Mindoro, poem by Rhiannon Thorne

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Rusty

I was two thou­sand miles of corn­fields away from us,
hours from Min­doro, that shit­ty fold-out, your daddy's car
and a key­stone night
when you saun­tered in,
eyes blaz­ing from a teenage drunk,
and your arms bare
hang­ing like bat­tle axes.

I was home in the vineyards,
I had grape bunch­es on my eye­lids, the taste of the sea on my tongue,
a sticky salt, a thing to suck­le at like taffy.
I was already mak­ing my bed beneath the redwoods,
I had their nee­dles in my hair
and their scent pressed against my spine.
I had giv­en up your dusty road, your end­less Wis­con­sin skies,
the taste of my tongue against your chest,
a six­teen sodi­um chloride.

I said,
I'm tele­port­ing away from this place, this one night
crescendo
in my intox­i­cat­ed stum­ble and my earthy feet.
I said,
who needs fin­gers full of oil stains, creas­es dark
like noir
against their flesh,
like they were build­ing some­thing living?

I want so much my west coast air,
a full breath with­out paw­ing at my cow­boy killers.
I want my traf­fic lights like lazy eyes
and horns like heartbeats.
I want so much to want my hum and drum of a sub­ur­ban city,
my beer-stained vagabonds with their paper bag pen­chants and sham­bly walks,
a street full of mid­dle-class zombies.

I am here. My toes on a dusty road,
the stars crack­ing against the sky,
my stom­ach in protest, argu­ing the air smells sweet­er here,
your sweat was a perfume,
I was some­thing to plant and harvest.

There is a heavy price for your youth,
There is a heavy price for my pine trees shoot­ing like arrows at the skies,
There is a heavy price for let­ting my heart thrum,
clap, clat­ter, clunk
six­teen again.

Rhi­an­non Thorne grew up in the Bay Area of Cal­i­for­nia, a cou­ple hours north of San Fran­cis­co in the wine coun­try, which explains both her obses­sive recy­cling and pen­chant for wine. Always an ambler, she cur­rent­ly lives in Phoenix, AZ with her body of choice, Jen­ner. She received her BA in Eng­lish at Sono­ma State Uni­ver­si­ty, has recent­ly been pub­lished in Grawlix and The Leg­end, and is the co-edi­tor of the lit­er­ary pub­li­ca­tion cahoodalood­al­ing.

 

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The Cab Knows the Way, prose by Mather Schneider

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Rusty

Who­ev­er Nan­cy Gantry is, she lives in Bum­fuck, Egypt. She’s sched­uled for a 2:45 p.m. pick­up. My teeth rat­tle as I progress down the wash­board dirt road, like a zip­per through the desert. No street signs, just sand, clay, caliche, open range, a few cat­tle, cre­osote bush, tum­ble weeds, and the mas­sive iodine sun.

I can’t find her address. I pull the cab to a dusty stop along­side the road and call Nancy’s phone num­ber which is on the pick-up order. Her ring is eardrum-pop­ping rap music. I lis­ten from 12 inch­es away.

Then, a woman’s voice comes on the machine: “Yo, I ain’t home, a’hite? Do what you need to do. Peace.”

Beeeeep.

I hang up.

Peace, sure. Fuck off.

I keep dri­ving. I final­ly see an old blue trail­er behind a cou­ple of palo verde trees off the road. Two par­al­lel tire tracks par­lay through the prick­ly pears. I fol­low them in, slow­ly bounc­ing my way to the trail­er. Junk and garbage coat the ground, beer cans strewn about, some look­ing at least 20 years old from brands I nev­er even heard of. Mouse-infest­ed mat­tress­es, rusty box springs, skele­tons of cars, bro­ken toys, an old swing set like some medieval tor­ture machine, weight set, heavy bag hang­ing from the only tree, a gnarled old Mesquite, over­flow­ing garbage cans, col­lapsed swim­ming pool…

I honk my horn and wait. In a cou­ple min­utes she comes out. She’s 75 pounds over­weight, with a kilo of make-up on her face. Her hair is the col­or of manure. Her face looks very Irish, very American.

She gets in the cab.

“How’s it going?” she says.

She’s high as a bat. Her move­ments are herky-jerky, she talks too fast and won’t look me in the eye. I smell the pot on her, which is undoubt­ed­ly mixed with pain pills or metham­phet­a­mine or both.

“Not bad,” he says.

“Any trou­ble find­ing the place?”

“Piece of cake.”

I start back down the dirt wash­board road on the way to Tuc­son to her doctor.

“Yeah,” Nan­cy says, out of the blue, “I could be a judge.”

“Par­don?”

“I was watch­ing Divorce Court when you got here,” she says. “Not much to do out here.”

“I imag­ine,” I say, look­ing at the bleak, hot land­scape. But still, there must be some­thing out there. Moun­tains in the dis­tance, moun­tains in the rearview.

“I could be a judge,” she says again. “How hard can it be? You should see those peo­ple, they’re such liars! I can see it in their eyes. I’m great at read­ing peo­ple. I’m great at read­ing people’s eyes.”

Nan­cy turns and looks at me. We both have blue eyes.

I turn onto the high­way and kick it up to 75 mph.

“Shit, I for­got all about this doctor’s appoint­ment, I was in my paja­mas when you showed up, watch­ing Divorce Court. But it’s ok, I’m a fast dress­er. I’ve always been a fast dress­er. It’s the Indi­an in me.”

“Indi­an?” I say.

“We pre­fer ‘Native Amer­i­can’,” she says.

“You’re Native American?”

“One six­teenth,” she says. “I got free health cov­er­age for life. But you should see how they look at me when I go down there. They look down on me, the oth­er tribe mem­bers, you know. They’re some prej­u­diced moth­er fuckers.”

She takes out a bot­tle of val­i­um pills and pops one in her mouth.

“Want one?” she says.

“Sure.”

“5 bucks,” she says.

“Nev­er mind.”

“Hey, I got­ta make some cash. Free­dom Fest is com­ing up.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what Free­dom Fest is?”

“No.”

“Dude, are you liv­ing under a fuck­ing ROCK?”

She begins to laugh hys­ter­i­cal­ly. She slaps her knees and then slow­ly calms her­self. She peeks around and looks at me again as if she can’t believe I’m real.

“Well, I live on the North side,” I say.

“Free­dom fest, bro! It’s a CONCERT, man, a bunch of bands,” Nan­cy says.

“Gotcha.”

“You’re fuck­ing with me aren’t you?”

“I wish I was, Mrs. Gentry.”

“Dude, you got­ta get out once in a while.”

“I’m more of a home­body,” I say.

“Yeah, well, that’s no way to live,” she says.

Nan­cy con­tin­ues to bab­ble and I respond with a few “Hmmms” and “um-humms.” Then I only nod. Final­ly, I don’t lis­ten to her at all, or give any sign of lis­ten­ing. I go to that place deep inside of me. My face becomes still and relaxed, and my neck too, and my shoul­ders and arms and hands on the wheel, all become relaxed. I don’t have to feel anx­ious, or that I am out of place. I don’t have to wor­ry. The cab knows the way.

