+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Volume #1 September 15, 1994 Issue #4 +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4 A Bob and a Matt . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason shard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Adam Kaune Roman Ruin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blackbird words find . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edgar Sommer But For the Grace of God . . . . . . . . . . . . Brett A. Thomas He's Returned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cynthia Anne Foster Sestina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Susan Tefft Fitzgerald Elinor Rigby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Alkalay-Gut Twilight Dancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . William C. Burns, Jr. What Gets Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benjamin Parzybok Wednesday Afternoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lori Kline monet's old studio is a gift shop . . . . . . . John Adam Kaune The Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doctress Neutopia Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael A. Simanoff You can meditate in this mess? . . . . . . . . . . Michael Stutz Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Alkalay-Gut What lengths must my children go to rebel when I'm 50 . . . . . . . . . . Dave Zappala Between the Hiatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maree Anne Jaeger speaking of the secret . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Alkalay-Gut Custer is not here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Adam Kaune Pool Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leland Ray The Strawberry Blond . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edward J. Austin About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor + Editor Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Staff Matthew Mason rfulk@creighton.edu + mtmason@morpo.creighton.edu Proofreader ReadRoom Layout Editor Kris Kalil Fulkerson Mike Gates kkalil@creighton.edu tsmwg@acad1.alaska.edu +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _The Morpo Review_. Volume 1, Issue 4. _The Morpo Review_ is published electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1994, Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason. The ASCII version of _The Morpo Review_ is created in part by using Lynx 2.1 to save ASCII formatted text of the World Wide Web HyperText Markup Language version. All literary and artistic works are Copyright 1994 by their respective authors and artists. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ A Bob and a Matt / Editors' Notes o _Robert Fulkerson, Editor_: It has been a rather busy four months since the last time I wrote one of these columns. Let's see if I can list off just a few of the things that have happened since May: I finished my first year of graduate school, I was an usher in a wedding for the first time, I got married on July 1st, I visited Colorado and the Rocky Mountains for the first time, I interviewed for my first real job and bought my first real suit, I began teaching an introduction to programming class. No wonder I'm always tired! I'd like to take a moment if I may to wax reminiscent about the honeymoon that my wife Kris and I took to Colorado. When we first started thinking about where we should go for our honeymoon, we both thought we'd like to see New England. So, we had grand plans to pack up the car and drive East for a few days, maybe visit Prince Edward Island and the home of Anne (you know, of _Green Gables_ fame) and then drive West for a few more days and end up back home. Well, after some thought, the idea of driving West and up and down the Pacific coastline (and visiting Matt, the other editor of _TMR_) sounded really fun, since neither of us had really visited the Western United States before. So instead of driving many days round-trip East and back, we decided to travel even more days round-trip West and back. Then the financial realities of what we were planning on doing sank in and we decided that we really probably shouldn't even leave Nebraska. This was a depressing thought, not because Nebraska isn't a beautiful state but because we already _know_ that Nebraska is a beautiful state. No need exploring what both of us already were familiar with. Kris then suggested that we go out to Colorado for a few days. One day travel there, one day travel back. Minimal driving (comparatively) and beautiful country were her arguments. I was skeptical and against the idea at first--see, I'd never been to Colorado, and she'd already been three or four times with her parents. What would be the fun for her? But economy of time and money won out and we _did_ go and stay in Estes Park, Colorado for four days. The first day we went hiking, it snowed. It snowed in July, one of the warmest months here in the United States. July 7th, to be exact. I've never seen snow in July before, and since I love snow, it confirmed that I loved Colorado and the mountains and everything else there was that nature had to offer. I didn't even mind the hiking that much (but don't tell that to Kris -- I complained a whole bunch the second day out just for complaining's sake). But what was really wonderful while we spent four of our honeymoon days there in Estes Park (besides, of course, spending time with my wife) was that the natural beauty of nature and the happiness of celebrating our marriage brought me around to writing again. It had been far too long since I'd put pencil to paper and written poetry. But, sitting there one night, the silhouettes of mountains canvassing the purple-black sky, I put pencil to paper and wrote. It was a wonderful feeling and reminded me again why I love writing and reading, and why other people do, too. So, it is with a rediscovery of my own love for writing and reading that we bring you this issue of _The Morpo Review_. You'll notice that this issue is rather large compared to our previous issues. This is due to the fact that we've had four months to amass good works, and amass we have. We have three stories in this issue (_But For the Grace of God_ by Brett A. Thomas, _Pool Night_ by Leland Ray and _The Strawberry Blond_ by Edward J. Austin) as well as our first piece of non-fiction that we've published in _TMR_, _The Judge_ by Doctress Neutopia. Let us not forget that we also publish poetry! This issue finds us chock full of works from John Adam Kaune, of the _Sand River Journal_, with _shard_, _monet's old studio is a gift shop_ and _Custer is not here_. We also have some fine first appearances in _TMR_ by Benjamin Parzybok (_What Gets Me_) and Dave Zappala (_What lengths must my children go to rebel when I'm 50_). The rest of the work is also top-notch, and we certainly hope you enjoy it, also. So, hopefully we won't go four months again between issues, mainly because there's too much stuff to talk about and I keep getting tired because of it. Enjoy the issue, and we'll see you again ... o _Matthew Mason, Editor_: Cool. You're reading this again, something I see as a darned good thing. Being new to this whole editor stuff (being mainly used to sending nicely typed poems to editors at a variety of other magazines as a way of expanding my collection of rejection letters), I'm surprised at just how this whole literary magazine stuff goes. It surprises me just how much work and detail goes into putting out a literary magazine. So you should really admire and appreciate the work the editors here do for no monetary compensation! Well, actually you should admire and appreciate Bob, seeing as I have the computer skill and organizational finesse of a bag of Funyuns, so I basically sit around and try to find ways to foist my paltry amount of work onto Bob's shoulders. In any case, I'm rambling again. Welcome back to _Morpo_, we're glad to see you, and remember: we'll always leave the modem on for you. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "shard" by John Adam Kaune the music pauses - words fall into the void only to rise once more in acquisition of the soul the place in which my very wholeness is imparted pens lay silent in my plan the message in the palm I am defined in instances not yet definitive +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Roman Ruin" by Blackbird Last night, we were so very quiet. No killer stalked our apartment, no spy had placed bugs in the walls, no bombers flew overhead And yet, As if for fear our voices might bring danger, we were quiet as church mice. That's okay. Silence doesn't bother me--particularly from someone I trust. But still--the hours we spent not talking now seem to me like pools of water on the low wall of a Roman ruin, evaporating in the hot Aegean sun. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "words find" by Edgar Sommer words find they risk the company of idiots words find and curl into her sleep curl up to sleep a home ridgetop brainland for looking down words find trespass the fingertips crisscross the countryside sunfold drops on paperscape tell sex and crime they roam and words find strife givers little bonny pad bonny in may the grass fields bonny's snowmilkwhiteness they find and alight on soft spots color the mind fancifold bound to the ceiling glueflexfully, -but. bound to the earth any earth she is to be words find and they roam cornerfixed and arcbound and flatsome by coarse there's tricks stuttertracks in the sand towards moonrise words find they risk the company of idiots +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "But For the Grace of God" by Brett A. Thomas "But for the grace of God," Jeremy Rodgers' mother had taught him to pray, whenever he saw a person on crutches or in a wheelchair, "there go I." The prayer was a little ritual, not so much to thank God for health, but to ward off the living death of physical deformity that so many are frightened of. Twenty years after hearing that advice for the first time, Jeremy sat in a small apartment. His mother had died a few years before, having fallen out of God's good graces, herself. Now, the only son of Virginia Harper Rodgers, nee Virginia Marie Harper, sat in a small, one-room apartment in Atlanta, GA. The plaster walls had been white, once, but were now faded and peeling. It was summer, and the humidity and heat were causing misery throughout the city. The window in Jeremy's apartment was open, but it faced up against the brick wall of a neighboring building, and offered little relief from the heat. The scattered furnishings were extremely mismatched. A red secretary's chair was the only seat in the house, and it faced a short-legged, small table with an old 19" TV on it. The TV, with simulated wood-grain finish, was large enough that it overhung the sides. A single bed was stuck in the corner by the window, with twisted and stained sheets upon it. On the other side of the window from the bed stood a 1958 GE refrigerator, of the style that young children occasionally get trapped in. The only item in the room - including its occupant - that had been manufactured after 1976 was a small microwave that was on the short, faded green counter beside the refrigerator. Laying amongst all this urban splendor was Jeremy himself, flat on his back, on the bare, wooden floor. Sweat darkened his filthy blue jeans, and his frame was thin to the point of being unhealthy. Long, uncombed brown hair splayed out around him like a halo, and spilled across his bare shoulders, which were as white as high clouds in a blue sky. A practiced eye would have seen the track marks up and down both arms, noted the smell of stale urine, the lack of a phone, the unwashed body - and come up with "drug addict". An unpracticed eye could have seen the needle laying on the floor, and reached the same conclusion. Jeremy lay almost motionless on the floor for several hours, as morphine coursed through his system. His contact had been unable to get anything else that week, but morphine worked well enough. He had shot up the last dose of it three hours before, and was beginning to come down, when someone knocked on the door. Slowly, he began to move. He propped himself up on his elbows first, then sat up, still resting his weight on his arms. At this point, Jeremy's eyes came open. He looked around, dazedly, and sat the rest of the way up. By he time he got to the door, the person on the other side had knocked twice. He fumbled with the locks, and finally jerked the door open, still half-leaning on it for support. A large-bodied black woman stood on the other side of entryway. "Hello," she said, smiling broadly. "I'm Loretta Williams. I live on the third floor. