CRASH
& Other Short Stories
AP Lit & Comp (Modern Lit)
Seventh Period, Fall/Winter 2009-2010
Mr. Zervanos
1
Meghan Quilter
CRASH
Her knees buckled, tears formed in the wells of her eyes, giving off the wrong impression
to the smiling faces of her friends and family surrounding her. It wasn’t the place; she adored
Couture Culinary, the new, upscale steakhouse that had just opened in the city a few blocks from
her flat on 76th. It wasn’t the crowd, she looked around at her friends, her sister, her brothers, her
beaming parents, her coworkers, she loved them all. It wasn’t the night, the night was
immaculate, the sky was a calming shade of navy blue, dotted with thousands of promising stars
winking back at her. She had just been promoted; her life had never been more perfect and
carefree. She didn’t dare admit it, but she knew what it was. It was him. Alex Amsley, wellknown attorney, the gorgeous, successful lawyer who was heads over heels in love with her was
smiling up at her, the only blemish on his face being the confusion in his eyes. Her polite smile
had worn off, sheer terror flashed across her eyes, changing her expression and highlighting
creases in her face that Alex had never noticed before, signs of worry that even the most
expensive makeup couldn’t hide. Her lips quivered, she glanced around the room, noting the
confused and worried faces she imagined mirrored her own. She felt him pull away, her hand
freed from his, the dead weight of the diamond on her finger dropping through space and landing
with a thud against her thigh. The blow shocked her, and she sucked in a deep breath of the
sweet, incense-filled air. She needed to get out. She needed to leave, needed to get away from all
of this. The surprised faces, the accusation in their eyes, and most of all, the raw heartbreak in
his. Her mind was frozen in place, words would not form, but her legs still knew when to run.
Once she took the first step, she flew. She burst through the doors into the crisp, fall night and let
go. She let the tears run their course, streaming down her face into her open mouth. She felt her
pristine curls bounce wildly against her back, forgetting about the two hours she’d spent in a
salon chair perfecting them. She ran through the city, ignoring the faces staring back at hers. She
thought she heard her name in the breeze, but she refused to look back. She kept her face to the
wind, her lungs on fire as she kept on sprinting. Noises and screams attacked her from all angles
now, no longer behind her but in front of her, egging her on, daring her to come forward and find
them for herself. She strived onward, turning the corner to an explosion; everything happened at
once. Lights flashed, metal screeched through the streets, she felt the nails running down her
2
eardrums as if they were chalkboards. The shock engulfed her at that point, it all was happening
too quickly for her to wrap her head around it. She would only remember one thing. Crash.
*****
Always second best. Always. There wasn’t a single moment, not even one burst of
brilliance where he had proved himself better than his brother. His younger brother, for Christ’s
sake. He was supposed to teach his younger brother, show him the ways of the world, let him
follow in his footsteps. That’s how it was supposed to be, anyway. Not in their family. Tommy
was always the all-star, from the time he was two years old and had broken the family piñata in
one, almighty swing. The shadow was cast on that fateful, Easter Sunday morning over three
decades ago, and had yet to be lifted. Tommy was still the best, always the best. He was the
sports guru, the club president, the homecoming king, the kid with the best looking girlfriends.
And that was just in high school. It wasn’t like he was such a loser; he did all right in school,
received good marks and got accepted to a nice college. Nice. Sum up his life in one word, all
thirty-six years of his life, and you’d expect something sub par like that: nice, fine, satisfactory.
Sum up Tommy’s life, on the other hand, and you’d find yourself swimming in a pool full of
outstanding adjectives: brilliant, incredible, fantastic, or the real zinger; perfect. That was
Tommy’s life, perfect. Always had been, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Tommy lived his
perfect life all the way up until his perfect death. There were times when he could live with it.
Sure, Tommy was perfect, so what? Didn’t mean he couldn’t be perfect too. Those were the
optimistic times, and as he learned, they grew farther and further between. Then came the dark
times, the times when he hated his brother. Broken were the bonds of love and brotherly
companionship, he loathed Tommy. Tommy stole his girlfriend, got the captain spot on the
baseball team, scored higher on the SATS, and robbed him of his parent’s affection. The dark
times stayed with him for a long time, and as he grew some more, he fell into a natural routine
for dealing with Tommy; tolerance. He tolerated him. For his parents’ sake, for his family, or
even for himself, he tolerated the brilliance that wrapped Tommy in a mysterious aura every time
he stepped into a room. The night of their parents’ anniversary was no different; Tommy was the
center of attention, while he blended into the crowd, restraining himself from the anger boiling
up, the accusations, the resentment. He tolerated his brother his whole life, why stop now? Why
steal the limelight from Tommy at this moment, why cause a scene? Usually, the addition of
alcohol at these family gatherings was enough to subdue him and allow him to remain discreet,
3
but tonight was different. He watched Tommy, a new, slender blonde wrapped around his arm,
clawing his firm back with her red, acrylic nails. He watched her whisper in his ear, no doubt
further inflating his ego. He watched Tommy walk around the bar, with an adopted swagger he
hadn’t noticed before. It sickened him. The tequila was really flowing through him now, the
strong liquor burned his throat, running liquid fire through his veins, vamping him up. Fuck him,
acting like he owned the place. This wasn’t Tommy’s bar, it wasn’t even his city. He was
beginning to fade in and out, the people around him blurred into one, fiery mess of faces, all
reminding him of Tommy. Before he knew it, Tommy’s face was in front of him. This wasn’t the
liquor talking, it was the real Tommy, purring his accomplishments and bragging into his face
once more. Not listening to what he was saying, not caring, he wound back his arm and let go,
thirty-six years of pure hatred fused into one, earth-shattering punch. Chaos erupted, and he
couldn’t make sense of the scene unfolding around him. The bar was in uproar, family members
and friends all shaking their fists and holding the door open as he was unceremoniously thrown
out of the building. But the chaos didn’t end there. Outside, on the busy streets of Manhattan, the
scene reflected the wild, chaotic mess that he had just left inside the bar. Why were people
screaming? He watched with glazed eyes as men stood in front of women, creating human
barriers, watched people wave their hands in frenzy, gesturing wildly in his direction. He shook
his fuzzy brain free and, still on the ground, turned behind him to see what the all the commotion
was about. That’s when he saw it. Crash.
*****
At fifteen, she was six feet tall, and only 115 pounds. Her doctor assured her that it was
only her overactive thyroid, and that the other girls would catch up. They didn’t. She spent her
childhood being teased and nicknamed giraffe, freak, giant, she heard it all, constantly being
tormented over something she couldn’t even control. It made her sick to her stomach, she cried
herself to sleep and disappeared into a depression. Until eighteen, when she developed her late
but ample, womanly curves, her hair adopted a new, healthy sheen, and her skin glowed with a
white, wintery radiance as it never had before. The nicknames faded, and a new one took their
place. Model. She was still different, a crooked nose stuck out at odd angles in the light, long
limbs hung awkwardly at her sides, big hands and feet never appealed to the opposite sex. She
longed to be short and small, a tiny girl like her classmates, the kind the boys chased. She’d
forever been called beautiful, but her interpretation of the word was warped. She wasn’t
4
beautiful, she was different. The girls with blonde highlights and California tans were beautiful,
the girls with the blue eyes and whitened teeth were gorgeous. She was gawky, with bulging
green eyes and skin so white it was almost transparent, with size 00 jeans falling off her
protruding hip bones. She tried to fit in, but she was always unique. Uniqueness was not a
blessing, but a curse, a social death sentence for those in the local public high school. So she
continued through her four years as a student, hating her appearance and herself, holding her
head down through the hallways and staying reclusive on weekends and holidays. The only good
that came from her free time was her immaculate grades, a result of countless hours of studying
on weekends and prom nights. Grades that granted her immediate acceptance into New York
University, the school of her dreams. She fantasized about the possibility to start over new, to
enter a school prided on its diverse body of students, finally finding a place where she felt she
belonged. So she boarded the plane, never looking back at her old home, even as they flew over
it on the way to the Big Apple. She started school that fall, showing up to her dorm on the first
day of fall semester to find a beautiful, stereotypical, blonde hair and blue eyed bitch staring
back at her. Her name was Madison, and she made her life a living hell from that very first day.
Madison tormented her, teasing her and calling her names, much the same as they had done in
grade school. College became a repeat of her home life. She hated it. She began cutting class,
skipping school and wandering through the city, taking in the different cultures that surrounded
her. As she trudged through the trendy Meatpacking District one afternoon, watching the spoiled,
Upper East Side girls shop for their fall-season bags and booties, a gorgeous, tan man in a leather
suit approached her, so quietly she almost hit him with her mace spray. His name was Leon, and
he indulged her with compliment after compliment about her radiant beauty, God-given
gorgeous looks and her unlimited possibilities. He took her back to his studio and hired her on
the spot as a runway model for his fall collection. He was relatively unknown, but, then again, so
was she, and posing for a camera for twenty minutes a day was heaven compared to sharing a
bathroom with Madison. She loved it. Never had she felt so at home in any aspect of her life,
much less smiling and posing in front of countless strangers. It gave her an adrenaline rush, so
she pushed herself to her limits as much as she could. She stopped eating, and her skinny, 115
pound figure dropped to a skeletal 105. The critics loved it. Dedication, they called it, and they
encouraged her to continue. Her protruding ribs and sunken cheekbones may have appeared
sickly to the outside work, but they looked immaculate once cloaked in couture clothes and
5
brushed with exquisite, mineral makeup. Leon continued to advertise her, lining up small photo
shoots and magazine ads for her week by week. This continued for over four months, while she
continued to skip school and starve herself, until, one day, Leon called her with the big break.
She was up for a UMA review; an interview, photo shoot, casting and runway show with the
Universal Modeling Agency, headquarters right in her district of New York City. It was booked
three months in advance, and the anticipation had killed her. She smoked cigarettes for the stress,
and her skin turned grey from the smoke, anxiety made her perfect complexion break out in
bumps and spots all over, she binged on morning donuts and coffees until her belly bump was
the talk of pregnancy and scandal. Leon saw her distress and booked her an emergency retreat to
Connecticut, an exclusive, all expenses paid, week retreat at the state’s finest, five star spa
getaway. She came back positively glowing, a radiance that even Leon hadn’t expected. And
now the casting call was finally here. She stomped her heels ferociously on the runway carpet,
turned her sleek neck at all the right angles to catch the light of the photo shoot, and smiled
politely at all the uptight, pole-up-their-ass bitches who interviewed her. She waited, hour by
hour ticking by at a snail’s pace, for the sweet, chubby secretary to come back and offer her fulltime employment by the agency. She heard a noise and looked up from her magazine, watching
the girl’s strawberry blonde curls bounce off her round cheeks, a bright smile on her face and a
thick envelope in her hands. Her insides fluttered, the first time she’d ever had butterflies. This
was it; she was going to make it big. The chubby girl took her sweet time walking over,
clutching the thick manila folder in her sweaty palms. She wanted to jump up and wrench it from
her hands, hold it up in the air and cheer for her success; however, she waited like a good girl,
smiling as she waited for her prize. She watched the secretary through the glass door straight
ahead and stood up, just as the girl made a hard left and approached a girl she hadn’t even
noticed, a paper-thin girl with olive skin, raven hair and violet eyes. She heard the bubbly voice
of the secretary as she watched the package pass on to the mysterious girl’s unpolished, cracked
hands. She smiled, and turned to leave, envelope tucked under the arm of her beaten, leather
jacket, combat boots trekking mud through the office as she left. That girl, that dirty, trashy girl
had beaten her. Leon was wrong, they all were wrong, she wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t unique,
and she wasn’t going to make it big. She was ugly. She was disgusted by herself, disgusted by
everyone and everything. She didn’t stick around to hear the pity speech the secretary had
crafted, she turned on a dime and followed the muddy footsteps of the beautiful, dumb bitch that
6
had bested her. In the stairwell, frustration took its toll on her as furious tears streaked her face,
hot and wet, they stained her perfect skin and reminded her of her failure. She began to scream,
jolting, high-pitched bursts that she couldn’t control. She kicked open the agency door, her kitten
heels barely leaving a mark, and let out a prolonged, high-pitched howl throughout the street.
She wouldn’t stop, couldn’t, until she realized that she couldn’t even hear herself. Something
was drowning her own voice out. She opened her teary eyes and saw a flash. Crash.
*****
Broadway was the best place to go when you were high, just sit in the middle of the street
and watch the taxis whiz by, the flashing lights going off like fireworks in your brain. It was
always a different high for him, depending on his mood and his current drug of choice. Today, he
wasn’t feeling too good, so he’d opted for acid, a little LSD to boost his mood when nothing else
could. The warm, dripping effect of the chemicals wrapped his body in a blanket that even the
cold, brisk October chill couldn’t penetrate. His eyes closed, and his mind drifted into the last
recesses of his brain. He was reaching the climax of the few tabs he took earlier, and he’d almost
completely forgotten earlier that day, it was as if he had been sitting on the same bench for his
whole life. But, that’s not the way the world works, and through his murky, clouded brain, he
could slowly begin to remember the events of that same afternoon. They came in flashes, his
mother screaming at him, a glass pipe shattering against his bedroom wall. Clothes thrown
around his room in frenzy, bags stuffed with useless summer clothes and old video games,
whatever had made it into the bag as he hurried to get out. Now he remembered, something
about his mother finding drugs in his room. The usual. He’d been too stoned to hide his stash that
morning, drifting off into a peaceful, pill-induced sleep that lasted for twelve, heavenly hours.
His ringtone couldn’t wake him, and either could his mother, as she violently shook his mattress
and attempted to wrestle his pillows from underneath him. Unsuccessful in her attempt, she
stomped through his room, looking around in a disgusted manner, only to notice a plastic bag
thrown half-assed under one of his dirty, white t-shirts. She scooped up the bag in one, fluid
motion, too familiar to this routine. She brought it into the bathroom with her while he remained
unconscious, lying in a drug-induced coma on his bed. She watched the drugs fall into the toilet
with resentment building up in her heart, the mixture of marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and various
other pills enough to make her want to call the local police. For years this behavior had gone on,
at first unnoticed, then ignored, until it became too much of a problem for her to turn the other
7
cheek. Now, it was too much to bear, her cross was already too heavy. She busied herself around
his room, packing a tooth brush, clean underwear and socks, and some money from her savings
account. She left the bag on the end of his bed, with a note tucked under one of the straps,
leaving for work. If God was on his side, he’d wake up and get out before his step-father came
home. The last thing he needed as he was being kicked out of his own house was a thorough
beating. Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what happened. His no good, big brute of a stepfather came home from work for his lunch break, to find his stoner step-son bummed out on the
bed that he’d paid for. Once he saw the note, it was enough. He had a reason to finally wreck
havoc on the son who’d made his life a living hell. He shook the bed until the springs came
loose, watching his step-son’s head bounce up and down like a rag doll. Finally, he opened his
groggy, stoned eyes and surveyed the scene around him. Before he could realize where he was,
he was greeted with a blow to the face, courtesy of his mom’s new husband. He scrambled off
the bed, glancing at the note and wising up enough to gather some clothes and other necessities.
He dodged his step-father’s punches for long enough to grab his cell phone, iPod, some clothes
and the knapsack his mother had so kindly left for him. He slammed the door behind him,
sucking in the crisp air and realizing he’d forgotten a jacket. It was almost winter, and he already
had a cold, but he was more concerned with getting a new fix than finding a new home. It had
not escaped his notice that his mother had disposed of his stash, so he made a few calls around
the neighborhood to score himself some more uppers, to make the whole moving experience
more bearable. A few hours later, he was sitting on an island in the middle of Broadway,
enjoying the scenery as the daylight faded into the night sky, watching the city lights blink on,
the lights amplified a million times and more by the chemicals pairing off in his brain. He
smiled, a lazy, high smile, towards no one in particular, as his worries floated up to the moon.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion, as he watched the cars drive past, he felt the
vibrations through the bench he was lying on. They must have been going fast, but to him they
appeared as if they were a still-life painting, time was ticking on slower and slower by the
second. He focused on one car in particular, a long, lean limousine, it’s black windows tinted so
you could only wonder as to who was inside. He followed it with his eyes, it seemed stuck in
time, barely moving. Then, as if someone had pressed the play button on their TV, the limo
swerved to the left, into the oncoming lane of traffic. He didn’t hear the screams until much later,
his coordination was all off, another effect of the prolonged use of acid and other favorable
8
drugs. He shook his head, trying to free the drugs from his mind, trying to understand what was
going on around him. He felt the warmth of flames, heat so strong it singed the hairs on his arms
and face, even from several hundred feet away. He had watched what happened, but couldn’t put
the pieces together in his head. He heard a scream, and that’s when he remembered what he’d
seen only moments ago. Crash.
*****
Helicopters hovered over the scene, the rhythmic beating of their propellers unable to
drown out the sirens below. Red and blue lights lit up the disaster unfolding, highlighting the
fire, the warped metal, the ambulances whose sirens blared through the city, trying to reach their
victims in time. People stood around the scene, hands covering their surprised faces, tears
staining their cheeks, cries of horror and despair sounding from their throats. Firefighters arrived
in minutes, fumbling with hoses and ladders as they tried to maneuver through the wreck. The
Jaws of Life rumbled into action, the sound of metal upon metal screeching through the night,
otherwise deafened by the horror unfolding. News reporters had arrived almost as quickly as the
authorities, barking instructions at their camera crew and whispering reports into their
audiotapes, ready to be played back on the air in time for the eleven o’clock news. Rumors flew
through the air, as the emergency crews began to pick apart the ruins. One building, a modeling
agency of some sort, was still ablaze. Firefighters rushed through the crowd, directing blasts of
water towards the scorched remains. EMTs tried to dodge the sprays as they cloaked a burn
victim in a fireproof blanket, the heavy wool muffling her wild screams. They loaded her into an
ambulance, the third victim headed for the hospital. Bystanders watched, as the bus began to pull
away, a young girl in tattered clothes run after it, her heels broken and clicking awkwardly
against the hard concrete. She screamed to the drivers, who graciously opened the doors to her
and let her ride away with them. It tore through the night, horns warning any other vehicles still
on the road to clear the path, a race to see how quickly they could reach the hospital, how
quickly they could save her. Alongside of one of the crumpled cans that had once been a
magnificent limousine was a beautiful, petite woman, her blonde hair blowing in the wind,
pristine eye makeup running in rivers down her beautiful, heartbroken face. Her hands clung to a
sports jacket, torn and battered from the wreck. She played with the sparkling diamond on her
left ring finger, spinning it wildly round and round until blisters began to form. Around her,
luggage had been tossed from the car, splaying out honeymoon clothes that had all been packed
9
and ready to go for the airport. Once the shock faded, and she realized with a somber heart what
had happened, she laid flat against the pavement and let out one, horrific, heartbreaking wail.
She had just planned a wedding, and now she needed to plan a funeral. Her heart, just days ago at
its fullest, brimming with love and affection, had been ripped to pieces, shattered and crushed
just like the limousine she and her husband had just been thrown from. From afar, the same
woman who had just turned her prospective fiancée down watched as this woman, this beautiful,
poor woman, had her life torn into a million pieces, right before her eyes. She glanced back,
wishing she had never deserted the love of her life in the restaurant still only blocks away. She
hoped he would forgive her, would allow her back into his arms, ask the question once more so
she could blissfully give him the right answer, the one that would keep them together forever.
She wished she could run, meet him now, greet him with an embrace that would never end, but
she was needed here. She took off her coat, running over to the woman, now doubled over in
uncontrollable sobs, touching her lightly on the back, surprised by the woman’s calm reaction.
She simply let the tragedy run its course, resting her head on her chest, crying out to no one in
particular. People watched the scene with awe and curiosity, wondering what these two women
had in common, what they shared other than tragedy. Across the street, amid all of the wreckage,
a young boy was staring at a mangled taxi, with an interested, focused gaze. Suddenly, as if a
bomb went off in his head, he yelled for help. He seemed hesitant to talk to the authorities, as if
his obvious high would get in the way of his useful information. Fighting with himself, he
decided to risk being questioned if it meant helping the boy he had noticed still trapped inside the
taxi. He waved over the firefighters nearby, and they quickly sprung into action, alerting the
EMTs and other medical personnel. They maneuvered the Jaws of Life to pull open the twisted
metal and free the boy from his restraints. The other boy watched through stoned eyes as they
wrapped his bleeding skull in bandages, strapping him onto a stretcher and securing his flimsy
neck with a brace. The stoner hooked onto the stretcher, wheeling it along as if he were one of
the volunteers, grateful that the EMTs looked the other way and allowed him to board the
ambulance and ride to the hospital with them. Once he was in the bus on the way to the
emergency room, he realized that he had a backpack in his hands, something he had picked up
without thinking right before he saw the boy in the cab. He realized now that it must have
belonged to the boy on the stretcher in front of him, and he began to dig through it aimlessly.
Amongst the papers and books, was a sturdy, thick manila envelop. It was embellished with the
10
Harvard University Crest, and had been viciously torn apart, as if the receiver couldn’t wait any
longer to find out what was inside. He couldn’t wait either, so he dumped out the contents onto
his lap. There, right on top of the pile, was an acceptance letter to one of the most prestigious Ivy
League schools in the nation. This boy, who was sprawled out in a limp, disfigured form on the
stretcher in front of him, had just been accepted to the college of everyone’s dreams only hours
before, and now was battling for his life, if he hadn’t lost already. The ride to the hospital
seemed endless, the boy twitched nervously, unable to concentrate, his peaceful high lost long
ago at the scene of the crash, the scene of the boy in the taxi haunting his memory. Finally, they
arrived at the hospital, and he busied himself in the waiting room trying to locate family
members of the victim while he was being prepped for surgery. While he was making phone
calls, a man came charging in through the swinging doors to the waiting room, his left eye
swollen and his knuckles all bloodied from what looked like a fight, not a car crash. He was
heaving, trying to will his breath to catch up to him. It looked as if he had run to the hospital, so
he couldn’t have been from the crash, which was over fifteen blocks away. He tore frantically
through the room, looking for a nurse or doctor, yelling about the victims. He had been at the
crash, he’d witnessed it, and he had run sixteen and a half blocks to offer his help to the
overwhelmed doctors and nurses who were now caring for the broken victims. They mistook him
for another injured victim, and he quickly waved them off, mumbling about a fight with his
brother that didn’t matter now, he just came to help those who had been hurt. The nurses
shrugged, suggesting that he may as well help the little stoner boy who’d come in with the third
victim, calling family members and making arrangements. Another aid suggested that he try to
help comfort the woman who’d just lost her husband at the accident. A woman had brought her
in for shock, she was quickly treated and dismissed but refused to leave the hospital waiting
room, watching as the televisions broadcasted pictures of her newly wed and newly deceased
husband as the highlight of their newscast. Her tears had dried, and she looked on at the screen
with a somber face, and heartbroken eyes. The woman who had come in with her looked at her
regretfully and squeezed her shoulders tight before going outside to call her boyfriend, to
apologize for the mistake she had made earlier. The man who had just come in took her place,
sitting next to the mourning woman and whispering words of encouragement and condolence
that would hopefully make this night even a bit more bearable for her. The young boy who had
been calling family members and filling out paperwork for the victims also approached, sitting
11
on the woman’s other side and taking her smooth, petite hand into his. They sat there, in silence,
wordlessly comforting one another as the night dragged on.
*****
In the hospital, several hours after the accident, four unrelated strangers watched the
eleven o’clock news blare across the screen. A limousine had malfunctioned, its driver had
ignored its failed inspections and went ahead with his business, only to have it explode in the
middle of Broadway, causing a multi-vehicle crash and damage to multiple buildings, one of
which went up in flames. For most of the people in the waiting room, the accidents were nothing
more than a horrific insight to what a tragedy was, something that could have, but, thank God,
didn’t happen to them. For the four strangers; two women, a man, and a young boy, the accident
was a personal wake up call, the realization they had needed, as they now knew that their lives
were blessed, not cursed with bad luck they had presumed them to be. A young, aspiring model
had witnessed another model, one who had just won a top spot in a modeling agency, lose her
face and upper body to the flames coming off the car that had hit her. She was in surgery
recovery, most likely still unaware that fifty percent of her body was now warped and deformed.
Never again would she model, never again would she be considered beautiful and elegant. She
would be gawked at, stared at by the passerby, unable to ever walk the runway again. A young,
drug addict had witnessed another adolescent male get eaten alive by the taxi he was in,
consuming him in a pile of metal and steel. He watched as the same boy who had just gotten
accepted to Harvard was pronounced brain-dead; never would he be able to use the education
waiting for him in Massachusetts. An older woman had witnessed a couple in love be torn apart
by something that no one could control, a woman left with nothing to remember her new
husband by except for a torn and tattered suit jacket he wore as he died. An older man had
witnessed all three of these events, a dead husband and a perfectly healthy wife, a brain-dead,
once-stellar student whose life was now confined to a hospital bed, and a model whose career
had been wiped away just as her face had been. He witnessed the families of these victims, the
heartbreak. These four strangers didn’t know one another, they barely knew themselves, yet they
all now knew how the world worked, its cruel, mysterious ways put on display right before their
eyes on that fateful, October night.
*****
12
It had been almost six years since the accident, but Laura still hadn’t dated. Hadn’t even
looked the opposite sex in the eyes since the night she lost David. She believed in love, always
had and always would, but she also believed in soul mates, and her soul mate had been David.
She missed him more and more every day, still loved him as strongly as she did on the night
they’d been ripped apart. She still believed in love, a miracle in itself, after what had happened to
her. Luckily, there was still love in her life, she thought, as she watched her dearest friend Fiona
walk down the isle to meet her fiancée, the same fiancée she’d almost lost six years before, on
the night of the accident when she turned him down. She watched her beautiful wedding dress
train on the ground, sweeping up the alter steps towards the love of her life, her soul mate, Alex.
She was glad she still had love in her life, she was glad she still felt David with her on days like
today. The accident had crushed her, she had crashed along with the limo. But, like everything, it
had happened for a reason. It brought Fiona and Alex back together, brought them together in the
love they would share for the rest of their lives. It wouldn’t bring David back, but it replaced
some of the love Laura had lost on that night. She wasn’t glad, but she was happy. She smiled,
watching the lovers say their vows, the same ones she shared with David only six years ago.
Across town, Taylor slapped his brother Tommy on the back. He had never gotten along
with Tommy before, never considered him his brother, let alone his best friend. Yet, here he was
today with Tommy, watching the game and sharing a few beers, as if they’d been lifelong pals.
Somewhere in his heart, six years ago, when he’d watched the broken families in the hospital
waiting room try to put themselves back together, he’d realized that family was invaluable,
irreplaceable, and something he wasn’t ready to lose. Since that night, he put his differences
aside and learned to love his brother for the person he’d been all along.
Uptown, at the UMA headquarters in New York City, Ali posed for the camera as she
had done countless times in the past six years. Since that October, six years previously, she had
become increasingly wealthy, the benefits of six promising years of modeling for UMA. The
opportunity was bittersweet, she’d originally been turned down for the position until another
model, Tia, was injured in a car crash that Ali had witnessed, a crash so severe it had deformed
her face and made her unable to model again. Since the accident, Ali had used her income,
paycheck after paycheck, to pay for Tia’s countless reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy
sessions. She did so with a wholesome heart, not expecting anything more than thanks in return.
She and Tia had become lifelong friends, and Ali owed her success to Tia, while Tia owed Ali
13
her life. In the beginning, thinking of Tia during a photo shoot would make Ali’s face seem to
prematurely age, worry wrinkles creased deep into her forehead, circles under her eyes darkened
before the photographer’s eyes. However, as Tia had healed and grown into the beautiful woman
she was today, thinking of her during a shoot had a different effect on her, making her positively
radiate, glowing with happiness and love for her friend. Their love had sparked from a tragedy,
turning into a blessing Ali would never stop being thankful for. She smiled at the camera. She
smiled for Tia.
Much father north, in Massachusetts, Blake raised his hand, ready to correct his teacher’s
mistake in the equation on the board behind him. The teacher acknowledged Blake, and obliged
once he asked to go up to the board and write the proper formula for the class to see. Blake
worked swiftly and returned to his seat, a smile on his face. It was not a smug smile, rather, a
satisfied one. Six years ago, the only math Blake knew how to comprehend was how many
Xanax one had to take to get a significant high, and now, here he was, sitting in a Pre-Med
orientation at Harvard University. It had taken extreme effort on his part, he was not naturally
talented or gifted in any way, as Tyler had been, but he had determination. After witnessing
Tyler Bagley, a scholar student from a private New York City prep-school, have his life ripped
from his hands in a tragic car accident six years ago, Blake had vowed to make up for the
brilliance that Tyler had lost. Blake knew that if Tyler was well today, he would be soaring to
much higher heights than Blake was at this point; Tyler was a genius before the accident, before
he had been pronounced brain dead. That was six years ago, and Tyler was still in the same
hospital bed now as he was then, brought in on the night of the accident, already too far gone for
the doctors to bring him back. Blake had turned his life around that very night, emptying his
pockets of all the drugs and paraphernalia he possessed, dedicating himself to Tyler, Tyler’s
family, and his recovery. Once he realized that Tyler would never recover, he was determined to
live the life Tyler would have led. Of course, that meant no drugs, never again. The withdrawal
was brutal and beat Blake into a pulp; he had a fever, vomiting every so often for weeks on end,
unmanageable shakes and tremors, and an urge so strong he almost caved several times. For each
one of the weak moments, he thought of Tyler. Successful, driven Tyler, and the life he would
have lived. It took two years at community college before he could even begin dreaming about
transferring to Harvard, but Blake accomplished it, working until his hands were raw and his
mind was on overload. Now, he sat in the orientation room at Harvard University, the school of
14
Tyler’s dreams, and he thought of the life Tyler would have led if he had made it this far.
Whatever that meant, wherever Tyler would have gone, that’s where Blake would go. He was
determined. For Tyler, Tyler’s family, his family and himself, he would succeed. He was finally
ready.
*****
On October 19th, 2003, at 9:30PM, a limousine ran off the road as its driver lost control.
A faulty engine malfunctioned in the middle of Broadway in New York City, erupting in flames
as it hit a taxi in the opposing lane of traffic and veered off onto the sidewalk, hitting a bystander
and then a building. One man, David DiPietro, was killed instantly, survived by his newlywed
wife, Laura DiPietro. She was also in the limo, thrown from the car shortly before it burst into
flame. Fiona Amsley, a bystander, comforted Laura while she mourned the loss of her husband.
Fiona had just turned down her would-be fiancée only minutes before the accident. Laura helped
Fiona to realize the power of love and the rarity of it, and she reconsidered her answer and
changed her mind, finally marrying her husband six years later. Laura was the maid of honor.
The taxi that was hit by the rogue limo ran off the road, into a telephone pole, trapping another
victim, eighteen year old Tyler Bagley. Tyler Bagley had just been accepted to Harvard
University earlier that day, the same day that eighteen year old Blake Bentley was kicked out of
his house for drug use. Blake was the one to notice Tyler buried in the rubble, the one who was
there for him from the moment of his rescue up until the present day. Years after Tyler was
pronounced brain dead, Blake stayed in close contact with his family, and still visited Tyler
regularly, when he was on home visits from Harvard, the same college Blake had decided to
attend after he turned his life around. Once the limo hit the taxi, it veered into a UMA modeling
agency headquarter building on Broadway, running over a young, prospective model, Tia Young,
who was trapped under the car as it caught fire. Rescue units saved her from the flames in
seconds, but not before the flames had drawn intricate burn marks across her once flawless face.
She was rushed to the hospital, accompanied by another model who had witnessed the accident,
the very same model Tia had beaten out in an audition, Ali Jones, who stayed by her side,
eventually paying for the operations to rebuild and reconstruct her broken face. After the
accident, these three witnesses flocked to the hospital with their victims, accompanied by one
more bystander, Taylor Clark, a jealous brother who had witnessed the accident, who stayed
15
behind to witness the families of the victims fall apart. A man who stayed behind to help pick up
the pieces and put the families back together.
*****
The fall breeze flew through the streets of New York City, catching Laura’s hair in the
wind and tossing it wildly around her face. She rushed down the stairs towards the subway, her
cheeks bright and red, her eyes stinging from the cold. “Shit!” She cursed as she watched the
subway doors beginning to close. She cried after it, and watched as a hand darted between the
doors, stopping them from closing so she could run in. She breathed thanks towards the stranger,
noticing the familiarity of his eyes and the Harvard crest upon his sweater. It reminded her of
Blake, the sweet young man who’d held her hand the night Daniel died. She smiled towards him.