I was born in Peo­ria, Illi­nois in 1970 and have lived in Tuc­son, Ari­zona for the past 14 years. I love it here, love the desert, love the Mex­i­can cul­ture (most of it), and I love the heat. I have one full-length book of poet­ry out called DROUGHT RESISTANT STRAIN by Inte­ri­or Noise Press and anoth­er called HE TOOK A CAB from New York Quar­ter­ly Press. I have had over 500 poems and sto­ries pub­lished since 1993 and I am cur­rent­ly work­ing on a book of prose.

http://​www​.nyq​books​.org/​a​u​t​h​o​r​/​m​a​t​h​e​r​s​c​h​n​e​i​der

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The Troubles, fiction by Sheldon Compton

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Rusty

“Raise your shirt, Mr. Mullins.”

“How about I just take it off?”

“That’ll be fine.”

She asked him to breathe heav­i­ly three or four times, mov­ing a stetho­scope from his chest to his back and then to his chest again.

The assis­tant was fine look­ing. Green eyes, boun­cy blonde hair with them high­lights run­ning through it like dripped away bits of hon­ey. He could smell her per­fume a full minute after she walked out. Now she was back and Fay was tak­ing off his shirt real slow so she could see the scars and how nice­ly kept togeth­er he was for a man of his advanc­ing years. It was the tat­toos she mentioned.

“That’s a phoenix, right?” She point­ed a red lac­quered fin­ger­nail at his chest. Fay could feel its sharp tip shak­ing a few of his chest hairs.

“Yep.”

“Inter­est­ing.”

“Why’s that?”

“It just is, I guess,” she said, step­ping back and bend­ing her head to write quick­ly on a chart she cra­dled against her waist like a flat­ted out child.

“It just is,” he mim­ic­ked, and then smiled warm­ly. The assis­tant looked up and turned her head side­ways, the way cats will from time to time. “Maybe it’s inter­est­ing because that’s the mytho­log­i­cal bird of rebirth,” he said then. “Born again and again from its own ashes.”

The assistant’s small lips dropped open and Fay could see her teeth were white and straight. He con­tin­ued to smile warm­ly at her and leaned back against the wall, the stiff paper stretched across the exam room table crin­kling as he did so.

He hadn’t count­ed his scars, but there were more of them than tat­toos. There was the biggest scar and the one he was most proud of just above the phoenix, a thick and shiny one that curved across his chest like the body of a lizard. A half dozen or so more were scat­tered out across his back like a series of islands. Many more on his hands and fore­arms. These were the bright­est of them all against the leather brown of his skin. Fay had obtained not a sin­gle one of his scars dur­ing fights, not bar fights, at least. The assis­tant final­ly com­ment­ed on the one above the phoenix while tak­ing his blood pressure.

“Looks like that might have hurt,” she said, and squeezed the pump on the blood pres­sure machine.

Fay fig­ured the doc­tor would be in soon and his lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion would come to an end, so he talked fast and, when he did, his accent came out more pro­nounced than usual.

“That one near­ly took out my beat­ing heart,” he said even­ly, rub­bing the mus­cles that seemed to criss­cross across the bones of his arm like bark. “It was Jan­u­ary of 1969. I was nine­teen and walk­ing with my Da in the civ­il movement.”

“On Wash­ing­ton?” the assis­tant asked.

“No, hon­ey. The one from Belfast to Der­ry.” He paused and smiled again. “Belfast, Ire­land, honey.”

“I thought you talked from some­where else,” she said, her head turned like a cat again.

“Still a lit­tle I guess after all these years here in Unit­ed States of God’s Amer­i­ca,” Fay said. “That’s were I was born and raised, in Belfast, North­ern Ire­land. Been here near­ly four decades and I’m pleased as hell that it still sneaks through here and there.”

“Oh,” said the assis­tant, the inflec­tion of her sin­gle syl­la­ble some­how more knowl­edge­able now, but she kept her head tilt­ed, the hon­ey-dipped hair curled across her shoul­der, the fold­ed wing of a sleep­ing bird, gold­en feath­ered even in the flu­o­res­cent lights wash­ing down the walls of the exam room.

“We’s part of what they called the People’s Democ­ra­cy, though that didn’t mean much to me or any­body else my age,” Fay con­tin­ued. “My old­er broth­er used to tend bar and then one day he was shot dead as a nail by some folks on the oth­er side. That was in 1966, the start of The Trou­bles. All I knew was that vengeance was heavy in my heart, but Da was a peace­ful sort. So by Jan­u­ary of 1969, like I was say­ing, me and Da was march­ing from Belfast to Der­ry as a civ­il rights move­ment effort or some such thing when were attacked by what they called loy­al­ists in Burn­tol­let, Coun­ty Lon­don­der­ry. Every scar you see on my body hap­pened in less than half an hour.”

Stand­ing up from the exam table, Fay held out his arms and turned in a slow cir­cle. When he had made a full turn, the door opened and a man in rim­less glass­es and a neat­ly trimmed beard entered the room, a quizzi­cal look melt­ing across his eyes and down to his mouth. The man tugged his white coat clos­er around him like a mil­i­tary gen­er­al about to give orders to a field full of ready troops. Dig­ni­fied. Want­i­ng it to be known that he was clear­ly in com­mand. The assis­tant stepped aside, but con­tin­ued to look at Fay’s upper body, who had left his hands out to his sides and smiled out of the cor­ner of his mouth to the doctor.

“Mr. Mullins?”

“Yep.”

“You can have a seat there on the table and put your shirt back on,” said the doc­tor. “I’m Dr. Ran­dall. What seems to be the trouble?”

Fay glanced to the assis­tant and smiled know­ing­ly, gave a soft, grave­ly laugh.

“Well, Doc, I work the rail­road line from Ken­tucky to West Vir­ginia, have for twen­ty years or more, and they seem to think I might’ve spent up my time,” Fay said. His accent was gone now, replaced again with the more famil­iar east Ken­tucky twang. “They want­ed me in here for a checkup.”

“Seems like you have put some hard time in from the looks of it, but you seem to be in pret­ty good health oth­er­wise,” the doc­tor said. “Of course a full screen could include an MRI and some oth­er tests, if the com­pa­ny has asked for a com­plete exam. But it says here,” the doc­tor paused and flipped pages on his chart, which he did not cra­dle like a child but held it out in front of him like a shield. “It says here you can’t have an MRI.”

Fay winked at the assis­tant. “Why’s that?” he asked.

The doc­tor bal­anced the chart in the palm of his hand and used the oth­er to hold steady his glass­es, bent clos­er to the chart. “Says here you have obstruc­tions that would put your at risk due to the mag­nets in the machine. An MRI machine works in such a way that –”

“I know about how they work, Doc, all due respect,” Fay said cut­ting him off and fas­ten­ing the last but­ton on his shirt.

“Have you had oper­a­tions before?” The doc­tor pressed on. “Met­al devices implant­ed dur­ing a surgery of some kind that’s not in your chart for what­ev­er reason?”

“No, Doc. Noth­ing like that.”

The doc­tor turned to the assis­tant and gave her a dis­gust­ed look. He tucked his chart under his arm. Word­less glances were exchanged momen­tar­i­ly and then the doc­tor excused him­self after hand­ing a note to the assistant.

“That young man could use a drink,” Fay said after the door closed. “What’s his lit­tle note say?”

“You’re so full of it,” the assis­tant said, toss­ing her hair back. 