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" Jeremy looked at her for a long moment. "Jesus?" The smile never wavered. "Yes." She began her spiel again. "Have you accepted him as-" Vague memories of Sunday school came to Jeremy. "I like Jesus," he decided, nodding in agreement with himself. His voice, when it finally came, was surprisingly deep. The way he uttered this, and anything else, seemed to say that the entire weight of his intellect was behind it. He sounded much like an over-serious child, who had finally decided which candy-store delicacy to purchase with his allowance. Loretta's smile widened, somehow. "Good!" She handed him a piece of paper, with a cross prominently centered on the top. "We're having a building revival tonight, the Reverend Robert Smith will be speaking." A frown crossed Jeremy's face. "Revival?" he asked, uncertainly. "Yes," she confirmed. "Tonight, in the basement, at eight. Will you come?" "To the basement?" The smile wavered, momentarily. "Yes. Tonight. I hope you'll be there." Jeremy watched her walk away, and it was almost five minutes after that before it occurred to him to close the door. Doing so took all of his concentration, and, when he stopped thinking about holding it, the leaflet fluttered softly to the floor. Two hours later, the visitor that Jeremy had been originally expecting arrived. By this time, the morphine had worn off, and Jeremy was a little clearer, so he was able to get to the door on the first knock. The visitor was a short, black man. He wore a leather jacket, blue pants, and an Atlanta Braves ballcap. Jeremy's face lit up at his arrival. "Ray!" Ray stepped in, and looked around the apartment. "Hey, man. How you been?" "What did you bring me?" Ray laughed. "That's what I like about you man, you get right to the point." Jeremy smiled happily at the perceived compliment. "I got the good stuff, man." He handed Jeremy a plastic bag full of heroin. Jeremy dug deep in his left front pocket, and pulled out a wad of bills. He extended his left hand, holding the money, and reached for the bag with his right. Ray laughed again, took the money, and tossed the bag to Jeremy. A less ambitious man might have robbed the addict; Ray knew that a safely addicted rich weirdo was better than a lump sum any day. Jeremy was job security to people like Ray. The dealer's eyes scanned around the room, as Jeremy happily took the bag over to his faded, green counter. Ray's gaze came to rest on the leaflet at his own feet, and Ray bent over to pick it up. "What's this, Jer?" Ray's eyes scanned the paper, and a look of concern crossed his face, as he had visions of his best client going religious. "Revival? Whaddya need a revival for, when you got me?" Jeremy looked around from preparing his needles. He seemed to think about this statement. "I like Jesus," he decided. "Man, you don't need to be hanging out with them people! They're crazy." "I like Jesus." Ray threw up his hands. "Alright man, whatever. Only Jesus you need is Purple. I'll catch you next week." Jeremy wasn't listening; he had gone back to his smack. At 7:45 PM, Loretta began making her rounds. The drug addict on the fifth floor. The welfare mother on the sixth. The drug addict on the third floor, and the immigrant family on the second. One of the last stops she made was at Jeremy's apartment. She had almost passed it by, but something had told her to stop, and Loretta Williams always listened to those little voices, which she thought of as being the true word of God. As before, it took several knocks before anyone answered. When Jeremy finally came to the door, he seemed even more lethargic and out of touch with reality than before. She brought her smile up to her face from somewhere deep within. "Are you ready to go?" He looked bewildered. "Go?" "To the revival!" she encouraged. "Revival?" Jeremy thought for a few seconds. "Jesus! I like Jesus!" "Then, let's go, child!" The Reverend Robert Smith looked out at the fifty or so people packed into the small, gray basement, lined up in neat rows of folding chairs. He'd played smaller crowds, and much bigger crowds. This group was largely made up of lower class black families, whose only hope was God. He could feel the energy in the room. The murmuring in the crowd died down as the Reverend took the podium. He reached out with both arms, each grabbing a side of it, and rested his weight on the stand. "Good evening, brothers and sisters! Are you ready to worship the Lord?" The reply came back: A resounding "Yes!" "Good! Because that's what we're here tonight to do: Worship the Lord!" A few "Amen!"s came back at him from the crowd. "But I want everyone to remember - worshipping the Lord isn't something you do just tonight. You should do it every day!" He paused for the "Amen". "Every hour! Every minute!" Reverend Smith leaned back a little, seizing up the crowd. There was one white man, in the middle of the crowd, sitting next to one of the women who had been on the organizing committee. "God says to us in the bible-" Suddenly, a clatter came from the area of the white boy, as folding chairs were pushed and thrown out of position. Reverend Smith paused, giving it a chance to clear up, but it didn't. The man had apparently fallen out of his chair, and was laying on the floor, having some sort of seizure. Several of the people around him had stepped back, and a circle was forming around the man. Reverend Smith ran down the aisle, and people unthinkingly got of his way. Thus, he was able to reach Jeremy's prone form quickly. "What happened?" he asked Loretta. "I don't know, Reverend. I think he's on drugs." Reverend Smith glanced around at the knowing, unhappy faces of those nearby. The woman was probably right. Slowly, he leaned over the prone young man. Jeremy's eyes were rolled back in his head, and his chest thrust up fiercely through his dirty T-shirt. The Reverend cleared his throat, and held his right hand up into the air. "Lord, I call on you!" The mutterings of the congregation were silenced, as they looked at him. He could feel them coming around to him, spiritually. "We have here a young man who has lost his way! He has strayed from the green pastures of Your love!" He looked around briefly at the surrounding people. "And who amongst us has not done that before, my Lord?" There were murmurings of agreement. "And since he cannot help himself, my Lord, I ask you to do whatever is necessary to lead this man from the road to hell that he has set himself upon!" As the "Amen" rose from the congregation, Reverend Smith rode the wave of spiritually energy, and hit Jeremy hard in the forehead. Suddenly, everything was clear. The pain. The loss. The drugs. Jeremy's eyes snapped open, clear for the first time in years. The first face he saw was Reverend Smith's. Instinctively, Jeremy's right hand snapped out and grabbed the surprised Reverend's throat. "_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?_" he demanded. Jeremy leapt to his feet, dragging the preacher to the floor. His glance swung from side to side, looking for an exit, as a cornered animal might. He saw it, and began to push through the frightened congregation towards it, screaming all the while. "_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?_" _________________________________________________________________ In his apartment, Jeremy threw the door shut, and snapped the locks, as the tears rolled down his face. He kept muttering over and over, like a litany, "What did they do, what did they do, what did they do?" He stumbled blindly across the room to the counter, to the needle he had been preparing just before Loretta arrived. He did shot up quickly, his tears spattering on the counter as he did so. Fifteen minutes later, with the heroin numbing some of his pain, Jeremy was able to face what had happened. Four years before, he had been a promising young banker. He'd had a beautiful -pregnant- he remembered, with a sob - wife, a house, a car- Jeremy's thoughts broke off. The car had been a red convertible. He'd loved that car almost as much as his wife, and the two of them, in her fourth month, had decided to go on vacation. Despite what had occurred in the basement, he had no memory of what had happened next - although he did remember what the car looked like after being run over in a highway accident by a tractor-trailer. He touched his head absently, as he remembered the head injury. He cursed as he remembered the wretched existence since - keeping himself drugged to forget the pain of loss - of his wife, his life - and himself. That was the biggest of all - in his previous condition, even the memories of his wife and existence had been lost completely. But he hadn't been able to hide completely from himself what he had once been - and what he could have been. As the night wore on, and Jeremy took more of the heroin, he remembered his brother - and vaguely remembered a court hearing at which Jeremy had been declared incompetent. His brother had gotten control of the money - and promised to send him some every month. Jeremy hadn't cared. He collapsed into the bed, and cried with frustration, loss, and rage. Two hours later, hunger woke him up. He arose to put a frozen dinner in the microwave, but discovered that, when he put weight on his feet, they both hurt. When he sat back down on the bed, and reached down to take off his shoes, he noticed the blood on both sides of his hands, with some surprise. He discovered that he seemed to have circular wounds on both sides of his hands, and the same marks on his feet, once he took his shoes and blood-stained socks off. Cursing the pain, Jeremy got up to make some food. While he was setting out a pizza, he noticed the heroin still sitting on the counter. Remembering its properties as a local anesthetic, he rubbed some on both hands and feet. For a while he was numbed, physically, and doped up enough to be numbed mentally. In fact, he almost reached his original child- like level; 5:00 am found him seated, Indian style, on his bed, passing a piece of string through the holes in his feet, and giggling insanely. Every jag has a crash, and Jeremy's came that morning. He didn't wake up for twelve hours, and, by then, it was too late. Heroin and blood loss had done their jobs, and he laid in bed, unable to move. Now that he was drug-free and clear, again, Jeremy realized - to a certain extent - what had happened. One of the dubious benefits of a Catholic school education was knowledge of some spiritual events - such as the stigmata, the reproduction of the wounds of Christ on the human body. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jeremy knew that the wounds were inaccurate - that the Romans and probably not nailed Christ up literally - and that, even if they had, the nails had been in the wrists and not in the palms. Jeremy felt his rage building, again. First God had taken his life, his love, and, most outrageously, his mind. Now, He saw fit to give them back, but only at the expense of Jeremy's body. And only for a little while, at that. If he'd had a phone, he might have called for help. If he'd had some friends, someone might have dropped in. If - well, if the universe were a loving place, perhaps none of it would have happened in the first place. Officer Robin LaRouche was the first into the smelly apartment. Death was the most evident smell, followed closely by urine. He wrinkled his nose, and looked at his partner, coming in through the broken door. "Why can't these guys clean up before they die, Dave?" His partner shook his head. Robin picked his way over to the bed. An emaciated figure was stretched out on the blood-stained sheets, rigid in death. "Why do these people do this?" he demanded, rhetorically. Dave looked at the dead junkie, arms outstretched, legs together. "What's that, man, get killed?" Robin shook his head. "Naw, this idiot's a suicide." He pointed with disgust at Jeremy's wounds. "Wounds of Christ. Damned religious fanatic." Loretta peeked nervously in from the hall, and saw the two policemen standing over the bed. If she had been Catholic, she would have crossed herself. As it was, she merely bowed her head briefly. "But for the grace of God," she murmured softly, "There go I." +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "He's Returned" by Cyntha Anne Foster He's returned... But without the rhymes. Only lilacs and reasons For the endless succession of time And the oncoming of seasons. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Sestina" by Susan Tefft Fitzgerald I'm in a dream. We are transported to a beach. Crystal blue water rolls on soft white sand. The ocean breeze Reggaes with gauzy curtains. Drinks with striped umbrellas In hand, we lean against poufy pillows talking About our future, laughing about our past, smooth brown skin Against smooth brown skin. What a cliche, this dream. I roll over, punch the pillow, relax into another dream. We are on the wharf now, not far from the beach, Walking hand in hand, side by side. My skin Tingles from the sharp sea spray surfing on the breeze. Different people, strange shops, good food keep us talking. But, wait, now I see umbrellas. Rows upon rows of pink frilly umbrellas Tap dancing around me with a crescendo. Is this a dream? I am the star of a MGM musical! Gene Kelly and I are talking Through song. No, wait, I am dancing on the beach. It's "South Pacific"! I'm kissing a gorgeous plantation owner and the island breezes Call to me and brush my skin. Actually, artic winds chill my skin. You commandeered the blanket. I snuggle under the umbrella Of warmth and ride the breeze Back to the island. No luck. What else can I dream About? Let's go back to the beach! Yes! No, wait, the trees are talking. No, actually, you are talking. "It's six o'clock" and you rub your scruffy chin against my skin. I roll over and swim back to the beach. I spy bronze men in speedos from underneath the umbrella. Yes, this is reality. That other place is the dream. You calmly rip away the blanket. I'm naked in the breeze. That damn, cold six o'clock in the morning breeze. "What the hell..?" I yelp and jump. "Stop talking." You mumble. "You have the starring role in this wonderful dream." Dream does become reality. Scruffy skin Against chilled skin as you umbrella The blanket over us and we settle on the beach. A gentle breeze waltzes over my skin. "No talking allowed." you whisper under the umbrella. Dreams are wonderful. Life's a bitch. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Elinor Rigby" by Karen Alkalay-Gut It was while she was sorting the laundry on Sunday morning that she noted that all of her panties were gone. There was nothing frilly about them, no sexy codes they adhered to - simple black cotton bikinis. No reason for anyone to want to add them to some amazing collection. Still they were not there. Not a pair remained. And where could they have vanished. The man who came to dinner last night left early, clicking his heels at the door. Had he visited the bathroom, rummaged through the hamper, stuffed his pockets with underwear? This is what we have come to, she said to the first drawer of her cupboard - propriety at dinner/ true passion alone in our beds - both for me and my guest. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Twilight Dancers" by William C. Burns, Jr. The soothing quiet descends with the twilight Hope rushes within the music I invite you to dance Gentle waves rise within tenderness painting the shore in shades of deeper hue Exquisite we dance descending into the dawn +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "What Gets Me" by Benjamin Parzybok The bungi parade slathers the sky with lavering trites. And creeps of luck philibuster floozies who bow and pay homage to polite punctuation adorned with beer speckles. I've got Ukulele poisoning and a Token Ocean-- and I prance through the town square in my shark fin underwear selling history for five bucks an era while a teaspoon of Barking pus follows at my heels. It's the par cool. It's the new wave. Don't be a fool--stay hip, park your soda and unzip. What gets me is-- Barking pure blue and billowing lines to the sky. Singing bow ties, dancing green eyes and law firms in bondage force fed french fries. Cucumbers that calculate the angles of innocence and Broccoli that sells the past for clever lies. But See, it's none of the above. It's the self-strangled love. Or the regret of a midnight egret circled in yellow yarn and not a sock to darn. What gets me is the soft cry that awakens demon hunger and the obscure moan that drives meaning asunder. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Wednesday Afternoon" by Lori Kline I give you a silent proposition. If I taste your sweetness, your thighs scented in dark fertile earth brushed with loam, your balls (which contain a sliding world) your cockwarm brightness, Will you taste my lips? You. Are utterly oblivious. Sliding pawns across smooth board. The dark points of lash & blue-jean colored eyes I would like to kiss, when you are contemplating casually, a rook's suicide, my body swells and leans to you. True somehow, my nipples have deviously devised a path... can nipples think? WE ARE AWARE! announcing themselves oh so stiff ly Chiefly because your nipples taste of ripe peaches between my teeth. Surprise me. Touch gleaming gold in my core. Sheen of silver against your tongue. Checkmate. Easily, eagerly now, give me the contemplation of your eyes- I am willing to be caught in your game. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "monet's old studio is a gift shop" by John Adam Kaune I received the dream of the six gardens: wandering the peculiarities of light - painting again the damp stacks of hay by the edge of the Seine, eating lunch. the old man's celebration of a simple pond of lilies - the reflection of long-armed willows hanging limp in remembrance of modernity. please, can i return to the studio now, so i can buy that small reproduction? thank you. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "The Judge" by Doctress Neutopia _Open Letter_ _Dear Geertjan,_ It is strange how some people I correspond with begin to mean something to me in my everyday thoughts. Our correspondence has done something like that to me. I guess it is a result of the things we talk about: the revolution, the lovolutionary character, the human bond. As of this moment, I must conclude that our bond is that of two like-minded individuals who are seeking truth and justice in a world founded on injustice and lies. You said that bonding doesn't necessarily have to be about love, but need. Now, the question is how do _we_ need each other? You are thousands of miles away in South Africa. I have never seen you or heard your voice; you are years younger than me. How could we possibly need each other? Obviously we don't need each other for our basic daily needs. So then, could it be that we need the psychological emotions and information that we receive through our letter exchange? Maybe I need your advice and your criticism helping me to focus on the positive energy and not succumb to cynicism and despair. Maybe I need to know that there are other people in the globe who feel as alienated from Western Culture as I do. Maybe that is all we can give each other since we live on different continents. Maybe all we can do is to exchange letters to help each other cope with living in a society which we know is slowing killing us. I have been thinking about your idea that the best thing for me to do with my life now would be to join a liberal cause, play their game of social reform and charity, and wait until the system falls apart to then be ready to take over a position to provide us with an alternative vision. The problem I have with that is that I have to play their reformist game for God knows how long. This means that I would not be taking the initiative and creating my own organization (religion) which I think could give us an alternative solution to the problem. The point is that I have tried to work with liberal groups in the past for one cause or another like the anti-apartheid group or the anti-nuclear group or the group for sustainable economics, but their visions are so specialized and focused that they are not able to see the depth of the social problems. They don't want to go to the root causes and then to fix them with radical solutions. Racism, classism, sexism, and ageism are spiritual diseases and they will only be solved by spiritual means which is why I have focused so much of my studies on the matter of the heart and soul. In _Power and Innocence_ Rollo May writes, "The breakdown of communication is a spiritual one." He says that words get their communicative power for the fact that they participate in symbols. This creates a Gestalt, a symbol gets a numinous quality which carries across to one some meaning from the emotions of another (75). Nelson Mandela became a powerful speaker who people listened to because he was a symbol of the liberation movement. Through the power of the symbol, Mandela was able to change the way people thought and to make them conscious of the injustice of apartheid. Let me say a few more words about following the liberal agenda. This summer I had a man (the Sheik) interested in forming a personal relationship with me. As a liberal working on an advanced degree in accounting, he could see the vast inequality with the world's wealth and understood that what was happening in the United States was that there was becoming two classes of people, the very rich who rule the networks of the global corporation, and the poor. The Sheik gave his money to liberal organizations. He wanted to make enough money in his life to be able to have time to be able to enjoy life: support a family, sail, take trips. He would listen to my ideas and seemed to appreciate what I had to say. I realized that we were not compatible because of our different perspectives on life when we took a walk through a grave yard one afternoon. We rested on a tree stump and before us was a large grave stone which read _JUDGE_ on it. There was a small American flag beside it as so many of the other stones had beside them to mark that they had been US war veterans. I playfully took the flag from the holder and dramatically ripped the flag from the stick and began using it as a primitive drawing tool. I began to sketch out something that looked like an Outerspace Creature from a UFO. The Sheik got very upset with me and demanded that I put the flag back in its proper place beside the grave. With a stern and, I must say, inhuman expression, he said that I was violating the rules by destroying the flag. I said that it was the wish of the dead that war, nationalism, and the plutocracy be stopped. To this end we should tear down all flags and bury them in the middle of the grave yard. The Sheik said that I would be breaking the law and that for him that was unacceptable behavior. He thought the laws of the United States were just and that it was the people's fault that they were not working. I said that I believed that the laws of the land were not fair since the only way to have freedom in America was if you had money to pay for it. The law protected the rich property owners and the United States did not stand for human rights. Through boycotting and civil disobedience to the laws were some of the ways I thought that we could work to change the injustice. But the Sheik thought it was always wrong to break the law and if the law was unjust the people must work through the system in order to change it. For him, working through the system was the only way to effect change. He thought any other way would lead to social anarchy. "What about the tactics of Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi?" I asked. "They broke the law in order to follow the Cosmic Law of human justice." The Sheik thought that was the same thing that the right wing had done in the Iran-Contra deals when Oliver North broke the laws because he thought he must support the war in Central America in order to protect American interests. I tried to explain to him that what the left-wing was doing was _not_ the same thing as that of the right-wing since they were struggling for completely different worldviews which were in opposition to one other. The right-wing were into greed, nuclear family values, and supported Corporate America. The left-wing was into (whether they know it or not) creating a new world based on universal health care, Neutopian actucation (the enactment of education), and rebuilding the cities into arcologies. The Sheik became very militaristic in his demands that I put the flag back. Even after I told him that I needed the stick in order to draw out a blueprint for Neutopia, he said he would not walk back to the house with me if I didn't follow his orders. So right there at the Judge's grave, I had to make up my mind as to whether or not to go on with his wish; after all, he as going to be an accountant and he _did_ find me, a poor artist, attractive; and we had "grinded pelvis" together. So I told him that I would follow his orders if he would listen to my speech about why I had this burning desire to burn every nation-state flag that I saw. There wasn't much lively energy from him at the time, so my speech basically consisted of me throwing the flag over my head. He then retrieved it and put it back on the stick and stuck it into the ground beside the _JUDGE_. We walked back to his apartment as he talked about world politics and the poverty stricken nations. We smoked some pot together (really, I am trying to quit) and then kissed and hugged each other. But the passion did not last long. I knew in my soul I was not a liberal---I didn't believe in the United States government or global capitalism. I kicked myself for again getting into bed with a man who I could not love because he would not join me in my lovolutionary crusade of building Neutopia. The next day we went to see Dr. Helen Caldicott speak at Smith College on nuclear waste dumps. Her vision of the future was a very grave one of families having to support children with severe genetic mutations (like no arms and legs) and a world where clean water, air, and soil were hard to find. She informed us that the food in Europe is contaminated with the poisons which resulted from the Chernobyl nuclear power accident. Oh no, I thought to myself. I bet I had eaten contaminated food when I was in the Soviet Union in 1989 when I took a trip there with my parents! Those poor Europeans! What are we to do? Helen asked the audience what we could do to change the situation. She believed we needed another American Revolution. She asked us how many of us were dedicated to ending nuclear power this year. Out of a couple of hundred people only about ten hands went up. My hand was one of those hands while the Sheik's had remain low. He had his excuse for not wanting to work to stop nuclear power. After all, he was a graduate student in accounting with much school work to do. He didn't have time to work on an anti-nuclear campaign while trying to finish up his degree. Without that degree, he thought he would not be able to buy the American standard of living, which Oliver North was fighting to protect. The last time I talked with the Sheik was over the telephone. He called me to invite me over to spend some time with him. He said that there was going to be a championship hockey game on TV that night and he wanted me to watch the game with him. He said that we could talk about ideas during the commercials. So I told him that I wasn't interested in hockey games and that my time was too valuable to spend in that way. After all, I had pledged to stop nuclear power and there was no time to waste. Geertjan, I hope that you can see what _kind_ of man I need. He is not a liberal, but a rebel. Rollo May writes, "For the rebel function is necessary as the life-blood of culture, as the very roots of civilization" (220). May makes a distinction between the rebel and the revolutionary which I feel is somewhat unnecessary. He says that the chief goal of the rebel is not to overthrow the government which, of course, she or he could also support, but what is more important is her or his commitment to the vision. He writes, We also note the startling regularity through history with which society martyrs the rebel in one generation and worships him [sic] in the next. Socrates, Jesus, William Blake, Buddha, Krisha--the list is endless as it is rich. If we look more closely at the first two, we shall see how the rebel typically challenges the citizenry with his [sic] vision" (224). The vision brings us out of the vicious circle of bloody revolutionary after bloody revolution. May continues, The slave who kills his master is an example of the revolutionary. He can then only take his master's place and be killed in turn by later revolutionaries. But the rebel is the one who realizes that the master is as much imprisoned, if not as painfully, as he is by the institution of slavery; he rebels against the system which permits slaves and masters. His rebellion, if successful, saves the master also from the indignity of owning slaves" (222). In today's world, the slave owners are the owners of Corporate America. Everyone who works for them are their slaves. In the recent issue of _Newsweek_ (July 11, 1994) Bill Gates, who they call the "Tech King" is described as a competitive, controlling, money-hungry plutocrat who wants to rule the world through his computer empire and his Microserfs. His vision is to "lure millions of people into Microsoft's lane of the coming Information Highway: home banking, home shopping, entertainment and electronic mail." Michael Meyer for _Newsweek_ writes, "The future, increasingly, is Hollywood: "edutainment," home videos, home everything." "Edutainment," a word they coined combining the words education and entertainment, all geared to brainwashing the minds of the youth with the principles of the Tech King: competition, materialism, and monotheism. The plutocratic vision is to make the Internet, not into an world community of love and knowledge, but to use it to sell Microserf products and to seduce us with their "edutainment." Now, do