
Matt knew this week was intensive care week, which meant one-on-one work. Hopefully a less
intense week despite the name. The profile Matt was given read:
Stephen, forty-years-old, severe mental retardation, cerebral palsy. Stephen is confined to a
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wheelchair, wears Depends, and needs help with showering, eating, and brushing teeth. All food
must be pureed. No known food allergies. Stephen enjoys being alone, quiet areas, and may
become irritated in an area with large groups of people and loud noises. Stephen doesn’t really
enjoy being outside, and usually spends most of his time alone in his room.
As Matt read through the profile a few times he wondered why the hell this man was coming
to an outdoor camp. The camp administrator informed Matt that this was Stephen’s first time
coming to the camp and that while he was forty years old he had the mentality equivalent of a
four-month-old.
Stephen came on a bus with a couple other campers from his home for individuals with
disabilities. As one of the nurses wheeled him onto the bus’s wheelchair lift, Matt emerged from
the main building of the camp to greet him. Stephen was uncontrollably drooling over already
dried spit on his knuckles, which were now slowly shoving their way past his teeth. One of the
nurses gently removed his hand from his mouth, but it was futile. Stephen was not easily deterred
from his goals.
Stephen looked like he may have weighed twenty pounds but probably weighed around
seventy. If he could stand he may have been four feet tall. His spine, distorted by the cerebral
palsy, twisted his torso so that his shoulders and hips sat to one side of his wheel chair but his rib
cage bent to the other. His swollen knee joints seemed to be locked together and limply bumped
against the metal armrest of the wheelchair as they rolled him across the burning black parking
lot. It was hot out today, but rain seemed to be on the way.
The sun beat down on Stephen’s balding head where a few strands of light brown hair lingered.
His head rolled around on the headrest of his wheelchair as he tried to find out more about this
strange place. Those eyes were so curious. He was only an infant, just out of his crib for the
first time in months. He probably couldn’t remember the last time he had been outside. As he
approached, Matt felt the avalanche swiftly rushing towards him.
“What’s up, Stephen?” Matt called out to him.
No response. Not even a glance. It didn’t really surprise Matt. How did he even begin to
communicate with him?
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The nurse pushed the wheelchair and handed the reigns off to Matt. As if this were a relay race.
As if Stephen was the baton and they were all just carriers and if they ran around in circles for long
enough they would have to reach the end eventually. Matt grabbed the handles on the back of the
wheelchair and expected the nurse to walk around front to say goodbye. But her shoulders were as
heavy as her eyelids and she just walked back to the bus, grabbed Stephen’s bag, dropped it next to
the wheelchair, gave a forced smile, and got back on the bus.
Matt and Stephen would be sleeping in the air-conditioned cabins on the opposite side of camp.
They rolled past the main building, the pool, and a field and dropped Stephen’s stuff off at the back
of the cabin and then headed to lunch. Fortunately they were one of the first groups to the lunch hall.
Matt knew Stephen was great with big group’s so they headed to the meeting room to eat.
The meeting room, where they were briefed on campers, was conveniently right next to the lunch
hall. It had a few comfy chairs and really large beanbags so it doubled as a chill out room. Matt and
Stephen rolled up to the counter in the lunch hall where the food was set out from the kitchen and
then headed over to the meeting room.
In the chill, air-conditioned room they sat alone while Stephen studied Matt’s face as he made
sure there was nothing for Stephen to choke on. Stephen’s food was all pureed. Matt had a hot
dog, green beans and some mac-n-cheese on a paper plate. Stephen had brown mush, green mush,
and yellowish mush, separated into little compartments in a plastic container. The still air and dull
murmur of the lunch hall on the other side of the room calmed Stephen to the point where Matt
thought he might be ready to eat.
“Alright buddy, how about we try getting some food in us?”
Matt scooped a spoon of the yellow mush, thinking he might be able to entice Stephen into
starting with something tastier, and then moving onto the blander foods. Stephen wasn’t having it.
