Summer 2011 Literary Events at JCU

The John Cabot University Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation is delighted to announce its summer reading series.

Please join us for the following outstanding events:

• Monday, June 20th:  Readings by Heather McGowan and Jay Hopler, American Academy in Rome, Rome Prize Winners
  
• Tuesday, June 21st:  Readings by Rick Kenney and Kevin Craft, University of Washington
  
• Wednesday, June 22nd:  Institute Student & Faculty Reading
• Tuesday, May 24th:  Reading by Joseph Harrison
• Monday, May 30th:  Reading by Marilyn Hacker, Poet in Residence
• Wednesday, June 1st:  A Conversation with Marilyn Hacker
• Tuesday, June 7th:  Reading by Phillip Lopate
• Monday, June 13th:   Reading by Dorothy Allison, Novelist in Residence
• Wednesday, June 15th:  A Conversation with Dorothy Allison

Unless otherwise noted, all Institute events are held in the Aula Magna Regina on the Guarini Campus of John Cabot University, Via della Lungara 233, Trastevere, Rome.  Photo ID required to enter JCU. The event will begin at the indicated time and guests will not be allowed to enter after the event has begun.

Marilyn Hacker Visits JCU Creative Writing Institute’s Summer Courses

Marilyn Hacker visits Profs. Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni's classes

On Wednesday, June 1, Poet-in-Residence Marilyn Hacker visited with students from the Poetry Workshop and The Art of Literary Translation class. In a lively conversation, she discussed poetic form and various aspects of translation. She also delighted students with stories of her own experiences with studying Arabic, translating back and forth between Arabic and French in her lessons, as well as the myriad beauties of poetry in Arabic.

A Reading and Conversation with Marilyn Hacker, 2011 JCU Poet in Residence

John Cabot University’s Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation was proud to welcome 2011 Poet in Residence, Marilyn Hacker, to two separate events at JCU: a reading and a conversation with the poet led by Professor Moira Egan.

• On 1 June, Poet in Residence Hacker visited Professor Egan’s Summer Session I poetry class: CW 354 Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry

An Evening with Joseph Harrison

On Tuesday, May 24th distinguished poet Joseph Harrison read new and selected poems in the Aula Magna at John Cabot University.

Moira Egan, Joseph Harrison & Damiano Abeni after Mr. Harrison's Reading

 

Harrison was born in Richmond, Virginia, grew up in Virginia and Alabama, and studied at Yale and Johns Hopkins. His book Someone Else’s Name (Waywiser, 2003) was named as one of five poetry books of the year by the Washington Post. His second book of poems, Identity Theft, was published by Waywiser in 2008. His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 1998, 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, The Library of America’s Anthology of American Religious Poems, the Penguin Pocket Anthology of Poetry, the Penguin Pocket Anthology of Literature, The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, and many journals. In 2005 he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 he received a Fellowship in Poetry from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in Baltimore.

New Student Writing

Each semester new student writing is showcased on this blog.  Today’s posts include original fiction selected from student portfolios produced during fall 2010 in  the course “Creative Writing Workshop:  Fiction” led by Professor Elizabeth Geoghegan.

We hope you enjoy the latest installment of original short stories and micro-fiction pieces written by John Cabot students Anisha Fabien, Andrew Nelson, Danielle Rovet, Kira Boswell, Colin Boyd, Melissa Jenkins, Taylor Sanit, and Nancy Hoffman.

Ekphrasis De Foro by Nancy Hoffman

 

At last we arrive at the age of retrospect, when ancient stones overturn to unveil their own ancestors. A revelation of carved stones, fluting and acanthus leaves, flows forth into the present day. They stood for ages supported by other rubble, and now gentle hands sweep dust from monumental letters. How much lies buried still, inaccessible under new old palaces, further treasures, winding their own passages and stairways atop the elder brother! Gaia stretches aged tufa fingers from one foundation to another. Years don’t weaken her mortar in the least. She sighs and columns sway, not fall; they were artifice when they rose, but with interregnum’s settling she reclaimed them. The city rose higher. A shame, we cry, as we lay down new paths and raise up capitols of our own. The barbarians will come and we will fall. Once more Gaia will swallow the highest peaks of state.

During this age, the sunlight drifts dusty upon reconstituted temple corners and fallen lintels and global people winding through the ruins. They point and glance and linger til the sun drives them inward, toward a cool and dusky lunch. Each feels so exposed in this old place, where the ghosts of senators and slaves–friends with all this time–sit atop the columns, laughing. They knew their own grandiosity, and they laugh to see it dwarf our age of quarter-mile Babels. We sweat among their time-washed temples and stretch to reach the Art, the History. Right there, is that the remnant of a gaudy coat of paint? Oh, dust. Imagined-past swims before our eyes, darting left to right, here a white majesty of marble, there a stinking, painted alley. Julio-Claudians wrapped in gilt overrun merchant streets, and the ghosts of the populus laugh.

 

—written by Nancy Hoffman in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

from Souvenirs from The Poppy Fields by Nancy Hoffman

—excerpt from a series in progress

I: Auguries, Matthew Campbell, 1946

Seven birds swoop and swoon from the crane-arms of a delicate mobile. Even my slow approach and my cautious gaze send tiny gusts, giving them the ruffled sway of life. A bench, a scarred slab of oak, among the birds. They gather in groups, fleeting around a still life collection: a coffee, a bowl of summer borscht, a half-eaten slice of bread, and a cappuccino. The crane’s arms swing with time and the birds chitter and swirl at the fringes of the meal’s array.

The sculpture begs my fingers to curl around its coffee cup, begs me to sit on its bench and to contemplate, and when I glance around for a seat, there is none. A guard in the doorway discourages temptation. I circle, too, concentric with the lesser arm.

It was a quiet lunch, and I hadn’t seen him in a couple of months. The soup was mine, he had eaten already, and as I sipped he retold the scandals that had happened at work after I left. I was warming, newly, in this shady cafe without the pressure of a joint nine-to-five, when another customer opened the door and a flurry of birds burst in to spoil whatever they could. We jumped up from the meal to marvel at the interruption. These birds hopped foot to foot and I puzzled. To stay? To leave? Even here these messengers harangued me as I sipped my coffee. The baristas rushed around to shoo the flock outside. I watched his face for clues. To order another? The barista decided for me. She snuck two fresh coffees into the place of the soiled ones.

Had the birds flown in from the door to the right, I would have risen and suggested a vague next meeting, and gathered myself and left. But they came from the left door, and so I committed myself to at least a month of absurdity before he grew disgusted and stopped calling. I reviewed my volume on occultism and sign interpretation.

These birds flee at the slightest of currents, their substance is no substance, but there they are, tethered. Would Campbell have let them float free, had he the means?

II: The Three Graces, Anonymous Pre-Raphaelite, 1854

They’re familiar, the Graces, they captivate perhaps too much art. But these three twisted femmes are clearly harpies, agents of divine vengeance, justice, wrath. They are punishers of the perverse and the shamed. Fleet, they fly through the brightest, highest air to bring pain. Their skin, a sickly pale, lets light through to bones and purple veins–though their lifeblood is ash and flame. Each beckons the others to speed, and the face of each shows glee toward her task. The sole delight, for these mockeries of virtue, rests in visiting strife upon strife’s human agents.

A Grace is divine elegance embodied. Her world is silk and incense and it is muffled from the troubles ravaging the world. But we live in an age of abandonment by the gods, and so did Anonymous in 1854. Whatever forces remain mock us and when we plead for a cushion, they send us only more ugliness.

The ugliness is autonomous. It stands dormant, colossal, and when it stirs it bursts into our lives to bring us falsehoods. The brute. In their early days, their youth, the harpies were airy sisters. Passing ages warped their luminescent faces into death-masks. They suffered for civilization’s guilts, the airy ones, the careless ones, and now they punish us for our crimes against ourselves. Nature wreaks its revenge on us, who have forgotten how to live within it, but have yet to learn how to live without. There might exist airy beings, careless, buoyed up on towers of warm air, but we can’t stand them. None should have a life of grand surveys when we labor.

Once to shake free for a few hours I drove far north. As I reached lonely Vermont a sense of owning crept around my heart, and if another car dared tarnish my windy road, I sprinted beyond it. And I kept this up for hours even when the highway became only snaky paths clinging to ravines and bursting rivers. I sped to pass a Lexus (whose driver should have taken better advantage of his car) and the cracked and beaten road slipped away beneath me. My tires jumped, my car slammed into a ditch. Thank god it wasn’t the ravine, they told me. What they meant was “City boy,” with a sigh.

When we seek escape from the troubles we’ve created, the world punishes us. It lures us into placidity, into possessiveness, and then it springs its trap. The harpies got me all the way up in Vermont.

