A Love Note

Our arrangement was simple enough. I was with Gloria the first and third weekends of the month; Ollie and Gloria were together the second and fourth weekends. Weeknights were infrequent and scheduled ad hoc. Gloria and I had regular dates at a few bars, with an occasional wedding when called upon. Ollie and Gloria mainly frequented American Legion halls and maybe some family gatherings, as far as I knew. Nothing fancy, but enough to keep us all interested. 

We settled into our routine with a regularity that made it difficult to remember our previous, more independent, lives. Of course, there were bumps in the road: Ollie occasionally wanted Gloria on one of my weekends or we had a conflict around a holiday, but not often, and we always navigated any obstacles smoothly. It seemed as if we could go on like this forever. 

It probably helped that Ollie and I had been longtime friends before Gloria came on the scene. We had known each other practically our whole lives, growing up in a small town in North Dakota. We ate barely edible school lunches together and had sleepovers in elementary school. We navigated the complexities of middle school at each other’s sides. We even sat next to each other in the high school band, with Ollie on the tenor sax and me on trumpet, our instruments mirroring our stature in the class photo. We lost touch for a time after high school, but we never stopped being friends. 

Now, many years later, after separately moving to Minneapolis, we had become reacquainted through the small world of gig musicians. Our friendship picked up where we left off, easy-going and without drama, close in the sense of men who have no desire to talk to each other of difficult things. We maintained our connection by watching sports on television, or by drinking cheap beers around a bar while talking about sports we had watched on television. True to form, we did not discuss details of our time with Gloria or really anything related to Gloria, other than changes to our schedule.

All of which led to my confusion at lunch one day when Ollie asked, “Don’t you think it’s time one of us moved on from Gloria?”

The question hit like a gut punch, made worse by his breezy inflection that implied, in his mind at least, the matter already had been settled and I’d be the one moving on. 

“What do ya mean? End it . . . just like that? I don’t under—” 

“I don’t think there’s a formal process for this sort of thing.” 

“That’s not what I . . . I mean, how do we decide who ‘moves on?’”

Ollie did not respond, so I filled the silence: “Anyway, I like sharing. That way we can both look after her.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Ollie said. “I just think it’s time for a change, that’s all . . . it’s not like we’ll stop being friends if we don’t share Gloria.” 

That was it. I jerked our conversation to more comfortable ground. First, baseball—“Do you think the Twins will make a move at the trade deadline?”—and then, music—“Have you seen any jazz at the Dakota lately?”—talking rapidly and more than usual, afraid of what Ollie might say to fill any gaps in the conversation. 

As is often the case, the end of this whole affair was not immediate. Gloria and I had a number of beautiful weekends together. I remember one night at a German American bar where it seemed we could do no wrong. We swayed in harmony on the dance floor to the Snow Waltz, kicked up our feet a bit to the Tipsy Polka, and even tried a tango. The night seemed to last forever and pass in an instant, as only the most memorable times do. Of course, Ollie had his time with Gloria too. And, of course, I continued to remain in the dark about where they went together.

Everything seemed back to normal, yet I could not shake the feeling that we were all on borrowed time together. Toward the end, I found myself holding Gloria more tightly, moving together for an extra song or two, under the harsh glare of the overhead lights and the occasional wary glances from staff as they scrubbed the glassware and did a cursory wipe of the bar and tables at closing time. 

Of course, I regret my inaction in the moment. Looking back, I had plenty of opportunities to avoid the disaster that ensued. I should have been proactive. I should have fought for Gloria like a true literary hero. I am not one to blaze my own path, though, and there are not many love stories involving our triangle of two musicians and an instrument. You see, Gloria is not a woman; she was—she still is—an accordion.  

It is possible this revelation may mitigate your empathy for my tale of heartbreak. If that is your reaction, I feel nothing but pity for you. On the contrary, as only the lucky souls who have held an accordion can attest, it makes my account more profound. 

Unless you have played your own accordion—actually hugged one to your chest as you felt her breath move in and out, matching the rhythm of your heartbeat—I can’t expect you to understand the relationship an accordionist has with his instrument. The way other instruments are played—the pursed-lip kiss of a trombone, the soggy taste of a saxophone, the plunking of cold piano keys, the violent banging of a drum—make them simply inanimate objects in your hand. 

An accordion, on the other hand, comes alive as you gently massage her keys, warmed by your own hands during an hours-long embrace in which she continuously changes form, gracefully expanding and contracting. Like any desirable woman, an accordion is both welcoming and independent, granting you the opportunity to join your voice with her melodic tones or to simply enjoy her sweet music. 

I’m not ashamed to admit that I remember my first time with Gloria as vividly as I remember my “first time.” When I first held her, I knew we were made for each other and that her music would be the sweetest I could ever hope to play. When I looped in Ollie to help pay for Gloria, I assumed he would feel the same way. I guess I cannot expect most people to understand the connection that I felt with Gloria, but Ollie, he should have known. We were a part of a small but vibrant community of accordion players enjoying a renaissance of sorts—at least in our small part of the world—driven by the improbable convergence of the elderly yearning for tradition and young people embracing the retro irony of a good polka or waltz. 

Perhaps none of that matters now. What does matter is that I called Ollie one Friday morning to arrange a time to pick up Gloria. I asked when I could stop by, and I was answered by a long pause. Finally, Ollie said the five words that always presage doom: “You had better sit down.”

“What is it?” I asked. 

“I don’t have the accordion.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have Gloria. I haven’t seen her since yesterday.” 

“Yesterday? When were you planning to tell me?”

“I was hoping to find it.”

It. A subtle, yet significant, shift in terminology, like switching to the past tense when discussing a person who is chronically ill or gone missing.  

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so Ollie continued, “I had the accordion in my car when I stopped by the grocery store, and when I got home it wasn’t in there. I must have taken it out of the trunk to make room for my grocery bags and forgot to put it back in.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t process my life without Gloria. I knew that I could scrape together enough money to buy another used accordion, as I eventually did, but it was Gloria I wanted. Anyway, what was she doing in the trunk? And dammit, she’s not an “it.”

With no idea how to respond, I started peppering Ollie with obvious suggestions. “Did you go back to the store parking lot? Did you check inside the store to see if anyone turned it in? Did you ask any of the other customers?” 

We did our due diligence, of course. Ollie and I returned to the store together, and at least in my case separately on numerous occasions, to see if anyone had turned in Gloria. I walked through the parking lot nearly every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gloria next to a parked car. The store employees grew to know me, although the recognition that showed on their faces as I approached the customer service counter gradually evolved from welcoming to exasperated as the days passed. After a time, I started shopping at another grocery store to avoid reminders of Gloria’s absence in my life. 

We even stopped by the local police station for help, where we were politely informed that, based on the facts, the accordion was considered abandoned, such that there was “no potential violation of the criminal code requiring investigative action.” When I took it upon myself to seek surveillance video from the parking lot a city official efficiently closed the bureaucratic loop by requiring a search warrant to view any footage.

While pursuing the dead end of police assistance, we sought help from our community. We took refuge in the new town square and posted notices on Facebook and our neighborhood social networking site next to announcements of lost pets, yard sales, and complaints about neighbors not picking up after their dogs. We tweeted about our plight and scoured Craigslist multiple times a day for a post listing our beloved Gloria for sale, presumably at much-too-low of an asking price.

Leaving no stone unturned, and having no success with our online posts, we appealed to our actual town square. We tacked up handwritten signs around our neighborhood anywhere we could, including a Starbucks, a bookstore, a diner, a liquor store, and the grocery store where Ollie last had Gloria:

LOST ACCORDION!!!

Reward for Return!! Two free performances of your choosing!!

Last seen Thursday afternoon in the Lunds parking lot. 

The accordion was in a soft backpack case, root beer brown color, torn on one edge.

If found, please call Ollie (612-xxx-xxxx) or Pete (612-xxx-xxxx)

No Questions Asked! Just a Reward!!!