you think Bill Gates and his cult is concerned with the billion or so people throughout the world who don't have any homes? Do you think in his "master plan" he is planning out a way to create a world without poverty, a world based on compassionate justice? I don't think so. While I was visiting my parents in North Carolina last week there was a front page article printed in the _Greensboro News and Record_ (June 30, 1994) about the Grandover Resort, being developed by the Koury Corporation, which they describe as the "nation's first fully computer-integrated and automated community." Grandover will be composed of "two championship golf courses, 14 championship tennis courts, golf and tennis clubs, a health club, a 900-room conference center and hotel, retail villages and restaurants." There will also be 2,000 single-family homes-- generally selling for $300,000 and up. Easy to use touch screens will allow residents to access "a variety of entertainment, communications and building automations." It sounds like paradise for the rich, right? To keep out all those poor, begging intruders, the computer will control sophisticated security systems (programmed to kill any foreign intruders). So the feudal kings are beginning to rebuild their castle fortresses while half the world is starving to death. Bill Gates and his Microserfs do not have the saving vision. The saving vision must be a plan to save everyone. I see a different kind of global culture, Neutopia, being built from the fruits of advanced technology and the wisdom of ecology. Through virtual reality, a new kind of community is evolving. New kinds of human relationships are coming together as people begin to bond to common interests, through email, listserves, Usenet newsgroups, etc. As you have said in a previous letter, I am not a prototype for feeling alienation from Western civilization. There are people all over the world who feel the same alienation, isolation, and loneliness as I do. Those of us who are online now have a way to reach each other. We now can band together in virtual space. But is this the community that we need? Can we live happy lives in a virtual world where we don't need to physically touch the people who we love? When we, peace comrades, are so spread out all over the capitalist world, is virtual space the only thing that we can hope for? All I can say to this is that it is difficult to live strictly in one's dream world and imagination. It is difficult to have virtual lovers in only the mind and not in the flesh. Geertjan, I don't really know what the answer is. I don't feel like a free person, but a slave, powerless to change my polluted environment, powerless to move beyond the single-family house, powerless to follow my dreams and make them real. I have no desire to follow the liberal cause, but to start an organization of Neutopian thinkers who can also see their unique way to the Solar Jerusalem. I don't have all the pieces to the puzzle of life. How to start a mass movement so that we will have the energy and enthusiasm to build arcologies is still a mystery to me. This is the saving vision I see for the world, but how to get there? Without true love in my life, I feel that I am blind. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Disclaimer" by Michael A. Simanoff Warning: This story has no moral. It has very little literary value. It tells a strand of a story, barely, and if you tug very hard you might find a point. You will not find this story in a textbook one day. Nor will it ever be the subject of scholarly debate. This story has no context. The background is a piece of paper- maybe even a computer screen. The only literary devices used are language and form, but you are advised not to ask how. In fact, you ought not to read this. Just lean back and look at the pretty letters. Maybe even have a drink. Turn on the TV. Expect very little and you won't be disappointed. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "You can meditate in this mess?" by Michael Stutz I asked me going into my dirty room all clothes every- where and boxes -- So I sat down and got in the lotus position. Yeah, I said, watching me sit down and I did. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Room" by Karen Alkalay-Gut I would like to be photographed naked in this room parts of my body shading parts of these stones a foot on concrete arm along the arch breast pressed to the wallstones In the depths of this darkness the spears of sharp, real light, I would like my naked body documented. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "What lengths must my children go to rebel when I'm 50" by Dave Zappala I can see it now I'll be a successful door-to-door existentialist and at one point my children would have refered to me as 'dada' and I would have sterilized their wounds with a painful, burning solution, so they could feel it working and I'll vote religiously and my wife will be president and our first cat would be able to defy gravity hovering around the living room like that I'll be crazed and happy, riding my bicycle around town collecting treasures and offering bites off my sandwiches Harvey, of course, will be gluing cherrystone clams together in a big ball and dropping it off the roof every March 9th. Ahh Bliss. One great orgasmic sneeze. So what could my sweaty teenagers do to undermine my society? get boring, get serious, get symbolic get,get,get, get,get, get Fah! I used to run around spinning a peach basket over my head because everything looked like an old movie and I used to come home and my mother wouldn't believe my story of how I got splinters in my shoulders. Nothing mattered much then when DuPont kept exploding like that rattling and breaking dishes, a crack down every ceiling in town people died then and the rest died a year after they retired my older brother thought there was a war with DuPont and I fell onto a floor scattered with Leggos however I have no Leggo scars to show I'll be prepared on all sides for their adolescent angst >From that damned music and their drop-out friends except for one thing... That damned food in their hair Kidney beans, sauces, and other condiments just rotting and dried into their stiff locks No, they just get into the car spend more money to symbolize the waste of our system Maybe I should've slapped 'em around They were always strange They had to be the kid who would eat anything for a nickel when they could've at least got a dime. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Between the Hiatus" by Maree Anne Jaeger You would bang at the closed blue lids of my silence While, in this makeshift womb Dionysus, Orpheus and others were trying to ripen. Between the hiatus; gossamer lines stretched around houses over oceans somehow still joined like stars strung out thinly on my night sky. Between the hiatus; I would look at you and separate your yolk from my white. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "speaking of the secret" by Karen Alkalay-Gut (with thanks to T'ai Dang) I Karen of the book manufactured by an increasingly sophisticated story teller who believes each legend and builds sequels sometimes changing even the creation myth - and beginning again II The switched valise in Victoria Station a romance manuscript in place of the child -- text growing organically III Who are you? Tell me your story No. Smile and be silent. I'll make it up myself IV My man never gives me such stark facts, threads his tongue in my mouth. V I want to tell you the truth I want to look good. The two are incompatible. VI I see you dancing a tiny man naked in white light everything about you is ink +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Custer is not here" by John Adam Kaune I stand in a crowd - listening to interpreters tell us of the loss - all around us is Lament. old men circle the guide telling him of their great- great-grandfather's uncle twice removed. Custer is not here. he's laying low at West Point. the irony escapes them - WWII & Vietnam vets can claim a part of this sacred soil - to tell the passing public of their want for proximity to the mass grave once removed. Atop the hill where the ants scurry to and fro with Panasonic camcorders. "take a still picture," I think, "for this in no time will move." your memory of it hangs dry in your mind. I myself, I'm just a wandering Canadian who happens to study the history of this anomaly known as America. so they tell me "they worship him 'cause he lost big time." led his men to death. screwed up. don't know why. that hangs heavy in my ears as I pass through two-dimensional towns of the Cheyenne reserve lands to the forest named after this in/famous man. It has long since burnt, as did the fields of Little Bighorn - to show the remains. To show the remains. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Pool Night" by Leland Ray It's late afternoon, I'm waiting for the girl to arrive, and the cat is helping me make up the bed. The bed is too close to the wall and to the dresser at the foot, so when I need to go around it to stretch the fitted sheet up to the head I have to bend over the bed with my back to the dresser to avoid the windowsill next to the dresser. The cat watches until I'm balanced in this somewhat uncomfortable position, not quite leaning over enough to fall forward onto the bed, and then she jumps onto the bed near the foot, dead center, holding the sheet down to the mattress. When I pull on the corner of the sheet she tries to catch the wrinkles as they float away from her like waves. This action of hers, this lying on the bed, will leave a wrinkled place on the sheet which will stay where she is now; I want the sheet to be completely, perfectly straight, flat, the Navaho pattern laid out as precisely as if it were a sand painting. I worry about the wrinkled spot even though another sheet and a comforter will go over the sheet. I say "Shoo" to the cat, whose name is Murphy, and she looks up at me and meows. She's smiling, I think. I say it louder and make a shooing motion with the backs of my hands toward her, and she explodes off the bed and out of the room; I decide I was foolish to arrange the furniture like this, and of the two bedrooms this is the smaller, and why didn't I go ahead and set up the larger as a bedroom instead of as a combination library and office? She doesn't bother me again, and I hear her in the hallway playing with her gray catnip mouse; the bell on its tail tinkles, and when the doorbell rings I stand there by the bed and wonder how she got the little round bell to sound so loudly and rapidly. The confusion passes, and I go to the door of the house which I rented when my wife and I divorced. As I walk to the door I imagine the house as it must look from an airplane: the small house with a pool in the back taking up the entire backyard and the tall wooden privacy fence around the pool; the front yard stretching out to the blacktop road in front; the driveway leading down to the road and the two large mimosa trees in the yard, one on either side of a cast-iron loveseat painted red. At the door is my daughter Mandy. The afternoon sun frames her in the doorway, and when I stand back from the door to let her in I can see the outline of her body through the light cotton dress she wears. "Hi, Daddy," she says, and I stand for a second looking at her before answering. "Hey, baby," I say, and she lets me hug her and kiss her on the crown of her head; her hair is long enough to reach her slender hips. "I didn't expect to see you today." When I say this she looks confused until I add, "But it's always good to have you visit," and then she smiles and goes over to the sofa to sit down. Her shoulders are tanned and lightly freckled. I worry about her, that she is too beautiful, that some man will hurt her, that she is sexually active already. Mandy is seventeen, almost eighteen, a young woman just graduated from high school and taking the summer off before college in the fall. "Are you okay, Daddy? You look like you've got something on your mind." "I was fixing up the house a little. I have company coming tonight." I sit down in the comfortable armchair which sits at an angle to the sofa. She leans forward with her hands on her knees and the neckline of her dress falls open a bit, and I can see the upper swell of her breasts. "Hot date, huh?" she says, and I wonder if it's appropriate for me as her father to mention to her that I think she should be wearing a bra under such a sheer dress. Her mother takes care of her, I think, and then I feel better. No less protective, just less worried. "Yes. A date," I say. "She'll be here in a little while." "Good for you. I'm glad you're trying to have a social life." She looks at me and smiles. "Mom and I were afraid you'd lock yourself up out here and never do anything." When she says this I think how much I love her and her mother and wish we could have stayed together. "What brings you all the way out here?" I ask. "Just want to see your dad?" "Yeah, mostly. And to give you a message from Mom. She says you still need to sign those papers for me to get into school." I am a history professor at a small university. It is an exclusive place, very expensive. They allow the children of tenured faculty to attend school for half tuition, and I have to sign a paper which states, among other things, that this is my daughter, and yes, that I love her, that I claim her as my own. "I haven't signed them, but I will, and you can take them with you," I say. I have forgotten about the papers, as if signing them is an avowal that I have wondered about the heritage of this beautiful young woman or ever doubted my love for her. "I'll get them for you," I say. I go back to the larger of the two bedrooms and rummage through the student papers on the desk; the forms I must sign are under an essay by Monica Dodd, a sophomore in one of my just completed spring classes. I look at the paper, which is about George Washington's expense accounts. I sign the form which claims, certifies, declares, states that I love my daughter. I sign in triplicate for the academic advisement office, the business office, the dean's office, then fold the papers lengthwise and walk back to my daughter in the living room. The cat is sitting in Mandy's lap when I return, and Mandy is scratching