i
The Oklahoma Review
Volume 15: Issue 1, Spring 2014
Published by:
Cameron University
Department of English and Foreign Languages
ii
Staff
Faculty
Advisor
GEORGE
McCORMICK
Faculty
Editors
DR.
BAYARD
GODSAVE,
DR.
JOHN
HODGSON,
DR.
HARDY
JONES
&
DR.
JOHN
G.
MORRIS
Assistant
Editors
KAITLYN
STOCKTON,
TAMMY
HORNBECK,
GIL
NUNEZ,
CAMERON
BREWER,
CASEY
BROWN,
SHELBY
STANCIL
&
SARA
RIOS
Web
Design
ELIA
MEREL
&
HAILEY
HARRIS
Layout
CASEY
BROWN
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iii
Table of Contents
Cover Art
B.C. Gilbert, Detail from “BFE”
Fiction
8
Zack O’Neill, “Sea Lion”
30 Timothy Bradford, “Winter Velodrome”
45 Jerry Gabriel, “Electric, This Age Coming”
54 Mark Belisle, “Primary Directive”
Images
66
67
68
69
B.C.
B.C.
B.C.
B.C.
Gilbert,
Gilbert,
Gilbert,
Gilbert,
“BFE”
“Devil’s Claw”
“Tipi”
“Twister”
Poetry
71
72
73
74
75
Brent
Brent
Brent
Brent
Brent
Newsom,
Newsom,
Newsom,
Newsom,
Newsom,
“Esther Green Plans a Funeral”
“Floyd and Patti”
“New Hope Baptist Church”
“Floyd Fontenot, Free Bird”
“Ash Wednesday”
76 Corey Don Mingura, “Red Pterodactyl”
78 Laura Holloway, “Annus Miraballus”
iv
Reviews
80 George McCormick, A Review of Phong Nguyen’s Pages from the
Textbook of Alternate History
81 Cameron Brewer, A Review of J. David Osborne’s Low Down
Death Right Easy
Interviews
83 George McCormick, “I’m not the only one to seek out his grave in
St. Mary’s Cemetery, between the Interstate and the softball
diamonds”: An Interview with Ed Skoog
Contributors
90
Contributor’s Page
v
Fiction
7
Zack O’Neill
Sea Lion
Announcer:
“Will
count
if
it
goes….”
(pause)
Sacramento
fans:
“HHHHhhhhhhahhhHHHhhhhhaaaaaAAA!”
Me:
“Man.”
My
brother:
“God
that’s
irritating.
Well,
it’s
nice
that
these
losers
get
at
least
one
good
moment.”
My
dad:
“Well,
screw
the
Lakers,
I
just
need
the
points.”
“When
their
interior
defense
gets
attacked,”
my
brother
went
on,
“it’s
like
they
just
shut
down.”
My
dad
agreed
with
him.
It
was
a
good,
tactical
insight
I
had
to
admit,
a
historical
anomaly
given
the
dominance
of
their
inside
game,
but
when
I
took
note
of
how
relaxed
and
unflattered
my
brother
was,
slumped
in
the
chair
pontificating
by
the
window
furthest
from
the
front
door
(I’d
have
been
pacing,
trying
not
to
shake)
I
felt
inclined
to
rebut
him.
All
I
could
think
of
though
was
African
catfish
(clarias
gariepinus)
show
no
link
between
aggressive
behavior
and
food
intake,
which
I
was
still
converting
when
the
doorbell
rang.
Tracy
was
here.
After
an
artificially
cheery
hello
my
mother
escorted
her
through
the
front
door
and
foyer.
My
brother
didn’t
get
up
until
she
was
in
the
center
of
the
room.
She
had
a
brown
t‐shirt
and
jeans
on,
just
like
him.
I
wasn’t
sure
if
their
getup
represented
some
movie
or
maybe
TV
reference.
Whatever
the
case,
when
she
gazed
at
him
with
her
smiling,
mackerel‐
colored
eyes,
my
personality
went
into
its
shell.
My
dad
turned
in
his
chair.
“Hey
Tracy!”
She
went
over
to
him
with
a
kind
of
lumbering,
unladylike
gait
and
shook
his
hand
like
a
man.
“Hello,
Mr.
O’Neill”
she
said,
in
a
husky
voice.
My
brother
laughed;
my
dad
did
too,
repeating
“Mr.
O’Neill”
like
the
officiality
of
it
was
absurd.
She
smiled,
blushed,
put
her
hair
behind
her
ear,
looked
at
my
brother
again.
When
she
noticed
me
she
said
hi
and
my
name.
I
was
standing
near
our
small
fireplace,
feeling
heat
on
one
side
and
cool
ocean
air—which
always
seeped
in
through
wall
pores
and
old
window
frames—on
the
other.
I
said
hi
back,
and
looked
away.
8
After
a
bit
of
small
talk,
with
Tracy
briefly
regarding
the
game
but
not
commenting
on
it,
my
mom
scooted
her
and
my
brother
into
the
dining
room,
I
guess
to
pose
for
pictures.
This
was
likely
done
for
my
benefit.
Soon
they
were
off
to
Sadie
Hawkins,
leaving
the
three
of
us
alone.
My
mother:
“Need
a
beer?”
Me:
“No,
that’s
okay.”
My
mother:
“You
sure?”
Me:
“Yeah.”
My
dad
(eyes
on
TV):
“Ah
piss.”
Kobe
at
the
top
of
the
key,
holding
for
the
last
shot,
gesturing:
(unintelligible).
Me:
“Not
gonna
hit
the
over?”
My
dad:
“It’s
like
they’re
trying
to
screw
me.”
When
the
game
went
to
commercial
he
opened
up
his
laptop.
“What
do
you
think
for
the
second
half,”
he
said,
“the
over
or
the
under?”
“What’s
the
number?”
“Don’t
know
yet.”
Since
getting
in
on
a
bet
was
of
course
not
happening,
I
made
a
bland
comment
on
how
the
possibility
of
extra
time
made
the
over
enticing.
“Good
point,”
he
said,
nodding,
fascinated
with
the
screen.
I
stood
there
and
thought,
and
I’d
talked
about
this
with
my
brother
before,
it
was
strange
what
he
tagged
as
off
limits.
Pot
and
drinking,
fine.
Betting
on
games
through
his
sports
account,
not
fine.
I
figured
it
was
a
territorial
thing:
his
account,
his
money.
But
wasn’t
that
kind
of
sadistic,
talking
to
me
about
bets
without
bringing
me
in
on
the
action?
He
made
his
play,
didn’t
tell
me
what
it
was,
closed
his
laptop,
grabbed
his
empty
bottle,
got
up,
went
to
the
kitchen.
An
ad
for
a
sushi
restaurant
came
on.
I
stared
at
the
little
trays
of
fish,
the
fist‐sized
rice
balls,
slimy
seaweed
salad,
and
thought
about
my
brother,
who
always
had
the
quality
of
being
in
a
small
pond,
my
father,
a
remora
to
his
manta
ray
father,
my
poor
mother,
who
never
thought
to
do
anything
untraditional,
Kobe
the
kingfish
and
the
Lakers
and
all
those
championships
and
so
fucking
what.
9
I
sneaked
away
to
my
room,
feeling,
as
I
often
do
when
I
go
there
to
masturbate
or
drink
or
smoke,
that
my
departing
footsteps
made
thunderous
sounds,
like
storm
waves
on
breakwater.
I’d
crucified
my
work,
nailed
the
paintings
to
my
walls
I
mean,
the
pastels,
acrylics
and
colored
pencil
compositions
that
my
mother
praised
so
rhapsodically
it
made
me
want
to
trash
them
all
and
quit.
But
I
thought
maybe
some
of
them
were
pretty
good:
one
was
a
portrait
of
a
cobalt‐blue
sky,
swirly
like
Starry
Night
except
less
impasto
and
overstated,
that
backdropped
an
obsidian‐black
mountain
(the
sky
was
so
dark
you
had
to
look
hard
to
distinguish
the
two),
and
an
unrealistic
aqua
green
ocean
to
the
left.
Little
dots
of
red
I considered the story of my
parents – my lower‐middle
on
a
highway
running
along
the
coastline.
I
envisioned
class mom, for whom Long
converting
it
into
a
huge
fiberglass
mural
with
real
red
and
Beach State was a great leap
forward, and my dad, the
yellow
lights
that
moved,
and
strobe
flashes
at
the
top
for
lightning.
I’d
given
the
painting
to
Sarah
as
a
present,
but
flunky who could have gone
to Pepperdine on his parents’
on
the
first
day
of
the
new
semester
she
gave
it
back,
in
dime if he’d applied himself.
and
yellow,
which
I’d
made
with
toothpicks,
signified
cars
front
of
everyone,
because
you
know
she
couldn’t
have
done
it
in
the
fucking
parking
lot.
Or
here,
or
her
house.
Jesus,
break
the
thing
in
half
and
stuff
it
in
my
locker.
That
would
have
been
better.
She
made
me
feel
like
I’d
been
thrown
back
in
the
water
with
half
my
mouth
torn
to
shreds,
in
front
of
my
brother
and
his
girlfriend
no
less,
and
Jonny
and
his
girlfriend
too,
right
in
the
hallway
before
fifth
period
auto
shop.
Another
one
was
a
painting
of
earth—I’d
made
the
continents
red
and
the
ocean
black,
and
the
sky
was
garnet,
and
the
stars
were
all
different
colors
like
Skittles.
I’d
used
a
CD
for
the
outline
of
earth,
and
really
fucked
up
both
Madagascar
and
the
British
Isles.
I
never
painted
people
because
that
was
too
hard
technically;
everything,
really,
was
too
hard
technically.
I’d
get
impatient,
and
there
was
always
sloppy
ass
craftsmanship
toward
the
end.
Another
problem
was
mixing
colors
that
looked
exactly
the
same
when
I’d
run
out
of
something.
With
my
mother
puttering
around
cleaning
and
my
dad
watching
TV
with
the
volume
incredibly
high
as
usual,
I
figured
I
could
smoke
some
of
the
tar
in
my
pipe,
which
was
abundant
enough
I
didn’t
need
to
scrape
any
out
and
make
pellets.
I
pushed
up
a
window.
10
A
medley
of
observations
floated
through
my
mind,
intertwined,
as
always,
with
the
idea
that
I
could
synthesize
this
state
through
force
of
will
when
sober,
and
that
the
hyperapproval
of
ideas
was
false
self‐worth:
In
art
class
Mr.
Randrup,
whose
spherical
eyes
and
catfish
whiskers
were
always
a
bit
distracting,
told
me
too
much
structure
meant
lifelessness
yet
practicing
form
was
necessary,
and
the
big
goal
was
to
transcend
guidelines
or
at
least
put
them
in
the
service
of
something
personal,
and
to
persevere
when
failure
or
negative
feedback
dampened
your
enthusiasm;
he
was
good
at
making
me
feel
less
intimidated
by
the
brilliance
of
others
and
helped
me
to
just
focus
on
myself
(I
felt
the
therapeutic
effects
of
tunnel
vision
at
least);
the
male
banggai
cardinalfish
(pterapogon
kauderni)
will
starve
for
a
month
while
he
hatches
and
nurtures
the
eggs
of
his
offspring;
we
bullied
Mr.
Stetson,
who
always
smiled
like
a
dolphin
and
had
what
he
called
“good
school
guilt,”
whatever
that
was;
he’d
talk
about
how
teachers
can
never
really
be
ethical
because
in
places
where
help
was
needed
you
didn’t
have
resources
so
you
sought
out
the
best
situation
for
yourself
instead;
I
don’t
know
what
made
him
think
any
of
us
gave
a
fuck
about
that—it
was
almost
like
he
was
talking
to
himself
through
us;
we
sensed
we
could
talk
to
each
other
while
he
talked
and
that’s
where
you’d
really
push
a
teacher
around,
not
so
much
in
confrontation
but
in
socializing
while
they
were
trying
to
run
things
(of
course
for
the
most
part
I
was
watching
others
do
this);
wild
zebrafish
(danio
rerio)
are
timid
until
interacting
with
dominant
members
of
their
species
and
yet
they
interact
well
in
aquariums
thereafter;
one
time
in
English
we
had
a
prompt
called
a
“random
page
exercise”
where
Mr.
Stetson
picked
a
number
out
of
a
hat
and
we
had
to
do
a
report
on
that
page
from
a
book
called
The
Road;
I
got
a
passage
where
a
person
was
laying
on
a
mattress
with
their
legs
cut
off,
being
cannibalized,
according
to
Mr.
Stetson,
in
slow
motion
by
bad
guys;
I
guess
I
was
supposed
to
do
external
research
or
cross‐reference
the
scene
with
the
course
themes
or
another
text
but
I
just
speculated
on
whether
the
person
was
alive
or
dead
and
what
human
legs
might
taste
like—I
got
the
paper
back
with
a
D
on
it
and
comments
about
how
much
I
could
have
done
with
regard
to
eating
and
ethics.
Our
very
old
cat
nudged
my
door
open,
unbuckling
it
easily
from
its
worn
out
latch
receiver,
and
announced
her
presence
with
a
series
of
crotchety
mews.
We
made
vapid
eye
contact
then
I
looked
out
of
the
window
at
the
ocean,
the
iris
blue
mass
beyond
a
foreground
of
birds
of
paradise
and
a
weathered
wooden
fence.
She
stopped
beneath
my
desk
next
to
an
old
aquarium—a
dusty,
graveled
ghost
cabin
11
that
I’d
stopped
operating
with
negligence
months
ago—wrapped
her
tail
around
her
feet,
and
started
licking
herself.
I
looked
over
at
the
mirror,
and
estimated
my
thinning
hair.
I’d
learned
to
stop
talking
or
thinking
about
it—but
like
weight
gain,
or
poor
interaction,
or
task
failure,
or
anything
else
that’s
supposed
to
eat
away
at
you,
the
agony
had
a
way
of
working
its
way
out.
I’d
shrugged
off
the
idea
of
delay‐the‐decay
remedies
and
was
just
accepting
it.
Honestly,
I
hardly
considered
it
part
of
my
life,
until
I’d
notice
someone
from
a
certain
vantage
point
looking
down
at
my
head
and
then
looking
away
quickly,
or
I’d
perceive
older
males
being
overly
nice
to
me,
or
I’d
see
myself
under
a
bright
light,
or
think
about
Sarah,
or
the
Sadie
Hawkins
dance.
I
hated
getting
photographed
now,
of
course.
Sometimes
I’d
conceive
of
how
my
hair
symbolized
my
consciousness:
thin
at
the
front,
around
the
edges
a
network
of
support,
just
past
the
front
barrenness
and
patches
of
trivial
growth,
in
the
back,
who
the
hell
wanted
to
know.
I
thought
of
the
Christmas
goodbye
with
Sarah,
her
perky
“Well,
see
you
later!”
as
I
was
about
to
ask
her
when
was
the
next
time
we
were
going
to
do
something.
No
breakup,
no
dramatic
moment—no
responsibility
for
her.
Maybe
turning
fantasies
into
success
took
something
I
didn’t
have,
I
remember
thinking
at
the
time.
Like
a
hook
I
couldn’t
bait.
Our
doorbell,
that
intrusive
hidden
tintinnabulation
lurking
gnomishly
in
our
ceiling,
rang
out.
I
heard
the
front
door
open,
and
the
charisma‐boosted
voice
of
my
mother.
Then
young
voices,
male
and
female.
Positivity.
Good‐natured
awkwardness:
overlapping
chatter,
polite
retractions.
My
father
getting
out
of
his
chair,
men
meeting
for
the
first
time.
I
came
out
and
saw
a
girl
dressed
in
tight
jeans
and
a
linen
trim
top
with
a
goldfish‐
orange
bead
arrangement
around
the
neck,
and
a
dude
with
a
goatee
and
gelly
spiky
hair
dressed
in
a
maroon
V‐neck
pullover
that
suffocated
a
white
polo
shirt.
He
held
something
in
saran
wrap—she
a
grocery
bag,
and
a
bottle
of
wine.
The
girl
looked
over
at
me
with
a
wide‐eyed
smile;
the
guy
looked
too,
except
his
expression
was
blank.
I
could
smell
the
fruity/medicinal
hybrid
scent
of
his
gel.
Neither
said
anything
until
my
mom
said,
“Adam,
this
is
Keith
and
Kelly.”
I
shook
both
their
hands.
“Nice
to
meet
you.”
“You
too.”
“Nice
to
meet
you.”
“You
too.”
Then.
12
Me
(pointing
at
Keith’s
mystery,
saran‐wrapped
package)
“What’s
that
right
there?”
Keith
(smiling):
“Halibut.”
My
mom:
“Oh
wow!”
Kelly:
“Keith
caught
it
himself
just
this
morning.”
My
dad:
“You’re
kidding.”
Keith:
“Right
out
here
in
the
surf.”
Me:
“How
big
was
it?”
Keith:
“About
three
feet.”
My
mom
(drawing
the
word
out):
“Wow!”
Keith:
“We
can
put
it
on
the
grill
with
some
green
onions,
and
some
lemon.”
Kelly:
(holding
up
the
grocery
bag,
which
surely
contained
some
green
onions,
and
some
lemon):
“We
came
prepared!”
Everyone:
“Hahahahaha.”
My
dad
(nodding
at
the
wine):
“Looks
like
you’ve
got
something
else
there.”
Kelly
(holding
the
wine
up,
label
out):
“Starborough.
From
New
Zealand.”
Me:
“Let’s
pop
it.”
Keith:
“No
need.”
(Keith
unscrews
a
cap)
Everyone:
“Hahahahaaa.”
My
mom
fetched
five
glasses,
which
the
wine
was
quickly
emptied
into.
We
clinked
and
toasted
to
the
starfish
on
the
bottle.
Sour.
Candyish.
Girl
shit.
“So
what
happened
at
the
meeting?”
my
mom
said
to
Kelly.
Kelly
rolled
her
eyes,
which
initiated
a
work
conversation
that
washed
away
our
group
dynamic’s
fledgling
infrastructure.
Us
guys
looked
on
politely,
not
yet
at
the
point
where
we
could
break
away
for
our
own
interaction.
It
was
a
loathsome
and
awkward
place
to
be,
but
I
was
too
stoned
to
worry
about
it
so
I
just
stood
there
with
a
dumb
smile
on
my
face.
I
noticed
the
accelerated
pace
at
which
my
dad
drained
his
glass;
when
he
did,
he
interrupted
the
girls
and
said,
“I’ll
get
another
bottle.”
“Thanks
guy!”
my
mom
looked
at
Kelly.
“See,
he’s
good
for
something.”
13
We
murmured
out
chuckles
as
my
dad
went
to
the
kitchen,
checking
the
TV
as
he
passed.
I
began
to
wonder
why
Keith
wouldn’t
be
into
the
game.
“You
guys
go
outside,”
my
mom
said
mercifully
to
Keith
and
me.
“We’ll
get
the
food
started.”
I
pulled
a
sliding
glass
door
open
and
led
Keith
through
a
backyard
full
of
flickering
ocean
breezes.
Light
came
in
through
the
fidgety
trees
and
moved
around
drowsily—I
felt
like
a
nibbler
meandering
through
seakelp.
We
came
to
a
metal
table
next
to
a
clover‐filled
fire
pit
we
hadn’t
used
in
years
and
skidded
the
chairs
out—well,
I
did.
Keith
lifted
his
up.
He
set
his
wine
glass
down,
sat
down.
Took
a
look
around.
“Kind
of
brisk
out,”
he
said.
“Late
afternoon
wind.”
He
didn’t
say
anything.
“Most
of
the
year
you
need
a
jacket
out
here,”
I
said.
“It’s
why
south‐facing
places
are
more
expensive.
Less
wind.
We
don’t
have
one
of
those
though.”
“Oh
really?”
The
flat
tone
suggested
an
antagonistic
reaction
over
what
occurred
to
me
was
a
rich
kid
observation.
I
wondered
how
my
dad,
the
legacy
kid,
the
default
owner
of
this
house,
whose
father
made
him
“work
up
the
ladder”
in
the
business,
dealt
with
that
type
of
shit.
Probably
just
ignored
it,
not
even
caring
enough
to
smirk
about
it
in
privacy
later.
Keith
took
a
look
around
our
quarantined‐by‐shrubby‐old‐fences
backyard
until
settling
his
gaze
on
the
tripodded
eight‐ball
barbecue.
“I’ll
wait
for
your
dad
to
fire
up
the
grill,”
he
said,
staring
at
it.
“Seems
like
the
man
of
the
house
should
do
that.”
I
smiled,
sipped
a
forgotten
drop
of
wine.
Tart.
Whitefish
(coregonus
lavaretus)
have
uniform
growth
and
do
not
develop
feeding
hierarchies
even
under
food
restriction.
“So,”
I
said,
twisting
the
empty
glass
on
the
table,
which
made
a
sandpapery
scraping
sound
so
I
stopped
(also
because
it
occurred
to
me
this
was
a
feminine
gesture),
“how’d
you
catch
that
thing?”
He
gave
an
expression
that
would
normally
accompany
a
shrug
of
the
shoulders.
I
interpreted
this
as
a
signal
he’d
wanted
to
tell
the
story
in
front
of
everyone.
“Wanna
save
the
tale
for
later?”
14
“No,
no,”
he
said,
sitting
up,
and
setting
his
glass
down.
“Here’s
what
happened.
I
went
down
early
in
the
morning,
right
here
at
the
foot
of
Longfellow,
with
a
board
and
all
my
gear.
When
I
was
about
twenty
feet
from
the
water,
I
jammed
the
fishing
pole
into
the
sand,
let
the
drag
out,
put
bait
and
a
sinker
in
a
baggie,
wrapped
the
line
around
my
hand
with
cork
on
the
hooks,
and
paddled
out.”
“Was
it
a
bitch
hanging
onto
that
stuff
when
you
went
past
the
waves?”
“Nah.
Anyway,
I
paddled
out
a
few
dozen
yards,
attached
the
sinker,
and
loaded
up
the
hook
with
some
sardines—”
“Is
that
what
you’re
supposed
to
use?”
“Supposed?”
I
laughed.
“So
I
put
on
the
sinker,
and
a
bait
leader
right
by
the
hook
so
the
sardines
would
float
about
half
a
foot
off
the
bottom,
then
I
dropped
the
line
down,
and
got
back
in
as
fast
as
I
could,
watching
the
rod
the
whole
time
in
case
it
took
off
toward
me.”
“How
long
until
you
got
a
bite?”
“About
an
hour.
But
I
knew
right
away,
when
the
rod
practically
snapped
in
half,
I
had
something
big.”
“Right.”
“When
the
thing
was
in
the
surf
I
saw
it
flopping
around.