Fay closed his eyes and took in the per­fume, slid­ing across the air to him in a small and pow­er­ful wave. He fig­ured Dr. What­shis­name was good and pissed about not hav­ing all the infor­ma­tion, his full arse­nal there for his guidebook.

“You’re so full of it,” the assis­tant said again.

“I just need a clean bill so I can go back to work. This is only my sec­ond trip to the hos­pi­tal. The first time was for a phys­i­cal when I got hired on at the rail­road. Wasn’t much to that, just cup and cough, eye test, that sort of thing. What’s his lit­tle note say, hon­ey? I got­ta keep this job a least a few more years. Retire­ment and all, you know.”

“His lit­tle note says get an X‑ray, STAT,” she said. It came out in a hiss, the hon­ey-dipped feath­ers turn­ing to snake­skin before Fay’s eyes.

“What’d you mean, say­ing I’m full of it?”

The assis­tant put the chart back in its moth­er­ly posi­tion on the soft curve of her hip, gath­er­ing her­self, and left the room. 

Fay stretched out a lit­tle at a time on the table and wait­ed. For some time he whis­tled a tune into the silence of the room. Beside the sink at the foot of the table were some mag­a­zines and when his back mus­cles start­ed knot­ting he pulled him­self up and start­ed thumb­ing through one, glanc­ing at pic­tures and lis­ten­ing for voic­es out­side the door. Present­ly, the assis­tant came back with anoth­er expres­sion­less woman.

“Let’s get you down for an x‑ray, Mr. Mullins,” the expres­sion­less woman said soft­ly, rou­tine­ly, her voice as flat as an iron­ing board.

Fay turned to the assis­tant and gave her anoth­er warm smile then leaned in close, tak­ing in her scent, feel­ing her green eyes on his neck as he whis­pered in her ear.

“That’s what they’ll find, hon­ey,” Fay said when he was upright again. The expres­sion­less woman was hold­ing his elbow, a slight tug. “And then it’s just more trou­bles for me.”

“You’re so full of it,” the assis­tant said. It was an echo by now, bounc­ing off the walls of the exam room. Void of any mean­ing. Just some­thing to say.

“Ash­es to ash­es and back again,” Fay said as the flat-faced lady guid­ed him through the door and away down the hallway.

When the woman returned, the assis­tant was stand­ing at the check-in counter of the clinic.

“What’d that guy whis­per to you,” the woman asked, her face a bunched up series of wor­ry and curios­i­ty, despite her best efforts to keep it at bay.

The assis­tant didn’t answer right away and when the woman didn’t keep walk­ing or go about oth­er duties, she turned to her.

“Shrap­nel,” the assis­tant said under her breath.

“Par­don?”

“Pieces from one or more of 1,300 bombs set of in the cen­tre of Belfast,” she said and looked to the floor at her feet. “That’s what he whispered.”

“Right,” the woman said, still offer­ing no expres­sion. “And I’m chief of medicine.”

“He’s full of it,” the assis­tant said. 

Shel­don Lee Comp­ton sur­vives in Ken­tucky.  His work has appeared in Emprise Review, kill author, Fried Chick­en and Cof­fee, Metazen and elsewhere.

 

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Running Mule Hollow, fiction by Murray Dunlap

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Rusty

The roads in Mule Hol­low are long and wide, unfre­quent­ed by cars, and in sum­mer months, make for the per­fect place to run.  The sides of the road are flat, and a beat­en path thread­ing through wild flow­ers give safe asy­lum from the occa­sion­al log­ging truck. Beyond the path, cab­ins and deer-filled val­leys spread out like knit blan­kets, and beyond that, the sharp-crest­ed moun­tains hold on greed­i­ly to the last patch­es of win­ter snow. The moun­tains are big enough that no mat­ter how fast or how far you run, the view nev­er changes. Even when I run a twen­ty mile loop, cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ing Mule Hol­low entire­ly, the moun­tains stare down on me, unim­pressed and unmoved.

The town itself is small, about twen­ty thou­sand peo­ple, and the cen­ter of town, which I nev­er run through, is only a few blocks of sim­ple stores, a gas sta­tion and oblig­a­tory car wash, a gro­cery and piz­za par­lor. Most of the town works for the log­ging com­pa­ny, the ski resort, or dur­ing some hard win­ters, some com­mute fifty miles south to San Pieta for employ­ment. On the west side of town, there is an alter­na­tive liv­ing com­mu­ni­ty called Blessed Fields. The mem­bers have giv­en up all per­son­al pos­ses­sions and any desire for per­son­al gain, all for the sake of har­mo­nious com­mu­nal liv­ing. In order to sur­vive, Blessed Fields became self-suf­fi­cient.  They grow their own food, stitch their own cloth­ing, and run an herbal rem­e­dy shop in town.  It is com­mon knowl­edge that Blessed Fields mem­bers sup­port the med­i­c­i­nal use of mar­i­jua­na, and that they sell it covert­ly under the counter at their shop. No one in town cares enough to put up a fight and quite a few locals buy more than Gin­seng when they vis­it. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of any of our young inhab­i­tants who didn’t take advan­tage of the Blessed Sys­tem, aside from me, as weed makes me nauseated.

Katie told me that when her father died, she had tak­en all of the photo’s she could find of him and made a num­ber of small col­lages. Then she had put each col­lage in a sep­a­rate sec­tion of a wood­en fold­ing screen. This way, she said, she could look at her father in dif­fer­ent lights, on dif­fer­ent days, with dif­fer­ent expres­sions, as if he were still around. Katie said that she had bought the screen with six places for pho­tographs because that was as close as she could find to sev­en days a week, and thus, she could wake up and say hel­lo to a new side of him every morn­ing. When I asked about the sev­enth day, she said that on Sun­days we slept late with hang­overs, and she would rather not see him like that anyway.

I usu­al­ly run in the late after­noons. I’m stiff and grog­gy with thick legs in the morn­ing, and I’ve sworn off the noon-day sun, so when I fin­ish work at 4:30 or 5:00,  ‑as a sculp­tor, this varies dai­ly- I lace up my Asics and stretch my legs across the long  coun­try roads of Mule Hol­low.  I try to run dif­fer­ent routes day to day; from the sandy shoul­dered east side roads along the grave­yard, to the pine and patchouli scent­ed grav­el west of town. Some days I run for six miles, some days ten, and some days twen­ty. I nev­er know, or care, how far or how long I’m going to run. I don’t wear a watch and I don’t dri­ve my route. Instead, I dou­ble knot my shoes, sun­screen my nose, and often car­ry music.  But I do not enter races and I nev­er keep track of time. Run­ning is the only place where I am free from stress and pres­sure and from all the noise in my head.

Katie also tells me that while she miss­es her father bad­ly, that there is a cer­tain puri­ty in the way things are now. She knows that he is not suf­fer­ing, that he is free of need, and she knows that they will nev­er fight again.  She tells me that she talked with her father before he died and they had put all of their dif­fer­ences aside, which I guess means that they had put me aside, but I don’t say that. She also says that she wish­es I could do the same with my father. Katie pulls her soft, mocha hair back and tells me she is ok with her father’s death. But I know Katie is a run­ner too. So when I see her com­ing up strong on the oppo­site side of the road with her brow crunched up and her hair black with sweat, and notice that she isn’t wear­ing a watch either, I know that exer­cise is the fur­thest thing from her mind.