There is only punishment for us now, no grace. Having walked so far in the path of Progress and Enlightenment, our solace lies only in their fruits. Don’t reclaim Nature, don’t paint or write or sing in its glory; Wordsworth was a fat fool, in late life commenting eternally on his own poetry. He realized, much too late, that there was nothing there. There is nothing in landscape if we don’t make of it a civilization, a vocabulary, there is no sense in a pure dandelion or mountain.

III: The Three Graces, Adam Holbern (Student of Rubens), 1623

Marisa jokes all the time about a man for both of us to share. Holbern gives us the prototype in these three Graces. A man and a woman drape their arms around a central man. They are golden–men muscled, figured as Apollo; woman soft, coy, Aphrodisiac. Their hair falls soft upon their shoulders. They drink up all the light around them in the pastoral scene. They drink up the light reflected off my watch, my glasses.

Here stand the capricious, glancing original loves. The woman ties them to the earth, and they let her in on their masculine designs. They dance, they hang garlands over each other and sigh. Later they will slip into some sweet-water pool where the nymphs will coo at the sight of them. On some nearby mountainside Orpheus strums his lyre and praises their beauty. He wrote the song himself and he sings it to the nymphs and the animals in these still-divine lands. Somehow another bard will pick up those strains and echo them out across the hills. Orpheus was a weaver of nature, but in the end it tore him up. It couldn’t stand the mirror.

But once all the other singers took up his thread, one after another like the sown men of Thebes, and the earth with all its multitudes of messengers couldn’t cut them all down. They blanketed the hills with their praises and the grasses had to learn to drink the song like sun. Two of those older maiden Graces left, and a pair of youths took their places.

Marisa shops all her men by me just in case. But I could never split someone like that, not unless I knew for sure we would all soar together.

IV: La Bocca di Leone, Matteo Parisi, 1958

Parisi, a master of reproduction, sets forth a lion skin. Within its gaping mouth spans a shop-lined street in miniature. Christmas lights hang from the lion’s fangs and tiny passersby wave at each other on their strolls into his maw. The lion’s heavy claws reach toward me where I lie, head on my folded hands, peering into his mouth. At any moment he could snap those jaws shut on all the shops, all the little people. He could roll them all back into his gut with one flick of his giant tongue.

He lets them be. He can’t swallow them, because they’ve already skinned him. He has no stomach, no viscera, no need of prey. Animals don’t take revenge. Even with those claws, this king of beasts unleashes them less as threat and more as supplication. Now that I have descended to his world he challenges and begs me to see him. He has ranged far across the world, a snarling wanderer, a master of legions, one feared. After a few decades spread out on the birch floors of this museum, he looks to me as liberator.

“When you leave,” he asks, “burn the fur and leather your kind wear on their backs. Bomb the home of the rancher, send your armies after poachers. Offer up fine ivories as penitence. Toss shells into the sea. Then, when you have done all this, come back. Tie me around your shoulders and we will destroy the centers of commerce. When they have nothing left but their homes, burn me at a sacrificial altar.”

I could write a letter to Parisi telling him I’m not a rebel or a radical, and that sometimes there is chicken on my salad. I restock the shelves of my closet whenever I can afford to, and I’m not sure my tea is free-trade, or shade-grown, or whatever tea is supposed to be.

Or I could ride into town on the back of a lion and waving my arms to tell everyone that I am the voice of the next age, and that they were wrong when they supposed it was enough to repent in mind. I would wear a disguise and never reveal my name, because the next age demands humility. We would all ride in carts driven by leopards and wreathe ourselves in laurels still living. We would live under the canopies of trees.

V: Dormition & Ascension, Luc Thibeau, 1925

Lit by a churning cauldron, a sorceress gazes heavenward. Her eyes look back, her lips part in ecstasy, she burns with wild purples and greens and yellows.  She is a sorceress rapt, her body flows into the cauldron and the flames flow into the cauldron. This sorceress streams up with those flames and settles in a divine realm, and here all the gods are green and purple like she is. I lay my pinkish hand along my pinkish cheek and take a step back. Circe with her hands spread wing-like in revelation, she beckons me. She has a point, like they always do, and sometimes I submit.

The giving in is terrible every time, as the pill, whatever it was, latches onto every cell of me. It tears my body away from me, it banishes my body so I become a spirit for the night. When the lights become intermittent, when my eyes meet no familiar eyes, I am outside with the other spirits. Always Marisa coerces me, and she always watches out while I spin. She guides me into the best crowds and dances with me. She brings the water and she hails the taxi home.

I have tasted the fiery dissolution of these maddened sorceries. They strongarm me and blindfold me and carry me away. Maybe I should fight, but there’s always Marisa to look on and bribe these spell-casters to keep me safe. And in the morning, that is when we wake in the afternoon, she lets herself into my apartment and brings me a bottle of water and a barely-sweetened coffee, and we lay on the couch and worry whether the ceiling will stop spinning.

Thibeau’s opium addiction took him out through the slums. Only after his death were his paintings recovered and spotted in a Parisian pawn shop by an art collector, who passed the canvases around to his friends and upon group consensus, began shopping them around.

When my great-grandfather, then in his thirties and a successful entrepreneur, heard about this he made some inquiries and purchased a few of the Thibeaus, because Thibeau was his father.  Dormition & Ascension is a part of our private family collection, and I have puzzled over it daily. Once Marisa let herself in, though, I understood. She told me that her closest friend had moved and she was no good at keeping up with people, and I was going to take his place, so we went to coffee and then went to drinks. In a moment I saw that fervent upturned gaze, no matter where she was looking. Everything she touched came into its own fluttering life.

She loafs on my sofa, head lolling off the edge, and tears up petals from flowers in a vase on my coffee table. The petals fall onto her stomach, and every time I get up to fill a glass of water or observe my window or consider a bottle of ibuprofen she says, “Wordcount?”

So I fiddle with the edges of the books whose color plates I rely on. The earth kindles the sorceress’s flame, and she rides that flame higher and higher. If she grabbed my hand, she could bring me with her to see the distant topographies. I am the luckiest man when she grabs my hand to dash through the flames and climb them. We fly apart from the rest, Marisa holding my hand tight in her small one, and lie around on clouds. Our tangerine and plum and lemon selves mix with the cumulus. With them we roll over and through everything, apart.

Once in a while another man will push me aside for Marisa, and she gives me a nod to her right shoulder so I go get myself a G&T. Colors never overtake me while I lean away from the crowd, myself alone with my G&T, whether I think of the fires or not. I move in closer to the crowd, but my body never snags on its bright, fauvist ripples without her. I could never throw a punch unless she left me alone to drag some other up there, knowing as she does how I covet the purple and green winds whipping around my body.

— Parts 1-5 of 24 written by Nancy Hoffman in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

He Called Her Peach by Kira Boswell

One—He called her Peach.  And she hated it.  The way it popped out of his mouth at the end of his sentences.  The way he accented the ending.  Peach—with the hardest “CH” sound, exploded into her ears, into her head, and into her body.

Two—Her skin slides back and forth between day and dusk—allowing the blonde hair to settle his eyes.  The feeling of distance forces him to close his eyes and push his lips against her and slide them back and forth—slower, faster, and then slower again.  No words exchanged.  No terms of endearment.  Only the silent appreciation of how she felt to him.

Three—She cuts into the thin, fuzzy skin with ease, and glides through the inside until she hits a wall.  She tries sliding the knife around the seed unsuccessfully.  The orbit was far from perfect.  She squeezes just slightly on both sides, careful not to bruise the fruit.  The peach falls apart, revealing the red flower that had grown tightly around the seed.  She was surprised by how easily the fruit separated.  With only one, whole seed, there was no need to dig at the pieces that lay in front of her.  The dark red quickly faded into a comforting peach color. She stares at a wedge and releases it into her mouth with a heavy breath.

—written by Kira Boswell in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

My Mug by Andrew Nelson

 

My mug sits alone on the black stone kitchen counter. It’s in isolation from the friendly set of silverware and the communal large pot.  There is an old chamomile teabag, dried out and stuck on the inside of it, from last night’s evening tea. The teabag is tied around the handle as I always do.  The cup has a faint smell of last night’s tea, and the permanent odor of soiled coffee. The inside of the cup has irremovable stains from coffee and tea. They form rings at different levels from top to bottom. The stains are the stratigraphy of a year in Italy, the mornings and evenings spent with the cup and the comforting hot drink inside, mementos of long nights of research and writing, of early morning classes, and homesickness.

The cup is white on the inside and black on the outside. There are words written on the outside of the cup in white marker: Carpe diem, Live Italian, Love forever mom, Time to go all in, The universe is perfect. Each word is written in the signature handwriting of one of my family members. The words are fading, as though I have spent too much time away from home.

The bottom of the inside of cup has a marble design of dark yellow veins left from the chamomile. I untie the teabag and peal the old teabag out of the inside of the cup and gently wash last night’s stains off. A new day.