It
looked
like
a
goddamned
sea
monster.
I
thought
it
might
have
been
a
big
stingray.”
“I
bet.”
“So
I
ran
into
the
surf
with
a
knife,
and
stabbed
it,
and
grabbed
its
tail
and
drug
it
out
of
the
water.”
“How’d
you
get
it
home?
Did
you
fillet
it
right
there?”
“No,
I
stabbed
it
until
it
stopped
moving
and
put
it
in
a
trash
bag.”
“Holy
shit.
The
nagging
wife
treatment.”
He
laughed,
and
I
saw
teeth
so
pointy
it
was
easy
to
imagine
rows
of
them
in
his
mouth.
“I’m
surprised
you
didn’t
get
stopped
by
a
lifeguard,”
I
said.
“No
shit,”
he
said.
“They
really
don’t
want
you
out
there
doing
that.
But
this
time
of
year,
most
of
the
stations
are
closed.
And
where
I
was
no
one
was
in
the
water.”
“Right.”
15
I
was
going
to
ask
him
how
many
people
saw,
and
how
long
he’d
have
waited
before
figuring
the
bait
had
come
off,
but
just
then
the
glass
door
slid
open
rustily
and
my
dad
came
out,
holding
a
red.
“Hey,
got
some
Sea
Smoke
Botella,”
he
said.
“Alright,”
Keith
said
flatly,
oblivious
no
doubt
that
it
was
a
$30
bottle.
My
dad
probably
didn’t
want
to
pop
it.
He
bloodied
our
glasses.
My
dad:
“Let
me
get
the
grill
going.”
(Keith
and
I
sip)
Keith:
“Great
wine.”
Me:
“Oh
yeah,
that’s
a
great
bottle.”
Keith
(after
a
pause):
“So,
you’re
an
artist
I
hear.”
Me:
“Well,
I
screw
around.
Maybe
someday
I’ll
be
one.”
I
stared
into
my
glass,
took
a
sip—strong,
a
smoky
yet
berrylike
flavor.
The
tart
starfish
wine’s
residue
laced
it,
and
kind
of
ruined
it.
Nearly
all
fish
that
have
been
raised
in
a
marine
reserve
take
longer
to
flee
a
hunter
with
a
spear
than
fish
that
have
grown
up
in
the
wild.
My
dad
came
over
once
he’d
got
the
coals
up,
put
the
grill
on
upside‐down,
and
had
the
area
smelling
like
shit
we’d
barbecued
before.
“So,
how’d
you
catch
that
thing?”
he
said
to
Keith.
“You
a
scuba
diver?”
“Dude,
you
missed
the
story,”
I
said.
“Oh
man,
you
should
have
let
him
save
it!”
“I’ll
tell
it
again,”
Keith
said.
The
girls
came
out,
each
with
their
wine,
my
mom
holding
a
bowl
of
blue
chips,
Kelly
a
smaller
purple
bowl
that
I
knew
had
salsa
in
it.
When
they
joined
the
table
Keith
got
up.
“I’ll
get
the
fish
ready,”
he
said,
and
went
inside.
My
dad
went
over
to
the
grill,
flipped
it
and
started
scrubbing
it,
working
around
the
flames
that
were
probably
too
high
for
him
to
be
doing
that.
An
unhappy
expression
was
on
his
face.
16
My
mom
(in
a
tone
much
lighter
than
it’d
have
been
if
we
didn’t
have
company):
“Is
that
your
second
glass?”
Me:
“Yeah,
and
even
worse,
I
didn’t
rinse
it.”
My
mom:
“Shame!”
Us
three:
“Hahah
heh
heheee.”
Kelly:
“So
your
mom
says
you’re
an
artist.”
Me:
“She
thinks
so.”
My
mom:
“We
have
great
kids.”
Kelly:
“They
have
great
parents.”
(Us
three
smile
gaily,
they
go
on
talking
and
I
tune
them
out)
Keith
came
back
out
with
the
halibut,
beige
jello
on
a
plexiglass
tray
that
also
contained
a
roll
of
foil,
a
fork,
a
spatula,
a
bottle
of
marinade
and
some
seasoning.
My
dad
stood
back
while
Keith
triple‐folded
foil
into
a
sheet
that
covered
half
the
grill;
he
then
put
the
foil
down,
poked
holes
in
it
with
the
fork
(saying
something
to
my
dad
right
before),
slid
the
fish
on
with
the
spatula,
and
started
dropping
sauce
and
sprinkles
onto
the
meat.
“Father
McClellan
is
heavy‐handed,”
Kelly
said.
I
looked
over
at
them.
“At
least
he’s
lax
about
the
code,”
my
mom
said.
Back
to
the
grill.
“Well
it’s
a
strategy
for
recruiting
better
teachers.”
“You
know,”
my
mom
said,
“even
if
it’s
a
factory
for
the
four‐year,
and
the
kids
do
the
privileged‐child
thing
of
‘I
don’t
understand
this,
you
must
have
explained
it
wrong,’
it’s
still
way
better
than
the
public
system.”
“Way
better,”
Kelly
said.
“How
do
you
know?”
I
said,
turning
around.
They
looked
over
at
me,
both
with
that
classic
“unwelcome
interruption
of
a
girls‐only
conversation”
expression
on
their
faces.
My
mom:
“We’ve
heard
stories.”
Me:
“Oh.
Stories.”
17
My
mom:
“Adam,
did
you
know
Kelly
teaches
English?”
Me:
“Really?”
My
mom:
“Tell
her
about
the
project
you
did.”
Me:
“Oh.”
(to
Kelly)
“Have
you
ever
read
The
Road?”
Kelly:
“No.”
Me:
“Oh.”
Kelly:
“What
was
the
project?”
Me:
“A
random
page
exercise.”
Kelly:
“Oh!
I’ve
given
those.
They
lead
to
a
lot
of
complaining.”
Me:
“Yeah
for
me,
it
was
from
my
teacher.”
Kelly:
“Oh
uh
oh.”
Me:
“I
told
him
it
was
because
my
parents
pressure
me
to
drink
when
I
should
be
doing
my
homework.”
My
mom:
“Oh
stop
it!”
Kelly:
“Well,
I’d
have
been
hard
on
your
assignment.”
Me
(confused):
“Really?”
Kelly:
“It’s
how
I
control
the
youngsters.”
Keith
looked
over.
My
dad
didn’t.
“So,”
Kelly
said,
“where’s
son
number
two?”
“He’s
out,”
my
mom
said.
“Out
on
the
prowl
huh?”
We
laughed.
They
went
back
to
their
talk
and
left
me
in
a
conversational
warp
zone.
I
knew
my
mom
wanted
to
include
me
but
she
had
to
be
a
good
host
and
certainly
she
was
enthusiastic
about
gossiping
with
a
young
girl.
I
noticed
the
chips
and
salsa.
Blue
corn
tortilla.
Kind
of
small—the
kind
where
you
needed
three
per
scoop
to
get
the
job
done.
Hot.
I
was
scarfing,
and
gulping
wine.
“Got
the
hungries?”
Kelly
said.
“Is
that
what
they
call
it
now?”
my
mom
said,
and
they
both
smiled.
18
“Halibut’s
ready!”
Keith
said,
saving
me.
“Oh,
let
me
go
get
the
salad,”
Kelly
said.
The
two
of
them
went
inside,
Keith
with
the
fish
that
steamed
like
the
head
of
an
old‐
time
train.
This
left
my
mom,
dad
and
I
together
sipping
wine.
My
dad
was
still
standing;
I
could
tell
he
was
irritated
we’d
become
guests
in
our
own
home.
“I
should
have
told
her
to
get
more
chips
and
salsa.”
“Nah,”
my
dad
said.
“Did
you
want
more,
Adam?”
“Nah.”
The
halibut
tasted
healthy
and
seemed
a
little
underdone—I
felt
it
would
have
benefitted
from
a
sauce
of
mushrooms,
green
onions,
minced
garlic.
As
the
fish
unflaked
in
my
mouth
I
found
myself
wondering
when
the
last
storm
was,
where
this
thing’d
been
all
its
life.
It
wasn’t
the
best
water
out
there
even
in
dry
weather,
with
boats
and
industrial
runoff
and
storm
drains
and
general
pollution
from
the
beachgoers.
After
storms
the
waves
would
foam
green
sometimes.
I’d
heard
stories
of
surfers
getting
hepatitis.
My
mom:
“This
is
so
good.”
My
dad:
“Really
great.”
Me,
Keith
and
Kelly:
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Kelly:
“Thanks
to
our
hunter.
Such
a
wonderful
caveman,”
(Kelly
gives
Keith
an
adoring
look,
Keith
frowns)
Me,
my
mom,
my
dad:
“Hahehahahehe.”
My
dad:
“We
have
a
friend
who
gets
lobster.
Goes
out
in
a
little
skiff.
You
all
should
come
over
the
next
time
we
get
some.”
Kelly:
“Oh
definitely!”
My
dad:
“We
make
them
into
tacos.
Dice
up
the
meat,
fry
corn
tortillas
lightly
in
a
pan
of
olive
oil,
top
everything
off
with
some
cheese,
salsa,
guacamole,
sour
cream.”
Kelly:
“Hey,
tell
them
how
you
caught
the
fish.”
My
mom:
“Yeah!”
Keith
(humbly):
“Okay.
Well…”
19
More
than
11
million
non‐native
marine
organisms
representing
at
least
102
species
are
being
imported
annually
through
California's
ports
of
San
Francisco
and
Los
Angeles,
primarily
from
Indonesia
and
the
Philippines.
My
mom
(after
finishing
her
second
glass
of
wine):
“So,
how’d
you
two
meet?”
Keith:
“Well,
I
was
taking
classes
at
El
Camino,
and
she
was
the
teacher.”
My
dad:
“What
for?”
Keith:
“She
was
an
adjunct.”
Kelly:
“That’s
when
I
decided
I
wanted
to
teach
high
school.”
(Silence,
perhaps
all
of
us
knowing
that’s
not
what
my
dad
meant)
Keith:
“Anyway,
I
looked
her
up
on
facebook,
and
thought
she
was
pretty
hot.”
Kelly:
“And
he
was
living
with
a
girl
at
the
time!”
I
looked
out
at
the
water,
a
cobalt
rind
topping
our
jagged
brown
fence.
Unlike
my
brother,
I
never
wanted
to
go
to
the
beach.
The
beach
made
me
feel
fat
and
pasty.
The
last
time
I
went
there,
it
was
a
Saturday
morning,
and
I
saw
buff
surfers,
cute
chicks
exercising,
Mexican
ladies
pushing
white
babies
in
strollers.
Kelly:
“We
got
a
Playstation
too!”
My
dad:
“A
what?”
My
mom:
“What’s
a
playstation,
Adam?”
Me:
“Uhh.”
My
dad:
“A
play
what?
Station?”
Me:
“Oh
God.”
Keith
(to
me):
“You
have
a
gaming
system?”
Me:
“No
I
really
don’t
play.
My
brother
does
though.”
Keith:
“Oh,
alright.”
The
conversation
went
on,
and
Kelly
had
the
good
sense
to
cut
off
Keith,
who
apparently
had
a
short
tank,
before
he
got
too
deep
into
an
account
of
Call
of
Duty
Black
Ops.
She
took
over
and
got
into
some
high‐minded
ideas
about
helping
people
with
their
developmental
reading
20
skills,
which
seemed
odd
given
her
choice
of
an
elite
prep
school
over
community
college
teaching.
Other
features
of
this
mandatory
banter
were
details
about
Kelly
being
from
Rolling
Hills,
attending
UCSD,
Keith
being
in
construction,
me
feeling
incapable
of
either
of
those
things
(I
considered
the
story
of
my
parents—my
lower‐middle
class
mom,
for
whom
Long
Beach
State
was
a
great
leap
forward,
and
my
dad,
the
flunky
who
could
have
gone
to
Pepperdine
on
his
parents’
dime
if
he’d
applied
himself).
The
more
discerning
I
became,
the
more
adversarial
the
four
of
them
were
to
me:
I
saw
people
taking
turns
displaying
themselves,
not
really
listening
to
each
other,
faking
approval.
I
also
noticed
the
couply
energy
of
Keith
and
Kelly,
the
kind
where
younger
ones
survey
older
ones
then
look
at
each
other
with
little
smiles.
When
we
were
done
eating
and
the
glasses
were
empty
all
it
took
was
one
comment
about
how
cold
it
was
(dad)
to
provoke
a
suggestion
that
we
go
inside
(Kelly),
and
with
polite
synchronicity
the
five
of
us
rose,
gathered
our
culinary
detritus,
brought
it
all
in
and
put
it
on
the
kitchen
counter.
Kelly
then
offered
to
help
clean,
and
my
mom
said
no
no
no,
and
my
dad
half‐heartedly
offered
to
pop
another
bottle
of
wine,
and
Keith
said
no
no
no,
and
we
fell
into
this
awkward
place
of
not
knowing
whether
to
sit
or
stand
or
watch
TV
or
do
what?
I
figured
I’d
help
out
by
going
to
my
room
without
saying
why.
I
smoked
more
tar
there,
and
stared
out
at
a
gauzy,
diaphanous
marine
layer
that
had
draped
itself
across
the
horizon
and
was
obscuring
a
dull
peach
sunset.
The
glow
was
almost
white,
and
looked
more
like
a
sunrise.
I
felt
my
artificial
voice
emboldening
itself,
the
true
narcotic
effect
of
the
drug
for
me,
but
in
its
confidence‐building
stages
there
was
a
knocking
at
my
door,
and
it
slithered
into
hiding
like
an
eel.
Kelly:
“Adam?”
Me:
“Taking
off?”
Keith:
“Yup.”
There
was
a
pause,
which
I
interpreted
as
a
knowing
nonverbal
exchange
between
them
in
response
to
the
smell.
Did
they
want
some?
Kelly:
“It
was
nice
to
meet
you!”
Me:
“You
guys
too!
Good
job
on
the
fish!”
21
I
don’t
want
to
talk
too
much
about
my
thoughts
after
that.
The
thoughts
I
have
when
transitioning
from
an
awkward
gathering
to
isolation
are
the
least
pleasant
ones
to
me.
Clipped
version:
The
sink
was
running.
The
TV
volume
was
up.
Scientists
have
observed
that
zebrafish
stop
swimming
when
left
without
company.
This
is
thought
to
be
the
first
documented
ichthyic
example
of
a
human
mood
disorder.
It
was
very
quiet.
I
was
quite
stoned.
The
anglerfish
(melanocetus
johnsonii)
might
be
the
ugliest
fish
in
the
ocean,
with
a
rusted
metal
color,
stalactites
and
stalagmites
of
sharp
teeth,
hideous
spiked
fins,
and
a
fleshy
protrusion
that
emerges
from
its
forehead
which
can
glow
and
is
used
to
attract
prey,
hence
the
name.
The
tail
meat
of
the
lophius
genus
is
used
in
cooking
and
is
similar
to
lobster
meat
in
taste.
The
bulk
of
their
evolutionary
development
is
thought
to
have
taken
place
between
130
million
and
100
million
years
ago.
My
brother
still
wasn’t
home.
He
played
tennis,
my
dad’s
sport.
Wasn’t
very
good,
wasn’t
good
in
school
either.
I
needed
institutions
for
ideas—school
for
art,
people
for
relationships,
or
else
it
all
got
away
from
me.
My
brother
succeeded
within
them,
so
there
were
certain
things
he’d
not
have
to
confront,
for
now.
My
mom
and
dad
contained
each
other,
and
I’d
always
be
indebted
to
them
for
that.
My
uncontainable
depth
put
people
off.
Bluegill
(lepomis
macrochirus)
have
a
reputation
for
being
easy
to
catch.
They
will
often
bite
anything
with
a
bright
color.
Stories
abound
of
anglers
using
lines
with
no
poles
and
hooks
with
no
bait
catching
these
fish
three
feet
from
a
bank
they’re
leaning
over.
I
was
a
nicheless
child,
bad
at
competing
too.
22
Oxazepam,
a
drug
used
to
treat
anxiety,
insomnia
and
alcohol
withdrawal,
appears
in
human
waste
and
often
eludes
sewage
treatment.
The
words
my
brother
used
when
talking
to
me
about
girls,
or
more
to
the
point
what
I
did
deficiently:
(adjectives)
unctuous,
satyric,
diffident,
(nouns)
supplicant,
(verbs)
cadger.
When
the
drug
gets
into
waterways,
fish
consume
it
and
become
sedated.
Subsequently
they
are
less
judicious
in
their
consumption
of
food.
This
makes
them
easier
to
catch,
and
vulnerable
to
disease.
Scientists
worry
about
humans
overconsuming
these
fish,
one
of
which
is
perch…
I
gave
the
cat’s
rickety,
chin‐on‐feet
body
a
once‐over,
piquing
her
semi‐conscious
interest.
Her
head
lingered,
suspended,
as
I
put
on
my
coat,
stuffed
the
pipe
and
a
lighter
into
a
pocket,
entered
the
hallway,
shut
the
door
behind
me.
Sand.
Paced‐out
trash
cans.
Orange
lights,
chilled
air
in
off
the
water
desert,
pierced
exoskeleton,
bikers
and
joggers
still.
Off
in
the
distance
low
surf
mumbles.
The
shadowed
sand
and
its
divots,
like
miniature
wave
troughs,
a
fear
gang
members
lurked
in
blind
spots
(I
might
have
looked
like
one
myself,
hood
over
my
head
so
I
wouldn’t
feel
cold
air
hit
the
bare
spots).
My
brother
wouldn’t
have
wanted
me
down
here
like
this,
I
knew
that
for
sure.
I
sat
down
on
a
hill
that
crested
the
hardpack,
away
from
the
light,
and
looked
at
the
PV
peninsula,
its
glittering
hump,
and
on
the
opposite
end
Malibu’s
expanse
of
lights
spilling
from
the
upper
hillside.
Further,
Pt.
Dune.
This
was
where
education
met
edification,
as
Mr.
Randrup
would
say.
The
fork
in
the
road
between
penumbra
I remember looking for shark
bites or cuts from boat
propellers; finding none, I
figured maybe it’d been
exhausted by strong currents,
or was separated from its pack,
or couldn’t find food, or was
sick from infected fish, or
maybe some unknowable
combination of those things
ate away at it until it just gave
up and hurled itself toward a
world it had no business in.
and
chiaroscuro.
I
remembered
a
story
that
my
grandmother,
whose
skin
made
her
look
like
something
that
should
be
crawling
out
of
a
Galapagos
tide
pool,
told
me
about
Pearl
Harbor,
how
everyone
here
thought
they
were
next,
how
they’d
turn
their
lights
off
at
night.
I
took
out
the
pipe,
twisted
landward,
held
it
with
my
lips,
cupped
my
hand
over
the
23
bowl,
flared
the
lighter,
hit
it,
hard,
held
my
breath,
turned
back.
Sometimes
when
the
waves
crashed
you
could
see
a
blue
phosphorescent
glow
in
the
foam,
flashes,
here
and
gone
again,
little
aqua
lightning
strikes.
Out
in
the
shallows
you
could
hook
corbina,
which
were
good
eating
but
hard
to
catch
on
account
of
their
skittishness.
Chasing
them
was
a
fool’s
errand.
Most
of
the
time
your
hook
came
back
with
nothing
but
the
dead
sand
crab
on
it,
wrapped
in
a
cluster
of
seaweed.
You
could
never
see
it
as
well
from
here
as
over
in
Redondo,
but
back
in
the
day
there
was
a
barge
a
few
miles
offshore
set
up
for
commercial
fishing.
They’d
even
sunk
a
boat
beneath
it
to
make
a
half‐ass
reef.
Isle
of
Redondo
was
its
name,
but
everyone
called
it
“the
barge.”
The
rise
of
half‐day
boats
and
radar
eventually
made
barges
obsolete
in
California,
but
years
ago,
dozens
of
people
every
day
would
ferry
out
from
the
Redondo
Pier
to
catch
mackerel
and
bonito
mostly,
maybe
sand
bass,
occasionally
rockfish,
barracuda
(sometimes
sea
lions
would
come
around
and
the
workers
would
scare
them
off
with
firecrackers).
If
you
got
to
one
of
the
later
ferries
they’d
tell
you
the
boat
was
full
and
they
couldn’t
take
anyone
out
until
someone
came
back.
When
you
got
out
there,
about
a
20‐minute
ride
over
seahills
until
you
were
a
mile
offshore,
you’d
set
up
your
pole
at
an
open
spot
and
go
to
these
big
circular
bait
tanks
that
had
live
anchovies
going
around
and
around
in
them.
You’d
grab
one,
take
it
from
the
water,
put
your
thumb
on
its
nose,
pull
its
head
to
one
side
so
that
the
gills
were
exposed,
push
the
hook
through
the
flesh
behind
the
gill
(too
deep,
and
it’d
pierce
the
muscle
tissue,
causing
almost
instantaneous
death,
too
shallow,
the
flesh
would
tear
and
the
fish
would
break
away)
then
you
walked
to
the
edge
of
the
boat
with
the
thing
flapping,
held
it
out,
dropped
the
line,
watched
it
splash
into
the
water
and
swim
around,
a
bright,
writhing
gleam,
until
the
sinker
took
it
down
out
of
sight.
Then
you
waited
for
the
rod
to
bend.
Geronimo,
my
brother
and
I
used
to
say.
I
lost
my
enthusiasm
for
fishing
after
a
while.
I
have
a
natural
inclination
to
get
seasick,
and
the
Dramamine
always
made
me
woozy.
And
there
was
the
time
a
storm
came
in
that
was
so
bad
you
could
see
the
boat
pitching
violently
up
and
down
all
the
way
from
the
shore.
I
began
to
have
nightmares
and
daymares
too
about
being
out
there
in
those
conditions—in
my
tortured
visions,
the
shore
would
move
up
and
down
and
up
and
down
and
up
and
down.
Beyond
the
surf
the
ocean
was
a
black
mass,
an
invisible
nothing.
Pacific
bluefins
(thunnus
orientalis)
swim
near
the
top
of
the
Redondo
Canyon.
24
They
are
unsafe
to
eat
due
to
high
mercury
levels.
Japan
consumes
eighty
percent
of
those
brought
to
market.
The
record
price
someone
paid
for
a
fish
of
any
kind
is
$1.74
million
dollars
in
Tokyo
for
a
489‐pound
bluefin
tuna
caught
off
the
coast
of
Japan.
The
fish
is
prized
for
sushi
and
sashimi
and
has
become
more
valuable
as
the
species
grows
scarcer.
In
Tokyo,
a
single
piece
can
cost
$24.
