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We Used to Vacation by J.Bradley

Frank Hinton — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:00:37 +0000

______________________________________________________________________________________________

“Can you finish this for me?” Miranda shoved the scrap of her drink toward my hands. We baptized the back corner of a parking lot before Miranda pretended to be sober enough behind the wheel.

***

Slits of sunlight slipped through the blinds like fingers, rolling me face to face with Miranda. Beneath her right eye, I saw the rotting crushed grape bruise. She rushed to the bathroom, stepping over the amputated towel rack, the tub gumming the shower curtain.

***

“…We baptized the back corner of a parking lot before Miranda pretended to be sober enough behind the wheel…”

_____________________

“Why haven’t you touched me lately? Why haven’t you fucked me?” I bleated, clenched fists acting as exclamation points after each question. Drunk depth perception made six inches into three feet. I didn’t feel my thumb against her face.

***

The weekend of Labor Day, the failed winery was long gone but she was a bottle with a message: goodbye. I tried getting the kitchen sink bachelor party drunk. She spat herself out the door. Two days later, Miranda’s parents talked her back onto the ledge of her wedding ring.

***

I didn’t mind every woman at the party knew the taste of Miranda’s lipstick. I was too busy pretending to captain yachts, looking for shore through empty wine bottles.

***

My mom told me she knew her second marriage was doomed when the DJ d idn’t play their song, Led Zepplin’s “Thank You”, for their first dance. We made sure our DJ had our song, The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”; our families rubbernecked our wreckage.

***

We were on a boat. The only rocking in our cabin was our stomachs and hangovers. The moon was more arsenic than honey. Later, we bragged about fucking over the ship when we snuck a bottle of rum made in Bayamon past security after we re-boarded in San Juan.

***

Two girls + me + my apartment + one large Jack & Coke = missing shirt, memory. The body rapped against my teeth like floorboards. Miranda threw the picture of us at the wall, the glass leaving enough space for my right knee to be around: I knew I wanted to marry her then.

***

Around me, the men knew how to hide the trophy of Miranda’s lipstick.

***

My mother, once an incubator of bruises, asked if I meant to hit Miranda that night, leave the black and blue of betrayal on her face. In her passenger seat, my “no I didn’t” does its best not crack my tear ducts.

“Even if you didn’t, she deserved it.” The words swung out of my mother’s mouth like a baseball bat.

***

I hunted for other women so they could know what Miranda tasted like while I watched, lashed to something.

***

Photo booths make great arenas for kissing contests until your girlfriend catches you.

***

In bed before work, Miranda described herself as a monster; her friends used torches of Jack Daniel’s and empowerment to chase her away from the village of my arms.

___________________________________________________________________________

J. Bradley is the author of Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books, 2009) and the author of the flash fiction chapbook The Serial Rapist Sitting Behind You Is A Robot (Safety Third Enterprises, 2010). He is the Interview Editor of PANK Magazine and lives at iheartfailure.net.

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Bananagrams by Len Kuntz

Frank Hinton — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:00:11 +0000

When her kisses become clipped, she says it’s because the cat hair is distracting. All the animal fur.

I tell her they died years and years ago and she says, “See, right there’s the problem.”

My mother coached me on love. She said it was a wretched thing, to be avoided at every cost. She said pets make the best lovers and you aren’t required to mate with them.

My girlfriend says she’s recently gotten into Bananagrams and Mojitos. She’s not as exotic as she sounds. She wears flouncy hats that make her look like a gardener or hillbilly, but I don’t think I could do much better.

In my performance evaluation, my boss said I can be neurotic but otherwise I show potential. I am good at math. I keep a clean work space. Still he sat behind a wide desk while he read to me from a print out. He kept skirting the top of the paper to see how I was reacting to his mundane news, wary, like a hopeless kidnap victim.

On Dr. Phil the other day some social worker talked about classroom crime, bullying and brutal beatings done right in front of ogling teachers and superintendents. The expert said all animals have an innate instinct to protect their young. I wonder how many viewers watch Dr. Phil.

Besides, it’s difficult to know how much information to share with people. I’ve been burned.

When my girlfriend leans over, I think she’s going to kiss me but instead it’s just the remote she wants. And that’s fine with me. I enjoy a good infomercial as much as the next guy.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with his family and assorted sea creatures. His short fiction appears widely online and in print, as well as at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

Two Poems by Corey Mesler

christopher — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:00:06 +0000

____________________________________________________________________________

Today I am Curing Myself

Today I am curing myself
with sugar and a Raymond Chandler
novel. I have sicknesses
that require the absenting from my
life those things which
you and I formerly found instructive.
Today I am giving the Q-tips
a wide berth. Today I am writing on
the board a thousand times:
I am That which is Not Afraid.
Today I am trying to get in touch
with people who once loved me.
I am not really sick, I will tell them,
not really sick in a way I can explain.
Today I am curing myself
with breadsticks and a Billy Wilder
movie. Today I am thinking about you,
how sick you were, back then, how contagious.