I have epipha­nies when I run. Seri­ous­ly. Some­times I have small, unim­por­tant epipha­nies, like when I real­ized that the expres­sion for all intents and pur­pos­es, was not, in fact, for all inten­sive pur­pos­es as I had thought for most of my life. But there are times when I have the real thing. Life chang­ing real­iza­tions that come to me in an anaer­o­bic flash. Once dur­ing a fif­teen mil­er, I stopped run­ning entire­ly, put my hand to my head, and coughed and wheezed as I real­ized my father had cheat­ed on my moth­er with my 3rd grade baby-sit­ter. It wasn’t that I had come across any new evi­dence; I had not spo­ken to any­one new or found any­thing, it was just that I had looked close­ly at a ten year old’s mem­o­ry with a thir­ty year old mind. Then there was the time that I real­ized my then-girl­friend was bulim­ic. The odd amount of time spent in the bath­room, the con­stant talk of caloric intake, fat grams, and meta­bol­ic process… Run­ning along the Blessed Fields veg­etable gar­den, it hit me like an aneurysm.

And so I run Mule Hol­low. In a cloud­ed daze of mem­o­ries and real­iza­tions. Like we all have –I sup­pose, but mine occur on the run. And it turns out, I run around Mule Hol­low, keep­ing the town just inside my path, but tus­sling the moun­tains to the out­er edge. And it may seem sense­less, but I am most at peace when I am out of oxy­gen and cir­cling our tiny moun­tain town in a for­ward lean.  It is that hour or two that I sort through the logis­tics of sculp­tures I am work­ing on, or invent new ones.   And in that same time, I recom­mit myself to art. The art of art. And my move­ments to stay clear of any 9 – 5.

And that brings us to the real sto­ry I hope to tell you here. That of Mule Hol­low, the town I call home, and that of Katie, who’s love I crave with a cocaine-like addic­tion.  Katie teach­es at the only ele­men­tary school in the Hol­low, and that includes the gift­ed chil­dren.  Once, Katie explained to me that smart kids are smart, but gift­ed kids have a way of think­ing that is just plain dif­fer­ent. Katie was a gift­ed child and her insights here amaze me.

As for my father, he died last sum­mer. Katie begs me to make amends, even now. She says to write a let­ter, dri­ve it to his grave, leave it with the birds.  She says the men­tal act of writ­ing fol­lowed by the phys­i­cal trou­ble of the road-trip and the psy­cho­log­i­cal sym­bol­ism of leav­ing it at his grave will do enough.  So I have packed our hybrid and am ready. I’ve asked Katie to join me, and she has agreed on the con­di­tion that we not make it a vaca­tion of any sort.

So we pack up, and are off. The dri­ve to Mon­trose isn’t bad. Just a long straight shot. Ten hours long. And why we can’t fly is not clear, except that Katie says I have to endure a strug­gle.  And strug­gle, I do. In mid-build of a sculp­ture that seems Calder-like, and almost whim­si­cal, I force myself to freeze the gen­e­sis of it and strive to make Katie hap­py. Like I said, Katie’s love is my cocaine, and most all of my move­ments cir­cum­scribe to her hap­pi­ness. I remind myself of this after 5 hours dri­ving on the road in a hybrid car that only seems hap­py at 60 miles an hour. Now, entire­ly worth it for the MPG’s, but plain sil­ly on the high­way. Maybe I just got a lemon?

As the high­way scrolls by, we dis­cuss an inci­dent at school.

“You know, I had a gift­ed child yes­ter­day who has William’s syn­drome , you know, I told you she is not able to dis­trust… Any­way, she told me that the clean-up man asked to see if she would lift up her shirt. So she did of course, but can you imag­ine? An eight year old with no breasts what­so­ev­er, and this jerk does that?  I can’t get over this and where it could have gone.”

“Holy smokes,” I say. “Real­ly?”

“Real­ly. I told our prin­ci­pal and she fired him. No discussion.”

“Good.”

“I hope this child learns.” Katie says as she leans back to stretch.

“Me too. It has to be the strangest way to grow up.” I dri­ve on in sin­cere disbelief.

“The odd thing is, there is real­ly noth­ing any­one can do.”

“Crazy.”

“So you and your father,” Katie begins. “I’m think­ing you can let go after you leave him that letter.”

“I pray,” I say as I pat my chest pock­et where the let­ter sits.

“Just be sure to acknowl­edge what you are doing as true com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him.”

“I’ll try. But I’m not sure I know how to speak to the dead.”

“Just know that he knows. That is all.” Katie stretch­es and looks out her win­dow as the Bay comes into sight.

“We must be close,” Katie yawns out.

“Yes, just ten more minutes.”

We do reach Mon­trose after a painful­ly long con­ver­sa­tion about how my father still holds pow­er over me, if I let him. Ten min­utes nev­er took so long. But we coast in and I show Katie the main drag, and where my Dad lived grow­ing up. Then we stop at Wintzell’s Oys­ter House for a bite before going to the graveyard.

“Fried oys­ters, huh?” Katie seems confused.

“See the sign? ‘Fried, Stewed, or Nude…’” I point to a draw­ing my high school sci­ence teacher made on the wall.

“Ugh.” Katie hasn’t learned to love the south. “So so, Ben. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Creeps or not, the food is ter­rif­ic!” I state with con­fi­dence. Although, I wish Katie had ordered seafood, not the spaghet­ti. I didn’t even know they had that here.

We fin­ish, and as it turns out, the spaghet­ti was great. As always, my oys­ters were excel­lent, and I am very relieved that our start to the grave­yard trip will begin right.  With full bel­lies and tired eyes, we plod on to the grave­yard. Now ful­ly night.

“Can’t we wait until morn­ing?” I ask.

“No, it will be bet­ter that you have strug­gled through the entire day. This makes it work bet­ter. You have to believe that you have earned this.”

“Hmmm. A ten hour dri­ve, an odd con­ver­sa­tion about a per­vert, a great meal, and this is sup­posed to help?” I scratch my head conspicuously.

“None of those specifics mat­ter. It is that you strug­gled to get here. And that you can leave your father in peace. You will sleep well tonight.”

“I hope you are right, my dear. But if those oys­ters give me gas, you won’t.” I smile wide.

“Oys­ters or none, you’ll sleep hard.” Katie squeezes my hand. “Come on, Ben.”

We make the grave­yard in moon­light. I take the let­ter from my chest pock­et. We walk in silence to my father’s grave. I open the let­ter, unfold the sheet of paper, and lie it on top of the tomb­stone.  A gust of wind catch­es it, and the let­ter floats over to the next grave, Craw­ford Filbone.

“Craw­ford here might not like what I have to say.”

“Hmmm. Just lie it on the soil of your father’s, don’t bal­ance it on top of the tombstone.”

“OK.” I unfold the paper again, and lay it on the soil. I use a stone to hold it in place. “How is this?”

“Per­fect. Now say what­ev­er is on your mind to him. I’ll be over by the car.” Katie walks slow­ly away.