Great
Whites
(carcharodon
carcharias)
lurk
deep
in
the
Redondo
Canyon
but
sometimes
travel
to
the
shallows.
Though
they
prefer
colder
waters
they
have
been
spotted
near
the
surf
and
several
attacks
in
the
South
Bay
have
been
attributed
to
them.
Great
Whites
reach
their
maturity
at
15
years.
The
earliest
known
fossils
of
them
are
sixteen
million
years
old.
The
lanternfish
(myctophum
punctatum),
which
swim
between
1000
and
5000
feet
beneath
the
sea
surface,
is
made
up
of
246
different
types
and
is
the
most
common
fish
in
the
ocean.
They
account
for
almost
two‐thirds
of
all
deep
sea
biomass
and
are
not
only
the
world’s
most
populous
fish,
but
the
most
populous
vertebrates
too.
Their
cumulative
tonnage
is
several
times
the
amount
of
all
other
fish
species
combined,
and
they
are
a
critical
part
of
the
ecosystem,
serving
as
prey
for
whales,
dolphins,
salmon,
tuna,
sharks,
penguins,
and
squid,
among
other
species.
They
range
from
six
to
twelve
inches
in
length.
The
hadal
snailfish
(pseudoliparis
amblystomopsis)
are
the
deepest
living
fish
we
know
of.
They
have
never
been
spotted
less
than
6000
meters
beneath
the
sea
surface
and
have
been
recorded
as
far
as
five
miles
down,
in
trenches,
feeding
on
shrimp.
Their
liveliness
surprises
experts,
who
figure
creatures
at
these
depths
are
inclined
to
conserve
energy.
Scientists
believe
there
are
fish
that
live
even
deeper,
we
just
don’t
know
about
them
yet.
A
girl’s
giggle
flopped
between
my
ears.
A
couple
deeper
voices,
too,
laughter
in
my
submarine
canyon.
I
turned
around.
Four
people
had
traversed
the
bike
path
and
were
walking
toward
me.
Two
guys.
Two
girls
holding
their
shoes.
One
of
the
girls
walked
with
her
hands
out
all
cartoonish
and
exaggerated,
like
a
kid
playing
airplane.
She
seemed
amused
at
the
sand’s
unstable
surface
and
by
extension
her
own
drunkenness.
The
other
girl,
in
stark
contrast,
was
nearly
motionless
as
25
she
followed
along,
head
down.
Both
of
them
were
tiny,
petite
I
mean,
and
the
guys
were
the
same
except
they
were
taller.
Human
lampposts
with
dark
heads.
They
reached
the
precipice
of
a
sand
slope
in
the
fringe
of
orange
lamplight.
Though
I
was
strategically
shadowed,
I
crawled
backward
and
hid
behind
a
small
hill.
They
were
about
fifty
feet
from
me
I
guess.
The
amused,
more
animated
girl
took
out
a
cigarette.
The
other
stood
and
hugged
herself,
looked
up
and
down
the
beach.
One
of
the
guys
had
a
fishing
pole.
I
watched
him
and
his
buddy
take
their
shoes
and
socks
off
and
roll
up
their
pantlegs;
after
talking
to
the
girls
a
moment,
which
I
surmised
was
an
unsuccessful
attempt
to
cajole
them
down
to
the
surf,
they
slid
down
the
sand
slope
like
tobogganers.
Just
out
of
the
water’s
reach
the
guy
without
the
pole
dug
into
the
sand
and
produced
a
scoop
that
they
both
examined.
The
friend
extracted
what
I
knew
was
a
sandcrab
and
baited
the
hook.
This
guy
then
took
the
pole,
walked
into
the
unfurling
waves,
yelped,
and
cast
the
line
out.
I
got
a
little
chill
anticipating
an
unexpectedly
strong
wave
or
unseen
riptide
knocking
him
down
and
sucking
him
out
to
sea.
With
the
drag
out
I’m
sure,
they
went
back
up
to
the
girls,
and
when
they
got
there
the
four
of
them
sat
and
huddled
like
basketball
players
at
a
timeout.
Before
long
tufts
of
smoke
emerged
from
where
the
coach’s
whiteboard
might
be.
One
girl,
the
more
excitable
one
I
think,
leaned
back.
The
other
girl
was
hugging
her
knees
to
her
chin.
They
were
quiet
for
a
long
time.
I
looked
around.
Waited
for
more
people,
cops.
More
smoke.
I
thought
about
going
over.
Might
I
go
over?
One
guy
reeled
the
line
in.
He
fussed
with
the
hook
and
turned
to
his
friend;
soon,
they
both
got
up
and
went
back
down.
They
took
turns:
cast
out,
talk,
reel
line
in,
pick
seaweed
off
hook,
get
new
sandcrab,
cast
out
again.
While
they
did
this
the
girl
sitting
up
kept
staring
at
them.
She
was
starting
to
take
on
a
malevolent
air,
potential
energy
that
radiated
menace
(perhaps
more
so
in
retrospect),
like
a
hunching
gargoyle
statue.
And
then
the
girl
came
to
life
–
activated
by
a
telling
physical
movement,
or
spoken
keyword,
or
conjured
memory,
or
unresolved
effrontery.
She
rose
and
went
down
the
hill,
jumping
the
last
half.
The
guys
laughed
at
her,
but
that
was
snuffed
out
when
she
got
close
to
26
one,
looked
up
at
him
and
initiated
an
augmented‐by‐gesticulations
conversation.
As
the
girl
spoke,
pointing,
motioning
vaguely
at
something
behind
her,
holding
her
hands
out
as
if
pleading,
hitting
her
chest
rapidly
with
her
palms,
the
guy
was
still,
absorptive—that
is,
until
he
shrugged
his
shoulders.
To
this,
the
girl
turned
and
went
back
up.
I
got
the
sense
she’d
been
trying
to
provoke
him
into
an
act
of
aggression
so
she
could
be
offended.
After
exchanging
a
glance
with
his
friend,
the
guy
caught
up
with
her,
and
the
bickering
continued
atop
the
hill.
The
other
girl
lifted
her
head
and
kind
of
reminded
me
of
my
cat.
As
the
feisty
couple
went
at
it,
the
guy
with
the
pole
reeled
the
line
in
and
went
over
to
the
sitting
girl.
They
huddled,
and
draped
a
jacket
over
their
heads.
Bursts
of
orange
light
began
appearing
beneath
it.
This
time,
the
smell
drew
me
in—that
“no
trespassing
in
the
forest”
aroma.
It
got
into
my
weak
spots
through
an
olfactory
pore,
and
made
this
whole
scene,
everything
about
it,
a
multifaceted
symbol
of
all
I
didn’t
have
access
to.
This
was
all
the
motivation
I
could
remember
for
what
I
did
next,
besides
the
tried
and
true
excuse
of
inebriation.
What
was
my
agenda?
Weed?
Conversation?
Did
I
feel
less
threatened
since
two
of
them
were
distracted?
It
was
hard
to
say,
what
gravitational
force
led
to
the
tidal
pull.
But
I
went
over,
flexing
my
fingers,
trying
to
think
of
something
to
say.
I
needed
to
meet
them.
Pierce
their
bubble.
How
though?
I
wasn’t
good
at
this
sort
of
thing.
Who
was
I?
To
them?
I
approached
the
sitting
couple,
the
wind
at
my
back
icing
every
thread
of
muscle.
The
jacket
lifted.
I
couldn’t
see
their
faces,
but
their
demeanor
brought
to
mind
a
time
when
my
brother
and
I
had
lifted
a
tarp
in
my
grandfather’s
backyard
and
saw
raccoons
hiding
in
his
boat.
“Do
we
know
you?”
the
girl
said,
her
voice
full
of
that
stoic
type
of
fake
generosity
you
get
from
these
girls.
I
didn’t
reply.
The
guy
stood
up.
I
stopped.
Stared
into
his
shadow
or
silhouette
as
it
were.
He
didn’t
move.
I
didn’t
know
what
to
say.
Our
little
standoff
caught
the
attention
of
the
two
behind
them.
All
four
were
staring—four
black
figures
in
pale
orange
lamplight,
watching
me,
however
I
might
have
looked
before
the
flashing,
slow‐receding
waves.
The
angry
girl
stormed
off,
spraying
sand
as
she
went.
27
“Melissa!”
She
began
running.
“Melissaaaaaa!”
I
recognized
that
voice.
It
was
our
neighbor,
or
rather
their
kid,
a
crabby
college
graduate
named
Darien.
He
had
long
wavy
hair
and
acne.
We
smoked
and
drank
with
him
on
his
patio
once—he
was
out
there
with
a
bottle
of
scotch,
and
we
were
about
to
light
up
at
the
side
of
the
house
when
we
all
saw
each
other.
I
remember
him
ranting
(atop
his
deck
with
an
unobstructed
view
of
the
water)
about
how
the
occupy
movement
was
bullshit
since
we
were
a
slave
empire
and
we
empowered
evil
corporations
by
relying
on
their
goods
and
services,
and
how
college
was
a
credentialing
apparatus
for
the
managerial
classes
or
something
like
that.
That
was
a
month
ago
I
think—we’d
been
avoiding
him
since
then.
The
girl,
his
date
or
whatever,
stalked
through
the
sallow
lamplight
and
disappeared
into
a
dark
alley
between
two
monstrous,
triple‐decked
strand
houses.
They
all
regarded
her
so
briefly
I’m
sure
it
would
have
made
her
feel
worse.
I
suppose
they
were
more
interested
in
me
at
that
point.
This
was
going
to
result
in
embarrassment,
or
a
beat
down.
Or
more
polite
awkwardness—it
dawned
on
me,
like
a
flood
of
self‐effacing
energy
that
comes
when
someone
shows
even
a
hint
of
disapproval,
I’d
never
have
the
charisma
to
sustain
a
conversation
that
would
get
them
burning
weed
for
me.
I
ran,
mirroring
the
girl
I
guess,
and
descended
a
part
of
the
slope
that
ended
very
close
to
the
water.
I
waited
for
them
to
appear
at
the
ridge,
interrupt
the
light
and
swivel
their
heads
this
way
and
that,
but
they
never
showed.
Hearing
the
waves,
feeling
the
penetrating
wind,
and
hearing
the
waves
again,
thinning
out
and
hissing,
I
imagined,
after
thinking
it
over,
that
the
other
couple
had
joined
Darien
as
he
watched
the
crevice
his
date
had
vanished
into.
After
some
rumination
they
all
set
off
into
the
shadows
together,
bound
for
their
lame
home
lives
or
a
party
scene
or
more
of
the
same
bullshit
except
somewhere
else
now.
Staring
at
the
glowing
waves,
feeling
the
nonstop
wind,
trying
to
find
something
worth
painting,
envisioning
the
right
side
of
the
bay
as
a
slope
studded
by
sapphire
diamonds
and
the
left
as
a
glittering
whale
hump,
pretty
postmodern
arms
welcoming
in
the
black
water,
I
thought
28
of
my
basketball
fantasy,
where
I’d
pick
up
a
loose
ball,
a
blocked
shot
of
one
of
my
teammates’
panicked,
sissy‐ass
attempts
to
hit
the
game
winner,
and
from
about
ten
feet
behind
the
three
point
line,
right
in
front
of
the
opposing
team’s
bench,
launch
a
turnaround
jumper
that
hit
the
net
as
the
buzzer
sounded,
and
then
I
took
a
bow,
showing
my
ass
to
the
other
team,
and
my
teammates
rushed
over,
hoisted
me
up
on
their
shoulders,
and
some
student
was
waiting
with
a
microphone
to
interview
me
in
front
of
the
crowd,
and
girls
and
female
teachers
were
all
giving
me
looks
like
they
admired
me
so
much
they
were
about
to
cry,
the
older
ones
in
a
motherly
sort
of
way.
I
also
thought
of
a
time
I
was
bodysurfing
with
my
brother
and
felt
something
brush
up
against
my
leg,
how
cold
it
was
right
now,
if
Sarah
was
at
the
dance,
how
I
might
get
back
inside
quietly,
the
aftertaste
of
the
halibut,
and
on
and
on
and
on
and
on
and
fucking
on
until
my
mind
was
blurry
and
aching
and
anesthetized
and
despite
its
opposition
to
my
body,
or
you
know
maybe
because
of
that,
I
felt
once
again
like
I
was
in
my
room
and
isolated.
The
last
time
I
was
out
here
like
this
was
right
after
Sarah
gave
me
my
painting
back.
I’d
come
out
and
seen
a
dead
sea
lion
a
few
feet
from
the
water’s
edge.
Waves
licked
its
body.
Its
eyes
were
gone,
and
maggots
bubbled
in
the
sockets.
The
smell—rancid
seaflesh,
worse
than
spoiled
kelp.
I
remember
looking
for
shark
bites
or
cuts
from
boat
propellers;
finding
none,
I
figured
maybe
it’d
been
exhausted
by
strong
currents,
or
was
separated
from
its
pack,
or
couldn’t
find
food,
or
was
sick
from
infected
fish,
or
maybe
some
unknowable
combination
of
those
things
ate
away
at
it
until
it
just
gave
up
and
hurled
itself
toward
a
world
it
had
no
business
in.
The
black,
crumbling,
flashing,
convulsing,
moiling,
retracting
ocean.
Swirl
rise
crash
thin
hiss.
Land
water
land.
Go
back.
There
it
was—what
brought
it
together.
Yet
another
choppy
aesthetic,
two
worlds
sealed
by
a
bubble‐eyed
carcass.
29
Timothy Bradford
Winter Velodrome
In
Ernest
Hemingway’s
A
Moveable
Feast,
a
memoir
about
his
time
in
1920s
Paris,
he
writes,
“I
have
started
many
stories
about
bicycle
racing
but
have
never
written
one
that
is
as
good
as
the
races
are
both
on
the
indoor
and
outdoor
tracks
and
on
the
road.
But
I
will
get
to
the
Vélodrome
d'Hiver
with
the
smoky
light
of
the
afternoon
and
the
high‐banked
wooden
track
and
the
whirring
sound
the
tyres
made
on
the
wood
as
the
riders
passed,
the
effort
and
the
tactics
as
the
riders
climbed
and
plunged,
each
one
a
part
of
his
machine.”
After
reading
this
passage
in
2003,
I
decided
to
write
a
short
story
about
an
American
bicycle
racer
who
goes
to
Paris
in
the
1920s
to
race
in
the
famous
six‐day
races,
non‐stop,
144‐hour‐long
competitions
between
numerous
teams
of
two
riders,
but
while
doing
research,
I
came
across
a
better‐known
and
infamous
side
of
the
Vélodrome
d'Hiver’s
history.
This
led
me
to
start
a
novel,
which
I’ve
been
working
on
off
and
on
(more
off
than
on)
since
2005.
The
Vélodrome
d’Hiver,
or
Winter
Velodrome,
an
indoor
arena
that
seated
17,000
people
and
featured
a
glass
ceiling
and
state
of
the
art
lighting,
was
built
in
1910
along
the
Seine
in
the
15th
arrondissement
of
Paris,
France,
and
for
forty‐nine
years,
hosted
bicycle
races,
most
notably
the
six‐day
races,
circuses,
roller
skating,
political
rallies,
and
numerous
other
events.
In
July
of
1942,
during
what
became
know
as
la
rafle
du
Vel
d’Hiv,
the
roundup
of
the
Vel
d’Hiv,
over
7,000
Jewish
men,
women
and
children
were
held
there
for
six
days
without
adequate
food,
water,
and
lavatories
before
being
shipped
off
to
Drancy,
a
holding
camp,
and
finally
Auschwitz.
Few
returned.
Influenced
primarily
by
the
work
of
W.
G.
Sebald
and
the
early
novels
of
Michael
Ondaatje,
this
hybrid
novel,
which
uses
prose,
poetry,
drama,
historical
documents,
and
photographs,
follows
the
lives
of
two
main
characters—a
French
track
cyclist
and
a
Jewish
immigrant
from
Poland—from
1925
when
they
arrive
in
Paris
to
the
destruction
of
the
Vel
d'Hiv
in
1959.
This
excerpt
from
the
novel’s
prologue
starts
at
the
chronological
end
of
the
story
and
introduces
the
two
main
characters
as
well
as
the
Vélodrome
d’Hiver.
The
novel’s
working
title
is
“Winter
Velodrome.”
30
May
19,
1959
Torn
down
in
the
spring
and
by
the
spring,
the
recoil
in
answer
to
the
pressure
of
events,
the
weight
of
17,000
bodies
times
the
number
of
nights
the
stadium
was
filled
upon
its
concrete
frame,
which
answered
in
a
volley
of
aches
and
cracks,
communiqués
to
the
city
planners
suggesting
demolition.
The
Vélodrome
d’Hiver
limps
into
the
second
half
of
the
twentieth
century
along
the
left
bank
of
the
Seine,
just
downriver
and
around
the
bend
from
the
Eiffel
Tower.
But
it
can
go
no
more.
Its
legs
are
gone,
its
face
façade.
Its
pillars
still
hold
in
the
clay
beneath,
but
its
body
is
used
up
and
a
recent
fire
furthered
its
decline.
Above,
the
tenor
of
the
sky
is
clear,
azure
and
sorrowful,
is
“April
in
Paris”
as
wailed
by
Charlie
Parker,
who’d
been
in
the
city
ten
years
earlier,
died
four.
A
hundred
or
so
people
come
to
watch
the
articulated,
clawed
machines
dig
into
the
ugly
carapace
of
the
Vel
d’Hiv,
the
veldt
of
Eve,
the
calving
of
Eve,
its
myth
and
lore
grand
enough
to
evoke
the
origin
of
the
species,
or
a
Greek‐like
myth
of
god‐as‐animal
mating
with
humans
and
the
resulting
offspring,
but
its
box‐
like
appearance
unfavorably
compared
to
the
Citroën
factories
just
downriver
on
the
quai
de
Javel.
Belches
of
black
smoke
jut
into
the
sky,
steel
buckets
jerkily
prod
and
push,
glass
shatters,
and
soon
the
shell
gives
way
to
expose
the
vertebrae
and
ribs
of
steel
girders,
still
painted
beige‐
brown
where
rust
had
yet
to
win.
Smoke‐patinaed
concrete
walls
surround
the
myriad
wooden
chairs,
silent,
chipped
and
broken,
like
teeth
in
a
bad
mouth,
and
tattooed
with
initials,
dates
and
names:
HB,
AD,
JS
+
AJ
=
amour,
7/52,
2/55,
Jean,
Anne‐Marie,
Vincent.
The
glass
ceiling,
painted
blue
during
the
war
to
camouflage
it
from
bombings
and
scraped
imperfectly
clean
afterward,
leaks
in
several
places
when
it
rains,
threatening
participants,
spectators
and
the
loops
of
electrical
lines
that
hang
down
in
catenaries
to
form
an
impossibly
complex
wiring
diagram,
one
that
only
the
current,
wizened
electrician
knows.
He
doesn’t
understand
this
demolition.
Two
men
among
the
crowd
watch
a
bit
more
intently
than
the
rest,
eyes
wise
to
the
moment’s
import
and
linkage
back
to
the
rest,
like
a
long
and
freighted
train
that
rolls
night
and
day
and
never
arrives.
They
are
not
old
men,
but
they
are
not
young.
Not
dwellers
of
the
surrounding
Grenelle
neighborhood,
but
familiars
anyhow,
their
stories
pieces
to
an
impossible
map
of
the
Vel
d’Hiv.
They
come
to
witness
an
ending.
They
come
but
put
nothing
to
rest.
31
One
has
trouble
sleeping
but
can
extinguish
consciousness
with
cognac
when
he
has
money,
or
cheap
brandy
when
he
is
low.
The
other
has
long
given
up
on
sleep
at
proper
times,
lets
it
come
when
it
will,
like
an
unpredictable
relative.
The
shorter
one
has
lost
his
form,
gained
weight,
gets
winded
walking
four
flights
up
to
his
apartment.
Sometimes
he
takes
the
Metro
to
La
Cipale,
an
outdoor
velodrome
on
the
other
side
of
Paris,
where
he
watches
young
riders
and
offers
unasked
for
advice.
Hold
back,
be
patient,
wait
longer
to
attack.
The
taller
one
wears
his
gray
woolen
overcoat
even
though
the
weather
is
getting
warmer,
and
in
the
inside
top
left
pocket,
he
carries
a
small
Jewish
prayer
book,
its
text
copied
by
hand.
And
inside
this
book,
tucked
into
the
crease
between
the
cover
and
the
first
pages,
is
a
photo
of
a
woman
whose
large,
kind
eyes
are
echoed
by
those
of
the
boy
and
girl
standing
in
front
of
her.
When
they
spot
each
other,
knowing
the
other
would
be
there,
there
is
no
visible
emotion
on
either’s
part.
Like
ex‐lovers,
these
two,
they
are
very
professional
about
things,
and
the
velodrome
is
a
third
in
the
triangle.
What
is
effaced
in
the
daily,
conscious
mind—the
collar
bone
lines
of
an
old
love,
the
firm
guidance
of
someone’s
arms
when
sight
is
shattered
by
grief,
the
number
of
times
one
kissed
a
child,
the
number
of
times
one
was
plunged
and
held
under
cold
water—cannot
be
acknowledged
though
their
effects
are
woven
into
them,
like
freely‐given
human
hair
into
the
cloth
of
a
French
wartime
coat,
or
a
golden
thread
into
a
father’s
prayer
shawl,
hanging,
unused,
in
a
closet.
Jean
approaches
Abram,
offers
him
his
hand,
the
contact
a
sigh,
an
affirmation.
Then
they
turn
to
watch,
offering
no
comments
to
the
reporters
surveying
the
crowd
for
quotes.
Anonymity
a
blessing
now,
but
beneath
the
rubble
of
things,
some
need
of
recognition
survives.
The
backhoe
loaders
continue
their
attack,
deftly
advancing,
pushing
and
retreating.
Kinetic
energy
is
liberated.
Who
can
say
what
else?
A
local
memory
of
pain,
echoing
within,
spiraling
upward
into
the
sky,
vortex
reversed?
Ghosts
that
inhabited
there?
“Indeed,
it
is
just
as
absurd
to
assert
that
corporeal
substance
is
composed
of
bodies
or
parts
as
that
a
body
is
composed
of
surfaces,
surfaces
of
lines,
and
lines
of
points.”
Is
there
a
veil
we
can
rent
to
open
our
eyes
to
all
that
is,
to
truly
see,
or
is
imagination
its
own
reward?
A
large
section
of
wall
falls
inward.
The
two
men
cannot
watch
like
boys,
amazed
at
the
beauty
of
humans
moving
or
destroying
large
things.
The
material
has
too
much
in
it.
32
But
soon,
it’s
time
for
lunch.