Even as we went to all this effort, we knew none of this would work. We had a sense of obligation, but never a feeling of hope. It was obvious, at least to me, that Gloria was gone forever; anyone lucky enough to have her now would be a fool to give her up. Knowing that, I moved on eventually, at least in the way that we all convince ourselves to go forward after suffering a loss. I suppose I even stopped thinking about her as much, although it was harder when I played at some of our old spots. 

Around this time, after I had remade my life without Gloria, I was on a long winter walk one evening and ducked into a small corner bar to warm up and have a whiskey. I heard her before I saw her. Her sound was unmistakably pure. I looked past the bar muddled with aging regulars sitting next to young hipsters and saw Gloria in the hands of another musician. He was about my age, and he was seated comfortably on a small stage in the corner of the room. My first impulse was to rush toward her and wrestle her away from the man holding her, but something about the music made me stop. I had never heard such lyrical sounds from her or from any accordion for that matter. I sat near the door and listened transfixed. 

When the set finally ended, I approached the other musician warily. “You sound great,” I said, cringing at the sound of my rising inflection. “I play as well . . . I really enjoyed your music.”

“Thanks,” he answered. He was sipping on a bottle of Grain Belt, his other arm draped over Gloria as she rested on his lap. “Oh, I’m Bill.”

“Pete,” I said with a nod. I longed to reach out and touch Gloria. Bill set his beer down on a side table and we shook hands. “That’s a beautiful accordion. Where did you get her?”

“I bought it a few weeks ago . . . at that music shop on Lake Street. It was used but had clearly been well cared for.”

“I don’t—” 

A group of young women brushed past me, each holding a rum and coke that was clearly not their first of the evening. They crowded around Bill and Gloria for a selfie. Bill shrugged his shoulders as they retreated to their table to post their photo. 

 “I was going to say . . . I don’t think I’ve seen you playing before.”

“Probably not. I just moved here from Wisconsin a few months back. I’m substitute teaching now . . . but I’m trying to get a full-time music job at one of the elementary schools. Since substitute’s pay is for crap, I decided to supplement my income by playing some accordion again. I haven’t played in a while, but it’s helping pay the rent for me and my boy.” He looked down. “Times have been leaner since my wife left us.”

I paused. I thought about telling him the whole story and demanding that he return Gloria, perhaps selling my own accordion to pay him off or working out some sort of trade. But then I remembered the beautiful music Gloria made as I listened to her that evening. It was clear that he needed Gloria more than I did, and perhaps, she needed him to reach her full potential. As if by Divine Providence, at that moment I heard Sting singing over the bar’s speakers, “If you love someone, set them free . . . Free, free, set them free . . . .” Dammit. Sting was right. 

I pulled out a five-dollar bill and stuffed it into Bill’s tip jar. “From one musician to another.” He tipped his beer in my direction as thanks. “Good luck landing that teaching job. And take care of that beautiful instrument, will ya?” 

With that, I took a last look at Gloria. I impulsively reached out my hand to feel her smooth wood case before I turned and quickly walked out of the bar. As I stepped outside to walk home, I paused to breathe in the crisp winter air, my mind as peaceful as the night sky filled with falling snow.

Sanctuary

Not enough of us in that neighborhood

to make teams, but we had two patches

of woods straddling the road that led

maybe a quarter-mile from our corner

to the drive-in. Only a few acres, but enough

for a world of exploration. Unlike our own neat

yards, with careful trees and well-tended

aromatic roses. No one tended the woods.

If my father wanted firewood,

I could lead him to the windfalls.

Otherwise, none of the adults ventured

into our woods. Mostly the place was abandoned

except for me and maybe another kid,

never more than three of us,

poking around in the familiar wild.

The boggy smells, some fallen trees, wild blackberry canes,

and the remains of old kid-projects that might have been

meant as forts, or clubhouses, but forgotten

by some earlier generation of explorers, or by us.

Cars whizzing by on the raised highway, on the edge

of what we could choose not to hear.

Now the road passes a sports complex

on the way to extended parking for the shopping mall.

Our woods have vanished, from the Parkway

to where the drive-in was, familiar to

memory and imagination,

respite from the neat imagined lives

of our parents.

First published in Peacock Review.

Song for Cassiopea

for Kaden, marine biologist

---

As a child, you were nothing but stalk—

polyp form emerging, latching

onto nearby structures, your body

neither male nor female, still

you create your clones, proliferate

in mangrove swamps—

too warm for many, too polluted—

you are easy in that way.

Leaving polyp form, you are medusa,

telltale bell and arms but no platonic ideal, 

moons backlit in aquaria.

Among your jelly peers,

you seem confused, pulsating 

upside down, elaborate tendril arms

forever seeking.

Swimmers who know are not afraid.

Your sting is mild—not like the man o’ war,

but you hold a secret. Under stress,

you will release your stinging cells, tiny bombs

awaiting prey, distant from your rococo arms 

pretending to be coral.

My child, future scientist, picked you of all creatures

to examine. After navigating stinging waters of school, 

carrying a body mischosen by fate. Unloveable jellies—

bane of bathers, enemy of engineers, useless 

nuisance, beauty of the deep.

Now, this child, transitioned,

buries himself in science, studies

how you protect yourself,

disappearing so easily—

thinner than a contact lens.

I see you stretching back into Cambrian fossils,

doing the hard work of evolution, organizing cells 

into your chosen bodies, accomplishing 

miraculous survival.

Of the Macho

Mi hermano says he can’t change flat tires on his bicycle

anymore. His wrists too weak, can’t leverage the tire’s bead over

the rim. In high school he was the State all-around gymnastics

champion. His body flying over bars and mats.

A no ignition Johnny Blaze.

Now he places a white plastic lawn chair

in his shower. Safer, if you sit.

One summer afternoon when we were unchecked

college students, our lifeguard friend unlocked

the diving bay at the local public pool for

our romanticized athletic desires.

We bounced on the high dive, happy after some beers,

sending each other into the atmosphere.

Admiring our splashes

that exploded over the wall. Our friend

shaking her head,

our horsing around a real danger,

she claimed. And maybe,

because we both wanted to kiss her, we dared

each other in a contest of the macho. Who could

leap off the high dive board and come

closest the pool’s edge on the opposite side.

The entire pool in the shade of the early evening now, and

he launched first. His entire body embracing

the wilderness moment. A leap of redemption,

of joy, of middle-class boredom,

because they never let you howl. He landed like a perfect

arrow, un clavo, en punto, feet first, a daring splash two feet

from the edge. I swam over to him, and told him he was

crazy. He was the winner. No question, no contest.

I climbed out and watched him

glide through the water to the other wall.

He pulled his body out of the pool, the water

released him to the air. A wind of calm rushing over

the surface. The water returning to glass.

First published in Gigantic Sequins, June 2020.

Itemized Checks

There’s a coyote’s skull at Hurricane Creek / there’s a new table in your section / your life, sectioned / an hour of each day in each canine eyeball / a new set of fangs / sun-bleached / the customers / sun-bleached / coyote could run but eight hundred miles / four highways / alley smoke break / cool-running river for paws to dip / don’t stop a ruptured lung / internal wounds / essential / contained / your stress / contained / paws hit stone & entrees hit table / & you’re still moving / & you haven’t hiked in months / & breath still comes / shallowing / tumbling / a fall forward / gravity’s grace / you wonder, what kills a coyote? / you wonder, will you always be only passing through? / there’s a high turnover at this restaurant / there’s a copperhead in the water / biding time / binding time to the instant of / strike / sink / release / breathe in / release / if you call out, will they fire you? / if you die somewhere, is it finally Home?

Nostos

Birds circle:
rich entertainment
and in the middle of it
nature not quite dead.
The sun’s blade makes
one last stab
across my back.

I am leaving you,
October of my grieving—
your gray head
your orange skirt flouncing
round your ankles.
I drive east in low gear
along the unmuscled arm of Ohio
heading toward November.

And as the sun falls behind me
trees huddle to mask
disaster. Darkness, unwelcome
takes over the sky.
I thank the stars for making
a colander of night.