—written by Andrew Nelson in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

Hands by Melissa Jenkins

My best friend holds my hand on the day I lie to her for the last time.  She braids my hair and does my makeup, but she holds my hand like only a best friend can.  The cheers from the crowd and ringing of their shoes on the bleachers for the winning touchdown drown out the sound of my guilt, so I let her keep holding my hand.

Emma holds pom poms in one hand, and my sweaty hand in the other.  I remember all of the times she has stood by my side underneath the glare of the stadium lights at football games.  I remember all of the times she has stayed by my side in the dim hallways and cold classrooms in spite of my lies—the lies she never believed, was never tricked by like the other girls I drove away.

Emma doesn’t let go of my hand until the game is over and parents and friends pour onto the muddy field.  When she does, I run up to Jared.  Someone tells her that we have been dating since Tuesday.  She has been expecting this since Saturday when I called and asked for his number for an English project, but she knew we didn’t have English together.  A part of her refuses to believe I would do this to her, and she knows she has let me.  She would like to believe she is more hurt by her own ignorance than my betrayal.

She doesn’t call me a bitch and pull my hair like any other girl would if she learned her friend was suddenly dating the boy she had been in love with for years.  Instead, she gets in her car and drives and cries for hours.  She cries for Jared; she thinks that he has broken her heart.  When he cheats on me with her six months from now, Emma will understand that she has been missing me all of this time.  She will think of the time she held my hand on a cold Friday night in November and will feel the sting of my betrayal deep in her chest.

—written by Melissa Jenkins in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

The Tale of Her Small Town by Melissa Jenkins

 

Ben looked out at the sheep in the pasture and the sporadically planted fruit trees in the back yard.  The backdrop of mountains was blue in the distance, and the sweet smell of just-cut grass and freshly-picked flowers hung in the air.  A warm breeze tousled his blond hair.  The whole scene had  a post card feeling.

“God, it’s hot here,” Ben sighed.  He wiped the sweat from his upper lip.

Hillary laughed.  “It’s early still.  It’ll cool off around midnight.  Good thing you came in June.  It really heats up around the end of July.”

She pulled her fingers through her long, thick hair.  It fell back onto her bare shoulders that seemed to know how to endure the summer heat.

“Heats up!” he choked.  “How hot does it get in this place?”

“Usually around a hundred, but it’s the humidity that gets you.  It’s surprisingly humid for California.  Rice fields, you know.”  She shooed a fly away from her iced tea.

Ben didn’t know.  He was from Portland, Oregon.  It didn’t get above a hundred degrees in Portland.  But Hillary had been his best friend since their first semester of grad school, and she had asked him to help her housesit for her parents.  It was a big house, and she hated staying there alone.

“So what do you do to cool off around here?” he asked.

“The mosquitoes are too thick at the pool after dark,” she thought aloud.  “We used to go to the movies, but after the owner’s wife took half his money in the divorce, he can’t afford to keep the AC on the whole night.  Now it’s just high schoolers.  It’s a good place to get drunk and make out.”

“Did you get drunk and make out at the movies when you were in high school?” he asked.

“Hell no,” she laughed.  “If I’m going to pay six-fifty for a ticket, I’m going to watch the movie.”

“It’s six-fifty for a movie here?” he nearly shouted.

“No.  Tony had to raise it to seven dollars to keep the AC running.  And all the food court items by ten cents.  It was a hard blow to the community.”

Ben tried to remember the last time he had paid seven dollars for a movie ticket.  It may have been hot, but he guessed the place had its small-town charms.

“So no pool and no movies,” Ben said.  “What’s left?”

“You know, that gives me an idea,” she answered, “but I have to make a phone call first. I’m going to show you where I got drunk and made out in high school.”

Hillary made a quick phone call, talking so fast he didn’t even bother to eavesdrop.  They climbed into Hillary’s 2003 Honda Civic, plastered with typical Santa Cruz bumper stickers, but Ben had a feeling her car’s politics stood out from the rest of her hometown.  She rolled through the three stop signs on the way and pulled up in front of a cozy looking place.  The houses were closer together here than on Hillary’s side of town, and he realized they must have driven into the small-town version of suburbia.

After waiting in front of the house for fifteen minutes, Ben was expecting someone better put together.  She walked up to the car in running shoes, Christmas boxer shorts, and a Chico State hoodie.  Her long, brown hair was shoved into a lopsided bun, and the makeup on her left eye was smudged.  She slid into the backseat like it was an old habit.

“I have not done this since high school, girl,” she laughed.

“Right,” Hillary responded.  “How did we forget about the Stop?”

“The Stop?” Ben repeated.

“You’ll see,” Hillary answered.  She parked the car across two parking spaces in front of the Circle K.  “Margaret,” she introduced.  “This is my friend Ben from UCSC.  Ben, Margaret.”

“Your friend?” Margaret repeated.

“Yes, Margaret,” Hillary laughed.  “Some of us are capable of being friends with men and not sleeping with them.”

“That’s boring.  Next time you bring home a single friend, please remember that I like them a nice Latin coffee color.”

Ben was too shocked by that she would say something like that to actually feel objectified.

“Mix all the colors,” Margaret advised Ben once they were inside the store.  Her cup was full of a muddy-hued mixture.

“I’ve gotten a slushie before.”

“It tastes better with all the colors,” Margaret said again.

He put some of the cola flavor in his red drink.  The red was thinner, and the brown color sank to the bottom.

They drove past Hillary’s parents’ house on their way to the Stop.  Her house was about five minutes outside of town, and Ben couldn’t imagine there was any place worth seeing the way they were headed.  Hillary turned right at the end of the road, and the pavement ran out.  It felt like she drove over every pothole in the ground.  She was barely going twenty miles an hour, but he wished she’d slow down.  They were soon engulfed by cornstalks on either side, and all Ben could see in the last hazy glimmer of the sun setting behind the foothill was the steady stream of traffic on Interstate 5.  The dirt road ended in a large square about two hundred feet from the fenced-off freeway.  Hillary put the car in neutral and pulled the parking break.

“Maggie, did you bring the goods,” she laughed.  Hillary’s tone told Ben he was missing out on some sort of long-ago joke.

Margaret pulled out a bottle of lemon-flavored Swiss vodka from the giant piece of leather he supposed was her purse.  She showed Ben how much he could pour in before it tasted too much like alcohol and passed him the bottle.

Margaret sighed.  “It’s like senior year all over again.”

“And junior year.”

“And sophomore year.”

The girls laughed in a comfortable and nostalgic sort of way.

“You did this a lot in high school?” he asked.

The vodka ate through the sweet crystals of ice.

“Only as often as we could get our hands on alcohol,” Hillary answered.  “And with Margaret’s taste for older men.”

Margaret kicked the back of her seat.  “Oh you know I’ve outgrown that.  Anyway, I’d say about once or twice a month.  We had usually had house parties when somebody’s parents were out of town.”

“Not during football season,” Hillary corrected.  “I was out here after every home game junior and senior year.”

“Well I wasn’t a varsity cheerleader,” Margaret said.

“You were a cheerleader?” Ben asked.  He had known Hillary for two years, and she had never mentioned cheerleading.  In fact, he was fairly certain he had heard her criticize the short skirts and lack of knowledge about the sport they were supporting.

“It was a long time ago.”

“They kicked her off the squad,” Margaret explained.  “She was a little too aggressive.”

“I wasn’t one of those prissy girls who liked to shake her ass.  I was really into football and liked the front row seats.”

“Then one day she liked the on-the-field seats.  You know, you’re like a local legend now.”

Hillary slurped the sweet, frozen cocktail.

“There are four thousand people in this town,” she said.  “Everyone is a local legend.”

Rap music rang out from Margaret’s purse.  Of course, Ben thought, this little white girl from rural Northern California would be a fan of Andre Nickatina.

“Hold on,” she mumbled, “I have to take this.  It’s my baby sister.”

She handed Hillary her drink and fumbled around in her purse.

“It’s amazing,” Ben said, “that you kind find anything in that bag.  You could fit a small St. Bernard in there.”

The girls laughed again and made him think he’d stumbled across another memory.

Hillary answered, “Margaret only buys purses that she can fit a fifth of alcohol in.”

With her head in the bag, Margaret explained, “It makes party hopping in Chico much easier.” She finally found her phone and answered.

“How is Mimi nowadays?” Hillary exclaimed after Margaret hung up the phone.  “God, she’s got to be twelve years old by now.”

“Yeah, and she still goes by Mimi.  We thought maybe in middle school we’d have to start calling her Mikayla, but I’m starting to think my mom gave her the wrong name.”

“And what about Mitchell?” Hillary continued.

“He’s been moody for the last couple of weeks.  His ex-girlfriend just got married.”