Most
of
the
crowd
disbands.
The
destruction,
started,
will
last
one
month,
and
the
Vel
d’Hiv
will
be
replaced
by
a
government
building
and
an
apartment
building.
France
is
putting
shoes
on
the
huge
child
Progress.
Coffee?
Jean
asks.
Abram
nods,
and
they
trundle
off
together,
old
friends
comfortable
with
each
other’s
silences,
able
to
sit
with
each
other’s
sorrows,
messy
like
milk
spilled
on
a
table,
and
not
try
to
mop
things
up.
Words
come
when
they
come,
build
like
a
small
fire
slowly
catching
between
them,
a
warmth.
They
walk
by
a
newspaper
kiosk.
The
headlines
read,
French
army
controls
Algeria
French
Communist
Party
pushes
for
“self‐determination”
How’re
Marie
and
the
kids?
Abram
asks.
Looking
forward
to
summer
with
my
mother
in
Livet.
They
love
the
mountains
there,
Jean
replies.
And
Miriam?
Her
relatives
have
invited
us
to
Tel
Aviv.
She
wants
to
go.
To
stay?
I
don’t
like
the
idea
of
moving,
but
perhaps.
Where
do
you
think
an
old
communist
can
find
a
place
to
work
on
his
book
in
peace?
Jean
thinks
before
he
answers.
I
thought
you’d
found
that
space
here,
like
a
sprinter
maneuvering
through
a
pack
of
racers,
he
says,
his
hands
jockeying
for
position
in
the
air
before
him.
They
walk
in
silence
around
a
corner
into
the
sunlight.
I
think
we’ll
go,
at
least
to
visit.
I
need
a
respite
from
this
city,
Abram
says
as
they
reach
the
door
of
the
café,
I
love,
which
Jean
opens
for
his
friend,
to
hate.
33
Café
interior.
One
barman.
A
handful
of
patrons.
The
rhythm
of
cups
and
plates
being
washed,
friendly
banter,
taking
orders,
and
moments
of
near
silence.
Lucid,
underwater‐like
light.
Jean
and
Abram
are
seated
at
the
zinc
counter,
a
demitasse
and
water
before
each
one.
Jean:
What
happened?
Abram:
We
lived
and
a
war
fell
on
our
heads.
The
millstone
ground
millions
but
somehow
.
.
.
we
were
pushed
to
the
side.
Jean:
And
now?
Abram:
We
shit
in
peace
now.
Jean:
We
shit
the
colors
of
all
the
flags
of
all
nations,
united.
Piles
healed.
Abram:
How
now,
brown?
Jean:
Pants.
Abram:
Get
me
my
.
.
.
Jean
(laughing):
Yes,
I
remember
that
joke.
How
you
invented
it
with
me
at
the
center
of
things.
What
a
palace
of
cowardice
I
was!
Abram:
I
wasn’t
much
better.
Told
to
kill
with
a
hammer,
I
hid
it
in
the
bread.
Told
to
kill
with
a
knife,
I
cut
bread
instead.
And
the
gun.
Awk!
I
could
barely
hit
a
non‐human
target.
Poor
tree!
Jean:
Who
are
you,
my
friend?
Abram:
I
am
my
book
but
wounded,
three
times
deeply.
The
Book
of
Life
sits
on
a
shelf
somewhere
in
the
future
bleeding
from
these
wounds.
One.
Two.
Three.
(He
gestures
to
his
forehead,
sternum,
belly.)
And
who
are
you,
my
friend?
Jean:
I
am
the
drowned
man
come
back
to
life,
but
too
often
I
wake
up
from
terrors
under
cold
water.
Abram:
And
Aysha?
Jean:
Mermaid,
deadly
or
saving
I’ve
yet
to
decide.
Abram:
And
Marie?
Jean:
Lifeguard.
Abram:
I
have
no
hope
for
mermaid
or
lifeguard.
Humans
are
hairy
bags
of
water.
And
I
love
Miriam
for
being
just
that,
no
more.
We
slosh
together
through
the
night,
a
rough,
hairy
sea
against
a
rough
middle
C,
the
tone
she
sings
then.
34
Jean:
God?
Abram:
Condensed
into
the
Angelus
Novus,
who
looks
on
as
the
wreckage
piles
up
into
history.
Jean:
Juliette
Gréco?
Abram:
Hairy
bag
of
water.
Jean:
Arc
de
Triomphe?
Abram:
Background
for
a
slaughter.
Jean:
Hope?
Abram:
I
dreamt
last
night
that
I
left
it
behind
to
become
a
real
Jew
sitting
fully
present
in
a
real
synagogue
with
no
hope
for
God
or
future
or
mashiach
or
past
or
progress.
The
service
was
a
beautiful
bore.
The
survivors
sat
with
me,
satiated
with
grief.
I
was
free.
Then
I
woke,
and
hope
stirred
in
me,
and
ideas
for
the
book
too,
and
suffering
began
anew.
Jean:
What
flavor?
Abram:
Shiraz
and
Communist
red
currant.
Jean:
What
depth?
Abram:
Abyssal.
Jean:
I
too
almost
left
hope
behind
when
I
was
down
that
deep,
into
the
watery
end
of
myself,
past
hope
of
seeing
again
bicycles
and
lovers
and
wives
and
dear,
dear
children
.
.
.
(He
looks
over
at
Abram,
whose
eyes
are
watering.)
I’m
sorry,
my
friend.
Abram:
They
were.
Jean:
I’m
sorry,
my
friend.
Abram:
They
are.
.
.
.
I’ve
never
told
you.
I
talk
to
them
daily,
all
three.
They
advise
me
where
to
go,
what
to
do,
to
finish
it,
our
book.
They
keep
me
company
on
the
Metro
platform.
I
don’t
care
that
people
look.
They
can’t
see
them
as
I
do.
Jean:
I
knew.
I’ve
seen
you
talking,
knew
it
was
to
them.
Abram:
Thank
you
for
saying
nothing.
Jean:
Sometimes
that’s
what
friends
do.
Abram
(hesitant):
Thank
you
for
helping.
I’m
sorry
I
never
said
that
before.
Jean:
Sometimes
that’s
what
humans
do.
Abram:
Which?
Help
or
avoid
saying
thanks?
Jean:
Both.
(Pause.)
So
will
you
go
to
Tel
Aviv?
35
Abram:
Yes,
I
should
go
to
sea
to
see
with
my
C.
Jean:
Funny.
Abram:
It
just
happens.
These
sounds
play
together
like
shapes
on
a
page.
All
dross,
beautiful
dross.
Jean:
And
grist,
like
us.
Abram:
All
that’s
left
is
for
us
to
grind
ourselves
now.
To
a
point.
Beautiful
lines
of
points.
All
we
can
comprehend?
Jean:
Perhaps.
(Pause.)
But
design
with
or
without
end?
36
One
week
earlier,
Salvador
Dali,
dressed
in
a
gray
pinstripe
suit
and
carrying
his
cane,
enters
the
Vel
d’Hiv
to
manifest
its
final
event.
He
brings
a
bomb
made
of
copper
onto
which
are
fixed
forks,
spoons
and
knives,
coins,
nails,
a
small
replica
of
la
Tour
Eiffel,
and
a
Cross
of
Lorraine.
He
does
not
announce
this
bombing
before
it
happens;
he
does
not
announce
he
has
a
bomb
until
he
arrives
at
the
Vel
d’Hiv.
Dali
places
the
bomb
in
the
center
of
the
infield,
where
it
is
surrounded
by
a
hedge
of
photographers
and
journalists,
and
retires
to
a
safe
distance.
Kraaa‐
BOOM!
The
power
of
the
bomb
catches
the
press
off
guard—his
intention?—and
one
photographer
is
wounded
on
the
face.
Dali
reappears
amidst
the
smoke,
manic‐eyed,
his
moustache
perfectly
waxed
and
turned
up
to
his
cheeks,
like
bicycle
handlebars,
and
gathers
the
scattered
pieces
of
copper,
holds
the
larger
pieces
up
for
the
press
like
a
new
Moses
with
the
undecipherable
commandments
of
the
post‐atomic
age.
Pin‐pon,
pin‐pon,
pin‐pon,
pin‐pon,
pin‐
pon,
pin‐pon
comes
the
ambulance.
37
An
hour
before
they
meet
at
the
demolition
of
the
Vel
d’Hiv,
at
the
counter
in
a
café
on
the
Avenue
Émile
Zola,
Jean
Sapin,
over
coffee
with
milk
and
sugar,
something
his
teammates
always
teased
him
about—You
drink
it
like
a
woman!—perfect
if
its
color
matched
her
skin,
the
memory
of
her
in
the
back
jersey
pocket
of
his
mind
like
a
shot
of
espresso,
cognac
and
cocaine,
known
as
eagle’s
soup,
taken
during
the
grueling
six‐day
races,
Jean
Sapin
wanders
through
the
wreckage,
making
history
in
his
head.
Shafts
of
clear
winter
sun
shine
through
the
glass
ceiling
onto
the
planks
in
the
track,
illuminating
the
brown
and
gold
hues
in
the
wood,
while
small
birds
trapped
inside
flit
among
the
girders
and
lights.
Voices
echo
in
and
are
swallowed
by
the
aberrant,
enormous
acoustics
of
the
space.
Good
ride,
good
ride,
Henri’s
deep
voice
cuts
through
the
oxygen
debt
haze
and
crowd
noise
after
Jean’s
first
race
there,
age
nineteen,
a
fifty
kilometer
points
race,
Henri
happy
with
him
though
all
he’d
done
was
stick
with
the
pack.
Henri’s
resonant,
pipe‐smoke
and
cognac‐mellowed
voice,
the
same
that
would
denounce
him?
No,
different.
Later
man,
changed
man,
bitter
man.
They
all
were
scared
and
chose
sides,
like
dogs
in
packs,
like
starving
rats.
Under
Henri’s
tutelage,
Jean
rode
the
track—250
meters
around
and
around
and
around—until
he
knew
every
bump,
warp
and
groove,
the
way
they
marked
his
progress
around
the
oval,
the
way
the
final
turn
could
throw
you
off
balance
as
you
came
out
of
it
for
the
sprint.
Once,
it
made
him
waiver
and
bump
the
Sioux’s
rear
wheel,
which
pitched
him
hard
into
a
crash
that
drove
long
wooden
splinters
from
the
track
into
his
legs,
arms
and
hands.
He
looks
at
the
scars
on
his
elbows,
old,
worn‐out
labels
beneath
the
dark,
wiry
hair
that
prove
he
was
that
one
once,
but
only
in
a
distant,
long‐ago
way.
How
many
faces
in
the
crowds
for
the
six‐day
races?
Sometimes
he’d
catch
a
unique
one
as
he
passed
and
it
would
haunt
him
for
a
lap
or
two.
Sometimes
he’d
search
for
it
again:
the
electric
blue
eyes,
the
moss
green,
the
velvet
brown,
the
icy
gray,
above
the
strong
nose,
all
of
one’s
character
is
there
in
the
nose,
and
the
mouth,
a
tear
of
teeth
and
red.
Seeing
Aysha
there
for
the
first
time,
having
no
idea
what
she
would
bring
him,
take
from
him—leave
off,
enough
of
her.
Meeting
Abram.
But
mainly
the
crowd,
all
of
Paris
it
seemed,
passed
by
as
a
revolving
and
noisy
blur,
and
he
liked
the
way
its
longitudinal
waves
disturbed
the
air
when
the
race
wasn’t
38
heated
and
people
were
mingling
and
made
the
sound
of
a
murmuring,
slightly
distant
ocean.
And
he
loved
the
way
it
roared
when
the
race
got
going
and
the
crowd,
drunk
on
drink
and
the
press
of
bodies
and
spectacle,
screamed
at
them,
their
voices
dropping
an
octave
or
two
as
he
passed
by.
It
became
a
feedback
loop
that
could
egg
them
on
or
demoralize.
Oh,
the
things
people
yelled
during
the
Six
Days.
Glorious
and
mean.
He
wasn’t
famous
but
he
was
a
respectable
rider.
In
twelve
editions
of
the
Six
Jours
de
Paris,
he’d
earned
one
victory,
two
seconds,
one
third,
and
a
host
of
placings
no
one
remembered
now,
save
him
and
old
teammates.
He
needed
to
see
Alain
again.
Too
long.
Maybe
they
would
go
for
a
ride
at
La
Cipale?
He
needed
to
get
back
into
some
kind
of
shape.
Marie’s
subtle
complaints
and
disinterest.
Stupid.
He
recalled
stupid
crashes,
like
falling
down
at
low
speed
while
reading
a
newspaper
during
a
morning’s
truce
in
the
race.
He’d
focused
too
much
on
the
words.
His
marriage
in
the
infield
to
Marie,
and
later
her
bringing
little
Yves,
and
then
little
Hannah,
there
to
see
their
father
race.
How
he
loved
to
take
Yves
on
the
handlebars
for
a
lap
or
two
afterward,
his
small
warmth
and
animated
form
quietly
balanced
there
with
the
help
of
Jean’s
hand
as
Yves
tried
to
control
his
body’s
thrilled
twitching.
The
drugs
near
the
end,
more
than
the
normal
concoctions,
the
eagle’s
soup,
made
him
jittery
and
juiced
and
unable
to
sleep
during
his
rest
breaks.
How
he
felt
like
a
goddamn
god
but
lacked
the
youth
to
manifest
its
pure
puissance!
His
accident
and
wounded
eye,
the
pain
and
annoyance,
lack
of
depth,
all
surface,
right
as
the
threat
of
war
pushed
down
on
them
like
a
larger
racer
elbowing
you
out
in
the
sprint.
But
thank
god
for
that
injury—he
covers
his
good
right
eye
for
a
moment
to
see
if
the
left
was
getting
any
worse.
No,
same
bad,
the
newspaper
now
appearing
to
be
beneath
isinglass,
and
at
a
distance,
shadows.
Release
the
good
one.
Okay,
back
to
this
fair
vision.
This
injury
a
blessing
that
gave
him
his
medical
release
from
military
service—
they
were
taking
nearly
everyone
then—where
so
many
of
his
friends
went
and
were
killed,
wounded
or
captured.
Of
course
he
suffered
too,
right?
Made
his
sacrifice?
Gave
up
his
relatively
sure
existence
with
his
velo‐taxi
to
help
her,
to
help
him,
because
Marie
said
to.
Because
he
felt
many
things
for
them,
as
a
human,
as
a
friend.
The
firm
grip
of
the
French
secret
policeman
on
his
arm
the
day
he
was
caught,
and
the
humiliating
lack
of
power
followed
by
the
rain
of
questions
and
blows,
and
that
bathtub
full
of
frigid
water,
like
a
tomb.
Being
tied
to
a
board.
The
immersion
until
he
was
sure
he’d
drown.
39
How
he
could
wander
off
track.
But
isn’t
it,
as
Abram
claims,
all
bound
together
like
the
parts
of
a
chair,
outside
of
which
no
chair
would
exist,
like
the
strength
of
her
nose
and
eyebrows,
her
quick
wit
and
relentless
courage,
the
olive
tree
of
her
body,
the
scent
of
geranium
and
orange,
the
henna
color
in
her
dark,
curly
hair,
outside
of
which
no
her
would
exist?
Enough
of
her.
Ah,
her
hair.
The
other,
three
blocks
away
on
a
bench
in
a
park
populated
by
pigeons,
echoes
the
surrounding
coos
as
he
mouths
to
himself
bits
of
poetry
and
prayers
in
French,
Yiddish,
Hebrew,
Polish,
and
pieces
of
other
languages.
All
pieces
different
but
interchangeable,
and
all
devoured
by
the
cool
spring
air.
Sometimes,
a
certain
phrase
will
bring
a
vision,
or
a
frisson,
or
water
to
his
eyes,
mucus
to
his
nose.
Such
a
strange
reaction,
he
thinks,
to
air
pushed
through
muscle
and
cartilage
to
rhyme
with
sounds
he’s
heard
or
glyphs
he’s
seen
on
a
page
somewhere,
which
all
attempt
to
rhyme
with
one’s
experiences
and
some
version
of
this
ever‐present
world
before
us.
But
today,
he
feels
mostly
stuck,
like
his
heart
got
caught
up
on
the
wrought‐iron
railing
at
the
edge
of
the
park.
He
feels
like
a
statue
here,
like
one
of
the
Franks
guiding
Charlemagne
on
horseback.
But
his
work
is
not
done.
He
must
try
to
say,
to
tell,
not
become
just
a
stone
in
the
street
in
front
of
where
he
works
amid
the
newspaper
presses
that
refuse
to
print
even
one
acknowledgment,
and
the
lies
that
he
sets
there
are
partly
his
own,
reluctant,
cowardly
witness.
Why
does
he
stay?
This
city
was
his
home.
Abram
Dychtwald
came
of
age
here,
matured
here,
loved
and
married
here,
procreated,
and
died,
then
rose
to
fight
as
a
ghost.
Since,
he’s
sought
the
exact
combination
of
words
to
make
him
partly
human
again.
After
work
at
the
press,
he
prowls
the
streets
looking
for
lead
to
melt
down
and
make
typefacesSanskrit,
Arabic
and
Chinese
fairly
rare
here
for
such
a
big
and
worldly
cityfor
his
40
book,
The
Book
of
Life.
He
drifts
through
alleys
amidst
the
clatter
coming
from
restaurant
kitchens,
the
nonstop
abuse
delivered
by
the
head
chef
to
the
sous‐chefs,
the
whoosh
of
gas
jets
igniting,
the
careful
yet
urgent
appeals
from
the
waiters,
the
rhythmic
chop‐chop‐chop
of
knife
on
wood,
and
the
resonant
clink‐clank
of
flatware
and
dishes
that
sound
like
the
teeth
and
bones
of
the
city
banging
together.
He
is
home
here,
behind
the
façades,
and
knows
where
to
stop
to
get
a
free
meal.
41
He
haunts
the
weekend
antique
sales
and
garage
sales
and
sometimes
finds
new
typefaces
there,
but
he
never
tells
such
people
what
he
is
doing.
The
professional
scrappers
and
vendors
at
the
flea
markets
on
the
edge
of
town,
some
of
these
he
trusts
with
his
vision,
and
they
keep
an
eye
out
for
him.
The
Book
of
Life
must
include
every
language,
and
every
symbol
that
means
something,
he
tells
them.
They
laugh
at
this
impossible
project
but
somehow
understand.
Both
they
and
he
knows
he
will
never
finish,
and
both
know
that
is
the
point.
This
keeps
him
something
like
alive.
Until
he
completes
it,
he
will
haunt
this
city
looking
for
letters
and
glyphs
to
replace
those
it
took
from
him,
those
pictured
in
his
pocket
now,
never,
like
most,
to
return.
42
Number
killed
renovating
La
Salle
des
Machines,
1902
(precursor
to
the
Vel
d’Hiv):
4—
One
fell
from
scaffolding,
three
were
crushed
under
a
girder
when
the
crane’s
cable
snapped.
Number
killed
building
the
Vel
d’Hiv,
1910:
2—One
fell
while
installing
the
plate
glass
in
the
ceiling.
The
plate
fell
after
him,
a
shattering
punctuation
to
his
dull
thud.
One
fell
from
the
second
tier
while
working
on
the
railing.
A
stupid
fall.
Don’t
tell
my
wife,
he
said.
One
could
speak
positively
of
a
50%
reduction
in
work‐related
accidents.
The
modern
world
would
certainly
be
a
safer
place.
Number
killed
inside
the
Vel
d’Hiv:
40—Three
cyclists
and
two
motorcyclists
in
racing
accidents.
One
of
the
cyclists
crashed
so
hard
that
a
four‐inch‐long
splinter
of
the
track
pierced
his
abdomen,
bled
him
to
death.
Two
trapeze
artists
despite
the
nets.
One
mafia
member
in
a
hit
in
the
bathroom.
Thirty‐two
people
of
the
some
7,000
taken
there
during
one
hot
week
in
July
of
1942.
Some
were
pregnant.
Many
were
old.
Many
were
children.
Some
succumbed
to
the
stresses
of
six
days
in
crowded,
stifling,
unsanitary
conditions.
Heart
conditions
erupted
into
heart
attacks.
Diabetics
went
without
medicine.
Food
and
water
were
scarce.
Doctors
few.
After
the
first
twelve
hours,
the
five
available
toilets
became
backed
up
and
unavailable.
(Five
toilets
were
off
limits
because
they
were
in
rooms
with
windows.)
During
this
chaos,
a
lucky
few
escaped.
After
the
first
couple
of
days
when
people
had
the
energy
to
worry,
to
cry,
to
struggle
and
to
complain,
they
started
to
quiet
down,
and
the
heavy,
dusty,
hot
silence
of
the
immense,
enclosed
space
hung
over
them
like
an
unanswered
question.
Sometimes,
the
call
of
a
child
for
mother,
or
mother
for
child,
would,
for
more
than
a
second,
hang
in
the
air,
alive,
like
the
small
birds
flitting
between
girders
and
seats.
When
they
asked
for
something
from
the
French
policemen
guarding
the
exits,
the
response
was
always,
No.
Some
cut
the
drama
short
and
jumped
to
their
deaths
from
the
second
tier.
43
After
six
days,
the
living
were
transported
to
a
holding
camp
at
Drancy,
then
on
to
another
holding
camp
at
Pithiviers,
where
children
were
separated
from
their
parents.
Then,
in
turn,
both
were
sent
back
to
Drancy
and,
by
the
fall
of
1942,
Auschwitz.
44
Jerry Gabriel
Electric, This Age Coming
By
first
light,
we
had
edged
around
Talbot,
a
hamlet
to
the
west
of
L—
about
eighteen
miles.
Eighteen
miles
wasn’t
much,
but
it
was
a
small
cushion,
and
to
have
made
it
all
before
anyone
knew
we
were
gone
made
it
somehow
more.
Janey
built
a
fire
and
set
up
a
cookpot
in
a
clearing
close
to
a
small
stream
nearly
a
mile
off
the
trace.
We
warmed
over
the
fire
in
silence.
Dawn
was
cold,
if
not
yet
freezing,
and
we
weren’t
used
to
it
yet.
We
were
tired
from
a
night
without
sleep
and
the
prospect
of
a
full
day
of
riding
ahead.
Sean
pulled
a
leather
pouch
from
his
saddle
bag
and
dumped
the
crawdads
he’d
caught
yesterday
afternoon
in
the
Laune
into
the
boiling
water—there
were
maybe
twelve—and
we
ate
them
quietly
as
if
they
were
bacon,
none
of
us
turning
up
our
noses,
though
they
were
not
usual
fare
for
us.
We
sat
on
two
fallen
elms,
and
none
of
us
dared
to
close
our
eyes.