New Poem

Manacled by sheets,
keys that fit no locks,
left exposed
by the elements.
A morning as
blank as the hawthorn’s
crown.
A day to put something
down.
A day put down
like a dog.
A day to go down for
the count. A
day to make count.
A day
no letters arrive. A
morning as cocked as a
gun. A lively mortality.
A poem mucky
like a new life, a suckling.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

COREY MESLER has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006), a full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), and a book of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009). He also has two novels released simultaneously, March 31, 2010: The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press) and Following Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also claims to have written, “I Was a Lineman for the County.” With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

Litmus by Heather Fox Douglass

Caitlin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:00:12 +0000

“And does it bother you? This not being able to write what you want?”

“No, of course not.” Actually, yes, you asshole. It bothers me immensely. It bothers me that I can’t sit and write and have my words ring with a modicum of truth because someone has decided they are going to take everything personally. Why? Why take what I write personally? You don’t even know me.

“And when was the last time you were inspired to write creatively?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a year ago? No. Well, I don’t remember.” Seven months, thirteen days, eight and quarter hours ago. That was the last time. That was the last time I was inspired to write creatively. Whatever the hell that means. Come on now, I know this isn’t all you’ve got. Ask me the hard questions. Ask me the questions that make me want to go out and order a whiskey in my night clothes just so I have a heavy bottomed glass to throw at a wall. A substantial glass; one with presence. The kind of glass Onassis would have hurled at Jackie’s head. Or was it the other way around?

“And what, exactly, happened the last time you wrote?”

“I shared it and it wasn’t received well. I was disheartened.” Lies. I shared it but it was well received and it fucking disinterred my heart.

“And this made you feel less confident in your abilities?”

“Um, maybe. Yes?” No. Not at all. You aren’t listening. I felt more confident than ever. I felt like I could go on and on and nothing would break my concentration. I felt the whole world split before me, an egg of a world, a fertile world within a world, the whites seeping out glossing my doubts with a shine. Nothing could scuff that kind of shine. No amount of bad could break the perfect sunshine yolk of happiness before me. Until it ended. Until all of that shiny fucking yolk was broken by the one I didn’t share it with. The one that haunts me. The wraith. The goddamned self-proclaimed Betrayed One.

“And what measures have you taken to restore your self-confidence?”

“…I felt the whole world split before me, an egg of a world, a fertile world within a world…”

________________

“I’ve been trying to write a little each day.” Stop starting every question with ‘and’. It is annoying. I write volumes each day. Then I eat. Sometimes. I usually forget to eat. But I never forget to write. I never forget to do that because it is all I know how to do. It is the cause and the cure of all of my problems. How will I ever heal? My drive, my meaning, who I am, is killing me. Being who I am meant to be is tearing me to pieces, slowly with dull teeth. Is this normal? Am I normal? Can you ask me something useful now?

“And the writing you do now, does it feel satisfactory to you?”

“Satisfactory?”

“Yes; does it meet your standards? Would you feel comfortable sharing your work again?”

“Satisfactory?” Is this it then? Your litmus for throwing my heart and soul to the wolves is middle ground? A step above average but not quite qualifying my own expectations? When I reach the pinnacle of mediocrity I should share? Put myself out there so I can be built up with grand self-congratulatory gestures only to be left to rot like low income housing? Share again so I can have another take everything I write personally and distort themselves over it? Hurt themselves because my words moved them to do it? That is what she said. My words, my stories, ruined her life. How could that be? I’ve read the worst book in history and the best book and neither could have ruined me. But her words? Her words have. And she wasn’t even a writer. So we’ve hurt each other then. We’ve broken each other’s shiny round yolk. We’ve got nothing but a mess. And we don’t even know each other.

“And when do you think you will submit your work again?”

“When she stops haunting me.”

“And whom do you think is haunting you?”

“The woman I was before I loved him.” Truth. Finally. I think we are done here Doc. I think this is satisfactory.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Heather Fox Douglass spends her days exploring the world around her and reporting back through writing, photography, and over-analysis. She has been described as part poet, part philosopher. While she completely agrees with the assessment, she feels extreme anxiety over having to maintain that standard, but she’ll never admit this. You are welcome to follow her attempts to figure it all out (and laugh along with her as she repeatedly fails) on her blog http://www.pneumafox.blogspot.com.