“Wait, wasn’t he dating Stephanie Miller’s little sister?”

Margaret nodded with her straw in her mouth.

“They just graduated this month!” Hillary cried out.  “Was she pregnant or something.”

Ben choked on his slushie.

“No, I think they were waiting for marriage,” Margaret answered.  She rolled her eyes.  “Besides, you realize that Stephanie, both her sisters, and their mother all got married before the age of twenty.  We’d be spinsters in their family.”

Ben could hardly believe what he was hearing.  He stared out the window at the now dark field and felt like he was drowning in the endless rows of corn.  This was all so different than the Hillary he knew, the studious feminist that drank ten dollar cosmos.  He didn’t understand how such an outgoing woman began in such a small-minded town.

Margaret threw her phone back in her purse and pulled out a can of beer.  “Anyone want a beer?  I must have stashed it in my purse for safekeeping at Malone’s party last night.”

Ben laughed and shrugged his shoulders, “Yes.” He had a feeling he would need more alcohol to tolerate the rest of the night.

“Please tell me Sean Malone still throws parties in his dad’s barn,” Hillary laughed.

Margaret’s face turned suddenly serious.

“Didn’t you hear?  Sean’s dad died two months ago.  His tractor turned over.  Oh God, it was awful.  Sean had to drop out of school to take care of the crops.  He was finally going to graduate, too.”

“Shit.  No one tells me about anything anymore.”

“Well you’re off doing your hippy thing in Santa Cruz,” Margaret answered coldly.  “Believe it or not, life goes on without you here.”

Your hippy thing, Ben thought.  They were both graduate students at UC Santa Cruz, her in literature, him in molecular biology.  He realized that this wasn’t the sort of town where people with master’s degrees lived.  This was a town where watching freeway traffic was a popular pastime and girls kept warm beer in their purses.  He popped the top and took a sip.  It was bitter, so he took a bigger gulp.

“I wish I would have brought you last summer, Ben,” Hillary finally said.  “The Hixleys grew sunflowers last year.  I like it better when they grow sunflowers in these fields.”

“I need a smoke,” Margaret said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.  She started to climb out of the car.  “Anyone care to join?”

The both declined and she shut the door behind her.

“I don’t understand how you can come from this town,” he said as soon as the door was closed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it feels like everyone here is a farmer and has never been more than fifty miles away.”

“You’ve only met one person.”

“Yeah, but if she’s the kind of person you hang out with, I can only imagine what everyone else is like,” he admitted.

“Margaret used to be a free spirit,” she explained.  “She was actually a lot of fun in high school.  But this town sort of sucks the life out of you a little bit at a time, makes you conform like a field of identical cornstalks.  That’s why I had to leave.”

Margaret got back into the car.  “What do you say we take your friend on a cruise, show him the town?”

The driver put the car back in gear and turned the radio back up.  She started mouthing the lyrics to the first song that came on.  Ben had no idea she listened to country music.  At school she was always about the outrageous femmes and smooth peace-encouraging melodies.

“So where to now?” he asked.

“We used to have a loop,” Hillary told him.  “Past the gravel pit to Road 35 to hit the dips and then the back road past Mr. Jones’ house.”

She was clearly speaking a foreign language that Ben wasn’t supposed to understand, but before he could ask her to clarify, Margaret interrupted.

“Jones doesn’t live out that way anymore.”

Hillary gave her a backwards glance in response.

“Ellen left him six months ago and took the house.”

Hillary laughed.  “Who would have expected that?”  At least Ben still recognized the sarcasm in her voice.  She turned toward him and pointed out of the window.  “Those are the gravel pits, by the way.”

He couldn’t see much in the darkness, but he imagined the mounds he could discern were heaps of gravel.

Margaret continued with her story.  “Yeah, rumor has it she’s been seeing Coach Grayson on the side.”

Hillary slammed her feet into the clutch and the break, bringing the car to a sudden stop in the middle of the road.

“That is the most amazing news I have heard since I got back here.  This town needs a good lesbian couple.”

As the car started rolling again, Ben scrunched his face.  Since when did Hillary think a lesbian couple was a scandal?  Half of their friends were gay.

“Don’t get too excited,” Margaret sighed.  “He just got promoted to principal, so she’ll probably take him back.  A high school principal certainly makes more money than a gym teacher.”

Ben felt the ground give out underneath the car at what he first imagined was a bump in the road.  But as the car kept swiftly rolling down and back up again, he realized they must have hit the dips.

“Alright lady,” Margaret yawned, “my drink’s empty and I promised Mimi I’d watch a movie with her tonight.”

Ben saw the dim lights of the town in front of them.

“Always good catching up with you.”  Hillary smiled, but he couldn’t tell if it was fake or just sad.  “Who else keeps me up to date on all the town gossip.”

“You know I’ve got you covered,” she laughed.  Ben didn’t think she noticed her friend’s lack of enthusiasm.  “And Ben, it was nice to meet you.  Hillary hardly ever brings her college friends back here.  I think she’s afraid we won’t like you guys.”

That’s definitely it, Ben thought as he forced a short laugh.

They pulled up in front of the house.  Hillary said, “Let Mimi know I say hello.  And tell Mitchell there are plenty of fish in the sea that don’t want to get married the day after they graduate high school,” instead of goodbye.

Hillary didn’t say anything for awhile as they drove back to her parents’ house.  She rolled down the windows and let the breeze catch her hair.  She was right; it was cooler already.

“So I guess a lot has changed since you left,” Ben said finally.

“What do you mean?”

“Stephanie Miller’s little sister got married.  Your friend Sean’s dad died.  And the Joneses split up.”

Hillary rephrased his answer, “Kids still get married too young.  Sean Patrick Malone IV never graduated college and ended up on his daddy’s farm, just like Sean III and junior and senior.  And the Joneses, who started dating when they were married to other people, are still having affairs.  No, Ben.  This is town is exactly the way I left it.”

 

—written by Melissa Jenkins in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

On an Island by Taylor Sanit

 

I.

Two lonely video poker machines sat across from his table awaiting company.  Around the wall in the other room, discouraged soccer fans rattled with contempt for the match that had fallen out of their favor.  The walls were decorated with beer signs, posters of soccer schedules, framed pictures from the 70’s, and a yellow lining along the top.   There was the dissipation of cigarette smoke through the musk of beer, fish, bread, meat, and unclean spectators.   They lined the bar, crowded the tables, talked loudly, ate sloppily and thought little.

Paolo shuffled with his limp through the wooden tables and tarnished floors clearing the finished pastry and meat dishes inquiring politely of further rations.  Dick stood behind the bar cleaning glasses and pouring drinks while his two sons, three years apart but neither above eight, restocked the ice chest and wrapped food for the travelers.   They chattered happily in loving tones during their work:

“You excited for your season?” the caring father asked his kids.

“Oh yes, I’ve been practicing so much.”

“Me too!”

Muffled chatter from the outside tables was barely heard by the American who sat just inside the doorway to the poker room.  He had been on his computer, lost in the abyss of infinite information, only momentarily looking towards the screen as the bar rang out with the last goal.   He used the back of his hand and finger tips to unknowingly rub his scruffled face with calloused hands.  A final gulp emptied the glass as Paolo returned with a freshly opened bottle of Cisk.   They chatted for a few seconds about the game although Paolo knew he didn’t have an interest in it:

“I always root for the underdog,” he told Paolo.

“But they are such savages.”

“All the more reason,” with a grin.

It was twenty minutes until the match was over.  Most the crowd trickled out bitter and defeated.   There remained an elderly man, who may or may not have been asleep, three Englishmen caught up in discussion of the abhorrent loss, one went as far slapping the other for a blasphemous comment, and finally the appropriately disheveled American.  His yellow, green, and light blue plaid fedora was pulled down low on his head where his oily brown hair hung down a few inches.  On his shoulders fell a tattered green shirt with small spots of bleach surrounding the Hart Beer Co.  logo that was now barely visible.  The pockets of his even more faded corduroy shorts held twelve Euro, a set of three keys, a small notepad and pen, and a monthly bus ticket used for less than its value.  His bare feet tapped on the relatively clean tile,  His daily leather sandals lounged behind them.   He fumbled with his handmade bracelet as he read Vonnegut.

Billy Pilgrim had just got unstuck for the first time in Tralmafadore when his eyes dropped back to his laptop to peruse his overly complex interests.  Shuffled through radio stations, journals of various arts, the art itself, and some of his own.  His glass was down to the last few ml above backwash when he removed his headphones as the final song faded out.   He began to pack his things.

“After nine months they are like already getting married?  I seriously can’t believe she’d want to jump into something like that,” came the slightly jealous voice from behind the corner.

“Well the wedding isn’t for a few months” chimed in another reassuringly.