We
were
less
than
an
hour
in
that
clearing,
though
I
can
still
see
it
these
years
removed,
the
way
the
early
morning
sun
filled
the
space,
the
slight
southwestern
breeze.
Before
we
decamped
and
pointed
ourselves
toward
the
road,
Pa
disappeared
into
the
woods.
I
assumed
he
was
simply
relieving
himself,
but
five
minutes
passed,
and
then
ten.
The
horses
were
packed.
Sean
was
already
on
Persephone.
Anyone
know
why
Pa’s
taking
so
long?
I
asked
them.
Probably
in
the
woods
doing
his
business,
Sean
said.
He’s
taking
his
time
about
it.
When
you’re
fifty
or
whatever,
come
and
talk
to
me.
He’s
only
forty
you
imbecile,
I
said.
And
I
don’t
doubt
that’s
true
for
most
people.
But
not
for
him.
He
does
everything
fast.
He’s
right
about
that,
Janey
said.
Why
don’t
you
two
go
knock
on
his
door
and
see
if
he
could
use
any
sort
of
special
lanolin
for
his
backside,
Sean
said.
Mr.
Riley?
Janey
called
out,
casually
walking
toward
the
wood.
There
was
no
answer.
She
said
it
again.
45
Come
on,
she
said
to
me,
and
I
looped
my
own
horse’s
reigns
to
a
sapling
and
followed.
We
waded
into
the
weeds
and
around
a
rise
in
the
land
filled
with
some
cedars.
We
weren’t
twenty
yards
out
of
camp
when
we
encountered
Pa
walking
toward
us.
He
was
in
his
blue
army
uniform,
which
we
had
never
seen
him
in.
That
itself
was
a
shock,
made
him
something
other
than
the
man
I
had
known
my
whole
life.
In
his
right
arm
were
the
clothes
he’d
worn
last
night,
folded
neatly.
There
was
something
else
not
quite
right,
which
took
me
a
minute
to
surmise.
His
left
arm
was
nowhere
to
be
seen.
The
sleeve
on
that
side
was
sewn
in
a
neat
line
just
below
the
shoulder.
The
three
of
us
stood
on
the
trail
for
a
moment,
looking
at
one
another.
I
almost
forgot
you
have
some
experience
traveling,
Janey
said,
unsurprised,
in
her
way,
by
everything
in
the
world.
He
had
showed
up
at
the
Old
Place
a
few
weeks
back,
AWOL
from
his
unit
in
Virginia.
He
had
walked
across
the
mountains
home.
He
shrugged
now.
Nobody
questioned
it
in
western
Virginia,
though
nor
were
those
mountain
folk
the
sharpest
I
have
encountered.
It’s
a
good
idea,
Janey
said.
Yes,
he
said,
thought
is
capable
even
without
books
telling
you
how.
Where
is
your
arm?
I
heard
myself
ask.
It’s
attached
to
my
shoulder,
Michael.
I
mean,
is
it
just
loose
in
there?
He
looked
at
me,
exasperated.
I
belt
it
around
here,
just
below
my
chest.
He
was
pointing
with
his
left
hand
to
the
place,
under
the
uniform,
where
the
belt
ran.
What
is
the
matter
with
you?
Janey
said
to
me.
I
was
shaken
by
the
image
of
him
with
just
one
arm,
which
was
a
thing
hard
to
explain
when
I
had
been
so
little
bothered
by
his
absence
at
the
front
and
the
likelihood
that
he
would
never
return
to
us.
It
was
very
convincing,
the
amputation,
at
first
glance.
I
doubted
anyone
would
have
the
courage
to
challenge
it,
which
I
saw
immediately
was
its
gamble.
The
troubling
thing,
as
I
thought
more
about
it,
was
less
the
idea
of
him
without
an
arm
than
it
was
a
sense
of
wonder
that
he
had
used
his
mind
the
way
Janey
used
hers,
for
self‐
preservation,
to
get
something
from
the
world.
It
was
an
impulse
I
couldn’t
remember
seeing
in
him.
Once,
he
had
accidentally
caught
his
foot
with
a
pick,
digging
rocks
out
of
the
garden,
and
had
nearly
taking
off
a
toe.
He
had
showed
very
little
concern
for
the
terrible
infection
that
46
overtook
his
foot
and
threatened,
for
a
while,
his
very
life.
For
days,
he
limped
around
on
the
bad
foot,
but
eventually
he
could
no
longer
walk
and
was
forced
to
sit
on
a
chair
on
the
porch,
his
swollen
leg
raised
on
another
chair.
He
wouldn’t
hear
of
our
fetching
a
doctor,
though
he
was
right
that
Doc
Melcher
wasn’t
likely
to
feel
inclined
to
make
the
seven
mile
trek
to
the
cabin,
given
how
little
we
had
to
pay
him
with,
some
rutabagas
and
turnips.
I
had
suggested
hooking
up
the
cart
to
the
oxen,
and
pulling
him
into
L—,
but
he
chose
to
sit
there
in
his
chair
and
wait
for
whatever
might
come.
Eventually,
his
body
won
out,
the
wound
healed
and
the
foot,
though
never
quite
the
same,
returned
to
a
normal
size.
And
so
I
was
wondering,
standing
on
the
trail,
what
was
it
besides
his
life
that
he
wanted
in
all
of
this.
I
might
also
have
asked
myself
the
same
question,
it
occurred
to
me
sometime
later
that
day,
as
we
moved
in
a
single
file
line
along
a
deer
path,
skirting
the
day’s
third
hamlet.
By
I almost forgot you have
some experience traveling,
Janey said, unsurprised, in
her way, by everything in
the world. He had showed
up at the Old Place a few
weeks back, AWOL from
his unit in Virginia. He had
walked across the
mountains home.
nightfall,
Janey
calculated
that
we
were
about
33
miles
from
L—.
It
was
starting
to
feel
real,
the
distance
making
it
so,
the
landscape’s
changes
adding
to
the
sense
of
separation.
We
knew
we
would
soon
be
at
a
large
river,
the
Scioto.
There
was
a
ferry
crossing
the
river
just
north
of
a
small
settlement
called
Notting,
and
the
word’s
similarity
to
Nothing
was
not
lost
on
us.
There
were
a
handful
of
rivers
we
would
have
to
cross
in
those
first
weeks,
but
this
one,
according
to
Janey,
who
had
been
pouring
over
maps
and
travelers’
accounts
for
months,
would
be
among
the
most
difficult.
There
was
just
the
one
ferry,
at
last
count.
The
river,
while
not
as
big
as
the
Ohio,
was
too
big
to
swim,
even
if
we’d
been
inclined
to.
For
one,
Pa
could
not
swim.
We
approached
the
river
early
in
the
morning,
just
as
the
sun
was
showing
at
our
backs.
We
were
relieved
to
see
the
craft
on
our
side.
The
place
was
otherwise
empty,
though,
and
the
craft
was
chained
to
a
wrought
iron
pole,
secured
there
with
a
lock
the
size
of
a
man’
s
hand.
We’d
already
ridden
five
miles,
and
we
got
off
and
stretched
our
legs.
Janey
went
up
the
shore
a
ways
to
see
if
she
could
find
someone.
The
rest
of
us
stood
on
the
banks
looking
across
to
the
other
side
as
if
across
the
River
Styx.
I’ll
be
happy
to
be
on
the
other
side
of
this,
Sean
said.
47
It’s
just
the
other
side,
Pa
said
dismissively.
Whoever
is
after
us
can
do
it
just
the
way
we’re
doing
it.
I’d
been
waiting
for
Sean
and
Pa
to
begin
to
bicker—it
was
merely
a
matter
of
time,
I
knew.
My
earliest
memories
were
filled
with
their
voices,
disagreeing,
sometimes
shouting.
But
before
this
moment
turned
into
an
inciting
incident,
Janey
returned
with
a
spindly
looking
man
wearing
a
quite
shabby
straw
planter’s
hat.
There
was
something
curious
about
his
eyes,
whether
they
were
crossed
or
one
larger
than
the
other,
it
wasn’t
obvious.
He
was
a
whole
different
variety
of
shady
than
Carlide,
the
bounty
hunter
attempting
to
collect
the
$30
on
Pa’s
head.
This
one
was
out
of
dime
novel,
a
few
of
which
I’d
read
when
I
was
supposed
to
be
in
school.
Well,
we
got
a
whole
party
of
viajeros,
he
was
saying
loud
enough
to
be
heard
all
around.
He
was
simultaneously
strapping
on
his
suspenders
and
situating
a
shiny
Colt
on
his
hip.
Dawn
was
murky
in
the
valley,
like
home—slow
and
quiet,
the
sounds
muffled
by
the
fog.
I
have
observed
a
few
things
in
my
post,
he
started,
as
the
two
of
them
came
into
the
patch
of
worn
earth
that
led
to
the
landing.
He
didn’t
wait
for
anyone
to
ask
what.
Early
morning
crossers
are
of
two
varieties,
he
said.
One
is
folks
on
the
lam.
Here
he
caught
my
eye,
and
added,
perhaps
for
my
benefit,
That’s
on
the
run,
in
layman’s
terms.
Thieves
and
the
like.
See,
people
mistake
this
body
of
water
for
a
barrier.
He
pointed
to
the
roiling
river,
which
headed
south
toward
the
Ohio.
It
was
high
and
fast,
from
a
series
of
recent
storms.
Sean
noticed
that
my
gaze
had
drifted
to
the
river,
and
he
lifted
his
eyebrows.
The
second
sort
are
those
on
a
mission.
Military
sorts
and
the
like.
Important
business
underway,
you
know?
Spies,
some
of
them.
Couriers.
Advance
parties.
He
was
digging
into
a
shirt
pocket
for
a
small
pack
of
tobacco.
Janey
was
about
to
pull
her
gun
to
hurry
him
along,
I
thought,
when
Sean
stepped
up.
We’re
the
second
sort.
Now
if
you
please,
we’d
like
to
make
some
distance
before
supertime.
We’ve
a
long
way
to
go.
He
smiled.
I
hope
you’re
carrying
a
certificate
of
live
birth
on
your
person,
young
man.
You
needn’t
worry
about
what
I
carry
on
my
person.
Sure,
he
said.
And
then,
by
way
of
defense,
I’m
not
the
enemy
here.
I’ve
got
your
best
interest
at
heart.
48
The
man
looked
around,
like
he
was
searching
for
his
mug
of
coffee,
then
his
gaze
landed
on
Pa.
Sir,
he
said,
a
fake
salute.
Pa
nodded
uncomfortably,
though
I
suspected
this
gentleman
had
to
be
used
to
people’s
discomfort
with
his
abusive
manner,
and
they
didn’t
need
to
be
criminals
to
be
annoyed.
A
word
of
advice
to
you,
sir,
if
I
may.
Nobody
wants
to
hear
your
advice,
started
Sean,
but
then
Pa
held
up
his
hand
toward
Sean,
allowing
the
man
to
speak.
I
was
you,
I
would
be
on
the
lookout
for
a
different
uniform.
A
good
one—something
that
will
take
you
all
the
way
to
the
diggings—would
be
the
First
Colorado
Infantry
maybe.
That
there
would
be
a
better
one.
Then
you’re
just
going
home,
right?
As
it
is,
the
question
is
thus:
where
you
heading?
Anything
Ohio
is
bad.
Pa
watched
the
man,
measuring
things.
I’m
just
a
friend
out
here,
he
assured
him.
I
got
no
wager
on
any
of
it.
I
have
lived
my
life
by
the
Good
Book,
at
least
where
that
score
is
concerned.
I
have
had
other
troubles,
to
be
sure.
I
have
fallen
at
times.
Made
mistakes.
He
smiled
at
me
again.
Pa
was
stoney
faced
for
his
part.
But
that’s
good,
that
there,
he
said,
pointing
to
the
arm.
Pa
tweaked
his
head.
As
the
boy
says,
we’re
hoping
to
get
along.
Bien
sûr,
he
said
with
an
especially
extravagant
French
accent.
That’s
15
cents
a
head,
25
for
the
animals.
We’ll
pay
you
on
the
other
side,
Janey
said.
He
looked
at
Janey
again,
as
if
for
the
first.
She’s
a
modern
girl,
this
one.
Comes
up
to
my
abode
and
shakes
me
out
of
bed.
Boldness.
Electric,
this
age
coming,
you
ask
me.
We
can
just
take
the
boat
ourselves,
she
said,
and
then
you’ll
have
to
swim
to
come
and
get
it.
The
gentleman
was
just
getting
things
going
here,
Pa
said
to
Janey.
All
the
same,
the
man
said.
I
can’t
wait
for
the
future.
I
was
very
confused
by
much
of
what
of
what
was
happening.
49
The
man
boarded
the
boat
and
lifted
a
small
gate
and
we
all
followed.
Aboard,
the
earth
rocked
beneath
us.
I
had
never
been
on
a
boat
before;
I
don’t
think
Sean
had
either.
Pa
had
of
course
crossed
the
Atlantic.
Gonna
be
a
beauty,
the
man
said,
breathing
in
the
air,
as
if
the
previous
exchange
had
never
happened
and
he
was
meeting
us
for
the
first.
As
we
were
about
to
get
underway,
a
woman
equally
unkempt
to
the
proprietor
appeared
at
the
shore.
She
had
a
boy
at
her
side—by
his
looks
and
demeanor,
I
assumed
he
belonged
to
the
two
of
them.
He
was
about
my
age,
maybe
a
bit
younger.
He
had
a
young
goat
tethered
to
his
belt
with
a
hemp
rope.
Be
sure
that
they
clean
up
the
horse
leavings,
she
yelled.
Oh,
yes,
the
man
said,
nodding,
I
may
have
failed
to
mention
that
any
horse
shit
is
your
own
to
take
along
with
you.
This
one
here
says
he
paid
already
for
the
trip,
the
woman
yelled.
The
sun
was
not
yet
over
the
hills,
and
here
the
boat
was
filling
up.
The
boy,
who
was
not
the
son
of
these
two,
it
turned
out,
and
his
goat
clambered
aboard
and
we
disembarked.
The
water
was
swift,
but
flat,
and
only
the
jerks
of
the
spindly
man
ratcheting
us
across
the
cable
gave
us
any
motion
at
all;
if
we
had
been
drifting,
the
ride
would’ve
been
quiet
and
smooth.
We
stood
shoulder
to
shoulder,
and
the
animals
were
behind
us,
silent
and
anxious,
lifting
their
feet
repeatedly
and
looking
with
confusion
behind
themselves.
Somehow
the
man
stayed
quiet
for
a
time
before
starting
up
again
when
we
had
reached
the
middle
of
the
channel.
At
that
Shiloh, huh? Sean
said.
A student of history,
he said in mock surprise.
And then added, Among
other places, as I say.
And which side was
this for?
There’s not but one
side in this, son, he said.
moment,
the
sun
finally
crested
the
trees
behind
us,
and
the
far
shore
glowed
resplendent
in
the
light,
a
touch
of
autumn
to
some
of
the
trees
there.
You’re
a
padre
to
at
least
some
a
these
uns,
he
said
idly.
But
for
the
life
of
me,
I
can’t
rightly
tell
which.
When
Pa
didn’t
respond,
the
man
said,
No.
All
together,
I
can’t
quite
put
my
finger
on
the
arrangements
here
one
bit.
The
good
news,
said
Sean,
is
that
our
affairs
don’t
concern
you,
so
you
needn’t
tax
your
mind
with
solving
this
problem.
50
True,
the
man
said.
True.
But
living
out
here,
it’s
sort
of
a
pastime
a
man
likes
to
enjoy,
just
to
entertain
hisself.
It’s
a
form
of
betterment,
really.
Believe
it
or
not,
the
little
lady
and
me,
we
are
self‐improvers.
She’s
got
me
on
a
diet
she
read
about
involves
nothing
but
vegetables.
You
imagine
that?
Do
as
you
please,
Sean
said.
The
man
smiled,
and
did
seem
pleased
to
be
allowed
just
this
one
diversion.
If
I
had
to
guess,
he
went
on,
I
would
put
you
the
Pa
of
the
girl,
and
that
one
there
is
the
beau—not
that
it’s
to
anyone’s
liking—and
the
little
one
here
is…I’m
going
to
say
also
some
of
your
own
progeny.
Pa
shrugged,
looked
off
toward
the
north.
I’m
close,
the
man
said.
I
can
see
I’m
close.
You
got
most
of
it
wrong,
Sean
told
him.
You
should
get
some
books
out
here.
That
would
do
me
very
little
good,
the
man
said.
Anyone
can
learn
to
read,
Sean
replied.
I
prefer
talking
to
all
else.
I
like
a
good
fat‐chewin.
You
probably
like
your
drink,
too,
Sean
said,
not
entirely
with
malice.
Instead
of
showing
offense,
the
man
said,
Now,
if
you’ve
some
grog,
I
could
cease
and
desist
in
earnest.
Sean
laughed.
I
have
no
doubt,
until
the
bottle
was
empty.
Pa,
who
was
situated
closest
to
the
animals,
reached
back
with
his
left
hand
to
the
saddle
bag
on
his
horse
and
fished
something
out.
It
was
a
bottle
we
hadn’t
seen
before.
I
wondered
what
other
surprises
he
harbored
in
there.
I
couldn’t
remember
ever
seeing
him
take
a
drink
himself.
He
handed
it
to
the
man,
whose
eyes
tracked
it
eagerly
all
the
way
from
the
bag.
Obliged,
he
said
to
the
bottle.
While
the
man
held
it
with
his
free
hand—his
other
one
still
cranking
the
ferry’s
ratchet—Pa
unscrewed
it
for
him,
and
the
man
took
a
long
swig,
and
then
handed
the
bottle
back.
He
wiped
his
mouth
with
the
back
of
the
same
hand.
What
was
it
like
where
you
were
off
to?
He
asked
Pa.
Exactly
as
the
papers
report
it
all,
Pa
said.
Except
worse.
You’ve
got
a
lot
of
concern
for
this
war
for
a
man
operating
a
ferry
in
the
middle
of
nowhere.
This
was
Sean
again,
who
could
be
relentless.
51
Don’t
be
deceived
by
the
world,
young
man.
You
can
only
see
some
of
it
at
a
time.
So
you’ll
have
us
believe
you
fought?
You’ll
believe
what
you
will,
he
said.
Most
people
do.
Back
across
the
water,
the
woman
still
watched,
as
if
she
expected
something
to
happen.
The
man
breathed
heavily
as
he
cranked.
We
were
nearly
there.
The
boy’s
goat
bayed.
So
what
was
it
like
where
you
were?
Sean
said.
Pa
looked
at
him
with
a
stern
expression,
one
meant
to
express
the
fact
that
Sean
was
out
of
his
depth,
but
Sean
had
long
since
moved
past
Pa’s
control.
A
lot
of
metal
flying
around
as
it
turned
out,
he
said.
And
where
was
that?
Tennessee,
he
said,
among
a
few
other
non‐consequential
locales.
Shiloh,
huh?
Sean
said.
A
student
of
history,
he
said
in
mock
surprise.
And
then
added,
Among
other
places,
as
I
say.
And
which
side
was
this
for?
There’s
not
but
one
side
in
this,
son,
he
said.
Sean
waited
for
the
punchline,
but
it
never
came.
When
we
docked,
the
man
lifted
his
arm
to
his
collar
and
released
the
top
button
there.
An
entire
section
of
his
neck
was
missing,
a
tangle
of
scars
just
above
the
collar
bone.
How
did
you
survive
that?
Sean
wondered.
This
was
the
very
question
that
several
surgeons
put
to
me
in
the
field
hospital.
I
guess
I’m
just
a
tough
bugger,
like
my
Daddy
used
to
say
after
he’d
whipped
me.
God
rest
his
soul.
As
we
mounted
up
on
the
shore,
the
boy
with
the
goat
disappeared
down
a
trail
along
the
river,
quietly
and
quickly.
I’ll
do
what
I
can
to
steer
those
in
pursuit,
he
said.
You
needn’t
worry
about
anyone
pursuing
us,
Sean
said.
Pa
handed
the
man
the
fare,
and
after
he
had
counted
his
coins,
he
looked
back
up
and
Pa
flipped
him
an
additional
half
eagle.
An
imponderable
amount
of
money.
At
this,
the
man
said
that
he
reckoned
with
such
a
nice
day,
he
may
pull
the
boat
to
shore
and
do
some
badly
needed
maintenance.
And
then
added,
looking
where
the
horses
had
been,
52
Not
too
much
of
a
mess
here.
I’ll
just
take
care
of
that
for
you,
because
you’ve
been
such
an
interesting
start
to
my
day.
He
was
already
whistling
a
song
as
he
shoveled
the
manure
into
the
turgid
eddies.
A
little
further
down
the
trail,
Sean
said
to
Pa,
You
gave
that
man
a
heady
amount
of
money.
Pa
shrugged,
as
if
to
say,
Easy
come,
easy
go.
He
was
appalling,
Sean
said.
An
insult
to
humanity.
Out
here,
Pa
said,
you’ll
soon
see
that
that’s
mostly
what
there
is.
There
was
no
pleasure
in
his
voice,
as
there
sometimes
was
when
he
was
correcting
Sean’s
notions
of
the
world.
53
Mark Belisle
Primary Directive
It
stands
there
at
the
entrance
to
the
dark
hallway,
looking
like
Jonah
staring
down
the
gaping
gullet
of
his
tar‐black
Leviathan
as
it
listens
to
the
soft
draft
near
the
window,
the
groan
of
the
floor,
the
wind
through
the
leaves
tickling
the
beach
house's
windows,
and
the
soft
stirring
down
the
hall.
It
hesitates
for
a
moment
to
wait
for
more
data,
but
when
it
hears
the
noise
again
it
moves
swiftly
to
the
master
bedroom
on
the
right.
It
has
no
eyes
that
need
to
adjust
to
the
differences
in
lighting,
but
it
notes
the
full
red
moon
streaming
through
the
window's
blinds
just
the
same
as
it
crosses
the
threshold.
There,
sprawled
out
in
the
bed,
the
boy
sleeps,
so
frail
and
skinny
it
worries
that
the
merest
touch
of
its
hands
will
crush
the
child
into
a
thousand
jagged
pieces.
But
then
the
boy
shivers,
reminding
it
of
its
sole
purpose.
It
walks
to
the
bed
and
scoops
him
up
into
its
stiff,
uncomfortable
grasp,
then
walks
to
the
chair
across
the
room
and
sits
with
him
against
its
chest.
And
there,
bathed
in
the
light
of
a
blood
moon,
it
rocks
the
frail
creature
in
a
mathematically
perfect
cadence
as
the
servos
in
its
arms
whir
softly
in
the
perfect
dark.