She slid into a seat facing sideways, taking in all of the people around her. She saw two brothers,
arms upon each other, laughing merrily over some joke shared between the two of them. She
remembered the man who’d sat on her opposite side, that night in the hospital, rubbing her back
while he mourned with her. She remembered his brother too; she met him years later while they
were all out to dinner, remembered how the two had bonded over the tragedy of the accident.
She smiled at them. She watched two beautiful creatures, young girls, sipping coffee and looking
divine in their designer clothes. She thought of Tia and Ali, their inseparable bond formed over
their beauty and the loss of it. She smiled to them. She noticed a couple, obviously in love,
sneaking kisses in their conversation when they thought no outside eyes were on them. It
reminded her of the old days, the days of David, and it also reminded her of the present, of Fiona
and Alex, the happy newlyweds, on the honeymoon she’d never gotten to experience. Love was
a beautiful thing, a thing Laura once had, and had once lost. That’s when she realized it, she was
smiling. As she smiled, she felt her heart fill with love, until the top brimmed over with a
familiar, distant feeling that she’d forgotten about for over six years. She stepped onto the
subway platform and looked through the skylights towards the heavens, towards her love. She’d
lost almost everything, but not love. And after that, it was all okay.
16
To Find What Is Missing
Eda Chen
You used to tell me all the time “Just believe in yourself and everything else will fall into
place.” Just about the corniest line ever, but you lived by it. You were always trying to get me to
stick to it, too. I do try, now, but it’s a little too late and it’s not that easy. Because I know better,
I know it isn’t true. You knew better, too, but somehow you were able to smile and say those
words anyway. You were such a naïve little girl, honestly, a five year old even in college. It
annoyed me a lot, still does, but I wouldn’t have you any other way. I wish I hadn’t brushed it
off all that time, but I’ll start now, and better late than never, right?
At least that’s what you would say, such a believer in fairytale endings that don’t actually
exist. Not for anyone in this world, and certainly not for people like me. Or you, it seems.
So now, all I can do for you is to try my best. Another one of your clichés.
I never thought I would be here, doing this, speaking to a piece of rock that is nothing
like the person it is supposed to represent. Life is full of surprises isn’t it? That things like this
happen, and that when they do, that life goes on. Life goes on even when people don’t, and that’s
that. If you can call it life, that is. For now, I just exist, going through the motions, because I
think I’m still numb. I still can’t believe it.
But I will try harder, for you, I’ll find that strength you never seemed to run out of, for
you, I will believe. Even if there isn’t anything to believe in anymore.
I wonder what you would say, if you were here. But I’ve never been one for useless
thoughts, and that one certainly is.
Watch me.
*
A poke on the shoulder and a rushed greeting.
“Hey-my-name’s-Claire!” You sound like you’re afraid that there isn’t enough time for
all the words you have to say. “I-came-over-here-because-you-looked-lonely-but-I-bet-I-canmake-you-smile-before-the-day’s-over!” I can just hear all the exclamation points that punctuate
your sentences. You act like everything is something new and exciting, and it makes me tired,
somehow. I am sorely unimpressed with your greeting and say as much. I expect you to back
away after that, but you just scowl and say I am lacking in social contact, and you will
17
immediately help me with my problem. I am confused. Can’t you take the hint? Obviously,
you’re unwelcome. But you keep at it, that in-your-face attitude.
All throughout homeroom and down the hallway to the first period class we share, you
are a constant presence at my side, a constant chattering voice in my ear. I honestly don’t know
what to make of you, someone so utterly unaffected by my curt dismissal. You just keep talking,
occasionally nudging my arm or pausing for a response. Every time I try to brush you off, you
just laugh and ramble on. The third period bell rings, and you are still there, relentlessly forcing
your company on me, and I am unsettled and more than a little angry.
“Shut up, loser. I don’t like you. And obviously no one else does, or you wouldn’t keep
bothering me.” I keep my voice cold and impersonal and glare, hoping that you will finally leave
me alone. What I don’t expect is the widening eyes and downcast gaze.
“I didn’t think that you really…I mean, I thought you were just…but never mind. Sorry
for bothering you.” I feel my own eyes widening in response. How did you delude yourself into
thinking anything but the fact that I dislike you? I had done nothing but insult and cold-shoulder
you since homeroom. Your words finally slowed to a normal pace, and it irritates me, for some
reason. So does your defeated expression. What sort of an idiot continues to bother a stranger
and hopes for a warm reception? Even so, I feel a slight pang of something as I watch you look
over the classroom for a different seat. I roll my eyes.
“Whatever, you can sit here. Just stop annoying me.” And just like that, you are grinning
again.
“See, I knew you were just kidding!” The rush of words starts all over. I can’t help but
drop my head in my hands, half in exasperation, and half in amusement. You’re like an
overeager puppy I saw once. It was my neighbor’s and it was always so easily pleased, and just
as easily able to switch from wagging its tail to whining pitifully. You sit down to my left and
fiddle with your backpack, taking out a pencil. You drop it once and dive under the desk to
retrieve it, but it slips from your grasp again. Finally, you emerge, triumphant, and set the pencil
on your desk with a huff of frustration, scowling at it as if it has insulted you. The corners of my
lips twitch up and I suppress a chuckle. You turn to me with an embarrassed grin.
“Pencils sure are slippery these days.” Sighing, I straighten in my seat and resign myself
to your company. And somehow, the thought doesn’t aggravate me as much as it should.
*
18
Even now, I can’t resist smiling at that memory, that obnoxious manner of yours and my
own self-imposed isolation. But the two of us managed to find a balance despite all our
differences. I don’t remember when exactly I began to consider us friends. I guess it was more of
a gradual thing; before I knew it, you had already integrated yourself so thoroughly into my life
that it was unthinkable that we had once been strangers. Our friendship made the transition from
high school to college seamlessly, even though we attended different universities. You would
always drop by unannounced and drag me out somewhere to have fun. Otherwise, you said, I
would just waste away and die of boredom because I didn’t know how to have fun myself.
I can still picture your face so clearly in my head. Brown hair, brown eyes and freckles.
Not attractive or beautiful in the traditional sense, but you were appealing in a different sort of
way. It was your vitality, your love for life that showed so clearly in your eyes.
*
It’s the second Tuesday in January and it’s that time again. Glancing briefly at my gentlysnoring roommate, I dress in silence, my expression blank. I’d begun to mentally prepare myself
yesterday, closing myself off and reviewing tired memories. Seven twenty-three and time to go. I
slip on my shoes and step into the hallway, closing the door behind me with a soft click.
*
The rest of it is just a blur; my focus is not on the outside world anymore. I pause for just
a moment in front of the brick building. What a place to live, I think, as I do almost every time I
visit. Then I push on the door and move forward.
I fill out the usual forms with a detached efficiency. My thoughts are still focused inward,
on what is ahead, on the unpleasantness that must inevitably occur. Finally, I am cleared to go in
and my feet trace the steps that they have walked countless times before. Left, left again, then a
dozen steps forward and I am facing another door. Only this door holds a heavy weight that I
find harder to overcome. Shoulders squared, face still a blank, I step forward once more.
She is sitting by the window, facing away from me. Her fingers tap a nervous dance on
her leg. I clear my throat. She jerks and turns to face me. Her expression immediately changes
from neutral contemplation to wild rage.
“What are you doing here? I don’t want to see that face.” I grit my teeth. So this is one of
those days.
“Mother. How have you been?”
19
“I hate you,” she hisses out, eyes narrowing. She takes one step forward and then stops.
My hands clench into fists, unclench.
“I’ve been well. My classes are fine.” I am proud to note that my voice is ice. She seems
to make up her mind and crosses the remaining distance between us. I fight the urge to flinch.
“How many times have I had to tell you? I don’t want to see that face! You aren’t him.
You’re not! So stop—just stop! I hate you!” Her words take on a slightly hysterical edge toward
the end of her speech, and I can see her hands trembling.
“I’m sorry that I remind you of him.” Control, control is my mantra and saving grace.
“Sorry, you said? Sorry? You damn well better be! You have no right…no right! Get out,
get out! I hate that face!” Her voice cracks on the last word, and as if that were the signal, her
right arm snaps back and then a fist is flying toward my face. How nostalgic, I note dryly. I duck,
and I feel the air swish over my head.
“Get out! I don’t want to see you ever again!” The same words each time, and she is
shouting now. I edge cautiously toward the bed, fumbling for the call button. She seems content
to watch me, her brief fit of violence over. They are rarer now, much rarer. My fingers find the
smooth plastic and press down.
“I’ll come next month, as always. Goodbye, mother.” I still have control. My voice
betrays nothing. There is an awkward sort of silence, permeated only by her harsh breathing.
“Leave! Please, just…I can’t stand that face.” She sounds slightly panicked. I nod stiffly
and walk out of the room. I pass the nurse in the hallway; she greets me in a distracted way
before hurrying onto the room.
My teeth worry my bottom lip, but I am otherwise composed. Control, control. I keep it
even when I reach the safety of my car, but I feel the edges slowly slipping. My heart is beating
wildly, and I keep feeling as if I’m missing something.
*
The white-and-gray spotted grassy field is a familiar and comforting sight. I make my
way to you, and my throat is closing up now, vision blurring. I collapse in front of you, breath
hitching and eyes screwed shut. Some part of me that is still detached, still distant is filled with
disgust. Why do I still react like this? It’s stupid. Completely, utterly pointless. I don’t expect it
to be any different, I know what she’ll say, how she’ll look at me. I already know; I’ve heard it
and seen it a hundred times already. But still, I…I’m so pathetic, god.
20
You told me once that I was anything but pathetic, that it was perfectly reasonable for me
to feel like this. I guess a child never stops hoping for her parents’ approval, huh? Even after all
these years. A part of me still hopes. Maybe we weren’t that different after all, you and me. My
cheeks are wet and my knuckles hurt from the force of my teeth biting down on them to muffle
the sobs. What am I missing? Please, please, tell me. You know, don’t you? Claire?
I don’t know how long I spend kneeling before you, but it is long after the tears stop. I
just can’t bring myself to leave—I don’t have the strength to. It isn’t until my stomach’s protests
can’t be ignored anymore that I force myself to my feet and drive to the nearest McDonald’s. I
chew my food without tasting it and then walk out. When I reach my car, I am surprised to see
that I left all the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. Then again, I am always fading in
and out of awareness these days. It used to worry me, but I just don’t care anymore.
The rest of the day is spent curled under the blankets. Brooke makes a brief entrance,
asking the required “are you alright?” before leaving again. We’ve been living together long
enough that she knows when I don’t want to be disturbed.
I let myself fall into a restless semiconscious state. I dream of you, only they are not
really dreams, just bits and pieces of memories. The few times you accompanied me to visit my
mother, and the way your (for once) silent presence strengthened my own resolve to be calm, to
be in control, to…forgive. But mostly, you would wait outside and leave me to face my past
alone. Then you would stay with me the rest of the day, just keeping up a constant stream of
conversation that soothed the feeling of something-is-missing and returned me to a sense of
normalcy. Your eyes never judged me, never accused or pitied. You might have acted like an
idiot constantly, but you were wise, so wise in all the things that mattered. You knew exactly
what I needed, and were only too happy to give it to me. I didn’t even realize the depth of my
dependence on your company until it was no longer available to me.
The next time I open my eyes, it is dark. I leave the comfort of my bed to grab a quick
shower and to brush my teeth. My eyes absently pick out the grass stains and dirt on my jeans.
Then I fall back into bed, and this time, I surrender gratefully to a dreamless sleep.
*
Classes are over for the week and Brooke is jumping around the room, trying on different
outfits and holding various shades of eye shadow up to her face. I am seated comfortably on my
21
bed with some random novel. The words float through my mind without making any sort of
meaningful connection; Brooke’s antics are too distracting. She shoots me an unreadable look.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna come tonight? I have this green top that you would look
great in.” I shake my head for the third time in the last fifteen minutes.
“I’m alright.” She pauses in rooting through a pile of jeans.
“Look…Darcy. I know that your friend meant a lot to you…but it’s been what…7
months? More than half a year? You don’t do anything. I’m sure…Carla, was that her name?
would want you to have fun, live a little! It’s not natural to just sit around and sulk.” I can barely
restrain myself from jumping up and hitting her, or screaming in her face. “I know that it’s hard
losing someone you love. When my aunt passed away a few years ago, I thought nothing else
would ever make me happy again. We were really close. But, I mean, life goes on…it’s a cliché
or whatever, but it’s true. And you need to pull yourself together, Darcy. It’s about time you
started living again.” I glare at her, mustering all my self-control to grit out one word through my
clenched teeth.
“Claire.” Brooke is confused.
“What?”
“Her name. Claire.” And Brooke’s face changes in an irritatingly familiar way—the
corners of her eyes drop slightly, her brow furrows, and her mouth softens. I wrench my gaze
away, trying in vain to focus on black and white print. I can’t stand the weight of her pity.
“Oh Darcy, I’m sorry. I really am.” Her voice has lost all traces of the previous anger.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come? Parker’s been asking about you; he’s pretty cute.” But
her words lack conviction and she has already turned away from me again. I demur for a final
time, and minutes later, she is gone in a swirl of glitter and perfume.
As soon as the door slams shut behind her, I close my book with a sigh. Brooke means
well, I know, and has patiently dealt with my antisocial behavior and my miserable moods these
last several months. I should call her back, should apologize and thank her. I should tell her, if I
were any other girl; her offer of genuine friendship would be enough. If I were any other girl,
Brooke would be able to start healing the gaping holes in my heart. But you were the only one,
Claire. The only one who could ever unbreak me.
*
22
You said you would be here, but I guess even you can’t overcome death. I almost thought
you could, because you never seemed worried. I remember my inane hopes that you had some
sort of last-minute plan, the kind you always used to whip out for those hundred-point projects
back in high school. 11o’clock, the night before the deadline, and you would suddenly spring
into action, and voila! The thing would be done by the next morning, bearing the marks of your
insane creativity. Whenever I would ask you why you had waited so long when it seemed like
you had the whole thing planned out from the start, you would grin in that manic way of yours,
eyes lighting up, and say that it was simply no fun if you did it the boring way.
I really have no idea where you got your boundless energy and enthusiasm. It certainly
wasn’t from a bright childhood. You grew up without any sort of parental guidance; they died in
the sort of rainy-day-tragic-car-crash that made headlines. You were five, I think. And your aunt
took you in, but she was never a loving mother. You lived comfortably but you were always
searching, like me, searching for the love and human contact that your parents took away when
they died. Maybe that’s why we became friends. You can’t overcome loneliness alone, no matter
how much you might try to cover it with smiles and chatter.
You would probably be angry with me now, sitting alone in my room on a Friday night,
nursing a beer. I glance listlessly over to the clock and watch the numbers slowly peel onward.
11:23…11:24…11:25… You hated wasting time like this; you would much rather be out, doing
something, anything to feel like you were a part of the world, to feel like you were really living.
The alcohol burns its way down my throat and I welcome the feeling. Five more
swallows and pleasant warmth finally settles in my body. I glance at the clock again— 12:41.
The party is probably well under way. I can hear your voice, impatience lining every word
“hurry up, let’s go already!” and I stagger to my feet. I can see your eyes, sparkling with delight
and mischief. I spot a flash of green in one of the disheveled piles of clothes and pull it on,
Brooke’s earlier words coming to mind. I manage to apply a touch of mascara and grab my purse
before heading out the door.
Neon signs line the street, and I pull over to park. I pull out my ID and am quickly
ushered in. I am immediately greeted by a mass of bodies, swaying and undulating to the
pounding music. I make my way slowly through the throng, scanning for familiar faces. Finally,
I see Brooke and three others, chatting on the edge of the crowd. I am surprised to recognize
23
Parker among them. Brooke spots me and waves, a look of surprise etched faintly on her
features. Parker turns, too, and a smile blooms on his face.
“Hey! I’m glad you decided to come after all.” I just nod and try to smile—the expression
feels strange. We make small talk for several minutes before Brooke makes some excuse to pull
the other two away with her, leaving me alone with Parker.
A vague memory comes to mind—you, annoyed and frustrated.
“It’s not fair,” you said, “that the guys always look at you. You don’t even care!” I
remember shrugging.
“Most guys are still so immature…they see a pretty face, nothing else.” You gave a pout
and started talking about a boy you’d been crushing on for weeks. Parker, I remember with a jolt.
I let out a giggle, not too sure why I find this funny. Parker looks at me questioningly and I make
a vague sweeping motion with my hand.
“I was just thinking, I had this friend…but, never mind.” He makes an “ah” sound, like
he understands. Which he doesn’t. Not a clue. I giggle again and apologize. He considers me for
another moment before tilting his head in the general direction of the dance floor.
“Wanna dance?”
“Sure,” I say, “why not?” He grins and tugs me into the crowd.
*
“Darcy? Darcy? Where are you?” I scramble to my feet to meet my mommy at the door.
At seven years old, nothing delights me more than seeing mommy come home. I greet her with a
bright smile that she doesn’t return. I falter, eyebrows knitting together.
“Mommy, is something wrong?” Mommy has been acting strangely lately, going to sleep
later and later, and then getting up in the middle of the night to pace around. She laughs less,
much less, and always seems grumpy.
“Something wrong? Yeah. I guess there is.”
“What is it, mommy?” A grimace twists her mouth.
“I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand looking at you anymore!” My eyes widen and I
take a step back.
“W-What? What do you mean mo—” A sharp slap hits me squarely on the left cheek; I
press my hand lightly to the spot, feeling the skin heat up. I am shocked more than anything. My
legs crumple under me. Mommy seems shocked, too, and she opens her mouth, as if to say
24
something, before clamping her lips shut. She strides past me into the house, not saying another
word.
*
We are eating dinner, silently, as we always do lately. I keep my eyes lowered to my
plate; mommy has been radiating anger the whole day and I don’t want to set her off. Suddenly,
she speaks up.
“He did this on purpose. I know it. He did this just to torment me! You look exactly like
him—the same eyes, the same nose. But it’s not going to work! I’m going to change it. I can’t
stand it, can’t stand seeing you look like him!” There is a crazed note in her voice and she stands
up abruptly.
“Mommy? What do you mean? You’re scaring me, mommy!” I’ve spotted the gleam of
silver in her hand. She has never armed herself before. I lied. I am terrified, so much so that I
can’t even move to defend myself. The knife flashes down and the fear that had rendered me
immobile now pushes me to move. I turn my head at the last second; pain flares down the left
side of my face. I scream, or maybe mommy does. I get up as quickly as I can, how had I ended
up on the floor, anyway? Then I run, run outside, not thinking about where I am going, just
knowing that something big has happened, something huge. I know that something has changed.
*
I must have passed out eventually. I wake to an unfamiliar face creased with worry. I am
disoriented and still frightened. The man next to me smiles, and puts a reassuring hand on my
shoulder. He tells me that I had been bleeding a lot when he found me last night, lying in a pile
of brown-orange leaves. He’d panicked and called 9-1-1, and here we were. He asks me if I am
alright, and I nod my head numbly. He smiles again and leaves.
My cut has been taken care of (23 stitches) and the nurses say it shouldn’t leave much of
a scar. They ask for my name, phone number, and parents’ names. I begin to tell them and stop.
“What’s wrong, dear? Just tell us who your mommy and daddy are, and then we can call
them to come get you. They can take you home.” A chill passes through me. It is the first time it
happens, the first time I call up a cold exterior to mask my inner turmoil. Waking up in a bed of
white sheets, surrounded by these kindly women in white uniforms, feeling the scratchy white
gauze on my face…the starkly foreign surroundings allow me to put distance between myself
and the recent past. I feel weighed down, as if several years have passed without my knowing.
25
“My mommy is the one who…” and there is a lump in my throat, blocking the rest of the
words. Suddenly, I am seven again, and I feel tears sliding down my cheeks. The chill is gone,
and all that is left is this quivering mess who just wants her mommy back, the mommy who
tucked her in at night and brushed her hair in the mornings. But that mommy is gone, has been
gone for a long time, and I know it. So I try to regain my composure and begin again. “My
mother is the one who did this to me. And my dad—my father is dead.” The nurses all take a step
back and exchange significant looks with each other. Their faces hold identical horrified
expressions, and their eyes are filled with pity.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. We’ll get this sorted out, okay? You’ll be safe here.” I turn my
face away and curl up on my side. I cry myself to sleep that night.
*
Looking in the mirror now, I can still see a faint white line that stretches from my left
temple down my cheek to my jaw. It is barely noticeable, but it still bothers me. As did my entire
appearance for a while. It was painful to feel peoples’ eyes on me, and be reminded of what a
disaster my life had become. I still have pictures from the years where my hair was dyed a
different color each month, my face always hidden by heavy makeup, and my eyes disguised
with colored contacts. After the stunt my mother pulled with the knife, she’d been diagnosed and
shipped off to the Center. She’s been in and out a couple times since then, but her condition
continues to worsen, so she’s taken up a semi-permanent residence. I guess I’m still bitter about
it, angry at her for not being able to control herself, angry at myself for not being able to do
something about it, angry at my dad for dying in the first place. But it can’t be helped, as you
told me several times.
The first time you asked me about my scar was about two months after we first met. I
brushed you off and didn’t speak to you for the rest of the day. You were apologetic at first,
trying to be understanding, but you were furious by the end of the day, shouting at me for being
so withdrawn and offended by such a simple question. You said of course people would ask. If I
didn’t want to talk about it, fine, but I couldn’t act so insulted by simple curiosity.
You forgave me quickly, like you always did. I thought that maybe you were bipolar, too,
what with the way your moods changed so easily.
You got into the habit of asking the question every few weeks or so, casually slipping it
into conversation. “Yeah, I have a boatload of homework tonight, too. How did you get that scar,
26
again?” Not very subtle, but I just ignored it. You even got the nerve to trace it with your fingers,
at random. The first time you did that I nearly jumped out of my skin. Then I slapped your hand
away and glared, saying that such an action couldn’t possibly be passed off as harmless curiosity
any longer. You flashed a sheepish grin at me and inquired if it had hurt. I snapped.
“Of course it hurt, you idiot. It left a scar.” But instead of apologizing or shouting back,
you just looked at me with those impossibly sad and wise brown eyes and said “That’s not what I
meant.” I was taken aback, because no one had ever asked that question before. Yes, it had hurt.
It still does, to this day, that my own mother acted with such malicious intent toward me. It hurts,
a deep ache that I’ve tried to bury along with the rest of my past. And in that moment, it all
rushed to the surface, the pain, that awful day, and the loneliness I’d felt. Still felt. But you were
there, arms around me and whispering comforting phrases in my ear. I was crying, harder than I
had since that first day in the hospital.
I told you everything. The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush, and I continued to
speak until my throat rasped. I kept you up well into the night listening to my story, and you
listened, not judging, not pitying. And that ache started to heal.
You were the one who first suggested that I visit my mother, for closure.
“You need to do it,” you told me, “You need to forgive her. You need to forgive yourself,
Darcy.”
*
Finals are coming up and spring is being its usual rainy self. The TA drones on and on
about something I couldn’t care less about. I groan irritably. Parker puts a hand on my arm; I
can read concern in his eyes. He’s been kind, too kind, always asking if I need anything,
anything at all. The perfect boyfriend. And I’ve been apathetic, at best. Maybe the me a year ago
would have been flattered to receive such attention. I don’t know though, I can’t really remember
how I felt a year ago. He can tell that I don’t really return his feelings, and it hurts him, I know.
But I don’t have the energy to care, even though I know I should. I ought to apologize, at least,
for not being the girl that he deserves.
The group of girls behind me is whispering about their plans after graduation. It’s the
topic of conversation for most students these days.
The TA lectures on, but no one is listening.
The boy in front of me has dropped his head in his arms, chest rising and falling evenly.
27
Outside, the rain has stopped, and the sun is shining.
And just like that, I’m furious. There’s no point in being here, no point to anything at all.
I throw my books into my bag and leave, ignoring Parker’s worried shouts behind me.
*
I’m standing in front of you and crying, again. I never thought it would come to this.
Long story short: two people form a friendship. They’re both happy for a while, but the
world decides it doesn’t like that, so it rips the happiness away.
Long story long: there’s an ordinary kid. Dad dies. People cry. Mom pulls some fucked
up shit and the rest of the kid’s life is basically a long stretch of resentment and anger. A lot of
people try to help, but the kid doesn’t want to be helped. The kid wants to live alone, in misery,
and she does. At one point, it almost seems like she’ll be normal again, but nope. Kid continues
to lead a fucked up life.
Short story short: a girl is standing in front of her best friend’s grave with a broken heart.
*
You gaze up at me with a smile on your face. You still look so out of place in that drab
hospital gown, but I’ve slowly become accustomed to it.
“You don’t have to come here every day, you know. I’m sure your other friends miss
you.” I shake my head furiously.
“They don’t matter.” You raise your eyebrows.
“Darcy, that’s not true. You can’t keep this up. I won’t be here for much longer—”
“Shut up. Just shut up. You’re such an idiot.” You smile again, tiredly. We spend the next
few hours quietly. Sometimes you ask a question about this friend or that friend, but mostly we
just sit together. It’s so easy to be with you; we know each other so well that words aren’t
necessary. And you don’t really have the energy to prattle on endlessly anymore.
A coughing fit shakes your thin shoulders. Too thin. I look at you in alarm, but you wave
me off.
“It’s nothing. But could you do me a favor?”
“Of course. Anything.” You look at me, eyes swimming with a dozen emotions and my
heart aches.
“Could you get me a Snickers bar? There’s a vending machine down the hall, and I
haven’t had one in so long.” That vending machine has been out of order for months. You’re
28
smiling, as always, but your voice sounds so, so sad. I try to speak, but I choke on my words. My
heartbeat is stuttering and a nameless fear surges through me. I feel the prickle of tears in my
eyes, but I still can’t say a word.
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. Don’t look so upset, okay?” I finally realize what you are asking of
me, and my tears threaten to spill over. But I blink them away as best as I can and take a deep
breath. I think of how thankful I am to you, what a wonderful person you are, and I smile at you.
“Sure. I’ll be right back.” You nod, and smile back. This time it’s a genuine one. I walk
away from the bed and out the door. I close it gently behind me and sink to the floor, my body
convulsing with sobs.
Five minutes later, the nurses are rushing down the hall. Your aunt follows along, looking
harried and dismayed. She acknowledges me with a slight nod. They push into the room behind
me and I stand wearily to join them. I feel hollow as I look at the flat green line on the monitor.
*
I’m sorry, but I can’t believe anymore. I tried, but nothing worked out. Parker, Brooke,
they tried, I know, to help me. And really, if I were maybe a little stronger, if my life weren’t so
screwed up, they would have been enough. But they were too late, I think, and I’m too set in my
ways. As it is, this existence is just a broken imitation of life. I miss you, I miss you so much,
Claire. I don’t want to say anything too cheesy, like you brought me out of my darkness, but I
can’t deny that you gave me something brighter. You showed me how to really live, but without
your guiding hand, I don’t know how.
Your last smile was forever imprinted in my mind, and I call up the memory now. I focus
on the image and reach for the pills. I tip them all in my mouth and wash them down with water.
It takes several swallows. Then I relax onto my bed. I close my eyes, and all I can see are yours,
warm and kind.
It’s the second Tuesday in March, but I won’t be going to see my mother today.
“Darcy? Darcy! Oh my god…” Brooke’s voice is alarmed and loud next to my ear, but I
pay her no heed. I feel her hands grip my shoulders and shake.
“What the hell are you doing? Don’t pull this shit on me. Come on, Darcy, please!” Her
frenzied shaking forces me to open my eyes. I regard her with practiced contempt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Brooke’s mouth falls open.
29
“What am I…what do you mean, what am I doing? I am saving your fucking life, damn
it!” I blink at the vehemence in her voice. She glares at me for a moment more before whirling
around and whipping out her cell phone. She thumbs three numbers angrily before raising the
phone to her right ear.
“Hi. Yes. I’m reporting a suicide—an attempted suicide…” I tune out the rest of her
conversation, irritated. What right does Brooke have to do this? It’s my own damn life, and I can
do what I want with it. She has no right. I close my eyes again, reaching for your smile once
more. Like this, I can just fade away, and I’ll never—
A sharp stinging sensation on my left cheek. I gaze up at Brooke in shock.
“You slapped me.” Brooke’s mouth is pressed in a tight line and her eyes are glittering
with…tears?
“For someone so smart, you sure are an idiot. I can’t even—I don’t know what goes on in
that head of yours, but I never thought you’d be stupid enough to actually—”
“What the hell do you know? You have no idea what I’ve gone through, what I—”
“You’re not the only one who’s ever lost someone, Darcy! If you’d pull your head out of
your ass for two seconds, you’d see that there are other people around, people who understand,
people who care…I care, Darcy, even if you don’t. We’ve been roommates for two years, so I do
know a bit about you. And I’m sorry, I’m really, truly sorry that Claire died. And I know that
you’re sad, of course you’re sad and angry and depressed, or whatever! But you can’t—you can’t
do this! I…” Tears are tracking steadily down her cheeks, and I can only watch, stunned as
Brooke rants at me, her face splotchy and her voice cracking. The truth of her words hits me and
I…I can only gaze at her stupidly as my life ticks away. I can almost hear the countdown to these
last seconds, and it terrifies me.
Brooke seems to read something in my eyes and she steps forward to put her arms around
me.
“It’ll be okay. I called them, and they’re on their way, they’ll probably be here any
second now. It’s gonna be alright.” I let her soothe me, forcibly reminded of another pair of
arms, another whispering voice. She’s not Claire, and my eyes are dry, but...
After you died, it hurt too much to look at someone and see. It was scary. It still is scary,
because it can all be taken away.
30
You were so much braver than I was. You lost a lot, too, but you were strong enough to
reach out again. You were able to look to a brighter future. One without loneliness. I’ve been
fooling myself, trying to struggle along alone. Because that’s not the strength you had.
The paramedics come in, swift and professional in their movements. They surround us,
and Brooke is forced to let go. Blue-clad arms lift me and take my pulse, calm but crisp voices
speak to me. Brooke looks at me. Her eyes are red and puffy but she tries for a smile. I feel
humbled by her grace. And I realize it all now—my faults, her patience with them, the unfairness
of it all. I open my mouth to apologize, for everything, but all that comes out is a quiet “Thank
you.”
She nods, furiously, and her eyes well up with tears.
It’s a different face that I’m seeing, but the eyes hold a familiar warmth.
*
I’m not naïve enough to think that the pain will go away. It defines me now. And that’s
the thing; I’ve endured too much to back out at this point. So no more running away, because
you taught me not to be afraid.
So here I am, Claire.
31
Pass
Elijah Barrad
What an awkward kid, TJ thought. He was the epitome of an awkward, outcast
teenager. He sat in his desk and stared down at the floor, afraid to look up and see if people
were looking at him. He wore a vintage Beatles t-shirt, the same one he wore on Monday, and
his jeans were ripped and ragged at the bottom from dragging on the floor, hugging the heels
of his Converse Chuck Taylors when he walked. His face was scarred with teenaged acne, and
his hair was light brown and soft. Behind his thick-framed glasses, however, his eyes were soft,
and blue like the caribbean ocean. They were beautiful, and entirely out of character for such a
flawed individual. His voice—at least what TJ had heard of it, the odd days of the week that
teacher actually bothered to take attendance—was nasal and quiet. Reluctant and
uncomfortable; fitting to his personality.
TJ couldn’t help but wonder, what makes a person so awkward? Couldn’t he just, act
normal? Did he know what normal was? These were questions that TJ wished he could
approach Alex and simply ask him. He imagined holding training sessions, teaching Alex to be a
normal, comfortable, less awkward guy. He would teach him to walk up straight, and wear
normal clothes, and what normal clothes were. And he would teach him how to talk. He
wondered if Alex’s inability to hold a conversation was simply because he had no one to talk to.
He had no practice. TJ could change that. If only it were that easy.
“What’s up?” TJ boldly, yet somewhat reluctantly declared. After all this time noticing
Alex, pondering his ways, almost studying him, TJ felt as if he had known Alex for quite some
time. He even came up with stories; possible events from his past that had made him the way
he was. Perhaps his parents were too lazy to ever teach him anything. Perhaps his parents were
just as odd as he. Perhaps he had no parents. Either way, TJ made his very first approach. He
had seen Alex work on group activities alone so many times; TJ couldn’t help but at least offer.
“Do you wanna work together?”
“I’ll pass” was Alex’s shocking response. What did that mean? I’ll pass? TJ was doing him
a favor; reaching out to him like that. How could he say no? TJ pictured himself in Alex’s shoes.
Those red Chuck Taylors. He didn’t see why Alex wouldn’t want to work with him; why he
32
wouldn’t want to fit in, at least for one class period. Didn’t he want to fit in? Didn’t he want to
be saved?
“I work better alone.” TJ was consumed with an emotion which he never would have
imagined would be inspired by this innocent individual—anger. He reflected upon the fact that
he could become so incensed by the hunch-backed, silent, outcast. This thought made him even
angrier.