“Like one in a half,” the first said.  The flinty voices of young American girls over the droll of the English soccer commentator fancied his attention.   The partition inhibited him from viewing his compatriots, but he could sense the transitivity of travelers in their voices.

“Well you know, like, she’s always liked the sense of security with her boyfriends, and has only really dated like three guys,” explained a third.   Accents from the west with their uptick inflection every few syllables mocked their intelligence.

“Yeah well, I mean, I never wanted to tell her this,” the jealous one complained, “But I didn’t really like Mark all that much.   Come on, he was like, I dunno, not up to her standards, and basically a tool.”  She continued, “But I mean he was so obsessed with her I could understand it.  Plus, like, he’s really rich.”

Way to stick to what you know.  He opened his notebook again to seem occupied to listen in on the end of their conversation.   It had been a few weeks, perhaps months, since he had spoken with anyone living in America and was curious about what other insults and insecurities they would divulge at the expense of the engaged friend.

“I think they are cute together and she’s happier that I have seen her,” said the third.  She giggled, “She said she almost fell off her chair into her plate when she leaned across the table to look at the ring when he proposed.”  The other two joined in.

“Well, like, I’m not complaining.  He’s paid for most of this trip.  I’m sure they’ll be fine.”  Her opinion she was so set on seemed to change as frequently as her make-up.

“Speaking of, where is the lucky girl? It’s a quarter past.  We said Dick’s at one right?”

“Yeah, maybe she like got lost,” the first’s sidekick congealed.

“I hope she gets here soon.   I don’t know if I can stand the smell of this place anymore.  I mean, like, meat pies?  Seriously?”

Happy he was still living in Malta and uninterested in any part of the rest of their chatter, he began to pack up his things assured he would now be leaving. Terrific friends, he thought in his methodical pace. I guess one was actually benevolent.

Chimes of greetings echoed from the three girls as they rose with the wooden pegs of their chairs skidding across the floor.  They asked different questions in sequence before the friend had a chance to answer the previous.  He stood as well to cross the bar into the other room, pay his tab, chat with Dick and the kids for a few minutes, when he heard her voice:

“Hi!” He could hear her smiling. “Sorry I’m late but Marco, the super cute masseuse, gave me a free fifteen minutes!  He said, ‘It would be unfar to paid to tooch lady as beautiful leke you.”   Despite the loveable, fake Italian accent, he recognized it at once.   He sat abruptly, stuck by disbelief, asking too many questions to process.  There he put his head to his hands with a dropped jaw and recreated three years of another life in a matter of moments.

He began with the last time he had seen her.  It was four years ago when he lost at his own games for the first time.  She looked at him with those mermaid eyes, so long had they held the blissful devotion of innocent, youthful love, devoid of the emotional devotion that had driven them to such extremes.  Then there was just two months prior when old companions transformed the reconnection of an adolescent friendship to an affair.  It was vulcanized into palpable sentiment through moment after moment with the unfilled desires of months spent apart.  He remembered those long months apart with distraction after distraction.  He had a tattoo, but got temporary ones so they would blend with the original but only found them to wash off in the shower after a few days.  The last moments he remembered was saying their first true goodbye before those empty months, and feeling confident in her face of anguish that it was better for them both.

Her voice continued with the familiar, playful notes and evident emotion:

“Thank you girls so much.  I think that was one of the best spas I’ve been to.” She put down her bag beside their table.   “I’m going to use the bathroom real quick then we can go.  Margaritas on the beach, mmmm.”  Quickly pulling down his fedora, he grabbed his tortoise colored Ray Ban’s.   His head leaned against his wrist as he pretended to read to conceal his face.

Her leather sandals on the wooden floor passed in front of him as heavy as if Hagrid had walked by.   When she was safely facing the other direction he looked towards her through the right angle of his elbow out from beneath the sunglasses.  Her wavy, soaked blond hair fell in loose spirals, unblemished by heat, to the bottom of her shoulder blades which tucked in her tight frame.  Her Caribbean turquoise, sundress lay low across her back just showing the top of the delicate dimples that rose up her waist-line accentuating the soft, peachy skin that had been recently polished up with sun, and oil.   He admired her, top to bottom, as she closed the door behind her.

For a moment he sat in thought of how to handle the situation but quickly made up his mind it was best to avoid this potentially emotional encounter for a location other than Dick’s.   Knowing that if he left through the front he would have to chat with Dick so he fumbled through his pockets to leave the tab on the table and and swigged down half a tall Cisk in about two seconds.  He could explain later.  As he stood, his bag in hand lifting up over his shoulder it was only second before he heard the knob turning again.  Following the grind and click of an old bar door it swung open.  He was slightly leaning forward waiting for her to walk out.  She finally did.

Her face had not lost its innocent charm but was now freckled with graceful womanhood.  Her disproportionately beautiful eyes still shined from the perfect skin as she looked his way.  Initially, they stood and simply gazed, examining each other’s reactions  Her eyes swelled, brow raised, thin lips parted, and head dropped down to lean forward.  He responded by crack a half-witted, closed-mouth smile, showing a dimple, and raising a brow. As her surprised look smoothed into a held back smile, her eyes relaxed and narrowed, her head pulled back with a light shake of the hair off her shoulders. She waited, ready to tango.

“Don’t I know you?”  He dropped his bag leaning against the side of the table and crossing his arms.

“We may have met before.”

“Yeah that’s right, you’re that Laura girl.  Didn’t you go out with that guy Robbie a ways back?”

“A loooooong ways back.”

“Are you sure you’re that same Laura?  Because the one I knew wasn’t quite the woman I’m looking at now.”

“Well we all eventually grow up a bit,” There was a subtle sexuality in her response.

“So what brings you here,” she asked finally.

“Cheap drinks and strip-clubs.”

“You can’t get that in the states?”

“Not without judgment. Plus I have an addiction to chicken Shwerma so this is where I thrive.”

“Well I hope you found what you are looking for.”  Her seductive smile changed to one of almost irritation but he didn’t believe it.  He could see out of the corner of his eye one of her friends leaning out from behind the wall and assumed the other two to be doing the same.  Paolo was pretending to serve the man who was asleep and Dick’s kids even began mopping the floor.

“I see you’ve become The Flash of using the bathroom.  Or just don’t wash your hands.”

“Funny but they were out of toilet paper.”  A mop hit the floor and followed by the patting of footsteps and Dick’s youngest hustled by hugging four rolls to his chest gazing up at the beautiful blond.  Robbie laughed through his nose as she smiled at the child rubbing his head as he went by.

“You can’t beat the service here.  Or the ham and cheese croissants which I highly recommend.”

“Thanks but I already ate.”

“Well then perhaps a drink?  For you and the bridal party.”

“I see you haven’t lost interest in eves-dropping.”

“It’s a condition.”

“Well thank you but we better get going if we want to make it north today to the nicer beaches.”   The conversation was closing but he needed more.  He wanted more of her character and cursed himself for such juvenile comments.

“How long will you be here for?”

“Just tonight.  We are flying to Greece tomorrow.” As she said this she turned to walk into the other room and her friends stood, pushed back their chairs and shifted through their purses.

“Look, I” He took down his glasses and let his eyes drop into a soft, natural gaze, “I know you are here with your friends and are getting married and all that.  But if you wanted to catch up over some fish tacos, I’d like to hear about who you are now, and about what you’ve done this past few years.  And if not fish tacos between old friends, at least a quick drink.”  She drew in her breath and looked around thinking for a second and trying to read her friend’s faces for advice.

“Meet me at the Westin at nine.  These tacos better be good though.”  She turned with her dress fluttered and picked up her modest bag with a nod to her friends.  They were sure to see Robbie’s face before exiting and he sarcastically waved back with an overly enthusiastic smile. He asked Dick for a Jack and Coke and sat down at the banister.

 

II.
Rob coolly strolled across the blue, white, and black marble tile of the lobby reception desk inside the spacious San Julian Westin.  He asked for her to be notified of his arrival.  In the arm chair across the foyer next to the spinning glass entrance doors he picked up a travel magazine flipping through looking only at the pictures and headlines.
The assistant manager of dining services at the resort passed by and noticed him in the chair.   As he approached and called out to him, Rob stood and calmly shook his hand as if they expected to see each other there:
“How’s business been?  Congrats on the position.”
“Thanks Rob.  It’s been good but should pick up real soon.  We’re looking to have a good season though.”  They discussed a lighthearted nothing for a less than a few minutes before Rob felt a body next to him.
“You’re actually on time.”
“Early in fact. ” He politely introduced the two strangers.
“Ricard is a good guy and as you can see, pretty good-lookin.  You should set him up for a night with one of your friends.  Not the jealous one though.  She doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.”  With a quick wink at Ricard,  “So what is it, tits or ass?” Uncomfortable and not wanting to hear his response she pushed Rob by the shoulder towards the exit saying a gracious goodbye.
“They are under Cilinya if you want to send them a little something something”
“You’ll have some nice treats waiting for you when you return.”
He muttered a quick comment about the nature of her friend’s eating habits and selfish behavior and put his hand on the small of her back to escort her out.  “See told you he’s a good guy.”