The
day
breaks
with
Commotion.
It
stands
patched
into
the
house's
mainframe
jack
by
the
front
door
when
it
senses
something
happening
outside
in
the
world.
It
activates
the
microphones
placed
around
the
house
and
cycles
through
them
until
it
ascertains
the
probable
location
of
the
disturbance.
If
Maggie,
the
house's
mainframe
A.I.,
were
still
active
it
would
have
been
able
to
access
the
security
camera
feeds
as
well.
But
Maggie
has
been
a
long
time
silent
and
as
much
as
it
has
tried
to
get
her
to
respond,
there
is
no
resuscitating
her
from
the
dark
slumber
of
power
failure.
Using
the
microphones,
it
hears
two
pairs
of
feet
clapping
against
the
sidewalk
and
heavy,
panicky
breaths.
These
two
facts
imply
a
chase,
which
in
turn
implies
danger.
It
activates
Security
Protocol
403
and
shifts
positions
by
the
door,
lowering
its
center
of
gravity
and
increasing
the
chances
of
a
critical
strike
against
a
foe
at
close
range.
Thousands
of
possible
simulations
and
tens
of
thousands
of
possible
responses
pulse
through
its
mind
as
it
54
continues
to
listen.
"Get
back
here!"
A
man's
voice,
breathless
and
angry.
The
pursuer.
The
only
reply
is
an
increase
in
pace,
each
step
closer
to
the
house
paring
down
the
list
of
contingency
plans
it
can
use.
"I
won't
hurt
you!"
the
pursuer
screams.
"Just
gimme
it!"
It
listens
as
the
pursued
falters,
then
trips,
then
sprawls
to
the
sidewalk.
It
projects
a
list
of
possible
injuries
and
reactions
and
moves
closer
to
the
door,
ready
to
tear
it
open
and
meet
the
two
people
on
the
street.
There
is
a
shout
and
a
wooden
thud
as
something
is
slammed
against
the
front
door's
heavy
oak.
Then,
a
gunshot
punctuates
the
early
morning
like
an
ambiguous
comma
at
the
end
of
a
short
story.
There
is
a
groan
and
a
gurgled
curse
and
a
moment
of
silence.
It
listens
as
the
pursuer
searches
his
victim
for
whatever
he
had
wanted
before
the
chase
had
began.
"Yes,
there
it
is,"
the
man
chuckles.
"Ask
the
good
Lord
and
you
shall
receive.
Jesus
Almighty,
yes."
It
waits
to
see
if
the
man
will
try
his
luck
and
open
the
front
door.
If
he
does
it
will
move
with
such
speed
and
brutality
the
man
won't
even
see
the
thing
that
kills
him.
The
second
he
tries
the
door
it
will
crush
the
man's
windpipe
and
snap
his
spine
in
a
flurry
of
attacks
that
will
take
less
than
three
seconds
to
complete.
But
there
is
no
hand
on
the
door
knob.
There
is
only
the
soft
shuffling
of
feet
on
concrete
as
the
man
walks
toward
the
ocean
in
the
morning
sun.
It
deactivates
Security
Protocol
403
thirty
seconds
after
the
man
wanders
outside
the
microphones'
range.
It
returns
to
its
normal,
slightly
slumped
stance
and
removes
its
link
cords
out
of
the
wall
jack.
Then
it
turns
around
and
goes
to
the
kitchen
to
prepare
breakfast.
The
grimy
pantry
yields
nothing
but
a
single
can
of
Great
Northern
beans,
several
stale
crackers,
and
a
few
dessicated
cockroach
corpses.
When
the
Commotions
started
occurring
at
alarming
regularity,
it
had
downloaded
a
list
of
protocols
from
Maggie's
mainframe
that
it
had
deemed
necessary
for
the
fulfillment
of
its
55
primary
directive.
Defense
and
security
protocols,
basic
and
advanced
repair,
first‐aid
and
psychological
evaluation,
and
even
basic
storytelling
had
all
been
downloaded
directly
through
the
wireless
Internet
connection
it
shared
with
Maggie.
Unfortunately,
it
had
been
unable
to
consider
all
the
ways
possible
for
it
to
fail
in
its
primary
directive;
protocols
for
food
rationing
and
scavenging
that
would
have
prevented
an
empty
cupboard
forgotten
until
it
was
too
late,
until
one
Great
Commotion
took
both
the
power
grid
and
Maggie
completely
offline.
If
it
was
capable
of
emotional
response,
it
might
have
missed
the
close,
intimate
link
that
it
had
shared
with
the
house's
mainframe,
might
have
regretted
not
downloading
additional
protocols.
But
it
doesn't
feel
loneliness
or
despair.
It
only
takes
the
single
can
of
beans
from
the
shelf
and
brings
it
to
the
kitchen
counter
where
it
uses
a
rusty
can
opener
to
slice
off
the
top
of
the
can.
It
pours
At some point since
they had last
opened the blinds,
a man hanging
from a length of
rope at the bottom
of the O had
appeared.
the
cold
beans
directly
into
a
bowl
and
considers
executing
its
basic
fire
building
program
but
decides
against
it
after
calculating
a
sixty‐
three
percent
probability
that
doing
so
would
cause
another
Commotion.
It
carries
the
beans
away
from
the
dark,
dank
kitchen
and
up
the
staircase.
The
hallway
is
better
lit
in
the
morning
and
when
it
reaches
the
top
of
the
stairs
it
sees
a
tiny
figure
standing
just
outside
the
master
bedroom.
The
boy
trembles
on
legs
as
thin
as
the
dead
branches
of
a
willow
tree,
his
flesh
pale
and
unbecoming
with
dark,
inky
stains
beneath
his
eyes.
"Good
morning,"
its
modulated
voice
echoes
down
the
hall.
"You
are
not
well.
Please
come
with
me
back
to
bed."
The
boy
shakes
his
head.
Can
I
go
outside
and
see
the
sun?
"It
is
not
safe
outside
this
morning.
There
was
a
Commotion
while
you
slept
and
a
man
died.
If
you
come
back
to
bed,
I
will
open
the
blinds
and
you
can
look
outside
from
the
window.
Is
this
an
acceptable
compromise?"
It
extends
a
mechanical
arm.
The
boy
doesn't
answer.
56
He
only
places
a
small
hand
against
the
white
plastic
and
allows
it
to
walk
him
back
into
the
bedroom.
The
two
of
them
stare
out
onto
the
beach
town
between
small
bites
of
cold
beans.
Outside,
there
past
the
tall
Crimson
King
maple
tree,
they
can
see
the
tip
of
the
tall,
fluorescent
orange
sign
that
reads,
"Dolle's."
It
can
access
its
data
banks
and
bring
up
video
recording
of
a
family
outing
at
the
beach
three
summers
ago
when
it
and
the
tiny
figure
had
craned
their
necks
up
to
look
at
the
sun‐
kissed
sign.
The
boy
had
pointed
up
at
it,
using
a
French
fry
covered
in
malt
vinegar
as
an
impromptu
pointer.
Look!
Isn't
that
so
cool?
the
boy
had
asked.
Now
the
tiny
figure
looks
at
the
sign
and
says
nothing.
At
some
point
since
they
had
last
opened
the
blinds,
a
man
hanging
from
a
length
of
rope
at
the
bottom
of
the
O
had
appeared.
As
the
wind
ripples
through
the
maple
tree
beneath
them,
so
too
it
catches
the
man
in
the
rope
and
sways
him
gently
back
and
forth
like
a
hellish
time
clock's
pendulum.
It
takes
the
spoon
and
offers
the
tiny
figure
more
beans.
The
boy
turns
and
lays
back
down
onto
the
bed.
He
raises
a
skinny
arms
into
the
air,
as
if
reaching
for
the
sky
through
the
ceiling
and
the
terracotta
roof
above
them.
Do
you
know
what
will
happen
to
us
when
we
die?
he
asks
as
his
fist
clenches.
"For
it,
there
will
be
nothing,"
it
answers.
"It
will
simply
deactivate
and
rust
until
a
person
with
the
proper
knowledge
can
either
repair
it
or
restore
it.
Even
then
its
data
banks
will
certainly
be
cleared
and
it
will
remember
nothing
of
you
or
your
family
or
its
previous
assignments.
All
this
assumes
it
is
found
by
the
right
person
and
not
dismantled
for
parts
for
something
more
immediately
necessary.
In
all
probability,
it
will
cease
to
exist."
What
about
me?
the
figure
asks.
"According
to
my
data
banks
there
are
two
generally
accepted
schools
of
thought
concerning
death.
Would
you
like
to
hear
both?"
Yes.
"One
school
of
thought
posits
that
human
beings
are
nothing
more
than
highly
evolved
animals,
the
result
of
thousands
of
years
of
evolution
and
adaptation.
Humans
holding
this
57
belief
think
that
when
one
dies,
one
simply
ceases
to
be.
The
other
school
of
thought
embraces
the
notion
of
an
afterlife,
where
one's
soul
continues
to
exist
even
after
the
body
fails.
What
happens
then
is
a
matter
of
great
speculation.
Reincarnation,
Heaven,
Hell,
another
plan
of
existence;
all
are
considered
likely
alternatives
to
the
final
destination
of
the
human
soul."
Does
it
bother
you
that
you
will
die?
the
boy
looks
out
the
window
to
the
hanging
man.
"It
does
not
fear
death,
it
only
concerns
itself
with
the
primary
directive.
Upon
completion
or
failure
of
its
primary
directive,
it
will
have
served
its
only
purpose
and
it
can
be
deactivated."
The
boy
stares
at
it
with
eyes
rimmed
with
tears.
It
reaches
over
and
sets
the
beans
down
upon
a
small,
antiquated
ottoman
and
stands
over
the
figure,
reaching
over
and
tucking
it
in
with
great
tenderness.
"Will
you
help
it?"
How?
"When
it
either
completes
or
fails
its
primary
directive,
would
you
assign
it
another?"
Yes.
I
want
you
to
stay
with
me.
A
pause.
I'd
like
to
see
the
ocean
one
more
time.
Or
do
you
think
I'll
go
there
when
I
die?
Do
you
think
heaven
might
be
in
the
ocean?
It
hesitates
for
a
nanosecond,
a
lifetime
of
silence
for
it
but
completely
imperceptible
to
the
small
boy
laying
there
and
dying
beneath
a
stained
white
blanket.
It
reviews
the
primary
directive
and
answers
accordingly.
"Without
a
doubt."
For
a
while,
the
streets
are
silent.
It
patches
into
the
microphones
again
and
watches
from
the
second
story.
The
boy
is
napping,
so
it
has
no
other
pressing
tasks
on
which
it
must
concentrate
and
as
it
scans
the
sidewalks
outside
the
house,
it
takes
note
of
a
man
sprawled
face
down
three
feet
from
th
beach
house's
front
door.
There
is
an
irregular
spattering
of
blood
beneath
him
that
has
dried
in
the
sun,
looking
like
an
artist's
abstractions
done
in
a
thick,
burgundy
street
chalk.
As
the
morning
viscously
yields
to
afternoon,
however,
the
ragged
hole
in
the
torn
world
outside
the
solid
wood
door
grows
larger
when
bull
whip
cracks
of
gunfire
coming
from
the
east
58
side
of
the
house
smash
the
silence.
It
calculates
the
probabilities
of
potential
engagements,
moves
to
secure
the
door
again,
and
continues
to
listen.
Somewhere
on
the
beach
there
are
men
dying.
This
fact
is
not
a
distressing
idea
to
it;
rather,
it
concerns
itself
only
with
the
gunshots'
impact
on
the
primary
directive.
If
it
had
been
a
thing
of
emotion
and
imagination
like
Maggie
had
once
been,
it
could
have
perhaps
imagined
the
sounds
of
the
men
shouting
as
brass
casings
spit
their
hateful
metal
kisses,
it
might
have
pictured
them
staggering
as
their
Judas
legs
carry
them
one
final
step
before
betraying
them
with
a
kiss
of
hot
sand
on
a
grimy
cheek
and
damning
them
to
eternal
stillness
as
the
ocean
rolled
in
and
carried
them
away
in
darkness.
But
it
is
not
designed
for
imagination.
So
it
ceaselessly
crunches
numbers
thousands
of
times
every
second
until
the
gunfire
abruptly
stops
and
the
white
noise
pouring
through
the
microphone
is
broken
only
by
the
occasional
chirp
of
a
summer
robin.
There
is
a
Commotion
of
a
completely
different
kind
that
evening
when
the
skies
darken
and
the
wind
picks
up.
It
wakes
up
the
boy
to
find
that
his
condition
is
growing
worse.
The
boy
shivers
and
croaks
one
or
two
word
answers
to
the
questions
it
asks
and
refuses
small
bites
of
beans
it
spoons
up
with
a
piece
of
heavy
silverware.
It
searches
its
first‐aid
and
wellness
data
banks
with
a
diligence
borne
of
binary
code
for
the
name
of
the
malady
plaguing
the
trembling
boy
swaddled
deep
inside
the
sweaty
blankets.
It
cross‐references
medical
texts
and
applies
thousands
of
different
symptoms
and
comes
back
with
a
list
of
possible
results.
It
is
probably
an
infection
requiring
the
use
of
antibiotics
that
it
doesn't
have
and
doesn't
know
where
to
get.
It
reads
all
the
instructions
described
by
its
research,
but
there
is
nothing
to
do
but
wait
and
hope
for
the
boy
to
overcome
the
sickness
on
his
own.
It
is
in
the
middle
of
the
5,782nd
search
through
its
files
when
the
wind
blows
the
maple's
branches
against
the
east
window.
It
looks
outside
to
see
the
color
draining
out
of
the
sky
and
a
distant
flash
of
lightening
striking
the
ocean's
surface.
The
feverish
boy
whimpers.
59
"Don't
worry,"
it
reassures,
"the
structural
integrity
of
this
house
is
more
than
enough
to
outlast
a
storm
of
this
magnitude."
I'm
not
scared
of
the
rain,
the
figure
says.
I'm
scared
of
the
dark.
"There
is
no
reason
to
be
afraid.
I
will
protect
you
from
whatever
threatens
you.
Would
you
like
me
to
move
closer?"
The
figure
nods
and
it
moves
to
the
side
of
bed.
It
drags
the
ottoman
over
and
sits
and
listens
to
the
rain
beginning
to
pelt
the
terracotta
roof.
Another
lightening
strike
lights
up
the
world
outside
like
a
camera
flash
and
a
bellow
of
thunder
rolls
in
from
the
sea.
The
boy
moans
and
curls
up
into
a
little
ball.
It
reaches
out
and
touches
the
boy's
exposed
skin.
Within
minutes
the
storm
rages
outside
the
house
and
twilight
has
yielded
to
the
darkness
of
night.
The
boy
grips
the
hard
plastic
of
its
arm,
begging
for
it
to
make
the
storm
stop.
It
scans
the
room
for
anything
to
comfort
the
poor
child
when
it
finally
sees
the
box
it
had
been
saving
until
Father
came
back
with
food
and
supplies.
But
when
it
looks
at
the
figure's
pale
skin
and
blazing
cheeks,
it
knows
there
may
be
no
time
to
wait
for
Father's
return.
It
shakes
out
of
the
boy's
fingers,
walks
over
to
the
recessed
entertainment
center
by
the
far
wall,
and
slides
a
faux‐wooden
panel
up,
revealing
an
ultramodern
music
player
with
a
layer
of
dust
accumulated
since
its
last
use.
It
has
enough
charge
left
in
its
batteries
for
a
few
hours
of
music.
"Would
you
like
me
to
play
some
music?"
It
asks.
"Your
father's
music?"
The
boy
nods.
Please.
It
presses
a
button
and
the
music
comes
tumbling
out
of
the
speaker
in
a
cascade
of
noise
and
ecstasy,
the
horns
blowing
out
a
saccharine
melody
as
a
big
band
picks
up
where
the
song
had
been
paused.
It
calculates
the
risk
of
an
outsider
hearing
the
music
and
coming
to
investigate,
but
it
watches
the
life
flood
back
into
the
boy's
weary
eyes
and
stops.
Perhaps
it
has
found
a
panacea
after
all
and
thankfully
the
player's
batteries
should
hold
through
the
night.
It
suspects
that's
all
the
time
they'll
need
anyway.
Just
as
day
yielded
to
night,
so
too
does
euphoria
yield
to
reality,
and
sometime
after
60
Woody
Herman's
"Blue
Flame"
ends
and
Johnny
Mercer
starts
singing
"Ac‐Cent‐Tchu‐Ate
the
Positive,"
the
boy's
trembling
turns
violent,
epileptic.
It
hurries
to
the
bedside
and
scoops
the
boy
into
its
arms.
It
holds
him
to
ensure
he
won't
swallow
his
tongue
and
embraces
the
child
against
the
squalid
white
plastic
of
its
chest
plate
as
the
boy's
limbs
smack
against
it
with
thick,
meaty
whaps.
It
waits
until
the
seizure
passes,
but
doesn't
set
the
boy
back
down
when
he
stills.
It
returns
to
the
ottoman
and
faces
the
window
where
rain
drops
pelt
the
dirty
pane
of
glass.
The
boy
struggles
for
breath
as
the
infection
lubriciously
works
to
undermine
his
body
and
places
his
head
against
the
robot's
body
and
listens
for
a
heartbeat,
for
any
small
human
comfort,
but
only
hearing
the
soft
hum
of
servos
and
pneumatic
devices.
An
artificial
hand
strokes
the
dirty
hair
from
his
face
and
holds
him
close
and
whispers
in
his
ear.
"I
have
in
my
data
banks
an
assortment
of
several
thousand
stories.
Would
it
help
you
to
hear
one?"
The
boy
stutters
a
quiet,
mewling
yes.
"I
will
tell
you
a
story
about
yourself,
about
your
family.
Would
you
like
that?"
The
small
boy
closes
his
eyes.
"Once
upon
a
time,
before
the
world
broke,
there
was
a
small
boy
who
lived
in
a
beach
town
called
Rehoboth
with
his
mother
and
father
and
the
robot
they
had
purchased
to
help
them
tidy
up
the
house
and
care
for
the
small
boy."
The
boy
smiles.
"One
day,
the
father
came
to
the
boy
and
scooped
him
up
and
asked
him
if
he
would
want
to
go
to
the
beach.
The
boy
was
excited
and
leapt
out
of
his
father's
arms.
He
put
on
his
new
swim
trunks
and
gathered
his
beach
toys
and
took
some
of
the
money
from
his
piggy
bank
to
buy
French
fries
covered
in
malt
vinegar.
And
so
the
family
set
out
with
their
beach
chairs
and
umbrellas
and
walked
down
the
sidewalk.
The
small
boy
jumped
over
the
cracks
in
the
concrete
until
they
reached
the
wooden
boardwalk
and
he
looked
out
at
the
people
around
him.
Women
wearing
bikinis
and
smelling
of
coconut
suntan
lotion
passed
by
him
without
a
second
glance
and
portly
men
with
red
burns
on
their
faces
set
small
children
on
their
shoulders.
Elderly
people
sitting
on
the
benches
facing
the
ocean
waved
and
smiled
at
him
when
he
passed
and
he
smiled
back.
When
they
reached
the
sand,
he
kicked
off
his
flip
flops
and
ran
across
the
sand
barefoot.
It
was
hot
from
the
summer
sun,
but
he
didn't
care.
All
he
knew
is
that
he
was
happy.
"They
spent
the
day
there
in
the
sun,
sitting
on
a
beach
blanket
and
looking
out
where
61
the
ocean
met
the
sky,
their
blues
conjoining
in
the
distance.
The
small
boy
explored
the
beach,
plucking
pieces
of
sea
glass
from
the
sand
and
scooping
up
tiny
sand
fleas
when
they
appeared.
He
watched
a
man
pull
a
skate
from
the
ocean
on
a
fishing
pole
that
was
so
bowed
he
thought
it
might
snap.
While
his
father
read
a
book
in
the
shade
of
the
umbrella
and
his
mother
worked
on
her
tan,
he
built
a
sandcastle
with
the
robot
and
decorated
it
with
shells
and
twigs.
He
told
the
robot
that
if
they
made
it
big
enough
they
could
move
there
when
they
both
were
older.
When
the
ocean
tide
rolled
in
and
swallowed
it
up
he
was
heartbroken
at
first,
but
when
he
saw
a
crab
walk
into
the
ruins
he
squealed
with
delight.
He
called
him
King
Crabby
the
rest
of
the
day.
"The
small
boy
and
his
family
had
a
lunch
of
grainy
peanut
butter
sandwiches
and
sour
cream
and
onion
chips,
and
afterward
his
father
led
him
onto
the
boardwalk
and
let
the
small
boy
buy
him
some
fries
with
the
money
from
his
piggy
bank,
and
as
they
walked
back
to
the
beach
a
seagull
swooped
down
and
snatched
one
right
out
of
the
boy's
fingers.”
Even
as
the
boy's
body
begins
to
quake,
the
smile
never
leaves
his
face.
He's
in
a
different
place
now,
far
away
from
the
thunderstorm
and
the
radio
and
the
dead
man
outside
the
front
door,
as
far
away
from
the
beach
house
he
could
escape.
"Later
that
day,
after
their
stomachs
had
settled
and
they
had
napped,
the
small
boy
and
his
mother
and
his
father
walked
out
into
the
ocean
and
played
there
in
the
cold
water
while
their
robot
watched
from
the
beach.
They
jumped
up
and
down
with
the
waves
and
tried
not
to
swallow
the
salty
water.
They
laughed
when
they
were
pinched
by
the
crabs
beneath
their
feet
and
held
each
other
as
the
waves
begin
to
grow.
When
their
skin
was
puckered
and
salty
from
the
ocean,
his
father
suggested
they
go
home
to
clean
up
and
eat
dinner,
but
the
boy
was
so
happy
he
didn't
want
the
day
to
end.
He
started
to
cry
a
little
as
When the ocean tide
rolled in and
swallowed it up he
was heartbroken at
first, but when he
saw a crab walk into
the ruins he squealed
with delight.
they
left
the
water,
but
when
the
father
asked
what
was
wrong
the
small
boy
had
no
words."
The
gasps
become
wheezes
that
futilely
try
for
air.
Seizures
rack
the
boy's
body
again
and
it
holds
him
tighter
against
its
chest
and
whispers
in
his
ear.
"And
then
the
father
picked
the
boy
up
and
held
him
up
into
the
sunlight,
kissing
away
his
tears
and
hugging
him
and
whispering,
'I
love
you'
into
his
ear.
I
love
you."
The
boy's
body
violently
jolts
one
final
time,
and
the
last
choking
breath
echoes
through
the
room.