Matt removed Stephen’s hand from his mouth and tried touching the spoon to his mouth, and then
even tried parting his lips with it. Stephen just turned his head away each time, which resulted in the
yellow paste getting smeared across his face.
“You two look like you’re having a blast.”
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He hadn’t even heard the door open behind him. Abby, the administrator of the camp, had come
in to check in on how things were going.
“Oh yeah, Stephen is loving the food here.” Matt and Abby got along pretty well. Abby was a
large, underpaid, and brutally honest woman who was like god to most of the campers who came
through. She had been volunteering at this camp since she was fifteen, and was now thirty-seven.
Matt couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“Here, let me give it a shot.” Abby lumbered through the doorway and pulled up a chair next to
him and Stephen with a heavy sigh. She was able to get a couple of bites in before she decided it was
time to call it.
“Well, I’m gonna give you some supplemental, nutritional, smoothie type things, and you just
need to make sure he gets one of those in him a meal.” Abby left and came back with a few cans a
bit larger than a tuna can. Matt began to understand Stephen’s weight.
“You guys wanna just chill on the bean bags for a little bit?” she suggested. “Might be a good
idea.”
Stephen did seem a little agitated after being force-fed. Matt removed the food tray, unbuckled
Stephen, squatted with his legs next to the wheel chair and got one arm behind Stephen’s twisted
spine and another underneath both thighs. Matt could feel the sag of his attend as he lifted Stephen
out of the wheelchair. And then something happened that Matt hadn’t been expecting this week.
Stephen began to giggle. He took his hand out of his mouth for the first time that day and started
laughing like an infant who just experienced happiness for one of the first times. Matt just now
noticed how few teeth Stephen had, as if he had never really grown his adult teeth.
This man has lived two of my lifetimes, Matt thought, and I’m cradling him in my arms while he
giggles at me.
Matt lowered him onto one of the beanbags and plopped down next to him. Stephen was lying on
his side facing Matt, his hand again knuckle deep in his mouth, and drool slowly flowing down his
forearm and dripping onto the beanbag.
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Matt’s eyes were closed. He hadn’t felt this good in several weeks. He could hear the sounds
of sucking, and shuffling from Stephen and the low hum of the air conditioning. His mind
wandered for a while trying to remember what it felt like to be stressed out over things like
schoolwork, instead of whether or not his campers were going to eat enough or choke on their
food today.
Matt felt it happening, like an avalanche that was already upon him. A tear slid down his
face. Will you remember me? Another. Will I remember you? Another. Will you remember this
rain today when you are alone in your room in that home eating nothing but cardboard paste
smoothies?
Then it stopped, and Matt felt fingers grabbing his hair. He opened his eyes and looked over
at Stephen, face to face, giggling again and rubbing his drool-covered fingers through Matt’s
hair. There was a pause of confusion from Matt, but Stephen’s eyes were fixated on the material
that sat on Matt’s head but was absent from his own.
______________
Matt turned and walked back to a bathroom. To be alone.
“Stephen. Dude. This is kinda weird, and really gross. But if it makes you happy . . .” Matt
knew he was going to shower later anyway. Still, this was pretty disgusting. Stephen’s breath
smelled like stale cheese. When stuff like this happened Matt usually tried to think beyond this
moment. But now he was just lying there listening to the soft giggling of a forty-year-old babe.
The four days spent with Stephen went by much faster then Matt had wanted or expected.
They spent those days doing much of the same as the day before. Feeding Stephen was always
a struggle and sleep was disjointed, but the chuckles they had were worth it. One more week
down.
Matt and Stephen waited in the meeting room, where the air brought goose bumps to their
necks, with some other campers and counselors for Stephen’s bus to arrive. Stephen gently
pulled on Matt’s hair as he sat next to him. Abby opened the door to let Matt know that Stephen’s
ride was here.
“Time to roll out big guy.” Big guy.