That weekend, TJ went out to the movies with his friends. They saw a crappy comedy
spoof; similar to the likes of the Scary Movie parodies. TJ was with his girlfriend Jamie, and his
friend Nick, who happened to be dating one of his girlfriend’s friends, Cara. TJ’s girlfriend was
his best friend. He had discussed his feelings toward Alex with her before. Alex was in her math
class, and she had pointed out and agreed with his uneasy nature in conversations with TJ. She
shared TJ’s sympathy for the outcast, but had an opinion that he was going to be awkward,
regardless of whether TJ tried to talk to him or not, and that he might as well just let him live
his life. But TJ felt that neglect was not the right thing to do.
After the movie, TJ and his friends aimlessly drove around town. Nick pulled the car into
the local MiniMart, where they went to go get snacks and kill time. They parked next to an old,
faded orange, AMC Gremlin, the ugliest car TJ had ever seen. As TJ and Nick stepped out of the
car, following Jamie and Cara inside, something caught TJ’s eye. It was a Beatles t-shirt, and its
owner was inserting a key into the door of the hideous Gremlin. He knew it was Alex, because
TJ had seen Alex park the car at school. TJ’s eyes shot up to Alex’s face. He got the chills. Alex’s
eyes practically spoke to him. TJ swore they were saying something; asking for something.. It
was as if they were begging for help. Something was familiar about them. “Hey, Alex,” he
proclaimed, as if to reach out his hand, responding to Alex’s call for help.
Alex looked at TJ. Their eyes locked for at least 5 straight seconds. But Alex said nothing.
“What’s his deal?” Nick commented, after Alex got in the car.
“I don’t know,” Nick said, “But let him be. He’s a weird kid. I feel bad for him. I wish I
could help.”
TJ shared a history class with Alex. Their teacher was laid back and easy going, yet
scholarly and intelligent on the subject of American History. TJ could tell on several occasions
33
that this relaxed atmosphere made Alex uncomfortable. Most students got along with Mr.
Linden as well as they got along with each other, and it was safe to say that the same went for
Alex, considering that he got along with neither. Alex did not participate in class discussions,
and when called on, he would try to articulate some response just to get the spotlight off of
him, which would usually result in the opposite—an awkward silence, including an
uncomfortable, confused reaction from Mr. Linden. As he did every Monday, Mr. Linden asked
the class what they all did this weekend.
“I went out to the movies and just drove around with some friends,” TJ began. “I saw
Alex, too, at the MiniMart.” TJ looked at Alex, attempting to make a connection; to make Alex
comfortable with him.
“Oh, cool, did you guys hang?” Mr. Linden replied.
TJ looked at Alex, and Alex stared back. TJ noticed Alex’s eyes. “Yeah,” TJ declared, with
a grin, “we hung out for a little.” He shot Alex a smile, and saw his eyes widen. But it didn’t
seem to be in a good way. It didn’t feel gracious or thankful. It felt uncomfortable, confused,
lost. The discussion jumped to Alex.
“What about you, Alex?” Mr. Linden proposed, “Hang out with TJ, I hear?” The
classroom grew silent. Everybody knew he did not hang out with TJ, and he was well aware of
this. TJ sat, anxiously awaiting his response; as did the class. Alex adjusted his glasses, and
adjusted in his desk. He fidgeted with his pencil for what felt to TJ like 60 seconds, at least.
“Pass.” TJ flashes back.
*
*
*
“Run, or pass? TJ proposes to his team. It is a year and a half ago; the summer of his
junior year. TJ and his friends go to Ocean City, Maryland, for the day, and they are playing
football on the beach. It is crowded. People are on the boardwalk, laying on the beach, and
playing in the water. TJ and his friends are playing football at the shoreline; the water
periodically rushing up then running back down towards the ocean. The current is strong today,
and the waves are larger than he has ever seen them.
“Pass,” Nick confidently declares. They run the play, and TJ launches the ball to Nick.
After completing the pass for the winning touchdown, TJ’s eyes wander to the crowd in the
34
ocean. Children are playing and body surfing, parents are watching and taking pictures. As TJ
spots a young boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, riding the waves on his body-board, TJ can’t
help but grin, admiring, yet envious, of the boy’s liveliness and youth. From just beyond where
the people are swimming and playing, a wave begins to form. The boy peeks over his shoulder
and smiles, preparing to ride the monstrous wave. TJ notices the wave growing bigger and
bigger, higher and higher, and more powerful. As it approaches the boy, excitement turns to
worry. Parents are grabbing their children and shielding them, protecting them from the wave.
Swimmers duck under water to avoid the wave’s power. Worry turns to fear, and the boy is too
late to avoid the wave like the others have done. As he is turning his head back towards the
shore, preparing for the blow, TJ swears his eyes meet the eyes of the boy. His desperate eyes,
calling for help. The wave swallows him, tossing him about the ocean floor. TJ sees a pair of
young feet emerge upon the surface, then go back under. The crowd emerges from the ocean,
laughing and joking about surviving the blow. TJ does not see the boy. Parents run to their kids.
Once they see all is well, they exclaim, “Whoa, how about that?!” The children, excited, brag
about the size of the wave. They jump and splash, anticipating the next wave. He doesn’t see
the boy.
TJ’s friend, Nick, celebrates in the end zone, marked in the sand by a line of seaweed,
and TJ does not see the boy. He’s fine. TJ assured himself. There are so many people. He’s in
the crowd somewhere. He’s alright. TJ met nick halfway. TJ reluctantly slaps Nick’s hand,
receiving back-pats and fist-bumps from his other team-mates for throwing the winning
touchdown. TJ does not see the boy.
A woman approaches the shoreline. She is squinting, scanning the ocean, apparently
looking for someone. Her eyes. TJ immediately recognizes her as the boy’s mother. She moves
toward the water, squinting more now, focusing on every face she saw, discarding those that
did not match the face she was looking for. Her feet are in the water now. She turns behind,
toward the lifeguards, who stare aimlessly at beach. Her head snaps back towards the water.
“Jackson!” she cries.
*
*
*
35
“What did everybody do this weekend?” the teacher proposed, in accordance with his
Monday ritual. The students recite their weekends, recalling movies, parties, family gatherings.
TJ fabricated a story about watching a football game with his family; his mind too consumed
with thoughts of Alex to remember anything he actually did over the weekend. Alex’s turn
arrived with an awkward silence.
“Pass.” TJ knew that he could not save Alex. No more than he could save the boy. No
more than he did.
36
A Dying Wish
Bran Greene
I hadn’t been back to East Germany since my family emigrated to the west, staying just
long enough to see the construction of the wall. Walking through the streets that used to be mine
brought back memories that I didn’t know I had. Though the memories weren’t completely clear
to me, I was certainly able to distinguish the differences between present day Germany and the
one that used to be the closest thing to home that I had.
Walking through the newly paved streets as we searched for our old house felt weird in a
way. Even though I hadn’t been back for a half of a century, I still expected everything to
remain the way it had been (or at least how I remembered it had been). And all I had
remembered of the streets was torn apart cobblestone that would burn my feet in the summers as
I ran around barefoot. But there was one thing that had remained constant.
“It looks like nobody has been here since we left,” Frederic whispered into my ear as I
stared on. I was shocked to see that we had lived in such a ratty piece of crap. The shingles
were spewed across the muddy front yard; the screen on the kitchen window was hanging only
by the bottom left screw, leaving it dangling below; wood panels had long worn away all over
the house. “I’d sure hope that nobody lives in here.”
“Well let’s see,” I said back to him as I took a step forward onto what still may have been
my family’s property. My recently bought Timberland boots handled the slick, muddy surface
with ease, proving that they really were as good of an all-terrain shoe as the woman selling them
to me had promised. Slowly (albeit faster than my brother in his New Balance sneakers) I
worked my way towards the front door.
“Well why don’t you head on in?” Fred asked me as he bent down, wiping mud off of his
shin.
“There’s no doorknob. There’s just a big hole where it should be.” In an act of
desperation, I stuck my through the hole, hoping to grasp something that would let me inside.
Instead the door swung open with the force of my arm entering the hole. I slid my arm out of the
hole and took a step inside onto the suspect surface of the floor. At that moment, it became quite
clear to me that nobody had lived there since us for two reasons – it was too dangerous and too
37
much work for anybody to put up with, and my father’s old family portrait still sat just above the
staircase.
I took a step onto yet another cracked tile in the floor that shifted beneath me as I went to
take a second step. I gained my balance and got a closer look at the portrait. My grandfather’s
piercing blue eyes completely contrasted those of my grandmother’s – sympathetic and hazel,
more green than brown. Standing next to his three older siblings, my father appeared to mirror
his mother’s look, seemingly happy with himself. It was startling because I always saw him as a
man more like his father; the only time that boyish grin came out was when we played soccer.
Decades earlier, I had officially established residency in America, growing up in a lower
class family in Baltimore. My younger brother and I did whatever possible to help out the
family, grateful just to have each other, whether we had money or not. My parents used to tell
stories about me to everybody I introduced them to, about a boy who got up early each day to
deliver newspapers while the other neighborhood children were outside playing.
“All of the boys had bikes to deliver their papers with; all of them except for Werner,”
my mother would say with a rough accent. As a matter of fact, she told my current wife that on
the first night I introduced my parents to her. They were all squeezed together on a couch that
had surely been used before we owned it. And my mother would boast and boast about her
“little boy” as I kept my head down in an attempt to hide the embarrassment that was showing on
my face. Dad had kept to himself, much like myself until my mother brought up a story about
my tenth birthday, when they gave me a beaten up soccer ball, one that had clearly been used
before.
“But that grateful little boy didn’t give a damn,” Dad had chimed in. “We’d play outside
each day, pretending to be different German players as we would shoot the ball against our
building’s brick walls. We never had much, but from that point on, Werner didn’t care as long
as we had football.”
Dad and I would play together whenever I was at home. Of course when he got older, we
couldn’t do anything more than kick the ball back and forth for a few minutes until his back
began to hurt. So we spent most of our time those days inside watching soccer whenever it was
on, following whatever traces of the Germans as we could pick up. We were always rooted for
West Germany because Dad always said that the east side was a county of stupid communist
bastards and he wouldn’t go back until they worked out their problems. We were sitting together
38
on that same couch that he met my wife on when “Der Kaiser,” Franz Beckenbauer led the West
Germans to the 1974 World Cup in front of the home crowd that no longer included us.
“You know Dad wouldn’t have approved of this?” Frederic said to me as I placed my
roughly folded clothes into the dresser just left of my bed.
“Wouldn’t have approved of what?”
“The two of us spending all of this money to come out here just to give him one last
hurrah.”
I nodded in silence with a little smirk on my face. “Knowing him, he’d of had us shack
up in a roadside motel. Or better yet, he’d have us stay at his old home. I can hear it now, ‘It’s a
perfectly good house. It was good enough for me; is it not good enough for you?’”
“Ha, and of course we’d have to appease him. Not until both of us came falling through
that worn down ceiling at night would he agree it would be time to go somewhere nicer. And
even then, he’d take us to the Motel 6.”
Dad had always been a staunch man, a mirror image of his father – a proud German man.
He had hated to see what had happened to it over the two decades before he left. He always told
my mother that soon, they’d be a free country, that they would be able to wait it out. And so he
did, having two children in the process. But as news of Khrushchev’s wall arose, he finally gave
up and got out just a couple of years after Frederic’s birth. Despite his firm, religious beliefs that
he shouldn’t abandon the place he had grown up, he always put his family first. It was always us
first, whether it was playing outside with the two of us after a long day of work or skipping out
on work when we didn’t feel well, he was always there. And he was still there with us in a way.
At least as long as we had our little box of him with us.
He had wanted so badly to go back in 2004, to go see the World Cup as countries from all
over the world converged again on German grounds. As soon as tickets went on sale, Dad told
us that he wasn’t too sick to go. But his doctor said otherwise, “There are too many potential
infectants in a contained area. After everything you’ve been through in the past few months, it
would not be safe to fly. Not to mention, it would be a huge risk to stand around for three hours
in an open-air stadium with 60,000 other people.”
Every day for a few weeks, he insisted that he would be fine, that it didn’t matter to him
if he got sick again. “I just want to see them in person, see my country again in person,” he
would tell us.
39
One night, my mother had enough of his ranting and snapped for the first time in god
knows how long. “It’s not fair to us – to put a football team above your own life! What are we
supposed to do when do you don’t even make it to the game alive?” I could tell she regretted it
the moment that she said it as she broke down in tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I really
didn’t.” She tried to convince him, us, herself that she didn’t mean it but we all knew that she
did. It was silent for a while, and I could hear the sound of Alex Trebek in the background as he
tried to make a witty joke as he introduced his newest contestants. I laughed, but only to do
whatever I could to break the silence.
That was the last time I heard Dad complain about not being able to see the World Cup in
person. He told us all that he’d get a nicer television to watch it on – “one of those flatscreens.”
Our mother just sat there, unwilling to protest what we knew she thought of as an unnecessary
expenditure.
Unfortunately, he never got that television. He never made it long enough to see the
World Cup. So we brought him with us. The plan was to spread his ashes in our old backyard
and in the Elbe River that he used to travel to as a child. That’s what Mom said he would have
wanted.
As Frederic and I sat in a bar just outside our hotel watching the Germans take on the
Italian’s in the semifinals, he suggested we brainstorm other ideas for dumping Dad’s ashes, but
I kept telling him we were sticking to the plan. It was traditional just as Dad was and I would
respect what Mom said he would want. However, his nagging was no longer my primary
concern – the Italian’s took a one goal lead to break the tie in the 119th minute and sent our
championship hopes off into the distance. “At least tickets will be cheaper, now,” Frederic told
me with the only words he could seem to muster up. “The least we could do is buy some scalped
tickets and bring him with us.” I shook him off, just as I had for the previous hour.
I couldn’t sleep; I don’t know if I was still pissed off from the loss earlier in the day, or if
I was anxious for a big day of scattering. I caught a glimpse of the mahogany box of Dad’s
ashes sitting on the nightstand between the two of us. I thought of how he would pester me day
after day about how he so badly wanted to see the team in person. Maybe Frederic was right;
he’d spent so much of his life setting aside his time for us, doing whatever he could to keep us
happy. What kind of son of his would I be if I didn’t do the same for him?
40
I remembered it just as vividly as my wedding day. The lights beaming down from each
sideline; the man walking up and down the aisle selling hot dogs; the most passionate fans
heckling players down on the field, waving their flags for the Baltimore Bay side to side. The
flags obstructed my line of vision, but I didn’t really care. I had never taken much of an interest
in the North American Soccer League. It was the atmosphere of the stadium that really took me
by surprise. There were never that many soccer fans in the country, but wherever they were,
they were always passionate about their team. Just as my father had been proud to see his team
represent Germany so well to the rest of the world, the Baltimore Bay fans were there to cheer
their team on as they represented their city and hometown.
Although the stadium held the same number of people, it felt five times larger. Every
seat was full, the parking lots and streets were flooded with Germans. Television crews were
everywhere, the stadium was rocking with the sound of 60,001 Germans anxious for the game to
get underway. There wasn’t a silent person in the stadium but one, and we sure as hell knew he
would not be silent if he weren’t locked up in a small wooden box.
The game began and everybody in the stadium was on their feet, awaiting a gift from the
heavens that would put the Germans ahead. But it didn’t come until the second half when
Bastian Schweinsteiger put one in for the first goal of the evening with a line drive just avoiding
the Portuguese goalie’s outstretched arms. Just a few minutes later, he struck again with a cross
that deflected off of a teammate’s knee into the corner of the net. In the 78th minute, he sealed
the deal with his second goal of the night where not even a late Portuguese attack could bring
them back into the game.
The head referee blew the final whistle and while the game was over, the celebration was
just beginning. Frederic and I embraced in rejoice, turning to celebrate with the fans around us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a piece of chipped wood laying just a few seats down.
All of a sudden, my celebration stopped as I knelt down to see my father scattered across the
stadiums seats below us. I ran my hands across the ground, trying to scoop up what remained of
him, hoping not to let him down. I looked up to get Frederic’s help, but something else entered
my mind.
Sounds were ringing out like gunshots. Inside and outside of the stadium, fans from all
over a once dignified country came together to celebrate the greatest football achievement since
the reunification of Germany. People were dancing in the streets, high fiving and hugging
41
people they would have not been permitted to associate with two decades earlier. Men, women
and children alike ran through the streets where a wall once stood, basking in their nation’s new
found glory. It’s what he would have wanted, the way he would have wanted to return to his
country. So I left him.
Losing Things
Tom Kelly
“Yo John, you want to play some pool?” Ryan exclaimed, eagerly wanting to do
something other than continue to watch college basketball on his couch.
Ryan began pulling out the balls from the pockets and said, “Yo I’ll rack and you break.”
I nodded to approve his statement and walked over to turn on the radio.
Ryan’s house was where we usually hung out if we didn’t know what to do. His
basement had all the cool amenities: big screen television, pool table, stereo system and his
parents fully stocked bar. Ryan uses his parents supply to throw some pretty crazy parties. We
always restock it after his bangers before his parents notice. Fortunately tonight was going to be
one of those crazy ones. It was Kevin’s birthday so we invited some friends over to celebrate
after the hockey game. I was so pumped it was going to be the best night.
“Where are Glen and Mick?” I asked Ryan.
“I don’t know dude but they better hurry up. The game starts in a half our!”
Glen and Mick are two of our good friends. We were waiting for them come over to Ryan’s so
we could go our high school’s hockey game. Our friend Kevin plays on the team. In fact he is
quite good… I think the leading goal scorer. All five of us are really tight. Every weekend were
always together hanging out at one of our houses…well, now, it’s usually just four of us. Kevin
is always too busy with his girl friend to just hang with his buds on a Saturday night. But, I
didn’t care. He is still my good friend so I don’t care what he does as long as he is happy.
A few minutes had passed when Ryan’s basement door swung open and Mick and Glen
came running in. “Yeah! Let’s go bitches! Its game time!” Mick exclaimed running into the
basement. Mick looked absolutely ridiculous. His face was painted red and black and he was
wearing what looked like a red wrestling sling. I guess he did think about how cold it is in the
42
hockey rink but I don’t think he really cares. He was definitely the craziest of all of us. He
always had goofy shit to wear and didn’t seem to care what people thought.
“Alright, are you guys ready to go?” Ryan questioned.
“Chill doucher. You are always stressed about being on time. But yeah we are ready.”
Mick always calls kids “douchers.” It is his go to name whenever he makes fun of someone;
especially Ryan. Those two are always getting in fights and arguing; Most times it’s about
something stupid like which girl is better looking or what team is going to win. All nonimportant topics but Mick loves to voice his opinion on everything.
Mick’s phone began to ring, “Dude! Lucy has called six times and I haven’t picked up
once. Doesn’t she get it that I do not want to drive her to the game.”
“Can’t you just pick her up? She doesn’t live far. Plus Kevin is going to be pissed about
it.” I said.
“How about you quit being a pussy, you are starting to sound like Kevin.” Mick
exclaimed. “She has already taken over most of his time anyway. Why does she need to be at his
hockey games too?”
“Yeah man, she just sucks as a person.” Glen added.
They were waiting for a response but I didn’t feel like saying anything back. I didn’t
want to argue because unfortunately they were telling to truth. Lucy sucked. She was always
bitchy and moody. I never understood why Kevin liked her. Kevin and Lucy were always
together: Before school, after school, on the weekends. They were pretty much inseparable. It is
like they are married.
*
“OOO!” The student crowd was yelling. There is always a big student section at the
games but as Mick would put it, they are all “douchers” so we sat at the other the end of the
bleachers.
“Mick, look who is coming in now.” Glen said.
“Wow she found another ride. I wonder who drove her.” Said Mick.
“Haha,” Glen began to laugh, “She came with her family.”
For some reason Lucy was almost eight teen yet she still had not gotten her license. She
is filthy rich and already has a car but she has yet to go for her permit. Her parents have never
43
pressured to get a job because they dish out money whenever she is in need. Also Kevin doesn’t
help the situation. She always ask him to drive her around and he does. He acts like she is a
princess and caters to all her needs.
“Hey Mick.” Lucy said sounding a little pissed off.
“Hahaha.” Mick laughed in her face. He was truly the biggest asshole of our group of
friends. Everyone always said he was a jerk but he didn’t care he would just agree with them.
“Hey Lucy. What’s up?” I asked her.
“Yo, what are you thinking? She is the enemy don’t talk to her!” Mick exclaimed.
Lucy gave Mick a glare and then walked down the bleachers to sit with her family.
“Dude C’mon. I know you don’t like her but just keep peace so Kevin doesn’t flip shit
again.” I attempted to convince Mick that he should be a little nicer next time but he ignored me
as usual. I would have continued to hassle Mick but I shared his feelings for Lucy. I have never
voiced my opinion about Lucy to my friends but I can not stand her. Everything about her just
simply rubs me the wrong way. She moved into our school district in middle school and at the
time I thought she was a really nice girl. Over the past few years into high school, my dislike for
her has grown tremendously. She comes from a wealthy family, which is not uncommon in my
town but she makes it known she is rich. She has everything: the most extravagant parties,
expensive clothes and a castle of a house. I guess it is her stuck up attitude that gets under my
skin. And ever since she and Kevin started going out, he has changed so much. He doesn’t like to
go out to parties anymore nor does find time to hang with his boys. I could understand him not
going to parties; the parties at our school aren’t much fun. But he would rather hang out with
Lucy then us. The five of us have been friends for years now, since we were in elementary
school. Now were seniors and he suddenly doesn’t have time for us. Next year we’re all going to
our separate colleges and I know we will see each other when we come home but this is our last
year together. And he would rather spend his last year with her, with that friend stealer.
“ERRRRRR,” the loud buzzer rang to signal the end of the game. I couldn’t believe it
was over that quick. I had been day dreaming about Lucy the whole game. I wish I could just
express how I feel about Lucy to Kevin but I know he would be really upset.
“Hurry. Let’s meet Kevin before he goes to the locker room,” Glen started to briskly
walk to catch up to Kevin as he came off the ice.
44
“Kevin!” Ryan yelled attempting to grab his attention. Kevin stopped out side the locker
room and waited for us to come meet him.
“Yo dude, great game,” Mick said as we walked up to him.
“Yeah man. A hat trick that was pretty awesome,” Glen added.
“Yeah you played really well and happy birthday big guy!” I said. I didn’t really know if
Kevin even played that well. Like I said earlier, I was too busy day dreaming the whole game but
I figured he played well…Glean did say he scored a hat trick.
“Thanks guys, but I have to go into the locker room with the team. I’ll call you guys
when I leave,” Kevin said as he was walking towards the locker room door.
“Okay but remember the party at my house. We’re celebrating your birthday. You’ll be
there right?” Ryan yelled to Kevin.
“Yeah, I’ll definitely be there,” Kevin yelled back and disappeared into the locker room.
*
Back at Ryan’s we began to set up for the party.
“Jon, grab the cups and pong balls from the back room,” Ryan said. I walked into his
back room and found the cups and balls next to the keg and set them up on the table.
“Okay, I think we have everything ready. Now we just have to wait for kids to show up,”
I said and we all sat down on the couch. As soon as we started watching the basketball game, our
friends began to show up. More and more kids started to come in the basement and with in thirty
minutes there were around twenty-five kids. There was one problem; Kevin was no where to be
found. I sent him a text about an hour ago but I still haven’t gotten a response. I went to find
Glen to see if he had talked to him but he got no response either.
“Ryan, I am walking up to Kevin’s to see what he is doing. I’ll be back in a few
minutes.”
“Okay, tell him to hurry up. We want to start the party.” Ryan and Kevin lived in the
same neighborhood, only a few houses apart. That is what worried me. What would take him so
long to walk down to Ryan’s? As I got closer to Kevin’s house I saw his car was in his drive way
so maybe he was just showering after his game. I continued to walk to his house; I figured I
could wait for him and we could walk back to Ryan’s together. I walked around to his back door
and rang the doorbell. Kevin came to the door after a minute or two.
“What’s up Jon?”
45
“Nothing, what’s taking so long, we are waiting for you at Ryan’s?” I asked as he opened
the door and invited me in.
“Shit man, I forgot to tell you guys. I don’t think I’m going to make it tonight,” said Kevin.
“Why not? What do you have to do?” I asked starting to wonder if he was joking or not.
“Well…Lucy wanted to hang out. She wanted to give me her present,” he said with a
smile on his face. He seemed to be happy that he was spending his birthday with Lucy.
“You know what Kevin, fuck you. She is taking over your life. All you ever want to do is
hang out with Lucy. Have you forgotten you have friends? Good friends. Friends who have stuck
with you despite you ignoring us,” I said.
“Wow, what is...,” he began to say before I cut him off.
“We have been friends for over ten years and we always celebrate our birthdays together.
Not once have we missed it, until now. If you are willing to throw away our friendship for her,
then go ahead,” I said as I turned for the door.
“Jon, it is no…,” Is all I heard Kevin say before I slammed the door in his face. I couldn’t
believe him. He knew, he fucking knew we were throwing him a party. He gave us his word and
said he was coming, and just like that, Lucy changes his mind. For the past year I have been the
one who has always stuck up for him when the other guys made fun of him and he just doesn’t
seem to care. His mind is always on Lucy and what she is doing. I simply can’t take his
girlfriend bullshit anymore.
Before I knew it, I was back at Ryan’s again. I walked in the door and Ryan came up to me
immediately.
“Where is he?”
“Forget Kevin, he’s not coming. He has better things to do. Lets just start the party,” I
said as I grabbed a cup and headed towards the keg. I knew there would be something that would
make me forget Kevin.
46
Growing Old is Getting Old
Arielle Kozub
Kate Summers stood in her kitchen sipping tea, and waiting for her daughter Sadie to call
from the train station. Sadie was coming to visit from New York City, where she had a job and
was working on getting her master’s degree at NYU. The sun shone brightly in the window, the
whole room illuminated by its warm glow. She crossed the kitchen and opened the window,
letting in the warm, fresh, spring air. She inhaled contently, the smells of moist grass and
blooming flowers filling her nose. Spring had always been her favorite season; she remembered
countless hours exploring new things in the woods by her childhood home. She missed those
times; the times when she had been young and carefree.
The glass bangles and charms that cluttered her wrists tinkled together as she opened the
rest of the windows. She gazed fondly at them, remembering the story behind each one. A large
blue bracelet slid down to her elbow as she raised her arm, sparkling in the sunlight. She pushed
it back up her arm, remembering the day she had gotten it. It had been a day similar to this one,
she recalled. She and her friends had sat in the grass at an outdoor concert, the wind gently
pulling at their hair, smoking and welcoming the music into their ears, letting it fill their minds.
When it was over and Kate was reluctantly standing to go, she’d found the bracelet partially
emerged in a puddle next to her. She’d wiped the bracelet against her long skirt and slipped it
onto her wrist as she was walking away. Kate sighed wistfully; it had been years since she’d
been to a concert. Nowadays she spent the days by herself while her husband was teaching. She
worked most days in her backyard garden tending to the various vegetable, flower, and herb
plots. And Steven no longer spent the evenings strumming his guitar or helping her cook dinner.
Instead he preferred to grade papers in his office and go to bed early. Why didn’t they spend time
together anymore? She wondered, when had things changed?
Kate was abruptly jolted out of her meditation by the sound of car doors slamming
nearby. She glanced out the window and watched her daughter Sadie walk toward her house,
trailed by her ex-boyfriend Tyler. Sadie and Tyler had been an inevitable couple in high school.
They had been next-door neighbors, and however much they had complained about one another,
they never seemed able to stay away from one another. College and distance had been the death
of their official romantic relationship, but Kate knew they still kept in contact. Kate watched as
Sadie glanced back in annoyance at Tyler, but when she turned her head, Kate could see a small
47
smile on her lips. Sadie turned and said something to Tyler that caused him to start walking to
his house, his hands raised in innocence. Kate could hear the murmur of their departing words.
“Hey, mom,” Sadie said as she breezed through the kitchen as though she’d never left,
kicking her shoes off and shoving aside a pile of Kate’s records to sit on the counter. Kate
hugged her tightly, fussing over her as her motherly instincts kicked in, and Kate thought that at
least there was one thing that would never change.
That evening Kate and Sadie cooked dinner in the kitchen as Kate asked her about New
York. But when she asked about Tyler, Sadie just turned her head and said nothing. The sun still
burned brightly in the sky, but it was steadily sinking into the trees as a gentle breeze blew,
bringing the sweet smell of early summer into the kitchen. Kate inhaled deeply, the fresh air
lulling her into a peaceful contentment as she hummed along with the Velvet Underground
record she’d put on. She didn’t even notice when Sadie slipped outside to talk to Tyler outside on
his porch. She worked quietly and by the time Steven pulled up in his SUV, she’d made dinner
and set the table. Kate turned away from the window scowling. She hated that just seven years
ago he would’ve been signing petitions with her to ban those inefficient monstrosities and now
here he was driving one every day to work forty-five minutes away. The three of them sat down
at the table and began to eat silently. Kate looked down at her plate and studied every bite of
food she ate as if it was the most important thing she had ever done. She didn’t know what to
say.
“Oh I’d forgotten how much I loved this song!” Sadie exclaimed as “Sunday Morning”
began playing, “I don’t listen to The Velvet Underground nearly as much as I did when I lived in
the same house as you, mom.”
“What?” Kate looked up, startled. She hadn’t realized she’d zoned out.
“I just said…never mind. Umm I have something I have to tell you guys,” Sadie said as
she twisted her napkin into a knot before dropping it in her lap. Kate sat up. Was Sadie moving
again?
“It’s about Tyler. He…well, he asked me to marry him. And I said yes,” Sadie blurted
out. Steven congratulated his daughter as he hugged her tightly but Kate sat back in her seat
stunned. Married? But they were so young! There was still so much time for them to change.
They couldn’t possibly know what they really wanted at their age. Could they? She’d certainly
48
thought she’d known what she’d wanted then, and look how wrong she’d been. Could she let
Sadie make her same mistakes?
*
One warm June evening in ’68, when she had lived in San Francisco, Kate and her
boyfriend Reed had climbed up a hill and watched the sunset, beginning to end. Pinks had faded
to oranges then transformed to swirling greens and blues as they lay there in the lush grass, their
bodies pressed against the cool dirt. Bugs landed in her hair, but Kate didn’t notice. The sky was
a mesmerizing clash of colors, more vivid and stunning than anything she had ever seen in her
life. They lay on the hill and watched and watched until every last blotch of color had drained
from the sky revealing an expansive sky drenched in glittering stars. Kate sat up and felt the
wind tug at her hair and skirt. Her connection with the sky and the earth was so strong that she
felt as if she might float away. She gripped Reed’s hand in an attempt to keep herself from
falling.
*
“Mom, could I talk to you for a minute?” Sadie said as she made her way over to Kate,
who was sitting outside in her garden, despite the darkness. She moved over to make room for
Sadie on the ratty quilt spread on the ground and laughed quietly when she noticed that Sadie
was wearing one of her tattered Grateful Dead tee-shirts.
“Isn’t it beautiful out?” Kate asked, looking around the garden slowly, “Just breathe in
this air, Sadie. It makes you feel new again,” she said softly. “It brings back so many memories.
You know, the best things always happened to me in the spring, on nights like this. I went to the
best shows, and saw the best bands, and since it was warm we could sit outside and never have to
worry about being cold. And you would always meet the best people in the summer. I don’t
know, there’s just something about summer nights that makes them so magical. My old
boyfriend Reed and I would spend nights outside, just laying there, and I was always so wrapped
up in the stars and the breeze that I would forget where I was…” Kate trailed off, lost in her
thoughts.
“When did Dad ask you to marry him?” Sadie asked innocently but with an edge to her
voice that brought Kate out of her reverie.
“January 5th,” Kate said with a sad smile. They both sat there in silence, knowing what
they wanted to talk about but unable to say it.
49
“Mom, look, about Tyler…it’s what I want. I know it is. I don’t think I’ve ever been so
sure of anything in my life.”
“I know you think that now, Sadie, but people change. They always do. You grow apart.
You grow so far apart you barely know who the other is. And then you’re stuck.”
“But I love Tyler, isn’t that good enough? We’ll change, sure, but that won’t drive us
apart. We might change, but I’ll still love him and he’ll still love me!”
“I know you love him, Sadie,” Kate said wrapping her arm around her, “I just wanted
to…warn you about what happens when people grow older. I know I’m cynical. I just wished
that someone had told this to me before I got married.”
Sadie sighed as she broke away from her mom, laying back in the grass and watching the
sun sink into the trees. Once the last resilient strains of color had been swallowed by the dark
night sky, she sat up and crossed her arms bitterly across her chest.