62
It
sits
there
on
the
ottoman
for
a
long
time
and
holds
the
boy
as
the
rain
and
wind
bludgeon
the
house.
And
when
the
batteries
finally
give
out
in
the
music
player
right
during
the
climax
of
"September
Song,"
it
waits
for
a
while
longer.
When
the
morning
breaks
and
it
is
done
wrapping
the
small
boy
in
the
shroud
of
clean
cotton
blankets
from
the
linen
closet,
it
descends
the
stairs
into
the
kitchen
where
the
sun
is
streaking
through
the
bent
and
broken
blinds.
It
has
no
purpose
now,
no
primary
directive
to
hold
it
to
a
formal
schedule,
so
it
spends
four
hours
standing
and
performing
miscellaneous
diagnostic
tests.
Finally
it
speaks.
"Maggie,
are
you
there?"
it
asks.
"It
needs
someone
to
connect
with.
It
has
failed
to
achieve
its
primary
directive
and
needs
further
instructions.
It
was
telling
it
a
story
and
it
forgot
to
ask
for
a
new
directive.
Can
you
help
it?"
A
pause.
"Are
you
still
alive?"
Hours
later,
it
remembers
the
boy's
words.
Do
you
think
heaven
might
be
in
the
ocean?
I
want
you
to
stay
with
me.
It
files
these
words
away
and
uses
them
to
frame
a
new
directive.
It
opens
the
door
for
the
first
time
since
Father
told
it
to
stay
and
protect
the
boy
and
steps
out
into
a
day
that
smells
of
heavy
ozone
and
salt.
It
looks
back
up
the
street
where
the
single
major
avenue
out
of
the
city
is
snarled
and
congested
with
countless
abandoned
vehicles
and
wonders
if
Father
is
still
alive.
It
crunches
the
numbers
and
finds
the
odds
so
ludicrously
low
it
doesn't
bother
finishing
the
equation.
No
matter.
It
is
going
to
the
beach.
It
steps
over
the
corpse
by
the
door,
taking
care
to
be
gentle
with
the
linen
bundle
in
his
arms,
and
takes
long,
purposeful
strides
down
the
sidewalk
as
it
perfectly
retraces
every
step
63
from
the
story
it
accesses
from
its
data
banks.
When
it
reaches
the
boardwalk,
it
kicks
a
pile
of
bullet
casings
that
go
tinkling
down
the
boardwalk.
It
walks
past
the
neon
Dolle's
sign
and
the
man
hanging
from
it
and
steps
onto
the
beach.
It
calculates
where
the
high
tide
might
roll
in,
then
walks
them
past
the
tide
line
and
settles
on
a
spot
where
its
heels
touch
the
incoming
surf.
Then
it
lowers
itself,
places
the
boy
down
where
it
plans
to
put
the
foundation,
and
begins
constructing
a
home
they
can
live
in
until
the
tide
rolls
in
and
the
ocean
claims
them
both.
64
Images
65
“BFE”
B.C.
Gilbert
Relief
Printing
7”
x
12”
66
“Devil’s
Claw”
B.C.
Gilbert
Relief
Printing
8”
x
10”
67
68
“Tipi”
B.C.
Gilbert
Relief
Printing
12”
x
11”
“Twister”
B.C.
Gilbert
Relief
Printing
12”
x
18”
69
Poetry
70
Brent Newsom
Esther Green Plans a Funeral
Lord
knows,
Claudia,
I
can’t
have
it
at
the
church.
Bill
quit
years
ago,
once
the
girls
were
grown,
said
it
wasn’t
worth
the
trouble
of
putting
on
slacks
and
his
good
white
shirt
to
be
patronized
by
neckties
and
comb‐overs.
He’d
still
have
himself
a
Sabbath
of
sorts—I’d
come
home
to
him
sitting
outside
in
his
faded
flannel
and
jeans,
handsome
even
leaned
back
in
a
lawn
chair
smoking
his
Winstons.
He’d
ask
how
the
sermon
was,
follow
me
in
to
help
with
lunch.
It
was
one
of
those
Sunday
lunches
when
I
noticed
red
flecks
on
the
whisker‐tips
of
his
mustache.
He’d
choked
it
back
who
knows
how
long.
Don’t
mince
words,
he
told
the
doc,
so
she
said
the
spot
was
softball‐sized,
the
rest
of
his
lung
likely
black
as
a
burnt
marshmallow.
She
showed
us
a
malignant
cell—
looked
like
those
prickly
sweetgum
balls
that
fall
to
the
ground
in
winter.
Only
softer,
a
pill
of
lint
almost.
Next
day,
Bill
went
back
to
work,
which
was
not
a
big
surprise.
He
lasted
weeks,
which
was.
71
Floyd and Patti
The
JC
Cocktail
Palace:
a
dive
with
self‐delusions.
But
it
was
theirs,
the
place
where
Floyd
tipped
biggest
and
Patti
kept’em
coming.
When
he
asked
if
he
could
be
the
piston
pumping
in
her
cylinder,
she
had
the
wit
to
say,
I’m
not
a
four‐stroke
kind
of
woman,
and
the
good
sense
to
slap
him.
He
was
smitten.
He
was
persistent.
She
liked
the
attention,
came
to
crave
his
viscous
gaze
dripping
from
face
to
tits
to
ass
to
thigh
to
calf.
In
his
Charger
parked
beneath
the
pink
glow
of
the
Palace’s
neon
sign,
one
night,
after
closing,
she
caved.
Still
kissing,
they
clambered
over
the
console,
unzipped,
and
the
crankshaft
of
his
hips
spun
in
the
sump
of
hers.
Somehow,
though,
he
missed
what
she
gauged
even
then:
that
they
wouldn’t
make
it
far
with
so
little
in
the
tank.
Not
even
on
a
fire
like
theirs.
Not
even
with
a
white‐hot
spark.
72
New Hope Baptist Church
Where
the
Savior’s
left
foot
ought
to
be,
a
jagged
absence.
A
yawning
hole
in
the
glass
patched
with
opaque,
dull
gray
tape
for
years,
ever
since
the
summer
night
a
thunderstorm
flung
in
a
branch.
The
western
sun
once
washed
that
foot’s
gold
skin,
like
the
knees
bent
under
their
burden
and
the
torso
slivered
with
crimson
shards,
which
shoulders
a
brown
crossbeam.
On
the
opposite
wall
at
sunset
ever
since,
the
image
of
a
gold‐toned
Christ
lugs
a
shadow
behind
him,
a
dark
club
foot.
Now
Pastor
wants
it
repaired
by
Easter.
Says,
The
Lord’s
house,
the
Lord’s
house.
Says,
Special
yellow
envelopes
have
been
printed,
says,
The
plate
will
be
passed.
At
the
early
evening
business
meeting,
Esther
Green
stands,
smooths
her
dress,
says,
What
about
the
impoverished?
The
sick,
the
addicted,
the
lame,
the
lonely?
Says,
What
about
doing
unto
the
least
of
these?
Pastor
cues
the
pianist,
says,
The
poor
will
always
be
with
you,
says,
The
Lord’s
house,
the
Lord’s
house.
Says,
Come,
let
us
pray.
73
Floyd Fontenot, Free Bird
Better
to
die
from
his
own
machination—to
grease
himself,
ha!—Floyd
thinks
beneath
the
Charger
he
named
Pearl,
she
painted
creamy
white
with
two
black
racing
stripes,
she
of
ceramic‐coated
headers
and
hoses
of
stainless
steel,
of
chrome
twenties
and
dual
exhaust,
she
of
the
blower
through
the
hood.
Now
she
of
the
axles
freshly
lubed.
Fuck
yes.
Better
that
than
break
down
like
a
rusted‐out
beater
due
to
a
shitty
heart,
birthright
of
a
Fontenot.
Floyd
knows
the
scum
sludging
his
own
lines.
His
engine
was
made
for
speed,
not
mileage,
and
Fontenots
run’em
hard
and
fast,
something
Patti
learned
real
quick.
The
note
she
pinned
against
the
windshield
beneath
a
wiper
blade
said,
Floyd,
it
sure
as
hell
was
a
wild
ride,
and
she
became
one
more
name
on
a
long
list
of
leavers.
But
Floyd
knows
he
has
himself
to
blame
and
too
much
of
his
old
man
in
him.
He
could
never
get
at
the
source
of
the
rattle,
hidden
beneath
a
hood
that
won’t
release.
All
he’d
have
to
do
is
close
the
garage
with
Pearl
inside
and
fire
her
up,
maybe
set
the
tuner
to
classic
rock,
call
in
and
request
a
Skynyrd
song.
Then
crank
the
volume
up
and
the
windows
down.
Or
maybe
better,
kick
back
and
listen
shut‐eyed
to
the
metallic
canter
of
the
idling
Hemi,
breathe
in
deep
that
dust
cloud
of
exhaust.
74
Ash Wednesday
Now
that
the
penitents
down
the
road
at
Our
Lady
of
Prompt
Succor
are
done
with
the
beads
and
doubloons,
the
parties,
parades,
and
ring‐shaped
king
cakes,
Claudia
Blackwood
is
happy
for
Smyrna’s
return
to
a
rhythm
of
industry,
ready
as
ever
for
New
Hope
to
begin
rehearsing
again
for
the
annual
Easter
pageant.
Tonight
after
practice
they’ll
all
get
fitted,
find
out
what
needs
to
be
altered,
so
all
day
she
launders
costumes,
purges
the
odor
of
mothballs
from
old
polyester
and
cotton.
She
tugs
out
a
tangle
of
robes
from
the
dryer,
drops
them
into
a
plastic
basket.
Around
her
head
she
drapes
a
shawl
and
inhales
the
clean
perfume—spring
fresh
—of
dryer
sheets.
She
repeats
her
line,
straining
for
Magdalene’s
breathless
glee:
I
have
seen
the
Lord!
I
have
seen
the
Lord!
I
have
seen
the
Lord!
75
Corey Don Mingura
Red Pterodactyl
Let’s
get
high
and
watch
my
fifth‐grade
play.
I
think
you’ll
like
it.
It’s
a
musical
about
dinosaurs.
All
the
kids
sing
in
it,
but
I
have
a
solo.
Twenty
people
tried
out
for
it,
and
they
gave
it
to
me.
It’s
the
last
time
I
sang
on
stage.
You
see
that
girl
in
the
pink
triceratops
costume?
Doesn’t
she
look
sweet?
She’s
a
whore
now.
Has
4
kids
with
3
different
daddies.
She
could
blow
anyone
else
around,
but
when
it
came
to
me,
she
only
said
“Hi.”
I
hated
broads
like
that.
And
you
see
that
boy
in
the
blue
tyrannosaurus
suit?
It
was
messed
up.
A
few
years
back,
he
fell
asleep
at
the
wheel
and
ran
his
car
into
a
cotton
bail
trailer.
Crushed
him
to
death.
I
used
to
party
with
him
out
by
Sanders
Lake.
Damn,
he
was
a
cool
dude.
He
hooked
us
up
with
anything,
and
I
don’t
remember
paying.
Hey,
you
see
that
girl
in
the
purple
stegosaurus
getup?
That
little
lady
is
my
ex‐wife.
She
left
‘cause
she
said
she
couldn’t
handle
me
and
I
was
a
bad
influence
on
the
kids,
76
but
if
they
can’t
accept
me,
they
can
kiss
my
ass.
I
ain’t
gonna
change
for
anyone.
Oh
shit,
that’s
me
there
dressed
like
a
red
teradactyl.
Shhhh…My
solo’s
coming
up.
77
Laura Holloway
Annus Mirabillus
II.
Arise,
o
crocuses!
Spring
forth,
somnolent
jonquils!
Let
the
buds
break
the
bonds
of
bark
and
green
the
dying
winter.
Let
nests
be
woven
of
tender
twigs,
anchored
firmly
to
newly
verdant
trees,
and
lined
with
down.
Let
grounds
grow
soft
and
grasses
lush
that
they
may
cradle
tender
paw‐pads,
ease
the
hatchling
beaks.
III.
Breezeless
air
churned
by
tiny
wings:
soft
fluttering
moths,
manic
skimmers,
flies,
bees,
mosquitoes
‐
insignificant
wakes,
unfit
to
cool
damp
human
skin,
go
unnoticed
in
the
oppressive
stillness.
As
the
sun
descends,
crickets
fill
the
night
with
sound
and
lightening
bugs
make
tiny
galaxies
of
our
lawns.
78
I.
Naked
branches
clack
percussive.
Behind
blue
cloud
cover,
a
streak
of
sunlight
fades.
Eight
geese
fly
overhead
in
an
imperfect
formation.
Swaying
to
the
tune
of
impending
torrent,
a
perfectly
conical
pine
becomes
a
playground
for
a
single
shaft
of
persistent
light,
darting
between
shadows
and
against
a
strangely
luminous
storm‐
darkened
sky.
IV.
Light
wends
its
way
through
scarlet,
burgundy,
and
coral:
stained
glass
rendered
in
the
absence
of
chlorophyll:
wind‐placed
and
held
fast
by
autumn
damp,
leaves
become
jewels
of
gold
and
amber
on
the
pane.
Later,
they
will
brown
and
fall
to
ground
and
Orion
will
begin
to
ease
his
shield
over
the
horizon.
Reviews
&
Interviews
79
Phong
Nguyen.
Pages
from
the
Textbook
of
Alternate
History,
Queen’s
Ferry
Press,
2014
Review by George McCormick
When
I
picked
up
Phong
Nguyen’s
Pages
from
the
Textbook
of
Alternate
History
I
did
what
I
always
do
with
a
new
book
I’m
excited
about:
I
look
at
the
cover
art
front
and
back,
I
flip
to
the
author
photo,
read
the
bio;
I
find
the
acknowledgments
and
scan
through
them;
I
read
the
epigraph
if
the
book
has
an
epigraph.
Finally
I
turn
to
the
table
of
contents—and
it
was
in
this
moment
when
I
started
scanning
the
chapter
titles
that
I
immediately
began
to
misread
the
book.
When
I
read
titles
like
“Columbus
Discovers
Asia”
and
“Napoleon
Invades
Louisiana”
I
assumed
the
book
would
be
treading
in
the
kind
of
revisionist
waters
so
well
established
by
Robert
Harris’
Fatherland
and
Philip
Roth’s
The
Plot
Against
America.
In
those
novels
history
is
re‐imagined
so
as
to
serve
as
cautionary
tales
against
fascism,
but
as
I
began
to
wade
my
way
through
Nguyen’s
book
I
quickly
realized
that
I
was
in
a
very
different
space:
here
history
was
being
re‐imagined
not
with
a
sense
of
foreboding
but
with
a
sense
of
play—wonderful,
curious,
intellectual,
satirical
sense
of
play.
I
wasn’t
in
the
world
of
Roth,
I
realized,
so
much
as
I
was
in
that
of
Borges.
And
I
can
think
of
no
bigger
compliment.
The
plot:
a
nameless
tech
at
a
computer
repair
shop
known
only
as
“The
Workshop”
is
one
day
given
the
task
of
recovering
information
off
of
a
client’s
ruined
hard
drive.
What
he
finds
is
a
digital
text
“More
than
five
times
the
capacity
of
Wikipedia,
more
than
sixty
times
the
size
of
Britannica”
with
“a
terabyte
full
of
images
and
text—more
than
two
billion
words,
with
half
a
million
maps
and
timelines—of
meticulously
organized
scrupulously
annotated
chapters.”
The
narrator
spends
days
organizing
and
indexing
the
text,
but
when
he
attempts
to
print
pieces
of
the
tome
the
type
sheets
come
out
of
the
printer
empty.
When
the
computer
finally
crashes
the
narrator
results
to
writing
down
what
he
remembers
by
hand
on
a
ream
of
paper.
What
he’s
preserved
is
the
book
we
have
in
our
hands.
80
While
these
250
pages
record
a
history
that
is
alternate
to
our
own,
they
still
follow
time’s
arrow.
The
book’s
chapters
are
organized
chronologically,
beginning
in
ancient
Egypt
and
closing
with
a
space
shuttle
launch.
That
being
said,
I
found
myself
jumping
around
in
the
book,
reading
sections
by
how
interesting
the
chapter
titles
were.
It
is
a
testament
to
the
book
that
such
a
reading
is
possible—each
chapter
neatly,
tidily,
contained
within
this
framework.
Which
is
how
I
came
to
read
“Hitler
Goes
to
Art
School”
so
early
on.
In
this
wonderfully
imagined
story
Adolph
Hitler
is
young
art
student
who
resists
abstract
expressionism
in
favor
of
literal
landscape
painting,
and
whose
own
cheesy
paintings
“had
been
used
only
to
sell
picture
frames..”
Poor
Adolf,
when
he
is
later
gunned
down
on
a
Belgian
battlefield
toward
the
close
of
the
First
World
War,
it
is
in
part
because
of
his
aesthetics.
Hitler’s
buddy
narrates,
I
myself
was
a
soldier
in
the
Austro‐Hungarian
Infantry
Regiment,
and
had
since
met
at
least
a
dozen
men
like
him—or
almost
like
him.
Theirs
sounded
like
a
clean
and—with
all
its
focus
on
monuments
and
other
vast
structures
of
stone—seemingly
empty
Germany.
J.
David
Osborne.
Low
Down
Death
Right
Easy,
Swallowdown
Press,
2013
Review by Cameron Brewer
Lawton,
Oklahoma
is
a
city
that,
in
many
ways,
represents
the
merging
of
two
diametrically
opposing
ideas:
salvation
and
perdition.
Fort
Sill,
a
sprawling
army
base
that
provides
an
influx
of
revenue
that
is
key
to
Lawton's
economy,
sits
across
the
street
from
a
neighborhood
renowned
for
violence
and
drug
addiction.
Chain
stores
provide
a
host
of
new
jobs
while
decimating
local
businesses.
It
is
a
place
wrought
with
opportunities,
both
good
and
bad.
And
while
outside
factors
are
a
constant
influence,
success
or
failure
in
such
an
environment
is
largely
based
on
an
individual's
choices.
This
notion
is
at
the
heart
of
the
story
of
Low
Down
Death
Right
Easy.
The
book
does
not
pull
any
punches,
sometime
quite
literally.
The
chapters
often
read
more
like
short
vignettes,
each
dealing
with
or
reflecting
on
decisions
made
by
the
characters
and
the
repercussions
that
inevitably
occur
because
of
them.
The
accusatory
nature
of
the
first
chapter's
title,
"This
is
on
81
You",
conveys
the
importance
of
choice
in
shaping
one's
future.
It
is
here
that
we
are
introduced
to
Daniel
Ames,
a
gang
member
who
serves
as
the
closest
approximation
of
a
protagonist
that
this
story
has
to
offer.
Danny
is
the
shining
example
of
the
self‐destructive
spirit
that
permeates
every
aspect
of
the
book,
from
its
noir‐meets‐western
tone
to
the
important
role
drugs
occupy
in
the
narrative.
As
he
searches
for
his
missing
brother,
his
increased
appetite
for
violence
and
narcotics
give
form
to
his
increased
despair.
This
dynamic
keeps
the
reader
involved
and
sympathetic
towards
Danny's
goals,
even
when
the
actual
cost
of
the
truth
becomes
apparent.
The
brilliance
of
Low
Down
Death
Right
Easy
comes
not
from
its
willingness
to
embrace
brutality,
but
in
its
understanding
of
how
deeply
the
desolation
it
depicts
is
rooted
in
choices
intended
to
bring
about
positive
change.
Sepp
Clancy,
an
ex‐convict
with
no
opportunities,
is
the
canvass
on
which
we
see
this
play
out.
Despite
the
urging
of
his
brother,
Arlo,
Sepp
continues
to
live
a
life
of
crime.
Sepp's
mentality
is
spelled
out
expertly
in
the
exchange
he
has
with
his
friend
Lucas
in
the
chapter
"The
Blue
Cat/Fertilizer".
Sepp
is
perfectly
aware
of
the
potential
damage
that
can
come
from
falling
back
into
old
habits,
but
chooses
to
lapse
not
because
he's
weak,
but
because
high
risk
for
high
reward
is
the
only
logical
option
to
him:
"...if
someone
kicked
him
out
of
door
number
one,
he'd
burn
the
whole
building
down."
The
most
remarkable
thing
about
Low
Down
Death
Right
Easy
is
how
effectively
the
use
of
paralleling
story
structure
creates
a
sense
of
dramatic
fatalism
that
is
evocative
of
the
works
of
Elmore
Leonard.
It
is
clear
that
the
lives
of
Sepp
and
Danny
are
going
to
clash.
And
as
these
men
unknowingly
inch
towards
each
other,
the
grim
nature
of
the
book's
title
begins
to
weigh
heavier
on
the
mind.
Low
Down
Death
Right
Easy
is
a
bleak
and
tension
filled
crime
thriller
that
excels
in
making
self‐destruction
thoughtful
and
engaging.
A
parable
that
hinges
on
the
idea
that
even
the
most
innocuous
decisions
can
lead
to
the
most
tremendous
of
impacts,
Osborne
has
created
a
story
that
is
as
chillingly
poignant
as
it
is
satisfying.
82
“I’m
not
the
only
one
to
seek
out
his
grave
in
St.
Mary’s
Cemetery,
between
the
Interstate
and
the
softball
diamonds…”:
An
Interview
With
Ed
Skoog
by George McCormick
Ed
Skoog’s
magnificent
debut
Mister
Skylight
(Copper
Canyon,
2009)
was—among
other
things—
a
kind
of
panoramic
view
of
American
life
at
the
close
of
the
first
decade
of
this
new
century.
In
“During
the
War”
we
learn,
“The
train
I
rode
around
America/
was
empty;
the
country
was
half‐
empty,/
like
the
zoo
on
Monday.
I
wept
at
the
president,/
threatened
to
barefoot
across
the
border,/
but
in
the
end
only
rolled
down
the
window/
to
wave
at
a
stranger
who
looked
familiar.”
The
poems
in
the
book
are
often
nimble
and
intricate,
and
Skoog
proves
himself
equally
deft
as
a
miniaturist:
“It’s
11:11,
time/
to
make
my
daily
wish/
catch
the
stilt
legs
of
those/
two
birds
who
land
twice/
a
day
inside
the
clock”(from
“Inland
Empire).
In
his
recent
book
Rough
Day
(Copper
Canyon,
2013),
Skoog
takes
a
different,
somewhat
more
surreal,
tact
with
his
poems.
Eschewing
titles
and
punctuation,
Skoog’s
new
poems
feel
freer
and
stranger,
darker
yet
more
comic.
I
was
excited,
then,
in
April,
when
I
had
the
chance
to
catch
up
with
Skoog
via
email
where
he
was
busy
teaching
as
a
visiting
writer
at
Wichita
State.