The walk from the Westin to The Avenue was less than ten minutes under the waning crescent moon that hung above them.  It was missing the little guy sitting on the tip with a fishing pole dropped into the ocean.   Despite this, the water shined and the boats waved in motion as they walked with a fair distance between them.   Around the moon were scattered puffs of moonlight soaked clouds against a blackened sky scarce with stars.   The road was empty and well lit but they walked on the sidewalk.

Their conversation began less momentously than their first.   A typical discussion of the fairly obvious observations about the portion of the island she was staying in consumed a majority of the hopefully romantic stroll.   It was a fair report on the cultural blend of the Middle East and Sicily, pebbly beaches, and endless souvenirs disclosing the sordid affairs which were common throughout the island.

“You walk slow.”
“I’m just not in a hurry.”
She wore a strapless white dress that reflected the light her tanned skin was could not absorb.   He admired the lines of her collarbones, delicate shoulders, and top of her boobs that barely lent themselves recognition but could peer over the lacy white line.   She wore turquoise spring selection heels by an unrecognizable designer to Rob and belongings of immediate importance held in a Marc Jacobs purse that had some form to it, not the usual nylon bag with leather straps.   She had turquoise pendent earrings but left off the necklace not to distract from her torso.  For this same reason she did not wear a bracelet for her plainly set engagement diamond.  A quick ball-park landed the stone around six to eight thousand but he could have been fairly off.  Her hair was now wavier than the loose curls earlier and pulled back with few inch bangs framing her infinitely pleasant face.

He had not shaved or showered but did rinse out his hair and change into a white v-neck with a well-fitting blue and grey flannel he left unbuttoned.  The bottoms of his jeans were tucked under his heels on the worn leather sandals.

Upon arrival they chose an elevated table in the corner of the outdoor patio.  It was away from the viewing area of the several televisions spread throughout the venue playing music-videos lacking any artistic integrity and soccer matches with the significance foreign to them both.  To his left and her right was the walkway from the shopping mall, Hard Rock Cafe, and a few take out spots, to the main Paceville center of bars and clubs behind them.   She looked past him to a woven reed decorated wall.  Behind her was the rest of the restaurant.  The white florescent bar with neon streams topped with a black marble counter was quickly accumulating patrons dressed with untucked oxford button-ups and seamless cocktail dresses.

“Hi Rob, It’s been a while.”  Their busty Australian waitress Paula greeted them with menus, condiments, and a blatantly irritated attitude.   Laura grinned at Rob and shook her head wondering about whether or not Rob would be keeling over after the meal.

“I know.  Last time the manager suspended me from coming here for a month because I kept saying to the other guests how they should have a stricter dress code for the waitresses. Their cleavage was making me cross-eyed.  He said it was for my own good.”                                              Without a response to his comment she inquired about their drink orders.

“Chivas and coke for me and a Vodka tonic for the soon-to-be wife.  Not mine of course.”

“I could have guessed that.  Congratulations.”

Laura appreciated the gesture and decided on a glass of white-wine rather than Rob’s suggestion.  The waitress left and Laura asked indirectly of the Maltese relationship assuming he did not call her after.

“I really thought she wanted to be mutually inexclusive.  What were you saying about your father?”

She continue on about his father’s career for a few minutes and then went on to say how her mom was happy and well-over the empty nest syndrome with more details Rob didn’t really listen to.  Talks of family no longer interested him.

“I’m sorry about what happened with your parents.  I just couldn’t get out of a work trip to make it to the service.”

“Eh it happens.  The card was very helpful.”

“I heard you gave a beautiful eulogy.  That’s very brave of you.”

“I think it’s a bit cowardice not to when it’s your parents.”

“Some people just can’t do things like that.”

“Mutes.”

“Well either way my father fully cried and that’s no easy feat.”

“A crying man has become quite the spectacle these days.  On second thought, public displays of any emotion other than contentment fit that statement.”  She waited for him to say something she could mother him about looking into a devoid expression.   His eyes followed the crowd back to her face, uncomfortable at the easy sympathy gazing back at him.    An indifferent attempt to change the subject to the possibly harmful nature of their food led her to dwell on the topic.

“How’s your brother holding up with the loss?”

“He’s at school with plenty of distractions and was doing pretty well when I left.”

“Distractions don’t take care of the problem though.”

Rob went on to deflect her questions with innocuous answers about the nature of his relationship with his brother and friends.  She struggled with each one exhaling frequently with skeptical expressions no longer smiling at his cynical irony and dry sarcasm.   Despite leaving his lucrative job abruptly and fondling his inheritance and accumulated salary wadding through his interests to try to find an appropriate future path, he discussed Malta as just being a nice fit for now to get away from The States.
“You never were very open.”

“Maybe you just aren’t asking the right questions”    The Aussie came back and they ordered a few tacos each.  He ordered another drink and she declined only asking for water.   Well this is going well.  “What were we talking about?”

“The questions don’t matter if the answers are bullshit.”

“Look you don’t do shit when I possibly could use someone most when my parents go down like Bruce Wayne’s.  You send me a fucking card that helps as much as my horoscope, and continue to cut me off from your life like an addiction.  Then you stride in with an air of condescentment because I left the most virtueless environment I’ve ever been a part of,  pretend to be interested, don’t really tell me much about your life either, and expect me to be open.  I mean, fuck, I found out more from your shitty friends.”

“Bruce Wayne was seven.”

“At least he had Rachel.”

“I’m sorry for pointing it out but I don’t like being made out to be unobservant and just stupid like I couldn’t figure out something about you in the time we spent together.   You said the right things when I needed to hear them but I knew it wasn’t truthful and if I tried calling you out all there was the defensive impudence.   Lots of places have a great location, climate, nice people, and party spots, but we all just don’t up and leave their home in a moment when we lose those we love most.  I know that’s not why you needed a break from America and I can see you in pain.”

“Well I’ll give you it, you were always observant to that.”

“I do miss you and am sorry for cutting you off.   I had to though — you were my past and I needed the present.  I was selfish for not being there and one of the main reasons I wanted to go out with you was to apologize.  Okay?  So I’m sorry, the card was shit, I was… For all we’d been through that was wrong.  So I’m sorry. ”

“For…”

“Fuck you Robbie.”

“Okay okay, thank you Laura.  I know I didn’t think much of your situation during that time I was just a bit preoccupied with mine.”

“No, no.  Please, don’t feel bad.”

“Yeah I didn’t.”

He took a long one from his fresh drink and looking inside towards the bar eyeing the shapely female crowd catching a few prospective glances.   With a cold stare he came back to his former love.   She was looking away, deep in contemplation.  After a few silent moments besides the crowd’s resonance, without a word she reached in her bag for a few Euro’s to put on the table.

“I couldn’t have been happier than before I saw you today and I don’t need another minute alone with some asshole when I’m more than in love with the most wonderful man in the world.  You need someone but not me and I cleared my conscious tonight and know this will dwell on yours.  But frankly Robbie, I just don’t give a damn.”

She pushed out her chair and left without any objection from the visually indifferent American sitting with a lonely drink.  The waitress came back with two plates of tacos.

“Can I get these to go?”

 

—written by Taylor Sanit in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

 

Coasting by Taylor Sanit

 

A cigarette burns in the ashtray.  With pronounced blinking it helps keep me alert as I exhale.  Just forty more minutes more but I’m straining my eyes to maintain focus on the darkening scene.  Beach campers to my right against the glow of the setting sun over the Pacific.  I want to stop for a minute to admire, but then again, chicken parmigiana homemade by my father was an unusual treat.  Why does it have to be as momentous an occasion, my 21st or leaving for four months, for him to cook? He seems to enjoy it and damn it’s good too.  I don’t think the man has had an urge of spontaneity in his life.   Maybe he will spontaneously think about how many times he’s made this for my birthday before telling me what to do next.  Doubtful.  Or perhaps the amount of times that I deserved an “I’m sorry,” but I’ve never heard the man utter that phrase in his life.  Not for real significant events, just kind of an overall attitude that he knows all for me about how to live.  It’s because they care?  If they cared they wouldn’t they want to see me in my own ways and not theirs?  My mother doesn’t help, her anxiety fuels his pragmatic conservatism.  Isn’t being young about finding out out how to deal impractically?  Is it not about borderline reckless behavior, discovering individuality, learning from mistakes, and just figuring your shit out?  I love Oscar Wilde: “To get back one’s youth is to relive one’s follies.”  Slowing down too much — the right lane is faster.  I should have taken Advil when I stopped to help this hangover.   Just over an hour to home, not a big deal.