“You and I are very different people, Mom. I wouldn’t base my future off of how you
ended up.” Sadie twisted the hem of her shirt tightly around her fingers. “I think you and I would
react very differently to a lot of things. I would never just sit back and let my relationship go to
ruins like you did. I would fight to the end.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Sadie?” Kate asked her daughter, the tiniest hint of anger
in her voice. “Are you suggesting…”
“You and Dad don’t aren’t in love. It’s hardly a secret Mom.” Sadie sighed again and
drew her legs to her chest. Kate sat next to her, palms pressed to the ground, as she took in what
her daughter had said. She supposed she should have guessed that Sadie knew that her
relationship with her husband had changed drastically over the years. How could she not have?
She’d been a firsthand witness. Kate tried to remember when the change had first happened.
There was no denying that she’d loved him at the beginning. But then things had happed, one by
one. And she hadn’t noticed them all piling up until it was too late to fix it.
“I don’t really care, Mom. You’re not going to change my mind about Tyler. I just don’t
understand why you never tried to fix it. It seemed to me that you always just stepped away from
every problem you’ve had with him and hoped that they’d fix themselves. I’m sorry Mom, but
it’s true. You’ll have to take a stand sometime.”
Kate remained seated after Sadie had left the garden, thinking about what Sadie had just
pointed out. Why hadn’t she tried to save her relationship? Had she really just sat back and
50
watched her relationship crumble around her instead of fighting to fix it like any person in love
would have?
Later that evening, Kate lay in her room, the moist spring air washing over her as she
talked to her close friend Jane.
“I don’t know how to fix this.” Kate murmured into the phone, picking stray threads out
of the worn sheets. “I have no idea where to even begin.”
“But honestly Kate, do you really want to fix this?” Jane said quietly into the phone. “I
know it’s what everyone will tell you that you should do. But is it really what you want? You
can’t keep denying this to yourself.”
Kate sighed as she lay back in her bed. She blinked irritably at the bright lamp that rested
next to her. It’s artificial light seared into her already aching mind. She reached over and flicked
it off as she contemplated what Jane had just said to her in the comforting darkness. What did
she want? If she had truly wanted Steven, wouldn’t she have fought for him long ago, as Sadie
had said? And he obviously didn’t need her love that much; he had let it slip away without even
raising his hand in protest.
“Kate? Why don’t you come out and stay with me for a little bit?” Jane’s voice cut
through her train of thought. “I think it would be good for you to get away for a bit.”
“Come stay with you? In San Francisco? It’d be just like old times.” Kate smiled slightly
as she recalled her times in California. “I don’t know Jane. I mean, what about Steven?”
“Kate! For goodness sakes, you don’t love him! You openly admit to that. And I doubt
you’ll be hurting his feelings. Why would it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, rolling to her side. Steven would care if she left, wouldn’t he?
She laughed quietly to herself. No, probably not. But then again, would she be broken if he left?
No
“I’ll come,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind. “I need to sleep now,
Jane, I’ll be out in a day or two hopefully.” Kate listened mindlessly as Jane talked excitedly for
a minute about how excited their old friends would be to hear that she was coming back, before
hanging up. Kate embraced the silence that filled her head as she inhaled the sweet spring air.
She would do it, wouldn’t she? She would leave Steven. Jane had been right; she didn’t want to
fix her relationship. It was so broken it was practically unfixable. And she doubted she’d be
51
happy even if they did try. This part of her life was over, Kate realized as she heard Steven open
the door. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep rather than acknowledge him.
*
Kate let herself into her best friend Jane’s tiny apartment, the same one that the two of
them had shared after they’d finished high school. She sat at the table and made herself a cup of
coffee as she waited for Jane to wake up. Jane was a painter and she’d covered the walls of her
kitchen with warm yellow and orange swirls and shapes, so Kate always felt very warm and alive
there compared to the dull blue walls of her kitchen at home. Kate was always surprised by how
much she remembered from her life in this apartment, and she found herself missing it as
everything in the room triggered her memory.
“Kate, darling, is that you?” a sleepy voice asked from the doorway.
“Jane! About time you woke up!” Kate laughed as she poured her a cup of coffee.
That night Jane took Kate out to see a band play. Some band Kate had never heard of.
They were called the Rules of Verse, and Kate was certain she’d never heard of them. Did their
name come from the Velvet Underground song? Or some other trend she’d completely missed?
She felt so out of touch.
Despite her initial hesitation, Kate found herself relaxing as she sipped her beer and
settled on the blanket they’d brought to sit on. She inhaled the sweet summer air, letting it fill her
lungs until she felt like she would burst.
“So do you recognize where we are?” Jane laughed as she plopped down next to Kate,
spilling her drink onto the long skirt she wore.
“No, should I?” Kate asked as she straightened the sleeves of her embroidered blouse.
“Well, if I remember correctly, you and a certain boy named Reed used to climb up that
hill right over there quite frequently,” Jane said as she gestured to one of the surrounding hills,
spilling her drink again. Kate stared at the hill in amazement. Of course! It looked so familiar
now; she was surprised she hadn’t recognized it immediately.
“Wow, I never thought I’d see that hill again! We have to climb up later, okay?” Kate
murmured. Just then the band Rules of Verse walked on stage.
“Jane…wait, is that…” Kate broke off in amazement.
“Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention it…”Jane said, “Sorry?” She giggled, her eyes
sparkling mischievously.
52
“That’s really Reed up there? My ex? He looks exactly the same! And he still plays!”
Kate said incredulously as the band broke into a cover of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer’s “Lucky
Man”.
“He was really excited when he heard you were going to be here,” Jane said slyly. Kate
flushed, but didn’t say anything. She was overwhelmed by how quickly things had changed. One
day she was at her house with her newly engaged daughter and a husband she didn’t know how
to talk to, and the next day she was in San Francisco and it was like she’d never left. Almost as if
the last twenty some years of her life had never happened. She watched Reed who was
completely focused on playing the music he still loved and lay back on the blanket, a warm
tingle flooding through her body. A light breeze tossed her skirt around her legs and Kate curled
them up under her and lay there in bliss with the music and the wind.
Kate stood with Jane at the front of the stage after the show had finished. She pretended
to casually glance around at the people milling about, but really she was only looking for one
person.
“Oh I just saw my friend Dave! I’m going to go say hi!” Jane said loudly as she suddenly
took off in the opposite direction. She turned around to look back at Kate and winked. Just then,
Kate felt someone stand behind her and touch her shoulder. She turned her head and looked into
his warm brown eyes as he took her hand and pulled her in the direction of her hill.
53
Anna Kassab
I Do?
I couldn’t sleep. The crickets outside my window chirped as the sound wafted in with a
cool breeze. Restless, tossing and turning through the past few nights, unable to sleep soundly. I
looked at the clock, it’s 1:53 am, I closed my eyes, I looked at the clock again it was 2:03 am.
Maybe if I fall asleep within the next seven minutes, I could squeeze three hours and fifty
minutes of sleep out of this night before having to wake up for work at six o’clock in the
morning. But seriously…who was I kidding? My frustration grew as this sleeplessness
continued. I finally got up and tried to make my way across the room as I stumbled upon the
unpacked boxes that surrounded our bed. We had just moved in together the previous weekend. I
decided if I couldn’t sleep I should at least try and get some work done, but it was impossible.
My mind was everywhere, and nowhere. I was searching for any type of remedy to help me
sleep. Some suggested medicine or seeing a doctor, but I knew the reason for my sleepless
nights. It was not due to any serious medical condition, it was stress. The overwhelming stress
caused my insomnia.
After a long day at work, I was sitting relaxing on the couch downstairs, when I heard
Mariah call.
“Hey, can you come up here and help me make the bed and put away a few of these
boxes?” I closed my eyes pretending to nap, hoping she would see that I was sleeping and that’s
why I hadn’t responded. “Hey! Really quick, I just need your help for a second” Just like fingers
scraping across a chalk board, her voice grated on me.
“What?” I responded instantly realizing that I way over reacted exposing my irritability
to her.
“Never mind,” she said in a voice that clearly expressed her confusion and distaste for my
attitude.
“I’m taking a walk,” I yell upstairs to her as I storm outside and slam the door behind me.
This hadn’t been the first incident when I had snapped at her so quickly. My attitude had
taken a noticeable turn for the worse in the past week or two. For a while I couldn’t figure out
54
why, but it was becoming clearer. Was I honestly having these thoughts now? Only two weeks
before the wedding?
A friend and coworker, Robin, noticed that I had been side tracked and distracted the past
few days. Together we had been working on a new project, co-designing a new green office
building in downtown San Francisco. This two story building was going to occupy the workers
for an up and coming real estate law office. The plans needed to be put into place for the builders
to move in and begin their construction Mid June, it was already April 1st. The clock was ticking,
and time was passing quickly.
Robin and I had been working together for two years and had been acquaintances for
twenty. Our friendship stems from working together, but it’s nice that we also grew up in close
proximity to each other and knew each other from school. I have always found her a helpful
listener, and feel comfortable confiding thoughts about my relationship with Mariah. She is the
only one who knows the struggle within me which has become a fighting force contending for
my attention and energy. It’s tough to come from living an independent life, to being a part of an
equal relationship.
Last summer the pressure from Mariah’s parents became apparent to me as we
vacationed with them in Italy. Her father pulled me aside and sat me down for a “talk”.
Basically, the conversation indicated their pressure for us to get married. (They placed a rush
order on our relationship) He told me to shape up, or ship out. I had to pop the question soon
proving I was in the relationship for the long haul, or move on. Their reasons were completely
understandable, but I just couldn’t believe that Richard and Emily cared so much. They wanted
grandchildren, and as older parents, they saw the clock ticking. They wanted to be a part of their
grandchildren’s lives, whereas my parents couldn’t give a shit.
He pulled me aside, Richard asked me to join him as he walked out to the vineyard.
Unknowing of his intentions, I openly walked next to him.
“Son, things are not always as they seem. There is a reason as to why we are on the older
side and have a daughter Marian’s age.” It struck me as he was talking that he referred to me as
“son”, I was now feeling confused. “Emily and I had a tough time conceiving a child. We went
through everything you can imagine experiencing two miscarriages. It was very painful, but we
knew that we wanted to have children of our own; adoption was never a viable option.” I nodded
55
my head, I was unsure how this conversation really applied to me or why he was confiding in
me. “You may wonder why I’m telling you all of this. Well, I want Mariah to have the
experience of being a mother. I know that it’s important to her and I don’t want you to wait too
long. The longer you wait the harder it is, you know? I know that this is hard to hear…”
All of a sudden I felt a heat flush come over my body. I was very uncomfortable. I felt as
though I was trapped in the corner of a boxing ring with a huge heavy weight coming toward me.
As I stayed silent, I was fully aware of how red my face must have become. Not only was I
caught off guard, but he was definitely moving ahead of where my mind was at the time. I hadn’t
even proposed yet, and here he was talking to me about having children.
Later that summer, Mariah and I took our own little vacation to Hawaii, where I finally
asked her to marry me. Previous to this, I had always been able to find a reason not to. But now,
especially with the strong support of her parents, there was no doubt in my mind. I had been
planning this proposal since we made the decision to go. I scheduled us a time to go scuba diving
together, and check out an old plane wreck. I had briefed our scuba instructor on my intentions to
bring the ring underwater with us, and place it noticeably inside the wreck for Mariah to find. I
knew I would not be able to verbally communicate with her, and in preparation I had a small slip
of paper that read: “I love you, will you marry me?” laminated and placed inside the jewelry box
with the ring. I was worried throughout that day, that somehow the plan would get messed up.
There was no way a plan that complicated could actually work out. Taking the ring underwater?
Maybe it wasn’t such a smart idea. What if it got lost? What if she says no? All of these thoughts
raced through my head. Luckily everything went according to plan, and she accepted with no
hesitation.
I love Mariah, our relationship has been strong for 2 years, and I couldn’t be happier with
anyone else. The one thing that attracted me to her was her adventuresome personality. She’s
always ready to take on a challenge or try something new. She’s spontaneous and loving with a
competitive edge. Physically, she stands about 5’6” (just short enough to fit her head under my
chin while standing) she has a slender figure with slight facial features, but she’s strong enough
to fight for herself. She has long wavy dirty blond hair which contrasts with her green eyes. This
is the woman I longed to spend the rest of my life with. In my heart, marriage was the next step.
Growing up, I always had Amelia (my older sister) to look after me. That was at least
until she went off to college. By that point I was nine, and already learned how to care for my
56
own basic needs. Money was never the issue. When my parents were around, they made every
dream of mine materialize. All except for my longing desire to be loved and supported
emotionally by them. I never had the kind of parents who would come to my soccer or lacrosse
games and cheer my name. And I can’t tell you how many times I stood waiting outside the
school for my parents who too many times, just forgot to pick me up. I came home every night to
a very large empty house and my dog, Molly. I would sit down on the couch, flick on the
television, and warm up a plate that was usually left for me in the refrigerator. After school as I
sat in the living room chipping away at my homework, my parents when they came home would
just peek their heads in to make sure that I was around or they would call to check in if they were
out. On weekends I spent much of my time at my friend Jack’s house. His parents became my
main parental figures. To this day, I still drop by on occasion for lunch during the work week.
My fear of commitment to Mariah stemmed directly from my experiences as a child. I
have always known in my gut that I never wanted to build the same kind of family that I grew up
in and raising scared me. Although I am aware of what I don’t want to do, I don’t know what I’m
supposed to do. I’ve been living on my own for so long; all of the decisions that I’ve had to
make; I’ve only been concerned about myself. Now, I was going to have to consider Mariah and
how things would affect her. It’s hard for me to imagine myself being in a marriage, raising
children and caring for them. Although deep down inside I know that it’s something that I want,
I’m afraid that I would not be good at it. You know the saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the
tree, well, there is some reality here that terrifies me.
On my way home, I stopped off at Jack’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Marcus greeted me
warmly. I spoke with them about everything that had been racing around in my head. They really
helped place me back into reality. I was worrying too much; I just needed to go with the flow.
(Jack’s parents were hippies as they were growing up). They were right. I just needed to relax.
As I step inside the house after my long walk, I immediately notice the absence of
Mariah. It was seven o’clock in the evening, and it was just beginning to get dark outside. The
shadows that casted in through the picture window onto our dining room table were growing
faint. I heard the phone ringing. As I made my way through the rest of the unpacked boxes, the
answering machine picked up first. I paused, waiting to see who it was. I heard her voice on the
other end. I froze.
57
“Hey babe, it’s me. I was just calling to see if you were home yet. You stormed out
angrily without giving me a chance to tell you I had a meeting tonight at school. Anyway, we
need to talk…not now, I’m going to spend the night at my parents, but I’m really upset. I’ll call
you later.”
Why didn’t I answer? Why didn’t I pick up and tell her I’m sorry, I love her, and want
her to come home tonight? Right away I called her back but she said she couldn’t talk now, she
had a meeting and had to collect her thoughts and think about what she was going to say.
“I’ll call you later!” she said in a frustrated tone of voice as she tried to hide it from her
coworkers. And click. That was it.
For the next hour I found myself dozing off and on in front of the TV, in our bedroom. I
needed to stay awake; I needed to be awake to get the phone call from Mariah. But after a few
rough nights, I couldn’t deny my body the rest it needed. I fell asleep fully clothed. Of course, I
missed the phone call from Mariah later. She probably thought I was ignoring her after we left
things on the phone earlier that night. I remember she didn’t have work today because it was
spring break for her students. I called her from work around lunch, and when I did, she seemed
as if I had just woken her up. She asked if we could meet for dinner tonight at seven.
After work I drove straight over to the restaurant. I wasn’t sure what Mariah needed to
tell me, but I knew I had to find a way to make her aware that I was committed to her. I knew she
had picked up on my unenthusiastic tone every time she motioned wedding details, or my quick
irritability. She had been tiptoeing around me all week trying not to aggravate me. I sensed that it
was wearing on her. She was bottling up some feeling, she was holding something back.
I got there a few minutes early, but Mariah was already at the table. She looked beautiful
as always even in her jeans and Coldplay concert t-shirt that we bought together. She stood up
from the table and greeted me with a pleasant smile and kiss.
“How did your parent teacher meetings go last night?”
“They went well, thanks. But listen, I have something I really need to tell you.”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “I do too.” She edged for me to go first. I hadn’t really planned my
exact words. “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I love you. I can’t wait to marry you. I’m sorry if in
the past week it hasn’t always seemed that way.”
She smiled her usual smile showing her bright white teeth.
58
“I’m so relieved to hear you say that, you really worried me,” she said. We went on; she
brought up some of the topics about the wedding and honeymoon that she had avoided. We
ordered our food and were midway through our meal when I realized she had never told me what
she originally wanted to. When I reminded her, her face automatically turned more serious. She
set down her fork, whipped her face with her napkin, and slowly looked up from her plate. She
had a little trouble swallowing that last bite, and washed it down with some water. Her puppy
dog eyes stared straight into mine.
“I’m pregnant,” she said while looking at me; searching for a reaction. Suddenly
surprising even myself, I started gleaming. I jumped up and wrapped my arms around her. While
I wasn’t sure myself whether or not my feelings were sincere to my actions, I was happy about
how I spontaneously reacted. As I embraced her I felt her relax and take a deep breath. She must
have been dreading telling me this news.
Having that reaction as my first response definitely helped me prove myself to Mariah.
My body must have known that that was my conscious desire. Although my reasons to never
have children are valid, I can just as well use them in an argument as reason I should become a
father. Instead of letting them predict my parenting ability, I figured I would the experience from
my own childhood, to guide me in make the right decisions. Like Thomas Edison said; “I have
not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” With this mentality I could
never lose.
After the stress from the past week had been relieved, it was nice to be walking out of the
restaurant hand in hand heading home together. As I crawled into bed, I felt Mariah’s feet rub up
against my leg. All was finally at peace within me. As I closed my eyes, I could see it all. Ten
years from now, on a crisp, cool, late November, autumn day, Mariah and I would be playing
outside with our son or daughter (possibly two children by then) tossing the ball, or playing in
the leaves. When our noses started to run we would hurry inside for some hot chocolate with
marshmallows.
59
1940 Mercury
Dan Masse
Scottsdale, Arizona, January 2010: Barrett Jackson collector car auction. This is it—the
ultimate event of any collector’s life. This is not a place for amateurs; the people here bring
serious money. These aren’t just any cars for sale, and none is in a condition less than flawless;
there’s a reason why the stage attendants wear silk gloves.
Millions of cable subscribers are watching as the auctioneer rattles off numbers and
figures, scanning the crowd for raised hands. Any car on the block will sell; someone will want
it, and most sale prices are more than an average working-class yearly salary. Tensions rise as
the price climbs and all but two bidders give up. Nervous seconds pass. The cameras alternate
between the two black-tie men, hands folded, eyes staring at the other. The auctioneer speaks one
audible word, “Sold!” and slams his gavel. One final camera shot of the indifferent buyer, then
the car is whisked away and another put in its place.
First up is a war-era Mercury coupe. The screen behind the stage flashes with short bursts
of information: found in a barn, restored by a student, completely rebuilt Lincoln engine,
modernized interior, professionally painted with Sherwin-Williams gloss, originated in New
Jersey—all impressive statistics. Bidding starts at thirty thousand. That’s about right for a car
like this.
Price is going up fast. The counter is at forty-five thousand. Fifty-five! Unbelievable. It’s
quiet. The auctioneer asks for sixty thousand dollars. A man in the back raises his hand. Sold!
The gavel slams and the new owner signs the title. The auctioneer is already taking bids on a
Dodge Challenger.
*
Jack couldn’t really blame George. He was the oldest, and had sacrificed enough. He wanted to
keep Helen’s old car for himself, so he could. Jack and his younger brother had enough money to
buy themselves a car. He hoped so.
It was an ugly place. A small, nondescript sign said “C. Murphy, Cars Bought and Sold”
above a tiny office building. It looked more like an impound lot than a car dealership, with rusty
60
barbed wire surrounding an assortment of old cars in various states of decay. The broken
pavement was littered with scraps of metal and rubber, permanently stained by oil, grease, and
gasoline. A typical New Brunswick establishment, barely even noticed by a traveler on NJ Route
26. Jack didn’t care. He was 18 and had just gotten his license. One step closer to freedom.
Gene walked quickly, so Jack kept up. They entered the dismal office building, where a
man sat at an old metal desk, Murphy, Jack assumed. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray on the
desk as the old gray man stared aimlessly at his newspaper. The faint sound of a radio bounced
around the room from somewhere. Jack wasted no time.
“Hello. We’d like to buy a car.”
Murphy frowned, crumpled his newspaper and sighed, “Well?”
“Do you have any?”
Another sigh, more like a laugh, as he leaned back in his chair. “Yeah boys, I got some
cars. You figure out which one you’re interested in, then we’ll talk.”
“Can you show us?”
The old man rolled his eyes, sighed again, then slowly lumbered out of his seat. He
straightened his tie, pulled on a jacket hanging on his chair, then stepped around the desk.
“Alright,” he growled, stomping towards the door.
Murphy walked slowly, with Gene and Jack trailing anxiously at his heels. He led them
to the back of the lot, past the Cadillacs, past the Lincolns, towards the Fords, the Dodges, the
Chevrolets. Each car had a hand-written sign in the window, just prices, decreasing as they
walked farther back.
Murphy stopped, so Jack and Gene stopped. What now?
“Well, take a look!” Murphy said, almost shouted, over his shoulder.
The dumbfounded boys sprang into their steps, pouncing on the car nearest them.
“What’s this one?” Jack questioned.
Murphy casually pointed to the “Ford” lettering on the hood. Jack nodded coolly, as if he
had done this plenty of times before, then sprang open the door and got in the driver’s seat. His
fingertips tapped the wheel while his eyes surveyed the interior. Gene kicked the tires. He didn’t
really know what to look for, just that people kick tires sometimes.
“Hey! What do you call this?” Jack’s foot had fallen through the floor.
Murphy nodded, unfazed. “I call that a rusted out floor panel.”
61
Jack carefully lifted his leg, avoiding the sharp, jagged metal. “Well, that’s bad! Can you
fix it?”
“No, but you can, son. All you need is a piece of wood, don’t even have to be nailed
down.”
Gene shook his head. “I don’t know, Jack. A piece of wood’s not gonna hold up. And
George won’t let us use his tools. Hey mister, what’s this one over here?” He pointed to a lessrusted car next to the Ford.
Murphy smiled a little. Time to be a salesman. “That’s a 1940 Mercury Coupe, one of the
finest cars on my lot. Take a look.”
Jack yanked open the hood. Gene peered over his shoulder, both of them excited like
little kids. “It’s got six cylinders,” Jack said to Gene, observing the engine block—is that what
it’s called?—from the left side.
“There’s another six over here,” said Gene from the right.
“What? Really? That’s…12 cylinders! Are you kidding me?”
“Awesome! Think how fast we can go!”
“No, think about how much fuel it’ll use…”
“Come on, Jack, I—“
“12 cylinders, 12 years old—no way, man.”
Murphy, still smiling, “Boys, I guarantee you will not be disappointed by this car. If
you’re looking for the perfect combination of function, luxury, performance, and
reliability…well, you found it here. But I’m telling you—this car won’t be here for long…”
“Actually, what we’re looking for is just anything in the range of eighty-five to one
hundred dollars.”
“Well, take a look.”
”We just did.”
Murphy, back to the grumpy old man. “No, son, look on the windshield.” There it was, a
faded brown paper sign lettered in pencil. “1940 MERCURY. REBUILT V-12. RUNS GOOD.
$100.”
Gene pulled the money out of his pocket. Jack spoke. “We’ll take it.”
------
62
“Hey, Phil, it’s Joe…I thought you might be home by now—are you screening your
calls? Just wanted to ask you something before the weekend. I found an old Mercury in the back
of the lot, behind the engine pile; looks like it hasn’t been touched in a while. So what I wanted
to ask you is…could I buy it from you…you know, I’ve restored a couple old cars before.
Anyway, it’s no big deal, gimme a call if you think of it.”
Slam down the phone. Turn off the lights, lock the door, close the gate, go home. The
week is over. Where’s my truck? Next block, that’s right. Stay on this side of the street,
sidewalk’s less crowded. Sky looks like it might snow. I hope not, that’s always a nightmare on
these streets. And we’ll have Eagles traffic on Sunday, stadium’s only a few blocks away. Or are
they on the road this weekend?
There it is. I walked right past it. Not my truck, that’s what I’m looking for. The Mercury.
Must be from the 40’s—look at the slope on that trunk. Probably one of the first models Mercury
ever built. Rusted through just about everywhere, you can look right through the driver’s door
and see the Vet. It looks so much sadder from this side of the fence. Windows broken, chrome
stripped off, fallen off—not there, anyway. Looks like the inside is empty except for the steering
wheel. Is the engine still in there? Probably all corroded if it is. Must be huge with how long that
hood is. I guess I can fix it. Dad left his old Plymouth outside for…for ten years and I got it
running. All it needed was new fluids and plugs. These old cars are so simple. A caveman can
work on them; I’ll figure out what I don’t already know. Everything on them is steel or rubber,
no plastic like what’s all over the new cars. Wonder whose it was, where it came from. Phil
might know. It could’ve been worth something in scrap, now there’s not much left of it. Why’s it
still here? Nobody seems to have any reason for keeping it. Somebody must like it. Well, I do
anyway. It’s just too cool to leave there—either fix it up or scrap it, put it to use somehow.
There’s nothing more depressing than an old car just rusting away, like it’s dying slowly; no one
cares enough to just finish it off. And there’s no reason to…to throw away something that’s just
broken. But if people didn’t then I wouldn’t have a job. Anything can be fixed. I guess I can do
it.
It’s cold out here. Yeah, that’s a snowflakes falling. Fantastic. I’ve got to get a good pair
of gloves; my hands are freezing. Truck’s right there, I’m going home.
-----63
Phil is the man, Joe thought. He pretty much gave away the Mercury, selling it to Joe for
one dollar. He even let Joe borrow his flatbed to haul it to his house. They took it up that
afternoon and left it on Joe’s small front yard; he figured he couldn’t put it on the street or the
city would ticket it, try to put a boot on its tireless wheels, then tow it to the impound lot and
charge him one hundred times its value to get it back. Four cinderblocks supported the derelict
vehicle, and Joe threw a tarp over it so the neighbors wouldn’t complain about an eyesore. He
already found a vintage Lincoln-Mercury parts supplier in Camden and he bought a book on prewar Mercury. Joe’s brother-in-law lent him some tools and offered to help with the bodywork. It
was perfect. Except he didn’t tell Catherine.
“Joseph,” Catherine called from the kitchen, where she had just walked in. He was on the
couch, reading the Daily News.
“Hi honey. You need any help with dinner?” Play it cool, man.
“What is that—thing on my yard?”
“Oh yeah, just a…car.”
“Looks like a car that should be at your junkyard.”
Now he put the paper down. Don’t let her get angry. “Actually, it was. But I kind of like
it so I bought it. I’m gonna fix it up.”
“Oh, Joe, why do you always do this? I come home and—either the furniture is
rearranged or my rosebushes are ripped out!” Good try. She lost it.
“Catherine, please…don’t yell. You know I just do what I…think is best.” That sounded
weak. She’ll come back with something worse.
“Well, I know what’s best, and that’s what I do. I cleaned the cheesesteak wrappers out
of your truck yesterday. You’re welcome! I skipped my lunch break today…so I could do two
extra hair appointments and buy a few Christmas gifts—for your parents! So don’t try to make
me the bad guy.”
Joe was quiet. He didn’t want to fight. Instead he thought about how to explain it, without
sounding like he was explaining it. She’d see right through that.
“Listen, Catherine…I’m sorry. And that’s not what this is about. The car was just
something I thought I wanted. I’m not much, but I know a lot about cars. And for most of my
life, they’re just work, you know? The most satisfaction I get from them is my paycheck. I get
64
paid to rip cars apart. Now, for once I want to fix something—building something is what it’s
going to end up being.”
Catherine was looking out the window; not at the car, that was on the other side of the
house. She wasn’t avoiding him, just looking out at the world. Joe stood next to her and put his
arm around her. She didn’t resist.
“Catherine, I wear jeans with holes in them, I drink cheap beer in cans, and my truck’s
got more miles on it then most freight trains, but I don’t care. I’m happy with that. I don’t need
fancy shoes to be happy…like you do, God bless you. But now I want something for myself, just
one thing. I saw… an opportunity. It’s not much to look at, but it’s something I can make look
nice…and be good at, you know?”
Joe lowered his eyes, folded his hands. She was quiet for a while.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. And I want you to do what you want. But that ‘opportunity’ is
not staying on my front yard—”
“I’ll take care of it. I’ll ask my dad if I can keep it in his barn.” It’ll work, Joe thought.
Hoped.
“Okay.” Catherine paused, then turned to face him. “And I didn’t forget that offer. Start
washing the potatoes, they’re on the counter.”
-----The place was hard to find. The Craigslist ad that said “Minutes from Philadelphia” was a
lie. Dave had already stopped to ask two Amish families for directions and neither knew the
family he was looking for. All these country roads looked the same, with miles of cornfields,
fence posts, and old barns. The last mailbox number he had seen was 200; 299 could be next, or
it could be three miles down the road. Dave squinted at the faded numbers on mailboxes,
eventually finding the ones he was looking for. He slowed down and took the turn, his Pontiac’s
stiff suspension protesting against the rutted dirt driveway.
All he knew was that someone here had a “very old car;” that’s all the ad had said. And
when he called the number on the ad last night, the nice lady with whom he spoke said she didn’t
know anything else about it, but he should still come look at the car. Dave expected to be
disappointed but figured he had nothing to lose—a lot of rare cars turn up in barns. He thought
that maybe it could be something valuable, like an early Mustang, but figured it was more likely
to be an old station wagon that some farmer had put away and forgotten about.
65
The front door of the house was open, so Dave just said, “Hello?” He heard footsteps on
the stairs, then a lady came to greet him. Dave introduced himself; her name was Mary, Mrs.
Mary Atkins. She invited him in to meet her husband, who came to the door before Dave could
enter.
“Hi, how are ya? You wanna go take look?” Kink of gruff, Dave thought, but that was
offset by Mary’s pleasantness. The screen door slammed behind him as he stepped onto the
wraparound porch. He was short, with curly gray hair poking our from under a baseball cap. His
shirt was clean but well used, a testament to his work on this land, no doubt.
The man’s boots stomped across the porch as he walked quickly. Dave followed him to
the dirt driveway, where the two walked towards a faded red barn. They stopped at a large
sliding door, where the man searched around in his pocket for something. He pulled out a set of
keys, juggling them in his hand to find the right one. He unlocked the door, then grabbed its
mammoth handles and yanked it open. Metal bearings screeched as the door’s wood frame
groaned, the giant edifice rapidly opening to the sunlight. The man entered the barn with just as
much urgency; Dave followed.
There was an old Dodge truck just behind the door, and another Ford even older behind
it. Both showed the wears of farm work, with permanent dust and dirt coverings, monumental
scratches, and patches of rust. Stacks of crates, most likely waiting to be packed with the year’s
corn crop, filled most of the barn. A shiny new John Deere tractor sat behind another large door.
In the corner behind it was an odd-shaped object—probably the “very old car”—covered with a
tarp.
The man was now at that corner of the barn, where he ripped off the tarp and cast it aside.
“It’s over here,” he said, as if there were any question.
Dave carefully walked across the barn’s unsteady floorboards, stepping around
protruding nails. The man was leaning against a wall now, his hands in his pockets.
“So, do you know anything about it?” Dave asked, tentatively.
The man shrugged, tilting his head and speaking out of the side of his mouth. “Yeah, it
was my little brother’s. He got it out of his junkyard, thought he could fix it up. My dad let him
keep it here, but…both of ‘em are dead now, so I’m trying to get rid of it. I was gonna cut it up
with my torch and try to use some pieces for something. My wife wouldn’t let me; she thought it
might be worth something. So whaddaya think?”
66
There wasn’t much to say about. The car was little more than a rusted-out body. It looked
like it had all of its engine components, Dave could see through the broken grille. But if the old
man knew what was good for him, he wouldn’t be trying to sell it to just anyone. “Sir, uh…I’m
sorry, what’s your name?”
“Ed.”
“Well, Ed, this is a 1939 or ‘40 Mercury coupe. ’39 was the first year for Mercury, so not
many of these were made. Even in this condition, it’s worth a lot. And that engine in there…is a
V-12. It’s the biggest engine that Ford ever built. It was a terrible engine…it would burn oil,
overheat and melt cylinder heads, blow gaskets—but all that can be fixed, with modern
technology. So this car is…really valuable, like your wife thought. Even in this condition, you
could get several thousand dollars for it.”