I look up and ahead
through heaven’s perforation.
The landscape shrivels past—
I am Orpheus in a dress
and Eurydice blind.
I drive under an overpass.
Lights strain, headlights on the bridge
gleam like the eye
in the head of an oracle.

Elegy as a Writing Instructor in State Prison

2022 Chapbook Prize Finalist

I want to know the god these men know,

pounded to life on the chapel piano.

I want to disguise myself in desert air

and follow the hymn between each keyhole.

There’s a rebirth I’m missing as I exit

the guard kiosk & accelerate. I want to know

yearnings on the yards too violent to walk,

the single ember in a cell of one

who still believes in the god I want to know.

Mardi Gras

“Mardi Gras… Isn’t that the most euphonious appellation?” I closed my eyes and pronounced each syllable slowly, showing off my English and French skill to my brother, Kevin.

My initiation into the amalgam of cultures of America.

“Mm,” from the other end of the line. That’s it? Just an “Mm”? But I’m not done yet…

I continued, “It’s an ancient holiday, preceded by Lundi Gras the Monday before. Fattened ox, boeuf gras, to indulge in before fasting. You know, a religious holiday. Celebrated in Rome and Venice in medieval Europe…”

Quiet.

His vague grin when he categorized my comments as rubbish flickered.

I was about to tell him that my apartment is a short distance from Elysian Fields, the site of Blanche DuBois’s tragic end in A Streetcar Named Desire, but then I remembered he had forbidden me to watch A Streetcar Named Desire at the Art Theater in Taipei.

I stopped talking and jotted down the arrival time of his flight from Los Angeles. After hanging up the phone, I drove down to Woolworths on Canal Street to get new sheets, pillows, and a blanket for the Murphy bed in my one-bedroom efficiency for his stay.

I couldn’t believe Kevin was taking off from work to visit me.

Growing up in Taiwan, I had been invisible to Kevin, the golden boy, the favorite son. I carried our lunch pails to and from school. He walked in strides ahead of me, his tall figure and handsome long face leading us into each school day. On the days we had sports, he had the first bowl of noodle soup. While I waited for the maid to fix a second one, he slurped next to my rumbling stomach. When he went off to college in America, we were uncommunicative till it was my turn for college at Tulane. Three weeks after my arrival in New Orleans, he announced he was coming to visit me.

I was elated. Eighteen long years waiting for his attention.

My studio apartment sat on top of a three-car garage at the back of a mansion on Magazine Street. My wealthy landlady, Adelaide, lived alone in the mansion with her maid.

Weeks before the holiday, pounding drumbeats and the winding Jazzy pitch of trumpets filled the air. Adelaide had party after party in her mansion. Universities closed on Mardi Gras as nobody bothered to attend class.

New Orleans’s antiquated cobblestone streets and wrought-iron-fenced balconies stuffed with crowds from all over the world. The hordes wandering up and down the lanes, some with open drinks, some already inebriated. The French Quarter jam packed; the early spring air stunk of urine, alcohol, and Cajun spices. Bodies covered in flashy costumes, faces behind mysterious masks. Heads adorned with jeweled crown pieces, turbans with feathers. Massive flamboyant floats, ensembles of dancers, color guards, and drum bands sashayed on main avenues. City crippled for days.

On the sidewalk of Canal Street, Kevin and I caught purple and gold strands of beads, chased after pink plastic cups with prints of Zulu King.

I should at least be grateful for Kevin buying us fancy dinners: Cajun Barbecue shrimps, crab etouffee, Andouille sausages with red beans and rice. On Mardi Gras day, Kevin slept till noon, went out by himself after lunch. I didn’t see him till the wee hours of the next morning, reeking of spirits and cigarette smoke. He was not in the state to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, so I drove myself to church.

He had left my car with an empty gas tank. I wanted to say something to him, but he was asleep from his liquor induced stupor.

“A wild horse” my mother calls him, while I am “a gentle bunny rabbit.”

After I dropped him off at the airport, I didn’t hear from him. No thank you note. No inquiries about my school. Not even a Christmas card. A silent year. Until the next Mardi Gras. Yet I believed, or chose to believe, that Kevin wanted to see me at least once a year, and what better days than Mardi Gras to get us out of gloomy winters?

Years of life flew by in between many Mardi Gras. I graduated, worked, and married. My husband, Emilio, and I bought a large old house in the Garden District of New Orleans. In my starry-eyed view, a neighborhood close to the famed universities of Tulane and Loyola was a superb area to raise a family.

Big house, New Orleans, Mardi Gras. Kevin and his wife, Carrie, and his son, Joshua, came every Mardi Gras. Emilio and I became a popular couple. One year, Carrie invited her families to our house for the occasion. Suddenly, twenty some guests crammed our house, some we barely knew. They didn’t mind sleeping, or passing out, on the carpet, on the hallway, on the kitchen floor. At the end of the visit, they expressed gratitude exuberantly for a wonderful Mardi Gras holiday. Congratulated us on our good fortune living in a lovely historical home.

“Love you. Thank you for such a great time.”

“Oh, yes, love you. You are such a kind and gracious hostess. And you have a beautiful house.”

“Bye, love you, see you next Mardi Gras.” Joshua covered my face with smacking kisses.

They always said “love you” when they left. Love you, love you, love you, until the words sounded hollow.

For nearly fifteen years I had let myself believe that Mardi Gras was a sign of the real relationship between Kevin and me. A new milestone, a new tradition for our fledging families in America.

We enjoyed our new home. Our popularity fed our vanity.

Then we moved to the slow-paced, friendly, green foothills.

Greenville, South Carolina.

Our new house clutches the Enoree riverbank like a mollusk. The back yard slopes down to the winding waterway, tall trees overlooking the murmuring rock-strewn stream. I was planning to walk along the river path with Kevin’s family and share the view from my second-floor veranda with them. Kevin loves to eat. We could enjoy South Carolina Barbecue, Frogmore stew, corn bread, and collard greens.

The week before Mardi Gras, I stuffed the guest bathroom with toilet papers and towels, blew up air mattresses in the bonus room and packed the fridge, cleaned the house. Joshua adores chocolate milk, so I bought a large jug of Hershey’s chocolate syrup and a bag of marshmallows.

No phone call came to announce the arrival time.

Mardi Gras arrived, but Kevin never did.

Our neighbor, Brenda, invited us to watch a Mardi Gras parade in Greenville downtown Main Street.

On that Mardi Gras, the sky was cloudy and grim, a biting drizzle. Gray.

We stood on the sidewalk with an umbrella gifted by Greenville News. The parade was a relatively short entourage started with a big red fire truck, a high-flying American flag. Two white-haired gentlemen wearing Clemson baseball caps maneuvered two green and yellow John Deere tractors after the siren blaring fire truck. Behind the three vehicles, a band of children scrambled with American flags in their hands. It was a different parade from the ones in New Orleans and a different Mardi Gras celebration. Patriotic. Sober.

“No wonder Joshua didn’t come.” Zoe, my eleven-year-old, pouting. I was daunted by her brutal honesty.

Joshua. Rotund arms and legs, always with a good-natured smile.

I bite my lower lip, uncertain what to say.

“Let’s clear up the bonus room. Help me fold the air mattresses.” I held Zoe’s hand and lead her upstairs.

…better divert her attention… The move from New Orleans was tough on her.

“Uncle Kevin is bad.” Zoe said.

…Had I made it worse? Why clearing an unused bonus room now?...

“He is not bad. He is just inconsiderate. You don’t want to be like him.”

Yeah, Kevin could have called, saved me all the preparations. I was also wounded by missing a visit from his family. Worst, I had naively planned to take everyone to get ashes, hoping that we be reminded of our mortality and come to treasure what we have. But this inkling, like a premonition, was always at the back of my mind: Kevin and his family only wanted to be in the crescent city during carnivals. I was the convenience.

“That parade downtown was fun, wasn’t it?”

“Yea, it was ok. That boy gave me an American flag.”

“Oh, yeah, where is it?”