The Waterfall by Ally Malinenko

julie — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:40:21 +0000

By the time I realized what happened, I was already under the cold river water. Everything hurt. My head felt like it was split open and my knees didn’t work anymore. I thought to myself, how sad, that after all that, I’m going to drown in this little pool of water. If I could stand, it would make all the difference. But I can’t. Not after falling.

I can still see his eyes, the fear, the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to hold on. I felt more sorry, then scared. Like it was my fault for even putting him in this situation to begin with where he would now be responsible for my death. Or for saving my life. Either way, I just wound up feeling bad. I hadn’t realized yet that he fell too. That the combined weight of me plus gravity plus the slippery rock plus the tug of water was more than his skinny arms could handle.

We had come out there because it was summer and it was hot and we were stupid high school kids. The trail through the woods was wide and you could hear the waterfall before you saw it. It wasn’t Niagara, but it was steep enough. Steep enough that you didn’t want to fall off of it. We climbed up the side trail, the four of us, my two best guy friends and another girl, who honestly, I didn’t care much for. But like I said, it was summer and hot and we were bored, this was no time for trifling concerns.

I’m not even sure how he got out there but he sat on a flat rock, which split the water in two right near the edge. He said the view was spectacular. And it must have been because that was where there was a break in the dense trees of the Hudson Valley. It must have been breathtaking.

“Come on out,” he said, waving a hand, his sandy hair shaggy around his face. I think at the time, I was a little bit in love, but that wasn’t the kind of thing we talked about.

“I’ll fall,” I said, rather prophetically.

“No way. Just go over to that rock and then that one,” he said pointing out the path that I wouldn’t take. I got one foot over the stream of rushing water, landed on a slick little piece of moss and went down. I was downstream from him, but it only took a second for me to be right there.

And he caught me.

For a second.

And then we fell.

Falling is fast, and pretty easy. You don’t really do much. Gravity takes care of the hard part. I twisted, flipped over at one point, in time for my head to smash against a rock and for my eyeballs to explode with white light. And then I was in that little pool of water, at the bottom, slowly starting to realize that I was still alive. I couldn’t stand though, my knees no longer working the way knees should so instead I sank like a little unwanted stone cast carelessly down a well.

“I couldn’t stand though, my knees no longer working the way knees should so instead I sank like a little unwanted stone cast carelessly down a well…”

But again, he was there, having fallen after me and he hoisted me out of the water like a newborn, lifting my arm, placing my palm flat on my head and said “Hold tight.” At first I thought it was just an affirmation. A way of telling me to sit still and he was going to fix everything. He would get the car and take me home and tuck me into bed. But when I took my hand away and it was filled with that black blood, that deep down inside blood that you aren’t supposed to see and I knew it wasn’t a suggestion.

Months later, after the doctors and the stitches and the long recovery, I called him. He was leaving for college. I was entering my senior year. There was a long silence on the phone. It was like chasm. It was unsalvageable but I was too young to realize that. Everything had changed after that day. Even now, I can see how we moved away from each other like distant molecules, but sometimes the reason still gets away from me. In the movies, these events bring people together. They don’t take up so much space that you can’t breathe or hear each other talk anymore. I asked him if he was packing because I didn’t know what else to say. He was going to New Orleans. Farther than any of us had ever been.

Later that year, I went back to the waterfall and on the way home, flipped my car over. There were four people inside. Not the four people from the first time the Waterfall started to mean something. A new four people. The biggest injury suffered was a bit of glass in a pinky. But my mother screamed that I could never go back there. That some places were haunted. Some places, people shouldn’t go. Back then, when I was young and stupid I thought, she was right. But at this point, I think it might be me that’s haunted and not so much those woods.

_______________________________________________
Ally Malinenko’s first book of poems, entitled The Wanting Bone, was recently published by Six Gallery Press. She is thankful to have been published in numerous online and print poetry and fiction journals. You can read her poetry at http://shipwreckedpoetry.blogspot.com and her fiction at http://gypsycampfire.blogspot.com. She is currently working on a novel for children and lives in the part of Brooklyn that the tour buses don’t come to but was recently voted to have the best Halal truck.

The Office of Mathematical Subjects by Oscar Varona

julie — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:26:58 +0000

There is a telephone and an adding machine and a tin full of pencils, most of them without a point, and drying paper, and an eraser worn down, and a notepad, and a sepia colored picture of my managing director hunting a tiger in some distant country, from one of the innumerable pleasure trips that he claims to enjoy… and everything is placed strategically on the work table to facilitate the work I do. It is the second week that I am here and it’s still too soon to judge and to say that I’m happy to have entered and to have become a part of The Office of Mathematical Subjects. It’s still too soon to make a general statement, but, honestly, I’m bored. This is not my life’s work, though it’s very probable that I will finish my days here. It could be worse. It gives me enough money to pay my rent and to buy myself some whims, although I’m not a man of whims and I pass what free time I have, locked up in my room writing in an old notebook filled with trivialities. It helps me relax.