Dave sighed, disappointed. He couldn’t afford it. He was a professional student, having
gone directly to graduate school after taking six years to earn a bachelor’s degree, pretty much
spending the entire first decade of the millennium in school. And now, at the suggestion of his
counselor, Dave was taking a semester to “find himself;” maybe the answers for his future
weren’t at the university. He hadn’t “found anything” yet, but he had spent money he didn’t have
and angered more than a few people with his laziness.
“So ya want it or not?” Ed sounded insistent, so Dave answered quickly.
“Well, I don’t think I can—I’m…a student, I don’t have the money…”
“Tell you what, kid…you can have it.” Ed shrugged, maybe feeling uncomfortable being
so generous.
Dave couldn’t believe it. “I’ll take it,” he said. They shook on it.
67
Untitled
Shannon McGowan
The walls were high, reaching towards the heavens, offering peace and asking for
forgiveness. What had this family done to deserve this punishment? A breath-taking scene
captured the pain of a single man taking the punishment for a world full of sins. His thin body
was frail and pointy, jagged bones protruded through the skin which was too small and stretched
far too much to cover entire bone structure of this man. His long bony fingers were loosely
clutched in a fist with blood slowly running down his arms. It was a painful sight to look at it,
and it made Carly nauseous. Why us? Why this family? The eyes of the man suffering looked
upward, and it seemed like he was looking up to someone. If he was there to save us, who gets to
save him? And who was he looking at, up above? After May 4, 2004, Carly was convinced that
there was no God. There is no hero to save us now.
Before, as Carly referred to it in her own thoughts, church was a place of comfort. The bright
lights and piano music relaxed her. The best part was when Mrs. Brandy sang “Hallelujah,” it
was very entertaining to watch. Mrs. Brandy must have been about ninety-nine years old; she
was petite, smaller than Carly. Her hair was always a wild afro, and it looked like she just got off
a motorcycle ride. Along with her crazy hair, her eyes were like a cat’s, always darting back and
forth. Every Sunday, she felt the need to make a grand entrance to her awaited stage. She would
inch up the aisle with her walker that looked as old as she was. One. Step. At. A. Time. The
progression was usually compared to a turtle crawling up the aisle. Carly felt bad for her,
whispers would break out like wildfire in the once silent church. Mrs. Brandy’s entrance was tea
time for the church goers, a chance to quietly socialize to the person next to them. Instead, Carly
watched Mrs. Brandy silently. She wondered if she wore that same blue floral dress every day, or
if she only wore it on Sundays. When she passed Carly, Mrs. Brandy would flash her crooked
smile. She was missing some teeth and her red light stick was smeared. Mrs. Brandy’s voice was
well worth the wait. It sent chills up Carly’s small ten year old spine. She didn’t know why it
made her feel that way, it just did. After Mrs. Brandy sang, Carly liked to tune out and the world
and just there and think. The gentle voice of the priest allowed Carly to drift into her own
thoughts and escape from reality. Church used to be the only time Carly felt relaxed.
68
Not anymore. This place was torture. Depressing, sad, and slow music filled the pews
of the church. Black shadows of strangers in Carly’s life marched into the church like ants into
the ant hole. She didn’t even know half of these people. They didn’t know her. They don’t know
what happened, what it feels like inside. So why they are here, dressed in black, mourning for
what they have not experienced? It seemed pretty hypocritical. Carly was grateful that people
took the time to come, but if your life was not touched by Corrin, why pretend it was? It was an
act, a small scene in these people’s life. A scene that would not alter or change them, it had no
affect on them. And these people were bad actors. Everyone was supposed to be mourning and
appreciating the life of Corrin Gates. Instead, they were hugging and smiling at Carly, telling her
sorry. Sorry? A simple word meant to alleviate pain and help people relate, but it’s really only a
buffer between two people. It’s a word you can say when you don’t know what else to say. It’s
only a word, and nothing else. Sorry is a word that doesn’t fix the problem, no matter how many
ways you say it. It just doesn’t.
Hordes of people swarm around Carly and her head was spinning. Too many people, too many
voices, and none of them are familiar. Carly desperately reaches out for a hand, someone to take
her in. She fumbles and loses her balance. The swarm of black is all around her, suffocating her.
The darkness is closing in, and she is willing to let it. A hand grabs her from the crowd and saves
her. She looks up, grateful for her savior. She smiles and kisses her father on the check. He
wraps his huge arm around her shoulders and together they walk to the first pew. Carly tightly
wraps her arms around him and lets her weight drop. She lets him do all the walking and talking
to the people they pass. He protects her from the fake smiles and guides her in the right direction.
When they sit down, Tom still doesn’t let go. For the first time that day, Carly felt like she has
something to hold on to.
***
She was running. As fast as she could. Her bare feet pounded the sidewalk, and tiny pebbles
punctured her skin. Her heart was pounding in her head. Her breathe came in short raspy bursts.
The bouncing of her strides caused the horizon in front of her to move slightly up and down. Her
favorite oak tree and tree house was a blur of green and brown. A flash a pink whipped around
the corner and Tessa's brown hair was trailing behind her.
69
“Wait for me!” Carly was desperately trying to catch Tessa as she ran down the Gate’s
driveway and into her own.
“Hurry up Carly!!” Tessa playfully calls over her shoulder. The girl's game of tag took
place play across the grass and sidewalks connecting their houses. Its summer time and the days
are long and the playing goes on forever. Bare feet girls run wild across the grass, pigtails flying
and knees dirty. Their laughs and shrieks echo through the neighborhood. As the sun disappears,
the fireflies wake from their slumber and brighten up the night. The girls ran through Carly's
house, letting the screen door slam behind them.
"Girls, slow down!" Carly's mom, Corrin, was lying in her bedroom with the door open. She
had been in her room all day and showed no signs of leaving. But, Corrin was still able to scold
and correct her daughter's behavior from bed rest.
"Carly, it's almost dark, time to come in." Her booming voice carried itself from her bed room
to Carly's room.
"But we're about to go collect the lights!" Carly protested.
Every evening in the summer, Carly, Tessa, and Corrin would catch fireflies until the whole jar
glowed a pale yellow. This was Carly's favorite part of the day. The air cools down, and the stars
slowly emerge from the clouds. Fireflies are graceful creatures, with a slow blinking light. A
shimmer of hope, one blink and the light is gone.
"Ma, you coming?" Carly yelled over her shoulder.
"No... not tonight honey," Corrin slowly replied.
***
"Tessa! Tessa? Come outside!" Carly frantically yelled into the kitchen's open window. It was
the last night of summer before school started, and Carly was anxious to collect fireflies for the
last time this summer. Tomorrow, they would start fifth grade. The fifth graders were the rulers
of the school, and they outgrew their childhood pastimes. They were getting ready for middle
70
school. In Carly and Tessa's mind, their childhood was over and this was the last chance to
collect fireflies. Starting tomorrow, they would become adults. Well, as adult as a ten year old
can be. Tessa came running out, fully aware of the importance of the last night. All summer long,
they had looked forward to entering the fifth grade. Tessa asked Carly if her mom was going to
come, she hadn't participated all summer.
"Why doesn't your mom play with us anymore?" Tessa questioned Carly as they walked
across the damp grass.
"She told me she didn't feel good," Carly answered.
"What's wrong? She hasn't felt good all summer," Tessa said.
"I don't know.... I think it's a bad tummy ache or something"
"Well my mommy told me she had a bad disease."
"Well your mommy is wrong. My mom is just fine," Carly defended her mom.
The girls walked in silence. Carly and Tessa walked into Carly’s house to grab their jars, and
saw Carly's mom curled up on the couch. She looked drained and exhausted. Carly froze. Was
Tessa right? She quickly grabbed Tessa and pulled her out of the room. Tessa was wrong; her
mom was taking another nap. Carly felt embarrassed and ashamed by her mother, she wasn't
sick. She was fine.
Carly's dad was in the kitchen, cooking like always. Tom was a tall man with a solid build; he
used to play football in college. He had brown hair that was slowly fading to gray. Recently, it
seemed to look more gray than brown. Carly liked how the light shone on it, making it appear
silver. The best thing about him was that he would stay home from work with Carly if she was
sick, or if they went on an adventure. Tom was leaning over the stove, checking the temperature
of his famous chicken noodle soup. His blue eyes were squinted, and the wrinkles in his forehead
emerged. He seemed to have more wrinkles than before. His giant hands held the small spoon,
and stirred in slow, rhythmic circles. Tom gentle tapped his foot to the beat inside his head.
71
"Hey kiddo, what’s up?" Tom called out to the girls as they walked past.
"Wanna come with me and Tessa?!" Carly ran up to her father and tugged on his jacket.
"Sure thing girls, let me just give this soup to your mother," Tom poured the chicken noodle
soup into a bowl and turned the stove off.
****
Why were they staring at her like that? Were they watching her to see what she would
do? Was she that interesting? Did they really think she was going to make a huge scene? People
could be so rude. Carly's hand trembled as she held onto the rose. She held onto to it for comfort.
The thorns pricked her skin, a drop of blood dripped down. She couldn't feel anymore pain. The
blood was bright red, and it slowly turned the tip of her finger red. Carly whipped it across her
dark dress. The wind whipped around her, blowing her hair in all different directions. It filled her
ears and dried her tears. She heard the priest's words, but couldn't comprehend what he was
saying. Her body slowly moved forward, and she placed the rose down. She stood there and
stared, whispering a final goodbye. Carly glanced over at her father, the distance between them
seemed huge. She took a step closer to him; she needed him right now. He was always there for
her, always. But this time, he backed away.
72
Brian Mehalick
The Longest Fall
Two days ago, I was convinced I was the feature of an MTV reality show, True Life: I
live with my parents. I was only thirty-two, I still had time to settle down and start a family. I
couldn't even get any sleep nowadays. My damp bed sheets expelled a far too familiar smell that
had managed to stay with me throughout the day. I was a bed wetter up until the sorry age of
twelve and the uncomfortable dampness of the bed brought back embarrassing memories. The
space known as the attic housed many of mother’s treasures and belongings that could never be
discarded. Among them were the twin sized Sesame Street sheets that she managed to spot in the
U-haul box labeled “Joe’s baby stuff” after receiving a sporadic phone call from her son, me,
asking to stay for a little while. Many mornings the old man greeted me with his distinct, rugged
voice as he violently ripped the Elmo comforter from my lifeless, half naked body.
“Get up and do something with your life, you moron.”
I didn't expect anything different from Pop. He didn't take shit from anybody. Pop’s no nonsense
attitude manifested from his decorated military background. He was nicknamed “Frank the
Tank”, a highly respected Army General, and an even braver soldier in Vietnam. By the time I
was in middle school, Dad was constantly being stationed and relocated overseas. At times I
hated him for leaving us, abandoning Mom to deal with all the problems back home, problems
that I was the primary facilitator of. Mom deserved some sort of medal, a Distinguished Service
Medal, Purple Heart, something, for surviving the impossible mission of raising three teenage
children and still living to see the day. My relationship with the old man was not on the best of
terms when he departed. There were a strict set of rules in our family that could be counted on
one hand. There was something called marijuana that completely consumed my life for a short
couple months. It became my best friend, taking priority over family, school, and even my
girlfriend. Just days before yet another relocation, I had gotten caught red handed in the backyard
lighting up. I was accustomed to the beating punishment that was associated with breaking one
of Dad’s rules and by now I didn’t try to fight it, just accepted the punishment as fair. But this
time was different; there was a visible disappointment that embraced his featureless face, a
certain sadness that drained out of him. I never saw Dad cry before, men his age weren’t
73
supposed to cry. Each tear that percolated down his cheeks soured my stomach with regret as he
sat in silence resting on the back of the office recliner. I couldn’t even muster up the courage to
say sorry. He realized he failed and I was the reason for such angst. He had given me
everything; unconditional love and respect, and I did not give him the same love and respect he
so deserved in return. My father gave me a name, and I walked away.
*
Some days I would take Mom’s 98’ Taurus and just drive; winding through the narrow,
median free back roads with no radio and no destination. At this point in my life I needed time to
reflect, reconsider, and reexamine what the fuck was going wrong with it. As winter approached
and the sun fell below the rolling hills earlier and earlier, my drive and aspiration in life was
beginning to do the same. I once found myself lost somewhere near Harrisburg.
Disappointment and regret were the first things that came to mind when I made the
decision to pick up the phone and call my parents. I didn’t even have the guts to ask one of my
buddies. They were all selfish pricks and I didn’t feel like dealing with their shit everyday. I’d
rather take the humiliation of moving back in with Mom and Dad to get life back on track than
have to put up with them and their families for twenty-four hours in the day. I had even forgotten
Mom and Dad’s number. The handwritten address and number were located somewhere between
L and O and under the title Mom in the plastic rolodex. The digits had been crossed out and
rewritten three times. They were always changing telephone companies and every once in a
while she left me a voice message relaying the new number. Luckily, I was saved the
embarrassment and humiliation because Mom had answered the phone, had Dad picked up that
day I would’ve been down at the local shelter waiting in line for a cot.
*
Throughout my childhood, the old man served as a prominent figure in the community.
He was a county council member as well as School Board President. He felt a need to serve his
community and his prior military successes earned him respect in the community. Just as any
other politician, image was a foremost concern. Any blemish in his reputation affected his
chances of getting re-elected. Any stain in his squeaky clean image was a result of my selfabsorbed actions and “I don’t give a shit” personality. In school I was known as the “douche
bag”. It was the only place I could feel a sense of empowerment over someone. The feeling of
entitlement fueled my actions. At home I was a nobody. Education was never the focus and my
74
inspiration for such disrespect manifested from my insignificance at home. I didn't even give a
fuck if my brother or sister were better than me. Joey was Dad's little prodigy. When the old man
was home on the weekends he and Joey would toss the football around in the backyard. Dad used
some old tires from in the garage to create the perfect quarterback's obstacle course. Each tire
was tied to a different tree at different lengths and as Joey tossed the football, Dad was always
there to grab the footballs so that Joey developed a quick rhythm. Joey dreamed of being the star
quarterback on the football team. He got all the pussy I dreamed of having. His report card was
impeccable, all A’s and B’s since grade school. It wasn’t as if Dad didn’t care about me, didn’t
like me, or want me. I could have easily run downstairs and through the back door, but instead I
watched from my corner bedroom resenting the fact that I could never live up to Joey’s talents.
Yet Dad never judged me by my older brother’s expectations. I was afraid of letting him down. I
feared the rejection and sense of failure. I looked up to my older sister, Jess, for inspiration. I felt
no animosity towards her success because she was so much older than me. By the time I started
high school, Jess was Vice-President of a pharmaceutical company in D.C and only three years
removed as a graduate of Columbia University. Seclusion and independence defined my
experience at home. Sometimes I didn’t even bother joining the family dinner when Mom called
us from our rooms. I was never included in conversation and when I was, it was usually about a
detention I had received earlier in the day
*
Beer in hand, the old man made his way to his sanctuary. Surrounded by dark wooden,
musty paneling Dad buried himself into his favorite recliner that was spotted with miscellaneous
stains throughout the years. Nothing had changed; the inch wide slashes from Felix’s claws had
still been there. It was here he spent most of his days. He became infatuated with infomercials.
Back to back channels, QVC then the Home Shopping Network. It was a vicious cycle that could
not be stopped; watching, buying, and then repeating the process over again till it was time for
his afternoon nap. It had become an addiction. First it was “the perfect driver” that claimed to fix
his left field slice instantly. Then there was the “electronic blanket” that kept him warm during
the bone chilling nights since the old man didn’t believe in turning the heat on. It drove Mom
crazy. “It builds character”, he would claim, as he crept into bed covered by the warmth of his
newly purchased electronic blanket flipped to the highest setting possible.
Pop had ordered so much pointless shit that the expansive corner bedroom was converted into
75
the infomercial pointless junk room. He was like my 16-month old niece; he would play with his
new gadget for a week, break it, and then never see it again.
*
It wasn’t just silence, it was the kind of awkward silence where you wait for someone to say
something but no on ever does. And so I delicately gnawed on my undercooked prime rib as Pop
stared blankly above my head. Something was lost. There was a tension in the room that could
not be relieved. Even Ma couldn’t spark any conversation to disrupt the awkwardness. She
finally arose from her chair to begin collecting plates.
“You wanna help me with the dishes son?”
“Sure, Ma”
Pop shouted across the kitchen as he shuffled his way to the recliner “Honey, Jeopardy should be
on in a minute, if your making tea I’ll take a cup”
“What’s been up with Dad lately?"
“I wish I knew that answer honey. He's been very quiet the past week.”
A sudden hollowness drained through my body. Was it me? Was it because I dragged my sorry
ass into this house and invaded his space, ate his food, and drove his car? I wanted to talk to him;
needed to talk to him. The awkwardness of the room obstructed me from talking. I felt like a
pussy, I couldn't even go up to the old man and just talk. It’s what fathers and sons were
supposed to do, talk about the football game or life at work.
“We gotta get him out of the house Ma.”
As the old man scanned through the eight hundred channels I quietly tiptoed to the sofa adjacent
to his favorite recliner. The silent awkwardness had followed swiftly from the dinner table. His
eyes quickly glanced over to see who had entered the room. I quietly formulated what I was
going to say to the old man like a boy asking his crush to the prom. I had never gotten nervous
before in my life. My careless attitude overpowered any situation. Suddenly it hit me, I was
afraid to ask my father to spend time with me. I wanted to run up to my room like I had done for
the past thirty years in my life.
“Hey Pop, you ever think about going skydiving before?”
“What in the hell are you talking about,” as he straightened up from the recliner.
“You know, like the paratroopers in Vietnam used to do. You and I could jump out of the
plane together.”
76
Mom couldn’t have come at a better time. She stood in the entranceway between the kitchen and
family room observing while she dried off her hands from washing the dishes.
“I think it's a great idea honey. You need to get back some of that adventure in your life.”
“Ahh, what the hell, I got nothing better to do these days.”
“It'll be fun Pop, trust me, I'll take care of everything.”
*
Last Tuesday is a day I will never forget. A day I dreamed of as a young boy having with
my father. Yet like many of my dreams, with the blink of an eye it became a nightmare. For once
in my life, I was awake before my father. While living under his rules for many years, Dad had
made it a habit to wake me up at the crack of dawn every morning. But that special day I woke
him up. He nearly fell out of bed from the shock of seeing my fat ass staring over him. Growing
up my father and I didn't get along. I was self-centered, lazy, and arrogant at times. Pop had
given me every opportunity to succeed in life and my only concern was to defy any help and
prove to him that I could succeed on my own. After graduating high school, I learned quickly the
harsh reality of working for a living. I fell on my ass many times, but just a month ago I couldn't
get back up. Once again, he was there for me when I called pleading for a place to sleep. I was
homeless, jobless, and broke. But that special day just a week ago, nothing mattered to me in the
world. It was just me and you, Dad; like it should have been all along. Our smiles and sheer joy
while floating freely in the sky together was something that I have yearned for my entire life and
for God to take that moment away from me so quickly makes me sick. From the moment I took
my eyes off you to enjoy a ride no roller coaster can top, till the time I looked frantically for your
blue parachute to appear seemed to last an eternity. Never had excitement and laughter been
replaced so quickly by fear and anxiety. Hours after the tragedy, I continued to question myself.
Why him, God? My father has done no fault. I was the one that woke him up from his peaceful
sleep that Tuesday morning. I should have listened to you Pop. I wish I had been a better son.
You deserved better from me. I wish we went skydiving every weekend. I know I never got to
say this much often Dad, and I hope your listening up there..... I love you.... and thank you for
everything.
77
You Are My Sunshine
Adeeb Minhaj
He slowly drives up to the curb and opens his window; the blissful sounds of preschool
laughter fill his ears. It was his 47th birthday yesterday, and a few crumbling pieces of the cake
he bought himself at ACME lie on the passenger’s seat next to him. He picks one up and cradles
it in his palm as he steps out of the car. He turns around to set the car alarm, and with the
customary double staccato of the horn, he drops the keys in his pocket, wiping his sweaty hands
there as well, and ambles over to a bench overlooking the playground. Children all around him,
none older than 7, gleefully run around him, up and down slides, through the monkey bars, and
riding off the natural high that comes with being at the age where having fun is educational. He
finds a bench close to a green plastic slide. He becomes entranced by a girl no older than four as
she stumbles across to the small ladder and gingerly makes her way to the top of the slide. She
laughs, and he smiles to himself. She slides, and his heart seizes. Another girl, smaller, eyes the
cake in his hand and stumbles over towards him. Immediately her mother pulls her away, and she
shoots a menacing glare in his direction. He swallows hard, his nostrils flare, but continues to sit,
the only 47-year-old man in a playground full of mothers and their young children, and he
watches their daughters and swims in his thoughts. For the smallest fraction of a fragment of a
moment, he feels an electricity run through him; it is happiness.
The next day he drives to work, and the stale cake is now inedible, so he throws it out. As
he walks into the office, he finds everyone crowding around one of his coworkers. She is an
attractive young woman, and he has seen her once or twice making copies and such. It is Take
Your Child to Work Day, and yesterday was the child’s birthday. Her daughter is in kindergarten
now. He makes his way over to the crowd, and his coworkers each take their turns congratulating
the girl on her milestone and asking her mundane questions. He does the same, but instead of the
customary handshake, he envelopes the girl in a bear hug. Others look on, as he continues to hold
the embrace. Awkwardly whispering, one of them clears his throat. The mother giggles, and says
what a great father he would make. Face burning, his arms fly apart and he mutters to himself
and he sheepishly makes his way back to his cubicle. Running his hands through his thinning
hair, he lets out a sigh, shakes his head, and stares at the picture on his desk, where a bright
78
young girl’s blue eyes stare back at him, with all the radiance and youthfulness that they once
possessed captured brilliantly in the Wal-Mart print.
The girl in the picture is standing next to a man that looks exactly like him, but much
younger. Her eyes are a shining cerulean with a vibrant inquisitiveness. He loved her dearly. He
was the perfect father figure, carefully documenting every step of her growth and development,
and placing each photo he took into a meticulously kept set of albums. Her mother was a mess.
She divorced him for another man, and he had to assume the role of both parents for his
daughter, and he felt he was doing a satisfactory job. He tucked her in at night, and made her
lunch for school in the morning, and saw her onto the bus every day. One day she came home, as
usual, skipping. Her class had played a game today, she said, and she won, and her prize was a
pencil. She grinned from ear to ear. It was purple, and covered with glitter. It sparkled in the
sunlight as she rushed towards him, his arms open and his eyes smiling as hard as they could. It
was a relatively small victory, but for his precious little daughter it seemed as though it was the
most important accomplishment of her life. And then she tripped. She moved her hands to break
her fall. The pencil bounced out of her grasp. Neighbors stuck their heads out of their windows at
the sounds of his screams. By the time the police and paramedics arrived, he was cradling her
limp body in his arms, and singing her favorite song to her.
He stares intently at his computer screen, but the numerous pie charts look more like
amoebas through his tear-filled eyes. He stares straight ahead, making sure to scroll down from
time to time to make it seem as though he is being productive. He decides to call a friend, and
opens his contacts book. There are two numbers inside, his wife’s, and his boss’s. He cringes,
and drops the book on the floor. He hears his daughter’s voice, and the tears break free from his
eyelids. They drip onto the keyboard. He again hears his daughter’s voice, and she calls out to
him, but she isn’t calling him dad. He turns around and his daughter is standing in front of him,
holding the dropped book. He stares. She calls back to him, and her mother steps out from
behind his cubicle wall. It’s the young woman and her kindergartener. He doesn’t bother drying
his eyes. The tears recede. The girl asks him what he’s working on, and offers him the contacts
book. Her mother says that her daughter has been going around asking everyone about their jobs.
He nods, accepts her offering, and smiles weakly. As he shows her some graphs, he looks at her
face, expecting a yawn, but sees an intent focused stare. Now he smiles for real. The mother
smiles as well, and asks him to watch her daughter while she goes to the restroom. He delves
79
deeper into this explanation, but never too deeply. After ten minutes he looks down, and sees her
playing with thumbtacks. They are scattered across the floor. She quickly gets up, but trips. He
dives instinctively, cradling her in his arms, and crashes against the wall of his cubicle. Tacks
stick in his back, but his expression remains unchanged. The wall breaks, knocking down three
other cubicles as well. Heads turn and see a 47-year-old man with a girl curled tightly in his arms
on the floor. The mother rushes back, and with a disgusted look on her face snatches her
daughter back from him and leaves him. He gets up quickly and awkwardly, and heads turn back
to their jobs. They don’t see the streaks of blood running down the back of his shirt. Neither does
he.
Later that day he shoves some items in a backpack and leaves his house. The wind
buffets his shoulders as he makes his way to an adjacent building not too far from where he
works. He walks up the stairs to the roof, the metallic clanking of his shoes on the floor
rhythmic, defining his purpose, and giving him a sense of accomplishment that he hasn’t felt for
many years. He keeps a steady tempo as he reaches the final stair, and opens the door in front of
him. It creaks on its rusted metal hinges. By now he is wheezing. But he feels as though the stairs
are Everest, and his name is Sir Edmund Hillary. The dazzling sunlight momentarily blinds his
eyes, and he brings his hand up to shield his eyes. And then everything comes into focus. He lays
his backpack down, and takes in the splendor of the city skyline around him. It is pure bliss.
The sun is very bright up here, and it squints beautifully, and he spreads his arms, exactly
as in that one granola bar commercial with the biking lady, although she was on a mountain trail,
not a city building. He opens his backpack, and inside are two items, a Colt King Cobra and an
unopened Mountain Dew, with a layer of condensation that he on the neon-green plastic that he
doesn’t bother wiping off. He chugs the yellow liquid, ignoring the mounting burning sensation
in the back of his throat until the very last drop. He’d always wanted to do that. Feeling content,
he walks to the edge of the roof. He throws the bottle off the roof, and watches it switch
directions dramatically during its descent in tune to the wind. It barely makes a sound as it hits
the ground, bounces a few times, and lands in the street. A few cars come tantalizingly close to
hitting it, but it swirls around as a ballet dancer would and ends up next to a storm drain,
huddling close with a soggy newspaper and a plastic bag. Stupid bottle. He pulls back from the
ledge. He takes out the pistol.
80
It’s not cold. This bothers him. He can’t possibly put the gun to his head and feel the cold
steel pressed against his forehead if the barrel isn’t cold. God damn it. He holds the black rubber
grip, and the six-inch barrel barely extends past his hands. If one were to see him from afar it
would have been a comical sight indeed, as though he were clasping the hands of a dance partner
and preparing to twirl her around and lift her off her feet. He squeezes the trigger in a test shot,
and the sound’s reverberations off the silver window panes around him are satisfying.
He takes aim at the window of an adjacent building and fires. The window shatters into
fragments, some large, many small. Some make their way to the ground, and woe betide he who
looked up out of curiosity. The majority of the fragments end up inside the building. He quickly
crouches down, and people’s faces can be seen peering out through the empty metal frame. They
are strong, good-looking men with their sleeves rolled up, protecting the females and males
without balls that cower behind them. Their muscles ripple under their shirts as they kick aside
shards of glass. One of them heaves a desk in front of the hole so nobody would fall our. He
watches the scene unfold from across the street, and thinks to himself why he couldn’t be like
that. Why did he simply let everyone think whatever the hell they wanted to about him whenever
they see him at the playground? Sure, he did look out of place, but what was he supposed to do,
hold up a sign that says “My daughter’s dead, and maybe by seeing you and your kid having fun
I can feel just a little happier. I don’t want to see her naked, you dumbass, so leave me alone.”
That sounded weird, even to him. Why was he so messed up? Why is it that when a kid dies so
young it’s so hard to tell everyone about it? He wipes the thoughts from his mind. He focuses his
attention back to his bullet-shattered piece of artwork across the street. Damn, he thinks, that shit
belongs in a museum.
The men continue to peer out, but can’t discover his hiding place. He springs up in the
confusion and fires, hitting one man square in the face. The man suddenly loses balance, and
topples forward. The leg of his pants catches on a window fragment, and tenaciously holds the
man from falling. He flails wildly, but nobody comes to his aid. Nobody can. It’s his fault after
all, they think. There really was no point in getting so close to the window, it was obvious you
would get shot. And that desk was unnecessary, we’re not idiots.
The gun is slowly heating up. He’s happier. He once again looks down over the roof at
the street below. From the shattered window the man still hangs, but people are now pointing at a
man with a gun on the roof across the street and gesturing; someone pulls out a phone and dials
81
911. He doesn’t care. He scans the ground below, and spots an old Asian woman pushing a
stroller. He can’t tell whether it is a young boy or a young girl. He breathes faster. His heart
pumps faster. Sweat begins to collect on his brow, and drips into his eye. The salt and grime
sting his cornea, and he has to put the gun down until his tears clear the annoyance away. He
then finds the woman again, and brings the gun in front of him. The gun comes up to meet his
view, blocking out the stroller from his eyes. He sees the gun’s profile, and the woman’s head on
top. But the woman is walking away from him, she’s standing in front of the stroller. She slowly
begins to turn the corner. For a few seconds, the curved back of the stroller is visible. He
squeezes the trigger. The stroller explodes, and scarlet fragments fly off in all directions,
splattering the pavement. He doesn’t bother to fight the recoil, and the gun skips out of his hands
and off the edge of the roof. He stands there, frozen. And then he collapses. The woman screams
in shock, but it soon turns to grumbling, and she goes back to the supermarket to buy another
watermelon. And she’ll have to carry it all the way back to her apartment this time. She curses
America and its goddamn exploding melons.
No gun. That’s his first thought. He’s lost his gun. Wide-eyed, he crawls over to the ledge
and peers over. For some reason, it looks much higher without the familiar weight of the .357
caliber firearm. He gets up, feeling a little lightheaded. He also feels as though a great weight has
been lifted off his chest. But at the same time as though one twice as great has been put on it. He
peers over the roof once more. Fighting back the ringing in his ears, a cold sweat breaks out on
his forehead once more and chills run through his body. The police cruisers are gathering down
below. He looks down over the edge. The police officers wildly gesture and point up to him. He
waves to them. Nobody waves back. Some yell their battle cry enter the building down below,
and he can feel them running up the stairs. Somebody picks up the gun he dropped more than
thirty stories below. They look up at him and he looks back. Now more officers enter the
building. His mind races. He quickly runs to the opposite side of the roof. The officers scramble
up the stairs, hands on their weapons. They don’t think they need them, but protocol insists they
prepare for what may lie in store for them above. One officer sends a powerful jujitsu kick at the
door, knocking it off one of its hinges. They see the man, standing slightly slouched, appearing
as though he will jump off. They draw their weapons and yell for him to come forward and get
on the ground. He ignores them and waves. They gesture wildly with their weapons, but the man
ignores them and waves. One of the officers waves back. The man nods, and sits down. He picks
82
up the backpack lying next to him. He brings it slowly to his chest, and cradles it in his arms.
And he begins to mumble to himself.
He’s got a bomb, he’s going to fucking blow himself up, one officer thinks. Which means
I’ll probably die as well. I got a gorgeous new girlfriend to meet this weekend, and if this piece
of shit thinks he’s going to let her keep her virginity I’m going to kill him. Another officer’s
breath quickens, his pulse skyrockets. What exactly went on in those negotiation classes he was
taught? I forget. I was an ace at the firing range and could disarm a person with a loaded weapon
faster than humanly possible, but words are not my specialty. Shit. Maybe I’ll just kill him.
Another officer, an Asian, smaller than his coworkers, holds his gun with both hands and his
chest is visibly heaving. He stands slightly behind the others, and wonders why he didn’t listen to
his parents and get a Ph.D.
The officers completely surround the man and reposition their grips on their guns, and
wipe the sweat off their lips. They’re all yelling at the man. His eyes glaze over. The yells
become louder. The officers are closing the circle. Across the street, the women and the nerds
alike are now gathered at the window and watching the scene unfold. Their coworker still
dangles precariously from a tenacious shard of glass. The officers move in even closer. The man
continues to choke and mumble, but nobody can make out what he is saying. Shut up, you idiots,
the Asian officer thinks, I want to know what he’s saying.
He knows there’s nothing he can do. He clutches the backpack even harder now. The
officers are practically within tackling distance of him if they sprint a bit first. His hair is matted
against his head from all the sweat. His face is red from the emotions balled up inside him, as
well as the fact that multiple angry officers are waving their Glocks in his face. He kisses the
backpack tenderly on the forehead, continues to mumble to himself, and heaves it at the officers.