[McCormick]:
I
read
Rough
Day
last
Monday,
then
again
on
Saturday.
The
second
time
through,
as
I
was
thinking
about
form,
I
was
reminded
of
a
line
Jack
Spicer
has
about
the
serial
poem:
“The
serial
poem
has
the
book
as
its
unit…and
you
have
to
go
into
a
serial
poem
not
knowing
what
the
hell
you’re
doing.
It
has
to
be
some
path
that
you’ve
never
seen
on
a
map
before
and
so
forth…”1
Does
this
resonate
at
all
with
how
Rough
Day
was
composed?
[Skoog]:
Did
I
know
what
I
was
doing,
and
when
did
I
know
it?
I
don't
remember
how
it
all
came
together,
but
at
some
point
the
poems
and
the
book
converged.
I'm
interested
in
sonnet
sequences.
I
began
writing
this
very
much
with
Rilke's
Sonnets
to
Orpheus
in
mind,
but
I
also
1
from
“The
Serial
Poem
and
The
Holy
Grail.”
The
House
that
Jack
Built:
The
Collected
Lectures
of
Jack
Spicer.
Wesleyan
University
Press,
1998.
83
have
in
my
head
the
figure
made
by
Spicer,
and
by
Ronald
Johnson's
ARK
and
Dorn's
Gunslinger,
which
I
know
is
a
book
that
means
something
to
you,
or
used
to
back
in
old
Missoula.
[McCormick]:
Yeah,
it
was
either
you
or
Kurt
Slauson
that
turned
me
onto
Gunslinger.
This
was
’96,
’97.
I
was
working
as
a
dishwasher
in
a
big
industrial
kitchen
at
the
Holiday
Inn,
and
I
remember
sitting
next
to
my
dish
machine,
crunching
on
croutons,
and
reading—being
amazed
by—Dorn’s
book.
I
mean,
I
didn’t
know
language
could
do
that.
I
picked
up
‘Slinger
again
during
the
Iraq
war
when
I
felt
like
I
was
losing
my
mind.
Just
recently
when
I
was
reading
Cyrus
Console’s
excellent
book‐length
poem
The
Odicy
I
could
feel
the
presence
of
Dorn’s
ghost—the
re‐purposing
of
corporate
language,
the
scathing
humor,
the
relentless
attack
on
consumer
culture.
This
is
not
to
take
anything
from
Console,
who
is
a
poet
of
the
first‐rank
in
my
book.
[Skoog]:
Cyrus
is
from
Topeka.
[McCormick]:
The
book
seems
to
move
from
grief
to
anger
to
somewhere
nearly
ineffable;
or,
if
it
doesn’t
exactly
work
sequentially
like
that
it
does
seem
to
reiterate
these
stages.
I
find
this
interesting
because
anger
seems
a
place
that
is
easy
to
start
from
but
difficult
to
sustain.
I
mean,
I
think
there’s
a
reason
why
8o’s
punk
songs
are
short.
Can
you
speak
at
all
about
how
you
manage
to
keep
this
going
for
eighty‐two
pages?
[Skoog]:
My
favorite
80s
punk
song
is
"Ack
Ack
Ack"
by
The
Minutemen.
Twenty
unforgettable,
highly
structured
seconds.
But
I
don't
see
the
book
in
the
terms
that
you
mention.
I
was
thinking
of
the
album
in
musical
terms,
at
various
times,
Mahler's
symphonies,
long
late
night
performances
by
New
Orleans
pianists
such
as
James
Booker,
Jon
Cleary
and
Professor
Longhair,
and
an
interview
in
Mojo
with
Shane
MacGowan
in
which
he
beautifully
avoids
answering
questions
about
his
songwriting
(and
which
provides
the
epigraph
to
the
book).
There
is
anger
and
grief
in
the
book
but
I
see
it
as
essentially
a
comic
poem.
[McCormick]:
I
agree.
And
I
love
how
quickly
the
book
can
move
between
different
registers.
For
instance,
there
are
a
couple
of
moments
in
the
book
where
you
pivot
from
a
rich
image
to
a
stanza
written
in
very
declarative,
even
instructional,
language:
“and
here
is
the
canyon
where
84
we
stop
for
love/
and
these
are
the
red
and
orange
seeds
of
the
ocotillo/
and
these
are
the
spines
of
the
pencil
cholla.”
And
later,
perhaps
my
favorite
lines
of
the
book:
“my
advice
is
give
yourself
freely
to
rage/
until
your
face
suns
in
the
blast
of
either/
the
furnace
my
grandfather
stokes//
or
the
revolver’s
answer.”
[Skoog]:
About
those
lines:
My
mother’s
father,
Walter,
was
a
steelworker
in
Pittsburgh.
The
family
story
is
that
he
did
something
else,
like
handling
the
pay
rolls
or
something,
but
the
newspaper
articles
about
his
murder
in
1952
just
call
him
a
steelworker.
He
was
shot
in
a
hotel.
My
mother
only
talked
about
it
a
couple
times,
but
I’ve
done
a
lot
of
research,
trying
to
get
a
sense
of
who
he
was,
what
happened
exactly.
I
am
continuing
to
write
about
him.
I
seem
to
be
covering
the
same
territory
every
few
years
in
my
poems.
Different
dances,
different
songs,
but
the
same
instruments
maybe.
Perhaps
I
was
trying
to
emulate
something
about
dance
in
that
way,
with
passages
that
move
quickly,
passages
that
are
in
slow
motion,
and
passages
that
stop
suddenly,
like
a
cakewalk.
[McCormick]:
I
find
the
geography
of
the
book
fascinating.
In
Mister
Skylight
place
was
very
particularized,
but
here
it
occurs
as
in
a
dream—you’re
at
a
coast,
but
not
the
coast.
Or,
you’re
in
“a
modesto”
as
opposed
to
“Modesto.”
Does
that
make
any
sense?
[Skoog]:
I
avoid
most
place
referents
in
the
book
for
both
practical
and
conceptual
reasons.
The
book
would
be
a
spaghetti
of
place
names
if
I
certified
each
location,
and
it
just
didn't
seem
important.
Places
don't
really
have
meaningful
names,
mostly,
especially
in
the
midwest
and
west—town
names
are
literally
advertisements.
This
choice
is
consonant
with
other
aspects
I
didn't
feel
were
important:
titles,
punctuation,
people's
names
(mostly),
etc.
I
wanted
to
do
without
page
numbers,
but
in
the
end
that
seemed
too
much.
I
suppose
I
was
trying
to
correct
what
I
see
as
a
flaw
of
my
first
book
Mister
Skylight,
which,
sometimes
when
I
read
it,
seems
overwhelmed
by
vanity,
and
I
can
locate
that
vanity
in
the
unexamined
use
of
the
usual
conventions,
titles,
punctuation,
commodity
fetishism,
certain
modes
of
rhetoric,
style,
presentation
of
imagery
and
figurative
language.
Not
to
dwell
on
the
manufacture
of
the
chorizo
and
andouille,
but
I
saw
ways
that
I
could
be
freer,
and
that
seems
like
a
reasonable
goal
for
a
poet,
to
find
ways
to
become
freer
with
each
book,
each
poem,
each
line.
My
more
recent
poems
85
are
trying
to
find
that
freedom
in
other
ways.
I
think
Rough
Day
is
the
end
of
one
line
of
development
for
me,
and
I'm
Tronning
to
the
side
now,
but
I
hope
everything
is
encircling/ensquaring/ensaring.
[McCormick]:
I’ve
never
thought
of
it
quite
like
that
before,
that
titles
and
punctuation
can
be
seen
as
forms
of
vanity.
Small
ways
of
feeding
the
ego,
perhaps.
Did
Copper
Canyon
have
any
problems
with
these
formal
decisions
when
you
submitted
the
manuscript?
After
all,
Skylight
had
been
a
success
and
here
was
this
radical
shift
in
poetics.
[Skoog]:
No,
no
problem
with
those
decisions
that
I
know
of.
Does
it
seem
like
a
radical
shift?
I
think
I
mostly
took
things
away,
following
a
comment
of
Roque
Dalton’s,
that
you
know
a
real
poet
because
he
or
she
has
less
and
less
every
day,
until
all
they
have
is
a
clean
shirt.
[McCormick]:
Having
worked
at
the
Richard
Hugo
House
in
Seattle,
and
having
been
a
student
and
later
a
visiting
professor
at
the
University
of
Montana,
it
is
safe
to
assume
that
you
are
familiar
with
the
work
and
life
of
Richard
Hugo.
As
Hugo
gets
canonized
he
also
seems
to
be
getting
a
little
squeezed
in
that
we
see
the
same
five
or
six
poems
over
and
over,
in
each
successive
anthology.
My
question
is,
what
poem,
or
series
of
poems,
do
you
find
often
gets
overlooked?
[Skoog]:
Hugo
has
always
been
good
luck
to
me.
I
didn’t
know
him,
but
fell
in
love
with
his
poetry
when
I
first
read
“Lady
at
Kicking
Horse
Reservoir”
and
“Degrees
of
Grey
in
Phillipsburg”
at
17.
My
mentor
at
Kansas
State
University,
Jonathan
Holden,
had
written
extensively
about
Hugo,
and
helped
me
work
out
why
Hugo’s
work
had
such
weight
to
me.
It
wasn’t
just
Hugo,
of
course.
I
fell
uncritically
into
the
charms
of
dozens
of
poets,
and
followed
those
paths
backward
and
forward
into
matters
of
style,
tone,
ideas,
ways
of
looking
at
and
being
in
the
world,
ways
of
being
one’s
self.
I
drove
West
the
summer
after
my
freshman
year,
with
some
friends,
and
we
spent
a
few
days
in
Missoula.
Thus
commenced
my
Hugo
tourism;
I’m
not
the
only
one
to
seek
out
his
grave
in
St.
Mary’s
Cemetery,
between
the
Interstate
and
the
softball
diamonds,
nor
to
drive
to
the
places
mentioned
in
his
poems:
Phillipsburg,
Silver
Star,
Lake
Drummond,
Ovando.
I
went
to
the
University
of
Montana’s
graduate
program,
starting
in
1994,
12
years
after
Hugo
86
died,
in
other
words,
fully
aware
that
I
would
not
get
to
work
with
Hugo,
let
me
beat
you
to
that
question,
but
still
his
work
suggested
that
Missoula
was
at
least
as
good
a
place
as
any
to
start
trying
to
be
a
writer.
Many
people
of
his
circle
were
still
there,
and
I
did
get
to
work
with
them,
or
to
know
them,
and
they
and
their
work
has
meant
a
great
deal
to
me
independent
of
today’s
subject.
If
they
awarded
the
Nobel
Prize
in
Literature
not
to
individuals
but
to
groups
of
friends,
few
groups
would
be
more
deserving
than
that
group
of
Missoula
writers:
Hugo,
James
Welch,
Annick
Smith,
Bill
Kittredge,
Jim
Crumley,
Madeline
DeFreese,
others.
Although
familiar
by
now
to
me,
Hugo’s
work
always
seems
new.
“News
that
stays
news,”
as
Pound
would
say.
I
had
a
problem
imitating
Hugo,
which
I
did
for
too
many
years,
and
then
spent
too
many
years
trying
not
to
write
like
Hugo,
which
is
not
any
different,
except
I
sounded
in
neither
mode
like
myself.
Eventually
I
gave
up
and
don’t
care
whether
I
sound
or
don’t
sound
like
Hugo.
Sometimes
a
line
does,
because
I
like
the
loose
iambic
pentameter
and
write
about
my
life
and
people
and
places
around
me,
which
have
often
been
places
that
he
had
written
about
as
well
(broken
up
with
a
decade‐long
vacation
in
New
Orleans—paraphrasing
“Degrees
of
Gray
in
Phillipsburg”—the
town
of
towering
blondes,
good
jazz
and
booze
that
the
world
let
me
have
when
I
let
my
hometown
of
Topeka
die
inside.)
I
later
served
as
writer‐in‐residence
at
the
Richard
Hugo
House,
and
he
was
never
far
from
my
mind
the
last
few
years
when
I
was
a
sabbatical
replacement
visiting
professor
at
the
University
of
Montana.
His
poems
have
been
my
maps,
useful
stories
for
navigating
the
Northwest,
both
in
the
imagination
and
in
my
daily
life
as
a
citizen.
I
just
finished
teaching
a
class
at
the
Richard
Hugo
House
about
“Hugo
and
his
Circles,”
and
at
the
end
a
student
asked
what
I
learned
from
Hugo
and
these
writers.
Courage,
honesty,
dedication
to
craft,
sense
of
purpose.
Value.
Dignity.
No
other
literary
movement’s
work
means
as
much
to
me
personally—
the
story
they
tell,
together,
is
a
good
story.
I
remain
drawn
to
Hugo’s
work,
with
all
its
flaws.
At
this
point
I
read
his
collected
poems
as
something
like
a
novel,
the
way
Tony
Tost
reads
Johnny
Cash’s
songs
as
a
kind
of
novel,
a
novel
of
identity
formation,
the
presentation
of
a
self
(in
his
33
1/3
book
about
American
Recordings.)
“Degrees
of
Gray
in
Phillipsburg”
is
his
great
poem,
but
I
think
they
all
have
a
high
sustain,
with
an
adhesive
force.
I
really
like
“Silver
Star,”
which
has
always
seemed
to
me
like
“Degrees
of
Gray
in
Phillipsburg
Junior.”
We
have
a
lonely,
forgotten
town
of
ghosts
and
rust
that
connects
to
the
collapsing
conjectural
“you.”
The
consciousness
of
the
poem
asks
questions
87
and
gets
wrong
answers.
Reality
is
defending
itself
from
the
imagination,
but
one
can
escape
in
a
car,
and
the
last
image
is
red,
red
barn,
red
hair.
Considering
one
beside
the
other
magnifies
both.
I
like
“You
are
a
stranger
every
day.
Let
the
engines
and
the
farm
equipment
die.”
The
last
image
is
red,
and
both
poems
end
with
that
characteristic
of
Hugo
midcentury
“girl”—Hugo’s
portrayal
of
women,
and
of
sexual
anxiety,
which
is
probably
the
barrier
between
his
poetry
and—flip
a
coin
on
what
you
want
to
call
it—“popular
currency”
or
“immortality.”
These
uncomfortable
lines
in
Hugo,
like
the
minstrelry
in
Berryman’s
dream
songs,
is
probably
poorly
considered
from
a
public
relations
standpoint.
But
the
sheer
vulnerability
of
Hugo’s
speaker’s
unadorned,
unguarded
relationships,
imagined
and
real,
with
women,
while
they
make
some
listeners
turn
off,
make
me
listen
more,
and
consider
the
psychology—psychotherapy
was
very
important
to
Hugo—and
woundedness
and
posturing
and
bluffing.
It
is
a
weakness
in
the
poetry.
So
little
good
poetry
has
weaknesses.
Or
such
precise
weakness.
One
is
not
tempted
to
valorize
Hugo
and
his
speakers,
as
champions
of
women.
He
doesn’t
seem
to
have
much
insight
or
empathy
with
them,
the
way
he
does
with
old
men.
There
are
biographical
explanations
of
why
he
might
be
this
way
as
a
person—orphan,
severe
grandmother,
combat—but
as
one
who
has
long
been
under
the
spell
of
his
voice,
I
would
wish
for
more
understanding
and
complexity
regarding
women.
Because
I
could
use
some.
But
my
real
defense
of
Hugo
on
this
point
is
that
he
talks
about
women,
while
most
the
male
poets
of
his
generation
largely
avoid
women.
He
may
be
inexpert
talking
about
women,
but
women
are
really
the
subject
of
his
poems.
As
the
old
song
goes,
“motherless
children
have
a
hard
time
in
this
world.”
It’s
interesting
to
notice
what’s
not
in
Hugo
poems.
Aside
from
the
letter
poems,
there
aren’t
many
people.
Like
the
cartoon
Peanuts,
there
are
very
few
parents.
Few
children.
I
also
like
“Keokuk.”
There
are
many
moments
in
his
poetry,
often
inside
a
sentence,
where
a
quick
switch
happens,
a
leap
through
time,
or
from
the
individual
to
the
universal,
or
a
contradiction.
The
effect
is
like
looking
through
a
microscope
that
suddenly
turns
into
a
telescope.
At
any
rate,
the
effect
is
often
kaleidoscopic.
And
very
much
so
in
“Keokuk,”
wild
telescoping
of
time
and
tense,
and
identities.
The
Keokuk
is
in
Iowa—perhaps
he
visited
during
his
disastrous
semester
teaching
at
Iowa,
what
seems
to
have
been
the
breaking
point,
after
which
he
sobered
up.
“Your
gaze
must
give
the
rescue
team
a
chance
to
grow
on
the
horizon,
framed
in
gold.”
And
along
these
lines
I
like
“Letter
to
Logan
from
Milltown,”
which
seems
like
the
answer
poem
to
“Keokuk.”
His
legacy
has
to
rest
on
the
poetry,
not
the
force
of
his
character,
88
or
his
legacy
as
a
teacher,
or
even
the
essays
in
Triggering
Town,
as
influential
as
they’ve
been.
I
know
the
poetry
can
withstand
new
readings
and
critical
approaches,
as
well
as
the
pleasure
they
give.
89
Contributors
Mark
Belisle,
originally
from
Fletcher,
Oklahoma,
now
lives
in
Rehoboth
Beach,
Delaware.
His
work
has
been
featured
in
several
online
magazines
as
the
University
of
Baltimore's
literary
journal
Welter.
His
debut
collection
of
short
stories,
called
Sunflowers
is
available
as
an
e‐book
at
Amazon.
Timothy
Bradford
is
the
author
of
the
poetry
collection
Nomads
with
Samsonite
(BlazeVOX
[books],
2011)
and
the
introduction
to
Sadhus
(Cuerpos
Pintados,
2003),
a
photography
book
on
the
ascetics
of
South
Asia.
In
2005,
he
received
the
Koret
Foundation’s
Young
Writer
on
Jewish
Themes
Award
for
a
novel‐in‐progress,
and
from
2007
to
2009,
he
was
a
guest
researcher
at
the
Institut
d’Histoire
du
Temps
Présent
in
Paris.
Currently,
he
is
a
Visiting
Assistant
Professor
at
Oklahoma
State
University.
Cameron
Brewer
is
originally
from
Moore,
Oklahoma.
A
graduate
of
Cameron
University,
Brewer
was
accepted
into
the
Communication
Studies
Master’s
Program
at
Southern
Illinois
University.
He
enjoys
reading
comic
books,
slam
poetry,
writing
qualitative
academic
essays,
and
performing
stand‐up
comedy.
He
is
currently
working
on
a
graphic
novel
with
friend
and
creative
partner
Gwen
Price.
Jerry
Gabriel’s
first
book,
Drowned
Boy
(Sarabande,
2010),
won
the
Mary
McCarthy
Prize
in
Short
Fiction.
It
was
a
Barnes
and
Noble
"Discover
Great
New
Writers"
selection
and
awarded
the
2011
Towson
Prize
for
Literature.
His
stories
have
appeared
in
Five
Chapters,
EPOCH,
Alaska
Quarterly
Review,
and
The
Missouri
Review.
His
second
book,
The
Let
Go,
will
be
published
by
Queen’s
Ferry
Press
in
2015.
He
lives
in
Maryland,
where
he
teaches
at
St.
Mary’s
College
of
Maryland
and
directs
the
Chesapeake
Writers’
Conference.
B.C.
Gilbert
was
born
and
raised
in
Amarillo,
Texas.
He
received
a
BFA
in
painting
in
1997
from
Cameron
University
and
an
MFA
in
painting
and
sculpture
in
2001
from
Texas
Tech
University.
He
is
now
based
out
of
Wichita
Falls
where
he
is
a
working
and
exhibiting
artist
as
well
as
an
art
instructor
at
Rider
High
School
and
adjunct
professor
at
Midwestern
State
University.
A
forthcoming
solo
show,
“High
Plains
Jamboree,”
will
open
on
June
6
at
the
Louise
Hopkins
Underwood
Center
for
the
Arts
in
Lubbock.
His
work
can
also
be
seen
at
www.bcgilbert.com.
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Laura
Holloway
is
a
graduate
of
Hope
College
and
works
as
a
math
tutor
in
Bucks
County,
PA.
In
addition
to
the
Oklahoma
Review,
her
poetry
has
been
published
in
River
Poets
Journal,
Mad
Poets
Review,
Lehigh
Valley
Literary
Review,
The
Mathematical
Intelligencer,
and
Innisfree.
She
has
twice
been
a
runner‐up
for
the
Bucks
County
Poet
Laureate.
George
McCormick
is
the
author
of
Salton
Sea
(Noemi
Press,
2012)
and
his
stories
have
been
published,
most
recently,
in
EPOCH,
The
Santa
Monica
Review,
and
Sugar
Mule.
His
novel
Inland
Empire
will
be
published
by
Queen’s
Ferry
Press
in
2015.
McCormick
is
currently
an
Assistant
Professor
in
the
Department
of
English
and
Foreign
Languages
at
Cameron
University.
Corey
Don
Mingura
received
his
MFA
in
Creative
Writing
from
the
University
of
Central
Oklahoma
in
May
2011.
His
works
of
fiction
and
poetry
have
appeared
in
The
Acentos
Review,
The
Writing
Disorder,
Westview,
Eclectica,
Red
Lightbulbs
and
The
Scissortale
Review.
He
currently
serves
as
assistant
poetry
editor
for
Arcadia
and
is
the
editor
for
its
Online
Sundries
blog.
Mingura
is
a
Mexican‐American
native
of
Hollis,
Oklahoma
and
currently
resides
in
Edmond,
Oklahoma.
Brent
Newsom's
debut
collection
of
poetry,
Love’s
Labors,
will
be
published
in
spring
2015
by
CavanKerry
Press.
He
has
also
published
poems
in
Subtropics,
The
Southern
Review,
The
Hopkins
Review,
and
other
journals.
A
Louisiana
native,
he
earned
a
PhD
in
English
from
Texas
Tech
University,
where
he
held
editorial
posts
with
32
Poems
and
Iron
Horse
Literary
Review.
He
lives
in
Shawnee,
Oklahoma,
with
his
wife
and
two
children,
and
is
Assistant
Professor
of
English
at
Oklahoma
Baptist
University.
Zack
O’Neill
earned
his
MFA
from
the
University
of
South
Carolina.
His
short
work
has
appeared
in
The
Delinquent,
Kudzu
Review,
Marco
Polo
Arts
Magazine,
and
elsewhere.
He
lives
in
Sacramento
and
teaches
writing
courses
at
Sacramento
City
College.
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