the cat's ears. "Nice kitty," Mandy says, though I am not sure whether she is addressing me or the cat. "How long have you had her?" "A couple of weeks," I say. "She was an orphan, I think. I got her at the animal shelter." They have many cats there of all kinds, I want to tell my daughter, and she can have one if she wants. I will take her there to pick out a cat. "She's sweet," Mandy says. The cat looks up at her and smiles. "What's her name?" "Name? I haven't given her a name yet," I say. "What do you think?" "Scarlett. Like Scarlett O'Hara." She rubs the cat's head and makes kissing noises. "How do you like that for a name, Scarlett-kitty?" The cat doesn't seem to care one way or another, so I say, "That's a good name. It fits her personality to a t. Yes, to a t." I hope the cat hasn't gotten used to Murphy yet, but it is my daughter's wish that the cat be called Scarlett. I have the papers still; Mandy reaches over and takes them. "I've got to go, Daddy. Kevin's taking me to a movie tonight and I have to get ready." She stands up and the cat jumps down. Mandy brushes black cat hair off her white cotton dress. "I'll see you in a few days. Maybe at school, huh?" "It's too late to start the summer session," I say. I want her to stay and talk to me, my only child who is growing up too fast for me to bear. "I was going to be over there for the Earlybird orientation next week. And besides, I can drop in and see you at the office, can't I? Just because I want to?" I hadn't thought of this, how she could just want to see me, and I am glad. "Sure," I say. She reaches out to give me a hug, then kisses me on the cheek. I ask, "Do you need any money? For clothes or anything?" It seems a silly gesture, superficial somehow, but it is all I can offer her except my love, and she has that. "No, but thanks anyhow. Mom and I went out three times in the last couple of weeks and bought clothes. All I'm going to need is books, and Mom says I could ask you about those." "Certainly," I say. Books. I want to be a daily part of her life again, but all I can do is buy books. "Well," I say. "Well," she says, and then she is gone. The cat tries to follow her out, but I stop her by putting my foot out, and she shies away from the foot and goes back to her food dish in the kitchen. I hear the crunching of the hard dry food. She is a good cat; I should be better to her. Just as I'm hearing the crunching from the kitchen and the whine of Mandy's car leaving, the little foreign sports car I bought for her last year, there is a knock at the door, and I am standing right there, so I open the door and there is Monica Dodd, sophomore. "Hello, Dr. Lear," she says. "I hope I'm not too early, but you said seven-ish." She is a pretty girl, and while I am not in the habit of inviting students, especially pretty female students, into my home, I did invite her here for dinner. She did well in my class, except for missing classes on Fridays when the sun was bright and the weather warm. Younger students will go out and socialize on Fridays, beginning the weekend early. This was Monica's problem, her only one, scholastically speaking. I hold the door for her. "I'm glad you could make it," I say. "Did you have any trouble finding the house?" "You gave good directions. No problem at all." She is wearing tight, very short cutoff blue jeans and a peasant-style cotton top much like the top of the dress which my daughter was wearing. "I met your daughter on my way in," Monica says. "Does she go to college?" "Would you like something to drink?" I ask. "She's starting in the fall," I say. "Do you have some white wine? I love white wine." I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator and push aside mayonnaise and the pot of soup I cooked a few days ago. Lying on its side against the back wall on the top shelf is part of a bottle of Zinfandel, which I remove and open. I take two glasses and return to the living room. Monica has found a piece of string and is trying to get the cat's attention. When I walk in Monica looks up at me and the cat strikes with a forepaw. Scarlett the cat catches the string and runs away to hide behind the couch. "Ouch," Monica says. A bright drop of blood grows on her forefinger. "She got me," Monica says and puts the finger in her mouth and sucks hard on it. The girl is not seriously hurt, but while I search the bathroom for disinfectant and bandages I wonder whether the cut can get infected and worry about my homeowner's liability coverage. In the living room again with Band-Aids and peroxide and a tube of something which is advertised to speed healing of small wounds, I attempt to administer first aid, but do a poor job it; I ruin one bandage when the tape falls across the gauze pad and cannot be removed. "Let me do this," Monica says, "and you can get me a glass of wine." I pour the wine into glasses. "It'll kill the pain," she says, and smiles. I give her a glass. Her finger shows a neat pink band of sterilized plastic. "I'm sorry about the cat. She hasn't gotten used to people yet." Monica sips her wine, the bandaged finger sticking out like a rebuke. "Don't worry. We have six cats at home, and sometimes they do these things." She shifts the glass to her uninjured hand and holds the finger up to look at it. "They usually don't mean anything by it." "Okay. If you're not worried, that is." I, of course, am worried. I worry about her getting an infection, about a lawsuit over the infection, about the regents discovering that a forty year-old professor has invited a nineteen-year-old female student to his home for dinner and wine. I worry about my daughter, who is just two years younger. Soon she will be living away from home, and the world is full of dangers which I can warn her about. "So do I get a guided tour of the house?" Monica asks. She stands up and holds the wineglass close against her chest and begins to look around the room. "There's not much to see. It's a small house." The house is a long-term lease from a friend in the English Department who has moved to Africa, where he is teaching Kenyan students about James Joyce and William Faulkner. He still makes payments on the house, and I reimburse him each month. People have asked why I do not go ahead and buy the house, but I cannot tell them the answer. Perhaps I am looking for something else, perhaps not. I do not know, but my problem may be that buying a house would be an admission of failure in my marriage. I do not know. "I thought we could barbecue some steaks for dinner," I say. "Neat. Lead on." We go out into the backyard, where I have already prepared the gas grill and have the steaks in an ice chest next to the grill. The steaks are marinating in teriyaki sauce and a little garlic. "I didn't tell you about the pool, did I?" I ask. She seems impressed by the pool. She goes to a lounge chair and sits on the edge sipping her wine. "No, you didn't. If I'd known I could have brought a suit." She is pretty, with long red hair tied at the back in a loose ponytail, and her eyes are green, much like the cat's. "I thought my daughter could have friends over," I say. I turn away from her and open the grill. "How do you like your steak?" "Medium-well, I guess. I'm not much into meat." I turn back to her. "We could go out, if you like. Or there's salad. Lots of salad. A big bowl." She laughs and shakes her head. "I live in the dorm, and the meat there is soybean. It's really gross. I love steak." She stands up. "Mind if I get another glass of wine?" She holds the glass out; it's nearly empty. "Sure, it's in the refrigerator." She starts toward the sliding door, then stops and turns. "Would you like something?" Her cutoffs are short, and in the late-afternoon light I can see very fine reddish-blond hairs on her thighs glowing like tiny fires. "No." I hold up my glass, which I've barely touched. "There's a bottle of something in the cabinet under the sink." She stands there looking at me. "I think the corkscrew is in the silverware drawer," I say. "Okay," she says, and leaves into the house. The grill is easy to use. Turn on the gas and get the heavy cast-iron grill part hot, then put on the steaks. But for some reason tonight it won't start. I use up half a box of matches before I realize the gas is barely on, so I reach down and open the valve on the tank a little further. This cures the problem, and when Monica gets back the fire is started and I'm getting the steaks out of the plastic container in the ice chest. Below the ice are twelve cans of beer which I bought earlier in the day. "Why don't I put this on ice and then we won't have to go inside until it's time to eat," she says. She's got a bottle of Burgundy and the corkscrew. "Burgundy doesn't need to be too cool," I say. "But it's so warm outside it wouldn't hurt to put it on top of the ice." "You've got beer, too," she says when she kneels down to put the wine away. Her legs are strong and well-shaped. She's a beautiful girl. "Yeah. The beer. I didn't know what you'd like, and then I forgot it was here until I got the steaks out." She stands up and looks at me. "You're not going to try getting me drunk, are you, David?" She must understand from my return look that this is not the case, because then she winks and says, "I was just kidding. You wouldn't do something like that, would you?" "No," I say, but if the regents found out about Monica's visit, this would be the first thing on their minds. "I just figured you're used to beer at parties and things," I tell her. The steaks are beginning to sizzle, and this gives me the opportunity to check them with the long-tined fork. "Yeah, beer's okay, but wine's sort of . . . more sophisticated, somehow." "I like wine, but I don't drink much of it. It's for company." The two bottles have been here for over two months; I opened the Zinfandel two weeks ago and drank it with a microwave dinner. "The white's been opened for a while," I say. "How is it?" She sits on the lounge chair again. "I wouldn't know if it's good or not, really. I don't drink it too often." "The steaks will be ready in a little bit," I say. "If you'll watch them for just a minute I'll go get the salad. Unless you'd like to eat inside, that is." "It's nice out here. Let's stay." Inside I get the salad bowl and set it on the kitchen counter. The cat jumps up and puts her nose to the plastic wrap covering the top, and I say "No, kitty. No, Scarlett," and the cat looks at me and meows. I get her some dry food from the cabinet above the sink and pour some into her bowl. She jumps down and sniffs at the food, then looks up at me and opens her mouth as if she's going to say something, but she doesn't. The phone rings, and it startles me. I get the wall phone and answer, "Lear residence." "Daddy? I just wanted to call and ask if everything was okay." "Sure, baby. Things are fine. Why should you worry?" I feel good to think she's concerned about me, but her tone makes me feel like a child. "I was just wondering," she says. There's another voice on her end, in the background, and she says something soft which I don't catch. "I met your friend when I was there a little while ago. She's kind of young, isn't she?" "She's not a student, if that's what you're thinking," I say. I am not lying to her. Monica is an ex-student now. "We're just about to have dinner, in fact." I realize I'm not making much sense, but I don't want my daughter talking to me right now. "I thought you and Kevin had a date tonight. What happened?" I ask. "We're here at the house. Mother offered to cook dinner, and then we're going to play Monopoly or something." "That's good. In fact, if I don't get outside and check the steaks we'll have to go out to eat, so I'd better let you get back to what you were doing." The cat has wandered off somewhere, and I want to go ahead and get the salad outside. "Be careful, Daddy." "I will, baby. Tell your mother hello for me." "She knows I called you. She doesn't hate you, you know?" There's a plaintive quality to her voice when she says this, and I am sorry all over for not being with them. I want to apologize somehow, but I do not know how. For the last two years of my marriage I had trouble communicating with my wife, and Mandy was trapped in the position of mediator and messenger, always having to translate for us. "I'm glad you told her. I don't want you to have to feel guilty about being in touch with me." I think she's crying, but maybe it's just something in the line. "And if you want to come out here with your friends or anything," I say, "you can use the pool for a party or something." "I'd like that, Daddy. Take care, huh? Please?" "I will." I make a kissing noise into the receiver, only it comes out like a slurp. "Bye, honey," I say, and the line goes dead. I hang up before the dial tone starts and stack paper plates and salad dressing on a tray with the bowl of salad. When I get outside, Monica is sitting on the edge of the pool dangling her legs in the water. She looks up and says, "The steaks smell good. I'm starved." She stands, and I see that water runs down in droplets off her calves, to her ankles, to the tops of her feet. She sees me looking. "It was so warm, and the water felt so good. You don't mind, do you?" She is truly a beautiful girl. In class she was always quiet, but when I asked questions she was quick with answers. "Not a bit. I mean, not at all. That's why the pool is here." "Let's eat," she says. There is a small picnic table under the awning by the back door, and we sit there to eat. I turn on the bug zapper and it glows blue, begins almost immediately to snap and pop with the tiny gnats and mites which fly into its grill. As we eat our salads I have a momentary fantasy about being a bug drawn into the machine, and I wonder whether they feel pain. While I think this I look up at Monica sitting there across from me, her jaws working gently on lettuce and tomato and radishes. "I'll get the steaks," I say. The grill has been off during salad, but the meat is still hot, and I serve the small t-bones on paper plates. Monica cuts off a small piece and holds it on the fork in front of her lips, purses them, and blows on the meat, as if blowing a kiss, then puts the piece in her mouth and chews with her eyes closed. "It's perfect," she says. The expression on her face says this is so. She cuts more and eats, and we don't talk, we just eat and sip wine and look up at each other occasionally. I finish my steak first. "Would you like something else? I could run down to the store and get some pie or ice cream." She is just finishing, dabbing at her lips with a paper napkin. "I'm not prepared so well. I'm not used to company." She stands and begins stacking up the paper plates. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable," she says. "I'll go do the dishes." She giggles. "Pour us a glass of wine. Sit down and relax. I'm not running off." I start to protest, but she touches my shoulder and nudges me in the direction of the lounge chairs. When she's gone I pour wine and leave her glass on the table. I sit down and watch the water. The outdoor lights have come on, and they glow softly. Insects flit in and out of the light like tracer bullets in a war movie. The lights are small, more for atmosphere than illumination, I suppose. They highlight the pebbles imbedded in the concrete around the pool, but then the lights go off, leaving only the glow of the pool's underwater lights. I start to rise, but Monica comes out and gets the glass of wine from the table. She sits in the lounge next to me. She tilts her glass back and takes a long sip. "I found the light switch," she says. "I always liked the way a pool shines at night." "I sit out here sometimes and watch the water. It's very peaceful," I say. There are a few small, white clouds moving in from the east, and I wonder if it's going to rain. "I hoped my daughter Mandy and her friends would come out and use the pool." "I know," she says. I look at her. "You mentioned that before, David." "Yes." As I answer I have a momentary thought of Mandy and her friends from the high school splashing in the water of the pool, while her mother and I sit back and watch them, then we get up to serve sodas and sandwiches. "I'm not thinking too well lately," I say. "Or maybe it's just the wine." She stretches, her arms extended fully like a cat's legs when it's getting up from a nap, and the cotton blouse rides back up over her shoulders, then goes back into position when her arms are down. "I feel . . . delicious," she says. "The water felt really good earlier. I'd love a swim." I look at the water. The surface is calm, broken only by the slight breeze blowing over the wooden privacy fence. "It's too bad you don't have a suit," I say. "And besides, you should never swim on a full stomach." "I wouldn't worry, David. You're here." Before I can answer, she's standing up, and she walks to the edge of the pool. "You keep the pool really clean," she says. "It's a lot of work, isn't it?" "I suppose," I say. "I keep it clean in case my daughter wants to come by and swim." Her shoes, white docksiders, are already off and lying by her chair; she dips one foot into the water, swishing it back and forth, and hugs herself, as if she's cold. She looks back toward me. "It feels wonderful," she says. She turns around again and stands for a moment moving her foot back and forth in the water. "You could come here and use the pool this summer," I say. "Maybe I'll do that," she says. "If you think it's okay, that is." She at me again and smiles, then she reaches down and unbuttons her cutoffs and pushes them down and steps out of them. She throws them toward me, and they land on the far side of the chair she's been using. I sit and watch, unable to say anything as she pulls the blouse over her head and throws it at me. She sits on the edge of the pool with her legs in the water and pulls off her blue panties, then she slides off into the water. It's the shallow end, and the water comes up to just above her navel. Her breasts are small, and her nipples are erect. "Put these with my things, please?" she says, and throws the panties. They land halfway between the pool and my chair. I go and pick them up and hold them, stand there watching her as she sinks into the water. Her hair trails off behind in a fluid mass, like a Portuguese man-o'-war. She reaches back and does something to it, and then her ponytail is gone and the hair spreads out across the water as she sinks deeper, until the water is at her lower lip. "I'm going to do some laps," she says. "Wait for me, huh?" I sit down again and pick up my glass. It's empty, and I look into it for a moment, contemplating whether I want more. Monica's body cuts the water in smooth strokes, her hair flying straight out behind her. She makes three laps, then reaches the opposite end and stops, resting her arms on the edge. "Would you like for me to stay here tonight?" she says to the wooden fence in front of her. Her voice seems larger in the enclosed yard, as if it were a small room. "That wouldn't be a very good idea," I say, and I wonder whether she can hear me. My voice sounds small and tense. "I like you, David. I wanted you to ask me out months ago." "And I like you, too, Monica. But it wouldn't be right, you see. I'm a professor. You might take another of my classes sometime." She turns and swims back, then hoists herself up to the edge. She sits and draws her legs up and puts her arms around them. "I won't. I don't need any more history." She begins to wring out her wet hair. "Could you bring me a towel? I'm getting cold." I get a large bath towel from the bathroom cabinet and go back. She's lying back in the lounge chair, watching the cat as she stands poised at the edge of the pool, looking into the water. The cat dips a paw into the water, then takes it out and shakes the water off. She begins to lick at the paw and bathe her face. Monica is rubbing the rim of her wineglass with a finger, and the glass gives off a high-pitched sound. She dampens the finger and tries again, but nothing happens. I hand her the towel, and she turns, putting her legs over the side of the chair. She sits up and starts drying her hair, flattening the hair between layers of the towel and pulling it down to the end. "Sit down, David," she says. "I'll be dry in a minute. Then we can go inside." I sit and watch her; the cat comes over and starts rubbing on my leg. I reach down to pet her, and she rubs her head against my hand. She's purring. She enjoys what I'm doing, but then she seems to get bored and goes off into the house. "This isn't a good idea at all, Monica," I say. She stops drying her hair and holds the towel up by a corner in front of her. "Come dry my back, David?" I begin to stand, but hesitate. In the light from the pool her skin is darker, and its dampness shines like polished marble. "I haven't been near a woman in months, Monica. I think I'm afraid of you." "Are you worried that someone will accuse you of sleeping with a student to change a grade, David? Do you think this is about a silly grade?" I don't want to admit my thoughts; Monica should have been an "A" student, but her attendance was spotty during the last two months of the semester. "No, of course not," I say. "I'm just nervous is all. You're a lot younger than I am." She holds the towel against her chest, patting herself dry, but the warm air has nearly done the job for her. "I'm just confused, is all," I say. She stands and holds out her hand. "Don't be. Let's go inside." She leads me into the house, and inside the door I stop long enough to turn off the pool lights. I'm nervous when we get to the bedroom; Monica turns off the lights and turns down the sheets I placed so carefully on the bed, and then I lie down while she undresses me. When she guides me into her I seem inept, like a frightened teenager, but Monica knows what to do. Afterwards, when Monica is asleep, I lie awake listening to her, and to the cat playing with the catnip mouse I bought after I got her from the shelter. Monica stirs, and I feel her looking at me in the darkness. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" I kiss her forehead in much the same way I would kiss my daughter. "It was nice," I say. She puts her arms around me and draws me close. "You're a nice person, David. I like you a lot." She burrows her head into my chest and scratches my back lightly with her nails. I try to remember if they are polished or plain. "And don't worry about my grade in your class," she says. "If you want to change it that's okay." We lie there until she goes to sleep, and in the early morning I get up and take the cordless phone out to the pool and sit there watching the rectangular blackness of it. I feel the cat rubbing against my leg, and then she's gone, and I hear a soft splash and then the rhythmic churning of her feet as she swims. When it's light enough to see the buttons on the phone I dial Mandy's number at her mother's house, the house the three of us shared until a few months ago. When she comes on the line I say her name over and over, perhaps a dozen times until she's awake, and I say, "Mandy, thanks for being concerned about me. I'll be all right. Everything will be all right." She says something in return, and her voice sounds worried, though I can't make out the words exactly. I want to understand what it is she's saying, as if knowing this is the most important thing in my life, and I listen, trying to comprehend what is wrong with me. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "The Strawberry Blond" by Edward J. Austin She moved into the pagoda bus-shelter where I had stood alone. She moved slowly, casually, as if she'd just returned from a summer stroll down a shady country lane. She wore a bright yellow dress and held her belongings--a purse, two magazines, and a small, cordovan portfolio--as a school-girl might, with both arms and against the cushion of her abdomen. But she was no teenager. Rather, she had that young office-girl look about her: too much make-up beneath the cheekbones; long, slender nails, darkly painted to hide the plastic; and strawberry blond hair that had been whipped and sprayed into broad, staunch curls. The nails got to me, though. More than the dress that held her closely and reached to mid-calf. More than the mature hips and abundant bosom. Even more than the pleasant, but mildly vacant expression of her face. To me, to a thirty-two year-old Indian with a freshly recreated life, the nails shrieked accusations of affectation and superficiality. They overwhelmed my thoughts, as well as my libido. I leaned against a large, brass banister that surrounded the three glass walls of the structure, and I held a grocery sack containing canned soup and Wheat Thins, herbal teas and toilet bowl cleaner. The sweat from my four-mile hike after work--first to the hair-cutter's, then to Bag-N-Save, then to the bus stop downtown--had soaked my shirt, except for the tops of my shoulders. And the residue from the haircut, the sharp-edged clip- pings, dug into my neck where the collar rubbed my skin. I felt conspicuous and uncomfortable. Then, I thought about the strawberry blond and her airs. She looked cool. But I knew that farther down, beneath the burden of her costume and mask, she was languid from the heat. I thought about her nails once more, then, about her hairdo, which hadn't budged under the humid breeze. I thought about the make-up, and her panty-hose--intended to add color where there was none. A put-up job, I told myself. Quickly, irrefutably, I judged her scope and dimension. I scanned and reviewed her future and past. She became a character in one of my stories: Pretty, but slightly overdone, I thought. Probably aged twenty-nine to thirty-two--although her face looked five years younger. Most likely spends her day on the telephone, or directing company visitors. Does minimal typing and has moderate difficulty with the office software. Enjoys flirting with the unattached men of the department, but has a semi-employed boyfriend named Bruno--or perhaps ZACH-- whose principal pastimes are flexing his muscles in the mirror and adjusting the carburetor of his pick-up. (Which he can't seem to get quite right.) She wishes that life was easier for her eight year-old son and herself, but is determined to hang-on until Mr. Right comes along to fix it all--to make it wonderful. She'd sat down on the wooden bench that was behind and to my right. The bench, in its shallow glass alcove, was a favorite spot of Omaha's drunks and transients--especially during the chilly months, since its doorway faced the south and the shelter was partially warmed by a quartz heater. She sat very properly, with her head held high and her spine perfectly aligned. She sat near the edge of the bench, and I assumed that it was to limit the area of contamination. I turned my head, and crouched behind a wall of phony indifference. I stared in the opposite direction and pretended to be deep in thought, pretended to be hard-hearted and streetwise, pretended that my shell was impervious to the effects of light, sound, and time. But I listened. I heard her sigh and place her things on the bench, then, she crossed her nyloned legs and smoothed the fabric of her dress. I heard the clasp of her handbag open, then, the rustle of paper money being removed and folded into her lap. I heard her sniffle, and afterward, the sound of cosmetic containers jostling as she dug for a tissue. A bus roared away from the corner preceding ours, and I was forced to turn toward her as I checked its number. She sat primly, with her pale hands clasped atop her knees. Her smile was pleasant and seemingly carefree--the pretty little smile of one whose people have seized Canaan--but I deliberately avoided eye-contact. Still, I felt the heat of her attention on the left side of my face. And as I sought the number of the approaching bus, I imagined the sound of her snippy voice as it sighed, then, wondered aloud why she had to be stuck in the same enclosure with a sweaty Indian. I gave her a stern glance, then shifted the weight of the sack from one thigh to the other. At least I'm not drunk and hustling you for change, I thought. Like that other life, I recalled, when I was so desperate for sweet oblivion that I might have considered the odds of a successful downtown purse-snatch. Then, I wondered whether she had ever felt hopeless, lost, and alone. Not because Bruno--or _ZACH_--had laughed at the outcome of a box-perm, but because of something real. The bus slowed to a crawl as it neared our corner, and when neither of us stepped out to the curb, the