Simultaneously they scatter away from the backpack, and a bomb squad rushes in. The officers
fire one shot each, hitting the man in his chest and torso multiple times. They see him pitifully
flop over on his side, and lower their weapons cautiously. The bomb squad hurriedly unzips the
backpack, and peers inside. There is nothing there. They lift their heads rapidly, but the man is
already dead. But the Asian officer has his ear to the man’s mouth. The others are yelling at him
to stop, and one angrily stomps over to pull him away. But before he is lifted and receives a stern
talking to, he manages to catch a few words—
83
“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…please don’t take my sunshine
away…”
84
Bathroom Floor Confessionals
Gabrielle Morris
Sadie sat staring out her apartment window as the clouds slowly covered the sky. Her
head was pounding and she turned to glance at the scene in front of her. Dishes were piled up in
the sink, a half lit cigarette sat in the ashtray, and she could see her bed, empty. His imprint was
still visible in the sheets. The previous night was such a blur. It all seemed to happen so fast, but
then again so had the last year. When did they grow apart? When did she no longer recognize
him? Or herself? She walked across the one bedroom apartment to the bathroom and looked in
the mirror. Her heavy black makeup was smudged and ran down her cheek. The glitter on her
face suddenly looked ridiculous and she almost chuckled at the lipstick left on her teeth. Her
chuckles quickly turned into outright laughter and then tears. She slid down onto the floor, curled
into ball, and sobbed. She choked on her tears and hiccupped violently. She tried to think of how
she ended up so pathetic, so alone, and so empty.
A year ago Sadie and her boyfriend, Griffin, moved to Philadelphia, with big dreams.
Sadie was going to make it big as a singer; she heard Philly was good place to get started. New
York was too big and completely overrated. Something about Philly felt right. She knew that she
was going to make it big. Make a name for her. She knew Griffin was going to do well too. He
was such a talented photographer.
They were a beautiful couple. She had thick dark hair that rested just below her
shoulders. Her eyes, almond shaped, were a mix of amber and hazel. Her long slender body
complimented his stocky broad figure. He wore glasses and his shaggy hair grew over his eyes.
He wore dingy t-shirts and khakis everyday and a leather band from Morocco. They had an
exotically rustic feel that just attracted people.
Sadie opened the door to their shabby one bedroom apartment on the fifteenth floor, and
beamed with excitement. The tanish – yellow wallpaper peeled off the walls and the molding
crumbled. It smelled of mildew and the windows were coated in dust. The place was a fixerupper but that’s what Sadie loved. Her eyes glistened as she imagined the place covered in
Griffin’s pictures. She saw chic black couches in the living room and an art deco table setting in
the dining room. It would be beautiful.
85
The move was slow, and it was weeks before anything was cleaned. They got a shabby
couch from someone’s garbage. Film was strewn across everything along with Sadie’s make-up.
They had been living there for six months, and within that time so much had changed. They
rarely saw each other and when they did there was nothing but shallow conversation between
them. Griffin worked during the day doing various odd jobs to bring in money. His photographs
weren’t selling. So instead of hanging on the walls, they sat piled up in corners of the room,
collecting dust. Sadie worked late at night, either at the diner or singing at various bars. They
almost led separate lives that rarely crossed. Griffin was usually too tired to watch her sing but
occasionally he came out to watch her shows. He would sit at the bar with his beer and stare at
her wearily. She swayed back and forth and sang, her voice strong and sweet. She stared
seductively into the half empty room and would give him an occasional smile. He would smile
back and lift his glass to her. But as time went on he came less and less and finally stopped
coming altogether. He was worn, beaten down, almost defeated. After her shows, she would
creep into their bedroom around two a.m. She would slip off her dress and go into the bathroom
to wash her face. Before getting back in the bed she would stare for a minute at the man, she had
grown so far apart from. He looked like a stranger lying there. His shaggy hair had been cut short
and he had a slight five o’clock shadow. She climbed into bed next to him and went to sleep.
About two months later she met him. She had just finished her set and was grabbing a
drink before heading home. He sat two seats down from her. His hair was dark and wavy. His
bone structure was beautiful, his olive skin smooth, and he looked up at her with striking green
eyes. She quickly darted her eyes to her drink, as people do once they have been caught staring.
She now saw him staring out of the corner of her eye and she started rifling through her purse,
pretending to look for something. He was sliding down the bar towards her and her face
suddenly grew hot. She looked up for the bartender so she could pay and leave but it was too
late. He was now sitting next to her, and his words came out buttery smooth just as she imagined
they would. He said, “ You were great up there”
Her face now radiated with heat but she managed to spit out a thank-you. He now stared
directly in her eyes and said, “You know you shouldn’t be wasting a voice like yours in a place
like this.”
“Its not as easy at it looks. Trying to find a decent place to sing, I mean.”
“You just need an in,” he replied.
86
“An in?”
“Yeah an in. A hookup. A connection. So many clubs would kill for a talent like yours.
You just gotta know someone on the inside to get you there. And I think I can be that someone”
“Oh really? How?”
“ I’m a bartender at this local jazz club downtown. I could get you in a line up in no
time.”
“Oh really, what’s the catch?”
“Let me be your agent. We can do big things together” He smiled devilishly when he said
this and his perfect teeth blinded her. “ I wanna make you famous, because I know you’re a
superstar.”
“We’ve known each other for five minutes. How do I know you’re not some scam artist
trying to take advantage of me?”
“Just trust me”
“My mother told me to never trust anyone who said that.” He said no more. He slipped
his card between her fingers, tipped his hat, and left.
Sadie thought about the beautiful stranger that approached her the entire ride home. She
looked at the card thoughtfully. Trevor was his name. The card read:
Trevor McAllister, Talent Agent
234- 478-2023
It was short and straight to the point, but how could she know he was authentic. “He’s
full of crap,” she finally decided and then shoved the card in the bottom of her purse. But as the
bus rumbled down the street, she could feel the presence of the card in her purse and his devilish
smile played a hundred times over in her mind.
She came home to her dark apartment and tip toed around clumsily in the dark. She
thought about telling Griffin about what happened, but it was three-thirty and he had to be up at
six. “Maybe it would just be best not to bother him with it,” were her thoughts. Besides, what
would he say? What would she say? It became clear that this wasn’t worth the awkward
conversation and she climbed carefully into bed next to the man who might as well have been a
corpse. Tomorrow she would call Trevor. She couldn’t be scammed by just talking to him.
The next morning came and Sadie woke up alone, as usual. Scratching her head, she
looked around at their dusty apartment. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:30. Was
87
that too early to call him? Would that make her seem desperate? Gosh, she sounded like a high
school girl with a crush, she thought. However, it had been a long time since she had felt the
butterflies that were in her stomach right now. She rummaged through her purse for the card
and slowly dialed the number. It rang four times before an answer. His voice came out just as
smooth as the previous night. “Hello?”
“Hi, Trevor This is Sadie, we talked at The Khyber bar”
There was a long pause. Her heart beat loudly in her chest. What if he didn’t remember
her? What if she had called the wrong number? What if this was all a joke? The doubt left her
head when he suddenly spoke. “Oh Sadie! Nice to hear from you. I’m glad you’ve decided to
consider my offer” She mentally exhaled and tried her best to sound calm and relaxed.
“I’m not really considering yet. I just wanted to hear more about you proposition”
They talked for hours. He turned on his charm and she played right into it. He made her
feel special, amazing even. Two things she hadn’t felt in a long time. She decided she would go
for it. It’s not like she was making any progress in her bars and he sounded like he knew what he
was talking about. He said she needed a new look. He said she needed to catch and hold the eyes
of every man in the room. Her stomach went from butterflies to doing full flips. This is why she
came to Philadelphia. She was going to make something of herself. She couldn’t wait to tell
Griffin. This he would want to hear. They could start living the dream.
****
Sadie clicked on the radio as she prepared to get ready for the night’s show. It had been a
month since Sadie and Trevor first met, and so much had changed. Griffin was no longer a
stranger but a ghost. He walked around like a shell of a person. A few weeks ago, he went to see
one of Sadie’s new shows. He was appalled. Sadie never saw him so upset. Back in the dressing
room after the performance, she could still remember the fight. “You looked like a South Street
hooker up there! What the hell were you wearing! I thought this was a club, not a peep show.
And those songs. Those songs aren’t you. That’s not your style.” Sadie covered her hurt with
anger.
“How the hell would you know about my style Griffin? Huh? You don’t know shit about
me anymore. You barely say anything to me. And now you come to my show and tell me I’m not
being myself onstage! You must be joking. I feel beautiful up there. I feel wanted, sexy even.
88
That’s more than I can say about how I feel at home. Just because you’ve lost your passion for
living doesn’t mean you have to try to suck away mine”
“ Passion? Passion? Is that what you call passion? Where I’m from that’s called
prostitution. And if you wanna bring up home life, it’s not as if you make an effort to
communicate. I come home and you’re not even there. You come in about two hours later with
shopping bags and head straight to the bathroom. Then you’re out the door in some shiny get up
and I the next time I see you is asleep in the morning. What happened to you? What happened to
us Sadie? You look like a clown with all that damn makeup. And when we do talk it’s always
about him. Trevor told me this, or Trevor told me I should do that. What about us? “
“ I don’t know what happened to us Griffin but you can’t blame Trevor. He’s gotten me
further than I ever would’ve on my own. He knows what sells.”
“What, your body?” Griffin snapped.
With that, Sadie grabbed her coat and ran out the door, to Trevor who was waiting for her in a
cab.
That night Sadie went with Trevor to his apartment. She was so upset and he was so
comforting, and perfect. She remembers his hands around her waist that first time. He whispered
in her ear and told how beautiful she was. He said she didn’t deserve that. Since then, the affair
had been ongoing and Griffin made it so easy. He never questioned where she was going or
when she would be back. All the countless times she has “gone to the market,” you would think
he’d figure it out. She thought he probably knew. He just didn’t care. He barely looked at her,
and when he did it hurt. It hurt to see those hollow dark eyes staring at her. So, she didn’t look at
him. They filled the void between them with small talk or just silence. Empty. That’s all she ever
felt around him. But then there was Trevor. He made her blood run hot. His strong hands
traveled so smoothly along her body. He was where she belonged.
Even though life with Trevor felt great, there were still things she didn’t like. He was
rough with her sometimes. The way he gripped her arm when she said something stupid to a club
owner. She didn’t realize it then but he handicapped her. She could do nothing without him. She
couldn’t buy a dress without his input. She remembered how they would go to parties together in
these small dimly lit buildings on backstreets she never knew existed. The rooms were full of
these slender, glamorous people sipping their drinks. The places made her uneasy but she felt
comfort with his hand rested upon the small of her back. Then there was that one time. The one
89
time she felt genuinely unsafe with him. They were at one of those swanky but shady parties,
meeting with an important radio DJ. It lay in a small bag on the table. It was fine, grainy, her
head spun as it entered her nose canal. It burned and she winced at the sensation as it traveled
through her sinuses. He told her to do it. He said she would blow the deal if she didn’t obey. So
she did. The whole night was a blur. Everything whizzed by her but she felt comfortable in
herself. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She felt loose. Free. She and Trevor cackled
loudly as they stumbled up his stairs. The last thing she remembered was the bedroom door
shutting behind him. He unbuttoned his shirt and grinned devilishly at her. Then she realized it
wasn’t Trevor.
About a week later, she got a phone call from Trevor. She had never heard him so
excited. “Baby you gotta turn on the radio! Go to 99.8. Now! Hurry you’ll miss it!” She ran into
the kitchen and clicked on the radio. 99.8. She almost dropped the phone when she heard her
voice on the radio. It was the typical 80’s pop song but it was hers. She danced around and sang
every word to Trevor over the phone. It was local’s hour on 99.8 and they were playing tapes
from local Philly artists. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Dancing around she
slipped on her dress. Looking down at it, she saw a white powdery mark. For a minute she
stopped. She thought about what happened that night but the sound of her voice on the radio
quickly drowned those thoughts out. She kicked it under the bed and continued to dance to the
radio. The door opened suddenly and Griffin walked in, confused but slightly amused. In the heat
of the moment, she grabbed him and they danced around. She said, “Recognize that voice?
Because it’s mine! I’m on the radio at amateur hour!”
“That’s great honey! I’m so proud of you,” He shouted as he spun her around. He dipped
her once and they locked eyes. The atmosphere changed suddenly and the moment ended as
quickly as it began. The song faded in the background and she awkwardly unwound himself
from his arms. Their forced conversation continued, but Sadie didn’t mind. She still loved him;
she just couldn’t find the him that she loved.
Sadie’s song on the radio was a huge deal for both Trevor and Sadie but since then, not
much had changed. There was no word from record labels or talent agents like Trevor assured
her there would be. There was nothing. Sadie was starting to have doubts. Doubts about herself,
her talent, and about Trevor. But when they were together all the doubt faded away. Their
90
escapades had become more frequent, and daring. They now went to Sadie’s apartment. They
would chase each other around her apartment, Sadie would laugh and Trevor would carry her to
the bed. It was exciting, exhilarating. Occasionally they would both freeze for fear that they
heard the doorknob. After about fifteen seconds, they would glance at each other and burst into
laughter.
Sometimes Trevor came equipped with party favors. He would hold up the bag and flash
his white teeth at her. She gave him a fake smirk and once again, she would feel the grainy
powdery substance traveling through her system. It certainly was a rush and she started to crave
it. Before every performance, she got her “extra boost” and went on stage to perform. She told
herself she wasn’t addicted. She said it was simply there to calm her nerves. That’s what Trevor
told her. She knew it was a lie but for some reason she still believed him. But soon it wasn’t for
her nerves; it was there so she could function. Her began changing. She was gaunt and she began
losing weight. Even Griffin noticed the change. She caught him staring often but they never
talked about it. She knew he was afraid for her, but honestly so was she. But this is what it took
to make it big. She had to loosen up.
That was about two months before it all fell apart. In what seemed like one night, her
whole world crumbled. Her and Trevor were at her apartment going over the set list and things
got out of hand. They started kissing on the couch, her arms wrapped around his neck and his
hands in her hair. They rolled around, giggling, holding each other, and gazing into each other’s
eyes. Soon they made it to the bedroom. The door was closed and she couldn’t hear the noise. He
didn’t hear it either. But the front door turned and Griffin walked into the house. He set his keys
on the table and whistled a tune he made up in his head. He shook his head when he saw Sadie’s
jacket on the floor, but then he noticed another one. It was a man’s jacket; leather, dark brown.
He knew it was Trevor’s but thought no more about it. But then he heard a noise from the
bedroom. He opened the door and there was Sadie with Trevor. They both looked up suddenly
and stared at Griffin. Sadie had just taken a hit and nothing had quite registered yet. She was
quickly snapped into reality when she heard Griffin scream. “What the hell Sadie! I knew it. I
knew you and him.” Griffin’s rage quickly gained a new focus. A crazed look overcame his face
and he charged at Trevor. Griffin tackled Trevor and he hit the bookshelf, knocking everything
over. Trevor swung half-heartedly and missed. He laughed in Griffin’s face the whole time.
Sadie screamed for them to stop but they kept going. Griffin got on top of Trevor and hit him in
91
the face. Once. Twice, Three times. Blood ran down Griffin’s knuckles and covered Trevor’s
face, but Trevor kept laughing. It was loud and cynical. Sadie grabbed Griffin and begged him to
stop. She pulled him away, tears flowing from her face. He screamed at her. Tears now flowed
from his face. Thick and heavy, they drained down his cheeks and dripped to floor.
“What the hell Sadie! What the hell!” That’s all he could manage to say. He kept repeating
himself. Sadie looked at him in shame and horror. What could she do? What was she supposed to
say? After a few seconds, she could finally form words.
“I’m sorry Griffin. I am really sorry. I didn’t mean to. It all just sort of happened. It was so fast I
just didn’t know what to do. Please baby, please. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I am sorry. We can
work this out. I know we can.”
Griffin’s face hardened. He looked at her with a hatred she had never seen before. “No
we can’t Sadie. We can’t work anything out. Not until you get rid of that.” He pointed to
the white bag on the table. “I knew you were into stuff. And I knew you were into him.
I’m not stupid. I guess its kind of my fault for letting it go on so long. I just didn’t think
you’d bring it and him into our home. To our bed Sadie. Our bed. You’re a crack addict
Sadie. Did you know that? Huh? Look at yourself. You’re disgusting. And didn’t mean to
hurt me? What do you think you’ve been doing for the past year? I’ve sat and watched
this man turn you into a crack whore”
Sadie’s remorse disappeared and was replaced with rage.
“Shut up! Shut up Griffin! You have no idea what you are talking about. You don’t know
me. Just shut up! You’re jealous. That is all you are; a pathetic jealous little boy! And that’s all
you will ever be. Trevor loves me and he understands my needs. You just don’t care.” Griffin’s
eyes narrowed. They both looked over at the door and saw that Trevor had crept out. They were
alone. Sadie stared at him intently. He had grown old in a year’s time, but suddenly she became
aware that so had she. The anger slowly receded and all she could do was sob. Heavy black
mascara-filled tears drained down her face. She looked at Griffin. His face had not softened. His
expression had not changed. He was unmoved. The only expression she could see was
exhaustion. He opened his mouth to speak and then suddenly stopped. He grabbed his coat,
picked up his keys, and walked out the door without a sound.
And now Sadie lay on her cold bathroom floor shaking. She felt a drippy feeling in her
nose and watched as the blood dripped from her nose onto the floor. The sight of her own blood
92
made her sick. She got up and threw up in the toilet. Tears and blood continued flowing as she
gagged. Her stomach lurched again and she heaved into the toilet once more. Her head was
spinning and blood still dripped from her nose. What was she supposed to do now? All she could
think to do was call Trevor. The phone rang twice and then went to voicemail. Her stomach felt
sick again. She ran into the bathroom but nothing came up, so she resumed her position curled up
on the bathroom floor, bleeding and sobbing.
93
Through the Lens
Jen Piraino
Literally, from the time I exited the womb, Father meticulously recorded what he saw to be
highlights in my life and the lives of my three siblings. My father is the epitome of the man behind
the camera—always trying to preserve the “moment.” I wouldn’t call it a hobby so much as a fetish.
Besides, to me, behind my happy facades, in various captured scenes of my life, are gritted teeth
where a superficial smile appears.
***
And… Action!
It’s Thanksgiving break and I just recently took down our Halloween decorations. Moreover,
when I say just recently I mean last weekend, weeks after Halloween and days before Thanksgiving.
The reason being is that’s the kind of family we are—the last minute kind. Didn’t anyone ever tell
you? There’s a funny thing about the last minute: by then nothing functions the way you want it to
function (the way it’s supposed to function).
A car pulls in our driveway. Oh, crap. I had better get ready. I slip into my new dress and
check my makeup. Mother loves us to look nice for company. As much as I like getting on her
nerves, I acquiesce to her will knowing there will be a camera in my face for the better part of the
evening. I’m glad we’ll be having company this year. The reason being: things seem better when we
have company. Things seem better when the camera is out.
“They’re here!” Mother belts out frantically from the bottom of the stairs. Her job title is
homemaker, but I’m sure we could find her one as a professional spazz.
One of my brothers, Christopher, stands before the bathroom mirror in clear view from my
bedroom door. He is still in his boxers.
“Christopher! Father warned you twice to be ready at three thirty.”
“Fuck off.”
Eh. That’s about all I ever get from him anyways. Dad probably will not reprimand him
anyway. He, supposedly, suffers from bipolar disorder. He doesn’t really suffer though; more so, he
makes everyone else suffer. He’s a tyrant and throws tantrums worse than any infant throws in his
terrible twos. This is why I make a quick leave, anticipating his getting angry and upsetting Mother,
or worse yet, the company sensing something off kilter.
94
I spray perfume in mid air and stride through it before leaving him behind. Here we go.
My dad had dressed and made himself ready almost an hour ago. I saw him pacing from the
second floor balcony approximately fifty minutes ago, probably reciting jokes in his head imagining
how our company would receive them. He, of course, already has the camera glued to his hand and
catches my descent to the first floor on film.
“Don’t you look lovely, Elizabeth.” Mother beams at the dress she chose for me. Mother
believes our appearance is important, especially when Aunt Marge and Uncle Robbie are over.
Having an older sister, I learned at a young age to take pride in my appearance. I like to think that I
do it for myself because there are so many who only do it for others.
The camera makes me feel agitated. The limelight comes at different costs for different
people. I flee to Catherine’s side for a temporary escape. My sister is like Mary Poppins—positively
perfect. Even though the camera often follows her around, Catherine’s good mood is contagious and
makes me feel more able to fake mine. I envy her for already being out of the house. I wonder if her
optimism would make living at home more bearable for me.
After what seems like hours, I realize dinner is just about ready because Father sets the
camera on a tripod in the dining room. He would not want to miss a moment in documenting family
history. Engaging in conversation with Uncle Robbie, he pats his newly freed hand compulsively
against his thigh. I glance at the camera. Could anyone else sense how pretentious everything seems
with Mother and Father—the persnickety manner in which the table is set and the meal is presented.
Father impatiently darts his eyes between Uncle Robbie and the kitchen from where the aroma of
stuffing and turkey wafts. I hope his impatience means he’ll put in a word with Mother so we get to
eat sooner.
I’m glad to eat because it doesn’t require my smile and my cheeks ache. I keep quiet for fear
that my insincere tone will result in my subsequent grounding. Although I don’t go out often, it’s
not that I don’t want to or don’t have anywhere to go. Things that make it on the calendar at my
house are memos like, “Catherine and Matthew home for the weekend.” Matthew is my other
brother who is also off at school. The point is that it’s usually a hassle to explain my weekend plans
to my parents. More often than not, I choose to slight plans in order to avoid Mother and Father. I
scorn the way they carefully scrutinize my every word. Details are never precise enough when
indicating my whereabouts. Now that the camera is out, they emit a feigned sense of ease because
95
everyone’s in good humor, whether wholeheartedly or not. When the camera leaves, so does the
cheer. But I guess that’s not there, either way. Not on my part, at least.
Cut!
***
And… Action!
I walk in the garage entrance to the house. The spotlight is shining on me. Why? I’m so bad
at this. Too bad my sister isn’t here. I could easily hide behind her. I liken her to one of those trees
bent to grow the way the planter intends. Her frame is forced. My parents like it this way. My
frame, on the other hand, hangs freely with little structure. I’m the intended and failed imitation of
the designer child. I don’t enjoy feigning, as I should. I believe I see things as they are. The light is
rather obnoxious. I know why the camera is out, now, and I’m irritated. The mail came. I clearly
stated that I wanted to get the envelope out of the mailbox. At last, my opportunity for escape is
within reach and I can’t even rejoice in it. I knew my parents would overlook my request. I didn’t
have a hope in explaining the function of a normal household to them. The way I would like to do
things, inevitably, is always subject to compromise.
“Did I get any mail?”
Mother grins for the camera’s benefit. “How was your game?”
“Cold. I’m freezing. Did we get any mail?”
I am, at this point in my life, an expert at repeating myself. I don’t expect answers right off
the bat, anymore, either. What a pity.
“Hold on a minute. Answer me.”
Seriously? I’m just about sure I’m the first one who posed a question, but I’ll save the smartass comments for later.
“We lost.”
I’m in the kitchen still dripping from the rain. I could ring out my hair and fill a glass of
water half empty. I glance over to the dinning room table. Victory. I see a considerably large sized
envelope lying there. I make an a-line to grab it. The cameraman follows. He wants to be sure not to
miss any expressions that cross my face. Too bad, he doesn’t realize that the moment is gone. (Was
it ever there?) I tear open the envelope and skim the first line of a letter addressed to me.
96
“Congratulations blah blah blah welcome to the Duke class of 2014” is something to the
effect of what it says. I give a half smile to let the camera know that I’m not brain dead. I just got in
to the college of my choice. Father mirrors that smile.
“What do you think?” He says in his stage voice. It’s supposed to seem genuine and happy
as everything is when captured on camera. We wouldn’t want to spoil the moment, now, would we?
Cut!
***
And… Action!
I awake throwing myself to a ninety-degree angle in my bed. My grandmother always used
to tell me I had the mind of a thirty-year-old at age 13, but Christmas morning always brings out my
inner-child. That spark will unfortunately draw in the cameraman today, but no worries. I’m on a
mission to wake the others. I throw open my door and Father is stealing my job. You would think he
would want to wake me first. My door comes before the others’. I’m not as exciting a subject, I
conclude.
Minutes later, we take our seats on the stairs. I want to hop the banister and raid the living
room to find my pile of goods. I keep my cool. There are strangers watching me through the lens of
the cameraman.
“Catherine, why don’t you tell us why we are here?”
“Of course, Dad. Today is Saturday, December 25, 2009, Christmas Day! We are waiting to
see what Santa brought us this year.”
“Wonderful. And we were all good this year?”
Is that a joke? Father is looking for a way to buy sweet time on camera and I don’t like it. He
pulls out the digital from his pocket. Come on. Let’s go.
“Okay, everybody, squeeze in.”
The flash sets us free. One last picture is the last request Father gets out of us every year
before our patience breaks. We bolt from the stairs. I enter the living room looking for any sign of a
present intended for me. The Duke sweatshirt to the right of the tree is a give-away. Mother never
wraps the presents so I can see everything I got in just a few glances. Every Christmas I do well.
When it comes to material items, I often get what I want. I think of my habitual dissatisfaction as a
sort of debt the eventually builds up at the end of the year, with interest of course, and then comes
97
reimbursement. Lying next to my new sweatshirt, among other things, is a box that reads, “Nikon
Cool Pix.”
“Now you can take after your old man.” Father shoots from behind me. I didn’t know he was
standing there. As if I should be surprised.
I stare blankly up at Father over my shoulder. Yeah, right. We’ll see about that. I believe
capturing forced smiles defeats the purpose of having a camera.
Cut!
***
And… Action!
“… Happy Birthday dear Elizabeth. Happy Birthday to you!”
I blow out my candles in one fell swoop and the room is dim. The camera’s flash blinds me,
momentarily. At least that ought to be the last time for a while. I leave for Duke soon and that’s
where my story according the father will end. The end of high school is approaching. My story
according to me will begin.
Cake time transitions turbulently to present time thanks to my impatience.
…
My presents are now all open. Why is it that opening them is always so anti-climactic? We
all sit awkwardly at the table. What now? The cameraman shifts uncomfortably in his seat. I’m sure
he had it timed that the cake and presents scene would have taken longer. I had upset his schedule.
He rises out of his seat, now.
“Well, I have a treat for us all.”
Hm. That can’t be good.
“Why doesn’t everyone take a seat on the couch in the family room?”
The others rise obediently, and I reluctantly. I seat myself on the end of the couch.
Father slides a VHS into the television and hits play.
I recognize immediately where the set is—my grandmother’s house. I had liked to call her
Gram. The date in the top right corner reads “June 1, 1993,” my first birthday. It’s been so long.
Grandpop and Uncle Tony walk across the frame. Aunt Jeanne is there in the background with the
rest of the family. The production is so disorderly. People are talking over each other in loud,
boisterous voices. I love it, I admit sheepishly. It is, I feel, how family life should be. Lively. They
98
sing for me on screen and my sister kindly blows out my candle, as I am too young. She slides the
cake out of my reach before I plant my hand in it.
…
Later in the same scene, everyone at Gram’s is gathering his things. Mother clears the table.
Father enters the kitchen to get a shot of Gram doing the dishes. He hands the camera to Uncle
Tony. I’d never seen him do that before. Uncle Tony shoots the scene up close.
“Oh, please, Thomas,” Gram begged. She had hated being in pictures. God, I miss her, now.
Father rests his hands on Gram’s shoulders and angles her towards the camera. He plants a
large Italian kiss on her cheek from over her shoulder.
“Mom, I love you so much,” he says.
Gram smiles sweetly and gets back to the dishes.
As I watch, the television screen fogs up with drops that then fall to wet my cheeks, and fall,
and fall. I keep my head aimed at the television. The tears betray my pride and I won’t let anyone
see them. No way. But, still, the tears continue. I think about the juxtaposition of the current scene
in my life to the one on screen and settle to one simple fact: I can liken my life to two distinct
halves—the time before Gram died and the time after she died. Despite her passing, and despite my
belief that it would, life didn’t cease. Now that she’s gone, so is a certain joie de vivre. I’m restless
watching her on screen, now. I want it back. Life. I want to re-live these scenes of my life, the
“before” scenes. I know, now, that I’m selfish, not only for wanting her back, but, in a sense, for
keeping the happiness she had brought away simply because I am constantly and consistently
miserable. I finally exit my stage of denial and wipe the tears off my face in acknowledgement and
new clarity. I look over at Father and realize that it’s self-centered of me to think that I’m in this
alone.
“Mom, I love you so much.” I think of his genuine words to Gram. As the scene on screen
comes to a close I lean forward on the couch.
“Well how about a shot of the birthday girl with everyone.” I say pleasantly.
Dad looks at me, and though it’s not obvious, his eyes smile. I see Gram in them for the first
time. He rises, places the camera on the tripod, and joins the shot behind me.
The camera flashes as I grin wholeheartedly, thinking about Gram, wondering how she so
easily brought happiness to us all. I want to live my life like Gram lived her life. Maybe college
doesn’t have to be my escape. I can re-focus the lens of my life. I can have a fresh start.
99
Shawn Plesnick
307
We had just won a huge game for our school. We hadn’t focused on any other team as
much as we did with Notre Dame. The usual routine for our club was to work out every day and
every day to go over the upcoming game. We needed to win this for our school. So I guess all
of the preparation had paid off. I talked to every player after the game and congratulated every
one of them. But afterwards, I was alone. I was often alone. I didn’t seem to mind it but now I
come to dread it. It is too familiar. But sometimes it is necessary to be alone. Give people their
space. I even started to talk to myself about the game as I was watching the film, as I always do
after a game. “Yup, we did it right there.” Or “You know that wasn’t too smart of me.” It helps
but not enough. Soon after I had shut all of my lights off and was starting to walk out the door,
my son gave me a visit. He often visits after a win because he knows that I’ll be extra generous
or just in a good mood. “Hey, want to go surprise mom and take me home for dinner?” he said.
He lives here on campus and as most kids his age, doesn’t want to come home unless it is a
significant occasion. So I thought it was a great idea because Mary hasn’t had much excitement
in her life lately.
She used to work. She used to go in day in and day out to put money on the table. She
would sometimes hint to me that she wanted to quit work and just stay at home. I guess she got
the idea from her mother who was a stay-at-home mother but I have always been against it.
They ask for equal rights but won’t take equal responsibility? It doesn’t seem fair to me. I knew
a guy who had a wife who stayed at home and then one day just decided to divorce and took
most of his money and went to Mexico. Craig? I think his name was Craig. So I kept telling her
to stay with her job. I would say “Mary, we are tight on money, we need you to keep working as
you are now.” I could tell that she knew that I was trying to keep her from divorcing me for my
money. I thought that was the reason why she quit. I thought she quit because she had some sort
of affair or just wanted to anger me. But we were tight on money. We really did need it. But
she didn’t care. As long as we lived in a house and had food and had access to magazines, she
couldn’t give a damn. But what could I do? She is an individual too, and all I actually said
100
when she made the final decision and action was “Ok honey, just try to keep busy.” That was
all. I couldn’t come to yell at her because I felt that she was always looking for a reason to leave
me. I couldn’t give her that.
As Jake and I walked to my car, he asked me how mom was doing. I told him “talk to
her yourself, I’m lucky to get a ‘hello’ out of her”. It seemed odd to me at how similar we were.
I was starting to stray away from my wife. We would talk small talk but nothing interesting.
Jake rarely comes home, he obviously doesn’t even call. I don’t even know the last time that he
had seen his mother. Was it Christmas? We both were staying away from home or just ignoring
her. But why? What has she done to us? I still can’t understand why she agitated us but she did.
One time I even brought it up with Jake. I said “so what do you think of mom lately?” He
replied “I don’t know. She… um…she seems different now that I’m gone. Every time I come to
visit, she seems frantic and doesn’t seem to care if I’m there or not.” I noticed that too. I would
walk into a room and there she would be, sitting there by herself with just a magazine. I’d ask
her what craziness was going on in the world of the celebrities and she would just reply with her
forced smile and awkward attitude. She’d just say “same old same old”. I remember when we
used to be a real family; the kind that had dinners together and talked about what was going on
with our own individual lives. Jake would talk about a teacher he had that supposedly hated him.
We’d laugh and tell Jake to keep working hard so he could get a good job and marry a good
woman.
We walked into the house. I told Jake to wait outside and to knock in a couple minutes. I
went inside alone. Mary came, gave me a forced “hi” and then went back to the kitchen. She
was making her famous casserole. I asked how her day went and she just shrugged. Suddenly,
and thankfully, there was a knock at the door. I told Mary to go and get it, she scowled, and I
shrugged. “Mom” Jake excitedly said. “Jake, how are you? You never visit. Your father is in
the living room.” She went to the kitchen. “Well that was fun, wasn’t it?” I playfully said.