“I’m not a man of whims and I pass what free time I have, locked up in my room writing in an old notebook filled with trivialities. It helps me relax.”

____________________

Only three people work in the office, as well as the coordinator, whose office is placed at my back and whose door remains closed all the time. Nobody has ever seen him, or at least that is what Miss X says. The three of us are placed throughout a great room in which papers and bundles pile up while we review and solve accounts. Orders come to us from all the parts of the country, so there is never an end to the work that I do. Sometimes, our task is stopped by a proceeding error, like today and my co-worker, One-Arm, works to solve the problem as rapidly as possible while Miss X and I kill time It’s what we know best to do. One-Arm is an elderly man whose retirement is always approaching. He doesn’t have a right arm, which doesn’t really impede his work. He is the best at what we do, though there’s something strange in his glance and his customs that makes me uncomfortable. Let me explain. Miss X explained to me that One-Arm believes if he massages his stump, his arm will regrow. and the truth is that the man spends the entire day massaging his stump with such smoothness and determination that I would grow too if I were a stump. And despite the improbability of arm-regeneration through massage, according to Miss X, the stump of our old companion that stopped at the elbow months ago, now, as I too can verify, extends to the forearm. Incredible, really. Unfortunately, One-Arm has decided to test his technique on other parts of his body, and is really revolting to see him paw at his crotch with such dedication. Perhaps it’s an excuse to be able to masturbate with pleasure every day at his desk, but I have been able to verify, by the bulk that is tightened in his gray trousers, that his erection has, indeed, grown larger over time. If only he kept his focus beneath his desk, but he started massaging his head as well, and there on his skull, a strange protuberance has begun to grow, and then after careful manipulations of his chest, two small breasts now show their form beneath his open jacket. He is a truly disagreeable co-worker, but I try just to look away.

Regarding Miss X, I would like say that she is more normal. I would like say it, but I can’t. She sits in front of me and whenever I rise from my seat, she watches me through her thick-framed glasses that she wears to make herself look older, but they do little to hide her attractiveness. Her looks make me nervous. I don’t know if she watches my movements to gauge my work or for something more. Anyway, I’m not ready for any relation so far, so I try to make her deflect her glances. But it’s impossible not to notice her curves in that gray suit-jacket that she wears all the time. The atmosphere in the office is always loaded, perhaps because we don’t have any windows or conduit of air through which to release our sweat and breath, our corporal effluvia, our daily work. Poor Miss X… I wouldn’t mind finishing off one of these days in bed with her. But then what would happen after?

And then there is me, a normal boy, so normal it makes me sick, as hard-working as I can be, responsible to a fault that I’m afraid my co-workers hate me for it. Ours is a cruel world. I fear they will stab me in the back. My mother has warned me of this. Don’t let anybody ride roughshod over you, don’t allow anybody to think you are less than they are, take care of the commentaries and the jealousy, people are naturally born bad, don’t trust in anybody, don’t listen to anybody, you are nothing… My mother… I am nothing, mother. I’ll always be nothing. I’ll remain here forever, like the ghost that always you wanted me to be, without raising suspicions, being nobody, without anybody saying anything about me, without personality, without smiling, concentrating in my work. I was conceived to be a gray man with a gray mentality and empty thoughts. I’m only a normal boy who tries not to notice how his fellow worker massages his penis daily to increase its size.

_________________________________________

Oscar Varona is a writer but nobody thinks he is; a librarian who doesn’t feel like he’s one; a loser… of time who has published a book of short stories “Tremolo”; a weirdo who has published short stories in e-zines in Argentina, Mexico, the US, and Spain. A bored animal who works on an arty e-zine called Delirio. An unhealthy smoker born in Madrid 37 years ago, who had not seen much of the World and still fights against dumb publishers and best-seller readers.

The Treachery of Dreams by Samuel Peralta

julie — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:23:10 +0000

Ceci n'est pas une - This is not a poem.
Still green, the apple contemplates the man.
Le fils de l'homme, il contemple la pomme.
Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain.

Still green, the apple contemplates the man.
The artist paints a portrait of an egg.
Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain.
Across a grove of leaves, a rider's fled.

The artist paints a portrait of an egg.
A verdant apple rises in the east.
Across a grove of leaves, a rider's fled.
The seraph turns his back upon the beast.

A verdant apple rises in the east.
A horse and rider shutter through the woods.
The seraph turns his back upon the beast.
Two lovers kiss, their faces wrapped in shrouds.  