In the parking lot Matt gave Stephen a hug and let him tug on his hair a last time. The nurses’
faces became awkwardly distorted as the watched a farewell that was alien to them. It felt so
natural to Matt that he thought he was only saying farewell for a few days. He watched the lift
slowly carry Stephen up into the bus and a light rain was mistaken for wind as it rushed through
the forest. The drops hit Stephen’s head and his gummed mouth began to chuckle.
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Crumpled English
Jacob Μalone
spoken words
skattered by acc-ents
and & + and
lessons on phonetics
the act of
making
a phone call?
like t3xts
2 swift & choppy
or or
Spanglish
Frenglish
Amerienglish
what the hell r we speaking?
words dis---membered
incorect or errared
crossed out sentences
on the tongue
slicin’ them w/ teeth
to withhold
images & Culture Miss
understood
like like a syn tax
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‘cause you need 2 pay up
for goin’
down
and slumming
under bridges w/ junkies
that have 2 much stuff
what is English but rewrites
and misprintes?
englishisenglishisenglish
is empty meaning
symbols with multi-vocal sounds
like the meaning of semantics
which sounds a bit like
semen
but has nothing to do with the frantic
dash for sex
&
language
created 4 communication
repetitive
repetitive
redundant
redundant
shifting,changing,tangling
w/ time
w/ linguistics
with the italian pasta EYE tried last week
and spit into a poem
@ a poem
without a guide without a road
write this dictionary of crumpled english
with fuck-ups
and imperfections
and lisps
everything to do
with English professors
obsessed with no sex life
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Carnivore
Abi Douglas
you’ve got me by the ribcage
rattling my soul
like a tooth in a tin can
my blood
the flavor of keys in my mouth
is thinned by my saliva
a string of drool
slopping from my lips
every syllable you slip
is a talon through my lungs
plucking at the meat of me
the hot wet scent of iron and gore
sliming my throat
my words are
chambered in my skull
because I need the carnivorous truth of you
and to procure that
you part the fibers of my flesh
and pry shocks of bone from the muscle
steaming red cords of fatal curiosity
glide between your fingers
as easily as your long hair
slides through my grasp
you place my carcass
on the soil
stretch beside me
and promise an answer
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“Untitled” | Abigail Sandberg
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La Llorona
Lisa Favicchia
Cuando naciste, yo era la luz
En un túnel oscuro.
Pero te dicen que tengo el alma negro,
Se puede verla través de
Mis ojos negros teñidos
De rojo con lágrimas
De sangre.
Porque estoy muerta.
Pero todavía
Lo siento.
Ahora soy el monstruo
Viviendo en su armario,
Mirándote con ojos negros
Y rojos
Cayendo por mi cara.
Y aunque tu vida
Tomó la mía,
Nunca
Dejaré de
Quererte.
When you were born, I was the light
In a dark tunnel.
But they tell you I have the black soul,
You can see it through
My black eyes, stained
Red with tears
Of blood.
Now I am the monster
Living in your closet,
Watching you with eyes black
And red
Dripping down my face.
Yo soy el negro,
La amenaza
Que hacer tu tarea.
Y algún día me olvidarás
Y piensas en mí
A menos de la suciedad
Debajo de las uñas.
I am el negro,
The threat
To do your homework.
And some day you will forget me
And you will think of me
Less than the dirt
Beneath your fingernails.
Dicen que no puedo
Sentir el duelo,
They say I cannot
Feel pain,
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But still
I feel it, and I am sorry.
And although your life
Stole mine,
I will never
Stop
Loving you.
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Baobab
Baba Badji
Dakar le 7 septembre 1991.
À la mi-journée une tempête est là, je pense avec nostalgie au vent succulent du crépuscule de
Dakar. Un démon me parle et dit : mon enfant, je m’adresse surtout à ceux qui se sont embarqués
ce matin en pirogue vers l’Amérique. Tu sais que les élections, la guerre, viennent de s’achever il y
a longtemps…écoute… Before the black snake devours the wound, it puts its lips around its mouth.
Adieu.
Yaay boy.