Such a great weekend of Santa Barbara drinking, dear god.  Not borderline reckless – fucking outrageous.  Friday rounds starting at two in the local Isla Vista hubs, my party at night, blacked out by eleven, blow was involved, no idea when I went to bed or what may have happened.  Not really my choice though, they basically poured the liquor down my throat and I felt obligated to indulge. I think the last memory was telling a girl I’d give her Salsa Dancing lessons if she’d sleep with me.  I wish I knew how – not just for that reason and for women but dancing is too beautiful a form of expression to not be celebrated.  All kinds, and I’m not too bad either.  Maybe a class in the winter when I get back.  We’ll see though.  Guys dancing is either super cool or super gay and it’s tough to find a medium.  Eh, fuck what they think — I should do it.   What next?  Oh yeah – waking up naked and unharmed aside from long term alcohol effects could have been a good sign or perhaps a very bad one.  Next day afternoon drinking starting at three — those two new neighbors below us are so damn sexy and all I’ve seen them do is tan and drink.   They were surprisingly chill though and really welcoming.  Maybe my game is getting better? After snappa at their place I, what, took a nap?  Yeah and then George’s 21st that night.  I managed to stay in the present state of mind for that one and got lucky.  But with a name like Roxy though I don’t think it took much luck.

The glow from the sun dims as it is almost under – lights on the road brighten.  The flow of traffic maintains its usual Camp Pendleton eighty despite the posted sixty-five.    I check the clock again, three minutes have passed.  I turn up the radio a bit.   Stevie Ray Vaughan’s screaming blues tear at me bit by bit.  I sing along over the radio.  The assertion, so demanding for his audience to feel, and the consciousness, he builds only to fall and catch himself, tells the story.  There are bits of his life with every note. They are the ones who introduced me to the music I’ve lived with and the poets I’ve died with, how could they not see for themselves?  When I’m away hopefully they will think and find some serenity about the person they have raised.  Are they that insecure in their parenting that they think the world may just be too much for me?  So pessimistic despite their luxuries and just demanding of taking on responsibilities when I’m getting by just fine.  They have a responsibility to themselves to be happy and satisfied.  Well shit, most times I don’t see it and they get to lecture me? HA.  Three minutes?  She’s my sweet little baby… I have gone much further; this place is too different from where I just was.   I have driven this enough times not to get lost.

 

A river slips between hills of a coastal portrait, covered in tall grass and dandelions who wink at one another as they flow in rhythm.   Fisherman, paddle boats, and lovers enjoy the view that too many take for granted.  Children laugh and play on the shore – careless in make-believe. There are mountains to the west that look down to admire such a perfect scene.  They glow with content to play their role in the picturesque.  Some pass without conscious interest:

- It doesn’t really matter where we go.  We’ll get there

- But where?

- Wherever we are going.

I spectate over the vagabonds and listen in about their freedom. Future completely within their grasp, poised and willing to stare down fate.   But I too am free.  I’ve never felt freer and now with quiver with a nervousness from the freedom I feel.   It shivers and ripples like the river – it’s a chill when it’s hot out.  But I’ve been free before;  I’ve known this before.

- When we get there, who will be there?
– Us and them.
– Is that enough?
– Whom else would?
I know that smell that freedom brings.  It smells of wet asphault, fall wind, and the pit of a tomb.  Why the bitterness I just don’t  know.  No, I know. It’s because freedom won’t last.  The bells for freedom are ringing.   They begin with encouragement of opportunities.  Each day a reminder of every moment to see and feel how much someone can truly find.   They hum with a vibe of a soulful echo that builds the resonance from a place many are searching for.  Searching, searching, searching.  It seems too active – to search – it should be with the moments.   When there is no more air, the hum is gone and there is silence in the moments that are not there.  Chills, chills, chills.  The moments that were but now are gone leave the bells as a reminder of what you had.   You cannot replace those moments.  You cannot feel them again.  I do not feel them.  When do I really feel?  I?  There is no more I.
The mountains are getting higher and closing in.   The river and its entertainment, the children, the vagabonds have left.  With the darkness it is the guiding lights which you float along.  They entrance you to not look away.  They define darkness.  You can feel darkness when it’s all that is left and you are simply not there.

Hollow thudding awakens me from an abyss.  Immediately, I am stricken with pain from my right shoulder and what is behind my eyes feels like it has been put in a blender on liquefy.   I let my head drop back to stare at the ceiling above me.  Where am I?  My head falls to the right at the slowing cars that pass along the freeway.  The concern on their faces is unsettling as they point with impatient eyes and tightened lips.  Why was I not driving?  The thudding continues.  I try to reach my arms out and turn my head but without a response from my body. My eyes close because to hold them open requires effort I cannot summon.   The echoing of waves reverberate through my head, each one bouncing and rattling me awake steadily.  Days, time, location, or personas do not exist.  I’m not here.

“Are you okay? Open the door!”   A voice?  Who is talking to me?  The muffled sound seems to be coming from the right as direction starts to become a conscious idea.  My eyes open to the quiet, warms surroundings and I try to move my head.  To my right?  No one.  Oh, well.  My eyes close again.  Pain keeps me present.  Again the voice.  Perhaps the left.  Oh, a man with a blue shirt, longer blond hair, and a strong resemblance to the character “Sunshine” from Remember the Titans.   He seems concerned.  ‘Come in Sunshine.’  My arm instinctively reaches to open the door to let the man into my peaceful den.  I am amazed how it responds.

The question repeats as he yells over a roar that floods my haven.  He does not find the answer sufficient and asks what my name is.  My name?  Such a simple question yet the answer…  Of course I know it, but where?  I search what I believe to be my mind.   I am me.  Should that be enough?  I can sense the glaze in my eyes and the drooping of my head as the lull in my brain makes focusing impossible.  I nod again.  I turn my head to notice the several people around with their hands over their mouth yelling to one another as the freeway drowns out the whisper they would like to speak.  I must be in trouble? Hurt?  I recognize the pain in my shoulder as dislocation and now notice the dampness and smell of urine.  Sunshine asks me again.   I mouth the correct response but do not find the ability to create sound.   With a dazed look, I nod to his questions and he unbuckles my seat belt.

Hello, I try to say to the other man in a blue shirt as I lie on my back, strapped down, tilting my chin to chest as I try to look at the front of my damaged car and the few people gathered next to it.   This man has dark hair, cut features, Latin blood, and just as handsome as the other blue shirt man.   Probably every woman’s fantasy to be rescued by these two — and we can’t forget about some men too.  It’s too bad I don’t swing that way.  The beeping of a heart monitor ensues and echoes in the steel capsule with rich red drawers, wires running throughout, and the distinction of an ambulance.   He works quickly to get tests running, insert an IV, and talk to me in the calming voice so well practiced by medical personnel.

I begin to sweat and feel uncomfortable, growing restless and difficult.  My attempts to sit up fail as Sunshine and Enrique keep my shoulders pinned to the bed, tighten the straps, and take a new tone with me.  The pain worsens and breathing becomes labored.   Light burns my eyes and I spin downwards. My moans and the hastening of BEEP BEEP from the monitor encourage their pace.

“120 BPM,” Enrique reports, “Now 130.”  Sweating and delusional I find my voice.  Simple questions of the five “W”’s  escape my mouth but I get no response as their interest remains on the BPM screen.   “HEY!”  flush and unstable.

“We need to give him the…”

Within seconds my arm holds a river of cool beauty that flows against the callous blood attempting to escape from the surface.  It begins at the elbow and fights like white knights up through my throbbing shoulder maintaining in-line formation until they reach my chest cavity where they disperse, driving back the vicious magma, sending me into peaceful serenity as my eyelids fall.

I bounce along the numbers which echo up from the dials below and spin across the satin paths, rhythmic to the ticking, humming an unfamiliar tune to the metronome.  Floating mystically, it takes me through levels of disbelief, introduces me to beauty that time has given me, and tells me the discourse of reality.  It is innocent and yet ascends me to point of fulfillment.   There is no floor, no ceiling, no walls, or no space.  There are only moments that pass as numbers but melt into visible emotion.  Far from innocuous, each demanding its proper location, the colors decorate the cognition as I admire their purity and let it overtake my perception.  I do not find reason but do not feel as if I am searching for one.  I am merely there.

 

Under her standard, ceil scrubs, with her blond hair pulled back and face turned away from me, her feminine, enticing figure stirs me into consciousness as she reaches across my lap to adjust my gown.  I shift my legs to catch her attention.  She turns, her heavy eyes full of sympathy with fair skin was unblemished aside from the atrophy of long nights witnessing too much pain.  She smiles, a bit coy but truthful with its frankness and says, “Hi sweetie!  How do you feel?”  I cannot help but smile facing such an expression with her tone submerged in sweetness and I simply reply, “Better.”