driver mashed down on the throttle. The diesel's belts shrieked and the eruption of exhaust blew a fierce cloud of grit from the gutter. "Oh darn!" she cried. Her volume was feeble compared to that of the bus. And as the engine rattled windows in the next block, I turned and flashed her my favorite maintenance-man expression: one containing exasperation and incredulity. The same one that I sometimes give to barefoot co-workers who've locked their shoes in their filing cabinets, or to obese dietitians who've lost their money in the candy machines. She leaned forward and watched the bus halt at the next corner, then, made two tiny fists and brought them down meekly against her knees. "Oh darn!" I could just imagine my Dad's reaction: (Doubled over and laughing.) "Did you see that silly bitch? She sat on her dead-ass while the bus went by! Then, when it's a mile down the street, she looks up and says (imitating a squeaky white woman), 'oh darn'. Lord A' Mighty! That bitch is crazy!" "Was that a fifteen?" she asked me. A charming voice, I thought, and imploring eyes. The air of glib self-confidence that she'd arrived with suddenly evaporated. She became girlish and helpless. "No," I told her, wearily. "Oh, good," she said, smiling once more. Well, that was simple, I thought. The Earth had been righted; bliss restored. I wondered what her response might have been had I said, "Oh? You wanted that one? You just sat there like a lump." But, I guessed that it would have ruined her evening. I imagined her telling Bruno as they lay in bed: "I had a wonderful day, but a sweaty Indian ruined it all by being mean to me." I placed my sack on the ground and folded my arms across my stomach. I felt the roll of flab that had never gone away, despite gross malnutrition and radical loss of muscle-mass. Then, the back of my neck began to itch and I couldn't scratch it. Self-consciousness and the dread of hearing another disparaging comment in my mind kept me frozen. Quickly, I wondered if the white chickens were ever curious about the effects of the barnyard on the black ones--or the red ones. On the bench, the woman uncrossed her legs, releasing a distinctly feminine scent. Then, she turned sideways and began tapping her finger-tips on the glass of the alcove. Outside, stood a pair of very fat, very black, women; each wore outrageously printed shorts, sleeve-less tops, and tired canvas slip-ons. They spoke with grand emphasis, often standing with hands on broad hips, seeming to swell even greater as they struggled to make a particular point, or rhythmically swaying in soulful agreement, as they matched one another's body language. And near the knee of one, stood a beautiful, honey-brown baby girl that looked to be only a couple of years old. The baby smiled, extravagantly, at the strawberry blond, then giggled and hugged her mother's knee. I watched the blond lean farther, nearer to the glass and the child, seemingly indifferent to any loss of dignity. She tapped the glass and waved playfully, then made smooching sounds. And the baby moved closer, as well, smiling joyously, displaying a pair of bright, white teeth in front. She released her mother's leg and rapped against the glass with a chubby fist, giggling, trembling, and rolling her head in wild circles. And the blond leaned even closer, laying down on her left elbow. Unexpectedly, the baby kissed the glass, then burst into laughter. Still on her side, the woman looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. I couldn't help but smile back. I was swept-up by their emotion. So enamored were the pair, that they made me forget myself and own mask. I forgot the silliness of my face and my body, my fear of rejection, and even my initial lust. The baby moved to within inches of the glass wall and placed her flattened palms against the surface, then, she grew quiet as the blond met the hands with her own. The gesture reminded me of the end of visiting-hour up at the old county jail. Prisoners and their girlfriends would end the session with their palms pressed against the Plexiglas window, as if the intensity of their emotion might somehow alter the physical reality. And I would stand there--sitting wasn't allowed during visiting hour-- in my concrete cubicle, groping at conversation with my Aunt Bernice or a buddy that I'd talked into coming for a visit. Both looked up at the mother and smiled, who continued an animated conversation with her friend. The baby slapped at the back of her mother's knee, demanding attention, and the woman reached down and fanned at the area with her fingers, as if shooing mosquitoes. Then I watched as the blond sat-up and began searching the bottom of her purse. Part-way, she looked over at me--evidently aware of my attention--and said, "This purse is a junkyard. I find everything but what I'm looking for." I nodded my acknowledgment, then, began to wonder how much farther from the truth my assessment would find itself. She produced a black felt-tip pen and began sketching a face on her left fist. She stopped between work on the eyes and nose and lips to show the baby, who now divided her interest between the puppet-in-progress and frustration at her mother's apparent lack of interest. When it was finished, the blond worked her thumb as the puppet's mouth and tried to entertain the child. But the baby just frowned and turned away. She threw her arms around her mother's legs and rubbed her cheek against the outside of her mother's thigh. The blond returned the pen to her purse and didn't try to regain the child's attention. She just smiled, wistfully, and said, "My two year-old is the same way. It doesn't take much to distract her. One minute she's interested, and the next, she isn't." I nodded in agreement. Although I didn't know much about two year-olds, I recognized a profound statement when I heard one. Then, I chuckled to myself as I repeated it inwardly: One minute she's interested, and the next, she isn't. "You only have the one?" I asked her. "No," she said, exhaling simultaneously. Then, added proudly: "I have five." "Wow!" I said, astonished. And at the same time, I heard my Dad's comment: "Oh, Lord! That bitch stays pregnant. 'Better have three jobs." "They must enjoy the hell out of having you for a mother," I told her. "Do you do this puppet-face thing for them?" "Yes," she admitted, guardedly. "But not too often. They live with their father." "Oh," I said. "But I see them pretty often," she added. "Just not as often as I'd like to." I could tell that she was trying to put a brave face on what must have been flashing memories of a bad situation. I thought that she must be re-living those scenes, even as she spoke. I knew that the sights and smells and sounds must have strained at her emotional flood-gates. I looked at her and simply said what I thought and felt, in spite of the scant body of evidence. "That's real unfortunate. I think they're missing out on one hell of a mother." She sat up very straight, then softened her posture. Her eyes thanked me--even before the words escaped her lips. Then, she told me that it was the greatest compliment that she'd ever been paid. I considered telling her of my foolish assessment, but knew that it would only be a demeaning distraction. She sat for a moment, staring at her hands, and I looked at them, too. Suddenly, they seemed unlike those of the mannequin that I'd presumed them to be. I now saw the bone and veins and tiny pale hairs. I saw freckles and delicate folds of skin around her joints. Then, feeling more at ease, I said, "So...uh...did they pop out two or three at a time? Because you really don't look old enough to have five kids." "Thank you," she said, demurely. "My oldest will be sixteen in November. And my baby is almost twenty-seven months. It seems like all that I've ever done is raise kids. But now...." "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to make--" "--That's okay," she interrupted. "I was just thinking of how strange it all feels. One day I'm a mother with five kids, and the next...." She paused and carefully smoothed her dress, then, turned toward me with an incredulous expression. "It feels the same way every morning, now. Like it all might have been a dream, a beautiful one. Or that all this," she said, gesturing at the world, "might be just a dream. A nightmare." I nodded in agreement. But I might have just as easily said, "Yeah, I understand, I've been there." I wanted to hold her and tell her that it would all get better, but I didn't know that it would. I only knew that it could. "I have this problem with depression." She said it stiffly, and I knew that it must a part of her therapy. "It ruined my life--at least, the parts that I loved the most. It turned everything sideways. It got so that I couldn't even get out of bed. There was just no reason. Then, I went to the hospital, and when I was finally getting better--really better--my ex-husband just said, 'You have to move out'. And that was it." She sat quietly, but I knew that she was grappling with anger. Anger at her body-chemistry, her ex-husband, the way that words can't be taken back. But mostly, anger at the anger. She sighed, as if to say, Oh, well, then continued. "Now I've got an apartment, a roommate, and a job at an art-supply store. But it all seems so unreal." "I know," I said. Then, I told her a little bit about my own experiences with hopelessness. I told her about the chemicals, the immorality, and the danger. I told her that I'd lived that way for twelve years, that I'd pissed away everything that most people hold dear. And then, I told her about the specter that had come for my mind--and how my brain became the only thing that I'd ever wanted to save. She listened, quietly, then smiled. The connection was intangible, but there, none the less. "Um," she began, "I'm sort of an artist. Would you like to look at a few sketches? I've always toyed with the idea of becoming a commercial artist, and then my sketches became a part of my therapy. Now I'm a little more serious. And I just like to get other people's opinions. These are me, kind of naked expression." And I said, bawdily, "Naked, you say?" "Oh, quit," she said. She opened the portfolio and produced a thick pad of pencil drawings, and I liked them. To me, they were beautiful, and I told her so. Then, I added that art was all magic to me, that I didn't know good technique from bad, and that earning money with art was a hard hustle. I wanted to tell her that the world was full of talented people, and that the difference lay in dedication and work-habits. But it would have been too much, too soon. "What do you do?" she asked. "I'm a maintenance man." "You mean, like with mops?" "Well, sometimes," I said, smiling. "Actually, I spend most of my time working on lights, paint, and plumbing. But, I work in a nursing home, and mops are a part of it, too." She touched her forehead, then said, "Boy, I don't think that I could work there." "Maybe not right now," I told her, "but when you're better, it might be a good thing. Helping people who desperately need it, does wonders for the soul--and mind. It helps diminish self-centeredness, if you let it. But more than anything, it helps me put my problems in a Lifetime perspective." She began to tell me about her grandmother, who'd gone to a nursing home, but I'd turned toward the No. 15 as it lumbered up the hill, raising a cloud of dust. She looked, then stood and said, "That's mine." She grabbed her belongings and began to move past me, but at the doorway, she stopped. "Thanks for talking to me," she said. "I don't know why I told you that." Ordinarily, my response would have been a glib one. I might have referred to my 'honest face' or 'my powers of seduction'. But I didn't want to demean the depth of our connection. "Keep doing it," I told her. "It's good for you." She smiled and moved to the open doorway of the bus, then she turned and waved before disappearing inside. After she'd left, I got to thinking about a conversation that I'd had with my boss, Bill--who also happens to be an important Teacher of mine. I'd told him of some minor repair that I'd made to a resident's wheelchair, and then of the lady's effusive thanks. I'd told him that there must be a million little things that people do for others that they're unaware of, yet, they may have one hell of an impact. And he agreed. Then, he told me that it really doesn't take much effort. Little things. Like saying that we like one another when we do, or seizing the opportunity to find out. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ABOUT THE AUTHORS, VOLUME 1 ISSUE 4, TMR o Karen Alkalay-Gut (gut22@ccsg.tau.ac.il) teaches Victorian and Modern poetry at Tel Aviv University. Her latest books are _Ignorant Armies_ (N.Y.: Cross-Cultural Communications, 1994) and _Recipes_ (Tel Aviv: Golan, 1994). She also appeared in Volume 1, Issue 1 of _The Morpo Review_ with three poems: _The Frog Prince_, _Tangents_ and _Interview_. o Edward J. Austin (74067.3040@compuserve.com) is Native American and thirty-five, living with his best friend Alaina, and soon to be entering his sixth year of sobriety. He is employed by Beverly Enterprises, the nation's largest owner/operator of nursing care facilities, where he serves as an environmental services manager. o Blackbird (blackbird@aztech.com) is a writer whose works have appeared in (among other places) _SailNSteam_, _Persona_ and various anthologies. He lives and writes in Tucson, AZ. o William C. Burns, Jr. (burnswcb@kodiak.gvltec.edu) is a nationally published author of poetry, engineering texts and science fiction short stories. He is an artist as well. Many of his murals and sculptures are on permanent display at various colleges as well as numerous, privately held works. He is indigenous to the eastern part of the planet and sustains his family teaching electrical engineering courses. Other occupations have included pumping diesel, mining coal, peddling heavy equipment and fixing traffic lights. o Susan Tefft Fitzgerald (sfitzger@s-cwis.unomaha.edu) writes poetry and short stories. She is a senior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha majoring in English and Journalism. This is her first published work. o Cynthia Anne Foster's (tudorose@aol.com) works have appeared in _The American Poetry Annual 1991_, _Awakenings_, and the Oakland Community College literary magazine _Speakeasy_, which she also helped to edit. She has scripted for theater and television and is currently working on her first book. Cynthia has studied in England, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Her favorite authors are E. M. Forster, George Meredith, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. She was born in 1955 and lives in Michigan with her four rescued pets. She enjoys reading, sculpting, watercolours, genealogy, travel, the theater and history. "Mortui vivos docent. Carpe diem". o Robert A. Fulkerson (rfulk@creighton.edu), Editor, is currently working on his Master's Degree in Computer Science at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He will soon be published in a book of poetry and art entitled _Voices of the Grieving Heart_, edited by Mike Bernhardt. o Mike Gates (tsmwg@acad1.alaska.edu), ReadRoom Layout Designer, is a cyberholic who runs a small BBS in Ketchikan, Alaska. Mike is a closet writer who sells explosives for a living (really!) and has a humming room full of computers in a house he shares with his wife and two infant daughters. o Maree Anne Jaeger (maree@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au) has had poetry published in magazines, books and anthologies in Australia and overseas. She has also performed her poetry in public. She likes acting, writing, reading, the ocean, the moon and swiss chocolate. o Kris M. Kalil Fulkerson (kkalil@creighton.edu), Proofreader, is happily married to _TMR_'s esteemed editor and also happens to be a graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. o John Adam Kaune (jkaune@trentu.ca) is a part-time poet-wanderer from Peterborough, Ontario. He is one of the three editors of the _Sand River Journal_, a collection of the best poetry from rec.arts.poems (available at the etext archives at the University of Michigan). His next project is setting up a World Wide Web site for _SRJ_. o Lori Kline (libelce1@unix.satcom.net, Attn: Lori Kline) is a poet living in Southern California. She is currently working on a book of poetry. She hopes to obtain her degree in creative writing and medieval studies. She is married and has a son, Alexander. o Matthew Mason (mtmason@morpo.creighton.edu), Editor -- published poet, world traveller, butthead (and proud)--recently received his Master's degree in Creative Writing from UC Davis. Now he wanders in search of adventure and health insurance. o Doctress Neutopia (neutopia@educ.umass.edu) received a doctorate in Future Studies in February 1994. Her calling is to help save the human species. "In the United States, this is a vocation which society does not want to pay anyone to do, so I remain an unpaid worker for the survival of the human race." _The Judge_ has appeared in various places throughout the Internet, and a collection of Doctress Neutopia's writings can be found at http://iglou.com/xville/ on the World Wide Web. o Benjamin Parzybok (parzybok@elwha.evergreen.edu) could not be reached for a biography by press time. o Leland Ray (lray@whale.st.usm.edu) is a thirty-nine-ish Ph.D. dropout who's currently employed as an adjunct English instructor at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he once studied at the Center for Writers. He has published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in "little" academic journals. o Michael A. Simanoff (simanoff@acc.fau.edu) is taking a short break from his studies at a rather prestigious, elitist, anonymous University to write, paint, and develop his musical skills. He was born in New York and raised in London, Madrid, San Fransisco, Fort Lauderdale, and is now the self-proclaimed 'Hermit of Boca Raton'. He welcomes any correspondence. o Michael Stutz (at118@po.cwru.edu) is a net.writer from Cleveland. He's had a Vision of the inevitable creation of a dymaxion computer whose geodesic structure would be the ultimate Literary Machine. He loves Allen Ginsberg, but likes girls more. His story, _Favorite Comics_, appeared in Volume 1, Issue 2 of _The Morpo Review_. o Edgar Sommer (sommer@gmd.de) is continuously climbing the walls to nodom. The colliding banter is making his eyes empty all the time. His poem, _the past mostly_, appeared in Volume 1, Issue 1 of _TMR_. o Brett A. Thomas (quark@rmii.com) is an OS/2 developer for MCI by day (and often night). His hobbies include reading, spending almost every waking moment online, running @bat.com, pontification, writing and fencing. He welcomes any correspondance. o Dave Zappala (zappala@elvis.rowan.edu) could not be reached for a biography by press time. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ IN THEIR OWN WORDS o _shard_ by John Adam Kaune "[_Shard_ was] written while sitting in the Only Cafe, Peterborough, 10-93." o _Roman Ruin_ by Blackbird "I wrote _Roman Ruin_ on the understanding that the other person involved was being silent without apprehension. As it turned out, I was wrong. It's a great example of how a poetic insight can be completely wrong and beautiful at the same time. Like most of my love verse, it's pretty much a portrait of a disappointment." o _words find_ by Edgar Sommer "These pomes are pitchers in the mind for a brief moment as they are written down. Pitchers contain at least as much aural as visual Stuff, in the platonic sense (just kidding). I don't know them before this happens, and don't understand them much after. Author and reader are pretty much in the same situation. Welcome to excrimentalism. Ola!" o _But For the Grace of God_ by Brett A. Thomas "_But for the Grace of God_ is probably a backlash against my religious (and, more specifically, briefly Catholic) upbringing. I wrote it several years ago, before full-time computing robbed me of the time and energy to write. I basically wrote the entire story in one evening, with the aid of a six pack of Foster's." o _Elinor Rigby_, _Room_ and _speaking of the secret_ by Karen Alkalay-Gut "All of these poems I think of as pleasantly perverted. _Eleanor Rigby_, with its echoes of 'Oh, look at all those lonely people' from the Beatles, is the key -- at least to the _Rigby_ poem and _Room_. The latter, by the way, was inspired by an actual room, in which every detail had a personality of its own, and I found myself talking to the stones in the wall. _speaking of the secret_ is about self-construction, and is inspired by conversations with the dancer T'ai Dang and Oscar Wilde's _The Importance of Being Earnest_." o _Twilight Dancers_ by William C. Burns, Jr. "This particular work is a love poem made up one cool October nightfall, for my wife of seventeen years. It struck me, that evening, how the sound of stillness descends on our house with the coming of night. I'm an owl and she is a morning sparrow, who often curls against my left side and drifts off shortly after dark. I use this silent/warm time to re-collect the fragments of my mind, and knit the sleeve of my soul. It also hit me that this moment (twilight) is not the low point of the day, for me, but the loftiest. Hence we descend into the dawn." o _Wednesday Afternoon_ by Lori Kline "As a poet, I'm interested in the presenting the concept of ordinary life, everyday things, as being just as mystical, dreamy and deserving of attention as say, Avalon or Atlantis. The idea for _Wednesday Afternoon_ came about by watching my husband's chess game, and evolved as an exercise of reality blending with fantasy- his game and mine." o _monet's old studio is a gift shop_ by John Adam Kaune "Monet's old studio actually _is_ a gift shop nowadays. For some reason, I found irony in this. 'modernity' is the key word here." o _The Judge_ by Doctress Neutopia "Writing is a revolutionary activity to me. I write because there is definitely a better, more free and just way for us to live. As an artist, I feel that it is my duty to communicate this message to the human race. There is an urgent need for us to build a sustainable economy so that all people can become self-actualizing. In order to do this we must communalize our resources and let the artists live for free!" o _Disclaimer_ by Micahel A. Simanoff "The only disclaimer to _Disclaimer_ is that it is extremely untypical of all my work, as I break away from my preferred act of creation and exploration to comment on the sad state of what I interpret as 'contemporary literature'. It is an entirely sarcastic piece about the dulling of 'pop culture' upon the intellect. But that's just my opinion." o _You can meditate in this mess?_ by Micahel Stutz "About six months old, it was a spontaneous (maybe slightly self-conscious) mind breath done after the author's morning meditation. Really, I caught myself 'talking to myself' and got up to the keyboard to write it down." o _Between the Hiatus_ by Maree Anne Jaeger "[_Between the Hiatus_ was] written as a retrospective look backwards (I'll leave the rest for you to work out). This poem will be included in a book of my poetry to be called _Between the Hiatus_, which is a collabaration of myself and an artist (unsure of publication date as yet)." o _Custer is not here_ by John Adam Kaune [_Custer is not here_ was] written at Crow Agency, Montana, 7-94. Again, more irony: countless tourists stop by there, not really knowing _why_. n.b. in the late 80s a brush fire helped archaeologists to find more artifacts strewn about the site of the battle." o _Pool Night_ by Leland Ray "I wrote this when I started dating the girl who became my ex-wife; she gave me a cat on our first date, and the story developed from there. The sixteen-year age difference between my girlfriend and myself had something to do with the story as well." o _The Strawberry Blond_ by Ed. Austin "_The Strawberry Blond_ was inspired by an incident that really happened to me at a bus-stop on a hot afternoon. That day, I was somehow blind-sided by cultural shame (a common malady among minorities) and fear of rejection. I was miserable. That is, until that nameless honey grabbed me by the shoulders and shook the joy of life back into me. These days, I can't recall the slightest detail about her voice, but I still remember the appreciation in her eyes as we parted company. And I can't help but think: Why are simple acts of humanity so rare that we have to wonder where they've been all our lives?" +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ WHERE TO FIND _THE MORPO REVIEW_ Current and past issues of _TMR_ can be located and obtained via the following means: o Interactive Methods: The following methods of accessing _TMR_ allow you to interactively pick and choose what you want to read. o Via the World Wide Web. Read it on-line at http://morpo.creighton.edu/morpo/. o Via the following Bulletin Board Systems: The Outlands (Ketchikan, Alaska, USA) +1 907-247-1219, +1 907-225-1219, +1 907-225-1220. _The Outlands_ is the home BBS system for the ReadRoom BBS Door format. You can download the IBM-PC/DOS ReadRoom version here, as well as read it interactively on-line via the ReadRoom door installed on the system. There is a free 30-day trial time for this system -- then subscriptions start as low as $2.50 per month. The Myths and Legends of Levania (Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA) +1 712-325-8867. _The Myths and Legends of Levania_ is located in the heart of the original Morpo and, in fact, is a direct descendant of the original _The Land of Morpo_ Bulletin Board System. You can download both the IBM-PC/DOS ReadRoom versions and ASCII text versions of _TMR_ here. o Semi-interactive methods: o Via Anonymous FTP. ftp://morpo.creighton.edu/pub/morpo ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/Morpo.Review o Via Gopher. gopher://morpo.creighton.edu/The.Morpo.Review gopher://ftp.etext.org/Zines/Morpo.Review o Via America Online. Use Keyword _PDA_, then select "Palmtop Paperbacks", "EZine Libraries", "Writing", "More Writing" o Electronic Mail Subscriptions. You can obtain an electronic mail subscription and have the full ASCII version of _TMR_ arrive automatically in your e-mail box when it is released to the public. Send Internet mail with a subject of "Moo!" (or some variation thereof) to _morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu_ and you will be added to the distribution list. o Via Electronic Mail Server. Send the message "get morpo morpo.index" to lists@morpo.creighton.edu and you will receive instructions on how to use our email archive server to retrieve ASCII versions of _The Morpo Review_. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Addresses for _The Morpo Review_ rfulk@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson, Editor mtmason@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Mason, Editor kkalil@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil Fulkerson, Proofreader tsmwg@acad1.alaska.edu . . . . . . . Mike Gates, ReadRoom Layout Designer morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu . Submissions to _The Morpo Review_ morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Requests for E-Mail subscriptions morpo-comments@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Comments about _The Morpo Review_ morpo-editors@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . Reach all the editors at once +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Submit to _The Morpo Review_ What kind of work do we want? How about Sonnets to Captain Kangaroo, free-verse ruminations comparing plastic lawn ornaments to _Love Boat_ or nearly anything with cows in it. No, not cute, Smurfy little "ha ha" ditties--back reality into a corner and snarl! Some good examples are "Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell, "A Supermarket In California" by Allen Ginsberg, or the 6th section of Wallace Stevens' "Six Significant Landscapes." But, hey, if this makes little or no sense, just send us good stuff; if we like it, we'll print it, even if it's nothing close to the above description of what we want (life's like that at times). Just send us good stuff, get published, and impress your peers and neighbors. So send us your unhinged poetry, prose and essay contemplations at morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Our next issue will be available around November 15, 1994. +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+