“Here, I’m going to put it in my room.”

I vacuumed the bonus room alone, sucked up all the dust. A family relationship is not like a business contract that you can terminate with a hasty signature. It’s not like Kevin had died, but it felt like it. Or I wished he had died. It would have been easier.

“Zoe, do you want some chocolate milk? The new chocolate syrup is in the pantry.”

“Yeah!!” Zoe skipped downstairs. Forgot about Joshua. Left me holding the old grudge.

“Let’s take a walk on the river path when you are done with your milk.”

We went out from the back porch. The earth was damp and the grass tender. Late afternoon sun peeked out, orange hue reflected on the soothing ripples around the glossy pebbles.

“I’m going to run. Do you want to run too? Mom?” Zoe had put on her tennis shoes.

“No, I can’t. I am just going to amble behind you, slowly.” I wiped her chocolate milk mustache, slightly relieved.

“We should go out for pizza; I don’t have energy left to prepare dinner.” I shouted to Zoe.

“That’s great, Mom.” As she ran, her voice became distant, wavering.

I meandered down the river path.

As I strolled, the illumination of the auburn sun, and the darkness of shade, alternated under the canopy of tree branches. I felt myself seeping gradually back into my own identity. Formed a new awareness. Finally, lost in the lulling whispers of the water, couldn’t even conjure up the image of Kevin, Carrie, or Joshua.

The Spin

you are a gyrating top, all giddy sin

I am nothing more than

evasive abstractions, void in the concrete

the means to influence an audience

selecting facts to suit your argument

the perceptions, the conclusions

whether truth or lies

are effected by my scaffolding

loading language with luggage

I am not here to manipulate

common sense, prejudice, stereotypes

with rational argument

engulf the public with feeling

and propagate

the pull of emotional response

conforming views that comfort

smother all contradictors

people will believe anything

cover them with calumny

tell them often enough

one-sided messages

tell them emphatically

delivered by all media

I will change their understanding

The New House

In the old house, the swarms of flies

you sent clouded the bathroom mirror

and swam in the puddles of wine

on my nightstand. A spider left

a red painful rash on my right calf

after I rocked in the pink recliner

which used to sit in our daughter’s

nursery. The silverfish, hiding beneath

the white laundry basket, set

my skin afire, so I moved away.

This house is newer and bigger.

No more pests.

Two months pass and I finally relax—

I’m a new woman without you.

Poised at the keyboard, ready

to write, a fly bounces along

the ceiling fan’s blades. Its fat body

drunk on your spirit. I exit the office

and spend the day in the kitchen.

I’ll never see that fly again.

Seven days later a brittle spider 

corpse waits in the closet corner. 

All your tricks are meaningless. 

You can’t speak to me.  

Self-Portrait as Shakuhachi

How easy to let air 

slide through oneself.

Or, being air, 

complete those brief 

tasks, a song of many 

whispers weaving through 

tall grass, sculpting regrets 

from that caressed cheek, 

beyond dance and speech, 

where words go for comfort

and nothing contains us.

Not joy, not contrition. 

Neither hope nor peace. 

Not even love.How easy to let air 

slide through oneself.

Or, being air, 

complete those brief 

tasks, a song of many 

whispers weaving through 

tall grass, sculpting regrets 

from that caressed cheek, 

beyond dance and speech, 

where words go for comfort

and nothing contains us.

Not joy, not contrition. 

Neither hope nor peace. 

Not even love.

The Boxer

When you step over the ropes, old hands

say you should be prepared to die.

A lifetime spent coming

to that moment…

jabbing,

bobbing,

weaving,

feinting,

clinching,

rope-a-dope in a pinch

absorbing all the blows,

the pretense that they never hurt,

eyes glaring the lie—

“Is that all you got?” with

arms flopped at your sides,

a heart about to burst, stomach

knotted in fear, legs that

want to turn traitor. Yet

you wobble on. Corner men

splash water on your face,

styptic and vaseline for the gashes,

a snort of ammonia, catch

your breath and out you go.

For, once down,

a count of ten

is all you get,

a blurry glimpse

into the fleeting void.

Photo Shoot, Roseland Park Cemetery, July 1985

The photos arrived, tucked inside your letter with its paragraphs
of charm as preamble for the main point, dagger-honed,
that stabbed me by surprise. You’d made an effort

to tiptoe around the graves, you said, and not disturb
the dead—as you’d been taught—while Jade and I 
traipsed upon the grassy mounds. We laid our lissome

bodies down, entwined long limbs, and posed while you 
fiddled with the focus on your new Canon and subdued
the stirring in your khaki pants. Lovers, closeted

even from our close friends, we took advantage
of the chance to ham it up, to touch. Like me, she wore 
black: leather gloves, my fedora, and a camisole stark 

against her pale arms and sharp collarbones. She’d brought
fancy silver cutlery and her handgun, which I triple-checked
to assure the chambers were bullet-free before I cocked

my head and pressed my temple to its snubbed nose—
Behind me, a granite family marker slumped, engraved
with my last name, and behind it, Jade draped

her thick cascade of hip-length hair across the tombstone.
That’s perfect, you praised, and sank to one knee 
to take aim. At yet another grave, she straddled me,

pretended to plunge a knife into my jugular vein
as I arched back, feigning agony. Your gat-toothed grin
lurked in the shadow of the lens. The day was sunny,

but you’d misjudged the aperture or shutter speed,
and the photos came out underexposed, in grainy shades
of green and black, our skin a phantom pallor—

a success of a mistake, a complement to the grim
backdrop. As for your after-the-fact admission 
of prim disapproval, you hypocrite, my friend:

the locale was your suggestion, the photo shoot a fantasy 
you bashfully confessed. And while we were game—
game as in happy to indulge, game as in the target of your hunt—

your letter keeps us in your crosshairs a different way.
I note you failed to specify which pictures you blew up 
to mount like trophies for prominent display.

Van the Tree Man

When Tom Blake was a young insurance agent in downtown Cincinnati, he worked for his Uncle Walt at the Walt Blake Agency, a well-known but decrepit local fixture. Walt and his long-dead partner, Fred Prendergast, offered general liability insurance to all comers, but their mainstay dominated the surety bond business for bail, appeals, and judicial orders. Their second-story office was at Ninth and Main, above the B/G Restaurant, a local greasy spoon catering to the courthouse breakfast- and lunch-time crowd. Fred’s great uncle, Pat Prendergast, had been Clerk of Courts before a clean government campaign flushed him out. There was no one in the courthouse with a dirty little secret or bad habit that Pat had not passed on to Fred and Walt. If a bond could be had, or a release contrived, Fred and Walt knew how to get it. 

After a couple of years learning the business, Tom saw a long dark future ahead, a rocky, if lucrative, road of peddling insurance policies to the fearful and cautious. He’d be writing bonds for those brushing up against the court system—criminals, and others, who couldn’t handle their problems and needed a lawyer or the courts to do it for them. He saw money dotting the trail but wondered about the psychic cost. Perhaps the law would be as lucrative as insurance but allow him to do both good and well. And so, he was considering taking the LSAT and going to law school. His good-natured wife, Laura, who sported an Ivy League law degree, was taking a break raising their two children. As she struggled to acclimate to Midwestern life, she encouraged Tom to achieve the goals she had willingly given up for the family.

Tom was reluctant to say that Fred and Walt had misused their knowledge of the dark ways of the courthouse. It was all grist for the philosophical mill they ran at The Brothers Three, a disreputable neon sewer up Court Street that they had frequented together most afternoons after work. When Fred died too young of a heart attack, Walt, a confirmed bachelor, silently but resolutely dropped Fred’s name from the masthead. He increased his hours at the “Three,” as its habitués called it, and changed no other habits. 

After Fred fled the scene, Walt became a solitary drinker, so Tom was puzzled when Walt asked him to join him at the Three one Friday afternoon in mid-December. 

“You’ve been working too hard, Tom,” said Walt. “There’s someone you ought to meet. A good lawyer. You need to see what practicing law with a good lawyer is really like. We might even sell him a bond.” 