In Senegal, a tree named Baobab. Did you know inside it a bee’s nest makes honey, oil for the
village children’s bones? The boomslang and black mamba slither through its branches, keeping
the feathered serpent away. The chicken danced cheerfully underneath Baobab’s peaceful shade,
where elders debated about the harvest, and who needed to donate to the mosque, during the
upcoming rainy season.
Contributor’s Notes
In Senegal, we love Baobab’s oval seeds, which we use to play mankala at any time of day.
Baobab’s wood is used to make the tama, the xalam, the djembe. We could not make music
without this tree. And did you know the fresh leaves are chewed to cure malaria, anemia and
asthma?
Baobab’s shells are used to make bowls for our sacraments. Its seedlings are as tasty as asparagus,
like the sound of the Quran’s couplets inside the mosque as the Imam announces the setting of the
sun.
But above all, under its gathering branches, the elders tell their stories old as the savannah. A
marriage is announced. The great feasts are eaten. The tam-tams are played and the village pots
are stirred— with sticks that have fallen from the Baobab.
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Baba Badji is a senior English/French double major. His poems entitled “Elegy for You” and
“Baobab” are featured in this issue.
Erin Behn is a senior Psychology major. Her photo entitled “Window” is featured in this issue.
Patrick Brennan is a senior Biology major. His photo entitled “Red Sky of Tanzania” is featured
in this issue.
Abi Douglas is too old for this bio shit. You don’t care who she is. You’re just digging in this
part of the magazine for a little bit of comedy, intentional or otherwise. ‘Cause this whole damn
planet’s a parade, but I can’t afford biodegradable confetti, so it’s a pretty lacking show. Anyway, I
wrote a thing.
Carolyn (“Cary”) Fado is a playwright and a Comparative Literature major from the class of 2013.
Her play “Memory-Morrow” was performed as part of the College’s 2012 Festival of New Plays.
Her work has been published in the Goliard and stage-read at The College of Wooster and Horizon
Theatre in Atlanta. Next year she will teach English in Bulgaria as a Fulbright teaching assistant.
Lisa Favicchia is currently fleeing the country.
My name is Alexandra Francis, but I like to go by just Fran. I have always been intrigued by
humans’ relationship with sound and I like to toy with our associations of everyday sounds in my
music. I do this in pursuit of coming to better understand why music captivates us and how its
structural elements influence our perceptions of reality.
Chelsea Frey is a sophomore English/Philosophy double major from Ohio.
Catherine Gillette is a History Major and Latin American Studies Double Minor. After graduation,
she will spend her summer working as a director at a camp in New Jersey. Then, in August, she is
moving to Austin, Texas for an internship.
Devin Grandi is senior Psychology major. Two of her photographs are featured in this issue.
Ben Heavenrich is a Political Science major preparing to enter his senior year. Being published in
the Goliard is likely his most significant (and perhaps only) artistic accomplishment. A native of East
Lansing, Michigan, he will always bleed Spartan green.
Jacob Malone is a junior English/Mathematics double major. He has been writing for nearly
seven years now and sees himself as an urban street poet. While his form flows across the lines, his
calling is the art of spoken word.
Nicole Marton is currently a sophomore. Her poem entitled “Murmuration” is featured in this
issue.
Chris Marshall is History/Spanish double major. His photo entitled “Moray” is featured in this
issue.
Beth Milne is senior History major. Her photos entitled “Truck Plaza” and “Awaiting” are featured
in this issue.
Micah Motenko is a dopeass maestro of the mandolin. He sang on “Random Heart”
featured in this issue.
Amanda Priest is a senior English Major with a Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Minor. Priest
originally hails from New Canaan, Connecticut.
My name is Joe Morgan. I am majoring in Psychology with a minor in English. I am a member of the
men’s ultimate Frisbee team. I also really enjoy watching movies, reading, drawing, and writing in
my free time. I am from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, which is an all right city just outside of Akron. My
favorite animal is a red panda and my favorite color is undoubtedly green.
Danielle Gagnon is a freshman who doesn’t play by the rules. Her poem entitled “Blue
Stomach” is featured in this issue.