“So Dad. Hiya there. Com­fy? I don’t what in the hell I’m doing, but if it makes Katie there hap­py, I’ll do it.” I look to Katie now at car-side and smile. “You have to let go of me Dad. At least, I’m hop­ing that’s what you’ll do. It’s been a year now. I miss you Dad. I miss your laugh. I miss hav­ing those din­ners.” I look over the grave search­ing for some­thing to talk about. “This is horse­shit, Dad. Absolute horse­shit.” I cross my arms and hope for a breeze. “OK bud­dy. Hope that did the trick. Or at least con­vince Katie.”

I uncross my arms and walk to the car.

“How did it feel?” Katie asks.

I con­sid­er my answer and the night ahead, “Peace­ful. It was very peaceful.”

“Oh good,” Katie says. “I’m so hap­py to hear you say that.”

“I felt clo­sure.” I say. “ Closure.”

“Well, hmmm, I’m not sure it works like that. But if you feel good, I’m happy.”

“I thought clo­sure is what we were after?” I ask.

“Well, clo­sure would be some­thing you felt in a few days or weeks, or months or years… Not right now. You are not fifty feet from his grave. You have to let this hap­pen. You can’t force it.”

“Oh. Ok. Then I feel how­ev­er a guy should feel fifty feet from his father’s grave.”

“You are not tak­ing this seri­ous­ly, Ben.” Katie folds her arms and sighs.

I raise my eye­brows, “What do you want to see?”

“I want you to FEEL this. No eye­brow rais­ing allowed.” Katie replies.

“I’m full and tired and would like to find a hotel to lie down,” I say.

“I hope you’ve seen enough to heal, Ben.” Katie says.

“Point any­where, and I will stare. I don’t know what I am sup­posed to do?”

“OK, to the hotel.” Katie rais­es her palms and turns to face the car.

We sleep fit­ful­ly and rise ear­ly, return­ing to the high­way. We talk lit­tle. Mid-after­noon, and we are already cross­ing into Mule Hollow.

“Learn any­thing?” Katie asks as I pull into our driveway.

“I learned not to be hon­est when you try to mess with my head. I learned to be as vague as pos­si­ble so that we can remain at peace. I learned a ten hour car ride is mis­er­able in our hybrid.”

“Real­ly? That’s all you can say?” Katie asks with­out wait­ing for an answer. She goes inside and shuts the door.

I unpack, stretch, and put on Asics. I’m out the door and run­ning just as the sun dips beneath the moun­tains. Katie has done the same. We leave head­ed in oppo­site direc­tions, which means we will cross paths in about six miles. As pre­dict­ed, after six miles, I see Katie’s mocha pony­tail and fur­rowed brow. Per her usu­al, she has no watch, and is so deep in this hyp­not­ic rit­u­al, bare­ly real­izes who I am.

“Katie, stop for a sec­ond. I’m sor­ry about how things went. I just wasn’t sure what I was sup­posed to do or how to feel.”

“I know Ben, I guess I just hoped it might come to you. I’m not real­ly sure what I expect­ed either.” Katie bends down to stretch her hamstrings.

I chuck­le and it hits me.  “You know Katie… You know what I have real­ized? I have the same laugh as my father. And I miss his laugh, but I guess if I have his laugh, then I act as the sec­ond com­ing of him. Or some­thing like that.”

“Woah, Ben.” Katie stands straight and smiles. “It has worked! You get it! My god am I hap­py to hear you say this!”

“Real­ly? Because we have the same laugh?” I silent­ly real­ize that the whim­sy of my new sculp­ture will ben­e­fit from all of this, after all.

“No, not that. It is that you real­ize you miss the man who made you, and know where you come from! I’m VERY hap­py we went! At last!” Katie gives me a high five that I am not sure how to react to. But, in the end, Katie is hap­py, and that is all that mat­ters. And as a bonus, I have sud­den moti­va­tion to fin­ish new work.

We turn and begin our jog home, but this time, we run side by side. I ask Katie if she expects the scene at school tomor­row to revolve around the inci­dent. She says yes, and looks over to me.

“He was fired and that ends it,” Katie reties her pony­tail. “But I know every­one will have gossip.”

“I’m just glad no one was hurt,” I say.

“The thing is, I saw the whole thing. I turned him in. If I had not of seen it, he would not be fired. And I know he hates me for it. I’m ner­vous he’ll come back for revenge.”

“Shit. I didn’t think of that. Maybe you should stay home for a few days. Let this all blow over?” I scratch my head.

“No,” Katie replies. “I need to go back and stand my ground. I know the prin­ci­pal will call in more secu­ri­ty.  There will always be peo­ple around.”

“Good. I don’t want you alone.”

“Me either. But I know I won’t be. And now that you are at peace, I can see you’ll be home sculpt­ing in vigor.”

“Yes, thank you for giv­ing this to me.” I length­en my stride and Katie stays with me, chug­ging our route as the sun­light flits about the moun­tain line.

“No, you gave it to your­self. I just had to nudge you in the right direction.”

“Thank you just the same,” I say.

“Ok, catch me if you can.” With that Katie speeds up into a near sprint and leaves me won­der­ing if I can, in fact, catch her. Run­ning full speed, I stare at Katie and grin, let­ting my father’s laugh come right out.

“I got her Dad,” I say. “I got her.”

 

Mur­ray Dunlap's work has appeared in about forty mag­a­zines and jour­nals. His sto­ries have been twice nom­i­nat­ed for the Push­cart Prize, as well as to Best New Amer­i­can Voic­es, and his first book, Alaba­ma, was a final­ist for the Mau­rice Prize in Fic­tion. He has just pub­lished a col­lec­tion of sto­ries called Bas­tard Blue. The extra­or­di­nary indi­vid­u­als Pam Hous­ton, Lau­ra Dave, Michael Knight, and Fred Ashe taught him the art of writing.

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Snakes, poem by Denton Loving

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Rusty

I.

My office build­ing sits atop a den of snakes. I’m sure of it. The build­ing edges the cam­pus where I work. Only an over­grown horse pas­ture sep­a­rates the man­i­cured lawns of high­er edu­ca­tion from the wood­lands of Cum­ber­land Moun­tain. The snakes slith­er down the moun­tain and some­how find their way in the park­ing lot or between con­crete steps. They stick out their tongues to test the air, sun them­selves on side­walks. Once, when I returned from lunch, the ball of my brown Oxford grazed the head of a black snake lying so still I thought she was a crack in the side­walk. She nev­er moved, but I jumped high enough for both of us. Every­one in the build­ing came out to see the snake, as if it was a new cre­ation, as if we were chil­dren see­ing the very first one. She wait­ed patient­ly, com­plete­ly still, while we gawked. The girls soft­ball coach drove by just then, told us all to back away. Then, he pulled his Oldsmo­bile off the black-topped park­ing lot and down the side­walk. The snake flailed as the right front tire crushed its mid­dle. I imag­ined screams as the tire rolled back and forth. When we were sure it was dead, he pulled it off the walk with a golf club from his trunk, a nine iron, flung it out into the grass to be chopped up by the grounds crew and their lawn mowers.

II.