When Tom arrived that Friday at the Three, Walt was already deep in drink and conversation with the interesting specimen/prospect. The bar fronted on the rear wall, with the usual array of quarts of brown bourbons and Scotch, greenish gin, blue vodka, and other spirits spigotted and ready to pour. On the bar itself sat jars of inedibles—pickled eggs, pigs’ feet, and garlic pickles of grayish hue. In the middle of the room were a few forlorn Formica-topped tables, and on the sides darkly-upholstered booths, the leather seats leaking poisonous fibers from incipient crevasses. In a corner booth sat Walt in his threadbare but serviceable Harris-tweed sport coat and horn-rimmed specs. On the table lay a scattered assortment of Walt’s Manhattan glasses, peanut shells, and the visitor’s beer steins. Across from Walt, sat a handsome, slightly paunchy lawyer, glistening black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead, a red and blue repp necktie accenting his sharp pinstripe navy blue three-piece suit, much in need of dry cleaning, and scuffed, dirty Bass Weejuns. He ushered Tom a space next to him on the banquette.

This was Paul Martino, a barrister of some repute with a catch-as-catch-can practice. Tom had noticed that Paul occasionally made the inside pages of the local papers. He had a penchant for the notorious. Tom recalled that Paul had used his legal acumen to get a local lady-of-the-night off a prostitution charge. When the undercover cop posing as a john solicited the girl’s services and arrested her for prostitution, she retained the services of the Law Offices of Paul Martino, as had many of her sisters before. When the case came to trial, the cop forthrightly and truthfully testified that the enterprising miss had asked him if he wanted a “three-way.” A local jury was sure to know that Cincinnati chili is served five ways—plain, with spaghetti, with spaghetti and cheese, with all that and beans, and finally, all topped with chopped onions. Paul created reasonable doubt by getting the cop to admit that she might well have been inviting him to share a late-night snack at a nearby Cincinnati chili parlor. The jury bought the theory and the girl walked. 

Tom was not surprised to see that Martino was down at heel and handling some rough-and-tumble civil litigation, as such celebrated matters as the Cincinnati Chili case are not only not especially profitable, but also rare. This time Paul was moving for a temporary restraining order in a civil suit and so would need a bond to secure any order he obtained. As Paul told his story, Tom sensed that the stars were not in perfect alignment. Paul’s client was a working man, an enterprising fellow who labored for a major tree-trimming service. The client had his own black-market tree-trimming business, shunting what business he could from his national employer to his own local concern, run under the euphonious name, Van the Tree Man. 

Van’s plans for the spring cutting season centered on upgrading his rolling stock. Needing cash to make the down payment on a truck more reliable than the 1950s Dodge he was driving, Van had sold the Dodge to George Childress, a small-time contractor who remodeled kitchens, bathrooms, and anything else he could put a claw hammer and crowbar to in the poorer suburbs. Childress was an African American who would later make his fortune fronting for larger concerns on minority set-aside projects. Childress died a gentleman farmer years later on a sprawling, hilly spread south of Georgetown, Ohio. There he raised prize show cattle—fat, glossy, curried-and-combed Black Angus and Scottish Belted Galloways. At the time of our story, however, the playing field was all too level, and Childress would pick up anything that was, as Shakespeare said, neither too hot nor too heavy to carry away. Like many small contractors, he was perpetually short of cash, using funds from one job to pay off overdue obligations on jobs two or three back. 

As Paul explained in detail, Van was a bluff country boy from the Eastern Kentucky hills, not nearly so sophisticated as City Boy George. Van the Tree Man had foolishly exchanged a perfectly good title to his truck for a perfectly bad check from Childress Construction. George had the truck, and title to it. Van had neither truck nor any money to show for his pains. With motor vehicles in our state, title is everything. Van wanted no further part of business with Childress. He just wanted his truck back. 

~

Laura and Tom liked to talk at the dinner table, linger there if the kids were quiet, or come back if the kids were fractious and needed bedding down. It was a chance for Laura to instruct Tom in the finer points of the law. That night Van the Tree Man was the subject matter. As Laura explained to Tom, unwinding the truck “sale” would be a major undertaking, involving suit, for George was not about to simply surrender the title. Lawsuits can take a long time. Van could not afford to be off the black-market tree-trimming business for two or more years.

Problems. Yet another: George was unreachable. His office had neither answering machine nor occupant. Correspondence elicited no response. It looked to be a bleak Christmas indeed for Van the Tree Man. But as Tom related to Laura, Paul had a plan to short-circuit the system. As MacArthur had promised that the boys would be home from Korea by Christmas 1950, Paul stated flatly that the truck would be back under Van the Tree Man’s Christmas tree, figuratively speaking. Paul would seek a temporary restraining order to force Childress to give the truck back immediately. 

Laura noticed a sizable flaw in Paul’s plan. As she explained to Tom, a TRO is a time-honored procedure, designed to maintain the status quo by order of court on an emergency basis, without taking testimony or receiving other evidence. Even Tom understood “status quo”: George Childress had the truck. Without a trial or full-fledged hearing, no reasonable judge would enter an order unscrambling the sales contract into which Van the Tree Man had freely, if not brightly, entered. 

Laura also wondered how The Walt Blake Agency would find Martino the bond needed to secure the TRO. Getting the bond would not be easy. Van would not have a strong balance sheet. However, as Laura reminded him, Tom had been working at the Agency long enough to know that things there did not always go by the book. He knew that Martino and Uncle Walt had ways into the Courthouse other than the front door. Genial Uncle Walt had promised that the bond would be forthcoming. 

A few days later, Tom saw Martino hustling out of Walt’s musty office, a sheaf of creased and rumpled papers under his arm. Vaulting down the stairs, Paul headed for the courthouse. Tom stuck his head into Walt’s office, files piled on every flat surface. That day, like all days, the aroma of cooking bacon and stale grease from the deep fryer wafted up through the porous floor from the B/G below. 

Walt told him the chase was on. Paul was off to file for his TRO against Childress Construction and George Childress personally. By a stroke of good fortune, the strait-laced, not overly receptive jurist who was that month’s equity judge was off to Florida for the holidays. Coming off the bench on to the bench was veteran Judge Eugene “Clean Gene” Weskamper, a brawny former footballer who had played pulling guard on the star-laden high school teams on which Walt himself had been a plucky, quick, if undersized, halfback. Had it not been for beefy Weskamper, Walt Blake might well have spent his adult life in a wheelchair. 

“I would love to see how Weskamper got this assignment,” Laura said sarcastically to Tom that night. “Does Walt have an open line to Clean Gene’s office?” She had long sensed that Uncle Walt’s perfunctory attendance at church on Easter and some Christmases was not enough to earn the divine intervention by which so many of Walt’s clients drew Weskamper as their judge. 

Business was slow. There was snow and more snow and then a hard freeze the week before Christmas. Tom accompanied Walt to The Three for a slight libation that Monday. The day of days was the following Sunday. As the two Blakes silently sipped their drinks, downcast counselor Martino entered, somberly kicking slush and snow off his sodden Weejuns. Things were not going well. Van the Tree Man was turning ugly. While Van’s meager retainer had long since been exhausted, this didn’t keep Van from querulously demanding results. 

When Paul had ticked off all he was doing to run Childress to ground, Van had testily told him, “Paul, you just forgot one thing.” 

“What?” 

“He’s got my truck.” 

Van could be marginally good humored, but Paul could barely stomach the irate phone calls he was getting at odd hours from Van’s hard-bitten, humorless, more than a little bit country wife. Paul had not reckoned on one other crucial item: He still couldn’t find Childress. This was a shame, for, to Tom’s surprise, Clean Gene Weskamper had granted Paul’s TRO prohibiting further transfer of the truck. 