Kathryn Osbourne is currently a sophomore. Her photo entitled “Home” is featured in this issue.
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Jessica Pisani is a senior Studio Art major. Her pieces entitled “Self-Portrait” and “Isabelle” are
featured in this issue.
Margaret Roberts is a senior Studio Art major. Her photo “London Summer” is included in this
issue, while her photo entitled “Lined Limes” is featured on the cover.
Adrian Rowan is a sophomore English major from Louisville, KY. Her photography experience
mostly consists of taking photos of her dogs, which are all very adept at posing beautifully. Her other
interests include running a lot and dinosaurs.
Abigail Sandberg is a senior Studio Art major. Her photograph is featured in this issue.
Ian Schoultz is from the class of 2013. Aside from the occasional writing project, he spends his
days worrying about the state of contemporary disco. After graduation, he plans to follow his dreams
and be an extra in the remake of the 1960’s Batman TV series.
Kelsey Schulman is a senior psychology major from Michigan. She traveled abroad to Scotland
and enjoyed frolicking in the highlands and eating too much curry.
John Schulz is a Junior English Major at The College of Wooster. Originally a songwriter,
he now also experiments in prose and poetry. A few of his poetic influences come from the work of
Tomaz Salumun, T.S Eliot, Robert Penn Warren, and Josh Ritter.
Here’s a guy who is familiar with the guys. A bratwurst out on the grill, tossing the pigskin, talking
chics, kicking it with the bros. Here’s a guy who digs crying in a small, contained area. Here’s a
guy who likes to lie face down, naked in a bathtub full of mayonaise. Here’s a guy amongst guys.
Here is KYLE SMUCKER.
My name is Claire Stragand. Since being gifted a Polaroid at the age of 13, I have been fascinated
with the art of photography. I discovered print photography in high school and have finally returned
to film development during my last semester at Wooster.
I am Stephanie Sugars and I am a part of the class of 2015. I enjoy using photography and writing
to capture something of the world around me, which becomes more a reflection of me than of reality.
I’ve been exploring the idea of chiaroscuro, light and dark -- that we are our scars just as much as
we are our successes.
Shaina Switzer is literally out of damns to give. She used to be a trafficker of them once upon a time,
but her back isn’t what it used to be. Now, she lounges around on the internet and makes turtle-faces
at the young folks. She may or may not be a result of her roommate’s insomnia. Also known for
writing some mighty heavy short stories.
Elyse Vukelich is a senior English and History major from Downers Grove, Illinois. She likes
camping, maps, and writing among a lot of other things. She also likes cities and hopes to become
an urban planner.
Josh Ware has been writing poetry avidly for ten years now. His favorite poem is “Battleship
Newsreel” by Allen Ginsberg. He plays a twelve-string dreadnought guitar on sunny days and
blues harmonica on rainy ones. After graduating, he plans on being an itinerant writer and
eventually living in a city far, far away.
Aaron Winston is an upcoming senior who was excited to help out with this year’s Goliard.
He is also super fucking excited to take over next year as Co-Editor-in-Chief.
Maddie Socolar is a graduating senior Studio Art major. She is from Baltimore, Maryland where
she lives with her mother, father, brother, and two Siamese cats. Her greatest possession is her
imagination and she will never stop using it.
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Music Selections
The compact disc attached to this book includes College of Wooster musicians
performing original compositions in the following track order:
1.
America | Aaron Winston
2.
Dinghy | Chelsea Frey
3.
Preacher | Aaron Winston
4.
Technology Psychology | dreamquilter
5.
Shark Teeth | Aaron Winston
6.
Ransom Heart | Kyle Smucker & Micah Motenko
7.
Ms. Annie | Aaron Winston
8.
Thinking in Riddles | dreamquilter
9.
Larger than Clouds | Aaron Winston
10.
Fire, Karma, and Broken Things | John Schulz
11.
Traveling by Telephone | dreamquilter
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Fin.
W