A horse and rider shutter through the woods.
A doorway opens in a twilit tree.
Two lovers kiss, their faces wrapped in shrouds.
A train emerges from the fireplace deep.

A doorway opens in a twilit tree.
Un parasol, des fleurs, a woman's loves.
A train emerges from the fireplace deep.
Le thérapeute encages two white doves.

Un parasol, des fleurs, a woman's loves.
Dusk falls to home from empires of the day.
Le thérapeute encages two white doves.
Un château levitates above a bay.

Dusk falls to home from empires of the day.
Three men precess a waning crescent moon.
Un château levitates above a bay.
The fragile rose has grown to fill the room.

Three men precess a waning crescent moon.
Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain.
The fragile rose has grown to fill the room.
Still green, the apple contemplates the man.

Les hommes en chapeaux fall like summer rain.
Le fils de l'homme, il contemple la pomme.
Still green, the apple contemplates the man.
Ceci n'est pas une - This is not a poem.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Samuel Peralta has won awards for his poetry worldwide, including a Palanca Award for his first collection Pacific, and recognition from the BBC, the UK Poetry Society, and the League of Canadian Poets. His poems have appeared in Existere, Ocho, Seedpod, and other journals and anthologies. At the forefront of the new media literary renaissance, as @semaphore he placed #1 worldwide in the voting for the Best Poetry on Twitter. His poetry can be found at www.samuelperalta.com

How to be a Writer Part I by Kirsty Logan

Frank Hinton — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:00:16 +0000

It begins in childhood, when you don’t know any better. You are
little, so imagine being bigger. Imagine being smaller, longer, wider,
inflatable, amphibian, in outer space. Make your Barbies into
assassins. Make your GI Joes into the Loch Ness monster. Make a mess,
make a fuss, make towers of blocks only so you can knock them over.
Just make.

When you are medium-sized, forget. Concern yourself with whether boys
or girls are icky or actually sort of interesting. Try lipstick. Try
purple shoes. Try tying things to your bicycle wheels that make loud
noises when you pedal. Abandon them. Fall off a swing and break your
arm, or trip over while skiing and fracture your leg, or learn to play
guitar and snap off all your fingernails. However you do it, break
something. Do not worry about stringing words together any more than
you have to.

Adolescence is the time for poetry. You may also try memoir – after
all, though your years may seem scant you’ve learned enough to teach
the whole world. You could solve everyone’s problems, if only they
would listen. Free verse is the only real way to convey the anguish of
your soul; formalism is fine but it’s just too easy to rhyme ‘woe’.
Try to get your heart broken as much as you can. Heartbreak is
excellent material for poetry. See also your parents, politics, city
lights, empty fields, the shifting colours of your beloved’s
azure-turquoise-emerald eyes, and the general unfairness of life. Keep
all your poetry, but never show it to anyone, even if you think it is
good. Especially if you think it is good.

“…Don’t put down your pen; keep it tight in your fist. It should stay
there until your hand is cramped to its shape forever…”

___________________

Now you’re almost grown, at least in terms of height. You’ve done some
making, some forgetting, and a whole shitload of poetry. Now do it all
again. Imagine being dust-choked, mud-slipping, honey-submerged,
explosive spinning indescribable; break your thumbs trying to launch a
boat onto the blackened drunken lake; forget why you are even doing
this whole stupid thing. Take at least six months. Now you’re ready
for the poetry again.

Return to heartbreak, unfairness, and eye colours. Try not to rhyme.
After you’ve produced fistfuls of emetic poetry, put it all away. Lock
it in a suitcase, hide it in the attic. Burn it if you must. Now is
the time for narrative. There are stories all around you; stories
about lies and aeroplanes and veils and sleet and viruses and
hippopotami. Do not write the stories yet; just listen to them. Listen
to the people you usually ignore, because they are overflowing with
stories in a way that you are not. Pay attention also to the narrative
of your life: the time you got drunk on fizzy wine at New Year and had
to stumble around the streets with your best friend until you sobered
up because you couldn’t let your mother see you with such unsteady
eyes; the time a scoundrel whispered platitudes to you over morning
coffee and scrambled eggs, only to disappear with your iPod; the time
you travelled halfway around the world and found a slip of paper on
the bottom of your shoe that convinced you to go right home again. Be
particularly careful not to write these stories yet. Just pay
attention.