 Laura was not so surprised. In those days many TROs were granted ex parte, that is, with only one side, the party asking for the order, appearing before the court. The lawyer’s custom then was to either neglect to inform the other party at all of this application or have his secretary call opposing counsel fifteen minutes after he had hot-footed out the door, relating that the boss was on his way to the courthouse. Of course, such quasi-unethical customs no longer obtain in our perfect world, 

Like many judges then and now, Weskamper had come up through the system, first serving as a prosecutor and then moving on to the bench when there was an opening. These judges were adept at criminal practice, but as former prosecutors, they found civil practice like this foreign, and paid little attention to it, or did it badly. Martino knew that while he could not get even the pliant Weskamper to order return of the truck on the facts before him, he could easily convince the old prosecutor, who knew a criminal even before he saw him, that sneaky Childress could well sell the truck and abscond with the proceeds. And so, he would need an interim order banning sale of the truck by Childress. And this, on the basis of no testimony, other evidence whatsoever, and preferably without hearing from Childress or his counsel. As Laura remarked, “If Weskamper believes that, he probably believes in Santa Claus too.” 

But who did know where the truck might be? How could Martino get George Childress’s attention? Paul had one last arrow in his quiver. He knew that Weskamper loved to have impromptu hearings, and Paul intended to schedule one, ordering Childress to appear with the title of the truck the following morning to demonstrate that the status was still quo. If he didn’t show, and he wouldn’t, gullible Weskamper would almost certainly find Childress in contempt and issue a bench warrant for his arrest. If Paul could find him, he could start to turn the screws by serving the bench warrant, providing for his immediate arrest.

Laura had heard enough. “Tom, these guys are playing with a marked deck. No judge anywhere would find a litigant in contempt on such a trumped-up charge. Who are these people?”

Wednesday about eleven, Martino appeared in the agency office. Could he use the phone? The pipes had burst at his place overnight, and his office was subzero. He had just been to see the initially-miffed Duke Carver, Childress’s attorney, who wouldn’t help him find George, but somehow knew about the suit papers. Duke did let it slip that George might be temporarily holed up at the shop of a suburban electrician with whom he sometimes worked—Junior Miracle. When Tom registered disbelief in the existence of such a person, Paul observed laconically that you couldn’t make up names like that. At any rate, Paul was serving papers, he hoped, on Childress and Miracle. 

Childress had not shown up at court, and Weskamper was now more than ready to jail Childress for contempt, and his henchman Miracle for good measure. Paul was trying to reach the sheriff’s deputy who had the papers and tip him off about Miracle Electronics. He asked Tom to call Miracle’s shop and ask for George Childress. Paul was delicate about it, because he didn’t want to have to be a witness himself. Against his better judgment, Tom called. 

“Hello? Miracle ’Lectric, Junior speakin’.” 

“May I speak to George Childress?” 

“Fuck you.” Click. 

“Paul, he’s there.” 

With that, Paul phoned the sheriff. After the deputy’s initial lament over the Christmas carolers lilting in the background that they couldn’t find Childress and Miracle anywhere and Paul’s explaining very patiently just where Miracle Electronics was and who was there, he heard a final slurp of coffee, and the enlightened deputy was on the case. That afternoon at the Three, Uncle Walt gave Tom a progress report. Childress was in jail, with a hearing scheduled for Friday morning, December 23, before Weskamper. What about the not so aptly named Junior Miracle? The sheriff’s department was only willing to do so much, the deadpanned deputy had explained. Black Childress could spend a couple of nights in jail, but white Junior was properly released on his own recognizance. 

Why wait until Friday? Tom wanted to know. Walt explained. On Thursday, Paul would let Duke Carver know that if Childress didn’t produce the truck keys and title at the Friday morning hearing, he would spend Christmas weekend in the County Jail, and maybe even New Year’s Eve and Day. Childress liked the good life. He would see no merit in spending his holidays with the sheriff. 

“So,” said Laura that night after dinner. “We’ve got a racist sheriff’s department and a judge willing to extort the truck title from Childress in exchange for letting him out of jail on a very questionable contempt charge. Uncle Walt and his pals are playing fast and loose.”

Tom agreed that this was rough justice. Wanting to see it played out, he determined to attend the hearing in Weskamper’s room Friday at eleven. Late as always, he got there about quarter past, running down the echoing marble hallways of the empty courthouse. This close to the holiday the wheels of justice had ground to a halt, except in Clean Gene’s room. 

The cavernous room with twenty-five-foot ceilings contained only the Tree Man v. Childress players. He could see Weskamper through the open door of his office, judiciously reading the sports pages, spit-polished brogans up on his desk. His bailiff was slowly searching the drawers of his desk, one after the other, looking for some untold but assuredly essential article, not finding it and periodically slamming the offending drawer shut. The constable was quietly doing her nails, resolutely ignoring the citizens present. Childress’s counsel, Carver, was planted at one attorney desk, Martino at the other. Carver had just delivered the punch line of a private joke that had Martino guffawing like a hysterical hyena. 

Perched nervously in the back row was the only civilian spectator besides Tom. She was a magnificent physical specimen, apparently in her early twenties, her pert bottom on the edge of one of the hideously uncomfortable pews that served as seating for taxpayers unfortunate enough to need the justice system. Below a gracefully oval face with bright brown eyes and full lips, her ample breasts blossomed like Christmas roses straining against the sheer crimson blouse covering but not hiding them. Her miniskirt was sure to give her pneumonia in such weather, despite a very tight three-quarter-length leather jacket, flared open at the top, that did nothing to hide long slender legs below. What was a looker like this doing here instead of at the bar at the local casino? 

Tom realized, as the girl nervously twirled a set of keys around her lacquered purple and gold nails that she was delivering the keys to Childress for turnover. A few minutes passed. A pudgy Sheriff’s deputy emerged from a door in the back wall. Hobbling after him in shackles was Childress. To Tom’s surprise, Childress was a wizened little man with sparse receding hair, graying at the temples, probably in his mid-sixties. With a cry of pain, the girl jumped up and clattered on her spike heels to console him. It being Christmas week, the Deputy did little to cool the tropical reunion. 

The tawdry drama played out. After Weskamper took the bench and called the case, the keys, like a relay race baton, passed from the girl to Childress, to Duke, to the court’s bailiff, to Paul. With that, Weskamper sonorously told Mr. Childress that he was purged of contempt. Eyeing the girl, he wished him a very Merry Christmas. The charming young lady—what did you say her name was, Duke?—could wait for Mr. Childress in the lobby of the Courthouse. It wouldn’t take more than an hour or so for Mr. Childress’s release papers to be processed. 

Tom walked out with Martino and Carver, who were off to the Three to discuss finer points of practice over holiday lunch. Carver gave Paul the truck title, told Paul where the truck was located and promised that Van would be greeted with no more than small arms fire when he went to retrieve it—during daylight hours, of course. As Tom peeled off to get back to the Agency, he heard the two barristers chuckling about Childress’s ability to attract good-looking women. Duke opined that he had never seen him with other than a prime specimen on his arm. The lawyers agreed that this was an admirable aspect of Childress’s character. 

That afternoon, Tom and Uncle Walt held a postmortem on the year at The Three before Tom went home to Laura and the kids and Walt repaired to his solitary apartment at a downtown high-rise condominium.

 Tom: “I never thought it would work out this way. How—”

 Walt: “Creative lawyering, Tommy. Martino knows his way around the block. It didn’t surprise me a bit.” 

Tom had a more proprietary question: ”How did Van the Tree Man come up with financials strong enough for us to approve the bond?”

 Uncle Walt shook his head, looked incredibly apologetic, and with a hint of a sly smile, confessed, “Tom, can you believe it, I promised Gene that I would look over the financials and walk over to the courthouse to sign the bond book if everything was in shape. I was so busy with Christmas preparations that I never got around to it. Gene must have figured everything had worked out …” 

~

Tom knows that Walt expected more approval of his memory lapse and Paul’s grand strategy than Tom gave him. Local-college grad Walt took great pride in being sharper than most of us, Ivy League lawyers like Laura included. Tom admits that this is when he decided law school was not for him and began to develop the disenchantment that led him to abandon both the insurance business and Cincinnati, the home of his forefathers. Then too, when Tom reported Walt’s memory lapse to Laura, she declared with unwonted vehemence that she was spending her last Christmas in Cincinnati and would not speak to Walt at family Christmas dinner. It was and she didn’t. 