 

Was I really better though?  Over the next few minutes I fought through the sedation of medication, a temptress, and shock hoping to process the events that had just unfolded.   There was death.  It came and went.   There was a blessing and I was trying to savor it.  I was trying to appreciate it but struggled with the importance of the immediate possibility of never feeling again.   Was I supposed to go then?  Had I not been the right person for this place?  Why did I not?  God there were so many fucking questions I didn’t need to be asking when I should have just been thankful.  I needed to cry but couldn’t.   I was unappreciative, ignorant, and careless.  Great idea to do blow Taylor when you have a disposition for seizures.  Yeah great to not change your lifestyle after you stop taking medication less than eight months ago.  I hear my father speaking for me.  Yeah remember those people whom you affect and those you want to think don’t care because that just leads to more responsibility?  But there is that selfishness again when you get too much of what you want.   Apparently there was more that I needed instead.  Was it this?  Saying a quick hello to the reaper?

I sat upright in my bed waiting for the doctor to come realign my shoulder and for my parents to walk through the emergency room door.  Both took longer than was comfortable but they came.  The shoulder was quick and relieving – the parents were a sentiment of my naivety.

I saw my mother first.  She came through with that brisk swaying she does when walking quickly, her one in a half inch sandals tapping on the ugly tile.  Her jaw was brought forward as she scanned the room urgently looking for my bed.  She had been crying and her hair was tangled.   Her look was the well-deserving, motherly, concerned expression that I loved.  It made the chills go away.

My father was only a few steps behind with the consoling look I needed even before he saw me.  It was unavoidably soft and I couldn’t help but loving his vulnerability.  It made us equal and him open.  His hair looked how has for the past twenty-one years but the wave across the front from the part seemed just a little flatter.  He exhaled when he saw me with a sad smile and I still wanted to cry.

 

—written by Taylor Sanit in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

Snow Angels by Danielle Rovet

This was her first time at his home in snowy Vermont. It was Christmas break and Jessie invited her for a couple of weeks to eat pancakes and make snow angels. He was tall with curly dirty-blonde hair that reached just below his ears. He was a football player; you could tell from his wide shoulders and toned calves. He wore ripped jeans, even in the cold. When his mom made breakfast the smell of sausages, syrup and fresh coffee brewing lured her into the kitchen. From the window above the sink all you could see was brown and white; the forest that began in his backyard was immense. Jessie would tell her stories of when he used to camp out there as a teenager. He escaped a grizzly bear once and was left with a long, brown scar on his leg from its persistent claw.

They had been dating for almost two years now. She loved him unconditionally. They were at that stage, though, where everything she did seemed to bother him and vice versa. Their fights would never last for long, but they were always full of passionate, spur of the moment demonstrations.

“I’m never coming back!” She screamed. “NEVER!” She slammed the door and then opened it again. “What the HELL are you looking at!?” She stared at him. He didn’t answer. She slammed the glass door again but lingered outside. There is no way he will let me go, she thought. He walked over to the glass door. She was standing outside his house, arms crossed. She could see her breath.

“You can’t leave me,” he said. “Where the hell are you gonna go?” She turned to look at him.

“I don’t know,” she said. She walked slowly away from the house, wondering if the winter clothes she brought with her from New Jersey would even keep her warm enough for a couple of hours. She turned around to see if he was still peering through the door. She watched as he disappeared back into the shadows of his fireplace.

Raaaar, she heard. She turned around and sure enough it was Cartridge, the cat. Cartridge pushed his little nose up against the glass door of the house. He was a spoiled cat, you could see by his stomach that almost dragged on the ground. He ate almost anything you would put in front of him and Jessie’s parents didn’t think twice about giving him table food. Meoooww, he purred. At least someone gives a shit about me, she thought. She looked at the cat for a minute or two; half-hoping Jessie would appear and beg her to come back. Of course, he didn’t.

She gravitated towards the small house once more. She heard the cat’s purr even more clearly now. She knew the glass door wasn’t locked. “Jessie,” she said, opening the door. “Ya there..?” The cat jumped up onto her, rubbing his stomach on her leg. She tiptoed towards his kitchen, to the back door. There, she found all of the keys to the house, hanging above the door. She knew exactly which one was for the shed. She looked around, took the key ever so slowly, and tiptoed back to the front door. The whole time sort of hoping Jessie would hear the clinging of the keys. He would take her in his arms and tell her never to scare him like that again.

I’ll teach him to fuck with me, she thought. She takes the cat in her arms, opens the door and sprints away from the house, leaving her footprints in the snow. I got his fucking cat, what now? She ran over to the shed and opened it. There was an old, rusty bicycle, a hose, a shovel and some other old stuff. It looks like this shed hasn’t been opened for years. “Meowww.”

“Shhh Cartridge, aren’t you a cutie pie? Yeah, you are. You’re all mine now,” she told the cat, holding him close to her. It was freezing. She walked over to a closet in the corner. She opened it and found a tent. Shit, I’m from New Jersey, I have no idea how to assemble a fucking tent, she thought.

She walked off into the wilderness with Cartridge in one hand and dragging the tent with the other. She finally found a spot in the woods among the trees. Her face was red and her nose was runny. It was so cold; she thought her hands were going to fall off. It reminded her of the time she went with Jessie to the theme park in Arizona, where they were both away at school. She would always have to drag him onto that fast ride; the kind that would leave your stomach up in the air while you were still on an unruly descent back to Earth. He would grab her hand so hard, as if she were about to fall from the edge of a ten story building and he were the only one who could save her. When they would get off the ride, at first he would pretend that it was fun, but she knew better. She would pay later on, for sure.

She found some wood for a fire. She took the Betty Boop lighter from her back pocket and lit up the wood. It took her while, since it was wet from the snow. She sat on a rock next to the fire, holding the cat in her arms.

“What do we do now, Cartridge? She asked, as if the cat would respond.

“Meeeow”, the cat let out.

“Great, Cartridge, that really helps,” she said, sarcastically. Stupid cat.

By the time it started to get dark she was loosing feeling in her limbs. She put out the fire and crawled inside the tent. She was starving and her hands were blue from the cold. Forget her legs, she could barely walk anymore. By now her clothes were soaked with snow and it was so uncomfortable she felt the moisture making her even colder. She stripped from head to toe.

“Meeeowww,” said the cat, staring at her nude body.

“Hah, sicko,” she said. “Come here Cartridge, we have to keep each other warm.” She grabbed the cat and laid down on her winter coat, her body bare to the winter air. The cat was half-under her. She knew that in that moment if she just fell asleep everything would get better. She would wake up to the sight of Jessie standing above her like her guardian angel, ready to take her in his arms and bring her back to the sound of his crackling fireplace.

“Meeeeow,” the cat let out, shivering. She held him close, just like she used to hold Jessie when they were together.

—written by Danielle Rovet in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010

Coco Cabana by Anisha Fabien

It seems like just yesterday when we were preparing for that evening. Five teenage girls with heads full of hair. Two hours would never be enough time for all of us to get ready. Each had her own shower remedy and ritual, but that night was a special night meaning longer showers and more grooming time. We had to wash away the sweat and fizz from the adventures of the day. Coconuts from a nice Dominican man named Suli, miniature golf, pool tables, Red Sox boys, and Luis. It was a special night meaning the secret stash of everyone’s most phenomenal Bath and Body Works scent had to be revealed. The girls had the same thing in mind. Not Midnight Pomegranate, Mango Mandarin, Sensual Amber, nor Black Amethyst had anything to do with this night. This night called for the most passionate of flavors. We were looking for the sweet, mouth watering, and unforgettable scent of Coco Cabana. The clear plastic bottle seemed just as ordinary as the other bottles in the Bath and Body Works stores, but it was rare.

Coco Cabana instantly sets you apart from the rest and should only be worn for the most memorable moments. A perfect scent for that night, that island. It takes us back to paradise with just one whiff. Beautiful palm trees, tropical birds, endless coconuts filled with sweet water and soft jelly, bright and early sun-basked mornings, and Coco Cabana. Pure bliss. We barely ate anything at dinner and rushed to what we felt was the best part of the night at Coral Hamaca. At 8pm awaited our fate. Raul, Julio, and Orlando were just some of the incredible Chocolate Friends. We wanted to be the chosen girls to dance with them. We sat at the last seat of every row, waiting and anticipating our night. From the lobby to the showroom everyone inhaled the heavenly Coco Cabana scent. We were not chosen out of the audience to dance with our Chocolate Friends, but Coco Cabana made that night a day in our lives that we will forever smell. That scent will always leave us with the memories of hot dresses, fancy hairstyles, and beautiful girls.

—written by Anisha Fabien in CW 350 Fiction Workshop, Fall 2010