When you are tall and frantic and stuffed belly-high with stories, you
may pick up your pen. Make sure that you stare at the blank page for a
while; at least as long as it takes to drink several cups of
something. Write your first line. Delete it. Write a different first
line. Delete that. Write the first thing you wrote and delete it and
write it again. Now stop fussing and keep writing. Think of the words
behind you as a serial killer trying to catch you, or a burning fuse
leading to the dynamite on your heels, or the things you are trying to
forget. Let your hands make words faster than your brain can
understand them. Keep writing until your eyes can’t focus and you have
a blister on your finger. Forget to breathe. Now close your burning
eyes, get to your feet, and go outside. Breathe in the air that is too
hot or too cold; smell the bonfire or the brewery or the wet earth.
Don’t put down your pen; keep it tight in your fist. It should stay
there until your hand is cramped to its shape forever, until you don’t
even notice that you are holding it. Words are shifting and elusive,
and if you don’t write them down now, immediately, as soon as you
think of them, they will disappear quicker than breath. When you go
back inside, your written-on page will be gone. This is good.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Kirsty Logan writes, edits, teaches, reviews books and
waits tables in Glasgow, Scotland. She is the co-editor of Fractured
West and the reviews editor of PANK. She has a semicolon tattooed on
her toe. Find her at kirstylogan.com

Part II of How to be a Writer will be published on August 5th.

10 Unofficial Jobs Jake Baker has Never Got Paid For, Part I by Jules Archer

christopher — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:00:24 +0000

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Sentry

“If you’re gonna leave just do it already,” 15-year-old Jake tells his pa. He holds an arm out and his sister Sally runs to him, shielding her face against his side. Jake thinks it’s one of the most serious days in his life and he hates it.

“Oh, Jake, don’t say that,” his ma cries, watching her husband, Kevin, stuff his remaining few belongings in a shoddy suitcase. Not that their pa really needs the suitcase; he’s been coming and going for so long it doesn’t matter. The suitcase is just for show. A final goodbye.

Kevin gives Jake a long look before turning to his wife. “I’ll call you.” Then he walks out the door, leaving his family to watch it slam.

“Now, why’d you have to go and say that?” ma asks, her face tired, arms propped against her side.

“I didn’t make him leave,” Jake says. “And neither did you.”

“I didn’t make him leave,” Jake says. “And neither did you.”

2. Travel Planner

Despite his own messy home life, compared to his best friend Bobby, Jake’s family could be the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting. Jake listens to Bobby explain his recent black eye. Bobby’s leg bounces a mile a minute, his long fingers intertwined.

“So you ran into a door?” Jake muses when Bobby’s out of excuses. “Don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”

Bobby sighs and Jake pats his leg.

“You can crash at my place. Only payment is eatin my ma’s cookin which is a sacrifice in and of itself.”

“That’s okay, Jake. I oughta go home anyways.”

“I hear Alaska’s nice this time of year.”

Bobby just smiles at Jake with those sad black eyes.

3. Detective.

Jake ponders the back yard.

Brian watches him with an odd frown, puffing away on a smoke. “Easy Jake,” Brian says. “She’ll turn up.”

Brian, their older brother, home on leave, showed up two bright and sunny days ago, tossing a duffel bag Jake’s way. Jake figures for someone with army skills he should be able to sniff out their little sister. But one look at Brian tells Jake he’s unconcerned. Brian’s always unconcerned.

“Mom’s gonna kill me,” Jake says, cupping his hands. “Sally! Hide and Seek’s over.”

“Get your ass out here!” That’s Brian.

Bored, Sally asked multiple friends and her brothers if they wanted to play hide and seek. Apparently, many nodded yes, none meant it. She hid, no one searched. An hour later, Jake finally got wise.

Jake surveys the yard, wondering where his sister could have gone when the house next door catches his eye. The neighbor’s yard resembles a junk store: a busted truck on the front lawn, a stove, a refrigerator, a banana seat bicycle—

Jake squints at the refrigerator and then takes off for the yard. He doesn’t know why but something tells him Sally’s crawled inside. Brian follows, striding languidly, and Jake rips the door open. Sally tumbles out, her cheeks flushed.

“Hell! I’m a regular Sherlock Holmes,” Jake crows, pulling Sally to her feet.

“You found me!” Sally croaks with happiness, oblivious to her predicament.

Brian waltzes up. “Sal,” he says. “Before you go crawling into tight spaces, make sure you can get out.”

Part II next Monday . . .
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When Jules was little, she talked incessantly to her stuffed animals; telling them stories only the deaf could hear. Her mother wondered if she would have to be put on medication (hell, even Jules wondered that). Jules’s mother was terrified to send her to grade school – feeling fear for the teachers. But as she turned older, Jules turned all of that manic jabbering inside. Now she puts it on paper. And now she wants to share.