Laura and Tom are happy out west. Santa Fe. Tom is house-husbanding and Laura is back practicing law. Somewhere it says that we are a nation of laws and not of men. Laura says that this just isn’t true.

Hard Candy

In the manuscript a middle-aged woman (single, childless)
looks after her crotchety father. He has shot someone,
but not to death, or maybe he took the buckshot to the gut.
Everything’s so Southern gothic: all the thriving plants
and humid swelter, old wooden houses with dilapidated steps

leading up to porches complete with creaking swings
and buckled plank floors that cover cool, dank spaces
where stray dogs and feral animals—opossums, say,
or raccoons—shelter from the heat or hide out overnight.
Fact is, it’s been decades, so I can’t recall the plot. What I read

was a work in progress, first third of a first draft, whose writer,
a close friend—a middle-aged woman (divorced, childless,
her parents deceased)—mailed it to me for critique. It was
good! I cared about the woman and her father and what
adventures might ensue, and the drama was dark

with humor, my favorite blend. But a doctor with a minor part
had paragraphs of detail and dialogue, a long scene better
clipped to exposition or dispensed with altogether.
Meanwhile, the father lacked dimension and description;
an ornery old cuss, he came across as plot device, not

major character. I made my critical notation and mailed
the manuscript back to my good friend. She had
the softest hands I’d ever touched, long legs, a coltish
stride, a guffaw for a laugh. We laughed a lot. I petsat
for her gray tabby tomcat—read Blood Meridian aloud,

beginning to end, while I lay back on her couch and Buster
purred and kneaded biscuits on my chest. She taped BandAids
over her nipples every day—she told me, didn’t show me.
She liked to stoke my lust. One day I climbed her ladder
to clean her gutters. Dirtied the cuffs of my bomber jacket

as I scooped mounds of leaves and cool, wet muck
and flung them to the ground. We went most everywhere
together. I always drove. When “Kashmir” came on the radio,
she cranked up the volume and grinded on the bucket seat,
that lucky thing. I wished it were me. Once at a party, she

sat wriggling in my lap and regaled my guests while I
thought about the live wires of her bare thighs touching
my own skin. She strung along three men I never met.
Nothing wrong with that. When our friend cheated
on his marriage and described the lesson he’d learned

about performing oral sex, we felt sorry for his wife—
not because he’d strayed, but because for thirty years
she’d suffered inept cunnilingus. How we laughed after.
We laughed and laughed. She cried when I confessed
my love for her. She loved me too, but not like that. Still,

I fantasized about laying her down in her sunny bedroom
and slowly peeling off the BandAids, swirling her nipples
like hard candy on my tongue, stroking her breasts
and belly with my face as I made my way down between
those long legs and proving I knew what to do. Did you see

what I did there? I gave each character the proper amount
of detail according to the size of their roles. That’s all I wanted
her to do when she revised her novel. When I fell in love
with someone else, my friend wept bitterly that I’d turned
away and everything was suddenly Melanie Melanie Melanie.

When I brought up her three paramours, she had to concede
hypocrisy. Anyway, I mailed back her manuscript with a long letter:
mostly praise, a lone suggestion for revision. If she ever finished
her novel, she never published it. I never heard from her again.
She closed the book on us, ended with a cliffhanger.

O is for Orangutan, C is for Cleopatra

In the span of fifty-five years, Grandma Clou had four or five husbands. Stories were swapped like trading cards. The plumber she married at sixteen; he was thirty-two. Then there was the second cousin she met at a BBQ. They eloped in the next state over when she found out she was pregnant. The baby never made it to term, something doctors would later attribute to genetic abnormalities. My grandfather was the most normal, which is probably why she stuck around long enough to give him two daughters. The last one we called Grandpa Charlie even though no one was ever sure if they got around to marrying.

Some she didn’t divorce. She just remarried without bothering, my Aunt Nikki confided to me. Nikki had ten years to my thirteen and wore low-cut jeans and glittery eyeshadow. She bought lacey thongs at Victoria’s Secret and promised to buy me my first when mom finally stopped buying the floral cotton multi-packs. Nikki dated a guy named Steve who drove a Mitsubishi Eclipse and once let me have a sip of his beer. I wanted to ask Nikki what Grandma Clou’s marital ambiguity made us, but I knew enough Shakespeare by then to answer my own question.

Grandma Clou lived in a foreign land where her identity as a serial bigamist was overshadowed by crumbling Dodge Darts, sun-bleached lawn gnomes, and boxes of something called Melba toast. At the Magnolia Retreat retirement home, it wasn’t out of the question to see a chihuahua clad in a Hawaiian t-shirt drag the newspaper into an apartment that exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke every time the door opened. I always felt like I was going on an expedition when I set foot on the cracked cement sidewalk and caught my first whiff of muscle rub and mothballs.

We made a game of each afternoon, Nikki and I, sitting on the red shag carpet of Grandma Clou’s apartment, flipping through thirty-year-old Encyclopedia Britannicas and stopping when we came to an entry that bore a resemblance to Grandma Clou as she sat hunched over in her upholstered rocking chair, breasts blending into her stomach and thighs. 

Nikki raised an eyebrow at me one Friday afternoon and pointed to a picture of an obese orangutan. Its torso was a boob shelf, its belly button barely visible as gravity dragged its stomach to the ground. Apparently, food was plentiful where it lived. Grandma Clou made do with the Melba toast and bowls of chicken and rice soup, but the effect was still the same. 

“At least she isn’t as hairy,” I whispered, flipping through the V volume. Vasectomy…Venice...Vulture.

“How do you know that?” Nikki asked thumbing through the O volume. Osteoporosis…Otis Redding…Ovum.

We both looked at Grandma Clou. Her rocking chair was a log upended on the jungle floor. She rocked back and forth, her balance perfect, and the log followed her movement without rebellion. Wiry hairs sprouted across her leathery skin. Like a fertile grassland, they trembled in the breeze she generated as she pitched herself forward and let the log take her back. She surveyed the field, not looking for threats so much as a stimulus great enough to tempt her from the log. A squelch broke the silence. Grandma Clou looked down toward her stomach. Bingo.

“Get your shoes on, girls,” she said, grunting her way out of the rocking chair.

We looked down at our feet, my jelly sandals, and Nikki’s skate shoes. We never took our shoes off at Grandma Clou’s owing to the high pile of her shag carpet and the fear of what we might find if the dust between fibers shifted enough to let us see.

Grandma Clou insisted she walk to the lunch counter two blocks away. Nikki groaned. Grandma Clou had a perfectly good wheelchair that a social worker had brought but refused to use it, even though I once saw a man with cerebral palsy beat her across a crosswalk. We each took a side and steered her between rusting lime-green lawn chairs and piles of dog poop. One of her neighbors, a man with a wisp of white hair underneath a brown-felt fisherman’s hat, sat on his porch, naked from the waist up. 

“What’s cookin’, Harry?” Grandma Clou shifted her weight to the right, an attempt at coquettishness that had Nikki pretending to retch on the grass.

He nodded. “Clou. Haven’t seen you around much.”

“You could see a lot more of me if you put on a shirt and joined us for lunch.”

Nikki and I groaned. The last thing we wanted to do was chaperon. 

But we needn’t have worried. Harry shook his head. “Already ate.”

“Next time then,” Grandma Clou said, as we dragged her away from Harry and his saggy chest. “I’m wearing him down,” Grandma Clou said as we helped her over a tree root that had erupted through the concrete sidewalk.

I kept my head down, afraid she’d see the incredulity written on my face. I studied her white orthopedic shoes and her brown polyester pants that hovered over the Velcro straps. Every time she lifted her leg, the hem of her pants rose just enough that I could see her sparse leg hairs, fully grown out, the skin underneath dry and cracked. She would be wearing Harry down until doomsday.