“Yeah…home sweet home” Jake said to himself but loud enough for me to hear. We sat there in
a comfortable silence for a while until we were interrupted with an abrupt “Dinner’s ready”. We
shuffled to the dining room where we exchanged the usual food complements. “Looks nice
mom” or “Smells good honey”. We sat there for a while without saying anything and just
enjoying the one contribution Mary still had to the family. It took me a while to notice the
silence. I wonder if anyone else had noticed. I thought about bringing up our financial
101
situation. We lost a large part of our income when Mary quit her job and we still had the same
bills to pay. I knew it was inevitable that we would become in debt, but I guess I thought the
same way as Mary. Let it rest, it’ll fix itself. I tried to bring it up but whenever I’d open my
mouth, I would feel awkward and either shove food in it or attempt a cough.
I remember doing this for about 20 or so minutes before the silence was broken with an
innocent comment from Jake. “Hey, I’m planning on applying to graduate school, do you guys
mind lending me some money?” I was silent. She was silent. I would have been happy to just
give him all our money and send him on his way. Let his live his life. Give him the option to
achieve greatness. I couldn’t help but feel more eager to give him the money he needed. I didn’t
care if we were broke. I just wanted him to succeed. Isn’t that what every parent wants? During
my little rant of emotions, I hadn’t noticed that Mary had already answered him. I asked for her
to repeat it as for I was not paying attention. She said “We need to talk about it. I’m not sure if
we can afford that.” I sat there; trying to cool my temper before I did something stupid. I
understood that she was trying to be rational but something about the way she said it just fired
me up. How on Earth did she have the right to say that we don’t have enough money to give to
our son for an education? She could be working. She could be a part of our income but no. She
is too self-absorbed to realize that there are more things in life than just reading about celebrities
and watching television. She is only here because she cooks. That’s all she contributes. Why the
hell would I want her to be here? I finally said something after what felt like a century had gone
past.
“What?”
“Okay, that is the second time I said it, must I repeat myself again?”
“Let me get this straight, YOU are the one giving us a lesson on whether we have enough money
to give to our son for an education.”
“Yeah, what’s your point?”
“I’m tired of this.”
“Of what?”
“Of this whole situation ...”
I remember saying more but it is distant from me now. It is unimportant. It is all
unimportant.
“I’ve been seeing someone”
102
The rest is just a blur. I got angry, left the house, and needed to drive somewhere. I
didn’t care where, just somewhere. Until you have been that angry, you have no way of
understanding the need to be behind something you can control. So I drove. My chest felt tight.
I swerved and hit an innocent pedestrian. It happened all too quickly. The screech of the tires,
the scream, the hit. I got out of the car and just sat there, with the body of a grandfather in my
arms; his cold lifeless body in my hands. I was responsible for that. I have always been
responsible for that.
The siren cried. I remember my hands stained and the polite yet distressed officer
interrogating me as if I were a criminal. But I was a criminal. I killed a man; a life which I later
found to be a proud grandfather of 3 kids and 6 grandkids. He was on his way to surprise his
family with a visit. It was hard reading the obituaries that day in my cell. I sat there for
somewhere around 5 hours reading the 307 words that were written about the veteran. A god
damn veteran.
For the next five years, three months, and seventeen days since the murder, I sat alone. I
had occasional visits from my son. He was my only family. My ex-wife is now happily married
to a man who she said she had seen for the last 2 years of our marriage. My son, Jake, is a proud
lawyer working at a descent law firm. I am very proud of him. I can’t express to anyone how
proud I am. It’s really something when something you helped to create turns out to be something
distinguished and well recognized in society. But what have I done? I have done nothing with
my life other than to destroy other lives. I can’t even take full credit for Jake’s success. Sure I
pitched in, but never too much. He did most of it himself. But his success is all I have. I look in
the mirror and all I see is misery. Poor and unfortunate misery. A full life’s work resulted in the
possession of an eleven foot by ten foot room. At least now I’m completely out of my family’s
life. I will never disrupt their peace ever again. For now it is time for me to be alone. Mary has
her life. Jake has his. Now I have mine. I have committed a crime and I belong here. I belong
here with the seven items that I shall eternally grow comfortable with. A mattress, sheets, toilet,
sink with a broken faucet, a window, a mirror, and the obituary. And with these things at my
disposal, I have nothing left to do than to just sit. Finally at peace, I sit.
103
Why Can’t I Breathe Whenever I Think About You
By: Ashleigh Rockwell
Lizzie lay in bed, sobbing into her pillow. Why does this always happen to me? she
thought. Just minutes before she had been smiling ear to ear when she glance down at her ringing
phone, belting out the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and saw her crush of three whole
years, Chris, was calling her. She was so excited. She had been out of school all week sick with
the flu and hadn’t talked to Chris in what seemed like forever. Was he calling to say he missed
her and hopes she gets better soon? She hoped so. But unfortunately she was sadly mistaking.
“Hello?” she answered, not expecting the misfortune that lay before her.
“Hey,” he said. “How are you feeling? Any better?”
She was so happy to hear his deep, soothing voice. She could barely speak, but managed
a quiet, “A little bit.”
He went on to say that he hoped she felt better soon and blah, blah, blah. All this while
her heart was racing so fast, she was sure he could hear its thundering beats through the phone.
“So what’s up with you?” she asked after the conversation surrounding her well-being dwindled
down.
“I wanted to let you know that Britt asked me to Junior Prom.”
The news hit her like a freight train going 100 miles per hour: hard. “Oh…” her voice
trailed off. Now her heart really sank to the bottom of her stomach, lower than it had ever sunken
before. She had been planning to ask him to Junior Prom since the beginning of the year, okay
maybe even before then, but now her chances of going with him had been demolished.
“Yeah. So I just wanted to see if that was alright with you,” he continued. “She actually
asked me last week, but I haven’t given her an answer yet. Is that alright with you?” Her head
was racing, she was sure that if he hadn’t been able to hear her heart pounding before, he surely
could now. As his words finally processed in her head, she became confused. Why was he asking
for her permission? Did he think they were together? Did he want her to object to him going with
someone else? She didn’t know what he wanted, but she did know that she wanted to scream.
NO! It’s not alright; you’re supposed to go with me, not some other girl, she imagined herself
screaming into the phone. But, being the non-confrontational and sweet girl she was, she
couldn’t find the words to object.
104
“Umm…Hello? Lizzie?” she heard him question and came crashing back to reality.
“Oh, yeah. That’s, um, fine.” She managed to stutter out. Could he tell that she was lying,
that she was trying so hard to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes, that she was on
the verge of completely breaking down?
“Well, I hope you feel better,” he said quickly. “We definitely have to hang out soon.
Bye!”
“Bye,” she said, barely able to get out that simple word. She heard the phone disconnect,
then there was silence. She sat there in disbelief for a moment, and before she knew it, tears were
pouring down her face. She couldn’t control them. They just kept rolling down her face, as if her
cheeks had become the new Niagara Falls, and no one had bothered to tell her.
Why? she kept asking herself. Why did Britt ask him? Why did he want to go with her?
Why didn’t she ask him while she had the chance? Why didn’t she tell him the truth? All of these
questions were swirling through her head, giving her an immense headache. The confusion of the
phone call and depression that it brought was too much to hold inside. She changed into her
polka-dot fleece pants and a comfy long sleeve shirt, and decided to go to bed, but this idea even
made her smirk a little, because she knew that no matter how hard she tried, she would not be
able to stop thinking and actually sleep. She crawled into bed and curled herself into a snug ball
under her covers. Why? she thought as she let out a loud sobbing sigh.
Lizzie had met Chris the summer before 9th grade on a warm August morning. It was her
first day of cross country preseason. She was excited yet nervous to meet and run with her team.
She had met the girls once before and they had all been very nice, but she didn’t know any of
them and was shy, even though she tried not to let it show. She arrived with her friend and
neighbor, Nick, who was an incoming freshman, as well, and ran cross country on the boy’s
team. Lucky for her, the boys and girls cross country teams practiced together, so Nick and
Lizzie’s parents had agreed to carpool, and she had Nick with her for moral support. She stepped
out of the car dressed in black running shorts, a pink Nike running top, and her sneakers. She and
Nick parted ways as she approached the group of girls and her coach and he approached his
teammates. The girls gave her a friendly smile and continued discussing the morning's run. They
waited for a couple of stragglers then were ready to start the run.
Lizzie had never run on these trails before and did not know how to navigate them, but
since she was running with the team she didn't think it would be a problem. She pushed hard for
105
the first 10 minutes of the run, staying right with the leading girls, but slowly as the run
continued, she became fatigued and started to slow down. She still had the girls in sight and
watched where they turned. Unfortunately, the path became windy and the distance between
Lizzie and her teammates lengthened. Soon, they were so far ahead that she didn't know where to
turn, so she just kept running. She ran deeper and deeper into the woods turning at turns she
thought her teammates might have taken. Finally, she realized she was lost. She stopped and
caught her breathe. All she had to do was retrace her steps, and that seemed easy enough. She
started back, but she couldn't remember where she had turned. She had just about given up when
she saw something orange running towards her. As it came closer, she realized it was a boy in an
orange shirt. He had brown hair and pretty brown eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. He was
fairly tall, probably about six feet, and had a runner's build.
"Hey," he said very cheerfully for someone running at 8 o'clock in the morning during
summer vacation. "You shouldn't be running by yourself."
"I know," replied Lizzie. "It's just...I lost them and didn't know which way to go, and then
I tried to find my way back and just got more lost."
"Good thing I found you," he said.
"Yeah, good thing," she agreed trying to meet his eyes.
As he led her back to the main trail, he introduced himself as Chris. He was going to be a
sophomore. Distracted by the conversation, Lizzie didn’t even realize she was back where they
started until suddenly Chris stopped talking mid-sentence and announced ed to the team, “Look
who I found.”
Seeing her, a look of relief rushed over Nick’s face. “Are you okay, Lizzie?” he asked in
a concerned tone.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said still looking at Chris. “All thanks to Chris here.” She smiled as
Chris’ eyes met hers and a smile swept across his face.
They were instant friends.
Now it was two years later, and he had crushed her hopes altogether. They would never
be together, and she didn’t know what to do. She felt like she had lost a big part of her. However,
she knew she had to get over him. She vowed that he wasn’t worth her time and didn’t deserve
her thoughts. She decided to get out of bed make some Ramen noodles and hot apple cider.
While she ate, she curled up on the couch to watch her favorite movie. As she watched Amanda
106
Bynes parade around dressed as her twin brother in She’s the Man, she began to forget about
him. Her mind began to wander. She glanced out the window and saw Nick’s car going up the
driveway. She began to think about Nick. She missed him. They didn’t hang out like they used to
anymore; they had grown apart. When had this happened? she wondered. Then she realize that it
had been her fault. She had in a way ditched him. As she became closer with Chris, she and Nick
had drifted further and further apart until they didn’t even hang out on clear starry nights to star
gaze anymore.
It was a cool November night, the second marking period of Lizzie’s freshman year had
just begun, and she was already overwhelmed. High school was so much harder than middle
school, where Lizzie barely had to try to get straight A’s. She was sitting at her computer typing
up a paper about why Atticus Finch was a hero in To Kill A Mockingbird, when her cell phone
started ringing. She glanced down and saw it was Nick.
“Hello?” she answered, a bit annoyed to be interrupted in the middle of writing such an
important paper.
“Hey Lizzie. What’s up?” he said, obviously not picking up on her annoyed tone.
“Just trying to write my language arts paper. What do you want?”
“Well, it’s really nice out tonight and it’s clear, so I thought you might want to go on the
hill with me, but if you’re too busy, it’s fine…” he said trailing off.
Lizzie felt guilty. She hadn’t meant to come off so cold to him. “No. I can. Let me just
finish this paragraph. I’ll meet you there in ten. Okay?”
“I’ll bring the blanket,” he said. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
Ten minutes later they met on the hill that connected their yards. Nick spread out the
blanket and they laid down starring at the stars and just talking and enjoying each other’s
company.
Finally, they just starred in silence. Suddenly Nick interrupted the silence. “Hey Lizzie,”
he said.
“Yeah?” she questioned.
“Have you ever thought about…” his voice trailed off as he realized what he was about to
say.
107
“Have I ever thought about what?” Lizzie asked.
“Oh nothing, never mind,” he said.
“No, you were going to say something,” pried Lizzie. “What were you going to say?”
“Really. It was nothing,” repeated Nick.
“Ok. Fine.”
This had been the last time they had really hung out. Lizzie had become closer with Chris
and when she wasn’t with him, she was engrossed in her school work, or running.
She missed Nick, and vowed that she would call him soon, so they could catch up. She
returned to watching her movie and relaxing.
She was watching the final soccer, game her favorite part of the whole movie when her
phone started ringing again. She glanced down at her cell phone, and saw it was her mom. Since
the last call had been so bad, she wasn’t expecting the next bad call that lay ahead.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Lizzie,” her mom said in a panicked voice. “Your dad's been an accident….” Her voice
trailed and Lizzie went into a daze.
Lizzie and her dad had never really gotten along. Her dad constantly teased her in what
he thought to be a loving way, but it only annoyed Lizzie. No matter how hard they both tried,
they could not remain civilized around each other and would end up fighting.
Now her dad had been in an accident. What was the last thing I said to him? she
wondered. She hoped it hadn't been a fight, but knew that it probably was.
"Lizzie...Lizzie...Hello," she heard her mother call through the phone and quickly came
out of her daze.
"What? I'm here," replied Lizzie.
"So, he was in a car accident," her mom continued. "He was hit from the side by a car
that crossed over the grass median. They rushed him to the hospital and now he’s getting x-rays."
Lizzie was in shock, hardly able to say anything, but finally found her words. "Is he
going to be ok?" she managed with a quivering voice.
"I don't know honey. I haven’t seen him yet, but I think he's in pretty bad shape; we'll just
have to wait and see. Oh, here comes the doctor. I have to go. I'll call you later. Bye." Her voice
cracked as she hung up.
108
"Bye," said Lizzie to a dead line.
Now this bad day had managed to get even worse. She wanted to rush to the hospital and
see her dad. To take back all of the nasty things she’d ever said to him and apologize for all of
the fights she’s ever had with him. Unfortunately, her car was in the shop getting inspected, so
she was stranded at home.
She paced around the house, then tried sitting. She couldn’t sit still; she was too worried.
She felt sick to her stomach, but tried to stay positive. He’s going to be fine, she tried to convince
herself, but it didn’t ease her worries. She couldn't take this day anymore; she needed to get away
from it all. So, despite how crappy she felt, she put on her black Nike shorts, white t-shirt, and
running shoes, and walked out of the house, hoping to clear her head and leave all of her
problems behind. She started running up her long, winding driveway. She could feel her red,
puffy eyes stinging, but no more tears were coming.
When she reach the top of her driveway, she turned right down her road, running along
the narrow, tree-lined road. About a mile up the road was Valley Park that had a long wooded
trail along a creek. She ran to the park then continued on the trail. As she ran, she wasn't even
thinking any more, her head was free and she just ran. She ran further and further and everything
just blurred as she ran by.
Suddenly, she was on the ground. She had tripped on a root and fell flat on her face. She
was so shocked, but didn't feel any pain. "Oh my god, are you ok?" she heard a familiar voice
call out, and fast footsteps coming toward her. It was Nick.
"I'm fine," she replied, not wanting him to see what a mess she was. But being the nice
guy he was, he came over to help her up and make sure she was ok. As he got closer and saw her
face, he knew something was wrong. "Are you ok?" he repeated.
Lizzie wiped her face with her hand and got to her feet, "I'm fine, really!" she replied in a
voice that almost fooled her. However, she could tell Nick saw through her forced smile and fake
happiness. "Well, bye," she said, starting to run again. He followed beside her, keeping quiet, but
just being there for her. They ran on, deeper and deeper into the woods side by side, in silence.
Finally, she broke down. She started sobbing uncontrollably. He took her into his arms,
comforting her and telling her everything was going to be ok. He held her tight as she cried and
told him all about her awful day. About Chris. Her dad. Everything.
109
When she stopped crying, it was nearly dark. "I'm driving you home," he told her as he
grabbed her hand and lead her to his car. She followed already starting to feel a little better now
that she had told someone about this disastrous day.
He opened the passenger door for her and she settled into the seat. They drove home in
silence. As he pulled down her driveway, there was a commotion of cars in Lizzie's driveway:
her aunt's and grandmom's car sat at the bottom of the drive way, and her mom's car had just
pulled up. She saw two figures emerge. Her mom and dad! She was so excited. He was ok. She
didn't know how, but she didn't care. She was just happy he was alright. Nick stopped the car and
she jumped out of the car. "Wait," he called out of his window. She hurried back to the driver's
side wanting to hear what he had to say, so she could rush inside and be with her family.
"What?" she asked as she approached the open window.
"I'm kind of glad you're not going to prom with Chris," he confessed.
“Ok. Bye,” she said hurriedly and rushed inside, not realizing what Nick had meant. As
soon as she got inside, she rushed over to her dad and gave him a huge hug. “I’m so glad you’re
okay,” she said. “I was so worried.” As she talked with her dad, Nick’s words finally sunk in. Oh
my God, she realized. He wants me to go to prom with him. How could she have been so
oblivious to this? She explained to her dad that she had to go talk to Nick, and he told her to
hurry back.
Lizzie walked across her yard, then along the hill that connected her and Nick’s yards.
She walked right up to his white front door and knocked. The door opened and he was standing
in the door frame. He looked puzzeled. “Hey,” Lizzie said breaking the silence.
“Hey,” he said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Well I mean my dad is okay and all, but I need to talk to you.” She paused, but he
made no attempt to say anything. “You see,” she continued, “I was in such a hurry to get inside
and see my dad that I was completely oblivious to what you were saying.”
His face flushed and he looked embarrassed. “Oh, it’s fine,” he said.
“No, it’s not fine,” Lizzie said. She was looking for the right words and finally settled on
the simple and obvious phrase, “Will you go to prom with me?” At these words, a smile swept
across his phase. Lizzie smiled back already knowing the answer.
110
Lisa Scott
The Choice
The car was parked, though it appeared to be itching to speed out of there virtually by
itself. It were as if the feelings of the one behind the wheel manifested and became so large, so
overwhelming, strangling everything around them, starting with the very car which contained
them. It was 11:15 on a foggy Tuesday night. Ally sat frozen in her brand new Honda Civic
outside of Women Now; voices of protestors across the street echoed in her head. The clinic
appeared so quiet, so distant in the background, and yet menacing, as though it was the heaven
for the lost. But was she lost? Her options were clear, both paths paved, laid out before her and
now all that remained was deciding which to take. She thought about the moments in her life that
had lead up to this, the moments which had shaped her character, set her upon the path to the
woman she would or rather could become. There was only one. The path she had been following
was not her own, she had not chosen it but rather been placed upon it and obediently followed,
never looking back, never questioning. The path split and for the first time Ally had to look up.
“Ms. Paisley…Ms. Paisley…” inquired an extremely suspicious and on the brink of
annoyed teacher, “Ms. Paisley are you sleeping in my class?”
“Ally get up,” grumbled a friend on the neighboring desk to Ally’s which was
accompanied by a hopeful nudge.
“What…oh I mean yes ma’am!” Ally exclaimed anxiously, the fear masked by an
awkward smile. Ally had never been one to sleep in class, she had always acknowledged that as
an act reserved for the class clowns and juvenile delinquents and yet she could hardly stop
herself as her eyelids fell like stubborn shades upon her bloodshot eyes. The past few mornings
Ally found herself jumping out of bed hours before her IPod clock radio was itching to play
Paparazzi, her queasy stomach sending her rushing to the bathroom. Her body limp, arms
clutching the toilet like her favorite teddy bear, her head lingered upon the rim of the seat, no
different than if it had been her fluffy goose feather pillow.
Though the interval between taking and receiving the results of the test must have gone
111
on like any other minutes in life for everyone else, mindless and quick, these minutes in this
moment pushed into the depths of eternity, a realm beyond our own. Nevertheless, Ally wasn’t
sure whether her anxiety rested in fear of her parents’ evident disapproval or simply curiosity. As
she sat with her legs sprawled out on the marble floor, her back against the glass doors that
enclosed the porcelain shower, all she could think about was the other girls. The girls who sat
crying on the toilet next to a pink plus on a stick, the girls who burst out in relief at the sight of a
black dash, the girls pacing next to a magical wand, ready to grant them a future of a new design.
These girls each with different mistakes, goals, future endeavors at heart but through it all
completely able to make life’s tough decisions for themselves. Ally felt admiration towards
these girls who despite their predicaments had lived the lives of their choosing and taken risks
for themselves, following the paths of their own creation. What had she done except allow
someone else to make her decisions for her. He had been ready, not her. Just as his face popped
into her head the timer chimed. Ally forced herself up from the ground with a jolt from her palms
placed to either side of her, thrusting her forward in which case she crawled to her knees and
propelled into the air only to make a quivering holt, grasping the marble countertop’s edge,
which also bore it. There it was, that little pink plus.
The dining room table always sat like a perfect masterpiece, a picture right from Home
Style Magazine. The sweet cherry red wood shone with the fine china constantly sitting atop, as
if waiting for the Queen to arrive and demand tea. As far back as Ally could remember she had
come to this very spot, every bruise, every bad grade, every sleep over woe and friendship
dilemma and more recently college ones. Actually, Ally had sat at the perfectly polished dining
room table not but three weeks prior when her acceptance letters started to pile up. Laying out
the possibilities on the table, her parents fished through and found the college most appropriate
for their daughter’s goals, most importantly to become a doctor. They were both successful
doctors who loved their work, took pride in their work, so why wouldn’t their daughter feel the
same, enjoy the same riveting and well-off life style; after all, she had grown up with it, been
accustomed to it. Their daughter would go to Yale, study medicine, and become a successful
doctor, end of story. Ally’s path had been chosen and because it was all she had ever known, she
walked it, hardly aware to turn off the beaten track, make a run for it, and create a road all her
own. No, Ally simply threw away her acceptance letter to the local design school, fashion wasn’t
what she wanted to invest herself in, right? Ally sat with the test tucked behind her back as her
112
parents arrived home, late as usual, from work. As they nonchalantly took their places opposite
her at the table, Ally began to realize that this was not a part of their plan. As she pulled the test
from behind her back, the part of her that had always ached for her parents’ approval, their help,
was virtually none existent. Her gut felt tough and determined, her mind focused and free, and
yet perhaps it was merely more morning sickness, though Ally could tell there was a difference.
This felt good. Lost in her own thought, the moments after her parents’ jaws dropped at the sight
of the all too ominous test and the outraged commotion that followed took place in another
realm, outside the sound proof bubble Ally’s mind had wrapped her in. Later she could assume
her full name had been used and both her integrity and intelligence questioned, however, all she
could remember hearing was her mother say as frankly as she had declared Yale her college of
choice, “You are not doing this, period.”
The hallways at school were always a mindless blur of familiar faces, bodies huddled up
as if to keep warm, last night’s calculus homework or tomorrow’s holiday dance the topic of
choice. As Ally walked down the hallway after school, she wandered if everyone else could tell
her mind was no longer so naive, so whimsical, it had changed. Gliding past flocks of rowdy
football players and past a circle of gossiping girls, Ally saw the forest green Nike backpack with
Jonny written in black Sharpie across the top through the collage of teen age bodies before her.
Driven by that curious feeling in her gut again, she found little fear in striding over to him. Ally
felt no guilt, no responsibility and really no shame. It had been Jonny’s desire, not hers, and so as
her boyfriend she thought it appropriate for him to determine when they were ready. She didn’t
fear his reaction but rather hoped he could make the decision for them again.
“Um, Ally I don’t know what you want from me, I mean, just do what you think,”
stumbled the typical teenage boy, unable to realize the magnitude of his actions and certainly not
prepared to deal with them in anything close to a responsible, intelligent manner.
Ally was disappointed, not hurt. His words, “just do what you think,” rang in her head
even after he made a quick excuse to run to chemistry to ask Ms. Tyler a question about
tomorrow’s Mole test. What did she think?
For the first time in her young life, Ally found herself disobeying her parents’ orders.
After discovering their daughter’s careless behavior, they had placed her on lock down until
113
further notice and Ally was to go nowhere except to Ridgemont Private School and back. And
yet there she was, at the local park she had not visited since her pre-middle school years. The
park was empty except for the determined bouncy jogger or jolly golden retriever walking his
master whom passed by every now and again. Ally paid no notice though. She was again in the
sound bubble manifested by her brain, her mind lost in another world though her body remained
in this one. Swaying mindlessly, the tippy toe of her shoe anchoring her to the man-made
woodchip ground beneath her, Ally sat. She remembered the time she had come there, many
years ago as a child with her next door neighbor and full-time best friend Mandy. Mandy was
outgoing, free spirited and had a craving for adventure that no one could get her to give up. She
was Ally’s missing half, everything she wasn’t, but wished she could be. That day on the swings
Mandy was egged on by an older boy, a big third grader, to jump off at the height of her swing,
assuring her she could never jump higher than he. Mandy as always rose to the occasion and left
the third grader running home to his mama after verbally abusing him after his defeat. Then she
moved on to Ally, swearing it would be the “most funniest” thing she would ever do. But it was
a risk, an uncalculated, irresponsible risk and most of all Mommy and Daddy weren’t there to
give Ally their approval. But she admired Mandy and for once she wanted to know what it felt
like to act as she acted, without regret and for herself. So she pushed off the chip wood with her
shiny pink Sketchers and pumped her legs, her sweaty palms gripping the cold steel hoops. As
the bar creaked louder and louder as her body plummeted and soared higher and faster, Ally felt
no fear. She closed her eyes and imagined she was a beautiful dove, soaring through the sky and
though her landing was hardly as graceful, she plummeted to the ground in a pile of laughter. As
Ally remembered the past, she found herself swinging in her present. As she soared higher and
higher, the wind coercing her cheeks, she began to feel that release, that freedom again, for the
second time in her life. She landed on her feet, all on her own.
The doctor’s office was packed and though her mother hardly approved of her daughter’s
condition, she felt it necessary to schedule her for an appointment before any decisions were
made. Her parents were both at the hospital, so Ally sat alone. The waiting room was filled with
happy married couples and toddlers paging through those thick picture books filled with the
alphabet and shapes, nips in mouth. Ally smiled. Startled by the echoing, “Mrs. Paisley,” Ally
114
approached the nurse and corrected her, “It’s Miss actually.” The nurse stared her up and down
and pointed to a room down a short white hall. The appointment seemed normal enough, the cold
clear jell was a shock to her system but nothing she hadn’t felt before, having an ulcer the year
before. Needless to say, the words that followed the tests were unexpected.
“Ms. Paisley, there is a complication and some serious risks you need to be aware of.”
Ally sat alone. The parking lot around her was quiet. It was late and she wandered if the
ten to eleven schedule she had read about ceased to apply on Tuesdays which was true of many
of Ally’s favorite restaurants, whose hours fluctuated by day of week. She wouldn’t want to
appear rude, walking in when the place was virtually dead and here she comes waltzing in asking
all the tired employees who would much rather be at home sleeping at this hour to now drop their
hopeless romantic day dreams and ready the operating table for her. But that wasn’t the reason.
Her gut ached and she realized she had never listened to it before, never once followed her
instincts except for that day on the swings. How she longed to live her life the same way, soaring
ever higher, taking risks to gain miracles, making memories worth remembering. As Ally’s hand
fell upon the door handle, she realized the decision, the choice did not belong to her parents, or
Jonny, or anyone else but her, it was her choice.
I was nervous, sure, but more so I was excited. I wanted to know everything, the color of
her hair, the way her voice sounded when she sang, the little things that made her smile. Who
was she? As I knocked on the door I could tell they recognized me even though we had never
met. It made me smile. They showed me upstairs to her room. They had kept it pristine. The
whole house was painted with fine furnishings and laced with delicate items, it was like nothing I
had ever seen and yet my only wish was to see that one room. It was as neat and lovely as the
rest of the house. Beautiful white linens, laced canopy, marble floor. They had left me alone and
I was grateful. I needed to search past the fine things, the material items meant little to me. I
needed to find a person, a soul within. After opening and closing everything I could find with a
handle, I found it. Tucked neatly beneath the fluffy goose feathered pillow lay the pink and
perfect book. My heart sank as I saw the twirling black spirals, the cursive letters sketched with
black ink, her letters. I saw each as a little masterpiece and consumed the words they created,
digesting them as fast as I could, as if I were afraid they would disappear and truly I was. It was
her story. And though I wished there had been a third option, the choice filled me with her love.
115
As I turned the final page gifted with her word, I searched the remaining sheaf perilously,
hoping, praying to find another, another hidden masterpiece. But as I searched, I discovered
nothing, no such luck. Staring at the blank pages, meaningless without her words, her thoughts, I
realized something. Perhaps the pages were blank for a reason. Perhaps she had always intended
to leave them for me.
116
Pat Smith
A Risk
James Watson flipped through the local newspaper one morning following another night
of plentiful drinking and debauchery. While he read about the ongoing war overseas in Europe
that had been dragging on for nearly two years, he poked at his eggs with his fork. He wasn’t
hungry. James wanted nothing more than to ditch the boring waste of land that Minnesota
consisted of. A lack of personal funds and self confidence prevented that option at the present
moment however. For the time being, he was left simply with another Sunday morning in rural
Minnesota that made him want to crawl back into his bed and sleep the next twelve hours away.
Almost an act of desperation, James pierced a gaze to the calendar and found nothing remotely
interesting. Just another December approaching, the month of holidays. The year was 1941.
“James”, his mother shrieked, “Get in here and clean up your room.”
“Of course,” James replied as he gritted his teeth. It didn’t make any logical sense to
him. He was nineteen years old and his mother, despite good intentions, still treated him like a
child in his mind. The fact that his house also contained three younger siblings didn’t help, but
he figured that his mother had enough sense to separate the age difference and treat him more
like an adult. Still, he never argued. He always kept a cool head and an obedient tone as to not
make the situation any worse. Everything that happened at James’ house seemed like an
almighty sign to do anything he could to leave. He wanted to see skyscrapers, more excitement,
people bustling to work in the morning, people being hustled for their last dollar. None of this
occurred in rural Minnesota. As he picked up the assorted items on the floor of his room as he
had been asked, the contrary also appeared in his mind. What if we are just contained where we
are born? Does the dream of escape ever come true? These strenuous questions were quickly
interrupted yet again by his mother who came up to his room to inform him of more duties
around the house. James let out a quick gasping groan in his mind.
“At least December’s almost here,” he said in a quiet, desperate tone to himself. The
month of holidays. 1941.
On December 7 James was awoken by a jolt from his mother, pleading him to come
downstairs and listen to the radio. It was morning. The broadcaster explained that a successful
117
attack had been launched upon the United States by the Japanese on the United States naval base
in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor. James sat stunned by the information being presented to him, as
opposed to his much younger siblings who didn’t seem to understand the severity of the
situation. The broadcaster confirmed James’ thoughts that President Roosevelt would most
likely call for a draft, with the age group falling within 18 to 35. James’ mother was visibly
shaken. “Oh dear, what will we do? Will they call for you James? Life just isn’t fair…”
Contrary to his mother, James continually sat with the stoic, poker faced demeanor he always
had at home, but with more hope this time. Resting his calm hands on the table, he considered
the possibility that this draft would, almost ironically, open up a world of possibilities for him.
Could this be his personal door to escape? Suddenly, James almost had to let out a small chuckle
for the simple fact that with the entire nation in peril, he was almost excited to get drafted.
James had to think the situation over some more.
“Excuse me, I think I’m going out for a walk, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Ok,” his mother said, on the verge of tears. “I’ll have dinner ready by 5.”
“Need me to get anything from the store,” said James, being exponentially more helpful.
The news of a possible ailment to his boredom had cheered him up.
“What? No. That’s quite alright,” said his mother. Just try and be back by 5.”
Clad in his heavy Winter coat to shield him from the belittling Minnesota winds, James
walked and thought. He suddenly realized that he had been a bit selfish, at least in his own mind
to consider that this draft would be an opportunity for him, and not even consider that his family
would struggle every day with the worry of his safety overseas in the largest, deadliest war the
world had ever seen. Even so, James knew he had to prove something, if not to anyone but
himself, that he had command and dictation of his own life. As he walked he gazed upon the
small Midwestern town in which he lived. Few were on the sidewalks, and those who were
looked stone faced at the ground, completely paralyzed by the tragic news heard in the morning.