Levity by Jen Knox

christopher — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:00:10 +0000

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I recounted missed appointments, work shifts and cat feedings along with a series of forgotten door codes, keys, vitamins, and days in which I had forgotten to apply deodorant or moisturizer. Dr. Randall listened patiently as I went down my list. When I was finished, he said, “Maybe you’re depressed.” He asked me if I had any traumatic experiences in my past. I said no. He offered me anti-depressants. I said no. He recommended other avenues to pursue, and gave me the number of a neurologist, in case things got worse.

“Whatever it is in your head, blocking your recall,” a hypnotherapist told me, “it must be addressed in order for you to be cured.” The underlying meaning of this, I thought, was that if I did not respond to her services it would be my fault. I tried. I sat on a light blue couch and tried to imagine my eyelids were heavy and the cushions beneath me were clouds. She said, “Ten. You are sinking into relaxation… feel your muscles relaxing. Nine. Your thoughts are slowing, your breath is slow. Eight. Feel your body sink…” And all I could think about was my car, a standard, and whether or not I’d remembered to pull the emergency break—this was one of the many examples I can give you of my minor glitches of memory; minor glitches that could lead to major upset. I ran out of the room and across the street to my car, forgetting to look both ways and almost got creamed by a white SUV. I found my car still parked, but the emergency break had not been lifted.

“You are fiery, I can tell. Fire signs are the signs of life and action, but also the signs of danger.”

The neurologist that Dr. Randall recommended ran a series of tests that showed no signs of Alzheimer’s or brain tumors, but some couldn’t be done because the insurance money ran out. In fact, it didn’t take long before my entire savings was depleted due to this diagnostic quest. I ended up having to return my car to the dealership, which also turned out badly because it meant I now had bus schedules to memorize. What I was prescribed were “tools” to help me cope with memory loss, like mnemonic games to play and crossword puzzles. I was diligent: I kept lists of things to do on the fridge, and worked my crossword puzzles during my lunch break at the bank. I don’t mean a financial institution. I worked at a blood bank; or, more specifically, a plasma donation center.

I never forgot how to do my job, how to tie a piece of tan rubber at the base of a bicep and instruct the donor to pump his fist until the vein rises like a small blue wave. I had the best record at the bank for clean sticks. I only missed a vein once, which, for my years of service, was rather outstanding, if I do say so myself. For this reason alone, my boss forgave the few times I came in on my day off or for the wrong shift because I remembered the bus or work schedule wrong. A missed shift here and there, he told me, was better than a blown vein (which causes the donor excessive bruising and a generally pissy mood). At the same time, he warned, if this continued I’d lose my job.

###

His card came to me serendipitously. I was smoking a cigarette, and as I dropped it and went to grind it out with my heel, I saw a white and gold business card was wind-pushed beneath the lit butt.

“Fire,” a customer said, offering me her arm after I told her I was a Leo, an August baby. “You are fiery, I can tell. Fire signs are the signs of life and action, but also the signs of danger.” The woman’s veins were generous and the needle slid in easily as she continued: “I’m Desiree, a Pisces; we’re prone to laziness—if only I had the opportunity!” She laughed at herself and explained that she was no hack. Desiree had been studying astrology for two years, and she assured me it was a science that would make my head spin if I only knew its complexity.

I nodded. “I might get a reading one day, but can’t right now. Maybe you’ll be doing readings yourself by the time I can afford it?”

“I would love to read you,” she said. “But yeah, it’ll be a while.”

I smiled. “Enjoy the movie,” I said, offering her headphones and directing her gaze to the small flat screen TV that was perched above a row of chairs at the end of the room. I saw Will Smith’s face flash across the screen, then a shot of people running. I took my seat at the end of the row. Waiting, watching people watch half an action movie as their blood was pumped into an IV bag, drained of plasma and pumped right back in, was the part of the job I truly despised. We always had the same action movies playing, and no one ever looked interested. They all looked impatient and calculating, as though they were already mentally spending the eighty or thirty-five dollar check we’d cut them after the Baind-Aid.

I pulled the business card from the back pocket of my jeans. My cigarette butt had scorched its edge. The card read only “Healer” above an address not far from my apartment complex. I watched the astrologer, a small, intense woman with frizzy dark hair, roll her eyes at something on the TV screen, and I tried desperately to remember whether or not she’d told me her name.

“The Healer looked me over the way men used to when I used to pay attention to such things.”

I felt a lightness the rest of the work day, and as I sat at my post between clean sticks, I continuously fingered the card as though it were some sort of talisman; it was the four leaf clover I kept in my grade school notebook until I accidentally left it on the bus; the silver medallion my mother had given me when she was sick, a symbol of good luck, she’d said, I’d believed—before she had her last stroke. Now, I had a business card, a possibility, and I worried that if I went to the address printed on its front my fantasy would be weighed down by reality again and the magic would be lost.