A dif­fer­ent day, one August, when I wasn’t at work, anoth­er black snake was spot­ted in the grass. The sun was hot, and this snake was rest­ing in the shade of a giant cataw­ba tree. Sum­mer drought brought him down from the mountain’s rocky pin­na­cle in search of water. Two women from my office, Regi­na and Car­olyn, found the snake. Again, the office work­ers emp­tied into the front lawn of our build­ing to see the snake for them­selves. Again, there was shock and excite­ment and per­haps the feel­ing of being intrud­ed on by an unin­vit­ed mon­ster. Clarence, a main­te­nance man, stopped to see what was hap­pen­ing. “Wait,” he said. He knew how to take care of this prob­lem. Straight through the cen­ter of the black head, Clarence drove a met­al stake, quick as you like. He pinned the snake to the earth until the writhing stopped. When the last breath of life escaped, some­one sug­gest­ed they take a pic­ture. The pho­to shows Clarence, his name patch white against the blue of his uni­form. He holds the met­al rod in the air, and the snake dan­gles to the ground, five feet long if he was an inch. Regi­na and Car­olyn stand beside of him, no longer afraid of the snake. They all smile for the camera.

III.

“Why is everyone’s first reac­tion to kill a snake?” My friend Mau­rice once asked this at a par­ty. It was easy to see how dis­turbed he was by the sto­ries we told, the mur­der in our voic­es. How to explain to him that my own fear of snakes came to me in the womb? There was no temp­ta­tion as a boy to feel scales against my flesh, to even see one slith­er past my path – each snake the dev­il incar­nate, the only good one a dead one. Anoth­er friend, Don­na, tells me snakes sym­bol­ize trans­for­ma­tion. She explains that if snakes repeat­ed­ly come – as they do on side­walks and in dreams – it means that I’m chang­ing and grow­ing and prepar­ing for some­thing new. I pic­ture myself shed­ding my old life and old choic­es like an old skin. In writ­ing, I’m advised to embrace my fears. Explore them. Give them to my char­ac­ters. But just as if those fears were real snakes, my intu­ition is to give a wide berth, to avoid at all costs. The hard­est things to write about are … well, they’re hard. It takes courage to embrace what scares you the most, ser­pents from the prover­bial gar­den, mon­sters come up from the depths of night­mares. In real life, when I walk through the woods or the hay field around my home, I keep a close watch before let­ting either foot touch the ground. Twi­light is the worst, when every twig seems to shim­mer in the faint light. I fear each of them is a cop­per­head slid­ing down to the creek for a drink.

IV.

Last sum­mer, a pair of Car­oli­na wrens prac­ti­cal­ly lived on the back porch of my house. In the morn­ings, they sat out­side my bed­room win­dow and served as my alarm clock. In the evenings, as I sat in the shade and read, they hopped around me, tempt­ed to land on my open, extend­ed palm. One Sat­ur­day, they called me with their trilling rac­quet to come to the back door. Between the porch and the shed where the wrens nest­ed, there was a black snake sun­ning him­self in the grass. This is a space where I walk dai­ly, some­times hourly, some­times in my bare feet. I was pleased to live for the sum­mer with my fat, trick­ster wrens, but I was equal­ly dis­pleased to think of this black snake join­ing our hap­py home. As a child and per­haps even a few years ago, I would have lost my mind with fear. Had he been some­thing def­i­nite­ly poi­so­nous, a cop­per­head or a rat­tlesnake, for instance, I would have still been ter­ri­fied. But the years have accus­tomed me to see­ing the occa­sion­al black snake. After that time I almost walked on one, I learned to appre­ci­ate the black snake’s gen­tle man­ners. I empathized for the thirst they must feel in the dri­est parts of sum­mer, for the warmth they must ache for on the first sun­ny days of spring. My lit­tle Car­oli­na wrens, brazen and full of tricks when they need to be, warned him from our home. “Go away,” I could hear them say. “We’re not afraid of you. Go!” I nev­er admired these lit­tle birds so much as when they were will­ing to face off such a daunt­ing ene­my, but I took a dif­fer­ent tact. “Hel­lo,” I said to the snake as I looked down from the safe­ty of my raised deck. I was cau­tious, but for the first time in my life, I want­ed a clos­er look. I admired the way the after­noon light glis­tened across his rib­boned back. “Please don’t both­er the wrens,” I said, and I went back inside, leav­ing them to work it out for them­selves. With­in min­utes, my curios­i­ty was too much, and I had to go back out. I want­ed to see the snake again, but he was gone. The grass showed no trace of his path, and I was both relieved and sad.

Den­ton Lov­ing lives on a farm near the his­toric Cum­ber­land Gap, where Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky and Vir­ginia come togeth­er. He works at Lin­coln Memo­r­i­al Uni­ver­si­ty, where he co-directs the annu­al Moun­tain Her­itage Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val and serves as exec­u­tive edi­tor of drafthorse: the lit­er­ary jour­nal of work and no work.

His poem “Rea­son­ing with Cows” received first place in the 2012 Byron Her­bert Reece Soci­ety poet­ry con­test. Oth­er fic­tion, poet­ry and reviews have appeared or are forth­com­ing in Appalachi­an Jour­nal, Tra­jec­to­ry, Main Street Rag and in numer­ous antholo­gies includ­ing Degrees of Ele­va­tion: Sto­ries of Con­tem­po­rary Appalachia."

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Hillbilly Rich, essay by Jeff Kerr

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Rusty

Some­times I for­get how rich I am. I’m not talk­ing about the cash in my pock­ets, stocks, bonds or any of that stuff. I’m talk­ing about the sto­ries and char­ac­ters that live, breathe and wail with­in my blood, mar­row, bone and brain.

When the bills are over­due, the house is in fore­clo­sure, the wife has filed for divorce, the scars on your body accuse you when you look at them, it is easy to take for grant­ed the wealth that no one can see until the words splat­ter the pages. The writ­ten word then becomes redemp­tion not only of myself but also those in my fam­i­ly before me. I am their voice.

To me, the term “hill­bil­ly rich” means hav­ing a lit­tle more than you usu­al­ly have. Maybe a cou­ple of hun­dred bucks. Enough dough to pay some bills and maybe get you some good tim­ing action.

Peo­ple like me aren’t meant to be lit­er­ary peo­ple. My dad drove a fork-lift in a ware­house and my moth­er worked in a plas­tics fac­to­ry. Both of my grand­fa­thers were coal min­ers. Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers did what they could to sur­vive or in some instances come out ahead such as my great-uncle, a pro­fes­sion­al gam­bler and orga­nized crime fig­ure. I’m the first gen­er­a­tion to be raised “all the way up yon­der north” away from the South­ern Appalachi­an moun­tains of East­ern Ken­tucky and South­west­ern Virginia.

At best, I could have gone to col­lege and trained for a respectable and well-paid career. At worst, I could have tak­en my place in a fac­to­ry or machine shop (which I have done in the past). These were the expec­ta­tions of men from my class and background.

I grew up around sto­ry­tellers. From the old­er peo­ple, such as my Paw-Paw Kerr, it was tales involv­ing ani­mals and their mys­te­ri­ous ways, strange myth­i­cal hill beasts, ‘hants and vio­lent events torn straight out of death bal­lads that my Paw-Paw would tell me. Oth­er sto­ries were told by my par­ents, uncles and aunts on boozy evenings. I would sit under the kitchen table and lis­ten to yarns about Army days, jail, drunk­en escapades in the hills or in the city. These were rough sto­ries that hint­ed at the adult world my par­ents lived and I got glimpses into whether I want­ed to or not. Even though there was vio­lence or tragedy in some of these tales, there was also a tough humor to them.