James next passed the local grocery store. He saw the discount signs on the outside, stray
shopping carts and bags stacked neatly and a grocer in an apron sweeping up any debris left on
the inside. James feared that if he stayed in the Midwest, that this would be the culmination and
climax of his entire life. Most likely a job at this exact grocery store, meager pay and a modest
lifestyle. James had no qualms about anyone else with that philosophy of life, but that certainly
118
wasn’t his. And as James walked past that grocery store he vowed from then on to put the
infamous Latin saying to full use in his young life. Carpe Diem. Seize the day.
The smooth barrel of the rifle was gripped in James Watson’s hands as he peered
attentively into the night. Always a bit nervous, he was especially shaken on nights when he was
put on point patrol. Not only was he responsible for his own life, but the lives of his squad
consisting of a dozen or so sleeping others. In the morning they would head to the jungles and
beaches of the Pacific again, chasing any ounce of survival that they could against enemies of
foreign terrain, and a race of people that they couldn’t understand.
James walked over to a nearby boulder sized rock, and sat down—still attentive to any
rustling, gripping the gun—and gazed in an adolescent wonder atypical for someone like him.
The freedom. James had received his wish of a draft and freedom from his insignificant, rural
Minnesota town. But as he fingered his rifle carefully and fiddled with a meager handful of sand
from the Pacific beach, he knew that this was not the excitement and vitality he had hoped for.
Now bullets were his food, and dirt his bed, in a part of the world that seemed all too foreign to
be comfortable in. Often he cried and laughed with the sad irony of wanting to be far away from
home and then, after the fact, he found it quite undesirable. And yet, he was still responsible for
his survival every day. After all, present location is not the first thing on the human mind when
gunshots fly around your head aiming for your flesh.
The sun peered through the dining room window forming a dimmed glow that was
typical for 4:00 in the afternoon. As the sun shifted, different formations would assemble on the
table leaving plenty of room for a warm area for thought or conversation. Usually it would be
Mrs. Watson’s favorite time of the day however present circumstances with the war in the
Pacific had changed that the past several weeks. “He almost seemed delighted to leave,” she said
to herself in a somber tone while fixing dinner. “I give him a place to live, food to eat, and we
barely get so much as a wave and a half smile.” Her depression the past several weeks had been
painfully obvious to the children, but also to occasional visitors to the home who would not at
any other point in her residence notice a change in personality. She had even considered seeing
some sort of a psychiatrist, though she was confident that her depression was not a result of her
119
son’s deployment in the war, but of his casual demeanor he took when he left. A subject like
that would be too awkward for her to talk to another person about.
“Kids,” Mrs. Watson yelled up the stairs, “dinner’s ready, be down here in five minutes.”
“Yeah, got it,” they called in near unison response.
Dutifully, the three of them appeared at the table and sat down to eat. This was the time
of the day Mrs. Watson had dreaded the most for the past three weeks for the simple fact that she
now had to hide her angst from her children. It was as if she now had to pull out the cloak to
mask everything she had been feeling. Now was the time for the boring, daily questions of
typical suburban life that she couldn’t focus on worth a damn at this juncture without feeling
restless and jittery. The children chattered amongst themselves and thankfully were not
including their mother in any of the conversation at the moment. But it was finally a mere
centimeter over what she could bear. Mrs. Watson placed her fork down at the table, pushed her
plate away, and wept.
With another thrust to the unforgiving ground, James Watson clamped his hands into the
water drenched soil of the Pacific. His rifle lay beside him as he peered over the log to get one
quick glimpse of the enemy before reloading the clip of his gun. He watched helplessly as his
fellow soldiers within his compacted squad reacted to the enemy with every emotion possible.
Relentless firing, crying, running—war exerts the full scope of emotions within a human being.
James remained keeping his head down behind the log, for he could hear the near silent
whipping of bullets striking around him. Reluctantly he set his rifle atop the log and peered
through the sights for a target. A perfect one arose just a few moments later, arms fully stretched
out, able to be hit. “This isn’t freedom,” James thought to himself. He peered into the sights
once more and with a jolt and a moment of instant regret he pulled the trigger. Witnessing his
target clasp his hands against his chest, James felt a gasping relief. Then it came.
Two pieces of ripping shrapnel seemed to bite his leg off. James fell to the ground with a
ferocious howl of torture. He clenched his leg and chest simultaneously as the blood dripped
relentlessly running down his calf and seemed through his uniform. A nearby medic heard the
screams of pain and sprinted over; doing everything he could to tend the wound. “Is it gonna be
alright?” James said through clenched teeth. “Doesn’t look good,” the medic said as he
bandaged the wound and ushered for another medic to assist him. “If you gotta lose something
120
though, might as well be a leg.” As the two medics carried James away from the battlefield he
no longer thought about the East Coast. The impossibility of survival outlasted the excitement of
the city. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was his home life, his mother’s voice
ringing in his ears.
James sat inside the café hunched over on his chair. He had bought a ham sandwich, and
chewed it viciously while peering over the filled ashtrays at the people walking the sidewalk. He
had soon realized that if you were honorably discharged from the army, it usually meant that you
had recently developed an injury that prevented you from doing much of anything besides sitting
in cafes like he was at that moment. The leg still bothered him, and he seldom walked without a
limp, a constant reminder of the bullet ridden region of the Pacific Islands. He got up to leave
the café, fixed his coat as he finished the last bite of his sandwich and filed out of the room
inconspicuously. On the walk home he pondered why his endless letters to his home in
Minnesota had been left without reply. He had sent around five since being discharged, and his
family had been unresponsive. “Maybe they’ve been busy,” he thought, even though that was a
faulty explanation. In any case, he expected a response soon. He then busily thought what there
was to do that evening. After all, he was now living in New York City.
When James returned to his small apartment he stretched out on his small sofa and turned
on the radio. At that specific moment he remembered the pile of mail he had brought in several
hours ago before departing for the café. He flipped through some bills and some advertisements
from the city before coming to a letter stamped from his small town in Minnesota. The address
marked was his home for the first nineteen years of his life.
James sat with a dumbfounded look upon his face. The walls seemed to close in around
him as if he was claustrophobic with fear. With a deep breath, he opened the letter.
Dear James,
Don’t ask how I found your present address, it isn’t important. I won’t beat around the
bush or waste your time with small talk. Mom died a week ago from a heart attack. None of us
saw it, it happened in her sleep, but it still can’t take away the pain. There’s a viewing, a funeral
and all of that but we doubt you’ll want to come. You made your decision as to where you would
121
be happiest to live, and its best if you just stay in New York. Reply to this letter if you wish, but
don’t bother returning.
Regards,
Alexander, Bobby and Claire
James stood silent for a few seconds. He let the whirl of temperaments and emotions
swirl around him. The astounding words he had just read combined with the bustle of the city
streets produced tears from his eyes. The tears then transpired into desperate cries for direction
and hope. He crumpled the letter and threw it into the dustiest corner of his apartment he could
find. Now was the first time since returning from the war that he wished he had the rifle in his
hands and the uniform on. He looked out the window. It was now April, 1942 with spring rain
showers in full swing. As the darkness crept in signaling the arrival of the night, he put a few
dollars in his pocket, threw on a light jacket, locked his apartment door and went outside. He
threw his arms up to the lights of the city. James Watson was finally free.
122
Lazy Man
Patrick Somaru
Dave awoke to the sound of his wife reorganizing their kitchen. “Hey Christi since I know you
aren’t cooking, can you pass me the Bengay, my neck hurts”
“Grow up” his wife tersely replied.
Too tired to argue, Dave rolled his pillow and sheet into a ball then stuffed them under his sofa.
“Oh you’re finished reorganizing the kitchen” Dave sarcastically remarked. Christi started
reciting prayers.
Halfway through his breakfast Dave’s cell phone alarm went off. A little text bubble on its
screen reminded him of his wife’s appointment at the doctor’s office.
“You have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”
“I know, I’m not going. Prayer saved my life once, it can do it again”
Not even bothering to confront his wife’s irrational belief’s, Dave informed his wife he would be
going there for her.
After walking into the waiting room, I saw a young woman yelling at Dr. Robert. It looked
interesting, so I took a seat near them.
“Look all I want is for my partner to be able to spend his time in recovery listening to what he
wants. It’s not right for you to force everyone in your practice to listen to family radio.”
I stopped listening. Christina’s had only recently converted to Christianity, and it was after
spending three months in the offices recovery center. I walked up to the young lady and said,
“Miss, I’m suing this doctor for altering my wife’s religious beliefs, do you want to meet with
me and my lawyer to see if you can get anything out of it too”
“What the hell is your problem, just because I have long hair, painted fingernails and a well
bodied figure you assume I’m a woman” she exploded.
Shocked at his revelation and disgusted with the accidentally homosexual thoughts that had run
through his head just moments ago, Dave said “Well, I’m going to sue Dr. Robert. If you want to
sue him too you should call my lawyer, Reginald Johnson.”
After a few very awkward moments, I headed to my car and arranged a meeting with Reginald.
“Hello David” Reginald said.
123
“You know my name is Dave” I replied.
“I also know Dave isn’t a proper name”
“Anyway, where is this great food place you were talking about?”
“It’s right here” Reginald said with a smile on his face, pointing to a MacDonald’s. “Their food
tastes great, the employees are friendly, and it’s a nice change from the venue of my usual
meals”.
While we waited in line, I explained my case to Reginald. He agreed to take it up since he
needed to improve his image with atheists and liberals. “Oh by the way I invited your confused
friend to meet with us.” Reginald informed me. “Great, just great” I replied. The gay guy arrived
and after a few minutes, left.
“Did I say something offensive?” Reginald asked me.
“Other than being black, nope don’t think so”
“Thank you for that, I didn’t want to risk sounding ignorant.”
“Yeah don’t wana offend nobody do you, tom”
“I most certainly do not” Reginald responded. “You see what I mean Dave; they all are so
sociable and jolly?”
After we left the MacDonald’s, I decided to hang out with Reginald all day. It was pretty
entertaining; he liked to gamble and had no talent at all. Neither did I, but I was good at
matching him up against golfers whom he couldn’t beat. After making a couple hundred dollars I
decided I should quit while I was still ahead.
“Hey Reginald, I’m going to head home” I said.
“Hold on for a minute, it’s bad luck to leave on a losing streak” Reginald told me while
attempting to putt the ball with a driver.
“Alright” I agreed.
Hurried by my attempt to leave, Reginald accidentally hit the golf ball in the wrong direction.
As a car alarm started ringing, I said,
“Ok that’s my cue see you later” and headed for my car. As I headed home, I turned on the radio.
“In an incident today at a local golf club, a local lawyer attempted to kill an innocent senior
citizen by projecting a golf ball into the windshield of his car. This attempt was for nothing
though, as the senior citizen had been out playing golf for a few hours. A few local policemen
124
saw this criminal’s attempt and apprehended him before it was even known that the golfer was
actually trying to kill someone,” said one of the newsmen.
“We are lucky to have such skilled police officers in this city, to be able to determine that a man
was attempting murder with such little information…, it’s a true skill,” replied another.
“Indeed it is, indeed it is” said the first newsman.
Seeing another opportunity to avoid going home, and feeling mildly responsible for Reginald’s
misfortune, I decided to head to the police station where he was being held. He wasn’t there, so,
figuring he had been released, I headed home. “Hey, honey, you do remember that you are
allergic to walnuts, right” I asked my wife, seeing a large bag of walnuts on the table. “I’m
alright I never was allergic, I didn’t go to church enough before,” she replied. “Well, ok then,
just let me know a few minutes before you start eating those walnuts so that the ambulance I pray
for can have a head start,” I sharply replied. Bored, I headed to my computer to read the news.
The headline was “lawyer causes fatal shootout in police station and does not survive it.”
Saddened by the loss of my friend, I called the local police department. “What happened to
Reginald Johnson, he seemed to be in shape?” I asked the policeman. “Well, there was an
incident. A local gang felt that Mr. Johnson’s incarceration was unfair, so they shot the cops who
arrested him and tried to break him out.”
”And?” I impatiently asked.
“In an attempt to be friendly with them, he called them his niggers. You know, with an er on the
end. So they shot him too before running out”
I hung up the phone and went to my wife to tell her the bad news. She was on the kitchen floor,
she had eaten the walnuts. I checked her pulse, she was dead. As I called an ambulance to see if I
was wrong, a television ad disrupted my call. It was for life insurance. I contemplated purchasing
it for my wife quickly before I called the ambulance, but I decided not to be an ass.
After the coroner arrived, he told me, “well, it’s a good thing your wife doesn’t have life
insurance, if not, we would probably have assumed that you killed her because there are records
proving that she was aware of her condition.
125
Battle Wounds
Christine Sowa
“Officer,” Dora cordially greeted Robbie Jones, the young police officer who had called
her into the station for questioning. Dora had babysat for Robbie twenty years earlier when his
mother, Dora’s best friend in high school, was working two jobs to make ends meet. Dora had
imagined that if she had had a son, he would have been like Robbie.
“Mrs. Baker, I am so sorry to have to bring you in for this, in your time of mourning.”
Dora could see the pain in Robbie’s eyes, the sympathy he could not express verbally.
“However, the state of Alabama has strict laws against euthanasia.”
Robbie had seen Dora taking care of Richard; after the car accident, he had come to the
house with a casserole. At the time, Dora was emotionally drained, but she had accepted the gift
with a forced smile and made room for it next to the others in the freezer.
He abruptly turned off the Walkman that was recording their conversation, leaned in
close and whispered, “Mrs. B, I know what you’ve been going through. My mother would be
turning in her grave if she could see what I am doing right now, I hope you know—but if you
just say it was an accident, that the cord got tangled up, pulling the plug out of the socket, they
won’t prosecute you.” Dora swelled with emotion, proud of the boy she had helped to raise.
Robbie then resumed the recording and asked in a very monotone voice, “Mrs. Baker,
what happened the night of December 17th?”
“I think you know the answer to that, detective,” Dora started.
*
*
*
Richard was Dora’s first love. He had just returned from a military tour to their
hometown in northern Alabama, still in his uniform, when his blue eyes fell upon Dora, a
beautiful, reserved woman in her first year at the community college, studying nursing.
Richard asked her out to dinner; flattered, she accepted, and he picked her up at her
parents’ house later that evening. After Richard had ordered their meals, they began talking.
They were both from large, middle-class families in town and wanted large families themselves,
one day.
126
Their courtship continued for months, until summer when Richard asked Dora to marry
him. Saying “no” never occurred to Dora; Richard appeared to be a true southern gentleman and
her parents adored him for his ability to financially support their only daughter.
Richard persuaded Dora not to return to college in the fall. After all, she had to assume
“wifely responsibilities” and they were just beginning to adjust to their marriage, he insisted.
Dora understood, and she began converting her new house into a home—decorating and
refurbishing.
*
*
*
A year into their marriage, Richard pulled Dora into his large arms. “When are we going
to have a baby?” he questioned with a large grin on his face.
The image of a small child with Richard’s blue eyes captivated Dora, and she smiled.
“Just picture a little boy with your soft strawberry hair,” Richard teased.
“Or an adorable little girl with your smile,” Dora mused.
Richard seemed unnerved at the mention of a baby girl. He had come from a family of
girls and, as the only boy, he was proud to be able to carry his family name and continue the
“Baker” legacy. His great-grandfather was a hero in the Civil War, one of the reasons Richard
felt obliged to enlist in the Army.
“We’ll see, dear,” Dora remarked. “But today I have to go to the market to get our
groceries. What would you like me to make for dinner tonight?”
“How about your French onion soup?”
“Good, I’ll make that tonight. I’ll be a little late coming home, though. I have to swing
by Marcy’s house with some chicken noodle soup—she’s sick again!”
“Marcy’s? Honey, I don’t know if you should be going over there.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Dr. Turning told her she was no longer contagious, and I’ll be extra
careful,” Dora explained.
“It’s not that. I just…I just think that Marcy’s not the kind of person you should be
hanging out with. I mean, she’s unmarried and about to have God-knows-whose child.”
127
Dora looked at her husband with hurt eyes. “Richard, we all make mistakes; but Marcy
has been my closest friend since I could crawl. I can’t give up on her now, especially in her time
of need.”
Untouched by his wife’s outpouring of emotions, Richard continued, “But she…she
wears those tight jeans and smokes, and she isn’t even educated.”
Dora looked confused—almost every man she knew smoked like a chimney! After
reflecting for a moment, she responded, “But darling, we both finished high school—I’m no
more educated than she.” Dora had to choke back tears realizing that her husband disapproved of
her friend, and he must have thought of them both as stupid women.
“Dora, I didn’t mean that. I’m just saying that you have much more potential than she
does, and you should surround yourself with people like me who encourage you to reach that
potential.”
“Since when did Richard ever encourage me to reach my potential,” Dora wondered to
herself. “Did he forget that she wanted to be a nurse and that he made her give up her career
aspirations?” Not wanting a confrontation, she simply responded, “You are right, as usual, dear.”
Then she quickly departed as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
*
*
*
Twenty years later, Dora sat in the audience as her daughters walked up to receive their
high school diplomas at the elaborate ceremony. She swelled with pride as she watched them
turn their tassels, signifying the honor of completing an important milestone.
Richard sat next to her, clapping his hands loudly. He was always making a scene, trying
a bit too hard to prove his love for his daughters.
Sandra and Olivia were identical; except Sandra wore her long blonde locks in curls and
Olivia sported an edgier look with her short straight hair. They were both beautiful. Dora hoped
that they would remember their mother next year when they were off at Amherst studying to
become nurses.
After the ceremony, they came up to her and hugged her powerfully. She kept forgetting
that they were now stronger than she. To celebrate, Dora insisted that the family go out for pizza
and ice cream.
128
At the restaurant, televisions were blasting sports and celebrity gossip; the one above the
Bakers had the nightly news program blaring. “And in other news, the President has announced
that he will be sending another 50,000 troops to Iraq over the next six months after this week’s
deadly assaults.” The station played a clip from a battle scene in Baghdad. With the sound of
shooting, Richard froze. Dora and the girls were used to this by now. They pretended to be
reading their menus when Richard sternly demanded, “Will somebody turn that the hell off?”
Dora quickly reached for the television’s remote control, hoping to calm him down before things
got out of her control, as they often did…
That night as she lay in bed next to her snoring husband, Dora’s hands traced over her
bruised and tender body. “How could he be so cruel to the mother of his children?” she
pondered. Then, she felt over her abdomen until she found the scar. The memories flooded back
to her. She recalled the immense happiness of learning that she was having twins, and the pain
she felt during childbirth. Drifting in and out of consciousness, all she remembered hearing was
her doctor’s panicked voice exclaiming, “Oh my God!” The next thing she knew she was a
mother of two beautiful baby girls. With her husband at her bedside, the doctor was the first to
speak to her, “Dora, we have your babies safe and sleeping in the nursery.” She beamed.
“However, there was a serious problem while you were in labor. You experienced severe
internal bleeding, and … we were forced to remove your uterus for your own safety.” She looked
over at her husband, his face in his hands, and she slowly came to realize what the words meant.
*
*
*
The next day, Dora finally decided to confront Richard about the years of cruelty and
abuse; she waited anxiously for him to return home from yet another round of golf. She called
his cell phone.
Ring.
Ring. “Come on Richard, get your phone.”
Ring.
“Hello?” he screamed into the phone.
“Richard, it’s Dora. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching, and—”
“Dora, I’m in the car. Can this wait?”
129
“No, Richard! No it can’t! I want you to listen to me.”
“FINE,” Richard replied. “I’ll just put you on speakerphone. Hold on a minute.”
“CRAP!” he yelled.
“Richard? Richard? Where are you? Are you there? Are you alright?” But Dora heard
the collision, and she knew that Richard was not alright.
*
*
*
In the hospital, Dora and her girls were relieved to hear that Richard had been fortunate
enough to make it out of the crash alive. He was in surgery to relieve the swelling around his
brain. When the operation was finished, they were all sitting in the waiting room outside of the
OR. Dora rose, prepared to proceed to her husband’s room when the doctor pulled her aside.
“Mrs. Baker. May I please have a word with you?”
Dora braced herself. Her husband was ok…so what did he want from her?
“Richard made it through the surgery…but it appears that the swelling around the brain
was far more serious than we had imagined. He is currently in a vegetative state and needs to be
on a respirator.”
In shock, Dora asked, “When will he wake up?”
“Not in the foreseeable future, if ever. I am so sorry. But please do alert me if there is a
change in his condition.”
“Yes, doctor,” Dora managed. The tears began to flow as the reality of the news set in.
Then she slowly walked over to Richard’s hospital room, pausing as she opened the door.
There he lay, powerless, with no control over his own body. He was connected to
machines and feeding tubes.
“Oh, Richard!” she cried, tracing her hands along his head, where the bandages were.
*
*
*
There were still casseroles in the freezer. You would think that after four months, people
would stop with the food already. Not her neighbors. If only her daughters were so considerate.
130
Dora couldn’t remember the last time that they had called from college. Perhaps they just
wanted to go on with their lives, leaving behind the painful memories of the past.
Dora sighed. The sound of the respirator had kept her awake that night. She hadn’t
bothered to put on make-up for weeks. Richard would never have approved, but what say did he
have anymore? Tired, Dora went over to Richard to give him his daily sponge bath. She began
to take his shirt off.
How had her life turned out so terribly? She picked up the sponge and, while bathing
Richard, began to reflect on the years of her life with Richard.
She had been so naive and foolish to think that she would spend her whole life in love
with the man she had fallen in love with as a teenager. It was as if his charm had worn off the
day she put the ring on. Again, Dora sighed.
Richard had insisted Dora couldn’t possibly understand all that he had been through in
the war and that his explosive temper was not his fault. Yet, he never realized that his wife had
battle wounds of her own.
She was always too weak to stand up to him. That’s what she was trying to do the day of
the accident. Maybe he knew what was coming, that Dora was finally ready to break free from
his control.
After all these years, she could finally see all that he had done to her, all the pain that he
had inflicted. Dora closed her eyes and reached for the plug.
131
Tess Wizniak
Memories in Ashes
Shades of crimson, ginger, and gold shone in through the open window on the second
floor of her family’s barn. A ray of yellow light struck Christine’s right eye, leaving a shadow on
the left. First Jesse peered out the large window, admiring the sunset along with his high school
sweetheart as he did every Sunday evening. He felt warm and at home at this moment each
week; as if there was nothing on God’s green earth besides that sunset and the two of them. He
then heard his name being called by his girlfriend and turned to her attention. As he tried to
respond she seemed to not be able to hear his calls. He shouted louder, her name, as he turned to
see her with tears streaming down her flawless face. With no response still he reached out to her,
only to realize she’s vanished and he was alone. Jesse took one last glance towards the sunset
which now seemed as lonely as him. Then his alarm sounded at 7:10 A.M., and he was awake.
*
Money by Pink Floyd played on his clock radio as he opened his eyes, still thinking of his
dream. The only option now was to shake it off, as he seemingly does every morning. Jesse
Forrester is a twenty year old single dad; father of Chris Forrester whom now is about two years
old. The two of them live, and always have lived, in Salem Massachusetts. Jesse rolled out of
bed and went to go get Chris out of his crib; Chris cried for him.
“Hey buddy shh, shh, shh, I’m right here.” Jesse said.
He picked his son up from his crib which immediately calmed both of them down. Jesse forgot
his dream and Chris got the attention he wanted. Chris nuzzled into his fathers shoulder; this was
Jesse’s favorite part of the day, when he got to wake up and hold his son, his only piece left of
Christine. The morning goes on as breakfast was made, baths were had, and a small Superman
backpack was packed with a granola bar, a power ranger action figure, and a pair of training
pants. They got strapped into Jesse’s Chevy Truck and headed out. Grandma already stood
outside waving at the truck as it pulled in her driveway, in front of her quant suburban house.
“Hey Ma, here’s the little one, make sure he behaves, and no cookies before lunch!” He kids.
“Ha, as you wish son.” She winked at Chris as his hand was passed from his father’s to hers.
Jesse messed his sons hair up a bit and kissed mom on the cheek.
132
“Love you two, see you at 5?”
“See you then Jesse. Hey, you still going tonight? Jesse sighed.
“Yep, me and the munchkin.”
Grandma and Chris waved as Jesse drove away to his job at Joe’s Mechanics.
*
At five ten Jesse pulled back up to his mom’s house to pick up his son and head home.
They both got second baths and wore their nicest outfits. It’s been a year since Jesse and Chris
visited Christine’s family, so this was bound to be awkward. Once again the boys hopped in the
truck and headed only fifteen minutes south, to Mom-Mom’s. Jesse approached the door with
reluctance and caution; he may have gripped his son’s hand a bit too hard as they walked
towards the house. Christine’s house is much bigger than Jesse’s, it is a farm. So the door bell
rang and Mom-Mom opened the door with a huge grin on her face and arms reached out towards
the boys.
“Oh thank the sweet Jesus my Lord when was the last time I had the pleasure to see you two!?”
She always talked this way.
“Hey Joan, I know it’s been…too long.” He gave a half smile. Seeing the house itself was too
much for him to handle, it’s been only a year and a half since Christine died, and almost as long
since he’d been here.
“Well don’t just stand here and wait for the witches, come in, come in! We’ve prepared your
favorite, beef stew!” This was not his favorite. This was Christine and his favorite; great. He
stepped over the threshold and it hit him. That smell, that deep almost cinnamon smell. He
almost broke down right then and there. That smell held a family, a child, and a life. As they
walked in the house Jesse could not help but to let his eyes wonder everywhere, the warm
fireplace, the wooden floors, the soft yellow walls, the decorative touch Joan had that made the
house like Thanksgiving all year. They walked into the living room were everyone sat; Jerry, the
brother, sally, the thirteen-year old sister, and hector, the overly sized Chihuahua. Ten different
shouts of “hey!”, “how are ya?”, and “where have you been?” bombarded him.
“Eh, you know, been busy at work, busy with him.” He pointed to the little one.
“Please Jess; we know you haven’t been that busy, it’s time to move on! We have obviously; we
invited you over didn’t we?” Sally was bold, and a bitch. This was just her personality; usually
nobody who knew her took it personally. Jerry on the other hand was not so much a pain in my
133
ass. We’ve met up a few times since the accident; he’s sort of like a big brother, being only three
years older than me.
“Sally…Are you serious with that? Stop being like that.” Jerry snipped at her.
Jesse shook his head and looked to the floor. Sally then ran up to her nephew, picked him up,
smothered him with kisses, and ran him into her room where she had prepared some presents for
him. The room was left with the three of them now. Jerry motioned discretely with a nod for his
mom to leave the room. Jesse noticed.
“Well, um. I have to go get dinner ready in the kitchen; I’ll leave you boys to catch up.”
Ten seconds went by until any word was said.
“Jesse, I’m glad you came tonight. I honestly didn’t expect you to.”
“Yea Jer, I’m not gonna’ lie, I was considering not showing up.” Jesse smirked.
“What happened is now in the past, nobody blames you anymore.”
“Jerry. Let’s be honest. You know how I feel. Things will never be the same between all of us. It
was, is, and always will be my fault.” His teeth clenched with the last two words.
“Man, the way my mom acted, that was out of pain, I mean can you blame her, her daughter died
in a brutal car accident.”
“See, that’s the thing, I don’t blame her, I bla...” He was cut off when Joan walked back in the
room with two oven mitts on her hands and a fake smile on her face.
“It’s time for dinner boys!”
*
Dinner was silent at first. The only sound was the clinking of silverware against porcelain
plates; nobody in the room new what to say and when to say it. Chris sat in a high chair next too
his tortured dad. He seemed to be the only person truly happy in the room. The child smacked his
hands against his plate spilling a few finely cut pieces of chicken. It was then the silence was
broken.
“So um, Jesse, how have you been…well, feeling? We’ve all been a bit worried” She asked this
with hesitation in her voice.
Jesse’s eyebrows arched in a confused way. He was angered by this. He clenched his fork and
knife for a moment while glancing at his food. He let his eyes travel to Joan’s; he snapped. The
knife and fork previously clenched were thrown across the table, splashing some pieces of food
at Sally. The brat looked shocked and in disbelief. Jesse stood up.
134
“Are you fucking kidding me?” This was not yet a scream. Silence filled the room as no response
was made.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Again, but now a scream.
“What are you talking about Jesse?” Joan acted like she didn’t know.
“What am I talking about? Do you not remember what happened two years ago? Christine got in
my best friends car, and I let her go with that drunken piece of shit! And you’re the one who
blamed me for that. You’re the one that rubbed that shit in my face the whole time we were going
through this! You hated me and my son! You wanted nothing, NOTHING, to do with us! Now
all the sudden after a year once you’ve moved on you want to have us over and pretend like it
never happened?! Fuck that. Fuck that.”
It was easy to tell by the look on Jerry’s face that he expected this argument to happen, and that
he was on Jesse’s side. He held one corner of his mouth in a smile. Sally on the other hand sat
with her eyebrows cocked, and her jaw dropped, with an “Oh no he didn’t!” expression on her
face. Joan. Joan looked as if she was just told that she was a man, even though her whole life she
was sure she was a woman. That is how surprised she was. Chris looked up at his daddy with
wide eyes, chewing on his hand and whatever piece of food that was in it. Jesse exhaled a deep
almost painful breath that stuttered in itself. An entire year of pain was released. He picked his
son up out of the high chair and stormed out of the room, and out of the house. The dining room
was left in silence and the only sound heard was Jesse’s engine revving and zooming away.
*
The Chevy truck pulled up into Jesse’s mother’s driveway, he walked Chris to the door
and knocked. His mother answered in her bath robe.
“Sweetheart what happened? You look like a mess! What the hell did that bitch say? This is
ridiculous I cannot belie…” Jesse cut her off.
“Ma I, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I killed her. I’m sorry I went back to that house. I knew
that would happen I knew it. I snapped Ma, I snapped.” His voice cracked every three words and
he was practically balling.
“Oh baby, you did not kill her! Don’t you ever say that again! This is not your fault! Certain
things you just can’t control baby.” She cried too and grabbed her son close to her to let him cry
in her arms.
“Will you take him for the night, there’s something I need to do.”
135
“Okay Jess, just be careful son.”
Jesse looked his son in the eye for a moment, than let him go, walked to his car, and drove away.
*
Jesse opened the doors to his apartment. He sat in the dark at the edge of his bed for three
hours holding only a picture of Christine and Chris. This picture was taken when Chris was six
months old, their senior year just before the accident; the single happiest time of his life. At
eleven sixteen Jesse’s face clenched with anger as he decided he needed to do something drastic.
He grabbed a can of oil he had from the garage he worked at and a pack of matches. In his truck
on the way to Christine’s house he thought a lot. He remembered the barn. The place they spent
every Sunday night and where his fondest memories were. It’s the place where Chris was
conceived and where they planned to have their wedding. Also, this was the place that haunted
Jesse. Everything he misses, longs for, and wished still existed, was in that barn. He wanted
those wants to go away. He wanted to burn down the barn. He turned off his headlights as he
pulled up the dirt drive way. When he reached the barn doors he fell to his knees. He cried
hysterically.
“Christine. Why did you leave me? I’m sorry I let you go with Shaun, forgive me. But why did
you leave me? I can’t do it without you. I need you… But I don’t need this barn. Without you,
this barn does not exist; no you, no barn.” He seemed to be going crazy, talking to her by
himself. She heard him though, from where she was.
He sprung open the doors of the barn, dust circled when the moon shone in on it. It has been
untouched the past year and a half. Nobody ever used it besides the two of them. As he stumbled
around he came across pictures, their couch, and her old jean jacket left in the same spot as the
day she died. He clutched it close to him. He then dropped it to the floor. Jesse grabbed the oil
can; he first poured it on the jacket and continued through-out the barn. One last glance was
taken in the threshold of the barn. A match was lit and thrown to the floor. The flames grew and
spread quickly. The barn burned and fell apart as Jesse watched for a moment from outside. He
heard a scream and quickly ran to his truck and sped off into the night.
*
Christine’s family would never discover that Jesse was the one who burned down the
barn; none of them ever knew how much it meant to their relationship. The cause would always
be a mystery to them all. On the other hand Jesse’s mom suspected it was him, but decided to let
136
it be. He seemed to be able to move on after this, to let what happened to have happened. A
compromise was made and Jesse let Christine’s family spend a day each week with Chris, even
though things would never be the same between Jesse and them.
*
After senior prom a year and a half ago Jesse slept at his boy Kevin’s house. Chris had
arrived that year so they did not have many frequent chances to have fun and party. Christine’s
mom would not let her sleep at a boy’s house ever. Jesse let Shaun take Christine home, even
though he had one to many beers. At one twenty-three A.M. they smashed into a tree and both
died. Her mom blamed Jesse for letting her go with Shaun. She sued Shaun’s family even though
they were suffering just as much as she was. For a year Jesse was not allowed to step foot on
Christine’s property. He was left alone, with no connection to his son’s mother. He was left with
no memories to hold onto until the day he returned to her house; until the day he left his
memories in the ashes.
137