“Grandma, I don’t think Harry—”

Grandma Clou cut Nikki off. “Humph. Harry doesn’t know what he wants. Good thing he’s got me to show him.”

“Are you and Grandpa Charlie even divorced yet?”

I understood Nikki’s concern. A few months ago, we’d seen Grandpa Charlie slinking out of Grandma Clou’s apartment. He blushed when he asked us how we were doing and how school was. Nikki told him she’d graduated five years ago and informed him that his fly was undone.  Grandpa Charlie had said “Well, it was nice seeing you girls,” and hurried into his pickup truck, fumbling with the zipper on his jeans.

Grandma Clou waved Nikki’s question aside. “Who cares at my age?”

Nikki opened her mouth to protest, but Grandma Clou continued. “It’s just details, Nikki. No skin off anyone’s nose if a seventy-year-old lady needs more than one man to clean her clock. Amount of my life I’ve spent worrying about what people say is proper, what’s right and wrong. Do you know I once had a neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, or Phillips, something like that—head of the PTA, led the women’s bible study, you know the type—tell me I was bringing down the tone of the neighborhood when your mother’s dad and I fought the front lawn? We didn’t even throw anything at each other; it was just words. You should have seen the look on her face when I brought home Ray, the one after your grandpa. Her bottom lip stuck out like a dead fish.” 

Grandma Clou’s chuckling caused a phlegmy coughing fit, and I patted her on the back, afraid to pound and knock her off her orthopedics. She spit into a stained handkerchief that she stuffed back into her shirt pocket. The damp handkerchief was a bulge where her breasts probably hung forty years ago. 

“Men are like ice cream flavors,” Grandma Clou said, voice hoarse, “and damned if I don’t try each one before I die.” She pushed open the restaurant door with more force than I would have expected, mumbling something that sounded like “Mint chocolate chip…butter pecan…”

The three of us balanced on the chrome stools. Grandma Clou’s cheeks engulfed the stool so entirely there wasn’t a glint of chrome to be seen. Nikki ordered a chicken salad and diet coke. I ordered a half salad, soup, and chocolate milk because mom wouldn’t let me drink diet coke, even though Nikki always gave me a can when I was at her apartment. A frothy aspartame treat that would probably give me brain cancer one day, but it seemed too grown a treat to refuse. Grandma Clou ordered a double cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. She was supposed to be watching her cholesterol, but it was like she was in a private contest with herself, seeing how high she could get her LDL before her chest seized. I watched her down the entire meal, burger grease pooling in the space between her thumb and forefinger. She licked her lips and muffled a burp with the crook of her arm. I was caught between disgust and wonderment, disgust finally winning out when the aroma of her digestion drifted over to me.  

She flagged down the waiter and he brought our bill. Grandma Clou pulled two warm twenties out of her back pocket. When the waiter reached for them, she let her fingertips linger over his hand until his face turned red, and he looked to us for help. Neither of us tried to stop her. We had full bellies and had spent the entire afternoon attempting to stem Grandma Clou’s libido. He was on his own.

When he brought back change, Grandma Clou smiled. “Keep the change, honey.” She had a speck of lettuce between her teeth and wobbled as she dismounted the stool. The waiter looked down at the $1.35 and frowned. 

When we got back to Grandma Clou’s apartment, Nikki’s boyfriend was parked on the street, leaning against the hood of his Eclipse. “It’s past two,” he said, staring at Nikki.

Nikki hurried over to him, leaving me to balance Grandma Clou as the saturated fats hit her brain. Raised voices drifted over from the Eclipse and Nikki’s boyfriend tried to grab her arm. 

Grandma Clou bit her bottom lip. “Oh girl,” she said, and I knew she didn’t mean me.“You don’t have to go, Nikki,” she said when Nikki finally extricated herself and came to tell us goodbye.

I’m not sure Nikki heard her, because she was already halfway to the car. Her boyfriend gave Grandma Clou a suspicious look before peeling away from the curb. 

Grandma Clou was slower as we navigated the cracked concrete path. Harry, still sitting in his lawn chair and cradling a bottle of beer between his legs, looked up when we passed, but Grandma Clou didn’t notice. She trudged beside me until we were in her apartment, and she was once again ensconced in her recliner.   

“Gerald was my first husband,” she said when I brought her a glass of water and an aspirin. The orthopedics helped her balance, but they didn’t stop the gout flare-ups.

I sat down on the carpet, feeling exposed without Nikki there to act as a buffer. 

“Now I know what everyone says, but I was eighteen, not sixteen when we got married in the courthouse. He was older than me, but he had a good job and had managed to avoid the draft, which was more than could be said for all the boys my age who had signed up to be killed on some desert island in the middle of God-knows-where. It seemed a good idea at the time; I even convinced myself I loved him. But after the war, when his government contracts ended, he changed. One morning he came home reeking of beer and urine. When I asked him where he’d been all night, he grabbed me by the shoulders and started to shake me. He said he’d shake me until I stopped nagging and if that didn’t work, he’d find another way. I didn’t wait around to find out what that way would be. I took the train back to my folks. When he sobered up and came around, I was sitting on the porch with Dad’s shotgun across my lap. I’d rather kill someone than let them treat me like that.”

Grandma Clou downed the rest of her water and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She began rocking with more speed than before. Soon, she was generating a breeze that was not unwelcome in the warm apartment. I regarded her sagging middle, the dimples in her knees visible through the thin fabric of her pants. I could see the little hairs on her legs again, raised static-straight from her cracked skin. The orangutan from earlier was still there in the crease between her eyebrows and the way her breasts, stomach, and thighs seamlessly blended into each other.

But there was something else there, just under the surface, competing with the orangutan, and sometimes breaking through when Grandma Clou paused in her weather generation. At that moment, I couldn’t put my finger on it, so it remained as insubstantial as the breeze mingled with the scent of Grandma Clou’s lunch. But on a later Friday afternoon, sitting by myself on her floor since Nikki’s visits had become a relic of the past, I found it.

In the C volume under Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, I read about a woman who was much like Grandma Clou. Driven and unapologetic. Uncompromising, though callous. Always approaching every situation with hard-learned tenacity. A picture of a sculpture accompanying the article showed a woman with large eyes, nose, and brows. I studied the marble likeness searching for a resemblance to the woman rocking back and forth in front of me. Maybe it was there, in the set of her lips, in the way the right side was fractionally higher than the left, appraising.

Letter from the Editor

Dear reader,

Our inaugural issue, “The Journey,” sought to illuminate our path as we embarked on a new chapter of The Headlight Review. We started out as a class project, and after many years of groundwork and a much-needed rebranding, we published our first issue in December of 2022. Subsequently, much of our staff graduated or moved on, and The Headlight Review was left in new hands. We began the journey all over again, but this time the destination, though obscured by quite a few roadblocks, was in sight.

As I’ve wrapped up my first issue with The Headlight Review, I am feeling mostly gratitude. I would like to thank our staff for their work on this issue and our faculty advisors, Andrew Plattner and Kurt Milberger, for their guidance. But most of all I would like to thank our writers, who have stuck with us through our staff changes, publication delays, and many, many email exchanges. To our writers, I am so grateful for your trust in us to handle your stories with care and for your faith in our up-and-coming publication. I would also like to thank the writers whose pieces were not chosen for this issue. As a writer, I know all too well how difficult it is to surrender your work to the publishing industry, which can be cruel much more often than it is rewarding. Thank you for considering us to publish your work. 

I am so proud to present our new issue, the culmination of six months of hard work and so many talented writers. We have some wonderful pieces in this issue, crafted by writers from all over the world. While Volume I, Issue I highlighted our journey, Volume I, Issue II celebrates the destination itself, that moment when you round that last corner and put your car in park. When you can finally let out that breath you’ve been holding for the duration of the drive because, finally, you’re here. To our readers, I hope you find something you love at this spot where we’ve completed our ride and that you’ll consider joining us on our next expedition.

Sincerely,

Brittany Files, Managing Editor