I remem­bered all of these sto­ries and paint­ed vivid pic­tures in my mind. I cre­at­ed new sto­ries that I told myself. I would take Sears cat­a­logs and turn to the pages fea­tur­ing fur­ni­ture and draw strange fig­ures that looked like paper clips with arms and these would be my char­ac­ters and I’d talk out loud lead­ing them through var­i­ous sce­nar­ios. These would invari­ably involve domes­tic strife or drunkenness.

I would also stare long and dream­ing into the wood­work of fur­ni­ture and see ghosts, demons and oth­er fig­ures in the swirls. I could look at tree bark and see ani­mals and strange ani­mals that I had nev­er seen in a book. Some­times these beings would speak to me with ghosts as soft as cig­a­rette smoke and I had to con­cen­trate to hear them.

My old­er sis­ter would some­times do her home­work at the kitchen table with its shiny oil­cloth. I asked what her pic­tures were and she said that they were “things called words.” The first word I learned how to read and write was “the.” She start­ed me on the path of the writ­ten word.

I start­ed school and learned how to write and read very quick­ly. I went through books with a huge inner appetite. Every­thing from mol­lusk biol­o­gy to Tom Swift adven­tures. I was amazed and drunk on words and the pic­tures that they paint­ed inside of my mind.

A few years lat­er, I read a child’s’ biog­ra­phy of Mark Twain and real­ized that there were peo­ple who were actu­al­ly respon­si­ble for writ­ing books. This was an actu­al job that some­one could have. It seemed to me an ide­al exis­tence and every bell inside of me rang and pealed. This is what I was meant to become.

I knew that to be a real­ly good writer I would not find what I need­ed in col­leges or in work­shops taught by mediocre writ­ers. I did not want to become mediocre myself. I had real sto­ries to tell. It was just a mat­ter of time and work to hone the tools to carve those sto­ries out of the raw mate­ri­als I had with­in me. Over the years, I worked a vari­ety of jobs and had a string of dev­as­tat­ing expe­ri­ences that I will not go into here. Dur­ing that time, I kept writ­ing. Some­times I would send a sto­ry out and get the uni­form rejec­tion let­ter back. It seemed to me that the world of lit­er­ary mag­a­zines was locked to me. How­ev­er, I kept at it. What was impor­tant was the work itself. The sat­is­fac­tion of cre­at­ing some­thing that did not exist before. It was like giv­ing blood and bone to ghosts.

I start­ed get­ting pub­lished reg­u­lar­ly about sev­en years ago and have worked with some amaz­ing edi­tors and met some kick-ass peo­ple. It is the life that I dreamed of as a child clutch­ing to writ­ten words and sto­ries try­ing to find his place in this world.

Today I am one of the rich­est peo­ple that I know. Yeah, sure, it’s hill­bil­ly rich but that’s all right. It’s more than most peo­ple will ever have.

Jeff Kerr cur­rent­ly lives in Mil­wau­kee, WI. He has deep roots in the south­ern Appalachi­an moun­tains of the Ken­tucky and Vir­ginia bor­der coun­try. His work has appeared in Appalachi­an Her­itage, Now and Then, Hard­boiled, Plots with Guns, Hard­luck Sto­ries, Crim­i­nal Class Review and oth­ers. He has been a fea­tured read­er at Book Soup, San Quentin Prison among oth­er venues. His short sto­ry col­lec­tion, Hill­bil­ly Rich, can be ordered direct­ly at JeffKerr1965@​gmail.​com.

 

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Caring for Cast Iron, by Misty Skaggs

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Rusty

Nobody wants to hear about my every­day life any­more. Nobody wants the truth I want to offer up, even though I lis­ten cour­te­ous­ly to your bull­shit, mind­less intel­lec­tu­al swill spewed over organ­ic din­ners with veg­an options. My small talk's not spicy like your authen­tic cur­ry recipes. The set­ting for my anec­dotes aren’t smokey bars or seedy truck stops or a one bed­room flop for mis­guid­ed and horny hill­bil­ly youth. The char­ac­ters in my anec­dotes aren't five hun­dred pound, no good, mohawked boyfriends with shit­ty bands' and shit­ty vans that I have to crawl under to unstick the gears. At least not anymore.

Nobody wants to hear about my new holler life. About mak­ing beds and tack­ing quilts and bow­el move­ments so black and hard they look like lumps of coal stain­ing the bowl. About car­ing for cast iron, lov­ing­ly caress­ing the heavy black weight of a light­ly rust­ing pan with two fin­gers, lubed up in lard. Nobody wants to hear about car­ing for a woman who's slow­ly dying in front of me. A woman who’s not ready to die. And not dement­ed and dimmed by her nine­ty sev­en years of age. She’s sharp as a cliché tack. But nobody wants to hear about my Mamaw's heart fail­ing, congestively.

It's her heart. That's what the ugly, les­bian, hos­pice doc­tor says. And I trust her. It's her heart, the doc­tor says. That's why her arm hurts and aches until she screams and that’s why I stay up all night and I heat tow­els and wrap her tired limbs. Her good heart gone bad; only three nitro­glyc­erin and then call the ambu­lance. And then wait and wait and pray until they man­age to find us at the end of grav­el road hid­den amongst stands of black pine and ancient, gnarled up oaks. It’s her heart, it’s her age, it’s nature catch­ing up. It’s nature, dying.

Every­body wants to hear the sto­ry about how Gra­maw and I sit around and shit talk Her­bert Hoover. And how she refers to John­ny and June like they're fam­i­ly, even though she hates "that Boy Named Sue" song. "Silli­ness." Every­body wants to hear how she loves to read the raunchy romance nov­els with the seething, shirt less pirates and dark eyed, cal­loused cow­boys on the covers.

But nobody wants to hear about how some­times I sit straight up as I'm drift­ing off to sleep. And it's my heart. It stops. And I'm con­vinced I can hear her soul leav­ing her body through the baby mon­i­tor. Nobody wants to hear that crazy shit. Nobody wants to hear about how she doesn't want to go peace­ful­ly. About how her eyes flash wild­ly when she thinks death is here and she isn't sure what's next. Every­body likes the sto­ry about how she's ready to be clutched tight in the arms of her hand­some, blue-eyed Jesus.

Misty Marie Rae Skag­gs, 30, is a two-time col­lege drop-out who cur­rent­ly resides on her Mamaw's couch in a trail­er at the end of a grav­el road in East­ern Ken­tucky. Her work has been pub­lished here on fried​chick​e​nand​cof​fee​.com as well as in print jour­nals such as New Madrid, Pine Moun­tain Sand & Grav­el, Lime­stone and Inscape. On June 9th, she will be read­ing her poems on the radio as part of the Seed­time on the Cum­ber­land Fes­ti­val. When she isn't bak­ing straw­ber­ry pies and tend­ing the back­yard toma­to gar­den, she spends her time read­ing and writ­ing damned near obses­sive­ly in the back porch "office" space she is cur­rent­ly shar­ing with ten kittens.