I took the bus to High Street, and got off near a small, light brick building that was ominously plain against the deep blue and orange hues of the late afternoon sky. There were two doors: one said Suite A Dr. Slack, DDS. The other door said nothing more than Suite B. I walked in.

The office was small. There were only a few chairs, a table and a wooden broom—the sort marketed as “country decor” at craft stores around the start of autumn. I called out, asking if anyone was here. There was no response, but I could hear the rustling of papers in another room. The lightness was still here, the hope.

As I looked around for a sign-in sheet or some such thing, a round, bald head, shiny in the dim light, stuck out from the back doorway. When I said hello, the head retreated and more papers rustled.

“I’m closed. I forgot to lock the door,” the man said in a sing-song voice.

“Oh. Can I make an appointment, then?”

“No appointments for a first meeting. People never show for first appointments. Walk-ins only.”

“OK. What are your hours?” I asked.

“That depends,” he sang. “My wife is waiting, please come back another day.”

The bus home wasn’t due for ten minutes, and it was beginning to get cold outside. I looked around again, expecting maybe to notice something I had missed. “What’s the broom for?” I asked.

He stepped out. His body was as round and buoyant as his voice, and he didn’t seem irritated by my move to stall him. In fact, the question seemed to intrigue him. He walked up to me, and I noticed that he was almost my same height, 5’2”, and this made me feel comfortable with him.

“This,” he said, picking up the broom, “is for bad energies. For sweeping them away and starting again.”

“Sir, I promise, you let me make an appointment, I’ll show.”

“Pushy, pushy,” he said, nodding at my incorrigibility. “One minute, OK? I’ll give you that much. Now, sit. Tell me why you’re here.” I squatted slowly into a narrow wooden chair and eyed the broom, wondering if I would be swept.

“I’ve lost my memory. I forget everything.”

He walked around me, then crouched down and examined my pupils. His were milky, like marbled blue taffy. He took his time. “Perhaps your memory is best not found?” he suggested.

“Perhaps,” I said quickly, “but I need to find it if I’m going to keep my job.”

He lifted my arm, told me to relax, and then released it. I held it there a moment before allowing the arm to fall. Next, he cradled my head in his warm, thick hands and rolled it to the side. “Have you been to a psychologist?”

“Yes. And a hypnotherapist, a neurologist… they found nothing.”

The Healer looked me over the way men used to when I used to pay attention to such things. He stared for an uncomfortably long time; it was as though he were stunned by something he saw, and I knew I wasn’t looking too attractive after nine hours at the blood bank, so I figured he was probably a freak, this was all an act. Just as I was about to stand up, walk out, he pulled back slightly. I waited for him to speak, but before I knew it, he hauled back and smacked me hard, across the face.

Now I was frozen. “What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, too stunned to move. The man didn’t frighten me, but something (perhaps a desire to believe) kept me from moving or retaliating. Men had swung at me before, men and women, and I wasn’t one to cry over it—I swung back. But this was different; I felt no rage, only confusion. Just as the sting began to settle across my check, the back of his hand caught my other cheek. This time I stood. When I spoke next, I sounded like a child: “Why did you smack me?”

“Levity. You are dying, ready to join God.” He backed a few more steps from me, as though he might catch something if I got too close now.

“OK, so you smack people then tell them they’re dying. No wonder people don’t show up to your appointments, you crazy fucker.” I still sounded like a child. I attempted to compose myself, and asked, calmly, “Why would you smack a dying woman?”

“I smacked you to help you feel. You feel, right? The adrenaline. It’s the most you’ve felt in weeks, right? I smacked you to remind you what life feels like, so there: diagnosis, cure. Enjoy your day.” He reached for a small black backpack and flipped a light switch.

I hurried out, saying he was truly insane if he thought I’d pay him for that. And he called after me, amused: “It’s OK, on the house.” I turned, glared. His puffy face became thinner, as if he was sucking in his breath and holding it.

“You’re a disturbed man,” I yelled.

A bus had just stopped across the street; and as I ran to catch it, I realized how right the healer had been. I felt a jolt of adrenaline once more as the horn of a car honked and a heavy, wide sedan, light-blue and moving too quickly to stop in time, caught my foot and pushed me to the ground. Tires swelled above my unfeeling body and I honestly couldn’t remember how to be afraid. I was thankful, as my life became something else.

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Jen Knox is the author of Musical Chairs, a memoir (ATTM Press). She earned her MFA from Bennington’s Writing Seminars and works as a fiction editor at Our Stories Literary Journal. Her work has been published in Flashquake, Foundling Review, The Houston Literary Journal, Slow Trains, SLAB, Superstition Review, and Quiz & Quill. Jen grew up in Ohio and lives in Texas, where she is working on a novel entitled Absurd Hunger.