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Sestina for a Powder, poetry by Joshua Michael Stewart

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Rusty

She’s lis­ten­ing to the clock—the heartbeat
that mocks the blood that pumps inside this house.
She clicks her tongue in time with the sound that knocks
against walls, and mim­ics heel-to-toe boots on redwood
floors. There’re knick­knacks to dust
and soapy dish­es to scrub. She waters the plants

to keep her mind from creep­ing back to the goons planted
in graves thanks to the trig­gers she squeezed. She wouldn’t beat
the rap—not a chance. For the two drop­pers she dusted
she’d claim self-defense, but that silk tie she popped in a house
of God, she can’t chin her way out of that. Would
you’ve done dif­fer­ent if a but­ter and egg man offered Fort Knox

to care for you and your men­tal­ly impaired broth­er? Knock
off my com­pe­ti­tion, and you won’t wait­ress again. Plant
six shells into him while he’s on his knees pray­ing, and I’d
give you enough dough you won’t need to mess with deadbeats
who want to toss your broth­er into the nuthouse.
Don’t wor­ry about the bird I want you to drop. To you he’s dust.

To set her mind on more pret­ty things she starts to sing Star­dust.
The screen door in the kitchen knocks
against its frame, and she turns to smile at the man this house
belongs to. The man who spends his days among the plants
in his gar­den. In his hands is a strain­er full of beets.
He kiss­es her check. He smells of earth and fresh­ly cut wood.

It smells like you’ve been saw­ing wood,
she says as she brush­es sawdust
off his shoul­ders. And then some, he says, rins­ing the beets
in the sink. Oth­er men would’ve rat­ted to the cops, and knocked
her out on her ass before she had time to plant
one mur­der­ous paint­ed toe­nail inside their shack.

Instead, he swept the air with his hand and said, Get in the house.
He taught her broth­er how to select sea­soned oak for the wood
stove, and told him all the names of the plants.
He doesn’t talk to him as if he’s a child or deaf. They like to dust
off down the road to watch the heifers in the field, and to knock
tin cans over with rocks. He lis­tens when her broth­er says, Beets!

and says, Beets, again. She knows when to knock
on wood. All that she loves is planted
in this house. Every­thing else can turn to dust.

 

Joshua Michael Stew­art has had poems pub­lished in Mass­a­chu­setts Review, Eupho­ny, Rat­tle, Cold Moun­tain Review, William and Mary Review, Pedestal Mag­a­zine, Evans­ville Review and Blue­line. Pud­ding House Pub­li­ca­tions pub­lished his Chap­book Vin­tage Gray in 2007. Fin­ish­ing Line Press pub­lished his chap­book Sink Your Teeth into the Light in 2012 He lives in Ware, Mass­a­chu­setts. Vis­it him at www​.joshuamichael​stew​art​.yol​a​site​.com

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Pyote, fiction by Shannon Hardwick

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Rusty

Imag­ine I am a body on the side of the road, maybe a girl in a skirt and a shirt that’s torn, or a boy with a brief­case and mud­dy boots. Imag­ine I am you. You’ve tak­en too long to get here, the mid­dle of nowhere. Pyote. City of Pyote sign ahead but only dirt roads and maybe a farmer some­where way off in the back beyond where you can see mesquite and that’s all lit­tered around like for­got­ten seeds of some­thing half-grown but with roots strong and long enough to reach any water-table no mat­ter how deep. That’s the desert. It eats what it can. Imag­ine I am a man fix­ing a radi­a­tor because it’s too god­damn hot to run away. It’s too hot to feel your legs let alone your heart which is break­ing, and always has been. Imag­ine the three of them broke down in the same place out­side the city of Pyote. Which exists. I’ve seen it, dri­ving into noth­ing because it’s too god­damn hot to do any­thing else. The girl with her skirt
and the boy with the boots. He’s think­ing, Take her to Red Sands Inn. He’s think­ing, Take out the pain I’m in. He’s think­ing the old man with the radi­a­tor might make it halfway to Brown­field and the girl is think­ing, Where am I going? She’s think­ing, I’ve got a body, I should use it. So she walked out and kept going and had the thought of eat­ing snake but didn’t. When she was a girl she wasn’t afraid. More afraid of not being poi­soned. She want­ed the hal­lu­ci­na­tion like a light. Like a feel­ing of being some­where high­er than here. Imag­ine I’m you. Every­thing you’ve lost in that boy’s brief­case which he kept because it locked and he planned on throw­ing it out once he decid­ed, This is it. I’m a goner. I’m gone. The old man with the radi­a­tor want­ed water and a coast­line but he mar­ried for mon­ey and a tight ass. Noth­ing lasts. The girl’s got some legs, that’s for sure. The boy, a gun, prob­a­bly. Noth­ing more dan­ger­ous than a young bro­ken boy look­ing for some­thing to ground him. The mesquite can live in the heat for years because it has the patience to stay still. To stay long enough to reach a water-table, no mat­ter how far down. The man once reached Kansas and told him­self he’d kill him­self before he got any far­ther. Instead he went back to Pyote by way of a bro­ken down blue­bird of a car that kept things inter­est­ing. The girl thought the same of snakes but was nev­er brave enough to pick one up. Shoot it, maybe, but then you can’t get stung. So she told the boy to take her to the Red Sands. Why not? It was too god­damn hot. And the old man said, All right, get in. I think I have enough for the three of us, and hand­ed them a round.

 

Shan­non Eliz­a­beth Hard­wick received her Mas­ters in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence Col­lege in 2010. She recent­ly com­plet­ed her first full-length man­u­script of essays and poet­ry and has a chap­book in print and one forth­com­ing with Mouth­feel Press. She is the res­i­dent poet for Port Yon­der Press' online mag­a­zine Beyon­daries and her work has been fea­tured or is upcom­ing in 3:AM Mag­a­zine, Night Train, Ver­sal, Sug­ar House Review, among oth­ers. She writes in the deserts of West Texas.

 

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Loveville, fiction by Timothy Gager

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Rusty
Loveville is a free-wheel­ing town you enter with­out a seat­belt at 100 miles per hour down the Main Street; going so fast, a clock can’t tick. When you spin off the road you are thrown onto the grass near a sign­post. Look up and read it: “Wel­come to Loveville-Pop­u­la­tion: Every­one else in the Uni­verse. “Is this what you want?” you ask yourself.
You want this: You want love in Loveville. You take some­one to town but you don’t want to be with her after you arrive. When did this place become so uncom­fort­able? Don’t come in here!” the sta­tie yells as he pulled you up off the ground. “Hey, you’renot sup­posed to move the vic­tim,” you tell him imme­di­ate­ly. “Don’t talk back,” he says. “I’m not employed by Loveville.”
Loveville takes you on a walk since you have no car. It’s a famous walk. You start in your home­town and don’t stop. You walk fifty miles per day and in less than four months you have crossed the coun­try. Loveville does not exist on the oth­er coast because it is not your home. You walk in the oppo­site direction.
There are times after you return you set­tle back into Loveville and are actu­al­ly com­fort­able there. There are meals and evenings on the couch with your arms a future there. When you kiss, Loveville kiss­es back. The clock ticks loud enough so you can hear it and then it’s all that you can hear. It forces you to get out again and you sprint.

Tim­o­thy Gager is the author of nine books of short fic­tion and poet­ry. He has host­ed the suc­cess­ful Dire Lit­er­ary Series in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts every month for the past eleven years and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writ­ers Fes­ti­val. His work been pub­lished over 250 times since 2007 with nine nom­i­na­tions for the Push­cart Prize. His work has been read on Nation­al Pub­lic Radio.
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